Читать книгу The Uncrowned King - Baroness Orczy - Страница 11

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In a way Mimi and the others were right. Cyril Bertrand was a different man since he had painted the portrait of Véronique Christophe. It had been such a wonderful episode in his life. At first, when he got the commission and before he started to work, he only looked on it as a stepping-stone to artistic success. If it was a success it was going to mean a great deal to him: his foot had barely reached as yet the lowest rung of the ladder of fame, but if he succeeded with that portrait, it would mean climbing, climbing, till one got to the top—or very nearly. That is all he thought about—at first.

It had been a great piece of good luck in the first instance to get the commission. Albert Christophe, said to be the richest financier in Europe, took a fancy one day to a picture hung in the autumn exhibition of the Salon. The picture was signed Cyril Bertrand. Some little time after that Monsieur Christophe called on the artist at the studio in the Cité du Réaumur and offered him a commission to paint the portrait of Mademoiselle Véronique Christophe, his daughter. She could, he said, only give the artist three sittings, because most of her time was occupied with social engagements, but the sittings could be of long duration and Monsieur Christophe was prepared to pay 7,000 francs for the picture. Bertrand did not know at first whether he should laugh, or throw the visitor out of the room, for he thought that the offer was a cruel joke perpetrated on a poor youngster who had never seen so large a sum as 7,000 francs. But Monsieur Christophe did not look the sort of man who would perpetrate any kind of joke on anyone and within the next five minutes the offer had been accepted and the bargain concluded.

The portrait was now finished. The great Ingres had seen it and said that he “rather liked it.” Monsieur Christophe had paid 7,000 francs for it and pronounced it to be an excellent likeness of his daughter. Most of the money and the letter that accompanied it were still in Cyril Bertrand’s pocket-book, but at times he would wonder if the whole thing had been real, and not just a dream. A dream? Those three days early in March when spring was in the air and he had sat opposite the most beautiful woman on God’s earth, and had striven with all his might to render on canvas some of her charm, her smile, her youth; something of her personality, which at times appeared almost spiritual and at others so very, very feminine and desirable—were those three days a dream? He had worked more strenuously during those days than he had ever worked before. She had only given him the three sittings, as promised, but she sat for four hours each time; four hours with only two very short intervals.

The moment she came into his studio she seemed to him the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in all his life. She was little more than a child, and that was her greatest charm. The youthful look of a schoolgirl taking her first glance at life. An hour later he knew for a certainty that she was the one woman in the world he would ever love. A child and yet a woman. A woman who was still a child. They didn’t talk much during the sittings; for one thing Bertrand was never alone with her; there was always the chaperon, without whom no girl in her position would have been allowed outside her own home. But he felt somehow that she understood his mood, and the feverishness with which he worked, so as to make the most of the blessed hours she was able to spare him: and she was a perfect sitter; immobile, but always alive. Her eyes were alive; her mouth; her exquisite hands. Her smile never became set; her glance never turned into a stare.

When she needed a rest, she would jump down from the platform and come across to his easel; she would stand behind him, while he continued to work; rubbing in the background or touching up a bit of drapery. Her presence there, so close, intoxicated him. His hand shook, very slightly. But he never looked round at her. Heaven alone knew what would have happened if he did, for by this time he was madly in love. Fortunately for his self-respect and his self-control, the chaperon was always there.

She seldom passed a remark on the picture and he never asked her if she liked it or not. She did say once, in a quaint, grown-up kind of way: “You have the makings in you of a great artist, Monsieur Bertrand.” She was standing behind him at the moment, sipping a glass of wine, for she had been sitting for nearly two hours straight on end and was very tired. He had a wild desire then to throw down his palette and his brushes, to put his arms round her, and to say: “I have the makings of a great lover if you will trust yourself to me.”

The madness of it all! Véronique Christophe, the daughter of the multimillionaire, was as far removed from the penniless artist as were the stars. But despair in matters of the heart is not part of the equipment of youth—not when youth is in love. Cyril Bertrand began to dream dreams. He would send the picture to the Salon and it would be hung on the line; eulogistic articles on the rising young artist would then appear in newspapers and magazines. Lucrative commissions would come pouring in. After which those dreams took on more definite shape. A penniless youngster could not, of a certainty, aspire to the hand of the richest heiress in France, but a great artist could—a man like Ingres, for instance. Even an international financier, a multimillionaire, would be proud to have an Ingres or a Delacroix for a son-in-law. And so when the blessed hours were finally over, he took to work in real earnest. Heavens above, how he worked! He worked, so as, in time, to become such a great artist that when he entered a room or a restaurant, people would whisper to one another: “Do you see that man who has just come in? That is Cyril Bertrand, the greatest artist of the age. He married Véronique Christophe, the daughter of the financier.”

The madness of it all! The blessed, blessed hours spent in dreaming!

He sent the picture to the Salon. It was hung on the line. Eulogistic articles about the coming young artist appeared in newspapers and magazines. And Cyril got himself a dress suit and took to accepting invitations to parties in the hope of seeing Véronique Christophe, of having perhaps the great luck of a few words with her. He seldom had. She was always surrounded by a crowd of young men: smart men, rich men, men with high-sounding, aristocratic names. He went to the opera and sat at the back of the parterre, in a seat from which he had a good view of the box in which she sat. He tried to gather up courage to go up and pay his respects. Other men did. Monsieur Christophe’s box was always full of callers, during the entr’actes. But Cyril was shy: he felt that he was clumsy, uncouth, ignorant of the ways of the world. His ready-made dress suit didn’t fit him: his tie was never straight. He hated his long hair and shaggy beard, but you couldn’t have your hair cut or your beard trimmed if you valued your position in Montmartre.

At last he made up his mind that, come what may, he would conquer his cowardice. They were giving Rossini’s new work Semiramis at the opera. He booked his usual seat in the parterre and determined that he would go up to the Christophe box after the first act. He took great pains with his tie, and dragged an uncompromising comb through his hair. It was mid-July and very hot. Paris had been sweltering all day. Everyone was out of doors. The theatres were doing very little business, and this was the last night at the opera. But the Emperor and Empress had promised that they would be present, so fashionable Paris was sure to be there too. So it was. But the Christophes were not there. Nor were they at the last performance of Atalie at the Comédie Française the next evening, nor at the reception at the Italian Legation on the Thursday. Cyril put all his work aside and strolled out to the Bois at the fashionable hour. Véronique was not there. He wandered up and down the Rue de Varennes, keeping the Christophe mansion in sight. She never came. At last, devoured with anxiety, maddened by disappointment, he threw diffidence to the wind and rang the bell of the grandiose house where she lived. He had been too deeply absorbed in his own thoughts and longing to notice that the mansion had a “shut up” air. A man in shirt sleeves and baize apron answered the bell.

“Monsieur left for Baden-Baden a week ago,” he informed the visitor, “and Mademoiselle would join him there in a few days. She was staying with a relative till then.”

“When will they be back?”

The man shrugged. He didn’t know. Monsieur and Mademoiselle were seldom in Paris before November. Sometimes for a few days on their way to their château for the shooting. But he really didn’t know. He wished the visitor a very good afternoon.

Cyril Bertrand turned away from the door, like a man who has just been denied access into Paradise. Baden-Baden! The one place in the world in which he would never willingly set foot. A few days ago he would have said that he would sooner die than go to Baden-Baden. His mother lived there, and his half-brother who was, to many, the King of France. No! nothing would have induced him—a week ago—to go to Baden-Baden.

But he went.