CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
Reflections
"Monsieur Montaigne has been slamming doors all morning," said Jacqueline Ferland. She was not supposed to be there in the library studio - not during the day when Ambrose was trying to paint. The work required quiet and peace, neither of which his wife had brought with her. It was slender carrot stalks that she had carried and now she had sat herself down beside her husband to carve them for some soon meal. Ambrose had been given a reprieve from Roland's rambling and idiotic distractions this past week, so this interruption from his wife seemed a greater nuisance than it might have otherwise been. But yes, the stomping, fuming, and childishness of Charles this morning - these last couple of days - had been like a landed fly on the loose flesh of Ambrose. His wife was not so easily sent aflight. She was an itch that was made the more irritating as it was scratched. There was a precision, a science, to treating with Jacqueline, and there was an art. A wary eye must be kept on the grey skies of her disposition, watch for any change in the slight, chill wind of her words, and then he must plot his course carefully. He knew the landmarks for her shoals and reefs. He intimately knew her uncharted shallows and the navigable depths.
"It will pass," answered Ambrose as though she should take solace.
"Of course it will pass." She was exasperated but, for the moment adrift. He had left her only jests to answer with and she would not let this be reduced to mirth. Not yet. "What do you suppose is going on that Monsieur Montaigne is sulking over? Has she definitely refused him?"
"Madame de Grenville?"
"Yes."
"Could it be that Ghislaine has refused him," asked Ambrose boldy, but he was quick to veer off, saying "His Leda is not going at all well. I have seen no good work on it. That would set him off.
"No," she insisted and severely cut the head from an orange taproot. "You are right. There is a woman behind this and it may be Ghislaine. Ghislaine was furtive at breakfast. Furtive, yes, that describes her. She was staring at her plate, except for quick... furtive glances at us... and him... Boniface. M. Montaigne's absence might have affected her. She is keeping something from me. I am certain of it now. What has she told you? Anything?"
Even this nuisance was colouring his aesthetic decisions, Ambrose knew. Here he was about to apply a complicated mix of umbers and ochres to the temple of his daughter in the Leda role, and these worries of Jacqueline were encouraging him to darken it.
It is Leda. It is not Ghislaine. Leda's colours must entirely suit the composition. Was it a mistake to use Ghislaine's counterfeit? It needn't matter. A proper painter is not affected by emotions and drama. A good painter makes good decisions.
"My Love," answered Ambrose, "She has not told me anything these last two days that she has not also told you." He slipped the smooth tip of his paintbrush between his cracked lips and suckled it silently, while his eyes rolled wide to watch a reflection of his wife on the window pane.
The thin eyebrows of Jacqueline arched and then angled, forming short parallel vertical furrows above the lady's line-less nose. She drew in her lips and then puckered them, but only slightly. Her pale cheeks deflated and then eased and the loose flesh there bunched as her jawbone rose up to tighten against her upper teeth, fitting into an overbite. Her tongue, Ambrose suspected, was testing the start of a small selection of words. He removed the brush from his own mouth, studied the painted hairs while he waited, and determined that a hint more crimson should be included. Live flesh, even at its most grey, should still tell of the movement of life-giving blood.
His Leda was wide-eyed and awonder at the magnificent white bird rampant before her. Here was a girl on the cusp of rapture. Her mundane and everyday world, even if that was with all the treasures of a Spartan Queen, was at this moment transformed into a world of magic. It was an annunciation that her world was one where the phantastical became real. Ambrose' Leda would not turn to reverence and obedience by this revelation, but rather she is awakened and unchained. This should be a girl simultaneously empowered and awed by a new appreciation of the world... of everything.
"He wouldn't dare. Would he? He wouldn't dare. Not under this roof. Besides, Adele and Ghislaine share a room. There is no danger. I'm certain of it. On Friday and Saturday, when Adele is in town, Ghislaine can sleep in our bed."
"No, My Love."
