Brilliance (21 page)

‘Did Monsieur Lumière buy one of these kinetoscopes?’ she asked with keen interest.

‘No! He said that he was certain his sons could produce a much better apparatus with pictures that could be projected instead of being enclosed in a box, and he was coming home to get them started on it.’

‘I’m sure they will take notice of what he says, because photography is in their blood as it is in his,’ she said with a nod. And, she added to herself, as it was in Daniel’s too.

When she had cleared away the dishes they sat on at the table with a last glass of wine, the chocolate box open between them, and he felt encouraged enough to say a little of what he felt.

‘In Paris,’ he said softly, ‘I resented every day I had to spend away from you.’

Immediately she saw which way the conversation was turning and thought to halt it by putting her hand on his wrist that was resting on the table. ‘We are good friends, Michel. Let us keep it that way. Nothing more.’

He closed his hand tightly over hers. ‘Why, Lisette?’ There was no turning back now. ‘You surely know that I care for you. Do you think we could be more than friends one day?’

She became so pale that even her lips lost their colour and she would have pulled her hand away, but he kept it clamped in his. ‘Marriage is not for me,’ she said in a stumbling voice. ‘There was somebody once, but he has gone from my life and with him all that might have been.’

‘But I’m not that man or anything like him, whoever he was. You came to Lyon in order to make a new start in life, didn’t you?’ When she nodded, he added, ‘I guessed as much. Forget the past. It’s over and gone. Let me help you with this new beginning.’ He took up her hand and pressed it to his lips in a kiss before lowering it again. ‘Say you’ll look to the future with me. I can pave the way.’

She thought how nothing could make her forget the past, for that would be as if her daughter had never been. Whatever she might have felt for Michel was blocked by what had happened and there was no changing it.

‘Don’t ask the impossible,’ she implored, for she had no wish to hurt him in any way.

‘But surely you want a home and children?’ he protested. ‘I can’t believe that you plan to go on working in a factory all your life.’

‘I’ll not have to do that,’ she replied, deciding at last to tell him about her grandmother’s bequest. ‘I have a house in the Bellecour district that will become mine when I’m twenty-one together with an inheritance.’

He sat back in surprise, but did not relinquish his hold. ‘But surely if you are virtually homeless – and you can’t consider this apartment to be a home – some claim for accommodation in the house could be made on your behalf in the meantime.’

‘The house would be mine now if I married, but as I’ve already told you I’ve no wish to be anybody’s wife.’ She glanced about her, seizing the chance to keep the conversation to a safer level. ‘I’m happy enough in this little place, although I would like to get rid of the wallpaper.’

He gave her a long look, understanding that she was drawing him away from further talk of love, and he decided he had no choice at the present time but to follow her lead.

‘I’m going to be busy at work for the next few weeks after being away so long, but I’ll help you redecorate next Sunday.’ He knew better than to offer to have it done professionally for her, which he would have preferred, but he was sure that he had retained some skill in painting walls from his student days.

‘Would you? That’s very kind! I’ll buy the paint in the colour I want.’

‘I’ll bring brushes and a bucket. We’ll need dust sheets to cover your furniture.’

‘I know where I can get some.’

It was time for him to leave. Still holding her hand, he drew her around the table as they both rose from it. Then he took her by the shoulders and looked down into her upturned face.

‘Grant me as much of your new beginning as you can spare,’ he said quietly. Then before she could draw back he bent his head and kissed her softly on the lips. ‘Goodnight, Lisette.’

She held the door and watched him leave before closing it. He was all any woman should want and she had become extremely fond of him, but it was not enough. At least, not yet. His talk of children had struck home more than he could ever realize. Nobody she knew suspected that she endured many moments of intense heartache that were usually sparked by the sight of an infant being pushed in a baby carriage or jogged about happily in a mother’s arms.

