Their destination was very close by. Tanya took her arm as they got out of the car and Maud felt herself sway against her. Tanya took the pressure for affection and squeezed her arm happily in return. Maud looked around her. They were in front of a good-sized building. The façade showed the familiar restrained elegance of Haussmann’s Paris. Classical, stately, like all the main avenues and boulevards, it gave no hint of the poverty or fear that might be hidden in the yards and alleys behind it. English manners in stone.
Tanya pulled Maud up to the door with her, then looked up and, shielding her eyes against the grey glare of the sky, waved. Maud followed her gaze and saw leaning over the balcony of the second floor a woman of perhaps sixty, bright-eyed, bundled up warmly in a long dark-green coat and waving vigorously back.
‘Miss Harris!’ Tanya called up even as she pulled on the bell. ‘We have come to see you. Are we welcome?’
‘Always, dear!’ the lady shouted back cheerfully and the white head disappeared again as the front door opened. A maid, looking particularly fearsome in tightly fitting black and solid shoes, stood in front of them. Behind her was a black and white tiled floor and a steeply climbing staircase. Everything was clean and orderly. A woman dressed in a monkish style crossed the corridor with a pile of papers in her hand and somewhere in the house, Maud heard the trill of a telephone bell.
‘Miss ’Arris is not at home,’ the maid said, and began to close the door again. ‘If you wish to register for work, use the back-door bell. The refuge is full and the times of the free dinner and Bible study are marked ’ere.’ She pointed at a little box of pamphlets attached to a railing and fluttering damply in the cold breeze.
Tanya flushed and put her hand on the wood of the door. ‘Nonsense, my girl. I have just seen Miss Harris on the balcony.’
‘Miss ’Arris has been working since six this morning,’ the maid said darkly and not moving an inch. ‘Miss ’Arris is now taking the air. Miss ’Arris is not at home.’
The lady called down from the balcony again. ‘Simone, do be reasonable. I swear I have been out here twenty minutes. I have had quite enough air! Do let the girls in and come and unlock the door so I can get back to my office.’
The maid stepped out into the street and called up angrily. ‘Ten! Ten minutes only!’
‘Simone…’ The lady’s voice had a hint of steel in it now. The maid threw up her hands.
‘Very well! We shall let these women in, we shall let you work yourself to death and then we shall all starve in the gutter or go to be registered. Much better than letting these women wait or go to the side door – oh, much better!’ Simone stood aside to let Maud and Tanya in, then slammed the street door hard enough to make the vase on the hall-table rattle. She thrust open a door to the right that led into a small office with a table and chairs and several filing cabinets, and took them through into another room of about the same size, with one large desk and a number of rather sentimental watercolours on the walls. Most seemed to involve children and dogs. Simone picked up two dining chairs and thumped them down in front of the desk then stared fiercely at Tanya. ‘Ten minutes!’ she hissed, her finger raised and pointed. ‘Starve!’ Feeling her point had been made, she sighed deeply and removed a large key from the pocket of her apron, nodded over it sadly then left them.
Tanya looked a little sheepish and normally Maud would have been amused, but keeping her wits about her was as much as she could manage. She took her seat, afraid she might faint. In a very few minutes Miss Harris joined them, pink in the face and unbuttoning her coat. She hung it rather carelessly on the coat-stand by the door, closed the door behind her then smoothed her skirts and put out her hand to them both. Maud wavered a little as she stood again and had to grab onto the back of her chair. Though Miss Harris was shaking Tanya’s hand with both her own, Maud thought her unsteadiness had not gone unnoticed. She shook hands with Miss Harris as Tanya introduced her and felt the quick appraising look from her small dark eyes.
‘Sit down, dears! Sit down. My apologies for Simone. She always promises she will not lock me out then, hoop-la, as soon as my back is turned I find she has turned the key. She means well, of course.’
The woman settled herself behind the desk. There was a little heap of messages left in front of her and, on either side of her, paperwork was piled into towers that reached as high as her own head. She rifled through the messages with one hand, while reaching blindly behind her to pick up a speaking tube fastened to the wall. Still reading, she whistled down it and on hearing a grunt at the other end spoke. ‘Beef tea and sandwiches, dear, quick as you can,’ then she stoppered the tube and clipped it back into place. Her right hand now free, she picked up a pen and began to make notes in very small handwriting on the papers in front of her. For the first time since she had met Tanya, Maud noticed out of the corner of her eye that the Russian looked a little unsure of herself. Miss Harris said nothing more until the fearsome maid arrived with the tray and set it down on the desk, directly in front of Maud.
