“But it’s only three in the afternoon,” Helena protested.
“You English and your rules. In Paris, dear girl, it’s never too early for champagne.”
Chapter 25
“You look awful, ma belle. Have you eaten anything this morning?” Etienne asked.
Helena shook her head. It was nine o’clock in the morning, she had been awake for at least five hours, and her insides were as hollow as a drum. But hungry was better than nauseous, and if she’d tried to eat even a scrap of breakfast she would have been sick to her stomach.
Any minute now, Ma?tre Czerny would enter the academy’s grand salon, and he would begin to select the paintings for submission to the Salon des Indépendants. All her work, everything she had done over the past year—it had all led to this moment. Before the hour was out, the ma?tre would see Le train bleu, would pass judgment on it, and she would know, once and for all, if she was an artist.
Etienne had already set La femme dorée on his easel, and their fellow students had gathered around, shaking his hand and congratulating him, a few looking to Helena as they recognized her features from the painting. It was past time that she removed her own canvas from its fabric wrapping and set it on her easel, but she couldn’t bring herself to reveal it to the rest of the class. It would look so amateurish next to étienne’s masterpiece. It would look wrong.
“Good morning,” came the ma?tre’s booming voice from the doorway.
“What are you doing?” étienne whispered frantically. “Put Le train bleu on your easel. He’s about to begin.”
She nodded. Swallowed back the tide of fear that threatened to choke her.
Crouching down, she drew out the canvas she sought, unwrapped it carefully, and then she set her portrait of the farmer’s wife upon the easel.
“Hélène, no. What are you thinking? Change it while you—”
“Eh bien, Monsieur Moreau. I knew you would not disappoint me.” The ma?tre stood between her and étienne, and he was smiling, something he did so rarely that it looked quite wrong on his face. “How have you titled this work?”
“La femme dorée.”
“It is exceptional. Painted in haste, I see, but that adds a certain charm. A boldness that I like very much.”
“Thank you, Ma?tre Czerny.”
“On to Mademoiselle Parr. The subject of La femme dorée, I believe?”
“Yes, ma?tre,” she answered.
“He has immortalized you,” he said, his eyes flickering over the painting on her easel. “What do you call this?”
“I, ah . . . Femme de fermier, ma?tre.”
“Very well. If that is all you can manage. A sentimental pastiche, but I suppose it will look well enough in some bourgeois sitting room. Ah—Monsieur Goodwin. What do you have for me?”
She stood there and waited for her pulse to slow and the tightness in her chest to loosen, and when she could breathe again she turned and tried to smile at étienne.
“Why?” her friend asked, and he sounded nearly as heartbroken as she felt.
“Not now,” she whispered. Pleaded.
“I will go to him. I will explain there has been a mistake.”
“No. No, it’s fine. I wasn’t ready, that’s all.”
He reached out and grasped her near hand. “Courage. One day you will show Le train bleu to the world, and the world will take notice. Of this I am certain.”
ALTHOUGH HELENA WANTED nothing more than to hide away and lick her wounds in peace, there was no time, for she and Mathilde still hadn’t finished their costumes for the ball everyone was attending that Saturday night. And there was no question of not going, for Auntie A and the Murphys and nearly everyone else in her circle of friends would expect to see her there. Everyone apart from Sam, of course. She had no idea if he was going, though it seemed unlikely. Sam wasn’t the sort of man who would feel at home in an outlandish costume.
As she and Mathilde hadn’t felt inclined to spend much on outfits they would only wear once, they’d gone in search of inexpensive frocks that might be easily transformed. The sale racks at Printemps had yielded a pair of sleeveless shifts in an inky blue artificial silk, and with only a little effort over the course of several days they had turned the plain garments into quite inventive costumes.
The theme of the ball was “Soleil et Lune,” and with that in mind Mathilde decorated her frock with starbursts of sewn-on silver and gold sequins, since she planned to remove them and use the garment for Sunday best thereafter. Helena, who could afford to be a little more cavalier with her clothing, painted hers to resemble Van Gogh’s The Starry Night. Though the cheap fabric of her frock had gone a little stiff and scratchy once the paint had dried, the overall effect was very striking.