CHAPTER FIFTEEN
RENTRE
Damien Hector led his father's Phaeton out to where Gaston and Roland waited. Roland, wearing his rakish blue top hat, was delighted at the prospect of travelling in such a sporty little carriage. Gaston meanwhile was analyzing the step up required into the buggy. The wheels were altogether too high and his spine altogether too spent.
"You will have no trouble with Napoleon, Uncle, but Chanticleer is highly strung. He'll start at anything and fears the smallest hare. "
"I'll make him fear my whip more if he does. We shall be fine, I'm certain."
Roland took the reins and passed them back through the harness while Damien worked the grumbling cripple up into his seat. When he was done with that, the nephew moved to give the rigging one last check. "It is the only true Phaeton in the district. When we had a better pair, there was nothing that could catch her. I wouldn't chance it now with this hen." Damien shook the bridle of Chanticleer and gave a scolding gaze.
Before the pair could get underway though, they had to stow two paintings. As arranged, Gaston had made the purchases prior to Roland's brief stay in Paris. The larger canvas was one done by Montaigne, perhaps when he was in some realist mood. It was of a great train station like some beached grey whale with black ribs of steel sticking out of her. She was scarred and dirty, grand and evil, yet somehow pathetic. The other painting was a pair of near-to-naked angels wrestling. Their perfect pink flesh was pressed and pulled by one another as colourful raiment wrapped and rolled around the contestants to complete the composition. The background looked very much like the fenced in back garden of some bourgeois Parisian bachelor.
The lesser works might be of some embarrassment to the two painters, but it might also show them both how much they are able to compromise when they have to. Artists, thought Roland, too often pride themselves on the vice of stubbornness. They have to be shown the virtues in compromise and change.
Casting a glance back over his shoulder, Roland looked to the window of Gaston's borrowed bedchamber. There was 'Darling' Cici, watching their departure from behind glass. She was not yet made up and hardly dressed, but she was still just pretty enough that with some life put into her, she could be a real charmer. This morning though, there was only detachment as she watched her benefactor and his friend depart.
When the horses did get on the roadway, any conflict between the two men from the previous evening seemed forgotten. The sunlight and the journey were not entirely distracting Roland from morose thoughts though. While Roland tried to keep a light mood, Gaston could see that the return to his wife and her lovers was filling him with certain dread. He wore high spirits with the same aplomb and skew as he wore his hat but Gaston knew him well, despite the years since their last holiday together. Since the marriage between Roland and Madeleine, it had been necessary to give her the impression that the two men had ceased their camaraderie, and they certainly did not see one another often anymore. He could not come to the wedding and would not be allowed in the house. If Gaston was to be at a party then Madeleine might refuse to attend. She wanted him removed from her world and as importantly, from her husband's, but if she was going to play with her new friends this summer, Roland was resolved to bring in an old friend to put things into perspective.
While driving slowly, M. Hector chatted entirely amiably with M.de Grenville on every subject but the impending connubial reunion. He spoke of the certain fall of MacMahon in the autumn elections, and how Gambetta's Republicans were sure to win a triumph. Gaston was particularly fond of discussing this sort of political gossip because it allowed him to mention no end of people that he knew and could make himself out as a confidante of all sides in the conflict. Roland tried to turn the subject to that fellow Rodin and his Age of Bronze life casting, but Gaston had no friends that knew the sculptor so the conversation flagged. Liberty's arm, holding aloft the torch that enlightened the world, had sailed for New York last week and Gaston was happy to talk about his lunch with both Bartholdi and Viollet-le-Duc, where he gleaned all sorts of information about the problems besetting the vanity project and entirely whose fault it was that it would never be finished.
After a brief distraction into the miserable and murky politics of the building of The Sacred Heart, and after Roland once more failed to navigate the discourse toward the cultural, Gaston hit upon a topic that was sure to interest his travelling companion.
"I know your Montaigne, you know. Your mountain. He was in my regiment during ... during the war. I could walk then, of course."
"You aren't so bad now, Gaston. Maybe some exercise..."
"Would you believe me if I said that it was not nationalism that made me enlist in our debacle, nor Bonapartism? I put on the red and blue for a broken heart."
"Everyone had a reason. Everyone in Paris was supposed to enlist. Nobody has to defend their decisions."
