Chapter 26
Claire
I meet my daughter for the first time at a hotel in Méru, an hour’s train from Auvers, and a place where we won’t encounter anyone she knows. The secrecy was requested by her aunt.
Room seven. End of the hall. My corset feels like a vise, and I can barely draw a breath. It’s been nearly sixteen years since I’d given my baby away, when I was hardly more than a child myself.
The door swings open before I can knock. A young woman stands before me, tall and slim, with auburn hair and blue-gray eyes. She has my full lips, my slightly crooked nose.
“Mademoiselle Donadieu?” she asks, her voice steady and clear.
“Yes,” I whisper, memorizing every detail of her face in case I never see her again. “You can call me Claire if you like.”
“Claire.” She rolls the unfamiliar name off her tongue, like she is testing it out. She opens the door wider to reveal a small but neat room.
“Did you spend the night here last night?”
“I did,” she says proudly. “It was my first night on my own.” She blushes. “I quite enjoyed it.”
“There is something special about being on your own for the very first time,” I say. “I was raised in an orphanage and shared a bed with another girl until I was nine. The first time I slept alone felt like heaven.”
“I’ve always had my own bed, but my mother and father share the room with me. Our beds are separated by a sheet and in the winter the animals live in the house with us as well.”
We settle into a set of two chairs next to a small round table. She looks out the window briefly before speaking again. I promised myself I would let her go first.
“I want to tell you I am not angry with you. I never have been,” she says.
“And I have had a nice life. My parents are both good people. They were not blessed with children of their own, but we had a household filled with love. There was always extended family around. I was able to attend school. I know that you did what you thought was best when you sent me to my mother.”
Hearing her call another woman “mother” stings my soul.
But what right do I have to the title? My only chance to redeem myself, to care for her in some small way, is in the suitcase I have dragged from Bussum to here, the one I will next take to Paris to meet the one art dealer Jo swore she would never sell a painting to.
“And what of the man you are to marry?”
Marie-Celeste tugs at a loose thread on her skirt until it comes loose. Her expression clouds over.
“You can tell me,” I prod.
“He is much older,” she begins. “His wife was a kind woman. I saw her with her children in the market, but other than the shopping, she rarely left the house. It was almost like he…” She trails off.
“Like he what?”
“Like he was keeping her a prisoner, like he didn’t want her to be out in the world. Or so the whispers went. But you know how people talk.”
I also know that many of those whispers reflect terrible truths.
“Are you worried the same could happen to you?”
“I am worried it would be much worse than being held prisoner.” She meets my eyes. Hers are now filled with something I did not expect: rage.
She may have practiced what she says next in order to be able to get the words out, because I imagine the telling is impossible.
“I encountered him months ago when I was returning home from school. He asked if we could walk and I agreed. He wanted to show me a new horse in his barn. Except there was no horse and once we were out of view of the road he turned rough. He did what he wanted with me and told me it was his right since I was already promised to him.”
Her rage is now mine. It grows like a fire in my belly.
She keeps her chin high, but it quivers.
I can’t help myself. Even though it may not be my place, I reach across the table and hold both of her delicate hands.
They are still so small. She is not yet a woman at all. She allows my touch as she continues.
“I bled terribly. There were bruises. I told my aunt, but not my mother. I didn’t know how she would react.
Her nerves are fragile. And she has said many times that he is the right match for me, that the marriage will be good for our family.
We have many debts. My father is a good man, but bad with money, and my mother’s health is poor. This is my duty.”
“You cannot marry that man.” I believe this with every fiber of my being.
“I do not have a choice.”
“Your aunt believes you might. And I believe you do. There is a reason you are here. You can come to Holland with me. Keep going to school, get your certification to be a teacher.”
She is already shaking her head. In fact, her entire body is trembling. “I could not do that to my parents. They would never forgive me.”
“You do not know that. You said yourself that they love you, that they raised you to be educated and independent. I am sure they want a future for you that is secure, but maybe it doesn’t have to be this future.
