“I couldn’t be happier for you,” I said, even if I wondered at her willingness to endure the inevitable disrepute of being seen as the baron’s mistress. I also wondered at Louise’s willingness to allow it, chaperone or not, even as I realized I was about to do the same with Balsan, though he’d not said as much. I could hardly judge a situation that I myself was willing to accept. Moreover, Adrienne was in love, while I did not feel anything remotely like that for Balsan. Gratitude, yes, and relief that he had found me, for I’d have perished on my own; but much as I searched my heart, I felt nothing approximating Adrienne’s desire for Nexon. Indeed, I feared further intimacies, though it was inevitable. Once again, as Adrienne regaled me with her hopes, I wondered if I was incapable of the unquenchable ardor she described.
Tante Louise wished me bonne chance and averted her eyes, acknowledging with that one gesture that she was relieved to see me go. I had turned out to be my father’s child, intent on forging my own path; it was better for everyone to remove me from Adrienne’s sphere. I was only a niece, while Adrienne was her sister, upon whom Louise must focus all her attention if Adrienne was to win the baron’s hand. I had become a liability, an unwanted reminder of where girls could end up. As in my childhood, I must be shuttled away, out of sight.
This realization hardened my heart. I departed Moulins without a second glance, though my sister Antoinette lived in the convent and Julia an hour away in my grandparents’ house. I wanted to see them but I didn’t care to explain. Tante Louise would inform them soon enough of how I had strayed from any hope for respectability. I knew it was what she thought; I saw it in her eyes. She did not believe Balsan would ever marry me.
Neither did I. But I had made my decision, for better or worse.
THE HOME BALSAN HAD BOUGHT near Compiègne was a seventeenth-century château with an impressive name—Royallieu—but unimpressive upkeep. A relic with musty furnishings and drapery-shrouded windows and doorways, it had no heating other than massive soot-streaked fireplaces. Rooms had sat uninhabited for years, occupied by heavy chairs and tables cloaked in sheets. The water ran brown in the tubs and sinks. Rodent droplets soiled the corners.
Balsan seemed strangely unperturbed, given his personal fastidiousness. He remarked that he would refurbish the château in time but for now must direct his efforts to the horses he’d bought, their stables, and clearing the encroaching forest so he would have courses to race on and meadows for polo.
I found him somewhat changed, though I couldn’t tell precisely how. He had rekindled past friendships, admitting that the reason he took so long to come to Vichy was because he’d made an impromptu trip to Paris to conduct “overdue business.” He didn’t explain what his business concerned and I didn’t ask. I sensed that a mistress who asked too many questions was not the arrangement he had in mind.
Whatever arrangement he did have in mind took some time to reveal itself. He let me choose a bedroom for myself with an adjoining bathroom and parlor, where I could read and make my hats. It was a luxury, no matter if the water came in fits and bursts or the pipes moaned like invalids. I basked in the sheer breadth of my suite, the sense that I could come and go as I pleased, carrying armloads of books from the well-stocked library (included in the château’s purchase) and spending hours on end spilled on the carpet with my imagination free to roam.
Balsan gave me money to buy more hats and trimming supplies. A flare of creativity had me working throughout the night, until my finished hats occupied every surface of my parlor and the next room, as well. Balsan took it all in stride, with a smile on his face; he was gone most of the day, occupied with his projects.
We saw each other in the evening for dinners served by unobtrusive servants. I chattered about my latest creations and the novels I’d read in one sitting, devouring the fresh-cooked food. After Vichy, I would indeed never let myself go hungry again.
“Who would think you do all that?” he said, lighting his after-dinner cigarette. “I thought you slept until noon and bathed until three.”
“Well, that, too,” I admitted. “But I’m not entirely idle.” The truth was, I felt a twinge of discomfort about subsiding on his largesse. I’d worked all my life. Sitting around all day wasn’t something I could get used to. I occupied my time with books, for reading was not a passive occupation if one did it properly, and my hats, but already, in just a few weeks, I’d begun to experience an unsettling aimlessness. As I considered what else I might do to earn the privileges Balsan had bestowed, I felt subtle panic. What he must desire I was not yet prepared to give and in a sudden rush I said, “You could teach me to ride.”
