A Good Woman

Chapter 22

There was a mild outbreak of influenza in Paris that summer, some thought from the heat, and Annabelle had several patients in the hospital. She visited them twice a day, but she was hoping to go away with Consuelo and Brigitte in August. She couldn’t decide between Dordogne, Brittany, or the South of France. As it turned out, they never got to any of those places. She had too many sick people to tend to. They went to Deauville, at the seashore in Normandy, instead for a few days, when her patients recovered.

And after they got back, two more of her patients were hospitalized with pneumonia. She was leaving the hospital late one afternoon, thinking about the patient she’d just visited, an elderly woman who wasn’t doing well. Annabelle was trying to come up with some new solutions for her many problems, when she bumped into someone on the steps of the hospital, coming up as she was going down. They hit each other with such force that he almost knocked her over, and made a quick save to grab her before she fell down the stairs.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said apologetically. “I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

“Neither was I.” He was equally apologetic and had a dazzling smile. “Were you visiting a friend?” It was an honest mistake and she laughed.

“No, I’m a doctor.” At least he hadn’t asked if she was a nurse.

“What a happy coincidence,” he said, laughing back at her. “So am I. Why have I never been fortunate enough to meet you before?” He was very charming, and she wasn’t used to bantering with men that way. For years now, she had hidden behind her role as a doctor, widow, or Consuelo’s mother. Men never flirted with her, but he seemed full of mischief and fun and was undeniably very goodlooking. “What’s your specialty?” he asked with interest, not in the least bothered that they had had no formal introduction. He told her his name was Antoine de St. Gris, and asked for hers, which she gave him. He refused to believe she was American, since she spoke such flawless French.

“I’m in general medicine,” she said simply, embarrassed to be talking to a stranger.

“I’m an orthopedic surgeon,” he said with visible panache. She knew that most of the orthopedic surgeons had big egos, except during the war when they had been humbled, like everyone else, by what they saw, and how little of the damage they could repair.

He walked her back down the steps of the hospital, to ensure that she didn’t fall, he said, and saw her to the car that she drove herself.

“Will I be fortunate enough to see you again?” he asked with a twinkle in his eye, and she laughed.

“If I break my leg, I’ll call you.”

“Don’t wait until then. Or I’ll have to develop pneumonia and call you. And it would be such a shame. I would much prefer to see you while we’re both healthy.” He waved as she drove away and hurried back up the hospital steps. It had put a little spark in her day to have a man chat with her. It happened to her so rarely, almost never.

She spent a quiet evening reading to Consuelo and put her to bed. And the next day in the office, she was in the midst of seeing patients when Hélène told her that there was a doctor in the waiting room, demanding to see her immediately. He said he had to consult her about a case. She finished with her patient, and walked out, puzzled. She couldn’t imagine who it was. And there was Antoine de St. Gris in a handsome blue topcoat, creating havoc in her waiting room, entertaining the patients, most of whom were laughing. He had been telling them jokes, and she took him into her office for a moment.

“What are you doing here?” she asked with an embarrassed smile. It pleased her to see him again, but she was working. “I’m seeing patients.”

“I’m very impressed. I think I caught a severe cold last night. I have a very bad sore throat.” He stuck his tongue out for her to look at when he said it. And she laughed at him. He was outrageous, irreverent, and embarrassingly charming.

“It looks fine to me.”

“How’s your leg?” he asked.

“My leg? Fine. Why?”

“It looks broken to me. Let me have a look at it.” He made as though to reach for the hem of her skirt, and she stepped away from him, laughing.

“Doctor, I must ask you to leave. I have to see my patients.”

“Fine, if you’re going to be that way. Then see me tonight for dinner.”

“Uh…I don’t…I can’t…”

“You can’t even think of a decent excuse.” He laughed at her. “That’s truly pathetic. I’ll pick you up at eight.” And with that, he went back to the waiting room, waved at her patients, and left. He was completely overwhelming, very improper, and in spite of that, or maybe because of it, very appealing, almost irresistible in fact.

“Who was that?” Hélène asked with a look of disapproval, before ushering the next patient in.

“He’s an orthopedic surgeon.”

“That explains everything,” Hélène growled, and noticed the girlish expression on her employer’s face. She had never seen her look that way before. “He’s a lunatic,” Hélène added, and then smiled in spite of herself. “A good-looking lunatic though. Are you going to see him again?”

Annabelle blushed. “Tonight. For dinner.”

“Uh-oh. Watch out for him,” Hélène warned.

