Paris Kiss (22 page)

Chapter 38

Paris

February 1887

On my return to Paris I rushed around to Rodin's studio to find Camille. She had not been at the apartment and I had brushed off Madame Claudel's entreaties to rest after my journey and paused only to wash and change my travel-stained clothes. In Studio M, I breathed in the familiar scent of wet plaster and marble dust. It was nearing the end of the working day but the courtyard, which should have been full of
practiciens
,
was strangely empty. I pushed through the interior doors and was met with an arresting sight. Camille was standing on a table with a dustsheet wound about her like a Roman matron and there was a paper crown on her head. She waved a bottle of wine in the air, like a beacon, and was surrounded by
practiciens
. Camille took a swig and they cheered and whistled.

‘How do I look, Rodolphe?' Her words were slurred.

‘Good enough to eat – like a
bonbon
waiting to be unwrapped.' Rodolphe's simian face leered at Camille and she threw back her head and laughed.

‘Behold the Statue of Liberty!' she shouted. Camille drank deeply again and staggered, nearly losing her footing. Rodolphe caught her around the waist to steady her. ‘Here,
mon ami
, have a drink,' she said to him. She was pouring wine down his throat when she caught sight of me.

‘
Salut
,
Jessie!' Camille beckoned to me. ‘Come and join the fun. We've just heard Eiffel is to build a colossal tower over Paris, even more vulgar than the Statue of Liberty he worked on with Bartholdi.' She put the bottle to her lips again and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. ‘Those poor New Yorkers have to look at that abomination every day. Now we in Paris are to have our own monument to bad taste.'

I didn't know what to say or do. Before we had left for England, Camille and I had been excluded from the tight-knight group of
practiciens
who had sneered at our work and insisted that women had no place in any
atelier
, let alone that of Rodin. But here she was, acting as their ringleader. It dawned on me that Rodin must have promoted her to stone carver and that she was one of them now. While I had been in Peterborough, counting the days to our reunion, she had been forging new alliances and playing studio politics, befriending the same brutes who had done everything in their power to thwart us. Now they had accepted her as Rodin's protégée – no doubt to curry favour with the great man.

Camille jumped down and flung her arms around me. Her breath smelled of wine and her lips were stained with a ruby tidemark. ‘Drink?' She waved the bottle in my face and I pushed it aside.

‘No thank you.'

‘No thank you,' she mimicked in a prissy voice and grinned at the
practiciens
, who obligingly screamed with laughter. Camille closed one eye to focus on me and placed the bottle on a table. ‘If you're too high and mighty to have a bit of fun with the workers, you'd better get on with your work then, English Miss.
Allez!
' She clapped her hands at me, as if she were the studio manager and I a new start. She turned her back on me as if to dismiss me, and her cronies gathered around to slap her on the back.

I gathered what was left of my dignity, like a beggar woman picking up her ragged skirts, and walked out of the studio. I waited until I was in the street before I allowed my shoulders to drop. I slid down the courtyard wall until I was crouched on my haunches and buried my face in my arms. I had been humiliated. Camille had humiliated me. I lifted my head and wiped away the tears with the heels of my hands. I spoke aloud, oblivious to anyone who might be passing.

‘How dare she? That bitch! How could she? After everything I've done for her!'

‘Are you all right, dearie?' An old woman leaned over me. ‘It can't be that bad, can it?' She patted my shoulder with one hand and I began to cry again. I heard a rustling and with a start of fury, realised she was rummaging through my satchel, which had fallen open beside me. The old cow was trying to steal from me.

‘
Va t'en!
'
I screamed in her face and she started back. I got to my feet and she scurried off. I searched for the vilest words I knew in both English and French and hurled them at her until she'd rounded the corner.

Camille came to breakfast the next day clutching her head. I stiffened when I saw her but she didn't seem to notice and came barrelling over to embrace me, as if nothing had happened. She clearly had no recollection of what she'd put me through. I didn't return her embrace; I was growing tired of dealing with her outbursts. I didn't know where they came from, these unpredictable scenes. I was beginning to wonder if she were a secret drinker – I'd already seen some artists succumb to the grip of drink and become tiresome to be around – but my suspicions only masked a more terrifying prospect: that Camille may have been losing her mind.

She smiled at me and I looked away from her. ‘What's the matter, Jessie, I thought you'd be more pleased to see me?'

‘I saw you, yesterday afternoon. You were with the
practiciens
.'

