The subtle stroking of her fingers melted through my sleeve, seeped under my skin, sinking into my very marrow. I recoiled a little, not in revulsion, for I liked the way she smelled, clean with soap, like we’d smelled in Aubazine, not suffused in the flowery fragrances that characterized the demimondaine. Her unblemished skin was clean, too, like fresh snowfall, and her breasts enticed under the lace of her negligee, the tips of her pink nipples showing. But I was afraid. This was the power she had mentioned: the forbidden that her lovers yearned for. It was the reason she had become one of the most successful courtesans in Paris. Émilienne d’Alençon was seduction incarnate, and now she directed her power at me. I had no idea how to react.
She, of course, understood. “Do you want me to show you, ma chère?” she asked, but it wasn’t a question. It was an affirmation that did not require my approval, and as she bent to me and put her lips on mine, I sat quiescent, waiting to see what I would feel.
It was like Chantilly cream, her kiss—warm and moist, with a touch of froth, and sweet as sugar. As her hands flowed over me, unfastening buttons, removing my clothes as if these were made of air, I was not disgusted in the least. I wasn’t overcome by desire, either, only sufficiently impressed by her resolve to not feign outraged modesty. Oddly enough, I had no qualms that we were women. I had seen girls in Aubazine slip into each other’s beds on occasion and imagined the nuns did the same. I had no judgment. I believed that what people did was what people did, and who was I to condemn, providing no one forced me to do the same?
I was not forced. As she gently pushed me onto my back on her shawl to tease me with her agile tongue and fingers, kindling a heat that first took me aback, until it had me gasping and tangling my hands in her hair, I surrendered to sensation. My body became my own, no longer a utensil to measure fabric or submit to Balsan, but an instrument capable of astonishing joy, and, at the end, as her mouth found my cleft, infinite gratification.
When she raised her flushed face from between my legs, her hair tousled and lips glistening, I could barely draw enough breath to whisper, “I . . . I was wrong.”
“Indeed,” she murmured. “You see? Choices, my dear, are a woman’s weapon.”
XIV
Émilienne and I became lovers, though it wasn’t the word I used at the time. To me, the term still carried connotations from my endless reading of novels, of yearning and delirious reunion. She left after her visits to return to Paris for months on end, coming back on occasional weekends with another herd of friends avid to sample my hats as she spent another secret afternoon pleasuring me. Words of love never crossed her lips or mine, and as much as I enjoyed her touch, her laughter and wit, I was not in love with her.
That much, I knew. Love, it seemed, was an emotion I could not feel.
And as often happens when familiarity sets in, she began to alarm me. One day after we had indulged, bathed together, and settled on the settee to chat, she remarked that I would make a magnificent debut in Paris should I have the inclination.
“You are so gamine, so unusual,” she said. “Men will think you half boy, half girl, and want to buy you everything. You could give every one of us a run for our money, while accumulating quite a fortune yourself.” She smiled lazily, languid with the aftereffects of sex and oleander-perfumed bathwater. “Have you not considered it? You’ve told me yourself, you’re not happy here, and Balsan . . . well, you do realize he has other interests.”
I started, drawing away my bare feet from where they touched hers. We reclined facing each other; all of a sudden, I found her proximity oppressive. I knew what she meant. Balsan sometimes went away for weeks to see his family in Lyons or to Paris to meet with friends, and not once had he invited me. I welcomed his absences, for it gave me time on my own, to work, ride, and read; to lounge in every room of the château without concern for the cigarette ash or clutter I left behind. When he returned, he was always happy to see me, aroused even. But I had never expected him to be faithful, considering how I felt about him.
Still, to hear it spoken aloud unnerved me. Reaching for my cigarette case, I lit one and exhaled smoke with exaggerated confidence. “Of course I know he has other women, but I never said I am unhappy.”
“Not in so many words. But I can see you are not. Why not come to Paris? I’ll introduce you, make you my first apprentice.” She plucked at her throat. “There will come a time when I must submit to the inevitable and let another assume my place. Why shouldn’t it be someone I choose?”
