Pam Rosenthal

by The Bookseller's Daughter

  The robe fell in stately pleats from the Duchesse’s shoulders and draped subtly past her belly. Marie-Laure thought of how she’d tugged at her own dress to get it to fit around her this morning. What will I do, she wondered, when it ceases to fit me at all? The Duchesse was carrying her pregnancy splendidly. Well, she has the height for it, Marie-Laure thought. And the clothes, thanks to Louise and me.

  Hortense, the maid who’d been with Madame Amélie since before her marriage, looked up sourly from the lace christening gown she held. For a moment it seemed as though she was going to chase Marie-Laure away from her mistress’s private sanctum, but she remained silent at a nod from her mistress.

  As she slowly raised her eyes to the Duchesse’s calm, attentive face, Marie-Laure felt all her boldness drain away, like sand in an egg timer.

  She’s not the Gorgon any longer, she thought. She’s finally at ease with her privilege and power and doesn’t need to scowl at her hirelings. She’s playing with me; she’s enjoying this. Like a cat. No, like a snake, coiled around a field mouse before it sinks its fangs into the little creature’s neck.

  And I look ridiculous. Like a clumsy, swollen, tongue-tied idiot.

  She curtsied awkwardly and winced at the noise her clogs made on the parquet floor. She cleared her throat.

  The Duchesse smiled and nodded pleasantly, as though it were the most natural thing in the world to entertain a stained, perspiring, and extremely pregnant scullery maid in one’s apartments of a morning. She took a tiny bite of the meringue and another sip of tea. She put down her teacup, wiped her mouth slowly with a lace-trimmed napkin, and bent her head to sniff the rose, closing her eyes as though communing with its essence.

  When she opened her eyes, they were flat, green, and opaque, and her voice was venom laced with honey.

  “Good morning, Marianne.”

  Quickly then, feigning embarrassment, “Oh, but I believe it’s Marie-Laure, isn’t it? Forgive me, yes, of course, it’s Marie-Laure, from the scullery.”

  “Yes, Madame la Duchesse.”

  “Well, you look very well, my dear. Especially in your—well, in our condition.” The cold smile affected a sisterly complicity. “And how far along do you suppose you are? Or don’t you know?”

  “Uh, twenty-eight weeks, Madame la Duchesse. Almost seven months. At least I think so.”

  “Good, good, twenty-eight weeks. And still busy down there with all that scrubbing and scalding and peeling and chopping?”

  “Yes, Madame la Duchesse.”

  The Duchesse wrinkled her nose slightly at the soot on Marie-Laure’s skirt and apron. “Yes, well, I can see that you are. Good, good, we couldn’t afford to keep a scullery maid who wasn’t doing her work, you know.

  “But of course,” the Duchesse murmured, “that’s the lifeblood of our French nation, the wonderful strength and endurance of our common people.”

  She gave a self-deprecatory little laugh. “I don’t suppose I’d last an hour in a scullery.”

  “No, Madame la Duchesse.”

  Another sip of tea.

  “So refreshing, this mint tisane, and so comforting to a delicate digestion, don’t you find?”

  And when Marie-Laure hesitated, “But Louise did give you the herbs I sent, didn’t she? Though I’m such a scatterbrain that I can never find a bit of stationery when I need one. So I fear it came to you wrapped up in silly Paris gossip. But surely you’re too sensible a girl to pay any attention to any of that.”

  “Oh yes, Madame la Duchesse. Oh no, no attention at all. Oh yes, thank you, it was very refreshing.”

  “Well, I’m glad you liked it. It’s dear of you to come all this way from the kitchen just to thank me for it. A bit belated perhaps, but I know how marvelously busy and efficient all of you are down there and how much you have to do…”

  The perfect hostess at a loss for how to get rid of a tiresome guest, she turned her gaze back toward the white rose. “And so, Marie-Laure, perhaps you had better get back to…”

  Marie-Laure took a deep breath.

  “Madame la Duchesse, someone stole some money from me. And I think—I think it was Jacques.”

  The Duchesse raised her eyebrows.

