Paris Kiss (25 page)

Chapter 44

Peterborough

1897

‘Who is this pretty lady, Mama?'

I did not look up from the bust I was working on of my seven-year-old son. I was concentrating on the tricky business of carving the whorls of his ears.

‘Mama!'

I put down my knife and sighed. ‘What is it, Sydney?'

When I looked up, Camille stared back at me. Sydney held the bust in both arms. He'd been looking through an old tea chest in the potting shed I still used as my studio and found the portrait I had made of Camille ten years earlier. I took the terracotta head from him and brushed the cobwebs from her face. Her expression was austere, despite the youthfulness of her rounded cheeks. How old would she be now? Thirty-two? I'd kept in touch with Rodin over the years, sent him news of my wedding and the births of my children. Brief, polite letters came back in his illegible hand. Camille never answered my letters and after a while they were returned ‘address unknown'.

I had tried to put our broken friendship behind me, but I couldn't forget Camille. When I had my first baby – a little girl with navy blue eyes – I was so full of love and tenderness all traces of anger fell away from me and I was able to forgive Camille. It was as if a shard of pain inside me had melted. As a young mother, in the quiet moments after the children were asleep, I liked to think back to the beginning of our friendship, and to the happiest days of my life. But I hadn't thought of Camille in years. Now I ran my fingers over the clay bust over the contours of her face, and I was filled with regret. I should have fought harder to keep her. I would never meet another friend who would mean as much to me.

‘Mama, why are you crying?' Sydney put his small hands on my knees. I pulled him into my arms and covered him with kisses until he squirmed away.

‘Mama's a little sad, that's all. I was remembering a girl I used to know – my best friend.'

After William came to fetch me back to England, I has been ill for a long time. I'd caught a chill on the ferry home that turned into pneumonia. For the rest of that summer I lay in my old bed in Wootton House, watching the leaves of the elm tree turn from green to russet. Ma fussed over me but she was too relieved to learn about William's and my engagement; she knew better than to ask too many questions.

At first I wrote to Camille in a fury, dashing accusations across the page, smearing the ink.
How could you treat me so after everything I did for you and Rodin? I thought I knew you. Now I wonder if I ever did.
But I burned those letters. I couldn't face the accusations she would no doubt throw back at me and they would somehow seem more horrible in writing. And I couldn't bear to think of her reading the harsh words in the letters I never sent.

While I burned with fever, I asked myself over and over why she had broken our friendship. How could she just forget about me? Why did she no longer love me as I loved her still? I couldn't bear to think she was carrying on her life in Paris without a thought for me. I wondered what she was doing, where she was going, who she was seeing. I pictured her in Rodin's studio, high up on the scaffold, intent on
The Gates of Hell
, or at
Le Chat Noir
, laughing as Georges sat with a girl on his lap, trading insults with Rosa.

William came often, pressing my hand in his and speaking about mutual friends and exhibitions coming up in London: anything to take my mind off Paris. But like an animal gnawing at a wound, I returned again and again to Camille. As for Georges, I wouldn't let myself think about him.

‘I don't know what to do, William. Should I write to her?'

He sighed and looked out at the spreading elm, its branches now almost bare beneath a pewter sky. ‘If it would give you peace of mind.'

‘And what shall I say? Shall I ask her why she turned on me? Oh, why did she do that, William?' I could hear the whine in my voice and hated myself for it. I held onto my grief as I could not hold onto Camille.

William's sigh betrayed his irritation. I could tell that he was wondering what had happened to his courageous girl.

‘There, Jessie, don't fret. You'll only make yourself ill again and you are looking so much stronger.' He got off my bed and stood in front of the fire. ‘You've done nothing wrong, Jess. You should write her a civilised letter; show her she hasn't hurt you.'

William helped me write a short note to Camille. Instead of a plea for love and friendship to be restored, the letter was polite and friendly, enquiring after her family and her work. I wrote about our wedding that would take place that December in London. It was to be a big affair as Papa had saved our fortunes after all with a timely investment in paraffin oil, which could now be mined from shale in Scotland. But I didn't tell her about that. Instead, I hoped she was well and added, almost as an afterthought, that I regretted any misunderstanding between us and hoped we could still be friends.

William put the letter in his pocket. ‘I'll put it in the afternoon post.' He kissed me on the forehead. ‘Forget about Paris. You're home now.'

A week later I received a letter postmarked Paris. My heart lifted when I recognised Rodin's lavish scrawl. It was a strange, rather dear little note wishing William and me well. I wondered if Camille would write too, but day after day arrived with no letter from her and after a time, I became caught up in the preparations for my wedding and tried to put her from my mind.

