CHAPTER SIXTEEN
DEATH
The Leda and the Swan of Boniface almost preceded Ambrose as he pushed his way through the door to the Conservatory. It took some effort to get the wet work through the opening without the paint touching anything, but it was much easier after Ghislaine lighted to her father's aid. Once it was safely clear, Ambrose asked his daughter to also fetch Boniface's Madonna. "We need to see everything!" She bundled her skirts and dashed off.
Boniface himself stood off, posed for contemplation, and raised neither finger nor eyebrow to affect the presentation. Casting a glance out the window, he eyed the carriage and envisioned some dramatic escape across the countryside, but even the tedium of these barnyard dramatics was better than the solitude of regrets. And so this was Gaston and this was Roland and she was choosing ugly, imbecilic they over him, and so there must be something more, and maybe there could be something more.
Charles was next to return with the Leda work of Ambrose. He managed through the portal without trouble and afterward paused to keep a foot propping open the door for Ghislaine to skip in with her prize. The collected paintings, including those two that Roland had brought back from Paris, were all arrayed against the eastern wall. Ambrose busied himself shuffling them around with as much fussiness as Madame Ferland orchestrating seating in the carriage. Charles and Ghislaine stepped back to take a look and joined the small crowd of onlookers. Gaston Hector had managed to find himself a pair of chairs from under drop cloths and had lowered himself into one. The other remained empty beside him, despite several times pivoting it conspicuously as he sought to make eye contact with Madeleine. She would have none of it and paced alone. Even when Roland might move to her side, she would turn away and stretch out her legs in the open space of the music room. Jacqueline Ferland was seated with solemnity and silence on the edge of the piano seat, unmoved but for those restless eyes.
Side by side, the three swans were seducing their three Queens. On the left was the splendid start by Boniface, with the marvelous, proud nude of the Spartan Queen dominating the incomplete composition. The lines and colours were already balanced and flowing. Even half unimagined, it was a joy to behold. The flesh of the nude was a delicate masterwork. In the center, as well unfinished, was the ordered altarpiece of Ambrose. The intersecting lines of geometry, made subtle by the movements of swan and girlish queen, told of a deep respect for time and stillness. This work was solidly in league with the masters and, when complete, there seemed nothing to prevent it from being of their level of accomplishment. The old man could paint. So certainly grounded and rounded was the design of Ambrose that almost any work to its right and left would be ordered into contemplative submission. But what Montaigne had made last night broke from the constraining genius of the central work. Propped up beside this stately work of ages past, Charles' swan seemed a hurried mess of sloppy paint and imprecision. The colours burst from the canvas and danced naked with abandon, each caring nothing for the purpose of their fellows. But they flew on thick wings of light and shadow, and for those who stood and watched the flight of those colours, there was a wild majesty in the air.
Beside the clearly broken Triptych, the residue of the three artists was pale. Montaigne's drab evening and coal-smoked Gare d'Est seemed childishly moody. The wrestling angels of Boniface were well drawn and designed, to be sure, but it was only paint and not flesh that those celestials wore. His Madonna was a well painted corpse. She did not gaze back at her admirers with that certain and fixed stare.
“I think Charles’ is the best,” delighted Ghislaine. She pranced on to her booted toe tips to lean to the great bear and grin, “It’s beautiful.”
Ambrose let his wrinkled mouth arc into a dry sliver smile and said, “My thoughts exactly. Youth has a way.”
Roland pursed his lips and restrained his voice. Behind him though, Gaston Hector had no such restraint. “It is ridiculous. You cannot just hurl paint at a canvas and then sit there beaming like an idiot and calling it a masterpiece. It is terrible.” The brow of Montaigne drew down to darken his glower at Gaston.
“I like it!” Ghislaine leapt to the defense of Charles. “It is not terrible.”
“Darling Child,” was Gaston’s easy dismissal. He turned then to give a sympathetic smile and shrug for Madame Ferland’s benefit. “I’m sure that she will grow into a fine and intelligent young lady.” Jacqueline’s skin was pulled in tight. She made no answer.
Ambrose did not defend Ghislaine, but Charles when he countered, “It is terrible - terrible and frightening. This could set the world to trembling. It is that good. If… this could change everything.”
Roland wrinkled his nose and paced about before the assembled paintings. Stopping before the wild monster of Charles, he gave his thought, “You will never finish it, and you will fix it before you do. You will come to understand…”
Boniface snorted and threw his hands in the air.
Roland continued, “You will come to understand how wrong you were. It is clear to us all…”
“Not all of us,” said Ambrose.
