The various studios of the Académie Lafond gave themselves over to pleasure on the morning of Christmas Eve. Lafond himself went from studio to studio drinking a glass of punch at each and giving his blessing to his students. He always came early to the women’s ateliers, since a man as careful of his reputation as he was would not visit his young ladies after drinking the punch mixed by his male students. Even at ten in the morning, though, he was jovial and pleasant with them all, released from judging them as they too were released from being judged. He beamed at them all over his fantastic white moustache as he told them it was at this time of year he most enjoyed counting his blessings, to revel in his old age, crowned with friends and prosperity. All his students felt caught up in his pleasure: it was as if Père Noël himself, having swapped his tunic for a tailored suit and high collar, had graced them with his presence.
Maud rather shyly gave her cards to Tanya and Yvette, and was delighted when they both laughed heartily at them.
‘You see too much, Maud!’ Tanya said. Maud had drawn her in an evening gown and clutching a canvas under her arm, fleeing a Russian Bear who wore a top hat and monocle. ‘Oh, I shall keep it forever.’
Yvette’s card showed her seated on the edge of the fountain at Place Pigalle with a queue of hopeful artists in front of her. ‘I wish it were so!’ Yvette groaned when she saw it. ‘Still, all the girls with rich friends will be off and holidaying for the next few days so I might have the fountain to myself.’
Mademoiselle Claudette became a little sentimental and handed each of them a little printed card from the studio itself as they left. Classes would begin again on 3 January 1910.
It was all very different from the previous year for Maud. She went to Midnight Mass with the Morels and for the first time since childhood felt moved to prayers of gratitude. After they returned to the apartment, brother and sister fussed over their gifts from her. Morel played cabaret songs on the piano, bashing them out with more enthusiasm than accuracy and making Sylvie and Maud dance around the drawing room behind him. Maud had Morel’s gift – a scarf from Worth – tied loosely around her neck and her gift from Sylvie – a brooch in the shape of a butterfly – pinned to her blouse. Sylvie played the coquette with her fan, and Morel wore his new tie over his old one. Maud went to bed at three leaving Morel playing slower songs and Sylvie curled up on the chaise longue watching him. Her bedside-table was a little forest of cards including ones from her brother’s family, wishing her luck and success. She felt, falling asleep, she had nothing left to ask for.
* * *
After the giddiness of Christmas, the days that followed felt peaceful. Sylvie encouraged her to go out still in the mornings and Maud spent them wandering round the museums, but she left her sketchbook at home and let the works she saw flood over her. She studied individual works, feeling her fingers twitch with the urge to experiment, but avoided her easel. It was a holiday, after all, and should be treated as such. She strolled by the Seine, watching the smoke rise from the barges. It felt as though an early spring had come even as the weather continued cold and damp.
On 30 December Maud spent the morning at the Musée Carnavalet among the histories of Paris and admiring the caricatures of Jean-Pierie Dantan. After lunch she and Sylvie walked together in the gardens watching the students and their models eating pancakes which steamed in the cold air. Sylvie was affectionate, but seemed more subdued than usual. Maud wondered if she was preparing for another attempt to give up the pipe. Later she read contentedly in the flat and was surprised but pleased to hear Morel’s voice in the hallway just before the usual hour for supper. She heard the brother and sister speaking but remained in her room until the waiter brought their food. She joined them with the expectation of pleasant conversation, but Morel was quiet and withdrawn. Sylvie was silent too. Maud wondered if they had received bad news from home, or worse, that Morel’s business in Paris had suffered some reverse and they would have to leave at once. She was ashamed that her reaction to the idea of their leaving was purely selfish. She would have to find miserable lodgings again while the weather was still bitter, and although the money they had given her already would keep her going through the spring, it would not permit any comfort. She needed another month’s wages for that. The way they both piled her plate high and filled her glass made her feel even more sure it was all going to be taken away. She ate and drank hungrily, like a peasant who has sneaked into a feast. When she could eat no more she felt a sudden wave of disgust at herself, the animal which fear of poverty had made her. She was too hot; the rich food had made her sleepy.
‘Might we open the window for a moment, Sylvie?’ she said at last.
