“Let’s drink to Kate’s success,” said Clare.
The tears for Faith were still in her eyes as she lifted her glass.
I often thought how much I owed to Nicole.
She was practical in the extreme and as soon as I returned to Paris to the house of the Regniers my next commission-I went to see her.
“Well?” she said.
But I didn’t have to tell her. She knew. She put her arms round me and held me close to her for a moment.
Then she said: “Now we start to plan.”
After that I saw her almost every day. There was so much to talk about, so much to arrange. It was immediately decided that the attic should be my studio, and that I should have a room in which to receive people and discuss appointments and terms. We should share the salon and I should have a bedroom next to the attic.
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“There is a suite of rooms up there,” she said, ‘and you can have those when the baby arrives. They’ll be suitable for the first few months anyway . until the child begins to walk. “
She had worked out everything. I must, of course, remain Kate Collison. But instead of being Mademoiselle I should become Madame. We could have a vague story in the background about a husband who had unfortunately died.
“The tragedy is fairly recent,” she explained, ‘so we do not wish to discuss it. It is too painful. You retained the name of Collison because it means a great deal in the art world and you are carrying on the family tradition. ” She paused and then went on: ” As soon as the present commissions are completed you will expect clients to come to the studio to be painted. In the meantime we will prepare it and make sure it is all that it should be to accommodate a fashionable and famous artist. You can go on painting right until the last month, I should think. In any case we can see about that when the time comes. I shall engage a midwife who I know is efficient in her job and does in fact attend the nobility. In the meantime we shall prepare for this infant. We shall have everything of the best for it.
Leave that to me. “
“I want to be careful with money,” I insisted.
“I know I am highly paid now and I have saved quite a bit. But I have the future to think of.”
“The future is assured if you will let it be. You have to act like a great artist. That is of the utmost importance. Money affairs are mundane matters. They should not concern you overmuch. You are deeply interested only in art. I think we are getting everything arranged nicely. All we have to do now is to await the birth and in the meantime go on painting and piling up the shekels.”
“Nicole,” I said one day, ‘why are you doing all this for me? “
She was silent for a moment. Then she said: “Friendship.” And after another pause: “I’m doing it for myself in a way. I
was lonely. The days seemed so long. They don’t any more. I always wanted children. “
“Do you mean … his … ?”
“Well,” she said, ‘it wouldn’t have been possible. He didn’t want a wife then. He wanted a mistress. “
“And, of course, he thought only of himself, as always.”
“I never told him I wanted children.”
“He might have guessed that any woman would.”
“Not my sort of woman.”
“How can you talk of sorts of women! They are all individuals … no two alike.”
“No, perhaps not. But we can be roughly sorted into types. I mean, the women who choose the way of life I chose do not usually want children.”
“That way of life was chosen for you.”
“Well, most of us have something chosen for us. It is the bold ones who break away. No. I must be fair. I accepted that way of life because it was amusing and interesting. I had tried respectability, hadn’t I, and I knew it wasn’t for me.”
“Nicole, I fancy I’m growing up fast, through you.”
“I’m glad to be of help and what I wanted to say is that it is no use blaming anyone for what we are. It’s in our hands.”
‘“Not in our stars but in ourselves …” I quoted.
“Oh yes, I see that.”
“And we should be lenient in our judgement of others.” She looked at me almost appealingly.
“The way in which we are brought up does affect our lives. You see, in my case, I was made to see a great deal that was desirable in pandering to the pleasure of someone who could give me a secure future. It’s like many people’s approach to marriage in a way. Think of all those fond Mammas parading their daughters for the highest bidder, one might say. It was the same with me. More honest in a way. I had to give more in return for what I received. I had to continue to please.” She laughed at me.
“It sounds immoral, doesn’t it, to one who has been brought up
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carefully in a pleasant household. But you see, heredity and upbringing have made you a painter; the same thing has made me a courtesan. “
“They made you clever, understanding and kind, and I’m grateful to you, Nicole. In fact, I don’t know what I should have done without you.”
“Well, it is not all for you. I was lonely. I wanted an interest. Oh Kate, I am looking forward to our baby.”
“Nicole, so am I. So am I!”
On another occasion she said: “You don’t feel so vehement about him now, do you?”
She nodded.
“I hate him as intensely as ever.”
“You mustn’t.”
“I couldn’t stop myself if I tried. I shall always hate him.”
“You shouldn’t. It might be bad for the child. He is the father, remember.”
“I wish I could forget that.”
“Try to understand him.”
“Understand him! I understand him too well. He’s a throw-back to the age of barbarism. He has no place in a civilized world.”
“He used to talk to me about his childhood sometimes.”
“I am sure he was the most horrible child who tortured little animals and tore the wings off flies.”
“No, he did not. He was fond of animals. He loves his dogs and horses.”
“Was it really possible for him to love anything besides himself?”
“Now you are working yourself up and as I told you that’s bad for the child.”
“Anything connected with him is bad for everyone near him.”
“But he is the child’s father.”
“For Heaven’s sake, Nicole, don’t keep reminding me of that.”
“I want you to see him in a new light. You must understand what sort of man his father was.”
“Just like him, I should imagine.”
“He was the only son. Everything was concentrated on him.”
“He liked that, I am sure.”
“No. It meant that he was always under observation … he was brought up in a way which made him what he is. He had to excel at everything.
He was constantly made aware of his ancestry. “
“Those savage marauding Normans who raided the coasts of peaceful people, stole their goods and raped their women. I can well believe that.”
“A child is brought up like that … forced to excel in all manly sports, taught to be a stoic, taught the importance of power, brought up to see his family as the greatest in the world. He has even been named after one of them. Rollo-apparently was the first leader who came to Normandy.”
