Francie Again (13 page)

Jimmy caught Francie's anxious glance. “Pay no heed to Will,” he advised her. “He's always that way—one foot in sea and one on shore. It's really that he's thinking of his work. We came over to see you for a reason, you know. Will had an idea.”

“Oh? What was that?”

Jimmy lit a cigarette before replying. “It's that design you were drawing the other day,” he said. “We liked it.”

“Oh. Thank you ever so much, but it wasn't mine, you know. I just took it off that thing in the showcase,” said Francie.

“No,” said Jimmy, shaking his head. “You didn't. You
derived
it, dear. There is a difference between deriving and merely lifting. And your adaptation was clever.”

Francie blinked at him. She could feel Mrs. Barclay's surprised admiration. A delicious glow of self-esteem crept along her veins. “Well … thanks,” she said.

Jimmy said, “Have you got the drawing handy, by any chance?”

“It's up in my room. I'll get it.”

She rushed over to the elevator, and was soon back on the veranda with the sketch-block. Bryan took it and studied it carefully, blowing smoke at it.

“Yes,” he said at last, handing it back. “It's still good. I thought I wasn't wrong. Do you know anything about preparing a design for textile reproduction, Francie?”

“Not a thing,” said Francie. Wonderingly she exchanged glances with Aunt Lolly, who remained quite quiet in her corner at the table, waiting to see what was happening.

Jimmy called Will Adams over and waved toward the sketch-block. “I got it out,” he said, “and she'll do it up for us if we show her how. Won't you, Francie?”

“Why,” said Francie, “if I can. I mean, I just don't know—”

“We're buying it, natch,” said Will. “Do you know the rates?”

Francie said, in desperation, “Listen, boys, I don't know a thing about this. I don't know what you're talking about, even. Rates for what?”

“Designing,” said Jimmy. “Look, if you will work this out for us in the convention we need—it doesn't take very much training—we'll buy it from you outright, for—well, let's see, will a hundred dollars be all right? To encourage her,” he added in explanation to Mrs. Barclay. “It's the regular professional rate.”

“Why, I'm sure that's delightful,” said Mrs. Barclay. “What do you say, Francie?”

“It's
marvelous”
said Francie. “It's perfectly marvelous. But are you absolutely sure you want the design?”

The men laughed. “Perhaps not absolutely,” said Will, “but that's our offer this afternoon, and if I were you, I'd grab it before we change our minds. Now then, if you'd like to learn something about the way to work them up, we'll show you. Where is your pencil?”

When they had gone away, a wildly excited Francie was hard at work, measuring out units on big sheets of paper.

“It is certainly very nice,” said Aunt Lolly. “But what a surprise!”

“Mmmm,” said Francie, bending over her work. “‘Nice' is a funny sort of word for a miracle.”

The delirium of discovering herself to be a genuine world's worker was enough to send a more experienced girl than Francie off the deep end. When she woke up the next morning, it was hard to remember that merely twenty-four hours before she had found all her life's interest in a mere party list.

“Well, perhaps it wasn't my
entire
interest,” she told herself in tardy self-defense. “Art comes first, of course, no matter what happens.”

Nevertheless she lay in bed longer than she should have done, dreaming of the future. The designers had implied that this need not be a mere flash in the pan. If she found more amusing patterns, they would buy them. In time, thought Francie, she would be able to save up some money. She could support herself and tell Pop she wouldn't need more checks. She might even be able to help Pop with money. How surprised he would be! How proud of her! And how proud she would be of herself! Francie's imagination leaped ahead with the grace and ease of a mountain goat. She was holding court, in her mind's eye, at Pop's New York office; the staff was thanking her in their honest, inarticulate way for having saved their jobs along with the oil company. Francie was just about to make a little speech, modestly disclaiming any particular merit, when the chatter of the hotel housemaids outside her door reminded her with a horrid shock that she should have been up quite a long time before.

