by Linda Urbach
Armand was in his studio working on a portrait of Madame Darelle, the wife of a wealthy French banker. It was an unusual portrait. The young woman was sitting in a chair reading a novel. Armand had captured a look of total absorption on her face. She was dressed in the most beautiful lace peignoir. Light from an unseen window accented each delicate ruffle of the skirt. The softness and femininity of the costume was shown in sharp relief against the dense dark background.
Armand stood on a short stepladder adding finishing touches to the woman’s auburn hair. Just the smallest stroke of ochre added to the twist of her chignon made it feel as if the day was drawing to an end and she was drinking up the words on the page before the last light drained from the room.
Berthe smiled with delight when she saw it.
“I feel as though she must be reading the most wonderful novel. It is so engrossing a story that she never managed to get dressed for the day. It is a love story. The young lovers are just about to consummate their love and she doesn’t want to miss a word.”
“You have a wonderful imagination,” he said.
“And you, dear Armand, have a wonderful gift for pulling the viewer into your paintings. She reminds me of my mother, a little—she was always lost in a book.”
He turned and smiled at her. There was paint smeared on his forehead where he had pushed back his hair to keep it from falling into his eyes. He stepped down from his ladder, kissed her quickly, and then returned to his painting.
She watched him for a long while. Then: “I have an exciting new commission for you. A portrait of an infant.”
“Impossible. One can’t paint babies. They squirm too much,” he said, adding a shadow to Madame Darelle’s face.
“Oh, that’s too bad. I was so hoping you could do a portrait of ours.”
He paused, paintbrush raised as though not quite understanding what she’d said. He slowly turned and looked at her. She couldn’t read the expression on his face.
“You’re with child?”
“It appears so.” She picked up a clean rag, poured a little turpentine on it, and proceeded to wipe the paint from his forehead. She had decided not to bring up the subject of marriage. One thing at a time, she told herself. She was so absorbed in what she was doing that she failed to notice that a storm was brewing in his dark eyes.
He threw down his brushes and walked to the window. He looked out for a long time before turning and facing her.
“You must get rid of it. It will ruin everything.” His voice cut through her quiet reverie like a crash of thunder.
All the air was sucked out of her. Her legs felt as if they were made of ribbon. She sat down quickly on a small stool.
“What? What are you saying? This is our child. Our baby.” Her voice quavered.
He strode back and forth across the room, his arms gesturing wildly.
“You know I adore you, Berthe. But we are artists, you and I. Our work is what is most important.” He indicated the painting he had been working on.
“But I can still work. You can certainly work. You can paint to your heart’s content. A baby is not going to stop you.”
“It will take away what little time we have together. I won’t have it.”
“You won’t have it! You! Who do you think you are?” She jumped up from the stool, reached for a glass jar that was filled with clean brushes, and flung it across the room. It fell against the far wall and broke, strewing brushes and shards of glass all over the floor. She stood, her hands clenched, all the color drained from her face.
“Why would you want to bring another child into this world? Life is hard enough as it is,” he said, shaking his head from side to side.
“Whose life are you talking about? Yours or your child’s?”
“Working and raising a child do not go hand in hand. I well remember my mother working. She had no time for me. The busier her particular business got, and it flourished for many years, the more in the way I was,” he said bitterly.
“This is different, Armand. I’m not a prostitute. Don’t you think we are capable both of working and of loving and caring for a child?”
His silence was her answer. She felt a pressure building behind her eyes until she thought her head would explode with the effort of holding back her tears. She had been so happy about the baby, so sure that he would be happy as well. She grabbed her shawl and moved quickly to the door.
“Wait. Where are you going?”
“Home, to kill myself.” She wanted to shock him, to hurt him as he had hurt her. But he let her leave without saying another thing.
