French Leave (14 page)

This studio was far different from Mab’s. Barbary paused on the threshold. In the center of the room students sat with their drawing boards on their knees, listening to a prosperous-looking gentleman who could be only Maurice. “Drawing is seven-eighths of painting,” he said, and then broke off to frown at Barbary. “Why do you hover there in the doorway? Hurry and change. You are already late,
ma petite!”

The dressing-screen, where was it? Ah, there. Barbary hurried across the room. Behind her Maurice continued to lecture. “You cannot be too long about a piece, providing you are applying your faculties to the difficulties of the art during the whole time. A great painter should bend everything to his art.”

Barbary ducked behind the screen. Antique draperies, Mab had said. Barbary slipped out of her borrowed clothing and reached for the costume. There was little enough of it! How the devil was it supposed to drape? No matter what Barbary did with the material, she left a great deal of herself exposed.

Outside the screen, Maurice’s voice took on a querulous note. “The artist paints to affect the human heart through feelings. What is taking you so long,
petite?”

Barbary had done her best with the draperies. She took another deep breath to compose herself and stepped out from behind the screen.

Maurice looked at her; twitched the draperies this way and that. “Up on the platform with you. We have much to do.”

Mab had described the platform and the pose Barbary must assume. Barbary found it very awkward to be held in place by ropes. She supposed she must be grateful for the heel rest, but she was still prodigiously uncomfortable, not to mention embarrassed by appearing before so many strangers practically naked
.

“Chère petite!”
chided Maurice. “Your expression, it is inappropriate. Try to remember what you are supposed to be.”

Barbary hadn’t the slightest notion of what she was supposed to be; Mab’s instructions hadn’t gone that far. “Sorry,” she murmured.

Maurice looked concerned. “What has happened to your voice?”

Mab had told her to speak as little as possible. That was easier said than done.
“C’est la grippe!”
declared Barbary inventively.

“La grippe!”
echoed Maurice. “So this is why you have not returned to me the sketch I made for you. Still, despite your illness, you come to us? Here is dedication to the arts! The artist, he has many difficulties with models—they are unpunctual and irresponsible, they need constant reminders to hold their pose, they wish to get married. And then there is
la petite,
who comes to us with
la grippe,
which surely must be what makes her stand so stiffly as a board.”

Clearly Maurice was in no good temper. Barbary had no difficulty in recognizing this, although she had never before seen him in all her life. “I am no longer ill. It is just my voice—”

“Your voice!” Maurice approached the platform. “We do not sketch your voice
.
Has
la grippe
affected also your memory? This is your pose!”

Under different circumstances Barbary might have laughed to see a gentleman of middle age standing on one foot with his arms flung in the air. Maurice put her in mind of some of the more exotic specimens of birds to be seen at the Jardin des Plantes. She tried to emulate his posture.

She was less than successful. Maurice rolled his eyes, stepped onto the platform and pulled her this way and that. At last he seemed satisfied. Barbary was not. Already her muscles had begun to ache. She wondered how long she would be expected to maintain this impossible position. Mab must be stronger than she looked to do this work.

Maurice moved among his students, not lecturing now but peering over their shoulders and making comments. As Barbary had already discovered, he was not in a mood to be pleased. She was happy to be spared his attention. The foot upon which she stood threatened to fall asleep. Surreptitiously, she wriggled her toes.

Maurice saw the movement. He cast his gaze heavenward. “You are as fidgety today as a cat on the hot bricks. Is it too much to ask that you stand still?”

Barbary rather thought it was. “My foot is asleep,” she said in a small voice.

“Et alors?”
Despite his callous attitude, Maurice helped her out of the ropes. “This will not do. I cannot use a model who squirms about like an eel.”

Squirmed about, had she? Barbary thought she had held very still. “It seems I have not regained my strength.”

“You have not regained something.” Maurice studied her, and frowned. “You seem like someone else altogether, which is obviously absurd, since you still look like yourself. I suppose you are worrying about Edouard. As if I am not! You might have a thought for someone other than yourself.”

