Paris: The Novel (75 page)

If she ever took him up on the offer, Marie thought, she’d better find some quite amazing and exotic plant to bring.

They wandered about very contentedly, chatting about the garden.

“I paint plants,” he remarked genially to Marc and Hadley. “I sell the paintings, and with the money I buy more plants. It’s a harmless kind of lunacy, I suppose.” He turned to Aunt Éloïse. “Would you like to see my pond?”

“By all means.”

For this it was necessary to leave the garden by a small gate at the bottom that gave onto a little local railway line.

“There’s no station here,” he explained, “but once in a while a train comes by, so we take care as we cross the tracks.” And he gave Aunt Éloïse his arm.

Once across the tracks they entered another enclosure, entirely different from the first.

“We rented the house for years before I was able to buy it,” Monet explained. “Then, five or six years ago, I was able to buy this plot across the tracks, where there was a small stream, and this enabled me to create a pond. And here,” he said proudly, “is the result.”

If the main garden was a paradise of plants, this new domain was like a dream.

Willows and delicate bushes fringed the pond. Water lilies floated upon its surface. And at a certain narrow point, a local craftsman had constructed a curved, wooden Japanese bridge over the water. Up by the house, one looked at flowers. Here one looked at lilies floating in a watery world, and at the reflection of branches, leaves, flowers and the sky and clouds above, in the soft, liquid mirror of the pond. They walked onto the bridge and gazed down, in silence.

“We started the pond in ’93,” Monet said. “But one has to wait for things to grow. Nature teaches us patience. I didn’t start to paint a thing down here until ’97.”

“I think it could become an obsession,” said Marc.

“I have always painted light striking objects—a building, a field, a haystack. This is different. The color is different. And you are right. Water draws one in. It’s very primitive. Mysterious. I think I shall be painting these lilies for the rest of my life.”

They walked slowly back. As they came to the railway line, Monet again offered Aunt Éloïse his arm. And following suit, Hadley offered his arm to Marie, who took it. And as she did so, never having touched him before, she felt something suddenly run through her so that she involuntarily trembled.

“You all right?” he asked.

“Yes. I’m just afraid of trains. I used to have dreams of getting stuck on a train track when I was a little girl.” What was this nonsense she was talking? Did she sound like an idiot?

He took her arm firmly.

“It was grizzly bears for me.” He grinned. “No trains coming. Tell me if you see a bear.”

Safely across the tracks, he let go of her arm, and she gave a little gasp.

“You’re that relieved?” he said in a friendly voice. “We’d better keep you off the tracks.”

As they made their way back through the garden, she felt the sun beating upon her head.

Monet’s house had two studios. The first had formerly been a small barn, and he showed them some work there, including one of the Japanese bridges he was working on. The second studio was larger. In here, he turned to Marc and remarked: “You were saying that the pond could become an obsession. I will confess that recently I have been haunted by a dream for a huge project. It would be a huge room, circular, with enormous panels of lilies, floating in the water, and a hint of cloud perhaps. One would be completely surrounded by this great essay in blue light. I say blue, but of course I mean a thousand colors, mixing and reacting like the plants in the garden. For when colors interact, they create new colors, that one has never seen, or known that one has seen with the eye before.”

“Such an obsession would be a life’s work, monsieur,” said Marc appreciatively.

Monet nodded. Then he glanced at Marie. By chance, she was standing beside Hadley at that moment. His eyes took them both in.

“So, this handsome American gentleman is your fiancé?” he asked.

“My …?” She was completely taken off guard. She had not been prepared. She felt the deep blush coming into her face and it was no good, there was nothing she could do to stop it. “No, monsieur,” she stuttered.

“Ah,” said Monet.

“I’ve no such luck, monsieur,” said Hadley cheerfully, and glanced at Marie in a friendly way. But she could not look at him.

Then Aunt Éloïse said something to Monet, and he answered her, and the conversation moved on, and nobody seemed to notice her anymore, for which she was grateful.

A few minutes later, it was time to leave. As they were moving toward the doorway, Hadley turned to Marie and remarked quietly, “I hope Monet didn’t embarrass you by thinking we were engaged.”

“No,” she said. “It was nothing.” And she wanted so much to say something else. Something to make him think of her. “I’m sure you’ve got prettier ladies to consider,” perhaps. Something. Anything. But she could not.

As they waited on the platform for the train at Vernon, Marc and Hadley were deep in conversation, while Aunt Éloïse and Marie quietly chatted.

“I think that was a very successful visit,” said Aunt Éloïse.

“Yes. Monsieur Monet was really glad to see you. And I think he was glad to show off his garden.”

“It’s a marvel,” said Aunt Éloïse. “A marvel.”

When the train came they all got in. Soon they were clattering back toward Paris.

