by Emily Hahn
Francie, carrying plates around, tried to check up on her guest list. Fontoura was there, chatting to Ruy and another young man and looking very much at ease; she hoped Aunt Lolly would find some opportunity to talk to him before the end of the party. Tomas was there; Monteiro was, too, looking rather shy and hungry. Most of the girls from the studio seemed to have arrived as well. Only Catarina was still absent.
It did seem a pity, Francie thought again, that Jimmy and Will couldn’t be there. But at least she had her new, second triumph about the designs to comfort her, and she went over to tell Maria about it. Maria’s excited congratulations led Francie to tell more people; the word spread, until everyone from the studio had heard the story. Fontoura heard it from Tomas; he raised his eyebrows in polite surprise and looked at Francie as if he had never really seen her before.
Into this little scene of triumph came Catarina at last. She swept into the room like a prima donna: there was something wind-swept about her, windswept and tragic.
“Francesca!” she cried. “I have ruined your party, I am so late.”
“Not at all,” protested Francie. “I’m glad you made it.” She glanced expectantly at the doorway, but Catarina had evidently come alone.
“My husband is desolate, but he could not come with me,” said Catarina, interpreting the look. She added mysteriously, “I will tell you later,” and turned away to greet one of the studio crowd.
Time passed. Francie realized suddenly that she was tired and hungry. In her zeal, like many another hostess, she had forgotten to sample her own refreshments. She slipped out to the kitchen and collected for herself a plate of ice cream and a glass of fruit juice which she brought back to the party. Then, hesitant, she looked around for somewhere to go. Her own and Mrs. Barclay’s efforts had been all too successful. Everyone seemed happily occupied, and there was no place that she wanted to edge in on; she felt she would be intruding on all the groups.
“Besides,” she thought, “I don’t really want to make formal conversation just now.”
Near the kitchen door she spotted a comfortable little corner, which on most mornings, she knew, was a breakfast nook for the family, screened off from the main room by a thick growth of indoor plants in flowerpots. This afternoon the maids had moved the breakfast-nook furniture except for a single chair and a small table which they had used for a serving place.
“Just what the doctor ordered,” Francie said to herself. Unobtrusively she went over, sat down, and began to eat her ice cream.
For a few minutes everything was peaceful, if not quiet; the conversations that drifted near and far from behind the screen of vegetation didn’t bother her at all. She was comfortable and resting. Besides, most of the talk was in Portuguese, and though by this time Francie could understand a good deal of Portuguese when she tried, she was still able to wall it off from her ears when she didn’t want to bother.
Once, something Derek said as he came near her vicinity made her prick up her ears. “You heard about Francie’s great success?” he said to somebody. “Jolly good, isn’t it?”
A girl’s voice replied in amiable assent. Without recognizing it, Francie accepted the good will. She smiled to herself, took a big bite of cake, and sighed happily.
A moment later the whole success came crashing down.
Of all people, Aunt Lolly was involved. There was no mistaking her voice, even if Francie hadn’t seen her looming near, over the plants. She came along with Fontoura, talking as slowly and carefully as he did. They picked their way among the English words with caution, and they were in the middle of the conversation when they arrived opposite Francie’s chair in the corner.
“—is not admirable,” he was protesting. “I did not say that. But you ask me what talent your daughter is showing, and I must be honest.”
Daughter? Aunt Lolly had no daughter, Francie thought; she was stupid for a moment.
“Francie is my ward,” Mrs. Barclay corrected him. “Do you mean, then, that the child is not an artist?”
“There are artists and artists,” said Fontoura. “I set myself to train one kind, you understand—one kind only. My kind of artist is perhaps limited in numbers. I want the very best. I want nothing but the first-rate.”
“Francie has always been very clever with her pencil,” said Aunt Lolly in rather hurt tones.
Francie, rooted to her chair, was so much taken by surprise that the fundamental rules of behavior were completely forgotten. She knew perfectly well, in the ordinary way, that one should not eavesdrop, particularly when people are talking in private about oneself. But she simply forgot. This was a matter so tremendously important that she forgot what she was doing. She leaned forward to listen better. Fontoura and Mrs. Barclay had by this time found chairs and were settled down just out of sight, but well within earshot.
“She is clever,” said Fontoura, and Francie imagined just how he said it, with an impatient little bow of the head. “She is very good for the second-rate, but she is not a genuine painter.”
“But she is so much better than the average! I don’t know anything about art, and I don’t pretend to, Mr. Fontoura,” said Aunt Lolly, “but I know what all her teachers in America said. And just look what has happened in the past few days. Those clever young men who bought her patterns—”
“I heard of that,” said Fontoura. “I heard of that. I am very glad of it. I congratulate you and your ward. But it proves what I had always suspected—” Here he became so agitated that his English was hard to understand, even for Francie who was accustomed to it. The burden of his remarks, however, was that Francie would never be of the caliber he demanded of his pupils—that her very facility in designing was one of the things that held her back. Francie felt that he resented her having done this work for Will Adams; he felt somehow insulted that anyone from his choice studio should have descended to outright commercialism. Fontoura said he had always felt doubtful of Francie’s promise. He had been persuaded, however, because of his friendship for Ruy, to accept her. He had then felt bound to the bargain by the fact that Francie paid for all the courses in advance. But now, talking it over with Mrs. Barclay thus, he said he was emboldened to suggest that he refund the money that was left over, and let Francie go at the next convenient stopping point in the course.
