Francie Again (11 page)

But what did make-up matter anyway? Nobody really cared the least bit whether she was attractive or not.

“Romance isn't the only thing in life,” she thought. “I'll be a famous painter instead, and then they'll be sorry. Glenn will be sorry he didn't write to me, and Peggy will be sorry she did.
I'll
show them.”

She rushed out, slamming the door. A chambermaid in the passage stared after her and shook her head, disapproving such American, unladylike haste.

CHAPTER 10

Good resolutions are fun to make, and for a time they are quite as satisfactory as genuine good behavior. Francie was not late to class for nearly a week after her determination to devote her life to Art, and she didn't leave class early, either. There came a day, however, when Mark tempted her.

“If only you weren't working at this ridiculous studio,” he said tentatively, “we could get an early start tomorrow afternoon and join Phyllis and the others for a picnic. But of course you take your work so seriously!”

He looked past Francie as he spoke, into Aunt Lolly's eyes, and Francie realized that he and her godmother had arrived at some sort of understanding concerning her. They were drinking tea in the hotel lounge. Aunt Lolly gave Mark an encouraging nod, and he went on, “How about giving it a miss, just this once?”

Francie hesitated. “It's the others,” she explained. “They never knock off, or at least hardly ever. Not as much as I do, anyway.”

Mark looked around toward Mrs. Barclay, who said in a decided manner, “My dear, you mustn't overdo it. You're not settling into Fontoura's for life. This was supposed to be a combination year of work and pleasure for you. After all, I meant to give you a gay time in Paris. I've made enough of a muddle as it is with your plans, and if you turn into a little drudge, your father decidedly is not going to thank me.”

“Oh, he wouldn't mind at all, Aunt Lolly, truly he wouldn't. It
is
time I got serious about something.” Francie spoke earnestly. “It makes me ashamed when I look around at all the other students. You see, they behave like professionals, and they can't understand why I don't. And really, why shouldn't I, too?”

“Because you're not,” said Aunt Lolly. “Because you haven't made up your mind yet. At least I hope you haven't. A girl your age ought to take a little time off for gaiety.”

Gaiety? In her self-dedicated mood, this word shocked Francie. She looked dubious.

“Very well,” said Mark. “If you won't come tomorrow, you won't, I suppose. I'll make other arrangements.”

“I didn't say that,” said Francie hastily. “I just meant I don't like the other students to look scornful at me when I walk out, the way they do. Still, this once won't hurt, I guess.”

“Of course it won't,” said Mrs. Barclay.

“You'll come, then,” said Mark in satisfaction, and they discussed other things, and after a little while he left. Francie made a decision. Perhaps Aunt Lolly could help with advice.

“Aunt Lolly,” she began, “I don't think Pop has written you, but there is something you ought to hear about.” She told the story, and they talked it out—Pop's crisis, and her good resolutions, and the whole thing. Mrs. Barclay listened with calm attentiveness.

“I'm sorry now I didn't go straight to you,” Francie ended, “but I wanted to figure things out for myself if I could, and act like a grown-up person for once. It's about time.”

“Naturally you felt that way, Francie.” Aunt Lolly spoke promptly, as she always did, as if she had a pattern that everything, no matter how unexpected, would fit against in one place or another. “It was your problem and you had to think it out. But now that you've allowed me in on it, may I give you just a bit of advice? Don't worry so about your father. It's not a catastrophe. It's merely a reverse, and he'll weather the storm. You'll see.”

“But
he's
worried, Aunt Lolly.”

“Of course he is, dear; he wouldn't have told you if he hadn't been. But worry is one thing and despair quite another,” said Mrs. Barclay.

“Oh,
despair.”
Francie dismissed the word. “I don't mean it that way. It's because Pop oughtn't to be bothered at all that I'm upset. He's used to being successful. It must be so horrid for him not to be.”

Aunt Lolly smiled indulgently, and the smile irritated her god-daughter. While she talked with calm good sense, pointing out that Pop had not always been at the top of the tree, Francie was thinking in a new, detached way about her. Aunt Lolly was wonderful; everybody knew how wonderful she was. But did she always know best? For the first time, Francie entertained this startling idea.

