CHAPTER NINE
Impending Passage
That night there were cigars on the patio for the men. Montaigne, again, did not participate but remained present. Ambrose was wrapping up an essay on his perception of the young movement's progress to this date.
"We are, therefore, learning from one another passively. No lessons need be taught. We see. It is not any different really from walking the halls and stalls of the Parisian galleries and workshops, of peering at the works of the Latin Quarter bohemians or the besotted of Montmartre, but here we have fewer distractions so that what we see is crystallized. We are more heavily influenced and the influence is more intentional – more intellectual. We should not expect any brilliant breakthroughs over the course of the summer though."
Boniface and Montaigne voiced no objections but Roland needed clarification. "So, it is working?'
Ambrose explained, "It is working. Perhaps it is not because you have put three songbirds into the same cage that they are closer to singing the same song, but because your birds are all wishing to become better. We are each of us doing all that we can to make great art. We wish to make your experiment work."
Montaigne snorted. Boniface appreciated it.
"You want it to fail, Monsieur Montaigne?" asked Roland.
"I have no faith in your scheme. I think it ridiculous." When Charles saw Roland pale and prepare to become outraged he calmed him, saying, "I am here to make art and if your experiment succeeds, so much the better. I am no anarchist seeking to sabotage your efforts at order. Come what may. Is that bad for you?"
"I hope not, for I feel the same," ventured Boniface.
Ambrose answered for M de Grenville. "It is perhaps a better experiment if we were to all approach it in that manner, so long as we continued to work and not do anything to endanger it. Work as you see fit... as your temperament dictates."
"I could do nothing else," asserted Montaigne.
"Exactly," exclaimed Roland. "That is why you three have been chosen. You are different men who will, and must, approach the project differently."
After shooting a sly look toward Montaigne, Boniface wittily suggested that he was quite pleased to be allowed to be the opposite of Montaigne in every single way. "It warms my soul to think we have nothing in common."
Montaigne's retort was dry and low. If it was intended as a quip or insult, there was no inflection to divert it there. "We share that sentiment, Monsieur." Ambrose got a good chuckle out of it.
Roland sat back and enjoyed a long inhalation of his cigar before he continued. "Well enough. I leave for Paris tomorrow. We will see then if I have been having an undue influence on your advancements. Perhaps my presence has been constraining you. I will grant you freedom."
Eyebrows were raised at this pronouncement. A question hovered upon Boniface's lips and the same one broiled within the depths of Montaigne's beard. Roland answered the question that was unasked. "My wife will remain here so you have no worries about being provided for. She will, I am certain, continue to make herself available to all of your requirements."
Everyone could immediately sense the increase in tension throughout Montaigne. His dark eyes fixated upon Roland de Grenville and sought to flay away his fleshy facade. Surely he was not saying what it seemed as though he was trying to imply. Charles' guard was up. Was this some kind of trap? Was a bloody chicken corpse being tossed out onto the path beneath the hunter's hide? If Boniface or Ambrose were reading the situation in a similar manner, neither betrayed themselves as much as the clumsy one had done. Boniface had a common smirk on his fair face, but Ambrose, with perpetually wizened pate well furrowed, leaned forward to enquire as to the reason and duration of the exodus.
"In fact, I should announce that I intend to put on a show of your works at the end of summer. I go to the capital to make preparations and arrange for us an exhibition."
This did not relax Montaigne at all. Roland added, "I will be back on Wednesday evening, I anticipate."
"A group show" mused Boniface. "Your finds. Your grand experiment. You will unveil us then to the world? What if we fail?"
Roland's cigar, an orange embered glow against the darkening scene, was waved in the air before him while he tried to explain, "Not at all. You see, we will not know if we have succeeded by then. This is a long term project..."
"One summer..." began Ambrose, already imaging his wife's voice.
Roland said, "No, I mean that we will not be able to judge it a success ourselves. The show and the reacting of the Academy and art world will be the test. It may be years before what we do here, this one summer, catches on to being a true renaissance. This is but a start."
Montaigne was able to relax finally but even as he sat back in his chair, his narrowed gaze remained upon the patron.
