PORTRAIT OF VICTORINE
by Mary Devlin

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Lindsay Parker expected an exciting life when she moved to teach art in Paris. The excitement, however, proved to be more than she had bargained for. A Picasso is stolen from the school. Two previously unknown Cézannes turn up in a junk shop. One of her new friends is kidnapped and another is murdered. Is Lindsay next? Does she, like the others, know too much? And all the while, at her side, is the handsome, brilliant, and mysterious Alain Bordeaux. Who is he? How is he connected to the art thefts? And what role is he destined to play in Lindsay's life? To learn the answers to all these questions, Lindsay must investigate alone - in the underworld of Paris.

"The French art setting is perfect for this book, complete with a budding Paris romance and a few near-death experiences. So for those who love romantic mysteries, Impressionist art, and Paris, France, I would strongly recommend that you get a copy of Portrait of Victorine and read it." ***** - Sara's Library

Prologue

1914 

The woman was frightened. Nervously she glanced around the room. Her treasures were all out in the open-cherished reminders of when she was young, and fair, and the toast of the Paris art world. They were coming-the Germans-and they would burst in here and take everything. They would take her wonderful collection out of her life forever.

The few rugs that decorated the floor were old and worn, most of their color faded away. The furniture was sturdy, highly polished and smelling of lemon oil, but in desperate need of repair and reupholstering. The house itself had fallen into disrepair; there was a mustiness about its damp rooms that no potpourri could mask. Her savings long gone, the woman could not afford to spend the money to render her surroundings secure and attractive. Only her collection of paintings added any beauty at all to the place where she passed almost all of her time-and now they would soon be gone.

As she paced the room, her eyes caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror. She studied her image regretfully. No more the lovely model she! Her hair, once long, thick, and a deep lustrous chestnut, was now sparse, dull, graying; her skin, once smooth and creamy, now slack and lined; her body, once fashionably plump and curvaceous, now reduced to a state of near-emaciation. Only her eyes-a rich cobalt blue-remained, but even they had begun to lose their sparkle. Reminiscing of happier days, she raised her eyes to a small landscape, uncertain and abstract in form, but slashed through and through with powerful greens and browns. Ah, Paul! Dear troubled, tortured Paul, now in his grave these eight years. His face had been homely and his body big like a bear's, but he had been kind, and he had loved her. And there had been Claude - Claude, whose paintings actually shimmered. Claude, though aging, was still quite vigorous. She had been told that he still painted, still participated actively in shows and exhibitions. She had often toyed with the idea of visiting Claude, but her mirror had caused her to abandon that idea. She wanted him to remember her as she had been, not as she was now.

She walked across the bare hardwood floor to the opposite side of the room, where she could hear the gentle sound of curtains flapping in the window. A small portrait of a sweet-faced little girl hung in a place of honor over a Victorian mahogany table. Tenderly the woman lifted the painting from its hook and stared at it. Auguste, dear August, whom she still loved. even though she had heard he could no longer paint. His eyesight, she had been told, was failing and his hands, the gentle hands that had caressed her body so often - were crippled with arthritis. Yet he had pushed on, determined to remain an artist, transferring his concentration to sculpture, using a young assistant when his own hands failed him. She could almost smell his cologne, his tobacco, in his studio where she had posed for him so long ago. In the early days of her sojourn in this house, she had told the neighbors about her romance with Auguste, but they had gazed at her cynically, as if they didn't believe a word of it.

She laughed sardonically. Who could blame them? Who in their right mind would ever believe that this skinny, aging woman had once lain in the arms of one of the greatest painters of all time? She would certainly do so never again - not in this life.

She sighed. Her life - the life she had cherished - was over. All she had left were her memories and her treasures: the paintings which had once been given to her by the men whom she had loved.

Soon they would be taken away. And then she would have nothing to live for.

A deafening noise shook the very beams of the house. Startled, the woman nearly dropped the painting. Was that a clap of thunder, or was it cannon fire? Were the Germans finally coming?

The Germans had long been known for their appreciation for the arts. Now they wanted to conquer all of Europe, and it was rumored that they stole every masterpiece they encountered. Surely they were familiar with the works of her beloved Paul, Claude, and Auguste. If they passed through her village, her treasures were doomed. The Germans would take them and she would never see them again.

The woman's lips compressed into a thin line. No! The Germans would not take them away from her! She had once had power over some of the greatest painters that ever lived - and now, though she had little power left, she she could summon enough to preserve what few mementoes she still possessed.

With trembling hands that seemed strangely disembodied, she tore the painting of the young girl from its frame, then broke the frame unrecognizable pieces. Flinging the canvas onto a nearby sofa, she then seized a dazzling riverscape and used a pair of scissors to pry away the nails securing it to the polished walnut displaying it. In a frenzy horn of desperation, she did the same with all the paintings, then carried the remnants of the frames out to the back yard, where she cast them into the incinerator and fired it up. The flames rose; the smoke irritated her eves and nose, but triumph rushed through her as she tossed the pathetic splinters into oblivion. Feeling strangely satisfied, she stood back and watched as the lovely frames she had once admired were reduced to ashes.

But there! Frames could be replaced. The paintings could not. Quickly she hurried back to her living room, where the canvases now lay in a pile on one of the faded, colorless rugs. She glanced around. Where could she hide them? Where would the Germans be sure to miss them?

Inspiration struck her like a bolt of lightning. She knew. Something a neighbor had once told her, something she had heard from a shopkeeper when she first moved into this house.

For the next three hours she worked frantically, driven by grim determination. Her head began to ache; the joints of her fingers throbbed painfully, but still she worked on, continuing ceaselessly until every painting was hidden. When the final touches had been made to the last hiding place, she stood and gazed around her.

The room looked pathetically bare and colorless. But her paintings, her treasures, the last remnants of her very life, were hidden away, skillfully concealed where the Germans, or anyone else undesirable, would never find them.

Suddenly a bomb went off inside her head. The pain spread throughout her body; her eyes ceased to focus and all around her faded into a blur. Her sense of balance failed her, and she tumbled onto the thinnest of her pathetic collection of rugs, where the stale smell of the dust overwhelmed her nostrils. Gradually consciousness faded away and she slipped thankfully into a pleasant dream, where once more she was young and beautiful, where once more her beloved painters toasted her, teased her, kissed her, immortalized her on canvas.

An hour later a neighbor found her - alive, but unable to speak or move. Frantically, he telephoned for the local doctor, who made it to the house in time to save her life.

But Victorine would never be the same.

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