The Seamstress

by Allison Pittman

  “Food,” he said finally, to her short-lived relief. “Food for my sheep. For the winter, I’ll need grain.” He calculated. “Twenty bags of it.”

  Before she could stop herself, Laurette gasped. Not so much shocked at Gagnon’s choice but the gall of the amount.

  Marcel, however, took the pronouncement in stride, as if Gagnon were asking him to gather so many sacks of pinecones. “I can do that.”

  “Before winter?”

  “Tout à fait. In fact, for an invitation to winter in your cozy loft, I will bring you twenty-five.”

  Gagnon looked intrigued, amused in a way Laurette had never seen. “Be here before the first snow with thirty, and you can have a bed inside.”

  “Done.” The men stood and shook hands. Shortly after, Gagnon bid him adieu and walked him out the front door, across the yard, and from what Laurette could tell, up to the hill crest, as she stood at the door and watched until both were out of sight. When Gagnon returned, alone, she made herself busy, raking the soil to prepare her fall garden.

  “Intriguing about Renée, non?” Had she not spoken, he might have strode right past her without a word.

  “Yes.” He stopped but seemed uneasy, shifting his weight from foot to foot. “And a relief to know she is safely delivered.” Without warning, he took the rake from her and reached it to the farther corners of the garden, obviously attempting to escape conversation through labor, but she would have none of it.

  “Thirty bags, Gagnon? How is any man going to find thirty bags of grain this winter? Grain for sheep?”

  “He won’t.”

  “Then why—?”

  “Because even a scoundrel like Marcel Moreau will know better than to ask for shelter without them.”

  “But suppose . . .” She knew a side of Marcel that Gagnon didn’t. “Suppose he does?”

  “Then I give him a bed.” He plunged the rake into the packed soil and pulled it through, creating a soft, tilled layer.

  “But—where?” When she was really wondering, Whose?

  “That, ma fille, is a question for the winter.”

  L’épisode 15

  Renée

  * * *

  VERSAILLES

  * * *

  There is a hall in the palace composed entirely of reflections. A wall of mirrors faces a wall of windows, with glass-baubled chandeliers suspended from the ceiling. The archways are gold, as are the statues, and to run through it means racing past your own reflection a hundred times over. Of course, rarely do I have a chance to run through this particular corridor, as during the day it is almost always packed with dignitaries and those with a desire to rise in rank and reputation with the court. Thus, the floor is dull and scuffed, and it is here that I keep my eyes trained whenever I am on an errand in the middle of the day.

  But when it is deserted, like it is this morning, I allow myself a sprint, at least partway, until some servant of the household spots me and raises a threatening eyebrow. Then I walk slowly, with careful, silent steps, and breathe in the grandeur of this place. Everywhere is beauty—beauty that gets lost behind the vulgarities of ambition. There was a wedding not long after my arrival here. I stood at the back of this hall, flattened against my own reflection, and watched a fat, blotchy-faced man take a girl less than half his age in marriage. She looked like a frightened rabbit with her paw trapped in the snare of his hand, and he like a drunken squire ready to sit down to dinner. Nobody in the room wished them well. The men made crude jokes about the night to come, and the women, snide comments about the groom’s health, longevity, and fortune.

  This morning a new element lends itself to glisten in the hall. Outside, the courtyard is covered in fresh, unbroken snow. When the sun hits it full strength, the glitter will be blinding, but now it is a matte, perfect white, just emerging from the gray of dawn. I remember the magic of fields of snow in moonlight, the dogs romping through, sending up crystal clouds, new flakes dark against the sky. Once Gagnon’s cottage was buried halfway up the door, and Laurette and I had to climb out of our loft window, walk across the drift, and holler down the chimney. Here, even the snow falls by design. A perfect cushion on the garden benches. A frosted layer on the disciplined greenery. Pathways shoveled and salted to make safe the king’s steps.

  This speaks to the very heart of my errand.