"I can sleep in her room. This is ridiculous. Anything could happen! If anything happens..."
Ambrose set down his paintbrush without cleaning it. Standing to face his wife, he studied her face until he could see past the physiognomy of flesh and bone. He saw there in her eyes a blue and troubled sea. Her pupils trembled as though buffeted by hurricane winds. There was nothing more that he needed to see. Wrapping his thins arm about her tense, yielding torso, he held her to his grey bearded bosom and murmured, "Nothing is going to happen."
"I'll kill him."
The hesitation was a heartbeat. "Of course, My Love; we would kill him, if anything happened."
There will be no killing.
*
Ghislaine held to the tall treated timbers of the unpainted patio and stared beyond the garden, down the grassy green slope, and on to the blue tinted plateaus of the south. She was intimately conscious of the rise and fall of her breast against the cotton and the wood, the intake of the green scented country air with every breath, and the rough texture of the post against her smooth fingertips. Auburn hair was insufficient bound, leaving light-touch strands to breeze against a fair and sunlit cheek. Her focus floated beyond the wide horizon and lost itself indistinct among the formless clouds. She remained, transfixed by a melancholy, in a Pre-Raphaelite pose of languid sensibility. One pale orchid or one jawless skull would complete that tableau, she thought.
Her distractions fell then to the movement, left, on the edge of the little lake. Charles was there now. She did not know for how long he had been standing in his rough-tucked nightshirt and black trousers. He seemed to be taking his turn at studying the swans that frequented the lawns. He squatted, and kneeled, and crawled among the fearless birds and only sometimes stopped to make a charcoal mark in his book. Sometimes he hopped or stumbled, and reached down a burly hand to clutch his foot. Even from there on the porch, Ghislaine could see that the man's gestures were impatient, almost anxious. He could not be satisfied, and she remembered that day, not so very long ago, when that artist had moved at her feet in exactly the same way, studying and delighting in her form - her feminine form. Charles reached out a hand to touch the down of a skittering swan as he might have reached out to Ghislaine's nude knee on that afternoon. There was a flurried flap of wings and the bird was a full hop away from the human, but then it was again content to wander away like a chin-up school mistress from the second cook complaining about pennies for meat pies.
Suddenly, Charles sprung forward, but not to snare the swan. He flung his arms about and screamed in a terrifying manner, so that even so distant Ghislaine jumped, and the swans took short flight. Charles continued on though, shouting, gesturing, and chasing the small flock until finally his cruel purpose was achieved and the swans, lending their own boisterous honking to the tumult, flew off on massive wingspans into the blue and welcoming sky. The painter then fell to silence and stillness. Affixed to the earth, Montaigne watched them go, while remaining unmoving but for fingers that worked observations into his sketchbook. Ghislaine flew into the house in a flurry of whites, but Montaigne did not mark it. Dissatisfied, the man hurled his tiny black stick of charcoal impotently after the trumpeting formation of swans.
Madeleine too had been witness to that scene, watching from a sitting room window while Boniface painted in silence behind. She had seen the first clumsy stalkings of Charles. The stately fowl: smooth, slender-necked and beautiful, made the man's brutish fumbling so ugly - so awkward, but this contrast had brought a gentle smile to Madeleine's countenance. She took mild pleasure in the idea that Charles would hate to have anyone remark on his gestures and mannerisms. He would ever assume that others would mock and loathe him. Every glance is judgemental, he might imagine, and then take great pride for believing himself above such earthen concerns. When Montaigne had leapt up all shrieking and braying, flushing the birds to better capture them, she chuckled softly and called him, "Monster."
So Boniface looked up from his labours, asking, "What is Charles doing now?"
"He is scaring the swans away. He must have wanted to see them in motion with wide wings spread. He also frightened poor Ghislaine."
"He has that effect on women."
"But not you."
"Charles is a hunter, a predator. He will stalk and pad and finally pounce upon his prey. He will not survive long though if he goes for young and healthy game. Ghislaine is nimble enough to not be pounced upon by an ungainly one such as him. I am more a spider."
