by Karleen Koen
For a bright, ambitious woman, however, this was the opportunity of a lifetime. Lord Devane was wealthy, and his young wife had brought no favorite maids with her from her home. A good lady's maid could make herself so indispensable that she became part of the family. It was a chance for permanence and security, along with responsibility.
There was little difference between the two women. Each was pretty in a petite way, with dark curling hair and dark eyes. Thérèse Fuseau had a most definite nose, but it gave character to her already pretty face. She sat quietly, twisting her hands in her lap in a way that was foreign to her normal behavior. But those who worked with Thérèse in the Condé household had noticed that she was not her laughing, sunny self these last few weeks. Usually, she sang as she worked the long hours of an assistant lady's maid (up before dawn to light fires, running errands between floors all day, staying awake until the early morning hours to undress one of the young Condé princesses). She was one of those rare people who took life as it came and found the best in it.
But this last month, she had not been herself. And now, she was seeking to leave the Condé staff. Suzanne, her friend and roommate, who was employed as a starcher and idolized Thérèse for her climb from kitchen maid to assistant lady's maid, could not understand it. Thérèse cried at odd moments, was preoccupied, snappish.
What Suzanne could not know was that Thérèse was in trouble. She had given herself to one of the young princes de Condé, throwing away years of self–restraint. (She could have married the head footman; he had begged her. But she had no wish to end like her mother, dead in childbirth, tired and old years before her time from children, pregnancy, and the hard work of their farm outside Paris. It was better for a female servant to keep herself chaste; her life was easier; there was opportunity to advance, to save money. Thérèse had a secret dream of saving enough money to open a dressmaker's shop.) But it was a dream she had abandoned because she was, after all, only human, young and warmly passionate, and the prince was handsome and polished and said sweet things and she thought he loved her. And in a moment of weakness, she let him do as he wanted, as she wanted. For a while he could not possess her enough. He gave her money, which she would not accept, and gifts of flowers, which she would. The money made her feel like a whore, which she was not. She had given herself freely, out of love. Or so she thought. It did not take long for his interest to wane.
The moment she realized it was a moment of stunning clarity. That she could have been so stupid, she who had been raised in a noble household, she who had seen many a maid ruined. And combined with that was heartbreak, because she had cared for him. Yet she could have survived that. It was his disrespect for her as a person that hurt most. He told his brother, and his brother began to haunt her, just one time, he begged. Money, he promised. Once he had found her alone in a hallway, sorting linens, and he had wrestled her to the ground, his hand up her skirts, before she had screamed, and he had run away. She realized that she had been nothing to her young prince but a hole into which he put his sex. And now, because of his brother, she felt terror, the sense of being helpless, which was black and suffocating like a nightmare. At first, she could do nothing but tremble and cry. These tears were added to the ones she had already shed. But then her innate common sense asserted itself. She would leave. She would find another position before they drove her mad or before the old Princesse de Condé found out and dismissed her without references. The life of a single woman without a job or family on the streets of Paris was not to be thought about. If she thought of it, even once, she would lose her courage and do nothing but lie on her bed and cry and be dismissed anyway for not performing her duties.
When she overheard the old Princesse de Lorraine gossiping with the old Princesse de Condé about the little English Countess Devane, and the princess mentioned casually, just a few words, really, that the young countess was searching for a lady's maid ("God only knew she needs one"), she had another moment of stunning clarity. Her God had not deserted her, though she had doubted Him in her days of trouble. The Holy Mother had truly heard her choking prayers every night and interceded.
She waited now in the vestibule of the mansion Lord Devane was leasing, nervous, but also confident that God would provide. Monsieur Montrose, the neat, officious young man who had already screened her, came in and summoned the young woman sitting next to her. She stood up, smoothed out her dress, patted her curls in a confident manner, and followed him out. Thérèse refused to let the other woman's confidence undermine hers. She was the better choice. She was bright, honest, diligent, and shrewd. From the moment her mother had brought her to the Condé household, she had known what she wanted. Even before that. Her mother had been a lady's maid, and in the dark evenings when they gathered around the fire, her father already snoring because he was so tired from work in his fields, her mother would describe to them her life as it had once been. In place of the dark, cramped, one–room farmhouse was the great house, immense, shining, like a fairy palace with more rooms than there were children sitting before the fire listening with intent expressions. In place of the watery stew and the black bread was food only to be dreamed of: apples, oranges, strawberries, hearty soups and ragouts, chocolates and bonbons. Thérèse and her brothers and sister had never tasted an orange, much less a bonbon. In place of the heavy, serviceable clothes, passed down from their mother and cut to fit them, was the dressing of my lady for a ball, her diamonds, her jewels, her feathers and fans, glittering and magic.
