Soline was extricating bits of red onion from her salad and relegating them to the edge of her plate. When the silence began to grow stale, she turned to Camilla. “Rory tells me you’re president of the Women’s Art Council, Mrs. Grant. It must make you proud to see her dreams for the gallery taking shape.”
“Well, yes,” Camilla said, clearly annoyed by the question. “Of course I’m proud. Aurora was brought up with art. So was I. It’s in her blood. I had hoped that she would finish her degree and then go on to Paris to complete her internship, but she’s young and there’ll be time later.”
“She means there’ll be time after I fail,” Rory threw in caustically. Because that’s what Camilla always meant. Sooner or later, she’d muck things up and realize she was in over her head, forcing her back to a more prudent path. Prudent was her mother’s favorite word. Mustn’t stray outside the lines. Mustn’t be messy. And above all, mustn’t be an embarrassment.
Camilla sighed, offering one of her long-suffering looks. “I did not say that. But we have talked about this, Aurora. There’s no future in the kinds of things you’re talking about. Tomato soup cans and inflatable balloon rabbits. They’re fads—here today and gone tomorrow.” She paused, dabbing daintily at her mouth. “Art is about the preservation of culture, the expression of beauty, not shocking the public. That’s why the masters are still the masters. And why fifty years from now, no one will remember Andy Warhol’s name. Because real art endures. Wouldn’t you agree, Ms. Roussel?”
Rory smothered a groan. “Please don’t drag Soline into our argument, Mother.”
“No one’s arguing, sweetheart. We’re just having a conversation. And the French do know a thing or two about art. They gave us Monet, Degas, Renoir, and Cézanne, to name a few.”
“And there you have it,” Rory said, aiming her reply at Soline. “If it isn’t a Renoir or a Monet or some other thing painted by a dusty old man, it isn’t real art.”
“Go ahead,” Camilla replied curtly. “Make fun. But I happen to know a little something about the subject, Aurora. The art world has a way of culling those who stray too far from good taste.”
“And who decides what constitutes good taste? You?”
“The experts decide. Historians. Collectors. Critics. Their opinions can make or break an artist—or a gallery owner.”
Soline had been silent for some time, pushing her food around her plate. She put down her fork very carefully and looked at Camilla. “During the war, the Nazis labeled art they didn’t like as degenerate. They decided. They claimed it had to do with unsuitable subject matter, but we all knew better. The boche cared nothing about decency. It was to do with the artists themselves: who they loved, what they believed . . . what their last names were.”
She paused, closing her eyes briefly. “Artists were arrested and questioned. Some—Jews, mostly—were even killed. One night, they built a bonfire in the gardens of the Galerie Nationale, burning entire collections to ash. Picasso. Dalí. Miró. All lost. Works by your Renoir and Monet survived because they were snapped up—stolen—by Nazi officers, while the rest burned. Because they were the ones to decide.”
Camilla’s cheeks had gone a mottled shade of pink, as if they’d just been slapped. “Are you comparing me to the Nazis, Ms. Roussel?”
“I’m merely pointing out that letting one group decide what is and isn’t worthy can have terrible consequences. Art, like all things, should be left to the beholder, n’est-ce pas?”
Camilla squared her shoulders, like a bird fluffing its plumage to appear more threatening. “It’s a lovely sentiment, Miss Roussel, but I think it wise to stay in one’s own lane, particularly here in Boston, where the lanes tend to be narrow. We may look like a great big city, but underneath it all we’re frightfully conventional, and tend to distrust anything flashy or foreign.”
Rory stared at Camilla in horror. She’d seen her mother take people down before, coolly and surgically and without batting an eye, but on those occasions it had been deserved. This was something else entirely. The dismissive tone and thinly veiled antagonism, the stilted body language that only served to amplify her disdain. And the look on Soline’s face, ashen and dazed, as if she’d just been ambushed. She needed to step in, say something to deflect her mother’s hostility, but what? Defending Soline would only make things worse.