by Arinn Dembo
WORDS FROM THE DARK INKWELL OF THE HEART
By nightfall tomorrow, I shall enjoy the hospitality of the city police, and I do not think they will allow me the pleasure of writing my own confession. Accordingly, as this may be the last time that I am ever to hold a quill in my hand, or feel the smooth caress of vellum beneath my little finger, I intend to enjoy these small pleasures for as long as I can. Tonight I will write until my tale is done, or until the first light of dawn—whichever comes first. I cannot imagine that there will be an escritoire in my cell.
In fact, the confession I intend to give tomorrow will be a false one. The murderer of Edmund DeRoste is beyond the reach of earthly justice, and Monsieur Vidocq will never have the pleasure of clapping the culprit in irons. But someone must confess, and someone must be punished. The damnable man has found me out. I did not succeed in hiding all evidence of the crime. I could wash the residue of poison from a teacup, but not from DeRoste’s blood. The inspector knows beyond question that this was not a natural death, and his suspicions have fallen, quite logically, on the one who daily brought him his afternoon tea. DeRoste’s servant, poor loyal Jean-Patrice, has been arrested. They hold him pending trial for murder, and I have little doubt that he will hang if I do not take his place.
I cannot allow an innocent man to suffer for my sake. And so, tomorrow, I will go to the prefecture and tell them a shabby lie. They will believe it—it matches my clothes and my station so well—and Jean-Patrice will go free.
Tonight, however, I tell the truth. Someday, someone may understand.
* * *
To the one who finds this little note, perhaps I should apologize. Doubtless you have been at some pains to open the grave of Edmund Auguste DeRoste. I do not know what you hoped to find when you disturbed this earth—playwrights and poets are not known for their great wealth, and DeRoste will be buried with nothing more than a suit of clothes and a few rings. But whatever you were looking for, as you rifled through the pockets of his jacket, I’m quite certain it was not a tin box of letters.
It could be that the centuries have come and gone, and all the wonders in DeRoste’s contes fantastiques have come to pass: men voyage to the moon and fly through the air like birds, great guns fire bullets the size of houses, and visitors from other worlds are as commonplace on our streets as Americans in their raccoon hats. The reader of this note may not even know who DeRoste was. All his poetry and plays may be forgotten. I would like to think such a thing is impossible, that readers will always love him—but the history of literature is littered with casualties. A man who spoke beautifully to one generation may find no audience in generations to come. Works of great genius may languish unread for decades…even centuries.
His gravestone could last far longer than his reputation, so I hope you already know this much: here lies Edmund DeRoste, born in 17—, died in 18—, requies in pace. I can tell you what cold granite cannot. DeRoste was the brightest light of our literary scene, a rascal whose badinage and charm made him welcome in every parlor and public house. His poems made women sigh and men weep; his plays brought forth roars of laughter and of outrage. He fought thirteen duels to defend his essays alone, and won them all. His sword was nearly as dangerous as his pen.
If I tell you he had no peer among the writers of Paris, some might say I exaggerate. C’est possible. I loved the man and his words; in truth, I loved the man for his words, and I found it difficult to separate the two. DeRoste himself had the same trouble. Perhaps all writers do.
* * *
Having introduced the man, I make an awkward curtsey of my own. My name is Claudette Betrand, and I am a person of no consequence. I was born the daughter of a cloth merchant on the Rue Marchande. I was my mother’s first and only child; she died forcing my crooked body from her womb. My father, a practical man, remarried quickly to a sturdier woman who bore him two sons with straight legs, and all was right with the world thereafter. If he ever missed my mother, mourned her passing, or saw any resemblance between her and myself, he gave no sign.
When I was a child, my father was occupied with the running of his shop, his wife with the running of the house. I was left to myself. I had no friends, nor a governess; when my brothers were born, my step-mother forbade me to play with them.
Because I could not walk or run as other children do, I was kept indoors. I could not climb the stairs until I was nearly ten, so I was given a room on the first floor, a small warm place behind the kitchen. The servants were sometimes kind. The cook would let me sit beneath her table with my doll, during the day, and the old gardener was the first to fashion me a little crutch, so that I might walk rather than crawl from place to place.
Fortunately the family tutor, who despaired of pounding letters into the thick heads of my two half-brothers, found in me an apt student of both reading and writing. I was permitted to sit with the boys during their lessons, and because I learned quickly, the tutor made use of me as a goad. When I surpassed them at memorization or maths, he would look down his nose at Bernal and Francois with devastating contempt. If I could perform any task that they could not, he would roll his eyes at them. After the first few months, I had learned to fall behind them in our class—but not before both boys had conceived a lively hatred of me, and learned to play cruel tricks when my back was turned.
They had previously taken no notice of me, but now they would steal my crutch, trip me as I went down the stairs, or perform dreadful surgeries upon my rag doll, Jolie. Strangely, despite these new miseries, I was very happy that year, and in the years that followed. That cross old tutor never knew what a gift he had bestowed upon the crippled daughter of old Bertrand. The books that my brothers abandoned when they went out to play found their way into my room. While they splashed in the muddy gutters, I rode in the company of Charlemagne. While they played with their childhood friends, I was left with Renart and Ysengrin, Villons and Voltaire, Montaigne and Marcus Aurelius, Rabelais and Racine.
