The Last Van Gogh Read Online Free PDF Page A

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.