Maud shook her head. ‘I am so sorry, sir. I do not understand you.’
‘Of course not. You know that laudanum can be of great help to those in pain?’
‘Yes, I have heard it can do a great deal of good.’
‘So it can, so it can, and properly administered under the care of a professional medical man it did help my sister a great deal. Then she was introduced by a “friend” into taking the drug in a vaporised form – that is, smoking it in the fashion they do in the East.’
Maud was startled. ‘Opium?’ she said faintly. All she knew of opium came from the cheap novels her step-mother had left lying around the house. The illustrations showed hovels in the bowels of London full of emaciated, corpse-like figures and sinister Chinamen rubbing their hands. It all seemed rather at odds with this elegant apartment and the beautiful girl. Though she was rather ghostly, a little lost in her own dreams.
‘You are shocked, naturally. Perhaps I can reassure you. I purchase the poison for my sister and she has sworn to use it only in this apartment. She knows no one in Paris. You will not be dragged into any low or dangerous places, Miss Heighton, I assure you. No one visits us, no low company will offend you here. Though, I admit her use of the drug does make Sylvie very reluctant to leave the apartment in the evenings. I would be happy for you to go out from time to time if I were at home, but I am afraid you will find this a dull place. No parties, no visits to the theatres or cabarets. If the consideration I offered you perhaps seems a little high, let us say it is by way of compensation for robbing you of the delights of Paris to a great degree over the winter.’
Miss Charlotte’s fears were explained away. Maud felt a sudden relief. Not only could she live here through the winter, she could be useful to the lovely girl and her concerned brother. She would distract Sylvie with sketching and English conversation and keep a watchful eye on her.
‘Please, Mr Morel, I came to Paris to study art, not for the cabarets. I also know very few people in the city. You would be robbing me of nothing.’ He looked greatly relieved. They made their arrangements for her belongings to be removed to Rue de Seine the next day.
Later in the afternoon Tanya and Maud walked arm-in-arm past the secondhand book stalls that lined the embankment opposite the solid square towers of Notre Dame. The sky had cleared slightly, and they were both a little giddy with their success. They drank in the cold air as if it were fresh water in the desert. It was strange for Maud. She had never made friends easily, having been isolated as a child and reserved throughout her youth. She wished that some of her old school fellows who had thought her such a strange girl, always sketching and never joining in with their gossip and whisperings, could see her now, in step with this glamorous Russian girl, strolling the Paris pavements as if they owned them. She felt as if her old tired skin was being shed and she, fascinating and original as Paris itself, had suddenly emerged at some moment between Miss Harris’s beef tea and the handshake with Morel.
‘My eyes, what a beauty! I declare I hate her,’ Tanya said. And when Maud laughed at her: ‘I do! We brunettes are expected to be fiery and clever and passionate all the time. It’s exhausting. With her colouring, all Mademoiselle Sylvie has to do is recline on a day-bed and the world will drop to its knees in admiration. It is very, very unfair.’
‘I shan’t pity either of you for being rich and beautiful,’ Maud said.
‘Well, that’s very cold-hearted of you.’ Tanya dropped Maud’s arm to pick up a volume of Baudelaire from the closest bouquiniste, but after reading a couple of lines, she made a face and replaced it. ‘Oof, I am glad I am a painter. Poets are never cheerful – but not all writers are like that, are they? Mr Allardyce is a journalist.’ Maud smiled at Tanya and she blushed. ‘So your father, Mr Heighton, he was an auctioneer?’
‘He was a drunk,’ Maud said, surprising herself.
‘Ah.’
‘And his name was not Heighton, but Creely. Heighton was my mother’s name before she married.’
‘My dear Maud, you are full of surprises. Why did you change it?’
On the pavement behind Tanya an elderly man with long, well-groomed whiskers and a long black cloak was arguing over the price of a book with the stall-holder. Each bent forward from the waist and argued their point nose to nose. Behind him on the pavement and apparently waiting for him was a handsome young woman very fashionably dressed and leading a tiny dog. Her lips were painted a deep crimson and her figure drew glances from the cabmen driving by.
