“But sieur, I would ask: who dwells herein?”
The doorman puffed up his chest and raised his chin; clearly he was pleased at being called sieur by this ignorant boy. He brushed the gloved fingers of his right hand down across the brass buttons of his uniform and, above the sound of music and laughter and gaiety drifting through the open windows and door, he said, “Not that it’s any of your business, mind, but Lord Henri and Lady Aigrette rule here. Now begone, lad.” But then he gave a wink and added, “Though y’ might slip around th’ back and ask Cook for a bite. Dust yourself off afore then, and don’t let the old lady catch y’, eh?”
Even as Camille’s eyes widened in surprise that her mère and père owned this fine mansion, “With whom are you speaking, Claude?” came a haughty voice, and a tall and quite bald, black-clad majordomo stepped into view and looked down at Camille and sniffed in disdain.
“Just this beggar-lad, sieur. I told him to be off.”
The majordomo pulled a handkerchief from his sleeve and flicked it at Camille. “You heard him, boy. Begone, and swiftly, else I’ll set the dogs on you.”
Even as she opened her mouth to reply, “Camille!” came a glad cry, and Giles rushed out and threw his arms about her, and she dropped her bundles and clutched him tightly.
“What are you doing, Master Giles?” demanded the majordomo, horror in his voice. “ ’Tis a beggar-boy! A vagabond! You know not what diseases, what vermin he might carry.” And he reached out to pull Giles away.
“Oh, Pons, this is no beggar-boy,” cried Giles in glee, casting off the majordomo’s hand, “this is my sister!”
Yelling “Papa! Maman! Camille is here!” the eleven-year-old grabbed Camille by a wrist and dragged her inward past the astonished doorman and the dumbfounded majordomo.
“My bundles!” cried Camille, her cloak hood falling away, her golden hair spilling out.
Quickly recovering, “I’ll bring them, ma’amselle,” said the doorman, snatching up the goods and starting after. But at a gesture from haughty Pons, the doorman paused, then servilely followed the majordomo into the manse, trailing far behind the excited lad and Camille.
Down a hallway went Giles, calling, “Papa! Maman! Camille, Camille has come!” They came to a doorway on the right, leading to a small sitting room. Therein Giles found his mother and several matronly ladies, all dressed in fine ball gowns.
“Maman, Camille has come,” said Giles, pulling Camille in after.
Aigrette stood, her eyes flying wide in shock, and she rushed forward. Camille held out her arms for an embrace, but it was Aigrette who now grabbed her by the wrist and jerked her away from the door. With Giles trotting after, down the hall Aigrette dragged Camille, the mother angrily muttering, “What would everyone think of me, should anyone see you like this, all dusty and running with sweat, and is that field weeds and burrs and such I see clinging to your cloak? What were you thinking, Camille? Gave you no thought to me?”
She rushed Camille by an entry to a grand ballroom, and in the swift glimpse Camille caught as she flew past, she saw the chamber was filled with people in finery, stepping out a dance to the music played by musicians on a modest platform beyond. On down a hallway and up a back stair Aigrette scurried, Camille in tow. “We’ve got to get you out of those horrible clothes and scrub that grime from you. No fille of mine is going to come into this house looking like a scruffy beggar-boy.”
“Maman, aren’t you glad to see Camille?” asked Giles, still following.
“Of course I’m glad to see her,” snapped Aigrette, and suddenly her eyes widened in revelation, as if she had just then stumbled across a wonderful idea that only she knew. “Oh, yes, indeed, I am quite glad she has come at this very time.” And Aigrette laughed to herself.
A few more steps down a hallway she went, then shoved Camille into the sitting room of a small suite. “Here, Camille, these are Joie’s quarters, or Gai’s, I am uncertain which.”
“They’re Gai’s,” said Giles.
Aigrette turned on Giles in exasperation. “You go and find one of the maids to help Camille, and be quick about it. And tell no one else, you hear?”
“Yes, Maman,” said Giles, and turned and bolted away.
