In a conversation a few days later, Lucien Daudet informed Romelle that the Empress Eugénie had invited him to Villa Cyrnos for Christmas.
"She's asked me to bring you, and the Captain, and Kathy, if you can pull her away from the sculpting sessions with Duchamp-Villon! What is she doing that takes so much time with him? Are they having an affair?"
"Lucien, what a thing to say!" she scolded. "Kathy has told me it's a secret project, and I accept that. Period."
When he discovered a day or two afterward that Kathy had refused the invitation to the Azure Coast, his eyebrows peaked.
"There you have it!" he smirked. "Giving up Christmas on the Côte D'Azur to play in the clay with a fellow artist like Duchamp-Villon? Ha! My dear, you are so naive! No, you are not French. In this way, you are strictly an American girl."
"And proud of it!" Romelle retorted saucily. "My mother might have become Queen of France if the Prince Imperial had lived, but every moment of her life she was proud to be an American. That is what she wanted me to be, and that, my French education notwithstanding, is exactly what I am! My grandfather has seen to that!"
Lucien waved his hands apologetically. "Forgive me. I have been upbraided by Picasso's 'golden parisienne.' Yes, I have seen the painting. It is magnificent, cubes and all. For me, the saving grace of Cubism is that no one could possibly recognize it as you. Georges Braque is spitting nails all over town. He says he saw you first, and painting you was his idea, not the little bull's. By the way, there seem to be shreds of cloth amongst the cubes. I assume Picasso gave in and let you wear your clothes?"
Romelle could not help but laugh. "We were having an apéritif together in the Place du Tertre in old Montmartre. I love to sketch there. It's so charming. The subject of my posing came up, as always. I thought I'd tease him a bit, so I gave him an option. I said: 'Nude? Never! Clothed? Today!' He was so funny! There was a billy goat tethered to a cheese stall not five feet away. Pablito yanked the cloth from the table and danced several bullfighter pases in front of the feisty brute, shouting 'Toro, toro, we've got our golden parisienne'! On the last veronica, believe it or not, the billy goat charged! The only thing that saved Pablito from goring was the tether. The poor goat nearly strangled himself with the jerk! The cheese seller thought it a great performance, and gave Picasso an elegant little cheese which he shared with me when I posed that afternoon."
Lucien laughed. "So he paid you to model for Golden Parisienne in slices of smelly goat cheese? Ah, these Spaniards! We Frenchmen waste our time giving expensive perfumes!"
Eugénie's three holiday guests went south on the Azure Coast Express. The train was crowded, but they took over a first-class compartment meant for six. Rebel occupied a seat at the door, assuming a menacing scowl. One look at him sent all potential invaders on their way. This left a comfortable seat for the puppy, whom Romelle insisted they take along, and another for a gray straw basket of unusual design.
At Villa Cyrnos, Eugénie welcomed them enthusiastically. "You will be my only guests. I want to devote myself entirely to my goddaughter. Captain, you may amuse yourself as you will. Lucien, you are too pale. A sun bath will do you good. The weather is lovely this year. It hardly seems like December at all! What is this? A puppy? Oh, what a darling thing! So now you have two dogs?"
 "No, Madame, the puppy is for you," answered Romelle. "You have said you would like to have a good watchdog of small size. Here he is."
She passed Rebel's baby to Eugénie's arms. The Empress held him close and cooed like a mother over an infant, accepting its wet kisses with delight.
"We shall have to have a name," she said. "What shall I call him? What is his mother's name?"
"His mother is one of the finest dams in Europe," Romelle replied. "She is known as Eleanor of Aquitaine."
"Mon Dieu!"the Empress cried. "The real Eleanor was a Queen of France in the twelfth century! How perfect that this puppy comes to me! She was married to King Louis the Seventh, but it was annulled. She had to leave the country, as did I. Where did she go? To England, as did I! There, she married the English king."
"My goodness," Philo interjected, "she must have been quite a lady!"
"She was not only beautiful," contributed Lucien, "but was also the richest woman in the world. She personally owned millions of acres of France!"
Eugénie lifted the puppy into the air. "I have it! I have your name, little one. Two of Eleanor's sons became kings of England. One was that horrible John against whom the lords rebelled, forcing him to sign the Magna Carta. But the other was a hero of the Crusades, and that's whom you shall be. I christen you Richard Coeur de Lion, Richard the Lion-hearted, noble son of Eleanor of Aquitaine and Rebel the First!"
She called for champagne. A servant brought a magnum of Pommery 1904, the famous "miraculous gold." She dribbled a few drops on Richard Coeur de Lion's nose. He licked, crossed his eyes, and howled. Rebel joined the pup with his rebel yell.