Maud looked too, as boldly as a born Parisian, and sketched them in her mind as she replied, ‘It would not surprise you if you had met my father, or seen the shop. The name Creely reminds me of him and of that horrid place. I was delighted when it burned down. I was cheering on the flames. Everyone in the crowd thought I was distraught. Poor Miss Creely losing her father, and now this! But it was all I could do not to burst out laughing. It was a wonderful fire. They couldn’t save a thing.’
The man in the long cloak concluded his negotiations and huffing into his moustache handed over a number of coins. The young lady took his arm and they set off again along the pavement. Her skirt hung so straight and narrow from her hips she could take only tiny rapid steps. Her stride seemed to match that of the toy dog that trotted beside her. The man with the book, she with her skirt and dog. Money was paid and collections formed, passions indulged. Maud felt wise and amused by the pageant, then there was an unexpected pang inside her – a distant warning of a storm coming. It was all too sudden, too perfect.
‘Tanya, what do you think of them, truly?’ she asked. ‘Is this wise of me? Is there not something a little . . . strange about them?’ She had said nothing to Tanya about the opium, and Morel seemed a gentleman indeed, a concerned brother and Sylvie so young. Drink was a worse addiction, surely? She thought of her father’s sudden rages and repentance.
‘They seem respectable enough to me. I would say it does not look as if you will have much fun, but judging by our night in Maxim’s you will not mind that.’
Did Tanya sound a little hurt? The Russian girl had taken her in and dressed her and shown her a side of Paris she would not otherwise have seen. Maud felt ashamed. ‘I do not mean to be ungrateful, Tanya.’
‘Well, I certainly don’t want you to be grateful either!’ She bit her lip. ‘Do you think, Maud, I can be a good painter but still enjoy my clothes and my evenings out?’
‘I see no reason why not,’ Maud said, surprised by her sudden vulnerability. ‘I think you are a fine painter, Tanya. You cannot doubt it.’
‘No,’ but she did seem doubtful. ‘It is hard to find the time to work when one must go to dressmakers every other day and change one’s clothes three times in the course of an afternoon. My aunts feel it is a disgrace to my family to do less. When I have a family as well, how shall I find the time to paint? I do want a family.’
Maud did not know how to answer her. Tanya seemed to shimmer and dance through her life so, Maud could not see her as a woman with worries of her own.
Tanya shook herself a little and said firmly, ‘Morel seems to have the proper respect for an Englishwoman’s virtue. If he tries to force himself on you, come running to me. I shall send Vladimir after him.’ She put her hand on Maud’s sleeve. ‘Wouldn’t the comfort there do you a little good, Maud? If someone gives you a free horse, do not check the bridle.’ Maud thought of that bright little room again and what Miss Harris had said about prayers being answered – but Maud had not asked God for anything for a very long time.
‘Charlotte was right, he does smile a lot and he is offering a great deal of money.’ Tanya had become brisk again. ‘You can leave if you are unhappy. I shall be in Paris all winter and will not desert you. Always have the means to a graceful exit to hand – don’t you think that is one of the best lessons we learn? I always have a gold sovereign sewn into my travelling dress. Actually half a dozen, so the line isn’t spoiled.’
Maud considered. Mr Morel had offered her bo
ard, her own room and a weekly consideration that he called a trifle and that Maud called a fortune. She could simply wait and see how matters unfolded. The wind had been fierce yesterday evening, rattling her windows while she sketched her memories of the day, giving birth to new cold draughts, harbinger of the freezing depths of winter.
‘Thank you, Tanya. Even if I only stayed there a week it would do me good. It has been difficult these last months.’
