Martha in Paris Page 9

  More importantly, before they parted in the rue de Vaugirard he handed Martha a fat manila envelope.

  “There is what you asked for, and a little over,” said Mr. Joyce, “to stay a few months longer in France—without being taught. For that I see perfectly to be your idea,” added Mr. Joyce, secure in his own wisdom, “in joining this so-called very good sketching-party. God help whatever poor hack of a paysagiste is in charge! Or if you run short, write to me direct: no need to bother the kind Auntie!”

  “I won’t,” promised Martha, “and thank you very much.”

  6

  Cash in hand, Martha immediately, with Sally’s help, wrote a letter to Madame Paule at Fontenay-aux-Chênes enquiring whether she might book Madame Paule’s attic for the entire summer vacation. To so serious a lodger the latter responded almost cordially—though naturally pointing out that a double room occupied by only one person remained still, economically speaking, double. Martha thumbed through Mr. Joyce’s envelope, and again with Sally’s help booked herself in. “I suppose she’ll understand what ‘okay’ means?” pondered Martha, disentangling the one familiar word. “She understands it spoken,” reassured Sally. “Anyway, it’s international.” And indeed so it seemed to be, judging by Madame Paule’s second, even more cordial communication …

  As term ended, Martha won a prize. It was for the best drawing of the year; a small gold, or more probably silver-gilt, medallion—and rather chucked at her than awarded to her by le maître, who had in fact instituted it for the encouragement of such well-heeled students as Sally. In this case, however, it wasn’t only le maître’s artistic integrity that proved a stumbling-block: le maître, if Martha didn’t, knew that if he’d awarded it to anyone but Mother Bunch, his students would have howled him down.

  It was to be several years before Martha realized what impact she made on her contemporaries. When she did, she exploited it mercilessly: bullying them into cooking for her, washing her brushes for her, painting frames and transporting canvasses for her. Throughout all her later life Martha never did a hand’s turn for herself—off the easel.

  Just at the moment, however, she merely got Nils to turn in her medal at the nearest mont de pieté. It didn’t fetch much, being but silver-gilt after all; but every little helped, and Martha particularly didn’t want to have to write home for fresh supplies, either to Mr. Joyce or to the kind Auntie.

  Term ended: variously the students dispersed. Sally flew back to New York again (whither even Nils doubted if he could hitch-hike); all over France uncomprehending parents received back newly-bearded offspring speaking an incomprehensible jargon. In villages far from Paris sermons were preached, each Sunday, with special intent to sceptic son of pious mother; tolerantly the newly-bearded sons listened, anxious not to upset Maman. French family affection is very strong—also they were most of them going back to Paris …

  Martha would have liked to be going back to Paris too. It was in her conversation with Mr. Joyce at Christmas in Richmond, not in her conversation with him at the restaurant, that she’d spoken the fundamental truth. She wanted to continue in Paris. Only the threat to her whole professional career, of being railroaded into marriage and domesticity, could have made her relinquish a second year—even bullied by le maître.

  No more than Mr. Joyce did le maître take her defection patiently. On the last day of term Martha was summoned to his private room, and there received such a classic dressing-down as would have reduced any other female student to tears. She bore it stoically, however, making no attempt at self-defence as le maître systematically defined her as ungrateful, conceited, stubborn, and imbecile. Only at the harshest accusation of all, that of being un-serious, did she open her mouth; and even so closed it again without uttering. The irony of the situation—that it was because she was serious she was giving up another year under his tuition—wasn’t lost on Martha, but she knew better than to embark on the slippery ground of explanations.

  “So Madmoiselle has nothing to say at all?” enquired le maître finally. “Besides being stupid as an ox, she is as dumb? Mademoiselle has nothing to say at all?”

  Martha thought.

  “Well, if any one comes asking for my home address—”

  “They will not get it!” exploded le maître. “Am I insulted in addition to all else by being required to act as your poste restante? Get out of my sight, you young savage!”