“No! Some of us like it,” added Ghislaine.
"What is there to like," wondered Gaston aloud.
“Ghislaine,” rebuked Madame Ferland. She lowered her voice to command, “Stop trying to be the center of attention. This is for the men.”
Then Madeleine threw her shoulders back and announced that she too liked what Charles had done. “It has some great ideas.” With a special smile just for Charles, she said, “It shows courage and genius, I think.” To further show her support, Madame de Grenville approached the painter to rest a small hand upon his back. He tensed, but Montaigne did not twist away. The narrow eyes of Jacqueline took in all of these movements and too the reddening face of Roland and the animated countenance of Ambrose.
"Boniface," said Ambrose, gesturing to indicate Charles, "We must all three take up this new style. This may be the future. This is our movement." And the jaw of Jacqueline fell open and her eyes opened wide and her tongue lay limp. Boniface was not aghast, but instead rolled his eyes up to consider tiny cracks in the ceiling.
Ghislaine’s skirts swirled. “I’ll try it. Is there a trick? What must I do?”
“Ghislaine.” Jacqueline sat tense and tight upon the narrow bench.
There was Madeleine, pressing warm against the spine of Charles, urging him to have courage, and whispering strong words of support. The flickering gaze of Roland flashed from his wayward wife to the eager Ambrose and then to Gaston, sitting like some glowering toad at the back of the room. That old friend shook his head slowly as a sign of alarm for Roland.
Charles spoke to Ghislaine and Ambrose, saying, “I can teach what I did, but we can learn together. This is an experiment. We will see where it goes.”
“Yes,” whispered the sweet voice behind his back.
Roland took a sudden step toward his wife. “Madeleine, you can’t do this. It is not good. You are ruining… he is… you are all trying to ruin everything. What Boniface did is good. Ambrose has a great painting there.”
“It is pedantic,” corrected Ambrose, but Roland continued.
“Yours,” said Boniface.
“Everything. All of this, except what Charles has done.”
“No,” insisted Roland, taking another step. “You are blinded. Use your intellect! Use your reason. Your training. This,” as he gestured as though pained at the canvas of Montaigne, “ is madness. It is foolishness. Do not be taken in by the false God. This is as bad as any impressionist has done. You are betraying beauty!”
The defenders of the artist clamoured, but Roland raised his voice to greater volumes, “It is ugly! It is bad.”
Charles moved swiftly for his tools and scrambled with ungainly great hands for the green flecked knife. He spun then to face his accuser, clenching the weapon within a tight fist and paused just long enough for everyone to understand the violence that he was poised to make.
“No,” shrieked Madeleine, while she fought to hold back the sweeping shoulder of Montaigne.
Ambrose started to move, but Ghislaine was faster and she hurled her young body between the savage and his painting. “Cut me instead,” she cried out. Jacqueline abruptly stood, but the hand was stayed. Charles flung the knife clattering aside and stood facing Ghislaine, until Madeleine drew him gently away.
Following after came the long bearded Ambrose though, waving crooked fingers and arching his brow to say, “Steel yourself, man. There will be doubters… naysayers! They will scoff. You know them. You’ve always known them. You are better than them. We all of us are… you, I, and Boniface too. We’ve got something here, deep in the wilds of Amance, and I may never get another chance at it. This could be it. You could be my chance. I could be your chance. We, together, can make great art. Haven’t you always wanted that? You would destroy it now?”
“Don’t account me in your madness, old man. You’re both worthless to me if this is what you think art is.” Boniface spoke from a position of indifference.
“It is what art can be,” urged Ghislaine, stepping away from the painting without knowing that her costume had smeared pieces of the contested masterpiece in the making. Jacqueline gestured firmly for her daughter to come to her side, but the maiden would not pay heed and she followed after her father.
“Not for me. I’m done with this scheme,” said Boniface.
Madame de Grenville was not easily defeated. “We shall find another lyric painter then. They are common enough.”
“Aren’t we all,” was his smart reply. “You shall find another and another, ‘til the end of your handsome days. There is a dark deep cistern of young men that will suit your needs, for a time, until you need another.”
Madeleine's face reddened only briefly and it was fair hid. When the ashen visage of Roland looked to Gaston, he got only another shake of the head. Even Charles was able to see the insult, but was likewise incapable of a response. Nor did Ambrose call the young man to account, only continuing his arguments.
"Boniface, wait. When your moods have passed, when you can sit and see what has been done, you will see that we can all of us gain by this. You are a great painter, but this is the future, and you are the past." So uncharacteristically captivated was Ambrose that he did not notice the departure of his wife from the crowded chamber.
