Julia was the first one to appear, brought by her nurse. She was hand in hand with Popau. The doll was wearing a different costume today. He was dressed as a bride. That seemed odd, knowing what I knew of him. But the child’s innocent fancy delighted me.
“Do you remember Uncle Sargent, Ya-Ya?” Boit asked his daughter.
Iza for Louisa, Ya-Ya for Julia. Their nicknames were strange, as if they came from another place.
“No,” said Julia, “but P-paul does.”
“How do you do, Popau?” I said.
Julia put Popau’s lips to her ear.
“He says, ‘Go away, Uncle Sargent,”’ she announced.
The adults laughed.
“Ya-Ya, you must tell Popau to be polite to Uncle Sargent,” Boit said. “Uncle Sargent is here to put him in a painting. If Popau is good, he will be very famous.”
Again Julia listened to Popau.
“He says ‘No,’” Julia said.
Mary was next into the room. She came with a long, confident stride, like a happy boy’s.
“Hello again, Uncle Sargent,” she said, and sat next to Popau.
“Hello, Mary,” I said.
Then we waited for the other girls to appear. The wait lengthened.
“Mary, I don’t suppose your sisters are still in the schoolroom?” Boit said.
“No, Papa,” Mary said. “I came at once, but they wouldn’t.”
“And where do you suppose they might be?” Iza asked. There was an edge to her voice.
“They ran away,” Mary said.
Iza Boit forced a smile and said, “Can you not guess, darling, where they are?”
“Jane said they were going back to Boston,” said Mary.
Suddenly Iza Boit leaped from her chair. She screamed at Mary, laying such a stream of words on her as I had never heard from any woman, let alone a mother speaking to her child. She raged up and down the room, waving her arms, demanding that her children be brought to her at once by the lazy, treacherous servants. It was beyond anger. It was something from the dim, dark past of humanity, when gods might seize us and shake us until we shattered. There was something ridiculous in it; Iza’s white Fumee costume made her fury seem almost like a scene in a play, which made the reality of it more terrible.
Boit was all compassion and tenderness. He followed his wife, trying to comfort and calm her, but nothing he did was of the least help.
The girls reacted in different ways. Mary stood up, putting her hands behind her back as I had seen her do in the foyer, ready for flight or fight. Julia slid down off the sofa on which she had perched and hid under it.
I wished mightily that I had the courage to join her there.
What does one do in such a situation? I sat where I was and tried not to notice. I looked at Popau and tried to make my face as bland and dead as his.
Finally, on one of her trips around the room, Iza Boit kicked over the incense burner. Burning crumbs of sandalwood went scattering across the beautiful Samarra carpet.
At last, something I could do to help. Rather than ring for a maid, I knelt down and tried to gather up the cinders using a napkin and teaspoon.
When I did this, Mary came over and helped me.
“I think we have saved the carpet,” I said, as Iza Boit slapped at her husband.
“You are a good man, Uncle Sargent,” Mary said.
“Thank you,” I said, feeling deeply gratified.
Then Flint was at the door with Florence and Jane. They marched before him like prisoners coming to trial. Their faces and white pinafores were blackened with soot.
“Misses Florence and Jane, sir,” said Flint.
Immediately, Iza Boit’s raging stopped. Or perhaps it transformed into something colder, though no less angry.
“Where have you been, children?” she asked. “We and Uncle Sargent have been waiting for you.”
“In the coal bin,” Jane said.
Then, as though nothing were wrong, Florence and Jane sat down. Julia came out of hiding and sat on Jane’s lap. Mary followed her little sister.
“See how they have grouped themselves so naturally, Sargent?” Iza Boit asked me. “What do you think of that for an idea?”
I got control of my tongue. I would not stutter. I would not embarrass Boit further by showing my fear.
“It is a possibility,” I said. “Perhaps the vases might be flanking the sofa.”
“What about the light, though?” Boit said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “Ought it not perhaps come from that direction? I’m thinking of the shadows.”
“Paint us in the cellar, then,” Jane said. “It’s all shadows down there.”
“Don’t paint anybody,” Florence said.
“P-paul says, ‘No,’” Julia added.
