Friday's Girl

by Charlotte Bingham

  Nevertheless they were both hungry, and ate their individual breakfasts with relish, but as soon as Sheridan had finished, safe in the knowledge that no one around them would understand what he was saying, he started to fantasise about the customers at nearby tables.

  ‘Don’t look, but the man of round girth who arrived just now, he has just had a quarrel with his wife.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I know because he has just taken out his bad mood on Pierre.’

  ‘How do you know that ?’

  ‘Because Pierre has just pulled a face behind his back.’

  ‘What have he and his wife quarrelled about, do you think?’

  ‘Well now, I would say that she has accused him of infidelity, which he has of course hotly denied. He is still incensed, but as soon as Pierre brings him coffee and croissants, he will calm down, and when he has calmed down – despite his undoubted innocence – unfortunately the idea of infidelity will have started to take hold, have some undeniable appeal for him. He will start to think, Well, if I am to be accused of this, well, I might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.’

  ‘How do you know all this?’

  ‘Very easily. To begin with he came into the café in a hurried manner, and pulled out his chair without waiting for Pierre. Then he scowled around him after he had finished ordering.’

  There was a long pause.

  ‘Ah, now,’ Sheridan said with justifiable triumph. ‘Just as I said he would, he has just seen you, and his eyes have turned as bright as the lamps in the Place Pigalle. Not only are they lighting up, but they are dwelling lingeringly on you.’ Sheridan looked at Celandine, all false innocence. ‘He must like dark hair and large eyes, not to mention a slim waist, and hands with long tapered fingers. He must like a young woman to look intelligent, and to dress in a way that does not attract too much attention to herself, but is stylish enough to make her a good subject to draw.’ Satisfied that he had made his point, Sheridan returned to Le Figaro.

  ‘Do you sympathise with him, with the husband?’

  ‘I do not,’ Sheridan told her, lowering the newspaper again and suddenly sounding more Irish than he quite intended.

  ‘Oh, do you not?’ Celandine asked him, relieved to be able to mimic him.

  ‘No, I do not sympathise with him, and neither do I sympathise with his wife.’

  ‘For the reason that?’

  ‘For the simple reason that, if we are right, and I am quite sure we are, then the wife has behaved badly, because she has allowed herself to voice suspicions for which she has not the slightest evidence. He, on the other hand, having had his male pride dented, is now looking around him as if her silly accusations can justify his behaving in an even sillier fashion. As if her jealousy can, in some way, free him. So, no, I do not have the slightest sympathy with either of them. Pierre?’ Sheridan folded his newspaper and waved to the waiter. ‘I wish to pay, Pierre!’

  ‘You wish to pay, Monsieur Robertson? Enfin, then I know you can have no French blood!’ Pierre took the money proffered to him. ‘Only an Englishman insists on paying!’

  ‘Pierre, I have told you a hundred times. I am an Irishman. From Ireland.’

  ‘You are from Iceland?’

  ‘No, Pierre. Not Iceland.’ Sheridan rolled his eyes mock-furiously to indicate to Celandine that it was an old routine. ‘I come from Ireland. Ireland where there are no snakes and the shamrock grows – and no, you can’t put your sauce vinaigrette on it . . .’

  ‘You don’t sound Irish,’ Celandine said, collecting up her things. ‘You sound English to me, except for just then, when you did sound Irish.’

  ‘That is because you are an American, Miss Benyon. Americans sound Irish to the English, whereas the Irish sound English to Americans.’

  ‘I think you may have something there.’

  They strolled past the table occupied by the Frenchman about whom they had only just finished speculating. The subject of their fantasy immediately raised his eyes all too appreciatively to Celandine.

  ‘I told you,’ Sheridan sighed, once they were safely past his table. ‘I am never wrong about behaviour. As soon as you are out of sight, he will probably try to join that other young woman at her table.’

  ‘I think you’re quite wrong about him. I think he is probably single, and very lonely.’

  ‘He was wearing a wedding ring.’