‘I am very sorry to have disturbed you, Miss Harris,’ Tanya said a little plaintively, ‘when you wish to eat.’
‘Don’t be absurd, dear,’ Miss Harris replied evenly. ‘The food is for Miss Heighton.’ She smiled at Maud, wrinkling her nose a little as she did. ‘Eat up before you faint away, dear girl. Now, Tanya dear, to your left is yesterday’s Times. I wish you would read to me the correspondence page while I finish these little notes and Miss Heighton gets her wind back.’
Tanya managed to pick up the newspaper while casting a look both shocked and a little offended at Maud. ‘Maud, why did you not say you were hungry?’
‘What did you expect her to say?’ Miss Harris said sharply. ‘I am afraid I have had more chance to see the signs of hunger in a girl than you have, Tanya. Now do read, if you can manage the English.’
‘Naturally I can,’ Tanya said, and while she read the various letters very carefully and in a clear voice Maud ate as slowly and steadily as she could. She could not remember the last time she had eaten good meat or bread that did not taste of chalk, and the beef tea seemed to enter her bloodstream like a drug, warming and comforting her. The room felt calm and secure as she ate everything that had been brought to her to the sound of Tanya’s pretty Russian accent and the scratchings of Miss Harris’s pen. When she had finished, she sat back with a sigh.
Miss Harris at once replaced the cap on her fountain pen with a businesslike click and then rang the little bell beside her. The door opened immediately and the young woman they had seen crossing the hall earlier entered. Her dress was very dark and severe in its cut. She stood very straight and unsmiling. Her hair was scraped back from her face and she wore little round eyeglasses. Tanya shuddered.
‘Charlotte, dear, do take the tray away, and here…’ Miss Harris piled her notes onto it next to Maud’s crumbs, ‘are the answers to the messages and notes from this morning.’ She shook her head. ‘I sometimes wish we had never thought to have a telephone installed. Is there anyone here for me, Charlotte?’
The severe young woman nodded. ‘Two new girls and Mr Allardyce.’
Miss Harris waved her hand. ‘Feed them and I will see them anon. The girls, I mean. I doubt Mr Allardyce would enjoy the beef tea.’
Charlotte did not smile. ‘He is here to see if you have any unpleasant business for him this afternoon.’
‘Certainly I shall. Well, you may send him in when I have finished with these ladies and look out the file on Miss Knight. I am sure he will help us there.’
Charlotte made a note in her little book then gathered up the tray and swept out of the room again while Miss Harris settled back in her chair. ‘Dear Mr Allardyce! Such a useful young man. Miss Knight was forced to leave her luggage behind her in her last lodgings and her former landlord is being unreasonable about releasing it. When Charlotte went to demand it, I’m afraid she threatened him with hellfire and he laughed at her. Mr Allardyce will simply mention by name any number of officials he knows through his newspaper work and the landlord will be much more impressed.’
Miss Harris leaned forward and hunched her shoulders, speaking rather low. ‘Of course, our mighty Creator is our first and final help, but Mr Allardyce’s methods are certainly efficacious. He is himself an answer to a prayer. I asked God for some practical help, and the very next day Mr Allardyce appeared wishing to write something about our work for the American periodicals. I drummed him into service at once. I have no idea why anyone doubts the power of sincere prayer, I find it most reliable.’ She blinked brightly as if God were a trusted tradesman. ‘How is Yvette?’
‘Quite well,’ Tanya said without any hint of the surprise Maud felt. ‘She sits for us at Passage des Panoramas this week.’
Maud’s confusion must have shown on her face even if she did not manage to put it into words. Mrs Harris nodded briskly, setting a little gold cross at her neck bouncing, then gathered up another pile of papers from the tower next to her and began to go through them. ‘Yvette is a soul close to God, though she would laugh at me for saying so. It was she who first encouraged Miss Koltsova to favour us with her charity.’ Tanya snorted and Maud guessed that Yvette had phrased the suggestion a little more abruptly than that. ‘I have no doubt it was Yvette who told Tanya to bring you to me today, Miss Heighton.’ Tanya blushed a little.
‘How did you come to meet her, Miss Harris?’ Maud asked. It was wonderful to feel the physical effects of a good meal. She began to see the details in the room more clearly, the light glimmering on the brass bell at Miss Harris’s elbow. The silver-framed photograph of Queen Alexandra hanging on the pale green wall.