Camille rubbed her temples. ‘
Sang bleu!
That swine Rodolphe got me drunk and I can't remember a thing. Did you come to the studio? Remind me never to drink with those apes again.' She took my arm and leaned her head on my shoulder. ‘I missed you so much,
ma petite anglaise.
Don't leave me alone again.'

My anger began to drain away. Camille had given me an excuse to forgive her and I grabbed it. The alternative was too desolate to contemplate.

Chapter 39

Paris

April 1887

In the end, it was money that came between us and cast a shadow over the last three months I spent in Paris.

It all came to a head in April, when the city is at its most breathtaking. I'd hardly seen Camille since my return. She taken to sleeping in our studio and would leave early in the morning and come back late. Rodin had indeed promoted her to
practicien
and the hours were punishingly long. As for me, the studio manager, Jules Desbois, thanked me for my work on the draperies for
The Burghers
, which were now complete. I was no longer needed.

I kept to our studio where Emily Fawcett became my daily companion. We worked quietly and diligently, breaking for tea in the morning and bread and cheese at midday. She was a pleasant companion, but it wasn't the same. The only sign of Camille was a trestle bed in the corner and a small trunk. Sometimes there would be a couple of dirty glasses or a discarded chemise lying on the floor in the morning. She was obviously still deeply involved with Rodin. I was always careful to tidy up the evidence of their trysts before Emily arrived. It was hard to give up the habit of covering for the lovers and I missed the role of go-between after having found it irksome.

Of Rodin there was no sign. My father had written a cheque for his tutoring fees after a whispered argument with my mother, who had sighed heavily as she placed it in an envelope for the post. I'd been back in Paris a month and had still received no tuition from our
maître
. I was complaining about the situation to Emily one day after I'd sent a note to Rodin asking when he would resume his tuition. I'd waited a fortnight, but he hadn't bothered to reply.

‘It's really too bad,' I said. ‘What's the point of being here if we are to learn nothing?'

Emily made a wry face. ‘I'm afraid our role is to provide a convenient fee for the
maître,
and a free studio for Camille.'

‘What do you mean? Camille pays her share.'

‘No she doesn't. Look, I'll show you.' Emily fetched a large black book from inside the tea chest we used as a table. ‘I found this the other day. It's a ledger with the payments to the landlord. See, here's the total rent – I pay nearly half of that.'

I took the book from her and ran my finger down the page. ‘And I the other half.'

‘You see, Camille pays next to nothing.'

It's strange how you can put up with so much – the tantrum in Peterborough when I'd sung for Rodin, the cold shoulder when she'd taken up with Florence, my humiliation in front of the
practiciens ­–
but a relatively trivial matter can tip you into fury. Camille was cheating me. What else had she done? I recalled a sarcastic letter I'd received from her just before my return to Paris. I'd queried a foundry bill she'd sent me for one of my busts. It had seemed excessive and I was conscious of my parents' financial plight. There was even talk of putting Wootton House up for rent. I hated to see my parents so worried and was trying to make economies where I could. I had begun, for the first time, to scrutinise the bills coming from France. Camille's reply was highly indignant and I'd dropped the subject, embarrassed. Now I was convinced the foundry bill had been padded.

I looked again at the ledger. The figures in black ink told their own story. Camille had made remarks about my family's wealth, and the cost of my clothes. Did she take me for a fool – a rich fool?

I slammed the book shut. ‘Right, that's it; I'm going to ask Camille for a large reduction in rent. I'll put it in writing so she knows I mean business.'

Emily's eyes grew wide, but she nodded. ‘I think that would be best.'

A few days later I found my letter to Camille torn to shreds and scattered on the studio floor around her makeshift bed.

I also wrote to Rodin and this time he did reply, but it was infuriating. He ignored my complaint, asked if I'd seen Camille and begged me to bring her to his studio with Emily and he would give the three of us tuition. I assumed Camille and Rodin had had one of their tiffs and he was using our lesson as a pretext to see her again. I wrote back to say I would come with Emily. In the meantime, quite by chance, I discovered the reason Rodin had neglected his teaching duties.

It was the end of a long day at the studio in rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs. Another interminable evening at the Claudel apartment stretched before me, listening with one ear to Louise playing the piano and with the other to Madame Claudel's complaints. I missed Camille. I hadn't realised how much of my time was taken up with her and I hadn't been able to fill the gap she'd left, even if I'd wanted to: Rosa was busy with a new commission and Georges was at his parents' house in the country. It was just as well he was out of town – without Camille or Rosa as chaperone, I wouldn't have been able to see him on my own. And if I did see him alone, and if Madame Claudel found out, I would be sent home on the next train. I was lonely.