“Well,” said Marc, “Hadley and I have come to a decision.”

“And what is that?” asked his aunt.

“I’d thought of spending time down in Fontainebleau during the summer, but”—he gave his aunt a look—“that may not be possible just at the moment. So Hadley and I are going to take lodgings up at Giverny for the summer. We shall paint up there.” He smiled. “We’ll see you all at summer’s end.”

“Oh,” said Marie.

There was an ancient peace at Fontainebleau. The Royal Château and its quiet park were older by far than Versailles. The place had first been used by King Philip Augustus, back in the twelfth century. But the main inspiration for the present palace came from the French Renaissance, in the time of François I and Leonardo da Vinci. And though Napoléon had used it as his personal Versailles, old Fontainebleau, with its shaded alleys, and huge forest nearby, retained a settled, quiet air that the stark magnificence of Louis XIV’s huge palace entirely lacked.

As for the town, it was quiet, and conservative, and full of cousins.

It was a pity, Marie thought wryly, that none of her cousins was the right age. Then she could just have married one of them and everyone would have been happy.

“At least when you marry a cousin,” one of them had truly remarked, “you know what you’re getting.”

So she walked the puppy, and visited her cousins, and took riding lessons because she might as well improve her skills. “In case another aristocrat comes along,” she told her mother with a smile.

But she did not find much peace.

Where was he? At Giverny. What was he doing? Painting out of doors, sketching, eating and drinking with the other artists there.

Was he still speaking French? Or was he relapsing into English with the American colony in the village? Was he with a woman? Had he met
a charming American girl, an artist perhaps, from a good family like his own? Would Marc write and mention casually that his friend was engaged?

She imagined him, in this situation and that. Her imaginings did not fade away. They grew stronger, worse, as the days went past.

And she had no one to share her troubles with. She could not tell her parents. She loved her cousins, but none of them was a confidant. She was a little afraid even to tell her aunt Éloïse. And the one person she might have confided in, Marc, was Hadley’s friend, so that was impossible. As the days of July went by, apart from her physical and social activities, she read, or pretended to read, and took up desultory needlework, and tried many times, with indifferent success, to sketch the puppy playing in the garden.

Her brother Gérard came down with his family twice to stay the weekend. Her father had left the business largely in his care for the summer, and he would come down and sit with his father on the big veranda, and give him reports that were generally satisfactory. Once Gérard had taken her aside.

He knew she didn’t like him. But he was trying to be nice. She understood this. He was doing his best. But his best wasn’t very good.

“I’m sorry that things didn’t work out with de Cygne,” he remarked.

“They never really started,” she said.

“I know. All the same, that would have been something …”

“He might have turned out to be a bad character.”

He shrugged.

“We’re going to look out for someone. We have more friends than you think. God knows, you’re pretty, and you’re going to have an excellent dowry. Really excellent. It’s amazing that you’re not married already, but you’re an excellent catch.”

“That’s a comfort.”

“But you’ve got to look out for a husband, Marie. Do you know what I mean? It’s not about waiting for a knight in shining armor. It’s about seeing what’s out there, and making some choices. One’s just got to be practical.”

“And that’s it?”

“It is.” He smiled encouragingly. “That’s the wonderful thing. It’s all quite simple. Well, it is if you’ve got money.”

“Is that what your wife did?”

“Absolutely.”

“And you’re both happy?”

“Yes. We’re very happy.” He gave her a look that was surprisingly full of affection. “Totally happy.”

And she realized that he was.

“Thank you,” she said.

She was relieved when her father invited Fox down for a weekend. At least he didn’t talk to her about marriage. As always, he was easy company. And he liked the family house.

The Blanchard house at Fontainebleau was typical of its kind. In structure, it was a smaller and provincial version of an aristocratic mansion. One entered from the quiet street through a pair of high iron gates into a cobbled courtyard with a pavilion wing on each side and the main house in the center. The main entrance was up a broad flight of steps, the house being raised over extensive cellars. Above this was a floor of bedrooms, with attics above that. The salon, on the left of the front door, was large and extended all the way through, giving onto a broad veranda which ran the length of the central house and overlooked the gardens.

Seen from the garden, when the family gathered on the veranda, it looked exactly like a picture by Manet.

If the big salon, with its classical, First Empire furniture, had a Roman simplicity and repose, the garden had a character of which both Marie’s parents were proud.

“Why,” Fox exclaimed when he saw it, “you have an English garden.”

It was very long and divided into two parts. Close to the house, it was laid out with gravel paths, a small ornamental pond and fountain, flower beds of lavender, roses and other plantings, and a lawn. After fifty yards, a high, neatly clipped hedge formed a screen, with a wicket gate in the middle, through which one passed into an orchard. At the far end of the orchard, behind other screens, was a garden shed and compost heaps.