Paris: The Novel

should show Thomas the house,” suggested Édith.
    Her mother glanced at the sideboard, and nodded.
    “Tell your aunt that we are waiting for her.”
    Thomas followed Édith up a small staircase, then along a passage that took them into the back of the main house. With a smile, she opened another door, and he found himself standing on a broad landing looking down a big staircase toward the front door.
    “It’s a handsome entrance,” he remarked. “Do you ever come in that way?”
    “Oh no. The front door is always locked,” she told him. “Come.” She went to a door on the right, knocked softly, and entered.
    The room was spacious. The paneling on the wall was a little cracked in places, but the general effect was grand. A picture of an eighteenth-century aristocrat with a face of perfect serenity hung over the fireplace. Colored prints of ladies in court dress graced the walls. In front of the window stood a small, elegant rococo writing desk and chair. Against the wall to the right of the door was a fine walnut armoire. And on the side of the room across from the fire stood a magnificent eighteenth-century canopied bed where, propped up on pillows and cushions, sat a lady of distinction swathed in lace. She was reading a small, leather-bound book.
    “Ah.
La petite
Édith,” said the lady whose face, were it not for the obtrusion of some poorly fitting ivory teeth, would have exactly resembled the serenity over the fireplace.
    “May I present my friend Thomas Gascon, Madame Govrit?” asked Édith politely. “He is working on Monsieur Eiffel’s tower.”
    Madame Govrit de la Tour gazed at Thomas over her book.
    “I am sorry to hear it, young man,” she said, quite calmly. “I have seen the pictures in the newspapers of this tower of Monsieur Eiffel, whoeverhe may be.” She spoke the builder’s name as though she considered it unpronounceable. “You should find other employment.”
    “You do not like the tower, madame?” Thomas offered.
    “Certainly not.” She laid the book facedown on the bedspread. “When I think of what France has built in the past, young man—of the Louvre, or Versailles—and then I see pictures of this monstrous spike that will no doubt rust before it is even constructed, this barbaric seaside vulgarity that is to hang in the sky over Paris, I ask myself, what has France come to?” She picked up her book again. “You seem to be respectable, but you dishonor France. You should stop this work at once.”
    “Thank you, madame,” said Thomas, as he and Édith withdrew.
    Once the door was closed, Édith giggled. “I hope you don’t mind.”
    “Not really.” Thomas shrugged. “It’s what half Paris of thinks.” One could read articles saying the same thing in the newspapers every week.
    “I know. But she has her own way of saying it. She’s our aristocrat,” Édith said with a note of pride.
    “So what is this place? Old people live here?”
    “Yes, but it’s very special. Monsieur Ney comes to a private arrangement with each person. Some of them give him a sum of money, others have a house, or land, or income of some kind, and then they come to live here, and he looks after everything for them. He’s a lawyer, so he always knows what to do.”
    “How many are there?”
    “About thirty.”
    “Don’t they have families?”
    “Some do. But they all know they can trust Monsieur Ney. They say,” she continued quietly, “that one old lady was so happy that she left Monsieur Ney her entire fortune when she died.”
    Thomas said nothing.
    They looked into another room, not nearly as lavish as the first, where an old lady was sitting in the single armchair facing the window. She seemed half asleep.
    “Madame Richard can be difficult. My aunt has to give her a little laudanum,” Édith explained.
    As they went down the passage, a short, fat woman waddled out of one of the rooms. She was dressed in black, with a face so fleshy it was perfectly round. Could this be Aunt Adeline? he wondered.
    “Have you seen my aunt, Margot?” asked Édith.
    “
Non
. Haven’t seen her,” the small round woman answered placidly.
“Bonjour, monsieur,”
she said to Thomas, as she passed.
    “That’s Margot, the nurse,” Édith explained. “I wonder if my aunt could be upstairs.”
    They reached the top floor of the house by a steep and narrow staircase. The passage was windowless, though some light came from a skylight at the end. Édith called out her aunt’s name a