I'll See You in Paris (7 page)

“As I've said, Mickey, I've lived alone for decades without incident.”

“Not without incident, m'love. And you've done wondrously. Alas, you are over ninety years old. Don't you want help around here? It would be nice to have some company at least.”

Mrs. Spencer sighed, her blue eyes fixed on a windowpane. She seemed to be relenting, or plotting. There was something very purposeful in the way she chose to humor Murray. It was quietly frightening.

“I'm not alone,” she said, and turned in his direction. “Have you forgotten Tom? He's in the barn.”

“Yes. Tom. In the barn.”

“Tom!” Pru yipped. The ad mentioned only one person to look after. “Who's Tom?”

Murray leaned in. Pru felt his breath hot on her neck.

“Some groundsman, allegedly,” he said. “Yet the landscaping is garbage. Presumably, this Tom is a figment of Mrs. Spencer's highly acrobatic imagination.”

“I can hear you, you know.”

Murray pulled back.

“Until I see evidence to the contrary, what else am I to believe?” he asked, then looked again toward Pru. “Allegedly ‘Tom' lives in a barn but no one's seen him in a quarter of a century. He's a Pole, by the by, a displaced person from the war. Mrs. Spencer spent far too much time with Germans in her younger years, I suspect. And now she has her very own Polish indentured servant. Dreams do come true in the end.”

“That's quite enough. Lord Almighty. You pay Hitler one compliment and no one ever lets you forget it. I stand by my statement.”

“She lauded Hitler,” Murray said in a stage whisper.

“All I said was that he accomplished a lot!”

“That's one way to put it.”

“When you think how hard it is to create a rising in a small village, well, he had the whole world up in arms. He was larger than Churchill. Churchill couldn't have done that!”

“You and Adolf Hitler, birds of a feather. You both create risings in small villages to great success.”

Mrs. Spencer rolled her eyes, then grabbed a black cloak from a broken-down chair. Pru had been so hypnotized by the woman's eyes and her back-and-forth with Murray, she'd nearly forgotten about Mrs. Spencer's bare chest.

“So you insist upon staying,” she said and looked at Pru.

“I'm not sure if ‘insist' is the word…”

“She does,” Murray said. “She insists. We all do.”

“Fine. Off with you, henchman to the awful Edith Junior. Miss Valentine, come with me. I'll show you to your rooms.”

 

Nine

THE GRANGE

CHACOMBE-AT-BANBURY, OXFORDSHIRE, ENGLAND

NOVEMBER 1972

Pru's eyes sprang open.

It was early morning. The room was dead dark except for a single candle glowing above her head. Behind the flame was a pair of crystalline blue eyes. Behind the eyes, a face like rumpled tissue.

Pru scooted up onto her elbows.

“Mrs. Spencer?”

She was disoriented, out of breath, but not nearly as terrified as she should've been. Was she really so heartbroken, so numbed and paralyzed that she couldn't muster a prudent level of panic?

“So you're still with me,” Mrs. Spencer noted, holding the light close to Pru's face.

“Yes, ma'am.”

“I half expected you to flee in the middle of the night.”

“I've been hired to do a job, Mrs. Spencer. I plan to do it and do it well.”

Plus Murray had left that evening, her only opportunity for escape probably sitting in a lounge at Heathrow, if not somewhere over the Atlantic. Not that it mattered, or that she'd even go with him if given a second chance. The Grange was a pit but there was nothing left for Pru back in the States.

“Look to the right,” Mrs. Spencer barked.

“Excuse me?”

“Turn your head to the right. Do it!” She clonked Pru in the skull with the brass candleholder. “Now!”

“Sure thing,” she said, one eye fixed on the flame.

What this seemingly demented woman might do behind a partially turned back Pru couldn't begin to guess.

“I gotta be honest,” Charlie wrote in a letter not received until after his death. “Out here it's hard to tell the good from the bad. They all look the same.”

Damn if that wasn't true about most things.

“My goodness,” Mrs. Spencer said.

Pru felt the heat of the flame alongside her cheek.

“You have the perfect Hellenic profile. It's exquisite. You are a lucky girl.”

“Oh. Thank you?”