Since Barbary considered that she’d been doing an inordinate amount of thinking about people other than herself of late, Maurice’s criticism stung. How would Mab have responded to such accusations? Barbary frowned and said, “Ah, bah!”

Maurice looked encouraged. “You are rested? We proceed!”

And so they did for some moments. Barbary listened to Maurice discourse upon the use of color, some of which—emerald green, Indian yellow, Smyrna lake—was suspect. Not that the students would be allowed to paint until they were certain of their draftsmanship, but when that day did come, they must mix their own. Colors delivered in bladders quickly dried. Others like Prussian blue and the lake colors were unstable and faded rapidly. Maurice generally began with white lead and peach black, Naples yellow, ochre, cobalt. Mab would have found this vastly interesting. Barbary yawned.

“Insupportable!”
Maurice flung down the chalk with which he had been correcting a student’s sketch. It shattered on the floor. “Since you are so weary, you may leave us, Ma’mselle Foliot. And kindly do not return until you are yourself again.”

Barbary was left to get out of the ropes as best she could. With what dignity she could muster, she moved to the dressing-screen. Safely behind it, she flung aside the antique draperies and scrambled into her own clothes. A miserable way Mab had chosen to make a living. Barbary wouldn’t for a moment have put up with such abuse.

Maurice had resumed his lecture, explaining that bitumen diluted with wax made it possible for the artist to achieve a transparent yellowish tone resembling the much-prized patina found in oil paintings. He did not pause to bid
adieu
to his favorite model. Nor did he give any indication that he was aware of her departure. Barbary took distinct satisfaction in slamming the studio door.

Now what? Barbary wasn’t eager to inform Mab that their sole source of income had been lost so soon after the rent had been increased. What were they do to for money? Hold the Duc for ransom? Reluctantly, Barbary dismissed that tempting but ignoble thought.

The streets were crowded, the day hot. Barbary still had one more errand to perform. In her reticule were the coins she’d taken from Conor’s table. She set out at a brisk pace.

Conor. Barbary suffered an acute pang of homesickness for what once had been, for the days when she was the toast of the Polite World. Carlton House, Covent Garden, Drury Lane, Almack’s. Shopping in Oxford Street. Stepping on the scales in Berry’s wine shop, where the titled and fashionable kept track of their weight. Strange now to think that not long ago her greatest worry had been how to pay—or not to pay—her bills. Barbary wondered gloomily if perhaps she shouldn’t have gone to debtors’ prison, because life surely would have been much simpler there.

She had arrived at her destination. So this was the infamous Palais Royale. It didn’t look so very wicked, this vast garden constructed in the previous century by the architect Louis, surrounded by buildings constructed in imitation of the Piazza San Marco of Venice, and containing some hundred and eighty arcades. The garden formed a huge parallelogram, its gravel paths lined with lime trees. An effigy of the Pope had been burned there during the Revolution, and an effigy of Lafayette.

Barbary found the cafè for which she had been searching and stepped inside. Anyone with a curiosity in the matter would learn soon enough that Ma’mselle Foliot was well enough to publicly enjoy a cup of coffee and a roll.

Again she thought of Conor. He hadn’t come to look for her, had sent her no word, even though he knew where she lived. Obviously their encounter had meant nothing to him. Had he laughed with his opera dancer about the ease of his latest conquest? He had changed, Barbary thought sadly. Once he would not have treated a lady in so cavalier a fashion. Now he was the one who blew first hot, then cold.

Barbary sipped her
cafe au lait
and nibbled on her roll. She and Conor had been inseparable once, when they were first wed, even though for a gentleman to live in his wife’s pocket wasn’t at all the thing. When things had begun to change, Barbary couldn’t say. Conor gradually spent more and more time with his friends and less with her. He had grown accustomed to her, she supposed, and then bored.

What a lowering reflection. Barbary crumbled the remainder of her roll. It had never occurred to her in those days of her youth that any gentleman might fall out of love with her, but Conor obviously had. What had he called his feelings for her? A particular madness. And he had called her the most hardened flirt in London, hopelessly addicted to the game of hearts.

