Girl in the Afternoon (28 page)

“I never believed a word of it.”

Hearing those simple, honest words, Aimée felt her bitter resolve slip away, leaving her as weak as a child. “You're right.” She laughed, a harsh, shaky sound. “It was miserable.”

Madame Savaray lowered herself onto the sofa, holding her walking stick out in front of her and smoothing the ivory tip as if working a ball of clay. Aimée sat next to her. Her
grand-mère
even smelled old, sour, and musty, her breath pungent.

Looking straight ahead, Madame Savaray said, “My dear, there is no delicate way to put this. I must tell you straight out that your maman has died.”

The room felt suddenly very warm. Wrapping a hand around her wrist, Aimée rubbed the hard outer bone of her forearm and looked toward the door, half expecting her maman to walk through and prove her
grand-mère
wrong. Her maman was too spirited to die, indestructible, a force beyond the power of nature.

“Why did you not write to me?”

“I couldn't tell you in a letter.” Madame Savaray dug a handkerchief out of her pocket. “I didn't believe she was dying. I thought she'd brought it on just to see Jacques.”

There was a stab in Aimée's ribs. “She saw Jacques?”

“Yes.”

“Papa agreed?”

“He would have agreed to anything in the end. Colette behaved herself with the boy, asked pointed questions, his likes and dislikes, that sort of thing. Jacques was very polite. It was only when she reached her hand to him that the poor boy faltered.” Madame Savaray looked into a dark corner of the room, remembering Jacques's pale face. “He seemed frightened, at first, then something shifted, a sudden recognition, and he stepped up and took Colette's hand. He held on to it until she fell asleep. The next day your maman seemed fully recovered. Even your papa was convinced she'd brought it on herself. But a few days later the fever returned. She died quite quickly. Influenza, the doctor said.”

Aimée walked toward the door. It felt as if the fog outside had crept in and was smothering her. “I can't do this,” she said suddenly, and buried her face in her hands.

Hoisting herself from the sofa, Madame Savaray abandoned her walking stick and braced herself against the pain to go to Aimée.

Aimée flinched as her
grand-mère
placed a shaky hand on the bare skin just below her neck, the sensation tender and painful.

“It's not easy, coming home,” Madame Savaray said. “Things are different, and yet too much the same. You will settle, in time. Your coming home means everything to your papa. You're all he has left.”

“I'm the last one he wants.” Aimée straightened, and Madame Savaray's hand slipped from her neck.

“Nonsense. He fully restocked your studio,” Madame Savaray said as if this made up for everything.

“Why did he not write to me?”

“Your papa doesn't apologize. And he's never wrong.”

Just then a searing flash of pain bore through Madame Savaray's knee, and it buckled under her.
Pathetic,
she thought as she crumpled to the floor.
Useless
.

Aimée dropped down beside her. “
Grand-mere!
Are you all right? Should I call someone?”

Madame Savaray was sprawled like a child, her legs straight out, her exposed calves thick and shapeless like hunks of white marble above her stockings that were bunched down around her swollen ankles. She looked into Aimée's stricken face and burst out laughing so hard tears came to her eyes. Startled, Aimée let out her own distorted laugh, and sank down next to her
grand-mère
. They both gave way to the absurdity.

“How preposterous,” Madame Savaray said, wiping tears from her cheeks. “Help me up before I am utterly humiliated.”

Madame Savaray held her arms out as her
petite-fille
stood up and lifted her to her feet. She felt feeble and old, but happy.

“Come,” she said, the laughter already a thing of the past. “It's time we were in our beds. You'll be a surprise for your papa in the morning.”

Aimée slipped her arm inside her
grand-mère
's, and together they walked from the room, grateful, each of them, for the support.

 

Chapter 33

The next morning Aimée stood in her papa's bedroom. The curtains were pulled back and the windows wide open. The fog had burned off, and the air was warm and clear. A steady rumble came from the street.

