After Innocence (50 page)

“Terrified,” Sofie said, honestly.

Jacques guided her into the gallery, his arm around her. “Do not be afraid. As a rule, the critics in America are far more friendly than those in Paris. Too, we have played up
the fact that you live abroad, which the Americans, both critic and buyer, just adore. I have a feeling, dear Sofie, a feeling that tomorrow will exceed all of our expectations.”

“I hope you are right,” Sofie said as they walked into the huge room where all of her work was displayed.

At a glance, she knew it was right. She had thirty-three works in all: twelve oils, twelve studies in charcoal or ink upon which the oils had been based, a half dozen pastels, and three watercolors. There were two still lives, but all the rest of her canvases were figural subjects, and eight of them were of Edward. Seeing him everywhere she turned, even if only on canvas or paper, so masculine and beautiful, took her breath away. As always, she was afflicted with the odd combination of joy and pain.

Then Sofie froze. Two workers were lifting a large canvas onto the last remaining empty spot on the far wall at the other end of the gallery. It was the nude she had done of him in Montmartre.

Jacques saw where she gazed, and smiled.
“La pièce de résistance.”

“No!” Sofie cried, mortified.

“Ma chère?”

Sofie rushed forward to face the canvas, which measured four feet by five and was now hanging on the wall, dominating all of the art around it. Edward stared at her and Jacques, unsmiling. One of his shoulders rested against a wall with peeling paint; behind him was a window, and through it the windmills of Montmartre were just visible. His near leg was bent at the knee, all of his weight on his far leg, so the posture was as modest as possible considering the fact that he was nude. No shocking part of male anatomy was revealed.

In the lower right corner of the canvas, the rumpled edge of a bed was clearly visible. The room was drenched in sunlight, yet Sofie had used a very blue palette, and had kept the background airy and unfocused. For Edward she had used strong, warm, vibrant tones, and the corner of the bed boasted a crimson blanket. As Edward had been portrayed with almost classical attention to detail, he dominated the canvas, appeared larger than life.

His eyes were gleaming. It was obvious what he was thinking about. Sofie had forgotten just how good this work was.

Jacques ambled up behind her. “Your finest work. Stunning, powerful. This will make your career, Sofie.”

Sofie turned to Jacques. “We cannot show it.”

“We must!”

Sofie’s heart beat hard and fast. “Jacques, I did not have Mr. Delanza’s permission to do this—much less to show it.”

Jacques’s eyes widened. “He did not model for you?”

“No. He modeled for the first canvas, which you sold long ago, and he modeled for
Delmonico’s”

“Yes, I remember
A Gentleman at Newport Beach.
And Mademoiselle Cassatt has so kindly lent us
Delmonico’s
for the showing.”

“That is wonderful,” Sofie said. “But, Jacques, really, we cannot show the nude.”

“Sofie, why do you not simply ask your fiancé if he minds if you show this work?”

Sofie could not tell Jacques that she and Edward were hardly on speaking terms—unless it was to discuss the weather. She was aware that most of New York knew she lived at the Savoy in Edward’s suite with a child—and surely the gossips were having a field day with that—and that they were now engaged. Benjamin had come to offer his congratulations and best wishes. As Lisa was still missing, he had been gaunt and weary. Suzanne had tried to see Sofie as well, but Sofie had refused to admit her. As far as Sofie was concerned, the day her mother had tried to separate her from Edana was the day Suzanne had stopped being her mother.

“Can you not ask him?” Jacques smiled.
“Chérie,
it is so romantic,
la bohème
and Monsieur Delanza, the diamond king! The critics already love your story—and they will love this. Ask Monsieur if he minds showing the nude. How could he? He has modeled for you before. He knows the business. And he is shrewd. He will understand what a coup this work will be for you.”

Sofie could not imagine approaching Edward and asking him if he had an objection to her showing a nude portrait of
him, not under the current circumstances. In fact, Sofie did not want Edward to come to the exhibition at all, and if he knew she had a nude of him there, she was quite certain that he would come. She did not want him to see how often she had returned to him as an inspiration. If he did, he would immediately discern that she loved him.