  7

  “Carry every good wish, on my part, to Mr. Joyce!” cried Madame Dubois, in the rue de Vaugirard.—“If I mention whom especially,” added Madame Dubois, as it were hedging her bets, “that does not mean, I assure you, one appreciates the less the confidence placed in one by those even nearer in affection! Assure your kind aunt that you are regarded as absolutely a child of the house!”

  Martha readily promised to do so. The assumption that she was returning to a family bosom hadn’t actually been promoted by her—it was unnecessary.

  “Dear little friend!” exclaimed Madame Dubois. “One recognized from the first moment, did one not, a sympathy?—Why, see our Angèle almost in tears, at the thought of parting with you for even so brief a while!”

  Angèle was indeed sniffling.—Who could blame her? She needed to work up whatever emotion she could. Defrauded of her first exciting rôle of confidante, then of her rôle as conciliatrix—having wept for Eric Taylor to the point of boredom—the rôle of friend bereft (even if only temporarily) was one to be seized upon. “Who knows,” sobbed Angèle, “whether we shall ever meet again?”—Martha started; but fortunately Angèle having reached the verge of hysteria over-passed it, and in the slapping of her cheeks and warming of her hands this wild shot at the truth went by the board. “Now we will not mention the subject again!” declared Madame Dubois. “Also I forbid you to go to the station in the morning. It would be too much for you!”

  8

  Thus Martha was able to set out to take a presumed boat-train unhampered; and successfully achieved the simple journey to Fontenay-aux-Chênes. A taxi bore her to the station designated by Sally (actually the familiar Gare du Nord); comprehending that she had a two hours’ wait for her train, Martha sat stolidly on a bench memorizing an interesting pattern of railway-lines and munching a long ham roll.—It was rather like sitting on the bench in the Tuileries: with, instead of the trompe l’oeil statue of Tragedy and Comedy, an advertisement for Dubonnet occasionally to rest and amuse her eye …

  The parallel was even closer. After Martha had been sitting there about an hour an obvious compatriot (actually in the dress of a Rover Scout), after several dummy-runs, heaved his pack onto the seat beside her and beyond it sat down himself.

  “I say,” he offered hopefully, “aren’t you English?”

  For the first time in her life Martha voluntarily spoke French. She was probably doing the whole Scouting movement an injustice, but she had learnt her lesson.

  “Non,” said Martha firmly.

  Her train at last coming in, she piled herself on bag and baggage; and in due course was deposited at the highly picturesque village of Fontenay-aux-Chênes.

  Chapter Fifteen

  This time, Madame Paule was not deceived. After but one shrewd look—

  “So this is why you return!” exclaimed Madame Paule indignantly. “And to think one never suspected!”

  “I’m stout by nature,” explained Martha—always respectful of professional pride.

  “You must be very near your time!” exclaimed Madame Paule. “No, no, Mademoiselle! You must return to Paris, and your friends there, at once!”

  Martha didn’t answer that she had no friends, but wisely rejecting any appeal to sentiment opened Mr. Joyce’s envelope and upon the round rosewood table laid out four ten-pound notes.

  “Of course I’ll pay my pension in advance,” said Martha.

  Madame Paule did a sum from pounds into francs.

  “And for any extra services,” added Martha, laying down a fifth note beside the first four.

&nb
sp; “I would not be a party to anything illegal,” said Madame Paule. “That is, beyond perhaps failing to register the birth … Also Mademoiselle must take the child away with her immediately. In these days, one is on one’s feet within a week!”

  Martha was glad to hear it; and enjoying the first feeling of any consequence due to her condition, allowed Madame Paule to carry up her bag into the attic she’d once shared with Sally.