She jumped out of bed and dressed in a tremendous hurry, for a while. But even then she lapsed into a dream between shoes, sitting there on the bed with a sandal dangling from her hand. She was nearly an hour late at the studio.

Fontoura was already there when she came in. “Just like him,” she thought resentfully, “making an early round the one day I'm so late!” As he had already been on her side of the class, she hardly expected him to return and look at her work. However, he did. When he had examined everyone else's, he came over and looked at hers, and when she thought about it later she felt it would have been far better for her spirits if he had not done so. He was severely critical.

Fontoura was always a hard taskmaster; he was well known for it among the students. Actually, however, he usually spared Francie. His comments when he made them to her were short and restrained, to such an extent that Francie often thought uneasily he was making a special case of her for some mysterious reason. Today she had no cause to complain of this. Fontoura was in a mood, and he worked out some of it on her.

As always, his English left a good deal to be desired, but he said enough for her to get the general idea. Francie lacked sweep, he said; she was tight and finicky; she must learn to let go. She must try to see things in the large. Something held back her imagination and her hand. “Relax,” said Fontoura. “You are supposed to be painting, not making a pretty little design for a teacup or a handkerchief.”

He always spoke loud and clear when he made his observations, and the students of the class would not have been human if they hadn't listened in to everything he said. Francie, though humbly nodding, was terribly embarrassed. In fact, she was angry. Had anyone told him about her triumph yesterday with the Americans? But that was impossible; she had not told anyone herself. Nobody knew, except Aunt Lolly—not even the da Souzas.

Then she rebuked herself for exaggerating. Fontoura often talked this way when he was wound up. It didn't mean anything special. She wouldn't let it get her down.

That noon when the class was eating lunch, Tomas mentioned Fontoura's attitude toward Francie's work. “He was harsh,” he admitted, “but you must not mind. He never spares anyone.”

“It is for their own good,” said one of the other boys quickly.

Tomas replied, “Perhaps it is, but sometimes Fontoura is much too overbearing. A style is a personal matter. Good as he is, who would want us all to be so many duplications of Fontoura? He holds us with too tight a rein. It is the fault only of a very good artist, but it is a fault. Now, when he spoke to me last week about my color …”

Some of the students burst out in excited protest of this speech against their idol, while others were on Tomas' side. The conversation turned into its accustomed path, and the discussion continued as it always does in any art class in the world. Francie's criticism was forgotten, save by Francie herself, but the more she thought about it the angrier she became. After all, why should one not design teacups and handkerchiefs? Could the world go on forever without teacups and handkerchiefs? Of course it could not and she suddenly said so aloud.

The other students paused in their squabbling and looked at her in surprise. This claim was a new one in their circle, and they needed time to think it out.

“But Francesca,” said Catarina at last, “it may be true, what you say, only I do not think it should apply to us, here at Fontoura's. We are all here because we love pure art. Isn't that true, Tomas?”

“Certainly,” said Tomas.

“I don't doubt that for a minute,” said Francie, “but I just don't see why we shouldn't have pretty cups and scarves as well, or why it's a disgrace to be able to make them. Now, as it happens, I have become a designer myself.”

After that it was Francie's hour. In the fascinated silence, she told her friends all about the amazing thing that had happened to her. She began to appreciate it herself even more in the telling. Had she not become a professional?

“One hundred dollars!” repeated Catarina after the climax.

“One hundred dollars,” said Francie affirmatively.

Everyone was silent again. Then Tomas said, “It must be tempting. Yes, it must be very tempting.”

Francie looked at him sharply, for his tone seemed to lack enthusiasm.

“When you think of what Monteiro lives on,” said another student, a girl. “That poor boy …”

“But he could never design for the Americans, I am sure,” said Tomas. “Monteiro is, in the end, an
artist.”

