Little Woman in Blue

by Jeannine Atkins

  Her friends protested that they couldn’t see anything finer, but they moved toward pictures of a peasant girl in a golden field, hunters on horseback, and cows grazing in meadows. May pointed out a painting by Monsieur Gauguin. “He’s a banker, who Miss Cassatt says sometimes buys Impressionist works.”

  “Have you seen her? It’s a shame that her woman in yellow was turned down,” Fanny said.

  “I haven’t visited her since the Salon choices were announced, I’m ashamed to say.” It now struck May as selfish, but she hadn’t wanted to chance having her own happiness dimmed by Mary’s likely melancholy or jealousy.

  “Didn’t you tell me the last time one of her paintings was rejected, she stopped painting for months?” Fanny asked.

  “She left Paris. But let’s not talk of unpleasant things today.” May asked, “What will you do when the ateliers close for the summer?”

  “I’m going to the country outside the city. I heard some artists paint en plein air in Grez.”

  “Jane and I hoped you’d come back to London, May,” Mr. Ramsey said. “They say that even bakers and blacksmiths buy art here in La Ville-Lumière, but it’s hard to sell with so many artists competing.”

  “I’ve promised my family to go home,” May said. “It’s indelicate to say, but I’m running low on funds.”

  “Nothing is indelicate among friends. But you can copy Turner, as you did before. Didn’t Mr. Ruskin say you were the best?” Mr. Ramsey said.

  “London is almost on my way back to Massachusetts,” May said. Then she turned as an old friend of Rose’s, Miss Lombard, greeted them. Soon Rose and Miss Lombard headed into another salle, while May agreed to investigate some shouting that piqued Mr. Ramsey’s curiosity. They entered a hall under a high glass dome where marble sculptures of nymphs, an Eve with her arms crossed over her breasts, and Lafayette arriving in America stood among pots of ferns, palms, and roses. Rows of busts set on pedestals included ones of Napoleon III and Balzac. The air smelled of cigars, lavender soap, hair lacquer, and roses.

  The darkness of a tall bronze statue stood out among the white marble. Some spectators threw their hands over their faces or rushed away. May guessed this was not only because of the absence of a fig leaf on the nude man, but also because feeling seemed to rise from all the wrinkled, rippling surfaces, each jutting bone and muscle, which made a striking contrast to the polished pale busts with closed lips and unfurrowed brows.

  “The Age of Bronze is the greatest art ever made,” a man exclaimed.

  “It’s a travesty.” Another man raised his fist. “Not really a sculpture. It looks cast from a human. And it doesn’t even have a theme!”

  May overheard that it had been sculpted by an ornemaniste who made a living by carving mantelpieces, lamp bases, and waterspouts, a Monsieur Rodin.

  “It’s superb. Though I wonder if such a work can stand the test of time, the way a peaceful statue does,” Mr. Ramsey said.

  “Its vitality reminds me of the work of a teacher I had back in Boston. I think Dr. Rimmer would have liked to see this.” She wished he could see her work, too. Not that she expected he’d be impressed, but perhaps he’d see that she’d been serious. She fanned away cigar smoke as they headed back to the paintings. After passing portraits of John the Baptist, Jeanne d’Arc, and actresses from the Comédie-Française, Mr. Ramsey said, “I don’t see any of the violet trees, green women, and butter skies I’ve heard some of the French are painting.”

  “So word of les Indépendants has reached England.”

  “I hear they admire Turner. It’s sad that Frenchmen see more in him than our queen, who says his work should stay in drawers. There are enough pictures that look as if they’d been painted with prune juice.”

  “Don’t talk so loudly. You may be challenged to a duel.”

  “Chiaroscuro was fine in the Renaissance, but since then, science has taught us about paint and light.”

  Soon they left through the wide doors and strode down the Champs-Élysées. Ladies in exquisite silk dresses headed for fashion shows, which were timed to take advantage of the crowds attending the Salon. May would like to wear a Worth gown with pearls beaded at the neckline, a Reboux hat with ostrich feathers, a diamond bracelet, but she’d rather be holding a program with her name in it. Though she hadn’t stopped wishing for a beau who might congratulate her by kissing her neck and drawing her closer. Stop, she told herself. She was lucky.