He smiled lazily. “That would be fun. You’re not scared of horses?”
“Of course not,” I retorted, though I’d never been on one. “I assume it’s easy enough.”
He chuckled, stubbing out his cigarette. “Then as soon as my horses arrive, I will teach my little Coco how to sit a saddle. It would be good, I think, as I plan to invite some friends here and most of them like to hunt.”
An odd note had crept into his voice. He went off into the library while I returned upstairs to work on my hats. But my usual consuming focus deserted me. I found myself pacing, staring out the window at the impenetrable night, the silhouettes of trees outlined against the indigo sky.
When the door opened behind me, I knew what he had come for. Turning around, I found him on the threshold. He stepped inside, closing the door. As he lifted a hand to remove his shirt collar, I wrenched my eyes up to his face.
“Shall we?” he said.
I stood still, a cigarette smoldering between my fingers.
“Only if you want to,” he added, removing his silver cigarette case from his trousers pocket and setting it by the lamp on my bedside table. “I don’t want to force you.”
“No, of course I do,” I said. My heart started to pound as I fumbled at the fastenings of my dress. He watched me with almost casual disregard as I slipped the dress off and then my chemise. I stood with my arms crossed over my breasts, my undergarments bunched around my thighs. Now that the moment I had dreaded was upon me, I had no idea what he expected. Images of the choristers at Le Palais Doré swinging their hips and leaning over tables to expose their cleavage raced through my mind. Was he anticipating some kind of brazen floor show?
Instead, he folded back my bedcovers and removed his shirt and trousers. His chest was surprisingly thin, like a boy’s, white skinned and narrow. I didn’t like the sight of his oddly fleshy nipples and dropped my gaze to his hips—wider than I thought men had—and thick hairy legs. It was as though he were a misshapen centaur: scrawny on top but heavy on the bottom. When I caught sight of the small, limp penis hanging from an auburn thicket at his groin that was darker than the hair on his head, I felt revulsion. He looked much better with his clothes on.
Slipping into the sheets, he patted the space beside him. I moved to the bed thinking I must look preposterous, with my underpants crammed around my thighs and my small breasts exposed. I scrambled under the sheet as fast as I could.
He reached over to stroke me, running his hands around my chest, pinching my nipples. I closed my eyes and tried not to think, but I kept seeing the web in the corner of the ceiling with the resting spider I watched every day, catching flies and patiently rolling up their still-thrashing bodies in her deadly cocoons. I’d named her Margot. She was sitting there now, immobile, waiting for her feast, and I felt like her victims as Balsan began kissing my throat.
It was not like what I’d read about in novels. I wasn’t expecting that; I had surmised by now that such fictional ecstasies must be more mundane in reality, for how could an act so common, which everyone called le petit mort, be the summit of one’s experiences? Still, I did expect to feel something. The fact that I did not disturbed me. When he progressed from my throat to my breasts, lapping at them like a babe at a mother’s teat, I had to stifle a sudden giggle. It seemed so . . . farcical, so unlike us.
“Do y
ou like it?” I heard him murmur, one of my nipples in his mouth, and I supposed I should, so I let out a fake moan. He seemed to like that, for he became excited, nipping and licking, until I felt his hard penis nudge my thigh and I shifted my legs to evade the sensation. He took my gesture as permission to mount me abruptly, sighing, “Ah, Coco, I’ve waited so long.”
It hurt! I gasped at the unexpected fire of it, as he lowered himself upon me, thrusting, making clenched sounds through his teeth. I thought it would never end, and then it did, suddenly. With a cry, he pulled out and spilled a warm sticky liquid onto my stomach.
I looked down under the sheet at the slime. Then I saw smears of blood on the sheet and the insides of my thighs, and raised my eyes to his.
“You did not tell me,” he said, not accusatorily, but with some surprise. “Had I known, I wouldn’t have been so insistent.”
