We found Julie in the fourth gallery with Sophie Tranchevent, Filomena Seguette, Carolus-Duran, and several men I had never seen before. Dressed in a new pink silk gown with a green moiré sash, her fine hair piled on her head and held in place with two shell combs, Julie stood without her cane as Sophie and Filomena supported her elbows.
Directly to Julie’s left hung her painting. It had been placed “on line”—that is, at eye level—where the Salon committee hung those works it judged to be of the highest quality.
“Virginie! Mimi!” Julie cried as we approached.
“There’s been a crowd around her painting all morning,” said Filomena, beaming. Her own picture, a large canvas depicting a battle scene from the 1848 Revolution, was in a special gallery for previous medal winners.
“I guess I’m the failure of the group,” moaned Sophie. “I’ve been skyed.” She pointed toward the ceiling, where her picture of a reclining nude was barely visible, lost in a sea of similar nudes.
“The committee was in a bad temper when they looked at your picture,” consoled Julie. “We all think it’s striking. The best thing you’ve done.”
“It’s so exciting,” Julie said, turning to Mama and me. “I’ve been standing next to the picture so I can hear people’s comments. One man was complaining that Carolus must have worked on it. ‘No woman is that good,’ he bellowed.”
Soon I was aware of someone standing behind me. I turned to see a willowy dark-haired woman expensively dressed in peach satin. She glared at me with black almond-shaped eyes. I stared back and scowled until she walked away. Then I forgot about her.
Julie had given Mama and me a list of ten paintings to see, and, armed with a program, we made our way through the galleries. There were pictures in every imaginable style—classical scenes, landscapes, history paintings, portraits. But the galleries were so packed with people—in some it was impossible to move from one end to the other—that we managed to find only four of the works on Julie’s list.
“Mama, I’m exhausted. Can we go?” I asked after we had looked around for two hours.
“Yes! My head is spinning. I was only staying because I thought you wanted to,” Mama said. “Let’s have lunch at Magny’s.”
We left the galleries and walked through the entrance hall toward the exit. Standing at the ticket gate was the black-haired woman who had glared at me earlier.
“Do you know who she is?” I asked Mama, nodding toward the woman.
“The one in peach satin?” Mama narrowed her eyes to focus better. “Why, that’s Marguerite Orléans!”
“Who’s she?”
“One of the great whores of the Second Empire,” Mama snickered. “A favorite of the Emperor’s. Pierre pointed her out to me one night at the Bal Mabille.”
Mademoiselle Orléans couldn’t have been more than twenty-five, but her narrow face looked hard and worn. I don’t think she had ever been beautiful. Over the years, I’ve met many of the grand horizontales, and few of them were even pretty, despite their reputation for glamour. Most of them had good figures, of course, and they disguised their ordinary faces with makeup and well-dressed hair. Mean and often stupid, they were old by forty, dead by fifty.
Marguerite looked up from the program she had been studying, noticed me watching her, and stared back.
“Let’s go,” I said and grabbed Mama’s arm. I led her through the Palais’s arcade and down the avenue des Champs-Elysées, past the long row of plane trees, the jetting fountains, and the statues of the mythical figures Prometheus, Venus, Diana, and Flora.
We got into a cab at the place de la Concorde and set off up the rue Royale. As we passed the Madeleine, a landau pulled next to us. Our cab speeded up, but the landau kept pace. We turned onto the boulevard des Capucines. The landau followed, then drew beside us, its white horses riding neck and neck with the cab’s drays.
Through the landau’s open windows I saw a flash of peach satin and raven hair. Marguerite Orléans was following us.
Our cab creaked to a stop in front of Magny’s. Marguerite Orléans’s landau stopped behind ours. Before we could enter the restaurant, she ran up to us.
“Mademoiselle, I demand an interview.” Her almond eyes blazed fiercely.
“What is the meaning of this?” said Mama.
“Mademoiselle Avegno knows exactly what I want to talk to her about.”
“I’m afraid I don’t.” I was trembling, and my voice cracked with fear.
Marguerite turned to Mama. “Your daughter may be the age of a schoolgirl, but she is just as experienced as me,” she sneered.
