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Pagny-sur-Moselle, France, April 21, 1887
Marie Régine sat beneath the Mirabelle tree that hung heavily with the sweet yellow plums in the summer months, but was now sprinkled with the white petals of the spring blossoms. The breeze ruffled the pages of Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days that rested in her lap.
“You always have your nose in a book,” her mother so often remarked.
“I think I should like to write one sometime,” she had recently replied, “but, I wouldn't know what to write about.”
“It seems to me,” her mother had said, shielding her eyes against the sun and her face crinkling in the sunlight and looking much as the apples did when dried in winter, “that if you have a mind to write a book you ought to begin with what you know.”
Then, my book would be of sadness.
At fifteen, Marie Régine was the youngest and while for some that might mean they are lavished in attention, for Marie Régine it meant she was always being left behind. By the time she was old enough to join the others in an activity, they were gone. Henrie, the eldest, had married when Marie Régine was ten and left for their father's native lands deep in the Alps to seek his fortune. And now Genvieve was to leave for the shores of Brittany, as soon as she was married to Pierre.
If only travel were as easy as Mr. Verne portrays.
Her eyes moved above the tree's branches to the billowing clouds and, for a moment, she sailed above them in the basket with the silk balloon attached. As she drifted along the housetops with Phileas Fogg as her only companion, her troubles shrank beneath her into tiny dots on the horizon in a blur of sand and space.
The dream burst against the call of her mother's voice, sending her catapulting to the ground from her lofty dreams.
“Marie Régine?”
“Yes, Mother?”
“Come inside and help. We are having a guest for tea.”
“Yes, Mother,” she said, standing from her place beneath the tree. Her legs were unsteady, as she tried to walk. A cramp in her sleeping foot, from sitting too long in the same position, slowed her progress toward the door. Her foot felt disconnected, until the tingling of awaking swept its fiery fingers over her. She reached the door and pushed it open. The sweet aroma of apples, mingled with sugar and floating above a buttery pastry, drifted into her nostrils.
“Set the table, please,” her mother said, from the kitchen.
Marie Régine unfolded the tablecloth and unfurled it across the shining wood of the table. She had spent hours polishing the wood and thought it a pity to cover it where no one would see it. Still, her mother insisted upon the best for company.
“Mother?” she asked, as she placed the porcelain plates around the table.
“Yes?” she said, between the rhythmic beating of the wooden spoon against the ceramic bowl.
“Who is our company that is coming?”
“Mr. Monclare.”
“Who?” she said, not recognizing the name. Before her mother could answer, a knock at the front door from the other side of the house sounded.
“Oh goodness! He's early. Marie Régine get the door, please. I look a fright.” She moved to the door, smoothing her wrinkled dress as she did. Opening the door, a smile was instantly summoned to her face. A man, relatively tall, tipped his hat to her with a twinkle in his eye.
“Hello, Madamoiselle. Are you by chance Marie Régine, whom your mother has spoken of so much in her correspondence?”
“I am,” she said.
“Well, I am Patrice Monclare,” he said. She opened the door wider for him to enter.
“Please come in.” She ushered him into the room and by that time her mother had appeared, looking more suited to entertaining company than to working in the kitchen.
“Ah, Patrice, hello,” Mother said, clasping him into a welcoming hug. Marie Régine lingered in the doorway, unsure if she were invited to be present for this meeting of friends.
“Here, you sit here,” Mother instructed, pointing to the nicest armchair beside the window.
“And Marie Régine, you come sit beside me.” A smile lighted her face at the instruction. She was to be included!
“How was your journey?” Mother asked, turning to Patrice.
“Altogether uneventful until I arrived in town.”
“Oh?” Mother asked.
He looked at Marie Régine, gauging whether to say anything further on the matter.
“I don't know whether I had... ” he trailed off.
“Oh please, Mr. Monclare, do not hold back on account of me,” Marie Régine said.
Seeing her earnest, Mother nodded her consent and he continued,
“Well, everyone was talking about a man named Guillaume Shader, no Schnaebele, that was it. It seems the German police have arrested him as a spy. He was on his way to Metz and they were unhappy he crossed the border.”
“A spy?” Marie Régine said, sitting forward. Though she felt sorry for the man, a shiver of excitement spread across her skin. Perhaps, interesting things could reside beyond the pages of a book.
“Goodness, well, let us hope the matter is settled quickly,” Mother said, deterring Marie Régine's hope of hearing more. The matter was fully dismissed, as Patrice reached into his bag and pulled out a notebook.
“I thought you would want to see these,” he said with a smile to Mother. Marie Régine perched on the chair, leaned into Mother as Patrice passed the retrieved notebook to her now so that she could see what was inside. Mother opened the notebook and a beautiful scene of boats on the water met Marie Régine.
“Did you draw this?” she asked in awe, admiring the curve of the wave that seemed real enough to splash off of the page onto her.
“That's right,” he said.
“Patrice, these are wonderful,” Mother said, as she turned through the pages.
“You are an artist, Mr. Monclare?” Marie Régine asked, looking at him excitedly.
“That's right,” he said again, as he had before.
“Mr. Monclare is from Normandy,” Mother said.