"These are not moods... " began Boniface, but Gaston Hector took advantage of a pause to pursue his own line, "They are petulant whims. They are pride's price." So now it was the turn of Boniface to answer with cold silence.
Courage rallied Roland to say, "I will replace you all and try again next year."
Ambrose answered, "And we shall triumph despite you in the Salon."
"The Salon could never take this, Ambrose." Charles said this and flailed helplessly with impotent hands. "They are right." But the defenders of the painting surged forward around Charles and sought to encourage. Madeleine, Ghislaine, and Ambrose pressed him with solace and praise. Boniface witnessed this fawning with a perturbed smirk, yet he did not yet depart or partake in snarking remarks on this seeming idolatry.
A light knock came before Adele entered to give a quiet message for her master: a summons. Gaston pushed himself up onto his feet and cane, to waddlingly lead Roland, when he well knew the way. Alone among those surrounding Montaigne, Madeleine watched her husband leave, but she remained and attended to the healing task.
Madame Ferland stood unpoised and pacing to receive Hector and Roland in the sitting room. She knew they both would come and that had been good to her plan, but her tension could not be so soothed. They entered curious and quiet. Madame greeted them with the slightest formal curtsey, and then proceeded to lay out her opening argument. It began with a modest address to Roland, but there was a tremble in her tone of voice.
"Monsieur, I am blessed to hope that your heart is aligned with mine own. Everything is in ruins. All that you have tried to achieve for us, Charles has undone. He is a monster, and he has ruined everything." Roland sought to appear as refined as he could while listening to the words of this fishmonger's wife, while Gaston hobbled about the room poking distractedly through Boniface's workspace. Madame Ferland brandished a worn black notebook as she found her voice, "You have to do something. Your wife will not. She adores him. She will do anything for him and that Boniface. I have it all in here. Their hours apart. Their hours together. Their time working... their time at play. She mocks you, Monsieur, and you allow that man to shame you and ruin you."
Roland could feel the cold air of her breath on the hairs of his moustache. "Madame, what would you have me do? So I will end it and put them all on the next train. It is done. It is over."
"But the shame," she urged. "It is all in here. You will let them escape. You will let them continue to try to make bad paintings." An idea suddenly occurred to Jacqueline and she tried a new angle, "They will go away, doing their shameful, ugly art, and it will be known everywhere as the art that Monsieur de Grenville gave birth to. The Child of Roland. That horrible refuse must be stopped. It cannot be permitted to be painted anywhere, by anyone. My poor husband is poor, Monsieur. You could pay him to not paint like Monsieur Montaigne. If you bought his good paintings - his fine paintings, he would not turn away. I'm sure of it."
This brought a wince from Roland that twisted up his handsome face. He looked past the woman to Gaston before he answered, "I will see what I can do."
"That is what she said. That is what your wife said when I asked her to put a stop to his seductions of my daughter. They are all in it together - this debauch." She pointed a wild and quivering finger toward the other room. "They are shameless!"
"Madame..."
"Roland, have you seen this?" Gaston lifted a small unfinished canvas that had been forgotten at the base of the painter's easel. This was only a quick sketch in oils, perhaps done in an afternoon, a sunny afternoon by a riverbank, but the details, though quickly mapped, were precise. Clearly it was the same ford that the two gentlemen had crossed that morning and clearly it was the naked portrait of his wife. This was no image pulled from the young man's imagination, but was proof of shame.
"Ah! Here, look," exclaimed Madame Ferland and she quickly leafed through the small sketchbook that she had also brought. Her frantic fingers found it, near the beginning, a few pages of the same woman in the same pose. "My daughter was there too! And Charles. They all went together to the river and who knows what else they did there. Your wife set it all up, and she tricked us both." Anger curled her tongue as she finished, "She has played us for fools."
Looking anew at the painting study, Gaston grinned, "A debauch. But it is not betrayal, because he loves her."
Jacqueline restrained her response, but Roland gave an opposing voice, "I do not believe any of this."
"You most certainly do," said Gaston.
The quivering finger of Jacqueline swirled about in the air and landed on her cheek. "Did you not see the mark that he left? The welt from where he struck her? He has beaten your wife, Monsieur."
"Who?"
"Charles, of course. The monster. He has beaten your wife and you will let him walk away to make a mockery of us all... and art."
Gaston frowned, "Madeleine would not stand to be struck, but her make up was heavy."
"I did not see," said Roland. "But could this be true? She would have told me."
"When she masks the mark, she covers a hundred lies." Such was the wisdom of Gaston Hector.