"I hope then that your expedition to Paris goes well" said Ambrose.
"Let me know by morning if you have any special requirements that I should purchase while in the city and oh, that reminds me. There is something that you gentlemen should know about while I am gone. Perhaps Monsieur Roy has already discovered them but in the sitting room, in the desk, I keep a brace of pistols."
"Pistols?"
"It has not happened in a while, but there were, a few years back, some nefarious vagabonds in the area. Sometimes the villagers come by to cause trouble when they think no one is here. I'm sure that nothing will require them but should anything arise, I want you to know that the duelling pistols are there."
Did he stress the word 'duelling', Boniface asked himself?
When none of them seemed inclined to pursue the topic, Roland offered, "They are loaded. I checked them today. But I'm sure nothing will require them."
Boniface was shifting restlessly in his chair until he could find some way to lighten the mood. "I will be more careful sneaking down to the pantry for a bite to eat in the night now. Adele knows of them, I'm sure."
Roland grinned back. "She has a saucepan that is thrice the threat of a pistol shot."
And they all laughed.
Ambrose closed the door on the topic. "Well, it is good to know," he said and then opened the door on another saying; "If there is to be a group showing then I have an idea that we might explore. These three Leda paintings could be put into some kind of a triptych."
Everyone was intrigued by the notion. There would need to be some issues solved though.
"It is a pagan theme" noted Roland. "A Triptych is traditionally for an altarpiece. Would this not be making some sort of anti-religious statement?"
Boniface sneered, "It is just three paintings combined as a set. There is nothing heretical."
Montaigne's question was an entirely practical one. "Do we need to change what we are doing? Are you looking at unifying our pallets and compositions?"
"Not at all, no. Well, yes. I put some thought to our canvas sizes. Currently, Monsieur Roy's and mine are the same height though mine is square. Given the composition that I have, and the shape, it would make the most sense to have mine as the centerpiece. The other two would be on the sides and, since Monsieur Roy has gotten significantly more work done; it would be Monsieur Montaigne that I would ask to alter the size of his canvas. I think you will agree, from what I have seen of your pieces, that Monsieur Montaigne's piece would be best on the right. But these are things that we can discuss at another time. Perhaps we can set the canvases together and make some decisions tomorrow."
"I can make a new canvas in the morning, yes. I've not done so much that I cannot start fresh." Montaigne was resigned to this idea, whether he liked it or not. The project made a lot of sense and he simply did not have the energy to fight against the momentum of Ambrose.
"If it does not work," said Boniface, "we will just have three good paintings that can hang separately. I don't know though, I'll feel uncomfortable with my composition if I have to imagine something abutting it to the right. It will likely do a lot to the balance. We shall see though. It is an interesting new twist."
Roland grinned and ran fingers along the length of his long, blonde moustache. He had never imagined his three painters seeming to work so obligingly with one another. It might be a shame to have to leave as they start up this triptych project but on the other hand, it could be very good for them to do something on their own. They were coming to a consensus without him and that wasn't a bad thing. For Roland, it had never been about his ego, per se. He was not seeking fame for putting these men into the art scene but if his theory should prove to be correct, he could secure his name for eternity. De Grenville's gambit, they might name it. He might name it, when he wrote a book describing the theory and activity of the summer. It was too early to get overconfident though. There were still major obstacles to overcome and the paintings had to get finished and had to become good. Roland watched Boniface and Ambrose lean into one another to begin talking in animated tones about some compositional problem but also noted Montaigne sitting back in silence. They were not a perfect composite and perhaps never could be. It seemed, more often than not, that they really did not like one another at all and then...
Roland grimaced and tried to decide if he should be thinking the thoughts he was thinking. He suspected that both men were attracted to his wife. No, he would not dwell on this. He had to trust. He had to prove his trust, to himself. He had to have faith in his wife as much as he had faith in his theory. This had to work. But that was why he left for Paris in the morning. He had to know, for certain, if Madeleine was faithful – if she would remain so if the opportunity to be faithless was there plainly, safely, and within her clutching grasp. She had to be left alone to wander the garden of the serpent.
