“Well, we have plenty of time for that.”
“I have only a week, you know. Then I must go back. I’ve promised.”
“Yes, yes, of course. You have to paint as many miniatures as you can while this fashion for you lasts.”
“Do you think it is just a fashion?”
“It may not be. In fact I think you’re too good for that.
Let’s say it began as a fashion because of the glowing comments of a man whose opinion is respected in art circles . and in society. “
“I have to make it more than that, Father.”
“You are doing so. As I said: Do as much as you can now. I am glad you found time to come and see me.”
Now was the time to tell him. He looked almost contented. He had come to terms with his disability; he was finding satisfaction in his landscapes. He would not be able to continue indefinitely with them, of course, but they were forming a pleasant bridge for him. He was not going to be catapulted into blindness without having time to prepare for it. And I knew that my success had been the greatest help of all in this sad matter. He could bear his own disability while he could think of my carrying on the family tradition.
I thought in that moment: “No, I cannot tell him. I have to play it Nicole’s way.
“There is something I want to talk to you about, Father,” I said.
“Do you remember Nicole St. Giles?”
“Wasn’t she a friend of the Baron?”
“Yes. He’s married now. He married the Princesse. I saw something of the wedding. But I wanted to talk to you about Nicole. She is a very sophisticated woman and has a largish house on the Left Bank. I have become quite friendly with her.”
“A very pleasant woman, as I remember.”
“She is very pleasant. She has suggested that it would be better for my career if I took a place of my own in Paris … as that is where the work is. Her own house is too big for her and she has offered to let me part of it.”
He was silent for a few moments. I felt my heart beat uneasily. I thought: He doesn’t like it. But the cloud passed. He said: “You have to plan your career very carefully, Kate. You’re handicapped by being a woman. I’ve always thought that was foolish … foolish and unworthy. A good painting is a good painting, whoever does it. You would live there on your own, Kate?”
“Well, Madame St. Giles would be in the house … a sort of chaperone.”
“I see.”
“Sharing the house is her idea. There’s an attic which could be turned into a studio and a magnificent room where I could entertain clients.
Madame St. Giles knows many people and it is her opinion that if I just carry out commissions that come in the way they have so far there will be a time when I shall run short of them. I should then return to England . and obscurity. “
He lapsed again into silence for a few seconds. Then he said slowly:
“I think she may be right. It’s a bit of a venture. And, Kate, remember, if it doesn’t work you can always come home.”
I put my arms round him and held him close to me. How I hated deceiving him! But I simply could not tell him that I was going to have a child. He was happier now than he had been since the fearful discovery. He was seeking so many compensations. Because he had lost his keen vision I was taking on the family mantle. I was being given my chance which he realized I might never have had. Evie had gone and at the time that had seemed a calamity but lo, here was Clare, to bring a warmer atmosphere into the house.
He was happy as things were and I had made my decision.
It was moving to see how pleased they all were to have me home and yet in a way it gave me an uneasy qualm to think of what I had to do. Mrs. Baines had made the usual steak pudding, and as I knew the amount I ate would be reported, I did my best.
I had to hear what was going on in the village.
Clare knew a great deal about village life. She had thrown herself into it so wholeheartedly. Dear Clare, I sensed her delight in having
become part of a family, part of a community. She must have been very lonely before coming to us.
Dick Meadows was fully qualified now and there was a new curate at the vicarage. Dick was doing a stint as curate somewhere in the Midlands and Frances was still keeping house for her father.
“Poor Frances,” said Clare with feeling, ‘that will be her life. “
Her eyes filled with tears of compassion. She was, I knew, thinking of what Frances’s life would be . looking after her father until she was middle-aged, and when he died it would be too late for her to have a life other own. A fate which befell many daughters and could have been Clare’s own.
“And what of the twins?” I asked.
There was silence. I looked from my father to Clare.
“There was a tragedy,” said my father.
“Poor Faith.”
“A tragedy!”
Clare shook her head and turned appealingly to my father.
“You tell her,” she begged.
“It upset Clare very much,” said my father.
“She was one of the last people to see her alive.”
“You mean Faith Camborne is dead?”
“It was an accident,” my father explained.
“You know Bracken’s Leap.”
Indeed I knew Bracken’s Leap. It was always forbidden to me when I was young.
“Don’t go near the Leap!” I could hear those words now. They had been used so often, Bracken’s Leap was that spot where the road wound upwards to a high headland. It rose stark up from the valley below. Someone had committed suicide there two hundred years before, and I had never known whether he had been named Bracken or whether it was so called because of the bracken which grew there.
“You mean Faith Camborne …”
“She fell,” said my father.
“We don’t know exactly whether it was an accident… or suicide.”
“You mean someone may have …”
“Oh, no, no, no! Whether she did it herself or slipped and lost her balance …”
“But she would never kill herself. She was such a timid creature. Oh dear, what an awful thing. Poor Faith! It is terrible when something like that happens to someone you have known.”
