‘How did you come to meet her, Miss Harris?’ Maud asked. It was wonderful to feel the physical effects of a good meal. She began to see the details in the room more clearly, the light glimmering on the brass bell at Miss Harris’s elbow. The silver-framed photograph of Queen Alexandra hanging on the pale green wall.
‘Yvette came to tell me an Italian with a nasty reputation was hiring out three young English girls as models from Place Pigalle. The oldest was twelve. Mr Allardyce and I went to see the gentleman and took the girls into our care. The Italian was most indignant. He had bought the three sisters from their parents for five pounds on Gray’s Inn Road in London. They were all adopted by a most respectable family in North Wales in the end, and they still send me postcards occasionally – some of which are quite well-spelled. Now, I think you have had sufficient time to gather your wits, Miss Heighton. What do you want of me, children?’
Maud realised at last that all this chatter, the correspondence page of The Times, the praise of Mr Allardyce, had been undertaken solely to allow her to recover a little. She blushed and tried to answer but her tongue seemed to lock in her mouth. Tanya spoke for her.
‘Miss Heighton needs a few hours’ paid work a week to see her through the winter. Nothing that will interfere with her classes at Lafond’s and she will still wish to study in the afternoons for part of the week at least. What do you have on your books that might be suitable? Someone requiring English lessons, perhaps?’
Miss Harris drew back a little. ‘Oh my dear, I am afraid that Paris is awash with educated Englishmen and -women willing and eager to give lessons. All I have on my books at the moment are positions for governesses, shop girls and maidservants.’
Maud bit her lip. She had not wanted to come here, but having come only to find herself useless and unwanted was humiliating. She thought of an artist she sometimes saw on Boulevard Saint-Michel, his corduroy jacket buttoned up to the throat to hide his lack of a clean shirt, selling oil sketches of the Luxembourg Gardens in violent pure colours. He would be there all day, hunched by his stand, selling them for a couple of francs a time. A woman doing the same would be stared at and mocked by the crowd, and avoided by the curious tourists who were his few customers.
‘There must be something,’ Tanya insisted, almost affronted. ‘Does no old lady need a companion in the afternoons?’
‘All the old ladies in Paris have their lap-dogs and the Bois de Boulogne,’ Miss Harris replied. Then she brightened suddenly like a lap-dog who has seen the shadow of a rabbit cross its vision, and began rummaging through the pile of papers to her right with more energy than care. ‘Now there was something I noticed the other day – Charlotte put it to one side for some reason. Companion . . . companion . . .’ Still pulling at the papers, she called out, ‘Charlotte? Charlotte, dear!’ The monkish female appeared behind them again and sighed at the tumble of papers. ‘Yesterday or the day before? Companion?’
Maud thought the two women must have been working together for some time as this abbreviated communication seemed sufficient.
‘Monsieur Christian Morel. A live-in companion for his younger sister, Miss Sylvie – a sickly young woman who wishes to spend her free hours sketching the Paris streets and must have some respectable person to accompany her. He asked for a lady with some knowledge of art.’ She turned back a few pages in her little black notebook. ‘Rue de Seine. Board and lodging. And a weekly stipend.’
Miss Harris beamed. ‘Perfect then! Why, the dear Lord has managed everything once again.’ If the Deity had been present, Miss Harris would have patted Him. ‘Send Mr Morel a card, dear, to say a Miss Heighton will be calling to discuss the position on Monday afternoon.’
Maud found her tongue at last. ‘But my classes . . . ?’
Miss Harris waved her hand. ‘I’m sure the Lord has thought of that. You shall see. Give the ladies the address, Charlotte dear.’ A look on Charlotte’s pale round face seemed to give Miss Harris pause. ‘What is it?’
‘He smiled too much,’ Charlotte said. She was frowning over her notebook as if she were afraid of being thought foolish. ‘And he is offering too much money.’
Miss Harris folded her hands in front of her. ‘Miss Heighton is a sensible young woman. She will not allow anything to occur that might reflect badly on herself or us, I am sure.’