  ‘How would you know that? When we passed him he had only removed one of his gloves. His wedding-ring hand was still gloved.’

  Sheridan stopped and stared at Celandine. ‘I was quite sure that I had caught you out. No, sorry, I had hoped that I had caught you out, but it seems I have not.’

  ‘No, you have not.’ Celandine mimicked his Irish intonation once again. ‘Besides, there is no reason, surely, that I should not prove to be as observant as you, is there?’

  Sheridan thought for a moment. ‘Well, no, I suppose there is not,’ he agreed, but the look in his eyes became wary.

  Celandine walked ahead of him, her slender body moving gracefully between the tables, Sheridan following, until they found themselves on the pavement, at which point Sheridan started to walk on her outside.

  ‘I do hope you are not an active member of some sort of suffragist women’s organisation,’ he stated, a little plaintively. ‘So many young women I have met in Paris lately turn out to be furiously involved with something very fierce to do with the sisterhood of women, and – of all myths – freedom. It quite makes my head spin when they talk, really it does.’

  Celandine shook her head. ‘American women have no need of such things,’ she told him grandly. ‘We are already far more liberated than European women. Why, my mother told me only the other day that when an Englishwoman has her purse stolen and the theft is reported to the police, the purse must be reported as being the property of her husband! An Englishwoman today does not even own her own purse! She is therefore no better than a slave, for like a slave she owns nothing, has nothing she can call her own.’

  She shrugged her shoulders expressively as if to say that she was very glad that she was not English, and as she did so, Sheridan stopped walking.

  ‘I am so glad to hear that you have no need to be fanatically inclined, because in that case you won’t object to what I am about to do. Wait here for a second, if you would not mind?’

  Celandine did as he asked, staring round her at the blue sky, at the people passing, at the old buildings, and feeling an inconsequential rush of happiness. She knew that somehow everything in her life was about to change, but just for that minute it was quite still, full of the kinds of colours that morning brings before too many people are about, before the pulse of life started quickening and blurring the beauty around her. And then Sheridan thrust a bouquet of flowers into her hand.

  ‘Happy birthday!’

  Celandine stared from the flowers to him, and back again. ‘Gracious, but how beautiful. Thank you! They are beautiful. But – you must know, I have to tell you – it is not my birthday.’

  Sheridan placed his panama hat at a rakish angle. ‘As far as I am concerned today is most definitely your birthday,’ he stated with authority. ‘And tomorrow, and the day after. That is the kind of person you are meant to be. I am sure of it. From the first moment that I started to draw you in the Louvre, I knew you to be the kind of person who should have a birthday every day.’

  They walked along, smiling at each other. Celandine looked from him to the flowers and then up at him again, and down at the flowers. She did not know why he had bought her such a beautiful bouquet, but she sensed that to ask him would spoil both the fragility and the delicate sensuality of the gesture; that it would take away from the gaiety of the morning if she said anything more.

  And so they progressed, in happy silence, until they came to the Louvre museum, and the true business of the day began.

  When Celandine returned to the apartment much later, it was teatime, but not just any tea-time, one of Mrs Benyon�
�s At Home afternoons when ladies called, took tea, engaged in serious, vaguely intellectual conversations or lighthearted chatter, depending on their characters, and after not more than twenty minutes left to call on some other lady also holding an At Home on the same day.

  Celandine did not like tea, nor did she enjoy wearing a smart afternoon dress and pretending not to be bored, but, having missed out on the doubtful delight of lunching to the sound of Agnes holding forth on life in Avignon, she knew that it was her duty to help her mother out.

  She changed into something more demure, more suitable for taking loathsome tea, and was approaching the door of the main salon when Agnes’s voice, long before Celandine had entered the room, started to float towards her.

  ‘As I said to the Countess de Charbonne de Molinaire on my last visit to Paris, there are very few pieces of porcelain that I would wish to acquire now. Meissen of course, and Limoges, but not all of Limoges, and nothing would induce me to buy English pieces. They are so lacking in delicacy. Always dogs or peasants, or cows. They seem to love cows. Not deer, if you please, but cows!’

