“Are they? I haven’t noticed. But if it makes you happy, I will change the lyrics just for you. ‘Ne pleure pas, Laurette . . .’” He sang the entire story of the tragic Jeannette—Laurette—and her love for the imprisoned Pierre, with whom she would rather die than marry a nobleman of her father’s choosing. The ballad was eight verses long, with the lyrical tra-la-la-la-la-la-la intercepting each, and ended on the darkly comic note of the tragic Jeannette hanging with her beloved. It took some forced stretching of the notes in the chorus, but true to his prediction, they were at the crest of the valley when the last note wafted to the stars.
“Tell me, Laurette,” he said, taking her arm to steady her down the slope. The boys and Cossette had gone ahead, half-running, half-rolling. “Would you make the same choice as the girl in the song? Would you marry a prisoner over a prince? Would you rather marry one of our weak, lifeless royals, or die for your lover?”
His tone was jovial, meant to keep her awake and engaged for the final steps, but her brain was too clouded for the question. Why would she die? And who was her lover? A pauper? A prisoner? A prince? She was nobody, had nobody. She muttered a response, and at Gagnon’s prompting, repeated it. “I’ll never marry.”
“Oh.” He made a sound of sympathetic disapproval. “And why would you say that, my Laurette?”
“Because I’ll never leave you, Gagnon. And you’ll never marry me.”
She felt her lips move against the muffler, unsure if she had spoken the words loud enough for him to hear. He said nothing in response but brought his arm around her for an embrace strong enough to bring her home. There, a small fire burned, making the inside of the house only marginally warmer than outside. Its surly attendant added a log when they came in.
“You’re home.”
“We are,” Gagnon answered, escorting Laurette closer.
“I still don’t understand why I could not have accompanied you instead of wasting here, bringing in the New Year alone.”
“The party was for friends and family only, Marcel. I count you as neither.”
“Nobody asked about me?”
“Non.”
“And you’ve brought me nothing home to eat?”
“Should I take food from the mouths of children to feed you, grown man? Bad enough you take from my table each day.”
The argument thrummed in Laurette’s ears like a pulse. It sparked daily, almost, brought on by too many hours in too close quarters without enough work to fill the day or food to fill the plates.
“I met our bargain,” Marcel said, as was his reliable defense.
“With grain stolen from poor farmers just like me, no doubt.”
“You’ve no problem feeding it to them. I don’t see your sheep starving. Unlike me—”
“Stop!” Laurette wished for a moment for the muffled sound of a snowy night.
“Boys,” Gagnon said, turning his attention to Philippe and Nicolas. “Take your stone and off to bed.”
The boys knew better than to put up a fuss. Philippe took the metal tongs from their place on the hearth and picked up the large, smooth stone that had spent the evening in the direct heat of the fire. He carried it carefully to the bedroom he shared with his brother and Marcel, the three of them coming to nightly agreements as to who would get a spot on the bed and who would be stretched on the floor. Tonight, after a long, late walk, there would be no question.
Next, to Laurette, “Go into our room. Take off your boots and socks. I want to see your feet.”
Thankful to miss the last remnant of the argument, Laurette—like the boys—obeyed. She took no candle, not trusting her fingers to grip one properly, but relied on her memory to guide her to the bed. She peeled off her gloves, letting them fall to the floor in a careless manner she would never permit under any other circumstances. Her hands were sore but apparently free of frost. All of the layers of clothing, scarves, shawl, and coat made it difficult for her to bend to reach her shoes. After a few grunting tries, she sat up, frustrated, and waited.
“It’s getting colder every minute,” Gagnon said when he arrived, carrying a lamp in one hand and a warming brick gripped by the tongs in the other. “I’ll build a fire in here tonight.”
A rare luxury. “What about the b-b-b-boys?” As she thawed, her teeth chattered.
“Them, too. Have no fear. Marcel will no doubt build a small inferno. Now, let me see.” He lifted the bottom corner of the blanket and ran the brick beneath it before kneeling at Laurette’s feet, gently removing her boots and one sock after another until he held her bare skin in his hands. He touched them gently, careful not to rub the flesh, and declared them beautiful and fine.