I dawdled along the pavement that evening and passed a café. I was looking wistfully at the people chatting when I heard my name called.

‘
Hein
, Jessie! Over here!' Suzanne Valadon and Toulouse-Lautrec were waving wildly from a far table.

My heart lifted to see them and I hurried to their table. I bent to kiss Suzanne and smiled at Henri, who unscrewed the silver top of his cane and poured me a brandy.

He spoke to me in his heavily accented English: ‘Why so glum, my little English plum? Do you see how I make this clever rhyme? My vocabulary has improved wonderfully since we last met, don't you agree?' He bent closer to me and lowered his voice. ‘I have been sleeping with a prostitute from Leeds – most educational.'

I could have hugged myself; it was bliss to be in this kind of company again. But Suzanne looked put out.

‘French, please, Henri. Are you boasting about your adventures with tarts again? Do you think I'm stupid? The word is not so different in English. I'm sure Jessie doesn't want to hear your dirty little confidences, she is a respectable young woman,
après tout
.' She raised an eyebrow and caught me taking a large swig of brandy; I couldn't help laughing. ‘An English lady with cognac coming out of her nose,' she said. ‘Henri, give her your handkerchief.'

Suzanne leaned her arms on the table, revealing the snowy tops of her breasts in all their splendour. A man walking past whistled and she treated him to one of her dimpled smiles. She turned her attention back to me, all business again.

‘I need a favour.'

‘What kind of favour?' I said.

‘Will you put in a good word for me with Rodin? I've been begging him for classes all winter. I've promised to model for him – even doing those sexy poses he likes, you know, with other girls – but he says he can't.'

‘Did he say why?' It was unlike Rodin to turn down such a blatant offer from someone as desirable as Suzanne.

She banged down her glass. ‘That
salope
, Camille, that's why.'

I frowned. ‘Camille? What has she to do with it?'

‘He's under contract to her, he says.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘It's so absurd, I can barely tell you. I thought you'd know all about it.'

I shook my head. I didn't want to admit I had hardly seen Camille, and that when I did she was off-hand, making it clear she was in a rush to be somewhere – or with someone – more interesting.

‘Camille has forced Rodin to sign some stupid piece of paper that forbids him from teaching anyone apart from her,' Suzanne said. ‘I can't even get to him under the pretext of modelling for him. This stupid contract also says he must employ models only if she approves them first. Can you see Camille approving me?' Suzanne had a point – she and Camille had never liked each other. ‘In return the little trollop has agreed to “visit” Rodin so many times a month.' Suzanne snorted. ‘Open her legs, more like.'

It took me a while to understand what Suzanne had just told me. But when I finally did, it explained why Rodin had not been to our studio lately, and perhaps why I had been effectively dismissed from his studio, why my letters asking for the tuition I had paid for went unanswered. Camille had gone too far this time.

‘This is outrageous,' I said.

She shrugged and ground out her cigarette on her plate. ‘You should talk to Rodin; he's always liked you and he'll listen to you,' Suzanne said.

Henri reached across the table and picked up my hand. ‘Perhaps you would accept me as your new tutor. I could teach you all manner of interesting
techniques
.'

I shook my head and smiled at him. It was impossible to take offence at Henri; he was one of those people who could say the most outrageous things and get away with it.

‘Henri,' I said. ‘You'd make an excellent
maître
. If only I were a painter!' I gathered up my things and said to Suzanne, ‘I find it hard to believe this contract really exists. Are you sure?'

‘Rodin himself showed it to me,' Suzanne said. ‘It's all written down. He even had to sign it. You should ask Camille about it; maybe even give her a few home truths. It's about time she was taken down a peg or two. She's getting too big for her boots, the way she queens around the salons these days with Rodin. He's started taking her out to dinners and exhibitions with him; they don't care who knows about their affair. It doesn't bother me, that sort of thing, but what gets me is Camille thinks she is better than me. After all, she is just another model sleeping with an artist.'

I hurried away. I had a lot to think about. Thanks to Camille, Rodin clearly had no intention of honouring his commitment to teach me or anyone else. Suzanne was wrong: I had no influence over Rodin. He listened only to Camille. I would have to speak to her and make her release him from this absurd contract. It was the least she could do for me.