* * *
Things shifted between Auguste and Colette after the Exposition. There was no weeping or forgiving, just a subtle warming and acceptance on both sides.
For Auguste, it was something about being out together, having the weight of Colette on his arm, her gloved hand resting on top of his. It made him feel as if she still belonged to him. He held on to her all day, guiding her through the crowds. When they stopped in a café he ordered for her, and she looked at him gratefully, as if his care and protection was exactly what she wanted.
It was true that Colette missed the attention of a man. Not the physical attention—she had no desire for that anymore—but she did miss being held on to, supported.
So they slipped into a quiet affection that was different from anything they’d had before. There was no fighting, no passionate tossing about in bed, just a walk in the park, a light discussion in the parlor after dinner, a smile or two of coquetry, as if they were coming into something for the first time that made them both a bit shy.
Colette still slept in her own room, and neither spoke of changing this arrangement. Once, Auguste kissed her before going up to bed, a deep, longing kiss, but it led to nothing more.
One morning, in the parlor, a square of early sunlight slanting across the shiny wood floor, Auguste folded down the edge of his newspaper and looked at Colette over the top of it.
“I met an American man last week, a Robert Cassatt.”
“Oh?” Colette looked up from her book.
“Retired stockbroker and real estate man. Very prominent. They have an apartment on L’avenue Trudaine,” he said, the fashionable side of Pigalle an indication of the family’s propriety and prosperity.
“How nice.” Colette went back to her reading, uninterested in new acquaintances.
Auguste snapped his newspaper straight and cast his eyes over it. After a minute he said, “They have a daughter. A fine painter, I hear. Her papa told me she had a small piece in the Exposition.”
Colette shut her book and placed it in her lap. “This is about Aimée then? Your regret?”
From behind his newspaper, Auguste said, “I was merely thinking it might be time for Aimée to come home.”
“Come home to paint, you mean?”
Auguste turned a page, looked it over. “I suppose so, yes.”
“Auguste,” Colette said gently. “Put down the paper.”
Auguste folded the paper in two and set it on the table beside him. Sunlight had crept over the floor and pooled in Colette’s lap, covering her smooth, white hands.
“This daughter of his has her own studio,” Auguste said, “outside the home. She is allowed to keep it as long as it supports itself.”
Colette nodded. “A fine idea.”
“Precisely what I was thinking, a fine idea.”
“Then you’ll write to Aimée? Ask her to come home?”
Auguste rubbed the underside of his chin. “I’d say it’s high time, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes, yes, I would.”
Chapter 30
Auguste fully intended to write that letter, but in early July Colette fell ill. The doctor said it was only a nasty cold, and that she should keep to her bed. In her feverish state, Colette was convinced she was dying. Every limb ached, her head throbbed, and it hurt to swallow. Once, she didn’t make it to her chamber pot, and a humiliating mess had to be cleaned from the floor. A persistent cough developed, along with a few nosebleeds, and the doctor was called again. And again, he insisted there was nothing to worry about; the fever would go down, and her symptoms would pass.
Aimée was forgotten for the time being by everyone other than Madame Savaray, who had not received a letter from England in three months. She’d written several, all of which had gone unanswered.
She wrote again, telling Aimée that Colette was dying, and that she must return home immediately. Of course, Madame Savaray did not believe for one minute that this was true, but she would have said anything to bring Aimée home, and the illness was as good an excuse as any.
There was no doubt Colette was seriously ill, and that she was taking full advantage, acting up as usual and vying for attention, especially from Auguste, who was beside himself. He wouldn’t leave her side. He screamed at the doctor. Called him an imbecile. Insisted he wasn’t doing enough.
The doctor, used to hysterical husbands, took it graciously. “Well,” he said, snapping his bag shut and picking up his hat, anxious to be done with his now daily exams of Colette. “Her fever is down from yesterday, just as I predicted. As I said before, it is my professional opinion—and, mind you, I have been in this profession for thirty-five years—that your wife will make a full recovery.”
