Rodin's Lover (7 page)

“You miss the point, sister.”

Camille rubbed her hands together, the leather of her gloves slipping as they shimmied back and forth. “Have you become religious, then? Papa would laugh to hear such a thing. Perhaps that school is not so good for you after all.”

Paul looked down at his boots, a sheepish expression marking his features. “Your skepticism doesn’t erase someone else’s faith, or God’s existence—if there is a God,” he added quickly.

“Our family has been skeptical about religion our entire lives, and you as well as any.” Her brow furrowed.

“Can we change the subject?” Paul glanced around the dim room and shuddered. “Let’s go. I feel as if—”

“You feel his eyes upon you, do you?” she goaded him.

He ignored her quip and hurried to the door.

When had he turned into such a coward? Camille looked over her shoulder a last time. A shadow stretched from the altar’s crucifix across the floor. A shiver tingled along her spine.

She felt the sudden need to escape as well, and hurried after Paul into the night.

Camille wiped her hands and peered out the studio window. Something wasn’t quite right with her piece, but she couldn’t discern the issue. The sun beamed over the rooftop tiles, peeped in windowpanes, and flooded the alleyways between buildings. The sunshine did not fool her; her morning walk to classes and the atelier had been brisk, but she needed fresh air to clear her head. She untied her stained apron and tossed it over a chair.

“I’m going for a walk,” she said to Amy and Emily, who looked up briefly and then retrained their eyes on their sculptures.

Maria straightened from her awkward pose. “Finally.” She rotated her head back and forth to stretch her muscles. “I’ll break for luncheon and return in three hours.”

“Three hours?” Camille looked at her with an incredulous expression. “I’ll lose too much light by then. An hour and a half at most.”

Maria screwed her perfect mouth into a pout. “How am I to eat in such a short time? I’m meeting someone across town. Besides, I have been working for two hours already.”

Anger overwhelmed Camille’s contemplative mood. She wouldn’t finish the piece before she ran out of money at this rate. Not to mention she would miss the submission deadline for the May Salon.

“You’ve worked for two hours and expect three to repose?” She clenched her fists. “It seems you have forgotten I paid you for the entire day.”

Maria pretended not to hear her, slipped into her undergarments, and reached for her vermillion day dress.

“Let her go,” Amy said. “We kept her an extra hour last night.”

“She stayed an extra hour because she had to stop five times yesterday!” Camille said. “And the day before she did not show at all.”

“You don’t need to work her so hard.” Amy crossed her arms over her chest.

“I only demand what I paid for!” Camille said. “If she is unable to fulfill the hours, she should not accept payment for them.”

Emily exchanged looks with Amy as if a secret conversation had passed between them.

“This arrangement is not working.” Camille threw her arms in the air. “It seems I am the only professional here.”

Maria snorted. “As if a woman will get anywhere in the art world anyway.”

“At this rate you won’t find me giving recommendations for your service!”

Maria opened her mouth to speak, but Camille’s look froze her tongue in place.

“I’m going out for a couple of hours.” Camille pulled on her wool cloak and gloves, and tucked her sketchbook under her arm. “I expect you to be here when I return.” She slammed the door behind her and lunged into the street.

Maria had some nerve, demanding time off, more money, day in and day out. As soon as Camille finished this piece, she would seek a new model. Perhaps she would begin looking sooner. Something
needed to be done about Amy and Emily as well. They seemed not to care whether or not they advanced with their pieces, and what’s more, they whispered about her at every turn. It did not make her work any easier.

She ambled along the street in search of a comfortable place to sit. She missed Villeneuve, its wild landscape and even the torrential rain that pelted her skin—the kind of weather that ripped away artifice and deepened the soul. Though Paris had its own sensibility, a heartbeat even, it did not offer her the same comfort as her summer home.

Camille sat on a bench near the entrance of a popular brasserie facing a nook of greenery, a place artists and students frequented. She flipped open her sketchbook and retrieved a pencil from her pocket. A hungry bird hopped about a patch of grass. Pencil to paper and she drew its outline. She lost herself in her drawing, the sun warm on her face despite the chill. As two women passed, she glanced at their heads inclined toward one another, their eyes condemning. She did not care that she sat unescorted, boldly in the middle of the day. Her reputation could be damaged, but it mattered little to her. She did not hold society’s mores on a pedestal. She pitied those women. Their lives must be insipid, each moment of their days planned by another, their friends chosen by another, their very dreams dictated by another.

Camille sketched the robin’s feathers, the lump of its rusty throat, its curious gleaming eye. She looked up again as a gentleman neared her bench. His agile form moved with grace, his curling dark hair bouncing beneath his cap. He stopped for a moment to retrieve his watch from his jacket pocket. She noted his long thin fingers, his angular jaw—yes, he seemed familiar. He sat beside her on the edge of the bench and nodded, a polite greeting from a stranger. She remembered now. He had been at the fountain, waiting for a sculptor to choose him.