Aunt Lolly
had
always known best, she now protested to herself. Aunt Lolly had been the refuge whenever Pop didn't understand. She had been a comfort when life with Aunt Norah in Jefferson seemed limited; she was an escape, and she never failed. Yet she, the all-wise, was not understanding just at this moment. She was being as dull and placid as Aunt Norah could ever have been. She was standing between Francie and the once-despised, now longed-for Jefferson. One might almost have said that she was taking all the fun out of Pop's ruin. It was all very strange.

“I'm being awfully nasty,” thought Francie with remorse.

Aloud she said, “All right, Aunt Lolly, I'll calm down if you think I've made too much of it.”

“Depend on it, your father didn't want you to change your plans radically,” said Mrs. Barclay. “You'll help him best at this time by going on almost exactly as you were, though naturally we'll be much more careful about your expenses. And do please relax a little about all this painting, Francie. I've said it before, I know, and I hate to harp, but relaxing is
so
important. This is your playtime, and you ought to have it no matter what happens. You can't help your father anyway.”

Francie was silent. Why couldn't she help her father? It was nonsense. Aunt Lolly was talking nonsense, which was unbelievable.

“You have plenty of nice companions,” Mrs. Barclay added.
“Wise
ones.”

“You mean Mark? You mean I ought to see more of him?”

“That's entirely up to you, darling. I'm not trying to fence you in, or marry you off. I would hate to see you married to a foreigner and living so far away from America, but all that is your affair and Mark is a nice boy. So is Ruy. The world's full of nice boys!”

“You sound awfully frivolous, Aunt Lolly.”

Mrs. Barclay sat there looking startled, as Francie made for the elevator.

In a stormy mood she went on the picnic with Mark next day, and in a stormy mood she returned. The others agreed it had been a successful party, but then it always was a successful party, Francie reflected. Nothing ever happened—nothing real or vital. Nobody did anything surprising; nobody's parents were in financial difficulties; the only excitement in all Portugal, for a foreign girl, was somebody snubbing somebody else at a party. It was not her idea of Life.

Back the day after, in the studio, she heaved a sigh of relief, for here at least she felt, or fancied she felt, something of what she really wanted. All the students were concentrating with intensity on their work, she mused as she looked around. Tomas, the man everyone said was sure to win a prize and a scholarship in Paris, had been there when she arrived a quarter of an hour early, too absorbed in his preparations to notice that she had come in. He was working with big gestures at a very small canvas. The Norwegian girl, the little old man, Catarina and all the others trickled in and set up their work to the tune of comfortable, desultory chatter before the model took her pose and silence fell.

How very strange that Aunt Lolly could not understand this impulse that moved the students. “All this painting” indeed! Francie felt lofty as she thought of the Philistine attitude, compared with her own. Aunt Lolly meant well, of course, and so did Pop, but unless you are a real painter, a real artist, you can never understand.

“And it is no use trying to talk about it,” she said to herself, absently watching Catarina at work. “It is no use trying to express in words what it feels like to be doing something on your own, really creating.”

So rapt was she in this thought that she never realized until Fontoura came in that she herself had created nothing that morning. Then, naturally, it was too late. Fontoura walked over and looked at her painting which was just as it had been two days before, and for a little while he said nothing. Francie felt herself growing confused.

“I haven't got down to it this morning, somehow,” she said at last.

“So I see. Thinking about yesterday's distraction, perhaps?” He passed on then to look at the Norwegian's work. Somebody behind her laughed a little. Francie did not like to whirl around and see who it was, though she longed to do so. But probably it was just a laugh about something else entirely, nothing to do with her at all.

Still, she didn't feel comfortable about having taken that day off. It was no use trying to explain to people outside—she was repeating her thoughts, they seemed to run round and round in a circle, but it was no good at all explaining to Aunt Lolly. Pop might have understood a little better, if he wasn't distracted just now by his business difficulties.

