Pam Rosenthal

by The Bookseller's Daughter

  Chapter Seventeen

  Provence

  Late December 1783

  Bertrande had a less cheerful proverb to offer, the day the Duc and Duchesse’s carriage rattled back over the drawbridge and into the courtyard. “He who laughs on Friday will cry on Sunday.”

  Saturnalia was over. The Duchesse summoned Nicolas that very afternoon.

  He spent an hour with her, and the next few hours pacing and making notes, trying to parcel her orders into new tasks and responsibilities.

  He had new chores to assign, he announced at supper in the dessert kitchen. His shoulders sagged. It wasn’t going to be easy for anyone, he added.

  “All right,” Bertrande replied, “but first let us listen to some of Jacques’s stories of Paris, for we’ll need some diversion in our heads, when our backs begin to ache. Tell us about the wedding, Jacques.”

  “It was in a cathedral,” Jacques began, “with stained glass windows painting us all with wonderful colors, and…”

  He continued on, describing the hubbub of the Paris streets, the wealth and splendor of the Hôtel Mélicourt, the amazing abilities of the girls at the Palais Royale (where, it seemed, the Duc had spent much of his visit—and had even, Jacques added with a leer, shared the goods with his valet once or twice).

  And what, someone asked after the envious laughter had subsided, of the Vicomte’s new wife? Terribly plain, Jacques replied, impossible to imagine a gentleman taking her to bed. (Marie-Laure couldn’t help breathing a bit more easily.)

  Still, he continued, the Marquise was a good employer; her servants were loyal: you could barely pry any gossip out of them, that’s how well they were paid. She set a good table, too, though she didn’t receive many guests. But those she did receive, he added, were quite interesting, like her actress friend Mademoiselle Beauvoisin (he shot a keen glance down the table at Marie-Laure)—“O-là-là,” he said, “I’ve never seen such a beauty.”

  He paused for effect. Well, nobody had ever seen such a beauty. And she had a reputation, that one…

  “All right, all right, that’s enough for now, Jacques. We must all wait until tomorrow to hear more.” Nicolas’s interruption was greeted by groans and catcalls. Jacques smirked and turned back to his supper, while everyone else quieted down to hear the onerous list of announcements.

  There would be a banquet and a ball in two weeks, Nicolas said, to celebrate the New Year. So the ballroom must have a thorough cleaning. (He nodded grimly. “And yes, that means every crystal of every chandelier.”)

  Menus from the kitchen would have to be reconsidered, he continued, because the Duchesse was finally, miraculously, pregnant. (A few more catcalls accompanied this announcement, accompanied by a few stares at Marie-Laure. “Quiet,” Nicolas snapped.) Anyway, the pregnant Gorgon had informed Nicolas that her appetite was most delicate these days. (Monsieur Colet stalked away in high dudgeon, offended that anything his kitchen produced could be considered difficult to digest.)

  The carpenters would be back directly after the holidays, he told them now, to build some sort of new hunting lodge for the Duc, as well as a suite of rooms for the new member of the family.

  (“That means scaffolds and drop cloths again.” Bertrande groaned. “And plaster dust everywhere.”)

  And of course, Nicolas concluded, the Duchesse’s wardrobe would need extensive renovation, in light of her condition. Her chambermaid wanted help (he nodded to Louise) unpacking the eleven trunks they’d brought back from Paris. Not to speak of miscellaneous boxes of ribbons, stockings, hats, and gloves.

  “Oh, and Marie-Laure…”

  Thank heaven. At least she’d be getting her money.

  “…Madame wants you to serve tea this afternoon, in the library.”

  Her face fell.

  “And no,” he added, “she didn’t say when she’d be paying you.” Marie-Laure could discern the tinge of guilt shading his voice. Nicolas wouldn’t say so, but he’d clearly forgotten his promise to ask the Duchesse about her twenty livres, no doubt because he’d been so addled by all the demands that had been made upon him.

  She nodded, swallowing her disappointment. No point creating more difficulties for Nicolas, and anyway, she wasn’t awfully surprised. Louise had explained that wages were almost always paid late, “so they can collect a few sous more interest on it.”