As the months had gone by she had tried to picture every stage of her daughter’s growth. By now little Marie-Louise would be toddling about and taking a lively interest in everything. Did she have a favourite toy? Maybe a soft one from which she would not be parted. Perhaps she held it and sucked her thumb until she went to sleep. Such thoughts were both a torment and a comfort to Lisette and she could not let them go.

On Sunday Michel came early to start the redecoration. She had brought dust sheets from Bellecour, going back to the house when it was dark as she always did when she wanted to get something from there. They stripped off the wallpaper, which was already curling over in parts, and prepared the walls. Together they painted them in the soft blue of her choice. When the two rooms were finished and hung with some small paintings from Bellecour she was delighted with them.

‘I’m so high up in this building,’ she said, laughing, ‘that the sky colour will make me feel as one with the birds that I feed on my windowsill!’

Michel did not attempt to kiss her again, except on the cheek, which enabled her to keep their relationship on a level plane. Even when she invited him to dinner in her apartment now and again he never touched her amorously. As if to reassure her further he began inviting other couples to join them on social occasions, either his married friends and their wives or sometimes bachelors with fiancées. Often a whole party of them would go to a play or a concert and have supper together afterwards. Sometimes Auguste as well as Louis Lumiére would be there too with their wives, Marguerite and Rose, who were both pretty, friendly women, and she enjoyed being with them. As a result of this social round, she and Michel began to be invited everywhere together. Then came an invitation for them to a grand ball on New Year’s Eve to welcome in 1895. This time she wore a gown of cream silk that she had had made from one of the bolts that she had found in her grandmother’s chest of drawers.

It was a little time after that when she began to realize how much she had absorbed Michel into her life. With it came awareness that her feelings for him were becoming deeper. It was not that she was in love with him, but her affection for him was increasing with every meeting. As a result she told him much more about herself than she would otherwise have done, although she left out how she had taken refuge at the convent and all that had happened there. She also omitted any mention of Daniel and spoke of him as if their relationship had never been more than that of employer and assistant.

Michel was well aware that there were gaps in her life that she still had not covered for him, but he never questioned her, certain the time would come when eventually she would tell him everything.

M
ichel could not understand why Lisette would not allow him to make a claim for her on the Bellecour house, but in her own mind she had visions of Isabelle arriving in Lyon to contest it and, although it was highly unlikely, even Philippe making an appearance.

‘If you would let me know all the facts,’ Michel persisted, ‘I could easily take up the case for you. From what you have told me I know that your stepmother stopped your allowance simply because you left home to avoid marrying someone you could no longer trust.’ It was all Lisette had revealed about Philippe. ‘As I have said, I’m not at all sure that she had the legal right to stem it completely. At least let me look into the matter on your behalf.’

‘No,’ she said firmly, her tone brooking no argument. ‘My life is running smoothly at the present time and I want nothing to disrupt it.’

He had to accept her decision.

It was Michel who gave Lisette the news that the Lumière brothers had gone ahead with their father’s encouragement and had invented a camera, yet to be wholly perfected, which would take animated pictures and also project them. It filled her with thoughts of Daniel. She wondered how advanced he was now with his invention? Had the Lumière brothers left him far behind?

Then, one warm, late summer day Auguste came into her office on a tour of the whole factory to make an announcement. He had the attention of all the bookkeepers immediately, but he considered what he had to say important enough to summon the clerks from the adjacent office and they crowded together at the back and sides of the room.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he began. ‘Tomorrow when you leave the factory at the end of the day’s work you will see my brother outside. He will be turning the handle of a wooden box mounted on a tripod. It is a very special camera that takes animated pictures and also projects them on to a screen or wall. He will be taking pictures of you that will capture your every movement.’

There was a buzz of surprise and interest. Lisette listened in dismay. So the Lumière brothers were to be first after all! She did not begrudge them their success, but she had never lost her high hopes for Daniel. Almost unaware of it, she rose to her feet.

‘I offer my congratulations, Monsieur Auguste, but I have understood from what I have read and also heard that smooth projection has been the great hurdle that has so far been impossible to overcome. May I ask if you have mastered that problem?’