On our wedding day in London, yellow roses were twined around the pillars and sat in fat bunches at the end of the pews at Great St Helen's. I wore my emerald pendant and ring. William looked so handsome, a yellow rosebud in his buttonhole. He held out his hand to me and I felt as if I had sailed into a safe harbour.

‘Jessie. My beautiful Jessie.'

As we walked back down the aisle, there, among my English aunts, uncles and cousins, sat an incongruous figure – Rosa in full morning suit with Natalie on her arm. They seemed unaware of people staring.

‘
Salut
, Jessie! We came to make sure William was looking after you.'

A seed of hope burst open inside me and I looked along the pew for Camille. But she had not come. I held onto William's arm a little tighter and he bent his head to mine.

‘Everyone who loves you is here, Jessie,' he whispered.

He kissed me and the congregation cheered and clapped.

I smiled at him as Widor's Toccata burst through the church. ‘Let's go and drink champagne.' We walked out into the bright, clear morning of our marriage.

William settled into his position at Owen's College in Manchester and I began a new life as the wife of an academic. I tried not to miss Paris and busied myself with hosting tea parties for the other masters and William's students, clever and serious young men who talked in chemical formulae. But while I handed out sherry and fruit cake, my mind would slip back to
Le Chat Noir
, to the studio in Notre-Dame-des-Champs, to Georges and Camille. I had tried to bring Paris into our new home, dressing tables in embroidered shawls, hanging sketches by Henri and Rosa. The little sculpture Rodin had given me sat on the mantelpiece, and it gave me strength during those dry gatherings.

But when I came to bed, after yet another dreary evening stuck in a corner with the rest of the wives, William would take me in his arms and whisper into my hair. The passion of our nights together took me by surprise, bound us tightly together. William had been right: we were of different metals but together we were the perfect compound.

And then there was the wonder of becoming a mother. Helen was born and with her dark blue eyes she reminded me of Camille. She loved to play with my clay and it was no surprise when she became an artist. Had some of Camille's spirit entered my heart and made its way into my child? It was a fanciful notion and one I have never shared with William.

We had three more children, lively sons, and I began to disappear, bit by bit. I tried to keep sculpting, but it was impossible during those early years of motherhood, when my children filled every corner of my life.

When Papa died, Ma was distraught and we moved back into Wootton House with her. Father's estate had been decimated by the recession of the 1890s and I found myself running a large household on a small budget. I taught the children at home to save on school fees and balanced the books.

When the children grew bigger, I went back to sculpting. I made portraits of the children and took on commissions, but it was never the same: my ambition had gone along with my youth. Sculpting the perfect heads of my children in my old potting shed of a studio was what I loved best. And my favourite model was Sydney, my beautiful boy.

The day he found Camille's bust, Sydney was leaning into the tea chest, looking for more treasure.

‘Mama, you know how you're good at finding things? Like my wooden horse that was buried in the garden all winter?'

‘Yes, darling.'

‘Well, why don't you go and find your friend?'

I stopped what I was doing. ‘You're right. That's what I'll do.'

But it was years before I found her. I made a few attempts to write to her family but never received a reply. Then war broke out and we were all in turmoil. But I didn't give up and after the war I tracked her down through Paul. A friend of ours in the Foreign Office mentioned he was working in the French Embassy in Copenhagen.
Chap's a poet, quite famous it would seem.
Paul's reply came back months later: Camille had been ill for years and was in hospital in the south. He thanked me for my kindness. I wrote again asking for details but he had moved. For years my letters went unanswered, until a postcard came one morning. My letters had been lost and had only just turned up. Paul was the French Ambassador by now in Washington, but writing was still his passion. Had I perhaps seen any of his plays on the stage? He enclosed photographs of himself outside the White House and said he remembered me fondly. His poor sister Camille was still in the same situation. I wrote by return of post. Where was Camille? Could I write to her? William and I were travelling to Italy by train and we would pass through the south of France. Could I perhaps visit her?

Chapter 45

Asylum of Montdevergues

April 1930

I gave up on Paris, disheartened, and returned home to Peterborough. A few months later, I went back to the asylum, a desperate plan hatching in my mind. Camille was waiting for me in the hospital's parlour, a dingy little room where the patients could receive visitors. She wore a crumpled hat and the same shabby coat.

She reached for my hands. ‘Jessie,
ma petite anglaise
.'

We embraced and I whispered to her: ‘Go and pack, Camille, I'm taking you away from here. We'll run away together. You can live with me in England.'

Camille began to tremble violently and grew agitated.