‘Not just now, dear,’ she said without looking at her.
Morel wiped his mouth and stood up from the table. With a clarity that felt unnatural Maud noticed that his lips were still a little greasy with the sauce. He went to the side dresser and opened it with a key from his waistcoat pocket. Maud watched fascinated as he removed a small striped box and handed it to her.
‘Could you tell us about this box, Miss Heighton?’
He looked so grave that she laughed. ‘You know I cannot. I have never seen it before.’
He looked away from her, out into the street. ‘Open it, please.’
She did so, though it took a slight effort to pull herself up from the table. She set it down, then took off the cardboard lid. ‘I don’t understand. What is this? Oh, Lord.’
The box contained a blaze of white light. Maud blinked to clear her vision and saw a tiara, made only it seemed of diamonds and air.
‘Take it out, please.’
She did. It was far lighter than she had expected. There was one large central stone the size of a pigeon’s egg, surrounded by curling fronds of smaller stones. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said again, and reached forward to touch that central stone. It shone like the crystal glasses Morel kept for his whisky. ‘Is it yours, Sylvie? Oh, my dear! Please tell me you didn’t steal it!’
Sylvie gave a sharp bark of laughter and lit a cigarette. Morel continued to stare out of the window as he spoke.
‘My sister found it in your room this morning, Miss Heighton. It belongs to Madame de Civray.’
‘How could you, Maud?’ Sylvie said.
Maud was confused; the room was so warm she could feel sweat trickling under her hair on the back of her neck. ‘How could I what, Sylvie? Stop being so silly. I’ve never seen it before in my life, and it was most certainly not in my room this morning. This is some sort of joke. And it isn’t funny.’
Sylvie was watching her with a sad smile. Morel remained at the window with his back turned. ‘Some moment of madness, much regretted now I am sure,’ he said.
Maud was too surprised to be frightened yet. ‘Are you suggesting I stole it? You can’t be. I would never do such a thing. Sylvie, you had all those packages with you. You must have picked it up by mistake.’
Sylvie turned to Morel. ‘The Countess just leaves her treasures lying around – the temptation must have been too much. Have you not noticed how unhappy Maud has been this week, Christian? How distracted and upset? She has been walking the streets of Paris by herself.’
‘The museums, dear,’ Maud explained. ‘You don’t like them.’
Sylvie carried on as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘Without even taking her sketchbook. I think it began just before Christmas. And you know, Christian, I think she almost wanted me to find it. It was sitting on top of her bed, plain as anything.’
Morel smiled sadly at his sister. ‘Perhaps the effects of opium have, as some have suggested, destroyed her moral sense. This cannot be forgiven, Sylvie.’
Maud tried to smile, her eyes going back and forth. ‘Sylvie, Mr Morel, do stop. It’s not kind. You know I’ve been happier these last weeks than I think I ever have been before. Do stop.’ Her head swam and she put her hand on the table. Her limbs felt alien and unwieldy. She felt she had somehow forgotten the trick of moving them.
Sylvie sighed. ‘The papers are full of such things. Poor women, trying to be respectable then falling into temptation. So sad. How long have you been a victim of opium, Maud?’
Maud tried to speak firmly, but her mouth had become dry and her voice came out thicker and lower than usual. ‘I have never touched that drug, as you well know.’
‘Please don’t deny it, Maud. I thought I smelled some strange scent in the air but I had no idea, not until I looked under your bed after finding the tiara.’
‘There is nothing there. You are talking nonsense.’
‘Oh, but there is!’
Maud would wake up in a moment. Didn’t this feel like a dream? Her body so reluctant to obey, her vision blurred. She stood up. There was nothing under the bed. She would show them and that would be an end to it. She had to keep one hand on the wall of the corridor to stop from falling as she went. They followed her and she thought she could hear Sylvie’s sympathetic sigh as she stumbled. She shoved open the door to her room and fell to her knees by the bed, then stretched out her arm under it until she touched something. A tray. Her fingers feeling fat and unhelpful, she pulled it towards her. Sylvie must have put it there as a joke. Part of her stupid joke. She was a child at times. She realised she was speaking out loud, but the words were emerging ugly and slurred. She managed to pull the tray out from under the bed. It was not the cloisonné treasure of Sylvie’s but a dented metal serving platter like those used in the most down-at-heel restaurants. On it was a cheap-looking brass spirit lamp, a bamboo pipe, a porcelain bowl the shape and size of a door knob. She picked it up, confused and lost in a deep fog that made her arms impossible to lift. The world began to feel very far away. ‘That’s not mine.’
