33. Frictions
The Jeffersonian team felt deeply indebted to their French colleagues for their enthusiastic and unqualified support of their Coupe d'amour's authenticity, but, gratitude aside, the charms of the visiting trio soon began to pall.
The most irritating of the three was, unexpectedly, the usually irreproachable Henri Perrin. It soon became apparent that he had not been indulging in mere grandiloquence when he referred to the Jeff's painting as a "lost treasure of the patrimony of France." He had, astoundingly, taken it into his head that the masterpiece belonged, if not legally, at least on moral grounds to the French people, and should, the Jeff having been suitably compensated, be repatriated at once and permanently. When, unsurprisingly, Charles Cummings failed to fall in with this crack-brained perspective, Perrin began to fret quite vocally at being obliged to entrust so important a part of his country's cultural heritage to conservators who, not being French, could not possibly be expected to have the sensitivity and reverence Lebrun's compatriots would naturally bring to restoring his work. He was persuaded of Baer's qualifications and experience only with the greatest difficulty, and, as to Bonnie's having being allowed to treat the painted surface, he was scandalized beyond measure.
"Never, never say so," he said, in horrified tones. "What can you have been thinking? She is the veriest child, a simple apprentice still refining her skills! It is madness! No, no! Here is what we must do: the C2MRF must second you Isabelle's services immediately. That is the only answer. It is an inconvenience, certainement, but they will spare her only too willingly once they learn the stakes involved. With her years of training and practice, she will be of the utmost value to you. There is, as well, her thorough familiarity with our own Coupe d'amour to recommend her. You know, of course, that she was part of the team that refreshed our painting some years ago."
Dr. Cummings had not been aware of this, but he did not let this information or Perrin's constant pestering sway him. Out of friendship, he made a few, small concessions: he solicited Perrin's opinion of the conservation treatment plan, listened gravely to his input, and adopted a number of his proposed changes. Cummings solemnly engaged, as well, to keep his French colleague minutely apprised of every step in the project's progress. Finally, he promised he would lobby the Institute to lend the refurbished Coupe d'amour to the Louvre for an extended period, so that the two paintings, in all their similarities and differences, could be viewed together, side by side. This glorious prospect appeared to reconcile Perrin to the necessity of leaving the painting in Washington, and he settled to working with Cummings and the Jeffersonian PR staff on preparations for the joint press conference that would announce its miraculous resurfacing to the world.
As recognized experts endorsing the Jeffersonian's claims, Isabelle Auteuil and Sébastien Beaumont were also slated to participate in the press conference, but in the days leading up to the event, they nonetheless had sufficient leisure to pursue other activities. Isabelle, in her capacity as contributor to the renewal and stabilization of the Louvre's painting, felt a quasi-proprietorial interest in its fraternal twin, and showered Baer and Bonnie (but primarily the former) with a quantity of extremely useful, technical advice. With her guidance, they were able to complete the tricky solvent tests with less anxiety and far more speed than they'd anticipated, with the result that they found themselves in position to attack the varnish on all areas of the surface ahead of schedule. Bonnie, studying the older woman's smooth, assured manner, was frankly awed by her ability to be authoritative without condescension, assertive without disrespect. If, Bonnie thought, she could one day carry herself with Isabelle's composed, collegial demeanor, she would be very well pleased.
She was intent on treating her first patch of Prussian blue in the painting's crepuscular sky late one morning when Isabelle came up quietly to stand behind her chair in the largely deserted workroom. Acutely conscious of being observed and by so august a person into the bargain, Bonnie swabbed away the varnish residue with extra care and checked the cotton for smears of paint; mercifully, there were none.
"Oui," sounded Isabelle's voice from over her shoulder. "That is just the shade wanted: a dark, grayish blue. Parfait." She sighed, so faintly Bonnie could not be certain she hadn't imagined it. "I must confess to you, Bonnie, a quite powerful envy on my part."
"Envy, Madame?" Bonnie echoed, disbelieving. "Not of me, surely!"
"But yes, of you! What would I not have given when I was your age to be permitted to try my hand at cleaning La Coupe d'amour! It was not to be thought of, of course. As an intern, mine was a strictly supportive role, a glorified bottle washer, if you like. I wonder: do you have any idea just how fortunate you are in your chief and supervisor?"