As I grew older, my hunger for books grew, and I asked my stepmother for any chore that might earn me a small allowance. When she saw that I was not entirely useless, she let me have a few francs a week for mending. I took my earnings to the market stalls to buy old books, and I was content.
Life continued without much change until my eighteenth year. That was the summer my father took ill. For several months he was confined to bed, and although his senior clerks were experienced enough, he did not trust them to run his business without some supervision. My brothers and I, who had been in and out of his shop all of our lives, were sent to oversee his affairs until he was on his feet again.
My task was to keep the accounts. For three months I sat in a quiet corner with the ledgers, receipts, and bills of lading, while my more presentable brothers attended to our customers on the floor. I was sitting in the very same spot on a cold autumn day when I met the woman who would change my life: Madame Cecile Rosalinde de Maurier.
* * *
Madame de Maurier was not unknown to me, by reputation; she was one of my father’s most precious customers. She was a woman of great beauty, wealth and refinement, a person of influence in Paris. Four times a year she came to our shop with her dressmaker in tow, purchasing cloth for the new season. My father was always careful to order fabrics to suit her unusual needs.
Despite her celebrated beauty, Madame was a widow, and for twenty years she had refused to put away her widow’s weeds. Spring, summer, winter or fall, she always wore black. The key to her taste was to find the black silks, black lace, black organdy and woolens which yet carried some appealing pattern—stylish but not garish—which would serve to make her wardrobe fashionable, rather than
funereal. A brocade of golden chrysanthemums might please her in winter; a sweep of pale gray doves might take flight across her skirts in spring.
In any case she was widely admired, and her dressmaker was the most expensive in Paris. Where these two shopped, others flocked after them; accordingly, keeping her custom was a matter of great concern to our father. When she arrived unannounced, only two weeks after having purchased several bolts for the winter season, my brothers and I were seized by dread.
“Madame de Maurier!” Bernal cried. He and Francois tumbled over one another like puppies in their haste to take her dripping umbrella. “What an unexpected pleasure. How can we be of service—?”
“A small thing.” Her voice was soft as a snowflake. As she walked into the shop, she unpinned her veil from the brim of her hat, revealing her legendary face. Even in her late thirties, she was an incandescent beauty—her heart-shaped visage framed by ringlets of beaten gold, her figure as slim and straight as the heroine of an old romance. As she came nearer and nearer to my perch in the back, my heart sank lower and lower. When she at last stood before me, I placed a ribbon into the book I had been reading and tucked it under the counter, facing her with a feeble smile.
“Good morning, Madame,” I said—or tried to say. My throat had closed; I could barely force out the words.
“Good morning, Mademoiselle Bertrand.” Her voice was gentle. Surprised, I looked up into her eyes, and found that they were deep lapis blue—and smiling.
“Ca-can I help you, Madame?” Desperate, I looked to either side, trying to summon my brothers for aid.
“I believe you can.” She reached into the pocket of her skirt, withdrew a small purse and opened its silver clasp. Inside, there was a folded slip of paper. She placed it on the counter: a receipt from our shop. “Did you write this, Mademoiselle Bertrand?”
Bernal and Francois both glared at me, their eyes burning suspicion. What have you done, Claudette? I looked down at the bill, trying with all my might to see what fault there was to find with it. Had I added incorrectly? Had I charged her for more than she bought? I could not see my error, whatever it might be. “Yes, Madame. I am responsible. Is something wrong?”
“Not at all. I could not help but notice that you had a very fine hand, Mademoiselle. Such lovely script is rare.” She withdrew a few 20-livre notes from her purse and tapped the receipt with her fingertip. “I’ll pay this now, I think.”
“Yes Madame.” Numb with relief, I took her money and made a few francs of change. “Thank you, Madame.”
She slowly drew a black glove back on to the slim fingers of her left hand. “You read books as well, ma cherie?”
My cheeks flushed red with embarrassment, I could only nod.
She smiled. “Very good. I was certain you did. I must tell you: a situation has recently opened in my household. I find myself in need of a companion and lady’s maid. If you are at all interested in the position, I would happily offer it to you; I have known your father for many years, and consider Monsieur Bertrand an excellent reference.”
Thunderstruck, I sat staring. It fell to my brother Francois to answer her, after a few awkward moments of silence.
He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, Madame. I don’t believe our sister is able to do such work.” He nodded toward my cane, leaning in the corner. “You must not have noticed—Claudette is a cripple.”
A ripple of expression passed over Madame de Maurier’s face, and her head tilted slightly to the left. It was a gesture I learned to recognize in years to come, a pained silence with which she greeted some word or deed so gauche that she could not bring herself to acknowledge it. She paused for a moment, and then continued exactly as if Francois had not spoken. “I believe I can offer you an attractive wage, Mademoiselle. I hope you will discuss it with your father. If he can spare you during this difficult time, I would be most appreciative.”