  “Wear a clean apron,” Nicolas told her, “and don’t rattle the teacups.”

  It had been good advice about the teacups. For she’d been seized by an unaccountable wave of anxiety upon entering the library, and it had lasted the whole uncomfortable hour she’d spent with the Duc and Duchesse.

  Not that either of them had acted so strangely. The Duchesse was no more peremptory than usual and the Duc only mildly inebriated. He’d peered down her bosom, of course, when she’d leaned over to give him his tea, but he would have done so at any time. His gaze had been calmly proprietary rather than guiltily lustful.

  He and his wife said little to each other, and they hardly addressed a word to her.

  But it seemed to Marie-Laure that their eyes followed her about the room, flickering with a sort of cold self-congratulation. The Duchesse (now quite knowledgeable about these matters, no doubt) had directed a keen stare at her newly swollen breasts and slightly thickened waist. For a moment Marie-Laure had expected to be fired right then and there, so obvious was the evidence of her “lewd behavior.”

  But the Duchesse had only nodded, rather thoughtfully, before demanding that “Marianne” bring the Duc some more cake.

  Carrying the tea things down to the kitchen later, she allowed herself some slow shudders to dissipate the afternoon’s queasiness. It had been a nasty business, all that bending and curtsying in menacing silence, and feeling all the while as though she were being assessed and appraised, like a piece of property. Nasty, intimidating, and rather disgusting, but now that it was over, it all seemed pretty meaningless. And certainly harmless, which was the important thing. Marie-Laure was sure that if Monsieur Hubert were planning a late-night visit to her room he would have looked guilty about it, especially in front of his wife.

  If they try to mistreat you, Joseph had said, you must leave without the money. Promise me that.

  But they hadn’t mistreated her, and it didn’t look like they were going to. They’d merely humiliated her.

  And it would be considerably more humiliating to leave without the money she’d earned. Especially now, with the baby coming. She hadn’t written to tell Joseph about it yet. Of course, she reminded herself, he might be as proud and happy as Louise had predicted, but (she thought briefly of that actress, his wife’s beautiful dinner guest) it would be best to have a little extra money in her pocket, just in case.

  She hadn’t received a letter from him today. Too bad; she could have used one, both to take the bad taste of the past hour out of her mouth, and to give her courage to announce the baby. She’d wait, she thought, until she heard from him next—surely it would be tomorrow—and then she’d write and tell him.

  “You can’t imagine it, Marie-Laure, all the beautiful things the Duchesse has brought back with her from Paris.”

  Of course, Louise had added, the Duchesse’s snooty chambermaid had gotten to unpack all the best items—small, fascinating articles like ribbons and stockings, linens, laces, and of course jewels; Louise had been set to lugging around heavy rolls of silk and satin, velvet and brocade. She sighed; they’d be seeing a lot more of those fabrics. The Duchesse’s dressmakers had already begun to cut and drape the stuff, but with her typical thrift, the Duchesse had decreed that her house servants would do most of the stitching.

  “She intends to have an entirely new wardrobe,” Louise said. “With seams wide enough to be let out in the months to come and then we’ll have to take it all in later.”

  “And such colors,” she continued. The Duchesse had made a study, it seemed, not only of the latest Paris fashions, but of the fashionable vocabulary as well. She’d br
ought back a pile of ladies’ journals, and her maid had proudly told Louise that new ones would be arriving regularly, by post.

  “You’d think that words like gold or blue or brown or white would serve, but now she calls them things like Queen’s Hair, King’s Eyes, Paris Mud, or Goose Shit.”

  She frowned, and reached into the big basket she’d brought upstairs with her.

  “I’m sorry Marie-Laure. I know I promised to help you let out your dress, but it looks like both of us are going to be up late tonight hemming this Goose Shit satin.”

  They’d have to wear their cloaks as they did so, and wrap their feet in shawls as well. For an especially cold and querulous mistral had arrived in the wake of the Duc and Duchesse’s return.

  The wind’s howls woke Marie-Laure briefly in the middle of the night; the air in the room felt like ice, and she had to snuggle up to Louise in order to fall back asleep. And she was entirely unprepared, the next morning, for what the mistral had brought with it from the north.

