Paris: The Novel

afternoon in May, when he’d remarked what a blow it had been to close down Joséphine. “It was the right thing to do. It was draining money,” he said. “But I wish in a way we’d held on until the war was over, because I think it could be a viable business now.” He laughed. “The lease was taken up by an insurance business, but they’ve just moved on, so it’s available at this moment. I haven’t got the energy to start it again, though, and young Jules couldn’t possibly do it, and wouldn’t want to.”
    And then, almost before she knew what she was saying, Marie had asked: “So why don’t I do it?”
    Marc had looked at her in astonishment.
    “My dear Marie, you’ve never been in commerce.”
    “No, but I’ve been learning a bit recently. You could help me.”
    “You’re also a woman.”
    “The widow Clicquot ran her champagne business for decades and made Veuve Clicquot the most famous label in the world. Chanel is a single woman. She seems to be doing all right. I’m in her store almost every week.”
    Marc laughed.
    “It’s not a boutique,” he said. “It’s huge.”
    “I wouldn’t take the whole space. Just the Art Nouveau part that you designed.”
    “I’m flattered.” He smiled. “I suggest, my dear sister, that you sleep on the idea. You may have been in the sun too long today. When you wake up in the morning, no doubt you will have regained your sanity.”
    “No,” she said. She suddenly saw everything very clearly. “This is my plan. I am going to devote my time entirely to Aunt Éloïse as long as she’s alive. But if she says she’s going to die in August, then she probably will. After that, if the lease is still available, I want you to get it for me.”
    “I’ve never seen you like this,” he said.
    “Well, you have now,” she answered. “Joséphine is going to be reborn.”

    In the spring of 1919, when Louise had said she wanted to learn French, her parents had been surprised.
    “You learned it at school,” her mother said. “Are you sure you need more than that, dear?”
    “I learned schoolgirl French at school,” said Louise, “but I couldn’t really have an intelligent conversation with anybody. You never know,” she continued, “it might come in useful. I might marry a diplomat, or something.”
    Her father was quite agreeable to the idea. The war had only just ended. The world was still at sixes and sevens. There could be no harm in his daughter acquiring such a useful accomplishment.
    “As long as you work at it properly,” was his only stipulation.

    So a French teacher was found and Louise began to work with her.
    After six months, her teacher was astounded. “I have never had such a pupil,” she declared.
    Louise had never worked so hard in her life. She attacked her studies with a passion. By the end of three months she knew many of the
Fables
of La Fontaine by heart. They even began to tackle the novels of Balzac together, despite their huge and complex vocabulary.
    Her father was pleased with what he took to be signs of a new maturity. At the end of a year, Louise announced: “Mademoiselle says it would be a good idea for me to spend a few months with a French family,” Louise told her parents. “Total immersion, she calls it.”
    Her mother was not so happy about this idea. Though she was quite accomplished artistically, she was a conventional woman of her class, and she felt it was unseemly for a girl to have too many intellectual attainments.
    But her kindly, round-faced father was more amenable.
    “It’s not as if she wanted to go to university,” he remarked. “No man wants to marry a girl who does that.” He paused. “But going to France, it’s more like a finishing school really, isn’t it?”

    And so she was sent to stay with a suitable family, who lived in a small
manoir
, a farmhouse really, in the valley of the Loire, not far from the Château de Cygne. Her hosts were a retired official from the colonial service and his wife, who was from the
petite noblesse
, the minor nobility. Their children were all grown up, their son in Paris. And for more than six happy months Louise had lived with them like a daughter. By the end of 1920, although she might not be up to date with some of the latest idioms used by the young, Louise spoke perfect French.

Chapter Twenty-two
    •  1924  •
    Claire was happy to be in Paris. “I’m just a wide-eyed girl,” she would say with a laugh, “whose mother took her to