  “Really? How very strange. Because do you know, Marie-Laure, I’ve had some money taken from me as well. Seventy-eight livres, to be exact. It was returned to me just this morning, by a faithful servant.

  “Of course,” she continued, “I don’t like to use the word stolen. I hadn’t thought I’d bother the magistrate about it. So unpleasant, all of that. The penalty in such a case, I believe, is branding.”

  She opened the ebony box, picked up Marie-Laure’s sack of coins, and weighed it in her hand.

  “Public, ceremonial branding in the village square. On the cheek, so that the thief may be instantly identified and henceforth avoided by all decent people.”

  “But—but that’s my money,” Marie-Laure stammered.

  “We seem to disagree on this point,” the Duchesse replied.

  “Still,” she added, “that’s what our courts of law are for. I’m sure the magistrate will be open to your claim. He seemed quite fair and unprejudiced, the day he swore fealty to my husband as his lord.”

  A snake. Powerful and poisonous too.

  She opened her mouth to protest. And then she closed it, curtsied and began to back away.

  No use. I should never have come.

  “I beg your pardon, Madame la Duchesse. I must have been mistaken. And yes, I have a lot to do downstairs, so if you’ll excuse me…” Her clogs seemed to thunder beneath her.

  “Oh, will you hush,” the Duchesse interrupted her.

  “And stop shuffling your feet in those dreadful clogs, you’re giving me a headache. Just take them off. That’s right, you can stand there in your bare feet while you listen carefully to what I have to say to you.”

  It was actually rather pleasant to stand barefoot on the cool, smoothly varnished parquet, but it made her feel like a beggar or a criminal making a public confession. Which, she supposed, was more or less what the Duchesse had intended.

  “Stand straight. And look at me. Show a little respect when I speak to you. Yes, that’s better. Well, I’m glad to get a look at you this morning anyway. My husband’s been too busy lately for our afternoon teas and I’d rather lost track of your condition.

  “It’s clear as day that you’ll soon be useless down there in the kitchen. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if in a week or two you’ll hardly be able to stand on those swollen ankles of yours.”

  It doesn’t matter how much she insults me, Marie-Laure thought. But is she right about my ankles? For they had swollen quite a bit in the last few days.

  “But luckily, Marie-Laure,” the Duchesse’s voice became more honeyed and more venomous too, and a gleeful light appeared in her sharp green eyes, “luckily, Providence has a way of working things out for the best. And has given you an opportunity to redeem yourself and your bad behavior.

  “Because you see, my husband the Duc and I have need of a girl like you. We want someone strong and healthy to play a very important role in the future of this family.

  “For you must know how difficult it is to find a clean, healthy, devoted wet nurse for a child. And not just any child, but,” she paused, frowning slightly, “the future Duc de Carency Auvers-Raimond. But just think—how blessed we are, how rewarded for all our charity, to find just such a person in our own home. And someone, moreover, who is just a few weeks further along than I am. So you’ll have time to practice on your own brat, perfecting your nursing technique and in all ways becoming a docile, dependable little dairy cow by the time my child is ready for your services.

  “You’ll get plenty of rest—no more exhausting kitchen work. And you’ll have lots of time and solitude to meditate on how badly you’ve behaved, and resolve to do better. Do you like this gown?”

  Marie-Laure nodded, dumbfounded.

  “You can have it. Shorten it. And loo
sen the neckline so that you’ll always be ready when our little heir is hungry.”

  “There’s a charming cottage,” the Duchesse continued, “near the river, that we’ve set the carpenters to renovating. It’s very comfortable. Quite isolated and picturesque. Very Rousseauesque, I’m told, if you like that sort of thing. You’ve read this Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Marie-Laure?”

  “Yes, Madame la Duchesse.”

  “Well then, you’re familiar with his tiresome preaching, mothers nursing their own children and so forth. It’s getting to be quite the fashion at court, it’s a novelty, a diversion for ladies who’ve already had their breasts immortalized by the court painters and don’t mind having them ruined by all that nasty suckling.

