Anne reached the open space in front of the cathedral of Notre-Dame, and paused to gaze up at the delicate tracery of the great rose window, set for contrast between the stern Roman arches of the twin towers. Her father had had the mathematician’s love of architecture and had taught her how to look at buildings. Like so much in Paris, Notre-Dame seemed familiar, and yet subtly alien, and she wished passionately for a moment that Papa were here so that she could discuss it with him. But to be here at all, in a foreign country, was a source of delight to her.
The first conversation which took place between Sir Ralph and Lady Murray on the subject had occurred just after breakfast one day when her pupils were upstairs being measured for new pattern gowns, and Anne was writing letters to Lady Murray’s dictation. Lady Murray broke off suddenly to address her husband, who was still sitting amongst the bones and shells, reading the newspapers.
‘I have been thinking, Sir Ralph, that we had better all go to Paris with you. Mrs Cowley Crawford says Lady Whitworth is to go. She was formerly the Duchess of Dorset, you know,’ she added for Anne’s benefit. ‘She is a charming woman. She has twenty thousand a year of her own, but I hear she is immensely affable.’
‘Thirteen thousand,’ Sir Ralph corrected her without looking up, ‘and she is very proud.’
Lady Murray was unperturbed. ‘Anyone has the right to be proud, with thirteen thousand a year,’ she said easily, ‘but I dare say she is very charming after all. And situated as we shall be in Paris, there will be no avoiding the intimacy. What a wonderful thing it will be for our girls! We shall meet everyone. Maria will make a great match – a French duke or count with a large estate and several castles.’
‘French dukes and counts do not have large estates, since the Revolution,’ Sir Ralph replied, turning a page.
‘Someone must have them. They can’t belong to no one,’ Lady Murray concluded reasonably.
Sir Ralph, who had stopped listening, turned another page in silence, and Lady Murray paused a moment before taking a new direction. ‘It will not hurt, Sir Ralph, to be taking Hartley away from his present companions.’
At this, her husband did look up. Hartley Murray had come down from an expensive three years at Cambridge only to torment his parents by taking up with the most heedless set of peep-o’-day boys he could find. ‘True, ma’am. Foreign travel and new experiences must do him good; and at least it will break the hold that villainous young Cadmus seems to have over him.’
‘Harry Cadmus is the great-grandnephew of the Duke of Bedford,’ Lady Murray demurred, shocked; but then she sighed, ‘though I must own he does seem very wild. Well, so it is settled, then, Sir Ralph, that we should all go. Miss Peters, you must pay special attention to the girls’ French lessons. It would give them a great advantage over other girls if they could address these French dukes and counts in their own language. Just a few polite phrases, of course,’ she added hastily. ‘I should not wish them to be turned into scholars.’
The arrangements for the journey were made by one of the secretaries at the Embassy, while another was sent ahead to find a suitable house to rent. The passports were written out, and their passages booked on the packet Maid of Rye, which was to leave from Dover on the third of November. Hartley Murray, who had been sulking furiously for weeks over being taken away from his unlawful pursuits, commented tartly that he hoped she wouldn’t turn out really to be made of rye, or they would all be drowned.
The party left in three separate vehicles: one for the luggage, one for the servants, and bringing up the rear, Lady Murray, her daughters and Anne travelling together in the family berlin. Sir Ralph, his private secretary and Hartley were to go down later by post.
The journey to Dover was slow, with frequent stops to allow Caroline, who was inclined to be carriage-sick, to get out and walk about. Anne was obliged, of course, to travel backwards. While she did not much mind it, for she felt it gave one a better view of the passing scenery, she did mind having to sit next to Miss Murray and to listen to her endless complaints that, as the eldest daughter, she ought to have the other forward seat. It annoyed Anne to have to say again and again, ‘But you know Caroline can’t take the backward seat, because it makes her sick.’
‘I don’t believe she really feels sick,’ Miss Murray muttered sulkily. ‘She only says it to get the better seat, because she knows it ought to be mine.’
The same unworthy thought had crossed Anne’s mind; but later when they were jolting heavily over the very bad section of road between Gillingham and Canterbury, a glance at Caroline’s green and sweating face had revised her opinion.
At last, after two weary days on the road, the berlin reached Dover. It was a grey, overcast day, with a chilly wind tearing raggedly at the clouds, and the grey stone houses and cobbled streets made everything seem colourless. As they wound their way down through the town, Caroline let down the window to lean out, and a breath of air penetrated the stuffiness of the carriage. It smelled of horses, like every town, but there was also a new scent: sharper, tangy, thrilling. Caroline, her head stuck out at a perilous angle, cried out, ‘Oh Miss Peters, look! Do look!’
At the foot of the steep hill they were descending, the world dropped away into a wide vista of grey, restlessly heaving water which stretched away into the distance until it joined mistily with the sky. Overhead, white birds wheeled slowly on braced, narrow wings, crying faintly, and stronger with every breath came the exhilarating smell – an unforgettable mixture of salt, weed and tar – which her father must have smelled every day of his professional life.
She met Caroline’s excited eyes in a moment of complete sympathy. ‘It’s the sea!’ she breathed.
She felt a tangled rush of feelings: happiness and regret, a longing to be near and never to go away again, and a strange, wistful sort of understanding of what her father must have felt. He had loved the sea more than he had loved her: she felt now that she had always known it. When the war began and he had been offered a commission, he had obeyed the call instantly, abandoning her and hastening back to his first love.
Chapter Two
In Paris, the Murrays had led a life of continual engagement. Though the haughtiness of the Whitworths was proof against all advances, the Murrays were invited everywhere, and when the ladies were not attending some ball, rout, supper party, picnic, play or opera performance, they were visiting shops and warehouses, and spending hours closeted with mantuamakers. Once the first shock of the Paris fashions had worn off – never in the history of civilisation had women worn less in public – the Miss Murrays were mad to copy it. French ladies went décolleté even in daytime, and the hairstyles – elaborations of Greek curls and Roman ringlets – made Miss Murray mourn deeply her decision last year to crop, and beg Miss Peters to find some way of making her hair grow more quickly.
Hartley Murray had hung about the house for a day or two, annoying his mother and mocking his sisters, and assuming an air of world-weary boredom in place of his former sulks. Then he had discovered that a set of abandoned young rogues, whose sole preoccupations were drink and deep play, haunted the gardens of the Palais Royale. He had hastened to make himself one of their company and was now entirely happy and hardly ever at home, which was more comfortable for everyone.