The House in Paris

Chapter One

IN A TAXI SKIDDING AWAY FROM THE GARE DU NORD, ONE dark greasy February morning before the shutters were down, Henrietta sat beside Miss Fisher. She embraced with one arm a plush toy monkey with limp limbs; a paper-leather despatch case lay at her feet. Miss Fisher and she still both wore, pinned to their coats, the cerise cockades which had led them to claim one another, just now, on the platform: they had not met before. For the lady in whose charge Henrietta had made the journey from London, Miss Fisher's cockade, however, had not been enough; she had insisted on seeing Mrs. Arbuthnot's letter which Miss Fisher said she had in her bag. The lady had been fussy; she took every precaution before handing over a little girl to a stranger at such a sinister hour and place. Miss Fisher had looked hurt. Henrietta, mortified and embarrassed, wanted to tell her that the suspicious lady was not a relation, only a friend's friend. Henrietta's trunk was registered straight through to Mentone, so there had been no further trouble about that.

There was just enough light to see. Henrietta, though dazed after her night journey, sat up straight in the taxi, looking out of the window. She had not left England before. She said to herself: This is Paris. The same streets, with implacably shut shops and running into each other at odd angles, seemed to unreel past again and again. She thought she saw the same kiosks. Cafes were lit inside, chairs stacked on the tables: they were swabbing the floors. Men stood at a steamy counter drinking coffee. A woman came out with a tray of mimosa and the raw daylight fell on the yellow pollen: but for that there might have been no sky. These indifferent streets and early morning faces oppressed Henrietta, who was expecting to find Paris more gay and kind.

"A Hundred Thousand Shirts," she read aloud, suddenly.

Miss Fisher put Mrs. Arbuthnot's letter away with a sigh, snapping the clasp of her hand-bag, then leaned rigidly back in the taxi beside Henrietta as though all this had been an effort and she still could not relax. She wore black gloves with white-stitched seams that twisted round on her fingers, and black furs that gave out a camphory smell. At the Gare du Nord, as she stood under the lamps, her hat had cast a deep shadow, in which her eyes in dark sockets moved, melancholy and anxious. Her olive-green coat and skirt, absorbing what light there was, had looked black. She looked like a Frenchwoman with all the animation gone. Her manner had been emotional from the first; there was something emotional now about her tense way of sitting. Henrietta, nervous, tried to make evident, by looking steadily out of the window on her side, that she did not expect to be spoken to. She had been brought up to think it rude to interrupt thought.

But Miss Fisher, making an effort, now touched one of the monkey's stitched felt paws. "You must be fond of your monkey. You play with him, I expect?"

"Not nowadays much," said Henrietta politely. "I just always seem to take him about."

"For company," said Miss Fisher, turning upon the monkey a brooding, absent look.

"I like to think he enjoys things."

"Ah, then you do play with him!"

It was not in Henrietta's power to say: "We really cannot go into all that now." Re-crossing her feet, she lightly kicked the despatch case, which contained what she would want for two night journeys and during the day in Paris: washing things, reading matter, one or two things to eat. Turning away again to look at the street, she was glad to see shutters taken down from one shop: a woman in felt slippers was doing this. A paper-kiosk opened to take its stock in, a lady in deep mourning attempted to stop a bus: the frightening cardboard city was waking up at last. Violent skidding traffic foreignly hooted, and Henrietta wished there were more light.

"Is this a boulevard?"

"Yes. You know, there are many."

"My father told me there would be."

"We cross the river soon."

"How soon will it be daylight?"

Miss Fisher sighed. "The mornings are still so late. How happy you are to be going south, Henrietta. If I were a swallow you would not find me here!"

Henrietta did not know what to say.

"However," Miss Fisher continued, smiling, "to have been met by a swallow would not help you much. It would have been a great disappointment to me to fail your grandmother. Fortunately, my mother is better this morning: she slept better last night."

"I'm sorry your mother is ill," said Henrietta, who had forgotten Miss Fisher had a mother.

"She is constantly ill, but wonderfully full of spirit. She is most anxious to see you, and also hopes to see Leopold."

