The Art of Seduction (3 page)

Lisette turned to Mason, her eyes brimming with consternation. Mason waved a hand, silently telling her not to bother to translate. Hearing it once was enough.

Mason turned away, feeling flushed and overheated, wanting nothing more than to bolt from the crushing rejection.

But at that moment, her gaze once again found the handsome stranger at the back. He was still watching her. Now he slowly shook his head, then rolled his eyes. His meaning was clear. He was telling her that the revered Monsieur Morrel was talking through his hat. The warmth of it flowed through her, coursing courage and a badly needed jolt of appreciation through her veins.

Caught off guard by the critic's denunciation, Falconier had turned white. But he was saved from having to react by a sudden shuffling in the crowd and a harsh male voice calling out, “Where is Falconier?”

All eyes turned to a man of medium height, slim but well built, with slicked-back black hair and a distinctly disreputable air. It was the infamous gangster Juno Dargelos. As he and two burly bodyguards moved their way, the elegant bystanders parted in a flurry of scandalized whispers.

Spotting the proprietor, Dargelos called out, “I will buy them, Falconier. All the pictures of Lisette.”

Seeing him, Lisette raised her face to the ceiling and cried out, “Oh no! Not again!”

The intruder peered at her like a love-struck spaniel, and said, “Did you think I would let anyone else possess the pictures of my darling turtledove?”

With a stamp of her foot, Lisette fired back, “How many times must I tell you, Juno? I am not your turtledove, and never will be!”

The presence of the gang chieftain provided a delicious new twist to the story. The reporters jumped on it, firing questions at him.

“Eh, Juno, what are you doing so far from Belleville?”

“You don't own the police in this part of town, after all.”

“Haven't you heard that Inspector Duval has sworn he will not rest until the day he packs you off to Devil's Island?”

Dargelos extended both arms toward Lisette in a gesture worthy of a Puccini hero. “For the woman I adore, I would
swim
to Devil's Island and back.”

As Lisette groaned, Mason took the opportunity to steal away. She looked around, trying to spot her silent advisor, but he'd moved on. Finally, she saw him in the farthest corner of the salon, his back to her.

As Falconier nervously protested that most of the paintings featured Mademoiselle Ladoux and he couldn't possibly sell all of them to the man—“I have regular customers here, Monsieur, whom I must honor!”—Mason made her way to join the fascinating stranger. As she neared, she realized he was staring at one particular painting. Like the others, it featured an idealized young woman surrounded by nightmarish imagery: a world of chaos in which line and form were exaggerated to create a sense of menace. But unlike the others, the figure at the center was herself. Her only experiment in self-portraiture.

It showed a figure—Mason herself—kneeling in the foreground with her Prussian blue dress falling in soft folds about her hips, her naked back to the viewer. Her long hair, light brown with touches of gold, tumbled down her back, leading the eye to a heart-shaped birthmark on her upper right flank. She was glancing over her shoulder as if she had just become aware of the viewer's presence, acknowledging it with the hint of an enigmatic smile. There was no source light or shadows, but the figure seemed to glow from within. On one side of the frame, a grove of leafless, misshapen trees stretched their branches to the sky as if in agony. On the other side, an overturned canon jutted into the air beside a path that snaked into a succession of distant hills, one of which was covered with tombstones. Falconier had labeled it
Portrait of the Artist.

The man was gazing at it with rapt attention. She watched him for a moment, thinking he would continue on to the next painting. But he didn't. He just stood there, as if in a trance.

Finally, she walked over and joined him. This close, she could feel the heat of him, as if he radiated some vital energy all his own. It made her feel keenly aware of the new dress caressing her skin.

He must surely feel her presence, as she felt his, but he didn't show it. After a moment, she asked gently, “What do you think of it?”

Without looking away, he said, “I think it's a revelation.”

It was a marvelous voice, deep and rich, decidedly upper-crust British, but with the faintest trace of a Scottish burr. He pronounced the word
revelation
with an inflection all his own, drawing out the vowels as if savoring them on his tongue. A sensual voice, one that sent shivers up her spine.

“You heard what the critic Morrel said,” she reminded him tentatively.

