“I beg your pardon. I misheard you. I didn’t intend to cause any offense.”
“But you do offend me. Your tedious work offends me, as does your timid approach. You are tentative when you ought to be bold. You are—”
“Oh, do leave off!” she snapped, her anger overruling her sense. “I made a simple mistake, that is all. I misheard your instructions, and for that I apologize. But your behavior is indefensible, utterly so, and I am sick to death of it.”
No one moved, no one breathed, and as she stood by her easel, shocked beyond words by her outburst, the only sound she could discern was the thunderous beat of her pounding heart. She swallowed, felt a tide of sickness rise in her throat, but managed, somehow, to force it back.
Before Ma?tre Czerny could respond, before he could begin to shout at her, she frantically began to gather her things, certain he would demand that she leave. What had she been thinking? It was nearly the end of the course; to fail now, to fall when the end was in—
“What are you doing? Did I tell you to leave?”
“No, but . . .”
“You aren’t crawling away now, are you? Not after you have finally showed me you have a spine. Or would the Americans among you call it ‘guts’?”
“So you aren’t . . . ?”
“No. Put down your bag, Mademoiselle Parr, and try to pay attention from now on.”
“Yes, Ma?tre Czerny.”
“Let this be a lesson to all of you,” he announced to the class. “I roar, I growl, I hiss—but I do not bite. Learn how to stand your ground; otherwise the critics will make a meal of you. Understood? Yes? Then that is all for today.”
Helena, étienne, and Mathilde went straight to the studio after class, not even stopping to buy bread and cheese for lunch. Helena’s hands were shaking so badly that she wasn’t sure she’d be able to hold a brush, so étienne unearthed a bottle of brandy he’d tucked away for emergency purposes and persuaded her to swallow several fiery mouthfuls. It did make her feel a little steadier, and she was thinking that she might be able to work on her Train Bleu canvas after all, when Daisy burst through the door.
“Where have you been?” Helena asked. “We haven’t seen you for days.”
It was evident from the expression on Daisy’s face that something dreadful had happened. Mathilde led her to the settee and they gathered around her protectively. “What is the matter? Why are you so pale? étienne—fetch her a brandy.”
“Thank you,” Daisy said, trying to smile. “I suppose I ought to explain.” She took a deep breath, as if to settle her nerves. “My father died the day before yesterday.” Before they could respond, she rushed on. “He’d been ill with a cold for weeks, but then it settled into his lungs, and he got pneumonia, and that was . . .”
Daisy’s eyes welled up with tears, but she brushed them away impatiently with the back of her hands.
“I am so very, very sorry to hear it. We all are,” Helena said.
“He was very agitated at the end. He kept asking me to forgive him, to please forgive him, but I thought he was talking about the way he’d kept such a close watch over me.
“He died at dawn, and it had been days since I’d slept, so I went to bed for a few hours. And then I woke, and I knew I had to make some decisions. Daddy hadn’t ever talked about where he wanted to be buried, or what he wanted for his funeral, and I thought it might be recorded in his will, or somewhere else in his papers. So I went into his office, and I searched through his files, and I found . . .”
She paused and, accepting the brandy that Mathilde offered her, took a large sip, coughed delicately, and handed back the glass.
“Did you find what you needed?” étienne prompted.
“I did. He wanted to be buried at home, in America, next to Mother, although he didn’t say anything about a funeral, so I’ve no idea what to do about that.”
“Perhaps one of his friends at the hospital?” Helena ventured.
Daisy shook her head. “It’s not . . . there’s more. I found something else. Something awful.”
étienne grasped her hand. “Go on, ma belle.”
“One of the drawers in his desk was stuck, and I pulled at it, and it came flying out and tipped onto the floor. And inside it was . . . was . . .”
They waited for Daisy to find a way to describe what she had found, and as they did so Helena couldn’t stop her imagination from running wild. Demands from creditors? Evidence of a mistress? Risqué photographs?
“Inside was a letter,” Daisy said at last, her voice shaking. “It was from the man I loved, and for so long I’d thought him lost, but he wasn’t, and all this time . . .”