The Art of Seduction (19 page)

He shook his head. “It's impossible to describe. Just a jumble. Nothing that makes any sense. I suppose it's just something I have to live with.”

“But if you try to talk about it, it might help—”

“What might help,” he said, laying his head back in exhaustion, “is a successful conclusion to this thing we're trying to do. I can't explain it, but I have a feeling that my entire life has been pushing me toward this single mission. And I can't help but feel that once we've completed it, and Mason has become to the world what she
must
become, the nightmares will simply go away.”

He finally went back to sleep, but Mason didn't. Something about the way he'd referred to her in the third person…on the heels of his obvious letdown over the painting…

It was unsettling.

T
he following week, the celebrated art collector Edouard André and his society-portraitist wife, Nélie Jacquemart, hosted a Sunday afternoon gathering at their townhouse on the Boulevard Haussmann. The occasion was a rare Parisian lecture by the art world's most respected figure, Alberto Lugini of Rome's Academy of Fine Arts. Though the topic of Signore Lugini's talk was undisclosed, it was suspected that he was about to take a position on the subject that had so vehemently divided the Parisian critical establishment over the past few months—the rising posthumous fame of the American Impressionist Mason Caldwell. It was expected that, like his colleagues, Lugini would denounce the phenomenon, but no one could be sure, and the uncertainty created an air of titillating speculation.

The days since returning from Auvers had been lonely and depressing for Mason. With no painting to be done and Lisette occupied with the new season at the circus, she had little to do but dwell on the investigation to which Duval was no doubt assiduously devoting himself. At the same time, Richard had been absorbed by the financial difficulties of the pavilion, which was now entering its final stages of construction. They'd made love once since returning to Paris, but the spark and magic of the Louvre was missing. And while polite and attentive, his overall manner had changed toward her in a way she couldn't quite put her finger on. It seemed to her that her inability to do the kind of painting he wanted her to do had affected his feelings for her. But since he was adamant that she not continue, there was no way of exonerating herself in his eyes. He insisted it was too dangerous for her to paint, but she knew it was more than that. She sensed that he no longer
wanted
her to paint.

But on that fateful Sunday afternoon, he was in a buoyant mood as he chatted amiably on the short drive from the Opéra district to the Jacquemart-André mansion. Their carriage entered a driveway that took them out of the hustle of the city and curved around the unimpressive façade that faced Boulevard Haussmann to pull up in front of a pair of stone lions flanking a colonnaded entrance. High, curved walls on either side cut it off from the other row mansions so effectively that Mason had the feeling she was at a country estate.

A majordomo met their coach and ushered them into a vestibule that led into a grand reception hall crowded with the cultural elite of the Belle Époque. Mason's eyes picked out the art dealers Flaconier, Durand-Ruel, Georges Petite, and Theo van Gogh. Emma, Duchess of Wimsley, was there, and so were the painters Renoir, Fantin-Latour, and Caillebotte. As Richard began handshaking his way into the crowd, Mason caught a glimpse of Hank Thompson on the far side of the room speaking to Dimitri Orlaf, perhaps warning the Russian to keep his distance. But when he saw that Richard had arrived, he abruptly left the man and headed his way.

Mason felt awkward and conspicuous in the crowd and she had to be careful, since everyone here was speaking French and it would be easy for her to slip. Gradually, she made her way to an area of the room where she heard English being spoken. Here, Mary Cassatt, the painter from Pennsylvania, introduced her to Mrs. Potter Palmer—“Call me Bertha, dear”—the wife of a Chicago millionaire and an avid art collector who'd goaded her husband into making some of the first significant purchases of Impressionist paintings for their family collection. “We're sticking around straight through July fourteenth,” she told Mason as she fanned herself. “They tell us they're convoying in boatloads of fireworks from as far away as Russia and Hong Kong for the biggest bang-up Bastille Day ever seen by man. That's a show we want to see.”

