The Seamstress

by Allison Pittman

  For the first time, I find my hands truly idle. On other occasions when the queen was away, noble guests tried to employ my services, but these days, any garish display of excess is dangerous. Men and women have had their wigs ripped off in the streets, the rebellious crowd screaming for the flour that gives them such a pristine, noble appearance. Ornate gowns have been ruined by unmentionable projectiles, jewels ripped from throats, silk shoes ruined by the continuous filth running in the streets.

  So I look for ways to keep busy. Without any instruction from Mademoiselle Bertin, I go into the royal gown room and examine each dress, mending seams and repairing hems. Then, knowing the queen is unlikely to wear any of these in public for some time, and guessing that her tastes might be significantly subdued if she does, I divest them of even the smallest bauble of shiny pressed glass, replacing the embellishments with decorative stitching. I take a few of her older gowns, cut them down for Marie-Thérèse, and save the scraps to make a colorful new skirt for myself.

  This flurry of menial activity serves many purposes. Gagnon always said that busy hands are soothing to the soul, and all those hours when my vision is trained on a single inch of silk and the bright thread stitching through it, I’m not thinking about the young boy who was never really a child or wondering if he has breathed his last. I’m also creating a reason to be here, at Versailles, and not declared useless and tossed out of the gates. And—most important with each passing day—the work gives me time to think about Bertrand. Late at night, my hands engaged with my knotting shuttle, making a trim for the queen’s favorite shawl, I lose my thoughts in the mindless repetition of the pattern. I hear his voice and remember the feel of his lips on mine. The thread runs through my fingers and I recall the texture of his hair. My thread is the color of his eyes—cerulean blue. And every now and then, when all is dead silent around me, I can hear the wool against the gold, and it sounds like his voice when he says my name. I create knot after knot and imagine each to be a day we will spend together. By the time I reach the end of a row, we measure our togetherness in years.

  Or we will, when he returns.

  True to his prediction, he has been gone since mid-April, traveling through villages on orders to listen, report, arrest. He was to blend in, like a spy, which made me laugh.

  “Never have I seen a man like you in my village. It would take three of them tied together to fill your uniform.”

  He was sent away the same day the queen left for Meudon, for it was assumed she would be safe there, locked away with Louis-Joseph, spared from public appearance, surrounded by people who were, perhaps, not quite so hungry and desperate as those outside the gates of Versailles.

  And far, far away from Paris.

  News comes of the dauphin’s death in the first week of June with a page marching through the halls, his solemn pronouncement accompanied by a sonorous bell. I am in the queen’s apartment, the outer chamber, on a settee tucked into a corner where, if I curl myself tight enough and remain still, I can pass an afternoon or more without detection. This announcement brings me to the floor, to my knees, crossing myself in prayer and beseeching God to welcome Louis-Joseph’s spirit into heaven.

  “And he was a good boy, Father,” I pray aloud, heedless that doing so betrays my presence.

  Weeping can be heard throughout the palace, most stirringly from the children’s apartments, where the governesses who have been left behind make no attempt to hide their mourning. They, like I, stagger into the great hall, all of us looking lost and stunned—though why should we be? Whispers have always predicted Louis-Joseph’s death. Since not long after his birth, I’ve been told. And nobody who spent more than an hour’s time with him should be shocked at his passing.

  Then I think, if this had been a poor boy, some wretched gutter foundling or a farmer’s son, the child would have been given nothing more than a click of the tongue and a muttered, “Poor dear—better he be in his heavenly Father’s arms.” But as sumptuous as all good Christians know heaven to be, who could look at the luxuries of Versailles and think any child better off? How unfathomable to think about the abundance of food, the ready warmth and comfort, the physicians no more than a summons away. The medicine and money that separate the rich from the poor surely should separate the living from the dead, yet with all that, a royal status could not extend a single hour.