“My f-f-f-feet are not b-b-b-beautiful.”
“On a night like this, any foot that is not frozen is beautiful.” He wrapped them loosely in soft wool and instructed her to get beneath the covers while the stone was still warm. This she did, his back turned to her as he built a small fire in the stove. Somehow she knew she would be asleep before its warmth took hold, but felt comfort knowing it would blaze away while she dreamed. Slowly, still somewhat hampered by numbness in her fingers, she stripped to her chemise, moving carefully so as not to dislodge the soft wrapping on her feet. She climbed into the bed—her side—and pulled the covers up to her chin.
It was, by now, routine, the same as that first night when Gagnon had explained, calming her fears.
“You’ll be warmest in here. With me. And safe.”
“Safe from what?”
“Safe from him.”
And then, like that first night, when she assured him she was settled, he opened the door and whistled, calling in Cossette, who jumped up and laid herself along the length of her. Laurette sneaked a hand out from under the cover and ran it through the thick, reassuring fur. Long after the fire died, the dog would keep her warm.
Then, too, like that first night, like every night, she listened to Gagnon undress, don his sleeping shirt, and kneel at the bedside to pray, imagining the sharpness of the cold floor against his bare knees. When he at last climbed into bed, he, too, reached a hand to Cossette’s fur, this time—for the first time—finding Laurette’s there. He held it, briefly. Too briefly.
L’épisode 17
Renée
* * *
VERSAILLES
* * *
I’ve taken myself to the farthest corner of the sewing room and have been hunched over here for the better part of two days. Tomorrow will be the fourth birthday of the youngest prince, and I have been charged with making the suits for both of the royal sons. Doing so for Louis-Charles is nothing taxing—thus I’ve been given full charge. Breeches and a waistcoat in a pale-blue velvet, befitting the colors of the Bourbons. I crafted a narrow collar, as he still tends to be messy when he eats, and I want no stains to mar his princely appearance. The sash, however, is a deep, dark indigo—wide enough to cover the lion’s share of his breast to catch and hide any bits of chocolate or sauce that might dribble from his fingers. I’ve stitched a ribbon of interlocking dolphins—his favorite—up the calves of his stockings and instructed the shoemaker to add matching brass buckles.
The dauphin, however, is more of a challenge, and while I might be insulted at the simple task of stitching the younger brother’s suit, I’m honored to have been given the responsibility for the elder’s.
I’d always noticed something ungainly about Louis-Joseph’s gait, but when he is not in the protective care of a governess, he is at his father’s side or tucked up against his mother. He’s never taken any particular interest in me, and truthfully neither have I in him. Where Marie-Thérèse seeks me out to help her create fashions for her dolls (or, more lately, for herself), and little Louis-Charles has the kind of bubbling, trusting spirit that makes him instantly friends with anyone who crosses his path, the dauphin is more guarded. He chases after nothing, tumbles nowhere, and talks in a hesitant, whining whisper that I can easily ignore.
“He has trouble with his sp
ine, you see,” the queen said when she drew me into her apartments the day they began planning his brother’s birthday festivities. A low-faced Louis-Joseph stood beside her, and a dour governess behind him looking like she would need no prompting to leap over him and break me to pieces should I make any move or noise of harm. “Go ahead, Louis,” the queen prompted. “Show her.”
Keeping his eyes downcast, the boy slowly removed his voluminous shirt and revealed a monstrosity beneath. A corset, more like a cage, not like those we women wear to force our bodies to conform to fashion, but unyielding ribs of iron meant to discipline the boy’s spine. It wrapped him from just below his arms to just below his hips, and when he finally lifted his face to look at me, his eyes spilled over with shame.
“Well, look at that!” I forced a bit of cheer into my voice. “It’s like you have your own suit of iron. Un véritable chevalier.”
“I’m not a knight,” he said, eyes downcast again. “I’m to be king.”
“But of course,” I soothed. “All the more reason to keep you safe and protected.”
