Pam Rosenthal

by The Bookseller's Daughter

  There was no escaping it: the truth confronted her as though illuminated by the clear light of reason. The satin around her torso simply would not sit smoothly; the new gown, which had fit perfectly a month ago, was clearly too tight around the waist. She waved the maid away. No time now to let out the seams—she’d simply have to go down to supper with the violet fabric wrinkled and bunched.

  She nodded thoughtfully at her reflection. Embarrassing to appear at supper this way: she’d been raised to always look her best in company. But then (she assured herself), tonight’s supper could hardly count as company. Besides herself and Hubert, there would only be Joseph, his dreadful new wife, a doddering uncle, and that actress, Mademoiselle Beauvoisin from the Comédie-Française. And in truth, the actress was so beautiful that it wouldn’t matter what anyone was wearing. Ariane Beauvoisin had a way of absorbing all the candlelight in a room, leaving everyone else in shadow.

  An odd friend for that dowdy bluestocking of a Marquise, the Duchesse thought. But perhaps it hadn’t been the Marquise who’d invited the actress to supper; perhaps it had been Joseph. Interesting, she’d have to keep an eye out for developments in that quarter.

  She turned her attention back to the mirror. The badly fitting gown wasn’t absolute proof, but taken together with other signs it constituted definite encouragement.

  Of course, she hastened to remind herself, she and Hubert had been eating and drinking at some marvelous tables since their arrival in Paris a month ago. Her new sister-in-law’s chef was as good as Monsieur Colet, and the dinners they’d attended at Versailles had been superb. Perhaps she was simply getting fat, like the overbearing, autocratic woman she and Hubert had saddled Joseph with.

  No.

  It was all very well to be cautious, the Duchesse told herself, but current circumstances allowed for more optimism. One missed menstrual period wasn’t enough to go on—but two, and it almost was two by now, could be taken more seriously. And there had been other changes—subtle but consistent ones that she’d been observing since Hubert had ascended to his title. Perhaps becoming Duc had helped him overcome his deficiencies. Or perhaps it was the reports she’d had his valet pass along to him, of what he’d overheard during his late-night spying.

  But what had most likely done the trick for Hubert, the Duchesse decided, was the bargain she and he had struck. It had been her idea, of course; Hubert didn’t have ideas, but he could recognize a good one when he saw it. Do your duty, Monsieur, she’d told him, and I’ll make sure you get what you so evidently covet.

  He hadn’t asked her how she’d manage it, and in truth she didn’t know herself. But she was confident of finding a way to do her part, if he could only get on with it and free her from the vile nightly necessity of trying to conceive. She’d be free for almost a year, anyway. Or—if she was lucky enough to produce a boy on her first try—she’d be free of him forever.

  Oddly, she was sure that it would be a boy, as sure as she was of her ability to secure Hubert the prize he wanted so badly. Luck was on her side, the sort of luck that came to people who worked for what they wanted, and who weren’t afraid to exploit every opportunity that came their way.

  Her plans weren’t fixed yet; it would still be necessary to improvise. But she’d manage it somehow. Setting Jacques to spying had been a good first step. The next steps would follow, in a carefully plotted sequence, immediately after she and Hubert returned to Provence.

  Provence. She frowned, thinking how deadly it would seem after this glittering month in Paris—the lazy, spoiled servants with no respect for authority, the tedious family dinners, the trifling society of inconsequential local gentry. Amazing how intimidating she’d once found it.

  But those days were over. After a few false starts she’d easily picked up the old aristocracy’s gestures and language. It wasn’t as difficult as she’d been led to believe: just witness her success this past month in Paris, and—she smiled triumphantly—at Versailles.

  It had been glorious. She wanted to stay here forever. More realistically, she hoped to return next year, without Hubert. Was there a way to manage that?