The Dress oil on canvas 64 × 41 cm
In contrast to the painting of the life-class at the Académie Lafond, this painting contains no human subject at all. Instead, the focus falls on a luxurious pink evening gown hanging by a mirror in a white dressing room. The setting is opulent: note the gilding on the room’s panelling, the chandelier just appearing at the top of frame, the amount of tissue paper and striped boxes on the floor around the mirror, and the glimmer of sequins on the dress itself. However, it is the emptiness that fascinates. Who will wear the dress that has been chosen? Any other painter might have made this scene one of feminine intimacy, yet despite the delicate colouring the image is cold and empty; the woman who should be the centre and focal-point of the scene has been removed and the image becomes one of hollow vanity and excess.
Extract from the catalogue notes to the exhibition ‘The Paris Winter: Anonymous Treasures from the de Civray collection’, Southwark Picture Gallery, London, 2010
CHAPTER 4
The door swung open and a rather short, square woman looked up at them.
‘On whose introduction are you here?’
Maud did not catch the name Tanya gave, but it seemed to satisfy their host. The woman smiled, shook their hands and their little party was ushered inside. They entered a large high room, white-washed to the ceiling, with various odds and ends of heavy-looking furniture pushed against the walls, which were filled with the most bizarre and confusing canvases Maud had ever seen.
Tanya put her arm through Maud’s. ‘Are you glad we have come?’
‘I am.’
Maud’s day had been so disorientating it seemed only right it should end here. Tanya had not wanted to release her when they left Miss Harris and invited her to spend the evening with her. Maud had agreed, was touched by Tanya’s transparent delight, and within an hour was enfolded in the luxury of Tanya’s house in Rue Chalgrin. Tanya ushered her up the wide curved staircase and into her bedroom. It was a massive room, exploding with white and gold, but before Maud could get her bearings she was being chivvied into the dressing room which was almost as large again. Tanya’s French maid was summoned and Maud was persuaded to try on any number of evening dresses. Tanya left her to telephone a couple of young men approved of by her aunts who would take them to the Steins’ At Home and then out to supper. Maud was on the other side of the glass certainly, but if she liked it or not she was still too dizzy to say. She was wrapped in one expensive dress after another while Tanya skipped about with delight and kept offering her more food, mostly chocolate.
‘The pink, Maud! There’s no doubt. You must wear the pink.’ Tanya was sprawled on the chaise longue in a long evening dress of gold with black beading which shimmered as she moved. Maud felt the maid’s quick hands adjusting the dress that Tanya had picked out for her. Her arms felt bare and cold.
Tanya glanced at the maid then said in English, ‘What did you think of that young man, Maud?’
She looked over her shoulder and the maid sighed. Tanya was unwrapping another chocolate, dropping its gold wrapper back into the box and staring up at the chandelier. ‘The American? Mr Allardyce? I thought he seemed very pleasant.’
Tanya frowned. ‘Just pleasant? You didn’t think he was handsome?’
Maud smiled. ‘Handsome too.’ He was handsome, now she thought of it. They had met for a few moments in the hall as they were leaving the house in Avenue de Wagram, and even in the confusion of her feelings Maud had noticed how he had looked at Tanya. Could these things happen in such a way? They had never happened to her.
Tanya begin ferreting about in the chocolate box for another bon-bon, then as soon as she had f
ound one, dropped it again. ‘He has a nice voice, I think.’
The maid presented Maud with a pair of low-heeled shoes dyed to match the dress and Maud was just slipping them onto her feet when the door opened and a large woman in a wide purple dress thirty years out of fashion though crackling with newness swept into the room. She spoke to Tanya loudly and in Russian, and the tone did not sound happy. A smaller lady in a dress of a similar cut albeit in yellow silk appeared behind her. It was the second lady who noticed Maud first and murmured something to the woman in purple. The titan paused and Tanya spoke in French.
‘My dear aunts, may I present Miss Maud Heighton? I have invited her this evening, and really it’s very respectable – half of Paris goes to the Steins’.’
‘Yes, but which half?’ the woman in purple replied, her French rich and dark as Tanya’s gold-wrapped chocolates.
