“I gave him money, that’s all. To take home to my cousin. I stitched it into his pocket. He is nothing. He means nothing . . .” My protests floated out on the cloud of my breath, and Bertrand interceded, passing his lips straight through and pressing them to mine.
Now his kiss is more gentle, but no less fervent, and I forget about my hunger and my aches as my body becomes full and fluid—a warm bath flowing beneath my skin, matched to the lapping of the water in the pool behind me. I feel him pull away, and open my eyes to see him looking at me with such earnestness, I can only respond with nervous laughter.
“What’s so funny?” he asks.
“What’s so serious?” I expect him to laugh with me, but his countenance sets. And now I’m growing fearful. “Bertrand?”
For the first time since I’ve known him he seems uneasy, and he shifts away, turning so I see his profile as he folds his hands loosely between his knees and gazes down upon them. For a moment I think he might be in prayer, though one with his eyes open, searching for God’s answer in the tiles of the walkway. But when he speaks, he speaks to me. “I think we should go.”
“Go? Go where?” My heart races because I know. I’ve known since our first kiss—maybe since the first time we saw each other—that this moment would come. There had been times, when we found true seclusion and freedom from duties, that I thought I could not kiss him enough, could not hold him close enough, could never get my fill of his touch and his words. And I knew, from the ragged nature of his breath and the violence with which he tore himself away, that he felt the same. Always, one of us would whisper, “We should stop. We’ll be seen.” The idea of interruption preserved my chastity more than any thought of sin. But now, with a cool head, I could rely upon my virtue. “Bertrand, I—I can’t.”
He looks at me quizzically, and as understanding dawns, flourishes a grin of pure delight then buries it in a kiss. When he pulls away, he is still smiling, but his eyes look beyond. “Not that you aren’t tempting, but I mean leave this place. The palace. Versailles.”
The shock of his suggestion quells my embarrassment. “Leave? But you guard the queen. You protect the mother of our nation. You can’t just leave.”
“I’m not a slave, Renée. Nor are you. None of us are.”
“There’s a wide berth between compulsion and loyalty.”
“And what if loyalty takes me away from the queen?” He turns his head to look straight at me.
“How could it?”
“What if I’m dispatched to go to put out all these rebellious fires springing up?”
“The king wouldn’t do that. You’re too valuable here.”
“Apparently I’m valuable anywhere. And if the king wants a show of military strength to intimidate the rebels, who’s to say I wouldn’t be first chosen to mount up and ride into some village to frighten some poor, starving farmer?”
“Have you been given any such order?”
“Non.” He looks away again. “But I don’t know what I would do if I were. I suppose in some ways I’m not entirely sure where my loyalty lies.”
“With Her Majesty, of course.” My answer is quick and sharp, as if I have some right to speak his response. Such boldness on my part should surprise him, as I’m sure few people ever speak to him this way, but he only regards me with his same measured, calm expression. When he speaks, it is with a tone of reassurance, as if I’m some kind of child with a fear of the dark unknown.
“With Her Majesty, of course. But as for the rest . . . I would give my life for the queen herself. But I don’t want to take a life for the country.”
I think about that moment, Bertrand’s sword touched to Marcel’s throat. Knowing Bertrand as I do now, I realize he would never have harmed Marcel. The lieutenant had been in far greater danger. I know, too, that Bertrand has been trained to kill. Would be expected to kill. I’ve never thought about whether or not he desired to kill—even an enemy. And who was the enemy of the king? Not another king. Not another country, but his own people. Farmers, craftsmen, peasants. The poor.
“Has it come to that?”
“It will, Renée. The people are hungry, and when there is no food, they’ll be fueled by vengeance.”
I put my hand on his arm. “All the more reason for you to stay. Here. It is no secret how much they hate her.”
“Any man with a sword can take my place.”
“It would take three.”