As the lad rushed out, Aigrette opened a door; it led to the adjoining suite. Growling, she slammed it shut and opened another; a bedchamber lay beyond. Stalking in, she gestured at an archway. “Yon is the wash chamber. Now get you out of those filthy clothes and scrub yourself down.” She opened yet another door, and Camille could see it was a small dressing room, with gowns and such hanging, and shoes on shelves nearby. “And put on a gown suitable for the grand ball below.” Aigrette gestured. “One of Gai’s should fit, for you are of a size. And do something about that hair. I shall return anon.” She rushed back out, nearly running into the doorman—“Out of my way, oaf!”—but standing to one side was the majordomo. “Oh, Pons,” barked Aigrette, “come with me, for I have a very important task for you, and a most splendid task at that.” Together they vanished down the hallway.
“Ma’amselle?” called the doorman, peering in. “Your bundles?”
Nearly in tears, Camille stepped into the sitting room and gestured at one of the chairs. The doorman set the goods on the seat, then touched the brim of his cap and quietly withdrew.
With the help of Milli, the maid that Giles had found, within a candlemark, Camille was dressed in a dark blue gown, with pale blue petticoats under, dark blue shoes on her feet. At her mother’s insistence, underneath was a bustier to accentuate her cleavage. Her hair was artfully woven through with blue satin ribbons matching the blue of the gown. Though she had yielded to her mother’s dictates in all else, Camille stubbornly refused to wear the gaudy, cut-glass tiara, saying that the ribbons were quite enough.
Hissing in fury, Aigrette slammed the diadem down on the dressing table. “You think of only yourself, Camille, but very well, stubborn child.” Then she slipped the cord of the blue fan about Camille’s wrist, a small fold of paper attached. “Now here is your dance card. Pons filled it out at my instructions. Treat your partners well, for they can do me, do us, much good.—Now let us be gone from here and to the ball.”
As Camille glanced one last time in the mirror, “You are quite beautiful, my lady,” said Milli. “The men, their eyes will look nowhere else, while the women’s eyes will all fill with green.”
“Merci, Milli; I am glad you—”
“Come, come, you look well enough, Camille,” impatiently said Aigrette. “Let’s have no more of this prattle; my guests are waiting.”
Out the door and along a hallway they went, to come to a balcony at the head of an elegant, curving stair leading down into the grand ballroom. Aigrette snatched Camille’s hand and kept her from going on. Waiting below was Pons, watching for them to appear, and at a signal from Aigrette, he rapped the marble floor with a long staff. The music stopped; the dancers paused; a stillness fell over all.
“My lords and ladies and honored guests,” rang out the majordomo, “the Lady Aigrette presents her daughter, the Lady Camille, Princess of the Summerwood!”
Camille was thunderstruck, for she did not consider herself a princess of anything, much less the Summerwood. And a great intake of air swept throughout the room, as men and women looked up to see, standing high above, the beautiful golden-haired girl in the sapphire-blue gown.
Though Camille was bewildered, Aigrette was in her glory, as down the staircase she descended, arm in arm with Camille, Aigrette’s chin held high in queenly dominance, the mother of a princess no less. Ah, yes, she was indeed glad that Camille had come to visit, as all dutiful daughters should.
As Milli had predicted, the eyes of all men were irresistibly drawn to Camille, and the eyes of all women narrowed and perhaps even filled with envy, and some did fill with despair, for Camille was stunningly beautiful, and it is doubtful that anyone whatsoever even noted that Aigrette was at this splendid creature’s side.
And
pressing forward through the crowd came Giles, hauling Papa Henri in tow, with Felise and Colette right behind, then the twins—Joie and Gai—and finally Lisette, the eldest of the sisters coming last of all.
As moths to a light, Camille was surrounded by young men, each one demanding a dance, and man after man offered her glass cups of punch and begged for a stroll in the garden out by the wishing well.
During a pause in the music, Camille leaned over and whispered behind her fan to Giles, “Wishing well?”
“Papa’s old well out back,” he murmured. “Maman had a stone wall put ’round, with a roof above and a winch and a bucket across, all to replace the old wooden trapdoor and the pail on a rope we used to cast down and flip over to draw water. And she had gardeners plant violets and such, and vines . . . all to hide the fact that it was once nothing more than a farmer’s clay-walled cistern.”