He gave her a sharp look of interest, not having expected anyone to have any real knowledge of the workings of a motion picture camera. ‘You are quite correct, Mademoiselle Decourt. It has been an enormous hurdle for many would-be inventors, including my brother and myself, because the resulting jerkiness has made the photographs virtually impossible to watch without eyestrain. I am happy to say that the Lumière camera has solved that problem.’

‘I am delighted to hear that,’ she continued, but she was still unable to curb her curiosity. ‘There has also been the difficulty of printing the pictures on various sensitized papers,’ she continued, ‘all of which to date have been quick to tear. Is some new material being used?’ Then she flushed with embarrassment and corrected herself. ‘No, I should not ask such questions, because you must have surely discovered something unknown to anyone else.’ She sat down quickly. ‘Please forgive my impertinence.’

‘There is nothing to forgive, mademoiselle. Your interest is commendable. This past year has been a time of perfecting our invention and the credit for it goes to my brother, Louis. You were not here at the time, mademoiselle, but some while ago my brother was not well and was confined to his bed. As the rest of you will know, he is never idle and nor was he during that enforced rest. Instead he was turning the problem of a lack of smooth projection over and over in his mind until the solution came to him. He greeted me from the pillow of his sickbed with the news that he had solved the problem that had previously marred a perfect picture!’

There was a spontaneous burst of applause. Auguste smiled, nodded to them all and then left the office. Afterwards Lisette found it difficult to concentrate on her work. She could not stop wondering what the inspiration was that had come to Louis on his sickbed. Did it mean that the brothers had outrun Daniel in the great race for perfection?

The next day to the surprise of the Lumière brothers all their women employees turned up for work in their best clothes in readiness for the motion picture camera. The rows of pegs for their hats resembled brightly coloured flower garlands with all the elaborate trimmings of ribbons, flowers, feathers and beaded hatpins. Lisette was the exception, coming in a neat blouse and skirt and plain hat, which was her normal working attire. She had more on her mind than the forthcoming motion picture making, for the previous evening Michel had asked her to marry him. Yet she was not oblivious to the air of excitement that prevailed in her office and had to exert her authority to get the correct amount of work from her bookkeepers done by the end of the day.

‘You have surely realized over past months how much in love with you I am, my dear Lisette,’ Michel had said. They had been seated on a banquette in a secluded alcove, well hidden by pillars and palm trees, at one of their favourite restaurants where they had had supper together after the theatre. She experienced a moment of panic akin to a sensation of being trapped, knowing how easy it would be to accept him, but sensibly let it pass before she answered in a calm voice.

‘I do care a very great deal for you, Michel,’ she admitted honestly, ‘and I truly regret that I’m not able to commit myself in any way.’

‘Is it because you still love the man you almost married?’

‘No!’ She threw back her head in astonishment that he should imagine that Philippe should stand between them. ‘I never think of him.’

‘Then marry me, Lisette,’ he urged. ‘I believe you’re more in love with me than you realize. We could have a wonderful life together. There’s so much we have in common – a love of books, music, the theatre, the countryside and much more.’

She was uneasy. ‘You know my views on marriage.’

‘You formed those ideas during the period in your life when you were hurt and unhappy, but now the time has come for you to have a fresh outlook on the future. Be my wife, Lisette. I’ll do everything in my power to make you happy. I want you so much.’

He drew her closer and kissed her lovingly as he had done on previous occasions, but this time more intensely with an ultimate purpose. Against her will her whole body yearned to be loved, to surrender to passion, for Daniel had awakened senses in her that had haunted her ever since, but she drew herself away.

‘No, Michel! I can’t give you any hope.’ In her mind’s eye she saw again the baby she had never held and yet who had changed her life irrevocably. She knew Michel well enough to know that if he ever suspected that another man had possessed her, giving her a child, he would be tormented by terrible jealousy. She would never subject him to that torture for his sake as well as her own