Over the next few days, Romelle made several sketches of the Empress in casual moments, all of which the Empress found so pleasing that Romelle offered to do a water color for Christmas. Eugénie, who was very fussy about portraits, agreed to sit for it. On Christmas Eve, early in the day, she did so while Philo and Lucien went off to the Casino at Monte Carlo. Rebel went with them, ostensibly to "guard the car," although Romelle suggested he was "just another male sneaking away from the ladies for an uproarious afternoon on the town."
"I have chosen the profile perspective from among the sketches I have done this week, Madame," Romelle advised Eugénie when the posing session began. "Here, take this basket. It is for you."
Romelle presented her with the elegant basket she had brought on the train from Paris. It was overflowing with flowers. She posed the Empress with her hand outstretched to touch the blossoms, "as your love touches all who come into your presence," said Romelle.
The sitting went well. They were almost ready to adjourn when a taxi drew up noisily in front of the villa. Richard Coeur de Lion barked wildly.
"Listen to my Lion-heart," Eugénie cooed proudly. "One would think him a whole regiment guarding my door!"
An American voice shouted from the entry: "Get this monster out of our way before we drop this!"
Romelle and the Empress hastened to the front of the house.
Eugénie's majordomo was struggling to wrest a sizable box from Kathy Foley's unwilling arms in an effort to carry it for her. Considering the action an assault on a friend, the puppy with the heart of a lion had sunk his teeth into the man's ankle.
The Empress cried out: "Lion-heart! No! That man belongs to this house!"
Her imperious tone achieved the desired result. The dog let go and went to fawn in apology at his mistress's feet.
"Kathy! You said you couldn't come!" harrumphed Romelle accusingly.
The Empress chortled with glee. "It was a conspiracy, Romelle dear. Kathy worked it out with me. She called to explain what she had in mind. We wanted to surprise you. Have we?"
"That you have managed to do!" Romelle replied meekly, feeling reprimanded like Lion-heart. "What in Heaven's name have you got in the box?"
"You'll find out tomorrow," remarked Kathy with a mysterious smile.
When the box was opened on Christmas morning, Kathy took out a sculptured piece of great beauty.
"This is for you, Captain and Romy," Kathy explained. "I worked night and day to get it done in time. I'll have it cast in bronze when we go back to Paris next week. Do you like it?"
The piece, perhaps twelve inches long and twelve inches high, comprised two figures together under a tree. The male sat cross-legged and appeared to be reading aloud from a large book. The female reclined at his side, listening, her face turned to the sky.
The figures were unmistakably meant to represent Philo and Romelle. Both their human counterparts were rendered speechless at the sight.
"I shall never forget the day I looked out the window in the Place Dauphine," Kathy went on, "and saw the two of you under a chestnut tree looking just this way. Captain, you were reading to her, as you so often do. Romy, you had such a dreamy expression on your face while you listened that I felt I had to capture the mood. I sat there behind the curtain, sketching the whole time.
"You cannot know what a challenge it was to transfer this image from my brain to the clay. I've never undertaken a more difficult task. That was why I needed Raymond Duchamp-Villon. He's such a kind, helpful man! He gave me hours and hours of his time, explaining the techniques involved in recreating humanity in bronze. He calls it 'God's work in the limitless dimensions of infinity, as seen by tri-dimensional man.' Rodin exerted a profound influence on him. Rodin's pieces are so natural he was once accused of casting from life! I could never have done it without Duchamp-Villon!"
Lucien excused himself and left the room abruptly, later explaining his hasty exit to Romelle.
"I am ashamed of myself for impugning a relationship established by God for the purpose of invoking life from common clay. It is I who am truly common clay. Theirs has been imbued with the divine."
The last sitting for Romelle's water color of the Empress occurred on a warm afternoon while Lucien, having resolved to treat Kathy like a princess, drove her to a charming medieval village on a cliff high above the sea. The view from Eze offered an indelible panorama of the Azure Coast. He was dedicated to making her trip to the Riviera one she would never forget.
Philo stayed behind to watch the completion of the painting. Within the hour, it was done.
Acknowledging Eugénie's perpetual state of mourning in memory of her late husband and son, the entire work was executed in black and shades of gray, even the flowers, yet, while Philo and the Empress watched, she added a bold touch of brilliant red in the small blossoms she had drawn on the band of Eugénie's straw hat.
"I have tried to portray the surrounding dark forces which would consume you, which have cost you your husband, your son, your country, your throne, which have leached the color from your life. But, despite all, your vitality remains unextinguished, symbolized for me by this exquisite little flower I have so often admired on your breakfast-room wallpaper here at Villa Cyrnos. I don't know why, Madame, but I sense there is something very special about it. Does it have a name?"
The Empress glanced at Philo, but it was he who spoke. "It is very special indeed, Romelle. It is interwoven with the tapestry of your life in ways we have not told you. Its name set us on the pathway leading to your Uncle Ardie's death and, thus, to your nearly fatal encounter with Irene. In other ways, it still influences much that we do, think, and feel. One day soon, my dear, I'll tell you about Dragon's Heart."
|