  There must be a way. There was always a way for intelligent, energetic people—just think how far her father had come, on the backs of the poor unlucky devils who harvested the sugar on his plantations. It wasn’t as easy for a woman, of course. And yet, the Duchesse reflected, a woman had the advantage of being consistently underestimated. There would always be opportunities for a woman with money, strength of will, and unlimited resentment for the slights she’d suffered, especially from her husband’s lazy, overbred family.

  Finishing her slow turn in front of the mirror, she was startled to see a familiar plump figure in the doorway—almost, she thought, as though she’d conjured poor Hubert’s presence by force of her meditations.

  He appeared equally surprised to see her. His clothes were rumpled, his face drawn, his posture uncertain. Leaning on the doorframe to steady himself, he focused his red-rimmed eyes with evident difficulty. No doubt he’d been wandering muddleheaded through the corridors, aimlessly walking off the effects of alcohol and the aggressive ministrations of the girls at the Palais Royale this afternoon. After a hearty supper at the Marquise’s table he’d be useless.

  Controlling an urge to scowl at him, she turned for a final scrutiny of her reflection in the mirror. Yes. The evidence was convincing—and not simply because she wished it so heartily.

  In which case, she concluded, it didn’t matter how useless Hubert was.

  I don’t need him anymore.

  She motioned for her maid to fasten the amethyst necklace she’d bought yesterday, on the rue de Rivoli.

  “Good evening, Monsieur,” she said.

  He mumbled an apology for disturbing her.

  Cordially, she assured him that she wasn’t the least bit disturbed. Of course, they did have a few minutes before going down to supper. But perhaps he’d like to take a sip of brandy with her.

  His eyes brightened above his livid cheeks and slack mouth.

  “For I have some good news to report, Monsieur. And some interesting new thoughts about the bargain we made.”

  Mon amour,

  There are thousands of places to be alone in Jeanne’s immense house. But I’m never alone now that I have your letter. I carry it everywhere and kiss it—and I kiss you, too—constantly, tenderly, passionately…

  Marie-Laure smoothed the letter and tucked it under her pillow with the others. It was already a bit stained with grease, as she’d been carrying it in her apron pocket. But he’d used good, heavy paper and so the pages hadn’t torn, though she’d been folding them and unfolding them all day—reading and rereading between her chores, each time adding a few new words or a provocative phrase to the increasing store she kept in her memory.

  He’d sent a whole portfolio of letters this past week, far too many to keep with her at any one time. She’d decided to keep the most recent one with her, the last three under her pillow, and the rest of them in the hiding place she’d created for the sixty-three livres she’d received for the pink dressing gown, when Nicolas had taken the peignoir to market and sold it for her. “No, Marie-Laure,” he’d said, “I don’t want a commission—a pretty smile from you is as good as a commission.” She’d hugged him and he’d laughed and said that now he’d been overpaid.

  She’d never held so much money in her hand; coach fare to Paris only cost fifty-six.

  And so, late one night when she was alone in the kitchen, she’d loosened a brick from the hearth. She’d wrapped the money, the letters, and Papa’s spectacles in an old stocking, scraped out some loose mortar, and placed the stocking in the hollow she’d created, carefully replacing the brick. Except for when it was time to add one of Joseph’s letters to the pile, she tried not to visit her treasures too often.

  In my mind I kiss your eyelids, the little blue veins in your temples, the tip of your nose, and the quick pulse in your throat. My tongue, my lips, wander h
appily over the sweet geography of your flesh—the gentle hills of your breasts, the serene flat plain of your belly between your hip bones, the flaming curls on the plump mound below. I linger here for a moment, at the entryway, and you gasp, arch your back…but no, not yet.

  I shall be back, mignon, after first turning you over and kissing my way down, down, until I reach the delicate skin at the back of your knees, being most careful not to miss a freckle anywhere on my way.

  Perhaps she wouldn’t hide this particular letter away so soon, at least not until it had lost its power to make her tremble. Or until she’d figured out how to pen an equally erotic response.

  But so far her efforts in that direction had come to nothing.

