by Perrat, Liza
I thought back to the previous afternoon when we had lain together on her bed again, the heat pulsing through my wet thighs. Then tonight, caught up in the whirling crowd, tipsy on the wine, the gaiety, the fantasy, and strung out on the swelling orchestral music, the costumes, I had forgotten those would be our last moments together. No more would I taste the fruit, nor drink in her delicious juices.
I had not realised the price of my freedom would be so high. Already, I felt completely alone.
‘Is madame ready to leave?’ The coachman’s voice jolted me back to the crisp night. I nodded, gave him the address and stepped up into the coach.
I sat down and opened Jeanne’s leather bag. My hand flew to my breast as I heard the coachman’s whip come down upon the horses’ backs. The coach lurched away and I stared down at the bag full of louis d’or coins jangling in my lap.
I did not even glance from the window, as la Salpêtrière asylum disappeared, for I could not take my eyes from the glittering cluster of transparent gems that nestled beneath the bed of coins.
Paris
February 1787–November 1789
28
‘Where am I?’ I bolted up in the bed. In the bleary moment between sleep and waking, I couldn’t remember a thing. I wondered why, beneath the blanket, my fingers gripped a leather drawstring bag as if moulded to it.
In the wan early light, a dark wisp of a girl stood over me.
‘Who are you?’ I said.
The girl smiled. ‘Don’t be alarmed, Rubie — ’
‘Rubie?’ My head darted right and left. There was no sign of anybody else.
‘You are Rubie now,’ she said. ‘Mademoiselle Rubie Charpentier. La Comtesse Jeanne sent me to meet you here last night. You were exhausted after the ball. It must have been quite a soirée?’ She raised her eyebrows, black arcs across skin the colour of ripe oats.
The ball. Swirling, glittery dancers. The heat of Jeanne’s touch. Bloodied heads falling to the floor. The stink of death and despair in an icy dungeon. Two little children floating on the crest of a current.
The fug of sleep cleared. Oh yes. I was Rubie Charpentier, Jeanne De Valois’s bourgeois Parisian friend — a woman who held herself with such befitting poise and mannerisms, and spoke the language of the capital.
Still clutching the leather purse, I twisted my head about taking in the strange surroundings: the simple, elegant wooden furniture, the patterned cream wallpaper that gave the room an ambience of soft peace. The green ball gown was draped across the bottom of the bed in which I lay — no straw mattress alive with vermin, but a real bed with curtains, blankets and a pillow. It all made me dizzy.
‘But who are you?’ I asked the girl again.
‘I am Aurore, your maid.’ She fetched a tray from a small table by the window and laid it on the bed. ‘Because, Mademoiselle Rubie, all fine ladies have maids, and appearances in Paris are most important. Now eat your breakfast. You are thin, and we must build your strength. Besides, you have much to do today I believe?’
I tried not to gape at the croissant, the buttered brioche and blackberry jam, and my eyes closed as I inhaled the delicious, bitter aroma of the coffee.
The girl drew back the green drapes that separated the bedroom from, I saw, the main room parlour, and light flooded the apartment.
The brioche crumbled, soft and moist, on my tongue. I washed it down with coffee, watching the steam waltz and die in mid-air. I could hardly believe, after a year and a half in what must be the direst Hell God created, I was finally free.
But was this true freedom, this pain gouging my breast like the thrust of a nobleman’s sword? Jeanne is probably halfway to the great city of London by now, as I hide, utterly alone, in some unknown Parisian faubourg.
I pushed the tray aside, got up, and stuffed the drawstring bag under the mattress.
I crossed to the window, pulled back another of the drapes, and squinted into the watery winter sunlight. Above a jumble of street noise and rumbling traffic, I looked out across tiled roofs and their wayward angled chimneys.
The cold air felt like the iron shackle around my throat again. I touched the skin on my neck, feeling again the shock as the keepers hurled icy water over me. I rubbed at the chill on my arms and turned as I heard Aurore’s footsteps on the parquet floor.
She gestured towards a mirrored dressing table. ‘Let me brush your hair out, Mademoiselle Rubie.’