” I have never been so certain of anything in my life.
I can finally raise her, not from an infant, but for the final years of her girlhood and as she becomes a woman.
I don’t want to take the place of the kind woman who took her when I could not, but I also will not send her into the home of a brute.
I worry I have spooked her with my eagerness. “You do not have to answer right away. Think on it. I will give you some money now to take back to your parents and there can be more. I can help to clear their debts.”
She nods slowly as she rises and walks around the table. As she throws her arms around my neck, I know then I will do whatever it takes to keep her safe.
“Let me take care of things.” How many times have I said these very words to Jo over the past decade?
A dozen? A hundred? And yet she was still unable to grant me the one favor I asked of her.
But these words matter so much more when I say them to Marie-Celeste.
What else will I promise her in order to keep her safe?
Henrik Swanson has the face of a rat and the eyes of a wolf.
His mustache is too big for his face, his teeth too small for his mouth.
But his suit is impeccable, as are his manners.
I’ve only been sitting with him for a short period of time, and I am already under his spell despite everything I knew about him going into our meeting.
He even had me laughing with the story of a deer that walked into a pub he frequents and began sipping directly from a pint before collapsing with a belch onto a patron’s lap.
He may be charming, but there are few people in the world of art Jo both despises and fears more than Henrik Swanson.
For years this art dealer has been trying to obtain as many Van Goghs at as low a price as possible.
A couple of years ago he offered Jo a lump sum to buy her entire collection of Vincent’s works.
“Let me be the custodian of this great man. It is a burden you have carried too long, my dear,” he wrote to her in one of many long letters.
“How dare he address me as ‘dear’ when we have met only once or twice in person,” Jo spit as she read the letter; then she tossed it into the fire. But Henrik was persistent. He wrote at least once a month, and he chased after anyone who introduced new Van Goghs onto the market.
Now he is the perfect buyer for the small painting I took from the collection. This one was simple to steal. It had been sent to Jo by a friend of Vincent’s who thought she should have it. As I am the one who opens most of the correspondence, she has no idea it even exists.
I am certain Henrik Swanson will give me the highest price.
Of course he has no idea who I am. I’ve been Jo’s shadow for many years, always there but never noticed.
It has suited both of us. Still, I put on a costume to meet with Swanson, one I borrowed from Lisette.
I appear to be a wealthy lady of leisure visiting Paris from the countryside.
My story is sound. I tell him I am a recent widow and that my husband supported Vincent during his stay in Auvers as a patron of sorts.
I fidget with the tiny pearl buttons on my visiting dress.
The dove-gray silk taffeta rustles with each nervous movement.
My corseted figure has maintained the proper silhouette after all these years.
The diamond-and-pearl brooch at my high collar might be too formal for lunch, but I wanted every advantage for this meeting.
We don’t waste any time. I take the painting from the case I have been carrying around the countryside with me.
“This is spectacular. Not dissimilar to one that I recently acquired when I was in Rotterdam. But this is more detailed,” he says.
“I will take your word for it. I know very little about art,” I murmur in response.
He is correct, of course, though the large brushstrokes in this piece make it also appear unfinished.
It is a simple field with two rabbits in it.
There are three others nearly exactly like it, which is how I know Jo will never miss this particular one.
And in this way it feels like a victimless crime, or so I keep telling myself.
“But I do have other offers, Mr. Swanson. You are not the first I have met with.” I have learned many things from Jo, but also many things from Madam and Jo when it comes to stoking fervor in men. Whether they are buying a woman or a piece of art, they want the piece to be desired by others.
“Who?” he asks sharply.
I smile seductively. “They have asked that I keep their confidence. I am sure you can understand. I would not reveal to them that I am meeting with you.”
“What have they offered you?”
“What are you offering me?”
I am fairly certain he isn’t used to women speaking to him in this manner, or maybe he is. I’ve heard rumors that his wife is quite the shrew, though I hate that word being assigned to a woman. It typically just means “assertive.”