The Memory of Lost Senses (31 page)

And then she called out to her son and bade him adieu.

“What about your aunt’s marriage to Prospero?” Sylvia was saying.

“Hmm?”

“What would you like to have recorded about that?”

“Oh, well, one must include that, and all the changes at that time. It was, I suppose, the beginning of the end . . . in Rome.”

The year after Antonin’s death, and months after the death of James Staunton in Rome, Cora returned to France, to an apartment situated off the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, in Paris. It was an area she knew well. She had given the matter considerable thought and could think of no better place to live. Expatriate Rome, she had decided, was too small, too confined, and she had no wish to live permanently with her newly widowed aunt. In Paris she would be free, without any need to look over her shoulder. And where better to be a widow?

A trust set up by James Staunton ensured that her son’s educational and personal expenses were more than adequately provided for, and with a small income from investments she was at last “of independent means.” Georgie was to be dispatched to boarding school in England, her aunt resided in another country, and she had no husband to curtail her activities. She also knew that George made regular trips to Paris.

At that time reminders of the city’s recent struggle were visible everywhere, but for Cora nowhere was more poignant than the burned-out ruin of the Tuileries Palace. The opulent, lavishly furnished rooms, built by Catherine de Medici and home to the sovereigns of France for hundreds of years, had perished, and all that remained was the charred façade. But Paris, like Cora, was about to go through a process of reinvigoration and reinvention. New wide streets and boulevards, pleasure gardens, squares and fountains would give the city an altogether bright and modern feel. Paris reawakened Cora to her love of city life, and the bustling cafés, thronged streets, constant movement of people and vehicles, the daily spectacle of the city’s wealthy fashion-conscious residents, made her feel as though she was living at the very hub of the universe, the capital not just of France, but of the world.

For a number of years Cora’s routine remained unchanged. She spent her mornings idly shopping, buying brocades, feathers and lace to add to hats and costumes, visiting her seamstress, or passing through the endless rooms of paintings and marbles in the Musée du Louvre galleries. Each afternoon she pulled on her riding habit and bowler, ordered her horse to be brought round, and set off sidesaddle for the Bois de Boulogne. Evenings were filled with the opera, theater, and endless dinners where she indulged in her love of conversation, updating herself on the political swirls and rumbles from Rome and London.

Cora’s aunt was by now a formidable force in Rome, and, at the age of seventy-one, had remarried. A colonel in the Noble Guards of his Holiness the Pope, Prospero Cansacchi was a decade younger than Fanny Staunton, with an ancient lineage, a palazzo, and a title.

Fanny’s marriage pleased Cora greatly, and she wasted no time in placing an announcement in the London
Times: Mrs. Francesca Staunton, widow of the late James Staunton of Rome, aunt of the Countess de Chevalier de Saint Léger, was married to Count Prospero Cansacchi di Amelia, at Amelia, Italy, on Saturday last
.

The newly styled Contessa Cansacchi visited her niece in Paris, but whilst Cora relished the relentless merry-go-round of the French capital’s colorful nightlife, her aunt still preferred the coziness of expatriate Rome. The world of her stylish niece was exciting and glamorous, but it was much too fast and modern for the old contessa. But Rome, too, was changing, and the medieval town inside the ancient city walls had been all but swept away. The narrow streets and ramshackle buildings of Cora’s early days had been replaced with grand civic buildings and fine hotels, and the construction of a vast monument to Victor Emmanuel II had commenced on the ancient site at Capitoline Hill, overshadowing the old Piazza d’Ara Coeli and dwarfing its tiny, crumbling fountain.

Many of the English expatriates, rattled by the changes and upheaval, had returned home, knowing that an era had ended. But each winter continued to deliver a few familiar if tired faces, as well as a steady stream of seemingly deliriously happy new ones, enjoying their first Grand Tour. Hungry for souvenirs, artifacts and paintings, the new visitors were different to the old ones: they were rich. And though Cora’s aunt and others considered their seasonal guests to be rather insensitive, vulgar and brash, Cora had no issue with new money. Privately, she preferred many of the jolly new arrivals to the somewhat pessimistic and impoverished expatriates. She was enthralled by their bravado as much as their wealth, for where the expatriate set were able to exude a collective artistic sensibility and an appreciation for the antiquated beauty in their midst, their bejeweled visitors were able to purchase it.

Invitations to the elderly Contessa Cansacchi’s soirees were highly sought after by visitors to Rome. Her apartment, though a little overcrowded with ornamentation, seemed to them to bear all the hallmarks of old money, with a distinctly continental style. And her soirees were invariably a mix of the old and new crowd, as well as Italian and French nobility. New arrivals, who had visited Paris en route to Rome, were told, “Ah, so you were in Paris . . . you may have met my niece, the Countess de Chevalier de Saint Léger?” It was heady stuff for many of them, and partly what they had come to Europe for: to be educated, purchase art and make interesting connections. And when the Countess de Chevalier de Saint Léger was in residence, staying with her aunt, she only added to the array of foreign titles on offer. She was altogether different to anyone back in England.