She laughed delightedly and continued to keep an eye on Montaigne through the glass. "You are not a spider. Spiders wait for their prey. Ambrose is a spider: patient, stationary, and content to take only what comes his way. No, Monsieur, you are another species of carnivore all together. You lay out bait. You carefully select your prey, determine the best lure to use, and then place it on the path where she must tread. Even then, when she might be nibbling at the sweet tease, you will feign another ruse and lure the feminine beast from the path and into the darkness of the underbrush. You are the most dangerous."
The young painter did not seem at all bothered by this analogy and leaned forward to put some dollop of various green into the heart of the painted forestry. After a moment to think, he suggested, "Your husband is a spider?"
Likewise, Madeleine's answer was slow in coming as she pieced together her play piece. "Roland de Grenville is a scavenger." She sobered as she continued. "His prey is carrion. He takes what has been gnawed upon and left by others - abandoned and cast off."
He did not put down his brush. He did not cease his art, but Boniface shot a frown at the back of Madeleine. He chose to say, "You are not abandoned. You are not cast off."
Madeleine spun once about on toe and heel so her skirt swirled twice around her calves while she asked, "Where then is my husband? He did not rescue me from Gaston Hector, did he? Am I so much better off? He just took what meat he could from that other predator and carried it off. And you? What about you? How much of a jackal are you? You sniff at my skirts to see what you can take while my warden is away. You are a scavenger, taking what is not yours... what is not free... what is discarded. You might fancy yourself a falcon, but are you not a crow?"
And Boniface applied a perfect, slow, certain caress to canvas with a green pigmented paintbrush. With a twist of his wrist, without flourish, he withdrew the wet hog’s hairs precisely.
"Thus I the crow and Charles the swan. Ambrose has the eagle's nose and Roland wears the peacock’s plumes. Tomorrow we are roles reversed. We are reimagined as fancy flights overtake our poets. Shall I now tell you how I am the cow?"
"Boniface..."
"I forage on fields planted by some other. My udder is bloated with art, with beauty, and I yearn for some fat patron to yank upon my teats, to free me of this swelling. You think my wit amuses me, but up come my words and thoughts of weighty import which must then be paused within my maw, vile cud, to be ruminated and masticated upon, and then swallowed, for they are not for the ears of others. All they want from me is my quiet little meaningless moo. None follow a cow, ever, but flies. Pests. Filthy idolatrisers or sycophants."
"If only you were still the spider with all those flies abuzz about you." Madeleine was giving Boniface that little smile of pity and approval that she had previously kept for Charles.
But Boniface had the perfect response and as he once more played amid his painted forest scene, he grinned and simply said, "Moo" quite prettily.
When Madeleine turned back to gaze through bright glass, the painter continued on with his craft. The discussion continued in silence and out of sight for some significant minutes until Boniface raised a question, "Are you done with Roland then?"
Madame de Grenville set her jaw and kept her back to the charming and handsome young man. "He is my husband."
"Do you love him?"
"Of course I do," she answered testily. "He is my husband."
"But what of me?" Boniface leaned back to reconsider his pigment mix.
There was little pause before she said with defiance, "I do not love you."
Behind her back, Boniface play acted a broken heart, making certain to keep the wet brush tip away from his shirt. If Madeleine saw the performance reflected in the glass, she did not acknowledge the thespian.
"Boniface, you offer me kisses, and caresses. You offer me jests and laughter. You are temptation. Roland offers me everything else. Everything. Roland thinks that he is rescuing me. He might be. You... One day Boniface, you will be old and fat. One day your pretty words will be twisted into the distasteful bile of a hateful and senile cripple. You say that you love beauty, Boniface, but even now you can sometimes be so very ugly and hurtful. You can be cruel and what is cruel cannot be beautiful. There is no cruelty in Roland. Oh, he has hurt me, but never out of cruelty."