‘Maud, my aunts, Vera Sergeyevna and Lila Ivanovna.’
Maud curtsied neatly and Vera Sergeyevna lifted her lorgnette to watch her do so, then nodded slightly. ‘And who might you be? I do not know you.’
She would have replied, but Tanya was too quick. ‘Miss Heighton is a fellow student at the Académie.’ Vera Sergeyevna’s eyes widened. ‘Mikhail Pavlovich Perov is taking us to the Steins’ this evening,’ Tanya continued in a rush. Vera’s gaze shifted to her niece and her expression softened slightly, then she and Tanya had a short conversation in Russian after which the two older ladies departed rather more calmly. Vera only inclined her head to Maud as she left; the other woman smiled at her more warmly.
When they had gone Tanya collapsed back onto the sofa with a deep sigh. ‘Thank goodness I spoke to Perov. They are forever badgering me to accept his invitations so they couldn’t protest now.’ She grinned up at Maud. ‘I don’t suppose you have a cousin who is a baronet, do you, darling?’
‘No, I do not. Is that what you told them?’
Her dark eyes fluttered wide and innocent. ‘Yes – and that you’ve just arrived in Paris and your luggage was lost. I had to, otherwise by tomorrow Vera would be writing to my father about my keeping low company, though it was Perov who saved us. Are you sure? I thought everyone in England had a cousin who’s a baronet.’
‘Not everyone, Tanya.’
‘Ah well, I suppose you know best. Now what shall we do with your hair?’
The crowd in the Steins’ atelier was almost as interesting as the paintings on the walls and, Maud found, far easier to look at. Tanya had told her what she knew of the place while they were dressing; a pair of Americans, a brother and sister called Leo and Gertrude Stein, amused themselves by purchasing the most extreme examples of the new art they could find in studios and from specialist dealers, then allowed anyone with an introduction to visit them and be appalled by it any Saturday evening at their home on Rue de Fleurus.
There were already a great number of people in the room when the girls and their escorts arrived, some clothed as they were in fashionable evening dress, others à la bohème in loose trousers and high jackets for the men, peasant skirts and blouses for the women, who hung on their arms and took the cigarettes from their mouths when they wished to smoke. Maud heard German, French, English and what she thought might be Hungarian running off the tongues around her. She tried to ignore them and looked instead at the pictures. These were the wild, animalistic paintings that had come snorting and stamping into the Salons in the last few years, the colours of nature made somehow blistering and violent, the figures simplified until they were more ideas of humans than their likenesses. There was a portrait of their host, her face flattened into planes as if she were carved. Maud stood with her arm through Tanya’s, at last so lost in what she was looking at that she forgot to be self-conscious about her dress or the way in which Tanya’s maid had arranged her hair for her.
The girls walked slowly round the room until without consulting one another they came to a stop in front of a painting of a pair of circus performers, a mother and father sitting with their baby, an ape squatting at their feet and looking up at them. There was something of the Nativity Scene about it, a sense of calm, the gentle warmth of the colouring. Maud felt almost as if she were intruding on them by looking at it so closely. The harlequin father of the little group wore a costume of the same pale pink as Maud’s borrowed dress.
‘We shall have to take it down now, I suppose,’ a voice said beside her in English. Maud turned to find her host, Miss Stein, beside them, her strong plain face shining with a religious intensity. ‘He is painting quite differently now. You can see the whole of the modern revolution in art between the canvas you are looking at now and that one over there.’ She pointed to the image of a woman, but cut up into geometrical planes, straight-edged shapes and black curves, and lurching, animal-like towards the viewer, her face a crude mask. Tanya peered up at it, lifting her white throat so that the jewels on her neck sparkled, trying to see by the yellowish gas-light.
‘When I look at that, I feel as if someone is very angry with me,’ she said at last.
Miss Stein laughed, a single exclamation.
