Finding Emilie

by Laurel Corona

  She dodged her way around a cluster of roof beams that went out in different directions like the spokes of a badly damaged wheel, and she found herself in a large room, unfurnished except for a few chairs and benches. Scattered here and there were large chests and one open crate. Inside it was a jumble of odd-looking dresses and wigs, as well as a pair of pink stockings and a tattered crown made of dried leaves. A piece of paper was wedged in among the leaves, which crumbled as she pulled it away. She held the playbill up to the candlelight:

  Tonight at the Theater at Cirey! The premiere of Mérope by M. Voltaire. Cast—Mérope, Madame la Marquise; Polyphontes, Monsieur Voltaire; Ismène, Mademoiselle G-P du Châtelet; Euricles, Monsieur le Marquis, et al.

  Lili stroked the hand-inked letters. Madame la Marquise. Light had begun to filter through a small window, revealing an open doorway on the other side of the room. She held the candle in front of her and went through it. Her foot hit against an upholstered bench and the flame shook, illuminating the ornate wallpaper on three sides with bobbing pulses of light. The entire fourth wall was taken up by a rounded arch in a light-colored wood, framing a stage hardly bigger than some of the massive fireplaces she’d seen at Versailles. The backdrop and wings were painted to suggest a rustic farmhouse, with a wooden door, a cuckoo clock, a cupboard, and a large window looking out onto a painted blue sky. In the center of the stage, a candlestick and a water jug sat on a wooden table, ready to be used as props for the last play presented at Cirey.

  The theater! Lili remembered Anton talking about how he sometimes wore a costume and came onstage, and how his mother had said the marquise could sing forever without forgetting anything. Lili put the candle down on one of the benches, clasping her hands behind her back and lifting her face to take in this extraordinary place. She felt her chest broaden under her thin chemise, as if it were opening a door to a secret room inside her. She was breathing the same air as her mother had, and making the same floorboards creak. She was so close, Lili was sure she could almost hear her voice.

  A vision. That’s what Anton said she was, Lili thought as she made her way back through the anteroom and into the passageway. A noise overhead caused her to jump back in alarm. A pair of doves cooed and fluttered their wings, breaking the spell. Lili watched them perch on the sill of a tiny window before they flew out into the light of a new morning.

  JUSTINE APPEARED FROM behind a screened-off alcove as Lili came back in. “Mademoiselle is up early.” Justine curtsied. “I’m sorry I didn’t hear you.”

  “I couldn’t sleep—but no need to disturb you.”

  “Mademoiselle would like breakfast?” At Lili’s nod, Justine disappeared, and within a few minutes she had returned with Berthe.

  “Your breakfast will be sent up on the dumbwaiter in just a moment,” Berthe said. “I thought I’d come to see how you slept. Your valet already left with Lucien for Bar-sur-Aube to retrieve your things. I’m sure you’ll be happy to have them.”

  “I slept well, thank you,” Lili said. “I looked around already this morning and found the theater.”

  Berthe gave her a wistful smile. “No one’s been in there in years. I’m surprised you didn’t come out covered in dust.” She looked away, lost in thought for a moment. “How we all used to enjoy those plays!” she said. “Madame pulled everyone in—Lucien and me, and even the marquis, though he couldn’t never remember his lines.”

  The marquis. Lili’s brow furrowed. “Berthe,” she ventured, “is my father always like he was yesterday?”

  The housekeeper looked up, surprised. “Oh non, mademoiselle. It comes and goes. On good days he can sit and talk for hours about things that happened years ago and remember them perfectly. And then, just like that, he asks for madame, as if she’s just stepped out of the room.” Her eyes looked pained. “It’s terrible to see such a great man”—she thought for a moment—“reduced like that.”

  Justine tightened the laces on Lili’s dress as Berthe went on. “Perhaps you will be good for him. He’s all alone in the world now. Don’t no one visit, not even his son, and of course Gabrielle-Pauline is too far away. No one in the flesh, I mean, although I suppose one might call it a blessing that so much of the time he don’t know the difference. The other day I heard him carrying on a conversation in the gallery, and when I went to see who come into the house without my noticing, he was telling Duke Stanislas that he’d be joining him for the hunting season at Lunéville.” She dabbed her eyes. “I didn’t have the heart to tell him again that the duke is dead.”