  “Marie-Laure, come see how beautiful.” Louise pulled off the covers and hustled her out of bed.

  “But what is it?” Marie-Laure asked in amazement, staring out of the small window at a world that seemed covered in whipped cream and silvery spun sugar.

  “It’s snow, silly. Don’t tell me you’ve never seen snow. Really? It doesn’t snow in Montpellier?”

  Marie-Laure shook her head. She’d heard about snow, of course, and read about it, but she hadn’t expected it to glitter so enticingly in the sunshine. It weighed down the pine boughs. Even the cypress trees wore quaint little white caps on their lofty tops. She peered at the vines whose tendrils crept onto the outside of the window. Each twig and stalk and leaf was encased in its own perfect little covering of ice.

  Her breath clouded the small windowpane. And when she put out a hand to wipe away the steam, she was surprised by how cold the glass was.

  “Come on.” Louise tugged at her nightgown. “Get dressed. We’ll have a few minutes to play in it before breakfast if we hurry. See?” She pointed to a few figures stomping and sliding about in the white expanse. “There’s Martin,” she said, quickly pulling on three layers of stockings, and multiple layers of everything else, ending with a heavy wool cloak.

  Marie-Laure tried to dress as Louise was doing. But even one layer of clothes was a clumsy fit nowadays, and her own cloak wasn’t very heavy at all. She followed Louise down the steps. But by the time she’d reached the door to the courtyard, Louise had already run outside.

  Still, it was lovely to enter the quiet, crystalline world the snow had brought, even if the beautiful stuff did make your feet terribly wet. Marie-Laure walked in footprints other people had already tramped down, to the archway between the chateau’s courtyard and the hillside that sloped down to the river. Martin had brought some feed sacks, and she watched him and Louise lie down on the sacks, belly first, and fly down the hill.

  And here was Robert, trudging back up the hill, his nose, and especially his ears, bright red.

  “Time for breakfast, Marie-Laure.” He grinned. “Come on back inside; it doesn’t look like you’re dressed for this weather.”

  They walked back across the courtyard and into the chateau. “I’ve never seen snow before,” she said. “We didn’t have it in Montpellier,” she added, “or in any part of Languedoc. In school we learned to be proud of our ‘gentle and felicitous Mediterranean climate.’”

  “Well,” he answered, “in Provence the snow sometimes surprises us up in the mountains here. It’s the only good thing the mistral brings us.

  “Along with icy, dangerous roads—no post today, of course—and winter chills and coughs and sniffles,” he added. “So be careful.”

  No post today. No, of course there wouldn’t be one.

  And by evening both Marie-Laure and Louise had itchy red eyes and runny noses. And yards of ivory satin still to gather into ruffles.

  “We should take a rest, go down to the kitchen and brew a pot of tea,” Marie-Laure suggested. “Otherwise we’re likely to sneeze all over the Gorgon’s new finery.”

  Louise clapped her hand to her forehead. “But what an idiot I am. She gave me some herbs today, in case the chill in the air had made you and me sick. In fact, she expressly told me they were for you—because of your condition, I guess.”

  Still chattering, she handed a carefully folded sheet of printed paper to Marie-Laure. “I thought it was unusually kind of her, though perhaps it contains something to keep us awake so we can finish these infernal ruffles. But…what is it, Marie-Laure?”

  For Marie-Laure had suddenly turned pale, and her eyes had darkened. She dropped the open sheet of paper onto the ivory satin in her lap, scattering dried peppermint and elderberry leaves over the shimmering fabric.

  “Be careful,” Louise exclaimed, “the ink from the print could smudge the cloth.” And then, hearing what she’d just said, she peered sharply at Marie-Laure. “The print—the marks, the…the letters I suppose they are—Marie-Laure, do they say Joseph?”

  Marie-Laure smiled bitterly. “I’ll read it to you.