“Normandy? Do you know Monet?” Marie Régine asked, nearly unable to contain herself.
“I have met him. He was in England as I was,” he said.
Her eyes grew wide.
“You were in England with Monet?”
“Well, not with Monet, my dear. We were both there— well, artists are better at holding paintbrushes than guns,” he said, simply.
“Oh— oh yes,” Marie Régine said, picking up on his allusion to the war two years before her birth that France had fought against Prussia.
“I think you are a better artist than Monet,” Mother said, moving their conversation away from any discomfort, as she admired his work.
He laughed,
“Well, I am not so sure about that. But, thank you.” A look of reminiscing passed across his face.
“We both know who the best artist was.” Mother looked at him, needing no time for the memories to return. The years were dissolved instantaneously and for a moment Marie Régine was forgot and they were whisked into some shared recollection. Marie Régine suddenly felt as though she were trespassing.
“I wonder where she is now,” Mother said, breaking the silence.
His eyes softened into a smile, deepening the creases beside his blue gray eyes and betraying his age. Patrice pat the bag beside him. Mother's eyebrows rose in surprise.
“I thought that she was lost,” she said, unable to comprehend the presence of this mysterious girl.
“I found her recently. I thought—” he said and nodded toward Marie Régine. Mother looked from Patrice to Marie Régine and then nodded.
“Marie Régine, are you prepared for a tale better than any Jules Verne could write?” Mother asked, including her once again in the conversation.
“Oh yes, Mother,” she said, hoping her earnestness did not negate the solemnity she was trying so hard to attribute to the occasion.
“Your mother is my oldest friend,” Patrice began, “And, in the spirit of full disclosure, I shall tell you, young lady, that I would have married her had my means as an artist been more stable than they are.”
He paused for a moment, a touch of melancholy touching his lips and causing the corner to twitch. Ignoring it, he pressed on with the story.
“As you have already learned, I was in England during the war. Your mother and I had discovered something that allowed us to speak with each other despite the distance. Well, perhaps I am getting ahead of myself. We were—”
“Your age,” her mother interjected. Patrice's eyes widened.
“Can you really be as old as fifteen now?”
“I am,” she said, anxious for him to continue the story.
“Well, then, when we were your age we found a painting in my grandmother's attic. My grandfather was given it by a business associate from London. We knew nothing of it at the time but when we pulled it from the attic, my grandmother dismissed it as some old rag rather than the beautiful painting it is. I never have been able to figure out why that was.”
“Maybe,” Mother said, “she was afraid of it.”
“Afraid of a painting? Why would someone be afraid of a painting?” Marie Régine asked, her face clouding in confusion.
Her mother took her hand.
“Marie Régine, you trust me, don't you?”
“Yes, Mother,” she said, wondering what could merit such a question.
“The painting is special. You see, this is going to be hard to believe, but the painting is a sort of message system.”
“There are symbols hidden in it?” Marie Régine asked, trying to understand.
“Not quite,” Patrice said, “you see, the painting is able to deliver messages.”
“She can speak,” Mother said. They both turned toward Marie Régine, watching to see her reaction.
“I don't understand. How is that possible?” she asked.
“I don't know. I just know it works,” Mother said.
“You see, things we were thinking of when we thought of the painting seemed to be carried to the other as we looked at the painting.”
“You could read each other's mind through the painting?” Marie Régine asked, trying to make some sense of what she had been told.
“I suppose,” Patrice said, “you could think of it like that, only it wasn't random chaos but rather focused messages.”
“It's possible, though,” her Mother said, “that if someone were not aware of what was happening, disorder could appear in place of the orderly message system we had.”
“I see,” Marie Régine said, though really she did not.
“I have been searching for the painting since it became lost on my return from England and I have only just found it.”
“You've been searching for it for over seventeen years?” Marie Régine said, looking rather amazed at the thought of a treasure hunt lasting longer than her life.
Patrice exchanged glances with his lifelong friend over her daughter's head before saying, “She's more than a painting. Once you've met her, she has an intoxicating presence since she is able to connect you to those you hold most dear.”
His hand moved to Marie Régine's mother's and lingered for a moment, before he continued,
“And I am certain that she will be a loyal companion to you.”
He looked directly at Marie Régine, as he spoke the words.
“To me?”
“I know, my dear,” Mother said, “that you often feel you are alone, left behind because you are younger.”
“I would like,” Patrice said, “to give the painting to you, so that you might speak to Genvieve.”
“Speak to her? Through the painting you mean?” Marie Régine said, both excited and fearful at the prospect.
“But, I don't understand, Mr. Monclare. If you have been searching for her all these years and have only just found her, why would you give her away so quickly?” Marie Régine said. Now it was Marie Régine's hand that he took in his own.
“Because it is time. You need her and I want you to have her.” Patrice bent to lift his drawing book from the place on the floor he had set it down.
“And I would like for you to have these.”
“Your drawings?” she said in surprise.
“The notebook is full. I can always draw more,” he said with a smile, “but, you must do one thing for me.”
“Yes?”
“When the painted lady has touched your life, as she has mine and your mother's, draw her portrait on the last page.”