Paris: The Novel (77 page)

Later she and her mother went into the kitchen, and she helped the cook prepare the evening meal. And she insisted that the strawberry flan, which she knew Hadley loved, should be made entirely by her own hand.

Just before the end of August, James Fox called in on his return from Burgundy. One could see he’d been out in the open air. He looked fit and well.

Since the whole family was planning to return to Paris the following day, they suggested he should stay the night so that they could all go back together.

They had a large lunch that lasted until three in the afternoon. Then, rather than doze on the veranda, the whole family went for a walk to the old château—the two Blanchard parents, Marc and Marie, Fox, Hadley, and the puppy too. They walked about in the park for a while. It was hot. The little puppy was running about excitedly, but in the end even he got tired and sank contentedly into the slow lethargy of the August afternoon.

As they returned, the dusty streets of Fontainebleau seemed half asleep. The roadway glared in the sun while the houses, some stone gray, some brick, were shuttered against the brightness, getting what coolness they could from the sharp shadows falling from the eaves. As they reached the road that led to the house, they were the only people in the street, apart from a coachman dozing in a trap, drawn by a single horse, that was waiting outside one of the houses for someone to come out.

“The puppy’s on his last legs,” Marie remarked to Fox. “I’d carry him if we weren’t so close to home.”

The little spaniel had been dragging his feet for some time. But curiosity had given him the energy to inspect a small bundle lying in the roadway. Marie glanced back and shrugged. The road was quiet.

It was a second later that they heard the loud bang of a shutter that someone had opened carelessly. Obviously they had opened the window as well, for there was a sudden flash as the glass caught the sun.

It was nothing. But it was enough to spook the horse in the waiting trap. Throwing its head up, it plunged forward, and before the dozing coachman could gather his wits and fumble for the reins, the trap was surging down the street.

The puppy did not see the trap coming up behind him. If he heard it, he took no notice. He was interested in the bundle, and its curious smells.

Marie screamed. Everyone turned to look.

She would never have believed that Fox, who was a tall man, could move so fast. Racing toward the puppy, he dived, scooped up the tiny dog in one hand, went into a roll and as the trap missed him by inches, emerged lying on the roadway with the puppy held above his head.

“Mon Dieu,”
gasped Marc. A half second’s error and the Englishman could have been seriously injured.

“Nice move,” called Hadley admiringly.

Fox stood up. He was dusty and one of his sleeves was torn.

“Cricket,” he said. “Fielding practice.”

“Ah, Monsieur Fox,” cried Marie’s mother gratefully.

But Marie was ahead of her. She ran up to Fox and kissed him on the cheek.

For just a moment Jules frowned. Not that he was shocked, but Marie wasn’t supposed to do that.

Fox saw it.

“Well,” he said to them all, with great good humor, “if I’d known I was going to get a kiss …” He strode across to Jules and handed him the puppy. “Would you be so kind, monsieur, as to place this puppy in the road, so that I can do it again!”

Jules laughed, and relaxed. But his wife was looking at Fox’s arm.

“You are bleeding, my dear Fox,” she said.

“It’s nothing. I’ll get cleaned up as soon as we’re back.”

The letter was waiting for him in Paris on his arrival back at his studio. The next day, when Hadley came around, Marc showed it to him.

As he passed the letter to Hadley, Marc shrugged.

“She wants to marry me.”

“Evidently.”

“What do you think?”

“You could do worse. How do you feel about her?”

“She never bores me. There is always something new. She has …”—he searched for words—“a ruthless intelligence.”

“Ruthless?”

“It fascinates me. And I also get a lot of work done when she’s around.”

“Marry her.”

“She’s older than me.”

“That’s not everything. She looks as if she’ll age well.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what my parents would think.”

“If you marry a woman with a small fortune and stay out of trouble, Marc, I suspect they can live with it.” Hadley shook his head. “You’ll have to make a commitment, that’s all.”

“But I’ve never made a commitment in my life,” Marc objected.

“You could start.”

“I don’t know.”

“You’ll lose her. I don’t think it’s an idle threat. She’ll go.” He stared at Marc. “I guess the question is, can you live without her?”

“I can live without everybody.”

Hadley sighed.

“Spoken like a true artist.”

Marc looked at him in surprise.

“You think so?”

“They say that most artists are monsters. Not all. But most.”

“I meant, do you think I’m a true artist?”

“Oh, I see.” Hadley smiled. “Well, at least you’re a monster. Be grateful for that.”

He handed the letter back to Marc, who put it on the table.

“By the way,” said Marc, “I promised Marie that we’d meet her at rue Laffitte. We’d better get going. I’ll think about Hortense on the way.”

The Vollard gallery was just up the street from the older Durand-Ruel gallery. Its owner was a gruff fellow. Unlike Durand-Ruel, he did not support artists. “He churns work, buys a lot cheap and sells it quickly. But he has the most interesting shows, all the same,” Marc had told Hadley. “In ’95, he had a big show of Cézanne, who most people had never heard of, and made quite a name for himself.”

They waited awhile for Marie to arrive, but as she didn’t, they made themselves known to the owner.

Vollard was a large, sharp-eyed, bearded man. Marc asked to see a Cézanne. “He’ll deliberately ignore what I asked for and bring something else,” he whispered to Hadley, and sure enough Vollard returned a few moments later with a painting by Gauguin, a scene from Tahiti.

They gazed at the strange, exotic colors.

“It’s powerful. Astonishing,” said Hadley.

“Come back in two months,” Vollard told them. “I’m having a big Gauguin show.”

“What else would you like to show us?” asked Marc.

“What about this?” Vollard produced a small painting of the French countryside, the Midi somewhere, by the look of it. In some ways there were hints of similarity with the Gauguin painting. But there was a strange nervousness, a sort of cosmic urgency and fear in the work that was hard to define.

“Who’s this?” Hadley asked.

“He died nearly a decade ago. His brother was a dealer. Small time, but good.” Vollard shrugged. “I bought some. Still got a few. They’re not expensive.” He didn’t sound very enthusiastic. “Van Gogh is the artist’s name.”

“I haven’t heard of him,” Hadley confessed.

“Not many people have,” said Marc. “Buy one if you like it.” He smiled. “Just don’t expect to make any money from it.”

They looked at some more work, hoping that Marie might still appear, but she didn’t. After half an hour, they left. On the way back to Marc’s studio, they stopped for a drink.

Marie was so annoyed with herself. She’d been shopping with her mother and mistaken the time. When she reached Vollard’s gallery, he told her she’d missed her brother by ten minutes.

It was hardly a fifteen-minute walk from the gallery to her brother’s studio, so she thought she’d go over there to apologize.

When she got to the street door, she found it open, so she mounted the stairs. At the door of the studio, she knocked and listened, but heard no sound. She tried the door. It opened.

“Marc?” she called.

Silence. Obviously he hadn’t gotten back yet. She wondered whether to
leave again, but thought she might as well wait a little while. Then, if he didn’t appear, she could always leave him a note.

She moved around in the studio, looked out the window, glanced at the stacks of paintings. She was quite tempted to look at them, but thought that he wouldn’t like it if she disturbed them.

She sat down to wait. Twenty minutes passed. Perhaps he’d gone somewhere else, and it would make more sense to leave him a note. She looked around for some paper and something to write with. There was a letter already lying on the table. Idly, she picked it up.
Mon Chéri
, it began. A private letter, obviously. She shouldn’t read it. She left it alone. She glanced at it again. She read it.

Then she heard steps coming up the stairs. Marc’s voice. Hadley’s too.

She quickly sat down again and tried to look unconcerned. But she was very pale.