  I was awoken this morning with a nudge to my shoulder and a voice close to my ear whispering, “Couturière. Couturière. Lève-toi.” I opened my eyes to find Bertrand mere inches away, close enough that I could see the fine white whiskers growing along the strong line of his jaw. Later, as I walk through the Hall of Mirrors, I look out upon the snow and think of them, how soft they might feel beneath my palm, and I regret not claiming the confusion of sleep to touch him.

  Instead, from the darkness I grappled to find his name and muttered it questioningly, with only my voice as proof that I was not in a dream.

  “I’ve been sent to dispatch you to the king’s apartment, with a message from Her Majesty.”

  Immediately I was fully awake. “Is everything all right? The children?” For this past week, since the eve of Christmas, after so many late nights and rich treats, Marie-Thérèse, Louis-Joseph, and Louis-Charles have been sleeping with their mother in her enormous bed. As a favorite of the princess, I’ve been allowed to stay near, helping her with the gifts she planned to present to her parents in the New Year—a quilted case for her father to store his spectacles, and a silk pillow for her mother, specially constructed that she might lie down upon it without destroying her coiffure. I’ve taken to sleeping on one of the sofas in the queen’s antechamber, one of the lesser-used against the wall. It is more restful than my narrow cot in the crowded room of tirewomen, and the room is kept warm enough that I need only a single blanket. Never in my life had I slept a winter’s night without waking to the sight of my own breath, and this morning I awoke to the sight of Bertrand, second of the queen’s guard, with a message for the king.

  And he was smiling.

  “They are fine. Still sleeping. She wants to take the children for a sleigh ride this morning, and the dauphin left his warmest boots in the king’s apartment. Would you fetch them?”

  “Why would she send me?”

  At this, he looked chagrined. “Actually, she sent me. But with so many guests in the palace, I don’t want to leave my post for something so trivial.”

  “And my life can be spared?”

  “It gave me a reason to go to you. To be the first person you see in this New Year. Why would I not take that opportunity?”

  I’m never sure how I should take his words. True, we have become friends since that night of Marcel’s visit. I know that he is twenty-five; he knows that I am seventeen. We are both children who lost our mothers far too young, though his father is still alive and well and employed in the king’s stables. He makes jokes about my size, pretending not to see me when I am near, and urging me to stay away from all the rat traps hidden throughout the palace. And when I tease him about his massiveness, he tells me he is descended from the hordes of Vikings that stormed through France, leaving destruction and bastards in their wake. When I tell him that Marcel called him my “mountain,” though, there is no laughter, and I take care not to mention him again.

  The Hall of Mirrors is not the shortest route to the king’s apartment; that would be the secret door in the queen’s chamber, but I love having this hall to my own devices. I pause every step or so and take the time to examine myself in the mirror. What does Bertrand see? And then, I run—a sprint that brings me to race against myself as my reflection flashes and disappears and flashes again. For those tiny bits of time I’m not alone here, not the only shepherd girl, the only daughter of questionable parentage, the only girl dressed like a quilted gypsy.

  The attendant at the king’s apartment looks at me as if I’m little more than a bundle of scraps when I arrive, breathless, at the door.

  “I’ve a message from Her Majesty the queen for Hi
s Highness.”

  The soft folds beneath his eyes are shaded gray, and the two armed guards on either side look like their first order of duty will be to prop the man up, as he appears on the verge of collapse. The hour is not unduly early, so I can only surmise that he, too, participated in the festivities of the New Year well into the night, and the strong odor of old wine wafting from his breath confirms my theory.

  “Leave it with me,” he says, soft hand exposed, “and go.”

  “It’s not written, sir. I’m to fetch something for Her Majesty. The dauphin’s boots? His fur-lined, as the family would like to go on a sleigh ride this morning. Doesn’t that sound like a fine idea to celebrate the New Year? But it’s so cold, you see . . .” I know that if I prattle on long enough, he will wave me through, and I am not mistaken.