  Stalls stacked with books and prints stood by the bridge to Montmartre. Church bells tolled. Girls holding lilies of the valley called, “Muguet! Muguet des bois! For your lover on May Day.”

  It seemed strange that people paid for flowers that May had once picked freely from under the old elm tree. She looked down at the river crowded with dinghies, skiffs with square yellow sails, and barges piled with coal. On the banks, too, it seemed everyone was out on this fine spring day. Some men held fishing rods, while others stuffed straw into mattresses they put on frames, where women stitched them. May’s heart thudded as she noticed a pair of shoes left by the brown water.

  “Is something amiss?” Mr. Ramsey asked.

  Water lapped the land. A young woman waded back, laughing, dropping the damp hem of her dress, bending to pick up her shoes.

  “No.” May looked back to a park, where the bushes and trees were clipped and the pebbled paths raked. She missed the sprawl and tangle of grasses, the tumble of stones along the Concord River. She paid for a bunch of flowers, tied with a bit of straw, from a girl’s basket and held the ivory-colored blossoms to her nose.

  STRAWBERRIES HAD RIPENED BY THE TIME MAY knocked on the studio door. After hearing a dog yap, she wondered if Mary was pretending not to hear because she didn’t want to see her. The dog barked again, then Mary opened the door.

  “You’re here!” May exclaimed.

  “Where else would I be?” Mary crouched down to keep her small dog from jumping. Behind her back, a sulky girl in a lacy dress sprawled on a big blue chair. “I had to finish painting a sleeve before I could answer. You didn’t think I’d fled to the mountains because the jury disapproves of my palette?”

  “You said that when your work was rejected before, you left the city.”

  “When I was young and foolish. And last year, I darkened my canvas to impress them. I won’t do that again.” Speaking in perfect French, Mary told the girl she could play. As she slid off the chair, her mother put down her knitting and said they’d go to the park and be back soon.

  “That’s a lovely dress,” May told the little girl.

  She stared at her and said, “Your hair is pretty.”

  May nodded her thanks and touched her necklace. How long had it been since anyone said that? As the mother and child shut the door behind them, Mary said, “My model was starting to wiggle. And the light is changing. Anyway, I’ve been meaning to see you and congratulate you on your Salon acceptance. I admired the yellows in your apples and the greens in your bottles. If I’d known you were coming, I’d have put champagne on ice. Will you make do with tea?” Mary set a kettle over a spirit lamp, measured some cherry-bark tea, and arranged shell-shaped cookies and jam tarts on a plate.

  “I’m glad the refusal didn’t make you downcast.” May looked at the pictures of women reading a newspaper, crocheting a scarf, or holding a baby, who looked soft as cake. Some brushstrokes remained rough, so that the signs of Mary’s work, and how she loved it, showed. The colors reminded May of the froth of clouds or nougat, but the rigor of her lines balanced the delicate palette.

  “I mourned for a day or two. Then Monsieur Degas asked me to show my work with les Indépendants next spring.”

  “That’s wonderful! Won’t you be the first woman to be included?”

  “Berthe Morisot has exhibited with them. But I’ll be the first American woman.” Mary’s smile was wide. She coaxed the dog onto her lap with a madeleine.

  “So we both have cause to celebrate. It’s just too bad that all the people who come to th
e Salon won’t see your work, and buy it.”

  “That’s why le Société des Artistes Indépendants holds a show the same time as the Salon, to take advantage of the crowds who come to the city. Monsieur Degas believes those who exhibit there should snub the Salon, but Messieurs Renoir and Monet have families and need to sell wherever they can. They fight about this, what they should call themselves, and what walls which paintings should go on.”

  “Now you will have a chance to argue.”

  “Yes. Some advocate painting en plein air, which enrages Monsieur Degas. He says all you need is a crumpled napkin to paint the sky. That there should be a special brigade of gendarmes to guard against artists who insist on painting from nature. Not to kill anyone. Just a bit of birdshot sent out as warning.”

