So far she had completed three works that she hoped would pass muster: a landscape in pastels of lavender growing over an old wall, which she had begun the day she first met Sam; a pen-and-ink drawing of a man who sold newspapers by the Pont Louis-Philippe; and the portrait in oils of the farmer’s wife she’d seen at Les Halles.
She liked all three well enough; they were competently executed and perfectly decorative. But they lacked life, just as Ma?tre Czerny had often complained of Daisy’s work, and likely would say of hers if he ever bothered to take a closer look. They were inert, the sort of objects that were pretty and even rather interesting but not the slightest bit compelling.
One afternoon, a fortnight after her sister’s visit, she arrived at the studio with étienne and Mathilde; Daisy hadn’t come to class that day, for her father had been ill and she was needed at home. Helena went to her easel, which was empty, and realized—why on earth hadn’t it occurred to her before?—that she had nothing to do, for she had finished the last of her paintings the day before.
She opened her sketchbook, looking for some preliminary drawings to work up, and the only one that interested her was a spare, penciled vignette of the Train Bleu at the Gare de Lyon, at the moment when passengers were boarding for their journey south. So long ago that she had drawn it; so long, and yet it might have been yesterday.
“Mathilde? étienne? Would you mind having a look at this?”
She flattened the sketchbook upon her table and stood back so her friends might see.
“I drew it last spring. It was my first day in France. I was on the Train Bleu and we’d stopped at the Gare de Lyon to take on more passengers. And I was thinking . . .”
“Yes?” étienne prompted.
“I was thinking I might attempt a larger work, say a meter wide, with the train itself as the backdrop and the passengers in the foreground. Everyone would be moving, all rushing to board the train and say their farewells. At first glance it would look like one of those posters you see at train stations and on the Métro. The sort with an illustration of some exotic locale, and a slogan like ‘Winter Is Pleasanter on the C?te d’Azur.’ That sort of thing. But there would be more to it, for the longer you looked the more you would see.”
“I like this idea of yours,” said Mathilde. “I like it very much.”
“But I paint so slowly. It would take me forever to finish. And we’ve only a month and a half until the Salon des Indépendants.”
“Then paint faster,” étienne ordered. “You must begin now, before the muse abandons you. Don’t bother with sketches—start with charcoal, on the canvas itself. Look at your drawing once more, and then shut it away. Your memories are all you need.”
“I don’t have anything large enough. My largest canvas is half that size.”
“I have one that might do,” he said, and he went to the corner of the studio where a half-dozen oversized canvases were leaning against the wall. Rummaging through them, he pulled the largest from the stack. “Here,” he said. “Use this one.”
“But you stretched those canvases yourself. You spent hours on them,” Helena protested.
“And I am honored to know one will be used in a masterpiece by Helena Parr.”
Adjusting her easel so the canvas was balanced securely, he picked up a stalk of vine charcoal and handed it to her. “Begin,” he said, and then he and Mathilde silently returned to their easels.
Helena cleared her mind of everything but the memory of that moment in Paris, at the Gare de Lyon, still so clear in her mind’s eye that it might have been yesterday. She drew and drew, and only when étienne approached and gently touched her arm did she realize that night had fallen and hours had passed.
“That’s all for today,” he insisted. “We’ll go to dinner now, and then I’ll walk you home.”
Standing back from the easel, she assessed the outlines she’d sketched on the canvas. Even at this early stage, she could tell that she was creating something original and new, something that was truly her own creation and not a pastiche of someone else’s ideas and techniques. If she’d had the strength, she’d have continued to work through the night, but étienne was right: food and rest now, and back to her easel as soon as the sun was up.
FOR EVERY MOMENT of soaring delight, however, there was a lowering counterpoint. It came the following week, near the end of her life painting class with Ma?tre Czerny. The model had been a young woman, her skin rosy and clear, her face as wise and serene as an Old Master Madonna. Helena had been inspired to draw her face and hands alone, a pair of studies rather than a conventional portrait, and had done so using only charcoal and chalk.
The ma?tre had spent the class prowling from easel to easel, but she had failed to attract his notice for most of the session. Only at the very end did he realize what she had done, and then his ire burst forth.
“Are you deaf, Mademoiselle Parr? Or are you a dullard? I asked for a compositional study. Compositional. You were meant to depict the model’s entire form—but perhaps you thought you knew better than I. Is that it? Are you the master here?”