Berthe stared at the bleak rain outside the House of Worth. Monsieur Worth was in the fitting room dealing with the comtesse Grenoble, one of his most demanding clients. The comtesse was a woman of enormous proportions, weighing nearly three hundred pounds. She didn’t consider herself the least bit fat and consequently refused to pay for the extra fabric required to make her dresses. Worth literally had his hands full.
She went into his office, found Le Figaro, and quickly turned the pages looking for Madame Claudine’s advertisement. She knew that abortion was permitted in France, but only in order to save the life of the mother. Nonetheless, many were performed to rid poor mothers of another mouth to feed or wealthy women of the inconvenience of an unwanted pregnancy. The notorious Madame Claudine actually advertised surgical abortion and abortifacient drugs.
Finally, she found it:
A Simple Remedy
Parents must ask themselves the difficult question. Is it advisable to increase their families regardless of consequences to themselves, or the well-being of their offspring, when a simple, easy, healthy, and certain surgical remedy is within our control? Inquire also about our Female Monthly Regulating Pills which will cure all cases of suppression, irregularity, or stoppage of the menses.
Madame Claudine, 28, rue du Bac, Paris VI.
Berthe threw the paper down. It would be easy to get rid of the baby and go on with Armand just as they were before. Did she have to choose between their child and him?
She walked over to the full-length mirror and turned sideways. Placing both her hands on her middle, she felt the beginning swell of her belly underneath the folds of her full skirt. Forget about fantasies. This baby is real and must be dealt with. She strode over to the desk and sat down abruptly. Damn him to hell. How horrible to realize that she was as much a fool as her mother had been.
At that moment Monsieur Worth, his face covered with perspiration, his tie untied and his skullcap askew, stormed into the office.
“Save me from the fat of the land,” he groaned. “Comtesse Grenoble will be the finish of me.” Suddenly he noticed her sitting in the chair.
“My dear Mademoiselle Bovary, you have been liquidating. What is the matter?”
“Nothing, monsieur. It is the dust. I fear I am allergic,” she said, turning away and wiping her eyes.
“Well, then call the wretched maid and have her clean in here. Dust! We cannot have dust in the House of Worth.”
Worth insisted she take the rest of the day off, to go home and “blow off your nose.” She left, grateful to have some time to herself.
Once home she tried to think of what to say to Armand. She knew what she wanted from him but had no idea how to get it. As a young girl, she had seen her mother go after something she desperately wanted and fail. Perhaps that was the answer. Not to be desperate. She would compose herself, appeal to him on a strictly rational basis, calmly making him see the advantages of marriage, of a family, of a stable home. As long as she kept her wits she would have no trouble persuading him what a blessing this was for his career, and for the happiness and well-being of them both.
She knew words alone wouldn’t convince him. She had to remind him of his love for her. She looked in the mirror. Her eyes were red and swollen, and her nose looked as if rouge had been applied to it. Her hair had all but come undone. She looked like a wild and desperate woman. This wouldn’t do.
She tore off her dress and threw open her armoire. What should she wear? Something serious, sedate, and mature. What the mistress of a happy household would wear. She pulled out a navy blue finishing dress with red piping and tiny red bows down the back and put it on. She turned to the mirror and burst into fresh tears. She looked as if she was wearing a mother’s dress. Not her mother, but someone’s mother. It wouldn’t do to dress the part until he had accepted the role.
She pulled off the dress and went back to the armoire. Something soft and appealing, feminine and vulnerable. Something that would persuade Armand that parenthood wouldn’t change the relationship they had. She pulled one dress after another out of the armoire and flung them on the bed. She had nothing to wear! Finally, she settled on a rich russet silk that was edged in black grosgrain ribbon. It had a plunging neckline that showed off the tops of her creamy breasts to their full advantage. The russet brought out the delicate color in her cheeks and complemented her copper hair.
She applied an ivory powder under her eyes, hoping it would conceal the evidence of her crying. And then she tackled her hair. Her hands were shaking so much that it took her several tries to get it into the simple upsweep that Armand always preferred.
