Mistral's Daughter (85 page)

Fauve
found herself sitting on the worktable looking at the canvas, a brush in one
hand and the apple in the other.
 
Would
she eat it or paint it?
 
She laughed out
loud and bit into the apple. She'd paint the pear.

35

If
she telephoned right now she would find Maggy and Darcy reading the Sunday
papers after breakfast up in the country, Fauve calculated, counting the five
hours' time difference.
 
She jumped off
the table, snatched up her pear and rushed from the studio to the phone in the
library of
La Tourrello.
 
She
dialed the long-distance operator and then, before there was an answer, she put
the receiver down hastily, overcome by belated second thoughts.
 
This abrupt decision, this change of
direction that she'd made so suddenly
—
how would it affect Maggy and
the life she and Darcy had so carefully constructed for themselves, a life in
which they were so well organized, so comfortable and so happy together?

Was
this not precisely the sort of selfishness Fauve asked herself, within which
her father had lived?
 
He took any action
that was best for him, regardless of its consequences.
 
Was she now about to put her work ahead of
all other obligations in life?
 
Was her
sense of purpose, her physical and spiritual need to paint, the very same
feeling that he had known?
 
Was this not
the urgency that had driven him?
 
And
blinded him
?

Fauve
sat very still and tried to imagine herself putting this morning behind her and
going back to the Lunel Agency.
 
She
could save her weekends for painting, after all.
 
She would spend her days overseeing the fortunes
of the two hundred best models in the world, trying to care again, as she had
before, about everything that happened in the competitive hothouse of fashion.
She'd been brought up to do that, hadn't she?

Not
really.
 
Not at all, now that she stopped
and gave it serious consideration.
 
When
she graduated from high school, Magali had never indicated to her that she' had
a secret hope of one day renaming the agency Lunel and Granddaughter.
 
It had been her own notion to plunge into
learning her job as if that were the answer to all her problems.
 
If Fauve knew one thing about the modeling
business it was that you shouldn't work in it unless, it mattered to you.
 
When it stopped being a genuinely sickening
disappointment to see a Wilhelmina girl instead of a Lunel girl on the cover of
Vogue
, it was time to get out.

As
Fauve picked up the phone again she told herself that she knew one thing for
certain; Maggy would want her to be honest even if she wouldn't be happy with
the truth.
 
To put painting ahead of many
things was what every painter had to do.
 
She must remember not to put it ahead of everything.
 
At least not all of the time.

Fauve
asked Darcy to get on another extension and she told both of them what had
happened to her that morning.
 
She, was as
direct and clear as she knew how to be.
 
There was no point in trying to tiptoe around the facts or pretend that
she hadn't made up her mind.

"Well,"
said Maggy, after a pause, in a voice that sounded either far away or very
muffled, Fauve wasn't sure.
 
"Well,
I must say, Fauve...
 
I'm not sure
exactly how surprised I am."

"Magali,
it isn't that
—
I haven't thought what this will mean to you,"
Fauve said earnestly. "I know what a stickler you are about one of us
being at the agency every day and I realize that either you're going to have to
work full-time now
—
or somehow, compromise and rely more on Casey and
Loulou."

"I
was beginning to wonder what was taking you so long, it's not as if it's been
absolutely necessary for you to stay on in Félice all winter...
 
you could have found people to handle your
business there for you.
 
Darcy, how many
times have I told you that something strange was going on with
Fauve?"
 
Maggy asked, like someone
who has won a bet.

"Magali!
 
Don't you realize what I've been saying?
 
I don't want to run a model agency, for God's
sake."

"Well,
that's understandable.
 
Not everyone has
the calling," Maggy said with a trace of smugness in her voice.

"You
don't care?" Fauve cried incredulously.

"Not
that I want to interfere in this career talk," Darcy interrupted,
"but, Maggy, I just thought I'd better tell you that I've made up my mind
that I'm absolutely opposed to your building that greenhouse onto the dining
room."

"Damn
it, Darcy, you know perfectly well that I've been planning to grow orchids all
winter long after Fauve came back," Maggy said in irritation.
 
"You can't do that without a
greenhouse."

"But
she's not corning back, the dirt under your fingernails doesn't come out from
spring till fall...
 
I didn't marry a
female Nero Wolfe...
 
I married Maggy
Lunel.
 
I know you're bored to death with
four-day weekends.
 
You've been ten times
more fun to live with since Fauve left for France.
 
No greenhouse."

"Darcy!
 
How long have you known...
 
about the weekends?" Maggy demanded.

"Let's
say that I prefer to remain inscrutable."

"Are
you two talking to me or to each other?" Fauve asked.
 
"Is this a private discussion? After
all, I'm paying for this call."
 
Jean Perrin had told her that she would eventually inherit at least
twenty-five million dollars but none of that sounded real to Fauve.
 
However, long distance was long distance.

"You
should have called collect," Maggy said.
 
"We would have accepted it.
 
Now listen, Darcy, does this mean that you refuse to let me build the
greenhouse?"

"I
thought I'd made that plain."

"In
that case," said Maggy,
 
"I
refuse
to give up my Fridays at the agency."

"What
about Mondays?" Darcy countered quickly.

"On
one condition.
 
I'll spend Mondays in the
country with you if I can buy that little bit of swamp just on the border of
our place."