I kept seeing Faith and I couldn’t see Faith without Hope. They were always together. Faith clinging to her twin as though her life depended on that support. Poor, poor Faith.
Clare was clearly too overcome for speech. I remembered how friendly she had always been with the twins.
“It’s dangerous up there,” my father went on.
“They’ve fenced it off now.”
“Rather like shutting the stable door when the horse has run away,” I commented.
“Oh poor Faith! What about Hope and the doctor and his wife?”
“Very cut up … all of them. It’s a good thing that Hope is getting married and going away.”
“Do you think that Faith … Do you think it was because of Hope’s engagement?”
“We don’t know,” replied my father.
“The verdict was accidental death.
It’s better to leave it like that for everybody’s sake. “
I nodded.
Clare was quietly crying.
I leaned over and touched her hands. She turned her swimming eyes to me.
“She was my special friend,” she said.
“They both were … but I think Faith specially … more than Hope. It was terrible.”
There was silence at the table. Then my father said: “I wonder what she would have done when Hope married.”
“Poor Faith,” said Clare, ‘she would have been lost without her sister. ”
My father sought to change the subject which so clearly upset Clare. He said: “Kate has had a wonderful offer. Someone she met in Paris has offered to rent her an apartment in the heart of Paris.
There is a studio and everything that is necessary for her work. She can take it for a while and see how things work
out. Commissions at the moment are rolling in. “
Clare was smiling at me.
“Oh, Kate. I’m so happy for you. It is wonderful how everything is turning out for you. I love to hear about that party when that … what was he … Baron or someone .. told them all what a great artist you are.”
“It’s not more than she deserves,” said my father.
“How will you like living in a foreign city … away from everyone?” asked Clare.
“I shall miss you all,” I told her.
“But I shall come home when I can.
And it seems to me the right. the only thing . to do. “
“Let’s drink to Kate’s success,” said Clare.
The tears for Faith were still in her eyes as she lifted her glass.
I often thought how much I owed to Nicole.
She was practical in the extreme and as soon as I returned to Paris to the house of the Regniers my next commission-I went to see her.
“Well?” she said.
But I didn’t have to tell her. She knew. She put her arms round me and held me close to her for a moment.
Then she said: “Now we start to plan.”
After that I saw her almost every day. There was so much to talk about, so much to arrange. It was immediately decided that the attic should be my studio, and that I should have a room in which to receive people and discuss appointments and terms. We should share the salon and I should have a bedroom next to the attic.
“There is a suite of rooms up there,” she said, ‘and you can have those when the baby arrives. They’ll be suitable for the first few months anyway . until the child begins to walk. “
She had worked out everything. I must, of course, remain Kate Collison. But instead of being Mademoiselle I should become Madame. We could have a vague story in the background about a husband who had unfortunately died.
“The tragedy is fairly recent,” she explained, ‘so we do not wish to discuss it. It is too painful. You retained the name of Collison because it means a great deal in the art world and you are carrying on the family tradition. ” She paused and then went on: ” As soon as the present commissions are completed you will expect clients to come to the studio to be painted. In the meantime we will prepare it and make sure it is all that it should be to accommodate a fashionable and famous artist. You can go on painting right until the last month, I should think. In any case we can see about that when the time comes. I shall engage a midwife who I know is efficient in her job and does in fact attend the nobility. In the meantime we shall prepare for this infant. We shall have everything of the best for it.
Leave that to me. “
“I want to be careful with money,” I insisted.
“I know I am highly paid now and I have saved quite a bit. But I have the future to think of.”
“The future is assured if you will let it be. You have to act like a great artist. That is of the utmost importance. Money affairs are mundane matters. They should not concern you overmuch. You are deeply interested only in art. I think we are getting everything arranged nicely. All we have to do now is to await the birth and in the meantime go on painting and piling up the shekels.”
“Nicole,” I said one day, ‘why are you doing all this for me? “
She was silent for a moment. Then she said: “Friendship.” And after another pause: “I’m doing it for myself in a way. I was lonely. The days seemed so long. They don’t any more. I always wanted children. “
“Do you mean … his … ?”
“Well,” she said, ‘it wouldn’t have been possible. He didn’t want a wife then. He wanted a mistress. “
“And, of course, he thought only of himself, as always.”
“I never told him I wanted children.”
“He might have guessed that any woman would.”
“Not my sort of woman.”
“How can you talk of sorts of women! They are all individuals … no two alike.”
“No, perhaps not. But we can be roughly sorted into types. I mean, the women who choose the way of life I chose do not usually want children.”
“That way of life was chosen for you.”
“Well, most of us have something chosen for us. It is the bold ones who break away. No. I must be fair. I accepted that way of life because it was amusing and interesting. I had tried respectability, hadn’t I, and I knew it wasn’t for me.”
