Chapter 40

‘Get out! And never come back, do you hear me? I never want to see you again!’

The studio door slammed behind me and I stumbled down the stairs. All the way down I could hear Camille raving and the sound of crashing. I burst out of the doors into the street just as a plaster sculpture smashed at my feet. I looked up and saw Camille hanging out of the window. I fled from rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs, the street I’d come to love so much and that would now forever remind me of this terrible fight with Camille. I stumbled on a café – the one where I’d met Henri and Suzanne – and sank down onto a chair and asked for an eau de vie. My hand shook as I lifted the glass to my lips, not from sorrow but with rage. Camille had turned the tables on me when I’d gone to speak to her about studio fees and this ridiculous contract she’d made Rodin sign. I had gone to the studio early, at dawn, to catch Camille. I waited outside until Rodin had left and went up to confront her. She’d listened in silence while I put forward what I thought was a reasoned argument. I was careful to keep my temper and be the adult to her spoilt child. When I’d finished she looked at me with a pitying smile.

‘Jessie, you are not yourself, to come out with these fantastical accusations – what an imagination you have! I forgive you.’

‘You forgive me?’ My calm was beginning to evaporate.

‘Ah, oui, toi!’ She gave a little chuckle. ‘Of course, I understand, Jessie. You’ve had a quarrel with Georges, no doubt. I knew he’d been in the country mooching off his parents again, but I heard he’s back in town.’ She picked up a carving tool and began to work. ‘You’ll know by now of course that he hasn’t a sou.’

‘What are you talking about?’

Camille turned back to me, her expression innocent. ‘Hasn’t he told you? Ah, that’s too bad. I hope Georges hasn’t been taking advantage of your trusting nature. Tu êtes une petite ingénue, toi.’

I had been about to lose my temper, but my anger had been snuffed out. A cold gust of wind came through the open window and made me shiver.

I sat down, suddenly weary. ‘What do you mean, Camille?’

She took out a cigarette, made me wait while she lit it and took a drag.

‘Camille!’

‘Very well, I didn’t want to say anything before, but it’s about time you found out the truth. It’s my duty, as your friend, to tell you that Georges is interested only in your money.’

A cold worm turned in my stomach. ‘That’s ridiculous!’

Camille picked a strand of tobacco off her tongue. ‘Is it? You know the Duchamps don’t have a pot to piss in? No, perhaps you don’t, but all Paris does, you poor thing.’

I was dumbfounded. ‘But he lives so extravagantly – his clothes, the gold cigarette case, the endless cabs, the restaurants.’

‘He spends his small allowance as soon as he gets it and borrows the rest. Half the moneylenders in Paris know his address.’

I searched my mind for any clues that Georges was a fortune hunter but came up with a blank. And while I had never hidden my background, I couldn’t remember telling him that Papa had become a rich man by investing in the coal exchange just at the right time. Georges and I, we talked about art, about our work. We had never talked about money. Certainly, Papa was generous to me and I never wanted for clothes, furs and jewellery, but in Paris I’d learned to dress more simply. Camille must be mistaken, or worse, spinning a malicious lie.

I stood up and faced her. ‘Let me get this right, you think Georges, your friend and mine, is only interested in me because my parents are wealthy? That’s absurd. How could he possibly know that?’

She shrugged her shoulders in that French way I’d once found so charming and now despised for its casual disregard of the other person’s feelings.

‘I told him,’ she said.

‘Why? Why would you talk about that?’

‘Because he asked me. I told him your father was as rich as Croesus. You know Georges, he likes fine clothes. He has no money but he’s always been good at sniffing it out. Look at you, in your Worth dress and furs. It doesn’t take a genius to see you’re rich.’ She looked at me carefully. ‘You’re not upset are you?’ Her laugher had a metallic ring. ‘Now, don’t be angry with Georges. Did you think he was blind to the advantages your wealth would bring him – the freedom to do as he wants? Come now, don’t be such an innocent, you’re worse than the grisettes.’

‘But the drawing with the note, all the love letters he sent me in England.’

Camille waved her cigarette in the air. ‘Of course, he thinks he loves you. Georges is a scoundrel but he is a romantic one. Après tout, he is a French man. He has convinced himself he is in love. He loves you, in his way. But he is incapable of putting his own interests to one side. Not like William, he’s a true English gentleman. But you let him get away. If you’d been clever, you would have hung on to him, and if you’d been a French woman, you would have had both of them.’

Camille walked over to me and pinched my chin, the way I remembered her doing to the maid the first day we met. ‘Dry your tears. I tell you this only because I love you. I’m glad we are friends again. Now, forget all this silly nonsense. We all share the same rent.’

That’s when I went to the tea chest and pulled out the ledger, silently pointed to the figures that told their own story. And that’s when she flew into a rage. She threw accusations at me like missiles: I was a viper in her bosom, I had stolen ideas from her, I wanted to steal Rodin from her, I didn’t have a shred of real talent, I should marry William and have his brats because that’s all I was good for.

It was like a typhoon ripping through me. When she came at me with her hands clawing I knew I had to get away from her. In the relative safety of the café, I took another gulp of eau de vie but it didn’t do any good. I lay my head on the table and began to cry. People were staring at me, but I couldn’t stop. Camille hated me: she must to make up such lies about Georges. I dried my eyes. Georges. She said he was in Paris. I needed to see him. I would go by myself, without a chaperone.