“I will,” Annabelle reassured her, and then went back to seeing patients.

She got to the house after seven that night, after her last patient and closing the office. Consuelo was in the bathtub, laughing with Brigitte. Annabelle looked at her watch and realized that she had less than an hour to dress for dinner with the slightly outrageous Dr. St. Gris. She went in to kiss Consuelo, who wanted to play cards with her mother after the bath.

“I can’t,” Annabelle said apologetically. “I’m going out.”

“You are?” Consuelo looked shocked. It was a most unusual occurrence. In fact, it never happened, except once in a great while if Annabelle went to a meeting of physicians, or a conference for women doctors. Other than that, she never went out, and had no social life, not since leaving New York nine years before. So her announcement had the effect of a bomb dropped in their midst. “Where are you going?”

“To dinner with a doctor,” she said innocently.

“Oh. Where?” Consuelo wanted to know everything, and her mother looked slightly embarrassed.

“I don’t know. He’s picking me up at eight.”

“He is? What does he look like?”

“Just a person,” Annabelle said vaguely. She didn’t want to say that he was very good-looking. She left the bathroom then, and went to get dressed. It was a warm night. She wore a white linen suit she had bought in Deauville, and a very pretty hat she had found with it. She felt a little silly getting all dressed up, but it wasn’t every day she got invited out to dinner, and she couldn’t have worn the suit or hat for work.

Antoine de St. Gris arrived promptly at eight, and Brigitte let him in. She seated him in the drawing room, and having been unattended for five minutes, Consuelo came bouncing down the stairs in her nightgown and dressing gown. She walked into the living room and smiled at him, as Brigitte attempted unsuccessfully to shoo her back upstairs.

“Hello,” she said cheerfully. “Are you the doctor having dinner with my mother?” She was missing her two front teeth currently, which made her look particularly cute.

“Yes, I am. What happened to your teeth?” Antoine asked, looking right at her.

“I lost them,” she said proudly.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said seriously. “I hope you find them soon. It could be very annoying to grow up without teeth. How would you ever eat an apple?”

She giggled at what he said. “No, I won’t find them. A fairy took them and left me candy instead. I’m going to get new ones soon. I can already feel them… see?” She turned her head at a funny angle, half upside down, and showed him the little white edges peeking through her gums.

“Oh, I’m so glad,” he said with a broad grin as Annabelle walked into the room, and saw her daughter conversing happily with the doctor.

“Have you two met?” she asked, looking a little nervous.

“Not officially,” he confessed, and then bowed elegantly to Consuelo. “Antoine de St. Gris,” he said formally. “I am honored to meet you, particularly now that I know you’re going to get new teeth.” She giggled again. Annabelle introduced her daughter, who curtsied properly to Antoine. “Ready?” he asked Annabelle, and she nodded. She kissed Consuelo, told her to go upstairs and get ready for bed, since she had had dinner before her bath. Consuelo scampered up the stairs with a wave at their guest, as Annabelle followed him out of the house. “I’m sorry,” he said seriously, as he led her to the beautiful blue Ballot Open Tourer he had left outside. It was a very elegant car and suited him to perfection. Everything about him was stylish, smooth, and assured. “I shouldn’t be taking you out at all. I’m spoken for. I’ve just fallen madly in love with your daughter. She must be the most adorable child I’ve ever seen.” Annabelle smiled at what he’d said.

“You have a nice way with children.”

“I was one, a long time ago. My mother insists I still am and never grew up.” Annabelle could see why she would say that, but his boyishness was part of his charm. She wondered how old he was, and guessed him to be around thirty-five, which would make him four years older than she was. They were very close in age, but Annabelle had a far more serious, reserved demeanor. He was a little bit of a handsome, charming clown. She liked how lighthearted he was, and he had a nice sense of humor. The patients in her waiting room had loved it too. So did his.

They chatted easily as he drove her to Maxim’s. She had never been there, and knew that it was one of the best restaurants in Paris, and a very fashionable place. It had been there forever.

When they arrived, it was obvious that he was well known to them. The headwaiter acknowledged him, and he was well acquainted with people at several tables and introduced Annabelle to them proudly. He introduced her as Dr. Worthington, which always made her feel important. She had worked hard for her title.

He suggested what she might like to eat, and ordered dinner for them, with a bottle of champagne. She very rarely drank, but the champagne made the evening feel like a celebration. She hadn’t been out with a man for an evening like this since Josiah, ten years before. Her life had been entirely different here in France, at the front, in medical school, and now as Consuelo’s mother, and suddenly here she was at Maxim’s with Antoine. It was entirely unexpected and a treat.

