The Last Van Gogh

After both my brother and I learned to read, she had little else to offer us. She would sometimes bring down two books from my father’s library and have us spend the afternoon reading them. “Your father says if you read, you’ll be able to answer all your questions regarding the world,” she told us. But strangely, I never saw her bury her head in any of their pages. She preferred to sit by the fire, looking at the sewing patterns she had ordered in the mail.

  What she lacked in intellectual enthusiasm, she made up in attending to our father. There was little doubt how much she idolized him. Unlike Mother, who seemed perpetually annoyed with Papa, Madame Chevalier never tired of him. Her admiration appeared endless. When Papa was busy cultivating his herbs, she would pull up a garden stool and watch him for hours. When he would arrive home late and tired from a full day’s work in Paris, she would tell Paul and me to remain quiet, and she would go upstairs and draw him a warm bath, bringing him a glass of sherry on one of Mother’s silver trays.

  She would often tell us how smart our father was, and remind us how lucky we were—that there were so many less fortunate children than we. “Plenty of children in Paris would cut off their right arm to have what you have,” she said on more than one occasion. “A home with a garden full of animals to play with…” Every time she told us this, her voice trailed off wistfully.

  No matter how hard she tried with us, I still thought very little of her. She clearly lacked the grace or sophistication of my late mother, and it bothered me even more to see just how enamored Papa was of her.

  Papa began calling her by her first name, Virginie, quite early on in her residence with us and although I found it shocking at first, I could often hear her speaking in a hushed voice with him in his bedroom upstairs. There were murmurs and stifled giggles in the late evening when Paul and I were supposed to be in bed. There was the occasional wink over dinner, when Papa thought I was heading toward the kitchen.

  Nothing, however, could prepare me for the scandal that would arise six years later. Just before my twelfth birthday, Papa announced that Madame Chevalier had a daughter close to my age.

  “The girl’s been living with her grandmother in Paris for the past six years,” Papa said, his lips slipping over his wineglass. “But there’s been some sad news recently. Madame Chevalier’s mother has fallen ill and can no longer take care of the child.”

  Papa took another sip of wine and looked Paul and me squarely in the eyes. “She’s just returned from a stay on the Côte d’Azur, where she helped friends of mine from medical school with their two young children. I had hoped that when she returned from her employment with the Lenoirs, her grandmother would have recovered. But it seems she hasn’t.”

  Paul and I both stared at Papa, wondering why he was telling us all this.

  “Therefore, I have done the decent thing.” He cleared his throat. “I have invited Louise-Josephine to come live with us.”

  Paul and I looked at each other with disbelief.

  “She will come to stay here in Auvers, Papa?” Paul’s face was quizzical. Even though he was only eight years old at the time, he too thought the arrival of another child into our household was peculiar.

  I, however, could barely contain my shock.

  “Louise-Josephine is fourteen years old now. I had the pleasure of meeting the girl while I was in Paris and she is a delightful young woman. I think you will enjoy having another girl in the house, Marguerite. It will be nice for you to have some female companionship and she will help you care for your brother. Dr. Lenoir tells me she proved herself extremely helpful around their house this spring.”

  My mind was spinning. How could Father even contemplate such an arrangement? How was Papa, who was always so protective of his privacy, going to explain to the villagers that his alleged governess was living under his roof with a child: Whether the child was born out of wedlock, or Madame Chevalier was just a widow with a young daughter in tow—either version would bring about its own thread of village gossip.

  I needn’t have worried about such details as, minutes later, Father was instructing us on how he was going to ensure that there would be no gossip at his expense.

  “We will need, of course, to keep this our little secret. Madame Chevalier would not want the villagers to gossip about her.” Papa paused. “The girl already knows that she will not be allowed to journey outside the home.”

  I remember Paul glancing over at me. His face was visibly puzzled.