Camille looked at her mother, now surrounded by a group of older women, all of whom Camille had been introduced to, none of whose names she remembered. Her mère preened among them, and even though she was standing quite still, it appeared as if she were strutting. And as Maman spoke, the older women cast glances toward Camille, and now and then one would break away to urgently talk to a young man or two, presumably a son or sons.
Playing two violins, a viola, a cello, a harpsichord, and a tambourine, the six musicians struck up again, and Camille’s next partner came and fetched her, this one quite old and fat and short and leering; Lord Jaufre, he named himself, and, in spite of his obvious bulk, Camille could hear the creak of a corset as he bent to kiss her hand, managing to slobber all over her fingers. And all through the dance, he talked of his hounds while peering quite closely at her bosom.
And she danced the minuet, and then the quadrille, and then more dances after, all with different partners as listed on the dance card dictated by her mother—young men, old men, tall and short, stout and slender, all quite wealthy men, or sons of the very rich. And though she glided about the floor with these various partners, Camille could not think of aught but Alain, for he had taught her each of the dances, and she did miss him so.
And so she stepped and curtseyed and turned and paraded ’round the chamber and paced hand-to-hand with old roués or handsome rakes, or whirled about in a joyous fling with robust and laughing young men, but she would have given it all up, and gladly, just to be sitting quietly with Alain at distant Summerwood Manor.
Midmorn of the next day, from one of the guest rooms where she had been quartered, Camille descended to find five of her siblings and Papa breaking fast at a long, walnut-wood table. She served herself buffet-style from a sideboard, selecting from scrambled eggs, rashers, hot biscuits and butter and jellies and jams, and tea.
She took a seat beside Giles and said, “You are looking quite fit, Little Frère, less given to searching for air.”
Giles nodded. “I still have a bit of trouble breathing at times, though mostly not.”
“The doctor claims his former ill health had something to do with thatch,” said Papa Henri, “especially thatch that has gone to mold, though what mold or even thatch has to do with aught, I cannot say.”
“Maman says the doctor is a fool,” said Lisette, “and that it had more to do with dampness and wind whistling through chinks than with any dark mold.”
Giles made a face and shuddered. “Even so, I still have to take that awful medicine.”
“Well if you ask me,” said Colette, “I think it was all due to ill vapors, and somehow they’ve gone away.”
“Regardless,” said Papa, “be it mold, thatch, wind, damp, or ill vapors, clearly Giles is much better, and whether it is due to our new home or the medicine, who can say?”
Camille leaned over and embraced Giles. “Papa is right, and I am so glad for you.”
They ate in silence for a moment, Camille looking about, and then she turned to her father at the head of the table and asked, “Papa, this mansion is quite splendid. Who built it?”
“Hundreds of workmen from Rulon,” said Henri, “and in but nine months or so.”
“Maman drove them mercilessly,” said Colette.
“Had she a whip, she would have lashed them,” said Joie, Gai at her side nodding, the twins in total agreement.
“They were lazy,” said Lisette, glaring about at the others as if in challenge.
“Lazy?” exclaimed Giles, taking up the cast gauntlet from across the table. He gestured about. “Papa says they did the impossible, completing this mansion in but the time they did.”
“Only because of Maman,” retorted Lisette.
“Only because of Maman for what?” demanded Aigrette as she swept into the room.
“ ’Tis only because of your efforts, Maman,” said Lisette, “that the mansion was started and finished when it was.”
“Indeed,” Maman replied as she took her place at the foot of the table. “Had I not kept after those idlers, we would still be living in your père’s hovel.” She rang the small handbell.
Giles leaned over to Camille and said, “They tore it down, you know—Papa’s old place.”
“Good riddance,” snapped Maman Aigrette, though at the opposite end of the board a look of sadness touched Papa’s eyes.
An attendant came into the room, and under Aigrette’s sharp instructions, he readied and served her a plate, though he did have to return to the sideboard several times to get the best of the scrambled eggs, the portions quite small, and then the correct jellies in small dabs as well, for the waists of Maman’s gowns were quite tight, and she would have them so. When at last she dismissed the servant with a haughty wave, he left in obvious relief.
“Where is Felise?” asked Camille, glancing toward the door.