The color drained from Mama’s face. She opened her mouth as if to speak, but no words came out.
“She’s crazy,” I said to Mama. Then I shouted to Marguerite, “Leave us alone!”
“I want to return your earring to you.” Marguerite reached inside her purse and pulled out a dangling gold earring with a pearl drop on the end—one of a pair Grandmère had given me before we left Parlange.
Mama’s eyes grew wide, her face even paler.
“Mimi, what’s she doing with your earring?”
“I found it in the bed of my lover, Dr. Sam Pozzi.”
Mama grabbed my arm and jerked me toward the taxi stand. She pulled me into a cab. “Forty-four, rue de Luxembourg,” she said, her voice quivering.
“It’s not my earring,” I lied.
Mama stared straight ahead, her face a stiff white mask. “As soon as we get home, I want to see the pair of earrings Grandmère gave you.”
The cab pulled to a halt in front of our house. Mama pushed me to the pavement and marched behind me through our front door and up the stairs to my room. She retrieved my onyx jewelry box from the dressing table and held it out to me. “The earrings, please,” she demanded.
I grabbed the box from her hands and flung it across the room. A shower of glittery objects scattered across the parquet.
“I don’t have it!” I shouted and dashed to my sitting room. Mama ran after me, but I got the door shut and locked before she reached it.
“Mimi! Come out!” Mama banged on the door with both fists. “Do you realize what this means? No one will marry you now. You’re ruined. And don’t think I’ll put up with your whoring. I’ll turn you out. You’ll end up working in the refreshment room of the women’s prison at Saint-Lazare!”
“Dr. Pozzi will marry me. We love each other!”
“You love each other!” she snorted. “I’ve raised a fool!”
A moment later, I heard Mama’s heels clicking down the hall. I fell to the floor, sobbing, and cried until I had no more tears left. I was still whimpering on the floor two hours later, when there was knocking on my door.
“Mimi, it’s me, Julie. Open up.”
“Is Mama with you?” I cried.
“No. She came to the Palais to get me, and I left her there with Sophie and Filomena. Let me in.”
My head was throbbing, and I felt an icy sinking in my stomach. I was so ashamed for spoiling Julie’s Salon debut. I opened the door and fell into my aunt’s arms.
“Oh, Mimi,” she said.
“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry,” I cried, my voice breaking with sobs.
“Today doesn’t matter. It’s you I’m worried about.” Holding each other, we collapsed on the settee. “I blame myself for not paying enough attention to you. And I blame him.” She frowned. “But this is not the end of the world. You can write to him tomorrow morning. You’ll break with him and move on.”
“But I love him!”
“I’m afraid he’s deceived you, Mimi. You have no future with Dr. Pozzi.”
“That woman Marguerite Orléans was lying. I’m sure of it.”
“I doubt that very much, chérie.”
Julie stayed with me for the rest of the afternoon and evening. One of the maids brought us supper on a tray, though neither of us ate anything. I played the piano a bit; we talked; and eventually we both fell asleep in my big four-poster.
<
br /> That night I dreamed of Valentine. She was running up the alley of oaks at Parlange, while I sat in a wicker chair on the gallery, knitting a child’s sweater. She wore a blue cotton dress that reached just below her knees, white stockings, and black leather shoes. Her thin legs loped gracefully in the slow motion of my dream, her silky red hair undulated out from her shoulders. As she drew close to the house, she stumbled on a stone and began to fall forward. I rose from my chair, dropping my knitting, and leaned over the gallery railing. Then I, too, started to tumble head first, over and over. Before I hit the ground, I snapped awake.
I felt sick to my stomach. I got out of bed, staggered toward the basin, and vomited. It was the first time I had thrown up since I began to suspect I was pregnant, about a month before. The idea was too horrible to face, so I had pushed it to the back of my mind.
Julie rushed to my side, leaned over me, and wiped my forehead with a damp cloth.
“I think I’m enceinte,” I said.
“Oh, God,” Julie moaned. “When are you supposed to see him again?” She spat the word “him.”
“Today, at one.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“Mama will never let me out of the house.”
