The French Wife

by Diney Costeloe

  Lucie, overhearing this conversation, said pettishly, ‘What ideas, Maman? How can I have any ideas? I haven’t even spoken to him yet.’ But, she thought privately, he did smile at me and he has a lovely smile.

  As the ladies discussed him in the drawing room, Rupert was enjoying a cigar and cognac in the dining room with the gentlemen, the conversation flowing easily as he was accepted as Lucas’s English friend. At one point there was some discussion about the following day and Rupert was surprised to learn that the actual marriage would take place at the Mairie, the town hall he had seen as Lucien had driven him through the village.

  ‘In France one cannot be married in a church only,’ Lucas explained. ‘First is the civil ceremony to make us man and wife in the eyes of the law, and then the church service to marry us in the eyes of God. We will drive to the Place for the first part and then as husband and wife we will walk together to the church. Most of our guests will await us there. You will see us as we walk down the aisle together.’

  It was delicately done, Rupert thought as he lay in bed later that night. He was to wait in the church with the less important guests.

  Well, he didn’t mind. He knew that Madame Barrineau would prefer he wasn’t there at all, but he’d enjoyed meeting Lucas’s family that evening. He had also learned that there was to be a ball on the second evening. They certainly know how to celebrate a wedding, he thought, and he wondered if Lucie would be there. She was very young, too young really, but she would probably be allowed to dance at her brother’s wedding.

  I’ll ask her for a dance, Rupert thought with a grin, if only to tease her mother. He realised, as he drifted off into an easy sleep, that he was looking forward to the following day.

  Chapter 12

  The day of Clarice’s wedding dawned bright and clear. When Hélène threw back her bedroom curtains and opened the window, the sun streamed in and the dawn chorus was filling the garden with birdsong. She sat on her window seat and looked at the beautifully tended garden, the flowerbeds a riot of colour. Seen from above, the parterre that lay just below her window was a waggon wheel with a fountain at its hub. Hélène had always loved it, the immaculately clipped box hedges, the smooth gravel of its pathways. She found such order soothing; she often sat at her window looking out into the cool of the early morning garden, watching the sun rise over the orchard to begin its journey to evening, when it would sink at last behind the distant hills, no more than smudges in the west.

  Today there was already activity in the garden as Patrice and his assistant walked the pathways, deadheading any plant that had dared to fade before Miss Clarice’s special day. The gardeners were not the only ones abroad. From round the stable block beyond the corner of the house came the laughter of children, and as Hélène watched she saw her brother Georges’s offspring, five-year-old Monique and three-year-old Clément, appear with their nursemaid, Delphine. They were to carry their Aunt Clarice’s train as she walked down the aisle and had been bursting with pride the previous evening when they had finally been allowed to try on their wedding clothes. Now they were running ahead of Delphine, shrieking with laughter as two of the dogs gallivanted about them, tails wagging furiously and barking. When they looked up and saw her at her window, Hélène waved to the delighted children and felt her heart lift at their excitement. Today was going to be special, she just knew it. A perfect day. She loved Clarice dearly and wished her every happiness on this her wedding day.

  In the last few days the whole house had been buzzing with preparation and there had been no rest for anyone. With Rosalie’s consent, Madame Sauze had gradually taken over duties as the housekeeper when Madame Choux, beginning to founder with all the extra organisation and work to be done, withdrew to the sanctuary of her parlour with a fit of the megrims. The rest of the servants, including Yvette, Madame St Clair’s maid, and Pierre the coachman, had accepted their arrival readily enough, and once Annette had made clear her pregnancy would not affect her work, it was never mentioned again. Even the dignified Didier relaxed a little, particularly towards Agathe, treating her almost as an equal. It was clear that below stairs everyone was determined that Miss Clarice’s day should be perfect, that nothing should go awry.

  With so much to do, Annette and Agathe had seen little of each other during the days. It was only as they crawled wearily into their beds at the end of each evening that they saw each other alone and had the chance to speak.

  ‘You’re looking washed out, Annette,’ Agathe said one night. ‘As soon as this wedding is over I think you should move in with Madame Leclerc. You can still come daily into Belair until your time, but you need to rest a little.’

