Feast of All Saints (99 page)

But Richard wanted it otherwise. And this morning he had come down to the cottage and caught Marcel unawares. Of course Marcel knew what Richard had to say, but he had never expected the simple and direct expression of it which followed.

“I never wanted this trip,” Richard had begun at once, “I never planned for it, prepared for it as you did. As a matter of fact, were the truth to be known, I wish that Marie and I could stay right here. But I know what this means to you, the irony of it is not lost for me. I know the disappointment you are feeling. I am going and you are not going. I will be on the deck of that ship waving good-bye and you will be the one on the shore. Now, I don’t want you to come to the dock. I want for you to say good-bye here; then you come to the house and be alone for a moment with Marie.”

It was strange the effect of those words. They tested Marcel to the limit, he wasn’t even sure at one point whether or not he could hear Richard out. But this was unthinkable really. He knew what he must say to put Richard at ease and he said it at once, “Do you think I’m not happy for you and Marie! Do you think my heart’s not with both of you? I’ve a lifetime to think of myself, and nothing could keep me from coming with you to the dock. I want you to write to me, to describe everything you see from Notre Dame to the Grand Canal, I want to hear about Florence, about Rome…every place that you go.”

But then, as they walked through the early morning together toward the Lermontant house, that pain had welled up in Marcel again, and just before the front door, he had stopped Richard and drawn him aside at the carriageway, and for a tense moment been quite unable to speak.

“Look,” he said finally, “it’s not over for me. It will just take time. I’m going to do things in my life, important things, it will just take time. It will be harder, and…and…it will just take time.” Then he realized that his lips were moving but the words were not coming out. He drew himself up, swallowing slowly, and then shook his head as if to clear it, as if to see sharply and distinctly what it was he was trying to say. “Look at Monsieur Philippe,” he whispered, “all that money and what did he ever do? I think he would have been happy in the cottage all his life with some good bourbon and my mother, and a deck of cards. And Christophe, he turned his back on Paris and came home to start a school. People make their own lives, Richard, and I’ll make mine.”

Richard had nodded. His large drowsy brown eyes watered slowly
and he started as if he wanted to say something, but then he merely nodded emphatically again.

That had been the end of it.

And that was going to be the end of it.

But as he wound his way back from the dock toward the Rue Ste. Anne, the sun just breaking through the gray clouds, the last of an earlier rain still shining on the banquettes, he realized he c
ould
not endure the cottage just now. He did not wish to see the bare shelves, the latched doors of the kitchen, and frankly, the small pile of bills accumulating on the table by his chair.

Of course Dazincourt had wiped the slate clean of Monsieur Philippe’s debts with the notary Jacquemine, and had even left instructions that if Marcel required assistance in finding some means of livelihood, he was to be contacted at once. But Marcel could not endure the thought of further “assistance” from this man. And neither Jacquemine or Dazincourt would ever know of these bills. They were from tradesmen who had known nothing of the notary, people whom over the years Marcel had always paid on the first of every month himself. And in the time Marcel had spent on the Cane River they had not been paid at all. Now their bills were trickling in, $150 from the tailor, $75 from the seamstress who had made Marcel’s shirts, $85 owing the shoemaker, and then there was the coal man, the fish man and the poultry man who had always been paid at the back door. Let it wait, and let the whole dusty unkempt atmosphere of the cottage wait until later, perhaps, when this warm sun that had just come out as he walked through the streets, was gone again.

So as he approached the corner of the Rue Dauphine and found himself within sight of home, he dragged his feet, and went out of his way as a child might to kick a lump of coal that had just fallen from a cart.

A score of voices startled him. It was the children gathered on the corner, and for a rare moment, he stared at these children, all of them boys, and wondered what they were doing here now in this place. It was almost with a laugh that he realized they were Christophe’s students, some twenty or more, many of them only eleven or twelve, clamoring for Christophe to open the school. There were the older boys that he knew, of course, but many of them were strange faces, and as usual, there was a wild assortment of color from the very fair to the very dark. Christophe didn’t see Marcel as he unlocked the door. He was dressed as always in one of his old but serviceable Parisian coats, quite clean and well-cared-for, but much worn. And there was in his face the usual brightness as he clasped the shoulders of the boys who passed into the house. His keen brown eyes warmed as he exchanged a few words here, there, and then without seeing Marcel even yet, he disappeared inside.