  “You do admire him.”

  “Once I mentioned my loneliness. I didn’t mean he should give me this dog.” Mary scratched the griffon terrier’s ears. “I was touched, as he doesn’t even like dogs, or the country, or the seashore. All he cares about is his pictures. He sells some, then asks to have them back, with excuses that he needs to change the color of an elbow or add a layer of varnish. Then he keeps them. Monsieur Faure has taken to chaining his paintings to the walls, then tells him he lost the keys.”

  “You don’t hole away your work.”

  “For all his gruff ways, he was the one who asked me to join the group. And it was he who invited Mademoiselle Morisot—now Madame Manet.”

  “She’s married? Is she young?”

  “Berthe is our age, with twenty years of painting behind her before she wed a year or two ago.”

  “What is her painting like?”

  “She doesn’t care for line as much as I do, but she paints women on balconies, or by windows, or the edges of gardens.”

  “Do you think she might have a baby?”

  “I hope not. It’s best to be thankful to miss the dangers of childbirth, then the diapers, the scuffles, and the noise.”

  “There are pleasures, too.”

  “Maybe I’d feel differently if there ever comes a day when little girls are given paintbrushes along with dolls. But for now, women must choose. We can be artists or mothers. It’s not a sacrifice, really. Artists get at least two lives. The one we live, and the ones we bring into the world with paints and brushes.”

  May’s heart beat with a sense of possibility she’d pushed down. So a woman could make art, find love, and, even at her age, have a child. She put down her china cup. “I’m afraid this call might be one to say good-bye. I’ll be leaving Paris soon.”

  “What a shame!”

  The genuine sorrow in her voice unsettled May, so that she revealed more than she’d intended. “I’m going to London for the summer, where I can put higher prices on my work now that I can say I’ve shown in the Salon. Then I’ll go back to Massachusetts. Louisa has done more than her share. She writes about Mother’s woes, but she suffers, too. Ever since John died after enduring pain like hers, she worries about how much time she has.”

  “None of us know that,” Mary said. “But I understand. It is hard when a family member is ill.” Her eyes strayed to the wall, where she’d tacked a drawing of her sister seated at a tapestry frame. “I’m grateful that Lydia still feels well enough to pose. Even if I could afford to pay a model, it would be scandalous for me to stop by the fountain at Place Pigalle as the men do.”

  “She doesn’t mind sitting for portraits?” May asked.

  “She doesn’t complain of being bored or sore from holding a position.”

  May hadn’t meant just the ability to keep from wiggling, holding an arm until it ached, but being the quiet sister, whose name would never be as well known. “Lydia never wanted to paint?”

  “Oh, no. I don’t think so. She always preferred anonymity to attention.”

  “A creative life has pleasures besides fame.”

  “She enjoys needlework and crochet, and listening to music.”

  Could that be enough? May wondered if she was the only person who’d competed with her sister for as long as she could remember. Was she greedy, or was it natural, having been making art so long, to want recognition? She asked, “Did you read my sister’s book? It’s wrong to complain, when Louisa is so generous. I didn’t even pose. But it was difficult for me to see myself painted in words as I don’t see myself.”

  “You didn’t let that stop you from becoming who you wanted to be. Will you paint her?”

  “I’d like to paint her in a crimson dress.” May smiled as she stood, then took Mary’s hand. “Your painting was turned down by the Salon for its power.”

  “This refusal gave me permission to use all the oranges, yellows, and reds I like most.” Mary fixed her sharp dark eyes on her. “You should come to the Impressionist show. And see Berthe’s work. I’ll introduce you.”

  “I have so much to do to get ready to leave for England.” May had already sent Rose’s portrait of her with Miss Lombard, who was returning to Massachusetts, along with a program from the Salon and a note about how she wanted to take advantage of her chance to sell paintings before coming home. She picked up the dog, who wiggled in her arms.

  “Will you come back here?”

