Wild Heritage

by Wild Heritage (retail) (epub)

  ‘She doesn’t care,’ said Marie, who was standing back looking at the painting she’d done the previous day. It was good, as good as she’d thought when she left last night. Her spirits soared and she wished she could start to work again at once.

  ‘Not care about a Louis Quatorze commode! She must be mad,’ said Amy, who was pulling a length of shimmering material out of the jumble on the floor, ‘And look at this. It’s real silk gauze.’

  Marie turned and said sternly, ‘Amy, please leave everything alone. I promised I wouldn’t touch Félice’s things.’

  Amy flounched towards the door. ‘I can only imagine your upbringing makes it easy for you to live in a place that smells like a pigsty, but it makes me ill. I’m leaving,’ she said and when Marie heard her footsteps disappearing down the stairs, she made no effort to stop her.

  But the reproaches stung her so she rolled up her sleeves, lit the stove and filled a bucket of water from a tap in the hall, put the bucket on the stove to heat, went out to buy some soap and a scrubbing brush and set to work cleaning out the studio.

  When she finished, everything smelled of soap. The cats hated it and sat on the window ledges watching reproachfully.

  She painted at the studio every day and sometimes in the evening Pierre would come to call and she went with him to visit other artists. She was becoming accepted in their circle and everyone called her Marie d’Écosse with a note of respect because they could see from the work she was doing in Félice’s studio that her talent was impressive.

  One Sunday afternoon they were climbing the stairs to Mancini’s eyrie, when they heard a terrible noise coming from a flat on the sixth floor. A woman was shrieking and screaming, ‘Putain, infidel…’ and there was the sound of smashing crockery and heavy thuds from behind the door.

  Pierre looked at his friend and shrugged. ‘It’s Thérèse,’ he said. ‘She’s fallen out with Tadi again.’

  A particularly heavy thud made the floor rock when they were on the landing and a high-pitched scream stopped them in their tracks. ‘Salope, vache,’ growled a man.

  ‘No, no, take your hands off me,’ screamed a woman’s voice.

  The door was unlocked and Pierre quickly pushed it open. ‘Thérèse, are you all right?’ he called.

  ‘Come in. Save me from this brute,’ she yelled and he ran into the room with Marie close behind him. Thérèse was lying on a bed with the black-haired man she had been kissing on the first night standing over her.

  He was panting heavily and there was blood on his face from a long scratch that ran down one cheek.

  ‘Save me, save me,’ sobbed Thérèse, holding out bare arms to Pierre.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he asked, turning to Tadi.

  ‘The vache is mad. I’m not going to hurt her. She did this to me!’ he growled, pointing to the bleeding mark on his face.

  ‘He’s a putain. He’s been fucking another woman. Another two women in fact. I met him with one of them in the café and she told me he’s been fucking her for a month!’ yelled Thérèse, getting up on her knees and flinging a candlestick at her lover’s head. It narrowly missed him.

  ‘Get out you pig, get out and don’t come back,’ she sobbed, subsiding among the pillows again.

  He ducked and said, ‘I’m going. I don’t want to stay with you. It’s always you who comes crawling after me.’

  ‘You’re a liar!’ she howled and appealed to Pierre, ‘He’s a liar, isn’t he? I don’t go crawling after him. Did you know about his other women?’

  ‘Well yes, I did. Most people knew. He doesn’t make any secret of it,’ said Pierre. Tadi stood back with his arms crossed on his chest. ‘I am irresistible to women,’ he said proudly.

  ‘You’re a seducer,’ sobbed Thérèse.

  ‘Me a seducer! You’d been seduced hundreds of times before I met you,’ he said ungallantly. Standing there, he looked handsome and disdainful as he glared at her with flared nostrils and rolling eyes like a mettlesome horse. His wonderful dark curls flopped over his brow and gave him the air of a romantic brigand.

  Marie felt her stomach tighten as she stared at him. His hair was the same colour as Murray’s, except that Murray always kept his neatly in place and would never have flaunted himself in such an arrogant way as Tadi now did.

  Pierre turned to her and said, ‘Come on, it’s all right. It’s just a lover’s tiff.’