Miss Fisher's mother was French and they lived in Paris: this accounted, perhaps, for Miss Fisher's peculiar idiom, which made Henrietta giddy. Often when she spoke she seemed to be translating, and translating rustily. No phrase she used was what anyone could quite mean; they were doubtful, as though she hoped they would do. Her state of mind seemed to be foreign also, not able to be explained however much English you had. . . . This illness made her mother sound most forbidding: Henrietta had a dread of sick-rooms.

Leopold? thought Henrietta. The thought that Miss Fisher might have taken the liberty of re-christening her monkey, whose name was Charles, made her look round askance: she said: "Who is Leopold?"

"Oh, he's a little boy," Miss Fisher said with a strikingly reserved air.

"A little boy where?"

"To-day he is at our house."

"French?" pursued Henrietta.

"Oh, hardly French: not really. You will see for yourself. You will think," Miss Fisher said, with the anxious smile again, "that we have a depot for young people crossing Paris, but that is not so: this is quite a coincidence. Leopold is not crossing Paris, either; he came to us late last night by the train from Spezia, and will return, we expect, to-morrow or the day after. He is in Paris for family reasons; he has someone to meet."

"Where's Spezia?"

"On the Italian coast."

"Oh! Then he's Italian?"

"No, he is not Italian. . . . I have been wanting to ask you, Henrietta, to be a little considerate with Leopold when you meet him this morning: you may find him agitated and shy,"--her agitation came on at the very idea, making her knit her gloved fingers, twisting the seams round further.

"Why? Do journeys upset him?"

"No, no; it is not that. I think I had better explain to you, Henrietta--it is Leopold's mother he is going to meet. And he has not met her before--that is, since he can remember. The circumstances are very strange and sad. . . . I am only telling you this much, Henrietta, in order that you may not ask any more. I beg you will not ask more, and I specially beg you to ask Leopold nothing. Simply play with him naturally. No doubt you will find some game you can both play. He is in an excited state and I do not wish him to talk. It is for the morning only: his mother will be arriving early this afternoon and before that, naturally, I shall take you out. I did not anticipate this when I promised your grandmother that you should spend the day here between your trains. Leopold's coming to us was arranged since that, very suddenly, and I was most anxious not to disappoint your dear grandmother when she had been at such pains to arrange everything. I believe she will not blame me for the coincidence. It appeared impossible that Leopold's mother should be in Paris on any other day--I was equally anxious not to put her out, for you can see what importance she must attach to this meeting. It has all been very difficult. To-morrow, I am intending to write to your grandmother, explaining the matter to her as far as I may. I feel sure she will not blame me. But I feel sure she would not wish you to ask Leopold questions; it is all sad, and she might not wish you to know. By questioning him you would only distress yourself and agitate him: there is much, as a matter of fact, that Leopold does not know. I know how much above the world your grandmother is in her thoughts, but I should not like to upset her, or feel she might misunderstand."

Henrietta, who had listened to most of this pretty blankly, said: "I don't suppose she would bother. Where does Leopold live, then?"

"Oh, you see, near Spezia, with a most charming family who have a villa there-- You must show him your monkey: I am sure he will like that."

"I never ask people things," said Henrietta coldly.

Miss Fisher went on looking wretchedly undecided. One of her troubles was, quite clearly, being unaccustomed to children. Henrietta had the advantage of her, for, as almost an only child--she had one married sister--she was only too well accustomed to grown-ups. "Perhaps," Miss Fisher plunged on, "I should not have told you so much. It is hard to know what is best: it is all difficult for me, when my mother is too ill to consult."

Henrietta regretted that Leopold was not a girl: she did not like boys much. Last night's shaken broken sleep, now the stress of being in Paris, made her thoughts over-clear, and everything had echoes. Tossing her longish fair hair back she exclaimed: "I expect that will be all right."