Barbary was no such thing. It was all prodigiously unfair. Now her plans for revenge had gone awry, as had her plans for everything else. She hadn’t the least notion what would happen to her, or to Tibble, or to Mab. She couldn’t imagine that it would be anything good.

Deep in her brown study, Barbary was oblivious to her surroundings. Mab had described the café to her, and she had found it, had awarded the interior only a cursory glance before choosing her seat, placing her order, and plunging straightaway into gloom. So profound was her melancholy that she had failed to notice that someone had been trying to get her attention for the last several moments. He moved now to the next table, sat down, and said, “Psst!”

Barbary was thinking of her husband’s kisses. Who, she wondered, was having revenge on whom? She had a distinct suspicion of having been led up the garden path. Since this was precisely what Barbary had meant to do to Conor, she was understandably perturbed. What the devil did this stranger mean, pssting at her? Barbary turned toward him and frowned.

He did not look at her but straight ahead. “Hist! We must act as if we have never met,” he said out of the side of his mouth.

That was not difficult. Barbary had never seen this person before. At least she thought she had not, although in his blue peasant’s smock, with the floppy hat pulled low upon his brow, it was difficult to tell. In no mood for conversation, she turned her head away.

“Parfait!”
he exclaimed. “I have misjudged you. You are born for this business, ma’mselle.”

Barbary was glad to hear that she was born for something. Thus far she’d excelled as neither artist’s model nor wife. She glanced at the stranger. His eyes were very green.

He gestured with his hand. Barbary thought his meaning clear. He was trying to strike up an acquaintance. He thought her a woman of low repute.

This insult, on top of all her other troubles, was almost too much to bear. Barbary had not the most distant guess why this green-eyed stranger had taken it into his head that she was no better than she should be. He looked like he hadn’t sixpence to scratch with, which somehow made it all the worse.

He seemed puzzled by her silence. “Ma’mselle?” he whispered. “It is important that we meet privately. I will give you an address—”

Men! All Barbary’s problems had to do with men. Conor, Grafton, the Duc, Jacques. This stranger with his improper suggestions added one too many straws to the weary camel’s back.

Barbary pushed her chair away from the table and stood up. “May the devil fly away with you, m’sieur!” she said quite loudly, and then swept regally out of the cafè. Gabriel Beaumont stared after her, very puzzled indeed.

Chapter Seventeen

Barbary was breathless when she crossed the courtyard. Odd that Mab’s cluttered studio should come to seem like a safe haven. She hurried through the doors and paused. In the hallway stood the gray-haired concierge and a vaguely familiar man in uniform. The woman was holding the cat that had scratched Barbary on a previous occasion. The animal seemed to recall their meeting. It snarled. Barbary ducked her head and hurried up the stairs.

“Ma’mselle!” the man called after her. Barbary climbed all the faster and pretended not to hear. “Ma’mselle!” Barbary could go no faster and, finally, no farther. She had arrived at Mab’s front door. The man had followed her. She could hear him puffing up the stairs.

Best to brave it out, Barbary decided. “You wish to speak to me, m’sieur?”

Why else would he have run up an eternity of steps? For once Inspecteur Ollivant’s composure threatened to slip. “
Oui
, ma’mselle, I wish to speak with you. As you may have expected that I might.”

Barbary didn’t know why she should have expected any such thing. The man must think he was addressing Mab. “Very well then, what is it?” she inquired.

Inspecteur Ollivant was not accustomed to young ladies who were so
blasé.
He was not accustomed to young ladies who clad themselves in antique draperies either, so perhaps the two things went hand-in-glove. “What else would it be, ma’mselle?” he said—panted, actually—as he arrived at the top step. “But the matter of M’sieur le Duc?”

“M’sieur le Duc?” She looked startled. “Oh.”

Why so bewildered? Inspecteur Ollivant wondered. “What has happened to your voice?”

Deuced difficult, this matter of pretending to be someone you were not.
“C’est la grippe,”
Barbary said. “I have recovered from it, but my voice has not.”

La grippe,
was it? And just when had Ma’mselle Foliot time to have
la grippe,
wondered the inspector, between forays to artists’ studios and gentlemen’s hotels and the Jardin des Plantes?