  They headed for the door and Marie whispered, ‘But are you sure she’ll be all right?’

  He laughed. ‘Of course she will. He’ll get into bed with her and they’ll be as happy as larks in half an hour. They go on like that a lot,’ said Pierre,

  ‘So they don’t mean it?’

  Pierre shrugged. ‘I suppose they do mean it at the time but it blows over. Tadi keeps three or four women on a string at one time and fights with them all. It’s Thérèse’s fault for being so silly about him. She’s old enough to be his mother.’

  ‘He’s certainly very handsome,’ said Marie, thinking of the furious demon lover Tadi towering over Thérèse.

  ‘And a tiger in bed they say,’ was Pierre’s rejoinder. ‘That explains it.’ He was hankering after Marie, who was completely unconscious of his infatuation.

  Later that evening Thérèse and Tadi came upstairs arm in arm as if nothing had happened. After a short time, however, he got up from her side and went over to sit next to Marie, lifting a stray lock of hair that was falling to her shoulders and saying, ‘Your hair is like corn silk, such a lovely colour.’

  She smiled and replied, ‘I like the colour of your hair better.’

  ‘You also have a lovely body. I would like to see your body,’ he murmured, leaning closer to her. She flushed and leaned back.

  He laughed. ‘Do not worry. I am a sculptor, that is why I would like to see you. I would like to sculpt you. Will you sit for me?’

  Marie saw Thérèse narrowly watching her from the other side of the room and shook her head. ‘I’ve never modelled. I’m very shy,’ she said.

  Tadi sighed. ‘You Englishwomen are so repressed. I am Hungarian and we are not repressed. We delight in our bodies! You should delight in your body It is a gift from God.’

  ‘I don’t think I’m repressed – and I’m not English,’ protested Marie.

  Tadi rolled his magnificent black eyes. ‘Of course you are. You are afraid of men like all the women of your country. None of you enjoy yourselves in bed. No wonder all your men make love to other men.’

  Marie wondered if she should stand up and walk away from him but he was holding her hand and pinning her down. ‘I could teach you how to make love. I could teach you such skill that when you marry you will keep your man in love with you for ever. Are you in love with someone?’ he whispered in a voice like honey.

  She nodded her head. ‘Yes, I am. I’m in love with a man at home in Scotland.’

  He nodded. ‘Ah yes, Scotland. They are even worse than the English in matters of love I believe. Does this man love you?’

  ‘I think so. I hope so.’

  ‘You think so. You don’t know? He should be on his knees to you now because you are beautiful. I would be on my knees to you if you were mine. Why does he let you come here to Paris alone? He cannot love you enough.’

  ‘He’s different to the men here… He’s very serious,’ she said in defence of Murray.

  Tadi snorted. ‘You should forget him. It is bad to be serious in love. When you are in love you should be mad, careless, passionate, demanding. I am all those things when I’m in love,’ he said but at that moment, Thérèse, with a purposeful look on her face, walked across the floor towards them, leaned over Marie and hissed, ‘Take your hands off him. He’s mine!’

  Marie stood up, glad to be released from Tadi’s grasp. ‘I didn’t have my hands on him,’ she protested.

  ‘Never do if you want to go on living,’ was Thérèse’s final threat.

  The trees were in leaf along the boulevards and in the little squares of P
aris; the street life of the cafés was in full swing; there was a wonderful lightness in the air that made it marvellous to be young and alive with work to do and friends to see.

  Marie had never painted so well. As soon as she lifted her brush every morning, all her other cares and concerns disappeared. She even forgot Murray.

  Pierre came to see her often and she was aware of his passion for her but did not encourage him. She wanted them to be friends but not lovers, though he courted her with tenderness that she greatly appreciated. He was also the greatest enthusiast for her pictures.

  ‘You must show your work,’ he said many times. ‘Send one into the Salon des Beaux Arts. It won’t be accepted because you’ve not made your name yet but on the strength of the refusal you’ll be able to display at the Salon des Refusés. That’s where all the best people show these days.’