“It would break her heart,” protested Aunt Lolly. “I wouldn’t know how to tell her. It seems so unnecessarily cruel!” She was extremely distressed.
Well, yes, admitted Fontoura, it did seem savage, now he looked at it with her eyes. Of course such extremes were not necessary. The matter could wait.
“She can at least finish the year,” said Mrs. Barclay, “and then she’ll be going away from Portugal in any case, and she need never know. I must say, Mr. Fontoura, I think you place too much emphasis on this matter of the designing. You seem almost angry about it.”
“I am almost angry,” said Fontoura simply. “I see you cannot understand.”
“No,” said Aunt Lolly, “I can’t. It’s a different point of view.”
There did not seem much else to say, and they soon moved away.
Afterward, Francie sat like a marble statue. Later she could not have said how long she was there. At first the shock made her numb. She actually felt as if she were suspended in mid-air, unable to breathe; there were no other feelings at all. Then as she began to feel ground under her feet, pain returned.
The first few minutes were very painful. It has happened to almost everyone before they reach Francie’s age—that someone or something lets them down; they are disappointed and betrayed in something they believe, or one of their loyalties is outraged. It had happened to Francie too, but never with such a blow.
She wasn’t an artist after all. Or Fontoura was wrong. Or he was jealous and spiteful, and to admit this to herself was almost as bad as to think she was a poor artist who had been making a fool of herself. Aunt Lolly, bless her heart, had done her best, but Francie knew that Aunt Lolly didn’t understand the
peculiar problems involved in this matter.
Anyway, it began to dawn on Francie as she sat trembling in her corner that the biggest pain of all, at least for the moment, was not whether Fontoura had let her down, or whether she was the kind of painter she wanted to be. Neither of these questions mattered as much as the overwhelming fact that she was in the wrong in the one inexcusable way: she had made a fool of herself.
There was no other way to put it. She had forced herself into a class where she wasn’t wanted, and remained there in spite of all the other pupils’ ill will. (It seemed that way to poor Francie, shivering as if her skin had been taken off. It seemed that way for several hours.) She had swaggered about, boasting of her success with Adams. She had wasted Pop’s money just at a time when it mattered most. She had been shamed in the eyes of Aunt Lolly. Goodness knew what the da Souzas must have been thinking of her all this time. All the people who had been kind to her—yes, probably the English too, even though Derek had sounded normally friendly when she overheard him—everyone in Portugal had really been wanting to laugh at her all the time, but they were too polite to show their feelings.
Francie stood up. She clenched her fists. She must not show anyone how agitated she was. This was her party, and she must not embarrass people. That was more important than anything. So she stepped outside, after a decent interval to allow Mrs. Barclay and Fontoura to move well away. Neither of them saw her come out of the sheltered corner, and nobody noticed anything out of the way in her behavior.
It was time for the guests to be going. Evening parties go on for a long time in Portugal, but they come to an end at last, and some people had already made their excuses and departed before Francie saw Catarina approaching.
“May I wait a minute, Francesca, and talk to you alone?” asked Catarina in an urgent whisper.
Francie’s heart, already overburdened as it was, sank lower at this. She was usually more than ready to listen to Catarina, but tonight she wanted only to get rid of everybody, even Aunt Lolly, and be by herself to examine her wounds. She still felt a little stupid and anesthetized; she knew there would be worse hours ahead, and she wanted to get them over with. She had to figure it all out: what a failure she was, how nobody loved her, how everyone was only putting on an act of being fond of her. Even Glenn had deserted her, hadn’t he? Even Glenn …
But Catarina seemed really to need her company. Francie said, “Of course, dear. Why not drive back to the hotel with us as soon as all these people are gone?”
“I dare not,” said Catarina. “My husband.”
Francie stared at her, only half listening. She had been a fool, all these months in Portugal. She would never live it down.
“My husband,” said Catarina in rapidly mounting hysteria. “He forbade me to come out tonight, and I defied him. So now he will perhaps make trouble for you too, Francesca. Please, if he does, forgive me. I must go.”
Francie was listening now. She reached out and grabbed Catarina’s arm. “Catarina,” she said, “do you ever get desperate?”
“Of course. I am always desperate,” said the Portuguese girl proudly.
“Desperate enough to—to do something about it?” asked Francie. She breathed fast.
Catarina looked at her wonderingly. They stood at the head of the veranda steps. At the end of the driveway, Catarina’s car was waiting, and Mrs. Barclay had begun to glance toward them in a puzzled way.
“I want to get out of all this,” said Francie. “Why not come with me? Good-by, Catarina. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
Catarina’s eyes shone with excitement as she kissed her hostess good-by.
