“Do you require a taxicab?” the porter who was balancing the mountain of our luggage on a barrow asked.
“We require to be taken to the Gare de Lyon to catch our train to Venice,” Miss Hetherington said in efficient French. “This young lady will be met by her friends. You may leave her luggage here and take ours out to the curb.”
“Do you see your friends yet?” Miss Pinkerton asked.
I was still looking around, Liam perched on one hip. “No, not yet.”
“Why don’t you stay here with the bags and we’ll go and locate them for you,” Miss Hetherington said. “What do they look like?”
I described Sid’s cropped black hair and mannish attire and Gus’s predilection for peasant clothing and shawls. Miss Hetherington looked aghast. “Sapphists are they? Bohemians? My dear, are you sure you should be staying with them? One hears the most extraordinary things about the way these artists live. I’m not sure that your husband would approve, seeing that he works in government.”
I assured her that Daniel knew all about Sid and Gus, who were my neighbors at home, and that they were my dear friends. Miss Hetherington gave me a strange look before she sent her troops out across the station to find Sid and Gus. They returned ten minutes later to say that there was no sign of them.
“Oh, dear,” I said. “I wonder if the telegram was never delivered. I thought it was strange when they didn’t reply to me or even come to Le Havre to escort me. I suppose I’d better take a cab to their residence.”
“They are expecting you?” Miss Pinkerton asked. “These artistic types are known to be flighty.”
“They know I’m coming. They responded to my cable.”
“Well, then. We’ll help you into a cab and all will be well.” She motioned to a porter to bring my trunk and carpet bag to a waiting fiacre. Liam and I were loaded in. I shook hands all around and thanked them again for their kindness. Then the driver flicked at the whip and off we went, rattling over the cobbles.
“Is it far?” I called out to the cabby over the noise of the hoofs and wheels.
“No, madame. Not far at all. Ten minutes.”
We left the noise and bustle of the station and immediately we were in a street more like the Paris I had dreamed of as a child. The street was lined with plane trees and on either side were light-yellow stone buildings, four and five stories high, decorated with wrought-iron balconies. Some of them had shops at street level, with bright awnings hanging over them, and there was a café on the corner with tables outside on the sidewalk. Nobody was sitting at the tables as it was still drizzling, but a man and woman walked arm in arm under his big umbrella—the woman holding the leash of a small poodle dog. On the corner was a flower seller standing beside her barrow of spring flowers. We turned into a treelined square with a lovely ornate gray stone church on one side. Two priests in flat black hats were standing on the steps and a bell was tolling. But right after the church we entered a smaller street and clearly a less salubrious area. There were bars and gaudy signs for cabarets mixed in with greengrocers and bookstores. There was even an occasional girl lounging against a wall trailing a feather boa. I’d seen enough of them in New York to recognize what she was, making it clear that this area might be more active when the sun went down.
I also saw that we were coming into the Paris of artists. We passed three of them, walking together, one of them carrying a canvas while his friends were in animated conversation, gesturing with their hands. We emerged into an open area with a fountain in the middle. A street sign announced it to be the Place Pigalle and I vaguely remembered having heard of it. Then I saw a windmill, illuminated with electric lights and knew why. This was the famed Moulin Rouge cabaret where the cancan was born and the girls wore next to nothing. The boulevard that led from Pigalle was wide and treelined but almost immediately we turned into a narrow side street that ascended a hill. There were shops and cafés close to Place Pigalle but as the street went up the hill it became more residential. The cab halted.
“Is this it?” I asked.