"I do not," protested Gaston. "I swear that I'd wake up wishing for a bullet to stop that pained heart. If I enlisted, I thought, I would be distracted by danger and discipline, and so have no time to mourn." Roland took too long to decide if he needed to remind his friend that Madeleine did not die, but only married, and that he ought to be happy for her despite the loss. He also considered stirring up the old chestnut of Gaston's casual affections with mistresses, but he judged that to be both antagonistic and futile so he refrained, which allowed Gaston to find his narrative footing again. "A sous-lieutenant I, privet Montaigne was in our grenadier company. Everybody knew him. He stands out, both in stature and temperament, as you know.
"Did you know he painted?"
"What does that matter? Let me continue. Everybody knew him. Even for a grenadier he was big, and that beard. He should have been a pioneer but he hadn't the calluses for the work. It didn't matter. We all worked the barricades - putting them up and tearing them down. We didn't know why he enlisted. I mean, everyone had a different reason and most didn't shout it to the rooftops, but Privet Montaigne was queer. He didn't seem to take to soldiering, but he never complained either. Mostly, he never spoke, as though we were all beneath him. He had no comrades in the company, but no enemies either. Even the corporals and sergeants seemed satisfied with his deportment, except for the beard. Sergeant Hurvet had a fit trying to get him to shave. He asked me once for permission to take the shears to him, but I would not authorize it. None of us would. We were national guardsmen and not soldiers. Hurvet kept trying to make us regulars, so we officers took special delight in foiling him at every turn. So Hurvet took a disliking to Privet Montaigne, but nothing ever came of it, we think. Maybe something did happen. Let me tell you. On the 21st of May, when the regulars began their assault, it was the first opportunity for the faint hearted to desert to the army, or to throw down their arms and hide. None of us did. Not a one. I was so proud of our regiment. We fought at Vaugirard and did quite well. We drove them back, twice. The grenadiers led a counterattack and we got them back to the gates, but not out. There were so many, but not enough. It was hot work, and exciting. I can see why men join the army and spend their lives there. It isn't for us though, is it.
"And it wasn't the life for Privet Montaigne either. He survived the bayonet charge. I saw him in the front rank, I'm sure. Sometime in the night though, he disappeared. He deserted, we all knew. Now, the next morning when it was reported to Sergeant Hurvet, there was born a bright gleam in the little man's eye and off he stormed, off on his own, to bring the big grenadier back. That evening, we had orders to move and Hurvet and Montaigne still had not returned. Hurvet never did. We never heard what happened to him. Me, I would wager that Hurvet did find his man but that Montaigne killed him. The sergeant wouldn't have given up and there were no regular soldiers where Hurvet was going. What else could have happened?
"Later in the siege, someone said that Montaigne had been found alive. He was at home, just sitting at home, but his apartment building was all barricaded up, and his room too, and he was shooting anyone that entered his block, they said, regardless of what uniform they wore - republican, communard, imperialist, or Prussian. He was a deserter though, from our own Regiment, the proud hundred and thirty seventh! I kept seeking any opportunity to go after him, but events were getting out of control. I mean, we were always marching, counter-marching, putting up barricades or tearing them down. There was never a chance. We never had a chance, Roland. We had no training, no food, and not enough artillery. They beat us, you know. Eventually everyone quit fighting. We all went home, just like Privet Montaigne, but then we hid. We wanted the fighting to stop when we knew that we could never win. There is courage in ending a war, Roland. You don't fight on.
"When it was over... when my part was over, I went looking for Privet Montaigne and he was where they said he was. The barricades were still up but everyone was skirting past them. They avoided the house. I found a darling old widow there, Madame Darlon, and she told me of the madman who lived beside her. He would poke his rifle and bayonet out the door when anyone was heard on the steps, and sometimes he would run up and down the stairs to defend the outer barricades when he saw trouble coming from his yellow curtained window. She said to take note of those pale lemon drapes from the street, for sometimes his Chassepot sticks out of there and sometimes he takes shots at people who look like they might irritate him. She thought for sure that he would shoot at me, and I thought I could see something at the window, but he did not fire and I am still here. I asked Madame Darlon what he does for food and she said that he lowers a basket sometimes from that window. In that basket are small paintings - landscapes and still life and genre scenes, she said, and he would wait, holding the little knotted string that was tied to the basket, until one of his friends or some merchant or an art dealer, or anyone she supposed, would come and replace the painting with small amounts of food. He'd yank on the string quickly to pull it up before anyone could pilfer his provisions. Somehow, he survived the siege that way. End of story. I don't know how any of us survived though. Somehow. We all got through it. Many of us got through it."
Chanticleer and Napoleon, by this time, had delivered the pair of men to the de Grenville estates without incident. The phaeton rolled up in front of the modest estate with its narrow windows and nobody was there in the rough courtyard to greet them.