“Please don’t paint us, Uncle Sargent,” Mary said.
“You will be painted,” Iza Boit said. “I wish it. Your father wishes it. And we will all be beautiful forever when it is done.”
“When can you begin, Sargent?” Boit asked me.
More than ever I wished for some polite excuse to drop the project. I wanted no more such scenes if I could avoid them. But that was not a choice I could make. The money I would get would be shared with my parents and with my crippled sister. I was not in a position to refuse it.
I knew what my father would have told me. He would have
advised me to begin at once. “Cut straight through the torpedo line, like Farragut at Mobile Bay,” he’d told me when I was growing up. “That is the best way with most unpleasant things.”
“I should like to begin tomorrow,” I said.
“Excellent,” said Boit.
“Do you hear, children? Uncle Sargent is to paint you tomorrow,” Iza Boit said.
The girls said nothing. They stared, silent as a wall, at the three of us.
“I’m glad that is settled,” Iza Boit said. “Now, girls, your father has other news for you. Tell them, Boity.”
“My darlings, I’m afraid I must leave you here for a little and go back to Boston alone,” he said. “But at least I will not be gone for months and months this time, I promise you.”
“Don’t leave, we’ll grieve,” Florence said, and looked down at the carpet.
“Oh,” said Jane. “Oh, oh. No, Papa, no.”
She looked at her sister and began to murmur softly a sound that sounded like Mumumumumum. Mumumumumum. Perhaps it was something from babyhood, some comfort noise that they had shared. But it didn’t comfort Florence now. She began to twist her hair.
Mary reached out a hand to Julia, and Julia reached out to Popau.
Both younger girls began to cry.
“Darlings, I will be back before winter is over,” Boit said. “Probably before Christmas.”
Now all four of them were crying.
Uncomfortable as I felt, I was touched at how much the girls loved their father.
Jane lurched across the room and grabbed her father’s hand.
“Papa, stay here. Don’t leave us alone now,” she said. She sounded desperate.
Time flows so slowly when we are young.
“I must go.” Boit smiled. “But I must return too. Nothing can keep me away from my girls for very long.”
“You leave, we grieve. I don’t deceive,” Florence said.
And Boit opened his arms to the four of them and held them tenderly while they clutched at him and wept.
“How charming they can be,” said Iza Boit, sounding anything but charmed.
The cab that took me home was even damper and smellier than the one that had brought me. Outside, the darkness had wrapped itself around the city so tightly that the gas lamps barely shone above the sidewalks. Even Paris could not be beautiful on such a night.
I thought over what I had seen. Hideous as it was, I knew it was nothing so strange. I had heard of women like Iza Boit. My doctor father would have diagnosed hysteria. There was nothing to be done about hysteric women but what Boit had tried to do. Calm them if one can, ignore the event when it’s over.
That was what I told myself.
I liked the girls more than ever. In spite of Jane’s tongue and Florence’s peculiar rhyming speech, I found them all delightful. That they could be so sweet and loving with such a mother spoke well of them and of Boit. I hoped that my portrait would convey that same quality of tenderness and truth. Be damned to Iza Boit and her cruelty and pretensions.
When I reached my apartment, I rang for tea and put on my smoking jacket. A good cigar would calm my nerves. Then I could turn my thoughts to dinner.
I puffed luxuriously and watched the smoke curl before me. Like the scent of incense.
Suddenly I laughed. Fumee d’Amber Gris. What kind of fool posed herself like a painting to welcome the artist? What sort of man would be impressed by such obnoxious flattery? Not John Singer Sargent.
My maid, Marianne, brought my tea. On the tray beside it was a note.
“Pardon, Monsieur Sargent,” she said. “This came for you just before you returned home.”
It was a bit of brown paper folded shut but not sealed. There was no stamp, no address.
“How did this come here?” I asked.
“It was shoved under the door,” said Marianne. “So I assume. I found it on the floor.”
“Thank you,” I said.
Marianne went out, and I contemplated my evening mail.
Not only cheap brown paper, but water stained.
I opened it.
Whoever had sent it had written with a crayon. The letters were large, skewed, and ugly. The words were few.
DO
NOT
PAINT
BOITS