Madame Bovary's Daughter (54 page)

“I want to know what you think of her, that's all.”

Stop it, Berthe
, she scolded herself.
You're making a fool of yourself
. But she couldn't stop. “Do you find her beautiful?”

Armand shut his eyes as if trying to remember Madame Pearl's face.

“Of course I find her beautiful. She
is
beautiful. She's famous for her beauty.”

“Do you think about making love to her?” Her mouth felt dry.

“That's all I think about. When I'm painting her, I think to myself if only I could get my brush on her bare flesh instead of this dry canvas. If only I could …” His eyes flashed and his mouth tightened into a thin line. He sat down on the bed and pulled on his boots.

“Armand …”

“Wait,” he said with a sharp laugh. “I know your next question before you even ask it. Do I find her more beautiful than you? More desirable? More the woman I want to be with?” He threw up his arms in a gesture of exasperation. “Why, of course I do. I am just biding my time until she forsakes everything for me.”

She knew he was toying with her, but still anger boiled inside her. With shaking hands she put the cheese and bread on the small table. She filled the kettle with water from the jug and put it on the fire. Every move was an effort designed to steady herself before asking the only question that really mattered to her.

Finally, she turned and asked in a voice tense with emotion, “Did you sleep with her?”

His eyes sparkled with thinly disguised amusement and his lips twisted into the mischievous grin she loved.

“
Bien sûr
, I slept with her. Everyone sleeps with her. That's what she's for. In fact,
ma chère
, I have smuggled her into my room. She is under the bed right now, waiting for me to make love to her again as soon as you leave.” He invited her to have a look for herself.

As if by magic, her anger dissolved into relieved laughter and she fell upon him, pummeling him with her fists.

“Stop it. You're teasing me. You're being cruel.”

“Yes, my little fool, I'm teasing you. I can't help it. I get too much pleasure out of it.”

Somehow his teasing told her she had nothing to worry about. And that he did love her. And that perhaps, just perhaps, it was safe to love him back.

The next night Armand dropped in unexpectedly at Worth's workroom, which was located on the top floor of the salon.

“Come, I will take you out to supper,” he told Berthe.

“She is not going anywhere,” said Monsieur Worth. “Not until she finishes helping me select the fabrics for my spring collection.”

“Oh, Armand, can you wait, please? Just a little while.”

“I'll be in the showroom, flirting with the models,” he said.

Berthe was under a great deal of pressure. As Worth grew
more and more popular, the demands on her grew greater. On this particular night she was experiencing something few Victorian women ever had to face: the struggle between her job and her family. For that was how she thought of Armand. He was the beginning of her long-awaited family. And Monsieur Worth was the means by which she would be able to provide her family with a home. So while she worked to finish the fabric selections with Worth, her mind was in the room below with Armand.

Two and a half hours later, she put on her cloak and bonnet and hurried down to the salon.

Armand was gone.

She rushed to his studio to find him working on a new painting. He was working in a style she had never seen before, using colors that were totally different from his usual palette. Purples, reds, and oranges gave the painting a garish, almost ghoulish effect.

Berthe was stunned by the violence of the picture. A spasm of fear gripped her stomach. A woman was lying on a bed, while a man stood over her with a knife. The woman's mouth was wide open as if in mid-scream. The man had a sweet, almost loving smile on his face and he held the raised knife above the woman's naked form. There were already several red stab wounds in the woman's white breast.

“What do you think? It is part of my new dramatic series,” Armand said. He took a long drink from the bottle of wine at his side.

“I hope you don't plan on trying to sell it. It's grotesque.”

“You don't know anything about it,” he said angrily. “You think those pretty pictures I paint of rich women are art?
This
is art. This is me. I believe this is my best work yet.” He finished off the last of the wine.

“Yes, well, I'm just not sure anyone would want to hang it in their parlor,” she said, trying to keep the conversation light. He threw the empty bottle across the room. “Armand!” she screamed, frightened by his sudden burst of temper.

“That's all you think about: selling things, making money. You have no real sense of what is beautiful or meaningful in life.”

Now she was angry and she turned on him, her eyes flashing.

“You call that beautiful and meaningful?” she said, pointing to the painting. “A woman getting stabbed to death? And who is that poor woman supposed to be?”

“It's a painting of my mother.”

His mother? She felt as though she'd been punched in the stomach.

“How lovely. You're murdering your mother. Is this one of a series? Will you be murdering me in another painting?” Why was she so angry?

“Actually, I am planning a painting of
your
mother. She was just as much a whore as mine was.”

She slapped him hard across the face and left.

Armand appeared outside of Worth's the next day with an armful of flowers.

“Oh, Berthe, Berthe, my beautiful Berthe,” he sang loudly to the tune of a popular love song.

She came rushing out of the store.

“Stop it. You're making a scene.”

“I know. That's what mad artists do. We make scenes.”

“Go away. I have customers.”

“Not until you forgive me.” He began to sing again. “Berthe, Berthe, my beautiful Berthe.” He had a terrible voice. And he still had the odor of alcohol about him. He looked as if he hadn't slept at all.

“Please, can't we talk about it later? People are staring.” Fashionable passersby were, in fact, staring at them.

“Accept my apology. My mother was a whore. Yours was not.”

“And you are an idiot,” she said, frowning.

“And I am an idiot,” he said, holding out the flowers to her and bowing low.

B
ERTHE HAD ONLY ONE WEEK TO PAY THE REMAINDER OF WHAT
she owed at the bank. She wanted this house for herself—with or without Armand's help. She loved him, but she didn't trust her love. She had seen for herself that the harder she worked at her profession, the more she learned and the greater were the rewards. But the same principle didn't seem to apply to love. She understood now that having a house didn't guarantee a haven, love, or a family.

