Between Two Seas (21 page)

I wince uncomfortably, and concentrate hard on drawing. I could tell him I forgot about them, but he wouldn’t believe me. Impulsively, I decide on the truth.

‘I find it hard to look at them. Most of the time I’m busy, and I don’t think about my mother. But when I get the pictures out, they make me cry. I miss her so much.’

Mikkel reaches over and squeezes my shoulder briefly. He doesn’t say anything. I suddenly feel much better. Hannah is right. I need to overcome my habit of keeping everything secret.

I put a few final touches to the last sketch. Mikkel holds out his hand for the book.

‘May I?’

He flicks through. First the stone martens in various poses. He smiles as he looks at them. Then the picture of himself: ‘Hey, do I really look like that?’ Then he goes further back. There are some of the sand dunes and the sea, ships in the distance. There is one of a wreck, lying forlornly half in the water, waves crashing over it. I’m proud of that one. Right at the beginning there’s one of Jakob mending fishing nets, and another of Lise picking wild flowers.

‘These are good. Really good.’

‘Thank you. But I’m not satisfied, you see. In Grimsby everything seemed drab and grey. I suppose any big town is like that. But here, everywhere I look, I see beauty and colour and light. I can’t show that with a pencil. I see the artists capturing it all so beautifully in oils. I want to try.’

Mikkel nods. I think he understands. ‘Can I borrow this for a few days?’ he asks unexpectedly.

‘Why? I was going to do some more work on you and the martens,’ I say hesitantly.

‘No need. I’ll give it back to you on Sunday, I promise.’

‘All right then,’ I agree reluctantly. ‘And now I really must get back.’

When I lock the pearls away again in my trunk late that night, I’m not sure whether I’m glad or sorry that I still have them. Hannah is in bed, leaning on one elbow, watching me.

‘Did you see the martens?’ she asks.

‘Yes. They were beautiful. Funny too. Have you ever seen them?’

‘No, never. How was Mikkel?’ There’s a slightly strained note in Hannah’s voice, and I give her a quick glance, wondering if she’s a little jealous.

‘He was well. He sends his regards to you. You should tell him you’d like to see the martens: I’m sure he’d take you.’ I blow out the candle and climb into bed beside Hannah. I hear her sigh with tiredness as she stretches out.

‘He’s going away for a few days, isn’t he?’ asks Hannah in the semi-darkness.

‘Yes, will you miss him?’ I ask. When Hannah doesn’t reply, I ask quietly: ‘Do you care for him very much, Hannah?’

There’s a moment’s silence, and I think she’s not going to reply. Then she whispers: ‘I love him. More than I can say.’ I can see her eyes shining in the darkness.

She rolls over to face me, leaning up on her elbow again. Her face is in shadow now.

‘Did you guess?’ she asks softly.

‘Yes. I’ve suspected as much since Christmas.’

‘But you won’t tell him, will you?’

‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’

‘Marianne?’ Hannah whispers again.

‘Yes?’

‘I know you care for Peter. So why won’t you admit it?’

I hug myself under the sheets, and let my thoughts dwell on Peter. His eyes, his smile.

‘Yes, I love him,’ I whisper at last. ‘So much so that it scares me.’ I shiver. There’s something both frightening and delicious about exchanging secrets in the darkness like this.

‘I knew it,’ says Hannah, triumphantly. She lies back on her pillow, sighing with pleasure.

‘You won’t tell either, will you?’ I ask anxiously.

‘No, I promise.’

I snuggle down pleasurably into my sheets. Thoughts of Mikkel and Peter gradually mingle and blur with images of the martens and paintings as sleep overcomes me.

The next afternoon, when I go to clear the glasses from the studio, Monsieur Perroy is there alone. It’s most unusual for him to work longer than the others. He’s started a new painting. It’s of a different woman, his first model having left the hotel. There was a great deal of whispering about the two of them before she left. Madame smashed a vase in her room one afternoon she was in such a rage.

‘Ah, Marianne!’ Perroy greets me enthusiastically. I suspect he’s bored, working alone. There’s a half empty bottle of
snaps
beside him. I wonder if he’s drunk all of it himself. He lifts his tiny glass in a silent toast, and then tilts his head back and empties it.

‘Put the tray down and stay and talk to me!’ Perroy orders. I hesitate. I dislike being alone with him.

‘They’ll be wondering where I am,’ I object.

‘Pshaw!’ he exclaims. ‘I employ you, do I not? It is I who pay you!’