Now he laughs, a low chuckle. “Think about your family, back in that little town you came from. What if royal troops showed up to keep order? Wouldn’t you want someone like me there? One of you, on your side? Protecting your people?”
“My people are here now, Bertrand.”
“But if I left—”
“You are not my only—I have Her Majesty. And the children.”
“You’re not a governess, Renée.”
“I know—”
“You are a seamstress.” He couldn’t have been more clear in his intent to diminish my role.
“But today . . .” And I told him of the dauphin’s suit, how I was asked especially to design and construct it. How the queen trusts no one but me with accessorizing her gowns, that I alone know how to strike the perfect balance to make her appear equally royal and modest and approachable. How Marie-Thérèse pouted because she was to have no new dress for her brother’s party, as the queen declared she had two that had never been worn to a public appearance, and I appeased her by making her a skirt just like mine.
“Like yours?” Bertrand asks with the air of a man who doesn’t tease me about my dress on a regular basis.
“Just like,” I say, standing and offering a twirl. “The queen declared her daughter a Hapsburg gypsy and threatened to have her portrait painted in it just to infuriate her father.”
“It’s not often one sees a princess dressed in rags.”
I hold my finger up to correct him. “Royal rags. Scraps from the finest gowns. But it made her happy.”
He cups his hand to the back of my head and pulls me close. He murmurs, “You’re a seamstress,” against my lips and pulls away. He must think his kiss will take the edge off the insult. “There’s a dozen or more women just like you who can take your place.”
“There’s not,” I say, so offended by his declaration that I ignore the implication of it. Why would my place be vacant? “I’m a favorite of Her Majesty. Of the children.”
“Ah yes.” He is fully detached from me now. “A favorite. That’s not a permanent position, you know. What was the name of that woman? Who enticed you to follow her here?”
“Madame Gisela.” I already know his point. She was a favorite too. She brought me here as a token to secure her place. And then, suddenly, she was gone. Perhaps not suddenly at all, because by the time I myself marked her absence, weeks had gone by since I’d seen her. “What are you asking of me, Bertrand?”
“Nothing now. But soon.” He gathers my hands in his and pulls us close to each other. He is sitting on the low wall, and I am standing, and my lips touch straight to his temple. “I’ve never known what it is to be my own man. To live on my own land.”
“The king owns all the land.” Such was the conversation during nearly every meal at Gagnon’s table.
“Not forever. Not for long, from the talks.”
The talks. Like those behind Girard’s door.
“Would you even know what to do with land?”
He gives a sheepish grin and looks behind him. “I know a lot about horses.”
“We’ll be too poor to have horses.”
Now the grin grows triumphant. “We? So you will go with me.”
I take my hands away and study the pattern of my skirt. What most want to dismiss as poor gypsy patchwork, I see as hours of intricacy. Unlike my first foray, when I’d only had a single night to stitch, this creation was an homage to Mouton Blanc. Taken at a distance, one can clearly see the color gradation, from the blue sky falling right below my hips to the grazing gree
n along the hem. White stitching swirls like wisps of cirrus clouds. (Gagnon taught me the different names.) Along the green, knots of wool, my sheep. Looking at my skirt I see two loves—my home in Mouton Blanc and my home here, for only here could I have the freedom and the means and the approval to while away time and fabric on such a frivolous garment.
“Are you asking me to leave tomorrow, Bertrand?”
“I’m asking you now.”
“But to leave? When?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. But soon enough. When we can.”
“Don’t ask me again until you are ready to go. In the moment. Don’t give me time to think and worry and plan. If I had known all my growing-up years that I would someday get into a carriage and assume life in a palace, I wouldn’t have enjoyed a single day of the pastures and the sunlight. I would have known I was poor and been unsatisfied with all I had.”
“I don’t understand.”
I touch his face, soft with whiskers. “All my life I’ve been content. Even when I had nothing, when I had only my cousin—both of us children—I was content. She knew I needed better. More. If you wait for me to decide it’s time to leave, I never will. Because I’m content now. Don’t make me long for something I do not have. For something I might never have.”