Berthe paid a visit to the bank shortly before the last payment was due. She knew that completing the purchase and moving into Le Petit Manoir without resolving things with Armand could tear them apart forever. She just needed a few more days to convince him.

“I am earning an excellent living. I have the money. But there is a personal issue … I just need more time.”

“A contract is a contract, mademoiselle. May I suggest that perhaps, as a single woman, you have gotten in over your head.”

“What then? I am to lose my money
and
the house?” she asked, her eyes filling with tears.

The banker shook his head.

“You have until the end of the week. But that is as much as I can do, mademoiselle. If you don't have the rest of the money by that time, the property will be put on the market. And I must warn you, I have a couple who is already very interested.”

As she walked back to the boardinghouse, Berthe was suddenly overcome by nausea. She vomited into the gutter, wondering what was wrong with her. She hadn't felt right for the past few days. Any strong smell bothered her. She hadn't been sleeping, which she'd chalked up to stress. As she hugged herself, she realized that her breasts felt unusually tender as well.

The knowledge moved through her like a wave of awe: She must be pregnant. Suddenly she was swept up in so many different emotions she didn't know what to think or how to feel. She was stunned, humbled, amazed, and terrified. But most of all, she was happy. She felt a strange and sudden satisfaction—a feeling of rightness unlike anything she had ever experienced in her life.
This is our baby, our love. A sign that we belong together, forever
.

Armand was in his studio working on a portrait of Madame Darelle, the wife of a wealthy French banker. It was an unusual portrait. The young woman was sitting in a chair reading a novel. Armand had captured a look of total absorption on her face. She was dressed in the most beautiful lace
peignoir
. Light from an unseen window accented each delicate ruffle of the skirt. The softness and femininity of the costume was shown in sharp relief against the dense dark background.

Armand stood on a short stepladder adding finishing touches to the woman's auburn hair. Just the smallest stroke of ochre added to the twist of her chignon made it feel as if the day was
drawing to an end and she was drinking up the words on the page before the last light drained from the room.

Berthe smiled with delight when she saw it.

“I feel as though she must be reading the most wonderful novel. It is so engrossing a story that she never managed to get dressed for the day. It is a love story. The young lovers are just about to consummate their love and she doesn't want to miss a word.”

“You have a wonderful imagination,” he said.

“And you, dear Armand, have a wonderful gift for pulling the viewer into your paintings. She reminds me of my mother, a little—she was always lost in a book.”

He turned and smiled at her. There was paint smeared on his forehead where he had pushed back his hair to keep it from falling into his eyes. He stepped down from his ladder, kissed her quickly, and then returned to his painting.

She watched him for a long while. Then: “I have an exciting new commission for you. A portrait of an infant.”

“Impossible. One can't paint babies. They squirm too much,” he said, adding a shadow to Madame Darelle's face.

“Oh, that's too bad. I was so hoping you could do a portrait of ours.”

He paused, paintbrush raised as though not quite understanding what she'd said. He slowly turned and looked at her. She couldn't read the expression on his face.

“You're with child?”

“It appears so.” She picked up a clean rag, poured a little turpentine on it, and proceeded to wipe the paint from his forehead. She had decided not to bring up the subject of marriage. One thing at a time, she told herself. She was so absorbed in what she was doing that she failed to notice that a storm was brewing in his dark eyes.

He threw down his brushes and walked to the window. He looked out for a long time before turning and facing her.

“You must get rid of it. It will ruin everything.” His voice cut through her quiet reverie like a crash of thunder.

All the air was sucked out of her. Her legs felt as if they were made of ribbon. She sat down quickly on a small stool.

“What? What are you saying? This is our child. Our baby.” Her voice quavered.

He strode back and forth across the room, his arms gesturing wildly.

“You know I adore you, Berthe. But we are artists, you and I. Our work is what is most important.” He indicated the painting he had been working on.

“But I can still work. You can certainly work. You can paint to your heart's content. A baby is not going to stop you.”

“It will take away what little time we have together. I won't have it.”

“
You
won't have it!
You!
Who do you think you are?” She jumped up from the stool, reached for a glass jar that was filled with clean brushes, and flung it across the room. It fell against the far wall and broke, strewing brushes and shards of glass all over the floor. She stood, her hands clenched, all the color drained from her face.

“Why would you want to bring another child into this world? Life is hard enough as it is,” he said, shaking his head from side to side.

“Whose life are you talking about? Yours or your child's?”

“Working and raising a child do not go hand in hand. I well remember my mother working. She had no time for me. The busier her particular business got, and it flourished for many years, the more in the way I was,” he said bitterly.

“This is different, Armand. I'm not a prostitute. Don't you
think we are capable both of working and of loving and caring for a child?”

His silence was her answer. She felt a pressure building behind her eyes until she thought her head would explode with the effort of holding back her tears. She had been so happy about the baby, so sure that he would be happy as well. She grabbed her shawl and moved quickly to the door.

“Wait. Where are you going?”

“Home, to kill myself.” She wanted to shock him, to hurt him as he had hurt her. But he let her leave without saying another thing.

Berthe stared at the bleak rain outside the House of Worth. Monsieur Worth was in the fitting room dealing with the comtesse Grenoble, one of his most demanding clients. The comtesse was a woman of enormous proportions, weighing nearly three hundred pounds. She didn't consider herself the least bit fat and consequently refused to pay for the extra fabric required to make her dresses. Worth literally had his hands full.

She went into his office, found
Le Figaro
, and quickly turned the pages looking for Madame Claudine's advertisement. She knew that abortion was permitted in France, but only in order to save the life of the mother. Nonetheless, many were performed to rid poor mothers of another mouth to feed or wealthy women of the inconvenience of an unwanted pregnancy. The notorious Madame Claudine actually advertised surgical abortion and abortifacient drugs.