Katherine Keenum (43 page)

He nodded. To the extent that he could feel anything these days, he was touched by her solicitude.

Later, while most of the players compared their pictures, Winkie pulled Edward aside. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this, Dr. Murer—he’d hate me for it—but I’ve heard at last from Robbie Dolson. Well, I do know why: I want you to know he’s going straight, at least I think so. He wrote that he knew I’d be returning to England this winter and wanted to get back in touch while he knew where to find me. It was a good letter.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” said Edward, who did not, in fact, care one way or another. His head hurt. “And Miss Dolson?”

“Ah. He didn’t say much. Said where they’re living there’s a garden and she spends her time painting in it when she can.”

Not all of Edward’s perceptiveness had been swallowed by his illness. “Worried?”

“I wish I knew more. I’m thinking of going down to visit them just to, well . . .”

“Down?” A feeble hope stirred in Edward’s mind. “Forgive me, may I ask—somewhere south of here?”

“Italy. Look, I shouldn’t have spoken; I’ll say no more.”

“It’s not the Dolsons I’m thinking of, Winkham. I don’t have to tell you what kind of shape I’m in. I’ve put myself under Maurice Latour’s care.”

“Couldn’t do better,” said Winkie, who clearly wondered where this was going.

“So I thought, but it’s not enough. He’s referred me to a colleague in Provence, a man who offers a private rest cure at a thermal spring. If you’re traveling south, I beg you to route yourself through Marseilles and let me go that far with you.” Edward closed his eyes tight and rubbed the brow between them. “I need someone to see that I get there. If you came as far as L’Estaque, it would give you a chance to look over a private French sanatorium.”

“Busman’s holiday.”

Edward felt himself being scrutinized by a physician’s eye.

“Let me think about it,” said Winkie, soberly.

“It’s probably asking too much.”

“I didn’t say that. When would you want to go?”

“Whenever you say. Immediately, tomorrow. I can wait a week or two; but if I don’t go soon, I never will.”

“Go where?” asked Jeanette, approaching them. “You look conspiratorial.” At their seriousness, her face went from facetious to apprehensive.

“Jeanette,” said Edward, who had just enough consciousness of circumstances to protect Winkie from having to say anything about the Dolsons, “I have asked Dr. Winkham to accompany me on a journey to Provence.”

“When the Renicks go for Christmas?” She knew the guess was wrong even before she finished. If he were going with the Renicks, he wouldn’t take Winkie.

“Sooner. Right away.”

“Oh!” Jeanette fixed her eye on Edward’s. Her face said wordlessly, You hadn’t told me.

“Ah, if you’ll excuse me, Miss Palmer,” said Winkie, backing away from palpable trouble, “I think I’d better be off. Many thanks for the afternoon. I’ll just speak to Miss Pendergrast.

“Let me get back to you,” he muttered to Edward.

Mutely, Edward handed him his card. As Winkie stepped away, Edward said, “Jeanette, I would have told you first—”

“Funny, I thought of Winkie myself, that day in the park.”

Edward’s color, which was already bad, could not drain more, but he looked more pinched than ever.

“Oh, don’t let’s quarrel. Excuse me, I must play hostess; the others are leaving, too.”

Jeanette turned on her heel, pulled her face into an artificial smile, and went to the door, where Amy and Sonja were wrapping themselves in shawls, and Winkie in his overcoat was bidding Effie good-bye.

“Don’t be hard on him,” said Winkie, in a low voice, taking Jeanette’s hands between his. “It was something I said that brought it up. I think I’ve found Robbie and Emily.”

“Robbie and Emily—?”

“I’ll tell you more later. Meanwhile, Dr. Murer is suffering misery neither you nor I can imagine. Go to him.” He patted Jeanette’s hand. “And go easy on yourself, doctor’s orders. Them as loves hurts. Don’t I know.”