  The next morning, we—yes, all the servants in the household—go to the chapel for an early Mass. The priest who says the prayers for our deceased prince wears three rings set with massive stones and speaks not a single word about the boy. He intones the prayers with a formality better suited for the crowning of a king rather than the death of a child. Perhaps our status precludes us from true familiarity and warmth, but that does nothing to squelch the tears of those of us who loved the boy.

  In light of the dauphin’s death, all of the royal guards have been summoned back to Versailles—not to mourn with us but to protect the family from the type of monster who might take advantage of its weakened state. Every other passing moment I chastise myself for my excitement. My heart is still heavy for my queen, but my steps are quick and I have to mask the smile that tugs at my cheeks at the thought of seeing Bertrand again. I give Mademoiselle Bertin any excuse to vacate my post at the sewing table—a pressing headache in need of a breath of fresh air, a favorite measuring tape left in my sewing basket in another room. At every opportunity, I roam the halls and grounds, my eyes alert for the man who stands head and shoulders above all the others.

  Finally, on a ridiculous errand to inquire about the color of the horses’ plumes in the funeral procession, I find him at the stables. It is my first time to see him in civilian clothing—dark-brown breeches, a blue linen shirt, and a vest made of what I can see from a distance is soft leather. I see him before he sees me, giving me the chance to study him, visualizing the gentleman farmer of his fantasies. How strong he looks! And prosperous, though I suspect the clothing is in good condition due to its lack of wear.

  I’ve never seen Gagnon in anything quite so fine; still, I can picture Bertrand at our table, dunking a hunk of bread in his soup, laughing at something bawdy Laurette might say. In fact, he’s laughing now at the groom’s joke—something about me, given the man’s gesture, but the moment Bertrand sees me, his laughter dies.

  “Renée!” With an abandon never permitted in uniform, he runs to me and swoops me up. High enough that I am soon looking down at him. So strange not to see the sky behind his head. Dizzying, because he is spinning me around and around before bringing me in close enough for a kiss that makes up for all the time we spent apart. “You’ll never guess where I’ve been,” he says, setting me down at last.

  “Where?”

  “Your village. Mouton Blanc.”

  We are walking now, aimlessly, in the general direction of his barracks. I’m clutching his forearm to my side and tug it down to bring his gaze. “Did you! How was it? Were you there at the shearing time? That’s always the most exciting . . .” But as I speak, I cannot miss the falling of his countenance, and I know that my own little village has not escaped the plague of poverty.

  “It was months ago, and from what I heard, early in the shearing season. So perhaps things are better now.”

  He is lying to me, and I love him for his dishonesty, this man born to protect.

  “But is it . . . safe?” By which I mean, have my gentle friends and neighbors succumbed to the fever of rebellion?

  “I saw your friend,” he says. “As charming as I remember. We were in a tavern—”

  “Le Cochon Gros!”

  “Just so, a colorful place. And he was there, talking to a young lady. He saw me, I think, and recognized me, and took the girl upstairs.”

  I laugh. “That sounds like Marcel, from what I remember. A pretty girl?”

  Bertrand shrugs. “I only think of you, my love. In any case, they aren’t upstairs for a quarter of an hour before a man comes storming in, goes straight up the stairs, and
comes down with her in his arms. Carrying her, like this.” To demonstrate—or with demonstration as an excuse—he swoops me up again, this time with one arm around my waist and another propped beneath my knees, and I feel like I’m flying.

  “So, a hero?”

  “Her father, I assume.”

  “Not her husband?”

  He sets me down. “A husband would have killed your friend, I think.”

  An amusing story, to be sure, but it doesn’t obscure the fact that he hasn’t answered my question. My town. My people. Are they in danger of the king’s discipline? Are they in danger of destroying themselves?

  “So did you speak with him?” I ask. “Marcel. Did he remember you? Did he ask about me?”