“Good day, monsieur.” Camille closed her sketchbook, suddenly excited.

The gentleman smiled. “Good day.”

His thick Italian accent confirmed her suspicions. “You are a model?” she said as more of a statement than a question. “I saw you at the Rue Bonaparte.”

“
Oui
.” He tipped his hat and bowed his head. A smile tugged the corners of his lips. “How do you do?”

“Are you currently employed?” She flashed her most congenial smile.

“Not at the moment.” He returned her smile. “But I have worked with Mercié, Bourdelle, and Rodin. Do you know a sculptor who might be interested in working with me?”

“I know none of those sculptors, so I will have to take your word for it. But I am interested in your services, monsieur.”

He raised one dark eyebrow. “What did you have in mind?”

“May I?” She held out her hands.

“Of course.” He removed his hat and leaned toward her.

Camille tilted his head and probed the bones of his face. “You’d make a fine study.”

The gentleman smiled, a twinkle in his eye. “So I’ve been told.”

“I’d hire you for multiple projects, if you are available,” she said. And terminate Maria the instant she returned. “Would you care to see my studio?”

Another look of surprise crossed his features. “Your studio?”

“It’s not far from here.” She gathered her utensils.

They returned to 117 Notre Dame des Champs. Camille entered the studio in her characteristic rush and tossed her shawl and coat over a chair.

“
Mes amies
, this is Monsieur—” She stopped and looked at him with a quizzical expression.

“Giganti.” He removed his hat. “
Bonjour
.”

“Welcome,” Amy said, smiling brightly at their guest. Her hand flew to her hair in an instinctive gesture.

Emily dropped the hunk of bread she nibbled on her plate.

“Giganti has agreed to—”

The door opened and Maria entered, out of breath. “I’ve made it!” She stopped when she saw the handsome Italian. “And who do we have the pleasure of meeting?”

Camille checked the clock on her desk. “It has been two and one half hours. Consider yourself dismissed.”

“Camille!” Amy stood in outrage. “You don’t make all of the decisions. Not without consulting us. I say she stays.”

“Dismissed?” Maria’s eyes widened. “But you are in the middle of a portrait. You won’t find someone as competent as me for the pittance you paid me.” She crossed her arms and stamped her foot. “I won’t go.”

Emily stuffed in another bite of bread to avoid replying.

“You would continue to let the model take advantage of us?” Camille turned to Maria. “You may go. Immediately.”

“I am only half-finished with my angel,” Amy said, her brown eyes flashing. “I need her.”

“Make your angel a male. Besides, it looks as if you need to start over at any rate,” Camille said cruelly. She wrapped a hand around Maria’s arm and pulled her toward the door. “You have wasted our money and time long enough.”

“Unhand me at once!” Maria looked back at Giganti for help. He shrugged and smiled. He seemed to enjoy the drama playing out before him.

“Good day to you.” Camille thrust the woman through the door, turned the key in the lock, and returned to Giganti’s side. “Now, as I was saying, this is Giganti and he’ll be our new model.”

“I’m delighted to work with you all.” His smile was packed with square white teeth and dressed with dimples.

Amy crossed her arms over her chest. “Take it back. Take back what you said about my work.”

“Amy.” Camille huffed out an impatient breath. “I apologize if your feelings are hurt, but I only speak the truth. Your professors and tutors have not told you because they want your money. But I will tell you because I am your friend. Your last few pieces have been not only amateur, but downright dreadful. You spend little time practicing or studying. You need to put in the time to learn technique, or move back to England and marry. All you talk about is men anyway.”

At once, Amy’s eyes filled with tears. “This is how you repay me for befriending you.”

“I am your friend by telling you the truth. And by the way, friends don’t whisper about you while you’re within earshot—or at all.”

Amy tossed her smock on the floor, stomped across the room, and threw on her coat. “I’m leaving.” Emily glared at Camille and scrambled after Amy.

Regret hit her instantly. The truth always pushed its way from her
gut and up her throat to spill out in the open. To her chagrin, few appreciated it. Now she had lost one of the only girls who had ever been nice to her—even if Amy had been jealous and whispered about her.

Camille sighed.

“Shall we begin, mademoiselle?” Giganti asked.

She smiled weakly. “You just said the perfect thing.”

C
amille reworked a mass of clay with her fingers, softening it, shaping the mound into a human nose. Paul’s nose, to be precise. His face had changed into that of a young man and she wanted to preserve him in time. Her mind emptied of every thought save the shape of Paul’s proud forehead and chin, his stout posture and probing eyes. The truth in his face, the wisdom and forbearance had always struck her and remained one of the things she loved most about her brother. To chisel beneath the surface of her subjects’ skin, to tunnel into their secrets and reflect them on the faces of their busts, or in the movement of their limbs, was her favorite part of sculpting. Paul made for an easy study.