  2

  She still felt it prudent to obtrude herself as little as possible upon Madame Paule’s notice. She didn’t draw in the kitchen. In any case, she was no longer particularly interested in the stove. Martha carried her bag of snail-shells to the parlour, and there set them out on the round rosewood table in a variety of fascinating helical patterns. Madame Paule kept her table so highly polished, there were even reflections to be integrated …

  Only the August weather was hot, and the parlour stuffy. The fields ripening for harvest without were even hotter; but there existed not five minutes’ walk from the house, and actually the property of Madame Paule’s cousin-by-marriage, a small shady orchard. Though neglected it had a certain local fame; its small ill-pruned trees bore mirabelle-plums, which for the making of jam are unequalled—as Martha knew from her experience on the boat-train with Mr. Joyce; each year Madame Paule’s cousin-by-marriage gathered a small but profitable crop. Licenced by so close a relationship, Martha carried her snail-shells out into the cool of the orchard.

  Spilt on the unreflecting orchard grass they looked somehow less interesting. If a ripe mirabelle plumped down amongst them, they looked almost, by comparison, uninteresting altogether. It took Martha some little time to discover why, since the first few plums she simply ate: only upon the fourth or fifth did she consciously direct her eye.

  The mirabelle in a state of nature displays its small ovoid shape with great precision; but in this, so to speak, merely matched the snail-shells—if that; the shape of a snail-shell was far more complex; so to Martha should have been correspondingly more attractive.

  The mirabelle, in a state of nature, displays also an amber skin red-freckled like a black-cap’s egg. Martha, who had never seen any egg but a hen’s, as she scrutinized the fruit in her palm had to translate into terms of gamboge—or yellow ochre?—as a base, then probably a touch of vermilion …

  Halfway through the morning she went back for her paints; and passing through Madame Paule’s kitchen observed for the first time the strong ultramarine blue of a milk-jug on a red-checked cloth. At lunchtime her treasured snail-shells lay still where she had spilled them; it was Martha herself, returning, who heedlessly trampled them back into organic detritus—seeking now in the orchard grass but the red-freckled amber of mirabelles.

  She was at last perceiving colour. Colour, not shape, was to be Martha’s obsession for the next five years.

  3

  Any obsession, by definition, fills the mind to the exclusion of all else; where anything less serious than colour was concerned Martha began to go about in a state of happy idiocy. “Exaltée!” thought Madame Paule uneasily; she preferred her cases to be cheerful but calm. Martha was of course a rather special case, and certainly Madame Paule preferred exaltation to constant weeping—such as she had had to contend with in certain other special cases. It still seemed to her that Martha, in her exaltation, was too materially care-free altogether …

  “Where, for example, is the layette?” demanded Madame Paule.

  Martha looked blank; or rather (they were in the kitchen), at the blue jug. With so peculiarly strong a blue the equally strong reds of the cloth were almost in combat …

  “The clothing, the first necessities, for the infant!” cried Madame Paule impatiently. “Is it possible that Mademoiselle has made no preparations at all?”

  Martha hadn’t. Nor had she any mind to do so now. Her new obsession so exhausted her, except when directly before her easel Martha sank into a complete and not disagreeable lethargy—drowsed even over luncheon, before her nap, and immediately after supper was ready for bed. Professionally, Madame Paule approved; Madame Paule was not of the school that prescribes regular pedestrian exercise. It was Martha’s moral insouciance that scandalized her. But she had fortunately disposable both a layette and a carry-cot—(sad legacy from a miscarriage!)—which, naturally for a further consideration, she was prepared to dispose of to Martha.

  “Thank you very much,” yawned Martha.

  It was for her late, almost nine o’clock in the evening, when this particular exchange took place; but she managed to keep awake long enough to make her intentions generally clear.

  “I’m not going to feed it,” stated Martha definitely.

  “But certainly you will be able to feed it!” exclaimed Madame Paule.

  “I’m sorry, but it’ll just have to make do with a cow,” said Martha.

  Madame Paule refrained from pressing the point. She was in fact only too relieved to perceive that Martha had evidently some sort of future plan. The thought of Martha, with her infant, simply staying on—scandalous yet impossible to eject—was one that had troubled Madame Paule for some time.

  “Naturally one can prepare a formula,” acknowledged Madame Paule.