“Morrel's an idiot.”

She was slightly shocked to hear this contemptuous appraisal.

“They tell me he's the last word on what's acceptable in art.”

He still hadn't looked away from the painting. Now he gave a careless shrug. “Morrel's had his day. But the world has passed him by. He wouldn't know an innovative work of art if it bit him on the—” He turned then and gave her a roguish grin that deepened the creases in his cheeks. “But not to worry. He'll come around.”

He said it with a conspiratorial confidence that was absolutely thrilling. She looked at him more closely now. There was a glint in his dark eyes that seemed to invite her in. She couldn't decide if that twinkle was truly wicked or just the contrivance of a charming man. He seemed so self-assured with such a sexual magnetism that her breath quickened. His face was an odd mixture of contrasts, elegantly handsome yet strangely rugged, with a touch of danger about the mouth—a compelling combination. Looking at that mouth—so full, so blatantly carnal—she found herself unconsciously licking her lips.

“The artist was my sister,” she said as much to anchor herself as anything.

“I know. You were pointed out to me.”

He fixed his eyes on her with flattering assessment before returning them to the painting.

After an awkward silence, she ventured, “You said it was a revelation. What did you mean?”

“I mean it's one of the most extraordinary personal visions I've ever seen.”

She strained not to show her excitement. “Why?” she asked as casually as she could.

“First of all, no artist has ever portrayed the anxiety of modern life quite so imaginatively or vividly. The backgrounds of each of these works conveys menace—images of the ugly, the grotesque, the terrible. And yet, the sheer passion of her technique, and the expressive flourish of her color, transforms them into something almost beautiful.”

Mason's heart began to thump. He was getting exactly what she was after!

“Moreover, the threat of the backgrounds is further neutralized in each of the paintings by the central image of a young woman. These women exude a beauty, a purity, a moral strength, and an awareness of their own sensuality that transforms the misery and peril of the world around them. At first, the paintings seem pessimistic. But the longer one looks at them, the more obvious it becomes that they are intensely hopeful and life-affirming. Look at this one. Obviously painted in the catacombs, the woman is surrounded by stacks of human skulls. A more unsettling reminder of our mortality you'd never want to see. Yet she's by far the most powerful thing in the painting. A power that makes even our destiny of death seem beautiful.”

Mason's heart was racing now.

He gestured again toward her self-portrait. “But for me, this is the most captivating of them all. She's painted herself in what appears to be a battlefield. A horror that has brought her to her knees and stripped her bare. And yet, she's rising from her knees, from the ashes, and giving us that exquisitely enigmatic hint of a smile. What is she telling us?”

Mason looked away from the painting and into his eyes. “You tell me.”

“She's telling us that the beauty of art can transcend and purify the horror of the world. Hardly the message of a woman about to kill herself, I admit. But that's her tragedy. She succeeded in her mission, yet she didn't know it.” He shook his head sorrowfully. “I wish I'd known her. I wished I'd been able to tell her just how magnificently she succeeded.”

Mason couldn't believe what she was hearing. For the first time in her life, she felt completely understood, accepted, appreciated.

“Who
are
you?” she gasped.

“Me? I'm nobody.”

“Are you a critic? Or an artist yourself?”

He chuckled, a deep rumble that seemed to emanate from his massive chest. “I'm not a critic or an artist or a collector. Just a chap who hangs about the art world. You might say I'm just an appreciator of art. But I know the real thing when I see it.”

“You must have a name.”

He smiled, showing a flash of straight white teeth. “Garrett. Richard Garrett.”

He extended a large hand that made hers seem miniscule in comparison. The touch of his firm, warm flesh sent a jolt through her senses.

“And your name is…?” he prompted when she just stood holding his hand.

“Ma—” She caught herself just in time. She was so befuddled, so swept away, that she'd almost slipped and told him her real name. Shaking herself, she amended, “I'm Amy Caldwell from…Boston, Massachusetts.”

“Well, Amy Caldwell from Boston, Massachusetts, I'd say you have a bit of a dilemma on your hands.”

“Dilemma?”