With a fine wire tool, Camille trimmed the clay well of Paul’s eye sockets. Last night she had read the early pages of a play he was composing. One day he would be revered for his stories. She could feel it.

An hour passed, two. . . .

The splat of a plaster spatula against its portrait interrupted Camille’s reverie. Emily worked intently on her soldier, made in Giganti’s likeness. The model had proven to be an excellent choice. He never complained and Camille liked his contagious, optimistic nature. It balanced her own thick sarcasm.

She looked up from her bust. Though Emily had returned, Amy had not, even after the letter of apology Camille had sent. She sighed. Now they would need another student to help pay rent.

A knock came at the door.

Camille rubbed her hands together to loosen the clay crust coating them, dipped them in a basin of cool water, and scrubbed.

Someone knocked again.

“
J’arrive!
” Emily called, before rushing to open the door.

Monsieur Boucher and an unknown gentleman entered. “Bonjour, mesdemoiselles,” their tutor said. “I have brought a fellow sculptor and friend to see your work. I present to you Monsieur Dubois.”

Camille studied the gentleman. His middle protruded, stretching the buttons of his morning coat, and his shoulders sagged in fatigue. Pouches of purple-black skin puffed under his eyes. Had some sort of tragedy befallen him? She tried to decipher the emotions of everyone she met and filed the information away for later. She never knew when she might need ideas to layer a piece with meaning.

Monsieur Dubois nodded curtly, his eyes locked on the naked Giganti. “I see you are . . . hard at work.”

“Always.” Camille bit her lip to keep from giggling at the gentleman’s shocked expression. She wondered how long her using a male model would garner such surprise. Really, Monsieur Dubois was a sculptor himself. He must have worked with
real
female artists before.

“Can I offer you a cup of tea?” Emily asked.

“Thank you, but no. I have only stopped by to see a Mademoiselle Claudel’s work.”

Emily’s face fell.

“I am Mademoiselle Claudel and this is my friend and fellow sculptor Mademoiselle Fawcett. If you are inclined to view her work as well?”

Emily shot her a grateful smile.

Boucher laid a fatherly hand on Camille’s shoulder. “Monsieur Dubois is the director of l’École des Beaux-Arts. He would like to see your last few pieces.”

A mix of indignation and awe swirled inside Camille’s belly. Women were prohibited from studying at Dubois’s
académie
, yet he came to see her.

“Of course. Right this way.” She whisked around the room, unveiling several of her studies: a bust of young Paul,
David and Goliath
, and a maid bent over her washing. When she removed a sheet covering a plaster bust of
La Vieille
Hélène
, a cloud of dust filled the air.

Monsieur Dubois sneezed, then hacked and wheezed as dust particles filled his lungs.

“Here, man.” Boucher pounded him on the back.

Camille reached for a carafe on the table and poured him a glass of water. “Monsieur?” She placed it in his hands.

Dubois sipped from the glass. “Goodness.” He removed a handkerchief from his breast pocket and wiped his eyes. “Thank you.” He set the glass down and perused her remaining pieces. Camille watched as he ran his fingers over the varied surfaces of the offending sculpture, detecting the grooves and dips, the smooth planes and violent peaks.

“Simply incredible,” the sculptor said.

A flicker of glee sparked in Camille’s chest and spread until a full smile blossomed on her face.

“You mimic Monsieur Rodin beautifully,” Dubois said. “He has taught you well.”

Her stomach clenched. He thought she copied the styling of another? Her work mimicked no one’s. She hadn’t met a single person who used light, or its absence, exactly as she did. Few artists wrenched the soul from the depths of their subjects and portrayed it with such vigor and detail. Only the masters had managed this feat. Humble or not, she ranked her work among the more skilled artists.

Monsieur Boucher looked taken aback by the minister’s statement. “There may be some similarities, but Rodin prefers harmony in his silhouettes and musculature. Look here.” He ran his pinky finger over a furrowed section of the sculpture of Hélène’s head. “Camille’s works show violent contrast, light and its absence, and an intimacy all her own. The very antithesis of Rodin’s style.”

Monsieur Dubois scratched the yellowed beard on his chin. “Perhaps.” He shot Camille a questioning look, as if he did not understand her.

The glee Camille had felt vanished, and she restrained herself from saying something vulgar. Her temper had sprung up more and more often these days, though she did not understand why. Yet, even if she detested the idea of his assumption, she must mind her manners.

She stuck out her chin. “Pardon my impertinence, Monsieur Dubois, but how might I mimic Monsieur Rodin? I have heard his name mentioned only once before in passing, and I’ve never laid eyes on the man or his work.”

“No?” Monsieur Dubois’s eyebrows shot skyward. “Perhaps you should.”