  “Ah well, fashions come and go, but we all have our duties, don’t we, Marie-Laure? And my duty, sadly, must entail a separation from my family, for I’ll be going to Paris, with only Arsène and Hortense for support. Well, to Versailles, actually, at the invitation of some dear friends I met last winter, to represent this family at the King’s court.

  “But never fear, my husband will be staying behind to supervise the chateau, and to look after his heir’s welfare. And, of course, to look after you, Marie-Laure.”

  So this is where it all leads.

  “He’s been unusually diligent, too, setting up the cottage to his own specifications, so snug and private and convenient to hunting and fishing. I know that you’ll put your best efforts into your new duties. Well, what choice do you have after all?

  “Gather your things. We’ll move you into the cottage this afternoon, and I’ll send my doctor to have a look at you.”

  The Duchesse’s voice became softer and more conspiratorial, even as her neck seemed to lengthen and her eyes took on a reptilian glassiness.

  “Poor Hubert,” she said. “I find, now that it’s almost over, that I’ll miss him now and again. He might have developed into something more than he is, you know, if he hadn’t always shown to such disadvantage, compared to his precious little brother. Well, it’s too late to worry about any of that, I suppose. It’s all spilled milk, as the proverb says—so aptly in this case, don’t you agree? And as for the brother…”

  Madame Amélie’s eyes strayed to the letter case on the table. “At least he won’t be bothering us anymore…”

  Had something happened to Joseph?

  The Duchesse waved Marie-Laure’s questioning face away. “The news is being discussed at length in the scandal sheets. I’ll be sure to send you all the best accounts.”

  She opened the letter case, glancing dismissively at a sheet of heavy crested stationery covered with incisive handwriting. She pulled out a pile of flimsier, more familiar sheets of paper, crumpled them, and tossed them into the fire.

  “You might have been a bit more poetical, when you told him about the child,” she said. “Or a bit more respectful in your remarks about myself and the Duc. But it hardly matters now.

  “Of course I’m no literary critic,” the Duchesse continued, as Marie-Laure stared at the cinders her letters had become, “but one could say you’ve rather a talent for comedy—at least for genre scenes among the lower classes. A sense of humor is a wonderful gift, Marie-Laure, and I’m sure it will be a comfort to you in times ahead.”

  She brought forth a thicker sheaf of papers. “Whereas the Vicomte…mon Dieu, what could he have been thinking, sending pornographic tracts to a servant in a decent house?”

  She rolled up Joseph’s letters and sent them to the same fiery death as Marie-Laure’s letters to him.

  She picked up another set of papers.

  “And to send such a scandalous story as well, about a sultan and his perverted, unspeakable… Well, it was amusing enough for someone in my position, but I can only thank heaven that the common people of France are protected by the King’s wise censors. And that I was here to do the same service for you, Marie-Laure, and protect you from such filth.”

  The sultan and the English lady of quality. Equals in passion and desire. Both reduced to ashes.

  Marie-Laure thought she might scream. Or, perhaps, she thought for just a moment, she could pull the Duchesse out of her chair and knock her to the ground. Kick her. Pour mint and elderberry tea over her head and break the teapot.

  Marie-Laure, that is not a good idea.

  Nor was it a good idea, she thought, to be saying what it seemed she was saying.

  “It’s only filth to you because you don’t understand about love and desire. And because no one ever wanted you that way, even though you wanted Joseph. I know you did. And I know that you envy me.”

  The Duchesse almost winced, but at the last moment merely nodded.

  “Under the present circumstances,” she replied, “I think that ‘envy’ is taking it a bit far. Still, I have pondered our relative fortunes, yours and mine; well, the comparison calls out to be made, does it not?

  “It’s a bit of a fairy tale, isn’t it? About two young women, neither of them highborn, both of them entangled in the same rotten branch of the old aristocracy. Two alert, intelligent young women who know how to keep their eyes open. Until one of them becomes blinded—by passion, I suppose you might say. Or by pleasures the other one hasn’t yet come to know.

  “But I will, Marie-Laure. The difference between us is that your pleasures are behind you, while mine are still to come. How interesting—how poetical, in a sense—that it’s you who’ll free me to live the life I deserve.”