  “It’s about an actress,” she added, “in Paris. And it tells its readers that ‘the sublime comedienne, Mademoiselle Beauvoisin, fresh from her triumph onstage in The Prodigal Son, seems to have scored an offstage triumph as well, for she is seen everywhere with her new protector, the handsome Vicomte Joseph d’Auvers-Raimond. Sharp-eyed observers have spied her slipping from a covered carriage into the Vicomte’s grand home at midnight. And all of Paris is whispering that she has taken up recent residence in a certain small house on the rue Mouffetard…’

  “I won’t read you the part about the beading and appliqué work on her new gown,” Marie-Laure said, “though this journal describes it for two paragraphs, and concludes that it’s a good thing Mademoiselle Beauvoisin’s patron has such a rich wife. It’s from one of those Paris fashion magazines.”

  I’ll buy the most expensive mistress in Paris.

  But he hadn’t really meant it, she told herself.

  The mistral growled, somewhere in the distant hills. It sounded angry, and impatient with her stupidity.

  She emended her thoughts. Well, he might have meant it at the time…

  The mistral gathered strength, like Gilles clearing his throat for a pompous, older-brother lecture.

  She hastened to defend herself. (To whom, she wondered. To Gilles? To the mistral? Or to her angry frightened self?)

  All right. He probably had meant it. But he’d changed. She knew he had. He’d said that vicious thing before…

  Before what? the mistral asked in its vilest, most querulous tone. Before he came under your wholesome influence, Marie-Laure? Or before you gave him the chance to get you into the mess you’re in?

  Do you think a damn aristocrat ever really changes? Remember his dear dead, distant cousin, King Louis XI who used to have his own whorehouse?

  But Joseph isn’t like that. He believes in liberty and equality and—

  Ah yes, Marie-Laure? And have you also forgotten the Comte de Charolais, who used to amuse himself by shooting commoners from his rooftop and was pardoned for it, more than once, by that same old King Louis?

  No, she told the mistral (or Gilles, or herself, or whomever she was arguing with). No, I haven’t forgotten.

  She balled up the paper in her hand and threw it across the room, suddenly aware that Louise had been watching her for what must have been an awfully long time.

  She smiled—a rather ugly, wolfish smile, she supposed—and shrugged carelessly.

  “Well, it didn’t take him long, did it?” Too bad she couldn’t keep her voice steadier, she thought.

  “Oh, Marie-Laure…”

  “And yes, it was ‘unusually kind’ of the Duchesse to send me this. No, Louise, I didn’t mean that—yes, I know I said it, but sometimes, you see, a person can say something and mean the opposite…”

  She and Joseph had had a wonderful, complicated discuss
ion of irony once. It seemed a very long time ago. She felt very alone.

  “But, Marie-Laure—”

  “Yes, I suppose it is confusing. Do you think you could go make some tea and bring me a cup—no, not this stuff, something that doesn’t stink of peppermint, all right?

  “While I finish stitching this damn Goose Shit satin.”

  She felt calmer the next day, at least while the mistral was quiet. Calmer, more reasonable, and readier to give Joseph the benefit of the doubt; after all, the piece about him and the actress could just have been slanderous gossip.

  The roads were bad and there was still no post. And there was a lot of work to do. Moreover, it seemed that she’d developed a nagging chronic backache that lasted through the next two snow storms—and made her terribly uncomfortable while she scrawled her brief letter telling him about the baby.

  But even when the snow had melted and the post had been restored, she still didn’t receive a letter. The fashion magazines still came, though, and Jacques could be depended upon to pass around the clipped items about the Vicomte and his gorgeous mistress. The New Year came and went.

  The Duchesse handed Marie-Laure a small sack, with twenty livres in it. She sat behind her big ledger, just as Louise had described. But Louise had been wrong about one thing: the Duchesse hadn’t accompanied the payment with a lecture. Just a murmur of “Thank you, Marianne, for your faithful service to the Duc and all his family.” Accompanied by a lewd, level glance at the little belly Marie-Laure had developed.

  And except for a soft “Thank you, Madame la Duchesse,” accompanied by a curtsy, Marie-Laure didn’t say anything either.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The servants at the Hôtel Mélicourt each received a gold louis for the turn of the year, as well as personal well-wishes from their mistress and her husband. It had been a busy holiday season; there had been holiday balls and parties, sumptuous banquets and amusing theatricals.

  January was crisp and cold, Paris uncharacteristically quiet and serene under a mantle of snow.