CHAPTER SIX
Innocent Intrigues
It was a small room, cluttered with additional trunks and some of Madame Ferland's few dresses. Certainly, from Ghislaine's agitated perspective, the constant presence of her mother and father further diminished the space. It was the ritual, long held at their home in Paris, and now reinforced in the country since her return from school, that their evenings would be spent forever together. The slight girl felt entirely too large for the bedroom and her eyes were too often falling upon the clock on the wall. Ten o'clock was the time that she was sent to her bed, in the servant's room. Adele's room was tiny, all but unfurnished, and the shared bed uncomfortable. On this night though, she would be alone, for Adele slept each Friday and Saturday at her parent's house in the village. Tonight, Ghislaine would sleep alone. There she would be free to wait, alone, until the dawn. At that time she would assist in dressing her mother for breakfast. How she longed for the approaching hour of her liberation when she might escape to her isolated cell of solitude.
Tonight she was possessed of an even more particular impatience. Tomorrow her mother was going into the village and already Ghislaine had been granted liberty to remain here. Her heart raced at the prospect so that all of her efforts tonight were bent to masking her excitement. She must be calm. She must appear bored. She must appear to be without hope for fear that her dream would be taken from her.
In a chair at the foot of the bed, Monsieur Ferland was reading tonight's book, selected from the walls of the library wherein he shuttered himself away each day. Those volumes would, for their possibilities catch his eye and the pages would be set aside until his workday was done. The evening was for relaxing and tonight's find was a wonderful one indeed, thought he: Doctor Richer's Artistic Anatomy. He had seen the definitive work in Paris but only briefly. Never before had the opportunity to study it at leisure been presented.
He read aloud, "The knee, situated between the thigh and the lower leg, corresponds to the articulation of the femur and tibia. Considered together the condyles of the femur surmounting the tuberosities of the tibia constitute a quadrangular mass. The patella projects in front of this mass and the inferior extremity of the patella almost descends to the articular interplane. The knee, therefore, offers four surfaces: an anterior surface, two sides, and a posterior surface, or bend of the knee."
Neither Ghislaine nor Jacqueline looked up from their own toils to acknowledge the comment, nor did they utter words. Ambrose expected and sought for nothing, yet he continued, saying, "Do you see how perfectly the knee is described. The whole book is like this: clear and perfectly thorough. He has done a grand thing."
Now Mother spoke, "It sounds marvellous, Ambrose" though her attention remained invested in the sewing work that she was performing. Repairs must be maintained. Nothing must decay.
Ambrose smiled, delighting in his domestic idyll, and looked back to his lamp lit pages with a final murmur of "Marvellous indeed."
Everything in Ghislaine's legs encouraged her to stand, to set down her needlepoint, and make a bolt for the door. Her instincts would not be heeded though. Too much was at stake. If there was a time for concession, it was tonight.
Tomorrow morning this girl was going to model for an artist. A real artist, not a stodgy, lifeless mechanic like her father. No, this artist was passionate, storm-tossed, and, most importantly, he was endowed with a soul as great as his masculine frame. Tomorrow she would sneak away. She would outmanoeuvre and outsmart her foolish, unsuspecting parents and present herself for the great man. The idea set her flesh to tingling. She would be his Leda! He would be staring at her, for hours perhaps, and seeing her as a woman. She was a woman, with a woman's body. This painter would, with fiery intensity, admire her beauty. She imagined his large, monstrous hands gripping her frail, feminine limbs and persuading - coercing her into some certain pose. He would make her so lovely and he would capture it all in the secret meeting, their secret morning, and it would be beautiful art.
Her boldness surprised her. There was fear, of course, but she was not fleeing the fear. Instead, all of her will was bent to embracing the fear. Tomorrow, she believed, would be the start of her new life. Tomorrow, when her womanhood was recognized, she would no more be a child. Monsieur de Grenville would see the painting and never again would he call her a young girl. He cannot see the painting, she knew. She would have to tell Charles. No one must know. It was only for him.
A new thought then flashed; what if the world might see her naked, to see her breasts bared to the fresh air. Did she dare? She glanced past her embroidering to reflect on the modest contours her youthful bosom and pulled her shoulders back.
"Ghislaine?"
Her mother had called her name. Breaking from her imaginings, the maiden paid heed and answered the roll call.
Jacqueline asked, "Are you certain that you need nothing from the market tomorrow? You do not wish to join me?"
The sharp intake of breath almost betrayed Ghislaine. She paused, steadying herself, and then answered her mother. "No. No, I will not encumber you. I have planned a walk to the river for tomorrow morning and am looking forward to the journey."
"Oh? I have not been to the river yet. We could go together when I return. Indeed, we could lunch in the village and then walk to the river afterwards. Shall I tell Adele that we two shall lunch elsewhere?"
