To Capture What We Cannot Keep

by Beatrice Colin

“She always sleeps with the window open.” Jamie laughed. “It’s how you catch a cold, I keep telling her. Delphine! That’s enough now.”

  But the girl’s coughing didn’t stop. She was almost bent double, gasping for air. Finally, when the fit subsided, her hairline was damp with sweat. She closed her fist around a stained rag. Émile glanced at Jamie. He seemed unconcerned.

  “If you need money for a doctor?” Émile said softly.

  “She’s fine,” he replied with a wave of his hand.

  He stared at the young man’s face and saw the smoothness of an innocence he had not noticed before. Had he no idea? His girl was not displaying the symptoms of a common cold but of consumption, the white plague.

  “Well, I am afraid I must get back to work,” he said.

  “But won’t you drink a glass of wine with us?” the girl asked. “I’ll run down to the bar on the corner.”

  “Very kind of you,” he said. “But I’m afraid I can’t. It was very nice to meet you, Delphine.”

  “Another time?” she said.

  “I hope so.” But as he walked down the spiral steps, he suspected it was unlikely.

  At the bottom, Émile shook Jamie’s hand.

  “You see we can’t always help who we fall in love with,” Jamie said.

  He agreed this was true.

  “Since you have done me a favor,” Jamie went on softly, “I will do you one. You picked the wrong one.”

  Jamie scratched his nose. Émile felt a wave of anger rise through him.

  “What are you talking about?” he said.

  “You know exactly what I’m talking about,” Jamie said. “Fixed the door, have you?”

  Émile swallowed. The foreman had talked. He should have expected it.

  “Ask Mrs. Wallace about her last suitor,” he went on. “Led him on a merry dance and then dropped him like a brick.”

  Émile pulled his hat on and adjusted his collar. Who was he to tell him about Cait’s past?

  “I’m sure she had her reasons,” he replied. “It is always unwise, in my opinion, to make assumptions without knowing all the facts. Your girl, for example, has probably had her fair share of romantic adventures, none of which resulted in marriage.”

  The boy looked shocked. He pulled himself up to his full height.

  “All that’s about to change,” he said. “I intend to marry her before Christmas.”

  31

  ____

  THE ARTIST’S STUDIO WAS at the top of six flights of narrow wooden stairs. Here, another floor had been added to the top of the building, leaving the great wooden beams of the original roof intact to cut across the space. As they caught their breath, they glanced at drawings in pencil and charcoal of women in varying degrees of undress that had been pinned to the beams. On a large easel at the far end of the attic was a preliminary sketch of a woman wearing nothing but a large hat. Cait took a step closer; it was Gabrielle.

  “I hope he’s not expecting—” Cait began.

  “She will be fully clothed, of course,” Gabrielle announced. “Unless she wants to be nude.”

  “Oh no!” said Alice. “No!”

  “I was joking,” said Gabrielle.

  Alice laughed. And then all three women fell silent. At the far end of the studio, a window rattled in the wind and let in a draft. The room smelled of damp plaster and boiled vegetables, of dirty washing and linseed oil. It was four in the afternoon, the time the artist had agreed to meet them. A pigeon nested on the tiles above. A woman opened a window in one of the flats be­low and began to cough. And in the distance, but close enough for the sound to travel, came the intermittent rhythm of hammering from a construction site.

  “He is expecting us?” Cait asked.

  “Of course!” Gabrielle replied. “My husband will be here any minute.”

  “He wouldn’t mind if I had a look?”

  Gabrielle shrugged. Cait stepped over a discarded red silk robe that lay on the floor, a pile of dirty plates, and several paint-encrusted palettes to a stack of paintings.

  “He is extremely highly thought of,” Gabrielle said. “But he’s not what you would call traditional.”

  As she flicked through the canvases, Cait realized that he was not particularly good either.

  “Alice, my dear, what do you think?” Gabrielle asked. “You have to have an eye for these things.”

  “Oh yes,” said Alice, glancing from one sketch to another. “I like them. Very much, actually.”