Marcel experienced a sinking feeling. He stood for a while, his back to the lamp post merely looking at the façade of the house. Suddenly a wild impulse gripped him to go in. To sit in the back reading room for a while with the papers, perhaps drink some very strong coffee, talk with Juliet. But he did not do this, he did not move.

“And why are you moping about?” he asked himself frankly. With all of New Orleans before you, mud streaming in the streets, the slops reeking in the alleys, and a thousand billiard parlors and confectioners and restaurants and cabarets that you cannot enter unless you want to be pitched on your face in the street.

He began to laugh suddenly at the irony of his thoughts, the little games of bitterness he had been playing with himself. It wasn’t very much like him, after all. To be walking casually past the shops as they opened their doors, calculating that at best he might make a dollar and a half a day as a clerk somewhere, and that he had never bought a coat in his life that didn’t cost fifty dollars, or a pair of pants that was less than twenty, or a shirt that was less than three. And he was growing still, which meant that he would be naked by summer when it was too late to use the old clothes to burn for warmth. Maybe he should burn all those outstanding bills now. But passing one small shop with very dark dormer windows, he positively laughed aloud. For there he was reflected in the glass in all his gentlemanly splendor, the perfect picture of a young man of means.

The laughter was exhilarating though people were staring at him. And he realized that in a way, all this ironical foolishness was a good sign. It was lighter. It was not so bad. And a small plan leapt into his mind as amusing as everything else. Why not go on down toward the Rue Canal and see Picard and Duval, and have one last Daguerreotype made, one final relic, a memento of the gentleman he had been, a memento of this peculiar day? After all, he had a spare ten dollars, did he not, he had fifteen times that amount to be exact, and none of it likely to make or break his fortune since it constituted less than one-fourth of his debts, and was the sum total that he possessed. And he wanted this little picture, it would be the last for his collection, he would take it home at once and hang it on the wall.

It was eight thirty when he arrived and Picard was just opening the door. “Ah, Marcel,” said the old man, adjusting his spectacles, “haven’t seen you in months, thought you’d left these parts.”

“Oh, no, Monsieur,” Marcel followed him up the dusty stairway, the old man’s steps slow, his hand hoisting his weight as it clutched the rail. “Only in the country for a little while. And Monsieur Duval?” he asked quickly. “Is Monsieur Duval here?”

“Aaaah, Duval!” the old man said over his shoulder as he entered the studio. The typical exasperation made Marcel smile. He did not
realize until that moment how much he wanted to talk to Duval, how much he wanted to tell him of his discoveries on the Cane River, of the adventurous Daguerrean who had taken pictures of Niagara Falls, and the talk among the itinerants of a new buffing wheel.

As a matter of fact, all of Marcel’s old enthusiasm for the invention was kindled again as he smelt the familiar chemicals, and saw Picard throw back the flap of his shabby little tent.

“Don’t you mention that name to me,” the old man had been murmuring, and now some low invective escaped under his breath. “What would you like today, Marcel, as a matter of fact I’ll make you an offer, whole plate, whole plate for half price, five dollars, just for you.”

“Monsieur Duval is not here?” Marcel asked, attempting to sound casual. The little platform creaked dangerously as ever, there was dust on the velvet prop behind it, dust on the ornately carved chair. But the sun, the sun was a miracle.

“No, Duval’s not here! And I wouldn’t make that offer for just anyone, whole plate, five dollars, what do you say?”

“Aah…yes, of course,” Marcel shrugged. He had always preferred the smaller quarter plates, actually, because it was easier for him to see patterns in them, appealing masses of black and white, but a whole plate for half price—And what did it matter now, if he had missed Duval, Duval who could have taken a perfect picture. “But do you expect him, Monsieur?” he asked.

“Expect him, I expect him to fall on his face, that’s what I expect,” came the angry voice from beneath the muslin. “Set up his own studio, that’s what he’s gone and done, with everything I taught him, the years of patience, training, and he ups and goes into business for himself!”