‘Just Rubie, please.’ I shuffled over to the dressing table and froze when I saw the skeletal features staring back from the mirror. It was as if each laborious day — every one of la Sâlpetrière’s inflictions — had etched itself into my skin as deeply as the lily flower branding.
‘You will regain your looks,’ Aurore said, as if she’d guessed my thoughts. ‘With fresh air and good food.’
I toyed with a straggle of chestnut curls, which, eighteen months after they’d shaved my hair for the dungeons, almost reached my shoulders. ‘My father always said my hair was my finest asset.’
‘And it shall be again,’ Aurore said, and as she resumed brushing, I was reminded of those afternoons I smoothed the dark hair from Jeanne’s white shoulders. I shivered with the love — the longing — I knew I should banish, and blinked away gritty tears.
‘Don’t be sad, Rubie. La Comtesse wants only your happiness.’
I nodded. ‘I know. Yes, I know.’
‘Jeanne trusts me,’ Aurore said. ‘You can trust me too, Rubie. I’m your friend.’ The twinkle in her black eyes made me want to believe her. ‘Come now, look at your dresses.’
I gasped in disbelief as Aurore showed me an array of garments and accessories. I picked up the large, circular cloak, the velvet fabric as soft as a chick’s feathers, the fur trimming silken in my hand. There were cotton caps edged in lace too, straw hats, and ribbons and gloves of every colour, alongside muslin dresses of different shades.
‘Everything is magnificent,’ I said.
‘Not really,’ Aurore said. ‘Nothing too grand to attract attention; simple enough to blend in with the crowds.’
She fingered a luxurious green gown trimmed in lace, with a white satin underskirt, matching slippers and hat. ‘This one though, is for special occasions.’
Always wear this shade, Victoire, with your hair and eyes.
I burned with the thrill of Jeanne’s words. Had it only been last night?
I held the green dress up against my thin body. After the drab asylum garments, I felt swathed in glory.
‘Yes, I’ll keep this one clean and special,’ I said, and chose a white dress with a peach-coloured sash for today.
‘I’m not very used to wearing a corset,’ I said, as Aurore tucked a small packet of fragrant herbs into a concealed pocket, instantly reminding me of my mother.
‘Well, you don’t have to wear the silly thing if you don’t want to, Mademoiselle Rubie,’ Aurore said, frowning as she tightened the laces, and squeezing the breath from me. ‘You may do as you please now.’
‘Well, I will try,’ I said, recalling Jeanne’s advice about standing tall and confident.
I wanted to tell Aurore that even if we peasants could afford them, corsets were not conducive to hard, physical labour, but I caught the words on my tongue. I had no idea how much Aurore knew about me, and from my days at Saint-Germain, I knew one servant in four was a spy by whose means the most carefully hidden secrets fell into the wrong hands.
Once dressed, I walked across the even tiled floor, gazing around the apartment. Wide beams supported the low ceiling, and my footsteps fell silent on a Turkish rug. The small kitchen had a glazed tile stove, a dry sink, a cabinet, a wooden table and two benches. I ran my hand over the shiny copper kettle and the pans standing on a shelf near the hearth. My cheeks warmed as I remembered my friend Claudine, and the heat of her comforting kitchen, and I clenched my fist to stem my rage against the Marquis de Barberon.
‘It’s all so lovely,’ I said. What luxury, next to the filthy, cramped c
onditions of the peasantry, I wanted to say. And of course, it could not even compare with the bleakness of la Sâlpetrière, but still I held my tongue.
‘This townhouse is owned by a countess friend of Jeanne’s,’ Aurore said. ‘The lady lives in the countryside and only uses the ground and first floors when she comes to Paris to visit friends or shop at the Palais-Royal. This whole second floor is ours.’ She smiled, spreading her arms as if for her too, it was all new and beyond belief.
‘Now, Rubie, have you all your papers, your recommendation letter, everything you need? We should go soon.’
I glanced at the slight girl. What do you know of things I’ll need? Who are you really, and why did Jeanne bring you to me?
She seemed pleasant and accommodating, but Jeanne had taught me to distrust people; to be wary and, I believe, a little cunning. As Aurore busied herself tucking her curls beneath her cap and finding her shoes, I slipped one of the diamonds and several coins from the bag into a concealed pocket of my dress.
