Sarah still didn’t know whether to sell her apartment, rent it out, or simply stay put. She had been too exhausted to face a move after Steven left. So she had replaced some of the furniture, had installed floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with books on things she loved—art, old jewelry, family heirlooms, and houses. And she had stayed where she was, for now.
Sarah sat down in her favorite pale blue armchair, took a sip of wine, and turned back to the letter. And opened it. And read.
Paris, 1895
My dear Henry,
I find myself unable to articulate my shock at the events that unfolded last night.
You must be appalled, mon cher. And confused, I am in no doubt. What a tragedy, what a trauma—I simply cannot think how you are bearing up.
And to have something as dreadful as this happen in Montmartre, our little homeland! Louisa’s death throws a villainous shadow over our menagerie sociale. The atmosphere is quite changed after one single night. I saw not a soul from the party when I rode in the Bois de Boulogne today. The park was empty of our little groups—and it suffered for it. It suffered with the stuffy bourgeoisie gliding like old ghosts on the paths—because we were not there, my dear.
Later, I found myself extremely agitated at home in the apartment. I could not settle, and the idea of visitors! Can you imagine? No I think not!
Following this, I was in a mind to visit you. I even had on my kid gloves, but I feared that the sight of my carriage at your house on the Ȋle St-Louis would simply bring more gossip—and we cannot afford that, my dear friend, not at all. Which brings me to my next awful thought.
I know that you come to Paris to enjoy our wonderful “attributes”: the cancan dancers, all our friends, and the razzle. Not to mention our wonderful theatres and dance halls. But my fear is that you need to think like one of us, my Henry. I want you to think like a true modern, I want you to move and move very fast. My darling, I sense that it is vital that you leave Paris, today.
Tragic as it is, tragic as must be your feelings about Louisa and about last night—no matter what she was, or what she was to you, she was your wife.
Go home to England. Bury yourself at Ashworth until it is over. You need to encircle yourself within your family. They will protect you. You must let the wheels of your parents’ influence take over now. The authorities will want to question you if you stay here—you know everything, and that is too much.
Your father will be able to get rid of the press. And you will deal far better with the inevitable police investigations from the safety of your home. Your parents will shield you. They are not emotionally invested. They will know exactly what to say.
Just leave, or I will worry until it kills me.
When we meet next, we will talk as if we were never apart. It will be like it always is, but for now, à bientôt, my friend.
I will miss you, but I am always, always with you, you know that.
Au revoir,
Marthe de Florian
Sarah stared at the signature at the bottom of the page. No matter how used she was to researching other people’s heirlooms, no matter how used she was to hearing about other people’s pasts—this was her own family.
This was her past.
The fact that Viscount Henry Duval, Louisa’s husband, seemed to be connected with one of the most famous Parisian courtesans who lived in the Belle Époque was one thing. The fact that the famous courtesan was telling Henry to leave Paris was quite another again.
Marthe’s handwriting stared back at Sarah as if it were quite the most casual thing in the world. But Sarah knew how famous this woman had been. Sarah knew that Marthe de Florian’s apartment had been rediscovered in Paris in 2010. Her granddaughter had fled Paris in June 1940, abandoning it on the eve of the Nazi occupation.
For seventy years, nobody had entered Marthe’s grand home, no one had set foot inside. And nobody knew why the granddaughter had never returned. The discovery of Marthe’s apartment had caused more than a buzz in the art world and had been a topic of interest among Sarah’s colleagues.
The story had become even more fascinating. Marthe’s apartment was not just a frozen replica from 1940, it was a time capsule from a generation before that. Sarah could only imagine how the curators who had discovered Marthe’s gifts from her countless gentlemen “clients” must have felt walking into the veritable time warp when it was discovered. Imagine the jewels, paintings, furniture, objets d’art.
While getting her degree, Sarah had studied, albeit briefly, the life of Giovanni Boldini, the artist whose unsigned portrait of Marthe de Florian had been found in the apartment, causing such a stir in itself. It had sold at auction for over two million euros, no less.