Sylvie and Christian had come into the room after her and were standing just in front of her window looking serious and sad, and watching Maud as if she were some exotic, but faintly repulsive reptile. An elegant couple visiting the freak show. Maud could see the volume of Ruskin she had been reading lying open on the windowseat.
‘Did you see if she was carrying anything when you left Madame de Civray’s home, Sylvie?’
Sylvie tilted her weight to one side. ‘She was carrying a few things, and she seemed very excited.’
‘You had boxes – that box. I was carrying some for you but all I took from that house was the portfolio! The photographs!’ The words stumbled through her lips and she was no longer sure if she spoke French or English. It seemed suddenly very important that they saw the photographs. If they did, they would understand. They would stop this. She half-crawled towards them, towards the side-table to the left of the door where the portfolio lay, but her hands wouldn’t work. She fell towards them, knocking the photographs onto the ground as she went. Neither Sylvie nor Christian made any move to help her.
‘Poor Maud!’ she heard Sylvie say.
The last thing Maud was aware of was Sylvie stepping over her body to leave the room.
* * *
She was wearing her long coat and a hat with a wide brim. Her legs still wouldn’t work, but someone was holding her up. The air was freezing cold and she could smell tobacco and brandy. It was a man – a man was holding her. She tried to push at him but her hand hardly moved. She saw it. Why aren’t you moving, hand? she thought. It must be part of the same dream. She felt the grip the man had around her body tighten and for a second she was lifted onto her toes, then suddenly set down again. There was the sound of footsteps approaching. They echoed as if they approached down a long stone corridor.
‘Everything all right?’ said a male voice she did not recognise.
‘Yes, all fine. The wife’s had a bit too much to drink. Her sister’s birthday.’ That was Morel’s voice, only he was speaking strangely, like a worker rather than a gentleman. Why was she here with Morel? There was another sound too. Water; water moving. No matter, it was just a dream – just a funny dream.
‘Well, we’ll all be like that tomorrow night with any luck! You need some help getting her home?’
‘No, we’ll have a little rest here, then it’s only round the corner. Marriage, hey?’
‘Too right!’ the man said and laughed. ‘Happy New Year!’ Maud heard his footsteps fade.
‘OK, my little rabbit? My sweet little cabbage? Oh, you’re waking up. Not for long.’ Morel was holding her face up towards him, his other arm tight around her waist. His face was so close she could see his eyelashes, delicate as the hair on a sable brush. The light came from above and from far away. She felt a high stone wall at her back and over his head she saw the blank silhouette of the Louvre. The lights on the far embankment were bright as starlight, their aura almost blue. He held her hard against him for what seemed like an age. No man had ever held her so close before. Then he looked to right and left. Such silence. She had no idea Paris could be so quiet and so full of shadows. She could hear someone whistling as they crossed the Pont des Arts above her head. Ah, so that was where she was, on the quayside under that long beautiful bridge, untroubled by horse or motor traffic. She could see the lace patterns of the ironwork. The song faded and the quiet returned; now there was just the lap of the water and the shifting of the boats tied up at the quay. None showed any light.
‘Time to go, Miss Heighton.’ Morel half-lifted her, half-dragged her a few feet. Her shoes scraped against the cobbles. She could feel the heat from his body. And then her right foot slipped over the edge of the quay and touched nothing. Something in her understood and she felt herself seized with panic. She started to struggle against him but she could feel the weakness flowing through her. He released her suddenly and she felt a sudden blow to her stomach, something between a push and a punch, sending her back into space. Too fast. This couldn’t be. Only as she fell did she realise completely that she was awake, that this was in truth happening to her. She struck the water as if falling through glass; the water raged up around her white and freezing, leaping into the air in a shout of spray – then there was nothing but coldness and darkness as the river closed over her.