Moonlight Over Paris(65)
“Are you happy?” Helena asked softly.
It was a while before Amalia answered. “I am. And yet . . . I’m not as happy as I might have been. I chose Peter because he was a good man. A safe, sensible choice for me. I am very fond of him, and of course I adore our boys. But I’m rather lonely at times.
“If I’d had a daughter,” she went on, “it might be easier, I think. With boys, they leave so soon for school, and when they do come home, they aren’t little anymore. They don’t need me anymore. And the days are . . . they’re rather hard to fill. I do envy you. So busy with your work, and your friends are so interesting. I did like them very much.”
“Oh, Mellie,” Helena sighed, using her sister’s pet name. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Don’t fret on my account. It’s just the champagne talking.” Amalia wiped her eyes with the cuff of her nightgown and smiled brightly at her sister. “Now, tell me more about étienne. I knew who he was from your letters, but I had no idea he would be so handsome. Have you ever considered . . . ?”
“No, ah . . . no, I haven’t.” For a moment she considered trying to explain to her sister that étienne was a homosexual, but she was too tired, and she wasn’t entirely sure how she would react, besides.
“I see,” Amalia said decisively. “It’s Mr. Howard you’re stuck on.”
“Mellie! Whatever gave you that idea? He and I are friends, no more. And he isn’t interested in me. Not in that way, at least.”
“Allow me to disagree. He didn’t take his eyes off you all night.”
“Don’t exaggerate. We really are only friends. And now that I know the truth about his family, and the way they live . . .”
“Yes?”
“I don’t think I can go back to that sort of life. The life that Mama expects me to have—”
“The life I have,” her sister whispered.
“Yes. Forgive me for saying so, but I don’t think I can live in that world. I thought I did, once, but now . . . now I want more. I want something else. And if it means I never marry, then so be it.”
“So be it,” Amalia echoed sleepily.
“Good night, Mellie. I love you.”
“Love you, too.”
Amalia fell asleep in seconds, but Helena lay awake, her thoughts churning over the enigma that was Sam. How could she have been so wrong about him? It was clear, now, that she had imagined much of their closeness. She had been honest with him, as true friends must be, while he had remained apart and unknowable.
And those kisses they had shared? They had made a fool of her, for they had led her to conjure up a romance out of thin air. To imagine love where there was only a sort of tepid fondness.
She would miss him, of course, but those silly feelings would soon fade. Her heart was bruised, but it wasn’t broken. And that was something, wasn’t it? It was cold comfort to know such a thing, lying awake in the long and lonely hours before dawn, but it was all she had. It would have to be enough.
Chapter 23
With the vernissage for the Salon des Indépendants fast approaching, Helena threw herself into the creation of paintings for the exhibition. Ma?tre Czerny would only choose one, but as he had so far disliked her every effort she had no real notion of what would please him best.
So far she had completed three works that she hoped would pass muster: a landscape in pastels of lavender growing over an old wall, which she had begun the day she first met Sam; a pen-and-ink drawing of a man who sold newspapers by the Pont Louis-Philippe; and the portrait in oils of the farmer’s wife she’d seen at Les Halles.
She liked all three well enough; they were competently executed and perfectly decorative. But they lacked life, just as Ma?tre Czerny had often complained of Daisy’s work, and likely would say of hers if he ever bothered to take a closer look. They were inert, the sort of objects that were pretty and even rather interesting but not the slightest bit compelling.
One afternoon, a fortnight after her sister’s visit, she arrived at the studio with étienne and Mathilde; Daisy hadn’t come to class that day, for her father had been ill and she was needed at home. Helena went to her easel, which was empty, and realized—why on earth hadn’t it occurred to her before?—that she had nothing to do, for she had finished the last of her paintings the day before.
She opened her sketchbook, looking for some preliminary drawings to work up, and the only one that interested her was a spare, penciled vignette of the Train Bleu at the Gare de Lyon, at the moment when passengers were boarding for their journey south. So long ago that she had drawn it; so long, and yet it might have been yesterday.
“Mathilde? étienne? Would you mind having a look at this?”
She flattened the sketchbook upon her table and stood back so her friends might see.
“I drew it last spring. It was my first day in France. I was on the Train Bleu and we’d stopped at the Gare de Lyon to take on more passengers. And I was thinking . . .”
“Yes?” étienne prompted.
“I was thinking I might attempt a larger work, say a meter wide, with the train itself as the backdrop and the passengers in the foreground. Everyone would be moving, all rushing to board the train and say their farewells. At first glance it would look like one of those posters you see at train stations and on the Métro. The sort with an illustration of some exotic locale, and a slogan like ‘Winter Is Pleasanter on the C?te d’Azur.’ That sort of thing. But there would be more to it, for the longer you looked the more you would see.”