He turns and kisses my palm. “You will have me, Renée, my love. For I do love you.”
I want to retort that love is no more permanent than being a favorite. I think I might have loved Marcel once. For all I know Bertrand has been true to me since that winter’s night, and I—of course—to him. But a declaration of love? I’ll keep that tucked and stitched to my heart.
“Take your time,” I say. “Make your plans and watch for your opportunity. And then, when our leaving will be a ‘tomorrow,’ come to me. Find me, and I will kiss the children good-bye a final time and follow you.”
L’épisode 18
Laurette
* * *
MOUTON BLANC
* * *
That winter, more of the flock had been sacrificed for meat than any year in Laurette’s memory. The grim expression on Gagnon’s face every time he selected the weakest and touched his blade to its neck filled her with shame for her hunger. Not even the perpetually hungry boys could take joy in those feasts. They ate the roasted meat with reverence, spooning the stew with appetites fueled by desperation and regret. The pelts from those that would not live to the shearing were washed, though it was a sacrifice of firewood, and Laurette spent endless dark winter days carding them into fine, wispy strands.
Carding had always been Renée’s job. Long winter nights meant tufts of soft, rolled wool piling up in the tall sack propped beside the chair. Laurette was clumsy with the carders at first, having only the vaguest memory of the process.
“Like this,” Gagnon said on her first attempt, after she’d been able to produce nothing more than a gray mass more tangled than when she started. “It’s important to keep them to the proper hand. Right in the right, left in the left.” He turned the carders over and showed where, years before, he had burned the letters D and G into the wood. “See? This one? With the curves in the letter G? Like the curves of your fingers.” He touched them, the fingers broken by the goat so long ago. “This handle in this hand. This other in the other. And you mustn’t drag. If you can hear the nails scrape against each other, you’re dragging too hard. Attends?”
Marcel spoke from his chair, closest to the fire. “Who knew you’d be so well suited for women’s work, Gagnon?”
“It’s a far sight better than being suited for no work at all, mon ami.”
That touch to her hands was the first since the New Year’s night, and one of the few that transpired between them over the course of the rest of the winter. Their words were few, too, since it was almost always too cold to talk. The sharpness of the air pierced the throat.
Gagnon led in prayer every morning, evening, and meal—no matter if the meal were nothing more than warm broth and a single slice of bread. He quizzed the boys in the catechism, and Laurette listened to the answers, learning some for the first time. Marcel listened, too, though often not with quiet reverence.
“How did God form his people through Moses?” Gagnon asked. It was a bitter-cold afternoon. The small fire struggled to provide both light and heat, leaving all in the room huddled within a mass of gray. Except Gagnon, who sat closest to it, catechism tilted to the light.
Philippe and Nicolas responded in unison, “By setting them free from their captivity in Egypt.”
“Exactly correct.”
“And so,” Marcel piped in, uninvited, “who is to get credit? The man, Moses, who risks his life and takes his staff in hand to defeat Pharaoh? Or God, who was content to watch from heaven throughout their enslavement?”
“God worked through Moses,” Nicolas said, his response as sincere as he presumed the question to be.
“Yes,” Marcel said, “but without Moses, there would be no action, and there’d have been no freedom. In times of great peril, my boys, God is useless.”
A silence without fathom followed, broken only by the sound of tiny shards of ice hitting the windows. The boys were struck dumb at such blasphemy spoken aloud, Laurette in shock at Marcel’s arrogance, and Gagnon clearly fighting the urge to strike the man dead on God’s behalf. The hand not holding the catechism flexed in and out of a fist, and Laurette felt her own chest rising and falling to match the control of his breathing.
“You will not speak such of God in this house.” Gagnon kept his eyes trained on the fire, not trusting himself to look at Marcel.