  She got up to straighten the figurines on the shelves. “He died a few months back, you know. Caught his dressing gown on fire and perished later from the burns.” Berthe adjusted the curtains, for something to occupy her hands as she talked. “I don’t know. Perhaps the dead do visit us. Perhaps it’s just our poor eyes that can’t see them.”

  Perhaps they do. A few hours ago, Lili had been tempted to get up and run from Cirey, afraid of what might happen if she stayed. Standing in the theater, absorbing the presence of her mother, she felt as if she had taken on the strength to see this visit through. Whatever happened with her father, she would find a way to go on from there, confident in the belief that Julie and Emilie each had an arm around her.

  Justine had finished her laces, and Lili turned around. “Does he talk to my mother like he talks to the duke?”

  A quick, sad smile flitted over Berthe’s face. “All the time.”

  “Does he ever mention me when they talk?”

  The housekeeper looked away. “You were just a baby then. Not even born, while she were still alive to talk about you.”

  She busied herself for a moment before turning to face Lili. Taking a deep breath, she let it out in a sigh of resignation. “No point in watching my words here, mademoiselle. You’re likely to see for yourself soon enough what kind of conversations he has with the marquise. Much of the time they’re not fit for hearing. He’s angry with her, and I lost sleep last night with worry over whether he’ll be angry with you as well.” She looked toward the door. “Your breakfast must be waiting,” she said, making a perfunctory curtsey as she left the room.

  “Angry about what?” Lili asked, picking up the conversation the moment Berthe returned with the tray.

  She put the tray down heavily on the fragile table. “The past is best buried,” she said. “I mean no disrespect, but I’m not going to say more. Lucien is with the marquis now, and he’ll tell him he has a guest, so you’d best be prepared to meet him. I think you should act as if it’s the first time, since he’s unlikely to remember seeing you yesterday.” She looked at Lili. “You remind me so of madame, though your hair’s not as dark. Best be prepared for anything, since there’s no telling how he’ll react.”

  Lili gave Berthe a long and penetrating look. She could, perhaps, force the woman to say more. She was, after all, a servant, even if she had taken on the role of mistress of the house. I’ll know soon enough what she means, Lili thought. Just let her be.

  Justine poured Lili a cup of coffee and was stirring in a large amount of milk. Lili watched disinterestedly, as if the breakfast were not for her. “Can you show me my mother’s rooms later today?” she asked Berthe. “I liked seeing the theater and—”

  “They’re locked.”

  Lili’s jaw dropped momentarily at the abruptness with which a servant had cut her off, but she closed her mouth without saying anything. Chastisement at that point would only lead to angry silence, when she wanted to hear everything the talkative Berthe might be willing to reveal.

  “Have been for years,” Berthe went on, “ever since Monsieur le Marquis returned after …” The thought did not need finishing. “Monsieur Voltaire took away more than he should have, more than was his, but there was still enough of hers left behind to break the marquis’s heart, so it’s no wonder he locked her rooms up.”

  “I thought you said he was angry with her.”

  Berthe gave her a quizzical smile. “You’re
young. Apparently you haven’t learned that a broken heart can be the angriest kind of all.”

  FLORENT-CLAUDE, THE MARQUIS du Châtelet-Lomont, sat in the wood-paneled antechamber in his apartment. Tucked into the top of his uniform was a large white napkin spotted with drips from the tisane his nurse was urging him to finish. Seeing Lili, she removed the napkin, picked up his tray, and departed with a polite curtsey to them both.

  “You’re my daughter, come for a visit,” he said. Lili felt her armpits prickle in a flood of relief.

  “Yes, I am,” Lili said. “Stanislas-Adélaïde, named after your good friend, the Duc de Lorraine.”