  It was an interesting construction, Marie-Laure thought. She opened her mouth to speak and then she closed it again. She could probably manage a saucy enough reply. But an additional insult would be superfluous.

  Because clever as the Duchesse’s rejoinder had been, it didn’t obscure the truth, which was that she did envy Marie-Laure and always would. Rejected for a scullery maid, the Duchesse had already corrupted herself with hateful, envious brooding.

  So Marie-Laure stood quite still on her bare feet and remained quiet. She was trembling, of course. And her vision was tinged with red, as though she were seeing the Duchesse and her white rose through a haze of blood. But part of her mind, some cold, critical intelligence, remained crystal clear and even fascinated.

  Best to hear it out. For it was clear that the Duchesse had prepared her last speech very carefully.

  Because we must always be at our best for those we envy.

  How very strange it was, Marie-Laure thought.

  Strange or not, a lifelong reader knew how to recognize and appreciate heightened literary effect. And Marie-Laure found that she was eager to hear how the Duchesse would frame her final lines.

  She widened her eyes attentively while the lady in the green armchair took another sip of tea.

  “There now, where were we? Ah yes. Well, I think you’ll find, all in all, that Hubert has simple needs. He’ll make them clear to you in due time; never fear, I’m sure a girl like you will manage splendidly. Of course you needn’t worry about him getting you pregnant again. That end of things has never been his forte.

  “He has very few wants, really,” the Duchesse continued. “He’ll be quite happy so long as he’s killing little birds and animals, and has his hunting dogs and his brother’s little slut to play with. And he’ll enjoy watching his child thrive at your breast, you know, especially…”

  And here’s the eloquent touch, Marie-Laure thought. The pause, the ellipsis, the words deleted in order to exaggerate the effect of the words already said.

  Especially.

  Slowly, lovingly, the Duchesse drew out the long ssss sound, showing her teeth as she did so. And then she stopped abruptly, leaving the unfinished sentence half-coiled, like a hissing serpent poised to strike. She knew that Marie-Laure had grasped her meaning, and would parse the rest of the sentence with perfect accuracy in her own mind. He’ll enjoy watching his child thrive at your breast, especially because it will mean less milk, less care, and less attention for his brother’s child.

  Brava, Madame.<
br />
  But in the end it seemed that the Duchesse wasn’t up to the standard of rhetorical subtlety she’d set herself. For she couldn’t resist tacking on a far less artful and really rather banal finale.

  “Now go,” she hissed. “You’re boring me.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Marie-Laure stumbled out back through the bedchamber. Her senses were clouded, her steps so disjointed that she nearly knocked the Duc over when she bumped into him at the threshold of the Duchesse’s rooms. She had enough of her wits about her, though, to regret that she hadn’t sent him tumbling onto his bottom.

  He’d been hunting. There was a gamy, bloody smell about him; a couple of whining, panting hounds, with loud bells at their collars, trotted along after his muddy boots. She murmured excuses for her clumsiness and gave a shallow curtsy, enduring his small blue eyes and alcohol-laced breath on her breasts, her mouth, and the pulse at her throat.

  For a moment he seemed fractious, like a child who’d done his sullen best to behave, but wasn’t sure he was going to be given the reward that had been promised. Then, realizing that she must have just completed an interview with his wife, he smiled with sudden wolfish delight.

  “So it’s all settled,” he said. His open mouth and red lips shone with drool.

  He reached to grab her, but she swooped into a deeper curtsy, bending her head over his hand to kiss it. The gesture seemed to puzzle and please him. It would be nice, she could see him thinking, to get a little respect once in a while.

  One of the hounds had poked an inquisitive wet nose under her skirt. She wished with all her heart that she could kick the filthy beast across the room. But she forced herself to ignore the sniffing and nuzzling, while she continued to press her mouth against the Duc’s puffy, beringed little hand; it was like a fat white maggot, the starched lace cuffs not quite hiding the dirt beneath his fingernails.

  Stifling the urge to retch, Marie-Laure peered up at him. He was giggling with pleasure at the sight of her swollen breasts, pushed up and almost out of her too-tight dress. In another moment, she thought, he’d dribble saliva on her.