Madeleine's focus was on the garden and the pond that Montaigne had recently vacated of swans. She did not see her reflections on the window panes. She saw a neglected bed of disorganized flowers, empty patio chairs that should be painted, and a line of olive trees that were never going to flourish.
"I cannot be cruel to you. I love you."
Madeleine slapped a palm upon the pane. "Boniface!" She heard the slide of his chair against the wooden floor. She heard his paintbrush ring against the side of the solvent glass. There were no swans beyond the window wall. His hands gently touched the shoulders of Madeleine, but when she tried to spin about, he pinned her with surprising strength. Clamped hard, the thin fabric of her dress seemed to vanish and she could feel his hard hands make distinct, precise impressions upon her upper arms. Every finger of Boniface dug into her flesh, clutching her useless muscles. It felt like his grip crushed her to the bone. Pressed then against the warm and imprisoning glass, Madeleine gasped and rebelled, but he held her fast. "Boniface," she pleaded. He pushed a rough kiss into her tightened neck and then her name breathed through his lips to roll warm against the back of her ear.
"I love you," he said, again and again.write out in full?
When, in desperation, Madeleine sought to break her hands free, Boniface deftly shifted his grip to take hold of her wrists. A thin bracelet fell broken. The whole of his body trapped her and mirrored her. He was taller and stronger, and his determined will wholly dominated her. Small hands flashed back and forth between vainly twisting fists and splayed fingers pressed flat against the glass. The man's chest, pressing upon her shoulder blades pushed her breasts into the window and pressured them -squeezing them within their bodice. The rolling of his firm hips into the small of her back told Madeleine of the lust behind this attack.
"Boniface," she begged now and rolled her neck into his persistent kisses. She tried again to spin - to turn to confront her captor but ... no! He released her and she twisted - twirled. Hands were free for an instant and then, almost clumsily, hurtfully, he once more snared her little wrists and her knuckles banged against the glass behind. She could see his narrowed eyes now and a triumphant grin worming across his face. His rich cologne and his lunge to embrace her lips kicked Madeleine's head back and her hair spilled across the window. Even through the cotton clothes, she felt the hot, rampant desire of Boniface press hard against her pinned belly.
Madeleine broke free, but only from his kiss. "It is the same answer as last night, Boniface: No!"
A stronger kiss muzzled her and bound her. His soft blond hairs slapped against her red cheeks. The tingling fire of his eager, almost angry lips pushed Madeleine toward the edge of delirium
She caught her breath, "I'll scream."
"You will not." His lips played upon her upraised throat and his tongue darted and flitted along its length, leaving moist trails on her pulsing flesh. "You will gasp," was his whisper.
The truth nearly defeated her. She could not scream. None that could come could know. She had gone too far. She was alone. Here, a prisoner of this violent, handsome man, she was entirely alone. One shriek – one cry from her and everything was ruined. Everything would be wasted and gone. And every passionate, hungry kiss was wrong. His grip, cruel and painful to her little wrists, must stop. She wanted it to stop. It hurt. His hot breath, his crude thrusting movements, the overpowering scent of cologne and sweat and paint, spun Madeleine’s mind apart and away. Flailing, her imagination scrambled to clutch any outcropping of hope – any hold for clarity to latch upon. She felt the teeth of Boniface tear off the coral cameo, the thin fabric of her collar and bare her rising clavicle tips.
“Your father,” gasped Madeleine.
Boniface let the locket fall with a slight clatter to the floor. “What?”
“This is how he took his women. This is how he conquered his conquests, isn’t it?”
He stood pinning the arms of the small women above her head, breathing into her face no matter how she tried to turn away, pushing his crotch against hers, and knowing that she was helpless. How dare she?
Suddenly Madeleine was yanked forward. She stumbled and he pushed her back. Hurled against the window and released, she could only stare back at Boniface. She had angered him and that gave her the edge. With shaking, small hands, Madeleine pushed against the breast of the man until he took a pace backward. Through clenched jaw, she hissed, “Bastard.”
