Pam Rosenthal

by The Bookseller's Daughter

  “She’s not…” he began furiously. But what was he to say exactly?

  Hubert smiled. “What was that, Joseph?”

  “Nothing, Monsieur le Comte. Nothing at all.”

  The workday in the kitchen had been regularly punctuated by Monsieur Colet’s tantrums, the latest one being over the crayfish tails.

  “Too small! They’ll be lost in the dish! It’s a disaster!” It took all of Nicolas’s wheedling and cajoling (and a very fine Cotes du Rhone) to get things on back on track.

  Marie-Laure knew that the tails were only a garnish. Tucked around the outside of a large dish, they would form a scalloped edging for a thick sauce, holding slivered sweetbreads, mushrooms, truffles, foie gras, and cockscombs. Upon which would be laid the squabs, braised with slices of veal, ham, and bacon, covered in diced sweetbreads, truffles and mushrooms, and topped with a heart-shaped slice of puff pastry.

  “And how many such complicated dishes will we be preparing today?” Marie-Laure whispered.

  Her fifteen-year-old workmate Robert beamed. “Twelve. Twelve, Marie-Laure.” Robert had often been hungry as a child. Working in this kitchen, he often said, was like being paid to go to heaven.

  Of course, the twelve dishes didn’t include the soup, the vegetables—even Monsieur Colet was satisfied with the beautiful young peas and artichokes and asparagus they had to work with—and the salads. Not to speak of the delicate little hors d’oeuvres. And as for the desserts…

  But there wasn’t time to begin contemplating the desserts. Robert and Marie-Laure had to race to keep up: to clean the pots and pans the rest of the staff kept dirtying, to split and de-fuzz more than a hundred baby artichokes. To chop and scald and peel and stir, wherever they were needed. But even as Marie-Laure’s hands flew and her head began to ache, Joseph’s image drifted toward her through the steamy air. Here was his smile and the taste of his mouth; there, the arcs of his hands and the outline of his hips.

  And here was…a huge cleaver sailing through the air and landing in a wooden dresser. It marked the opening salvo of Monsieur Colet’s next tantrum. This one was directed at Arsène, who was getting in everybody’s way, on his way to the meat locker to hang up a ridiculous number of freshly killed rabbits.

  The crash caused a huge dessert soufflé to fall. And so, as Monsieur Colet proclaimed to everyone’s delight, the ruined soufflé would have to be eaten by the servants. The idiot guests would simply have to make do with the strawberry, raspberry, and apricot tarts, the heaps of meringues and macaroons studded with almonds and pistachios, the molded marzipan cakes in amusing and sometimes indecent shapes and colors, the chocolate-covered éclairs and profiteroles filled with crème anglaise, the towers of fruit topped with hothouse pineapples, and the fantasia of molded milk and water ices flavored with fruit, coffee, chocolate, coconut, and candied violets.

  They could hear the guests’ carriages clattering over the drawbridge. Nicolas inspected the footmen’s livery, clucking about a grease spot here, a bit of tarnished braid there. The troop of them finally marched up the stairs, each carrying a more impressive platter than the last.

  And marched back down, for more food, more wine. A lot more wine, Nicolas called out. The banquet was a success.

  The guests had only come, he explained later, out of respect for the Duchesse’s ancient pedigree and curiosity about the Vicomte’s reputation. But they’d stayed and enjoyed themselves. The food had been a triumph and the family had risen to the occasion. Even the Duc had behaved quite respectably, contributing a witty anecdote of life and manners at Louis XV’s court.

  “So the Gorgon’s finally been accepted into the local gentry,” Nicolas concluded. “Let’s hope at least for a bit of relief from her everlasting demands.”

  “And now, Mesdames and Messieurs,” he added, opening another bottle of wine and passing around the flat but still delicious soufflé, “it’s our turn to celebrate.”

  But Marie-Laure slipped away early, carrying a jar of lemon water that Monsieur Colet had given her for washing away kitchen smells—it seemed that even he was interested in her supposed adventure with the Vicomte.

  She scrubbed herself. Not bad.