Suddenly Roland's thoughts were disturbed by a raised question from Ambrose. "Monsieur de Grenville, would you know if there might be a young female model that I could get from the village? Who might I talk to for getting one? Would your wife..."
"Hrm?"
"...Would your wife know someone that we could ask?"
Boniface sought to catch Montaigne's eye but the large fellow was now staring intently at his own worn boots.
Roland scratched at his chin. "Maybe Adele. We don't know people in the village really. Samuel might know someone. He has a sister I think. Maybe she will do."
"Oh!" piped up Boniface, "You could bring us some from Paris! Scour the brothels for us and bring us back a trio." His sarcasm was not lost on anyone though Montaigne was in no mood to laugh or even lift his head. He was rubbing at his beard with heavy fists that could not stop moving. As Roland watched the anxious Montaigne, a new idea began to wriggle its way into the edges of his mind.
Ambrose broke into his thought process again, "No matter. We'll make do without. You have some fine anatomy texts and... “The old man paused here and was struck by a notion. He tilted his baldhead in an effort to recall something but then, looked queerly at Roland and asked, "Why do you have no paintings in your house?"
While Roland looked through the open doors to his dining room as though to somehow see proof to the contrary therein, Boniface remarked, “There are paintings in his Paris house.”
The extended tips of Roland’s moustache rose as he put on a soft smile. “You know, I really hadn’t noticed. As my friend here says, I have paintings at the house in Paris, but not here… yet. There is an oriental rug hanging in the master bedroom and some Japanese prints too, but you are right. There are none. It is an oversight.”
Ambrose answered, “It is.”
Roland responded by saying, “Art, for me, is not simply things to hang on the wall to keep. Good art should be in a gallery or museum for all to see. We, the viewer, should make an effort to see beauty – a pilgrimage. It has no place being festooned to the walls of your home so that you are confronted with it every time you turn around. How can one appreciate a masterpiece properly if it is there to become as tedious and invisible as a Persian carpet?”
This precipitated an avalanche of aesthetic ideals that would see each of the four men lean their weight into their own conceptual boulders. Ideas would bounce and crash stubbornly against one another, splitting and cracking, but never diminishing in their tumult or certainty. This argumentative rock fall would eventually subside and, one by one, the dusted gentlemen would abandon the cluttered valley of philosophy where well buried lay the initial question, forgotten, and make their ways to their rooms.
So silent slept the summer villa with all its geniuses, gentlefolk, and fools abed.
It was still a cold grey morning, as though the day were still not ready to occur, when Montaigne tromped out of the house to stand beside Madeleine. Roland could be heard assisting Samuel in preparing the barouche for the journey but Madeleine remained unmoving, arms crossed about her wrap, only half-awake to what was going on. When Charles reined himself in beside her, the two exchanged nods and watched the shed where the labours were the work was being done.
Madeleine spoke first, "Samuel had to be woken." and Montaigne could only nod again in reply. Most nights, Samuel slept at his cottage near the village, but there was a miserable little bed space for him in the rafters of the carriage house when he needed to start early. The travellers would have a long trip ahead of them before reaching the train station. They should be able to make up some time.
"Do you wish you were going to Paris?" asked Montaigne.
She pulled her shawl tighter and shivered. "No. That is, I adore Paris. Paris is my home but, God how I hate to travel."
They shared a light laugh.
"I too dread the return. I hadn't thought about it until now. I suppose I'll have to get up onto that carriage and leave someday soon."
"Not too soon," said Madeleine, not at all anxious for the summer to end.
Montaigne shrugged his heavy shoulders. Next to the small woman, he felt particularly large and awkward. He felt it necessary to say, "I am enjoying the opportunity to stay here... to work here."
"Yes. Yes." she almost dismissed him with a waved hand but then caught herself. Instead she intently watched the shed as the carriage and pair of horses were led out by a dishevelled Samuel. Roland was approaching the pair, hat in hand.