"Oh no! I mean, you would be too tired. That would be too much walking for you."
Thankfully for Ghislaine, Ambrose supported his daughter's argument here. "You should take care, my dear. You know that it would exert you."
There was no smile on Jacqueline's lips as she looked back to her chore. "Yes, my love."
No one sighed. Breaths were all regulated. Madame Ferland studied the profile of Monsieur Ferland, who levelled a penetrating peer at his daughter, whose eyes, in their turn, were only cast down.
"There is a furrow well above the patella formed by a portion of the lowest part of the fleshy body of the vastus medialis. The most inferior part of this muscle forms a swelling, which is distinct from the rest of the muscle under certain conditions and under the influences of a special anatomical disposition. The most inferior fibers of the vastus lateralis often produce an analogous relief.” Ambrose critiqued the author, saying “Well, the doctor is certainly less specific here. I would have insisted upon a listing of all such specified anatomical dispositions."
The appointed hour refused to approach. It could neither be beckoned nor run to. She waited and as she waited, she watched her needlepoint crafting fail. She had been distracted and the light was too poor. Carefully, quietly, Ghislaine commenced to take out her misplaced work. No false movement betrayed her. So what if it did? She had no heart at all for this girlish decorative pastime. She had no desire to be decorative.
She would do art. It would not be the art that filled her childish sketchbooks. Never again would she take up watercolours to transfer some pretty daisies onto the wrinkled page. No more would she trace shadowed silhouettes. She would make art. She would create.
She could be what she wished her father had the will to be. Her mother, she knew, in all of her life had never had the faintest ember of creativity glow within the coals of her heart. She would never, not ever live to be what her mother was. It would kill her dead. It was her mother, she was certain, who had slain the spirit that her father must have once possessed. Surely, her father had once been a man like Montaigne, alive and vibrant. Perhaps he had been as Boniface: merry and splendid, and happy. Any happiness that he now had was fleeting. Worse, it was a hollow happiness. Ghislaine knew that her father had failed in his life and that every day he carried the full weight of that failure about him, shackled to his aging calves. Her mother, the overseer, would see that he never escaped his deserved fate.
Still, it was not yet ten o'clock. Her mother caught her eye looking to the clock. Ghislaine swiftly looked back to her work and neither expression nor word was exchanged between the women. She must have patience. There would come another day, Ghislaine knew, when she would finally spend an evening away from her parents but on that day, it was certain, she would be in the bed of her husband, whoever that might one day be. It angered her... saddened her, that there was no movement being made by her mother to find her a husband. Where was she to find one? Who could possibly induce her mother to surrender up custody? Maybe Montaigne.
Might Montaigne be encouraged to ask for her hand? She shook her head and instantly caught herself in the act. Patience! No betrayal!
Still, it was not yet ten o'clock.
Ghislaine tried to imagine herself parading down the aisle and seeing the huge and bearded Charles standing there, ugly, to await her. He must shave the beard, she thought, and when she tried to picture a shorn groom, it was suddenly handsome Boniface that stood beyond her white veil. The phantom was hastily banished. Instead, at her side, she imagined her father to be there, preparing to give her away with a small smile. He smiles? It was then that Ghislaine, terrified, realised that there, upon the altar that she was so elegantly, proudly marching on to, there lay a great black coffin and there, within the ebon tomb was her mother's haggard and lifeless body exhausted.
She gasped. When both parents swung their eyes to their daughter, they only saw the quick recovery of the girl, suckling upon her false pricked finger.
It was so very near yet still, it was not yet ten o'clock.
Ghislaine set herself up upon her feet and almost spilled her needlework to fall among her skirts to the floor. She held it. "May I be excused?" she asked, with as much casual ease as she could muster.
"But it is not yet ten o'clock" replied her mother.
Her father smiled though and defended her. "Of course you may go. You have given grievous injury to your digit and surely seek some great bandage to dress the wound."
Quick, the finger was back between Ghislaine's thin lips and she nodded with emphasis.
"Let me see," offered the mother.
Ghislaine winced (and so surely her mother must have seen the extent of her pain) but withdrew the finger to clasp it firmly. The maiden squared her shoulders and made like the toughest soldier in the face of double amputations. "I am well enough" she said. "It is nothing."
Now both adults gave their daughter tender smiles. "Such a trooper" said the old painter. Ghislaine could not determine to what extent he was playing his role.
"Go", commanded the mother. "Take proper care of it. I trust that you know what to do. I wish you a good night."