  Cait wandered toward the far end of the studio, where a curtain had been drawn. Behind it was a large unmade bed. Did they sleep here too?

  Cait and Alice had just arrived back from a lengthy stay in a hotel in Deauville, recommended by Gabrielle. It had rained on the coast almost every day. The other guests had been large Russian families and elderly dowagers.

  “Maybe she got it confused with somewhere else,” Alice had suggested more than once.

  “We could always go back to Paris,” Cait proposed.

  “The city will be overrun with tourists,” Alice said. “Nobody spends the summer in Paris.”

  One day an Englishman and his mother arrived. The man glanced across inquisitively at them.

  “Don’t speak,” whispered Alice. “Say nothing, or they’ll know.”

  “Know what?”

  “That we’re not French!”

  And so they spent the days in enforced silence, reading novels or staring out at the gray sea and the scudding clouds, waiting, just waiting to go back to Paris. In that time, however, Alice had become a prolific writer of letters. One morning at breakfast, she opened a letter that had just arrived and silently read it.

  “Apparently it’s raining in Paris too,” she said.

  Cait could not bite down her curiosity any longer. “How is Jamie?” she asked.

  Alice folded the letter and looked at her.

  “This isn’t from Jamie,” she said. “It’s from my friend Gabrielle.”

  The Englishman appeared at the door. Alice shook her head and poured some coffee.

  So all this—the visit to her husband’s studio, the time, the date—had been arranged weeks earlier. Cait still felt the slight rise of hurt. Alice seemed to be slipping away from her.

  Someone was coming up the stairs to the artist’s studio. The door opened with a crash and a man stumbled through. He wore an assortment of clothes, none of which matched or fit; a pair of trousers held up with a length of black cord, a shirt lacking in buttons, and a knitted waistcoat. Although he wasn’t much more than thirty-five, his dark hair was long and he was prematurely balding.

  Without noticing them, he headed to a sink in the corner. As he walked it was clear that there was something wrong with his right leg. It was wasted, Cait supposed, from polio. They all turned away, but the sound of him urinating was hard to ignore.

  “I thought he was expecting us,” whispered Alice.

  Gabrielle silenced her with a hand.

  “Chéri,” she called out.

  The artist turned, frowned at them for a second, then swore under his breath as he fastened his fly.

  “I am so sorry,” he said in English, and wiped his hands on his trousers. After he had kissed Gabrielle, he offered Cait and Alice his hand. They felt obliged to shake it.

  “Madame,” he said. “Mademoiselle.”

  “May I present Miss Alice Arrol,” Gabrielle announced. “And her maid.”

  “Chaperone,” Cait corrected.

  Gabrielle nodded in her general direction but didn’t add her name.

  “A portrait of the young lady,” the artist said. “Now I remember. Give me a minute to get respectable.”

  “Why don’t we all sit down?” said Gabrielle as the artist hurried to the far end of the studio and pulled the curtain closed. There were, however, only two chairs.

  “Don’t feel as if you have to stay,” said Gabrielle to Cait with a wide smile.

  “I will be fine,” Alice added.

  That d
ay, Gabrielle was wearing a walking dress of deep red silk, gloves, and a small hat. It was hard to tell her age. Thirty, perhaps. Her face was almost free of lines, her hair was thick and dark, and she had the poise of someone who is pleased with the way she looks, who believes that beauty is something bestowed on the deserving and not randomly given. Yet the morning light revealed her face in way that softer evening light couldn’t; a slight yellowing of her skin, a tiny crease between the eyes, an obstinacy in the set of her mouth—none of which could be hidden with the lavender face powder that she wore.

  “With respect,” Cait said, “I’d rather remain.”

  There was a small, terse silence. Alice gave Gabrielle a brief, apologetic look.

  Then the artist came back, a greasy black jacket thrown on top of his clothes, and began to appraise Alice, his eyes narrowing as he took in her face. He placed a finger under her chin and turned her head this way and that.

  “A perfect profile,” he murmured. “And what skin! She is a real beauty!”

  Alice blushed but was clearly enjoying the attention. Gabrielle was examining her nails.