  Bertrand shakes his head. “You’ll see the men now, wearing their red caps. That is their uniform for the rebellion, I think. Your Marcel wears such a cap, as did many of the men in the tavern. Nobody would speak to me. I waited for him to come back downstairs, waited as long as the proprietor would allow. He would not permit me to go upstairs—wouldn’t even let me rent a room. And in the morning, they were gone.”

  “They?”

  “Every man in the tavern who wore the red cap. Disappeared.”

  Before I can ask more, I hear the sound of the page’s bell and my sobriquet, “Couturière!” between the rings.

  I clutch Bertrand’s hand. “I have to go and finish Marie-Thérèse’s mourning dress. So sad, isn’t it? To dress a child in black.”

  “Renée—” He captures my hand as if he hasn’t heard me. “I’m relieved of duty for the next two days. Until the family returns. Meet me tonight, will you?”

  “I don’t know. I have to finish—”

  “After, you can work through the night if you like. Can you finish the dress in two days?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then you’ll have no further duties tying you here?”

  I don’t answer. The ringing of the bell is closer, louder. The voice of the page irritated, because we can see each other now. I know this one; he’ll ring the bell until he’s close enough to nip my ear with the clapper.

  “I have to go.” I step back, our arms stretch, our fingertips cling.

  “Tonight?” he calls out, even as my back is to him.

  I turn my head. “Nine o’clock! Apollo’s fountain!”

  I find him waiting for me with a good bottle of peasant’s wine—hearty and red—which he pours into a single cup to pass back and forth between us. I have leftovers from the servants’ supper, a dish of a meaty pie with vegetables and gravy. This, too, we share with the passing of a single spoon.

  “Let’s always be just like this,” he says, filling the cup. “After we are married. Let’s have just one cup and one plate and one spoon.”

  “You sound as if you’ve made some sort of formal declaration for my hand. You’ve never even asked me to marry you.”

  He smiles and hands me the drink. “Will you?”

  “Yes.” And like that, it is settled. I’ve no one to grant permission or blessing, and I know it’s what he wants to hear—a simple answer to a simple question. He leans forward and kisses me, then trades me the cup of wine for the dish of pie and wolfs more than half in three bites. I drink and watch, unable to imagine the two of us anyplace but here. In what way could I ever have a house to keep? What kind of room would he not fill? I’m still not accustomed to the sight of him out of uniform. And what would I wear if divested of my status here? How could I be la couturière without a queen to serve?

  But all are questions for another night, until he offers up an answer.

  “You’ll have to leave this place someday, you know. It’s not our home. It’s where we work. Nobody dies here.”

  “I know.” I glance over at the stone porpoise leaping from the fountain’s ocean. “Do you know why I like this place? Not the palace, but here? This fountain? Because it is so fantastical. It’s everything my life could never be before. A god, chasing gods. The stories that Gagnon would tell in the evenings—all of the stories of the ancient Greeks. The first time I saw this, I saw Apollo, ready to race the sun across the sky. And the most breathtaking of stories became real. I could swim out and touch him.”

  “It’s not real, Renée. It’s made from the same stuff as the sewers that run under the city.”

  “Every day I’m surrounded by beautiful things, Bertrand. My hands are buried in silk. Sometimes the very creations of my mind are worn by our queen. I don’t want to leave that. Not yet. Someday I might rise to the level of Mademoiselle Bertin herself. She listens to me sometimes. My ideas.”

  “So this is another reason? Before, you did not want to leave the queen herself. Now her gowns are holding your affections?”

  “You are as loyal to her as I.”

  “To the queen, yes, as is my duty. To the monarchy—” he lowers his voice to a whisper—“non.”

  I feel the flush rise to my cheeks. “Then you are—one of them?” I don’t even have the word for what I mean.

  The shake of his head is barely perceptible. “No, but I won’t fight them, either. They have cause, Renée, for their anger. I’ve seen life on both sides—”

  “As have I, don’t forget. I wasn’t raised here. It’s been little more than a year—”

  “And I don’t think you’d be alive if you weren’t. I’ve seen the desperation. The hunger. I won’t take up arms against men who want only to feed their families.”