I made myself shrug. “It had to happen sometime. I’m glad it was you.”
He kissed me and disengaged himself from our position, reaching over the bed to his trousers to fetch his silver cigarette case. He lit two cigarettes, then passed one to me. We lay side by side without touching, smoking, before he sighed. “Well, that was delightful. Good night, Coco. Thank you.”
I managed a weak smile as he dressed and left me. From her corner, Margot slipped down the strands of her web to nibble on her shrouded victims.
It wasn’t something I cared to repeat, but as this was the price required, I could endure it.
XII
His friends arrived, disrupting the placid monotony of the house. Balsan had returned to my bed only twice. I still felt nothing, but he didn’t seem to notice. He always smoked a cigarette with me afterward and then left me alone. I welcomed his consideration, as it gave me time to bathe and wash away the smell of his cologne and the mess he’d made on my stomach. After my bath, I would read or adjust a hat, avoiding the thought that something must indeed be wrong with me, that I could find no pleasure in an act he clearly enjoyed. But I could not keep from wondering if every couple was like this, enacting the same ritual with passionless precision? Inexperienced as I might be, I doubted it. It seemed to me that people like Adrienne and Nexon would not go through such trials to marry, only to reap such a paltry reward.
The arrival of people I didn’t know increased my feeling of being caught unaware. Hearing the commotion downstairs, I detected the voice of a woman among them and threw open my wardrobe doors to rake through the dresses Balsan had bought me—flouncy affairs with ribbons and lace that drowned me. I suspected that whoever the woman was, she would certainly outshine me, for these dresses did nothing but turn me into something I was not. With a burst of determination, I pulled out an ensemble I had made for myself.
Bored one day, with nothing else to do, I had put it together on a whim. Taking one of Balsan’s old evening shirts, I trimmed the waist and added a rounded collar. I left the shirt to fasten up the front but rather than customary studs, I sewed on cloth-covered buttons. Pairing it now with a slim camel-colored skirt bought during one of my trips to Compiègne for hat supplies, I belted a loose beige sweater—also of Balsan’s, shrunk during a laundry mishap—about my waist and buckled on low-heeled cream-colored shoes.
I took a quick appraisal in the tarnished glass. The ensemble was undoubtedly eccentric, with overt mannish tones; I looked like a girl playing dress-up in her father’s clothes, but the illusion also conveyed a trim line that appealed to me, adhering to my angular figure. I would certainly make an impression, I thought, and my tentative smile widened in the mirror.
Better to be remarked upon than ignored.
I descended the stairs to the living room, where Balsan and his company had gathered.
They were sleek and well dressed; a pall of cigarette smoke hovered over them as they sipped whiskey from tumblers and chatted. At my appearance, they turned as if on cue to look at me, not with overt judgment or condemnation, I saw with relief, but rather curiosity, as though I were a trophy Balsan had on display. He strode to me, taking me by the hand.
“Coco, allow me to present you.” His recital of names flew from my head the moment it was uttered; later I’d come to know some of them well, but at the time I was too flustered, smiling and nodding until we came before a voluptuous woman in flounces and ringlets, her thick-lashed green-blue eyes assessing me with unabashed interest.
“And this is Émilienne d’Alençon, the famous actress.”
She released a bubble of champagne laughter. “Famous to you, darling Étienne, but not to this fey creature. She doesn’t know me.” She smiled at me, revealing small, ivory-colored teeth. “Enchanté, ma chère. I see you are everything Étienne claims.”
The way she spoke of him betrayed intimacy. As I realized they must be more than friends, Balsan chuckled and said, “Émilienne was my mistress. That business in Paris I mentioned; she was it.”
He stated it matter-of-factly, the way he thanked me after we went to bed. Émilienne cuffed his arm playfully with her astonishingly smooth hand. “You’re a rogue. You left me without paying and I intend to pass the bill. No man, no matter how charming, throws over Émilienne d’Alençon without closing out his account.”
