Monet's Angels Read online

  Suzanne hugged her. ‘Of course not and it will all turn out well, I’m sure of that. We shall each of us meet a wonderful man and marry and have lots of children like Maman. We’ll bring them all here to visit and Papa will be a doting grand father. It will be like a fairy story.’

  Blanche remembered how moved she was by Suzanne’s innocence and hope for the future. She had felt an urge to protect her from harm, almost as if, she thought now, she had had a presentiment of how matters would turn out. She remembered how happy and blooming her sister had looked on her wedding day but then the pain she had suffered before and after the birth of her first child, the brace she had worn, the crutches she used. Later paralysis in her legs had set in and she could not walk. The doctor’s expression had been grave as he spoke of ‘pressure on the crural nerve.’ Poor Suzanne, she had had to spend so much time in bed and the baby girl brought in to visit her. There had been the tears when she was forced to give up Lily’s little brother, Jim, to be cared for by Marthe, her weakness, and her beauty withering over those years until the final decline. They had all been drawn into that suffering and death except perhaps Papa who found consolation and escape in his painting… Who knew with him, however? Maman had been inconsolable, backwards and forwards to the cemetery, those dreadful dawn visits, until Papa bought the automobile and they began on their jaunts.

  But was that the only reason she couldn’t sleep? Wasn’t she also wondering how Lilli was getting on, investing in her the hope of happiness and fulfillment that had eluded both herself and Suzanne? Even her name was curiously close to that of her niece.

  Earlier that evening, she had kept her word and arranged Lilli’s hair in the style she had created before, tweaked her dress into place, helped arrange the shawl. The girl was as excited as a child going to her first party, chattering away, hardly able to sit still.

  ‘Bon chance,’ Blanche had murmured to herself as she watched the slight figure walking away from the house.

  About half past ten, she heard the door to the servant’s entrance open and close. Half an hour late: it seemed like a good omen.

  1889

  True to his word, Monet included John Leslie and several other young Americans on trips to the fields and woods where they set up easels and painted together. Blanche went along too although she found it difficult to sit so near to John Leslie and not be able to touch him. She was constantly aware of him and found it difficult to concentrate on her work. Sometimes, she would glance across, hoping to catch his eye and share a secret smile but he seemed capable of concentrating wholeheartedly, applying himself to the canvas so that she felt shut out.

  He continued to demand answers from Monet. ‘How do you achieve this effect? Why did you use vermilion there? How can I produce a similar result?’

  ‘Young man, I have no answers. As the painter I am only concerned with giving my impression, my view, which I cannot pass on to you. Just be yourself. Look with your own eyes, paint what you see.’

  He refused to teach, Blanche knew that, but still John Leslie persisted.

  Meanwhile Suzanne spent the summer days in the garden sewing or reading, absorbed in her world of romance and fairytale endings. Ironic, Blanche thought, when, at the end of her nose, a real life drama was being played out. Her sister bent her head to her activity with a certain self-consciousness, arranging her skirts so that they might be seen to their best advantage. Monet had painted her so many times, Suzanne it appeared found it difficult not to pose.

  One afternoon, John Leslie forsook his landscapes and asked her to sit for him. He painted her in profile, her face shaded by the usual large hat so that the eye was drawn to the piece of sewing between her fingers. There was a contrast between the firmness of the hat and the soft wrap of blouse and skirt around Suzanne’s body, which seemed to comment on the wearer’s docility. The effect was to make it appear not as much a portrait as an archetype of domesticity, of a young woman at ease with the natural world where no shadow clouded the future.

  Blanche was surprised by the competence of John Leslie’s brushwork, the brighter palette he was now using, the casual almost snapshot pose. How far he had progressed in so short a time. As he had vowed to her last year, he was achieving his aim of becoming an impressionist. She tried to analyse the unsettling effect this aroused in her, at odds with her feelings for him. Might it be jealousy?

  ‘I am not there yet,’ he said when she remarked on the painting, ‘but I am much taken with capturing the changing effects of light on a solid figure and the surrounding landscape. It is elusive and challenging.’