  It wasn’t that she’d stopped thinking of him that way. Quite the contrary. But it was quite a different thing actually to put her thoughts down on paper. She’d already wasted a precious sheet, trying to tell him what it felt like to have him inside her. But somehow it had come out all wrong—she’d wound up telling him that she’d felt “filled up” and “stuffed” and that he’d been “big as a baguette.” Which was true enough, but hardly created the effect she’d hoped for.

  And so she’d finally had to apologize to him (humorously, she hoped) for being unable to express what she felt, and to promise to make it up to him in person when she saw him in a month.

  Well, perhaps a month.

  It was only two weeks more before the Duc and Duchesse were scheduled to return. And even assuming that they took their time paying her wages, she ought to have her twenty livres in hand by the start of the new year.

  Louise had explained to her how wages were paid here. The Gorgon liked to make a little ceremony of it: every six months, from when you’d been hired (or whenever the Duchesse decreed she had hired you), you’d be summoned to a small room in the Duchesse’s wing of the chateau. The Duchesse would be seated in front of a big ledger (“as though on the day of judgment”), ready to deliver a little speech about all the ways you’d been inadequate during the last few months. (“She’s got sharp eyes, Marie-Laure; you’d be surprised what she knows. And a sharp tongue, too.”) It was only after bowing your head and humbly promising to do better that you’d receive your money.

  Fine. She’d bow her head, promise to do better, and then—money firmly in hand—she’d announce that she was leaving, and that the Duchesse could go hang herself.

  Yes, certainly in a month, probably even sooner.

  Monsieur Colet had given her a list of likely employers in Paris, along with a letter of introduction. She had only to pack her belongings, take her eighty-three livres, pay fifty-six of them for a coach seat to Paris, post the letter she’d already written to Gilles, and voilà, she’d be on her way.

  It sounded like such a happy, exciting plan.

  So why wasn’t she happy or excited?

  Why (except in the buoyant letters she wrote to Joseph) was she so tense and irritable, anxious and fearful—and absolutely certain that something was going to go terribly wrong?

  She, who was usually so patient and optimistic: hadn’t it been she, after all, who’d assured Joseph that two months wasn’t really such a long time to wait? But he’d been right and she’d been wrong; the time since he’d left had seemed endless and she’d begun to feel like an oppressive, sullen presence among the rest of the servants, who were all enjoying their masters’ absence.

  “While the cat’s away, the mice dance,” Bertrande had crowed six weeks ago, as she, Louise, and Marie-Laure watched the family coach rattle over the drawbridge and down the hill.

  Hugs, smiles, and bawdy jokes were exchanged; Nicolas and Monsieur Colet huddled in consultation, and Nicolas produced some serious calculations in the matter of how many bottles of wine the servants could reasonably consume from the Duc’s cellar, to be accounted for in his ledger under the category headings of “spoilage” and “breakage.”

  His double-accounting schemes extended even to the footmen, Marie-Laure surmised from a conversation she’d overheard a week or so later, one night when she’d come downstairs to squirrel away another love letter. Arsène was whispering confidentially to Nicolas that something had been “completely taken care of.”

  Neither of them had noticed her at the doorway; she’d shrugged and tiptoed away back upstairs. The men who supervised France’s finances were probably a lot like Nicolas, she thought: subtle, good at details—only not so kind as Nicolas, nor as willing to share the spoils of their cleverness.

  Of course, there was still work to be done, even during this little saturnalia. Nicolas was generous, but he wasn’t about to let anyone shirk his or her chores. The Gorgon had left strict orders about what she expected to see accomplished upon her return.

  Things did seem to get done, too; it was wonderful what people could accomplish, working at a pleasant, reasonable pace. People relaxed as they ate their meals, joked and flirted and sometimes even danced in the evenings, like Bertrande’s proverbial mice. They made nice fires in the kitchen hearth and enjoyed each other’s company, keeping snug and warm against the autumn rains that had swept down over Provence, and the mistral howling in the hills.

  While Marie-Laure tried to keep her bad temper to herself and not to dampen anyone’s spirits.

