Джанет Скеслин Чарльз - The Paris Library

“What on earth?” I giggled. “You’re like a little boy, pounding like that. Are you really so impatient?”

He grabbed my hands. “Let’s get married.”

It was like he’d read my mind.

“We’ll elope,” he said. “Today. A civil service.”

“Don’t the banns have to be up? Maman will be devastated if we don’t marry in the church. Besides, I’d like Margaret to be my maid of honor.”

“Marriage is about the two of us, nobody else. Your parents will understand. Forget the banns, I have a special license. I’ve carried it in my pocket for a long time now, hoping.”

“A special license?”

“Please say yes.”

Paul always knew what I wanted. “ Embrasse-moi ,” I said.

In my arms, he trembled. “I love you. I love you so much. We’ll go away, we’ll never come back.”

Would my parents be disappointed if Paul and I eloped, or secretly relieved? There was no money for a bridal dress much less a wedding feast. One thing was certain: after the long limbo of the Occupation, I wanted to be with Paul.

“Yes!”

“Leave a note for your parents. We’ll go to my aunt’s for our honeymoon. I need to get away! We need to get away.”

“Are you all right? You don’t seem like yourself. Maybe we should wait.”

“Haven’t we waited long enough? I want to marry you. I want a honeymoon.”

Honeymoon , I thought dreamily, packing a few tattered dresses, the nightgown from my trousseau (almost sure Maman wouldn’t mind), and dear Emily Dickinson for the train trip. Paul called the stationmaster and asked him to get word to his aunt. Scarcely out the door, my suitcase clasped in his hand, I said, “Hold on! I can’t leave work.”

“Tell them you need a week for our honeymoon. How can they say no to true love?”

As I penned a note for the neighbor girl to deliver, I wondered if eloping was romantic or rash.

At the counter of the mairie , the secretary didn’t look up from her paperwork. “Come back next week. The mayor has a full schedule.”

I hadn’t been so sure about eloping, but now that there was opposition… “Please,” I said, “we’re in love.”

“Paris may have been liberated,” Paul added, a twitch of hysteria in his tone, “but there’s a war on. No one knows what the future holds. We’re getting married, and you’re going to help.”

Taking in our tense expressions, she went to see if the mayor would perform a spur-of-the-moment ceremony. Paul paced; I sat on a scarred wooden chair. We should have done this years ago, but I’d wanted Rémy at my side. I touched the empty seat beside me.

“I wish he could be here, too,” Paul said.

The secretary led us to the salle des mariages , where wispy clouds covered the light blue paint of the ceiling. The mayor donned his blue, white, and red sash and commenced the ceremony. Paul wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. He was so nervous that when the time came to say “I do,” the mayor had to nudge him.

In the train compartment, Paul picked up the newspaper and read a line, then folded it hastily and set it on his lap. He crossed and uncrossed his legs. Each time he fidgeted, his knee jostled mine.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, rubbing my leg.

“Nothing.”

“No regrets?”

“Regrets?” He regarded me warily.

“About getting married.”

He placed his clammy hand over mine. “I loved you from the first instant I saw you.”

“You loved Maman’s pork roast.”

“What I wouldn’t give for a huge slice now.”

We’d taken so much for granted.

Paul’s aunt Pierrette met us at the station with the swayback horse and wagon. “You’re the one we’ve heard so much about! Pleasure to meet you.” Her ruddy skin was like leather, but she looked healthier than most Parisians.

In the hearth, a pheasant roasted on the spit. Fat drizzled into the fire; flames jumped and sent up smoke. I hadn’t smelled this rich aroma in years, and my mouth watered. On the table, steam rose from the mashed potatoes in a ceramic bowl. I wished I could dive right in.

“It isn’t much of a wedding feast,” Aunt Pierrette said. “But I didn’t have much notice, either.” She pinched Paul, and he grinned bashfully.

“It’s a feast to us,” I said.

I tried to eat slowly, but dinner was too delicious—Paul and I wolfed it down. His aunt left us alone to enjoy dessert by the light of the fire. Paul fed me spoonfuls of flan. The cream slipped down my throat, dewy drops of happiness.

In our room, Paul worked a hand under my skirt while I closed the shutters. “Be patient! I have to put on my nightgown.”

“I can’t wait.” He pushed me onto the bed. I kissed him softly. He unfastened his trousers and tugged my skirt up.

“Slow down,” I murmured as he shoved my underthings aside. “We have our whole lives.”

“I love you.” He plunged inside me. “Promise you’ll never leave me. No matter what.”

“Of course, I promise.”

THE NEXT MORNING, he harnessed the horse, and we rode the wagon to the village to buy a ring. In the display case at the jeweler’s, dozens of alliances , wedding bands, gleamed, surely sold for a few francs by desperate people.

“It’s not bad luck?” I asked Paul as he slipped one on my finger.

“A happy marriage doesn’t depend on luck, but on intentions,” the jeweler replied.

The gold band fit perfectly. For the next seven days, I could barely stop grinning.

THE TRAIN TO Paris was delayed. When I fretted about being late for work, Paul insisted we could go to the Library directly from the station. “You don’t have to accompany me,” I said.

“But I want to, Madame Martin. And you need someone to carry your suitcase.”

“Won’t you be late?”

“I’m on evenings this week.”

In the reading room, on the table in front of the windows, I was stunned to see a wedding cake, chocolates, champagne, and a samovar for tea.

“You planned this?” I asked him.

“They did.” He gestured to our well-wishers. There was the Countess looking proud. Boris and Bitsi beaming. M. de Nerciat and Mr. Pryce-Jones bickering, “Told you they’d get married.” “No, I told you .” And Eugénie with my parents?

“I can see why you enjoy working here,” my father said. “I wish I’d visited sooner.”

“Oh, Papa! I’m glad you’re here now.”

“Congratulations, ma fille ,” Maman said as she and Eugénie embraced me.

I gushed over the sugary wedding cake (Oh, the rations everyone had donated! That meant more to me than anything!) and regaled them with Paul’s passionate proposal. He then recounted the ceremony.

“Where’s Margaret?” I asked Bitsi.

“She hasn’t been in this week. We sent an invitation, but she didn’t reply.”

I frowned. Was she ill, or was Christina? I started toward the telephone, but a cork popped—the sign of celebration, my favorite sound in the whole world—and the Countess proffered a glass of champagne. Paul and I listened to tributes from family and friends as we filled our faces with cake. I barely noticed when he kissed my cheek and slipped away to work.

Tipsy from the celebration, I tottered to Margaret’s, along the gilded Alexandre III bridge, where I caught a glimpse of the Eiffel Tower. “Hullo, you beautiful iron lady!” I cried out to her.

At the door, Isa greeted me. A maid at the door? How peculiar. Perhaps the butler was ill, too. “Madame isn’t here.”

“When will she be back?”

Isa tried to shut the door. “She’s not going anywhere in her condition.”

I pushed my way in. “In her condition? Is she… with child?”