Monet's Angels

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Monet's Angels Page 34

by Jennifer Pulling


  ‘I didn’t mean this.’ Blanche felt herself on the verge of tears. ‘I’m sorry, so sorry. If there is anything I can do?’

  Judith was silent for a moment, then she said: ‘there is one thing you can do for me. Don’t tell Monet you have seen me like this. I want him to remember me how I was, the day he sketched me and told me I reminded him of Camille.’

  ‘Very well, and what about your return to America?’

  ‘Ah, Father and Mother have taken complete control of all that. I’m to have a nurse accompany me and first class travel all the way. My every whim satisfied.’ She grimaced. ‘But I don’t expect to find Charlie waiting on the quay.’

  ‘Why not? He loves you.’

  For the first time, Judith met Blanche’s gaze. ‘Oh madame, our worlds are so very different, more different than perhaps even you know. You were right when you told me that people here take care of each other, they have a sense of duty and strong family ties. It’s dog eat dog in New York. Charlie’s family would never agree to his being saddled with a cripple. It wouldn’t do at all. There’s the difference. It has taken this to make me understand.’

  – FORTY-SEVEN –

  ROBERT

  ‘I couldn’t be the one to tell her, how could I when I didn’t believe it myself, that she wouldn’t walk or dance again? And anyway, it wasn’t confirmed then, there was still hope.’

  It seemed to Robert, someone else was speaking in a voice that gasped for breath, as if the words choked him.

  ‘So what exactly happened?’ Harry urged. He had gone in search of Robert and found him in his room, where he had stayed all day. ‘You went to the hospital…’

  Robert stared out of the window, down into the garden where a cat lay sunning itself. It surprised him how the world could continue, unconcerned while tragedy occurred.

  Icarus and Daedalus, Judith and he, the one reckless, the other fearful. Daedalus made fragile wings of feathers, glued together with wax. They would not withstand the heat of the sun. But the joy of flight, the ecstasy of floating through another element was too powerful for young Icarus and he forgot his father’s warnings. Soaring higher and higher still, the wax melted, the feathers fell away and he dropped like a stone into the sea.

  ‘I went to the hospital and gave my name. I said I was a friend of Mademoiselle Goldstein and wanted to visit. The woman on duty gave me an odd look, which made me nervous. Then she said: “I don’t believe Mademoiselle Goldstein wishes to see you.” Had she taken a turn for the worse? I asked. “No, she is doing well in spite of everything, but I am afraid you cannot see her.”’

  Robert turned to face his friend. He recalled his puzzlement, his raised voice, and then suddenly Dr Brown was there. The young man appeared more than ever ill at ease.

  He drew Robert down the corridor, saying softly, ‘Pardon, M’sieur Harrison, but the young lady will not see you because she says you lied to her. You told her she would walk again. I know,’ he continued, ‘I know what we agreed, but I believe she needs to put blame on someone.’

  ‘The doctor thinks she needs to blame someone for all this and she’s right, Harry. We are all to blame.’

  Harry sighed. ‘How do you make that out? Come on Robert, don’t take on so.’

  ‘She may have looked so confident and she certainly seemed to be able to take care of herself.’ Robert stared at his friend. ‘But she’s so young, Harry, and naïve in many ways. Until she came here, she’d been pampered and petted all her life. Suddenly she’s pitched into another world where the mores are so different. She carried on in the only way she knew how, but in the end she couldn’t cope. And I…’ he broke off, shaking his head from side to side.’ I want to tell her I’m sorry and I can’t, if she refuses to see me. I want to comfort her. Soon she’ll be going back to America and I have to live with all this.’

  ‘Now listen here.’ Harry rose from the bed and crossed the room to lay his hand on Robert’s shoulder. ‘You cannot take all the blame for this, you’ll drive yourself mad if you do. You’re right, she is a young lady used to having everything her way. You can’t take responsibility for that.’

  Robert had a momentary vision of Florence, flushed and excited, dancing to the black fiddler’s reel. ‘She could be difficult.’

  ‘Difficult! She was downright impossible, she…’ Harry paused. ‘Hey, there’s been enough trouble between us over the past few months. Isn’t it time we stopped quarrelling?’