The girl kissed her mother and her father and then she left the gloomed room behind her for the day. One lamp was her escort out yet the empty hallway was so much brighter and warmer. As the door clicked closed behind her, it seemed to Ghislaine that she had sealed a tomb. She took eight steps down the turquoise carpet before she was at her own bedroom door, but she paused and looked at the tall wooden panel to her left that marked the sealed threshold to the conservatory. Beyond that thin wooden barrier was the giant Montaigne. What restless night would he endure tonight, as he tossed and turned in anticipation of her promise for the morrow? He would, she imagined, get no sleep this night. Nor would she. Into her bedroom she swept and her lamp swung about to light every nook. Adele was not there! Ghislaine pressed her hand to the dividing wall. He was only there, some several feet from where her fingertips spread. If only he knew. With one ear to the wall, she imagined she heard the tortured genius heartbeat. Her widespread fingers pulsed, pressing palm toward the barrier, and away, and in again, in sympathetic rhythm, as though to hold, to squeeze, to embolden the slowly pumping organ. And those slender fingers, like arachnid limbs, prepared to pounce... or to dance.
With a push, she was away from the wall and spinning, not too fast with lamp in hand, and celebrating her joys. It was a dance, which ended when she set down her light, beamed a smile, and dropped down her bottom onto the bed. Had he heard the squeal of those noisy springs? Ghislaine, for a moment, held in her breath, clutching both hands to her breast, but there were no stirring sounds from beyond the wall.
She let the lamp dim low and then, lit only by a flickering glow, undressed her body in movements certain, slow, precise and practiced. By one button at a time she unharnessed herself. As she rolled her last stocking past the least of her toes, a fancy took hold so that she took up a hand mirror, and gave a smiling pose. Too proud. Demure? She tried to craft dimples to no avail. There was a brief attempt at seductress but it was too frowny. Demure? Then sad, and serious - too pouty. It seemed, to her, a pretty face, but that was not at all the same as beautiful. Then her chin thrust up and her thin brows unfurled. Was she as splendid when she wore Madame de Grenville's expression? How does one flair nostrils without clenching one's face? Twisting her neck as she did, Ghislaine could not find a strong jaw line in the mirror. Flesh was pinioned and speculatively prodded, but the body was rounding and soft. Bland. She could fetch no jaw. Still, it was all pretty enough, if plain.
Ghislaine angled the mirror and lowered her gaze and then looked away and hurriedly put out the light. She would fumble for her nightdress.
Sleep though was not gentle with Ghislaine. It was unkind.
There, she was as Eve in the garden, naked, and alone. She waited to be found by the first man. The brute was carved from ruddy earth just days before and she was made to love him. She trembled. Drawn along through dreams, sensations of warm, wet clay hands of strong primeval man were gliding moist, but hard, across her fluid flesh. She gave way before his pressing touch.
With the morn, the sun half-heartedly pressed luminescence through the north facing curtains of the conservatory studio. It blessed the white cloth with a shimmering glow but the cotton drapery, with hand stitched trim of palest pink, defied this Celestial divinity.
Charles Montaigne twisted his brushes within a multi-hued rag and fretted at the dim ambiance. It was all too muted, too diffused. His gaze fell upon the waiting wooden page-turner's stool that stood center point and he issued a murmured curse through his wiry beard. He wanted a beam of warmth. His Leda needed the Sun. His Zeus was coming with the Sun. It was the only way to get the flesh to play properly with the Swan’s purity. The carnal act would be sullied by darkness. It would be titillated by shades. No, this coupling must occur in the brightest of white lights.
A heavy fist threatened to snap the weathered wood of the paintbrush. Curtains were required Modesty must triumph over Art, today.
A quiet scratching upon the door marked the arrival of the appointed hour. Ghislaine would be prompt, he had guessed. She had been so very eager, almost anxious. Wide nostrils sucked in the deepest of breaths. Would there be fortitude enough in that intake?
Ghislaine would not wait. The nubile maiden entered noiselessly and put her back quickly to the door as it clicked closed behind her. Two childish hands clutched tight the brass door handle at the small of her back. She was adorned by a light cotton dress of virgin-white, defined by faint grey shadows in half-tone light. Bare arms were without contours. Her slender naked neck: a flawless cylinder. No shoes, nor stockings, of any shade, did she wear and by the fall of the slight cloth, it was plain that on this day, Ghislaine wore no petticoats, and perhaps no slip.
Wide eyed, the maiden watched Montaigne and sought for some sign. His large, almost misshapen shoulders were tensed. In his hands, two halves of a broken brush were being wrung within the wasting, coloured cloth. He did make a gesture. It was abrupt. It was vague. It was some sort of beckoning toward that stool.
He watched her right foot lift, shifting, and then he saw it slide back behind the ankle of the other. That nude limb clung to the rear of her heel, bending almost to entwine it. It stayed as serpentine as a swan there.
He made that gesture again. It was no different. The same clenched hand jabbed awkwardly toward her appointed place. This time there was an insistence to it. This time, Vulcan commanded his Venus.