He slapped her hard and Madeleine’s head cracked back against the glass.
Shaking now, Boniface was pale as one stricken. Madeleine held her stinging cheek and stared in disbelief. Neither of them could account for what had so sudden occurred between them. It was all over though.
"Get out," commanded Madeleine. Her resolve was steeled.
He had no counter and he had no defense. "Take what justice you will," he said and then paused with a hand around the iron black door knob. "Destroy the painting, if you must. You must know that I am ..."
"Get out." Her temples were red and firmly set. The rage in Madeleine's heart blazed through her anvil eyes. Boniface left his apology unsaid and withdrew to recount and grieve the moments. Madeleine though remained then only slowly lowered her hand. She inspected it - the fingertips and there was no blood. The lady watched the door and saw that it remained still. Boniface would not return. Not yet. And so she walked - almost strolled throughout the sitting room and ran her hands across the drop cloths and chair backs. The painting tubes were abandoned. The brushes were silent and still. Oil on canvas glistened in the lamp-assisted sunlight of the day. It would remain wet for hours ahead. What a pretty picture it was, this thing - this painted thing. This portrait of her. And now the stare upon that half-finished face spoke of emptiness and supplication. Here was a painted woman that was left naked and open for the world to desire and molest. Whores were all he saw or knew. He desired only harlots.
Boniface still wanted her.
Madame de Grenville continued her circuit of the room. Her fingers stroked the top of her husband's desk, as he liked to do. The smell of his cigars remained, now mixed with the painter's perfumes. Drops of green paint scarred the finished oak surface. Adele was useless. There was no trouble finding the box. Madeleine knew where to look and knew it would be unlocked. She did not pause to admire the red wood, blue steel and green velvet casings, but removed one pistol from its seat then put its partner and its case away.
The gun was heavier than she had guessed and her hand seemed too small to hold the grip. The trigger was not easy to reach, but she did. A folded tablecloth was perfect for hiding her weapon now.
Some several minutes before, Ghislaine had passed by the agitated Boniface in the hall. Distracted and pale, he had nearly knocked the basin of hot water from the young girl's hold. It had been she that had swerved at the last. Another juggling success would see her open the door to the conservatory and carry her silver bowl in before her like a prize. Charles was on his knees, pouring over large drawings of birds and adding to them with wild strokes of white and black conte sticks. She saw no frown darken his expression when he looked up to see Ghislaine and she took courage, saying, "Put you in that chair."
Without waiting for any response, the girl carefully set her basin of water down behind the indicated chair. She then rose to spin the seat about, so that it did not face the easel and the terribly unfinished work at hand. Ghislaine did not look up from her labours to judge the painting of under washes.
"Sit down," she commanded while she knelt and commenced to draw strips of white cloth ribbon from where she had hung them at her waist.
With seeming herculean effort, Charles obliged. He nearly quit when he set his weight onto the ball of a foot, but persevered and hobbled his form into the chair before Ghislaine. As his bulk passed onto the seat, Ghislaine reached out and wrapped a slender hand around each ankle of the wounded giant. She drew them to her slight bosom and then let them down gently, ever so gently, into the bowl of heated liquid. She whispered an apology as the man flinched and assured him with gentle words. Charles made unintelligible noises.
"Adele says that you went out walking last night. She saw you crashing through the garden, heedless of what damage you were doing... to your feet. You know, you should take better care."
Ghislaine took up one scratched and filthy foot and began to give it a thorough washing. She started on the top at the outer arch and scrubbed hard with a soft cloth.
"They will heal. It is only pain."
"Only pain," she repeated. "It is flagellation." As Ghislaine found flesh beneath the filth, she increased her vigour. "I do it too."
He almost pulled his limb away from her. "Flagellation?"
"No," she answered and pushed the cloth through the spaces between his toes. "I flee... try to flee when the world overwhelms me. There is never anywhere to go." His feet were warm and wet from the immersion, and they shone in places where the pink was new found.
