It had begun to rain, so they hurried to enter the pavilion. At the door, greeting Miss Barney’s guests, was an elderly Chinese butler, who smiled and ushered them along. They walked to the end of a narrow, dark hall and moved into a large room, already so crowded with guests that Helena could discern little of its décor beyond the closely hung prints and portraits on the faded red walls. The light in the room was faintly green, tinted by the overarching boughs of the chestnut trees outside, and what few lights there were did little to dispel the late afternoon gloom.
“Agnes, my friend. You’re here!” A woman approached them, her smile ready and genuine; it could only be Miss Barney. She might have been any age between thirty and fifty, for she had a beautiful, unlined complexion, and her chin-length hair was either blond or silver; in the dim light of the sitting room it was difficult to tell.
“Of course,” Agnes replied gaily. “When have I ever refused one of your summons?”
“And is this your niece?” Miss Barney asked.
“Yes, indeed. Helena, allow me to introduce you to Miss Natalie Barney. Natalie, this is my niece, Lady Helena Montagu-Douglas-Parr.”
Helena suppressed a sudden urge to curtsey, for there was something terribly regal about their hostess, and instead shook her outstretched hand. “I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Barney. Thank you for including me in your invitation.”
“It is entirely my pleasure, I assure you. Agnes tells me you are an artist.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ve come to Paris to attend classes at the Académie Czerny.”
“I see, I see. Excellent school. Fabritius does have an eye for talent. You’ll do well with him. We must talk some more—I can think of any number of people you ought to meet. Do excuse me; I must say hello to some people.”
And with that she was gone, her attention drawn by the arrival of another group of guests.
“There. You have met the grande dame herself. Now, shall we have something to eat? We just need to squeeze past these people here.”
Agnes looped her arm through Helena’s and steered them toward the dining room, and as they made their way through the crush of people, nearly all of them women, she put names to faces for her niece’s benefit.
“That’s Djuna Barnes, I think; haven’t seen her here before. Can’t remember where I first met her. And there, with the Valentino look-alike, is Colette—yes, the Colette. Hasn’t written anything worth reading in years, but she does add a certain spark to these affairs. That’s Lily Gramont, the duchesse de Clermont-Tonnerre; she’s one of Natalie’s dearest friends. No sign of Romaine Brooks today, but that’s no surprise. Let me see . . . the women over there, the ones in the awful suits? They’re Sylvia Beach and Adrienne Monnier. Miss Beach owns Shakespeare and Company, the English-language bookshop. She published Joyce’s Ulysses when no one else would touch it. Ah—here we are. No one feeds her guests as handsomely as Natalie.”
The table before them was tiled with tray after tray of cucumber sandwiches, éclairs, meringues, almond tuiles, and palmier biscuits. Helena filled a plate, accepted a cup of tea, and followed Agnes to a relatively uncrowded corner of the dining room.
“As soon as we’ve eaten I’ll take you round and introduce you properly,” her aunt promised, and once they’d emptied their plates Agnes took her arm and led Helena on a tour of the salon and its sophisticated guests.
Nearly all the conversation was in English, for almost everyone was American or English, and though she could have taken part Helena simply stood and listened to the discussions of poetry and fiction and art and dance that swirled around her.
They left after an hour, in concordance with her aunt’s theory that one must always leave a party when everyone is at their most amusing, and after thanking Miss Barney and promising to come again, they left the hidden courtyard behind and found Vincent waiting with the car.
“What did you think of Natalie and her friends?” Agnes asked immediately.
“I liked them, very much. They were all so interesting, and their conversations were interesting, too. None of the usual drivel about husbands and quarterly allowances and problems with the help.”
“That’s because none of them have husbands, or if they do the men are just window dressing.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Natalie and her circle are nearly all of them lesbians.” Agnes let her words sink in, and then, a frown creasing her brow, turned to look Helena in the eye. “You aren’t one of those tiresome people who rail against such relationships?”
“Of . . . of course not,” Helena stammered, more than a little embarrassed by her na?veté. She knew that women might be drawn to other women, just as men might desire other men, but until that afternoon it had been an abstraction, no more real to her than Sappho on her island.
“I didn’t know it was possible to live so openly,” she added after a moment. “Aren’t Miss Barney and her friends bothered by the police?”
“Not usually. From time to time the authorities become obsessed with homosexual activity in Pigalle, at places like Chez Graff and the like, but prosecution is rare here. I’m not sure if lesbianism is even considered a criminal offense in France.”
“I’m glad . . . I mean, I should hate to think of Miss Barney being harassed in any way. She and her friends . . .”
“Yes?”