She half crouched, did Leda then, and called up the courage to look into the heart of her God’s visage. It was dark and downcast. The gnarled beard and mangy locks hid any trace of his leitmotif. There was more doom there than deference and she withered before his power. Those slender legs moved anew and shifted, slow at first, stuttering, toward the lonely solitude of that stool. One floorboard creaked beneath her feet and one might swear it sang a song.
The girl’s hands, without blemish, tensed where they touched her flimsiest of costumes and then she released but an instant later they clenched the cloth again, perhaps tighter still. No man had ever seen her form so near undressed. This was no man though. This was something else. He was an artist. A genius. A shiver then. The fingers loosened and the fabric began to fall away only to be gathered anew. There could be no turning back. Ghislaine let drop her head and that fine brown hair, all unbound, fell heavy across her shoulders round.
Charles watched her movements. He watched the way the ankles submerged when each small foot was lifted and he watched as the lace trimmings of the white drapery slid silently up and down the virgin’s pale, waifish calves when she clutched and unclenched at the dress. He watched the balls of her feet spread, taking her weight so effortlessly, and then witnessed how marvellously they regained their shape when the bottom of that bare foot was raised to reveal the slightly soiled pads. He tilted his head and followed the twist of those petite feet as they were so delicately stressed in the manoeuvre that settled her figure upon the pedestal. His gaze rose up then and he took note, in passing, of how much naked foreleg was revealed where the gown was lifted by bended knees. Modesty, fortune, and fear shifted her posture then and so kept cloth close about her calves,
As the artist’s survey rose, he could discern, despite the cotton weave, the rise and fall of her feminine form. The soft, filtered light flowed slow upon the contours of her young yet blossomed bosom and the painter paused there to marvel at the subtle chiaroscuro, despite the laced gown. He silently gasped though when he noted the shadow casting promontories at the tips of those clothed semispheres.
The giant's eyes clenched closed and he turned his spine toward the virgin. Rationalizations wrestled with truths. Desires entangled with needs. She had come to him. In the silent moment that followed, in the darkness of his thoughts he heard the quietest whisper of the girl float across the floor. "How do you wish me?" asked a voice on the edge of womanhood.
One more deep breath was taken before Montaigne accepted the revelation.
She was only a model. She was only a subject. She was a sack of potatoes. But she was not and he could not escape his thoughts when his eyes did turn to her pale, pink, and near to naked flesh that the white dress bared by design.
Her bone thin hands made no attempt to model beauty, but instead clutched at the stool to reveal hard white knuckles. The girl's chin, slightly trembling, remained raised so that he could see the smooth flow of lines that described her slender, splendid throat. He watched that flesh quiver as Ghislaine swallowed breathlessly and his gaze remained held there as he marvelled at the layers of colour that made up that unblemished, childish skin.
The precious flesh beneath the orb of her chin, cascading from her upraised jaw, had yet to be creased and remained innocent, naïve, of that wear that would one day ruin it. At the base of that alabaster pillar, upon which rested so finely carved a capital, there he found the delicate hollow. From between where the sternocleidomastoideus mounted risen clavicle tips, where her throat no longer pushed to shape the form, there swung unpressed flesh in rare concavity.
She shifted, less than a whisper's worth, and he saw in that instant two precise and parallel lines try describe the circumference of her neck. The arcs began just beneath her jaw, below the petite leftmost lobe, and curled in common across the curving form.
The artist took up a pencil from on hand, but frantically failed to find a clean piece of paper. It mattered not. He folded one over, found a clean corner, and then leaned in to study that crease of pink.
Ghislaine's bony knees rubbed against one another beneath her skirts and she nervously marvelled at the sudden intensity that was overcoming Montaigne. His eyes darted from paper to her and back and forth and back and all the while his pencil-bearing hand flitted and flicked seeming senselessly. Not daring to flinch, she slowly rolled her eyes down, seeking to see what had enraptured him but could not discern the feature. It seemed not, to her surprise, to be the veiled bosom that she, only this past year had begun to take pride in. The draughtsman's head then angled hard over like a hanged man and he peered. The hand hovered over the page. She tensed… and in so doing lost that sweet bit of ephemeral beauty that had been there at the nearest edge of her neck.
Montaigne took a breath and studied the quick sketch.
"A fair start," he finally said.
She wriggled a bit, freshly awkward. "Monsieur Montaigne, tell me what you see."
The painter took some time again before he answered. There was proper paper to find and pencils to sharpen. He had to clear away space so that he could move around as required. He had to find his light. Could he get a better primary light source from a window without risking Ghislaine's modesty or, more importantly, her secrecy? Instead, he drew a heavier curtain over a northern window. That would diminish the secondary source. The diffused sun was working well enough upon the light skin and whites of the schoolgirl model. He was getting his tones and he was seeing dazzling layers of colour. Her veins were a fine blue.