  This is not the first time I’ve been to the king’s rooms. He is not a man overly concerned about his clothing, but those who surround him have sharper eyes, and I’ve been summoned to tack and mend lest he go out looking like a sovereign in a pauper’s coat. My first visit was startling, as his favored decor consists of hunting trophies staring with dead glass eyes. The chambers are every bit as masculine as my queen’s are feminine. To think that the most important marriage in France exists in two entirely separate homes. I asked Madame Gisela once how they managed to have children at all, having become quite comfortable in discussing such matters.

  “That was the question on everyone’s lips for years,” she said, tapping her chin in a way I’d come to recognize as a signal that she was choosing not to say all that was on her mind.

  I am brought through to his office—a room that was once a bath and has been haphazardly redecorated for its new purpose. Meaning a desk and table and chairs have been brought in, but the paintings of water nymphs and aqua-themed frescoes remain. The clash invites the king to be perpetually conducting business underwater. And not for the first time, when I find myself face-to-face with the king, I have to remind myself that I am, in fact, in the presence of royalty. For he is an unassuming man. Not terribly tall, somewhat fat, nearsighted, and with hair that must have been thinning since he was quite a young man. Not bald, but sparse. To see him now, in sleep-rumpled clothing and without a wig, is what I imagine it must be like to see a turtle without a shell. He is all soft.

  A host of men, all dressed for the formality of the day, surround him, and I’m forced to stand outside their circle saying, “Pardon, messieurs? Pardon?” before one of them finally acknowledges me with an impatient hiss. I repeat my mission three times, twice interrupted by a declaration that His Majesty has greater needs to attend to, until finally it is the king himself who quiets his advisers and draws me to his side and says, “Speak, girl.”

  “Her Majesty wishes to take the children on a sleigh ride, and le monsieur—le dauphin—requires his fur-lined boots. She believes they may be in your apartment, perhaps in your sleeping chamber, as he came here for a lie-down after playing outside the other day.” It is the longest single sentence I have ever said to him, and he rewards me with attention.

  “I am quite occupied here, you see.” He gestures behind him. “But you are most welcome to go through that door and look for yourself. I daresay you’ll be more efficient at finding the things than I.”

  “Oui, monsieur,” I say, offering a curtsy and a smile. Refusing to acknowledge the grunts of the men around me, I enter into what appears to be the king’s bedchamber. His bed is smaller than the queen’s by half, heaped with furs and blankets but only a few flat pillows. Our queen is known to lounge abed for more than half the day if she has no official duties, even receiving visitors and entertaining guests (only women, of course, despite what I’ve heard in scandalous rumors) when she feels too ill or too listless to leave it, but this is clearly a place for a man to sleep. The bed is both unmade and undisturbed. Just rumpled, like the king himself.

  I’ve left the door open behind me, so I can hear every word spoken in my absence.

  “Your Majesty, we must insist—”

  “Is it too much to ask for even a modicum of respectable behavior?”

  “And how, pray tell—” this the voice of Louis—“is an afternoon sleigh riding with her children in any way disrespectful?”

  “Now, in these troubled times—and they are troubled, Monseigneur—it is more important than ever that our queen appear devoted to this country. Our traditions. With all due respect to her native Austria, we do not engage in sleigh rides in France. Not on the grounds of the palace.”

  I remain frozen in place, allowing my eyes to roam the room. It will be a challenge to locate a small boy’s pair of boots, and the king’s greatest secret might be his slovenly habits. Clothing is draped over furniture, books and papers are scattered throughout, as are knives and pouches and stockings and shoes. Obviously none of the men berating the queen are charged with tidying up.

  “I will not forbid my wife to spend an afternoon with her children,” Louis says, and I find myself smiling with pride for him, and soon after shocked at his adviser’s tone.

  “It is your sovereign duty to protect her—as her husband and her king—from those who would wish her harm. You know the public sentiment. How much worse would it be if she were to begin this New Year by reminding us all, once again, of her foreign roots? Better she should be aligned with our traditions.”