"Good morning" said the gentleman with a grin more cheerful than Montaigne could countenance. "You're up early, Charles. I'm glad you have come to see me off. It is appreciated." In the trivial statement, Charles and Madeleine both saw a sly comment upon the absence of Boniface and Ambrose.
"Your expedition," began Charles, “is one that is important to us all. I wanted to show my support for the undertaking."
Madeleine was nodding in silence but Roland made a suggestion, "You are showing me that I have nothing to worry about. The house and its occupants are in your good and capable hands."
"Uh... yes. You have nothing to worry about."
Madeleine interjected here, saying, "Everything is fine, my husband. I have everything in my good and capable hands. Don't you worry your pretty little head about a thing." The laughter that came from each of the three was distinctly flavoured. Indeed there were four reactions for Samuel also was snickering. Still, M. de Grenville was determined to maintain a high-spirited face on things. He kissed his wife's cheeks and then fair bounded into the carriage, waving his tall blue top hat about.
"Hussah!" he pronounced and Samuel got the expedition underway.
As soon as the vehicle had rolled onto the roadway, Madeleine turned about and smiled up to Montaigne's curious face.
"So long as we're up and about, we should amuse ourselves." Charles was entirely disordered by this perceived advance. What on earth was she meaning? His immediate defense was avoidance.
"I have work to do. There is a canvas that needs stretching."
Madeleine wrinkled her nose almost impishly. "I'm going to help you. You'll show me what to do."
He could only submit. Rolling his heavy shoulders in what might have been a shrug, Charles strode to the carriage house. The double doors were flung open wide to the clatter of dry wood on plastered stone. This would be the only entryway for light. Too, the multipurpose structure would seem too small, too confined for the necessary work were the doors shut. Even though the carriage and both horses had been removed, there was a chaos to the remaining clutter that seemed to fill every crevice. The horse stalls were unclean, packed to stink with mud, manure, and straw. Even feedbags lay discarded there. Witnessing the reveal from without, Madeleine could not imagine how the carriage had ever found room to remain therein. Spare wheels, sawhorses, a rickety workbench, and a disordered pile of wood and tools battled for the limited space. Overhead, rafters were cluttered in startling disarray with all manner of reins, bridles, tools, and varied unidentifiable objects. Spread across a couple of rafter beams were large rolls of raw canvas.
At the entrance, despite her earlier eagerness to help, Madeleine held back. Pulling her wrap tighter about her shoulders, as though it were more cold than chill, she hesitated. For all the several summers that Roland and she had been coming to this place, she had never ceased to be wary, if not frightened by the carriage house. She was always anxious around horses, even smaller ponies. She had never rode - never wanted to, and the presence of this small building ever reminded her of those fearsome beasts, even when only their stench remained.
The man worked. He had found the pile of long boards, pre-cut to the same narrow width and was now inspecting the qualities of each. Sometimes, to be sure, he would hold a plank in two clenched fists, shoulder width apart, and then bend the wood over his knee. Madeleine could hardly imagine what the big man hoped to discover by this test, but the demonstration of strength drew her closer, until she could keenly watch the pained bend of that unfinished wood from beside Montaigne. Roland, nor even Boniface could perform this feat. She did not know if he was aware of her proximity now. He did not acknowledge her and she could not tell if the man was showing off.
A board cracked loudly and Charles stumbled forward as Madeleine squeaked and sprung back a pace. Only an instant later, they were laughing together; Madeleine using her pretty laugh.
"You fiend! You brute! You heartless murderer of sticks!" teased Madeleine and she pushed playfully against his enormous arm while she did so. Behind the dark unruly beard a grin was briefly lifted. In any case, Charles had his wooden pieces, so he dragged the sawhorses through the straw and dirt floor to center. Madeleine watched Montaigne as he set the planks to bridge the span, but she kept her attention on the eyes of that man. His gaze, she observed, neither rolled nor roamed but leapt with the nimbleness of youth from object to object. When landed upon his vision's perch, it would there remain, fixed and furious, often marked by furrowed brow, until the next prey was spotted and then away. With the aid of an engraved metal ruler, Charles measured out the necessary lengths for his frame. It was to be the same dimensions as that of Boniface's Leda in progress, but they were good, sound dimensions so he was content to do so. It was certain, Charles believed, that Ambrose knew more than he, with respect to the mathematical proportions of composition and Ambrose had approved this relation. Charles was forcing himself to be more disciplined than he might have been in the past. The last time that he had constructed a canvas frame, he had estimated the lengths.