I could tell she was sincere. Honesty was a virtue she prized, even if she rarely tendered it to the men she enticed with her charms. Paris had always been my dream. I should consider it. After all, she was right, no matter how much I resisted it. The restlessness that had been an occasional interloper was now my constant companion, so that even at times the usually impervious Balsan muttered that I needed to get out more and cease fiddling with “those infernal hats.”
Yet even as I contemplated it, I knew I could never be like Émilienne, even as she said, “And you, my dear, aren’t getting any younger. What are you now? Twenty-seven?”
“Twenty-five,” I said.
“Yes, yes.” She waved her hand, as if a few years were of no account. “But still, at an age when most women have either wed, become someone’s soon-to-be-discarded mistress, or resigned themselves to spinsterhood. Surely you desire more than those dismal fates?”
I nodded. “I do. But not what you offer.” As I saw her expression harden, I added gently, “It has nothing to do with disapproval. It’s just not for me. I don’t want to be a courtesan.”
She reflected on this in silence. “Eh, bon. Then, what do you want? And don’t tell me it’s to stay here forever and be Balsan’s special friend, for I shan’t believe you.”
I shrugged, drew on my cigarette. “That’s the problem, isn’t it? I don’t know. I think I would like to earn my own way. I’ve never been afraid of hard work.”
“And what do you think I do? If it’s not work, I don’t know what it is.” She paused, contemplating me. “I see. You mean, actually work. What, as a shopkeeper, perhaps?”
It came from out of nowhere, the suggestion, and she meant to be snide rather than helpful, but all of a sudden, I thought it the best idea I had heard yet.
“Why not? Your friends adore my hats; you tell me everyone who sees them asks where you bought them. I save every franc I earn. Why shouldn’t I open a shop of my own?”
Émilienne pursed her lips. “Opening a shop requires more than a few francs.”
“I could ask Balsan,” I said, though as soon as I imagined his reaction, I lost heart. “He could help me, couldn’t he?”
“It’s not a question of whether he could, but if he will. I should think he’d find the idea unorthodox, to say the least.” She stood. “I must get dressed. They’ll be back from their hunting excursion soon and we should be downstairs sipping coffee like ladies, n’est-ce pas?”
She left me sitting alone with my cigarette between my fingers. That was all we spoke of my situation; and to her credit, not once did Émilienne again mention that I succeed her as a courtesan. Yet the idea she so carelessly tossed aside began to take seed in me.
My own shop. Why not?
AS SOON AS THE OCCASION PRESENTED ITSELF, I petitioned Balsan. I had meant to broach it carefully after we shared one of our brief interludes. Instead, I blurted it out without warning over supper, as the butler brushed the tablecloth of crumbs. “I want to open a hat shop.”
He regarded me with a quizzical look. “Shop?” he echoed.
“Yes,” I said, and my rehearsed explanation came pouring out, about how much Émilienne and her friends loved my hats and how I’d saved my earnings, but that I was restless and needed something else to do. And, well, a shop would be perfect because then I could sell my hats in a place where everyone would see them and it would provide me with a way to—
He cut me off brusquely. “Just because Émilienne and her friend
s indulge your quaint hobby doesn’t mean you should open a shop.” He spoke as if “shop” were a word that left a bad taste in his mouth, and for the first time, I glimpsed the wealthy bourgeois he was at heart, born to money and reared on it, an endless resource he need not consider.
“You think what I do is a hobby?” I said through my teeth. Nothing was more certain to rouse my ire than the intimation that I was not capable of making decisions for myself.
“Well, isn’t it?” He tapped a cigarette on the table and waited for his butler to extend the lighter. “Your hats are lovely and you’ve found a certain success with women of Émilienne’s ilk, but how can you think I’d support such a déclassé venture? Women do not work unless they must and most never succeed unless they do it like Émilienne—on their backs.”
I bolted to my feet, nearly overturning my chair.
He blew out a ring of smoke. “Stop looking at me like that. Don’t I give you enough? If you need more, you need only ask. I’ve never denied you anything.”
“I don’t want your money,” I spat out.