  “Have you been asked to?”

  “Not yet. But there are orders being issued, dispatching more troops to Paris. My prayer—if I stay—”

  “Please stay. Right at the queen’s door. You don’t know how much peace you give her.”

  He stands up and paces ten steps away from me, then ten steps back, his body a soldier’s in common clothing. More than once he begins to speak, then sucks in a breath, reverses direction, and paces again. I take a bracing sip of wine, preparing to respond to the lambasting to come, but when he speaks, his voice is gentle. Frustrated, but soft.

  “What if I forced you to choose?”

  “Choose?”

  “A life lived with me, or a life lived for her?”

  He is standing close enough to see, but too far to touch, which is just as well, because he is beautiful tonight. Torchlight illuminates him without shadow, making his hair and skin a color that could never exist at any other time. Apollo at dawn. His rough linen shirt is open at the neck, exposing a smooth, muscled chest that I have touched before—I can still feel it soft and warm beneath my palm, his heart strong enough to answer my pulse. If I could touch him, he’d have the answer. If I could simply reach out my hand, I’d clutch his sleeve, pull him to me, and give him his answer with my lips, my breath. All of me. Instead, I am frozen, and in the infinitesimal time it takes for me to will myself to stand and go to him, he lifts his hands in surrender.

  “Bertrand, please—”

  “Tomorrow, when Her Majesty arrives home, I’ll be there in full dress. Sword at the ready to protect her. But not for her sake, Renée. For yours.” He walks closer, and even as I ready myself for his embrace, he stops and lowers himself to my eye level but makes no move to touch me. “I don’t think you understand how reviled she is. How much they hate her. And I admit I don’t understand your affection, but I promise you this: I will protect her because you love her. I’ll defy any order that will take me away from her side, because I love you. Do you understand?”

  I can only nod, my heart too full for words.

  He reaches now and takes the wine from me. Stands and lifts the cup to the stars. “To our queen. Long may she live.”

  L’épisode 20

  Laurette

  * * *

  PARIS

  * * *

  It was a hunger like she’d never known. Always before, with Gagnon, there was a crust of bread left in the corner of the wooden box. Or an egg beneath a chicken, or an animal to fall under the butchering knife. Being summer, there might
be green tops of vegetables to pull from the earth, or a fish to catch itself on the line, or a rabbit to fall in a trap. But in this hot, crowded box of a room, there was nothing. No bread, no wine, and—though the day had long ago turned dark—no Marcel.

  Laurette paced the few steps it took to cross from the bed to the window and back again. The tiny lodgings she and Marcel managed to acquire in the crowded house on the boulevard de la Madeleine were smaller than any of the accommodations at Le Cochon Gros, smaller than her room at Gagnon’s, smaller than the loft above the barn where she slept her childhood away in safety and comfort. The mattress was flat, with only the moldy odor as proof that it contained straw within, and the blanket spread across it upon their arrival was sour and stiff. It crumbled the moment Laurette lifted it; the one she procured from a back-alley shop was only marginally better, though in fact the nights were too warm, the walls too close, the air too stifling to sleep with anything other than a sleeveless linen sheath for modesty’s sake. Marcel, not even that. Beside the bed stood one uneven table. In the corner, one unstable chair. The saving grace of the room was the single, enormous window, stretching from just above Laurette’s knee to near the top of the ceiling. Light. Air. When she left the window and the narrow door open, a breeze flowed through that made the confined space nearly tolerable. Being on the third floor, Laurette could spend a day on the unstable chair, careful not to let the unpredictable wobble toss her over the jamb, and watch the teeming streets below.

  Now she searched for Marcel.

  There was a time when she could discern his silhouette from a distance farther than her voice would carry. Here, in this place, her shout would be swallowed. There hadn’t been a moment’s silence since they arrived two months ago. Always the sounds of revelry and anger clashed upon each other, fueled by hunger and wine. This night was no different.