Momentarily, there was a rustle in the rear of the crowd and word spread that it was time for the lecture to begin. Richard found Mason and led her to the music room, where rows of straight-backed chairs had been set up for the hundred or so guests. They sat down and waited until the rest of the assembly had found seats. Finally, heads turned and a round of applause greeted an authoritative white-haired man with a Van Dyck beard who walked to the front of the room and stepped to the podium.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he began in Italian-accented French, “my name is Alberto Lugini and I have come here today to talk to you about Mason Caldwell, who represents the most significant artistic event in our lifetimes.”

There was a gasp in the audience. No one, even those foolish enough to believe the Italian might endorse the controversial American, had expected anything so unequivocal and definitive. Except maybe one person.

Richard reached over and took Mason's hand, giving it a squeeze.

For the next forty minutes, Professor Lugini spoke of how the eighteen Caldwell masterpieces amalgamated, fused, and underscored everything that was important in Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism, and at the same time, carried painting into an entirely new realm. “This new realm is not what the artist sees with his eyes, but what he—or she—feels in his heart. This is something startlingly new, something revolutionary. It is the art of the coming twentieth century and the millennium that will follow it.”

He poured himself a glass of water and took a sip. The room was so quiet the guests could hear him swallow.

“But the career of this remarkable young woman is even more important than this. She embodies a radical new idea of the very nature and identity of the artist in human society. She is not a sycophant who serves the aristocracy, the church, or the court. She is not a craftsman who cares about selling her work or pleasing her critics. She is a purist, outsider, rebel, true to her inner self and sacred calling at the expense of everything else, even her life.”

He continued along this line with great power and conviction, spellbinding his audience. As he spoke, Mason glanced at Richard and noticed that he was mouthing the words even before Lugini voiced them. Richard had written the script and Lugini was merely an actor giving a performance.

“And perhaps most important of all,” the professor continued, “Mason Caldwell is a new kind of cultural figure who is more alive in death than she was in life. She is a true Joan of Art, an inspiration for the downtrodden, a martyr whose suffering is frozen in time. She is a painter whose saga grips us so emotionally and whose vision stirs us so profoundly that we cannot see her paintings except through our own tears…”

Hearing these words, Mason felt as if she were at her own funeral. Except that it wasn't
her
funeral. This apparition he was talking about bore no relation to her whatsoever. She was a figment of the imagination of the man mouthing the words next to her.

The next thing she knew, everyone was giving the speaker a standing ovation.

As the applause died down, Mason and Richard joined the crowd as it moved out into the reception hall. When they passed the critic Morrel, he was speaking with two of the reporters who'd also been at the Falconier Gallery that first afternoon. “Yes, it is true that I had some initial misgivings regarding the Caldwell métier,” he was explaining. “But when I went back and studied the paintings more carefully, I immediately recognized their merit. I was her earliest critical supporter.”

Mason stared after him in disbelief.

Lugini was now making his way toward them through the crowd as people kept trying to stop him and shake his hand. But he ignored them all and headed directly for Richard. His face, which had looked so benign and sincere during his lecture, was now red with suppressed rage. “Our business is completed,” he said to Richard in a low, tight voice. “From this day forward I want nothing to do with you, or this monstrosity you've shoved down my throat. I hope you rot in hell for what you've made me do.”

Then he turned and stormed from the chamber. As more well-wishers attempted to stop him for a word or slap him on the back, he angrily sloughed them off.

Watching the humiliated man leaving the scene of his crime, Mason said, “He didn't mean a word he said.”

“Maybe not, but what's important is that he said it.”

She turned to Richard. “What did you do to get him to compromise himself so completely? And please don't tell me you know where some bodies are buried.”

“But it's true. The man has some terrible things to hide. I wouldn't waste my time feeling sorry for a man like that.”

“You blackmailed him?”

“I wouldn't use that word. I merely offered an exchange. My silence about his adventures with
les jeune filles,
and I do mean
jeune,
for his speech here today.”

Mason's stomach was in knots. “Richard, this is
wrong
.”

“Wrong? Putting some pressure on a dirty old man is wrong? Look what we've done here today for the legacy of Mason Caldwell.”

“
I'm
Mason Caldwell.”

“Of course you are.” He bent to kiss her cheek. While his lips were close to her ear, he added, “But please don't say that so loudly. You're going to have to get used to not saying that anymore. Even in private.”