  “I told you,” she said to her husband.

  “You were right,” he replied. “She will be a joy to paint.”

  There was more than a hint of showmanship about the whole display. Alice was pretty, it was true, but she wasn’t quite as stunning as the artist was suggesting. There was bound to be a catch.

  “How much would you charge?” asked Cait. “For a portrait?”

  Gabrielle looked up at her sharply. Alice let out a little sigh.

  “Mrs. Wallace! Must you always bring things down?”

  “She is right to ask,” said the artist. “No charge for friends. If you like what I have done then we shall agree on a price later, and if not, pah!”

  “Is that good enough for you?” asked Gabrielle.

  Alice looked from one woman to the other.

  “Why don’t you go and see that museum you’re always going on about?” Alice suggested.

  “If the maid wants to stay,” said Gabrielle, “let her stay.”

  “Chaperone,” Cait corrected again.

  Gabrielle started to laugh. “What do you think,” she said, “that my husband will compromise her virtue when I am here? You think that? In that case, I am really rather offended.”

  “That isn’t what I said,” Cait replied.

  “Mrs. Wallace,” Alice interjected, “I will be fine.”

  “No, Alice—”

  “The maid pulls the strings. How novel!”

  “Please just go!” said Alice. “We pay you, remember. And I’m telling you to leave.”

  Cait’s face burned. She blinked twice. Alice had never spoken to her in this tone before. Gabrielle pointedly glanced at her watch.

  “I—” Cait began.

  “Go,” Alice repeated.

  What could she do? She was indeed the hired help. Alice was an adult. She had no authority over her.

  “All right. I’ll be back in an hour,” she said.

  “Make it two,” said Alice. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  Gabrielle was smoking when Cait returned to the studio. She seemed eager to get away and stubbed out her cigarette and made for the door almost immediately.

  “Same time next week?” she called to her husband. It was not a question but an order. “And next time don’t keep us waiting.”

  Cait was not allowed to see the painting. No one was allowed to, Alice said, until it was finished.

  The artist was rinsing his brushes at the sink.

  “How long do you think it will take?” Cait asked.

  “That depends,” he said over his shoulder. “On the light, on the weather, on the ambience.”

  “Don’t be so Scottish,” Alice scolded Cait. “It will take as long as it takes.”

  Alice was silent on the ride home. Her face had a feverish look despite the chill of the studio. Then she turned to her and Cait had the sense that she had just come back from far away.

  “I’m sorry I spoke to you like that,” she said. “Do you forgive me?”

  Cait still stung from the dismissal. For two hours she had wandered around a gallery without seeing anything. What did Gabrielle want from Alice? She knew it had to be more than a fee for a painting, but she had no idea what it could be.

  “Do you?” Alice asked again.

  “Of course,” Cait replied.

  “I’m old enough to know what I’m doing,” she said, and stared out the window.

  They rode on in silence. A gulf had opened between them. Was she to blame? She had been distracted, elsewhere, taken up with her own thoughts, with a longing that didn’t lessen but grew stronger by the day.

  “You know you don’t have to pose for a painting,” Cait said. “I mean, you could have a daguerreotype made instead?”

  Alice recoiled and there was something of Gabrielle in her expression.

  “Daguerreotypes are so vulgar!” she said. “How can you even suggest such a thing?”

  The carriage arrived at the house at the same time as Jamie was leaving. All the worry was gone from his face. He gave them both a deep bow.

  “My dearest wee sister,” he said. “And the lovely Mrs. Wallace.”

  “What’s wrong with you?” asked Alice. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”

  “On my way there now,” he said.

  He looked on the brink of telling her something, something significant. But instead he swallowed and fastened his coat.

  “Is everything all right?” Cait asked him.

  He looked at her deeply, as if her face could reveal how much she knew about his business.

  “I did have a slightly sticky patch.” He nodded. “But I’m over it. And now, well, you could say I’m on the rise again.”

  And he smiled a smile so wide and unequivocal that it was impossible to believe that what he said wasn’t true.