“You remind me of myself.”

Mrs. Spencer snuffed out the candle and reached over to flick on the bedside lamp. The woman smelled a little sweet, like baby powder, but also sour. Pru scrunched her nose though the scent wasn't altogether unpleasant.

“What time is it?” Pru asked. “Maybe we should talk in the morning?”

“Don't be such a pansy.” Mrs. Spencer dropped onto the bed with a small bounce. “It's well after four o'clock. We rise early at the Grange. Bixby! Diamond!” She whistled through her teeth. “Up here! Up with Mama!”

First came the sound of nails clacking on the hardwood floors and then the zip of two tawny-coated spaniels into the bed. The dogs spent several seconds scrabbling and yapping about the yellowed lace coverlet before ultimately settling against Mrs. Spencer's thigh.

“The animals are permitted on the furniture, I take it?”

“This is their home, more than yours,” Mrs. Spencer said. “Speaking of my home, why are you in it?”

“I thought Murray explained everything? Your family placed an advertisement for a personal assistant…”

“No. I mean, why are you here? With me? And not doing some grander thing? Child, I'm asking if all of your talents have been brought out of you.”

“Ha! Well, that's the question, isn't it?”

“Yes. It is the question. So I'm waiting for an answer. Do they not teach the particulars of holding a basic conversation over in America?”

“No, they do. It's just … it's not something I've been asked before. So yeah. Sure. My talents have been brought out of me. Not that I had many to start.”

“Well, what are they?” Mrs. Spencer asked. “These talents. I'm positively dying to know.”

“Er, well, I'm a voracious reader.”

“That's truly more of a hobby. An honorable one, mind you! But a hobby all the same.”

“I'm fairly competent in writing essays.”

“Lord Almighty. You are in rough shape, aren't you? Vastly insecure.”

“I wouldn't say ‘vastly.'”

“I can smell it a mile away. But you're smart. I can smell that, too. I myself am a certified genius, despite being raised by a mother who was beautiful but not so sharp. I was a miracle. Differential calculus was too low for me!”

“Well, class is in session,” Pru said, trying for a joke. “Maybe you can teach me a thing or two. I'm horrible with numbers. I guess I prefer things that are made up.”

“Why are you here?” Mrs. Spencer asked again. “Why? You should be attending university instead of living with an ancient dame in the countryside. Education is everything. It smooths a life.”

“I did attend college. In California. I was a literature major, for a while.”

“Yes, and then?”

“Then … I left.”

Pru was in no mood to recount her backstory, or to deflect the uncomfortable combination of pity and disgust she was bound to receive. Her fianc
é
was dead, which was a tragedy, but surely he'd obliterated more lives than one. It wasn't even a fair trade.

“So your leaving was about a fellow,” Mrs. Spencer said with a cluck. “A little advice, Miss Valentine. Never let a man dictate your life.”

“That's not exactly what happened.”

“I didn't get married until I was forty years old—by
choice
. I had my own apartment, in Paris no less, when I was half that. An independent woman, at the turn of the century. You beatnik, hippie feminists think you're sailing uncharted waters but I've done it all before. Even the drugs.”

“I'm hardly a beatnik or hippie.”

Pru thought of her friends back at Berkeley with their protests and marches and flowerized names. Debbie who was Petal and Linda who was Daisy and every last one of them who so quickly turned on Charlie, and on Pru, when he didn't fight his draft.

“As a group, they'd be offended you thought I was one of them,” she added.

“So, what was it, then?” Mrs. Spencer asked. “Your face is as sad as a gala without guests. I'm sensing a broken engagement?”

“More or less.”

“For Christ's sake. Don't mope around because of a silly betrothal gone awry. If you haven't racked up a few, you're doing something wrong. The minimum ratio is five engagements for every one marriage. The bare minimum! Mine is much higher, as you'd expect.”

Mrs. Spencer looked toward the ceiling and chuckled through her nose.

“Ten to one?” she said. “Fifteen? No matter. You don't get married for the first time at age forty without
promising
to marry a string of fellows along the way.”

“What's the point, then? Of accepting proposals you don't intend to follow through with?”