  “I want to.” May knew that wasn’t really an answer. She wished she could say that she’d come next year, when Mary’s paintings would be shown with the Impressionists. She looked at the half-finished painting of the little girl on a blue chair, then turned to pastels of a sister and mother, Mary’s, though they might be anyone’s. May felt warm and safe as if a blanket had been pulled up to her chin. All ambition, even jealousy, slid away. Could standing here among pictures of women tending babies, pouring tea, making tapestries, or reading newspapers be the best day of her life? How could she know? She rose on her toes as if for a closer look at a picture she hadn’t yet seen but knew would be painted. A woman held a baby and a palette and paintbrush, too.

  19

  AN ARMFUL OF VİOLETS

  The first morning that May returned to the room with wide drawers filled with Turner’s pictures of storms, winters, and bogs, the other copyists stood and clapped softly, congratulating her on having a painting in the Salon. They welcomed her back, then sat back down at the long table. The caretaker’s keys jangled as he filled cups with fresh water. Soon May set down translucent layers of ginger, vermilion, and cobalt blue to recreate storms and sunsets. She blurred outlines with a sponge, creating a sense of mist, or rubbed pigments into paper with a cloth instead of a brush, as Turner was said to have done.

  On days when the National Gallery closed, she joined Jane in a studio where they split the rent. She painted panels of pale blooms that contrasted with black backgrounds, which remained popular, as were her still lifes. She also enjoyed evenings at the boarding house, joining mostly businessmen for dinners of joints of beef, legs of lamb, and Stilton cheese. Most of the men were ten or twenty years older than she was, and were glad for the company of a woman besides Jane or Mrs. Hammond, a young married woman who was usually busy with her little boy. May spoke brightly, with her eyes often shifting to a young man whose pale, slender face stood out among those that were rounder and ruddier. His loneliness hadn’t hardened like that of the older men.

  After dinner, some gathered in the common room to play dominoes, checkers, or whist. Sometimes May coaxed the men to put down their newspapers and play Hide the Thimble with four-year-old Harry Hammond. They also played Mother, May I?, they rushed about the room blowing to keep a feather in the air, and they tossed cards into a hat on the floor. Sometimes May told stories to Harry, who liked to sit on her lap and touch her hair. The young man, whom she’d learned came from Switzerland, seemed particularly enchanted when May abandoned fairy tales to tell about life growing up in New England with her sisters.

  One evening, the young man brought down his violin and played a German folk tune. Firelight glowed on his soft mouth, chiseled nose, and pale throat, revealed by the top button of his linen shirt
left open. His green eyes widened, then closed, as the poignant notes deepened. He coaxed his violin to hover on the edges of high notes it could never quite hold.

  When he put down his bow, May asked, “Do you play in an orchestra, Mr. Nieriker?”

  “Call me Ernst, please. My violin adds sweetness to my life, but I don’t call myself a musician.”

  “Why not, when you play so well!”

  “I love music, but few can make a living at it. I’ll have a family to support one day.”

  “You’re too young to think about such things.”

  “Not at all too young. I am twenty-two. Isn’t that what everyone wants—to have a family?”

  “My mother wanted her daughters to be able to earn a living.” Her mouth felt dry as she did the calculations and realized there were sixteen years between them. How much she would have liked meeting a man like him, handsome, a bit shy, when she was younger, but she resolved not to waste moments by looking back or ahead.

  “That’s unusual, isn’t it, for girls? Or maybe not so unusual in your country. My mother makes sure my sisters learn about art and music, but she would be surprised by someone like you, making a living with your hands. I think she would like it. She would like you.”

  “My mother would enjoy hearing such playing as yours.” At least without any chance of a romance, she might confide in him as a friend. She said, “I worry about her. My sister’s letters are about how her stomach ailments are worse, which could be a crisis, or just the expected troubles of age. I expect the latter. My mother writes that she doesn’t need me.”

  “Your mother would not lie.”

  “I’m afraid she would, to make me feel better. I won’t go back till spring, to care for her the way she once did everything for us. She made sure we had not only food and a roof, but costumes to dress up as pilgrims or princesses.” May shook her head. “Most girls grow out of their dreams.”