‘Are you all right?' I said, panicked. I helped her sit down and held her hand as the colour slowly returned to her face.

‘I can't, Jessie, I can't.'

She began to cry and I realised how selfish I had been. Camille had been in an institution since 1913. Outside these walls, the world had changed. Her world, the world I returned to again and again in my dreams, had gone forever. She was too weak and frail. If I took her away it would kill her.

I watched the relief in her eyes as I told her I could not take her with me after all.

‘I'm sorry, Camille.'

She nodded her head and closed her eyes as if weary. We sat in silence for a while. When she spoke, Camille's voice was distant, as if she were half-asleep.

‘Do you remember the last time we saw each other? In Paris, I mean, not here.'

How could I forget that morning? I didn't trust my voice.

Her hand crept into mine. ‘Are you still angry with me? I'm sorry, Jessie. I was upset, but not with you. You see, I had just found out I was pregnant.'

I turned in my seat and brought her hand to my lips. ‘Oh, Camille.'

She dropped her eyes. ‘I didn't tell anyone, not even Rodin. Not that time anyway. In the end, it didn't matter. I lost the child. And the next one, and the one after. I thought at first it was some kind of judgement.'

‘It's only natural to feel like that, but it wasn't your fault.' I pressed her hand, but she withdrew it.

She clenched her fist, shook it in the air, for a moment no longer a weak asylum patient, but spirited Camille once more. ‘You are right, Jessie, it wasn't my fault. It was that bastard Rodin's. After I lost the first one, I told him and I thought he would be sad, but he was relieved, I could see it in his face,
le
connard
. When I lost the others he didn't bother to hide his satisfaction, said it was better that way.'

‘Men don't feel it the same as we do,' I said. William had explained to me that miscarriage was natural selection, a way of weeding out the deformed. When I'd had one, he'd drawn diagrams and spoken to me as if I were one of his students. I had wanted to strike him.

Camille's voice dropped to a whisper and she put her face close to mine so I could see the stumps where her teeth had once been. ‘Rodin poisoned me, and he poisoned my babies. What a monster! A monster!' She began to weep and I put my arms around her thin shoulders.

These must be delusions, a symptom of the paranoia Dr Charpenel had warned me about. I murmured to her, as I used to soothe my children, and she grew quiet. I thought the storm had abated, but I was wrong.

Camille stood up and began to pace up and down. ‘I've worked it all out – why he was doing it. You see, he couldn't steal my ideas any more if I was nursing a baby. He needed me working, thinking, creating. As soon as the doctor left me in my bed, a covered metal dish in his hand, the sheets still running with blood, Rodin would be back at my side, telling me that work was the answer, the only cure for my sorrow.'

Camille beat the air with her fists. ‘Like a fool, I believed him and went back to my sculptures, which he copied, every single one of them. Oh, he was clever about it, so clever that at first I didn't notice. We shared the same models, you see, and I'd suggest the poses, talk through my ideas while he nodded his head and I'd be thrilled he approved. Idiot! And all the time he was stealing from me.'

Camille sat down again and scrabbled at my hands; I shrank from her, I couldn't help it. Her eyes were unfocused, as if she couldn't see me, and she was ranting, spittle flying from her mouth. I couldn't untangle the truth from her delusions.

She seemed to sense my disbelief and threw my hands away in disgust. ‘I'm wasting my breath on you, you were always on Rodin's side, you worshipped him like a schoolgirl with a crush.'

Even weak and broken, Camille had the power to wound me. I could feel my temper rising, old resentments breaking the surface.

‘I was always on your side,' I said. ‘Though, much good it did me.' I had had enough of her temper. She'd raved at me once before and I'd put up with it, but this time I would argue back, rationally. ‘As for these accusations of stealing your ideas – they don't hold water. Artists steal from each other all the time, work on the same subjects, it's not fair to blame one's failure on another's success.' I thought of my
Giganti
. I had worked so hard, but it never made the cut at the Paris Salon, while Camille's version was declared a work of genius. That was no one's fault, other than God's for giving her more talent than me.

Camille narrowed her eyes. ‘You don't think I know that artists borrow from each other? Do you think I'm an imbecile? But this was different, I tell you.' She banged her fist into her palm. ‘Rodin stole my ideas. Why don't you believe me, if you're such a good friend? All you have to do is look at my
Sakuntala
and his
Éternelle Idole
– the exact same pose, the man begging forgiveness. It was my idea. Mine! Mine! Mine!' She jabbed her finger at her chest and I winced at the force she used. ‘I was blind, I couldn't see it. Not until the critics saw my
Sakuntala
and mocked me for copying Rodin. But who do you think gave him the idea for that piece and for so many others?'

