“First you should visit your friends. As for packing, you only need enough for a week. Leave everything else here, and we’ll sort it out after. You may wish to stay here with me, or go somewhere else. Either way I will only be happy if you are happy.”
“Oh, Auntie A. What would have become of me without you?”
“You’d have managed perfectly well, and we both know it. Now, off you go to your friends. I’ll have Vincent drive you—no, don’t shake your head. I insist on it.”
SHE ENTERED THE studio with a bright smile on her face and a bottle of champagne under her arm. She would apologize, assure her friends she was well, and together they would open the champagne and drink to future success. And then, if she could gather up enough courage, she would visit Sam and try to make things right between them before he left for America.
She paused at the door, suddenly apprehensive, but étienne simply smiled and opened his arms to her. He held her tight as she cried and cried, and once she’d settled a bit Mathilde took her hand and led her to the ratty old settee, and she sat between her friends and told them everything, from the moment she had found her painting tucked away in a dark corner, to Czerny’s bruising words, to her drunken departure from the party and its mortifying aftermath.
“We must have arrived at the Murphys’ just after you left,” Mathilde said. “Your aunt told us you hadn’t been feeling well.”
“An illness of my own making, I’m afraid. I’m so sorry I didn’t come down to see you yesterday. I hope I didn’t worry you too badly.”
“Not at all, ma chère,” étienne assured her.
“Did you sell the portrait?”
“I did, and what is more—the Galérie Bellamy has asked to represent me, and they are holding a solo exhibition of my work in the autumn.”
“Oh, étienne! That is wonderful news!” She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him soundly.
“Enough, enough,” he protested. “Mathilde—tell Hélène your news before she chokes me.”
“Did your painting sell as well?”
“It did,” Mathilde said, blushing faintly. “And the buyer has commissioned portraits of his wife and children.”
“I am pleased. Both of you have done so well! We must open the champagne, but first I need your advice, and possibly your help. Now that the exhibition has begun, is there any way I can remove the painting that Czerny chose and hang Le train bleu instead? Am I allowed to replace one painting with another?”
“If it were a juried exhibition it wouldn’t be allowed,” étienne reasoned, “but there are no prizes to be handed out, so you wouldn’t be cheating, or depriving someone else of their space at the Salon. What do you think, Mathilde?”
“As long as we are discreet, and bring it in quietly, I doubt we’ll have any trouble. If we do, we can say the frame needed to be reinforced, or something like that.”
“Do we have enough time?” Helena wondered.
“More than enough,” he answered. “The Salon is open late this evening, though we should try to get there soon, before the evening crowds arrive.”
In the end, the only difficult part of the procedure was fitting the painting, well wrapped in a clean dropcloth, in the back of her aunt’s car. Once at the Palais de Bois, they went straight to the room where Helena’s other painting was hanging, and where there was, fortunately, just enough space to hang Le train bleu without interfering with other artworks.
étienne vanished, having explained that he intended to speak to a few people about the painting, and before long a steady stream of people was entering the room and focusing their attention on Helena’s painting. It was agony to stand nearby and listen to their comments, but to her great relief nearly everyone seemed to like it.
“What are people saying?” étienne asked upon his return.
“Good things,” Helena whispered. “Flattering things. I wonder if—”
Mathilde grabbed at her arm, her attention fixed on the entrance to the room. Helena followed her gaze to the man who stood at the threshold, and her heart nearly stopped beating.
Ma?tre Czerny had arrived.
“LEAVE US,” HE barked at étienne and Mathilde, and they stepped back obediently, though étienne hovered within arm’s reach. Helena’s resolve wilted a little, for Czerny really did look very fierce, but then she remembered what he had said, and she straightened her spine and looked him in the eye.
He gestured at the painting. “This is your work?”
“Yes.”
“Why is this the first I’ve seen of it?”
“I was afraid you would not like it.”
“Yet you changed your mind. Why?”
“Because I no longer care if you like it,” she answered readily. “I may be monied, but I am not hopeless.”
Czerny winced, just a little, but he didn’t apologize. Instead he approached the painting and examined it closely, taking his time, the seconds lengthening into minutes.
“As your teacher, may I offer an opinion?” he said at last.
“You may.”
“This is good. I like it.”
“Thank you,” she said, in as gracious a tone as she could contrive.