  She pulled off her cap. Her room’s cracked mirror couldn’t tell her much, but she thought that her hair had regained the thickness and luster it had lost to the typhus. She brushed it vigorously. She didn’t have any ribbons, so all she could do was force a few strands at the sides into spiral tendrils, continuing to brush it while she waited for Baptiste’s knock at the door.

  And when the knock finally came Marie-Laure could feel a collective sigh rising from the servants’ dormitories down the hall: everybody who wasn’t still carousing in the dessert kitchen had been waiting along with her.

  Chapter Eight

  Returning Baptiste’s silent smile and nod, she followed him down the stairs and through an unfamiliar corridor, all silvery stone that the Gorgon’s plasterers hadn’t covered over yet. Their footsteps echoed as though from afar. She felt surprisingly calm, oddly without volition, mysteriously removed from the physical space she occupied. Perhaps it was the effect of a long, fatiguing workday, but she felt as though none of this was really happening. Or—more precisely—that it was all happening to somebody else. To a character in a play perhaps; yes, it was all happening to a breathless ingenue who just happened to be named Marie-Laure. While she, the real Marie-Laure, watched the drama’s progress from a cheap hard seat in paradise, the rows at the very top of the theater.

  Baptiste stopped in front of an arched doorway and turned a large iron key in the lock. He opened the door, delivered an ironic bow, and—since Marie-Laure’s legs seemed to have forgotten how to move of their own accord—gave her a little shove inside a very bright space.

  Someone must have lit a lot of candles. Her eyes needed time to adjust from the corridor’s dimness. She thought she could discern large shapes of furniture; there was something shiny to her left—a glass-fronted bookshelf, perhaps. But in fact the only sense organ she could truly rely on was her nose. She stood still, breathing rosemary and lavender while Joseph’s image took shape and substance at the other side of the room. He was leaning on one of the posts of a large, curtained bed, grinning mischievously, and wearing slippers and an embroidered dressing gown.

  His grin made everything real again.

  He winked. “At last,” he said. “At last some intelligent conversation.”

  That insouciant wink guaranteed his sincerity. She didn’t know how she could be sure of it, but she was.

  She could tell that he hadn’t lied about his principles last night. No matter what else might transpire between them, he wouldn’t take advantage of a servant.

  All right then. They’d have a conversation.

  Well, that was a relief anyway.

  Of course it was a relief.

  Sorry, Baptiste, she thought as the door closed behind her. Sorry we won’t be giving you anything to peek at tonight.

  Still, she found it difficult not to stare at his enormous bed.

  Happily, he seemed to understand, for he motioned her to a cushioned window seat and drew up an armchair for himself, partially obscuring the purple velvet bed curtains from her line of vision.

  “At least I won’t topple out of this chair. No broken legs, you see.” He smiled and so did she, until both their smiles began to wear thin and it became clear that one of them was going to have to say something else.

  They settled, as though by mutual consent, on literature as the safest topic of discussion. Marie-Laure hadn’t spoken about books or writing for some months now. But encouraged by the interest in his eyes, she soon found herself rattling on as though she were back in the shop.

  “And so I must admit,” she concluded, “that Monsieur Rousseau’s memoir rather disappointed me, even while it fairly overwhelmed me with its honesty and…and greatness of soul. But it was a very aggressive honesty, a very prepossessing greatness.”

  He knit hi
s brow. “You’re a severe critic.”

  “For a scullery maid, you mean.”

  “No, that’s not what I mean at all. I stand by what I said last night. You’re a reader worth having, an extraordinarily clever one.”

  She stared. But he’d said it without irony or affectation.

  “And you’re right,” he added. “I hadn’t thought of it in quite that way, but Rousseau does betray a streak of egoism, doesn’t he? As though he were using all that honesty and humility to bludgeon his readers into submission.”

  She laughed. “Yes, yes, you’ve expressed it perfectly. Well, of course, as an author yourself…”

  But—just as she’d been about to turn the conversation to him and his writing—she was seized by an enormous yawn.

  And it had been going so well, Joseph thought.

  Of course it had been rather a physical ordeal to have her so close by and yet so off limits. But it had also been delightful.