“How long have you been widowed?” he asked her gently over dinner.

“Since before Consuelo was born,” she said simply.

“That’s a long time to be alone, assuming you have been,” he asked, prying a little. He was curious about her. She was an unusual woman-beautiful, distinguished, clearly well born, and a doctor. He had never met anyone quite like her, and was very attracted to her.

“I have been,” she confirmed, and in fact, she had been alone for a lot longer. Nine years, since Josiah had left her, but she couldn’t tell him that.

“You couldn’t have been married for long,” he said, looking thoughtful.

“Only a few months. He was killed at the front, right after we were married. We met where I was working at Villers-Cotterêts, at the hospital Elsie Inglis set up, with female medical units.”

“Were you already a physician then?” He looked confused, as that would have made her older than she looked. She appeared very young to him.

“No.” She smiled. “Just a medic. I left medical school to work there. I worked at L’Abbaye de Royaumont before that, in Asnières. I went back to medical school after Consuelo was born.”

“You’re a very enterprising woman, and very brave,” he said, sounding impressed, as they ate dinner, which was delicious. He had ordered lobster, and she was having a delicate veal dish. “What made you want to become a doctor?” He wanted to know everything about her.

“Same thing as you probably. I’ve loved science and medicine since I was a child. I just never thought I’d get the chance to do it. What about you?”

“My father and both my brothers are physicians. And my mother should have been. She tells us all what we do wrong. And I hate to admit it, but sometimes she’s right.” He laughed. “She’s been helping my father in his office for years. But why are you practicing here and not in the States?” He still couldn’t get over the fact that she wasn’t French, she spoke the language like a native. He would never have suspected she was American.

“I don’t know. It didn’t happen there. I came here to volunteer for the war effort. And then I just fell into a series of circumstances. One of the surgeons in Asnières helped me get into medical school in Nice. And I could never have done it while my parents were alive. My mother was never happy about my fascination with medicine. She thought I’d wind up catching a disease. I worked with immigrants in New York.”

“Well, lucky for me that you came over here. Do you think you’ll go back to the States one day?”

She shook her head solemnly. “I have no one left there. All my family are gone.”

“That’s very sad,” he said sympathetically. “I’m very close to mine. I would be lost without them. We’re something of a tribe.” She liked that about him. It seemed warm and friendly, and if they were all as much fun as he was, they must have been a lively group. “What about your late husband’s family? Do you see them?”

“Very little. They’re in England. Although Consuelo’s grandmother came over recently. She’s a very nice woman.” But she didn’t tell him it had been the first time they’d ever met.

There was so much about her history that she couldn’t tell him. That her real husband had left her and was in love with a man. That she was divorced because of that. That she’d been raped and never married to Consuelo’s father. The truth was far more shocking than the version she told. The worst of it was that she was paying for sins she hadn’t committed, and would all her life. He was so easygoing that she could almost imagine he wouldn’t be as shocked by the truth as some might be. But she wouldn’t tell him anyway. The history she told was one of complete respectability, and he had no reason to suspect otherwise. Everything she said was eminently believable, and she looked so proper that no one would ever expect anything less of her.

He commented during dinner that he had never been married. Specializing in orthopedic surgery had kept him in medical school for a long time, which he had attended in Paris at the Faculté de Médecine. He had trained at the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, and the war had interrupted his studies for a while. He somehow let it slip out that he had been decorated twice during the war. Despite his joking style, he was an impressive person, and it was obvious that he thought the same of her. As she talked to him over dinner, she felt as though he had been dropped into her life like a gift from heaven. She was glad he had almost knocked her down the stairs at the hospital, otherwise she would never have met him. And he seemed equally pleased to have found her.

When he drove her home he asked when he could see her again. She had no other conflicting engagements, for the rest of her life in fact, except dinner and evenings with Consuelo, and he promised to call the next day and make a plan. And much to her amazement, he did.

She was sitting at her desk, filling out files on the patients she had seen that morning, when Hélène told her he was on the line. He invited her to dinner the coming Saturday, in two days. He was suddenly an unexpected pleasure in her life. And he asked if on Sunday, she and Consuelo would like to have lunch with his two brothers and their children, at his parents’ home. It was a very appealing invitation. And she mentioned it to Consuelo that night. She was delighted. Consuelo thought he had been very funny about her teeth. She looked at her mother thoughtfully then and volunteered that he was nice. Annabelle agreed that he was.