  “Thank you very much,” repeated Martha drowsily. “Will you write it down?”

  4

  Martha was still, once a week, forced to handle a pen herself. Although she had no need to write home for further financial supplies, it would have been so obviously unwise not to write home at all—(thus arousing at first dismay, then positive alarm, then even investigation)—she made the necessary effort; and as usual posted two letters each Sunday.

  DEAR AUNT DOLORES,

  Nothing much is happening to tell you about [wrote Martha, in an advanced state of pregnancy], but I hope you and Uncle Harry are both well. The weather is very hot, but I am working all right.

  Yours affec.,

  MARTHA

  To Mr. Joyce, as a matter of fact, she was rather loquacious.

  DEAR MR. JOYCE,

  I hope you are quite well. Also I hope you will not be disappointed about the snail-shells, but I am now painting plums. They are the sort yellowish with red spots, and I am doing them on grass.

  Yours affec.,

  MARTHA

  The receipt of this communication put Mr. Joyce in such high good humour he paid a special visit to the Gibsons to break open a box of cigars. (“Keep them!” invited Mr. Joyce expansively—just like a happy father.) The Gibsons were surprised; he appeared to regard Martha’s letter as containing some gratifying piece of news. “I’m sure plums sound much prettier than snail-shells,” said Dolores, kindly but uncomprehendingly. “Pretty be damned!” exclaimed Mr. Joyce. “They are yellowish with red spots, and she is painting them on grass! She is painting them, do you understand?”

  Harry and Dolores so evidently didn’t, he gave up. It scarcely affected his happy humour. He simply hugged the good news more closely to himself; that Martha’s eye, so long obsessed with shape alone, had at long last opened to colour.

  5

  She was painting three hours before she gave birth. Some instinct, that stifling day towards the end of August, kept her even from the orchard. In any case, the problem of integrating a bright blue jug with a red-checked cloth still challenged her; Martha settled down in the empty kitchen without any sense of wasting time. She was actually shaken by the first pang while squeezing out a new blob of ultramarine; filled her brush and painted half-a-dozen strokes more before a second, more violent wrenching unmistakably presaged an interruption. She was alone in the cottage. Madame Paule had gone out marketing. Stolidly, alone, Martha climbed the stairs to the attic and lay down on her bed.—The heat, in the attic, stifled; stolid, alone, Martha rose again, undressed, and put on a clean nightgown. Then as soon as she heard Madame Paule return—

  “Put my brushes in to soak,” called Martha clearly, “and then come up …”

  6

  It was ultramarine blue, and rather pai
nful; then black, and agonizing. Deep, deep into the blue-black sank all of Martha’s consciousness, even as her body—strong and healthy as a milkmaid’s—struggled to eject one denizen more into a world of blue jugs and freckled mirabelles. Martha’s strong body made the final effort; felt experienced hands take charge; and as the black and ultramarine washed back to mild turquoise, deeply, peacefully, slept.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Madame Paule had been right. A week later, Martha was on her feet again; and a fortnight later on the train back to Paris.

  Admittedly Madame Paule was anxious to be rid of her. She would still have accommodated Martha and the child longer, had either needed her care; but both mother and son were so obviously, equally, robust, it was with a clear professional conscience that Madame Paule accompanied them to the station.

  She still felt almost her original liking for Martha. Few young persons so situated, in Madame Paule’s experience, behaved so unhysterically; also Martha had never attempted to practise French on her. Besides the formula for the infant Madame Paule provided for Martha’s own consumption a two-pound pot of mirabelle-jam.

  2

  All the way back to Paris, in the slow, stopping-at-every-station train, fellow-passengers in the third class admired Martha’s infant very much. Even a fortnight had sufficed to uncrumple him; though still no more than a squirming atomy he squirmed with uncommon vigour. “Take all the room needed!” exclaimed Martha’s neighbours in the third class. “Place the cot upon the seat!” “A boy?—but how evidently a boy!” clucked Martha’s neighbour to the right. “See how he kicks, the strong rascal!”