Tanya squeezed her arm again then looked up. ‘Oh Lord, the rain is coming again, and I am expected back at the cathouse.’ She turned and lifted her hand, and the dark blue motor materialised beside them. Vladimir and Sasha were staring out of the windscreen like dolls in a shop window. ‘Can I give you a lift somewhere? No? Do you have an umbrella? Vladimir, do give Miss Heighton an umbrella, please, there’s a dear. And that package.’
Tanya thrust a bundle tied in brown paper and string into her arms. ‘It is only an old walking dress of mine, so don’t say no. You cannot wear your working dress every afternoon while you shepherd that beauty round the streets.’ Before she could thank Tanya or refuse it, the umbrella had been placed in her other hand and Tanya had scrambled up into the back seat. She leaned out of the window and took Maud by the hand.
‘The angels have given you a gift, my dear. Embrace it! Now say you shall. I shan’t let go of your hand until you do.’
She looked quite determined and Maud said, ‘Very well, I shall!’ Then as Tanya released her grip, Maud held on. ‘Tanya, why have we not been friends before now?’ The car was beginning to cause an obstruction in the road. A carter shouted and Vladimir yelled back something in Russian.
‘Sweet, you always seemed so sober and serious, so contained, I’ve been quite terrified of you. Somehow I knew you weren’t the type for Maxim’s. Even if you did look charming in that dress.’
Maud let go of her hand and Tanya blew her a kiss as the car pulled away. Maud watched it retreat into the stream of taxicabs, omnibuses, carts and motor-cars heading along the quayside. It was a few moments before she remembered the umbrella and opened it to protect her and her package from the increasing pace of the rain. It had a tortoiseshell handle and bore the name of a shop in Rue de la Paix. Maud knew the place. She had walked past it shivering in the cold every day for a month when she lived off Rue de Lille, and each morning had wondered who could possibly be rich enough to spend such a vast number of francs on an umbrella. Now she held one over her head – an elegant, oiled-silk shield of money. She leaned her back against the wall, the wave of relief spreading over her so quick and full she would have fallen otherwise under its force.
CHAPTER 6
23 November 1909
Sometimes we do not realise how much we have been suffering until that suffering is removed. On her first night in Rue de Seine, as Maud undressed she realised that her hands were shaking. She was a wrecked sailor crawling onto a sandbank and only then acknowledging the pain in her muscles. She wondered what would have happened to her if Yvette, Tanya, Miss Harris and the Morels had not intervened. The thought frightened her so much it hurt her.
Morel had been there when she arrived, to see her trunk stowed into her new room and to host her first lunch in the apartment. It was a pleasure he could not promise himself every day, he sighed. He asked if Maud was happy with the arrangements he had made for her comfort. The daily maid would leave luncheon for them. The ladies were then at liberty to do whatever they wished. Supper would be fetched for them, if they required it, at seven. He would join them when he could; but he expected to dine often at his club.
Sylvie was quiet but pleasant at that first lunch. She seemed content in a self-contained way. Her brother made all the conversation. He asked Maud a hundred questions about herself and gave every impression of finding the answers fascinating. There was nothing offensive about the questions or the way he asked them, but Maud found herself drawing away from him slightly as she gave her usual responses. Not lies, but truths that concealed some of the misery of her youth.
The food was excellent, though he had apologised for it as simple fare just as he had apologised for his palatial apartment. Maud had been subsisting on ten-sou omelettes in the worst of the respectable cafés, so to see game pie and hâchis portugais set out, with cheese on the sideboard for later and white wine dripping with chill . . . She had to be careful not to eat too quickly. She wondered if, under his flow of talk, Morel had noticed her hunger and was teasing her with his questions when she wanted to eat. She glanced at him. His expression was open and friendly.
‘When did you discover you were an artist, Miss Heighton?’ he asked, filling up her wine glass and piling more potatoes onto her plate.
‘I am not an artist yet, I think. I am just trying to be a painter.’
He laughed. ‘I shall remember that! But you are too modest. To come here as you have, leave home and family, suffer hardships to study here. That suggests a greater calling.’