"I see…" he began after too long a pause, "… a beautiful young lady…"
She stopped him abruptly, saying "No! I'm serious. Tell me what you see! Tell me what you are looking for."
He stopped short and studied her mouth, watching her words form and tried again to answer. "I see young Ghis…"
"No," she insisted and moved her arms to vainly shroud herself. "Teach me. Teach me what you are looking for…what you see. Tell me about the body…my body."
Charles viewed her body anew, looking to see what he saw. His interest followed the line of one smooth arm, tracing the interior edge from wrist, past waist, where the colour of her dress reflected white upon the surface of the flesh, past the least indent on the elbow and rose on up to where the limb would end and there, where torso met childish arm, the skin was pinched so perfectly that a deliciously delicate, unnaturally natural 'V' was forged.
When his mouth fell open, Ghislaine saw that the giant was once more rapt.
"Please," she urged, as though it were a magic word.
And he spoke to her of what minor marvel he beheld. Montaigne commenced to explain about the insertion of the pectoralis major into the exterior end of the clavicle and how when this muscle abutted against the conjoining of the deltoid and bicep in an underdeveloped figure, it could, if the flesh was soft enough, form a magnificently architectural structure of symmetries that spoke of passive tensions. He noted how this phenomenon is similar to what can be found when the thumb is carefully brought into the abductor of the index finger but in a much more sublime manner. Ghislaine, for her part, nodded and tried to appreciate the physics of it.
"You sound like my father now. He was reading about knees last night. But he wasn't. It didn't seem to have anything to do with knees."
Before any censors could object, the pure curtain was raised on Ghislaine's legs, no higher than her thigh, but the maiden knees were so revealed. She contemplated upon the knobby things.
"They are but hinges."
The knees were exercised by brief twists and turns, lifted and flexed to aid Ghislaine's vantage. And suddenly Montaigne's attention was once more fixed upon her femininity.
"What is it?" the girl asked.
"Nothing. Don't move…. your knee. There. Magnificent."
She froze. She tensed. She relaxed. She tried to find that precise level of tension or relaxation that she might have manifested that moment earlier. She must have maintained it for Montaigne was again almost insanely intent upon her flesh and bone. He knelt, crashing his own dark-clothed knees against the floorboards, before her naked legs.
"Tell me." required Ghislaine.
"It is conflict… about conflict... conflict between materials and forms. It is like trying to see a story that happens beneath a sheet and we find the hidden objects by the way that they press … or do not press against the surface." Montaigne continued to avidly sketch what he could while he spoke. He crawled then, and leaned, and shifted, all the while keeping his attention fixed upon his model's lower legs. She was surprised by this motion, expecting the artist to have to remain in one place. When Ghislaine questioned this, he replied, "The viewpoint does not matter. We do not draw what we see. We draw what there is and sometimes we must draw what we cannot see."
Ghislaine needed clarification. "I don't understand." She said.
"Your Medial Condyle was not visible to me but in order to clearly mark the insertion of the band… Richer's band, I need to know where it was. To understand the shape, the relationships, of all the aspects of the knee, we must be able to place the landmarks - the critical landmarks!"
Charles lifted up, crooked and twisted, a thick-fingered paw, turning and bending it as he prattled on, as though the clumsy claw could make clear the meetings of muscle, meat, and bone.
"But why draw it if it cannot be seen?"
"To prove it. To make sense of it. Validity."
The model nodded and said, "I see that then. I want the artist to prove that he understands the body."
Montaigne leaned back from his subject. "It is note taking. It is recording an argument between ... between power and purpose... and tranquility. Flesh always tries to pacify, to make it all seem as though nothing is happening. It tries to hide the torrents of blood, the dragging of muscle across muscle... and bone, like great corded cables, the strains... It is like standing amid a grand cathedral, that stretches impossibly toward heaven, and listening for the sound around you... the sound of stone... the sound, the squeaking, sad, near silent cries that so many tons of weight wring from stone."
Ghislaine could see then what had caught his eye, almost. The drapes must have slipped a bit, for bright gold light fell strong upon her joints, so shades and shadows on those jagged low elbows were painting a rocky landscape that revealed secrets of twisting muscles, powerful knots of tension at rest, and bones that made sturdy foundations. In considering it, Ghislaine herself marvelled at how her sweet, simple body that so often seemed so smooth and feminine, could conceal such a conspiracy of powerful, precision clockwork.
"Got it," said he and sat back onto his heels as though relieved.
"Thank you." said Ghislaine.
"Hrm? For what?"
"For talking to me like a person. For not treating me as a child." Here she stuck out her chest and threw back her shoulders. She released her hold upon her skirts, pushing the white curtain to fall, unfurled, across her knees. Montaigne was instantly aware of her sex again but he did not look away, not until his wandering view fell upon Ghislaine's eyes and he saw that she was looking back at him. His gaze quickly flew to her naked feet.