  Probably it was nothing more than exhaustion, she thought. She trudged through her workdays, yawning, rubbing her eyes, swaying on her feet at the washbasin, and one day almost toppling into a pot of bubbling jelly. Guiltily, she accepted Robert’s help with some of her chores, all the while shrugging off Bertrande’s worried inquiries.

  “But I’m fine, Bertrande. Really I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  Of course I’m tired, she’d told herself. Making passionate love until dawn every night for a month would make anybody tired.

  As soon as she got caught up on her sleep, she decided, she’d be good as new. Or at least not so depressed by Joseph’s absence, and not so fearfully envious of his wife. She wished now that she’d encouraged him to say more of whatever he’d been trying to tell her their last night together. Perhaps he would have argued her out of her worries.

  Or perhaps not.

  For suppose the Marquise turned out to be prettier than she was reputed to be? Or had starved herself into a more fashionable figure?

  Not that her looks really mattered. She was still his wife, and still an aristocrat. Aristocrats had to have children; Joseph would be duty bound to oblige in the matter. Anyway, Marie-Laure thought, what woman wouldn’t want a child who stood fair to inherit Joseph’s gifts? Of course, only an aristocrat could afford to give such a child the advantages it would deserve.

  She squeezed her eyes shut to block out unpleasant images, pressed her fists in front of her eyes to push away unpleasant thoughts.

  The pressure made her lightheaded. And the giddiness, when it had passed, left her drained and rather terrified.

  Louise was down in the kitchen tonight, dancing jigs with Martin and the others. Marie-Laure had been looking forward to reading snugly under the quilt.

  She pushed the book away and blew out her candle. For words—even Shakespeare’s words—seemed to hold no magic for her tonight.

  “Sweet are the uses of adversity,” the character in the play had proclaimed.

  Oh really?

  And she knew another wrongheaded example, too, from another popular writer. It was somewhere in the back of her head, or perhaps on the tip of her tongue. But she was too tired to remember it now…her limbs felt like lead, and…

  What was that horrible sound, waking her from a deep, almost drugged sleep? It sounded like an enormous voice from the heaven she didn’t quite believe in or the haunted forest the other servants liked to tell stories about. And it seemed to cry Nooooooooooooooooooo, as though it were talking to her alone, spitefully informing her that all her hopes would come to nothing.

  It was pitch-black outside. She didn’t care. Shuddering, she threw herself at Louise, rudely jostling her out of her own slumb
ers and drenching her with tears.

  “But, Marie-Laure, it’s just the mistral…oh don’t cry, Marie-Laure, of course he still loves you.”

  “No, no, he can’t, Louise. Not as I am—angry and exhausted all the time, with my hair all stringy and my belly not flat anymore, and with…a baby coming.” She gulped back her tears and peered anxiously at Louise. This was the first time she’d admitted it to anyone, even herself.

  But Louise hadn’t looked the least bit shocked or surprised.

  “We wondered how long you’d pretend it wasn’t so,” she whispered, “like Arsène’s—” She clapped her hand over her mouth, eyes very large for a moment. And then, smiling her sweet, misshapen smile, she kissed Marie-Laure gently and stroked the strange new convexity to her belly.

  “Monsieur Joseph will love you all the more as you grow,” she said. “You’ll look like a beautiful ripe winter pear.”

  And didn’t Marie-Laure know, Louise added soothingly, that men loved babies?

  “They pretend they don’t, of course. Well, they don’t like the crying and the messes, but they’re so proud of having made a whole new person. I could see it in my father’s face every time one arrived, though he was never sure how we’d manage to feed it. Don’t worry, Marie-Laure, you’ll see, he’ll be happy and proud. And it’s not such a long time to wait, is it, until you go to join him in Paris?”

  Marie-Laure had shaken her head, sniffing back her tears, smiling despite herself, allowing herself to be convinced. It wasn’t such a long time to wait. The Duc and Duchesse would be back in almost two weeks.

  One week.

  Two days.

  Part Two