  Marie gave up the School completely. She wrote to Bethya explaining why she had quit the classes and received a sad little note saying that Bethya was sorry Marie had found the teaching at L’École so poor but hoped that her work had not suffered and that she was continuing to paint. There was a melancholy, a hopelessness, about the note that saddened Marie but she forgot about that too when she started to paint again.

  She was drifting away from Amy and only appeared at Madame Guillaume’s to sleep. Sometimes when she walked into the sitting-room she found Madame and Amy, who had struck up a sort of friendship, sitting whispering with their heads together. At the sight of her they jumped guiltily apart and she guessed they had been discussing her.

  Without warning, one night in April, Amy said, ‘Oh, by the way, I don’t suppose this will worry you much but I’m leaving the day after tomorrow. I’m going home.’

  Marie was astonished by this sudden decision and full of remorse that she had paid so little attention to her friend. ‘But classes don’t finish till the end of next month,’ she protested.

  ‘I know, but I’m going home to be a bridesmaid at a wedding,’ Amy told her.

  ‘Who’s getting married?’ Marie asked.

  ‘It’s Cousin Julia actually.’

  Marie remembered the tall, disdainful girl dancing at the party in Murrayhill, the one who had the castle and the vast fortune.

  ‘But I thought you said nobody would ever marry her because she’s so frightening. Who’s taken her on?’ she asked in an amused tone.

  Amy was standing at the window and turned slowly to say, ‘It’s Murray actually.’

  Marie reeled. ‘Murray! Your brother Murray?’

  ‘My brother Murray. They’ve been bespoken for a long time, since the first Christmas we all spent in her castle as a matter of fact. I knew they were to marry this year but they’ve brought the date forward and they want me to be a bridesmaid. I’ve to go back now so that I can have fittings for my gown. Mama’s arranging everything.’

  Marie felt as if she had been hit in the stomach and it was difficult to breathe. She gasped, ‘Arranged for a long time! Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘My dear, how could I? You’ve been mooning over him for ages, haven’t you? I did try to warn you. We all knew he was going to propose to her when we went north and she accepted him, I’m glad to say.’

  Amy’s voice was light as if she were trying to imply that this was of little consequence to Marie.

  The other girl’s face was ashen and her voice was little more than a whisper. ‘But he said he loved me… He said that we should wait till he found a position in a law firm and then he’d speak to your parents about us… He kissed me, in the summer-house when there was snow on the lawn… it was so lovely. He said he loved me…’ Marie found it hard to understand what was happening to her.

  Amy turned away, saying briskly, ‘Don’t be silly. He was only flirting. He can’t help it. He does it all the time. Mama was very angry at him when she saw how you’d taken it. She thought it would be better if we came away to Paris and everything would be arranged by the time you got back. She hoped you’d meet some dashing Frenchman and be swept off your feet. She really likes you Marie… Oh, don’t look like that. I warned you that he was fickle. You can’t say that I didn’t.’

  ‘But I love him,’ whispered Marie. Her world had crashed around her.

  ‘You’re being very silly,’ said Amy. ‘How can you deceive yourself about this? He’s not given you any encouragement for months. You must have guessed it was nothing. If he was going to marry you, don’t you think he’d have done something about it by now?’

  ‘He said he would. I’ve been waiting.’

  Amy looked interested. ‘You’re such an innocent, aren’t you? You’ll get over this. It was only an infatuation. You couldn’t really have thought that you and Murray would marry. After all, there’s such a difference between you.’

  Marie stared at her one-time friend. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked.

  ‘I mean you’re from a very different background to us. Though Mama admires you as an artist and likes you as a person, she and Papa were really worried when Murray was mooning over you and they would have gone mad if he suggested marrying you…’

  Even the insensitive Amy was beginning to falter a little when she saw that Marie’s face was chalk-white and she was trembling all over like someone on the verge of a fit. However, she collected herself enough to ask, ‘Your mother got a letter from my brother, didn’t she? It was all right before that, wasn’t it?’

  Amy nodded. ‘Yes, she did get a letter. She didn’t like the idea much before but when she got that letter… when she heard about your mother being murdered by the navvy she lived with and all the rest of that scandal, she was genuinely shocked. She’s a great believer in heredity is my mother…’

  ‘That’s not fair,’ said Marie. It was all she could think.