  ‘I will, after the wedding,’ agreed Annette, for indeed she was feeling inordinately tired, ‘but I’ll be fine until then and you’ll need me here.’

  She’d been right. The Belair kitchens had been busy for the previous week as pies and patties were made, meat marinated ready for the ovens, and syllabubs and creations built of spun sugar created by a master chef, Antoine, specifically employed to prepare the feast for the wedding breakfast. Adèle Paquet, the St Clairs’ cook, had been angry that preparation of the food had not been left to her, but as Monsieur Antoine took over her kitchen, she had become more and more relieved that such a banquet for more than sixty people had not been her responsibility. The kitchen servants had peeled vegetables brought in from the kitchen garden; had chopped and mixed and stirred all that Antoine needed for his exotic dishes and his delicate sauces.

  The preparations had risen almost to fever pitch, with the arrival two days ago of Captain Georges St Clair and his family and Madame’s sister Madame Clémentine Gilbert and her husband Edouard adding to the excitement.

  Rosalie and Emile’s son Georges and his family occupied their usual three rooms on the first floor: one as a night nursery for the children and their nursery maid; one as a day nursery; and the last, a large apartment with a view out over the drive, as a bedchamber for Georges and his wife, Sylvie. Despite having been wounded in the civil war some years earlier, Georges was still a serving officer in the army, and though he now had a wooden leg and walked with a stick, that did not stop him from keeping his men up to scratch. Most of the time he was stationed near Versailles, and though he and his family had lodgings in a small village outside, he was often away from home. He had received special leave to be away for a week to attend his sister’s wedding, and as always he and his family were warmly welcomed by those below stairs.

  Monsieur and Madame Gilbert, bringing a maid and valet, were another matter altogether and their arrival was greeted with far less enthusiasm. Clémentine Gilbert was nothing like her sister but fussy and demanding, her bell was forever jangling in the kitchen. Her husband, a small, petulant man, was never quite satisfied with anything and continually found fault where there was none.

  ‘And that,’ Madame Sauze confided to Annette as the bell rang yet again and Madame Gilbert’s maid, Claudy, scurried upstairs to answer it, ‘we can well do without.’

  The only person missing, Rosalie had thought sadly as the family had gathered the previous evening, was Marcel. Marcel, her younger son, killed during the civil war in Paris six years ago. Georges and Marcel had found themselves on opposite sides, but they had joined forces to keep Hélène safe throughout the strife. Rosalie loved both her sons and thought of Marcel with great sadness on family occasions, but Emile, horrified that Marcel had been a Communard, never spoke of him, allowing the general assumption that he had died fighting with the French army.

  Now at last the wedding day had arrived. Annette had been hard at work in the house since cockcrow. Once she had rekindled the kitchen stove and set water to heat, she and Lizette laid the large table in the dining room. The company in the house were too many for them all to eat their breakfast as the family usually did, informally in the sunny cheerfulness of the morning room.

  Almost at once the household was astir; on such a special occasion everyone was awake early, in
eager anticipation of the day ahead. Bells began to ring below stairs with demands for hot water. Annette answered these calls, carrying buckets up to fill washing bowls, and in Monsieur St Clair’s case the bathtub he had had installed in his dressing room. She found carrying so many extra buckets extremely tiring. She knew everyone was under pressure and made no complaint, but more than once she had to pause on the stairs, resting the bucket on the floor to ease an increasing ache in her back.

  Gradually the family came downstairs and Madame and Monsieur Gilbert emerged from the blue guest room just as Rosalie St Clair appeared on the landing.

  ‘Good morning, Clémentine,’ she said. ‘I trust you slept well.’

  ‘As well as can be expected,’ sighed Clémentine. ‘It’s never the same in a strange bed, is it? I feel distinctly unrested, but I make no complaint, my dear Rosalie. None at all.’

  ‘Well, it’s going to be a wonderful day,’ Rosalie said brightly. ‘Look at that sunshine!’

  Her sister looked out of the window and replied with a shake of her head, ‘It’s going to be very hot,’ adding almost as an afterthought, ‘And how is dearest Clarice this morning?’