“Yes, I know. He raided the coast and so harassed the French that to keep the invaders quiet they gave them a part of their country which was called Normandy. He was very anxious to tell me at the very beginning of our disastrous acquaintance that he was not French. He was Norman. I think he really believed he was back in those dark ages.
He certainly behaved as though he were. “
“Yet in spite of this there was a certain sensitivity.”
“Sensitivity!”
“This love of art. I’ll tell you something else: he wanted to be an artist. You can imagine the storm in the Centeville camp when that was discovered. There had never been an artist in the family. They were all hoary warriors. That was stamped on at once.”
“I am surprised he allowed that to be.”
“He didn’t, did he? He became both … and because his efforts were divided he wasn’t entirely successful at either.”
“What do you mean?”
“He is not a painter but I have heard it said that there is not a man in France who knows more about painting. He is ruthless, upholding his power and yet he has a sentimental streak which is quite alien to everything else about him.”
“Sentimental streak! Really, Nicole. You are romancing.”
“Didn’t he proclaim your talent? Don’t you owe the fact that you are on the way to him?”
“That was simply because he admired my work … recognized it for what it was, and he knew that I could paint a miniature as well as my father could.”
“But he did it, didn’t he? He went to considerable pains to advance your career.”
“And then went to even greater pains to destroy it. No, I shall always hate him. I see him for what he is and that is … a monster.”
“Don’t get excited,” said Nicole.
“It’s bad for the child.”
I became more and more grateful to Nicole as the months passed. She carried off our masquerade with aplomb; everything she did was done in the true spirit of generosity which was to make me feel that the benefit was hers. She had been lonely, bored, and I had given her something to plan for. My desperate situation had relieved the monotony other days. The only time she was impatient was when I tried to express my gratitude.
The arrangements in the house were perfect. The studio was large, airy and light. It was all a studio should be. She had one day a week when she received her friends. I was always with her on these occasions and this brought me many clients. I had worked right up to the time of my confinement so I was not going to be short of money and was able to pay Nicole a reasonable price for my rent, although I
knew full well that she did not want to take it. However, I insisted on this.
She was introducing me to a new way of life. I had become Madame Collison, the famous artist; and Nicole, who certainly did not observe the rules of convention for herself, had decided that it might be advisable for me to give some regard to them. Therefore she hinted at a deceased husband and the posthumous child-to-be. It made a very interesting situation and surrounded me with a certain amount of mystery which made me an intriguing personality as well as a talented artist.
I enjoyed the evenings until I began to get too large and then I felt the need to rest. All sorts of people came to the salon. There was. a great deal of music. Nicole played the piano with spirit and sometimes she engaged professional musicians. She liked, though, to choose people who were trying to get a hearing in that field. She was very sympathetic and whatever anyone thought about her past life, fundamentally good. I had reason to know that. Artists, writers, musicians came. It was an absorbing and exciting life; and I was beginning to be happy, for Nicole insisted that I should be. She would shake her finger at me and I would rush in with it before she had time to say it: “For the sake of the child …”
During the last months I would lie on a sofa in the salon with a velvet cover to hide my body, and people came and sat beside me, and sometimes they knelt, which made me feel like a queen.
The midwife, chosen by Nicole, had moved in. My time was approaching.
Then came the all-important day and my child was born.
I came out of exhaustion to hear the cry. loud and lusty.
I heard the midwife say: “This one will give a good account of himself
Then I knew I had a boy.
When he was laid in my arms, Nicole was there, smiling proudly. She told me that he weighed nine pounds, which was very big-and he was perfect in every way.
“He is going to be something… our boy,” she said.
She doted on him from the hour of his birth and we talked of nothing else but this marvelous boy.
“What shall you call him?” she asked, and for a moment I thought she was going to suggest Rollo and I felt anger welling up within me.
I said quickly: “I am going to call him Kendal… after my father.
There must be a K . just in case . “
She was laughing.
“But of course he must be Kendal,” she said.
“He must have the magical initials just in case he should turn out to be a great artist.”
She rocked him in her arms. She marvelled at him. I liked to see her happy.
Then she gave him to me and I held him close against me. I knew that anything that had gone before was worth it for his sake.
The Onflamme Kite
I would not have believed I could be so happy. Two years had passed since the birth of my son and he grew in strength and beauty every day and in a manner at which both Nicole and I marvelled. The excitement of his first tooth, his first smile, the first word he uttered, the first time he stood alone on his two dimpled feet, was so intense, and the more so because it was shared.
He was at the centre of our lives. As soon as he was able to speak he said his own name, of which his version was Kendy. It occurred a great deal in his conversation. Intelligent as he was, he could not help but be aware of his importance, and sometimes I thought he believed the whole world was made for him.
Each morning, when I was in the studio, he would be Nicole’s concern.
I was getting more and more clients and there was hardly a day when I did not have work to do. It was very satisfactory and there was no doubt that my name was becoming more and more well known in Parisian circles. People came from the country too-which was very gratifying as it showed that my fame was spreading beyond Paris.
“Excellent, excellent,” Nicole would murmur, and she could never resist adding: “Was I not right?”
She had been right in everything she had done. She had found a way out for me, and because I had the most adorable child in the world I could cast aside my regrets and be happy.
I wrote to my father about once a month reporting progress. He was delighted with the way things were going and quite understood that I could not spare the time to come
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home. As for him, his sight was fading and he did not feel quite able to undertake the journey to Paris. It was comforting therefore to receive my letters. He wanted to hear about my success and he thought that it had been the best thing that could have happened, particularly to a woman to be acclaimed by someone like the Baron and then to have her own studio in Paris.