He said this in a kindly way, but she felt as if he'd just slapped her in the face.

He was distracted by something across the room. “Hank is waving at me. I'd better go see what he wants. Will you be all right here for a moment?”

She watched him leave. She felt so dejected that she didn't know what to do with herself. She just stood there on the fringes of the excitedly chatting crowd, feeling wobbly on her feet.

Just then she heard a voice behind her.

“Amy, how lovely to see you again.”

She turned to find Emma standing beside her. “Oh, hello.”

Emma's face was glowing. “Isn't he something?”

“Lugini?”

“Good heavens no, my dear. Our Richard. We two are the only ones in this room who know who
really
wrote that historic little speech.”

Mason felt the heat in her face. She didn't relish having this reminder of what had just happened. She wished the woman would go away.

But Emma didn't seem to notice. “I have to hand it to him. He really pulled it off. Every time I underestimate him, he proves me wrong. But Lugini of all people! What a coup!”

Tartly, Mason said, “I don't know what you mean.”

Emma laughed delightedly. “My darling girl, you needn't pretend with me. I know Richard pulled the strings on that old man as if he were a marionette.” She paused, peering at Mason, for the first time noting her discomfiture. “But perhaps it's just a bit much for a sheltered Boston girl?”

It was a deliberate barb and Mason knew it. To get back at her, she said, “I think I should tell you, your grace, that I've definitely decided
not
to sell you my sister's paintings.”

Emma only smiled. “Oh, don't concern yourself. I gave up on that idea some weeks ago. I know Richard well enough to know he'll move heaven and earth to make certain they go to Hank. In any case, as luck would have it, I've just found my own Caldwell painting.”

This stopped Mason cold. “What are you talking about?”

“I've found an independent dealer who is going to sell me the most marvelous Caldwell you've ever seen.”

“That's impossible!”

“Why is it impossible? Your sister lived and worked here for five years. Surely she must have turned out more than eighteen paintings.”

“It's a forgery.”

“I assure you, it's not. Wait until you see it. You'll have no doubts.”

Mason didn't know what to say. She'd never considered the possibility that she might become so famous that she would be the target of forgers.

Piece by piece, she was being robbed of her self. She couldn't paint. Critics who'd never met her were giving her a personality she'd never had. Crooks were counterfeiting her pictures and signing her name.

At the end of this process, Mason would be gone. And she would
be
Amy.

E
ager to be away from all this, Mason waded into the crowd and looked for Richard. It took her some time to find him in the winter garden in conversation with Hank, Mary Cassatt, and Mrs. Potter Palmer. She watched him for a moment. He was the center of attention, lionized by the others and very much enjoying his triumph.

As she waited for a lull in the conversation that would allow her to approach, she glanced about the room and her gaze once again came to rest on Count Orlaf. He was standing by himself in an unguarded moment, glaring at Richard with naked hatred in his eyes. It was quickly masked as he was joined by several other guests. But that momentary glimpse of his hatred added to the sense of menace that seemed to be closing in on all sides.

Mason had to get out of there. She went to Richard and stood beside him, waiting to be noticed. When he did, she told him, “I'd like to leave.”

He stepped away from the conversation and said in a lowered tone, “Hank has arranged for us to go to dinner with Mrs. Palmer. He thinks she may write a bank draft to cover all the rest of the expenses for the pavilion.”

“I have a headache. I really want to go back to the hotel.”

“This could be really important.”

“You go ahead with them. It's a pretty day and we're not far away. I'll just walk back.”

“Are you certain you don't mind?”

“It's fine.”

“I'll drop in after dinner and see how you're feeling.”

“No, don't bother. I think I'll just go to bed early.”

She walked down Boulevard Haussmann, past the long, geometrical rows of Second Empire façades, only vaguely aware of the afternoon sun dancing in the leaves of the almond trees like an effect in a Monet landscape. The Sunday strollers passed by in a blur. By the time she reached her hotel, her head was splitting. She couldn't eat, so she went to bed early, but she couldn't sleeep.

What was happening to her? She wasn't sure. Much of it was the terrifying sense of self-loss that had come upon her at the lecture. But it was more than that. For the first time, she was seized by doubt about what they were doing and how they were doing it.