  ‘Breakfasting in bed,’ replied Rosalie. ‘None of you will see her before she arrives at the Mairie.’

  ‘Indeed, I should have asked Claudy to bring me a tray upstairs,’ Clémentine bemoaned, ‘but I wouldn’t want to be any trouble on such a busy day.’

  ‘Of course not,’ Rosalie agreed, wishing her sister had asked and had stayed out of the way. ‘Shall we go down?’ And together they descended the stairs in search of breakfast.

  At that moment the door to the kitchen passage opened and Annette, carrying a heavy tray, crossed the hall into the dining room. She eased the door open and entered the room with baskets of freshly made croissants, strawberries from the garden and tall jugs of coffee and hot chocolate.

  ‘Have you taken up Miss Clarice’s tray, Annette?’ asked Rosalie.

  ‘Not yet, madame,’ Annette replied.

  ‘Then leave all that on the sideboard,’ Rosalie told her, ‘and take her tray straight up. You have a great deal to do and we can serve ourselves.’

  Annette bobbed a curtsy and, having unloaded her tray, quietly left the room and returned to the kitchen.

  ‘I’m surprised you employ a maid so obviously in the family way,’ remarked Clémentine as she accepted the cup of coffee Rosalie had poured for her. ‘I would turn off any maid who has got herself into such an embarrassing predicament.’

  ‘Ah, but Annette’s case is a little different, Clémentine,’ Rosalie replied easily. ‘The poor girl’s husband has recently died, leaving her carrying a posthumous child.’

  ‘Even so…’ Clémentine sniffed and left the rest of her sentence unfinished.

  Hélène opened her mouth to speak, but at a frown from her mother she closed it again. There was no need, her mother’s frown said, to discuss the matter further with Aunt Clémentine.

  Once she had delivered Clarice’s breakfast tray to her room, and while the rest of the family were still at breakfast, Annette quickly made beds and aired bedrooms before returning to the turmoil of the kitchen, where Antoine issued instructions, insisted on immediate obedience and snapped at those who were careless or inattentive. It was a relief that hardly had she been there for half an hour before she was summoned to her mistress’s boudoir.

  ‘Annette, I need you to go up to Miss Hélène’s room and help her to dress. Go along to her now, she’s expecting you.’

  Annette bobbed a curtsy and was about to leave the room when Rosalie said, ‘One moment. How do you like working here? Have you settled in well?’

  ‘Yes, madame, I like it very much.’

  Rosalie nodded satisfaction at her answer. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘Perhaps something can be arranged in due course, after…’ She paused, interrupting herself, and said, ‘You’re keeping well? It can’t be long now, can it?’

  ‘I am well, madame, thank you.’

  ‘Well, run along now, Hélène is waiting for you.’

  ‘Yes, madame, thank you, madame.’ Annette bobbed another curtsy and hurried along the landing to Hélène’s room. Her heart was singing. Madame seemed pleased with her and was hinting that she might be allowed back to work at Belair… after. Over the last few weeks she had tried to put ‘after’ out of her mind. When the baby was born she would be living with the Widow Leclerc in the village, cut off from Madame Sauze, Aunt Agathe, at Belair. Somehow she would have to look after her child and earn their living, but she had no real idea of how she would manage. Now it seemed Madame St Clair had given her hope for the future, hers and her baby’s.

  She tapped on the door, and when Hélène called her in, she was greeted with a smile.

  ‘Isn’t this fun?’ Hélène said. ‘I asked Maman if you could come and help me dress. She’s helping Louise herself, but I know she really wants to be with Clarice.’

  She looked across at Annette and asked almost the same question as her mother. ‘Are you happy here, Annette?’

  ‘Oh yes, Miss Hélène,’ Annette replied. ‘It’s a lovely place to work.’

  With an abrupt change of subject Hélène asked, ‘When is your baby coming?’

  ‘Very soon, miss,’ replied Annette, laying a hand on her stomach. ‘I can feel it kicking.’

  Hélène stared at her in amazement. ‘Kicking? Really? Can you?’

  Annette nodded. ‘You could…’ she began, but her voice tailed away as she realised what she had been about to say.

  Hélène stared at her for a moment and then said, ‘You are saying I could too?’