  She’d been timid at first. Well, to be honest so had he—but he was a better actor, and able to hide his nervousness. And he’d had a good sharp opening line to deliver, one he’d honed and polished throughout that endless banquet.

  Mon Dieu, what a dreary affair that had been, with only the excellence of the food to make up for all the vapid witticisms and clumsy double entendres directed at him—not to speak of the fluttering eyelashes of half a dozen predatory provincial demoiselles. He’d endured appraising stares from potential fathers-in-law and sidelong glances from their wives, a few of them clearly hoping there might be a little something in it for them as well. He’d worked hard—smiling, smirking, bowing, and gesturing.

  All the while trying to concoct the perfect welcoming remark to make to her. Something brief and witty: friendly, unprovocative, and just a bit sly and unexpected.

  On the whole, he’d thought that his greeting had come off rather neatly, and that he’d done a good job nudging the conversation around to literature in general and Rousseau’s Confessions in particular. Given how deftly she’d dissected his own writing last winter (but that he’d be sure to steer her away from) he’d been sincerely eager to hear what she thought of the book all literate France was discussing.

  He’d engineered an abstract, cerebral conversation to bridge the chasm between their all-too-separate social positions. A meeting of minds—to distract attention from their all-too-present bodies.

  And very successfully too, he’d thought. Not that she hadn’t also been marvelous to look at. Wonderful that way she had of casting her eyes about for just the right word, all the while curling her legs under herself and snuggling into the window seat’s cushions. Her bright hair seemed to reflect the light of all the room’s candles, while her eyes glowed with subtler inner lights—her immersion in the subject’s complexities, of course; her joy in matters of the intellect.

  Until her yawn had put an end to all that by showing him just how fatuous his perceptions had been.

  A good thing his olive complexion didn’t show blushes. But he felt a deep chagrin at his thoughtlessness.

  How could he not have noticed how exhausted she was? Her hand was trembling; the skin below her eyes was blue.

  How could he have imagined it tactful to ignore what she’d been doing all day? As though physical labor were something shameful, regrettable.

  Anyway, what had she been doing all day?

  All he knew was that she’d helped prepare the large, formal dinner—the excellent meal that he’d been quite happy to eat. And that she worked in the scullery.

  But what did they actually do in a scullery? He believed—though he wasn’t sure—that they washed pots there. Food was cooked in pots, wasn’t it? Or was it pans they used down there? Pots, pans—what did it matter? He probably couldn’t tell one from the other anyway.

  He had only the most distant notion even of how an omelet was prepared. One simply sat at the table and food appeared, lightly veiled by its pastry shell, or fragrant and blushing atop a pool of raspberry sauce—as cunningly and elaborately arrayed as a woman dressed to meet her lover. And as silent, as secretive about the mysteries of preparation.

  He stared at the girl in the window seat. Her skin was pale under her freckles. She raised a chapped hand to her mouth, endeavoring to stifle another yawn and failing miserably.

  “But you’re tired. You’ve been working all day. Cooking that dinner must have taken a lot of effort.”

  She shrugged. “I didn’t really cook it.”

  “Well then, doing…ah…something, whatever it was. And I’ve kept you up so late, with all this conversation.”

  “It’s been lovely to talk to you. I don’t get opportunities like this any longer.”

  “Still…” He felt abashed for having thought he’d worked hard, bowing and simpering and charming the family’s guests. He’d thought himself magnanimous to be so unmindful of her inferior station. And such a hero and martyr too, for not touching her.

  Damn his self-centeredness—it seemed that he’d also misinterpreted those longing glances she’d been directing toward his bed. He’d thought she’d been imagining the same thing he had.

  “You need to sleep. I’ll have Baptiste take you back to your room. Or…”—well, she would be more comfortable—“would you like to take a little nap here? You really can trust me, you know,” he added.

  “I know.”

  “Because I never—”

  “Take advantage of servants. Yes, you mentioned that.” Her voice was quiet, but that slight curve of her mouth, he thought, might hint at irony.

  “Well, perhaps I will lie down, just for a little.” She uncurled her legs from beneath her. Her left stocking had a little tear in its weave, near the ankle.

