Читать книгу The Art Of Seduction - Katherine O' Neal - Страница 7

Stop the sale? Before it even got started? On the advice of a complete stranger?

After all she’d gone through, shouldn’t she just be grateful to be selling anything at all?

But then…this wasn’t just any stranger. It was almost as if he’d been sent here by destiny to hold up a beacon to her future. Could there be more in store for her than selling a few paintings at bargain prices?

She had no way of knowing. Her life, since that tumultuous night on the Pont de l’Alma, had been a kaleidoscope of bizarre events that had taught her one thing: What had seemed like the worst catastrophe of her life might well have turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to her.

Two months ago, on the city’s stormiest night in living memory, Mason was flailing in the Seine when suddenly something cracked her in the head. She’d lost consciousness, assuming those were her last moments on earth. But when she awoke sometime later in the night, she found that she’d somehow managed to hook her arm around whatever flotsam had struck her. Either she’d managed to pull herself up with her last ounce of strength, or she’d been saved by a fluke of that same fate she’d earlier cursed. She had just enough presence of mind to heave herself on top of it and out of the frigid water before she’d blacked out once again. After that, there was a sense of moving in and out of consciousness as the rapid current carried her cascading through the night.

When she awoke—God only knew how many hours later—it was in a warm bed under a fluffy down comforter. A woman’s face appeared above her and a kind voice asked, “Are you awake?” Mason tried to respond but couldn’t. She didn’t have the strength to move her lips. A moment later, she sank back into the darkness.

She was vaguely aware of tossing feverishly and kicking off the covers to cool her burning skin. She had bleary memories of moving in and out of the light and of some sort of vile medicine being forced down her throat, bringing with it another heavy sleep.

Then one morning she awoke to a room full of sunshine to see the woman sitting in a chair, mending a stocking. Mason tried to push herself up, but was so weak she fell back into the pillows, exhausted and lightheaded. Finally, she asked, “What happened? Where am I?”

She heard a cry. “She’s awake! She’s all right!” Then the shuffle of footsteps as the family quickly gathered round her bed—the parents, two boys, a little girl, and a toothless grandmother. They all spoke at once, making a fuss, rejoicing in her recovery.

The woman who’d been sewing said, “Dr. DuBois says something hit your head in the water. He says it was a miracle you didn’t drown.”

“Where am I?”

“Rueil-la-Gadeliere.”

Groggily, Mason placed the name in her mind. Renoir had painted there. But it couldn’t be! It was fifty miles downriver!

“How long have I been here?”

“It has been nearly four weeks since the good Lord brought you to us.”

“Four weeks!”

Again, she tried to sit, but her head swam sickly. The kind woman helped her back, adjusting her covers as she introduced her family. They were the Carriers, farmers who lived at the edge of the river. They’d chanced to spot her sprawled on top of the massive tree limb as it had floated by the morning after the storm. In their launch, they’d pursued and rescued her. They were a poor and simple people, and seemed to her blurry eyes as if they’d just stepped out of a painting by Millet. Pere Carrier assured her that they were happy to take care of her and wanted nothing in return.

“And the woman…the other woman…”

They exchanged puzzled glances, and the father said, “There was no other woman with you.”

Mason felt a heavy sadness. She’d wanted so badly to help that poor nameless soul on the bridge. Madame Carrier saw the tears that slipped down her cheek and gently stroked her hair back off her face. “There, there. You’ve been very ill. You must rest and not worry. You will stay with us and let us care for you until you are yourself again.”

Choked with tears, all Mason could do was nod her gratitude. Madame Carrier gave her some more medicine and before long, she’d once again drifted back to sleep.

Three days later, Mason awoke with more strength. She managed to get out of bed and stand for a few minutes. Every day she increased her time out of bed until finally she was able to take walks around the nearby village.

The Carriers were wonderful. They accepted her as a member of the family and gave no indication that they wanted her to leave. As her strength returned, she found herself enjoying being protected within the bosom of this family and being away from the life she’d left in Paris.