‘I shall tell Pablo that, but it is the future. He and Matisse are the only painters in town.’ Then she added more quietly, ‘I’m afraid your men are getting bored, girls. Best take them away quickly before they say something stupid and one of the artists punches them. Happens once a month at least.’ She turned to greet some new arrival and Tanya glanced over her shoulder. The two men whom she had telephoned to come with them were slouching against the desk in the centre of the room, apparently oblivious to the art. Mr Perov was examining his nails and Mr Lebedev was yawning widely. Tanya’s eyes narrowed.
‘Oh Lord. I suppose she is right and we must take them away before they become offensive.’ She looked up again at the butchered figure on the wall. ‘Is that the future, do you think? It seems very cruel.’
‘I do not think it is mine, Tanya.’
The Russian girl nodded. ‘Yes, I hope some people will always want pictures that resemble something in the real world. Not all Americans are like the Steins, are they? Some of them might even prefer the way I paint.’
Maud wondered if she was thinking of Mr Allardyce again. ‘I am certain that is so, Tanya.’ The Russian girl smiled very brightly and led Maud over to their lounging escorts.
The following morning Maud woke in her narrow room wondering if the previous day had been a dream. Not until she saw the dusky-pink evening gown with its heavy beading of ribbons and pearls could she believe it had happened at all. Rose Champion dead. Miss Harris. The strange pictures and then supper at Maxim’s. The images came back to her as if refracted through glass, and the gypsy band she had heard there seemed still to be playing their insistent music inside her head. Champagne, cigar smoke and laughter. Everywhere Maud looked, men and women had been laughing, heads flung back and their throats open. They had reappeared in her dreams, braying like donkeys till they grew long furred ears to match. The two Russian gentlemen had ordered supper for them then amused themselves by abusing the paintings on display at the Steins’ house.
‘How do they ever expect anyone to buy such things?’ Perov said, still apparently fascinated by the study of his fingernails. He had a thin sandy moustache that seemed to dribble past the corners of his mouth. ‘I would rather have this glass of champagne than everything that was on those walls. And the people! At least here one sees human beings properly dressed.’
He tittered, then waved to one of the crisply attired waiters and asked for more champagne while Maud winced at the gaiety around her. There was such noise. Everyone seemed to be speaking unnaturally loudly and the women moved so much when they spoke, pushing their shoulders back even as they leaned forward and constantly lifted their hands to the level of their heads. Maud noticed that the sequins on their dresses glimmered as they did so, and the shaded electric lights caught the jewels in their hair and on their hands with shifting rainbows of colour. Perhaps that was why they were doing it. The walls were golden a
nd the pillars marble and mirrored so that everyone was forced to see a dozen shattered images of themselves in the crowd.
The woman on the next table wore a spray of ostrich plumes in her hair, fastened at their base with a diamond the size of a sovereign.
‘Fake,’ Mr Lebedev said, leaning towards her. She wondered if he meant her, that he had seen through the flim-flam of Tanya and her maid to the prudish poor Englishwoman who was not related to any baronet. ‘The diamonds,’ he elaborated, and she realised he meant the jewel at which she had been staring. ‘Most of them anyway. Half the people here are liars and frauds. All show.’ He then sat back in his chair again. It was as much as he had said all evening.
She sipped her champagne slowly – it tasted acid – and watched as any number of patrons approached the tables and spoke either to Tanya or one of the two men. The noise was shocking and the smoke from her neighbour’s cigar made her feel a little nauseous. There must be something else, she thought. Something between the hungry squalor in which she had been living and this. She saw great platters of expensive food and rich sauces slowly turning cold in front of the silk- and velvet-clad diners. After an hour she began to be afraid she might be ill. Only Tanya’s insistence meant that their escorts agreed to take them home with anything like good grace. Her old clothes were handed to her in a bundle by the chauffeur as he walked her to the door of her lodging-house and saw her let into the building. Perhaps the Morels would offer somewhere she could be comfortable, between the sinuous insinuating richness of the café with its twisted ironwork that pressed like a fever dream and the coldness of her room; between the wild anarchy of the painters who sold to the Steins and the facile decorations of the Académies. It formed a sort of desperate hope as she lay in her bed that Sunday morning, sick with surfeit rather than with hunger but sick nonetheless, and staring at the pink dress.
Headline Page 4