“I assume you saw all those people lining up outside to buy your sister's paintings. Tomorrow they'll be able to sell them for five times what they paid for them today. And the day after that, those people will be able to sell them for
ten
times what
they
paid. There's a phenomenon afoot and you need time to sit back, assess the situation, and find the proper strategy for dealing with it. Were I you, I'd stop this sale right now before it gets started.”

Mason looked across the room and saw that Falconier was about to open the doors to the public and begin the sale. The gangster Juno Dargelos had already taken three canvases featuring Lisette off the wall and was waving a fistful of francs at Falconier's back as Lisette continued to berate him for embarrassing her this way.

Uncertain what to do, Mason glanced back at Garrett and asked, “Stop it? But isn't that a bit like leaving the bride at the altar?”

“Better that than a life of regret brought about by the wrong decision. Just go to Falconier and say, ‘I've changed my mind. The sale is off.'”

She cast a glance at the gallery owner who was unlocking the door, then back at Garrett.

His gaze pierced her.

“You'd best hurry,” he stressed, “before it's too late.”

S
top the sale? Before it even got started? On the advice of a complete stranger?

After all she'd gone through, shouldn't she just be grateful to be selling anything at all?

But then…this wasn't just any stranger. It was almost as if he'd been sent here by destiny to hold up a beacon to her future. Could there be more in store for her than selling a few paintings at bargain prices?

She had no way of knowing. Her life, since that tumultuous night on the Pont de l'Alma, had been a kaleidoscope of bizarre events that had taught her one thing: What had seemed like the worst catastrophe of her life might well have turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to her.

Two months ago, on the city's stormiest night in living memory, Mason was flailing in the Seine when suddenly something cracked her in the head. She'd lost consciousness, assuming those were her last moments on earth. But when she awoke sometime later in the night, she found that she'd somehow managed to hook her arm around whatever flotsam had struck her. Either she'd managed to pull herself up with her last ounce of strength, or she'd been saved by a fluke of that same fate she'd earlier cursed. She had just enough presence of mind to heave herself on top of it and out of the frigid water before she'd blacked out once again. After that, there was a sense of moving in and out of consciousness as the rapid current carried her cascading through the night.

When she awoke—God only knew how many hours later—it was in a warm bed under a fluffy down comforter. A woman's face appeared above her and a kind voice asked, “Are you awake?” Mason tried to respond but couldn't. She didn't have the strength to move her lips. A moment later, she sank back into the darkness.

She was vaguely aware of tossing feverishly and kicking off the covers to cool her burning skin. She had bleary memories of moving in and out of the light and of some sort of vile medicine being forced down her throat, bringing with it another heavy sleep.

Then one morning she awoke to a room full of sunshine to see the woman sitting in a chair, mending a stocking. Mason tried to push herself up, but was so weak she fell back into the pillows, exhausted and lightheaded. Finally, she asked, “What happened? Where am I?”

She heard a cry. “She's awake! She's all right!” Then the shuffle of footsteps as the family quickly gathered round her bed—the parents, two boys, a little girl, and a toothless grandmother. They all spoke at once, making a fuss, rejoicing in her recovery.

The woman who'd been sewing said, “Dr. DuBois says something hit your head in the water. He says it was a miracle you didn't drown.”

“Where am I?”

“Rueil-la-Gadeliere.”

Groggily, Mason placed the name in her mind. Renoir had painted there. But it couldn't be! It was fifty miles downriver!

“How long have I been here?”

“It has been nearly four weeks since the good Lord brought you to us.”

“Four weeks!”

Again, she tried to sit, but her head swam sickly. The kind woman helped her back, adjusting her covers as she introduced her family. They were the Carriers, farmers who lived at the edge of the river. They'd chanced to spot her sprawled on top of the massive tree limb as it had floated by the morning after the storm. In their launch, they'd pursued and rescued her. They were a poor and simple people, and seemed to her blurry eyes as if they'd just stepped out of a painting by Millet. Pere Carrier assured her that they were happy to take care of her and wanted nothing in return.

“And the woman…the other woman…”

They exchanged puzzled glances, and the father said, “There was no other woman with you.”