“Probably yet abed and enjoying Allard’s attentions,” replied Colette, wistfully.
“Allard?”
“Her husband.”
“Felise is married?”
“Indeed,” said Maman, raising her chin and peering down her nose at Camille. “And she married quite well, I might add.”
“Oh, but not as well as you, Camille,” said Colette, “you being wedded to a prince and all.”
Lisette muttered something under her breath, and Giles said across to her, “Fear not, dear Sister, for you might on a day snag some unwitting soul.”
Colette and the twins burst into laughter at the lad’s gibe, with Giles grinning in the face of Lisette’s glower. Camille hid her own smile behind her napkin.
Even though he kept a straight face, Papa said, “Now, now, mes filles et fils, let us have no—”
“Giles!” snapped Maman. “You will treat your sisters with respect.”
“But, Maman—” began Giles, only to chop to silence as Aigrette glared at him.
Even as Lisette’s scowl at Giles turned into a smirk, “What’s all the laughing about?” said Felise, coming into the room, an anticipatory grin ’neath the freckles on her face, her complexion a bit flushed and glowing, as if she had just been engaged in some strenuous activity.
Giles laughed. “I said to Lisette, that—”
“Giles!” snapped Lisette and Maman together, and the lad fell silent, while the twins and Colette stifled giggles.
“Good!” said Camille, setting a small bundle to the table. “Everyone’s here, and I have gifts for all.”
As Felise filled a plate and took a seat, Camille unwrapped the bundle. “Here, Papa, here, Giles, these are for you.” She passed a small case to each, and inside each was a folding knife and a hone. As they reverently took out the knives, Camille said, “Renaud tells me these are fine blades, made of the very best bronze. And the handles are mother-of-pearl from the tropical seas of Faery. Too, your birthstones are set in the pearl: a diamond for each of you, since you are both April-born.”
“Ooo,” breathed Giles, as he unclasped the dark-metal blade. Then he looked up at Camille, his eyes glittering. “Are they magic? Enchanted?”
Camille smiled. “Perhaps yo
u could say so, for the more skilled you become through practice, the better will your carvings be.”
Giles beamed. “Oh, Camille, that’s marvelous.” But then his face fell. “—Hoy, now, wait a moment. That’s no real enchantment at all, is it?”
Camille grinned and tousled his hair and said, “No, Giles, but now you and Papa can whittle to your heart’s content, and you won’t have to trade a single knife back and forth.” Giles brightened again and returned her grin.
“Merci, Fille,” said Henri. “This will be used to make a fine échecs set.”
“Just what I was thinking, Papa,” replied Camille. Then she unwrapped six rings, some set with glittering gems, while others held semiprecious stones. Amid murmurs of appreciation as she passed them to the recipients, Camille said, “These are birthstone rings: tourmaline for Joie and Gai; for Felise, saphir; sardoine for Colette; rubis for Lisette; and for you, Maman, héliotrope, also known as bloodstone.”
Even as the others tried on their rings and oohed and ahhed, Aigrette looked disdainfully at the bloodstone-set band and sniffed in dismissal and laid it aside and said, “I expected something finer from a princess, Camille. After all, with your wealth and position . . .”
Stricken, sudden tears brimming, Camille said, “Oh, Maman, can’t you just merely be happy for once?”
Giles reached over and touched his hand to Camille’s and whispered, “No matter what Maman says, dear Camille, these gifts are quite splendid.”
Felise held up her beringed finger in the rays of light streaming through one of the windows, the blue sapphire glinting, “Ooh, it catches the sun and transforms it into a star. I shall have to show it to Allard, when he wakes up and comes down.”
“Let us see what our rings will do,” said Gai, glancing at her twin, and they turned the pale green tourmalines into the light.
“Oh look, now and again they glint blue,” said Joie.
In the sunlight, Lisette’s ruby burned with fire.
Colette’s opaque sardonyx ring did not transform the light, though the stone was quite elegant and different from the others, its bands of brown and tan and white clearly beyond the ordinary. “Oh, my,” she said, “how striking. Perhaps I’ll pretend that it came from some mysterious suitor and make Luc jealous.”
Once Upon a Winter's Night Page 15