"What about Leda?" asked the girl. "What pose shall I adopt for Leda?"
Montaigne shook his beard vigorously. He looked to his palette and brushes. He would change the medium. Burnt Sienna would not work for her flesh. He'd need to mix something special. More white. More ochre. But not quite. Charles peered hard at her thin shoulder and puzzled out the complexities of layered colours. "I don't know my Leda yet. We will find her together."
Together then, throughout the morning, the two worked and they talked. The pair spoke of aesthetics and architecture, composition and colour. He painted her. Charles was always excited to work from the model but from Ghislaine he was gaining a new vital energy. Every sketch was giving him glimpses of a body type that he had never worked on before. She was also giving him life. She was not just idly slumped upon her stool but instead she moved and stretched. Every intake of breath was an affirmation of life and beauty. Ghislaine's was not an idle art. She kept Montaigne talking and thinking. She challenged him to teach her and in teaching, he was challenged to understand himself.
Ghislaine learned what to give her man. She learned what subtle twists and which languid muscles excited him. She learned to find the light and so could move to bring him to artistic ecstasy. She became proud of her skill in delighting him. She could give him beauty and it filled her with joy to see this intelligent, physical male become so enthralled by that beauty. All the while she was learning, not just from his words, but also from her own body. Now she understood the physicality of the human form. She was becoming aware of the joy of discovery of one's own vessel.
As the day came toward noon though, they both knew that their time together must end. Ghislaine regained her feet and, with a small bit of scouting and sneaking, they got her back to her own room safely. First though, there were promises from each that they would do it again.
Mere moments after his model had departed, and Montaigne was deeply invested in assessing his morning's work, there was a fresh knock upon his door.
"Ghislaine?" he asked aloud.
"No." was the reply that muffled through the door. "Madeleine. Will you be joining us for the critique? We are all waiting."
Charles looked back to his drawings of the nubile maiden. He saw her sweetness there and too he saw, in a few rare sketches of her eyes, her beauty. So long as he kept these images before him, he was still with that young girl.
"No."
There was a pause then before Madeleine made a mild apology and moved off down the hall.
Madame de Grenville's dress skirted, brushing across the verdant lawn. What slight breeze there was posed little threat to her charming pinned hat, as it was prudently not of broad brim. Some first fallen leaves were quietly crushed by her tiny black boots when she strode toward the trio. The small party had assembled behind the house to conduct a first critique of one of their works. It was Boniface's hastily completed Madonna with Child that was the subject of today's tribunal.
Upon arrival, Madeleine set herself up behind the empty chair and announced "Monsieur Montaigne will not be joining us. He has shuttered himself up with his labours."
Beneath a dying olive tree, the painted Virgin stood alone and vulnerable before her judges. There was no frame for her, only decorated raw canvas. Each male eyed her plain figure critically. There would be no justice so long as each had a reputation to establish. Certainly, her painter would plead her case but even he would be seeking to show his intellect with an objective performance. Boniface knew, with certainty that it was a bad job. It was prettily enough done but wholly mediocre. Could he admit her faults? Was her beauty to be defended by her father, despite all suitors knowing how plain she truly was? If she was flawed, it was because he had failed - he was flawed. Every remark, every mockingly pointed out particular, would be a personal accusation of incompetence. But then he would think to himself 'None of this prattle matters. I know my quality - my potential'.
That aged artist Ambrose, dressed worthy of a portrait, took centerpiece in front of the scene, seated squarely in a dining room chair that had been delivered for the occasion. His hands, in enforced inactivity, held place upon each arm of the furniture. It was apparent to the others that he was concentrating solely upon the tried painting.
The second seat was empty.
Boniface Roy occupied the third. His costume was, as ever, casually elegant. He had made no pretense toward ceremony other than to adorn his buttonhole with a lily. It was his ambition to effect carefree ease. The painter fairly slid out of his chair, he was so intent on posturing relaxation. His domino may have been better veiled though, for his darting eyes betrayed a nervous energy.
Behind the gallery, Roland, with blonde head straw hatted, rested his weight gallantly upon one leg. His walking stick admirably aided in achieving that effect. He may have been the host of this assembly, but M. de Grenville was not going to be the first to pass judgement and neither would the others, so they and the small painting stood in sober silence under the summer sunlight.
Roland decided and declared that they would continue despite the lack of the third. No objections were offered.
Boniface remembered himself and rose from his seat. He floated a generous smile to Madeleine. "Thank you for trying. Will you stand in his stead...or better, take up his seat?" He tilted a fair hand to indicate the chair between.
The eyes of the husband and wife shared a silent conversation before Madeleine almost curtsied for Boniface and then manoeuvred herself and her light dress into the vacant chair. Only when her rustling had ceased did all eyes turn to the waiting Madonna and Child.