Mason felt a heavy sadness. She'd wanted so badly to help that poor nameless soul on the bridge. Madame Carrier saw the tears that slipped down her cheek and gently stroked her hair back off her face. “There, there. You've been very ill. You must rest and not worry. You will stay with us and let us care for you until you are yourself again.”

Choked with tears, all Mason could do was nod her gratitude. Madame Carrier gave her some more medicine and before long, she'd once again drifted back to sleep.

Three days later, Mason awoke with more strength. She managed to get out of bed and stand for a few minutes. Every day she increased her time out of bed until finally she was able to take walks around the nearby village.

The Carriers were wonderful. They accepted her as a member of the family and gave no indication that they wanted her to leave. As her strength returned, she found herself enjoying being protected within the bosom of this family and being away from the life she'd left in Paris.

It was an idyllic retreat. Her gratitude at having been so miraculously spared blotted out any thoughts of the past or feelings of failure. The air had never smelled so sweet; the sky had never seemed so blue. She savored every moment of life, putting off thinking about where she would go from here. She had no commitments in Paris and she'd told Lisette she might go to Auvers, a village on the Oise River where she often retreated to paint, so there was no need to notify her. For now, it was enough just to be alive.

But then one day she decided to walk into the village. She'd been away from Paris for just over seven weeks by then and had lost a great deal of weight. She barely resembled herself, but she felt wholly refreshed, bursting with energy and robust with health.

Then she saw it: her name on a newspaper lying on an outside table at the local café. She snatched it up and hastily began to read.

The article told the story of how the late American painter Mason Caldwell—whose body had washed up on the shore of Neuilly, just outside of Paris, on the eighth of February—was becoming a posthumous celebrity. The Parisian papers had been in competition to glamorize what they were calling her suicide. According to them, she'd thrown herself from the bridge with the desperate romanticism of Madame Bovary. That was remarkable enough, but even more astonishing was the fact that dealers were actually competing to acquire the right to sell her paintings!

Stunned, she stumbled back to Chez Carrier and, without telling them what had happened, announced that she must return to Paris at once. Asking no questions, they gave her five francs, and she set out to correct the ghastly mistake.

On the riverboat back to the city, the scenario of what must have happened played through her mind. The woman on the bridge that night—the one she'd tried so hard to save—had drowned and her body, which was found more than a week later, had been mistaken for Mason's. She tried to remember her face, so briefly glimpsed when the wind had blown back the concealing hood. Who was she? She must have some family who Mason should contact and tell the sad news. Nearly two months later, they must be out of their minds with worry. Her message would be a blow, but at least they'd know what had really happened.

It was late by the time the now nearly complete Eiffel Tower came into view. Passing the fairgrounds below it, she saw the silhouettes of dozens of new buildings for the upcoming Exposition that had sprung up in her absence. She looked around her at the once-familiar sights of her adopted city and felt lost and alone, like a stranger. This wasn't the Paris she'd left behind. This was a Paris where Mason Caldwell was no longer alive.

She had no idea how to go about accomplishing what suddenly seemed like an overwhelming task. All she knew was that she needed to go to someone—now, at once—who would be happy to see her. She needed to be welcomed back from the dead.

She needed Lisette.

 

Mason's childhood had been isolated and lonely, and she'd never had a close friend before Lisette. They'd met shortly after Mason had arrived in Paris. She'd outfitted herself with art supplies and had set out to
La Grande Jatte,
an island in the Seine where the bourgeoisie went to enjoy their leisure time. She'd set up her easel, plopped her straw hat on her head, and picked up her brush. Everything at the ready, she'd looked about, wondering what to paint. Women dressed in their Sunday best strolled unhurriedly along the paths or picnicked beneath the trees. Men, in top hats or derbies, lounged in the shade, watching the sailboats glide along the river. Children frolicked on the grass or waded along the banks, their squeals piercing the air. Typical Impressionistic motifs. She was looking for something different, but she didn't know quite what.