I tightened the strings and shoved the bag back under the mattress — better off there than at the mercy of the pickpockets and villains of Paris, or a supposed maid I knew nothing about.
***
The callouses of my working hands concealed beneath the muff, we left the courtyard of the ivy-covered stone building, last season’s twigs and dead leaves crunching beneath our feet.
‘See, Rubie, we have a separate stairway and entrance,’ Aurore said. ‘And so you’ll not lose your way, you should know we are in the rue Saint-Honoré. Well, actually at the junction of the rue Saint-Honoré and the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré.’
The shock of hearing the name of the street that housed fashionable shops on the lower floors brought a wry smile to my lips. Who’d have thought I would live at such an address.
We stepped out into dense traffic, the din almost hurting my ears. Church bells clanged into the cool February morning, and I wondered again, as on my very first morning in Paris, how many bells there could be in one city.
Aurore pushed me against the wall as a cabriolet driven at breakneck speed by a distinguished-looking man flashed past. Instinctively, I grabbed her arm.
Aurore waved her fist. ‘Imbecile!’
Just ahead, a cart had lost its wheel and overturned, dumping its load of charcoal across the street. People were shouting streams of obscenities, carts backed up as far as we could see.
Knocked down by the heavy load, a man lay in a puddle of blood. A woman knelt beside him, holding a rag over a gaping wound. My father’s dead face loomed in my mind, and I flinched.
‘Don’t worry, Rubie, accidents such as this are cleared up quickly,’ Aurore said. ‘They will simply pay the man’s family the accepted price for leg injuries and the police will say nothing. That’s how it is, our unjust system!’ Her dark eyes burned with an anger that unnerved me; a fury I recognised so well.
Aurore held my arm as we picked our way over the mess, swerving, a few paces later, as a maid opened a door and threw slop into the street without looking left or right.
‘Idiot!’ Aurore shouted at the maid.
Ah yes, the capital was just as I remembered it — noisy, chaotic and unruly.
Aurore steered me down the rue Royale. ‘It will be more pleasant to walk along the right bank of the Seine,’ she said, ‘rather than risk being run down by these mad carriages and hackney coaches.’
We reached la place Louis XV within a few minutes. ‘One of the most popular sights for visitors to Paris these days,’ Aurore said. ‘Like some grand entrance to our great, corrupt city, don’t you think, Rubie?’
‘My father told us the story of the fireworks disaster here,’ I said as we crossed paving stones still glistening with dew, and stopped in the shadow of the bronze statue of the old King. ‘The display to celebrate the new king and queen’s marriage; the catastrophe people believed to be an ominous portent.’
‘Of course I heard of it,’ Aurore said. ‘An omen that is proving true, n’est-ce pas, Rubie? You will discover how our benighted city stinks now, of noble wealth and depravity, like some poisoned beast. In the cafés, people are speaking more and more of equality and liberty. Our monarchs are slipping, slowly but surely, into their graves!’
She scowled up at the equestrian bust of Louis XV — a gesture I thought, once again, uncharacteristically passionate for a simple maid. I imagined I would find out soon enough, what was behind that dark temper, but this morning I had more pressing things to do.
We continued along the Quai des Tuileries, past the royal gardens. The hour of nine chimed as we reached the Louvre, and it seemed those church bells signalled the barbers of Paris into motion, for they all appeared, wig in one hand, tongs in the other, quickly becoming covered in flour.
Women carrying tin urns on their backs sold their coffee for two sous a cup, and waiters from the lemonade-shops were busy with trays of coffee and rolls.
‘Breakfast for people living in furnished rooms,’ Aurore explained.
We reached the junction of the Quai de l’Ecole and the Pont Neuf. ‘I will leave you here, Rubie, to go to the Palais-Royal on your own,’ she said. ‘I must buy food for us at the market.’
‘So you know Jeanne recommends me to work at this restaurant of the Palais-Royal,’ I said. ‘But do you have an idea why?’
‘Jeanne never tells you why,’ Aurore said with a grin, ‘it’s only afterwards you come to understand. Now you must give me money for the food. I’ll see you at the apartment later this evening, when my work is finished.’
‘Work? But aren’t you a maid, Aurore?’
