Under the Wide and Starry Sky

CHAPTER 9

It was still cool when they arrived in Grez-sur-Loing. Nestled in the midst of vast farm ?elds, the village was a  smattering of stone houses, a  picturesque bridge, and a  ruined twelfth-century tower with ferns growing in its cracked walls. In those ?rst few weeks at the H?tel Chevillon, they bundled in coats and wool scarves and arrayed themselves along the bank of the river—she and Belle with paintbrushes and Sammy with a ?shing pole. Within speaking distance but silent and worlds away from one another, they gazed ?xedly at the water.

The Loing River was just beyond a long garden behind the inn, a rambling stone building that was empty except for them. Madame Chevillon, a motherly sort, took it upon herself to fatten up the children, who cooperated with gratitude. Fanny expected her own plumpness —her loveliest feature, Rearden once told her—was gone for good. She was so reduced from her previous self that Sam had paid a seamstress to rework her old clothes and make an inexpensive dress.

The Chevillon was an eating place for a few men from around the area. They came in wearing muslin shirts soiled from the day’s work. They washed their hands in the kitchen, then settled down to mutton, wine, and local gossip. With its crackling ?replace, rows of pickled vegetables huddled on  the windowsill, and pots hu?ng on  the stove, the small room reminded her of an Indiana farm kitchen. The smells and the hum of conversations she couldn’t understand offered some succor to her.

Margaret  Wright  had  told  her  the  H?tel  Chevillon  was  the  most  bohemian  of  the bohemian  gathering  places  near  the  Fontainebleau  Forest. “Barbizon  has  become  too fashionable. It’s overrun by poseurs more interested in the mise-en-scène than in producing any actual art. The real painters go to Grez,” Margaret had assured her with authority, although she’d not yet been there herself.  “And you needn’t worry. They will leave you alone, I think.”

As  the  weather  warmed,  Madame  Chevillon  prepared  for  more  guests.  White  sheets ?apped on the clothesline; broth simmered on the stove. On a morning in late May, Fanny and Belle looked down from a window on the staircase landing to see a black-haired young fellow step out of the diligence that had brought him. Bob Stevenson, a twenty-nine-yearold Scot from Edinburgh, was the first of the regular summer crowd to arrive, and he looked

every  inch  the artiste  type Margaret had described.  He wore trousers that ended at his knees, stockings with red and white horizontal stripes, and a smirk.

Seated next to him that evening in the dining room, Fanny found him boorish. “There’s an onslaught about to begin,” Bob Stevenson remarked, ?lling his glass with
wine. “Once the others start to arrive, you’ll discover this isn’t the place to be if you are hoping for a little peace. Madame Chevillon said you had come for the quiet.”
“Oh,” Fanny said.

“Is that right?” the man persisted. “There are places not far from here that would serve you much better if you are here to rest … “

“I was sent here to rest,” she said, squinting at him across the table. Though he was just another young fool, he spoke English. “I had a son.” Her voice sounded dull and distant. “My children had a brother. He died …” She looked up at a corner of the ceiling, counting. “… six weeks ago.”

The young man turned crimson. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“Strange that they prescribe rest when you lose a child. There is no comfort in resting. One only thinks more.” She lit a cigarette. “Do you believe in heaven, Mr. Stevenson?”
The man was disarmed. “No,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

Fanny  let  out  a  bitter  little  laugh. “Well,  I  guess  I’ve  got  a  foot  in  the  same  camp nowadays. I’ll tell you one thing,” she said, inhaling deep. “If there is a heaven? My boy has jewels in his crown.”

Belle stood up  then.  “Come along, Mama. You, too, Sammy. Let’s walk down  by the river.”

When they appeared at breakfast the next morning, Bob Stevenson rose from his seat and bowed slightly. “You and your daughter are painters, Mrs. Osbourne?”
“We are.”

“Might I interest you and Belle in a little outing? There is a certain place I like to sit to get the perspective of the main street. Your son can come along. We’ll give him a brush.”
Fanny shrugged, nodded.

Later, when she understood that Bob Stevenson had come to the H?tel Chevillon ahead of his friends in order to frighten o? the intruding Americans, she comprehended the shame he must have felt when he learned of her loss. For Bob was a decent man, it turned out, from decent people.

After that ?rst day of painting, Belle stayed behind with Sammy, who preferred to ?sh. For about ten days, only Fanny and Bob went out to paint. They sat together for hours on the main street of Grez, discussing art and life and passersby while painting the quaint stone buildings. Bob’s canvas was the better one, but he complimented her work. For short stretches of time, Fanny’s gnawing sorrow eased.

In his gentle way, she realized later, Bob brought her along in small steps to the point where she could talk to people again. There was no obvious show of gallantry, no sign of pity on his part. They had merely conversed like normal people do. But it felt as if he had ?ung a rope bridge across the chasm that had formed between her and the rest of the world since Hervey’s death.

When his friends began arriving in June, Fanny didn’t retreat to her room. She felt a measure of her old self returning. She was able to greet each one warmly. And they, in turn, made her family part of their peculiar circle.