Crushed, detached by the drug from both anger and regret, wanting only to leave, yet too undone to move, Edward stared at the floor. He knew he had bungled again. He was cut by Jeanette’s words. He hardly knew what to make of it when, as soon as the others were gone, she came over to where he stood, threw her arms around his neck, and, sobbing, laid her face against his shoulder. Whatever she meant, he responded by folding his arms around her and holding her close with his cheek resting on the top of her head. The two of them swayed, body to body. It was not the embrace either one of them had dreamed of—too disappointed, too apologetic. Effie scurried to the other end of the room and pretended not to see. At the sound of her movement, Jeanette pulled back, placed her hands flat on Edward’s chest, and said through her tears, “Winkie says you must go, and he’ll come with you.”

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

A Journey South

F
or a journey that was scheduled to require all day and most of the night, Edward engaged a first-class sleeping compartment; in the belief that all railway food was execrable, Marianne packed lavish hampers for him to carry with him. Winkie, who had never traveled in such physical comfort, did his best to be pleasant with a moody companion. Nevertheless, to Edward, the trip was an ordeal. In his state of health, the best he could do to repay Winkham’s generosity was to ask mechanical questions about his hospital experiences and listen to what he had to say about the current state of French medicine. To survive the endless jiggling, noise, and overheated air of the compartment, Edward sank into torpor. Laudanum helped; Winkie controlled the dosage. As was to be expected in winter, there were long delays along the way. They were scheduled to reach Marseilles around five thirty, before sunup; but when a porter roused them next morning, light was already in the sky. He assured them they had time for a shave and breakfast.

As they finally pulled into Marseilles from the north, they passed a great deal of new construction sprawling up the hillsides above the port basin. Despite pastel plaster and terra-cotta roof tiles, it seemed as raw as Cincinnati to Edward. In the huge, midtown Gare Saint-Charles, the usual station noises thundered in his brain. Local trains for L’Estaque left from a different station, which required a cab ride. In the end, although they had only fifteen miles to go, it was after eleven o’clock when Edward and Winkie, along with a very few other passengers, descended onto the little L’Estaque station platform. The driver sent by Dr. Aubanel identified them at once: two tired, pale foreigners in northern clothes. As they followed him out into bright midday sun, Edward squinted. He wanted to feel gladdened by red geraniums and overgrown nasturtiums still in bloom, by conical cedars and a spreading Aleppo pine between him and a cluster of houses opposite; but the ugly modern realities of a railway viaduct and telegraph poles spoiled the effect.

“Ah, look this way,” said Winkie.

He turned Edward to where roofs, stone outcroppings, and treetops dropped to the harbor. Beyond, the blue Gulf of Marseilles stretched to the wedge of Chateau d’If in the distance. It was picturesque and preferable to cold, never-ending drizzle but still not Edward’s idea of paradise. A few nearby factory smokestacks rose as high as the village’s yellow church tower, and above, all around, the rocky limestone hills looked savage, the scrub brush dry. He wondered whether he had exchanged a brooding, glum nightmare for a glaring, harsh one. In the open carriage that took them out to Dr. Aubanel’s
maison santé
, he closed his eyes against the sun he had ridden more than five hundred miles to find.

A quarter hour later, the carriage turned up an avenue of pine trees that climbed through an olive grove. At its end, two ancient, massive olive trees stood sentinel near a seventeenth-century house on the shallow steps of which two calamondin orange trees grew in large baskets and bore fruits in various stages of ripening. A few creamy out-of-season blossoms perfumed the air.

They were greeted on the doorstep by the housekeeper, who expressed sympathy over the lateness of the train. She conducted them to Edward’s bedroom, where wine and biscuits had been set out beside a small, fragrant fire of cedar logs. A lavatory was down the hall. The midday meal would be served at one thirty, she told them, but first Dr. Aubanel wished to see them in his office. “Please bring the patient down when you are refreshed,” she said to Winkie, while Edward sat hunched on the edge of his bed. Winkie did as he was told.

Dr. Aubanel’s office, on the ground floor at the back of the house, was a scholar’s study, its floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with books, antique scientific instruments, and piles of journals. From behind his desk, the doctor came around to greet them as a courteous host. At first glance, he appeared almost diffident, but his handshake was firm and his eye sharp. He was glad, he said, that they had arrived in time to visit the spring before lunch.