She grasped my arm and I was amazed by the strength in her bony fingers. ‘Rodin took everything from me,' she said, her breath rank in my face. ‘He was getting older and losing his inspiration. I was young, my creativity strong. He sucked it out of me and injected it into his own dry husk. Rodin stole everything: my ideas, my youth, even my children.'

All of a sudden she lost her wild anger and stared bleakly at her hands in her lap.

I was sorry then. I had been too hard and expected too much from her poor injured mind. She looked weighed down by misery. If only I could draw the bitterness from her wounds, help her remember the sweetness of the past.

‘Camille, you loved Rodin once. Won't you tell me about the times you were happiest with him?'

She sat back in the chair and closed her eyes. I thought she'd fallen asleep but she spoke softly, as if a young woman again.

‘Rodin rented this house for us, La Folie Le Prestre, where George Sand used to meet de Musset. When he led me through the garden and through the doors, he covered my eyes. When I opened them it was like being in a fairy tale, you know the one, where the princess wakes up after a hundred years. It was a ruin, dust everywhere, crumbling plaster, statues of goddesses in alcoves. I loved it, our
atelier
, Rodin's and mine, our secret place in the middle of Paris.

‘We would lie naked in each others' arms in this great ruined chateau…the overgrown vines in the windows turned the light green, as if we were underwater…the only sound was his heart beating…his eyes were pale as opals and burned with the same cold flames…'

She shook her head as if to clear water from her ears. ‘No. Not that. His spell is still on me, the poison he fed me still in my veins. He whispered his lies in my ears while he stroked my skin, white as marble…
my dream in stone
, he called me.
We'll be married soon, soon ma belle rêve, spend the rest of our lives together. We're partners you and I, twin geniuses, we'll rise together, our powers entwined like flames.
' She opened her eyes as if waking from a dream and gave a strange metallic laugh. ‘And I believed him.'

There was a sadness about her now but a luminosity, too, like light shining through a Bernini. I could see once more the Camille I knew in Paris and I wanted to kiss her ruined face. Rodin was a fool to have let her go.

‘What changed?' I said. ‘Why did you leave him?'

Her shoulders dropped and she seemed to age again before my eyes. ‘I got pregnant again. I had lost so many babies and I was thirty-six, but this one was a survivor. I could feel him kicking inside me, strong, full of life, a child of my own.' She placed her hands over her belly and smiled. ‘Rodin wanted to fix me up with a doctor, some butcher who took care of the models. I said I would do it, agreed to everything, even told Paul. He was shocked, of course, called me a murderer.'

I put my hand over hers, where it rested on her stomach. ‘Paul told me, when I met him in Paris.'

She looked into my eyes. ‘Were you shocked?'

‘No, I just thought about you, how terrible it must have been.'

Camille touched me lightly on the cheek. She walked towards the window and looked through the bars to the bleak garden. When she turned around she was radiant.

‘I left Rodin. Found my own apartment and locked myself away. A long illness, I told everyone. Paul and Rodin thought I was ill after the abortion. But I had the child. I have a son, Jessie.'

In Camille's room, she pulled the box out from under the iron bed. Inside was the head of a young boy of about five with a tilt to his chin and a bold look. His resemblance to Camille was unmistakable. She took a slip of paper from the pocket in her skirt: an address in Villeneuve.

‘I gave him to my old nursemaid to look after. She was always kind to Paul and me. I wanted to hide the baby from Rodin, I didn't want him to come to any harm. Will you take this to him?'

She handed me the bust. ‘Jessie,
mon amie
,
will you find him for me and tell him about his mother?'

‘How will I find him?' I said.

‘It's a small village.'

I cradled the bust in my arms and looked at Camille's son. It seemed too perfect, like an image of a dream child. Like the poisonings and Rodin's conspirators, was this child also a figment of her broken mind? I put the bust in its box and embraced Camille for the last time. I was being asked to play one more part in her life and I would not let her down.

As the car took me away from Montdevergues, I opened the window and felt the wind on my face and thought of Camille, shut up in that place for sixteen years, all alone. How could anyone bear that and not be broken? I allowed myself to cry for Camille, for the wasted years, for the ruined talent, for my friend. But hadn't I wasted my own talent? When Camille was making works of genius, I was totting up grocery bills, soothing fractious babies. I should be grateful for what I had: a good husband and four children. But I remembered the sharp tang of lemon cologne, the golden sunlight of a Paris afternoon. And I wept for us all, for Camille, for Georges, for myself.