It was an idyllic retreat. Her gratitude at having been so miraculously spared blotted out any thoughts of the past or feelings of failure. The air had never smelled so sweet; the sky had never seemed so blue. She savored every moment of life, putting off thinking about where she would go from here. She had no commitments in Paris and she’d told Lisette she might go to Auvers, a village on the Oise River where she often retreated to paint, so there was no need to notify her. For now, it was enough just to be alive.

But then one day she decided to walk into the village. She’d been away from Paris for just over seven weeks by then and had lost a great deal of weight. She barely resembled herself, but she felt wholly refreshed, bursting with energy and robust with health.

Then she saw it: her name on a newspaper lying on an outside table at the local café. She snatched it up and hastily began to read.

The article told the story of how the late American painter Mason Caldwell—whose body had washed up on the shore of Neuilly, just outside of Paris, on the eighth of February—was becoming a posthumous celebrity. The Parisian papers had been in competition to glamorize what they were calling her suicide. According to them, she’d thrown herself from the bridge with the desperate romanticism of Madame Bovary. That was remarkable enough, but even more astonishing was the fact that dealers were actually competing to acquire the right to sell her paintings!

Stunned, she stumbled back to Chez Carrier and, without telling them what had happened, announced that she must return to Paris at once. Asking no questions, they gave her five francs, and she set out to correct the ghastly mistake.

On the riverboat back to the city, the scenario of what must have happened played through her mind. The woman on the bridge that night—the one she’d tried so hard to save—had drowned and her body, which was found more than a week later, had been mistaken for Mason’s. She tried to remember her face, so briefly glimpsed when the wind had blown back the concealing hood. Who was she? She must have some family who Mason should contact and tell the sad news. Nearly two months later, they must be out of their minds with worry. Her message would be a blow, but at least they’d know what had really happened.

It was late by the time the now nearly complete Eiffel Tower came into view. Passing the fairgrounds below it, she saw the silhouettes of dozens of new buildings for the upcoming Exposition that had sprung up in her absence. She looked around her at the once-familiar sights of her adopted city and felt lost and alone, like a stranger. This wasn’t the Paris she’d left behind. This was a Paris where Mason Caldwell was no longer alive.

She had no idea how to go about accomplishing what suddenly seemed like an overwhelming task. All she knew was that she needed to go to someone—now, at once—who would be happy to see her. She needed to be welcomed back from the dead.

She needed Lisette.

Mason’s childhood had been isolated and lonely, and she’d never had a close friend before Lisette. They’d met shortly after Mason had arrived in Paris. She’d outfitted herself with art supplies and had set out to La Grande Jatte, an island in the Seine where the bourgeoisie went to enjoy their leisure time. She’d set up her easel, plopped her straw hat on her head, and picked up her brush. Everything at the ready, she’d looked about, wondering what to paint. Women dressed in their Sunday best strolled unhurriedly along the paths or picnicked beneath the trees. Men, in top hats or derbies, lounged in the shade, watching the sailboats glide along the river. Children frolicked on the grass or waded along the banks, their squeals piercing the air. Typical Impressionistic motifs. She was looking for something different, but she didn’t know quite what.

Then she saw Lisette. She was a child-woman with a tumbled tangle of luxurious gold hair that seemed to glow in the fulsome sunshine of summer. Half a dozen dogs of all sizes and breeds surrounded her, panting in anticipation as she raised a small ball she held in her hand. She was barefoot and was laughing as the two poodles leapt into the lake. Hiking up her skirts, she’d run playfully in after them, picking them up in both arms and smothering them with heartfelt kisses, completely mindless to the fact that they were soaking her pretty yellow dress. She was effortlessly elegant and earthy all at once, delighting in the movements of her own body, completely unconscious of the effect she was creating.

At this point, Mason hadn’t found the artistic vision that would later so possess her. But one look at the carefree young woman made her realize that she’d found something special. A Greek goddess for the modern age, a new kind of woman full of light and color and sensual grace.