Charles turned away to watch the sky through an undraped window. "No. I mean, no. There is never anywhere to go. That is, there is, but it isn't the going. I need to move. My heart needs to beat." When he had said what he said, his gaze was set upon the top of Ghislaine's brunette head.
"Yes!" She clutched his toes and squeezed grey water into the bowl. "'My heart needs to beat', that is exactly how I feel. To stay - to endure their words - would halt my blood and leave me dead. Dead inside. Dead."
"When I walk - just to walk, not to flee, I take long strides. I am invigorated by nature, but even in the streets of Paris, my lungs are filled with energy and ... and sometimes joy."
"Yes. Yes." She bent to her labours. "Though mother says that it is a sin to find joy in solitude. She says that God has made us companion creatures and that we ... well, she says that I should not spend so much time by myself."
The grin of Montaigne was hid by his wiry black beard and he answered, "And your father bids me spend more time alone." The smile faltered though as he remembered. "Does he know you are here? He cannot know. Oh, Ghislaine, you cannot be here." He started to stand but with one foot in the young girl's hand and the other immersed in a watery bowl, he failed and fell back into the chair.
"Stay there," was her command and he obeyed, but eyed the door. When Montaigne once more allowed her to take his foot, she said, "If Papa wishes us to stay apart, then he must come and tend to your injuries." She was crouched there before him, leaning over his feet. Her light skirts were poured wide, rippling around her bent knees and haunches.
"No one need tend. I can do it myself."
"But you won't. You'll stomp around and cry out with every step, and never do anything to clean or bandage them."
His silence told her what she knew: he had no response, because he knew it to be true. It was proof, for her, that she understood him. Ghislaine smiled as she scoured filth from the heel. Charles might be mended. As she gently drew the cloth down beneath the instep, over the rough red scratches, Charles tensed. Her fingertips slipped across the rough contours of his shimmering warm flesh and Ghislaine marvelled at the size and strength of these limbs. She ventured an idea to distract him.
"Will you allow me, Charles, to shave your beard someday? I could cut your hair too."
It must have been sufficiently distracting for as the girl rubbed at the base of the naked foot, a laugh shook the remainder of the man. "Oh ho! You wouldn't know me. I wouldn't. I've had this beard since I was a young man."
"You aren't that old."
"You shall see when the beard is gone, how old I truly am."
"Then I can cut it?"
"We will see. I won't say no."
Ghislaine fell silent for a time and tried to concentrate upon the washing. She didn't wish to overthink this. When she imagined it, it all happened so naturally. Fantasy never stumbles. But here she was, and it was going as well as she had hoped. Did she know what she had hoped for? This was no scheme, she thought. There was no other goal. His feet were cut and pained him. That was reason enough. She was just being good. She lifted his foot to see the wreck of pads beneath and affirmed that Charles needed good people to be good to him. Was Charles a good man, that he deserved such? He was. His passion was good and noble and virtuous. There was nothing selfish about his art. He sacrificed the whole of himself for the chance to create, and asked nothing in exchange. He only wants to give his genius to the world. He was not at all like Boniface, who was entirely absorbed in his self and his image. Charles surrendered his self entirely. If he could escape his body and the stuff of living, he would. His flesh held him back, like an anchor... like a carcass imprisoning a soul.
"Charles." Ghislaine looked up to catch the man's eyes. She tried to hold his gaze and she could see that he was fighting to not look away. He lost the battle and cast his eyes to her slender hands wrapped tenderly about his feet. "Charles, tell me about your painting."