“We’re bringing in a new age of freedom, mon vieux. A man can say—”
“Not in my house, see? I am sovereign in my home. A fifth generation within these very walls. It is my France within these walls. My God who protects us and gives us our bread every day.” By now he was out of his chair, brandishing the catechism just short of Marcel’s nose. “You may choose not to acknowledge him as you wish, but I will not allow you to speak aloud against him, do you understand? It is the least you can do, as you eat his bread, and you are warmed by his fire, and you are protected by his walls, his roof.”
The boys had scuttled across the floor to cower at Laurette’s side, neither of them ever having seen such a display of temper. She had, but in the past his anger had been sheathed in a frighteningly calm demeanor. The display before her seemed to be that of a man on the brink of explosion.
“Comprenez-vous?” This question he addressed to all, sweeping the catechism in a wide arc, lest the boys or Laurette be tempted to complaint by Marcel’s boldness. All but he answered vocally oui, and Gagnon continued the lesson. Laurette returned to her carding, and Marcel returned to reading one of the dozen pamphlets he’d peruse until it grew too dark to read.
When that darkness came, Laurette set a pot of goat’s milk to warm over the fire, which later she would pour over cubes of dark, stale bread. This was their supper nearly every night, and all took themselves to bed before the sensation of fullness—no matter how incomplete—wore off. The boys went to Laurette not only to give her a kiss good night, but to receive a swipe of lavender oil behind each ear, a precious substance to speed sleep. Then, with a hot stone from the hearth and one of the faithful dogs, they made their way to bed, with instructions to get straight under the covers and say their prayers from within. Sent off next, Laurette, at some point Marcel, and last, Gagnon, who often waited until he was sure she was asleep, though most nights he was wrong.
Nights like this night.
With the tension of the outburst still thick in the air, Laurette had taken herself off quicker than usual, bidding a hasty good night the moment Gagnon deposited her heated stone in the burlap sack she took to bed. Her feet warmed by the stone, her body warmed by the dog, she listened to the muted conversation coming from the great room. One low voice rumbled after the other, rancor diminished, their tones distinguishable even if their words were not.
When at l
ast Gagnon came into the room, moving with expert silence in the dark, she made no pretense of sleeping.
“What did you say to him?”
“I said a lot of things.” His weight disturbed the mattress, causing Cossette to let out a canine grumble.
“He’s just passionate, you know.”
“Oh, I’m well aware of his passions.”
They rarely talked while sharing the bed, and never once about Marcel. “There’s nothing like that between us, you know. Maybe once, a long time ago, but not now. I don’t want him, Gagnon.” She’d pulled the blanket up to her nose and felt the steam of her words.
“It’s a good thing. Because one of these mornings, we will wake up and there will be birdsong in the air. And on that morning he leaves.”
As in all things, Gagnon’s words proved true. The first song of the lark still pierced the blinding shafts of sunrise when Marcel, pack thrown over his shoulder, disappeared on the horizon. The last weeks of winter had been unbearable—oppressive cold, cavernous hunger, and a physical closeness for which God had designed sheep, not human beings. Laurette had found herself spending hours in bed—sometimes close to entire days—for the sole purpose of solitude. And warmth. And a burning hope that she might dream of food and be a little satisfied in sleep. But she arose the morning Marcel left, giving him half a loaf of bread and a wedge of cheese for his breakfast while Gagnon and the boys attended to the morning chores. The house itself exhaled in his absence.
Spring came with the promise of eight new lambs, five goats, and sweet new grass sprung up in the absence of winter’s snow. Somehow, as only boys can do in times of hunger, both Nicolas and Philippe managed to grow a full three inches over the winter, making even Nicolas tall enough to handily wrangle a sheep when the time came for shearing. The flock had thinned so, there’d be no need to hire even a single set of hands to help, which was fortunate because Gagnon had neither the funds to pay them nor the food to feed them.
The Seamstress Page 20