  “Lorraine?” His puzzled look made Lili’s heart sink, but he quickly recovered. “I was a regimental commander there. And Duke Stanislas’s grand maréchal until I came back to Cirey.” His eyes darted around the room, as if to confirm that Cirey was indeed where he was. “And you,” he added. “Is your husband well? Have you traveled alone from Italy?”

  Lili’s heart, buoyed by the lucidity of his first words, sank again. “I’m not that daughter,” she said. “I’m the one raised in Paris by Madame de Bercy until her unfortunate death. The one Baronne Lomont recently wrote to you about. She asked for your permission to choose a husband for me. I’m sure you will recall—”

  “Why are you here?” His voice dropped to a whisper.

  “I felt it was important to meet my fath—”

  “Did she say I was your father?” Florent-Claude’s pale face turned red.

  “Excuse me, sir, but I am not sure to whom you are referring.” Lili struggled to keep her voice firm and her eyes locked on his. “But whether you mean Baronne Lomont or Madame de Bercy makes no difference in the matter. Since you are my father, there is no need for anyone to tell me so.”

  You’ll hear rumors at court. Lili’s heart skipped a beat, remembering the baroness’s words.

  The marquis’s face grew calm again, and he smiled. “I’m afraid you’ve missed Gabrielle-Pauline. She lives at the Couvent de la Pitié in Joinville, but if you wait a few days, I’m sure my wife will fetch her again for one of Monsieur Voltaire’s plays.” He chuckled. “Have you met the marquise yet? I’m sure she’ll ask right away how good you are at memorizing lines.”

  Lili’s eyes shut in despair. When she opened them, he was staring at her with fierce eyes. “You tell them I’m not fooled,” he growled.

  Lucien hurried into the room. He must have been listening from the hall, Lili realized. “Monsieur tires easily,” Lucien said. “I think mademoiselle should visit him again later.”

  Her frustration and anxiety were tinged with relief at Lucien’s rescue. “Of course,” she said, standing up and giving a demure nod in the terrifying old man’s direction. Then an idea lodged in her mind. “But if you should be so kind,” she asked him, “your wife’s chambers seem to be locked. Do I have your permission to enter?”

  He looked confused. “If she doesn’t mind, I don’t see why I should.”

  “I’m sure she won’t mind.” Lili gave him a sweet smile. Mind? She’s been waiting for me for years. Back in the hallway, she raced in the direction of the kitchen to search for Berthe and her keys.

  BERTHE OPENED THE latch with such delicacy that for a moment Lili thought she was afraid of disturbing her mistress’s sleep. “Best to wait here while I pull back the curtains so you have enough light,” she said, bustling ahead. When she had gone through all the rooms, she came back to Lili, wiping her dusty hands on her apron. “I suppose you’d like to be alone,” she said. “If you need me there’s a cord over there that rings a bell downstairs.”

  As Berthe’s steps receded in the passageway, Lili stood in the doorway, feeling oddly shy. Dust swirled in the gray bolts of light coming through the newly opened curtains, revealing a large blue-upholstered daybed inside the first room. Flowered pillows were strewn casually at one end, while a wrinkled dent in the middle suggested that the occupant had just gotten up for a moment and intended to settle in again. Furnished with chairs and side tables, the room looked like a typical parlor, except for a bathtub set incongruously in the middle of the marble floor, as if it were just another comfortable place to sit and chat with company.

  Lili passed through the doorway into her mother’s dressing room. Beneath a fancifully painted ceiling, gilt moldings framed lacquered-green wall panels. A small sofa and several chairs were arranged on a large and luxurious rug, while in the corners, matching cabinets stood emptied of whatever they had once held. The silence of her mother’s quarters was so complete that Lili walked across the room with slow, delicate steps, as if to do so much as cause a board to creak would make her an intruder rather than a daughter who belonged there.

  The next room was dominated by a large bed, stripped of its canopy and bedcovers. This is where my mother slept, Lili thought as she sat down on the mattress. She looked back toward the dressing room and tried to imagine a woman coming toward her in a beautiful dressing gown, her hair already unpinned and lying in waves on her shoulders. You were here. You were really here.

