She was looking at me steadily and after a slight pause she said: “Do tell me what’s wrong. I’d like to help if I can.”
Perhaps it was the kindliness in her face. Perhaps it was the gentleness in her voice as she took my hand and pressed it. It might have been because I was so desperate. In any case, I clutched her hand and said: “I am going to have a child.”
She looked at me intently and said: “We can’t talk here very well.”
I shook my head.
“I don’t know why I told you.”
Her coffee had come and she stirred it absentmindedly.
“You told me because you had to tell someone,” she said.
“I’m so glad I came along then. Gome to my house. There we can talk in comfort.
Don’t worry. I am sure I can be of help. It’s not such an unusual state of affairs you know. It has happened before . many times.
The thing is to keep a cool head. “
Strangely enough I felt tremendously relieved, and when she had finished her coffee and the bill was paid she hired a cab and we sped away together.
The cab pulled up in one of the streets leading from the Boulevard St. Michel. We were before a white house of some four stories.
“Here we are,” said Nicole, and led the way up three steps to a door guarded by lions. She opened the door and we were in a hall of quite large proportions with a moulded ceiling which was decidedly elegant.
A door opened and a man whom my knowledge of the city immediately told me was a concierge appeared.
He said good day to Madame St. Giles and eyed me curiously while we passed into a room with long windows looking out on a patio in which grew potted plants.
There was a grand piano in one corner, several settees, comfortable-looking chairs, and one or two tables; an ormolu clock chimed four on the mantelpiece over the fireplace and on either side of it were figurines, flimsy draperies covering their anatomy in those sections which it would have been considered, in polite society, immodest to reveal.
She certainly had a comfortable-even luxurious home.
“Do sit down,” she said, ‘and tell me. “
I told her frankly what had happened. She nodded as I went along, and what was so comforting, did not question anything but believed all I said. Of course, she knew the Baron as well as anyone could.
She said at length: “It’s not an easy situation, but you can manage.”
“Manage!” I cried.
“I don’t know what to do. I could go home, I suppose. Can you imagine what it would be like in a small confined English village.”
“Very much what it would be like in a small confined French one,” she said.
“But of’ course you won’t go back there.”
“How how … where …”
She looked at me and smiled. I had always thought she had a sweet smile.
“Will you let me help … advise?”
“I am in such a state of anxiety that I would welcome any help and advice.”
“Don’t panic,” she said.
“Remember it is not an unusual situation.”
“You mean … rape … and such consequences.”
“I really meant respectable young women finding themselves pregnant.
You are fortunate. You have your work. That must be a great solace.
Moreover, it is a means of livelihood . quite a good livelihood I imagine. “
“It is becoming so.”
“And it will go on getting better and better. You are on the road to fame and fortune. This … matter … must not interfere with that.”
“I don’t see how.”
“I do. Because you are going to let me help.”
“I have no idea what I… or anyone … can do. Here I am a stranger in this city. I shall work while I can. Then I suppose I must go home.
I know my father will help but it will be a great shock for him. He has had one shock. His eyes . you know. “
“Yes, I do know.” She leaned towards me and touched my hand briefly.
“Will you … let me be your friend?”
I looked at her in astonishment.
“It is difficult for me to say all I feel,” she went on.
“You probably regard me as little more than a stranger. I don’t feel we are. You know a good deal about me. I know of you. And we both know the Baron . intimately.”
“Please, I don’t want to talk about that wretched experience.”
“I understand. Listen. I am alone here. You are in this situation.
Please let me help you? “
“How could you?”
“To begin with I could talk to you. It is always a good idea to discuss these matters, to consider what is the best way of tackling them. I know Paris very well. I would know where you could go to have your baby. I have this house. It is large. I don’t use it all. I have thought of letting part of it. At night it seems so quiet here.
Sometimes I give parties. I Lave many acquaintances . people I knew in the past. but very few real friends. I am putting a proposition to you. I know I can help you. Take some rooms in this house. Make one your studio. You need quarters in Paris. You want people to come to you to be painted. You don’t want to go to their houses just when they call you. You have to set yourself up as a great artist . act like a great artist . live like one. Now this would be a good address for you. We are on the Left Bank. that is where the intellectual people are gathering . clerics, professors, students, artists are here . I am talking too much. “
“Of course you are not. Please go on. It is so kind of you. I could see no way out of my problem … I don’t know why you take so much trouble about me.”
She was silent for a moment, then she said.
“In a way we are both .. victims. No, I mustn’t say that. It’s not true.”
“You mean of the Baron de Centeville.”
“It is not fair to say that I am a victim. I’ll explain all that to you some time, but now let us think of you. I realize this is all very sudden and you want time to think about it. But really, Kate … May I call you Kate? … I think we are going to be good friends. You have a great deal of planning to do and the sooner you begin the better.”
“You talk as though everything is so simple.”
“I wouldn’t say that, but most things are not as difficult as one first thought if they are approached in a sensible and realistic way.”
“But I am going to have a child}’
“I always longed for children,” she said.
“I could envy you.”
“This child will be the result of something I want more than anything to forget. If only I could go back in time. If only I had gone straight home instead of making that journey …”
Again she touched my hand.
“Don’t think back. Think forward.”
I contemplated her earnest face. I was a little unsure as I must be of anything connected with the Baron, and I reminded myself that she had been his mistress and probably his confidante. How could I be sure that this was not some fresh plot?
She understood the trend of my thoughts.
“You’ll want to consider this very carefully,” she said.