She found, when she introduced herself in halting French, that Lisette was a trapeze artist and acrobat. When Mason asked if she would model for her, the young woman wrinkled her nose in distaste, then reconsidered and said with a shrug, “Et bien. Why not?” Mason was so satisfied with the results of the sitting that, several weeks later and after many frustrating afternoons of painting plaster casts and bowls of oranges, she decided to seek out her reluctant model at the Folies-Bergères, where she’d said she was currently appearing. This time Lisette refused. But several days later, she appeared at Mason’s Montmartre flat and said, rather haughtily, “I have nothing to do this afternoon, so you may paint me.”

As Mason worked in a lightning flash of inspiration, she realized she’d found the subject she’d been looking for—one who somehow fit into the vision she was struggling to formulate. She still couldn’t explain to herself exactly what place Lisette would occupy in this grand scheme, but she’d never felt more at one with the creative force than when painting her.

For her part, however, Lisette seemed cautious of the young American artist and kept her distance as the French were wont to do, occasionally agreeing to pose, but demanding a fee and offering nothing of herself but her physical presence. Then one day, Mason was shopping for vegetables in the market at Les Halles and was in the process of paying the vendor when she heard a familiar voice behind her. “What are you doing? Do you not know this man is charging you three times what he would charge a French customer for that pathetic head of lettuce?”

Before Mason had time to answer, Lisette had attacked the vendor in a hand-waving tirade of French, snatched some coins from Mason’s hand, and exchanged them for the lettuce. “You need someone to take care of you,” she’d pronounced contemptuously.

Over the following weeks, their acquaintance entered a new stage. Not quite a friendship, but something more than the indifference Lisette had previously extended. Several times she dropped by with no warning and took Mason out shopping for food and clothes, and once she led her by the arm to the building’s concierge and told her in no uncertain terms that the American would no longer be paying such an inflated rent for her “miserable hovel.” Another time she gave Mason a ticket to the Cirque Fernando where she was performing. Mason had marveled at the ease, agility, and breathtaking charisma with which she’d flown through the air on her trapeze. But Lisette still didn’t give herself in real friendship. Mason assumed she never would. She kept most people at an emotional distance and reserved most of her affection for her dogs.

Several months later, however, Mason stopped by Lisette’s apartment on the Boulevard de Clichy, intending to borrow a cloisonné vase she’d given Lisette and wanted to use for a still life she was painting. Lisette was out of town, on a long tour with the traveling circus that was taking her all over France and into Italy for most of the summer, and couldn’t be reached. When she went to the concierge to ask admittance to Lisette’s rooms, she discovered that the old woman, a friend of Lisette’s, had passed away a week before. The building had been inherited by her son, a worthless brute whose unwanted advances Lisette had rebuffed time and again in no uncertain terms. In revenge, the new landlord was in the process of transporting her beloved ménage of dogs, which the late concierge had been caring for, to the Paris dog pound, where they would soon meet their demise.

“You can’t do that!” Mason insisted.

“I certainly can. She didn’t pay her rent in advance.”

“I’ll pay her rent,” Mason told him.

“It’s too late. I’ve rented her rooms to someone a little more appreciative, and those mongrels are on their way to the meat grinder.”

Mason raced to the pound and managed to rescue the seven animals just in time.

A month later, at the end of her summer tour, Lisette appeared at Mason’s door utterly distraught with tears streaming down her face. She’d been to her apartment where she’d been gleefully informed by the new landlord that her darling brood were long gone. After flying into the man in an attempt to scratch his eyes out, she’d gone to see Mason. “That beast sent my babies to their execution.”

Mason was about to reassure her when, behind them, there was a bark of recognition. A light came to Lisette’s eyes. She rushed past Mason into the room, dropped to her knees, and the seven dogs attacked her joyfully, jumping up on her, licking her face, as she screamed in delight. She kissed their faces, crying uncontrollably, and as she did, she noticed that they’d been freshly bathed and each had a bright red ribbon tied about its neck.

