Evan Hunter - Lizzie

I didn’t take hold of him on any other portion of the body except the hat. It was a dark hat. Didn’t smell any signs of liquor on him. He said nothing, did nothing, couldn’t seem to arouse him. These steps are some fifteen to seventeen feet from the Chagnon driveway, just south of the steps there. I left him there, and went into my house. Mr. Gifford had already retired.

That’s all that took place that night.

A dozen red roses waiting in the room!

And a handwritten note from Alison!

Bienvenue, Chérie!

Albert’s beastly business will detain us here for the better part of a week. For once, I am grateful to his financial machinations. Do telephone me the moment you’re comfortably settled. I have made delicious plans for us!

She was tempted to telephone the Hotel Binda at once, but the porters were arriving with their baggage, and again there was the nuisance of figuring what to tip them, complicated this time by the strange French currency — just when she was getting accustomed to the British coins. The two hulking men in their blue smocks struggled the trunks and valises into the room, and stood blinking in stupefied amazement as Felicity did a series of pirouettes in the vast chamber and then threw herself full length on the only bed in the room, a massive, four-postered and canopied antique against the wall opposite the inner door. The men continued to gape as Felicity began squealing and giggling, raising her knees and pumping her feet against the air as though she were riding a bicycle, skirts flying, her childish abandon exposing her petticoats and her black stockings and all but her underdrawers.

“Felicity!” Lizzie shouted, and she at once brought her knees down and lay as stiff as a board, legs together, eyes closed, arms crossed over her ample bosom as if she’d suddenly been struck dead by an unseen hand. She began giggling again as Lizzie paid the porters, sorting out the coins, remembering that Geoffrey had told her the franc — for all practical purposes — could be estimated at tenpence in English, or twenty cents in United States money.

Felicity was off the bed again as the porters bowed themselves out of the room, scruffy gray caps clenched in their hands, mumbling, “ Merci, madame, mademoiselle, (a nod at Felicity) and then closing the inner door behind them. She scurried to the windows, drew open the curtains, threw open the shutters, and then, opening her arms wide, shouted to the courtyard below and the Parisian afternoon in general, “Hello, Paris!” and then, in surely inaccurate and positively atrocious French, “Adoo, Paree, adoo! We’re here!”

“Felicity, do be still,” Lizzie warned. “There may be people napping!”

“In Paris ? Don’t be silly, Lizzie!” She rushed across the room to her, threw her arms about her, hugged her fiercely and said, “Oh, I’m so excited! Aren’t you excited?”

“I am, yes, but Felicity, you shall crush my ribs!”

“Adoo, Paree, adoo!” she squealed again, and, giggling, began dancing and prancing about the room as though she had completely lost her wits, touching the upholstery on the chairs, fingering the silk brocade coverlet on the large bed, dancing away again, passing her hands over the wallpaper, flicking the electric lamps on and off, on and off, going to the windows again, shouting “Napoleon, we are here!” and finally collapsing onto the bed again, where she continued to giggle uncontrollably, quite affirming the surmise that she had lost her mind.

Lizzie herself, though not as exuberantly overcome, was nonetheless impressed by the size of the room and the luxurious furnishings in it. They had arranged — in order to be relieved of having to figure their daily cost at so much for the room, so much for breakfast, so much for luncheon and dinner, so much for service and the use of electricity — to pay an all-inclusive (even as concerned wine) tariff of fifteen francs per day, which came to exactly three dollars a person and which, considering the generous size and fine appointments of the room and the reputed excellence of the hotel’s table and cellar, was really an uncommonly low rate.

She might have preferred two beds in the room, as had been the case in London, but only because she herself was a restless sleeper (though she’d slept like the very dead in that city) and had been told by girl friends with whom she’d shared beds on her trips to Boston or New York or nearby Marion that sleeping with her was akin to sleeping with a squirrel, so jerky and continuous were her nocturnal fidgets. But the bed seemed spacious enough for even her reputed acrobatics, and she had been assured by Rebecca that Felicity definitely did not snore, a hazard that might have contributed to even more fitful sleep. The danger now, in fact, seemed to be that her lunatic friend might giggle the night away.

Monsieur Foubrier — the proprietor of the hotel and a gentleman of decidedly courteous and pleasant manners, who having lived in England for twenty years was as perfectly at home in English as he was in his native French — had informed them that “the five o’clock” (as he referred to the British custom of late afternoon tea) would be served shortly, if perhaps the ladies should care to freshen themselves first. Lizzie herself was famished and would have gone down without bothering to bathe or change first, but Felicity leaped suddenly off the bed, declared that she could not live another moment without a hot tub, dashed into the bathroom even as she was unlacing her corset and shouted over the roar of the running water, “Lizzie, could you possibly lay out a change of clothing for me? I’m totally encrusted with filth !”

“What did you plan on wearing?” Lizzie shouted.

“What?” Felicity shouted back.

“What did you...”

Felicity opened the bathroom door and said, “The water’s scalding hot, what did you say?”

“What do you want to wear?” Lizzie asked.

“You’re such a dear,” Felicity said, squirming out of her chemise and petticoat. “Just the things I set aside in the overnight case — oh, my Lord, we’re about to have a flood!” She dashed back into the bathroom, giggling, turned off the faucets, undressed herself completely and climbed into the tub. Splashing water, she began singing at the top of her lungs — “Oh, les enfants de la pa-tree-ee-yuh, dah-dah-dee-dah, da-da-dee-dum,” over and over again, “Oh, les enfants de la pa-tree-ee-yuh...”

The telephone rang.

“If it’s Napoleon,” Felicity shouted, “tell him I’m indisposed at the moment! Oh, les enfants de la...”

“Hello?” Lizzie said into the mouthpiece.

“Lizzie, is that you?” Alison said. “How lovely to hear your voice!”

“... pa-tree-ee-yuh,” Felicity bawled, “dah-dah-dee-dah, dah-dah...”

“What on earth is that horrendous squawling?” Alison asked.

“Felicity, I can’t hear a word!” Lizzie shouted, and in the bathroom Felicity fell comparatively silent, humming softly to herself now as she soaped and splashed about.

“Has someone been beheaded in your room?” Alison asked. “I shouldn’t put it past the French.”

“It’s Felicity in the tub,” Lizzie said.

“Advise her not to seek an operatic career, won’t you?” Alison said. “My dear, how are you? Did my great lummox of a brother treat you grandly in my absence? If not, say the word and I’ll have him shot at dawn.”

“He was most attentive,” Lizzie said. “And gentlemanly. And thoroughly charming. You didn’t tell me you were twins. I was so surprised when he...”