Free The Last Van Gogh by Alyson Richman Page B

off my arrangements so that they appeared fresh for longer periods of time. Nor would I appreciate it when I sometimes lost track of time and Louise-Josephine would rescue my baking so it didn’t burn.
    Her comings and goings now intrigued me as well. Although Louise-Josephine remained sequestered on the grounds of our house, there were rare occasions when she ventured outside with Papa’s permission. A few years after Louise-Josephine began living with us, Madame Chevalier had suggested that she might take her daughter into Pontoise once a month in order to buy her a few necessities. Papa had agreed, as he knew that Madame Chevalier and Louise-Josephine could take the small roads behind our house into the next village where their activities would go unnoticed.
    When they returned from their monthly excursion together, their arms would always be filled with new bolts of cloth, their satchel filled with glass buttons and ribbon. Papa had given Madame Chevalier a small allowance and I knew she saved it for these excursions with her daughter.
    I had never shown much of an interest in their purchases before, but now there was a sort of exuberance about me. I wanted to inquire what style of dress Louise-Josephine intended to sew for herself. I wanted to help her select the buttons for the bodice. And although I said nothing to either of them as they gathered their packages and slipped upstairs, I made a promise to myself that I would try to befriend Louise-Josephine.
    I found myself over the next few days making more eye contact with her and smiling at her as I passed her in the hall—just what I had refrained from doing in the past.
    With my brother away in Paris, I tried to reach out to this quiet, slender girl, whose life was perhaps even more difficult than mine.

TEN
     

Queen of the Weeping Willows
     
    I HAD spent an entire childhood imagining places far away from our house in Auvers. I read all the time, as if to glean as much as I could from those leather-bound tomes about worlds other than my own. I also learned that the borders of our house had their own enchanted corners. Past our garden, far behind Father’s garden shed and the chicken coop, was a most magical place, a limestone cave half exposed by sunlight, half cloaked in leafy green ivy. In this secluded grotto in our backyard, where the ferns grew wild and the vines hung down like majestic ropes waiting to be climbed, I first realized that if I used my imagination I could escape the loneliness of being a quiet child in a dark and melancholy house.
    Sometimes Paul would accompany me as I wove the wild grasses into garlands for my hair. At his request, I would crown him King of the Dogwood Trees, and myself Queen of the Weeping Willows, as we stomped over velvety moss singing imaginary songs. It was also there, in the emerald green light of our little hideaway, that I first nurtured my love of flowers. I picked the blossoms of the pink mallow bushes and the tall delicate umbrellas of the Queen Anne’s lace. I emerged from the grotto with bouquets of tiny violets in one hand and a large fern in the other, fanning myself as if I were a Grecian princess, kicking the heads off the dandelions as I danced barefoot in the grass.
    I suppose back then I must have thought myself beautiful, or at least imagined myself to be. I likened myself to the heroines in my fairy tales, the princess who was bound to discover her prince; the sleepy maiden who would continue to slumber until her first kiss.
    I no longer thought myself a princess as I grew into my teenage years. I pinned up my hair rather unartfully, telling myself that there was little time for vanity or personal indulgence. The sense of adventure that I had cultivated as a child had left me. Yet there were times over the years, most often when I was sitting at my piano, or digging my hands deep into the earth, that I felt my spirit return to me. It found its way back in the oddest ways; perhaps the smell of lime