She gave me her card; I took it with a shaking hand. “Please let me know as soon as possible.” Taking her umbrella from Bernal, she let herself out of the shop. I could barely understand what had just happened, but I clutched the little rectangle of fine paper in a vise grip.
* * *
A situation. A companion. A lady’s maid. The family was in shock; from the moment I was born, it was assumed that I could be nothing in life but a burden to others. The notion that I was welcome in the home of a fine lady of good family and estate was inconceivable.
My stepmother was the first to recover her wits and seize the day; she knew better than to miss the chance to have me out of her house. The following morning, she dressed me in my most presentable clothes and took me to see Madame de Maurier. I don’t believe I said more than two words during the entire interview—my father’s wife answered all of Madame’s questions. When the subject of my duties arose, Madame turned to me and handed me a book: I recognized the author immediately, a favorite of the old tutor.
“Claudette, if you would please turn to “Perseverance”, and read the last lines aloud?”
I bent to the familiar task. I could barely speak at all, if the words were my own, but losing myself in Balzac was easy. Without a moment’s hesitation, my voice rang out clearly:
“…Nevertheless, this wealth, far from emptying his purse, filled it full to overflowing, because so rapidly increased his fame and his fortune that he was able to buy a patent of nobility and lands, and he founded the house of Anseau, which has since been held in great honour in fair Touraine.
This teaches us to have always recourse to God and the saints in all the undertakings of life, to be steadfast in all things, and, above all, that a great love triumphs over everything, which is an old sentence; but the author has rewritten it because it is a most pleasant one.”
Madame de Maurier smiled. “Very good, Claudette. You will do very well indeed.”
“She has the job, then?” my stepmother said. “You will take her?”
“Indeed I shall. Thank you, Madame Bertrand. You have done me a great kindness; I hope you and your husband will accept a small token of my appreciation.” With this, Madame handed across a bank draft. I did not see the sum, but my stepmother’s eyes flew wide and beads of sweat sprang up on her nose.
“Thank you, Madame. You are very generous. You know my husband has been ill…”
“Yes, Madame Bertrand.”
“Things have been very bad.”
Madame de Maurier nodded. “I pray for your husband’s swift recovery.”
“I have two sons, if ever you have need of—”
Madame cleared her throat. “Thank you, Madame Bertrand.” She picked up the little bell upon her table and rang it; her valet appeared at the door. “Please bring the coach around to see Madame Bertrand home safely.” My father’s wife was shown to the door, still bobbing and nodding her respects. “Claudette will join her in a moment.”
I was left alone with Madame, my stepmother having accepted the job on my behalf without so much as a glance in my direction. Cecile de Maurier smiled at me. “Come, Claudette. I have made a place for you, if you will have it.”
She led me up the stairs to the second floor. It was part of her natural grace that she found a way to ascend those steps so languidly that it did not seem that I lagged behind her. When we reached her private apartments, she opened a white door.
If I had entertained any doubts about entering her service, the sight of my new bedroom erased them. It was easily four times the size of my closet at home, with a soft bed and a tub for my own private baths. A vase of bright flowers had been arranged on the bedside table, and a few paintings of pleasant country scenes upon the walls. In the corner, there was a writing desk and pair of tall bookcases. At the sight of them I forgot myself and hobbled forward.
I let my fingertips trail over the fine gilt and leather spines. Moliere. Shakespeare. Cicero. I had read many of these before, but I had never touched a book so elegantly bound. I leaned close, intoxicated by the mingled perfume of good paper and leather.
“I had intended to remove these shelves later.” I turned to her in sudden fear; Madame de Maurier’s eyes danced, and the smile she offered was so beautiful that tears sprang up in my eyes. “But I will leave them, if you like.”
I nearly threw myself at her feet; I was in the presence of an angel, a saint. “Please, Madame. I…I would like to read them. When can I begin?”
* * *
There was nothing else to it. My few possessions were thrown into a single box, and moved into the splendid room. For the first year I did not unpack them, hardly daring to expose my tattered books in Madame’s fine house, or show the face of poor Jolie. I was fitted for three new dresses, simple and sober clothes which echoed Madame’s own. I became a member of Madame’s household, paid twice monthly. I was allowed half a day’s leisure on Tuesday afternoons.
My duties were simple. I awoke before Madame, sorted her letters and newspapers, and brought them to her with her morning meal. While she drank her coffee, I read her correspondence aloud, and then sat at her desk with pen and paper as she patiently dictated each response. Afterward, I helped her dress and arrange her hair; I would remain at her side for the rest of the day, departing only when dismissed. If she was alone or with intimate friends, I might even take meals with her. And when the mood struck her—as it did quite often—I would read.
I was, quite simply, Madame de Maurier’s eyes. Her vision had begun to fail in recent years, until even her best reading glasses were of no use. The attempt to read a finely printed line would make her eyes water and her temples throb; a note from a friend, the menu at a restaurant, the program of a play, and a bill from the grocer’s were all equally painful. But half of her life was in correspondence, and in her social circle it was impossible to enjoy the company of others unless she was prepared to discuss the latest novel, poem, or pamphlet. As her companion, my duties were light—but indispensable.