“Oh? I must have misunderstood. I thought that was precisely what you wanted.”
Whirling about, I stormed from the room, ignoring his laughing calls that I come back and cease behaving like a child. He meant no harm; it was just who he was. He couldn’t conceive of any woman wanting more than what he’d given me, because most women wouldn’t.
I wasn’t most women. And the fury that sent me hurtling up the stairs to my room, where I locked my door and refused to see him for the rest of the night, started to harden inside me, dulling my appreciation for him like tarnish on silver.
I did not want to hate him. I liked him too much for that.
Somehow, some way, I had to find my own means of escape.
TO EASE MY SOUR MOOD, Balsan persuaded me to join him on one of his racecourse trips away from Royallieu. I wanted to refuse, to underscore the point that I had my own mind and would do as I pleased, but the thought of leaving the château proved too strong. I couldn’t abide the seclusion another second; the last thing I wanted was to become a harpy with an offended air.
So off to Longchamp we went, to parade among the Parisian elite while their inordinately expensive racehorses thundered down the tracks and everyone who was anyone strove to be seen. Not much had changed as far as fashions were concerned. It was 1908, nearly a decade into the new century that the newspapers heralded as the zenith of a revolutionary age. But women still pranced about in cinched dresses that constricted their ribs and made sitting down a torment, with elaborate loaves adorned in silk cabbages propped on their heads.
To my surprise, I reunited with Adrienne, who was in Longchamp for the races with her new guardian, Madame Mauzel, the matchmaker who’d arranged the expeditious trip to Egypt. At first, I didn’t recognize my young aunt mincing along the edge of the white-fenced track with madame beside her—a slim figure encased in white and cream, beribboned and corseted within an inch of her life. But as she paused to stare at me, standing alone in my soft-brimmed fedora, simple blouse with a short silk tie at my collar (one of Balsan’s, which I’d cut and adjusted), my belted black jacket, ankle-length camel hair skirt, and low-heeled boots, Adrienne’s face lit up.
“Gabrielle!” she cried, causing me to glance around in momentary confusion until I realized she addressed me. I hadn’t heard my given name since I’d left Moulins, and as Madame Mauzel appraised me with a wry expression, my aunt enveloped me in her arms.
“Look at you,” she breathed, “as elegant as ever. Oh, how I have missed you! You never write. It’s very hurtful. Don’t you miss me?”
Now that she was before me, I realized I had indeed missed her. Her gentleness and airy grace—she’d not changed, though her love for Maurice had elevated her to prestige, judging by the expensive cut of her dress and the sparkling gemstone bracelets on her wrists.
“Are you married?” I asked, thinking she was and had not invited me to the wedding.
Madame Mauzel snorted, while Adrienne hooked her arm in mine and guided me toward no destination in particular. “Not yet,” she said. “Now, how are you? Tell me everything. You must be so in love with Balsan, living with him in his château and accompanying him here—I envy you. Maurice and I must do everything in secret; it’s so clandestine, the way we carry on in order to show his family it’s truly love that binds us. I don’t live with him, and see him at all times with Madame Mauzel. We never have a moment to ourselves, because no lady would allow a man such liberties.”
I kept quiet. If this was the case, then I was no lady. But it soon became apparent she wasn’t interested in my life. As far as she was concerned, I had settled with Balsan. Why ask more? She was too embroiled in her struggle for respectability and so I let her relate her whispered secrets, her desires and dreams and all those things love was supposed to be. I learned that despite her polished façade and her determination to wed her baron, his family still refused, citing her unsuitability, which pained her deeply even as Maurice continued to declare his devotion. I wondered at her assertion that they never saw each other alone; it seemed unlikely he would remain so intent had he not taken the liberties she professed to deny him. Then again, how would I know what lovers did or did not do for each other? Perhaps anticipation was the very fuel that drove him. It had been years now and they were still together. In her fervent quest to gain the title of baroness, Adrienne was proving rather resilient.