  ‘John Leslie is so serious,’ Suzanne said when she and Blanche were alone. ‘So single minded. He reminds me of Monet, the way he paints as if it were the most important thing in the world.’

  Whatever she had thought on this topic, Blanche sprang to his defence. ‘Of course it is important, it gives shape and meaning to one’s existence.’

  ‘More than loving another human being?’ Suzanne gave her a wry smile. ‘Surely there is nothing more important than that? If being an artist means withholding a part of oneself from your beloved then I am happy I do not paint.’

  And there was where the difference between them lay. Blanche thought of Monet’s painting Blanche Hoschedé at her easel, Suzanne Hoschedé reading.’ Her sister’s skirt flecked with white, pink, yellow and blue seemed to melt into her surroundings, making her seem acquiescent, while he had depicted her upright and resolute, focused intently on her work. Her gaze beneath the red-brimmed bonnet was alert, her arm upraised as brush touched canvas at the instant of creation. In his painting, Monet appeared to compare them: pretty, passive Suzanne and enterprising, active Blanche. He seemed to her to say: ‘this is her vocation and no other, this we share with no other and let no-one else encroach.’ Her sister might read and dream on these outings but, for she and Monet, the landscape offered the opportunity to work swiftly, transcribing its shapes, colours and moods. It was their testing ground.

  ‘You wouldn’t understand,’ said Blanche.

  Nevertheless, Suzanne had a point, she mused. Artists cannot give all of themselves, there comes the moment when they need to withdraw and go away to the studio or writing desk to battle out the creation.

  Summer was long and hot that year. As August neared its end, the branches of the fruit trees were bowed under the weight of apples, pears, damsons and quince. Then came a week of rain.

  ‘Time to go hunting for mushrooms!’ Monet announced. ‘Chanterelles, Alice, how does that take your fancy?’ They exchanged an intimate smile.

  Mushroom hunting was an annual ritual but no-one knew why it seemed to cause amusement between Monet and Maman. The chauffeur was summoned to prepare the car. Very early in the morning, they donned their capes, veils and goggles and off they went, driving to the forest of Andaine. The undergrowth was warm and damp and mushrooms were pushing up through the wet grasses. The air was chill, fresh and lovely. When the sun broke through, the dying bracken blazed and then it was all golden and beautiful on this autumn morning. The family entered the forest, eyes firmly fixed on its floor, following trails specified by Monet. It was not long before the silence was broken by the shrieks of a happy picker. Soon everyone was absorbed, walking quietly, staring at the ground then pouncing with glee. Chanterelles blended into the autumn bracken; spy one and suddenly a dozen more came into focus. Hedgehog mushrooms flashed white at the foot of trees, identified by the spines underneath. Now and again, someone would run back to Monet who assumed the role of official identifier.

  ‘No you can’t eat that one, throw it away. No, that’s a sulphur cap not a cow bolete. It wouldn’t kill you but it’s not nice to eat. Yes, that’s a chanterelle, you can tell it by the dimple on top. Wonderful chanterelles,’ he commented.

  There came the sound of rain pitter-pattering on the canopy of leaves above their heads. Soon it will percolate through and we’ll all get wet, Blanche thought miserably.

  B
ut Monet was jubilant. ‘Good weather for mushrooms,’ he crowed. He made them all stand in a circle round him while he ran through his ‘rules’, ones they had heard many times before. ‘Don’t pick the very small mushrooms. If you don’t allow them to reach a reasonable size they will not have released their spores. Use your knife to cut the mushroom at the base. Don’t just rip it out or you will damage the underground part.’

  And, of course, they all carry wicker baskets so that the gathered mushrooms can drop their spores through the holes and, voila, propagation will occur again.

  Damn his rules, thought Blanche. She felt the now familiar sense of separation from all of them and asked herself: what do I really want to do with my life?

  She listened to Monet’s voice delivering orders: ‘Germaine, take that way, Michel you go this. Alice and I will take the other path to the left.’ Suddenly she hated him with a passionate anger; she hated this man she had always adored but who now seemed a tyrant, undermining her happiness. What was wrong with her? She used to enjoy these pursuits of family life but now she felt the structure was falling apart. Her basket was empty, she lifted her face to see the sun reappearing through the leaves. She didn’t want to grub about searching for stupid mushrooms.