Bonnie's thoughts flew at once to Bear, without whose intercession and backing she would at the moment be on the outside looking in. "Believe me, Madame, I am fully cognizant of how very much I owe them. Particularly Dr. Baer."
"Are you sleeping with him?"
To judge by her tone, Isabelle might as easily have been inquiring the time, but the question so jarred Bonnie, she dropped the brush she'd just reloaded with solvent into her lap. "What? No!" She snatched a towelette from a nearby dispenser, and catching up the brush, began to wipe the gel spatters from her lab coat. "Whatever made you…?" A terrible suspicion crossed her mind, and she blurted, "Wait! Are you suggesting in return for sexual favors…"
"Mais, pas du tout!" Isabelle broke in, soothingly. "I meant no insult! I am mortified to have expressed myself so badly, and do most sincerely beg your pardon. No, no, in my clumsy way, I was trying not to step on your shoes." Her exquisitely-shaped brows drew down in sudden uncertainty. "No, that is not quite the expression…"
"Toes," Bonnie supplied, wearily. "You didn't want to step on my toes."
"Ah, yes, exactly! Thank you. So… to be clear, there is no understanding between you? At least, not of the amorous sort?"
"None," Bonnie said, with, she hoped, convincing firmness. "Bear and I are colleagues, nothing more."
Isabelle smiled with delight, and leaning in confidentially, one girl to another, said, "Then, you will not mind if I report back that you have, regretfully, a previous engagement for lunch today, and will be unable to join us?"
Bonnie's stomach clenched so hard, the very thought of food repelled her. "Of course not, Madame." She did her best to muster an answering smile. "I hope you have a lovely time. Bon appétit."
It was small consolation that Sébastien Beaumont strolled into the workroom on the heels of Isabelle's departure. While the wheeler dealer had some time since ceased to be the beau ideal of French manhood, he had not lost the habit of grooming and dressing himself in the expectation of catching every female eye. He cut a very dashing figure in a pea green sport coat with contrasting turquoise stripes worn over a powder blue Oxford cloth shirt, open at the neck. Bonnie considered the white silk foulard knotted at his throat a tad excessive, but she knew it was the accessory du jour in Paris, and as such, a prerequisite for anyone aspiring to fashion. "Well, well, " he said, unhurriedly closing the distance between them. "My luck appears to be in at last! The beauteous Bonnie left unattended. You know, I had quite come to believe our good Dr. Baer had constituted himself guardian of your virtue."
Bonnie, still smarting from her encounter with Isabelle, was not in the mood for badinage, however witty. "You mistake, Monsieur," she replied tartly. "Dr. Baer does not in the least concern himself with my virtue." The words were no sooner uttered than she wished them unsaid, or, barring that, better chosen.
Beaumont, however, seemed enchanted with her answer. "That is the very best of news! But, I must protest this absurd formality of yours, Bonnie! 'Monsieur,' indeed. You make me sound some decrepit old-age pensioner when I am scarcely of an age to be your father. No, no! You must call me Sébastien. I insist."
"Very well," Bonnie conceded unenthusiastically. Then, suddenly abashed at behaving with the bad manners of a petulant child, she forced an accommodating smile to her lips. "Sébastien."
He bowed, as if she had conferred a singular honor upon him. "Now that we are friends, you must absolutely allow me to spirit you away to a charming little bistro I frequent whenever I am in town. They do an extraordinary bouillabaisse there, quite as delicious as any to be found in southern France."
At the thought of eating, Bonnie's stomach spasmed painfully. "I appreciate the offer, Sébastien, but…"
"Never tell me you cannot stop for a meal! Vraiment, you Americans, with your puritanical bent for thinking work the highest good! You are most uncivilized. The pleasures of a good table are not to be despised…"
"Sébastien," Bonnie hastened to interrupt. "I'm as fond of fine cuisine as the next person, but just now…" She spread a hand over her ribs, and rubbed her rigid midsection. "I can't handle food."