They crossed the river while Miss Fisher was speaking. In a sort of slow flash, Henrietta had her first open view of Paris--watery sky, wet light, light water, frigid, dark-inky buildings, spans of bridges, trees. This open light gash across Paris faded at each end. It was not exactly raining. Then, passing long grinding trams, their taxi darted uphill: the boulevard was wide, in summer there would be shade here. They swerved right, round the dark railings of a statuey leafless garden--"Look, Henrietta, the Luxembourg!"--then engaged in a complex of deep streets, fissures in the crazy gloomy height. Windows with strong grilles looked ready for an immediate attack (Henrietta had heard how much blood has been shed in Paris); doors had grim iron patterns across their glass; dust-grey shutters were almost all bolted fast . . . Miss Fisher, by reaching down for Henrietta's case, made it clear that they were arriving. The taxi stopped; Miss Fisher got out and paid; Henrietta got out and looked up and down the street.

The Fishers' house, opposite which the taxi stopped, looked miniature, like a dolls' house: it stood clapped to the flank of a six-storied building with balconies. On its other side was a wall, with branches, that in summer would toss gaily, showing over the top. Up and down the narrow uphill street the houses were all heights: none so small as the Fishers'. At each end, the street bent out of sight: it was exceedingly quiet and seemed, though charged with meaning, to lead nowhere. Unbright light struck between the flanks of the houses, making their inequality odder still: some were trim and bright, some faded, crazy or sad. Henrietta's exact snobbishness could not "place" this street--was it mean or grand?--in the unsmiling light it had unity. She saw spaces of wall, with shut grey gates and tree-tops, over which towered buildings in other streets. It was exceedingly silent, though you heard in the distance Paris still going on; the height all around would have made it darkish at any hour. A maid was shaking a mat out of one window; elsewhere, shutters were unwakingly shut. In fact, it was early for people to be about--there were no shops, nothing to get to work. But it would not really have surprised Henrietta if no one had ever walked down that street again.

The Fishers' house looked small because of its narrowness. It was three stories high, and also, stepping back, Henrietta saw another couple of windows, mansard windows, peering down from above. Its cream front was a strip marbled with fine dark cracks; it just held, below the mansards, five wide-awake windows with grey shutters fixed back; two, then two, then a window beside the door--around these pairs of windows the house made a thin frame. Miss Fisher put her latch-key into the door, which was grained brown and had a knob in the middle. Henrietta thought: Perhaps it is not really so small inside? Or perhaps it stretches back. . . . The house, with its clean tight blinds across inside darkness, managed to look as proud as any in the street; there was nothing "bijou" about it; it looked stern. Henrietta heard later that the site was valuable; Mme Fisher was, in spite of her poverty, most obstinate in refusing to sell.

Miss Fisher's key turned and she pushed the door open. Henrietta took a last look at the outside of the house, which she never saw in daylight again. Shifting Charles up her arm, she followed Miss Fisher in.

The hall was dark, it had a clean close smell. Miss Fisher switched on the light, showing a red flock wallpaper; indoors, her manner became more assured and commanding. "Now, dear," she said, "I expect you would like a bath."

"No, thank you," said Henrietta, who did not want to undress here.

Miss Fisher was disappointed. "Oh, dear," she said, "I had the bath heated specially. Don't you think, Henrietta, your grandmother would like you to?"

As a matter of fact, Henrietta's grandmother, Mrs. Arbuthnot, seldom looked beyond her finger-nails, except once or twice when she had peered into her ears to see if they could be waxy; when Henrietta did not at once answer a question or reply to an observation, kindness led her to think that the child must be getting deaf. Henrietta, though already a little vain, did not yet like washing; she repeated firmly: "No, thank you; I feel too sleepy to have a bath."

"Poor Henrietta--look, you shall go to bed!"

"No, thank you, I'm too sleepy to have a bath but not sleepy enough to sleep," Henrietta explained--glancing, meanwhile, at the shut doors, then up the staircase, wondering where Leopold might be. Was he, with some excitement, hearing her arrive? It made her jealous to think his unknown mother must be most in his thoughts, if he were awake, so that her own arrival must mean less. If he woke up excited, the cause would not be Henrietta; he might be thinking about her without curiosity, or perhaps not even thinking about her at all. Already, she longed to occupy people's fancies, speculations and thoughts.