I spent a certain amount of time strolling through the streets, looking at the places which had been only names to me before. I loved the ancient bridges, and I gazed in wonder at the majestic Notre Dame. I wished I had paid more attention to my lessons, and I thought if Violetta were here she would be able to tell me a great deal about these places.
Jacques did not accompany me on these journeys. He was not the type to wander round gaping at everything like a tourist. He had work to do. He had changed a little. He was no less the ardent lover, and that part of our relationship remained. It was just that, when I expressed the excitement I felt in Paris and wished that he would show me certain places, he became remote and evasive. He had some sketches to do. He was not free that day.
“If only Violetta were here,” I said.
He smiled and nodded vaguely. He could not understand what existed between me and Violetta.
I had always imagined that artists lived in attics in abject poverty and went to cafes to celebrate when they sold a picture and there caroused with their impecunious friends.
This was not the case with Jacques.
He had a small house on the Left Bank, it was true, but he lived in a certain degree of comfort. There was an attic in which he worked because the light was from the north. But it was just his working area and below was an ordinary dwelling which one might expect anywhere.
In the basement were a husband and wife who looked after his needs. They were Jean and Marie, middle-aged, eager to please and not really surprised to see me, which was a little disconcerting.
Jacques was clearly by no means poor. He gave me money to buy clothes and, providing I could subdue my conscience, I was happy during those first weeks.
Jacques worked now and then in the attic which he called his studio. People called often. Some of them were sitters, I presumed; others came and he would take them up to the studio to talk. He did show me one or two portraits. I was hoping he would suggest painting me, but he did not.
People sometimes called in the evenings. Marie would cook a meal for them and Jean would wait at table. I would be present on such occasions, of course, but they spoke such rapid French that I could understand little of what they said. When I told Jacques this, he laughed and said I had missed nothing I needed to know. It was all gossip.
“Do they talk about what is going on in Europe?” I asked. “People were always going on about that at home.”
“It is mentioned.”
“They were all worked up about it in England. I expect they are here. Yet usually they all seem so much more excitable than we do.”
He shrugged his shoulders and I sensed he did not want to talk about the possibilities of war. I was in agreement with that. I had grown weary of the subject before I left home.
About ten days after I had been there, Hans Fleisch came to the house. We greeted each other warmly. He had been a great help to us. He bowed, and clicked his heels, which took me right back to that awful time at the schloss. He asked me in his stilted and rather Germanic English if I were enjoying France. I told him I found it most exciting.
“Jacques is very happy that you are here.”
“What happened in Poldown when they discovered I had gone?” I asked.
He was thoughtful and then said: “They believed you were drowned. That you had gone swimming. It was not a wise thing to do, they said. The sea can be treacherous, and you were lost.”
“Did you happen to see any member of my family?”
“No, but I heard they had come to the house.”
“My sister … ?”
“Yes, I think your sister.”
“I see. So … the story was accepted.”
“It would seem so.”
I thought to myself: Oh, Violetta, dear mother, dear father, I hope you don’t mourn me too much.
I think it was then that I began to regard what I had done more seriously.
I was still fascinated by Jacques. The physical relationship between us was perfect—for him, too, I was sure; but I had built up such an image of life in the Latin Quarter that I was vaguely disappointed because ours seemed so conventional. I had pictured artists coming in every day. I remembered stories I had heard of Manet, Monet, Gauguin, Cezanne, and the cafe life of the Bohemians. That was completely missing. Jacques seemed quite affluent. This was perverse of me. I should be grateful. Did I want to live in poverty because it seemed artistic for a moment or two?
I began to know one or two people who came fairly frequently to the studio. One of these, to whom I took a liking, was Georges Mansard. He was a tall man with a ready smile and blue, rather penetrating eyes. He was very fair and did not look very French. He spoke good English and was very interested in me. I always was drawn to people who were. It was something to do with an inferiority complex I had acquired, having grown up lacking Violetta’s intelligence. I enjoyed feeling superior to her in the matter of feminine charm.
The first time Georges Mansard came to the house, I was in the house alone, for Jacques had gone out that morning. He had a way of going off suddenly, not saying where, and I learned not to protest when he returned. Jacques was the sort of man who did not like his actions questioned. It was a trait which was beginning to irritate me.
I heard someone talking to Jean and Marie below and I went down to see who it was.
Jean said: “Monsieur has come to see Monsieur Dubois.”
Delighted to have a visitor, I said: “Oh, do come up. It may be he will not be long.”
The visitor looked pleased and turned to nod at Jean, who looked faintly disturbed, but I said: “That’s all right, Jean. Perhaps,” I went on, “you would bring some coffee.” Then to the guest: “Or would you prefer wine?”
The French seemed to consume a great deal of wine, so I was not surprised when he chose it.
He went up into the room which was called the salon. It was not exactly large but was comfortably furnished. I waved to a chair with a little table beside it and went to the cabinet to get the wine.
Then he told me his name was Georges Mansard and he was a friend of Jacques.
“I heard that you had arrived from England,” he said. “Tell me, how do you like Paris?”
“Enchanting,” I told him.
“You have visited the well-known spots, I’ll be bound. Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower. What do you think of Montmartre?”
“I was delighted by all,” I said.
“Your home was … ?”
“In Cornwall. We had a place right on the coast.”
“That must also have been enchanting.”
“It is reckoned to be so.”
He lifted his glass. “Welcome to France.”
We talked easily and his English, being only slightly accented, was not difficult to understand. He knew England. He had even been to Cornwall. He himself came from the south of France, near Bordeaux.
“Where the wine comes from,” I said.
“Exactly so. All the best wine in France … in the world … comes from the Médoc.” He lifted his hands and smiled whimsically. “Of course, there will be many who deny this … for instance those who do not have the good fortune to live among those delectable vines.” He smiled and looked into his glass. “This is a good claret.”