‘Angie, darling,’ said Marie Catherine, reaching out her hand, touching her daughter’s skirt. Angelina flinched. She leaned over the table, picking up the letter she had been writing and tucked it into her sleeve. She turned on her heel, striding determinedly from the chamber.
Marie Catherine pushed away the fragments of the story taking form in her mind – an island, an isolated princess, a soulmate, perhaps an ogre or giantess – and grasped her walking cane; pulled herself to a stand. She hobbled after Angelina. On the staircase landing, she called up to her daughter to come back. They hadn’t finished talking. She could explain everything. Angelina looked down at her from the upper floor, her face shining with tears. ‘Give me one reason why I should believe you? You didn’t stand up to Papa when you might have. Instead you had relations with him, only to abandon the child you conceived to a convent. I felt like an orphan. I remember nothing before the convent, not a single hour spent in your company. It’s all shadows and terror. It’s as if you never gave a thought to what I might want. Did you think your glamorous visits, the silly nuns impressed with your celebrity, your Parisian airs, do you think that made up for your neglect? The way you sailed in like an armada, drowning any stability I might have gained in your wake. You sacrificed me, telling your secret heart that your daughter was a religious. Imagining that my body took on all your sins. That’s your greatest achievement. I used to cry myself to sleep after you came to see me. Did you have any idea? I could never convince myself that you wanted me. And so I learned to fend for myself. All my life you’ve been a mystery to me. I cannot say after living with you for three months that I am any better informed. And nor has my opinion of you improved. In fact, I don’t think I even like you anymore!’
Without waiting for a reply, Angelina turned into the hallway and disappeared. Marie Catherine flinched at the sound of a slamming door. She stood on the landing, glancing up at the empty stairwell where her daughter had made her accusations. A tear fell onto her thumb, warm and wet. If she let go of her precarious hold on the railing and tilted her body forward, perhaps made a little leap even, she would plunge like a hawk, tumbling and falling against the steep stairs, to knock her head on the wall, to twist her neck in such a manner that she would never walk again.
But she was tougher than that. Defeat was a trait she had no desire to adopt this late in her life. She took in a shaking breath and pushed herself off from the wall. Leaning on her cane, she began to walk back to her room, her gait slow, her posture firm with determination. Perhaps all was not lost with Angelina.
Behind the closed doors to her chamber, Marie Catherine riffled through her armoire, searching for an old hatbox. She knew what to do. The argument with Angelina had stirred her to life, awakening some of the old fight inside. Ah, there it was, tucked into the back of her bookshelf: her precious letters. She took the box under her arm, a candleholder in her hand, eager to examine its treasures, for suddenly she was gripped by an immense desire to reconnect with her past.
The first bundle of letters was from readers expressing gratitude for her novel The Lady’s Travels in Spain. The correspondence she received had extended beyond the bounds of the kingdom: there were notes in Spanish, Dutch and English. There was a package of documents clipped by her secretary, advertisements and reviews published in le Mercure galant and Paris Gazette.She had unlocked Pandora’s box. Stored beneath the letters were her children’s silver lockets, miniature portraits of her deceased son and daughter wreathed in silk. Cuttings of their hair, tied with a thread of ribbon, curled over the pictures. She stroked the fine dark wisps. Eyes pricking, she shut the delicate hinges.
At the bottom of the box were the letters Father Étienne had written to her at Saint Anne’s. Reading over several, she recalled the obedient sisters who had tended her daughters, the modest rooms they had rented from the convent, located on the outskirts of Paris. Her banishment from the thrilling city she had discovered at fifteen. The views from her high window were fields and pasturelands, not coffeehouses and hotels. What lonely years she had spent as a fledgling storyteller, an absent-minded mother. It had been difficult to accustom herself once more to life outside Paris, though she felt buoyed by the attentions of her small, devout audience. She recited her stories to the order on Saturday nights; later, in the privacy of her chamber, she pondered her ability to invent such diversions. She nursed herself on the pleasure she brought to others, growing ever stronger while Father Étienne worked with the city authorities to obtain permission for her to return to Paris. Her writing became a persona she could inhabit, her tales a kind of code, allowing her to forget the sadness and disappointments of her young life.