She took one last look at herself in the mirror. Do I look like a woman a man would want to spend the rest of his life with? She turned and walked back to the bed. Falling to her knees, she clenched her hands in prayer—and then realized this was something she had never done before and didn’t know how to begin.
Finally, she just whispered, “Please, God, make Armand see our future as a family.”
It was nearly ten o’clock that evening when Berthe arrived at Armand’s studio. She could see from the street that his lights were on. Of course, he would be working on yet another painting.
The scene that greeted her was one that at first did not surprise her: Armand’s smooth muscled back, his firm round buttocks moving up and down, thrusting forward and back. It was a picture she carried around in her head of the two of them making love. In the middle of a busy day she would conjure up this same scene. It would excite her and make her count the hours until she could be with him again. But the legs that were now wrapped around Armand’s neck were not her legs. In the very next moment it struck her like an explosion that the body he was pushing himself into was not hers. She cried out in horror.
Quickly he twisted his head around and stared at her.
“Ah, chérie, quelle surprise!” said Cora Pearl, lifting her elaborately curled but very disheveled head off the pillow.
Berthe stood paralyzed. She tried to speak, but no sound came out. She shut her eyes, hoping to erase the scene before her, and then she felt pain in both of her hands and looked down. Her nails had cut into the palms and they had begun to bleed. She spun around and managed to get out the door before the tears began spilling down her cheeks.
Stupid. Blind. Idiot. Fool. She sank down on her bed. She had known that Armand’s art was his first love, but she’d truly believed that she was his second. She thought back to his teasing about Cora Pearl and realized he had been telling her the truth. He had slept with her when he’d painted her portrait.
What were they doing making love in his studio? They could have had their rendezvous in Cora’s home. That was when Berthe realized that he had done it on purpose. He wanted to be caught. Was he that desperate to end it all? She didn’t bother to answer her own question.
A loud knocking sounded at her door.
“Berthe, please, let me in,” called Armand.
“Go away,” she said in a cold voice. Her heart was pounding in her ears and she realized that she had stopped breathing.
“Just let me see you for a moment,” he pleaded. She was silent.
“I won’t leave until you hear me out.”
Finally, she opened the door. Armand had a wild, disheveled appearance. His shirt was buttoned wrong and only half tucked into his breeches. Dark circles lined his eyes and he had neither shaved nor combed his hair. She turned and walked back to the window, where she stood gazing out. She could smell the faint sweet scent of gardenia, Cora Pearl’s favorite perfume. It was all she could do not to pick up the nearest candlestick and throw it at him.
“She means nothing to me,” he said quietly.
“Well, then, I suppose I should be gratified that Madame Pearl and I share the same place in your affections.” She remembered then the enormous betrayal she had felt when she walked in on the farm boy Renard making love to the neighbor girl in his barn. She suddenly felt cold and hard and strong. How could she have forgotten a lesson she had learned so well?
“Don’t you understand? None of them meant anything.”
“None of them? There were others?” Her fists clenched in an effort to control herself.
“How do you think I got all my commissions?” he said sadly.
“Silly me. I assumed it was because of your talent.” She felt a sharp pain behind her eyes.
“Talent is useless without connections. You must have learned that by now,” he said with a touch of bitterness. “I fear that my greatest talent is between the sheets.” He reached out a hand to touch her shoulder and she whirled around. He pulled back as if he had been burned. “I believe I have ruined everything,” he said in a soft voice.
Her eyes flashed with fury. “So when you accused me of having an affair with Boulanger it was only because that’s what you’ve been doing all along. How stupid I am.”
“There is nothing I can say?” He looked up. Tears filled his eyes, which just enraged her all the more. How dare he do the damage and shed the tears as well.
“You have always been better with actions than words. And your actions have spoken volumes.” She walked across the room and opened the door. Armand gave her one last look and left. She slammed the door after him. And then she opened it and slammed it a second time, even harder.
