We were silent as we rode back to Paris. I thought how beautiful the city looked in the fading light as we came through the Bois de Boulogne past the Arc de Triomphe and into the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore.
At length the Princesse spoke.
“What an exciting day! For both of us, I think. So it is now definite. You are going to be Madame de Mortemer. As for me … who knows?”
She was so happy. I was not going to make the mistake of mentioning the Baron’s name for the second time that day.
The day after thejete champetre the Princesse was not well. She was pale, listless and depressed. Poor child, I thought. Her coming marriage alarms her so much and she can’t forget that it is coming nearer and nearer every day. She did not look in the least like the pretty young girl who was beginning to emerge in the miniature.
Marie-Claude was no beauty; her features were irregular and the lower part other face too heavy; she had to be happy to be attractive. She was effervescent by nature, and when I thought of the happy girl at thereto champetre she seemed to bear little relationship to this pale-faced girl in the bed.
She did not leave her room and sittings were cancelled. She did ask me to sit with her, which I was glad to do. At times I thought she was on the point of confiding in me but I did not encourage this because I knew it was going to be about her fears for her coming marriage, and there was little I could say to comfort her about that. To tell her that marriages of convenience often turned out happily was banal really. I tried to put myself in her place. I was sure I should have done something about it. But how could I preach rebellion to my poor helpless little Princesse?
I tried to talk of other things of my home and the life we led in Farringdon; and sometimes I made her smile a little.
I took a walk every afternoon. Each day the spell of Paris wove itself more tightly about me. I was enchanted by this beautiful city and I thoroughly enjoyed exploring it. Marie Claude thought I was very adventurous, for she was naturally not allowed to go out without a chaperone. I felt free independent of everyone. After all, here I was executing a commission for a nobleman of France. When I came to think of it, the Baron had done a good deal for me. Not only had he given me acknowledgement of my art but he had made a person of me in my own right. I suppose I should be grateful for that.
I must stop thinking of the man. He had even intruded into the wonderful afternoon ofthejete champetre and brought an ugly cloud.
Because of him poor Marie-Claude was suffering at this moment for I was sure her illness was nothing more than an attack of nervous apprehension. Meanwhile her indisposition gave me free time to explore during an extended stay in Paris. I was not sorry, because I was a little troubled by the miniature. I did want to get something as good as the one I had done of the Baron but at the same time I was eager to make the Princesse appear at her most attractive. Oddly enough, the Baron had been an easier subject.
I would go out every afternoon at two o’clock precisely and I covered a great deal of ground, for I was a good walker. I wandered through the streets down the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne to the Louvre and found my way to the Gardens of the Luxembourg. Most impressive of all was the great Cathedral of Notre Dame. From the moment I entered it I felt a tremendous excitement. It was gloomy inside and a scent of incense hung in the air. I explored a little, but I knew this was not the way to see the cathedral and that I should come back and back again for as long as that were possible. All that I had ever heard about the place came flooding back to me. I remembered that our own Henry the Sixth had been crowned King of France here more than four hundred years ago. Later Henri of Navarre had married Marguerite de Valois-in the porch because as a Huguenot he was not allowed inside-and that marriage had been followed by the terrible massacre ofSt. Bartholomew; and twenty years later when he had taken possession of the city, the same Henri, having agreed to become a Catholic, had said it was worth a mass.
I was fascinated by the hideous gargoyles, and I stood for a long time gazing from one to another wondering why it had been thought necessary to adorn but perhaps that was hardly the word-such a holy place with such demoniacal figures. The expressions in the faces were something one would see in nightmares. Indeed I wondered whether I should ever forget them. What did they mean to convey? Cunning . yes, that was there . cruelty, lust, greed . all the seven deadly sins. And above all, I think, a certain cynicism.
As I stood there looking at them, one of these-the most saturnine of them all-seemed to move and the features slide into a different shape. For a moment I thought it was the Baron who was looking at me.
He looked like a demon. What had he called himself? The Demon Lover?
Lover! It was hardly likely that he would ever love anyone but himself. I stared. The stone had set back into that cruel face and it could have been laughing at me.
I must get that man out of my mind.
I had stayed longer than I realized and decided I would take a cab.
There was one waiting by the cathedral and I hailed it, gave the cocker instructions. He touched his white hat and we set off.
After that I made a habit of using cabs. I found that I could wander where I liked, stay longer and then simply hail a cab and be back at the house at the time I set myself.
The Princesse was always interested to hear where I had been and I liked to talk about my little trips. I think she was beginning to see Paris through new eyes.
I told her that I had been to the cathedral and how enthralling I had found it. I intended to go back the following day.
“It’s quite a long way.”
“I’m a good walker and I can take a cab back.”
“You are lucky, Mademoiselle Kate. How wonderful it must be to be free.”
I looked at her sadly. I knew that this illness of hers was just a desire to hold back time. She did not want the miniature to be finished; here in her bed she found a small refuge against the encroaching future.
The following morning when I was preparing to go out after dejeuner at the usual hour of two o’clock she asked if I was going to Notre Dame and if so would I call in at the little modiste’s shop close by. She wanted me to take a note there. It was about a hat she wanted made.
I went to the cathedral. I had taken a sketch-book this time and I sat inside and made a few sketches, but all the time what I really wanted to sketch was the gargoyles. I did some from memory, but I thought I invented expressions and in all of them there was something which reminded me of the Baron.
I came out of the cathedral and found my way to the modiste’s shop. I delivered the message and took a cab back to the house.
When I went in to tell Marie-Claude that I had given in the note she seemed better.
“I want you to go again tomorrow,” she said, ‘and make sure the modiste can carry out the order. “
The next day I did the same. They were still waiting for delivery of the material, they told me.
I went back in a cab. I really enjoyed these trips across the City, and I was beginning to know the streets through which we passed. I had a good sense of location and when I returned to the house and talked to Marie-Glaude I felt a great desire for this to go on. Like her, I did not want time to pass too quickly; like her, perhaps I was apprehensive about the future and that was what made the present so desirable. I was still unsure about my marriage. Wasn’t I marrying into a foreign country and to a man whom I had known for a very short time? Had Marie-Claude made me realize the pitfalls one could find in marriage? Had I plunged into this relationship too impulsively? Was I caught up in the excitement of so much that was new? Would I do better to go home and think about it all for a while?
Each day I said: “Do you feel ready to resume the sitting?”