  ‘Yes,’ Robert nodded, ‘you’re right.’ He smiled. ‘Truce?’

  ‘Truce. Now come down and have some dinner. Starving yourself is not going to help her.’

  The following morning, Robert sought out Harry and found him, painting in the studio. He hesitated in the doorway until the other looked round. His night had been spent sleeping fitfully with thoughts of Judith, lonely and helpless in that hospital bed, coming and going in his mind. At times, he seemed to hear his mother’s voice: ‘take good care of her, Robert.’

  Harry said, ‘What’s wrong? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.’

  Robert had started up in his bed, pressing his hands to the sides of his head as the images of the two young women seemed to unite, while he heard his parents’ sad tone: ‘now you’re not to blame yourself, son.’

  ‘Harry, I’ve been thinking. I don’t believe I can stay in Giverny. How can I? Life here will never be the same again.’

  Harry laid down his brush. ‘Shall we go for a walk?’

  They went a short distance along by the river until they came to the bench.

  ‘Judith’s bench,’ said Robert. ‘She told me she sat here when she wanted to work things out. Oh God, when I think about it, she was trying to work things out by herself and no-one gave her any help, we just criticised. I always thought she was really an innocent, too immature to realise her effect on other people. Right from the start, Harry, I had this awful premonition she was in some way doomed. She had so much energy, too much, as if it would consume her.’ He turned to his friend, ‘I don’t know what I’m saying, it’s just a feeling I’ve had all along and now it’s come true. I needed to save her from herself and I failed.’

  Harry’s expression was grave. After a long pause, he spoke. ‘Robert I’m sorry. I suppose I didn’t understand how much all this… she meant to you. All I saw was a young and rather foolish girl. But it was more than that, wasn’t it? Far more where you were concerned?’

  He was down by the creek again, Rusty and Florence were with him. It was the time of the slack tide, an hour before it started running He saw himself take a flying leap into the water and felt the initial chill that soon passed. Rusty bobbed beside him. He trod water, calling to Florence to join him. She stood on the bank in her bathing suit with the sailor collar. Then she, too, ran into the water. They swam in circles, laughing and flicking water at each other. He swam further out and she followed him. She was a strong swimmer. He remembered how they swam all through summer, walking along the path from the house on sunny afternoons, carrying their towels and a bottle of lemonade.

  ‘Watch for currents,’ his mother said. ‘And don’t let Florrie swim too far out.’

  He couldn’t stop her, she did what she wanted and laughed at him if he said it might be dangerous. Over and over again he warned her but she took no notice.

  He saw that the leaves were beginning to fall, the grass was browning. The fields were being ploughed and the longer, wider views were beginning to reappear. It was near to the autumn equinox and the tides would be high.

  His mother’s face appeared to him, disfigured by anguish. ‘The silly child, how could she have been so foolish? She knew about the tides, we’ve told her often enough.’

  ‘I warned her never to go in the water without me. Whenever we went to the creek, I always told her.’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault, son.’ He had never seen his father cry before. ‘I know you did your best but she was so headstrong, so full of life.’

&nb
sp; ‘Oh, she was.’

  Robert watched his parents cling to each other. He felt isolated in the thoughts he couldn’t voice. Scott, that morning he’d been with Scott.

  ‘Now you’re not to blame yourself, son,’ they told him.

  But the guilt grew and never left him: ‘If I’d been there and not lying in the fields with him.’

  He could never tell his parents what he truly was. He would leave this town and America, go to Paris and learn to paint.

  ‘You’re right, Harry, a whole lot more. From the moment I first saw her, she seemed to embody everything I wish I’d been: her recklessness, her desire to experience life at whatever the cost, her courage, if you like.’ He broke off, gazing at the grey surface of the river, for the sun had gone in and the wind was chilly, ruffling its surface. ‘Watch for currents,’ came his mother’s voice in his head. ‘Don’t let her swim out too far.’

  Robert turned back to Harry. ‘And what a price she paid,’ he said, sadly.

  They rose, and in silence walked back towards the hotel.

  ‘You’re going to have to deal with it,’ Harry said.