Slowly, Lisette disengaged herself and rose to look at Mason in bafflement. “You…You saved them!”

“Just in time. That bastard really had it in for you.”

“But you don’t even like dogs.”

Mason smiled. “I didn’t think so. I’ve never had one. But I’ve sure grown fond of these guys.”

“But…you kept them for a whole month. Walked them, fed them, bathed them…all that time and trouble…What made you do it?”

“I couldn’t very well let them die,” Mason told her. “They’re part of you.”

Lisette looked at her for several moments. Then she stooped and picked up a small Pekinese puppy and offered him to Mason. “Pour toi,” she said, for the first time using the familiar form of French, the “toi” reserved for family and friends.

Deeply touched, Mason realized there was no more precious gift Lisette could bestow. But she shook her head. “I couldn’t take Monsieur Fu. He’s your baby. Just let me visit him from time to time.”

Lisette hugged the puppy to her chest. She never said another word about what had happened. But from that moment on, she became that devoted best friend Mason had never had as a child. She knew, without having to question it, that come what may, Lisette Ladoux would always be there, loving her with the fierce devotion of a true sister.

So it was natural, in this extraordinary situation, that Mason would race to Lisette, knowing how she must have suffered on hearing the news of her “death.”

She used the last of her borrowed money to take an omnibus to the Cirque Fernando at the base of the Montmartre butte. Lisette would just be finishing her performance about now and would soon be walking her dogs home. Wishing to avoid a scene in the circus auditorium, Mason waited outside for her. Momentarily, she saw her friend leave the building behind her pack of leashed canines. Knowing her route, Mason stood in place, waiting for her to pass. But it was the dogs that recognized her first, barking greetings and pulling Lisette toward her. Lisette was about to scold them when she saw the object of their excitement. Her doelike brown eyes registered first shock, then recognition, then teary relief, all in an instant. Trying to keep herself from exploding with happiness, she whispered, “I’m not dreaming, am I?”

“Not unless I’m dreaming, too,” Mason smiled.

“But I saw you!” Lisette cried. “They made me look at what was left of your poor swollen body!”

“That wasn’t me. That was a woman I jumped in trying to save.”

Lisette grabbed her and began covering her face with kisses, giving her the welcome she’d so needed. “I should have known you could never do such a thing. But I thought it was you. It looked so much like you, the same coloring, the same height…. It broke my heart. How…Why…?”

Mason pulled away. “I’ll tell you all about it, I promise. But for now, tell me what’s been going on here. I read in the paper that—”

“Zut!” Lisette remembered. “Les journales! That was my fault. I was so desolate at the thought of you dying like that, so miserable, so unappreciated. I only wanted to make it up to you somehow. So I went to the papers, where they know of me from the circus, and I told them your sad story. I wanted you to have a little bit of the fame you deserved.”

“Fame.” The word sounded so strange in connection to her that it was jarring.

“Yes,” Lisette cried, “they love your paintings now! And can you believe it? I sold three of them!”

“You sold my paintings?”

“You can’t believe how eager people were to buy them. I sold them for five hundred francs each!”

Mason had to pinch herself. Five hundred francs!

“The galleries are fighting to represent you. I gave the rest of them to Falconier because he offered the best terms. He bought back the three I sold and he was hoping to show them all the day after tomorrow.”

“My own show?” Mason took a moment to savor the idea. “But all this attention…it’s because they think I’m dead, right?”

Lisette shrugged. “I suppose. The story has swept the city. You know how we French love a romantic tragedy.”

“But will they still be interested once they know I’m alive?”

“We’ll soon see, no?”

But Mason’s mind was charging ahead. “What if we don’t test it? What if I conveniently stay dead for a while? Until after the show. Maybe once people see the paintings, what they’ll care about is the work and not the ‘romantic tragedy.’ And then I can return from the dead. I was recuperating in the country, I had no knowledge of what was going on in Paris…I might just as well have discovered the mistake after the show as now.”