Madeleine broke the silence. "Why is the infant's face hidden?" she asked.
Ambrose answered for Boniface, saying "It is to focus the narrative on the Madonna, as mother. I've investigated this very problem years before."
There was a pause for Boniface to weigh the affront. It was nothing, he decided, for any protest would be seen by Madame de Grenville as pettiness. "Yes." agreed the young painter. "The Christ always dominates and diminishes her. I want her to be the center of attention."
"Couldn't you have just painted another mother then?" questioned Roland.
Again, Ambrose had an answer first. "All mothers alone with their children become Madonnas. The Madonna with child motif would, I speculate, have been equally iconic without Catholicism. One might, were one blasphemous, conjecture that our Mary and Jesus ... story exists precisely because the image of Mother and child is so integral to the human experience."
A deep frown from M. de Grenville was followed by a shake of his head. His cane tip rose up, animated. "Nothing that we are doing here requires blasphemy."
"Nothing yet is, Husband." The woman's smile, thrown over the shoulder for Roland, was false. "I think the device effective."
"You have altered her face since I last saw it, Monsieur Roy," mentioned Ambrose while he was still thinking the thought through.
Finally, Roland appreciated the resemblance that the Madonna bore to his wife. He tensed, but held his tongue and quickly adopted that particular expression that effected complete disaffection with the subject. He could not have looked more nonchalant, but façade of tedium would have deceived none. Perhaps it was fortunate for Roland that not even Madeleine turned about to take any notice of his face, or the white knuckled grip on his walking stick. Likewise, nobody was privy to the sight of Boniface's bemused grin.
"Some subtle alterations, yes. I was granted Divine inspiration," said Boniface and added, "An angel breathed soft music across my world-weary eyelids to open them."
Madeleine turned her face to bestow a pleasant smile upon the flatterer but the true intent of this observance was to let drop a sidelong glance at her husband's hands.
"Such charming words and the Madonna, she is beautifully rendered," Madeleine adjudged, trying her best to indicate blithe lack of recognition. Then, with gentle gesture, the wife reached back yellow-gloved fingers to assuredly pat the pale hand of her husband. Roland's blond brows only lifted.
They were each of them uncertain if Ambrose was unaware or unconcerned by the likeness on the canvas. "She is at peace, contemplating her love. She is adoring." began Ambrose but he raised a worn finger and shifted tone. "She is asleep...absinthed. How would you any differently depict a corpse?"
Madeleine gasped.
Roland stirred.
Boniface countered angrily, "It is the expression of divine devotion. All of the masters have used that mode."
In Roland's turn, "It is well executed but...."
But Ambrose interjected, "Executed indeed. We study too much from cadavers and models asleep in their posings. I am as guilty as any of such slayings."
Boniface seemed too quickly to resign and said, "That waxen, waned face of death..." A whimsical quip would flitter it away. He would not allow himself to be pitched to fury by these fools. This was a time to bide. "Pardon my outrage. I was borne aloft on waves of passion and lost my hold upon this earth."
Roland paid no heed to poesy. "Are you now advocating for realism Ambrose?" asked the patron.
Ambrose frowned, seeming to all the more angle his long nose until it almost touched his silver beard. He peered at that troublesome painting while he sought for a clean answer.
"The face does seem realistic," added Madeleine. She attempted to adopt that very same pensive pose with notably fine results. Boniface noticed the studied alteration of the hostess and with a flourished gesture of presentation toward the beautiful woman beside him, he exclaimed, "See, it is sublime!"
"Perhaps what I am advocating," said Ambrose, choosing not to be so distracted, "is simply something that takes an earnest approach to a real emotion. Pensiveness may be fine for invoking introspection in the viewer, but it seems too easy... it seems like a trick and tricks seem like lies." Before Boniface could voice another protest, the aged artist added, "As much as we pursue truth and beauty with integrity, we undermine ourselves by appearing to do otherwise."
Roland grinned, taking up a lighter approach. "A Madonna at play with her child. A laughing Madonna. That'd be a trick."
"Yes, a trick." voiced Boniface. "The trick would be in making it as sublime. I've no interest in gimmicks."
"Why cannot the Madonna be merrily tossing her child in the air?" ventured Madeleine uncertainly.
Ambrose rubbed his forehead. "It would become a Dutch domestic."
"Are we fearing every school then?" Madeleine asked.
Roland peered silently at his wife while Ambrose continued to speak. "Yes, we could paint her as a domestic scene. It would be a picture though. It would be a vignette. It would cease to be a contemplative. I suppose that what we seek is to capture the figure in time, so that she ages along with us for a moment. We are not seeing a frozen instant but instead she is still. She is introspective and taking a moment out of her day for us to admire her…and to think about what she thinks about. Sacred or profane, it is a meditation upon Motherhood."