Then she saw Lisette. She was a child-woman with a tumbled tangle of luxurious gold hair that seemed to glow in the fulsome sunshine of summer. Half a dozen dogs of all sizes and breeds surrounded her, panting in anticipation as she raised a small ball she held in her hand. She was barefoot and was laughing as the two poodles leapt into the lake. Hiking up her skirts, she'd run playfully in after them, picking them up in both arms and smothering them with heartfelt kisses, completely mindless to the fact that they were soaking her pretty yellow dress. She was effortlessly elegant and earthy all at once, delighting in the movements of her own body, completely unconscious of the effect she was creating.

At this point, Mason hadn't found the artistic vision that would later so possess her. But one look at the carefree young woman made her realize that she'd found something special. A Greek goddess for the modern age, a new kind of woman full of light and color and sensual grace.

She found, when she introduced herself in halting French, that Lisette was a trapeze artist and acrobat. When Mason asked if she would model for her, the young woman wrinkled her nose in distaste, then reconsidered and said with a shrug, “
Et bien.
Why not?” Mason was so satisfied with the results of the sitting that, several weeks later and after many frustrating afternoons of painting plaster casts and bowls of oranges, she decided to seek out her reluctant model at the Folies-Bergères, where she'd said she was currently appearing. This time Lisette refused. But several days later, she appeared at Mason's Montmartre flat and said, rather haughtily, “I have nothing to do this afternoon, so you may paint me.”

As Mason worked in a lightning flash of inspiration, she realized she'd found the subject she'd been looking for—one who somehow fit into the vision she was struggling to formulate. She still couldn't explain to herself exactly what place Lisette would occupy in this grand scheme, but she'd never felt more at one with the creative force than when painting her.

For her part, however, Lisette seemed cautious of the young American artist and kept her distance as the French were wont to do, occasionally agreeing to pose, but demanding a fee and offering nothing of herself but her physical presence. Then one day, Mason was shopping for vegetables in the market at Les Halles and was in the process of paying the vendor when she heard a familiar voice behind her. “What are you doing? Do you not know this man is charging you three times what he would charge a French customer for that pathetic head of lettuce?”

Before Mason had time to answer, Lisette had attacked the vendor in a hand-waving tirade of French, snatched some coins from Mason's hand, and exchanged them for the lettuce. “You need someone to take care of you,” she'd pronounced contemptuously.

Over the following weeks, their acquaintance entered a new stage. Not quite a friendship, but something more than the indifference Lisette had previously extended. Several times she dropped by with no warning and took Mason out shopping for food and clothes, and once she led her by the arm to the building's concierge and told her in no uncertain terms that the American would no longer be paying such an inflated rent for her “miserable hovel.” Another time she gave Mason a ticket to the Cirque Fernando where she was performing. Mason had marveled at the ease, agility, and breathtaking charisma with which she'd flown through the air on her trapeze. But Lisette still didn't give herself in real friendship. Mason assumed she never would. She kept most people at an emotional distance and reserved most of her affection for her dogs.

Several months later, however, Mason stopped by Lisette's apartment on the Boulevard de Clichy, intending to borrow a cloisonné vase she'd given Lisette and wanted to use for a still life she was painting. Lisette was out of town, on a long tour with the traveling circus that was taking her all over France and into Italy for most of the summer, and couldn't be reached. When she went to the concierge to ask admittance to Lisette's rooms, she discovered that the old woman, a friend of Lisette's, had passed away a week before. The building had been inherited by her son, a worthless brute whose unwanted advances Lisette had rebuffed time and again in no uncertain terms. In revenge, the new landlord was in the process of transporting her beloved ménage of dogs, which the late concierge had been caring for, to the Paris dog pound, where they would soon meet their demise.

“You can't do that!” Mason insisted.

“I certainly can. She didn't pay her rent in advance.”

“I'll pay her rent,” Mason told him.

“It's too late. I've rented her rooms to someone a little more appreciative, and those mongrels are on their way to the meat grinder.”

Mason raced to the pound and managed to rescue the seven animals just in time.

A month later, at the end of her summer tour, Lisette appeared at Mason's door utterly distraught with tears streaming down her face. She'd been to her apartment where she'd been gleefully informed by the new landlord that her darling brood were long gone. After flying into the man in an attempt to scratch his eyes out, she'd gone to see Mason. “That beast sent my babies to their execution.”