“I’ll take care of your mother.”
Julie went to her room to dress. A half hour later, I heard her and Mama screaming in the hall outside my door. Mama was threatening to send me back to Louisiana, shrieking that I could “rot in the country” for all she cared.
“She’s just a child, Virginie,” Julie shouted back. “It’s not her fault. That man is a horror. You know his reputation. I want to talk to her. I’m taking her out for some fresh air.”
I heard Mama scurry down the hall, then a door slammed. A moment later, Julie entered my room. “The coast is clear,” she said. “Let’s go.”
Outside, filmy white clouds scudded across the blue sky, and golden light filtered through the trees. We took a cab to Dr. Pozzi’s building, arriving just as the maid waddled out the front entrance.
I followed Julie up the stairs to the fifth floor. At the top, she rang the bell.
Dr. Pozzi opened the door dressed as he usually was for our trysts, in a floor-length red dressing gown tied with gold cord. On his feet were red embroidered slippers. “Mimi, you’ve brought your aunt,” he said, actually sounding pleased to see Julie.
In the parlor, Dr. Pozzi took our shawls and hung them on a coatrack. Ignoring me, he said to Julie, “Congratulations, Mademoiselle de Ternant, on your success at the Salon. I hear you’re likely to get a bronze medal.” He smiled broadly.
Julie dug her cane into the Turkish carpet and glared at him. She was about to speak when I blurted out, “I’m pregnant.”
Dr. Pozzi’s smile evaporated, and his eyes hardened. “I rather doubt it,” he said. He looked quickly at Julie, then at me. “Is that why you’re both here? Well, let’s have a look.” He put his arm around my shoulder and began to lead me to the bedroom.
Julie took a step toward him. He put out his hand to stop her. “Don’t forget, I’m a doctor. If you want to know for certain, you must let me examine her.”
In the bedroom, Dr. Pozzi closed the door behind us. “Lie down,” he ordered.
“Have you been sleeping with a whore named Marguerite Orléans?” I asked, trying to keep my voice level.
“Oh, God.” Dr. Pozzi flopped into a leather chair near the window, pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, and wiped his brow.
“You’ve deceived me!” I cried.
“I haven’t deceived you. I’ve supplemented you. We’re not married, may I remind you, and I’ve never promised you anything.”
“Well, you must marry me now!”
“Let’s see if you are pregnant.”
I lay across the green satin comforter. Dr. Pozzi lifted my skirts above my waist, fumbled under my petticoats, and pulled my drawers off over my shoes and stockings. He parted my legs, and placing his left hand on my belly, he reached deep inside me with his right hand. I felt a sharp pinching. Then he pulled his hand out and walked to the washbasin. Along the way, he kicked the chest where he kept his French Letters, the sheepskin contraceptives that were popular at the time.
“The uterus is enlarged. It’s true. You’re pregnant,” he said as he washed his hands.
“We’ll get married, won’t we?”
Dr. Pozzi looked up to the ceiling, then walked over to the bed and sat down next to me. “Darling, I can’t marry you or anyone else right now.”
“Why?”
“It’s just out of the question—my work.”
“What’s going on in there?” Julie shouted through the door. Dr. Pozzi opened it, and my aunt hobbled into the room.
“She’s pregnant,” he said.
“You will marry her, then?” said Julie.
“I was just explaining to Mademoiselle Avegno that marriage is impossible.”
“May I remind you of your honor, sir.”
“I don’t consider it honorable to ruin both our lives in a hasty marriage. Mademoiselle Avegno is not compelled to have this baby. I can cut it out. I’ve done it dozens of times. It’s a safe, simple procedure if performed by an expert surgeon, which I am.” Dr. Pozzi spoke flatly, his face a blank, dispassionate mask.
“Will it hurt?” I asked.
“I’ll give you ether to put you to sleep,” Dr. Pozzi answered.
“And it really is safe?”
“Absolutely—if I do it.”
“It is not safe, no matter who does it,” Julie cried. Her eyes looked frightened. “In fact, it is extremely dangerous. Why do you think so many prostitutes die?”