‘Yvette came to tell me an Italian with a nasty reputation was hiring out three young English girls as models from Place Pigalle. The oldest was twelve. Mr Allardyce and I went to see the gentleman and took the girls into our care. The Italian was most indignant. He had bought the three sisters from their parents for five pounds on Gray’s Inn Road in London. They were all adopted by a most respectable family in North Wales in the end, and they still send me postcards occasionally – some of which are quite well-spelled. Now, I think you have had sufficient time to gather your wits, Miss Heighton. What do you want of me, children?’
Maud realised at last that all this chatter, the correspondence page of The Times, the praise of Mr Allardyce, had been undertaken solely to allow her to recover a little. She blushed and tried to answer but her tongue seemed to lock in her mouth. Tanya spoke for her.
‘Miss Heighton needs a few hours’ paid work a week to see her through the winter. Nothing that will interfere with her classes at Lafond’s and she will still wish to study in the afternoons for part of the week at least. What do you have on your books that might be suitable? Someone requiring English lessons, perhaps?’
Miss Harris drew back a little. ‘Oh my dear, I am afraid that Paris is awash with educated Englishmen and -women willing and eager to give lessons. All I have on my books at the moment are positions for governesses, shop girls and maidservants.’
Maud bit her lip. She had not wanted to come here, but having come only to find herself useless and unwanted was humiliating. She thought of an artist she sometimes saw on Boulevard Saint-Michel, his corduroy jacket buttoned up to the throat to hide his lack of a clean shirt, selling oil sketches of the Luxembourg Gardens in violent pure colours. He would be there all day, hunched by his stand, selling them for a couple of francs a time. A woman doing the same would be stared at and mocked by the crowd, and avoided by the curious tourists who were his few customers.
‘There must be something,’ Tanya insisted, almost affronted. ‘Does no old lady need a companion in the afternoons?’
‘All the old ladies in Paris have their lap-dogs and the Bois de Boulogne,’ Miss Harris replied. Then she brightened suddenly like a lap-dog who has seen the shadow of a rabbit cross its vision, and began rummaging through the pile of papers to her right with more energy than care. ‘Now there was something I noticed the other day – Charlotte put it to one side for some reason. Companion … companion…’ Still pulling at the papers, she called out, ‘Charlotte? Charlotte, dear!’ The monkish female appeared behind them again and sighed at the tumble of papers. ‘Yesterday or the day before? Companion?’
Maud thought the two women must have been working together for some time as this abbreviated communication seemed sufficient.
‘Monsieur Christian Morel. A live-in companion for his younger sister, Miss Sylvie – a sickly young woman who wishes to spend her free hours sketching the Paris streets and must have some respectable person to accompany her. He asked for a lady with some knowledge of art.’ She turned back a few pages in her little black notebook. ‘Rue de Seine. Board and lodging. And a weekly stipend.’
Miss Harris beamed. ‘Perfect then! Why, the dear Lord has managed everything once again.’ If the Deity had been present, Miss Harris would have patted Him. ‘Send Mr Morel a card, dear, to say a Miss Heighton will be calling to discuss the position on Monday afternoon.’
Maud found her tongue at last. ‘But my classes…?’
Miss Harris waved her hand. ‘I’m sure the Lord has thought of that. You shall see. Give the ladies the address, Charlotte dear.’ A look on Charlotte’s pale round face seemed to give Miss Harris pause. ‘What is it?’
‘He smiled too much,’ Charlotte said. She was frowning over her notebook as if she were afraid of being thought foolish. ‘And he is offering too much money.’
Miss Harris folded her hands in front of her. ‘Miss Heighton is a sensible young woman. She will not allow anything to occur that might reflect badly on herself or us, I am sure.’
The Dress oil on canvas 64 × 41 cm
In contrast to the painting of the life-class at the Académie Lafond, this painting contains no human subject at all. Instead, the focus falls on a luxurious pink evening gown hanging by a mirror in a white dressing room. The setting is opulent: note the gilding on the room’s panelling, the chandelier just appearing at the top of frame, the amount of tissue paper and striped boxes on the floor around the mirror, and the glimmer of sequins on the dress itself. However, it is the emptiness that fascinates. Who will wear the dress that has been chosen? Any other painter might have made this scene one of feminine intimacy, yet despite the delicate colouring the image is cold and empty; the woman who should be the centre and focal-point of the scene has been removed and the image becomes one of hollow vanity and excess.
Extract from the catalogue notes to the exhibition ‘The Paris Winter: Anonymous Treasures from the de Civray collection’, Southwark Picture Gallery, London, 2010