Her papa sat on the edge of his bed, fully dressed, his black cravat stiff under his neck, his olive-green morning coat buttoned, his shoes shined and buckled. It was encouraging that he had not shut himself up, mourning in the dark as Aimée imagined. She had been afraid he'd be as aged as her
grand-mère,
but he looked as she remembered, thinner, but still broad shouldered with a full head of dark hair, his confident chin jutting from a wide, cleanly shaven jawbone.

He stood slowly, looking at her without surprise. “When did you get in?” he asked.

“Last night.”

“I'm sorry I wasn't awake to greet you.”

“It's no matter. I wasn't expected.”

“You could have woken me.”

“There was no need,” she said.

Auguste nodded, plunging his hands into his trouser pockets.
Of course there wasn't.
Looking away he said, “I'm afraid I missed breakfast. The new housemaid was good enough to send up my coffee.” He pointed to the tray. “She's even brought two cups. She must have forgotten I'm only one now. Won't you take some with me? I could send for chocolate, if you like, or tea?” He gave Aimée a bemused smile. He'd never noticed what she drank before, or bothered to ask. “I'm afraid I don't know what you prefer.”

“Coffee will do,” Aimée said. “Thank you.”

She walked to the nearest chair and sat down. Her papa poured the coffee with an unsteady hand. The cup clanked against the saucer, and a bit of coffee splashed over the side as he handed it to her.

Aimée held the cup in her lap, the rich, earthy scent mingling with the smell of stale cigar smoke. It was her maman's favorite tea set—bone china edged in gold—brought out only for dinner parties. Aimée wondered if her maman had ordered the best set to be used every day, or if the new housemaid simply didn't know any better.

Her papa sat across from her without taking a cup for himself. Things were drastically different; they both felt this right away. Perhaps this meant they could start anew, an encouraging thought, if not a little frightening.

Aimée took a small sip. Her papa had not asked if she wanted cream or sugar, and the coffee was strong and bitter. In the past, her maman had somehow been tied to all of Aimée's interactions with her papa. Without her, Aimée had no idea where to begin.

Shifting uncomfortably in his chair, Auguste cleared his throat, but said nothing.

For a week after Colette's death he hadn't gotten out of bed. He'd stared at the bedroom walls until the repeating pattern of dogs and deer had blurred into his dreams. He longed for sleep, for the temporary peace it allowed before he woke in the middle of the night, startled, with a sense of dread he couldn't quite place until Colette's absence hit fast and hard, the pain fresh and gut-wrenching every time.

It was on one of those nights when Auguste's mistakes became very clear to him.

The next day he was able to get out of bed, the stillness in the house profound, but the stillness in himself even more acute, as if a great storm had blown over, one that had trampled his heart, but left a glimmer on its surface.

Watching Aimée, sitting straight-backed in her chair, carefully sipping her coffee, he felt the weight of his mistakes in her, and this made him terribly sad.

“How did you fare with Lady Arrington?” he asked.

“Wretchedly.”

Auguste smiled, his daughter's forward nature still catching him by surprise. “I see.”

“No use professing otherwise.
Grand-mère
would tell you soon enough. She has a way of getting the absolute truth out of me.”

“Out of everyone, although she'd never admit it. She fancies herself someone who stays out of other people's affairs.”

Aimée laughed. “Yes, yes, she does.”

“Ah.” Auguste slapped his hand on his knee and stood. “I have something for you.” He went to the writing table under the window, dug around in the top drawer, and brought back a slim weekly journal.

He handed it to Aimée.

“What is it?” She read the title,
L'Impressionniste
.

“It's those artists you used to speak of, les Indépendantes; they call themselves L'Impressionniste now. Your maman and I went to one of their exhibits a few years back.”

“Did you?” Aimée peered at the small print. “I read about it in London's
Art Monthly Review
. What did you think of it? Was it absolutely as appalling and fantastic as the Salon des Refusés in '74?”

“It frightened me. All these revolutionaries, men seeking change. The last time men felt the need to rise up and change the way things had been done for hundreds of years there was war and bloodshed. And, in the end, very little change.”

Aimée looked into her papa's open face. Never had she heard him admit fear.