‘Not yet,’ I say boldly. He waves this away impatiently.

‘A mere trifle. You will be paid, trust me.’ I watch him as he turns back to his canvas, cleans his brush and mixes the colours on the palette: blues, greens, white, and yellow.

‘And so, Marianne, do you still wish to paint?’ Perroy asks softly, without looking at me.

‘Yes,’ I reply simply.

‘Come here then,’ he says. I don’t know what he means, so I don’t move.

He turns towards me, holding out a clean paintbrush, and beckons.

Step by step I’m drawn closer. As I reach out for the brush, he pulls it out of reach. For a moment I think he’s mocking me again, but he says: ‘Come closer.’

I take another step and then another. Now I’m between him and the canvas. Perroy puts one hand on my shoulder and turns me to face the picture.

‘Why don’t you help me paint the sky?’ he suggests. ‘This huge northern sky.’

I take the brush, and look longingly at the paints and the canvas.

‘I’m frightened to spoil it,’ I say hesitantly.

‘Mistakes can be rubbed out,’ he murmurs, holding up a rag. His breath is tickling my ear. ‘Try now. What colour is the sky?’

I dip my brush into the blue and touch it to the canvas. The colour sits there, a small raised blob.

‘And does that look right?’ asks the voice in my ear.

‘No, it looks all wrong,’ I answer, perplexed.

‘And why do you think that is,
ma petite
?’ I shiver slightly at his closeness, from a mixture of excitement and fear. I edge away an inch or two.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Is the sky blue?’ Monsieur asks. ‘Just blue?’

‘No, not always.’ I think a little. ‘You see white clouds, grey clouds, yellow-black thunder clouds. It can be deep summer blue, or pale winter blue. Rain-washed, or sunbaked.’ I visualize all the different skies as I describe them. ‘Pinks, reds, and oranges at sunrise and sunset,’ I continue.

‘
Bien
, it’s enough,’ he stops me. ‘You have looked, I grant you. But this is the important thing. Even a blue sky is not simply one colour. When you are painting, you need to mix colours to find shades. You also paint different colours side by side to give depth.’

Monsieur takes hold of my brush hand and dips the brush in the blue and the white and mixes the colours on a clean patch of palette. Then he mixes in an opaque substance. ‘This is glaze,’ he tells me. ‘It makes the colours less flat. So that you feel you are looking into the sky, not at a flat canvas. Now try.’

This time as I paint the colour onto the canvas, I can see there is a richer, more textured look to the blue. He takes my hand at each mixing of the colours and then lets me paint it on myself. The patch of sky grows slowly.

‘Good, Marianne,’ he murmurs. ‘You have real talent for this. A natural instinct. How unexpected.’ I glow with pride and long to prove myself further. Perroy’s voice becomes brisk again as he instructs me once more: ‘Now as you move down towards the green of the garden, you need to put some yellow and green in with the blue.’

‘Why?’ I ask, puzzled.

‘Because otherwise the change of colour is too abrupt. It looks like a child’s painting. Look here. In the greenery, I’ve put brushstrokes of blue near the sky, do you see? Not mixed, but side by side.’

I look closely, fascinated, and it’s a revelation. ‘Of course,’ I breathe. ‘It makes sense.’

I feel as though I’ve been told a secret. A sense of excitement fills me. As we continue, I become absorbed, forgetting my work, losing my sense of time. The nearness of Perroy adds to the heady thrill of the painting. I don’t know how much later it is that I’m roused by the door opening behind us and someone coming in. It takes me a moment to react. As I turn my head to look, I realize Monsieur is standing too close, one hand on my waist, the other hand on mine.

Embarrassed, I move away, letting go of the brush. It clatters to the floor, leaving a smear of green paint on my white apron.

‘Marianne?’ The kitchen maid is at the door, her eyes wide as she takes in the scene.

‘Yes?’ I ask brusquely, mortified at what she must be thinking.

‘Madame has been ringing for you,’ says the maid. ‘We couldn’t find you. She’s angry.’

‘I’ll come at once,’ I reply, but before I can leave, Monsieur catches hold of my hand, rubs a little paint from my finger, and lifts my hand briefly to his lips.

‘Thank you for your so valuable help,
mademoiselle
,’ he purrs, and his eyes are alight with wicked laughter. ‘The same time tomorrow?’

I snatch my hand away and flee from the studio. As I run across the garden, I press my hands to my hot cheeks.