  “Our traditions are dying.” This, spoken softly, is a voice different from the one so vehemently opposed to the queen. A beat of silence follows his solemn pronouncement. Uncomfortable in the heaviness of the moment, I move around the room, happily spying one little boot peeking from underneath the bed. I fish the other out of the darkness. Hoping to distract from more berating, I rush out, holding the boots aloft, as if the fur that lines them is my trophy.

  “Success!” But the ring of faces is stern, wigs in authority, mouths set in disagreement.

  “Hold, girl,” says the king, and he riffles through his untidy desk, finally producing a clean scrap of paper. He dips his quill and begins to write—short, choppy strokes. The only sound is that of the nib on paper, but I can well guess the flow of thoughts onto the page. He rolls the blotter and folds the sheet carelessly, forgoing the seal, as I’m sure he thinks I cannot read. He hands the paper to the spokesman for the gathering, who makes no bones about unfolding the page and reading the note within. He grunts in assent and hands it to me.

  “Take this to Her Majesty. And be quick about it.”

  “Oui, monsieur.” But I offer no curtsy, or even the slightest dip of my head. For all I know this man is no better born than I. He notes my disrespect with a narrowed eye, and I think he might be on the verge of warning me to say nothing to the queen about what I’ve heard, but then I realize: he wants her to know. He would say it to her face if given an audience to do so. I could tell from his tone that he is one who revels in the gossip, who gets some satisfaction from the slander.

  The Hall of Mirrors has come to life in the interim, the business of the palace fully commenced. The holiday has brought anybody of birth or means to Versailles. Red-faced squires and pale, water-eyed dukes. Children, too. Some clinging to their mother’s skirts, fearful of the endless reflections of strangers, and others boldly behaving as I do in private—running up and down the length of the glass, intermittent shouts as they race past themselves. My stomach churns at the idea of delivering this note to the queen. How could her behavior be any more appalling than what I see here? Who among these people has a right to pass judgment on what might bring her joy?

  I make my steps heavy, plodding through the grandeur, my eyes fixed on the tiles beneath. Black, white. Black, white. I’m clutching the dauphin’s boots close, willing my nose not to wrinkle at the smell of damp-dried fur and little boys’ feet. He may be a future king, but his boots are of no finer quality or craftsmanship than those Gagnon made for me every winter from the pelts of the goats he’d been forced to butcher. Though, unlike these, mine were always lined with wool, givin
g the warmth of an extra sock stitched within. Last winter, I’d stitched them myself.

  The children are awake when I return to the queen’s apartments, and two of them are nesting in her bed. The dauphin, Louis-Joseph, is gone, no doubt to be examined by a physician before any outing for the day. Louis-Charles is quietly setting up an intricate battle at the foot, having molded the silk covers into hills and trenches. Marie-Thérèse lies curled at her mother’s side, speaking softly of a dream, oblivious to the fact that her mother is only half-listening, if the expression on the queen’s face is any indication. She stares as if the gilded walls of the chamber have disappeared, leaving vast plains of someplace both fearful and wonderful before her. Protocol demands that I not speak until she speaks to me, and though I’m standing squarely in her vacant gaze, she is gently startled when she finally sees me.

  “You have found them? The boots. Children are so careless with their things.”

  “Oui, madame. I have also this, from His Majesty.” None of her ladies are in the room, so I’m compelled to give her the note myself. She does not dismiss me, so I’m forced to watch while she opens it, adjusts the paper to her weak vision, and takes in the brief message. Her countenance loses all traces of contentment. Not all at once, but with the registering of each word, and her entire body ripples in a sigh of disappointment. She transforms before me, aging into a woman with thinning hair and shadowed eyes. Nothing about this woman would invite salacious ridicule. She is not an enemy of France, but a woman trapped within its dictates. Her daughter senses the change.

  “Maman?”

  “We are not to have a sleigh ride today, chérie.” She crumples the paper in one hand and pulls Marie-Thérèse close with the other. “Papa le Roi says we mustn’t.”