“Why, you're dumb as a post!” Mrs. Spencer said in a tone that was hard to read.

“That settles that, then.”

“Oh, calm down. I say it with kindness. Silly girl, engagements are about the celebration and pomp. The good bits without the trouble that comes later. As soon as the wedding is over, so's the party. Salt mines and skimpy meals the rest of your days.”

She lifted the covers and scooted in beside her. Pru inched to the far side of the bed.

“You mentioned you love to read,” Mrs. Spencer said.

“Yes,” Pru replied, eyes closed as she willed the woman back to her own quarters. “I was a literature major. It's one of the reasons I came to work here. They told me you love books, particularly those by British authors, which was my concentration.”

At least it would've been, had she gotten that far.

“Edith Junior said that? About my passion for literature? Well, well, well. She got that bit right.”

“Mmm.” Pru's thoughts blurred.

God, she was tired. So tired. She couldn't remember the last time she felt truly awake.

“Thomas Hardy.” Mrs. Spencer nudged her in the side. Pru reopened her eyes. “Do you like Hardy?”

“Yes, of course.
Tess of the d'Urbervilles. Far from the Madding Crowd.
‘And at home by the fire, whenever you look up there I shall be—and whenever I look up, there will be you.'”

A shudder ran through Pru's chest.

“Oh good Lord,” Mrs. Spencer said. “Don't get maudlin on me.”

“That's a quote from
Far from the Madding Crowd,
” Pru said as tears pooled in her eyes.

“Of course I know what book it's from! Hardy was a friend of mine. Please. Your crying. I can't take it.”

“‘I shall do one thing in this life—one thing certain—this is, love you, and long for you, and—'”

“‘Keep wanting you till I die,'” Mrs. Spencer finished. “Yes. We know.”

She made a gagging sound as Pru let the tears run down her cheeks.

“Stop it!” Mrs. Spencer ordered. “Stop it right now! You must put the boy out of your head. It's not worth the agony. You didn't want to marry him in the first place.”

“Yes. I did. With every part of me.”

“Very well, then. Hang on to your romantic Hardy quotes but I have a few myself. ‘People go on marrying because they can't resist natural forces, although many of them may know perfectly well that they are possibly buying a month's pleasure with a life's discomfort.'”

“We would've been different,” Pru whispered, her voice thin as a strand of hair.

“Knock it off, Miss Valentine. I can't tolerate the mewling. What about Proust?” Mrs. Spencer said, her words fast and sharp like a poke in the ribs. “Do you like Proust?”

“Excuse me?”

“Proust. Marcel Proust. What are your thoughts on him, O erudite literary major?”

“To be honest, I haven't studied much Proust,” Pru said, sniffling.

“YOU HAVEN'T STUDIED MUCH PROUST?”

“I mean, I have. Some. But he's not really my thing. I like Hardy. Wharton. Evelyn Waugh. Henry James.”

“I knew all of them. Personally. And they have nothing on Marcel. You have no opinion on the man? Not a single thought? And you consider yourself well read?”

“Naturally, I admire
À
la recherche
. A new way to approach the novel, its own genre and whatnot. So, he's decent. But, in general, Proust not my bag.”

“
Not your bag?
Marcel and I are closer than siblings. I won't mention you said that.”

“Isn't he dead?”

“For a time he was my dearest friend,” Mrs. Spencer said, her voice slowing, her body falling more heavily into the bed. “Any reader should appreciate what Proust meant to the literary world. He made us cognizant of the importance of memory when reading a book, how pivotal the setting and circumstance. So whatever sentimental notions Edith's advertisement conjured, whatever visions you had of moping about the Cotswolds, book in hand, were planted first by Proust.”

“You seem to have led a fascinating life, Mrs. Spencer.” Pru pulled the blanket up to her chin to ward off the chill. “I look forward to getting to know you better.”

“It's too late for anyone to know me. Oh, Marcel! I miss him so! He and I, we brightened the salons of Paris! The Ritz conservatory. All up and down the Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honor
é
. Hardy. You love Hardy? Here's your next literature essay, Miss Valentine, a use for your sole talent. Why not explore the French versus English spirit as shown in prose? With Hardy as testament on the latter?”