  Everything in the room, from the wallpaper to an enameled clock on a shelf, was lemon yellow or blue, including a little basket near the bed where a dog must have slept. Lili got up from the bed and bent over to pat her hand inside it. A black dog, she decided, from the dusty hairs she brushed off her fingers.

  On the other side of the room, a passageway led into a small boudoir dazzling with light from glass-paneled doors leading out onto a small terrace. A single white taffeta sofa and matching stools took up most of the space in the cozy room, next to a marble fireplace that could have kept her mother warm when short winter days left her craving every last bit of light. A room just big enough for you, Lili thought. Your hideaway.

  Lili cast her eyes over the delicately painted ceiling and the miniature paintings in gold filigree frames at the center of each slender wall panel. Watteau, she decided, recognizing depictions of fables by Jean de La Fontaine in two of them. We liked the same stories.

  Lili opened the door and gazed from her mother’s private terrace across the garden and lawn, down to the stream that ran through the grounds. It’s quite a place to make a home, she thought, imagining the green lawns covered with snow and the dainty tracks of wandering deer.

  Though the rooms were silent, the people that had once animated them stirred Lili’s imagination, and as she turned to go back to the main door, she could almost hear the laughter and the clink of coffee spoons. Walking again through the bedroom, a question hit her with such power that she found herself sitting on the bed without knowing exactly how she got there.

  What if you hadn’t died?

  I would have known the people sitting in the chairs in your bathroom. They would have called me by name and asked what you were teaching me. I would have sat with you in that pretty little boudoir—perhaps on one of those little stools—playing with your dog. I might have been the only one permitted to visit you there. “It’s our hideaway, Lili,” you might have said, giving me a secret look we shared. I would have run across that lawn, and you would have called out to me to be careful or I’d fall. You would have let me get under the covers on this bed and you would have read La Fontaine to me.

  She touched the mattress, as if to anchor herself to nonexistent memories. “I miss you,” she whispered, “even if I never knew you.” Missed her even more now, she realized, after the sweet pain of going through her mother’s rooms.

  Something wasn’t right in what she’d seen, and as she took another look around the bedchamber she realized what it was. A few chairs were scattered here and there, but where the desk should have been, the space was bare. More than a few items seemed to be gone, including all the books. What had Berthe said? That Voltaire took many things with him before these rooms were locked and left to gather dust?

  Lili noticed for the first time that the two mirrored panels on the far wall were doors. They opened with a loud creak, and Lili found herself in a room entirely unl
ike the others. Nothing hung on its walls. Huge, glass-doored bookcases, empty except for stacks of loose papers, stood on both sides of a fireplace. A section of marble floor was incomplete, leaving the boards visible underneath.

  In the middle of the room was a dainty and beautifully polished desk. Its inlays in contrasting woods and slivers of gold matched the cabinets in the other room. She moved the desk in here, Lili realized. Pushed up against one side was a plain wooden work table spotted here and there with congealed bumps of candle wax, and littered with papers, books, and scientific tools.

  For a moment Lili felt she knew her mother, understood her deeply. She was someone who would turn her back on the beauty and grace of her other rooms to come work in here, because truth was all that mattered, all that was really permanent.

  Lili looked around for a place to rest and contemplate. The chair at the desk had been removed, but the window bay was deep enough to sit on. As Lili went over to it, she saw something half-hidden under the bottom of the curtain. She picked it up and held it to the light, watching as tiny rainbows shot from a prism and danced across the walls.

  She put it back down, but her fingers did not want to let it go. Keep it. The thought came over her so strongly that she looked around, as if she half expected her mother to be standing there, telling her she had left it as a gift. The edges of the cut crystal were so sharp, it felt as if it were heating up in her hand. Keep it. She tucked the prism into her bodice and held her fingers there for a moment, feeling its outline over her heart.

  Lili could tell by the rough feel of the keyhole on the desk drawer that someone had once made a clumsy attempt to pick it open, but when she put the point of the compass in the opening to do the same, the lock released as if it were letting out a long-held breath.