Her mother had lost that glory when she had fallen in love with and married an underfootman. They had taken their meager savings and put a down payment on a farm. The farm prospered, though the mortgage was never paid off, but her mother got smaller and sicker each year from the children that kept arriving. Thérèse was willing to escape the drudgery of the farm, the milking, the haying, the mucking out of barns and pigpens, to live in a large city household. When she was seven, her mother and father drove her into Paris in their wagon, and she was left on the kitchen doorstep of the Condé house, in which her mother and father had once worked. The housekeeper was still a friend, and had obtained for Thérèse the position of kitchen maid. She worked hard. She was out of bed long before dawn, lugging firewood and building the fires in the great kitchen fireplaces. With sand and potash she scrubbed pots and pans that were larger than she was. She chopped vegetables until her arms ached. She mopped floors that seemed as long as her father's fields. She sang as she worked. She was merry and laughing. By the time she was ten, she was shopping with the cook at the markets, sometimes bargaining even more shrewdly than he, using her dark eyes and her small frame and her quick answers to amuse the vendors into giving her a better price. But always before her she saw the glory and glitter of the bedchambers. She wanted to be a lady's maid. The cook begged her to stay in his kitchens, swore he would teach her all he knew. But the housekeeper also had a fondness for her, and when a position as chambermaid opened in one of the young princesses' bedchambers, she moved Thérèse there.
Thérèse used every moment of her spare time to improve herself, learning to read and write, to speak English, to play music. She was ready when another position opened, that of lady's maid's assistant. The work was hard; the young princesses were spoiled and demanding, but she was happy. She had plenty of food, a small room shared with a friend, castoff clothes that were worn only for a brief while before the princesses tired of them, one free day a month, wages, which she saved, and a footman or two or three who died for her pert smiles. But then she had made her mistake….She closed her eyes and swallowed. She would not think of that now. She began to say her Hail Mary in a whisper. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you; blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus….
It gave her courage when her turn came. She followed Monsieur Montrose through hallways and past ornate drawing rooms and up stairs until he opened the door to Lady Devane's antechamber. She had an impression of ornate furnishings and
cold formality.
"Lady Devane," Montrose said to a thin girl in a rich, autumn–green gown that made her hair the color of gold, two pug puppies with matching green ribbons around their necks at her skirts, "this is Thérèse Fuseau."
He bowed and left them alone. The girl stared at Thérèse with wide, blue eyes in a heart-shaped face. She was far younger than Thérèse had imagined she would be. Her face was pretty, but she did not make it up either fashionably or to accentuate its best feature. The pugs bounded over and barked in such small, shrill yaps that Thérèse laughed. "May I?"
At Lady Devane's nod, she bent down and patted them. They immediately began to whine and tremble under her hand, pushing at each other so the other should not get more patting, rolling over so that she might scratch their fat puppy bellies. (Barbara had named them after her brother Harry and her sister Charlotte. Harry was always in trouble and Charlotte whined.)
"Bad dogs," Thérèse cooed to them. "Bad, bad dogs." They loved it, straining themselves into contortions to stay on their bellies yet lick her hands at the same time.
"Hyacinthe!" Lady Devane called.
A small page appeared in one of the doorways. He was a handsome child with full, smooth cheeks and dark eyes with long lashes.
"Take the puppies away," Lady Devane told him. He glanced at Thérèse and scooped up the puppies, who tried to lick his face. When he was gone, Lady Devane began to ask Thérèse about her background, how long she hid been with the Condés, what references she could provide, and finally why she wished to leave.
"It is time, madame," was all she said. Then she stood waiting. Lady Devane was looking at her with those intent blue eyes, assessing her. Please, Holy Mother, prayed Thérèse, please—make her like me. I beg you. I will say ten Hail Marys and light five candles to you if you will make her like me.
I like her, Barbara was thinking. I like the way she dresses and the way she answered my questions and the way she patted my dogs. Trust your instincts, she heard her grandmother's voice say in her mind, trust your instincts.
"When could you start?"
Thérèse clapped her hands together. "Within a week."
"Good. I will inform Montrose, and have him arrange a footman to carry your things."
"You will not regret your decision, madame. I promise that. I will serve you faithfully and proudly."
Barbara smiled. It was her grandfather's smile. In that moment, Thérèse felt that somehow her life was intertwined with this girl's. She smiled back. Outside the antechamber, in the corridor, she leaned against the wall and burst into tears. Wiping them quickly, furtively, she walked down the hall. Outside the house, she had to stop and vomit in the kitchen gardens, but the only one who saw her was a beggar child staring through the fence.
* * *
Within a week, Thérèse was surveying her new domain—Lady Devane's apartments and the room on the ground floor which would be used for laundering and starching. The puppies yapped and bit at her heels as she walked through the formal room that separated Lord and Lady Devane's apartments to the antechamber that was the first room of Barbara's suite. It was as she remembered, a cold, formal room clearly used for little but receiving guests. Crossing it quickly, the puppies still at her heels, she entered the bedchamber, which would also be used as a sitting room. This would be the center of her life.
