Juliet turned her attention to Marcel, who had sat down on the tiles and was sticking a wet finger in the chipped holes in the floor tiles. She took the boy’s wet hand and followed Marchant out into the garden.
Last year, they’d never worked outside the studio, and she was bitterly disappointed by this change in venue. The studio seemed intimate—it was something that belonged to Marchant alone, and a place that he had shared with her last summer. It had become their spot. The garden was public and Madame Marchant and the servants wouldn’t think of it as off limits like they did his studio.
Marchant positioned them by the fountain with Juliet seated on the fountain step and Marcel on her lap. Marchant frowned at the blue wrap and leaned down, sliding it off her shoulders. He rearranged the neck of her dress. He touched her as though he were arranging a doll, but something stirred inside Juliet. Marchant next arranged Juliet’s hair, and when he leaned in she smelled the lavender soap he’d used that morning.
“These curly pieces of your hair. They are wild, like you.” He smiled and met her eyes. He then placed Marcel’s chubby, cherubic legs on Juliet’s knees. “I want you to have the appearance of a young mother to him. Just hold him there for a moment while I get the basics of the sketch. Can you do that?” He took a few strands of Marcel’s hair and curled them around his finger. Marcel’s fingers were in his mouth and the child looked up at Marchant with curiosity.
Juliet nodded.
After several minutes, when Marchant had the sketch he wanted, he called for the maid.
“Take the boy,” said Marchant. “Give him some milk and a nap.” The maid nodded and plucked the wiggling boy from Juliet’s knee, which had gone numb from sitting in one position for so long. Marcel followed the maid in a trot with the promise of candy.
Another hour went on in silence with Marchant sketching Juliet’s face while he sat on an iron bench, his one leg crossed over the other. He worked furiously, alternating pencils and rubbing at the paper with his finger. Finally Marchant’s strokes softened, and he met Juliet’s eyes. “So, your mother says you are to be married?”
“Yes,” she frowned. “Next year.”
“But you are not happy about this?” His face disappeared behind the easel and he became just a voice.
“He’s an awful boy.”
Marchant peered around the easel and met her eyes again. He stopped sketching. “We were all awful boys once.” He put his hands on his knees. “Do you know what it means to be married, Juliet?”
Juliet said nothing.
“I thought as much.” He sighed and shook his head. “Women come into marriage very much unprepared, especially here in the country.”
“But I don’t want to stay in the country.” Juliet was surprised at the force with which she said this. “I want to live in Paris.”
“Do you now?” Marchant’s head disappeared behind the easel. “Tell me. What do you know of Paris?”
“What do I know of anywhere?” said Juliet. “I’m just a silly girl. I just don’t want to be here.”
Marchant got off the bench and walked over to Juliet, wiping his hands with a rag as he went. As he crouched down in front of her, she could see that charcoal had stained the forearms of his shirt. “You are far from a silly girl, my Juliet.” He reached out and touched her cheek. “There is something about you, but you know that, don’t you?”
Something fierce inside Juliet burned and she leaned in toward his hand. He stopped stroking her cheek and leaned in so close that she could smell his breath, which still held the hint of tobacco. “Sometimes I see you in my dreams, young Juliet.” Marchant smiled sadly. “It’s why I paint you.” He released his hand and stood, turning his back to her as though he was ashamed of something or he’d said too much. “We’re done today. I’ll have my servant bring Marcel to the gate for you.”
Juliet rearranged her dress that had sagged down over her shoulder and walked to the gate, touching her cheek as she went. Her face was so hot from his touch that she stopped just outside on the stone steps to let the cool breeze hit her.
As the weeks progressed, Marchant transferred his sketches and studies onto a large sheet of paper the same size as the canvas and then transferred a crude outline of her pose by mixing paint onto the back of the sheet and pressing it to the canvas. Marchant then spent time wiping the excess paint off the canvas, which he did in sections, until he was happy. He let Juliet play with this type of transfer, using a small paper sample. Then he took ink and touched up the drawing, applying a finishing varnish to the transfer to hold the lines in place. Only when he was pleased with the outlines of the sketch did his real work at the easel begin with whites and grays and browns, each day layering on, sometimes thickly, and then holding his knife and scraping back the paint until it achieved a finish that to Juliet seemed even more real than the colors around her. He was patient with his paintings at this point, taking his time applying the thick layers of paint and returning to the color studies as guides. Juliet would often find him searching on his hands and knees through scraps of paper looking for the right shade of blue.
Large with child, Marchant’s wife had taken to her bed until the local doctor thought it wise that she return to Paris. Marchant, however, seemed unconcerned with this turn of events and had arranged for her to travel with a maid.
Juliet’s routine with Marchant continued in the same way. He worked for several minutes with Marcel and Juliet, then sent the child with the maid for a nap, leaving him alone with Juliet. In those weeks, Marchant had finished three solo paintings of her—all by the fountain. When Juliet worked up the nerve to speak to him, usually in the second hour, she asked him to describe his neighborhood in Paris, and his typical days there. He told her of the bookshops and the cafés, of the walks down to Ile Saint-Louis and of the carousel in the Jardin du Luxembourg.
On her sixteenth birthday, the weather was bad and the rain pattered softly in the courtyard, so Marchant shifted the session back into his studio. On the easel, Juliet found a small painting covered with the beige cloth.
“What is it?” Juliet always liked the unveiling of Marchant’s paintings of her.
“Go ahead,” he said. “It’s a birthday gift.”
Juliet lifted the cloth and found a painting of a city. She frowned, expecting to see a painting of herself. She cocked her head, confused.
“It’s my Paris.” Marchant had walked up behind her, his voice quiet in her ear. “I painted it for you.” He was standing so close that Juliet felt the fabric of his flowing pants scrape her ankle. His hands came to rest on her shoulders. “It’s what I see every day when I’m there. I wanted you to see Paris through my eyes. I don’t do landscapes, so my apologies if it isn’t as good as what you’re used to seeing from me, but I assure you it is a special painting.”
Juliet turned and looked up at him. She could feel tears forming in her eyes.
“Do you like it?” he asked. Marchant seemed self-conscious and began cleaning his glasses with a hankie he’d pulled from his pant pocket.
She nodded. He was tall, so she debated for a moment before she looked up at him so close, knowing what it might mean. “No one has ever painted anything for me.”