Instead, she had married at eighteen and become the mother to three sons by the time she was twenty-five. With her husband, a baronet from deepest Derbyshire, she had a pleasant but distant relationship. Peter was about ten years older than Amalia, of middling height, very round about the middle, and had graying hair that was beating a slow retreat from his brow. He liked the sound of his own voice and at family dinners was much given to long-winded and ill-informed speeches about politics and world affairs. Though fundamentally a decent man he was also very dull, and she suspected that Amalia found him dull, too. Likely her sister knew as little of her husband’s interior life as she did of her servants’. Not only did she and Peter have different interests, but they also lived different lives.
Amalia had always been the daring one among their sisters: she had been the first to bob her hair, wear rouge, and shorten her skirts. Yet it hadn’t made a whit of difference to the way she lived, which was profoundly traditional. With little say in the upbringing of her sons, the youngest of whom had just been parceled off to boarding school at the age of eight, Amalia passed her days in shopping and visiting friends, overseeing the running of her homes, and engaging in some perfunctory charity work.
If Helena had married Edward, she would have had the same life.
The crowds on the platform parted, just for an instant, and she saw her sister, whose beautifully tailored coat and matching hat made her look like a fashion plate come to life.
“Amalia! Helloooo! Over here!” she called, waving her hand frantically. Amalia abandoned her sophisticated pose and ran pell-mell toward the platform barrier, brushing past it and the guard as if they were invisible, and when she reached Helena they hugged and even jumped up and down a little.
“Ellie, darling—you look wonderful. Simply wonderful. And your hair! It suits you so well at that length.”
“Thank you. You’re looking very well, too.”
“Do you think so? This horrid winter has left me feeling quite wan. I’m absolutely desperate for some sun.”
“Well, you’ll get that soon enough. Where are the rest of your things?” Amalia had only a handbag with her, and as she’d never been one to travel light there had to be at least one steamer trunk nearby.
“The porter took them for me. He should be somewhere about—ah, there he is. Should we have them sent straight on to Aunt Agnes’s?”
“Yes, that’s best. Do you need anything from them? I was thinking we could go straight to Montparnasse now, so I might show you my studio and introduce you to my friends. They’re very keen to meet you.”
“And I them. I do so love reading about everyone in your letters.”
“Vincent is in Antibes with Auntie A, so we don’t have a car. I hope you don’t mind taking a taxi.”
Helena approached the porter and, after tipping him handsomely, asked him to have Amalia’s things sent on to her aunt’s. She then steered her sister to the taxi rank outside the station. “We’ve a longish ride ahead of us, but it’s interesting enough.”
She asked the driver to take them to the avenue du Maine, nearly four miles distant, and in short order they were heading southwest along the rue La Fayette and, she realized, directly past Sam’s office.
It was the wrong time of day for him to be at work; at this hour he was likely still in his lodgings. It would be easy enough to send a petit bleu to the hotel. He would want to meet Amalia, she felt sure, and if he were to discover she had been visiting, and that he had been left out, it might hurt his feelings.
She composed the petit bleu in her head several times over before landing on just the right tone of friendly yet detached warmth. As soon as they got to the studio she would write it out.
Dear Sam—Short notice, I know, but Amalia is in Paris for the evening (en route to Biarritz) and we are going to Le Boeuf sur le Toit with the Murphys and étienne. Arriving at nine-ish I think. You may well have to work but please join us if you are free. Regards, Helena.
Looking out the taxi window, she realized they had crossed the Seine and were heading south on the boulevard Raspail. She leaned forward to direct the driver, and several minutes later the taxi had pulled up by the studio entrance on the rue du Maine.
She paid the fare and helped her sister out, and then led her beneath the wrought-iron archway and along the cobbled path to the building at the end. Up the stairs they went, and they had come at the best time of day, for the studio was flooded with sunshine and the paintings that crowded the walls were shining like stained glass windows, and it really did look like the sort of place where serious artists belonged.
Mathilde insisted they keep the studio in good order, so the space was clean and tidy and smelled only faintly of oil paints and turpentine. Each of them had a station set up by the bank of windows, with easels and small tables that étienne had built from scraps of wood.
Running the length of the opposite wall was a narrow shelf with a lip at its edge, and on it rested more than a dozen of Helena’s completed canvases, as well as her friends’ work; hanging above, from wires strung from the crown molding, were bigger canvases, most of them belonging to étienne.
“Here is some of my work,” she said, suddenly nervous. “They’re watercolors and pastels, in the main. I painted most of them in Antibes, although you can see—well, it’s obvious, I suppose—that these ones are from Paris. I went to the markets one night, and these are . . .” She let her voice trail away. Better to allow her sister to look at the paintings in peace.