For her part, Mason was finding that this fame she'd once thought would be the solution to all her problems was not just cheap and unsatisfying, but a kind of ludicrous joke. Witness the scene today. Moreover, she no longer wanted to—or had the ability to, apparently—paint the kind of pictures the world wanted to see from her. Her love for Richard had filled that hole and healed her need to express that particular vision. She'd be happy to just walk away from all this and spend the rest of her life with him, painting whatever struck her fancy.

But Richard needed this. His nightmares told her that he was being driven by dark forces he didn't even understand to create, celebrate, and immortalize a false Mason. A Mason he now seemed to be distancing from her—the real Mason—in his mind. And in this quest, he was willing to go to any lengths, no matter how immoral.

She finally drifted off around three in the morning, feeling exhausted and emotionally spent.

She awoke late and ordered breakfast in her room. When it came with the usual morning edition of
Le Figaro
, she noticed the front-page story detailing Signore Lugini's crowning of Mason Caldwell as the “martyred messiah of art.” The lead had picked up on his poignant assertion that “we cannot see her paintings except through our own tears.” Beside the main article was a secondary story about an incident yesterday afternoon on the fairgrounds when a display of three Caldwell paintings had elicited an unusually emotional response from the crowd. A succession of viewers had broken down in front of them, sobbing uncontrollably. It was an outpouring of grief, the paper noted, the likes of which had not been seen in the city since the death of Victor Hugo.

There was a knock on the door, Richard's distinctive double rap. She went downstairs and let him in. He took in her nightgown and said, “You're not up?”

“No, I didn't sleep well last night.”

“I hope you're not still feeling sorry for Lugini.”

“I don't feel good about it. But I'm actually more upset about something else. Your old friend Emma told me yesterday that she's just acquired a Mason Caldwell painting on her own.”

Something flicked in Richard's eyes that looked more like annoyance than surprise. “A forgery, naturally.”

“
Of course
it's a forgery!”

He shrugged. “Well, you have to expect that. When an artist becomes famous, forgers will follow. Anyway, she may just have been trying to get your goat. That's her style.”

“And what's this about displaying paintings on the fairgrounds? You didn't tell me you were going to do that.”

“I thought it best to keep them in the public eye.”

“I find it rather strange that on the same day Lugini coins that poignant phrase about seeing the paintings through tears, people start breaking into sobs in front of them and there just happen to be reporters there to witness the spectacle.”

He gave her a mysterious smile.

“You paid them to break into tears, didn't you?”

“Only the first few. After that, they started doing it on their own. It was contagious. They're still doing it. I was just there. It's something to behold, to see how deeply the paintings touch people.”

“They only did that because you manipulated them into it!”

“I may have started the ball rolling, but go see for yourself. Hundreds of people have filed through already this morning, and their tears couldn't be more genuine. They're moved to tears, and the process is cleansing for them.”

“But it's false.”

“It's not false. It's real. Mason's paintings are—”

“Dammit! Will you stop talking about me as if I'm dead?”

He chuckled. “Believe me, I know you're very much alive.”

She sighed her exasperation. “Richard, may I ask you a question?”

“Of course.”

“The other night in Auvers, after you had the nightmare, you said that something was pushing you to do all this. What exactly did you mean?”

“Did I say that? I don't recall. I often talk a lot of rot after one of my screaming terrors.”

“Why is this so important to you?”

He gave her a blank look. “This?”

“What we're doing. Why do you need to do it so much that it's become your calling in life?”

He still looked puzzled. “You know why. Because I love art. I love these paintings and the story behind them. I want to share that love with the world.”

“But why
these
paintings? What is it in them that speaks to you, that made you bond with them so instantly?”

He was peering at her as if he'd never thought about it, didn't even want to think about it. “Why don't you tell me what's really bothering you?”

“Richard, I'm losing myself! Everything that makes me who I am is slipping away. Now you've even planted records that say I'm Amy. I couldn't even prove in a court of law that I'm
not
Amy Caldwell.”