She shifted her gaze to Dr. Pozzi. “Abortions are for whores,” she snapped. “I won’t let you risk my niece’s life. We will make other arrangements.”
Julie grabbed my arm and dragged me out of the bedroom. She snatched our shawls off the coatrack and pulled me through the door and down the five flights of stairs.
On the boulevard Saint-Germain, the sun glinted on the cold expanse of new buildings, illuminating their carved cornices. The air smelled fresh, floral.
“What other arrangements were you talking about?” I said as we waited for a cab. My head throbbed with pain, and I felt a sob rising in my throat. Julie stared into the cloudless blue sky.
“Tell me! What other arrangements!” I screamed.
“I have no idea, chérie, no idea at all.”
Seven
On a rainy evening two weeks later, I arrived by train at the gnarled stone depot in Saint-Malo on the northern coast of Brittany. The little station was deserted except for a lone carriage parked by the side of the road and a coachman in leather breeches standing next to it. As I stepped to the wet platform, the coachman ran toward me.
“Mademoiselle Avegno?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said. I drew my thin shawl across my chest. Though it was August, the air was raw, and I was shivering.
“Come with me.”
He took my carpetbag and led me to his carriage. No sooner was I settled inside than the reins snapped and the old broughham lurched toward the dark, dripping woods.
We were headed for Paramé, site of Château des Chênes, the estate where Pierre Gautreau had grown up and where his widowed mother still lived with her unmarried, half-witted niece. As the carriage clattered through the muddy roads, past the marshlands and forests where pirates once roamed, water slapped the windows, and the wind bellowed.
It took a half hour to reach the château. We entered through high stone gates and drove along a gravel road past an intricate pattern of gardens. As the rain beat down, water overflowed the fountains and streamed off the statues of Greek gods and goddesses. At the end of the road was a circular drive and, silhouetted against the sky, a four-story malouinière dominated by row upon row of white shuttered windows. The carriage halted; the driver jumped from his seat and opened the door. He helped me to the ground, then removed my carpetbag and placed it on the d
oorstep. “There you are, Mademoiselle. Good night,” he said, tipping his hat as he ran back to the carriage.
I pulled a thick gold rope that hung on an iron hook, and heard chimes within. A minute later, a maid opened the door and led me through a marble-floored foyer to the salon. It was a high-ceilinged circular room, opening out to a terrace and a garden beyond. The room was decorated conventionally—Pierre’s Oriental aesthetic was nowhere in sight—with red plush sofas and chairs, and mustard damask covering the walls. A porcelain clock ticked loudly on the mantel; the gas lamps hissed. Playing cards at a table at the far end of the room were two somberly dressed old women—Pierre’s mother and aunt.
I hated them on sight. Madame Gautreau was short and wide-hipped, with hooded, watery brown eyes and a wrinkled, liver-spotted face. Her wiry gray hair was arranged in a bun at her neck, and she was dressed in a dark gown with a lace-bordered collar. The ivory-knobbed cane she used to rap on the floor to summon the servants rested across her pillowy lap.
The aunt, Millicent La Chambre, was the ugliest woman I had ever seen. She had a long, bumpy nose dotted with hairy, purple moles, and red-veined, bulging eyes. She was wearing a shapeless black gown with a traditional Breton collar of pleated white muslin. Her vacant expression suggested, as Pierre had warned me, that she was “not right in the head.”
Though Millicent was Madame Gautreau’s niece, they were exactly the same age. Madame Gautreau’s mother had become pregnant at fifty, in the same month that her eighteen-year-old daughter conceived Millicent. The fact that the old mother gave birth to a beautiful child, while the adolescent’s offspring was hideous, seemed a cruel irony. Madame Gautreau’s mother had offered to switch children—“Everyone will expect an old lady to have an ugly baby,” she had said—but her daughter had refused. She remained devoted to Millicent until her own death in middle age, at which time the poor creature moved in with Pierre’s mother and father. Millicent had tried to be useful, helping with the light housework and sometimes, when the governess was ill, looking after Pierre. Her idea of amusing the little boy was to teach him to smoke cigarettes.
I Am Madame X Page 15