At the Edge of Summer

“Was that a compliment?”

“Wasn’t it?”

“Boys are so much easier. Nothing we say to each other is a compliment. We just expect everything to be an insult and we all get along fine.”

And for that, she smiled. It was only a little smile, but unexpected. It filled her whole face with light. I wondered how I could keep it from slipping away again.

“I know where Papa keeps his extra pencils,” I said quickly. “He won’t notice if we go to borrow a few.”

“Pencils?” She sat up straighter.

“Conté pencils,” I said. I stood up. “Freshly sharpened.”

She followed without further question, her sketchbook tucked under her arm, walking quickly as though any pause would cause me to reconsider the offer of the pencils. Ripper stayed under the tree, but Bede trotted along with us. I led Clare inside, up the stairs, to the part of the house that always smelled comfortingly like turpentine and linseed oil.

“We’re going to Monsieur Crépet’s studio?” she asked in a whisper. “Is it allowed?”

“Definitely not.” There were few things Papa disapproved of. Academic art. Yellow journalism. Spain. Anti-Dreyfusards. And people rummaging around in his studio. “Why do you think he keeps dueling pistols?”

She stopped stock-still in the hallway.

“Or blades? He’ll offer you a choice.”

“Stop teasing me,” she said, but she didn’t move from her spot on the hall rug.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be your second.” I reached out and tugged on her arm. “Don’t you remember? You’re safe with me.”

She looked down at my hand on her arm until I let go. “As long as you’re not leading me into trouble.”

“I thought ladies were impressed by feats of daring?”

“We’re certainly not impressed by assumptions.”

I bowed. “And the mademoiselle has won that duel.”

The hallway outside of Papa’s studio was quiet, but I waited a moment with my fingers on the door. I wasn’t as offhand as I pretended. Even Bede took one look at the studio door and bounded back downstairs, toenails clicking. Only when I was sure that there was not a sound from within did I push open the door.

The room was almost blinding after the dim, ruby-papered hallway. Windows stretched from ceiling almost to floor and, with no curtains anywhere, light shot enthusiastically into the studio. Papa was too enamored with shadow and changing light to let the south facing windows worry him. Overhead, cords crisscrossed the ceiling, with sockets for electric bulbs. Only the doorway was darkened, with piles of furniture and hatboxes and stacks of filmy fabrics on either side.

“It’s magnificent,” Clare exclaimed, stepping in.

Though I’d been in the room dozens of times, I understood. Papa’s studio had always filled me with an awe that I’d never admit. Not when I’d brushed aside his hopeful suggestions for the Glasgow School of Art or, as much as it pained him to suggest, “even the Académie des Beaux-Arts, if you must.” I couldn’t admit that, like a cathedral, Papa’s studio exuded a peace that I sometimes wished I had.

Clare traced a finger over the arch of the curved mauve sofa Papa used to pose subjects. “Is this where he painted the fairy-tale illustrations?”

“Some.” I went to the cabinet where I knew he kept supplies. “In the mornings he likes to work outside, by the river. Afternoons he’s in here.”

“The easel is empty.” She caught up the end of a diaphanous scarf and swirled it over her shoulders. “Where does he keep his paintings?”

I found new brushes, oil pastels, tubes of pigment, but no pencils. “The walls of the château.” I peered into the dark at the back of the shelf but only saw more tubes and a jumble of empty jars. “Or the walls of other châteaux. He does take commissions at times.”

“But he also paints for himself?”

“He does, though not as much as he used to. It makes Maman crazy. She thinks he should only paint what he will sell.”

She paused in front of a mirror and tried on a greenish top hat. “He paints for art’s sake, not money’s sake.”

For some reason seeing her in that top hat made my neck hot, so I pulled over a stool and resumed my search farther into the cabinet.

“Don’t you see?” she continued. “Sometimes art springs unexpected from a deeper place. Your soul, it has a story to tell, and the drawing, the painting, the sculpting, are only the medium for that story.”

They were heady words for a fifteen-year-old. But her eyes reflected in the mirror were resolute. She understood this passion, this itch, this frenetic creating that seized Papa. I never had, but this young girl, somehow she did.

She turned. “You’ve grown up surrounded by this.” She waved a hand around the studio, at the dust and light and smudges of color. “I’m sure you know. Art can be personal, emotional, spiritual. Glorious and expansive. Restorative, even. It’s more than shapes on canvas or brushstrokes or curves in clay. It’s…well, it’s expression.”

“And when it’s a commission—when Papa is painting fairy-tale queens or Parisian bankers—where is the expression in that?” I leaned against the cabinet door.