  32

  ____

  ÉMILE WOKE UP TO the sound of the softest knock on his door. He opened it to find Cait standing there in a black traveling cloak, her chest heaving as if she had run up the stairs rather than wait for the elevator.

  “Nine weeks,” he said breathlessly as he enfolded her in his arms.

  “Ten,” she replied.

  “What time is it?” he whispered into her hair.

  “Late. I had to wait until Alice was asleep. I couldn’t get away otherwise.”

  He took her face in his hands. She closed her eyes and leaned her cheek into his palm.

  “I missed you,” he said.

  In reply, she kissed his wrist.

  “Come,” he said. “Come to bed. It’s warmer.”

  One, two three, four, five. The bells tolled across the city, their clappers striking the copper in a choir of different notes and keys. It was almost morning. Already he could hear the distant rumble of carts heading to market and the flow of water from the bouches de lavage. Émile had been awake for hours, hours that were so precious that he couldn’t afford to lose any to sleep. He knew she was awake too. His skin tingled under the calligraphy of her fingertips. He imagined her growing familiar to him, the smell of her hair, her warmth, the weight of her body on the mattress beside him; he imagined her sleeping at his side in faraway places, in the Americas, in Russia, in the Far East, countries that his work took him to. He imagined children, a home, a life together, and it intoxicated him, it made him drunk with hope, with a new recklessness.

  “What will happen,” he whispered, “when the tower’s finished?”

  She was silent. He couldn’t read her face in the dark.

  “Well?” he asked.

  “I’ll go home, I suppose.”

  “You could stay. With me.”

  “That would be nothing short of scandalous, Monsieur Nouguier,” she said softly.

  He laughed and kissed her gently on the shoulder. She was right. While his mother was alive, he couldn’t marry her. She would never accept it. In fact, knowing
about Cait might even hasten the speed of her demise. They would have to wait. And yet his mother was changing, she was more accepting of his career now. He remembered how interested she had been in the Panama Canal project the last time he saw her.

  “You say that people have invested in it,” she had asked. “How many?”

  “Thousands,” he replied. “Hundreds of thousands, in fact.”

  “And is their money safe?”

  “The bonds are backed by the government, so I should think so. You must have read about it in the newspaper?”

  She nodded and then asked him to pour her coffee.

  “There’s no sense in taking a gamble in this life,” she added. “That is especially true when it comes to matrimony.”

  He put the coffeepot down.

  “Aren’t you having any?” she had asked him.

  “Not today.”

  They’d sat in silence as she sipped her coffee. Once more they had reached an impasse.

  “I just want to see you settled,” she said, and laid her hand over his, “be­fore I pass on.”

  He still felt the weight of her paper-soft grip. He still felt the kick of his heart in his chest as he resisted her. It was growing light outside; the dark coat of night was lifting. Cait rolled over and looked up at him.

  “Where were you?” she asked.

  He shook his head and smiled. “I was here, with you.”

  “No, you weren’t,” she replied. “I must go. Before I’m missed.”

  Her eyes were as silver as mercury. She blinked and then he saw that she was crying.

  “What’s the matter?” he said.

  She inhaled long and hard and wiped her face with the back of her hand.

  “Nothing,” she replied.

  Cait started to dress, fastening and buttoning, tightening and clipping.

  “I want to see more of you,” he said.

  “Won’t you tire of me?” she said as she pulled her cloak over her dress.

  He took her hand, drew her to him, then kissed the top of her head.

  “Dearest Cait,” he whispered, “I’ll never tire of you. You’ll come again?”

  He tried not to expect her, and he tried not to wait, but he couldn’t help himself. On both of the occasions that she had arrived again at his door after midnight, however, he had been fast asleep, and even though he had pinched himself awake, he had the distinct impression that she was not real at all but a dream. Slowly the feeling would subside and she would take shape in his ears, in his eyes, in his arms. And then they would lie together until the smell of fresh coffee and baking bread began to rise from the street. At the stroke of five she would dress, kiss him goodbye, let herself out, and he would lie sleepless, imagining her heading home, slipping into streams of shopgirls and domestics, of shift workers and bakers, without a ripple.