“I cannot ask him,” Sofie finally said. “And please, do not ask me why.”

“You must show the nude, Sofie,” Jacques argued. “This work will make you,
chérie!
Nudes are controversial anyway, but this one!
C’est vraiment intime!
A nude of your lover—and you a woman—
oh là là!
It could not be better! You desperately need the publicity!”

Sofie knew she could not show it without Edward’s permission, no matter how beneficial it might be to her career. “No. I am sorry. Please, Jacques, have it taken down.”

Jacques stared at her in dismay.

And Sofie could not help feeling regret. She glanced up at the nude. It was magnificent, stunning and powerful, and disturbingly intimate, as if the public were being allowed a glimpse into Edward’s bedroom. Undoubtedly it was her best work. Edward was magnificent. He was everything a man should be. She knew that her dearest friends, Braque, Picasso, Georges Fraggard, and Paul Verault, would have urged her to change her mind and show it. But she could not. “I will see you tomorrow,” she said.

Sighing, Jacques nodded. “But I may show it privately?”

“Yes,” Sofie said. “But only to a serious buyer, Jacques.”

Jacques smiled. “That is better than nothing, then. One last thing,
chérie.
You have not titled the canvas.”

Sofie did not hesitate, looking into Edward’s brilliant blue eyes.
“After Innocence,”
she said softly.

E
dward was tense. He drove his Daimler more aggressively than usual down Fifth Avenue, angry with Sofie yet again. But this time he was angry with her for going without him to her exhibition. He had intended to escort her. He was her fiancé. It was his obligation to be by her side at this event. But most of all, he wanted to be beside her to support her and to share in her triumph.

It was almost incredible to think about her having such an exhibition now at the foremost gallery in the city in juxtaposition to the past. It didn’t seem like very long ago that Edward had first met Sofie, a small, frightened girl afraid of life, hiding behind her limp and her art. Very much the way a butterfly emerges from its cocoon, in less than two years Sofie had blossomed into an extraordinary woman. An extraordinary woman who would soon be his wife.

And who was damn unhappy about it.

Every time Edward walked into the same room with her, he saw her unhappiness, her grief.

But he was determined. Determined not just to marry her and give Edana his name. One day, dammit, Sofie would be happy with her choice. He had vowed it to both of them, even if she did not know it. Tomorrow they would be married in Judge Heller’s chambers in the municipal courthouse downtown. And Edward would begin to show her that marriage to him was not so bad—that it had more than a few fine moments.

Edward shoved the thought of their marriage aside. He slowed the Daimler. The tricolored flag of France had come into view, waving beside the red, white, and blue stars and stripes of the American flag. Both sides of Fifth Avenue in
front of the Gallery Durand-Ruel were lined in quadruple rows with vehicles, mostly carriages and curricles, grooms and coachmen in white breeches clustered on the sidewalk, but also a few motorcars. Edward had to drive another block in order to double-park. But he was fiercely glad. Obviously there was a huge turnout for Sofie’s very first exhibition in New York.

His heart was lodged in his throat as he swung out of the Daimler. He knew how important this show must be for her. He remembered as if it were only yesterday how afraid she had been to let Jacques Durand-Ruel view her art in the seclusion of her own studio. Today she must be close to hysteria and stricken with nerves.

As Edward walked up the block, he watched a well-dressed couple leave the gallery, the woman speaking fast and low, the man nodding. As he passed them he heard the matron say, “Shocking! Shocking! To be portraying that man so openly … I will never, ever view Sofie O’Neil’s art again!”

Edward’s heart seemed to stop. And he was very glad he had come now. Sofie needed him. He only hoped that this woman’s reaction to the showing was not a universal one.

He entered the two large front doors and walked towards the showroom where the crowd had gathered, searching for Sofie but failing to find her. It was crowded but not noisy; people were speaking in hushed voices. His heart beat double time. He paused just outside the exhibit, his way blocked by a distinguished lady in gray stripes and a gentleman in a three-piece suit. They were in the midst of an intense conversation and did not realize they barred his way. Edward was about to shove past them when he heard the woman, flushed with excitement, say, “Harry, we
must
buy it! Thank God Jacques showed it to us! We must buy it even if only to hang it in our closet! We cannot let that magnificent work leave the country—we cannot—and you know it as well as I do!”