How Berthe had worked to avoid her mother’s fate. And she had been so sure she had succeeded. Emma Bovary had spent her whole life looking out the window waiting to be rescued by some man. Berthe had been determined not to ever repeat her mother’s mistakes, and yet here she was in exactly the same place. Except now she was pregnant, without even the presence of a tolerant husband to give her baby a name. Emma had been wise enough to marry, if not well, at least securely.
Berthe remembered all the times she had condemned her mother for being deluded by visions of wealth and power and, finally, for being unlucky, so very unlucky, in love. Now she had to face the most painful fact of all: She was, and perhaps always had been, her mother’s daughter. Oh, Mother, I am so very, very sorry. Forgive me.
How had she ever thought she could outsmart her own destiny?
The house was to go on the market the next day. Berthe found herself wandering down to the bookstall where she had first spotted Armand after his return from Italy. Everything had seemed possible then. As she browsed through the books, she picked up a copy of Pride and Prejudice, and the moment she did, a kind of peace came over her. As she thumbed through the well-worn pages, she marveled at how everything turned out in the end. Couples were reunited, marriages were arranged and paid for, old feuds were forgotten, and everyone lived quite happily ever after. How had Mademoiselle Austen figured it out? So that each disparate piece, each wildly different personality managed to achieve a kind of harmony in the end?
If I think of all this as just a story, then perhaps I can change it. She finally understood that there was a narrative that she had unconsciously been following. She now knew she was free to rewrite her life in her own words with her own feelings and desires.
She was alone. And for now that was fine. She patted her belly and thought of the life growing inside her. She would be responsible for her own happiness. She was strong. She would prevail. And as she understood this, she burst into a fresh flood of tears.
The next morning she woke with a plan. She looked in her mirror and saw, not surprisingly, that her eyes were al
most swollen shut from all her tears of the night before. She applied cold compresses. Then she chose one of her best dresses, a dove-gray striped jacket with turned-back pagoda sleeves trimmed in black velvet piping and a matching skirt. She had purchased it from Worth at a fraction of the price because the woman who had ordered it had died unexpectedly. She chose a black velvet bonnet with a black ostrich feather and pearl earrings and necklace to complete the outfit. She checked her image in the mirror one last time before leaving. Good, she thought. Very good.
Cora Pearl lived in a seven-room apartment on the rue Boulard. Her maid answered the door.
“Madame is still asleep,” she informed Berthe. It was now almost noon.
“No matter, I won’t be long,” said Berthe, sweeping past the maid and down the hall to Madame Pearl’s bedroom. She knew where it was, having been there before to check the alterations on one of Monsieur Worth’s gowns.
Cora Pearl was completely buried underneath a pile of satin duvets. Berthe pulled back a corner and uncovered the actress’s still-coiffed head. She was wearing a lace-trimmed sleeping mask. Sitting down on the side of the bed, Berthe gave the sleeping woman a light tap on her cheek.
“Mimi, please, let me sleep.”
“I’m sorry, Madame Pearl, but we have a little business to take care of.”
Cora Pearl pulled off the mask and sat up.
“Why, it’s the beautiful Mademoiselle Bovary. What brings you here in the middle of the night, my dear? You haven’t come to kill me, have you?”
“Hardly,” said Berthe, handing the actress her robe. “I have come to make a proposition that I think will benefit you as well as my employer.”
An hour later Berthe left with a check from Cora Pearl as a deposit on ten gowns to be created by Worth at a considerable savings to the actress.
“I never thought of taking money for gowns I have yet to make,” said Monsieur Worth. “Now I can order fabrics ahead of time and negotiate a discount for myself.” He handed Berthe a check. “Here is your most recent commission, my dear girl. But I see I shall have to write you a second check for this coup with Madame Pearl. Business is even better than even I imagined. We are to be constipated, the two of us.”
