Katherine Keenum (46 page)

“I mean for good.”

Surely not, she thought. No! He raised his head to look out at the water again. The lines etched around his eyes told complicated stories. He was wearing his rough-woven Provençal work jacket. So close to him, Jeanette could catch the scents of earth and rosemary and sweat that clung to it. Not even while she was painting his portrait, had she been more aware of the hairs in his beard, the straightness of his nose, the warmth and solidity of Edward. But again his mind was somewhere beyond her ken, and this time she must find him. “I guess I’ve just assumed we’d go on living in Paris, that you wanted to,” she said, quietly. “You’re saying instead that you
want
to go back, aren’t you?”

Troubled but not in doubt, he met her eye. “I’m afraid I am. I thought I could make Europe home, but it’s not. I’ve learned some things about myself these last months, Jeanette. I need you more than any other single thing, my darling, always; but I need my family, too. I depend on Theodore and Sophie more than I like to admit; I like having them around, and the boys. And I need productive work.”

She found she could not give in, not all at once. “You have your laboratory in Paris.”

“It can’t provide the stimulation of other men, nor the impetus of real problems that need solving,” he said, shaking his head. “And you shouldn’t be saddled with me all by yourself. This could happen again. No one is ever really cured.”

I don’t care! she started to protest. She didn’t care—or rather she believed that she wanted to be with him no matter what happened. She would have to take the bad with the good.

He prevented her speaking by putting his arm around her again. “I’ve been thinking I could take Theodore up on a proposal to build a research laboratory at Murer Brothers. I know you love France—but could you make a life for yourself, for us, in Cincinnati?”

Cincinnati. Pig-slaughtering Porkopolis, the newspapers called it. Industrial, ugly—yet a big city, energetic; not Circleville. With Edward earnestly reaching out to her after so long an absence, for a moment all clichés seemed true. I’d go with you anywhere, she was about to vow; but before she could speak, he added, “You’d be nearer your folks, too.”

She frowned and shifted in her seat. “Not your best argument. Sometimes I think the only way to get along with my mother is to keep four thousand miles between us.”

“Am I walking into a lions’ den?”

“No, no. Papa has moods, but he’s wonderful. And Mama is intelligent and admirable and as upright as they come—witty sometimes, too, I have to admit that. But we don’t see eye to eye. She thinks I’m frivolous.” Almost laughing, Edward tightened his arm again around her and tugged. She bumped back, a familiarity that almost changed the direction of the conversation.

“It’s not that I want to go on quarreling with Mama all my life nor avoid the family,” Jeanette went on. “For that matter, going back to Ohio has been staring me in the face all along.” She looked out to sea again, just as he had. “It’s that I have to paint, Edward—not little vignettes in letters or decorating china. Real work, with other people who care, and real subjects that I care about. You said you needed it—well, I do, too.” She turned to him. “Art is my way of making sense of the world; it’s easier in France.”

“A lot of things are. It’s why I thought I wanted to stay—and we could come back for months at a time, often if you liked. But if you are provided with a studio, can you work in Cincinnati, that’s the question. You’ll miss this community, but there are artists in Cincinnati, too.”

There were. None she knew, and the McMicken was hardly the same as Carolus’s atelier or Julian’s. And yet, had she said yes to Edward only in order to stay in Paris? No, not for a minute. She paused and took in a deep breath. “I guess we’ll find out.”

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

Epithalamium

J
eanette and Effie returned to the Rue du Fleurus on a Saturday in the uncertain mood of travelers who have left one place behind but find the light different at home. While they were gone, the air had changed in Paris; life had moved on. After they unpacked, they took a turn around the Luxembourg Garden. It was more precious to Jeanette than ever. Even the terrible afternoon of Edward’s breakdown there held deep significance. They bought a few things on the way back. When they set down a bulgy
filet
, the crocheted strings fell limp. I should draw those, thought Jeanette. Shops, streets, the dome of the Pantheon, French
filets
—she was seeing them as foreign again in the melancholy acceptance that she must leave.