As knowledgeable as she was fashionable, her gowns—all from Paris—were of exquisite taste, something money alone could not buy. Yet it was also noted that the younger countess had an easy ability to relate to the common man. Her manner was as of much interest and note as the size of her bustle or the height of her hair, the way in which she used her hands or held her glass or fork; the subjects she chose to speak about and those she preferred to remain silent on. She appeared to encapsulate all that was glamorous in a modern cosmopolitan society, and yet—and without offending anyone—she also broke any number of rules. She held opinions and challenged men quite openly, displaying a confidence that was rare and exciting and frightening at the same time. Her once golden hair had a silver hue, and was worn in a fashionable up-knot, usually adorned with a jewel-encrusted comb or exotic plume. Her face, everyone noted, had an uncommon youthfulness about it, and her usual expression of aloof detachment was softened by the teasing suggestion of a smile about her mouth, which men—and in particular the man who would be her next husband—found quite beguiling.

Chapter Sixteen

“
If you touch her again I’ll kill you,” she says, in a new voice, holding the knife out in front of them.

“Whores,” he says, and spits on the floor. “Bloody whores, both of you.”

And then he turns and leaves the room.

“
Paris! That was my zenith,” Cora said to Sylvia.

But they had already
done
Paris. Sylvia knew all about Paris. She knew full well that the
happiest days
of her life had been spent there, where he was—where George was—so often, so easily. It had been their place of rendezvous, and for so many years. Wasn’t that why she had moved there, to be able to see him? Oh, Cora always claimed she had lived there because she loved the place, particularly at that time. But Sylvia knew better.

“I rather think we’ve covered Paris,” Sylvia said.

“It was his favorite city, you know?” Cora went on. “The one place we could meet and . . . just
be
. The one place people didn’t bother him, make demands on him, his time. Where he was able to be himself, able to relax.”

Sylvia nodded. “But didn’t Mrs. Hillier keep a house there?”

Cora jerked. “What has that to do with anything? I hope you’re not including
her
in the book. I want no mention of her. None at all. Yes, she kept a house in Paris, as you well know, but she was in very poor health by then, bedridden, and quite unable to leave England. And anyway, she and George’s friendship had long since ended.”

Sylvia chose not to mention Evie Dipple, George’s muse and sitter at that time, reputed to keep house for him in London. Cora had turned a blind eye to it, so she would too.

“And I want absolutely no mention of that awful Evie Dipple woman either,” Cora suddenly said, as though reading Sylvia’s thoughts. “Or any of the others.”

“Of course not.”

After a few minutes, Sylvia—who had been silently practicing, building up to it—said, “Shall we make a few notes about your early life?”

“Fine,” Cora said, looking away, across the garden.

But as soon as Cora mentioned Standen Hall, Sylvia shook her head and put down her pencil. “You need to be truthful, Cora. You’re not being truthful
enough
.” She closed her notebook. “But we can ponder on it, return to it tomorrow. It will allow you a little time to think things through.”

“Think things through,” Cora repeated vaguely.

Yes, she needed to think things through, she thought; unravel fact from fiction. The truth, the glimpses she had had of it of late, was hazy and blurred, and dreamlike. Had she dreamed her life? she wondered. If only her aunt were still alive, she would tell her what to do. For hadn’t she always told her what to do, how to be,
who
to be?

But Sylvia’s words—suspended about the ether
and
in print—had confused her further. Stories based on her life, inspired by
her version
of her life, had been recorded, over and over, with differing permutations and endings, and always without any beginning. She glanced about the garden, back to her friend and away again.

Then, out of the blue, Sylvia said, “Actually, if we aren’t going to work on the memoirs, do you mind if we
do
talk about Paris again? Harriett is back there, you see, she has returned to Armand and I need to immerse myself—set the scene.”

“I thought they were at Lucca?”

Sylvia laughed. “Really, dear, that was chapter fifteen; this is chapter twenty-four! Possibly the penultimate chapter.”

“Possibly? Dependent upon what?”

“Well, whether Armand takes her back, of course.”

“Of course? But haven’t you decided? One would have thought as their creator you have
some
say in their fate.”

Sylvia raised her eyes, pensive for a moment, then said, “Yes, to a certain extent I do. But I never decide my endings until I arrive there. And I chose Paris because you’ve always told me that it is the most romantic city, a city for lovers.”

Cora’s head throbbed. The heat was stifling. A storm was forecast. Sylvia had read it out to her. And the whalebone, holding her in, holding everything in, made it almost impossible for her to breathe. Sylvia meant well, she knew that, but her constant fussing and need to please had become irksome, and almost as intolerable as the heat. She felt no sense of peace, or space, and that feeling of claustrophobia only added to her discomfiture. And the questions: always asking, wanting to know something about something—a date, person, place, who was who, who had said what to whom. She hadn’t meant to snap, and had no wish to be discourteous or unkind, but really, surely Sylvia could see it was too much. And after all, it was her wretched story.