“But you didn’t give me a chance to finish. Falconier can’t show the paintings.”

“What do you mean he can’t show them? You said you gave them to him.”

“The police now say he can’t show them. You didn’t leave a will, so no one can say for sure who owns them. Until it’s settled in court, Falconier can’t open the show. He’s going out of his mind.”

Mason took a minute to consider this. Then a mischievous smile began to tug at the corners of her mouth. “What if I had a sister? As my only living relative, she’d inherit the paintings. What if you suddenly received a letter from this sister, who you didn’t know I had, saying she’d read about poor Mason’s demise in the Boston papers and was about to embark for France to settle her affairs? What if you cabled her aboard her ship telling her about the show and she cabled back her permission to go ahead with it?”

“But you don’t have a sister.”

“I do now.”

All at once Lisette saw the beauty of it and met her smile. “Wouldn’t that be a terrible thing for us to do?”

“Terrible.”

“We’ve got to do it, yes?”

“I don’t think there’s any power on earth that can stop us now, do you?”

Lisette clapped her hands. “This is going to be such fun!”

Early the next morning, Lisette went to Falconier and told him the story they’d concocted. Overjoyed, the gallery owner rescued the pile of invitations that hadn’t yet been tossed into the fire and whipped his staff into a frenzy of preparations. “We open in two days,” he proclaimed.

“You should have seen him,” Lisette told Mason later in her frilly bedroom overrun with stuffed toys and live dogs. “He was so delighted that he insisted on putting the sister up in his suite at the Jockey Club on the Rue Scribe. That’s one of the best addresses in town, you know. And because he was so desperate to show the paintings, I told him he had to cover the sister’s expenses while she’s here. Look at this! A letter of credit! All the money we need to dress you right. I already spoke to Madame Tensale, who will bring a selection of clothes this afternoon.”

“That’s perfect!” Mason cried excitedly. “We’ll give the sister an entire wardrobe, the kind of things I never wore. Create a whole new image for her.”

“Silks and feathers and all sorts of pretty things,” Lisette agreed, “instead of those plain clothes you wear. We’ll pretend we’re playing dress-up.”

That settled, they pondered how best to proceed with the transformation.

“I can cut bangs,” Mason suggested, peering at herself in the vanity mirror. “That’s a start, but it won’t be enough. We could dye my hair. How do we do that?”

Lisette gave her a defensive pout. “Me? How would I know? My hair is completely natural.” Mason answered her with a mock frown, which brought on a fit of laughter from Lisette. “Ça va,” she conceded. “I know a place where we can get some chemicals. We will dye your hair dark, no? Like a gypsy.”

“That’s a start.” Mason searched Lisette’s vanity for a small pair of scissors. With them, she cut the eyelashes on one eye to half their length.

Lisette screeched. “Your lovely lashes! You’ve killed them!”

“They’ll grow back,” Mason assured her, repeating the process on the other eye. “I cut them once when I was young just to see if they would grow back. They did, even longer than before. This is the one way I can guarantee that people won’t recognize me.”

“It’s true,” Lisette teased. “It wouldn’t occur to anyone that you would do such a stupid thing.”

They threw themselves into the planning like Sarah Bernhardt preparing for the Comédie Français. The extensive amount of weight Mason had lost added to the disguise. They took the initials from Mason’s first and middle name—Mason Emily—and twisted them a bit to form the name Amy. Once they’d purchased the new wardrobe, they packed it into steamer trunks and had them sent to the Jockey Club. Then, with Mason in full costume, they went to Gare St-Lazare, where they hired a finer coach and took it to the Opera Quarter as if Miss Amy Caldwell from Boston, Massachusetts, had just arrived on the train from Le Havre.

They giggled most of the way there. What they were doing was outrageous, but after all, it would only be a brief charade. Once the show was a success, Mason Caldwell would come back to life and her sister Amy would conveniently disappear forever.