“Go back now. The concierge will get a cab for you. You have my address. Think about everything. There is an attic right on the rooftops with plenty of glass. It was built for an artist. I will help you … having the child. I can put you in touch with the people you will need. You can make this your home, and let me tell you that in this part of Paris you are not expected to live the conventional life that you would be in the Faubourg Saint-Honore. You could work here. Your patrons could come to be painted. It is a proposition. But I do understand that you will need time to decide.”
“It is very grand,” I said.
“Should I be able to afford it?”
“My dear Kate, you need to be grand to show how successful you are, and if you are successful you will be able to afford it. Come. You need to contemplate all this. Such decisions should not be made lightly.”
“I have a great deal of thinking to do, I know.”
She nodded in agreement.
“Go now,” she said.
“You have my address. You know where to find me.”
“But how can I thank you.”
She saw me into the cab.
“Remember,” she said.
“You are not alone … unless you want to be. I will be your friend if you want me. It is for you to decide.”
That encounter changed everything. I could see before me an avenue of escape, however bizarre it seemed. I occupied myself during the next few days thinking about it. It was a mercy that while I worked I was able to shut out everything else but the portrait.
The more I thought of Nicole’s suggestion, the more possible it appeared. It seemed the only possibility. I went to see Nicole again.
She was delighted that I had come and I fancied that my predicament had given her a new interest in life which she badly needed at this time. True, I was a little suspicious. Surely anyone who had been treated as I had would be. This was chiefly because of her past connection with the Baron. Everyone who had been near to him could be polluted.
On my second visit, she said: “I want you to come, Kate. I want to help you. I’m feeling very lonely .. lately.”
“Because of… him?”
“I was with him for eight years. It’s a long time. You don’t speak. I can see that you do not understand.”
“I understand perfectly. We were both used by him. You happened to agree and I did not.”
“Yes, I suppose you could say that. But don’t waste your sympathy on me. I knew this would happen eventually. He would marry and that would be the time for me to disappear. It was understood from the first.”
“Do you mean it was a sort of contract?”
“Not in the usual understanding of such a term. My mother was … well, not exactly a courtesan. Shall we say a demimondaine She was the mistress of a great nobleman. He provided for her and looked after her when her services were no longer required. It was a life she was bred to. So was I. I was married when I was seventeen to Jacques St. Giles.
He was a respectable young man who worked in one of our banks. We lived together for a year, but it was never meant to last. My mother wanted me to marry. I would then have a right to call myself Madame which, she always said, gentlemen preferred to Mademoiselle. A young girl could make demands which a married woman could not so marriage made the situation so much more comfortable. “
“It all seems rather cynical.”
“Call it realistic. Then I was introduced to the Baron by my mother, who hoped that I would please him. I did. I had been well educated, brought up to appreciate art and to be what is called a cultivated woman. I was taught how to carry myself, how to dress, how to converse with grace. That was the theme of my education … to please. Well, it is what I did. And here I am. Thirty years of age, with my own house and a comfortable settlement. I need never work again as long as I live. You might say I was brought up in a rewarding profession, one which brings good returns and security. Better, I was always taught, than becoming a drudge and mother of many children. Do you understand?”
“I still think it very mercenary and, I must confess, immoral.”
“Oh, you will never understand. I don’t suppose this sort of thing would happen in England. It’s part of French life the life of the demimondaine I was born into it. I found a generous lover … and here I am. I see you are more than a little shocked. Please don’t be and don’t be sorry for me. It was a very pleasant life.”
“With that man!”
“Let me tell you I became quite fond of him. I began to learn something about him.”
“And that made you fond of him?”
“It made me see why he was the man he was.”
“And you could really be fond of such a man?”
“Kate, what he did to you was unforgivable. Don’t think I
don’t realize that. If it had happened to me . and I had been like you . I should have felt the same. “
“It was monstrous,” I said fiercely.
“It is treating people about him as though they are of no importance beyond the use they can be to him.
It is picking them up . exploiting them . and then throwing them aside. “
“I know. It was his upbringing. His father and his grandfather were like that. He was brought up to believe that that was the way men such as they were behaved.”
“It is time someone taught them differently.”
“No one will ever do that. You see how it is now. A word from the Baron and-everyone acclaims you. He has power … even in these days he has it.”
“You mean money! Position!”
“Yes, but more than that. It is something in his personality. If you could understand you would realize why he is the way he is.”
“I don’t care why. It is because he is that way that he maddens me. He should be punished, taken to law.”
“Would you be prepared to go to law, to accuse him of rape? Would you stand up in a court? Think of the questions they would ask. Why did you not complain at the time? That is what they would ask. You would hurt yourself more than you could hurt him. Be practical. Don’t go on brooding on what has happened. Think of what you are going to do now.”
I said: “I shall soon have finished Francoise’s portrait. There is to be a ball. The miniatures will be shown there.”
“What the Baron does today the world does tomorrow. Madame Dupont is slavishly copying the style he sets. Never mind. It’s all to the good.
It may well bring in fresh business. From that ball I’ll swear you get two more definite commissions at least and perhaps many more. “
“After that I leave for the house of Monsieur Villefranche for his wife’s picture.”
“And then?”
“I should go home and see my father.”
“And tell him?”
“I don’t know whether I could do that. Perhaps when I come face to face with him I shall know whether or not I can tell him.”
“And if you could not?”
I turned to her.
“You have been so kind to me .. : so helpful.”
“I hope I shall be your friend.”
“I can tell you that since our meeting I have felt so much better. You have made me realize that I have to stop looking back. I have to plan.
I am afraid I shall hate this child. “
She shook her head.
“Women like you never hate their children. As soon as this baby arrives you will love it and forget the way it came.”
“If it should look like him …”