Distressed by her argument with Angelina, she began to remember her determination, all those years ago, to carve a future for herself as a writer. To return to the city of lights, to regain her freedom through the printed word. It was time to rediscover the power of her own stories.
The call of a blackbird on the balcony railing told her just how long she had been writing. Perhaps an hour’s darkness remained. When had she last felt the compulsion to write without pause, unwilling to risk breaking the thread of the tale she was composing until she reached its very end? Like an infant, the story had grown unseen inside her, not existing until it had been brought, smeared in blood and birthing fluids, onto her chest to cry and grub for her breast. The squirming body had the heart of a plot, the brain of characters, the muscle and sinew of place and setting. Although she recognised that she must keep some of her strength for the following day, what choice did she have? To surrender to the exhaustion that clawed at her would be defeat. No, she must obey the imp perched on her shoulder, cracking his miniscule whip across her back, until he fell silent.
This compulsion was the reason she could call herself an author, though she had forgotten how it felt: like a terrible pain, the sensation receded as soon as it ceased to be her central concern. Only while she worked did she remember. What was it, precisely? A kind of meditation or prayer, which allowed her to enter a place of refuge, comforted and calmed inside its sanctified enclosure. A humble temporary dwelling built of mud, crystals and seaweed inside which she moved, cunning as a witch, brewing and stirring, while outside the full moon shone through the forest trees. A last hope, perhaps, for she could not wield her fairy wand upon the living, much as she might wish to. How could she have mislaid her one power and salvation? How had she committed the error of meddling in the affairs of the world of men, when she knew it only ever led to confusion and disaster?
Perhaps the visions in her fairy worlds did not match the lives of the women around her, but at least, with her pen, she could have her say. And she could hatch a little egg of rebellion in her daughter’s mind.
Finally, Marie Catherine set down her quill. She folded the correspondence from Father Étienne, a letter she had written to Angelina and, finally, the fresh fairy tale she had composed, sealing them all into an envelope. She would have Sophie deliver it to Angie’s room. It was late, and she needed to rest. For tomorrow Nicola Tiquet had an appointment with her executioner, and once more Marie Catherine had to turn a strong face to the harsh world.
Angelina
19 June
Angelina arose early. She did not ring for Lise to aid with her toilette. The previous evening, she had laid out at the end of her bed the clothing she would wear: a taupe bodice and skirt, a black cape, pale stockings, well-worn shoes. She brushed her long chestnut hair, twisting it into several loops and pinning it high on her head. She clipped a veil over the top – that she might drop over her face if necessary. Today, she did not wish to draw attention. Her face patches, rouge and powder were left untouched in their porcelain boxes. The looking glass reassured her that her features were calm and ordered, her lips did not tremble and her nose did not run; the angry welts that had broken out on her throat and chest the previous evening had entirely cleared away. There was no sign in her eyes of the fear that accompanied each beat of her heart, nor
the tiny needles threading her soft belly.
On the floor outside her bedroom was a tray, a package sitting on top addressed in her name. Another message from Alphonse. He had written her several notes the previous day, inviting her to attend the execution with him, but she had been too angry to send a response. Alphonse planned to stand near the scaffold, as close as possible to Nicola: there was an area where the reporters gathered, and he would join them, writing his own account of the beheading. She too, wished to be close to Madame Tiquet, but she would stand alone. Although Alphonse had apologised in his first note for his harsh words about Marie Catherine, he had made no further mention of his plan to write about her. The very idea of a book about her parents terrified Angelina – such a project would undoubtedly rupture their friendship. Or not, depending on the choices she made. She would need to side either with her beloved Alphonse, or with her neglectful mother. The decision should have been simple, but it wasn’t. She was still too deeply hurt, too surprised by his casual cruelty, to speak to him.