There seemed in this to be a defence of the piece so Boniface sought confirmation. "It is the best way to get the viewer thinking."
Ambrose said, "This… this is not the best way. I don't know the best way, but perhaps that is what we are here to discover. I think we… I think you can do better, Boniface. I think you can search harder for a solution to the problem. Get the viewer reflecting upon the beauty and the subject matter without painting cadavers. Work at it."
"I did make an effort." defended Boniface.
Madeleine asserted, "No. I don't think you did. This is not as good as you can do."
For only long enough to betray the shock, the smile fled from Boniface and his brow aged and uglied, but then again it was gone.
From behind, Roland de Grenville watched his project coming together. Here was the first sense that the cathedral might have foundation. One of his people had influenced another, perhaps. It may be too early to be certain. Some falsehoods and doubts may be planted. It all balanced on an edge. The moment needed to be secured without pressuring it. Adopting a non-combative tone, Roland offered a variation on the theme. "The blue of her gown is gorgeous. How does it sing so?"
Glancing first to Ambrose, Boniface afterward answered, "I built up the tones with orange washes until it was fully structured. When it had dried, I selected the perfectly complementary ultramarine blue and painted over it in a single thinned layer. What you see is the conflicting resonance of the complementaries. It is a struggle that the blue wins but the courage of the orange is not forgotten."
Ambrose's assessment was clearly given. "Effective." He was impressed.
They moved then to discussion of minutiae and technique, composition and other aesthetic niceties. It was not wholly a debate between Ambrose and Boniface but de Grenville's input remained marginal. His role in the discussion was moderation and clarification. It was decisively evidenced, if there remained any doubts, that there was a grand breadth between the knowledge of the artists and the patron.
As the fine weathered afternoon wore on, the conversation gradually, cordially shifted until it ceased to be a critique at all. The painting was no longer mentioned and they became but four people chatting about the weather and the garden.
While by the carriage house, beneath the twin oaks, where the breezes brought the green asway, two young women whispered while Adele took down the dried bed sheets.
"The monster?"
"He's not a monster. He's brilliant and passionate and honest. He's real," answered Ghislaine, earnest in her confidences.
At this, Adele gave a girlish chortle. "I do his laundry, when I must. He is indeed real... very earthen."
Ghislaine could not defend her objet d'art, but had to grin back, "I know. He's dirty, and has some disturbing habits, but that is because his mind - his imagination - his attention is too far off in lofty, spiritual pursuits. His mortal form is but shackles that chain him to our world."
Neither of them could withhold their laughter, even though Ghislaine insisted, between gasped breaths, that she was serious, mostly.
"You cannot imagine what it was like, to have a man fall upon his knees before me and to stare - just stare - at me - as though he saw in me a burning bush - as though my skin immediately answered for him all the mysteries of the universe."
"Oh, I've gotten that look from boys before."
"No, no. Not like this. I swear this was different. It wasn't like that - impure - you know - it was so intense - passionate."
"Yes, that's the look."
She shook her head, trying to deny it, but it was hopeless; Ghislaine had to smile.
"It really wasn't like that with him. Maybe I wish it was, but it wasn't. It was different."
"It is always the same. All men are the same. They are so quick to adore... adore and then desire what they adore. All they do really is desire - no , they just want. They think that if they imagine something as precious and marvellous, their hunger will not be so bestial. The finest fare of the greatest chefs is still just shat out in the end - through the end!" Now it was only for Adele to laugh and for Ghislaine to crumple in her face. This resolved her. Ghislaine looked down to the trodden ochre grass and insisted, "Charles is not like that. He is not like other men. He does not look.... he does not think of me like that, I'm sure. He is different."
Accordingly, Adele's argument softened and she gave way, saying, "Alright, I do think him mad, after all, so maybe, yes, he is different."
Then Ghislaine embraced her new friend and grinned over the girl's shoulder. Adele pulled back to playfully scold, saying, "But if you ever try to persuade me that Monsieur Roy is not like other men, I will fight you!"
"There are not many of his like, I'd say."
"Certainly, he is more handsome than your monster..."
"He is not my monster!"
"More charming. He dresses better. More clever."
The girls spent the next several minutes listing the merits of Boniface Roy. He was, they would determine, a masculine paragon, a paladin. That each was charmed by him, neither dared deny. There was a lively debate as to whether it was splendid blonde locks or brilliant bright eyes that most made him such an alluring man. So it was long overdue when Madame de Grenville, still beneath her fine hat and adorned with bright yellow gloves, emerged to find her wayward maid. Neither girl could guess how much Madame had overheard. Her sly smile confessed a little.
What neither girls nor woman saw was that Madame Ferland had been watching the pantomime from the window of Adele's shared bedroom. As de Grenville brought the animated scene to a close, Ferland set down the brittle empty robin's egg once more into its nest, entirely as though it had never been taken for petting at all.