Marcel’s lips pressed together into a bitter but patient smile. And if I had only known that five minutes ago, he thought wearily. But how could he leave now with the old man already at work on the plate, and the old man would guess the reason for his departure, the old man would be hurt.

“And two dollars a day I was paying him at the end,” Picard’s voice continued, high-pitched with habitual outrage, “and he ups and sets up on his own. Damn fool if you ask me, but there’s always a damn fool ready to set up in this business, thinks he can make a fortune with the camera, well let’s just see how Duval can manage on his own! What with an endless procession of women who want to look ten years younger, and children who won’t sit still. What with the chemicals twelve hours a day, and no one to lend him a helping hand, advance him a little salary, or send him on home early when business is slow. Monsieur Duval, the artist! Well, we shall see what we shall see.”

And where, Marcel was wondering, where was Duval’s studio, and
if only he were there instead of here. It was more than a blight on his spirits, the room about him appeared intolerably shabby, and his thoughts were wandering slowly, away from this entire venture, to times when he had been here before. The afternoon when he had first brought Marie, or that Saturday morning when he’d stolen Lisette out of the kitchen in her new calico dress. Lisette had refused to sit in this chair, rather she stood behind it, her
tignon
tied like a gypsy’s scarf at the nape of her neck. “I always thought Monsieur Duval would set up on his own,” he murmured. “He has such a talent, such an eye.” And he would do marvelously no matter what the old man said.

“Well, a talent for conniving and ingratitude if you ask me,” Picard threw back the flap as he slid the plate into the camera case. “And that last one, a perfect idiot, demanding two days wages in advance and me fool enough to give it to him, never saw him again!” He threw up his hand, turned as if on an axis to consult his thermometer, the sun glinting on the pink flesh of his bald head. “And without another pair of hands in this business a man can’t even leave his establishment long enough to go to the…to go to the…bank!” He gazed at the freshly washed windows, he waved his hand before the hot stove.

A curious rigidity had invaded Marcel. He was staring at the old man dimly, watching him adjust the camera’s height. The warm air was unpleasant, the chemicals noxious, so that he wondered why he had ever come. The days were past for this extravagance and he was wasting time here as well. “What do you pay your assistants?” he asked, but the voice was low, spiritless as was the light in his eyes. Duval had always been the rarity in this business, and Picard was run of the mill. Why had he risked encountering Picard here alone?

“One dollar a day!” the old man trumpeted. “And that’s one dollar too much! The one after Duval, he couldn’t take a picture with me standing over his shoulder, that one, and the next was a thief!” His heavy florid brow puckered, the white eyebrows closing on the fine gold frame of the spectacles. “And with all I have to teach,” he muttered, “why the excellent training and…”

“And the chemicals twelve hours a day,” Marcel murmured, “the endless procession of women who want to look ten years younger, and the children who won’t sit still.”

“Oh, now it’s not that bad!” the old man put his knuckles on his hip. “You’re the one who used to tell me it was an art, young man! One dollar a day for the privilege of learning an art? What do you think they pay a clerk in a shop!” The old man’s gray eyes widened. He drew his handkerchief out and wiped the sweat from his upper lip. “Starvation wages, that’s what they pay. As a matter of fact, you wouldn’t know anyone who wanted such an opportunity, would you? Oh, not you, of course, not you, I can see you’re well fixed. But your people do
quite well in this business, look at Jules Lion. No, I wouldn’t be opposed to hiring some honest, hardworking man of color, no, indeed.”

“For a dollar a day?” Marcel uttered a slight, dry laugh. He had lost all appetite for this venture, he wished flatly that he had not come.

“All right, young man,” Picard drew himself up. “Forty seconds when you are quite ready…”

“No!” Marcel roused himself as if from some unpleasant dream. “Thirty, Monsieur,” he insisted gently. It was the final irritation that the old man had never really understood the importance of the time of day, the light, the dampness, conditions subject moment by moment to change. Enough times Marcel had calculated, watched, he knew. “Thirty seconds, Monsieur, and not a moment longer and I assure you I’ll pay for the result.”