  His bed was high off the ground. Perhaps he should lift her onto it. No, better not.

  “Just rest for a while,” he whispered, as she sank down onto the pillows. She sighed and stretched her legs, searching for the perfect posture.

  “Just…rest.” The tiny catch in the fabric of his voice, it seemed to him, reflected the rip in her stocking. But she hadn’t heard him; she’d already fallen asleep, barely moving—except for the gentle rise and fall of her chest—all the next hour, until he wrested his gaze from her and whispered to Baptiste to wake her and lead her to her room upstairs.

  A blush suffused her face as early morning sunlight slanted through her bedroom window and memories of the preceding night rushed back to consciousness.

  Had she really fallen asleep in his bed? How sweetly awkward, how chastely intimate the evening had been.

  You really can trust me, you know. It seemed she could, which was a good thing, she supposed.

  Well, of course it’s a good thing. (She heard this thought in Gilles’s insistent voice.) It’s a very good thing indeed that he’s so decent. You’re lucky to have his protection, Marie-Laure.

  Even if the evening wasn’t anything like her dreams of visiting Monsieur X’s bedchamber. Nor the way anyone else in the chateau had imagined it.

  Well, damn everyone in the chateau then. Damn them and their lecherous fantasies too. Anyway, she thought now, there was at least one person here who’d be glad to know the innocent, virtuous truth.

  Her bedmate Louise had returned from her mother’s funeral late last night, while Marie-Laure had been in Joseph’s room. Of course Louise knew where Marie-Laure had been: her fiancé, Martin from the stables, would have told her the whole story when he’d fetched her at the inn.

  Louise was pious and believed in the sacraments. She and Martin, as she’d told Marie-Laure, were waiting until they could afford to marry. She’d been asleep when Marie-Laure had come back to bed last night (there was no mistaking her loud snore), but Marie-Laure had thought she’d detected Louise’s disapproval even in sleep, from the way she’d scrunched herself up and turned her face to the wall.

  She wasn’t sleeping now, though. Marie-Laure couldn’t hear any snores from Louise’s side of the bed. Only—just as insistent, som
ehow, in its silence—a regretful, intensely pitying stare.

  Louise’s sorrow about Marie-Laure’s sins would be even more difficult to bear—unearned as it was—than everybody else’s lusty, unbridled fantasies.

  She reminded herself that the whole point of her nightly visits to Joseph’s room was to create an illusion. She tried to convince herself that an illusion wouldn’t be much good if even one person knew the truth.

  She turned to face her bedmate. Louise had huge pale blue eyes, fringed with long black lashes. If it weren’t for the harelip that deformed the lower part of her face, she’d be a beauty. The lovely eyes were solemn, troubled. Marie-Laure hugged her.

  “It’s not what you think, chérie,” she whispered.

  And quickly, while she and Louise dressed, she explained the situation as well as she could.

  “I’ll tell you more later,” she promised as they hurried down to breakfast. “But you can’t tell a soul. No, not even Martin. Absolutely not.”

  It might have been a mistake, she thought, plunging her hands into the washbasin after breakfast. But she wasn’t sorry; she needed to confide in someone and with luck, Louise wouldn’t tell. All the servants loved to gossip about their masters, but they were closemouthed with their own secrets and loyal with each other’s. Marie-Laure had been reminded of this a week or so ago when Arsène, who’d been solemnly explaining something to Nicolas (it seemed to have something to do with his family) immediately became silent and chilly when she entered the dessert kitchen.

  The pace of the kitchen work had become bearable again. After the preceding few days it felt almost luxurious: only the curate and the magistrate were invited to dinner tonight.

  “We’ll stew the rabbits,” Monsieur Colet had said. “Cuisine ordinaire for the local flunkies.”

  Marie-Laure held up a faceted crystal goblet and watched it bend a sunbeam into a rainbow.

  No dreaming of the handsome gentleman, she reminded herself, as Nicolas passed by on his way to go over accounts with Monsieur Colet. But she wasn’t dreaming—at least not in the way Nicolas would have thought. She was happily sifting through thoughts and insights that had lain dormant for months.