At lunchtime, Francie felt unequal to facing the usual chatty student group at the meal in their customary haunt. She went over to Catarina and asked her in a low tone if they couldn't go somewhere else, just the two of them alone. Catarina was delighted, or at least said she was. “I like to be with you, Francesca,” she said, “all the time. You are so sympathetic.”

They went to a restaurant near the middle of town, and had a good long orgy of talk, all about Catarina's troubles. A detailed story of a dispute between Catarina and her mother-in-law carried them through most of the meal.

Francie said, “You know, you really shouldn't stand for it.”

“But what is one to do, Francesca?”

“It's all
wrong
,” said Francie. “It's your baby, isn't it? You're the mother and surely you ought to know what to feed it, and how to doctor it. Just because older women think they know best—”

Catarina said gloomily that it was not merely a matter of thinking. “She is so sure she knows best. That is it,” she explained. “I tell you something, Francesca. I do not mind this one thing, this little thing. It was only today, and is worth no quarrel. My mother-in-law adores the child and means it for the best. But what is killing me
here—”
she slapped at her breast—“what is killing my soul is that they will not leave me alone. It is I, it is
myself
they are smothering. I am a wife, yes, I am a mother. But I am something more, and they do not want it.”

“Oh dear, oh dear,” said Francie.

Catarina took a bite of crême caramel, smolderingly. Her eyes glowed with pride and rage. Francie looked at her admiringly.

“These people do not understand artists, that is it,” said Catarina at last.

“I know,” said Francie.

CHAPTER 11

They don't understand,” said Francie to Maria and Ruy. “Do they?” Maria's face was lit up with intelligent sympathy. Ruy, always more inscrutable than his sister, nevertheless nodded deeply. It was all calculated to make a girl feel much better about—well, about what? What was it that worried Francie so much, these beautiful Portuguese days? For worried she certainly was, if not unhappy, about her work, in a way she could not have expressed.

There was the matter of Pop, of course, but Francie did not feel frightened about herself or him; she was only awfully sorry, and wanted to help. Pop had become a romantic figure, like someone in a turned-around legend; a man rather than a damsel in distress. The idea hardly bore a closer look. Pop was a perfect darling, a wonderful man and all the rest of it, but his rotund self in business clothes bore no slightest resemblance to a young knight in durance vile. Nevertheless—

“Nobody understands about my father,” continued Francie. “Naturally, I want to go and comfort him. He needs me.”

“It seems like your duty,” said Maria, but there was a certain amount of reserve in her voice. Portuguese girls did not so lightly strike out to do their duty, when they were assured their duty lay otherwise. And Francie had already informed the da Souzas that Aunt Lolly was firmly against any change of arrangement. Maria adored Mrs. Barclay; anything she said must be right.

“Besides which,” continued Francie, “they expect me to carry on with the same old round. Parties, tennis, picnics, boating. Quite as if I were not really serious about things. As if Fontoura's were just a fill-in, sort of.”

This time it was Ruy who reacted in a satisfactory manner. He simply lit up. “I know,” he said. “It is what people always do.”

“They never understand,” said Francie again, and in a companionable silence they walked on, toward the entrance gate of the Feira Popular.

Maria had suggested a visit to this little Coney Island place, as something Francie had not yet seen of Portuguese life. Within a high brick wall, among booths where native handwork and little dolls were sold, where you could try your luck at shooting or having your picture made, there flourished small patio restaurants, coffee parlors, and amusement gadgets like scenic railways. Everything was lit to within an inch of its life; the Fair visitors wandered in a happy pool of yellow electricity, red neon, and flashes of the railway headlights when the little train swooped about overhead.

The three friends strolled around idly, paying little attention to the ordinary exhibits. Ruy knew exactly what he wanted to look at. Every so often the Government put on a special show of something particularly Portuguese. It was not supposed to be like the permanent exhibition in the Museum, where life-sized figures displayed peasant costume, and entire carriages were set up; the little Feira gallery was more likely to contain some modern sculptor's work, or a collection of antique dolls, especially lent for the occasion.