“I had no intention of going to the exhibit,” he went on. “Why would I want to see paintings of laundry women or soot-covered trains? It was entirely your maman's idea. I thought she'd suddenly taken a fancy to these artists, but when I asked her she said, ‘Not in the slightest. They're laughable.'”

Aimée could hear her maman's amused impatience, as if waiting for the rest of the world to catch up to what she'd already figured out.

“Your maman's exact words were, ‘I was hoping to find something of Aimée in them.'”

A heavy presence came over Aimée, and her throat felt pinched and dry.

Auguste tapped the journal with his finger, his cuticle a perfect half moon at the bottom of his neatly trimmed nail.

“I've underlined a few bits.” He craned his neck, running his finger along the thin, black line of his pen. “It says here, ‘Where can we find more grandeur, more truth, and more poetry than in these beautiful landscapes?' The journalist even has the gall to compare the paintings to the prose of Victor Hugo. Here, ‘The same epic dignity, the same force, simply in its solemnity.'” Auguste raised his fist in the air and thumped back to his chair. “Now, Victor Hugo is a man to revere. I don't claim to understand L'Impressionnistes any better than the first time I was exposed to them, but that journalist makes a good argument in support of them.”

Whether her papa understood, or not, didn't matter. That he and her maman had tried to understand at all made Aimée feel recognized in a way she'd craved her whole life.

“Would you be so kind as to read it aloud?” Auguste crossed his hands in his lap and settled back. “I'd like to hear it again.”

It took Aimée a minute to find her voice, but her papa was in no hurry. She was conscious of his eyes on her as she read, of the quiet nod of his head, but mostly of the way he listened, earnestly, and with purpose.

 

Chapter 34

Despite the waves of heat that rose off the tracks, Henri waited until the train was out of sight, until the last piercing whistle could no longer be heard. Only then did he grab his suitcase and head down the dusty road toward the cottage.

The sun was high in the sky. His skin tingled under the glare, and beads of sweat formed on his forehead. Blackberry bushes grew thick along the road, and the thorns snagged the sleeves of his coat. It made Henri smile, this bit of nature holding on to him. London had been awful, all that noise and filth. The fetid smell of the inn had only gotten worse in the summer heat, and he hadn't had a decent night's sleep in weeks.

The hum of the river felt like a blessing. The smell of wheat drying in the sun, its golden stalks bowing and rippling in the wind, the clusters of thick, purple grapes hanging heavy on the vine walls were like small gifts.

Jeanne was the first to see him, crouched in the grass with her skirt hiked over her knees. She was diligently poking a beetle that kept rolling over and playing dead.

“Papa!” she cried, and Leonie and Jacques looked over from where they were picking pole beans in the garden.

Jacques came running. Laertes bounded from under a shady bush and let out a sharp, excited bark. And then children and dog were flinging themselves at Henri, who, finding it impossible to keep his balance, came down on his knees in the road. Jeanne smothered him in kisses, and Jacques, as if he weren't almost a boy of seven, wrapped his arms around Henri's neck and buried his face in his chest.

Laughing, Henri stood up with the children clinging to his legs. Leonie was standing under the plum tree brushing dirt from her hands. Thin strands of hair scattered across her face. The branches hung low around her, heavy with fruit, filtering the sunlight that flecked the top of her bare head. Her sleeves were rolled, and her arms and chest were a rosy pink. Henri had forgotten how lovely she was.

He walked over and put his hands on her round hips and kissed her. She resisted, pulling back with a tight purse of her lips, but when Henri slipped a firm hand to the small of her back and pulled her in, her whole body softened.

Leonie had seen him from a distance, relief choking her up. She'd wanted to run into the house and make herself presentable, but her anger had kept her rooted.

When he pulled away, she was crying. “I thought you weren't coming home,” she said, slapping a gentle hand against his chest.

He wrapped his arms around her. “Nonsense,” he said, kissing the top of her head.

They stayed up very late that night. The children hadn't wanted to go to bed, and when they finally fell asleep, Leonie and Henri hardly made it to their room before their clothes dropped to the floor.