At that moment Colette moaned, rolled her flushed face over the edge of the bed, and vomited into a large ceramic basin.
Auguste dashed over and pulled her hair out of her face. “Does this look like a woman who is recovering?”
At the door, the doctor said, “These things take time,” and left.
Colette’s forehead burned against Auguste’s palm, and she looked at him with wild eyes. “I must see my son!” she cried. “If I am dying, I must see him. Please. It’s all I ask of you. Please, let me see Jacques one last time.” She collapsed over Auguste’s arm in a fit of coughing. Auguste patted her thin, frail back, her spine a brittle, bumpy line under her dressing gown.
“I’ll send for the boy,” he said, propping her against the pillow, smoothing the hair away from her hot, moist cheeks.
Colette began to cry.
Auguste pressed a hand to her chest. “Stop, my love, you mustn’t. You’ll make yourself worse. Please stop.” He wiped the tears from her cheeks. “You’re going to be well again,” he said. “It’s nonsense, all this talk of dying. I will not permit it. You’ll be fit in no time, the doctor said so.”
“I cannot help myself,” Colette sobbed. “I must see my son.”
“I know, my love, I know. I’ll send for the boy. But no more talk of dying. Do you hear me?”
Colette’s sobs were overtaken by another gruesome coughing fit. When she had control of her breathing, she sank down in bed, exhausted. “I’m terribly cold,” she said.
Pulling back the covers, Auguste climbed in next to her. Colette lifted her head from the pillow and rested it on his chest, a button on his shirt making a small, circular indent on her cheek. He wrapped his arm around her, feeling the feverish warmth of her body against his.
* * *
There was no walking from the train station this time. Madame Savaray had the carriage pull right up to the door of the little cottage in Thoméry.
Leonie greeted her with an uncomfortable smile and led her into the house, apologizing for the children’s mess; rocks dropped like crumbs down the hall and into the parlor where an elaborate stone house had been built in the middle of the braided rug.
Madame Savaray cocked an eyebrow with a look of asperity that Leonie chose to ignore. As far as Leonie was concerned, she’d let the children do as she saw fit. She was alone here, and no one was going to come in and tell her how to raise her children now.
Wordlessly, she watched Madame Savaray scan the sparse room, her eyes narrow and accusing as they roamed over the faded sofa, the single end table, and the two cane chairs—one with a small hole in the seat.
Stepping deliberately around the children’s stonework, Madame Savaray sat down in the chair nearest the cold hearth and propped her walking stick against the curved armrest.
Leonie hovered in the doorway, nervous, shifting her arms first down at her sides, then across her chest. “Can I offer you a cup of tea? Chocolate?”
“Cognac if you have it, or wine will do.” Madame Savaray glanced out the open window, the brown muslin curtains shifting in the breeze. She could smell drying wheat, and hear the faint rush of the river.
“I’ll only be a moment,” Leonie said, and went down the hall to the kitchen.
She had been in the bedroom tuckin
g in the sheets—still warm and stiff from the sun—when she’d heard the clomping of horses’ hooves and the crunch of carriage wheels. She’d dropped the sheet and flown down the stairs, certain it was Henri.
Seeing Madame Savaray hobbling over the stones, Leonie was hit with stunning disappointment. Until that moment she hadn’t let herself feel how much she missed Henri, how painful it was that he hadn’t written, or how frightening the thought that he might not return. It was no comfort that he had promised to marry her. He’d promised this many times over the years. It’s best for the children was what he had said. England was for “the children” too. He was going to reclaim his rightful name so he could give it to them. None of it was for her.
Leonie arranged the glasses on the tray, a thin streak of flour appearing across her middle as she leaned into the counter. A quick, cold fear ran through her, and she bowed her head. Over the years she had tried, very hard, not to imagine the day a Savaray came to claim Jeanne, but she’d feared it all the same.