And so he told her. He told her everything. Charles spoke about the swan and how it was going to be wild and windswept and about to take flight toward the nude Spartan Queen. He described how Leda will be recoiling from the attack, but will be a marvellous, splendid figure in extreme contrapposto. She will turn from the God and twist toward it also, as though she regrets recoiling. She would be twined, the Leda, just as the swan neck was. That neck, of that beautiful bird, he said, had its own way of going in two or three directions at once. The beak can lunge forward while the neck is arched back and the chest stretches in while the wings beat behind, and then the legs and tail are all a mix of movements. They are as complicated as humans. He would make a few feathers fly off to add to the sense of movement. In Montaigne's work, there would be no orderly geometry. Ambrose and Boniface can stick to pyramids and triangles. Charles was going to fill the space with circles and swirls and complicated cross rhythms and counterpoints creating four layers of crescendos and reflecting diminuendos. He would use bright colours to shade the figures, pulling them out of the passive light. Oh, what light there would be! The swan, all in whites, will pale beside the splendid pale flesh of his Leda. It will be a rape and it will be lovemaking. It will be rapture and horror. That is the essence of the moment. Zeus is both God and Beast. Leda is both Queen and slave. There will be no moderation - no civility. All of the aspects will be aswirl together in whites and reds, blues and flashing, hot greens, triumphant together. Warm colours in the light, cold in contrast, but not. It can be done with colours... with good paints... by a good painter. They can be contrasting while complimenting.
Ghislaine listened eagerly and she stoked his fire with questions. She gave exclamations of delight to flatter him and because she was delighted. He talked - they talked all through the morning, so that even when Ghislaine had completed her cleaning of Montaigne's hooves and had wrapped his feet in clean white bandages (not well tied), she remained and listened to him effuse his passion. When finally his words flagged, she permitted him to take up his paintbrush. He painted well, this morning. There were no pauses for second thoughts. He was not impeded by doubt. Any obstacles to manifesting his vision lay in his brush tips, not his decisions.
Toward lunch, while Charles painted, Ghislaine sat properly poised on the piano bench. The drop cloth had been tugged back and she, in silence, danced her fingers atop the black and white keys. She dare not play a note. Everyone in the house would know where she was and who she was with. Her father in library would hear it. Her mother too, even were she in the kitchen or garden. Madame de Grenville would approve, but Boniface would use the pretext to burst upon the scene and practise some knavery. Her father would rush in too. Ghislaine smiled and thought that Adele would be proud of her.
Four fingers began to vigorously beat out the Allegro con brio like a heroic breaking storm. Ghislaine played The Waldstein and did not care who it stirred, or how out of practise she was with the piece. When she erred, she kept right on playing.
At the opening beats of the Beethoven, Jacqueline raised her head from the darning labour. She knew the performance. She had turned pages for Ghislaine on this very piece last summer, patiently waiting for the girl to end her errors, and now the child was bent on furthering her mistakes. She wished to brandish her faults like a wielded sword against the world. It would be her ruin. The dark stocking was piled aside and Jacqueline strode with furious steps to exit the bedroom confinement.
There in the hall, the mother was confronted by long indecision. The Waldstein beat and beat and bounced from door to door in that small hall. The closed portal to the conservatory had been her goal two bars before, but no more. What could she hope to do? To burst in upon the pair, in her matronly way, would be ridiculous to each of them. She would be mocked, even by her own daughter, but she could not be a catalyst for their derision. They would demean every argument of hers - pay no heed - and instead rebel even more. She had to intervene. She had to put an end to this infamy - this childishness, but she could only fail. They were already laughing at her she knew. Jacqueline tried to hear behind that door, pressing an ear to its panels, but Beethoven's rolling avalanche of notes buried everything beyond. It was hopeless. No.
She dashed into the dining room. There was only Adele and that fool Boniface. The kitchen? Adele said 'no, Madame de Grenville was in her bedroom'. In the middle of the day? Adele did not defend her mistress. In the brief imperfect pauses that the playing girl allowed, Jacqueline knocked hard, three clear times, upon the master bedroom door.
"Who?"
