Girl in the Afternoon (13 page)

“Dine with us tomorrow night,” she said. “We'll surprise Auguste. It will be fun.” She walked to the door, tapping the ivory tip of her sunshade on the floor. “What do you say?”

The room was hot, the air thick as sludge as Henri moved in front of her, blocking the door. Sweat dripped into his eyes, and he wiped it away with the back of his hand. “I will not do that to him,” he said, angrily. “
You
will not do that to him.”

Colette sucked her breath through her teeth and gave a derisive smile. “Very well,” she said, stepping around Henri, careful not to touch him.

*   *   *

Henri
could hear the tap of her sunshade against the wooden planks along the corridor, then down the stairs, until the sound faded away. Shaking, he shut the door, poured a drink, and sat down.

He'd kept to himself these past four years, making sure not to frequent popular cafés where he might be known. His work had stalled because he hadn't dared go to any of the reputable studios. By some miracle he'd gotten into the Salon de Paris this year, but his art was uninspired, his living from it meager. He didn't mind his poverty. He preferred it actually. It felt genuine and honest. His life as an artist had been insular, but not as lonely as he had expected.

When he left the Savaray household, he had prepared himself for a world of weary, hardened people. Instead, he discovered beneficent comrades, people willing to help him for no self-serving purpose at all. He was taken in, fed, clothed. It gave him a new view of humanity, a view he hadn't been able to see from his dark, miserable home in England as a child, or the tumultuous home of the Savarays. He made loyal friends, ones as poor as he was, who gave him what they could when they had it, food, money, and he learned to do the same. There had been a few women, not many, but they were all good ones, like Leonie.

He should have known it would come to this. Henri took a drink. The liquor was cheap and bitter. He wasn't sure why he'd bothered pretending he was a decent, honest man all these years. He was his father's son. They could change his name, but not his blood. Eventually, he would have to pay for what he had done.

 

Chapter 15

When Aimée left Édouard's, she had been determined to go to Henri and tell him the truth about her feelings. Shedding her clothes and giving her body away had heightened a sense of carelessness in her, and she didn't have much else to hide. But as she walked, the reality of what she'd done began to sink in, and the calmness she'd felt at Édouard's was replaced with staggering embarrassment, and then unequivocal remorse.

By the time she stood outside Henri's apartment—imagining him and Leonie together, even more painful now—she couldn't go in. What she had done changed everything. Giving herself to another man removed her from Henri completely.

Hurrying away from the building, she reached inside her dress, yanked off the stone necklace, and with a swift toss, hurled it into the dusty street. The stone bounced over some dry, packed dung and disappeared under hooves and creaking wheels.

With her head high, her eyes fixed on nothing, Aimée walked to the académie. She spent the remainder of the afternoon drawing in the crowded studio with furious concentration. As she sketched, her thoughts hovered just out of reach. She could make herself numb, hold everything at a distance: the exhausting bodies of students, the familiar smells of paint and sweat and turpentine, the ticking clock and scratching pencils. Slowly, she felt her regret shift to anger, and her anger fuel a defiant confidence. By the time she arrived home a new, raw energy pulsed through her.

At first, Aimée did not see her maman at the far end of her bedroom. It was when she removed her shoes that she noticed Colette step forward into the pale dusk coming from the window.

“Where have you been?” her maman said, just the slightest hint of accusation in her voice.

“At the académie.” Aimée pulled one boot off and began unlacing the other.

“You're lying.”

Aimée struggled with her boot. She could hear the satisfaction in her maman's voice. “No,” she said, yanking her foot free. “I'm not.” It seemed a lucky chance she wasn't lying this time.

“I've been to see Henri.”

Aimée set her boot on the floor, surprise touching off her anger, crouched low in her belly like an animal waiting to spring. “Oh?”

With mild scorn, Colette said, “He told me he's seen you.”

Aimée straightened, squaring her shoulders. Colette wore an expectant, self-righteous expression as if waiting for Aimée to confess everything.