She put off calling at the Rue Madame until the next afternoon, afraid of what her face might reveal. She need not have worried. It was the last Sunday before the deadline, and Amy and Sonja were painting too feverishly to notice anything. She soon left and, on the way out, decided to avoid an infection of nerves by submitting her picture to the Salon as soon as possible.

The next afternoon, she changed into her best blue in honor of the occasion and set out with Cousin Effie to deliver
Un Vestibule dans le Quartier Saint-Germain
to the Palais de l’Industrie. Even if it were accepted, a painting nine by twelve inches had little chance of being noticed no matter where it was hung; but it had the great advantage of portability. When the omnibus stopped to pick them up, two men already occupied the upper deck, steadying the ends of a picture too large to fit inside. Spotting the shape of Jeanette’s parcel, one of them called out something rude about
les femmes dilettantes
. Toilers and moilers, she responded silently. “We don’t have to ride on top,” said Effie. Inside, two more men, middle-aged and dejectedly bitter, sat opposite each other with portrait-sized paintings propped against their knees. They shifted only slightly for Effie; Jeanette had to lift her package high to pass and then clutch it under her arm while she stood in the aisle holding on to a strap. Little did they know that it was Mrs. Edward Murer, the famous painter, whom they inconvenienced, she thought, with a mental toss of the head.

Near the Palais de l’Industrie, other artists were arriving from various directions to join a short queue outside the building. Jeanette walked quickly to take a place well ahead of the men on the omnibus. Every few minutes, the line would shuffle forward a foot or so. From time to time, someone coming out would stop to speak to friends, and Jeanette would try to eavesdrop discreetly. Cousin Effie openly bent around to look at what was arriving behind them. It took about ten minutes to reach the door, and then they saw that the line snaked at the same slow crawl across a long hall. “This is bad enough,” said Jeanette. “Think how horrible it’s going to be on the last day!”

Inside, dust rose in the cold building and the walls resounded to clanks and thumps echoing from out of sight. At last, the queue reached a table of functionaries, who handed out the inevitable bureaucratic forms. They docketed each work of art, handed back a numbered receipt, and passed the artists’ dearest hopes over to workmen in smocks, who, in turn, carried them off to endless stacks and rows of frames. “My, my, just like so many pallets of turnips or yard goods!” said Cousin Effie.

Jeanette had the sickening feeling that she was consigning her pretty bauble to oblivion. “Come on! Let’s get out of here!” Outside, her spirits rebounded. She threw her arms up and pirouetted on the sidewalk. Effie pulled her down and hustled her off. “Now what would Dr. Murer think if he saw you acting like that?”

“He’d think that I’m young and pretty Jeanette Palmer, his irrepressible bride-to-be!” laughed Jeanette, but she settled into a walk with her elbow linked with Effie’s. “If I’m accepted, I’ll bring you to Varnishing Day.”

“Oh, no, you’ll bring him.”

“He’d hate it; you’d love it—and you’ve earned it, Cousin Effie.”

“Well,” said Effie, ducking her head, pleased. “We won’t count our chickens before they hatch.”

Late in the afternoon, Jeanette went around to check again on Amy’s and Sonja’s progress. Seeing a general disarray of crockery as well as a litter of paint tubes and brushes, she gathered up some of the mess. When she came back from the kitchen, she invited them for dinner that night at La Poupée en Bas. “My treat.”

“I thought you’d be broke after a Provençal gallivant,” said Amy.

“What better way to squander the last of this quarter’s allowance than to celebrate a submission to the Salon?”

“We haven’t yet—” Amy’s hand dropped. She looked around. “You don’t mean you’ve carried yours over already? I thought you were coming with us.”

“My picture was finished and framed before we left. I didn’t want to run any risks.”

“How detestably pragmatic you Americans are!”