"It is true, I tell you. Ask her yourself. See it for yourself. I saw her cheek before it was covered. I saw her torn dress, here at the collar. She is not wearing it today, but I saw it." The sketchbook was dropped and now Madame Ferland was turning precisely to the page in her notes with these details. "I should never have asked her to intervene. I did not realize that she was arranging everything for them. Such debauchery."
Roland stood shaking his head, trying to find reason in his turmoiled brain.
The cane of Gaston took the man's weight as he leaned forward toward Roland to urge, "There is one thing you can do now. One honourable thing."
But Roland buried his face in his palms. "No. No. That is not who I am."
"Be that man," hissed Jacqueline.
"Then you have lost her. See, even now she defends the man that beat her against you, the man who left her alone to bed whom she chose. She has broken faith with you, because she sees in him strength, passion, and honour. It is not who you are, but it is who Charles Montaigne is, and she desires him for it. Maybe she loves you, but her passion is for another. Her respect. Admiration. You must win it back."
Roland rolled back his shoulders and his thin neck straightened out his pointed chin. The long blond moustache trembled as he carried himself to the desk in the corner of the room. Jacqueline and Gaston watched in silence, seeing the man now resolved. They saw him bend to open a drawer and take out the glossy mahogany case and set it down squarely centered on the oaken desktop.
"Gaston, what do we do? Do you, as my second, set it up with him? I want it to be now. There can be no delay. None of this pistols at dawn silliness. We will do it right and proper."
"You are resolved then?"
The long fingers of Roland stroked the top of the polished wooden case. "I am resolved. Honour demands it. He is a monster and monsters must be shot down." And the long fingers of Jacqueline caressed the cover of her notebook as her eyes flashed from one man to the other. She could hardly breathe but remained wordless.
Silently, Roland's fingers guided the mahogany case open and then all three in that room beheld the green velvet frames that were all filled with blue steel and walnut, but for one stark silhouette.
"Gone!"
"Who?"
All eyes flew to the door to imagine the thief. One of that cabal had a loaded pistol under their pillow. Someone was prepared. Someone was planning murder. Roland moved quickly then. He pulled the widower pistol from its place and raised it up to ear. He tested the oil in the mechanisms, listening for the work of steel. Meanwhile his other hand lifted out a rod from its seat and dropped it down the barrel. A quiet dull thud told him that the load was good.
"Roland?" Gaston inched closer to watch.
"Nothing can change destiny," declared Roland de Grenville.
Moments later, Adele gasped to see her master stride angrily across the hall, pistol in hand, with Monsieur Hector and Madame Ferland not half a step behind.
They burst into the conservatory and caught the new-art conspirators entirely by surprise. Roland immediately had the firearm raised with straight elbow, pointed at the heart of Charles Montaigne. He held his ground there, just past the door, and allowed his two confederates to stream past him and into the room. Jacqueline moved to take hold of Ghislaine and draw her from the path of the bullet. The mother would not allow the daughter to throw herself in front of a weapon again. Not this time.
Ambrose held his hand up toward Roland as though it would stop a spinning lead ball. He certainly had no words that could stop it yet.
Roland did not wait for the exclamations of surprise and outrage to subside, but launched into his accusation. "Sir, you have laid hands upon my wife. You will answer for it this hour."
Charles was thunderstruck, but he raised his arms only to ease Madeleine away from his side. He would stand full on before the leveled pistol to take this punishment from the heavens. It is how it had to end, he thought. It was inevitable. For Madeleine, the world was awhirl and she could make no sense of it. When Gaston Hector took her arm to draw her further from the side of Charles, she could not yet resist his pull.
"This bullet is not for you, Darling Angel. You have loaded it for another, again."
"No," screamed Madeleine at Roland. "Do not do this thing!" She turned to Charles then, "Don't just stand there. Fight him! He is going to kill you." She broke from Gaston's weak grip upon her sleeve and rushed toward her husband, saying, "You are wrong. He has done nothing."
For a tremulous heartbeat, Roland spun to aim the weapon at his wife, but it was only a flash until Madeleine rushed past in a wild flurry of white skirts and through the open door. The firearm swung back to square against Charles once more. Roland called out the name of his wife as she ran, but on she fled.
Echoing after came the name of Madeleine from the lips of Boniface Roy.
Ambrose took a try at peacemaker. “Roland, this is not you. You are a man of peace and art and beauty.”
The gun remained leveled at the great barrel chest of Charles as Roland answered, “He is an enemy of beauty, a despoiler of it. I kill him in Beauty’s name. Art will not weep for you, Charles Montaigne.”