Outside, he led them up the hill to a newly built pavilion that resembled a Greco-Roman temple of marble columns under a domed roof. “When I discovered the spring,” he said, “it was surrounded by the broken remains of an ancient mosaic pool, which I have had restored. From shards of piping, it appears that hot water was also carried down to a private villa in the Roman era.”

“Was it a Roman spa?” asked Winkie.

“
Non, monsieur
, the spring is too small. As you will see, only enough water circulates through the pool to serve one or two patients at a time. It is unnecessary to drink the sulfuric water, by the way. It may be that a mineral virtue absorbed through the skin augments the spring’s healing effect, but the primary benefit derives from immersion in its warmth surrounded by nature. I believe that the body forever remembers the all-embracing Eden of the womb.”

Winkie raised skeptical eyebrows.

“
Non, Dr. Winkham, je ne suis pas fou
,” chuckled Aubanel. “The mind is a great mystery, but so is the body. If we reawaken a primal sense of bodily ease, then the mind is free to form new habits. The spring is not magic, it but aids other therapies. In your case, M. Murer, it will help alleviate your cravings as your body adjusts to decreases in opium.”

Edward felt glum.

At the porch of the bathhouse, a clean-shaven man in his twenties emerged, rubbing his damp hair with a towel. Dr. Aubanel introduced him as M. Valabrègue. He smiled pleasantly, shook hands without a word, and took Edward’s arm. Edward tensed. Valabrègue glanced at Dr. Aubanel, who nodded. Edward was turned around gently but firmly for the second time that day; and for the second time, he beheld the Mediterranean, now wide across the horizon.

“By Jove, that’s fine!” said Winkie.

Below them spread the rest of the estate. Dr. Aubanel explained that much of it was a working farm. Rabbits and chickens were raised for meat and eggs. A small herd of goats supplied milk for cheesemaking. Manure from the animals enriched a large vegetable garden. “We must find what you like to do,
monsieur
. Absorption in manual labor turns the mind from cankered thoughts. Exhaustion destroys health, but a pleasant fatigue brings rest.”

“I tried fencing.”

“
Ah, monsieur
, fencing requires focus and aggression. What you sought from opium was calm and release. For these, pure air, nourishing food, steady work, and healthy exercise will be more effective.”

“
Mens sana in corpore sano?
” asked Edward.

“You are in the Romans’ Provincia,
monsieur
,” said Dr. Aubanel. “We are all classicists here.”

*   *   *

“That first afternoon, he had us both bathe in the spring just for pleasure. He knew, of course, that I was vetting the place,” said Winkie, a week later, when he reported on the visit to Jeanette. He brought with him a note from Edward.

“And is it good, Winkie?”

“If I hadn’t thought so, Dr. Murer would have left with me, I promise you that. One part of the regimen is going to be hard on you, though, Miss Palmer. He is allowed no visitors for a month and no mail.”

“What!”

“I’m afraid this note is the last you’ll have from him until sometime into the new year.”

“Can’t I even write him back?”

“Not yet. The idea is to insulate the patient from all outside cares while he breaks away from old patterns and reshapes his life.”

“Oh, but it’s wrong, wrong!”

“It’s only for a month. Thereafter, he’ll begin fitting back gradually into the larger world as a new man.”

“But what if I want the old one back?”

“You want him the way I saw him last May, Miss Palmer, not as he is now.”

Jeanette nodded, stroking the note. “And Emily,” she sighed, “how did you find her?”

“Not as well I could wish, nor so bad as I had feared. I was lucky enough to spend an afternoon with her.” Winkie’s luck had come at the small cost of having to make his own way to the
palazzo
where the Dolsons were staying (Robbie had failed to meet his packet boat from Marseilles and was absent from the mansion when a gondola set him down at the entrance). Despite an address on the Grand Canal, the palace had weeds growing in cracks outside, and damp stained its interior walls. It was owned by an Italian countess who had gathered around herself a following of artists, would-be revolutionaries, and parasites, none of whom paid the slightest attention to Winkie when a servant led him through halls of faded grandeur into a warren of ever smaller back rooms. The Dolsons’ lodgings were on the top floor, two bare rooms and a sagging balcony. Robbie later said that it all made good copy.

