The Last Van Gogh Read Online Free Page A

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