Moonlight Over Paris(23)

“But the gar?on would faint if you asked for such a thing after nine in the morning,” étienne agreed. “The milk in the noisette—it isn’t sufficient?”

“I think the trouble is that it still tastes like coffee to me, and I’m used to tea,” she admitted. “Don’t mind me. I’m in Paris now, and this is how Parisians take their coffee. I’ll learn to like it.”

The Falstaff was a curious place—a café-bar in the heart of Paris that was decorated to resemble a British public house, with forest green banquettes, framed prints of hunting hounds and Scottish stags, and enough oak paneling to satisfy a Tudor. At least Helena assumed that had been the decorator’s intent, for she’d never actually been inside a public house.

Their conversation so far had centered on Ma?tre Czerny and their morning class. Daisy and Helena were still feeling bowled over, while Mathilde and étienne were more phlegmatic. It seemed that tyrannical behavior was not uncommon among the city’s art teachers.

“I was in a class once where the ma?tre ripped our drawings to pieces when they displeased him,” Mathilde recalled. “And there was another teacher—remember Ma?tre Homard, étienne?”

“God, yes. That wasn’t his real name, but we called him that because his face would become as red as un homard—how do you say it in English?”

“A lobster?” Daisy offered.

“Yes, that’s it. Once, I remember, he was so enraged by one student’s efforts—I think the poor fellow had overworked his paint—that he came leaping across the studio, waving a palette knife, and slashed the canvas in two. Right down the middle!”

“Goodness me,” Daisy said. “That does put things in perspective.”

“Do not be disheartened,” Mathilde advised. “Czerny will not always be so fierce.”

“How do you and étienne know one another?” Helena asked. He seemed to be in his early twenties, while Mathilde was nearer to thirty, she judged; as their accents when they spoke French were quite different, she doubted they had grown up together.

“We were students at the école des Beaux-Arts together, last year,” Mathilde answered. “But we both found it . . . I’m not sure how to say . . . désagréable?”

“Disagreeable.”

“Ah. Nearly the same. Yes, it was disagreeable. I thought the teachers too rigid. Too attached to old traditions.”

“I was asked to leave,” said étienne with mischief in his eyes. “I consider it a great honor.”

Thinking it impolitic to question him on the reason for his expulsion from the prestigious school, Helena turned to Daisy.

“Did you come over from America specially for the course?” she asked.

“Oh, no. I’ve been here for years. My father’s a doctor, and during the war he came over to oversee the American hospitals here. My mother had died a few years before, and he needed someone to run the house and act as his hostess when he entertained. That kind of thing.”

“I see,” said Helena, thinking that Daisy would have been awfully young for such responsibilities, at least when they first came to France.

“Daddy’s retiring at the end of the year—they asked him to stay on after the war, which is why we’re still here—so I suppose we’ll be going home then.”

“Why are you taking the course?” Mathilde asked. “Have you studied art before?”

“No, not really. After the war, I worked in a studio for a while, helping with the supplies and some preparatory work. I learned a little while I was there, and then, after the studio closed, I bought some instruction books and tried to learn that way. Daddy wasn’t very keen on my going out to school, you see. But I convinced him, finally, that I should have some lessons. So here I am, although it may not be for long . . .”

“For someone who’s never had an art class in her life, you are very good, you know,” Helena reassured her. And it was true. Ma?tre Czerny had been wrong to dismiss Daisy’s work so cruelly, for several of her sketches had been competently executed.

étienne reached across the table to pat Daisy’s arm. “Here we say le chien qui aboie ne mord pas. The barking dog does not bite, I think? He is a loud man, and a rude man, but you must not be afraid of him.”

“And you, Hélène?” Mathilde asked. “Why are you here?”

“Just after Christmas last year, I came down with scarlet fever, and I nearly died. Even after the worst was over, I was bedridden for ages. Once I was a little better, I told my parents that I wished to come to Paris and learn how to paint properly.”

“They let you come to Paris all on your own?” asked Daisy, her mouth agape in wonder.

“Heavens, no. My aunt lives here, otherwise I’m sure they’d have made a huge fuss. And I think the only reason they did agree is because they felt so badly for me.”

“Shall you return home when the course ends?” étienne asked.

“I think so. Although if Ma?tre Czerny keeps making faces when he looks at my work I may be home before Christmas!”

“No, no,” étienne said, shaking his head. “You will be fine, and so will you, Daisy. Now—it is time for lunch. Shall we order something?”