“I’ll bet Louise Steadman turned hers in on the first day.”

“
Non, non
,” said Sonja. “Steadman avoids inconvenience of first day as well as insane crush of last.”

“Louise is a veteran and has a right to be blasé,” said Amy, going back to her painting. “If anyone wants to know, the Variation on a Theme she’s working on now is conch shell, nacreous side out; tulip; fish on a plate; and for no reason that I can fathom, a sleek ferret. She’s in a Dutch phase.”

“At La Poupée, she also has Parma violets and golden monkeys. We go next week,
chérie
.”

“Come tonight. Why is it so hot in here?”

“We’ve stoked the stove to speed the paint drying, idiot.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, then, let it dry! I’ll come by for you at a quarter to six.”

*   *   *

Jeanette hoped that the visit to La Poupée en Bas would not be her last, but she knew that it might. In a few days, when Edward was back in Paris, they would resume their Duval suppers or otherwise dine together often. And in years to come? La Poupée would not open its doors to a married woman.

“Penny for your thoughts,” said Amy.

“Are you still thinking of going to Glasgow?” asked Jeanette, gazing around at the splintery whitewashed walls, the checkered tablecloths, the side table of food.

“
Non
, she is not.”

“Possibly,” said Amy, with a glance at Sonja. “Why?”

“Just that if you do, you must promise to start a supper club like this.”

“Oatmeal and offal every night,
ouff
,” snorted Sonja.

“Ignore her,” said Amy. “You do the same, if you have to go back. New York City, will it be?”

“Cincinnati,” said Effie. Under the table, Jeanette kicked her. Effie assumed a look of arch reticence.

“It’s the nearest city to Circleville,” said Jeanette.

No one was fooled. “And home of one Dr. Edward Murer, if I’m not mistaken,” said Amy.

Sonja grabbed Jeanette’s left hand. “You wear ring?”

“Not yet. There’s no announcement . . .”

“Mrs. Renick has recommended a jeweler,” said Effie, with a grin.

“So now there is announcement,” said Sonja, clinking her wine glass with a knife.
“Tout le monde! Il faut chanter ‘Aupres de mon blond homme’!”

Her call was met with cheers, groans, and clapping. The ladies had a risqué version of the old drinking song specially adapted for the loss of one of their number to matrimony, and Jeanette, like everyone else for whom it was sung, enjoyed her humiliation immensely.

Later that night she wept.

*   *   *

Edward and Jeanette had agreed that he would delay writing to Judge and Mrs. Palmer to ask for her hand until he was back in Paris with a reassuring address. From Provence, he wrote Theodore for a reckoning of his personal finances, saying that with the success of Dr. Aubanel’s cure, he must make some decisions about his future. Explanatory memoranda and accounts drawn up by the family lawyers and bankers promptly arrived. Edward had lived contentedly on the salary he paid himself during the drugstore years, and far more comfortably of late on the quarterly dividends he had received from a portion of his shares in Murer Brothers; but he knew that he would need to increase his income considerably if he were to support a wife and perhaps (he hardly dared hope) a family. Happily, with the income from his latest patent he was, if not nearly so rich as Theodore, more than able to do what he wanted.

He sent a second letter to Theodore announcing the engagement, laid out his intention for a settlement on his future wife to give her a measure of financial independence, and suggested that he should become actively engaged in research at the company. Sophie was as amazed as Theodore. Carl reacted with a whoop: “Why, the old goat!”

“
Nein
, Carl, watch your mouth!” exclaimed Theodore, while his brain worked furiously. When he tentatively concluded that what Edward laid out contained nothing untoward, his affection for his brother took over. He and Sophie exchanged looks. It was hard to believe that a confirmed old bachelor like Edward could really find happiness in a young bride; but as Sophie wisely pointed out, bachelorhood had been at best a limbo for him.