However, when she picked up the parcel she realised the message was not from Alphonse after all; the spidery handwriting that formed her name was her mother’s. Tucking the package into her bag, she stamped out the small flame of annoyance that threatened to consume her fierce resolve. She would read it later. In a sense she was embarking upon a performance. She had drawn a visage over her inner concerns, an act she was practised in, but if anything could tear it from her, exposing her uncertainty, her hidden vulnerability, it was Marie Catherine. Angelina had not yet decided how she would respond to the revelations of the previous day, only that she had a strong wish to not see or speak to her mother before the execution.
In the kitchen, at the servant’s table, she ate a small breakfast – bread with compote and a cup of sugared coffee.
‘Good day, Mademoiselle,’ said Sophie, blinking several times, as if she had just moments earlier raised herself from bed.
Angelina greeted her mother’s maid. She asked her to pass on the message that she would not be viewing the execution from rented rooms with the family, as planned.
‘Very good,’ Sophie’s eyes searched Angelina’s, an expression of sympathy on her face.
Angelina felt her resolution waver. ‘I’m standing with the public. Not in a fancy apartment. I’ll be present for Nicola, but not to gape. The fact that this whole cursed business isn’t some divertissement seems to have escaped the household.’
‘I hardly think Madame’s a spectator,’ replied Sophie, bending over the fire.
Angelina felt a flush of shame. ‘I know,’ she said, her voice softening. ‘I spoke without thinking. Never mind me. It’s very overwhelming.’
‘You must do what your conscience tells you is right,’ said Sophie, soothingly.
‘Thank you for understanding,’ said Angelina, giving the maid a strained smile.
Already the city was frenetically preparing itself. Bread and wine merchants, newspaper sellers and carriage drivers occupied Rue du Colombier, coaxing flames for cooking, unloading barrels, inspecting wheels and feeding horses, labouring with brisk industry to meet the demanding onslaught of a day of vastly increased custom. In several hours, the streets would swarm with Parisians from every rank, spilled from apartment and town house, a collective tumult buttoned down inside their finest clothing.
She needed to hire a carriage, though she had never done it before. Spying an idle vinaigrette, a sedan chair with wheels, she hurried over to negotiate a price with the driver. She instructed him to take her across Pont Saint-Michel to Île de la Cité, travelling beside the buttressed flanks of Notre Dame, crossing the river onto Île Saint-Louis, and moving in an easterly direction, away from the Hôtel de Ville and the Place de Grève. Mercifully, the transportation was small and swift, the driver weaving between slow-moving vans, coaches and carriages. Several times she almost lost her nerve, acutely aware of her choice to travel without a companion. Had she made a mistake, journeying such a distance by herself on this day of all days? But she had a call to make. A last bridge crossing and she had arrived at the quarter of the Marais, the Parish of Saint Paul’s Cathedral.
Stepping onto the cobblestone street, she tightened her cape and adjusted her veil, tucking away her concerns. If any unsavoury person attempted to harass her, she would simply have to count on her wits.
She bought a small posy of flowers from a child dressed in patched clothing and asked for directions to the cemetery. Saint Anne’s had covered up Henrietta’s suicide, claiming that she had fallen from the belltower after climbing its heights to clean. It was a remarkable lie, unbelievable in its audacity – Henrietta had given birth several weeks earlier and was still confined – but her family accepted the fabrication because it allowed them to bury her body on consecrated ground. The distress and grief Angelina had experienced at the funeral began to echo inside her. Bowing her head, she straightened her posture, determinedly crossing between the headstones. The placement of Henrietta’s grave was inscribed in Angelina’s memory, and in little time she had located the du Blois plot.