"Ah!" Beaumont looked, initially, as much alarmed as concerned, but as she did not proceed to vomit all over his handmade leather shoes, he inclined more toward solicitude. "Is there something I can, perhaps, obtain for you? A glass of mineral water? Some herbal tea?"
"You are very kind, but no, thank you." In an effort to extricate herself from further conversation and speed him on his way, she continued, "May I take a raincheck? Say, tomorrow or the next day? I'm bound to be recovered by then."
His face lit up at the suggestion. "But of course! You have only to let me know the day — or days, parbleu! — that suit you. I await your command."
Bonnie nodded her acceptance of this amiable compromise, and, the bargain having been struck, fully expected Beaumont to take his leave, but he lingered instead, turning his attention away from her and to La Coupe d'amour. He stood a long, silent moment gazing at the painting, his eyes, as far as Bonnie could judge, never straying from the central female figure. "Do you suppose," he said at last, "that you will have stripped the varnish from that heavenly face before our departure? I would very much like a clearer view of those divine features."
"I'm afraid I really can't say," Bonnie told him, adding with sincere regret, "but I greatly doubt it."
"Do you know, even yellowed and clouded as she is, I already prefer her to the figure in the Louvre. I have always felt there is something too perfect, too chiseled about that face. A classical profile, yes, deliberately outlined in such as way as to evoke carved cameos, or marble bas reliefs, but cold like those objects as well, inhuman in her beauty. These features, on the other hand, have the round flesh, the rosy tint, the soft edges of a warm, living girl. There is a naiveté, a dewiness about her, too, that touches the heart. She radiates the innocence of youth that knows nothing yet of love but the wonder of its promise."
Beaumont's genuine and entirely unexpected tribute to their woman-child left Bonnie speechless for a time with surprise and admiration. She would not have supposed she could ever be in complete sympathy with any of Beaumont's views, but he had expressed, far more eloquently that she could have done, her very own feelings regarding Lebrun's two leading ladies. After a bit, she found the nerve to ask, "Would you happen to know anything about the girl, or woman, who posed for this painting? Anything at all?"
He turned a quizzical look on her. "What a very odd question. Why ever would you be interested in so trifling a detail?"
Bonnie felt the beginnings of a flush heat her cheeks, but she made herself persevere. "It's the pentimento, you see. I thought if I could discover some situation in Lebrun's personal life to explain the drastic change in composition, that information could be used to bolster our attribution."
"Ah! I believe I see! You are thinking the turning away of the male figure's head from the female's reflects a corresponding change of heart in Lebrun toward his model. He would have adored her at the beginning, and then, fallen out of love with her toward the end for some motive or other." His lips quirked up in half a smile, his eyes bright with amusement. "Such a romantic sensibility you hide beneath that cool, scientific exterior! No, no, don't deny it! I like you all the better for your tender heart. It makes a welcome change from the jaded women of my acquaintance.
"But I am sorry, no, a scenario such as you postulate is hardly plausible. It is far more likely she was some person of the lower orders, some servant or streetwalker supplementing her meager earnings by taking her clothes off for money. Given her freshness, she might, I grant you, have been some newly-arrived country girl only recently tumbled into the clutches of an enterprising procuress, but that would be the extent of the story. Heed my advice and drop that line of inquiry. Nothing of substance can come of it. Even should you succeed in putting a name to that face — a problematic enterprise at best — what will it avail you? A woman such as that is scarcely likely to have inspired a grand passion."
However reluctantly, Bonnie had to admit his characterization of late-eighteenth century studio models jibed with her own knowledge of the sordid practices of the era. Still, she could not quite let her theory go. "If not his model, then, perhaps it was another woman, someone of his own station, who disappointed him."
Beaumont laughed shortly. "That, I would venture to say, is a practical certainty. What is more common for a young man in his twenties than to have his heart shattered by some belle dame sans merci? Lebrun would not have escaped his fair share of suffering. It has, after all, been the fate of men since Adam."
He subsided moodily into his own thoughts for a moment, and then, having assured her he very much looked forward to their meeting again on the morrow, wished her good day. Bonnie, watching him go, was glad she had resisted the urge to ask if he spoke from personal experience. She thought, in any event, the answer was obvious enough.