"'Bit
of swamp'?
 
It's about seven acres!
 
What do you want it for?"

"A
water lily garden, like Monet's at Giverny," said Maggy in a visionary
tone.

"That'll
mean bulldozers," Darcy grumbled.

"But
only for a few weeks.
 
And just think,
darling, we could have a rowboat and a little summer house and you'd row me out
there for martinis in the summer before dinner."

"We're
agreeing on three days, right?" he bargained. "Friday night through
Monday?"

"It's
a deal.
 
On Monday I'll let Casey and
Loulou and Ivy take over for me
—
it's usually a day that starts slowly
anyway."

"Ivy?"
Fauve asked, astonished.

"Ivy
Columbo.
 
Is there more than one
Ivy?
 
She decided modeling was too
short-term for a career so she's starting as a booker.
 
As a trainee supposedly, but that girl's so
bossy that the word hardly applies.
 
She
reminds me of
—
me.
 
It's a shame
to retire the best pair of runway knees in the business but on the other hand
she's engaged to some gorgeous Italian she met in the Sistine Chapel when she
was in Rome with you last March.
 
I like
her, she'll do," Maggy said with satisfaction.
 
"But, Fauve, naturally, if you come
back, if you change your mind, your job is always open.
 
You know that."

"Thanks,"
Fauve said absently
—
in the Sistine Chapel?
—
as she imagined
the tugs-of-war that would take place on Mondays.
 
Loulou had more seniority, Casey had more
brains, but Ivy had...
 
more of
everything.

"Now,
where are you going to live?" Maggy said in a practical voice.

"I
thought you understood.
 
Out here, in
La
Tourrello,
of course."

"Live
there alone!" Maggy became every inch a grandmother.
 
"I don't think that's a good idea at
all."

"You!"
Fauve sputtered.
 
"You who used to
dance till dawn every night and were carried around stark naked on a platter
and lived in some dive in Montparnasse with God knows whom
—
and
probably smoked opium...
 
you're a fine
one to talk!"

"I
see Adrien Avigdor has been reminiscing.
 
He must be getting senile...
 
I
never, ever smoked opium.
 
Not that it
wasn't offered, mind you.
 
Anyway, all
that happened when I was young and foolish.
 
By the time I was your age I was earning an excellent living and very
respectably too."

"With
an illegitimate child and probably carrying on like crazy with Darcy," Fauve
suggested softly.

"I
don't think I'd met Darcy yet, had I, darling?
 
When was Lally's treasure hunt exactly... was it...?"

"Magali,
never mind the exact date," Fauve interrupted.
 
"Anyway, I won't be here all alone.
I'll ask Lucette if she wants to come and live here with her kids.
 
She's sharing a house with her in-laws and
hates it, so I'm sure she'll jump at the chance.
 
And the place will be full of men working on
the land.
 
La Tourrello
will never
be empty again," Fauve said joyously.

"By
the way, Fauve, I thought you should know that I saw Ben
—
 
in '21' last Thursday," Darcy said, with
the air of one who feels obliged to add every last item to the scales. "By
God, Pete Krindler’s given him table 9 and he’s only thirty.
 
Anyway, he asked when you'd be back as he
left."

"Who
was he with?" Fauve said automatically.

"An
exceptionally pretty girl.
 
She must be a
model."

"Who’s
she
with?" Fauve asked, sitting up in genuine interest.

"Us,"
Maggy replied dryly.
 
"It was
Arkansas, as Darcy knows perfectly well."

"Arkansas!
 
Now why didn't I think of that?
 
But that's perfect!
 
She learns fast and it keeps Ben in the
family.
 
Just be sure to tell Arkansas
that he does this really odd thing every Sunday morning, but not to pay any
attention, it doesn't last long."

"I'll
tell her no such thing," Maggy said, outraged.

"The
she’ll just have to find out the hard way.
 
I imagine she has already.
 
Give
her a hug for me.
 
Oh, Magali, I've sent
you that picture Father gave you, the one Kate gypped you out of... you know,
lying on the green pillows, remember?"

"Hardly
a picture that anyone could forget," Darcy said. "Just where do you
think we can hang it?"

"You'll
find a place," Fauve said blithely.
 
"I've kept the other six for my great-grandchildren."

"Great-grandchildren?
 
Fauve...
 
you're not...
 
you aren't..."
Maggy stammered.

"Really,
Magali, how could I possibly be?
 
I'm not
married, after all," Fauve reproved her. "But if I were pregnant,
it'd be a clear case of genetic predisposition.
 
Darcy, do you remember that panda you gave me once?"

"Vividly."

"Well,
would you think I was being silly and childish if I asked you to send it over
to me?
 
He’s sitting in the living room
of my apartment."

"Certainly
not.
 
Everybody needs a panda.
 
Is there anything else you want from your
place?"

"Actually...
this house is bare as a bone.
 
Maybe you
could get a moving company just to pack it up and send it over?"

"Pack
what up?"

"Everything
in the whole apartment.
 
Oh, I know it'll
only be a drop in the bucket but it'll give me a start on filling these
rooms."

"Why
not?"

"Oh,
Darcy, you are such an understanding darling.
 
I'm so glad you made Magali marry you."

"She
made me marry her, actually."