At Edward’s request, Sophie wrote Sarah Palmer to say that she and her husband would call on the Palmers in Circleville the following Saturday on behalf of the groom. By the time they went, Theodore had arranged for his lawyer to be in touch with a partner in Judge Palmer’s law practice about the settlement. If any of them thought of themselves as making the best of a doubtful situation, the opinion was decorously hidden.

*   *   *

Jeanette had to wait for notice of a different sort: official word from the Salon jury. The day that letters would go out was well known, and on that morning nervous tension at Carolus’s atelier destroyed nearly everyone’s concentration. Only Mabel Reade, who had not submitted, seemed impervious. She wished Jeanette good luck on the way out to where Edward waited to escort her home. Jeanette was glad of his company; she was light-headed, apprehensive, sure it would be a rejection, not sure she wanted him to see it. For the first time in months, he drew on his professional experience to remain attentive but unobtrusive. The fateful envelope was on the table nearest the door. Jeanette picked it up and looked from Edward to Effie. The oppression in her chest made breathing impossible; her hand fumbled, but as soon as she shook out the folds of the letter, she shrieked in a most unladylike way, waved it in the air, and flung her arms around Edward’s neck. After he had swirled her off her feet, she flew to Effie for a prolonged hug. The two women were both in tears when Jeanette pulled back. “This is yours, too, Cousin Effie.”

“No, it’s all yours, but it’s the crowning day in my life.”

The next thing was to walk over to the Rue Madame. There the news was mixed. Amy was elated by an acceptance, but Sonja was in a foul mood. A portrait she submitted had been accepted;
Poland Resurgent
had been rejected. The jury were fools, she railed.

“Three hundred and sixty-four days of the year, I would agree with you,” said Amy, “but not today. Congratulations, Palmer.”

*   *   *

For Jeanette and Edward, the rest of April passed in a blur with substantial orchestration by Cornelia, who would have liked to plan the whole wedding. Beginning in Marseilles, she had conferred with Jeanette and Effie endlessly over trousseau and fully intended to send Jeanette back to Ohio as beautifully attired as a good estimate of Judge Palmer’s means allowed. The jeweler whom she recommended laid before Edward a selection of gems and settings for an engagement ring. The small-time druggist in him swallowed hard at the prices, and even the patent holder eliminated the costliest stones; but the younger Murer brother of Cincinnati, remembering what Theodore had bought Sophie two years earlier, approved a fair array. When he took Jeanette in to choose, she pleased him by selecting a simple setting with short prongs and a medium-sized diamond with fire at its heart.

Once the Palmers had been heard from and the finished ring was ready for Jeanette’s finger, Cornelia gave a soirée at which the engagement could be announced. Since the whole point of the communal ritual was to celebrate respectability, the stodgiest leading lights of the American colony had to be invited; but Hippolyte Grandcourt and Carolus-Duran agreed to look in; and the presence of Amy, Sonja, the Reade sisters, and Edward’s friend, the collector of prints, reminded everyone that Cornelia Renick knew the most unlikely people. Carolus had the kindness to present the happy couple with a quick sketch of themselves at the party. He then kissed Jeanette on both cheeks, shook hands with Edward, and vanished, leaving everyone as dazzled as he could have hoped.

Next came Varnishing Day. Amy took Effie so that Edward could be Jeanette’s guest. He hated it as much as they both knew he would, but he said it was too important an event in her life for him to be anywhere else. As had been predicted, the year 1880 saw a record number of acceptances, so many that sculptures had to be placed in the outdoor porticos. Even with hastily built additional galleries, paintings were hung, not only above the line, but down to the floor and out in the corridors with the drawings. The alphabet was abandoned as an organizing principle. A rough cut segregated foreigners from French artists, but within each category things had to be fitted in wherever possible. In the din and confusion, it was hard to find anything, hard to be heard, hard for a group to hold together. After some preliminary searching, Amy shouted to Jeanette and Sonja, “Let’s come back together another day, when we’ve each found her own!”