“I hate it,” he said, and I could see why. Each rod was separated by a strip of thick canvas, all of it unyielding. Even with the light wool shirt he wore underneath, the contraption had to be a constant source of irritation. Immediately, I repented of all my thoughts that labeled him as sullen and lazy. The poor boy’s burden was kept a secret from the court, and certainly from the people.
Now that I know, I’ve been employed to keep it too.
That very afternoon I made him a shirt of fine linen with a layer of soft wool batting, quilted with stitches running counter to the rods of the corset. The next morning, the queen summoned me to tell me how pleased Louis-Joseph had been, how very comfortable and bearable the shirt made the corset, and I had to bite my tongue to keep from asking why no one had ever thought to do such a simple thing before.
My challenge, then, was to find a way to hide his contraption from the prying eyes at court. Until now he’s been wearing wide-cut jackets, but his little brother was graduating to that same style of clothing, and the time had come for a more sophisticated cut to the dauphin’s habillement. I took his measurements and drafted a pattern that would narrow at the waist and have a flared hem to cover the bottom edge of the corset, the structure of the jacket giving the impression that it fits closer to his body than it actually does. As for the shirt underneath, I stitched a generous row of ruffles to serve not only as a two-tiered collar in front, but as a cascade that falls to his shoulder blades to hide the top.
The collar will serve another purpose, too. While the boy’s irregular steps could point to an infirmity that might follow him into old age, other aspects of his health do not. I’ve heard in whispers that the king’s oldest living son is not a healthy child. That he was taken away from the palace for a time to live in the château at Boulogne, where the king considered the very air healthier than he would breathe at Versailles. Since the turning of the New Year, though, there has been no sign he will outgrow this disease and live to be a man. Days spent abed, with fits of coughing rumored to be so severe, it is like his very life spews out upon the sheets. Even with my limited interaction with him, I can see how pale he’s become, the faint blue shadows under his eyes in sharp contrast to the porcelain translucence of his skin. And so, the collar is designed to be a refuge should he take ill at his brother’s celebration, to cover and catch his spasms. The material is a rich, absorbent wool, dyed by my own hand to the darkest shade of blue, lest—as has happened—he emits a stream of blood with his attack.
I sew secrets in every stitch, for it is important now more than ever for the family to maintain an aura of strength as the head of this unsettled country. For it, too, is sick. Weakened by drought, crippled by winter. As often as the dauphin takes to his bed, the villages around Paris rise up in protest. More than ever as I linger at the edges of the court, I hear stories of the frightened bourgeoisie, recounting tales of tax collectors being tarred, sheriffs forced at knifepoint to release prisoners of debt. They say there’s nothing to eat, nothing to sell, nothing to trade. The worst they’ve seen in more than a decade, when peasants revolted at the scarcity of flour. I remember Gagnon telling me about those days.
“La guerre. War, with wheat as the weapon.”
I keep my ears sharp for any mention of Mouton Blanc. By and large, our town seems to have escaped such violence, mostly due to men like Gagnon, and his father before him, and Monsieur Girard, and others who keep level heads and faithful hearts. But . . .
I lift my head from stitching the heavy hem that will keep Louis-Joseph’s ruffled collar weighted in place. A year. An entire year has passed since I climbed into that carriage with Madame Gisela. More than seven months since I gave Marcel my fortune. I’ve not heard a word back from him, and it’s only during times like this, when I am engaged in mundane stitchery, that my mind wanders back to that night. Except, of course, when I think of Bertrand.
At the thought, I experience a rare slip of the needle and, pricking my finger, test the collar’s ability to disguise the sight of blood. I smile as I bring it to my lips.
There is a knot of pain between my shoulder blades, and my fingers are cramped into place when I put the final stitch into the dauphin’s suit. It is well into the evening, I can guess. The sky on the other side of the high row of narrow windows is still gray, but the room has been abandoned by my fellow tirewomen. They no doubt have gone to the servants’ hall for supper, but the thought of elbowing my way to a place at the long, crowded, noisy table steals any appetite.
Instead, I make my way into the kitchen—the one dedicated to the feeding of the staff—and look for Agnès. She is a sturdy woman who could be aged anywhere from forty to sixty. I have never seen her without a cloud of urgency about her, one arm stirring, another reaching, her feet ready to take her from one table to the next to inspect the work of the undercooks.