Carrying the tray back to the parlor, Leonie set it on the end table and handed Madame Savaray a glass. She did not take a glass for herself, but sat across from her with purpose, prepared to meet this head-on, fight with all her might if need be.
It was obvious how uncomfortable Leonie was, but for some reason Madame Savaray didn’t make the slightest effort to put her at ease. Instead, she asked after Henri, and learned, much to her shock, that he was in England.
“Has he seen Aimée?” she demanded, Aimée’s silence suddenly becoming clearer to her. Of course Henri was behind it. Always Henri.
“I don’t know. I’ve not heard a word from him.”
Madame Savaray gave her a measured look of accusation. “Why did he go?”
“To find his father.”
“How long has he been gone?”
“Almost three months.”
That was exactly when Aimée stopped writing. Madame Savaray tapped the edge of her glass with her fingernail. A small chiming sound rang out. “Do you expect his return?”
Leonie’s face darkened. “Of course I expect his return.”
“Why, then, would he not write to you?”
“Madame,” Leonie pulled herself to the edge of the sofa, perched, Madame Savaray thought, like a flighty bird. “Why have you come? Clearly, it has nothing to do with Henri’s being in England.”
Madame Savaray snapped her head to the left and looked at a poorly rendered painting of Jacques with baby Jeanne on his lap. “One ought not tilt on the edge of her seat. Sit or stand. It’s unbecoming to hover in between. It makes you appear agitated.”
“I am agitated,” Leonie responded, and Madame Savaray couldn’t help thinking how much she admired this reasonable, straightforward woman.
“Where are the children?”
“Out in the field.”
“Running wild? Unsupervised?”
It wasn’t Madame Savaray’s intention to be hard on Leonie; she was just tense, and fighting off the despondency she’d felt the moment she’d stepped into this house.
She set down her wineglass. She had not taken a single sip. “I’ve only come to make an outrageous request that you can, by all means, refuse.”
Tears sprang to Leonie’s eyes, and she pressed a hand to her chest, shaking her head in embarrassment. “My apologies.”
“What did you think? That I was here to reclaim those unruly children?” Madame Savaray slapped at the front of her dress as if they were climbing all over her. “Stones in the drawing room,” she muttered.
Truthfully, seeing this messy bit of youth reminded her of the joy that could be found in a stone, and she was overcome by the same longing she’d felt watching the children on the church steps. It was a longing to be a part of something delightfully young again, even if just for a moment.
“Colette is terribly ill,” Madame Savaray said. “She believes she’s going to her grave, and her last, unequivocal request is to see Jacques. I, for one, think it’s senseless. But, there you have it.”
Leonie was silent as she wiped the tears from under her eyes. After a minute she asked, “Is Colette to be trusted?”
“I couldn’t say.”
Leonie shook her head. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
Madame Savaray took hold of her walking stick and gave it a thump. “I told Auguste, if he was going to be so fainthearted as to send me on this errand, that I would not insist, or even make a good argument. Besides, the doctor says Colette will make a full recovery. I’d be surprised if something as incidental as a fever did her in. I’m not convinced she hasn’t brought the illness on for a bit of excitement.”
“But there’s a chance she’s dying?”
“We’re all dying; it’s just a matter of when.”
A worrisome thought had crept into Leonie’s mind. “If I said yes, how would we manage it? What would we tell Jacques?”
Madame Savaray gave a throaty scoff. “He’s a child. Tell him anything you like. Tell him a distant relative wants to see him. It won’t mean anything to a child.”
“Do the Savarays know nothing of Jeanne?”
“Nothing.”
“What if Jacques says something about his sister?”
“They’ll think she’s yours. They have no reason not to.”
“You want to take him today?”
“I’ll bring him back tomorrow on the earliest train.”
Leonie looked out the window. She couldn’t see the children. They’d probably gone down to the river. Jeanne had never spent a night without her brother. She’d be beside herself.