‘Well,’ she said, the eyes flashing with secrecy, or perhaps delight. ‘I was never trained for such a position, but I promised Jeanne I would help you adapt to your new life. My passion lies in the theatre. I’m a vaudeville actress for a theatre company at the Palais-Royal.’
‘Vaudeville?’
‘Oh, it’s a genre of variety entertainment. A series of separate acts really — musicians, dancers, comedian, magicians and acrobats. Walking the high-wire is my speciality. Perhaps you’ll watch me sometime, Rubie?’
‘Oh yes. Yes I’d like that.’
I hoped my relief wasn’t obvious when I understood Aurore would not be staying with me all day. Accustomed to someone barking orders at me, my daily existence carved in the strict regulations of la Salpêtrière, I did feel fearful of being on my own, but I was anxious to go to this jeweller unaccompanied.
Jeanne told me I would find her jeweller on la place Dauphine, at the very western end of L’île de la cite, so as Aurore’s jaunty strides vanished into the crowd, I turned and walked across the Pont Neuf. It was frightening carrying around such a diamond and I yearned to be rid of it as soon as possible.
Amidst the hawkers and entertainers, coaches and vegetable carts jostling and locking wheels, I felt the trembling start in my thighs, the mounting panic that someone would detect a peasant girl’s ambling gait, her weather-worn face, her simple, uneducated airs.
Any moment someone would tap me on the shoulder. ‘Back to the asylum, you cheap impersonator,’ they’d say. I hurried on, clenching my hands hidden beneath the muff.
29
Jeanne must have taught me well, because nobody arrested me. Even the legal practitioners descending on the Grand Chatelet criminal court in a black cloud of gowns, wigs and brief-bags, paid me no attention.
A bell tinkled as I pushed the shop door open. I tried to stop the tremor in my hands and the thud of my heart as the enormity of what I was about to do struck me — sell a diamond which, if things had gone differently, may have been worn around the neck of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France.
A short round man wearing a striped suit greeted me. ‘Ah, mademoiselle. Bonjour. I have been expecting you. Do sit down. And please accept my condolences for your loss.’
‘My loss?’ I frowned, and the silence that followed seemed long.
‘Are you not the only child of the deceased merch
ant, Monsieur Maximilien Charpentier?’ the jeweller said. ‘Come to sell the diamond he bequeathed you, under my wise guidance?’
I cleared my throat, hoping he would mistake my blush for rouge. ‘Oh yes. Yes. Thank you for your sympathy, m’sieur.’
The man nodded, explaining to me how unwise, and unsafe, it would be for him to keep piles of coins in his shop. ‘Besides, such large mounds of coins only serve to expose our country’s financial backwardness, n’est-ce pas, mademoiselle?’
Anxious not to make any silly blunders, I remained wordless for a minute.
‘Excusez-moi, m’sieur?’
‘Those piles of metal for which our country’s backwardness cannot seem to find any paper equivalent,’ he said. ‘With the wretched messengers bent double under the weight of their bags of money, carting them from strong-room to strong-room.’
I nodded. ‘Ah yes, m’sieur, it does seem a little … a little backward.’
The jeweller then explained he would give me a piece of paper instead of money.
‘A bill of exchange,’ he said.
I finally understood, and I sat there, unmoving, numbed with disbelief at how simple it was to sell a diamond worth more livres than I could probably count.
I could have taken a cabriolet, or even a fiacre, with its higher chassis and glass windows for better viewing, but not having assumed the reflexes of the rich, I left L’île de la Cité on foot. I continued walking back along the right bank towards the Palais-Royal, cowering from careening coaches in shop doorways and porticoed entrances.
As I drew closer to the market, I lifted my dress and stepped over the rivulets of blood streaming from a stinking boucherie.
‘Charlatan!’ a woman screeched, from a crowd gathered around a hawker selling cures for toothache.
‘Liar!’ another woman shouted, her eyes fiery. ‘Get the teeth pulled out, that’s the only way.’
Of course, I was relieved I would never have to concern myself over food or shelter, as these people about me, but I felt an odd flatness, which blunted the edges of my elation. I understood that I would have to hide this newfound wealth, always. Never could I have the pleasure of flaunting it, nor forget my riches were ill gotten.