  ‘It wasn’t only that, of course,’ Amy told her. ‘Julia’s very rich. Murray’s marrying money. He’s the second son and he’s ambitious.’

  ‘But he’s clever and he passed his exams. You told me he’d got a place in an office in Edinburgh,’ Marie sounded stunned.

  Amy shrugged. ‘He failed the exams again in fact. He’s working as a clerk till the wedding but he’s not the type to knuckle down in an office all his life. This marriage is ideal for him. He’ll be a gentleman of leisure.’

  Marie felt as if her heart had been ripped from her body. She put a hand on her chest where the ache was and closed her eyes. Then, after a moment, she rose from her chair and walked slowly into the bedroom where she began pulling clothes out of her drawers and stuffing them into a bag.

  Amy stood in the doorway watching and asked, ‘Whatever are you doing?’

  ‘I’m packing. I’m going to sleep in the studio tonight. I don’t want to stay here.’ Marie told her.

  ‘You’re being stupid. How will you be able to sleep with all those cats crawling over you?’

  Marie turned and said fiercely, ‘I’m not staying here!’

  The last of the clothes were rammed into the bag, which would not shut, but she held it together with one hand as she turned towards the door. On the way out she paused and said to Amy, ‘Will you do something for me?’

  ‘If I can.’

  ‘Will you tell Murray that he’s broken my heart?’

  She walked down the hall to Madame Guillaume’s parlour where she rapped on the door. When the landlady answered it, she said, ‘I’m going away, Madame. I won’t be coming back.’

  The sloe-black eyes were hard and unfeeling. ‘Very good, Mademoiselle. But your rooms have been paid for till the end of the month and I cannot give you a rebate.’

  ‘I don’t want a rebate. I’m only telling you that I won’t be requiring the rooms after Miss Roxburgh leaves.’

  ‘Very good,’ said Madame, closing the door.

  Isabelle was in the hall when Marie left her key on the plate that lay on top of a large credenza.

  ‘I’m going away, Isabelle,’ she said. ‘If any letters come for me, will you keep them please? I’ll call
now and again to collect them.’

  Isabelle whispered, ‘Yes, I’ll keep them.’

  Marie walked all the way to Montparnasse, through brightly lit streets, past busy cafés where people were sitting watching the passers-by. The bag she carried was heavy but she did not notice its weight. Her eyes were blank and her expression rigid as she trod the familiar pavements.

  ‘I’ve been such a fool,’ she thought over and over again. ‘I shouldn’t have believed him when he said he loved me. It was only a game for him.’

  That was a painful idea but it hurt less than thinking that he had loved her and David’s letter killed his love.

  Amy’s cruel words burned in her memory… navvies, murder, heredity… But it wouldn’t matter to me if I was told that he was a bastard with bad parents. I would still love him for what he was, not for what had happened in the past to people he never knew, she thought.

  Her rage against David mingled with her sorrow about losing Murray and confusion overtook her till she was barely able to remember who she was or where she was going. At last she could continue no longer and stopped at a café she had walked past many times before.

  Throwing her bag on the ground she sat down in a metal chair by an empty table and stared blankly into space. Soon a waiter came and stood before her with his tray outheld and a questioning look on his.

  ‘What would you like?’ he asked.

  She remembered the milky drink that tasted like aniseed. ‘Absinthe,’ she said. ‘Bring me absinthe.’

  He arched his eyebrows disapprovingly but brought the order, clear liquid in a thick glass tumbler and a carafe of water with which to mix it. Her hands were shaking as she lifted the carafe and when the drink was the colour of milk, she drank it down in one.

  The waiter was standing with his back to a pillar watching her.

  She nodded to him. ‘Bring another.’

  By the time she’d had four her head was swimming and all she wanted was to sleep. Standing up giddily she swayed as she bent to lift her bag and the waiter was beside her in a flash.

  ‘Three francs fifty,’ he said, indicating the little pile of saucers on the table that showed the number of drinks she’d consumed. She fumbled in her pocket and brought out five francs. When he handed her the change she shook her head. ‘Keep it,’ she said.