He came to her and took her shoulders in his hands. “Look, you've been through a lot, and you're tired. Duval's bluff has you spooked. The trouble you've had painting probably rests uneasily on your mind. No doubt, you saw that bastard Orlaf at the reception, lurking in the wings. And granted, it's a sobering experience to see your sister canonized in the pantheon of art.”

“My sister?”

He smiled. “You know what I mean. But what we're creating here for posterity is important. It's the most important thing we will ever do in our lives. We're like the people who saved the scrolls containing the Greek myths from the Turks. It doesn't matter whether Zeus and Hera really lived. What matters is what their stories give to the world. Hope. Succor. Wisdom. Inspiration.”

He kissed her then. It took a while for her to soften in his arms. But when she finally did, he picked her up and carried her to the bedroom and made love to her. It was wonderful, and she desperately needed it. But when he dressed and returned to his hotel room, she was left with a curious uncertainty about who he loved the most: the flesh and blood woman, or the legend he'd just so passionately defended.

 

The next morning brought another blow.

The front page of
Le Figaro
had yet another story about Mason Caldwell. This one gleefully reported that England's illustrious Duchess of Wimsley had acquired not one but
three
previously unknown paintings by the tragic young artist. They'd been authenticated by several experts, were declared to be of the highest quality, and through the generosity of the new owner, were being displayed today in the window of the Durand-Ruel Gallery on Rue Peletier.

In a fury, Mason dressed and stormed the five blocks to the gallery. Already, there was a considerable crowd in front of the window. Several young women were sobbing. Mason pushed her way to the front. What she saw nearly knocked her to the ground.

Positioned in the window were three size-thirty canvases, each depicting a scene very much in her style. Each contained an exquisitely beautiful model who might have been Lisette, surrounded by a foreboding, hostile universe. Each study was imaginatively conceived and stylishly rendered. They were so much like what she'd done in the past that she had to search her memory to make certain she hadn't painted them and merely forgotten.

But no, they were masterful counterfeits.

She felt utterly violated, as if she'd just been raped.

She remembered the morning when this unique vision had hit her. How satisfying it was. How it seemed to encompass everything she'd experienced and everything she'd felt up to that moment. Of the weeks and months and years she'd worked to reach that point.

And though she'd now outgrown this vision, the pain she felt on seeing it usurped by some faceless criminal who'd signed her name in the corner was excruciating.

Only another artist could know what she now felt, standing in that spot, looking in that window.

She slowly trudged away, through the sobbing crowd of shopgirls and back to her hotel. The sensation she'd had before of losing herself, of being swept away by malevolent forces, engulfed her completely.

But this wasn't to be the end of her bad day. For when Mason retrieved her key at the desk, the clerk said, “There's a gentleman waiting for you over there.”

She turned to see Inspector Duval sitting in a chair by the fireplace at the far end of the lobby.

Oh, God, not now.

But what could she do?

She tried to assume a pleasant look and walked over to him. As she approached, he stood and eyed her shrewdly.

“I have some news for you,” he said, “regarding the death of your sister. Join me, please.” He indicated the chair beside him and they sat down. “We have finally had a breakthrough.”

“Breakthrough?”

He seemed to be examining her, judging her reaction to this. “Yes,” he said, with agonizing deliberation, “a witness has finally turned up.”

“What kind of witness?”

“One who was passing the bridge shortly before the alleged suicide.”

“I don't understand. Who would be—?”

“A
latier.
What you call a milkman. And what he had to say was most interesting.”

She braced herself. “What did he say?”

“That there were two women on the bridge that night. Two women conversing.”

“How could he possibly remember such a thing?”

“It was the foulest night in our city that he'd ever seen. His wife hadn't wanted him to go out, but he insisted because his customers would expect their milk in the morning.”

“But that was four months ago!”

“Even so, they were the only people he saw during his entire route. He remembers thinking they were crazy, standing in the wind and rain at the edge of the Pont de l'Alma.”

“And what does the milkman's testimony lead you to conclude, Inspector?” she had to ask.

“I am not prepared to say at this juncture. But I
will
say that it confirms all of my worst suspicions about this case and gives me the confidence to assure you, Mademoiselle, that an arrest will soon be forthcoming.”