She had not intended for her visit to reawaken departed ghosts. Rather, she yearned to spend an hour in the company of her friend, to talk to her about Alphonse, tell her about the female writers she had met at Mademoiselle L’Héritier’s salon, assure her she had at last discovered a society of kindred souls in Paris, the beloved home Henrietta had told her so much about. The shadow of Nicola’s ordeal hovered beneath her thoughts, sooty and bloated. She acknowledged that she was to face a difficult afternoon. Madame Tiquet had been treated cruelly by the kingdom’s institutions. Like Henrietta. ‘Lend me your rebellious spirit,’ she whispered, laying the bouquet of white daisies across the grave.
At the sound of sobbing, she glanced left. There was a woman dressed in black, perhaps the same age as herself, with an infant propped on her hip. A little girl – the source of the cry – was tugging at her hand, as if she wanted to run away. She could not blame the child. Before them was a gravedigger, his grimy shirt clinging in wet strips to his lean and muscled shoulders. A flick of dirt from his shovel landed with a thump on the ground; the lower portion of his body was concealed inside the grave he was digging. Several lanes behind the bereft family, she noticed an elderly man seated on the earth before a long-settled tomb, absorbed in private lamentation.
She was reminded of the package she had brought. Glancing around the small, quiet cemetery, she decided that nobody was paying attention to her, and copied the monsieur’s action, sitting down at the foot of Henrietta’s grave. She chatted to her friend in her mind, explaining that she had decided to stay longer. Perhaps she might read Henrietta a note her mother had written to her. They’d had a terrible falling-out; might she offer her advice on what to do?
She opened the bulky package and removed the top piece of correspondence, a letter addressed to her in Marie Catherine’s familiar script. Gingerly, she unfolded the page.
Dearest Angelina,
I shall attempt in writing to answer the accusations you put to me last evening. When I saw you on the stairwell, barely able to stand up, trembling with hurt and confusion, I realised I owed you an explanation. What I am about to share with you is a great secret, which I have guarded for many years. Not even your sisters are aware of it.
Angelina swallowed the lump that had risen to the back of her throat, the words blurring on the paper. Did she dare read on? Did she even care enough anymore, to make her precarious way to the sticky centre of her mother’s cobweb of untruths?
You, dear child, were never abandoned. On the contrary, you were conceived from intense passion, a profound ardour, the expression of which is strictly forbidden.
It grieves me to tell you that Baron d’Aulnoy is not your real father. As your mother, I shall carry the regret I feel to my grave, that on the interior scales of justice I weighted my decision to conceal the identity of your papa from you, over the peril to your reputation that this knowledge might engender. Af
ter my separation from the Baron, after I had him imprisoned and had myself been exiled from Paris, and was then bestowed the grace of a second chance, I can assure you that I never loathed myself enough to stoop to resuming a physical relationship with him.
You must understand, my dear, that the Baron made his every transaction with me financial. He guessed my secret and forced me to pay him funds to keep his counsel on the matter. The place that had provided me with refuge when I ran away, under threat of arrest, was Saint Anne’s. I beg forgiveness a thousand times for never telling you that your sisters spent part of their childhoods in the same abbey as you. Ideally, I would have raised you myself, but I could not afford the cost of private tutors. Instead, I chose to have you schooled at the convent, providing you with an education vastly superior to the lessons in falsehood and superstition that would have been imparted to you by the only sort of teacher I could afford – a common nurse. Perhaps you do not yet realise your fortune in being able to tell a disquisition from a summation from a deduction. I hope that someday you will.
I admire your courage in bringing to my attention the many failures of my guardianship. I will share with you a tender story. Do you recall the time Father Étienne visited and let you taste a chocolate mendicant? I protested that they were too rich for your young palette, but you grabbed it before I could stop you, and ate the whole piece. We laughed and laughed, deciding that you were gifted with a temperament that was both precocious and refined. From then onwards, whenever Father Étienne visited he made sure to bring you something sugary, taking great enjoyment in your delight.
The Bee and the Orange Tree Page 29