The rigid line of Aimée's shoulders, the daring look in her daughter's eyes made Colette's skin tingle. “Why would you keep this from me?” she asked. “You know how much I've worried. It is an unkindness I hadn't thought you capable of.”

After today, Aimée thought, she was capable of more than anyone knew. The ache between her legs and the memory of Édouard made her smile, a strange half smile that Colette took as smug. It was a moment when Colette might have slapped Aimée for her impudence. Instead she took a precautionary step backward, smoothing over her anger as she had learned to do with Jacques.

“We absolutely must not tell your papa,” she said. “There is no need to bring it all up again. It will only upset him.”

Aimée could see how tactful her maman was being. She also sensed a shift in the power between them.

“Which would mean that you're not to see Henri again,” Colette said, with no touch of motherly advice, just a warning.

“I agree,” Aimée replied, only it wasn't to be agreeable; she had already made this decision. “No need to upset Papa.”

Colette looked hard at her daughter. It didn't seem likely that Aimée would give up Henri so easily. She might be lying—clearly she was capable of it—but it was impossible to tell anything from Aimée's look of cold indifference.

“It's settled then.” Colette gave a short nod, calculating just what kind of an eye she'd have to keep on Aimée now.

“It seems we've finally agreed on something,” Aimée said, her undertone a confirmation of their differences.

*   *   *

The
next morning Aimée lay in bed as Marie yanked back the red brocade curtains, and a rectangular patch of light hit the floorboards.

“Leave them, please.” Aimée rolled onto her side and pulled the sheet over her head. Yesterday's adrenaline had disappeared, and her grief had condensed, overnight, into a sharp, clear ache in her chest.

It was hot under the sheet, and Aimée threw it off, watching Marie lift a jug of water and pour it into the washbasin.

“Best be getting up, mademoiselle.” Marie placed a new bar of soap in the dish and a clean, folded towel in the top drawer of the washstand. “It's a lovely day.” She patted the top of Aimée's foot as she walked past the bed, the empty jug held by her side. “You've already missed breakfast.”

“I'm not hungry.” Aimée swung her legs to the floor.

Marie gave a small
humph,
pulled the jug to her hip, and left the room.

Aimée went to the washbasin and slipped her hands into the cool water. The day ahead seemed bleak and endless. She would not be going to Henri's—she splashed her face—she would not be trudging up the hill to Leonie's apartment in Montmartre. She felt for the towel in the drawer and rubbed it hard down her forehead to her chin. It seemed impossible to think she would never tell Leonie about her afternoon on Édouard's divan, or that she and Leonie might never again sit together in the cool light of Aimée's studio, or at the square oaken table in Leonie's kitchen. More impossible was the reality that Henri was gone, again, despoiling her of all anticipation and hope, leaving her with only a vast, cavernous loneliness.

She wondered what it would be like to keep Édouard as her lover, if there was something other than love that could satisfy her. But when she went back to his studio two days later, it was obvious there was nothing between them. All tender desire from their previous meeting had faded. It was as if the heat, or her near fainting, had put them in an altered state. Whatever it had been, it was gone. Édouard Manet greeted her warmly, as a family friend, a mentor and teacher, nothing more.

And yet, Aimée wasn't willing to completely give up what had happened between them. Not because she felt anything real for Édouard, because she did not. A sensual side of her had been exposed, and since she was not in love with him, she felt empowered instead of vulnerable. Empowered enough to discard the silk mother-of-pearl dress Édouard had rented for her portrait. Empowered enough to deliberately remove the one she was wearing as he watched, bemused and intrigued. She stepped out of her wire bustle, unhooked her corset, and let her chemise fall to the floor.

There was a bottomless feeling in her stomach as she stood, stripped naked under Édouard's watchful eyes. She turned her gaze to the table behind him, focusing on the candles burned to nubs in their silver holders, a plate of cold sausage, an open bottle of wine, and an empty glass with a red-rimmed stain on the bottom.