“He is a genius,” claimed Ghislaine. She tried to break free of her mother’s tight grip, but could only send words to the side of Charles. “He is a great soul, and would never hurt anyone. He did not do what you think he did. Oh God, put it down or I will die!”
Jacqueline pulled Ghislaine closer and got a tighter grip upon the lithe arms of the maiden. “Such childishness. Such stupidity. You shame your father.”
“No,” said Ambrose. “She does not.”
Through the open doorway, where Adele watched aghast, Madeleine hurried past, into the center of the room and there stood with both trembling palms tightly clenching the walnut handled pistol and pointed it at the startled face of her husband. All were thunderstruck. Gaston was first to act saying, “Angel, give me the pistol.”
“I would shoot you,” Madeleine exclaimed and swung the firearm to terrify Gaston, who immediately fell back from his advance. She aimed again at Roland. “I would shoot you,” she repeated, her voice more shrill.
Roland kept his aim on Charles, but his eyes flashed about from one face to another, incapable of seeing any clearly now. He could find no sentence for his wife. Finally, it was Charles who spoke the necessary words, “Madeleine, give me the pistol. Everything will be all right, I promise.”
“I would shoot him!”
“Nobody needs be shot. Give me the pistol, please, my friend.” Charles, fearless now in the face of death, reached out to Madeleine. She threw herself onto her knees, white fabric piling up around her like a cloud, and thrust the walnut handled pistol into his great ungainly hand. When the paint-stained flesh of Montaigne had wrapped itself around the carved flowers of the grip, she clutched at her face to muffle her despairing cry. Then did Madeleine turn to stare back with wild, tearing eyes at her husband and the red brand of a man’s hand was stained upon her cheek for all to see.
“There,” said Gaston, “There is the mark that condemns him.”
The fallen woman shook her head with silent ferocity. Roland stared at the wild and smeared face of his wife and shook his head in answer. Determination overtook his features once more when he looked into the eyes of Montaigne.
“I am your scoundrel.” Boniface stepped forward to take a place beside Charles. “I am the villain, the charlatan. When Madeleine defended herself from me, I slapped her. When…”
The gun shot startled all, and there were screams, and they saw Boniface fall. He staggered, and stumbled, with his left temple torn away and his brain all shattered. Madeleine reached for him, but he smacked his pretty face hard against the floor where he lay still and silent and Boniface Roy was no more.
Smoke curled out of the pistol. Madeleine threw herself over the bloody ruin of Boniface, but all other eyes were on the second pistol, in the hand of Montaigne, leveled and trembling with Roland on its aim. None dared issue a breath of protest or incitement. Charles took in one deep breath that filled his lungs with life, and he watched the dark barrel rise to put its bead on Roland's head. With the heavy exhalation of a sigh, his shoulder dropped, the pistol slipped lower, down past the chest of its target, to the tiled floor, and then left to slip uncocked from shaking hands.
Ambrose dropped, dumbfounded, onto some chair beneath a stark white drop cloth. Ghislaine, now freed, hurried to his side and sought to soothe his pale and sweating brow. Jacqueline too crossed the path of adversaries, stepping around the booted feet of Boniface, and went to her stricken husband's aid. As she passed by Monsieur de Grenville though, Madame Ferland said, "See what your schemes have brought us to. A man is dead, and we are all ruined. You will pay us for the whole of the summer and more, for this. Poor Ghislaine is distraught."
But Roland did not acknowledge her. His pistol was being neatly set down atop the piano, making certain to not let residue powder burn anything. He brushed his jacket and then drew fingertips along the long length of his moustache to set it right.
It was Gaston Hector that stepped then into the voiceless breach and said, "His death is a tragedy that none could have wished for. It is exactly the kind of thing that happens when passionate people are put together. Lord Byron, the English poet, was a brute and a scandalous rogue. Oh, there are rumours that I could tell, but he too has passed on. So we shall not speak ill of the dead." Gaston walked as he spoke, looking down at Madeleine with her white gown soaked in the blood that poured from the painter's shattered head. "They all die young, the lyrics. Did Roland mention that? The others will age and wither, but lyrics must flower and die." He bent over his cane to retrieve the pistol that had fallen from the hand of Charles. He carried it to the piano to join its mate. "You should hear Degas and Manet go at one another. They are like battling dogs unleashed. I've heard such oaths of anger from those desperate painters. You are not uncommon. This is all too common. We see it every day in Paris. It comes with passion. It comes with desire. End of story."
And somewhere near, though none could hear, some robin redbreast trilled his song, ‘Tra la la’.