She entered. When, with an oily click, the wooden wall was sealed behind, those pounding piano chords continued unstopped, streaming on through every crack and now, two doors beyond, the artist's little right hand was playing pretty raindrops. In the clutter and the ruin of the room's decor, it took some seconds to find the mistress of the house. Madeleine was seated before her mirror, dressed for taking the sun, and twisted about to watch the dark intruder. One ungloved hand rested on Madeleine's left cheek, as though it were some demure unfolded fan.
Thunderclaps of music urged Jacqueline to rush for the shelter of sisterhood, yet she stood, chord-tossed, and ordered her attire with determination.
"Madame," spoke Madame Ferland.
"Madame," responded Madeleine. "Your daughter plays well."
The skin of Jacqueline's cheekbones pinched her lips and pulled itself up tight. Madeleine shifted on her stool from the silent mother and allowed the rolling Romance to turn her to the mirror.
"Madame, you must intercede. You must somehow end this thing. This love thing." Neither cues nor nods were given up by Madeleine to Jacqueline, so the latter continued. "Ghislaine must be made to understand. Charles must be stopped." Madeleine just looked to the glass and lightly prodded at her own countenance. Jacqueline titled her head, quietly assessing the impact of this mute reply and then advanced into the bedroom. She placed her fingertips lightly upon the shoulders of Madeleine, who bristled briefly. In the reflection, Jacqueline saw the other's hand move certainly to conceal some red flaw upon her face's flesh. Uncertain what to do with this, Jacqueline pressed on.
"Madeleine, over these past weeks, I feel that I have come to know your heart. It is a good heart - a sweet heart. Thank you, and your husband, for doing so much for us already. For me, my husband, and for Ghislaine. Your generosity is a Christian virtue and a blessing upon us."
The cold hands of Jacqueline tensed upon her companion's shoulders then. Madeleine watched the face of the pale woman behind her through the mirror, and the piano continued to encircle them both in a swirl.
"Madeleine, I turn to you because only you can save us. Ghislaine needs you so desperately to intervene, but she does not know it. She knows only that she loves and admires and respects you. She would listen to you. You are her dearest friend, Madeleine."
But Madeleine was in no mood for this. She bit back. "She should listen to you. She should admire and respect her mother."
"She does not."
"You say she does not."
Madeleine poked at her cheek, feeling the sting again, and took her hand away enough to see again the red welt handprint. Jacqueline adapted quickly.
"That Charles is a monster, and so is his friend Boniface. They think they manipulate us. They think that they can make any woman their playthings. Did you not see Monsieur Roy audaciously flirting with me on Sunday morning? In front of my husband? We cannot allow the men to win every battle. There must be some feminine salvation. Madeleine, save Ghislaine from him and we strike a victory for our sex."
Jacqueline moved around the side of Madeleine and knelt to give urging. From here, Madeleine had no hope to hide the mark. The sonata rolled along with the momentum of a hastening steam engine.
"It is only music, my dear. It is nearly lunch in any case and then it will all be over."
Rising, Jacqueline alarmed, "What if they do not come for lunch? They are insistent on showing off their romance. It is ridiculous!"
Madeleine agreed, "It is ridiculous."
The music ended. Ghislaine held the final note too short.
Lowering her hand and unmasking her cheek, Madeleine drew open make-up case to create a better.
"Why?" Jacqueline gestured grandly. "Why do you take such pleasure in my suffering? Do you want to see my daughter deflowered by that misshapen creature? She is too vulnerable. She is too innocent. Do you not remember how it is at that age?"
Madeleine applied her practised paint and said, "I do."
"Then please, Madeleine, be her sister in this thing. Be her friend. Be her saviour!"
Madeleine sighed and tried, "I will do what I can."
Jacqueline shifted so that her reflection stood again behind the other. I thank you. My husband thanks you. Ghislaine will thank you. God bless you, Madeleine."
"We shall see."
Jacqueline kissed the unmarked cheek of her dear friend and then departed down the hall that now merely echoed with each footfall.
While at the mirror, Madeleine and her reflection frowned.