  Monet was there. ‘What is the matter, Blanche, you look moon struck. I used to be able to rely on you to find the best mushrooms. You seem to have taken leave of your senses.’

  ‘Don’t be so hard on her,’ Alice put in. ‘Maybe she’s not feeling well. Are you Blanche?’

  ‘Don’t fuss, Maman.’ She felt she wanted to lash out at everything, Monet, the family, to send those baskets of mushrooms flying and see the look on their faces.

  Impatiently, Monet turned away and Alice followed him. Blanche hated the world and her part in it, everything except John Leslie. She stayed where she was, hearing the family’s voices calling to each other at yet another find. Then this anger evaporated and left her weak and trembling. She thought, I can’t stay here. I have to leave everything and go with him. The decision left her feeling strangely calm and after that she picked mushrooms, uncaring what they were, dropping them mechanically into her basket.

  On her way to the dining room, next morning, she almost collided with Lilli, rushing from the bedrooms with a pile of laundry in her arms.

  ‘Oh madame, it was wonderful!’

  Blanche gave her a warning look. She did not want anyone else to know about her part in all this. ‘Wait till we are doing the laundry.’

  Over the shirts and drawers, the chemises and nightgowns, Lilli related the evening. Sometimes, she moved around the kitchen to demonstrate.

  ‘At first he didn’t seem to notice me. He was dancing with that so and so Marianne. Hmm, the airs and graces she puts on, you’d think she was a princess although she could do with losing a bit of weight, disgusting I thought, bursting out of her dress. Well, I wasn’t going to dance with anyone else so I went to take some refreshment and suddenly there he was beside me. You could have knocked me down with a feather, madame. We danced the valse musette and the polka and the mazurka. Of course he went off to dance with other partners but he always returned to me.’

  Blanche could feel her cheeks go pink with pleasure. ‘I’m so happy for you, Lilli.’ It all came back to her, those evenings with John Leslie, those times before the first words of love were spoken, the first kiss, a breathless feeling of hoping and praying it might come true.

  ‘Oh then we did the Cakewalk. Have you ever heard of it, madame? The maids from Hotel Baudy showed us, they said the Americans had taught them.’

  Lilli was sashaying round the kitchen, humming a Scott Joplin tune. Blanche heard the clump of Annette’s boot from the scullery and the girl came scowling into the room.

  ‘What’s all this?’ she asked suspiciously.

  ‘Lilli was telling me…’ Blanche began and then stopped short, remembering the girl’s clubfoot. There would be no dancing for her. ‘Oh, never mind,’ she finished. ‘It’s time to get on. If you’ll carry on here, Lilli, please.’

  The girl shot her a beseeching look, one that Blanche read of the story unfinished, that there was more and she was dying to tell someone. She halted in the kitchen door way. ‘I’ve just remembered there is a tear in my bedroom curtain. Will you come and see what you can do, Lilli?’

  Outside, she put her finger to her lips and drew the girl into the dining room.

  ‘Oh thank you, madame.’

  ‘Come on then, Lilli, tell me. I can see you can’t wait.’

  The girl was grinning. ‘Michel has asked me to go for a walk on my next afternoon off.’

  ‘Well, that is quite something. Remind me when it is?’

  ‘Sunday madame, a whole week away, so long to wait!’

  Yes, Blanche thought, I remember that. I remember when I couldn’t sleep for thinking of John Leslie and the next time I would see him, how you tell yourself not to be too eager but you simply cannot help yourself. ‘It will pass, Lilli, it will pass.’

  ‘Yes, madame.’ She looked unconvinced.

  Life seemed to be arranging itself, Blanche thought, going into the garden to see how the hens had laid, imperceptibly but definitely. Papa’s meeting with Mademoiselle Judith had set him up no end; Lilli was on cloud nine, while she was being given the opportunity to sketch without feeling guilty. It was like one of those shakes of a kaleidoscope, where the pattern magically changes. But her mind went back to the Japanese prints, the floating world of small pleasures and fleeting moments. ‘Please God,’ she prayed. ‘Let it remain so, at least for some time.’