CHAPTER 14
Mrs. Barclay must not be allowed to suspect anything about the eavesdropping. In the first painful hours, Francie held on to that idea instinctively, not because she felt guilty—she didn’t—but because her head seethed with angry plans, from which she didn’t want to be dissuaded. She wasn’t angry with Aunt Lolly particularly, but Aunt Lolly was part of the whole infuriating landscape, and Francie wanted to forget about it all as soon as possible. To forget the world in which you are, it is necessary to find a new one. So Francie bided her time and made her plans.
In a less hectic atmosphere she might not have been able to conceal her agitation, but Phyllis’ house was upside down, as it naturally would be after a party, and none of the people Francie had to deal with had their minds on each other or on her. They were obsessed with cleaning up and superintending the servants, and disposing of the extra china and napery that had been dug out for the occasion. Through all the hubbub of the last hour there, to add to the mix-up, Mrs. Barclay’s health gave cause for belated concern. Phyllis’ mother kept declaring Mrs. Barclay was more tired than she would admit—that she looked tired.
“You’re quite sure you feel all right? Such a long evening for you, I’m afraid. I do wish you had spent more time in your chair,” she said anxiously.
Mrs. Barclay replied, over and over, “I never felt better in my life, my dear. Don’t fuss. The doctor said I ought to exercise the leg, you know. Sitting down all the time is the wrong thing. Really. Really.”
“Aunt Lolly,” began Francie, “do please go on ahead to the hotel.”
“Definitely not, my dear.”
Such conversation carried through quite a lot of time, and when at last the American women did get back to the hotel, Francie was able to pack her Aunt Lolly straight off to bed, without any post-mortems. After that, in her room, she sat for a time at her desk with her pen in her hand. The situation seemed to call for a letter to somebody, a long exhaustive discussion of what had happened, how she felt, what steps she was considering and so on. But who would be a worthy recipient of such a letter? Two or three years earlier it would, of course, have been Ruth. Today, Ruth was out of the question. She had been out of touch with Francie too long; she wouldn’t understand. Glenn? Oh no! Glenn was gone forever; he was engaged to that pudding-faced Gretta. Besides, Francie had an uneasy feeling that if Glenn knew what she was thinking of doing, Gretta or no Gretta, he would try to take a hand in it, and she didn’t want that. He would be firm and officious. He might even appeal to Pop. “Pulling the heavy uncle act,” mused Francie.
At this rate nothing was getting done. It was awfully late, even for Portugal where people often don’t go to bed until well past midnight. Francie yawned and wondered for a sleepy moment what all the excitement was about, anyway. Habit was overwhelming her. Wouldn’t it be simpler and pleasanter to pretend nothing had happened, to forget everything she had overheard Fontoura say, and go to bed, and trot off obediently to the studio in the morning?
No, it couldn’t be done. Deliberately she remembered the conversation and went over the worst of it, word for word, until she was hot with anger all over again. Go back to the studio?
“I’d be fried in oil first,” vowed Francie. She opened her purse and, for self-confidence’s sake, took a good long look at the check the designers had sent her, then she ate an aspirin tablet and climbed into bed. Funny to think that she wouldn’t be in this comfortable room, using this pretty bed, very much longer.
Even so, Francie got up and dressed and went off to the class in quite the routine manner, next morning. She had it all thought out. If Friday had been one of Fontoura’s routine days for visiting the studio and criticizing, she would not have been able to face the prospect, but she knew he never came on Friday; he had commitments in another part of the city, helping out a friend at a private studio. Francie was not keen to go on working as if nothing had happened, but she had to keep in touch with Catarina, and unless the other girl rang her up, there was no way to maintain the contact. Never yet had Francie dared to brave the redoubtable de Abreu, his mother, or any other dragon of a relative who would, she was sure, always answer Catarina’s telephone first in order to check up on the captive.
It was all thought out, but as Francie approached the familiar alleyway that led to the studio door she wondered, nevertheless, if she
could see the program through. How many of the pupils realized what the master really thought of her work? Would he have been unkind enough to take one or two of her contemporaries into his confidence? This was quite possible, and more than possible. He was an impulsive man; discretion was not one of his qualities, as she realized all too well after yesterday’s experience.
“No matter what he thinks about me,” reflected Francie, “if he had any tact he wouldn’t have talked that way to Aunt Lolly. After all she is my guardian here.” It surprised her that she could think even this dispassionately about Fontoura. She had spent a large part of the night trying to find a cool place on her pillow, and hating him.
The studio looked perfectly normal. Two of the girls, thinking they had been inadequate in their thanks yesterday for the party, hurried over to Francie to make up for the gap. Quietly Francie accepted their compliments; quietly she brought out her painting materials and set to work. From the other side of the model’s dais, Catarina gave her a watery smile. Silently a pact was formed. They would meet at the lunch hour and talk matters over—it was understood.
Francie started to paint. Her efforts were unsuccessful. At every stroke of the brush she seemed to feel Fontoura’s eyes on her hand, and hear his voice rebuking her for not painting wide, sweeping streaks of color.