* * *

It’s late when I climb wearily into my bed that night, having tucked Madame up in hers. Hannah is still awake.

‘I’ve been waiting for you,’ she whispers. ‘It’s not true that you were kissing Monsieur in the studio earlier, is it?’

‘No, certainly not!’ I hiss, horrified at how the story has been twisted already.

‘What were you doing then?’

‘Painting. He let me paint. Just for a minute or two. Well, perhaps longer. I don’t remember. Oh, Hannah! He said I have a natural talent for painting!’

‘Did you ask him if you could paint?’ asks Hannah, astonished.

‘No, of course not. He invited me to.’

‘So it isn’t true that you arranged a meeting with him tomorrow?’

‘No, not at all. That is, he did say come again tomorrow. But he was teasing me, or else making mischief.’

There’s a silence for a minute, then Hannah whispers: ‘You won’t go, will you?’

‘I shouldn’t think so,’ I reply, trying to sound off-hand.

‘Marianne, promise me you won’t. You’re my friend. I don’t want you to get into trouble.’

‘I won’t!’ I say indignantly. She sounds so worried.

There’s another pause.

‘Marianne? You told me yesterday you loved Peter. You don’t want to lose him, do you? Because if you and that awful Frenchman become lovers … ’

‘Hannah!’ I exclaim angrily. ‘It’s not like that at all. Anyway, he’s married.’

‘That didn’t stop him before,’ whispers Hannah. ‘With that other woman. Everyone knows about them.’

‘I just want to paint,’ I assure her. ‘I don’t even like him.’

‘Oh, Marianne, be careful. Don’t put yourself in a situation where you are alone with him. Please don’t meet him again.’

I scowl at her. My wonderful lesson and the praise Perroy gave me have been spoiled. The whole thing has been made to feel sordid somehow.

Hannah puts her arm around me. Annoyed, I push her away and roll over to face the window. But it’s a long time before I fall asleep.

T
he morning after I had spoken to Hannah about Perroy, I made up my mind to take her advice and stay away from the studio. Inside I was in turmoil. All day, a fear that Hannah could possibly be right battled with the longing to paint.

It was purely the paints that attracted me. The thrill of watching the picture take form beneath my brush. My secret ambition to become an artist myself. Perroy had praised me, I reminded myself. I had talent. It couldn’t be wrong to want to learn more.

But was it true that Perroy might try to seduce me? Not in a studio in the hotel garden in the middle of the afternoon. And that in itself would surely protect my reputation. Besides, I reasoned, how would Peter ever know?

I felt my resolve weakening.

Nonetheless, I kept to my decision all day. Until the late afternoon, when I found my feet treading the path to the studio. I was drawn like a moth to a candleflame. And I’ve gone there every afternoon for the last three weeks. Sometimes Monsieur isn’t there. More often he is. The lure of the oils and the canvas is too great for me to withstand.

But today is Sunday. More importantly, it’s our Sunday off. I’m still deeply asleep when Hannah shakes me.

‘Marianne,’ she says. ‘Wake up. I want you to come to church with me.’

I groan and roll over. She shakes me again.

‘Come on, it will put your thoughts in a higher place.’

I’m wide awake now and sit up crossly in bed.

‘Did you just say what I thought you said? There’s nothing ungodly about art, Hannah.’

She purses her mouth disapprovingly. ‘Perhaps not. But there is plenty that’s ungodly about a married Frenchman with a moustache,’ she says tartly.

‘I don’t think about him at all,’ I reply. Hannah looks politely incredulous, her eyebrows raised.

‘And are you quite sure he doesn’t think of you?’ she asks seriously.

Now I’m irritated again, and I don’t like to be cross with my friend. I swing my legs out of bed and reach for my clothes.

‘I’ll come to church with you, on the condition that you don’t mention him again today.’ As always, the hope of seeing Peter is an added incentive to going to church. Hannah knows that, though she doesn’t mention him.

We’re late and the church is overflowing. There’s not a single space left in the pews and many of the congregation are standing at the back of the church.

‘It’s all the summer visitors,’ whispers Hannah. ‘We should have come earlier.’

I can’t see Peter anywhere, and disappointment washes through me.

‘I don’t feel like standing up,’ I whisper back. ‘Shall we go?’

Hannah shakes her head.

‘Well I’m leaving,’ I tell her and walk away. I tell myself I don’t care whether she follows me or not, but I’m pleased when she does.