“Louisine,” the gentleman said, “we already have that equally magnificent and equally shocking Courbet in our closet.”

“Please,” the lady begged, clinging to his arm. “We must have that painting even if we dare not display it in our home!”

“I will think about it,” Harry promised.

They moved out of earshot, back into the exhibit.

Edward stared after them, wondering which work they had been speaking of, thrilled the lady had wanted to purchase it so badly. Women usually ruled the roost, and he imagined that Sofie was going to make at least one sale that day.

Edward moved past several gentlemen, entering the exhibit. The first thing he saw was several canvases hanging on the wall—and two were of him.

His heart stopped. He gaped.

He recognized Delmonico’s restaurant before he moved closer to stare at the small brass plate on the wall beside the boldly colored oil. Sure enough, the work was titled
Delmonico’s,
and it was on loan and not for sale. Edward’s pulse began to riot. He stared for an instant at himself, at the way Sofie had portrayed him. Once again she had romanticized him, making him appear far more attractive and far more elegant than he actually was, although this time he appeared carelessly indolent, too.

Stunned, Edward scanned the entire room. Eight of the thirty-odd canvases featured him as the subject matter.
Delmonico’s
was the only work that was based on reality. In the other works she portrayed him in places he had never been, frequently in a café or in some other social setting. Sometimes other figures were in the background, more often not. In each portrait she appeared to have captured his expression at a precise moment in time. But these moments had never happened. Sofie had fantasized them. Or had she recalled his changes of mood and his facial expressions from memory—merely fantasizing the setting?

In the next instant, as Edward stared around the room and at his images there, he comprehended it all. Sofie had done all this work in the past year and a half, since rejecting his first proposal in order to study in Paris. While he had been slaving in his diamond mine in southern Africa, thinking of
her night and day, she had
not
been casually whiling away the time with her male friends in bars and cabarets. There were too many works here—she had been far too prolific. Not to mention the fact that she had also been pregnant and had given birth to their daughter. She must have worked every spare moment available to her, both night and day, in order to accomplish so much. He had never been more amazed, or more overwhelmed, than he was at that moment with the woman who was to become his wife.

But one fact was astoundingly clear. In the time they had been apart, she had been as consumed with him as he had been with her. As obsessed.

Sofie had arrived at the gallery early and alone. Briefly she had thought about asking Edward to come with her. Terrified now of rejection by both critics and buyers alike, it would be so easy to succumb to Edward’s strength and to go to the exhibition with his arm around her. But she must be stronger than that. She must not forget that she did not want him to see her collection of work at all.

Sofie arrived half an hour before the showing opened with her heart lodged in her chest like an ungainly, undigestible lump. She could not converse with Jacques, who was too busy anyway seeing to last-minute details, frantically rearranging several of the oils. The minutes ticked by like years. And suddenly the doors were thrown open and the first public spectators filtered in.

The gallery was quickly becoming crowded when Sofie espied Suzanne and Benjamin. Her heart flopped—she had not expected either one of them. She had nothing to say to Suzanne, but she must thank Benjamin for supporting her both with his presence today and with the generous check he had sent her as a wedding present. Too late, as she came forward, she realized that the Marquis of Connaught was with them.

“Sofie, dear,” Suzanne cried.

Sofie nodded curtly at her, then strained on tiptoe to kiss Benjamin’s cheek. He looked horrible. His face was ravaged—he had lost at least a stone of weight. Tears filled Sofie’s eyes. She wanted to tell him that Lisa was fine. He
was suffering so. But then she felt the marquis’s cold gaze on her, knew he waited for her to come forward and reveal Lisa’s whereabouts. She gripped Benjamin’s hands. “Thank you for coming—and thank you for your generous gift.”

He managed a smile. “I am so pleased that you are finally marrying, Sofie. And—” he glanced around the room “—now I begin to see that Delanza is the right man for you. I wish you much happiness, dear.”