Finally, after she told me everything that weighed on her, she had to catch her breath and in the ensuing silence, while Madame Mauzel watched us, I heard myself say, “I’m going to open a shop.” It just came out. I didn’t plan it, but the seam of disapproval creasing madame’s lips spurred me on. “Balsan has promised to help me. I’m seeking a suitable locale, which is why we are traveling.”
“A shop?” Adrienne looked perplexed. “Whatever for?” Then, as she saw my own expression, she added hastily, “Oh, your hats. Are you still making them?” as if the concept was a baffling surprise, a remnant of our tawdry past which surely I should have set aside by now.
“I am. In fact, I’ve sold quite a few in Paris and now wish to go into business for myself.” I paused, gauging the heavy silence. “It’s not as though I’ll wed anytime soon, if ever,” I went on, twisting the imaginary knife in Madame Mauzel’s gut. “I must work. I’m excited about it.”
“Oh, that’s . . . marvelous,” Adrienne said, her ingrained admiration overcoming her initial dismay. “You always were so bold, Gabrielle. I think it’s a marvelous idea, isn’t it, madame?” She glanced at her chaperone. “A lovely little shop, how charming.”
“Yes,” said madame dryly. “Charming. Have you settled on any particular city yet? I would imagine Paris must be terribly expensive for such a venture.”
“Money,” I replied, “is not an issue. But no, I’ve not yet found the perfect location. We’re considering various places.” I enjoyed watching madame’s gullible face assume a begrudging air, for in the end, money was the only deity she worshipped, and she knew very well that Balsan had plenty of it.
“Well, you must let me know when you do open the shop,” said Adrienne. “I want to come see it and perhaps assist you like we always dreamed.” She ignored madame’s gasp. “It’s not as if I’m going to wed anytime soon, either,” she added, with a slightly hysterical peal of laughter. “So I might as well keep myself occupied until I do, if you still want me.”
I nodded. “Of course. I will need help at some point, I’m sure.” I basked in the prospect, which of course remained only that for the moment. I didn’t care. I wanted madame to swallow her tongue and Adrienne to return to Moulins with tales of how well I was doing. Let Louise and the rest of them chew on that for a while.
“Here, you can write me at madame’s.” Adrienne extracted a little notebook with an attached silver pen from the tapestry purse madame carried, scribbling out the address. Ripping out the paper, she handed it to me. “I reside with her
, though I still visit Louise on Sundays. Oh, Gabrielle”—she embraced me—“I’m so glad we could see each other. Do promise me you’ll write. I’m so happy for you. I always said you could do whatever you set your mind to.”
Her enthusiasm was sincere; Adrienne wanted everyone to be content, even when she was not, and I decided as we said our good-byes that when the day came, I would send for her. I had the feeling my dream of opening a shop was more likely to come true than marriage to her baron.
As I returned to the grandstands to find Balsan, who’d stayed behind to yell encouragement at his jockey, I felt lighter somehow. There might be many things I wanted to change, but I wouldn’t have traded my life for Adrienne’s. At least I still had aspirations.
Balsan was at the bar, sharing a drink with his friends and gesticulating with that rare passion he reserved for anything concerning his horses. I recognized two of his companions, Comte Léon de Laborde and Miguel Yuribe, wealthy associates who visited Royallieu regularly. As I approached, they turned to welcome me; I had become an honorary member of their club, my ability to ride astride and hunt with them, coupled with my flair in attire, having endeared me to them. They all called me “la petite Coco” and I now laughingly returned their greetings while Balsan beckoned me with a dejected, “We came in fourth. That jockey made Troika run too fast at the start, and lost momentum toward the finish, the stupid gnome.” It was then that I noticed a striking man with them, someone I had not seen before.
He was almost swarthy, thick black hair slicked back from his brow with pomade, though a few strands fell in disarray over his forehead. He had smoky green eyes, deep set and solemn—eyes that captured my attention even as I took note of his impeccable suit of tobacco-colored tweed that looked soft to the touch. His trim figure filled out its expensive cut. He extended his square hand to me. I shook it, thinking he greeted me as he would a man, and felt a hint of callus on his palm. Compared with Balsan’s pampered manicure, this was the clasp of a workingman, only no workingman could have afforded that suit.
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