The restaurant car was a little more than half full, most of the other diners unfamiliar. But then she recognized two women, sisters she’d known from the summer of her debut, and their failure to acknowledge her was as familiar as a cup of tea. They’d both been married for years, she recalled, with husbands who’d waited out the war in reserve battalions that never crossed the Channel. They had children and homes of their own and everything she’d once thought she, too, would have.
Although there were two empty places at their table, the sisters didn’t beckon her over, didn’t wave in her direction, didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow to indicate they’d seen her. Women like that never did. It wasn’t because they disliked her, for they barely knew her. But they feared being seen with her, or anywhere near her, and so it was easier to pretend she was invisible.
The waiter, the same friendly man as earlier, greeted her with a wide smile and showed her to a table for two. She would have a cocktail, something terribly strong, and it would go straight to her head and she wouldn’t care what anyone thought of her. “Do you serve American cocktails?” she asked.
“But of course. Do you prefer a beverage prepared with gin, with rum, or with Scotch whisky?”
“I’ve no idea,” she admitted. “I’ve never had one before.”
“In that event, I advise a moderate approach. May I suggest a sidecar? It is made of Cointreau, brandy, and lemon juice.”
“It sounds delicious.”
She would drink it down, every last drop, no matter if it tasted like kerosene straight from a lamp. The waiter returned several minutes later, a single glass on his silver tray, and set the drink before her with a flourish.
“à votre santé,” she said, and took a large sip of the cocktail. It tasted bright and citrusy, but that first impression was quickly overlaid by a sensation of searing heat as the brandy made its presence known. Stifling the urge to cough, she took another sip, and another, and decided she liked it.
“Shall I allow you a few moments to look at the bill of fare?” the waiter asked.
“I’m not terribly hungry,” she confessed. “Perhaps some soup to begin, and then some fish—what do you have tonight?”
“We have sole meunière with new potatoes and white asparagus.”
“Perfect. No pudding; just that. And I should very much like another one of those cocktails.”
Chapter 3
“Good morning, Lady Helena, and welcome to the south of France. May I bring in your petit déjeuner?”
She’d slept well, lulled by the soporific effects of the two sidecars she’d imbibed and the cradling rhythm of the train, only vaguely aware of the stops it had made during the night. Apart from a mild headache, she felt quite well, and more than ready for a spot of breakfast.
“One moment,” she called out, reaching for her robe. She unlatched the door and stood aside to let the steward into her compartment. Moving as gracefully as Nijinsky himself, he set out her breakfast tray and prepared a bowl of café au lait.
“We will be leaving Marseille shortly, my lady. You are disembarking at Antibes, yes?”
“I am, thank you. How long do I have?”
“It is two hours to St.-Raph?el, and then another hour to Juan-les-Pins. The station for Antibes comes one quarter of an hour later.”
The train’s modern conveniences did not extend to WCs in each compartment, alas, so Helena dressed quickly and hurried to the toilet cubicle at the end of the car. It, too, was decorated in sumptuous style, with mosaic floors that might have been plundered from a Roman villa. Back in her compartment, she perched at the edge of her bunk and made short work of her breakfast: two croissants, which she spread with butter and raspberry jam, and washed down with the still-scalding café au lait.
The steward had brought two newspapers with her breakfast. The first, a day-old copy of the Times, she had read at her hotel in Calais. The other was a European edition of the Chicago Tribune. It stretched to only eight pages in total, and was a curious mix of news about American politicians and criminals, descriptions of lunches and gala dinners at dull-sounding places like the Board of Trade, and mystifying tables of statistics that appeared to relate to the sport of baseball.
Soon they were on the move again, heading east under a radiant turquoise sky. Thinking to freshen the air, Helena cranked down her window a scant inch, but the breeze was so warm and fragrant that she quickly lowered the pane to its full extent and let the wind rush into the compartment. It smelled of pine trees and sunshine and salt air, without so much as a wisp of locomotive exhaust, and felt like heaven on her face.
The steward came by once more, to take her tray and fold away her bunk, and as soon as he was done she returned to her perch by the window. They had turned south, or so it seemed from the angle of the midmorning sun, and presently he called out for St.-Raph?el.