Searching for the ease she'd seen in Leonie, and in the models that stood under the skylight at the académie, Aimée walked to the divan, the air as heavy and warm as bathwater over her bare skin. She sat on the end of the velvet seat with her back to Édouard, her face turned away. Her dark hair was pulled into a high chignon, and she lifted her hand, resting it lightly on the back of her exposed neck.

“That's all you get,” she said. “You will not paint my face.”

He called it
Jeune Femme,
and it was the only painting Édouard ever did of Aimée.

*   *   *

Colette
was grateful Édouard was keeping Aimée busy. It was foolish to think there was anything between them. Édouard attended every one of her soirées with his wife, whom he clearly adored. Not once had Colette witnessed the slightest intimate glance between him and Aimée. These things were palpable. If there were something there, Colette would sense it. Besides, she had much greater things to worry about.

For two weeks she had the coachman follow Aimée, and he reported that she went straight to Édouard's and came straight home afterward. Colette was relieved Aimée was keeping her word and staying away from Henri, and things might have gone on as they were if Colette had been able to stay away too. As it was, she could not.

She told Henri she was worried about him. He looked thin. Did he have all he needed? Could she bring him food? Painting supplies? She didn't mind, really; it was the least she could do.

Henri insisted he didn't need anything, but Colette brought things anyway.

For a while Henri tolerated it, until the tension and the fear of being exposed got the better of him. He told her it would be best if she did not come anymore.

She scoffed, “It's bad enough I'm keeping you a secret. If Auguste found out I wasn't doing all I could for you, he'd be furious.”

But it was her guilt that kept her coming, the idea that she could make up for what she'd done.

The one time Colette came, and Leonie was there, Henri did not open the door. He told Leonie it was a model he'd seen in the street looking for work. “I told her I didn't have any money,” he said, the lie coming easily. “Don't answer it. She'll go away.”

But he did have money now. Colette brought it to him. The first time she tried to hand him a ten-franc note he flatly refused. After that, she started hiding the money in a pot, or a cup, slipping it under his pillow, or sneaking it under his palette.

Once, Leonie found three twenty-franc notes stuffed inside an empty coffee tin. Henri told her he'd sold a painting, nothing worth mentioning.

After that he made sure to search the apartment when Colette left, furious, as he dug around, for participating in her little game. He believed Colette would tire of it. When it was played out, she'd go away.

He was wrong.

*   *   *

As
Colette's visits became more frequent, Henri became increasingly anxious. The visits were always the same. She would arrive just after Leonie had gone, which made Henri think she was lurking outside. She'd push her way through the door, hand her hat to Henri, remove her gloves, and walk around the room slapping them against the palm of her hand.

She'd make a show of inspecting his work, which was all very fatuous because Henri hadn't painted anything new in months. She'd lean into a tiny landscape as if she'd never seen it before, stopping pointedly to inspect the nude of Leonie, cocking her head, never saying a word. Then she'd sit at the table and look at Henri, who remained by the door.

“Aren't you going to offer me a drink?”

The same thing, every time, and he'd take down a bottle of whatever he had and pour them each a glass. He could buy nicer spirits now, with the money Colette left, but he hadn't spent a single sou.

Colette would take a sip, cough, make a face, and ask why he insisted on buying such horrid spirits. He couldn't possibly like it. “But, then again,” she'd say, leaning in. “How would I know what you like and don't like anymore.”

She made no pretense of politeness, not to put Henri off, but rather as a way of winning his trust. Asking personal questions about Leonie. How were they getting on, and did he intend to marry her? If so, how did he intend to support her? That sort of thing.

Henri would shift in his chair, try not to look her in the eye, and answer most questions with a shrug. Colette would rise first, and Henri would stand with her, meeting her at the door with her hat. She'd draw out the process of putting everything on, fiddling with her gloves and fussing with hat strings. Then she would raise both hands to the sides of Henri's face and kiss him. Nothing too personal, just a delicate press of her lips over his. And then she'd be gone.