In the morning we set off, the wagon piled high with ourselves and our luggage, for the station. I noted the departure time of the train then paid a boy to deliver my telegram to the telegraph office. Sid and Gus would probably be waiting anxiously, I thought. They’d be so relieved to know I was all right and finally on my way. Miss Hetherington found an empty compartment for the six of us plus Liam and the train pulled out of the station. Yesterday’s good weather had given way to a steady rain as we made our way toward the capital city. The French countryside looked bleak and gray, rainswept scenes of fields divided by lines of poplar trees, just coming into leaf. We passed the massive cathedral at Reims, rising above the sloping roofs of the town.
“Catholics, of course,” Miss Pinkerton said when the other women remarked how magnificent it was. “Why can’t Protestants build decent cathedrals?”
Liam had just fallen asleep on my lap when we came into the outer suburbs of Paris. After having lived in New York for four years, the thing that struck me was that this was a city of low buildings. In New York we were used to new skyscrapers and apartment blocks. Even the tenements were five or six floors high. Here church spires and domes rose above rooftops. And to my disappointment these buildings did not resemble my vision of Paris. They were small and mean and dirty, reminding me of the back streets of Belfast or Liverpool. The only difference was that these houses all had shutters, some brightly painted, some peeling. And there were bright advertising signs painted on house walls. Signs advertising Gauloises cigarettes and Dubonnet and other unfamiliar names. Then I spotted something in the distance above the rooftops, an ironwork tower, impossibly high. I pointed excitedly.
“Look,” I said. “Over there.”
“Goodness me,” Miss Pinkerton exclaimed. “I heard it was quite a monstrosity, and it is, isn’t it? I wonder they didn’t take it down after the exhibition.”
“I suppose it’s progress,” Miss Hetherington said. “We must get used to such things. Skyscrapers and Eiffel Towers. Impressionists and Post-Impressionists who daub on colors willy-nilly and call it painting. That’s what the world is coming to.”
Personally I thought the Eiffel Tower was spectacular and gazed at it until the train went around a bend and it was lost. The train was slowing, and with a final huff and puff we pulled into Saint-Lazare station. Porters swarmed into the carriage, whisking away bags so rapidly that one never expected to find them again. I stood on the steps of our carriage looking out over the crowd and the smoke, an expectant smile on my face, as I tried to spot Sid and Gus.
“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.