The walls were the color of a robin's eggshell. A canopied bed occupied an old-fashioned, dark alcove. Near the fireplace was an overturned basket and an embroidery frame. The basket was frayed from small, pointed teeth. Thérèse shook her finger at the puppies. "Bad dogs," she told them. They stared at her, heads cocked to one side, tongues hanging out. She picked up the scraps of linen and dangling embroidery threads and put them back in the basket and shook her finger at the puppies once more. A pair of shoes lay in the middle of the floor, green satin shoes with stiff embroidered bows. A dressing table was littered with bottles and jars and feathers and ribbons and spilled powders. She would straighten it later.
She crossed to two identical doors set into the wall. One would contain Lady Devane's most private room, where she could be left alone. The other would be hers. Thérèse opened the door on her left. Lady Devane's room. Rich blue damask on the walls and on the two matching armchairs pulled before the fireplace. A window at one end, beneath which was a marquetry table littered with papers, quill pens, an ink pot, and a Bible box. Thérèse closed the door. She was much more interested in the room adjoining. Hers. She opened the door. A small fireplace, a luxury she had not expected. A narrow cot. Trunks and an armoire for Lady Devane's clothing. Pegs for hers. A table under a window. A window! Another luxury. A close stool. And a piece of mirror in which she might see herself to comb her hair. A small door, which she opened. The back stairs leading down to the kitchens and basements.
That night, in her room, she said her rosary and thanked God again for His kindness. She felt calm. Not all her problems were solved, but she had food, warmth, a roof over her head. She was not afraid. She was in God's hands. In spite of the cold, she opened her window and leaned out into the dark night. It was good to have a window. It was good to be alive.
* * *
"Tell me what you know about her, Francis."
White and Montrose were in the sitting room they shared, a room that connected their bedchambers. Montrose was trying to read Alexander Pope's translation of the Iliad, but White kept interrupting. He was burning with curiosity about Lady Devane's new maid. The footman who had escorted her from the Condé mansion could talk of nothing else in the servants' hall. His description of her charms left White panting for more. The addition of a young, pretty, unknown female servant had the male household staff buzzing.
"There is nothing to tell. She is twenty; she has excellent experience; she speaks English."
"Why did you not tell me of her when she was hired?" White demanded.
Montrose sighed and closed his book. "I did. If you will remember, I told you that Lady Devane had made her choice, and I was finally free to deal with more important matters."
"Yes, but you did not tell me her choice was both charming and pretty. After Martha, it comes as a shock."
"Of course I did not. Who would say such a thing?"
"Jacques, who has better eyes than you in his head. He was almost drooling as he described her."
"One ought not to mix with maidservants," sniffed Montrose. "It is not conducive to good morale."
"Read your book, Francis. Read your book."
* * *
Thérèse sifted through Barbara's gowns and arranged them according to color and use. She sorted through stained clothes. She began an inventory of Barbara's growing collection of jewels. She added an expert starcher to the washerwoman who came on Tuesdays and Thursdays. She knew the best lacemakers and dressmakers in Paris.
"Thérèse," Barbara told her (she already loved the way Thérèse called her "madame"), "I want to look older, more sophisticated."
Thérèse understood at once and looked at her young mistress with more interest. So madame had a lover she wished to please. She was more French than she realized. Together, she and Barbara analyzed Barbara's assets: good complexion, glorious hair, prettily shaped face; and her liabilities: pale brows and lashes, small bosom. Thérèse knew a solution for everything.
Barbara was twisted, turned, powdered, corseted, rouged, patched. Within a week, she stood before the mirror staring at herself. She looked wonderful; even she could see it. Her gown was a pale shade of blue, cut long and deep at the waist as Thérèse had suggested. Heavy lace fell from her shoulders and breasts, and Thérèse had tied a matching piece of lace about her neck and fastened the diamond–and–sapphire brooch Roger had given her for Valentine's Day to it. The trimming on the gown was primrose and white. She wore rouge on her lips and cheeks, and her brows and lashes had been darkened with lead combs. The only other solution to her paleness was a set of false eyebrows made of mouse hair, but she could not stand them and would
not wear them. To her great satisfaction, she wore three patches.
"Not too many," Thérèse had warned "or you will look like a comedienne on the stage."
I shall be very aloof and grand tonight, Barbara thought as she turned around so that Thérèse could give her a final inspection. She touched the brooch Roger had given her and turned slowly, enjoying the way her skirts belled around her legs. The puppies barked from their basket. I look at least twenty years old, she thought to herself. Thérèse circled her slowly, her brow furrowed, to make certain everything was perfect.