  Wasn’t what Papa was proposing a bit ludicrous? How could this girl remain a secret? But I knew how little contact I had with the outside world. So she would not get a chance to go to the market or to church, but otherwise, I suspected her life would be quite similar to mine.

  SHE arrived on a sunny afternoon. Papa picked her up at the station, while her mother remained at home. She was slender, with chestnut hair and dark brown eyes that looked like molasses. Her skin was a shade warmer, her eyes much darker than mine.

  Just as he had appeared when Madame Chevalier first arrived, Papa seemed strangely familiar with Louise-Josephine. He helped her into the house with a paternalistic affection, showing her every room and urging her to feel at home.

  As her mother’s arrival had done years before, Louise-Josephine’s entry into our household seemed to invigorate Papa. He repapered her room a few months after she arrived, allowing her to select a pattern from a large decorator’s book that he brought back from Paris one afternoon. It did not take her more than a few seconds to choose a pattern of three-pointed flowers with a border of trumpet lilies. The shades were reminiscent of something in a pastry store—a palette of sherbet pink and cocoa brown. I remember Father complimenting her on her “fine taste” once she had made her selection.

  At first, I did not mind when Louise-Josephine came to live with us. I enjoyed the idea of another girl close to my age. But she was cautious when she arrived. She showed no interest in befriending me, preferring to keep to herself. Sometimes, at her mother’s request, she would care for Paul, drawing him a bath or mending his clothes when he tore them in the garden. These were all chores that I had done before her arrival, but now it seemed Madame Chevalier felt more comfortable asking her daughter to do them than me.

  I had assisted Madame Chevalier in the kitchen for so many years that now I was beginning to cook many of our family’s meals as well as do the shopping. I felt as though I was finally able to take over where my mother had left off, rearranging her knickknacks when I dusted the shelves, polishing the brass girl that adorned her marble pendulum clock, drawing the curtain over the door when I began the preparations for supper.

  Over the coming weeks, Louise-Josephine slowly became absorbed into our house, much like one of Father’s newly acquired canvases. She blended into the plaster walls like sponge paint, rarely speaking unless spoken to, never making unnecessary noise, silently gliding through the house like a piece of transparent cloth.

  She busied her days making small découpage boxes or looking at magazines she had brought from Paris. But sometimes I would pause and notice her doing things that I had believed were my responsibility. When I saw her taking Paul’s hand to usher him into his warm bath, I saw in his eyes the same sense of adoration he had had for Madame Chevalier when she first appeared after our mother’s death. And, again, I felt the same swelling of resentment that I had when Madame Chevalier first arrived.

  I soon abandoned any thoughts of befriending Louise-Josephine. I acknowledged her in the hallways, when we passed to sit down at the table, but otherwise our contact remained distant.

  REGARDLESS of mutual lack of affection, Louise-Josephine learned quickly how things were done in our household. She adapted to the distinct difference in how we acted as a family when we were alone and when guests were present. In those latter cases, she retreated to the upstairs. Even during visits by Papa’s artist friends from Paris—who, oddly, seemed familiar with Madame Chevalier, in the way one knows a long-lost friend—Louise-Josephine was never introduced. r />
  Sometimes Madame Chevalier was also instructed to remain upstairs. If Papa had a guest from Paris come for lunch, he would tell Madame Chevalier that it would be awkward to explain why his grown children still needed a governess, and she would simply nod her head and go upstairs as if she understood the situation fully. She had obviously taught her daughter everything she knew in the art of being unseen and unheard. They both knew how to tiptoe, as well as how to occupy themselves for hours at a time, for we never heard a peep from either of them when Papa had a guest. High above the muted parlor, in the brightly painted rooms upstairs, Papa’s secret life remained far from prying eyes.