"I hope Samuel has not yet left to fetch me from the station", said Roland while he re-adjusted his azure top hat.
"He hasn't," answered Gaston, "He always leaves the carriage house doors open after he leaves... unless you broke him of that habit."
Roland looked at the closed doors of the out building as though seeing them for the first time. He noted the chipped paint, the rusted hinges, and their security. "I'd never noticed. You'll come in for a drink, at least."
At least. Gaston draped reins and applied the brake, and then paused long to look at the gravel ground, appreciating the pain and trouble of the impending descent. He reached back to pass down the paintings for his more deftly dismounted companion. There was an energy gone from Roland now. He took the paintings down without enthusiasm and only then looked back to the closed front door of his summer home. Through the tall glass of a window, he could see some great commotion happening in the conservatory. The excitement intensified when Ghislaine threw up an arm to point out to all that Roland de Grenville had returned to the house.
Only Ghislaine rushed to the door to greet the returning Ulysses. His Penelope stood in the conservatory watching her husband, and his companion, through the glass. What games was he playing at? What was he doing bringing Gaston Hector here now? The shock disabled her thoughts. She watched Gaston clamber awkwardly to the ground, and nausea swirled through her rushing blood. It required a steadying hand against the piano. Gaston must have met him at the station. But why the early train? Madeleine looked around her in the studio. Ambrose and Charles had already forgotten Roland and were back talking about the painting, but Boniface and Jacqueline were watching her, the hostess, the assured one - the one who holds everything together all the time. She rallied quickly and tugged to set her skirt and blouse to rights. Did she look good? She had to look good, for Gaston. She had to appear happy and proud. Shoulders back. Chin up. Measured steps. Madeleine marched out to meet the threat, with the only imperfection being a hand that brushed her cheek, as though touching it would tell her that what was there remained hidden. Several steps behind crept Madame Ferland.
The Mistress of the House met the party in the foyer, where Ghislaine was trying to tell Roland all about Charles' painting and saying what success everyone else was having. Roland turned the two paintings for her to see and the young girl exclaimed delight over them both. Her enthusiasm for the grey railway station was heightened when she heard that Montaigne had crafted it and she leaned in closer to search for telltale signs of his new style in the immature work. Gaston, leaning his increasing weight upon his cane, lustily watched young Ghislaine bending over. The leer did not escape the notice of Madeleine. It both terrified and fortified her.
The radiant smile of Madeleine glowed through the concealer. Stepping between Ghislaine and Gaston as if they were no obstacles at all, she took the hands of her husband and raised herself upon toes to kiss his cheek in that way that she had long ago learned to do, despite the moustache of vanity.
"Welcome home, My Love. Ghislaine has told you how well your project comes." She released his thin fingers.
Roland inhaled the aromas of his wife as she withdrew and said, "She has. I am anxious to see..."
"Darling Angel." Gaston Hector beamed an angelic grin and held it until he caught the aloof look of Madeleine and then allowed it to slide perfectly, naturally into his self-satisfied smirk.
"Sir," she answered and looked to the now pudgy gold-ringed fingers of the man wrapped tight about the ivory handled walking stick, "You are welcome in our home." Gaston must have noticed her gaze, for his thumb softly, sensually stroked the side of the cane, until Madeleine turned back to her husband to say, "You must be parched. I'll have lemonade brought to the conservatory. We will find the others there."
Clutching the painting by Charles, Ghislaine urged, Lets have a show of all the paintings. Everything!
Gaston was not finished though and interrupted once more saying, "You look even more beautiful than I remember, Darling Angel. Your small portrait no longer does you justice." Roland shot such a sidelong glance at his old friend that Gaston was obliged to acknowledge it with a wiggle of his eyebrows and an addendum, "Your husband must forever watch over you, for you are his joy." Even Ghislaine caught the innuendo and was startled by the way that the cripple angled himself forward on his cane at every pronouncement.
Roland was alert and grasped Madeleine's hand before she could pull it away. He said, "I do not need to watch over my wife, for when I close my eyes, she is ever there before me."
Ghislaine was still trying to puzzle over the words while Madeleine smiled charmingly in her husband's direction for her new guest's benefit. Her instinct was to save him. She should try to turn his phrasing into something clever. Gaston sped in before she could resolve herself to action, saying "Well for you, Roland, for your eyes are ever closed." He started clopping down the hall toward the conservatory, expecting the others to follow on behind. They did.