After depositing his carpetbag, Winkie went in search of Emily. He found her seated at her easel in an obscure corner of an overgrown garden behind the palace. She extended a hand, which he took gratefully between both of his.

“I’d never have guessed there was this much open land in the whole of the city,” he said, “nor this much greenery.”

“In winter, too. You ought to have seen it in summer,” she replied, in mild reproach at his not having been there.

“Ah,” he said. “I wish I could have.”

She withdrew her hand.

“I see you are painting.” He also saw that she was still drugged, but not to the point of being dazed. “Are you able to work here?”

“I can work anywhere.”

Gradually, she warmed to his familiar presence with the detached, sad sweetness he had known half a lifetime. She treated his coming to visit Robbie as the most natural thing in the world. When Robbie finally appeared, he, too, acted as if it were only right and proper for Wee Willie Winkie to bob in his wake one more time, although now he was warier, watching perhaps for a sign of just how much his old friend knew. For his part, Mr. Winkham—or Dr. Winkham, as he now had the right to be called—bridled more often at gibes and snubs than before but continued to swallow his pride out of habit. And he was careful to say nothing about having accompanied Dr. Murer south, nor to give any other hint that he knew why the Dolsons had fled Paris.

Back in Jeanette’s studio, he said, “Before I left, Emily asked me to bring you this.”

It was a densely worked watercolor, a pensive self-portrait curled around two sides of the picture to frame a garden in which grotesque faces peered out from the foliage. At the bottom was painted the motto,
Come buy, come buy is still their cry
.

“Oh, Emily, what fruits have you eaten?”

Chin down, Winkie turned his hat in his hand as he often did while making up his mind. He looked up at her with grief and compassion. “The same as your good man.”

Jeanette clutched his arm. “I knew she took chloral sometimes. Laudanum, too?” She tried to sort through flashes of memory.

“Off and on. Not much in Paris, I think. So Dr. Murer never told you?”

“Did he know?”

“He saw it at that fatal garden party. Now, don’t go blaming him for not telling you, Miss Palmer. I’d say he held his tongue in kindness to me and Emily. We’re all owed our privacy.”

“Oh, Winkie, it’s been a longer road for you than for me.”

“And I’m sorry you have to walk it now. Strange though, I’m not sorry to have a companion for a mile or two. Hurts being all alone.”

Weeping, Jeanette put her arms around him to hold and comfort him while he held and comforted her.

“Remember,” he said, before he left, “The road’s longest and worst for them.”

*   *   *

After Winkie left, Jeanette opened Edward’s note.
Beloved
, it began. His lodestar, he called her. He asked for nothing. He promised nothing.
When next we are together—Jeanette, my hopes extend no further than that we may be so. Until then believe me, I am your unworthy, your ever devoted, Edward.

When she had finished crying, Jeanette moped. She pined for days. She sent a letter down to him to be held until he could receive it and enclosed a watercolor of his most recent bouquet. Over and over, she sang to herself a song popular among the girls at Vassar her freshman year:
We sat by the river, you and I / In the sweet summer time long ago.
Her mind wore smooth certain memories from the perfect afternoon they had spent together by the Seine, early in September.

We threw two leaflets you and I,

To the river as it wandered on,

And one was rent and left to die,

And the other floated forward alone.

She walked along the quays, absorbed in thought when the weather was dismal enough to fit her mood; sometimes when pale winter sunlight shone, she crossed over to the Tuileries Garden. If their bench was empty, as it often was in winter, she sat a while. She went more often to the Luxembourg Garden. She sorted and resorted her preparatory sketches for Edward’s portrait. She wished she had painted Edward looking directly at her, but it was truer the way it was. She had painted him with his mind beyond her ken.