  Annette nodded again. ‘Yes, miss, if you wanted… if you put your hand…’

  Hélène stepped forward and, holding out her hand, said, ‘Show me.’

  Annette hesitated and Hélène said, ‘Take my hand and show me where.’

  Annette did as she was asked and Hélène rested her hand against the bulge beneath Annette’s apron. For a moment she felt nothing, and then there was a definite movement under her palm and then another. She glanced up into Annette’s face. ‘I felt it,’ she said in wonder. ‘I felt him move! Fancy being able to feel him move before he’s even born! He’s alive inside you, Annette. Waiting to be born.’

  Annette, who had already experienced this wonder, knew it again. Her baby was alive… and kicking. ‘It may be a girl,’ she murmured.

  ‘What? Oh, yes, I know, but when he kicked I thought, it’s a boy!’

  At that moment they heard Rosalie’s voice in the corridor and Hélène moved quickly away. ‘I must get ready,’ she said. ‘Maman will be in to see how we are getting on in a minute.’

  At once Annette moved to the bed where Hélène’s undergarments, chemise and stockings had been laid out ready by Rosalie’s maid, Yvette. The pale yellow silk gown was hanging in the wardrobe and once Hélène was ready, Annette lifted it over her head. Its graceful folds slipped over her hooped petticoat, the square neckline emphasising the delicacy of her shoulders. Hélène stood facing the mirror staring at her reflection as Annette adjusted the back and straightened the neckline.

  ‘I don’t look like me,’ she said.

  ‘You look beautiful, Hélène,’ replied Annette, in that moment quite forgetting to address her as ‘miss’. ‘Come to the dressing table and let me arrange your hair.’

  When Rosalie finally came into the room she found Hélène standing by the window, ready dressed, a circlet of fresh flowers resting on her hair.

  ‘My darling girl,’ she whispered, ‘you’re all grown up!’ She turned to Annette. ‘Doesn’t she look beautiful? I was going to send Yvette in to do her hair, but there is no need. Well done, Annette. Now,’ she carried on briskly, ‘you and Louise are both ready, Hélène, so go downstairs and wait for me there. Pierre will take the three of us to the village first and then come back for Clarice and Papa.’ She bustled out of the room and returned to where Yvette was arranging Clarice’s veil.

&nbs
p; The two girls looked at each other and there was a moment’s return to the bond of friendship they had known as children, then Annette said, ‘You’re quite ready now, Miss Hélène, so I must go down to help in the kitchen. There’re so many last-minute things to be seen to.’ She bobbed a curtsy and went down the back stairs, leaving Hélène alone in her room with the memory of the baby, kicking her hand. She knew nothing about babies, had no idea how they were conceived. She knew it took a man and a woman to produce a child, but how that was achieved she had no idea. When they kissed, perhaps? Ladies and gentlemen did not kiss each other until they were married, so perhaps a kiss between husband and wife was what started the growth of the baby. Her mother had never even mentioned the subject and Hélène knew she could not ask for enlightenment there, but Annette? Annette knew – she must do because she was having a baby. When next they had any time together, Hélène decided she would ask Annette; then she would know. She thought again of the baby’s feet kicking against her hand. When he’s born, she thought, I shall see those little feet.

  Chapter 13

  Earlier that morning Rosalie had watched as Yvette had slipped Clarice’s wedding dress over her head and fastened the row of tiny pearl buttons up the back. As she returned to her bedroom now her eyes filled with tears at the sight of her eldest daughter, ethereal in the beautiful milk-white gown, embroidered with silver flowers, made specially for her by Monsieur Worth. Yvette had dressed her hair, leaving it tumbling to her shoulders as became a maid, with a silver circlet holding the lace veil that would cover her face. She had attached the embroidered train that the children would carry and was standing back to survey her handiwork critically.

  ‘My darling, you look radiant,’ Rosalie murmured. ‘Lucas is a lucky man. Come, let’s go downstairs to your papa.’

  Emile was waiting in the hallway and looked up as Clarice paused at the top of the staircase. Normally an undemonstrative man, he found he had tears in his eyes, and pretending to sneeze, he drew a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe them away.