  When we were alone, however, and outside the public eye, we existed as a strange family of sorts, with Madame Chevalier and her daughter not acting as servants but living among us essentially as family. Often, our father even seemed more affectionate with Louise than he did with either Paul or me, stroking her arm tenderly when she passed by his side. And although he did not pay for private lessons on the piano for her, as he did for Paul and me, he yet held a certain tenderness for Louise-Josephine. If Papa could have arranged his children as he did the paintings on his wall, Louise-Josephine’s would have been the unsigned canvas that remained closest to his heart.

  FOUR

  Awakening

  I HAD inherited my love of music from my mother. In her healthy days in Paris, she had played the piano daily, even composing her own melodies on occasion. As I became more accomplished over the years, Father would ask me to play when one of his artist friends visited our home.

  He had hired a piano teacher shortly after my mother’s death in the hope that I would show talent like she had. Madame Dutreau was one of the few people that I remember being allowed inside our home who was not associated with Papa’s artistic circle. She took a liking to me right away, as I always studied my weekly assignments diligently, unlike my younger brother, who seemed perpetually distracted.

  I adored her. She was tall and elegant. She smelled of freshly cut roses and the faintest trace of mint. When she played the piano, she was mesmerizing. Her slender fingers looked like stalks of firm, white asparagus fluttering over the ivory keys.

  How I longed for her weekly visits! They were a rush of fresh air for me. She was not only my piano teacher, but my thread to the outside world. She knew just the sort of novels a girl my age would want to read and she would bring them to me and slip them between the sheets of music.

  Sometimes after she had finished giving Paul his piano lesson, I would ask her to stay for tea. We would eat some cake and discuss one of the novels she had lent me. Often, she might ask me about my gardening or suggest a recipe I might enjoy.

  Papa, however, was suspicious of our friendship. When he discovered that she was bringing more than just sheet music into the house he was furious. “I pay her to teach you to play the piano, not to choose what romance novels you read!” he grumbled over dinner one evening. I begged him to maintain my lessons but he shook his head. A few days later he terminated her employment, telling me only that I had “learned enough from Madame Dutreau.” As he saw it, she was no longer necessary in my education—I now had the skills to teach myself.

  Although I was heartsick that I no longer had the visits from Madame Dutreau, I continued to play the piano over the years. When Vincent returned that second afternoon in 1890, I was playing Chopin in the parlor. I had recently been practicing the soft, fluid notes of the Impromptu in C Major, and had become so enamored by it that I had little interest in practicing any of my other pieces. I found that my fingers naturally took to the melody, and I was transported when I played it. No longer was I restricted to the confines of my father’s house, forced to be a dutiful daughter and obedient servant to him and his whims. No longer was I limited to the fields and small narrow streets of our village. When I was at my piano, I was in a different world; one where I was free to travel, where I felt beautiful and charming. There were only two places in the world that I felt completely at ease, my garden and my piano. In either of those places, I was not the daughter of Paul-Ferdinand Gachet. I was simply me.

  WHEN Vincent arrived that second afternoon, he did not come with a house gift or a bouquet of flowers. He simply arrived carrying his easel on his back and a box filled with paints. This time, I was the one who answered the door, as Vincent was one of those visitors that Papa did not want Madame Chevalier or Louise-Josephine to meet.

  “Good afternoon, mademoiselle. Your father said I might come over and paint in the garden….” He spoke quickly, but his French was formal and polite. From beneath the brim of his hat I could see the smoothness of his skin, the fawn-colored freckles that reminded me of a blue jay’s egg.

  “Oh, yes, of course,” I replied shyly. I touched my fingers lightly to my chest. “Father is out this afternoon. He has consultations in Paris.”

  He looked clearly disappointed not to find Papa at home.

  “Can I give him a message for you?” I asked.

  “No, that’s quite all right,” he replied.

  He looked almost childlike in the doorway. His clothes were too big for his slight build, and his voice was shaky. It was evident that he felt a bit awkward around me. He was clutching a canvas loosely at his side—tapping it gently against his thigh. It looked like it was a painting of one of the many fields behind our village church.

  “I had hoped I might be able to paint in your family’s garden,” he finally stammered. “But with your father away it’s probably not a good time.”