  She laughed delicately, but not delicately enough to stop at least two of the visiting ladies immediately replacing their teacups, standing up and walking to the side of the salon where they had placed their parasols. The mention of a cow had offended their sensibilities. No one could think of a cow without thinking of its udders. As one woman they picked up their parasols and with restrained gratitude excused themselves to their hostess.

  Celandine watched, struggling with the anger she was feeling on behalf of her mother. Poor Mother, as always when Agnes was around, had acquired a moist upper lip, not to mention a flushed face.

  ‘Oh dear, you too are going, are you?’ she asked more than a little hopelessly, as, after all too short a moment, two more ladies collected their parasols and took an abrupt leave of Mrs Benyon.

  ‘Oh dear, Belle-mère, I hope I have not said something I should not?’ Agnes asked, after glancing around the now empty salon.

  Celandine bit her lip, and half closed her eyes. The very fact that her half-sister seemed to take delight in every now and then addressing her stepmother in French as ‘mother-in-law’ always vexed Celandine.

  ‘Why do you not tell her that you are not her mother-in-law, Mother? It would be more natural for her to address you as “Maman”.’

  Celandine and her mother had retreated to Mrs Benyon’s dressing room, where Celandine now found herself speaking in an infuriated if hushed tone to her mother.

  ‘Celandine, dearest, what does it matter? As your darling father would have said, “What does it matter in the scheme of things?”’

  ‘It matters because she is deliberately trying to upset you.’

  ‘Oh, no, I am sure you are wrong. I would not say that, not for one moment, Celandine, dearest. Really not. Agnes is very kind-hearted. Think how she moved heaven and earth when I was ill last year, bringing her husband to my bedside. So considerate.’

  ‘You were only two kilometres apart at the time, Mother, and he got your diagnosis all wrong.’

  Celandine sighed inwardly. It was quite useless to expect her mother to accept that Agnes was actually quite spiteful, and, in truth, not only was it useless, but it was not really her concern. Agnes was her mother’s stepdaughter far more than she was Celandine’s half-sister.

  Perhaps it was this feeling of impatience that gave Celandine the courage to broach the next subject, a subject that she knew might not prove to be very popular with her mother.

  ‘Mother—’

  ‘I do hope that those ladies did not leave so quickly, those ladies who called on me this afternoon, I do hope they were not offended by Agnes’s mention of . . .’ she lowered her voice, ‘her mention of la vache?’

  ‘No, I am quite sure they did not mind Agnes’s mentioning a cow in the drawing room,’ Celandine said, lying. ‘Besides, it was not as if you mentioned the animal, Mother. It was Agnes, not you.’

  ‘I suppose that’s true, dear, but they did leave rather swiftly – after only five minutes, which is unusual, even for Paris, do admit.’

  Her mother picked up her lace handkerchief and waved it a little in front of her face in the manner of a fan. Celandine cleared her throat and quickly changed the subject, realising that she could take ruthless advantage of the confusion her mother was feeling.

  ‘Mother, you – er – know there is a summer school in Brittany? I have mentioned it to you before, I think. Well, I was hoping that I could join it, if you remember, but then I found that it was all booked out. But now it seems that there is one place left, after all, and that I can go, in the company of this other girl I have met at the Louvre. We could go together and we will be painting in the new manner, outside, en plein air, they call it. Do you think I might go, Mother? I do feel it will do my style so much good. This other girl, you see, has the same ideas on art as I have, so it would be very beneficial.’

  Happily for Celandine her mother was not listening, being too busy worrying about whether or not Agnes’s mention of a cow at an At Home had put up backs.

  ‘The mention of la vache, well, it is not usually done to mention it in polite circles, I feel. But I dare say Agnes does not realise how very sensitive Parisian ladies can be. It is not that a cow is sacred in France as it is sacred in parts of India, it is because it is a very common word, and, as I understand it, a word that can be used in a pejorative way. That is why it is never mentioned dans le salon, in polite company. Still, I should have thought that dear Agnes might have known that; except of course the genteel perceptions of Society are very different at Avignon, as I remember.’