She shook her head. ‘My mother drew and painted. I think I began by copying her, and I never stopped. Drawing was simply what I did. She was my first teacher and when she could, she would take me to the galleries nearby, and find me books of reproductions.’ The child’s voice in her head whispered in awe, some in colour. She remembered the hours she had spent with those books curled up under her mother’s dressing-table. She had had one with coloured plates from the Louvre and would study each one for an hour before she allowed herself to turn to the next. When she had first seen the originals in the museum the day she arrived in Paris, it had been like seeing much-loved, long-missed friends, but so much brighter and more alive. Her father had sold all of the art books to a London gentleman three months after her mother died. He had been disgusted by her distress when she found them gone. He had got five pounds for them, which was four pounds more than he had thought they were worth. She had been too busy crying to see the blow come that time.
She took a careful sip of her wine; it was fruit and acid on her tongue. ‘All the best moments of my life have been bound up with painting. That is perhaps why I have come here, rather than some great calling, or particular talent.’
Morel nodded to himself, as if this confirmed some idea of his own, and then, by chatting to his silent sister about a letter he had received from home, let her eat in peace.
When Morel left them Maud felt suddenly embarrassed by this enforced intimacy with Sylvie. The maid cleared the table and Sylvie sat down at the pianoforte and picked out a few stray notes. Maud waited until the maid had said her farewells. They had spoken in French while her brother was present, but Maud was thinking of her duties now and switched to English.
‘Perhaps you would like to show me your drawings, Sylvie? So I can see what instruction I might offer.’
Sylvie twisted round from the piano and sucked in her cheeks. ‘I am afraid that you will think I am a great fool. I am not good, not at all. It is my brother’s plan to keep me occupied. He will buy me opium when I show him sketchbooks filled with pictures of fruit. Is that not a strange,’ she searched for the word, ‘trade?’
Maud was shocked to hear her speak about the opium so plainly and wondered if there was some element of challenge in the confession. She said calmly, ‘If you must do them, you might as well do them to the best of your ability, Sylvie.’
The young woman sighed, but with a nod left the piano and returned a few minutes later with a sketchbook covered in green; she sat down beside Maud on the sofa, holding it on her knees for a moment before handing it over. Maud opened the pages with an encouraging smile and looked at the drawings. They had been done in haste, certainly, but they proved that Sylvie could see what was in front of her and had some idea of how to hold a pencil.
‘They are bad, is that not so?’
‘Not at all. You just need a little guidance.’ Maud pointed at the opened page, a drawing of the table in front of them with a lamp-stand on the centre of it. ‘You see, you are drawing what you know is there, rather than what you see.�
�� Sylvie touched the weave of the paper, apparently concentrating hard. ‘You must avoid drawing outlines if you are to make progress, Sylvie. We see edges to things because of changes in light and tone, not because they have a line around them.’ Sylvie nodded slowly, then slid the book back onto her own lap. Maud was afraid she had discouraged her. ‘The best thing we could do is to go somewhere and try to draw something together.’ She looked up and out of the window opposite, just as the wind threw a scatter of rain against the window like a handful of sand.
Sylvie laughed. ‘The gods say no, Maud!’ Then at once the light faded from her eyes and she yawned. ‘I always rest for a little while after lunch. Perhaps in an hour you could knock at my door and we will go out then.’
‘As you wish.’ Maud was unsure. She had not thought in any depth about her relationship with Sylvie and what it might entail. Her considerations had centred solely on whether the position was respectable, followed by a happy vision of food, warmth and comfort; now she realised she was to some degree Sylvie’s creature, though a polite fiction might be maintained.
‘If you want to go out for a walk before then, Maud, you must do so. This is not a prison. Do as you would at your own house,’ the girl went on. Maud felt she had been dismissed, but on balance was grateful for a little time on her own. She could think more about how to instruct Sylvie – look for interesting places where they might sit and draw when the weather was good.
Sylvie stood and with the sketchbook held loosely at her side, made to leave the room. On the threshold she paused and looked back.
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