It annoyed Francie terribly, but what could she say? It was unreasonable to be annoyed, and to feel as she did that her triumph was tarnished by the students' reception of it. She resolved to be more sensible. To prove to herself that she wasn't disappointed, she said, “I'm working on another design already. I should think if I try, I might sell them quite a few in a year. Don't you think so, Catarina?”

Catarina agreed; everyone agreed. They all beamed at Francie's good fortune. The little spurt of ill temper, or jealousy, or whatever it was, disappeared, and they were all cheerful when they returned to their painting.

“There, that showed them,” Francie reflected. “I bet even Fontoura will respect me more when he hears I'm a wage earner.”

She recovered herself from another attack of dreaming, just in time to do a little more work before the end of the afternoon, but it seemed rather tedious to be slogging away at figure work like this when she could be so excitingly employed at the drawing board at home. Once she caught sight of Catarina staring at her. The Portuguese girl's look of admiration and envy was startling. Catarina looked like a prisoner watching a bird high up in the sky.

“I'm an awfully lucky girl really,” thought Francie, and felt ashamed of all her recent discontents.

Besides, Mark was waiting at the hotel when she got home, to take her out to tennis, and now that she had broken the news at Fontoura's she felt free to boast a little to him. His reaction was most gratifying.

“Good stuff,” he said heartily. “You really should come up north, you know. Guimarães, up beyond Oporto, has shops and shops with printed stuff in all sorts of Portuguese color arrangements. You'd have a picnic there. You
are
an amazing woman, aren't you? Prop of your father's old age, I shouldn't be surprised. Why, we'll have you designing for us before we know it, settled down in our place in Manchester with a contract.”

“Not for me,” said Francie, “not if I know it. You won't find
me
messing around with floral patterns in pink and blue.”

“No, but you might work on the prints we send down to West Africa. They like their colors violent there,” said Mark, “and I think your style would be just the ticket.”

Francie swung at him playfully, and they went out to the car.

CHAPTER 13

The party was taking place at last. All sorts of exciting things had happened to the guest list since it was first thought of. Francie had known all along that she could depend on the English contingent, but there were so many unknown factors apart from them that she had hesitated as to the amount of refreshments to order. However, it looked as if there would be a record attendance. Dona Gracia had said she would be there with Maria; most of the art class, including Catarina, had cheerfully accepted; even Fontoura was coming. He had taken it as a normal thing that he should be asked, just like any plain human, and Francie was exultant. For the first time in all these weeks she began to feel like a genuine member of the studio group.

The only sad thing about the prospect was that she would not be able, after all, to present her new friends the designers to the assembly. Jimmy and Will had suddenly and capriciously gone back to Spain—“Before they saw half the things they ought to see,” Francie reported in sorrow to Mark. “I'm afraid I'll have to admit they aren't really serious about wanting to understand Portugal and see everything. It seems there's some kind of silly party in Barcelona they said they couldn't possibly miss. Jimmy suddenly remembered it. You know how capricious he is. And off they went by the very next plane. I can't understand people like that.” She looked mournful.

Mark said Portugal no doubt hadn't been interesting enough for the boys. “After all, Lisbon's a tidy little place. I expect they aren't too fond of tidy places,” he said.

“Whatever do you mean by that?”

Mark made a wide gesture. “Their type, you know—they probably prefer crowded bistros, and knifings by dark. Hollywood excitement and all that.”

“But Portugal
is
like that, if you take the trouble to look,” said Francie indignantly. “It's terribly romantic. All that wild country in the South, and the hills and so on in the North that you are always talking about. I think they've been very silly to go so soon.”

“They can always come back,” said Mark soothingly. “No doubt they'll return just as easily as they went away. Americans do move around easily.”

Francie was not reassured. “I feel as if they'd snubbed the place,” she said, “and besides, we do not move around as easily as all that, Mark. I've been here for months, for instance.”

“Oh, you. You're different; you seem to be settling down here.” He glanced at her obliquely. “How's Ruy?” he asked after too short a pause.