“Supper’s not for an hour,” she says without losing count of her whips in the white stuff frothing around her spoon. “Not my fault that you haven’t eaten yet today. Now, off.”
“Could I eat if I fend for myself?”
“No dishes,” Agnès says, pacing her words with her whips. “And take it out of here. I’ve got enough bodies to trip over.”
“Merci, Agnès,” I say and begin spying around the crowded countertops. I walk away with a jar half-filled with milk, two small brown rolls, and a square of cloth with a last bit of soft cheese inside. Already I know the cheese will be good, but nothing as rich and satisfying as Laurette’s. Not for the first time I wonder what it would have been like if I’d asked her to come with me. She could have worked here in the kitchen, and the two of us could have found a bunk together, just like at home. But then a spirit of selfishness kicks in, for I don’t know that I want to share all that I have. Versailles itself is an enormous house, but we all live very small lives here. Just as Laurette didn’t want to share Marcel, I don’t want to share my queen. Or her children. Or Bertrand. I wouldn’t worry about sharing wealth because I have none of that. And I hardly know a day of leisure. Still, I am somebody here. I am la couturière. I am known and recognized, and now I’ve been entrusted with a royal secret, which I hold close to my heart.
All too happy to leave the kitchen, I take my food out to the gardens. There are still dozens of people—noble, no doubt, in their finery—strolling the wide pathway, but they give me no mind. I’m a fixture, the odd girl in the patched skirt. La couturière, though in these days I find my services less and less in demand. The grand balls and lavish suppers have all but ceased, with the exception of the youngest prince’s birthday tomorrow. They say it is unseemly to put on such displays of wealth when so many are hungry, and lately when the king and queen present themselves to the public, they are met with boos and jeers and all manner of missiles. Unmentionable stains on the queen’s gowns.
This evening, the visitors at Versailles, those who bother to notice me at all, perceive me i
n the same vein as the queen’s dogs. Small, interesting, harmless. A few even take a moment to nod and say “Bonsoir” as I pass, and I pause in my steps to curtsy.
As the night grows darker, the orange light from the torches takes hold, and I quicken my steps to get a glimpse of my favorite fountain before full darkness descends. I’ve often thought that if I ever had the chance to welcome Gagnon here as a visitor, I would walk him straight through the palace without stopping and bring him here, to Apollo’s fountain. It is a work of art that stole my breath the first time I saw it, exploring one evening weeks after my arrival. It still catches me unaware with its grandeur—the sight of the four horses bursting from the water, the god Apollo with the reins gripped in one hand, ready to drive his fiery chariot across the sky. Gagnon would tell the story of Apollo defeating the python. Before, when he told tales of Poseidon, his son Triton, and the conch he blew to command the sea, I could not bring my mind to create a picture, never having seen a sea, or a conch, or a merman. Here, the myth comes to life, and I think it is such a waste on the nobles who get to drink in its beauty every day, ignorant of the stories.
I settle myself on the narrow wall and whisper a blessing over my food.
A familiar voice says, “I knew I’d find you here,” just as he did the evening of our first encounter. Bertrand’s red coat is open to reveal his white shirt—open too. He’s removed his hat and sword, both clutched loosely in his hand. “Have you ever seen it at dawn? When the sun hits, you’d think he really was a god, taking all the light and reflecting it back to us.”
“I haven’t, but I will now, someday. How is it you’ve escaped your duty?”
“It’s my time to rest, but I knew I would not rest until I saw you. It’s been days.”
“Has it?” I pat the wall for him to sit next to me. “I hadn’t noticed.”
“I noticed for both of us.”
And he kisses me. Not for the first time, either. Spring has blossomed with our kisses. Whenever we find ourselves with a moment, and a shadow, and a willingness to deny the danger of our action. The first was on a winter’s night, after months of casting gazes aside and avoiding the smallest greetings when we passed. I’d come across him en route to his barracks, and I threw myself in his path, desperate to explain my transaction with Marcel.
The Seamstress Page 19