On Saturday, he took her to La Tour d’Argent for dinner, which was even more elegant than Maxim’s. She wore a very simple well-cut black dress, and Lady Winshire’s emerald ring. Annabelle had no other jewelry in France, but she looked very stylish nonetheless. Her natural beauty was more striking than anything she wore. And they had a wonderful time again, talking until almost midnight about a great many things-the war, surgery, medicine, the reconstruction of Europe. He was a fascinating dinner partner and fun to be with.

The day they spent with him on Sunday was even better. As it turned out, his parents’ home was only a few blocks from her house. His brothers were as entertaining as he was, and their wives were very sweet. Their children were around the same age as Consuelo, and the whole family talked medicine constantly, which Annabelle loved. His mother was a benevolent tyrant who ruled them all. She scolded Antoine frequently, and rolled her eyes in disgust that he still wasn’t married, and said so. She seemed to approve of Annabelle, and refused to believe that she wasn’t French and had grown up in New York. She let Consuelo sit on her lap, and all the others, and then chased them all out into the garden to play. By the time he took Annabelle and Consuelo home, they were all pleasantly exhausted and had had a wonderful day.

“Thank you for putting up with my mother,” he said with a smile. “I don’t usually take people home for Sunday lunch. Most women would run screaming out the door.”

“I loved it,” Annabelle said honestly. She missed her own family so much that she found his an enormous blessing, and it was wonderful for Consuelo to be around families like that, with aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents. It was everything they lacked. And Consuelo had enjoyed every minute of it, even more than her mother did. “Thank you for taking us.”

“We’ll do it again,” he promised. “I’ll call you and we’ll organize some dinners for this week.” Not just one. Several. Suddenly, Antoine had become a major feature in her life, and she had to admit, he made her very happy. And his family was an added bonus in her eyes.

He called her on Tuesday, and invited her to dinner on Friday night, and he suggested that they have lunch at La Cascade, one of the oldest and nicest restaurants in Paris, on Saturday, and with his family on Sunday again if she could stand it. He was giving her a major rush.

And every one of their dates was absolute perfection. Dinner on Friday at the Ritz was exquisite, just as the two previous dinners had been. Lunch at La Cascade was sumptuous and relaxing, and they went for a walk in the gardens of Bagatelle afterward and admired the peacocks. When he brought her home later, she invited him to stay for an early dinner with her and Consuelo in their kitchen. And after that, he played cards with Consuelo, and she screamed with glee when she beat him, which Annabelle suspected was fixed.

Their Sunday with his family was even better than the first one. His family was a classic example of the French bourgeoisie, with all its opinions, political views, unspoken rules and etiquette, and solid family values, all of which she loved. She was as traditional as they were, and enjoyed talking to both his sisters-in-law before lunch, chatting about their children.

After lunch she fell into medical discussions with his brothers, one of whom had been a surgeon in Asnières, although they had never met, since she was already in medical school when he was assigned there. They all seemed to have a great deal in common, and Annabelle fit right in.

The following weekend, Antoine invited her to Deauville with Consuelo. He had booked separate rooms for them, and there was no question of anything being less than circumspect. Consuelo was over the moon at the prospect, and so was she. They stayed at a wonderful hotel, walked on the boardwalk together, gathered seashells, looked in all the shops, and had delicious meals of seafood. Annabelle said she didn’t know how to thank him when they got back. Consuelo went upstairs sleepily with Brigitte after the long drive, and Antoine and Annabelle stood in her courtyard as he looked tenderly at her. He gently touched her face with his long surgeon’s fingers, and then he kissed her, and afterward pulled her into his arms.

“I’ve fallen in love with you, Annabelle,” he said softly, sounding shocked himself, and she was equally shaken by what he said. But she felt the same way. She had never known anyone as wonderful as he was, or as kind to her and her daughter. She hadn’t felt this way about anyone, not even Josiah, who had always been more of a friend, and was less romantic. Antoine had totally swept her off her feet, and she was as madly in love as he was. And it had all happened so quickly. He kissed her again then, and felt that she was shaking. “Don’t be afraid, my darling,” he reassured her. And then he added, “Now I know why I’ve never married.” He looked down at her with a long, slow smile. He was the happiest man on earth, and she the happiest woman. “I was waiting for you,” he whispered as he held her.

“So was I,” she said, melting in his arms. She felt totally, completely safe with him. The one thing she already knew about Antoine, and trusted completely, was that he would never hurt her. She had never been as sure of anyone in her life.