Balsan laughed, returning to his male guests. Émilienne smiled at me again, more warmly this time. She was remarkable, with impeccable pale skin that managed to appear rosy without being florid, her red-gold hair swept up in the current mountainous style, curls framing her oval face. Her ruffled gown was of azure silk with a woven chinois pattern of storks and waterfalls that I would have found lurid on any other woman. The jewels about her throat and wrists were breathtaking, but too lavish; I had never seen anyone wear so many jewels in daytime. Everything about her was excessive, theatrical, yet it only enhanced her attractiveness.
I recognized that I was in the presence of more than an actress. Émilienne d’Alençon must be one of the grandes cocottes Adrienne had told me about.
“How do you like it here in Royallieu?” Linking her arm in mine, she guided me away from the others, to the double glass doors that opened onto the veranda. “It is rather a frightful place, isn’t it? As if Marie Antoinette herself had stopped here on her way to the guillotine.”
I had to smile. She had that effect. I sensed nothing she said could ever cause offense.
“It does need some renovation,” I replied.
She gave a delighted purr. “Indeed, it does. But Étienne is so wrapped up in his horses he’ll ignore the house until it falls about his ears. Thank God, he has you.” She paused, looking me up and down. “Given your style, I should think you could take over the renovations for him. He allows you access to his money, I presume?”
I barely knew what to respond. Finally, I mumbled, “I assume he would, if I asked.”
“Then you must.” She leaned close. “Get whatever you are due, my dear. Youth and love fade in time, but money never loses its luster.” She swept me onto the veranda. “Ah, such marvelous air, so crisp and sweet, not like the ghastly stench of Paris! Shall we take a walk?” As I started to agree, she stopped suddenly. “Oh, I’ve left my chapeau inside. Would you be a love and fetch it for me?”
I turned back into the house to find her hat—it was difficult to miss, one of those monstrosities with overlapping rosettes and heaps of feathers. I would never have acted the servant for anyone else, yet I brought her the hat eagerly, watching her set it on her head and assisting her with the multiple pins required to hold it in place.
“Such fuss,” she said. “What we women must do to appear at our best. I’m grateful for this weekend, when I can dispense with the armor.” She curved her wrist, waving her hand gracefully over her person. “But not the hat; a lady must protect her complexion.” As she turned to gaze at the gardens, she added, “I hear you’re clever with your needle. Étienne was telling me when he came to Paris that you make the most fetching hats.”
I went still. She eyed me in amusement. “Well, ma chère? Do you?”
“I do. It’s . . . a hobby of mine.”
“Well, we must see this hobby of yours. I’m always interested in new hats; fashions in Paris go out of style with such bewildering frequency that one day, you’re the height of mode and the next you’re rushing to the dressmaker to spend a king’s ransom. The price of fame: when everyone is watching, one can never afford a mistake.”
I found that I liked her very much. She must have sensed my admiration, for she took my arm in hers once more. “I would adore it if we became friends. Balsan is dear to me, despite his dismissal of my services, and he is infatuated with you. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so enthused.”
He was?
I gave her a smile. “I’d like that, too,” and it occurred to me that I’d never had a friend before, unless I counted Adrienne, who seemed so far from me now. She had left for Egypt with her baron, to prepare for a life I had decided I didn’t want. What would we talk about if we saw each other again? Infatuated as Balsan might be, I had no illusion that either of us was in love.
Émilienne led me down the veranda’s steps. We didn’t speak, but as we strolled over the overgrown garden paths, I felt the pressure of her hand on my sleeve, so light it almost didn’t touch me at all, and for the first time in as long as I could recall, I was content.
WHILE ÉTIENNE AND THE MEN PARADED ABOUT in jodhpurs, Émilienne and I sipped coffee on the veranda, nibbled on chocolate, and conversed about her life in Paris, where she acted on the stage and had an apartment overlooking the Tuileries. She spoke as if I had been to Paris and knew all the places she mentioned—the opera, theaters and cafés, the bistros and shops—and I pretended that I did, ashamed to admit that I’d barely seen anything of the world.
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