Madeleine leaned forward to watch the man gouge lines in the wood with his stylus. He then spun the measuring stick about a few times to find the required forty-five degree angle for the impending cut. He might have forgotten about the presence of the small woman at his side had she not mused aloud, "You appear comfortable... confident when you work."
When he had completed the guideline for another cut, Montaigne stood up straight and paused to answer, "Not always. Here, I know what needs to be done, yes."
"The boards don't have their own ideas to complicate things."
"Hrm?"
"Nothing," she answered, and so let the topic fall carelessly to the wayside. Charles did not question further, but ruminated on what she might have meant before he returned to the task in hand. It took a while to find a saw in the carnage of that carriage house. Once one was found, he tried a few times to get a good angle for his cut and keep the light wood braced, but eventually he was obliged to ask for the aid of his assistant.
Madeleine felt the cutting arm of Charles brush again and again against her shoulder. She leaned into it and, atop the rasping sound of shearing wood, said, "You are not married, M. Montaigne. Have you a lover back in Paris?"
The blade lost its bite.
"No," he answered and went back to work.
"I am surprised," she lied. "What happened? To your last love, I mean. Was it a tragic tale? An ill-starred romance? Did you break her heart badly? I bet some splendid woman weeps into her pillow each night, wishing that you could forgive her."
The angled end of a board fell away. Charles straightened his back and they swapped out pieces to be cut. Madeleine took her place again, securing the wood with her slight, but adequate weight and pressed her shoulder into his.
"There is no such woman. I've broken no hearts."
"Yet!"
"I've broken no hearts" he said and sawed.
Madeleine switched her pose quickly, now sitting her bottom upon the board. This kept it steadier still.
"Your heart? Has it been torn by some cruel girl? How dry is your pillow in the morning?"
The saw blade chewed through Charles' answer, "Some of us... are not... so blessed... with beauty... with love. There have been girls... women... There have been women."
"Of course."
Unwanted wood broke away and he levelled himself again. His attention found a roost upon the tiny laced boots of Madeleine. Soft grey leather wrinkled around her toes when she rose to flip around the board about and resettled as she resumed her perch. Past the open doors, Madeleine could observe that no life had yet stirred from the estate house.
"They say that you are the passionate one."
Only a shrug answered her.
With play in her soul Madeleine drew close and allowed her breath to roll warm, like a breeze, over the cragged cheeks of Montaigne
"I imagine, Dear, that you love deeply." Then, tuning to a seductress pitch, she whispered, "Do you love deeply? Do you love completely?"
He froze, and then when she touched two little fingers to his sweated, naked forearm, the giant sprung back a step and then another and then he spun to face his back to her and clawed a palm against his cheek and beard as though fear could be so easily wiped off.
While the lady gaily laughed away.
When Charles returned to the work, Madeleine renewed her interrogations, "Surely, my dearest, you had a great many women in the army." whole cuts were made without any answer, so she persisted, saying, "We know that all young soldiers have sweethearts, that a man in uniform, with fetching red epaulettes, cannot fail but to seduce countryside maidens. And there are the other women, we all know about them, that are always available to men under arms. Soldiers will not be denied their desires."
The painter looked to his lengths of wood, measuring the cuts against one another and running his dirty thumb over their dry surfaces.
"A prostitute ceases to be a woman," he stated and then tried to specify, " for my purposes."
Madeleine's eyebrows arched magnificently. "Now you must confide, M. Montaigne, what those purposes are!"
"Friendship, certainly," began Charles with an acknowledging gesture toward Madeleine. She acknowledged and assented with a soft smile.
"Certainly."
Satisfied with his handiwork thus far, the painter then began to mark off and cut four triangles from the scraps.