  ‘So it will be all right if I do go to Brittany for the summer school there, Mother?’

  ‘Yes, of course, dearest. Much better that you should get out of Paris, and besides it will free another room, which might be very useful. I did not tell you, dearest, that Agnes’s dear Tomas is coming to stay at the apartment next week. It seems he is able to join the boys and Agnes here, and they will be able to make sorties of an educational kind. It will be lovely for them all, I feel, to have the freedom to come and go as they wish.’

  Celandine immediately felt a mixture of relief, guilt and anger. Relief that her mother had agreed to her going to the summer school in Brittany, guilt because she had turned Sheridan into a girl she was studying with, and anger that Agnes and Tomas were about to take Mother for their usual ride. She knew very well that, comfortably off though her mother might be, she could ill afford to keep taking Agnes and her family out to restaurants and paying for them to go on excursions, but that undoubtedly was what she would be required to do, since Agnes was adept, if not masterly, at playing on Mrs Benyon’s feelings, managing somehow to make her stepmother feel guilty that her father had remarried.

  ‘So I really can go, can I, Mother?’

  ‘Of course you can go to your summer school with your friend, dearest. Much the best, as I said.’

  Mrs Benyon continued to wave her lace handkerchief in front of her face, which was probably just as well because it meant she missed seeing the look of excitement that came into her daughter’s eyes. A young horse being let out into acres of spring grass could not have felt more joyous than Celandine at that moment.

  Happily it did not take her long to pack up for her departure to the summer school, which was fortunate, for by tackling everything at the gallop she could avoid the reality of what she was doing. She was taking herself off to Brittany with a single man. If anyone found out she would probably become an outcast, although Sheridan had assured her there were going to be so many other students travelling with them that there could be no suggestion of impropriety on anyone’s part.

  An overpowering feeling of running away from home, of throwing off all care, suffused Celandine as, hardly more than a day later, and followed by a deferential porter, she walked with Sheridan towards the already crowded train. Heads were hanging out of the windows and beckoning to ‘Sheree’, as s
ome of his fellow students endearingly called him.

  ‘Viens ici, Sheree!’

  Celandine thought she could already sense that they were a grand crowd as she stepped into the carriage, followed by Sheridan and the luggage.

  ‘I say, what a capital idea to bring a picnic breakfast,’ he enthused as Celandine was carefully handed up her final piece of luggage, a large picnic basket crammed to the top with items of delicious food provided by the ever-solicitous Marie. ‘The train stops at various stations on the way to Cancale, but I have to admit I have only to hear a train whistle blow and I become overwhelmed by a prodigious hunger.’

  Celandine started to take off the gingham cloths with which Marie had covered the top of the picnic basket. Evidently she had, with some sixth sense, anticipated catering for more than just two girl artists, for the basket was full to the brim with luncheon boxes, themselves crammed with everything from freshly baked rolls to baguettes filled with little pieces of chocolate or ham, and ripe tomatoes, bought from the market that morning, along with more fruit and chocolate and hot coffee.

  Nor was Celandine the only person to have brought a picnic from home. Everyone except Sheridan seemed to have thought of bringing something, so that when a great cheer went up as the train eventually pulled out of the station there seemed to Celandine to be a veritable mountain of food in their carriage. Somehow, even so, the chatter increased, and the compartment was soon full of the robust sound of opinions being exchanged.

  ‘Soon we will all be en plein air, painting the sea and the sky, and our longing to be one with everything in nature, to make our art as natural as nature, will start to be assuaged.’

  ‘Hark at him!’ Alfred Talisman, the tall, handsome, darkly bearded man who had shushed them in the Drawing Room of the Louvre, now winked at Celandine. ‘You should have seen him last year – struggling to keep his canvas on his easel. En plein air? Thank heavens we were in the open air, my dear, for the language was enough to shock an army sergeant.’