  ‘I know, but I can’t do that here.’

  ‘Then what shall you do?’

  ‘Go somewhere else. Not America, I won’t go back there. Paris, maybe.’ He thought of the busy streets, the artistic life. Maybe he would take some more classes, throw himself into his work. Perhaps in time he could forgive himself. ‘Yes, Paris, I think.’

  ‘Then I will come with you,’ said Harry. ‘Yes, Robert, you’d be no good on your own.’

  There came a burst of laughter from the terrace where a group sat with their drinks. It all seemed unreal to Robert, like a dream.

  ‘I know what you think of me, sometimes,’ Harry continued. ‘That I am vain and too full of myself but, for what it’s worth, I love you.’

  He looked so young and earnest that Robert had to smile. This is my life, he told himself, this is what I have created, this love is what I have. It’s not perfect, but it will do.

  – FORTY-EIGHT –

  BLANCHE

  ‘

  The days are drawing in,’ said Claude, walking back towards the house.

  ‘We’re almost at the autumn equinox,’ said Breuil. ‘Soon it will be too dark to see after four.’

  ‘There is a fine apple harvest this year. We shall have pork with apples and cream, and bourdelots, of course,’ said Blanche.

  ‘The fires are laid and ready, madame,’ said Annette.

  One by one, the fires were lit throughout the house. Rich scents filled the kitchen, of roasting meat and spicy casseroles. The shutters were closed. The last flames of colour burnt in the gardens before they settled down for winter. In the greenhouses, orchids bloomed and exotic ferns thrived, serene in their cosseted climate.

  The mist that lingers in the Seine valley hung over the water garden. Each hour was different, from vaporous, foggy mornings to bright, sunny afternoons, and brought its special light onto the pond. The surrounding trees turned scarlet, orange and yellow and dipped their images into the water. The sumac flamed. Every now and then, some leaves dropped, danced momentarily in space, then drifted onto the pond among the lily pads, creating a brocade of scarlet, gold, green and blue. The boat awaited Michel who would come with his net to skim the pond and remove the dry leaves floating on its surface; Michel who was now a married man and an expectant father.

  Then the rain fell and the wind rose, extinguishing this ephemeral fire.

  So with all the shutters closed, the moon gone behind a cloud and rain drumming on the roof, darkness settled. That year would come to seem to the inhabitants of Giverny the death of a golden era, and for Claude, the advent of Judith, a sunset touch. The nights now were full of wind and destruction; news came of uprisings, of cities besieged, a bloody series of conflicts, names took on new significance, Albania, Thrace and Macedonia.

  The trees plunged and bent and their leaves flew helter skelter until the lawn under the paulownia tree was plastered with them. News came of persistent rumours circulated in Novgorod: the anti-Christ was born and the world was about to end; of the ‘miraculous’ recovery of the young haemophiliac, Alexei. It appeared Russia was ruled by a ménage à trois, Nicholas, Alexandra and Rasputin. The Czar’s mother announced, ‘I see that we are going by great steps toward some kind of catastrophe.’

  Blanche ceased to feel guilty about Judith’s letter. There was no use crying over spilt milk and anyway the state of Europe, not to mention Papa’s eyesight, were enough to worry about. She kept her word and never told him of Judith’s injuries and was relieved when, after a while, he resigned himself she was gone forever.

  In front of Claude’s studio, roses decided to flower that December. Fragile and valiant they faced the cold nights, there was even one in bud, which asked only a little more warmth to bloom. On Christmas Eve, Blanche prayed to Saint Radegonde for the recovery of Judith. There had been no word. Once more, the sun began its climb into the sky. Crab apple and Japanese cherry offered their blossom to the breeze, like flakes of pink snow. The surface of the lily pond was absolutely still. Standing on the Japanese bridge, gazing at the reflection of the willows, one lost any notion of self and merged into the waterscape. The wisteria bloomed, filling the air with its jasmine like scent. As the lavender toned flowers faded, a second white wisteria took its place. And the lilies, those lovers of warm water and sun, opened in the early morning and closed in late afternoon. The pale lilies charted their random course, clustering together into single rafts of leaves and blossoms, then spreading off in different directions at the whim of the moving water. Some of them changed colour during the life of the bloom. Their luminous effect varied continuously with a cloud that passed over, a freshening breeze, and a heavy shower, which threatened and fell.