  – SEVENTEEN –

  ROBERT

  I

  t was half past two in the morning and Robert told himself he had never felt less like sleep. He knew it was pointless going to bed so continued to sit at his bedroom window and smoke a cigarette. The moon was in its first quarter and the night dark and silent. Unusually, he was finding it difficult to pick out the pleasant moments of his day, its scents and sounds, a flavour he enjoyed. Even if he did, they were soon banished by thoughts of Judith and how she continued to unsettle his life. He was recognising how this compunction to protect her sprang from those old feelings of guilt that until now he thought he had overcome. Now as Giverny slept, the images returned.

  He saw himself seated in the trap, looking over the sturdy back of the piebald pony. The reins were loose in his hand. What was her name? He closed his eyes. Lucy, that was it, a docile creature, you could almost let her make her own way apart from a light pulling on the reins when, now and again, she was wayward and tried to turn left or right instead of keeping straight ahead. This was the first time he had been allowed to take the trap into town. He had wanted to enjoy his new freedom alone but Florence pleaded to go with her big brother.

  She was lifted up into the trap and sat beside him, dressed in a pink smocked pinafore and a sunhat. She looked demure and pretty as a picture. ‘Now you’ll stay quiet, won’t you, Florrie?’ his mother said. And to Robert: ‘Take good care of her, son.’

  He felt the familiar weight of responsibility.

  Suddenly the atmosphere seemed filled with sound. Robert closed his eyes again, concentrating on the memory. The middle of the street was lined with market stalls and crowded with people. He walked among them and never let go of Florence’s hand. There was a farmer selling cabbages and housewives with their wicker baskets buying cheese and preserves. His sister tugged him to a stall selling stuffed toys and he bought her a small brown monkey. Then they made their way to a haberdashery stall where he found the gloves his mother had asked him to bring back for her. He saw that other Robert picking through the piles, searching for her size; Mother had very small hands. He saw them sitting in a bar where he had taken Florence to have a sarsaparilla as a reward for behaving herself.

  On the way home, she kept on asking to take a turn at the reins. After a while, she began to cry and to pacify his sister he moved over and let her take t
he reins. At once she gave them a savage jerk and the animal, unused to this, broke into a running trot. They bowled along the road.

  Now Florence was crowing with delight. ‘You see I’m cleverer than you.’

  He felt the panic rise, heard his voice: ‘Florrie no, stop it, Florrie.’

  She jerked the reins again. That other Robert knew the road well, knew they would soon be coming to an uneven stretch. He felt a thrill of fear.

  ‘Do you want to kill us?’ he shouted. ‘Give those reins to me.’

  He moved back and snatched them from her hands. The pony responded to his touch. ‘You promised you’d stay quiet,’ he said. ‘Please Florrie, you scare me the way you go on. How do you think Mother and Father would feel if you got hurt?’

  ‘Sorry.’

  She looked so pretty and innocent with her tear stained face beneath the pink sunhat, he wanted to hug her, protect her from all harm.

  ‘So were you my good little girl?’ his mother asked Florence.

  Robert was silent.

  ‘I was naughty on the way home,’ murmured his sister.

  ‘Oh Robert, what did she do?’

  His parents’ faces were concerned. ‘It was nothing,’ he lied. ‘She was tired, that was all.’

  ‘Well, that’s all right then.’ His mother was smiling now. ‘It’s early bed for you tonight, my girl. You’ve had enough excitement for one day.’

  As Florrie began to protest she wasn’t tired at all, Robert whistled for Rusty and with an urge to escape, took him off for his walk.

  Out of the darkness came the eerie drawn out cry of a vixen calling for a mate. Robert looked back to that first meeting at Vernon railroad station. It seemed a long time ago. How fresh and innocent she had seemed, a pleasure to the eye and ear. He had loved her carelessness of what people thought when she danced the Turkey Trot. Might he have been like her if his boyhood had been different, not afflicted with an unfair liability he had tried so hard to undertake, a father who judged and found him lacking?