“All right.” Leonie was reluctant, and yet she felt fairly certain that refusing a dying mother’s request to see her only son was not something easily forgiven by God. And if not God, Leonie didn’t see how she could forgive herself. “You must promise to look after Jacques yourself, and stay in the room the entire time he’s with Colette.”
Holding tight to her walking stick, Madame Savaray heaved herself from the chair. “He’ll be fine,” she said. Then, with cold authority, “Best not to disillusion yourself that you’re his maman. Jacques will find out the truth one day, whether you want him to or not. They always do.”
Leonie stood up with a flash of anger. “Well, today is not that day.”
“Of course not. You needn’t look so alarmed. I’m only saying it for your own good. Things hurt, that’s all, mostly the truth, and it comes to light eventually, as much as we don’t want it to. I’m only suggesting you prepare yourself in advance, so you’re not entirely undone by it.”
Leonie had spent a lot of time warding off this very thought, and she was not prepared to face it now, when she was about to say good-bye to her son.
“I’ll call in the children,” she said. Then she gave Madame Savaray a steely look. “I’m trusting you.”
Madame Savaray nodded. “As you should,” she said, even though they both knew it was not really up to her.
Chapter 31
Auguste sat at a café staring at his dinner, unshaven, pale, and thin. He’d hardly slept or eaten since Colette had fallen ill.
He stared into his stew, pushing around bits of fish and floating leeks. Jacques would have arrived at the house already. Colette would have seen him. He would have eaten his dinner. He might even be in bed.
Auguste lifted his head. The oil lamps on the tables were as bright as torches, and they made his eyes ache. The yellow tiles on the walls swam under the glare as he waved the tavern maid over.
He told the girl to take the food away and bring another absinthe.
By the time he left, Auguste was thoroughly drunk. A clock chimed as he climbed the steps to his house, but he didn’t count the tolls, and he’d forgotten to wind his watch, so he had no idea what time he finally made it through the front door. He propped himself against the wall, breathing heavily. When no one came he tossed his hat onto the floor and groped his way up the stairs.
Opening the door to Aimée’s old bedro
om, he crept stealthily, stumbling into the bedside table. An object went flying, making a soft thud as it hit the rug. Jacques stirred.
Moonlight fell in a wide strip across the bed. Normally, the curtains were pulled shut, and as Auguste eased himself down on the edge of the mattress, he thought perhaps they had been left open because Jacques was afraid of the dark.
He gently touched the boy’s hand, realizing this was all he would ever have, this image of Jacques’s soft hair splayed across the pillow, his parted lips, one arm flung over his head as his eyelids fluttered, darting around his dreams.
The loneliness of the last four years hit Auguste, and he wanted to take Jacques in his arms and hold on to him. He couldn’t imagine reliving those years. But he couldn’t see a way out. He’d lost so much. He wished he could blame Henri, but it wasn’t Henri’s fault. A small crack in his life began the moment he lost his first child, one that had only widened and spread with time. Henri was just a chink along the way, the loss of Jacques the final shattering.
Perhaps, Auguste thought, it wasn’t too late to take Jacques back. Maybe, with the return of his boy, the fissures of his cracked life would recede and he’d be whole again. He would offer Henri money. Pay him off. What struggling artist would choose a troublesome child over money? The boy must be a burden. He would be relieved to be rid of him. Auguste stood up. Colette would have something to live for if she had her boy back. She’d fight harder. She’d stay alive.
Just then Jacques’s eyes flew open. Auguste jumped back from the bed, stumbled to the door, and rushed from the room.
Back in his own room, he slammed the door and dropped onto the bed. Clutching his throbbing head he fell into a swirling, drunken slumber.
By the time he rose, stiff and achy, fully dressed with boots still laced and drool crusted on the side of his cheek, it was nearly ten o’clock and Jacques and Madame Savaray were already on the train back to Thoméry.
Auguste changed his clothes, splashed cold water on his face, and rubbed his wet hands through hair that still reeked of stale cigar smoke. What a mad fool.
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