  The fatal summer had begun. The roses were exceptional that year. They bloomed everywhere, clambering trellises, on fences and trees, on the façade of the house, or among peonies and sweet rocket in the mixed borders. All kinds of colours might be seen, pale cream, pure white, soft yellow, varying pinks, red and orange; light and delight, a golden summer. At this season, among all the peace and loveliness, there was something out of harmony. Shots rang out in Sarajevo. At night, cannon fire could be heard all the way from Bavois. How could one turn a deaf ear, continue, as one moved about the house, or walked in the garden to believe in beauty? The family scattered, only Monet and Blanche remained to wait the war out, then Georges was invited for luncheon.

  At Blanche’s request, he arrived an hour earlier, meeting her at the gate to the water garden. They stepped inside and walked along the curving paths, rather overgrown now with the lack of gardeners; only Breuil and Michel remained, the one too old to fight, the other discovered to be too short sighted.

  ‘So, how is he?’ asked Georges.

  ‘Very despondent, he worries about everybody, his son Michel, my brother, friends’ boys, they are all in the army. He lives in daily anticipation of the post.’

  ‘At the rate these young men are dying, he has a right to be anxious. Apart from the shellfire and the snipers, disease is taking a heavy toll.’

  ‘I know. Jean Pierre has written to us about the men going down with trench fever, it sounds like a very nasty disease. And only the other day, we had news that Renoir’s son had been wounded. His mother was so shocked, she collapsed and died.’

  Georges paused to admire the petals of a pale blue agapanthus, its round head rising above slender leaves. ‘It is an awful, senseless and degrading war. Every time I tour the front line, the stench is appalling: rotting carcases, overflowing latrines, the pervading odour of dried sweat from men who haven’t bathed for weeks, sometimes months. Add to that the smell of cordite, a lingering whiff of gas, stagnant mud, cigarette smoke and cooking food… imagine to be forced to live with that, day in, day out.’

  They had arrived by the pond. Blanche watched the water boatmen skidd
ing across its glassy surface. ‘He follows the armies’ movements on a map. He sits in the salon and says he will never leave this place, and if the savages insist on killing him, they will have to do it in the middle of his paintings. To be honest, Georges, all this talk of death is getting me down. We don’t see another soul here, it isn’t very cheerful.’

  For a moment they were silent, gazing on the water lilies, serenely content to dwell in this watery world that was focused on mirroring their beauty.

  ‘What’s happened to his water garden project?’

  Blanche sighed. ‘He says he is unable to concentrate on painting. He feels ashamed to devote himself to pursuing art while so many of our people are suffering and dying for us. At other times, he says he is just too old to contemplate such a huge subject.’

  Georges grunted. ‘He is the same age as I, and I’m running France, faced with this lack of movement and stalemate. I wish I could turn my back on it.’

  They turned and began to make their way back towards the gate.

  ‘He must do it,’ Georges said. ‘It’s even more important now than ever. How can we have any hope for a better future if we bow to death and destruction? We must keep the torch burning.’

  As they neared the house, they could see Monet sitting on the balcony, smoking.

  ‘I will try to convince him at luncheon.’

  ‘Thank you, Georges.’

  ‘No, the thanks are due to you. Where would he be without his blue angel?’

  ‘If you can persuade him, you know I’ll always be at his side.’

  ‘With a subject on such a huge scale, he will need both your moral and physical support, Blanche.’

  ‘I know.’

  The Battle of Mons. Stories appeared in the press of a divine intercession, allegedly observed by many soldiers, during the opening action. ‘Looking over the barrier, the astonished British saw four or five wonderful beings much bigger than men, between themselves and the halted Germans. They were white robed and bareheaded, and seemed rather to float than stand. Their backs were towards the British, and they faced the enemy with outstretched arm and hand as if to say: “Stop. Thus far and no further.” The sun was shining quite brightly at the time. Next thing the British knew was that the Germans were retreating in great disorder.’

 

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