"But is that all?" pressed his lady friend.
"Muses. They are Muses. Their grace, femininity, gentleness... their aesthetic inspires us to be better. Women have a nature that is angelic - divine. In their beauty and their charms, we can see something that we can never be." Montaigne raised up a large and dirty hand that showed all the scars of a manual lifetime. The skin was dark and cracked. Two fingers were askew, broken in some youthful toil with nails that were roughly hewn or overgrown, some half black and broken. "My flesh reflects the ruin of my soul."
Indignation could find no sure footing in the mood of Madeleine.
"We should promenade about, looking to inspire men - to be amusements?"
"It is important. We need you. Art needs you."
She shook her head and did not laugh. Her eyes remained fixed upon the features of Montaigne as she answered, "If I am allowed to choose between a man that makes art of me, and a man that makes love to me, it is no choice. I am flesh. To be admired and adored is not enough, my dear. Flesh needs to be loved." Madeleine watched as the gaze of Charles fled to the corners of the floor, to the filth and manure, the straw and the stone, in its panicked flight from her words. She witnessed the roll of beard as the large man's jaw clenched firmly.
"All men will make love to you," he murmured with anger on his breath, but she would not heed it.
"Would you? Look, I reach to touch your cheek," Madeleine says, but he did not look. He sensed her half-raised fingertips and stepped away again, but Madeleine pursed, insisting, "Imagine if I had gone fishing in your trousers. You'd have curled into a ball screaming. You are frightened."
Challenged, Charles braced himself. His shoulders were set straight back. "No," he said, with no clarity.
"Yes," she said, with certainty and defiance, and still the great bearded man would not lift his eyes. "Shall I then?"
He spun to fight, throwing up hands - half fists - to ward any advances. "No!" he shrieked. It might have been angry. It might have been desperate. It might have saved them both.
Madeleine laughed her ugly, common laugh. On light foot, she danced back and traipsed away, raising her own tiny balled fists to ridiculously counter those of the giant. It took only a moment until the laugh was musical and her smile sparkling beautiful. A silent thunderbolt had changed the air within that carriage house.
"Do you know, Charles, that some people are positively terrified of you?"
"I am no monster," defended Charles. He had heard the charge before. "I just seem like one. I am big, different. I am not jolly." It was as though he had to spit out the last word, it being some kind of blasphemy. He finished by saying, "I am ugly."
He was fishing now for a compliment, Madeleine knew. She also knew that he only wanted it so that it could be nobly, self-effacingly refuted. Playing that hand for him would be so easy, but she doubted that such a win would satisfy Montaigne's soul. A remedy surfaced in her mind. With the air that Boniface would adopt for a charming bon mot, Madeleine delivered, "Little do they know that it is your soul that sets Titans atremble." The kite was aloft and so she ran before it, saying "Drakes recoil from the fire of your heart. Demons cringe in the flames of your passion."
From those emboldening words, Charles took up the courage to look Madeleine in the eye, trying to see past her cheerfully posed expression, and marvelling at the subtle grey colouring of the iris. He saw the smooth arc of her upper lightly-lashed lids shade the pink flesh folds of the lower. Her pupils, just then, were large and dark and stirred with energy - with life. Over her head, the rafters creaked and Charles did not hear it. Somewhere near, a mouse dashed across the floor and he did not see it. The mountain rumbled and trembled. He stammered, but she could make no sense of it. Still, she closed the chasm gulf with one unsure pace and raised an ungloved hand to touch the arm of Charles with feminine grace.
"I am terrified, Charles, but not like they. I fear what someone would do to you." It was a tender, tentative touch that lighted upon the cheek of Charles then. Anew, she whispered, "I am afraid for you."
Without fleeing, Charles turned away. He had a handful of cut wooden triangles, and he used them for salvation, saying "We should get back to work, Madame."
"You have no answer for me then? No reply?"
Charles walked and on the workbench found nails and hammer.
"Please, don't," he said.
It was easy to exit. "I should see how Adele is coming along with breakfast." The man nodded. The woman left.