  “You’re welcome to come in,” I said and I felt my heart racing as the words fell from my lips. I knew I should never have made the offer, as I knew Papa would be annoyed if I let Vincent come into the house when he was not there. He would tell me it was wrong to invite a gentleman—a patient of his, no less—into the house without his supervision, but I could not help myself.

  Vincent seemed to think about my offer for a second before refusing it. “No, that’s very kind of you,” he said. “Please just tell him I came by to see if he was available for a short visit. Next time, I shall try to make more formal arrangements.”

  “Papa will be home tomorrow. Why don’t you stop by then?” I suggested. I took a few tiny steps closer to him so I could see his features from underneath the brim of his hat. The sun over the past few days had already made its mark on him. Now all that remained of his former pallor were the delicate white lines around his eyes.

  He seemed slightly uncomfortable in my presence, which made me feel strangely more confident with him. I enjoyed the fact that I did not feel intimidated, something I always felt when I was with Papa. I suddenly felt brave and let myself look straight into his eyes.

  I did not expect him to meet my gaze, but he did. His blue eyes were in stark contrast to his pale red lashes. His dark pupils were small and intense, while mine were wide-eyed and full of excitement.

  “Mademoiselle,” he said, his eyes still firmly fixed on mine. “I shall come tomorrow, then.” A small smile crept over his face. “I look forward to your gentle greeting at the door.”

  I smiled and nodded. Stepping back, my hands clutched the brass handle of the door.

  I watched as he hoisted his rucksack on his back and switched the canvas to his other arm. Again, his eyes locked with mine and my heart began to quicken once more.

  As he turned to walk toward the street, I could not refrain from staring. I could hear the patter of his shoes, the sound of the leather soles slapping against the cobblestones. There was something endearing about it. As if it were the metronome atop my piano, I could not erase it from my head. And for the rest of the afternoon, it made me smile.

  HE arrived the following day and, again, I answered the door. “Papa’s already in the garden,” I told him. “He’s feeding the animals, and will be most pleased to hear that you’ve arrived.”

  He fidgeted slightly as he stood there in the vestibule of our house. “I am anxious to paint,” he said quietly. “The light is good
today and I really should be working, as your father suggested.”

  I nodded, relishing another opportunity to study him. The sun was radiating through our stained-glass window and it cast a kaleidoscope of colors on his white linen shirt. For a moment, he struck me as one of the figures that lined the windows of our church. His thin fingers protruded from the length of his sleeves, and his head was surrounded by amber light.

  I found his shock of red hair amusing. Like the stiff bristles of a porcupine, the ends stood up and alternated between deep scarlet and pale strawberry. His beard, however, appeared softer in texture, the fiery red tufts rounding out his otherwise angular face. It was a face that looked as though it had been carved by a chisel—the sharp cheekbones, the high forehead, the narrow bridge of his nose—all of his features lending themselves to dramatic shadows and reflections of light. I could have looked at him for hours. Vincent’s expression, his features, every part of him seemed to contrast with the men I saw at church! Those men whose eyes were as lifeless as river stones and whose cheeks were plump like oozing slices of Camembert. Vincent was so much more handsome in comparison.

  I hoped he did not realize that I was staring at him once again. Trying to gather myself, I let out a little cough and motioned for him to come through the house.

  “You will like painting in our garden,” I told him softly. He lowered his eyes when I spoke. I could not believe that this person who had appeared so bold and confident when he handed me the folded red poppy was actually quite shy. Just like the day before, I found myself feeling more at ease knowing that he, too, had bouts of awkwardness.

  “Please, come this way.” I made a small gesture with my hand. He collected his things and followed me through the long corridor. We passed the parlor and then the kitchen, where it was clear I had been busy baking.

  He took in a deep breath. “There is nothing more comforting than the smell of baking bread,” he said softly to me. “Except, perhaps, the odor of turpentine.”