“Nicole, I fancy I’m growing up fast, through you.”
“I’m glad to be of help and what I wanted to say is that it is no use blaming anyone for what we are. It’s in our hands.”
‘“Not in our stars but in ourselves …” I quoted.
“Oh yes, I see that.”
“And we should be lenient in our judgement of others.” She looked at me almost appealingly.
“The way in which we are brought up does affect our lives. You see, in my case, I was made to see a great deal that was desirable in pandering to the pleasure of someone who could give me a secure future. It’s like many people’s approach to marriage in a way. Think of all those fond Mammas parading their daughters for the highest bidder, one might say. It was the same with me. More honest in a way. I had to give more in return for what I received. I had to continue to please.” She laughed at me.
“It sounds immoral, doesn’t it, to one who has been brought up carefully in a pleasant household. But you see, heredity and upbringing have made you a painter; the same thing has made me a courtesan. “
“They made you clever, understanding and kind, and I’m grateful to you, Nicole. In fact, I don’t know what I should have done without you.”
“Well, it is not all for you. I was lonely. I wanted an interest. Oh Kate, I am looking forward to our baby.”
“Nicole, so am I. So am I!”
On another occasion she said: “You don’t feel so vehement about him now, do you?”
She nodded.
“I hate him as intensely as ever.”
“You mustn’t.”
“I couldn’t stop myself if I tried. I shall always hate him.”
“You shouldn’t. It might be bad for the child. He is the father, remember.”
“I wish I could forget that.”
“Try to understand him.”
“Understand him! I understand him too well. He’s a throw-back to the age of barbarism. He has no place in a civilized world.”
“He used to talk to me about his childhood sometimes.”
“I am sure he was the most horrible child who tortured little animals and tore the wings off flies.”
“No, he did not. He was fond of animals. He loves his dogs and horses.”
“Was it really possible for him to love anything besides himself?”
“Now you are working yourself up and as I told you that’s bad for the child.”
“Anything connected with him is bad for everyone near him.”
“But he is the child’s father.”
“For Heaven’s sake, Nicole, don’t keep reminding me of that.”
“I want you to see him in a new light. You must understand what sort of man his father was.”
“Just like him, I should imagine.”
“He was the only son. Everything was concentrated on him.”
“He liked that, I am sure.”
“No. It meant that he was always under observation … he was brought up in a way which made him what he is. He had to excel at everything.
He was constantly made aware of his ancestry. “
“Those savage marauding Normans who raided the coasts of peaceful people, stole their goods and raped their women. I can well believe that.”
“A child is brought up like that … forced to excel in all manly sports, taught to be a stoic, taught the importance of power, brought up to see his family as the greatest in the world. He has even been named after one of them. Rollo-apparently was the first leader who came to Normandy.”
“Yes, I know. He raided the coast and so harassed t
he French that to keep the invaders quiet they gave them a part of their country which was called Normandy. He was very anxious to tell me at the very beginning of our disastrous acquaintance that he was not French. He was Norman. I think he really believed he was back in those dark ages.
He certainly behaved as though he were. “
“Yet in spite of this there was a certain sensitivity.”
“Sensitivity!”
“This love of art. I’ll tell you something else: he wanted to be an artist. You can imagine the storm in the Centeville camp when that was discovered. There had never been an artist in the family. They were all hoary warriors. That was stamped on at once.”
“I am surprised he allowed that to be.”
“He didn’t, did he? He became both … and because his efforts were divided he wasn’t entirely successful at either.”
“What do you mean?”
“He is not a painter but I have heard it said that there is not a man in France who knows more about painting. He is ruthless, upholding his power and yet he has a sentimental streak which is quite alien to everything else about him.”
“Sentimental streak! Really, Nicole. You are romancing.”
“Didn’t he proclaim your talent? Don’t you owe the fact that you are on the way to him?”
“That was simply because he admired my work … recognized it for what it was, and he knew that I could paint a miniature as well as my father could.”
“But he did it, didn’t he? He went to considerable pains to advance your career.”
“And then went to even greater pains to destroy it. No, I shall always hate him. I see him for what he is and that is … a monster.”
“Don’t get excited,” said Nicole.
“It’s bad for the child.”
I became more and more grateful to Nicole as the months passed. She carried off our masquerade with aplomb; everything she did was done in the true spirit of generosity which was to make me feel that the benefit was hers. She had been lonely, bored, and I had given her something to plan for. My desperate situation had relieved the monotony other days. The only time she was impatient was when I tried to express my gratitude.
The arrangements in the house were perfect. The studio was large, airy and light. It was all a studio should be. She had one day a week when she received her friends. I was always with her on these occasions and this brought me many clients. I had worked right up to the time of my confinement so I was not going to be short of money and was able to pay Nicole a reasonable price for my rent, although I knew full well that she did not want to take it. However, I insisted on this.
The Demon Lover Page 21