The old women interrupted their card game to stare wide-eyed at me. A moment later, Madame Gautreau spoke. “Good evening, Mademoiselle. I trust you had a pleasant journey.” Her voice was raspy, heavy with round Breton tones.
Before I had a chance to answer, Millicent blurted out, “I’ve got cigarettes. Want one?” She reached into her pocket and started to rise from her chair.
“Sit down!” barked Madame Gautreau.
Millicent dropped into her seat. Her mouth was twitching slightly, and a wounded look appeared on her face. Madame Gautreau turned toward me.
“Well, I’m sure you’re tired. Angeline will bring you something to eat in your room.” She waved her large knuckled hand at me and returned to her cards.
“Thank you,” I said. The old lady’s rudeness annoyed me, though I was happy to escape her company.
Carrying a tray containing a bowl of soup, bread, and a bottle of red wine, the maid Angeline led me upstairs and through a maze of dimly lit corridors. “Here’s your room, Mademoiselle,” she said, opening the door onto a square, oak-beamed boudoir. Above the mantel hung a painting of Christ’s Crucifixion. Old brown calico curtains draped the bed; the same fabric covered the sofa and two chairs. Angeline left the tray on the table and mumbled, “Bonne nuit.”
After she left, I explored the warren of rooms surrounding the bedchamber. Door opened upon door, revealing a cluster of closets, antechambers, and a wainscoted cabinet de toilette. There were two garderobes. One held a large armoire; the other contained a bidet, a washbasin, and a chamber pot. A panel behind the bidet hid a door to a secret staircase leading to the garden. I learned later that in pre-Revolutionary times, the house had been owned by the grandfather of Chateaubriand’s wife, Céleste Buisson. It was here, according to local lore, perhaps in this very room, that the famous writer kidnapped Céleste, whose family opposed their union, and fled with her into the forest.
Just as I finished the meager supper prepared by Angeline, there was a knock on the door. I opened it to find Millicent standing in the darkness, holding a lighted candle stub.
“Do you want to see my rabbits tomorrow?” she asked.
“Where are your rabbits?”
“In a cage near the stables. My niece won’t allow them in the house.” She held the candle stub in front of my face and stared at me with her mouth open.
“Millicent, why are you looking at me like that?”
“I want you to see my rabbits. I have white ones and brown ones.”
“Fine. I’ll visit the rabbits tomorrow. Now it’s time to go to sleep.” I closed the door, got undressed, and fell exhausted into bed.
The next morning, I was awakened by chapel bells tolling for an old peasant who had died during the night. The storm had broken, and a cool, fresh breeze floated in from the windows. I flung wide the bed curtains, dressed quickly, and took the secret staircase to the garden to explore the grounds.
Château des Chênes was its own little village, busy with a greenhouse, stables, a laundry, a meadow with grazing sheep and cows, plum orchards, a caretaker’s cottage, workers’ huts, gardens filled with statuary, and a small stone chapel where Pierre’s mother and cousin said prayers every day and heard Mass on Sundays. Surrounding it all was the forest of oaks that gave the compound its name.
At the end of the garden, I took a path that led through the woods to a burbling stream. I removed my shoes and stockings and walked along the edge, letting the water roll over my feet. As I strolled, inhaling the cool, briny air, I brooded about the events that had brought me here.
The discovery of my pregnancy and Dr. Pozzi’s abandonment of me had plunged Mama into paroxysms of rage and grief. Now she had no hope of fulfilling her chief ambition—to marry me off to a French aristocrat. I wasn’t in the room when Julie broke the news to her, but for days afterward Mama stormed around the house, threatening to pack me off to a home in Lyon for incorrigible girls or across the ocean to Parlange. I begged for the latter, but upon reflection Mama decided to keep me in France. “I don’t want everyone at home to see what you’ve become,” she hissed.
“I’ll say I was married and that my husband died,” I pleaded.
“So you’d lie? They’d all see right through you,” Mama snapped.
That evening, Mama went out to dinner with Pierre Gautreau. They returned to the house together at ten and sent the maid to my room to bring me downstairs. When I entered the salon, they were sitting next to each other on a settee, looking white and solemn. Mama rose to let me sit next to Pierre, then settled herself on a chair by the mantel.
Pierre took my hands in his and gazed deeply into my eyes. “Your mother told me what has happened,” he said gravely. “I’m offering to marry you and give a name to your child.”
I yanked my hands from his and slid to the far end of the settee. “Marry you!” An image of Pierre lying naked on top of me flashed through my head. I shuddered.
As if reading my mind, he said, “I’m proposing a mariage blanc. I will make no claims on my rights as a husband. You and your child will live in my house, but for the most part our lives will be separate.”
“Why would you do this? Don’t you want a real wife?”
“I was engaged once, to a girl in Brittany. A childhood friend. But she died of typhoid five years ago.”
Mama jumped to her feet, twisting a linen handkerchief in her hands. “Tell her about Madame Jeuland,” she said.
“Who is Madame Jeuland?”
“Madame Jeuland is Pierre’s petite amie—” Mama began.
“She’s married to a well-known Paris lawyer,” Pierre interrupted. “He knows about us but will not separate from his wife, as it would ruin his career. My marriage to you would give Madame Jeuland and me a convenient cover. And it will get my mother off my back about remaining a bachelor.” Pierre stroked his beard. His eyes looked large and sad.
This was the first I had heard of his having a lover. I had always assumed he was secretly in love with Mama.
“Do I have any other choice?”
“No.” Pierre and Mama answered at the same time.
Over the next few weeks, Pierre came several times to rue de Luxembourg for dinner. It was just the three of us in the dining room, Mama and Pierre sitting at either end of the long table with me on the side facing the marble fireplace. Neither of them mentioned the baby, or marriage. Mostly they talked about furniture and their various plans for redecoration. I had no interest in this subject, and I said nothing.
For a while, I’d listen resentfully. Then my mind would wander off. I’d be far away in a daydream, imagining Dr. Pozzi proposing to me on bended knee, then our romantic wedding at Saint-Sulpice. Once, when I was envisioning myself floating down the steps of the church on Pozzi’s arm, the train of my white silk gown billowing out behind me like a sail, Mama’s voice burst through the reverie. “You’re not eating a thing,” she scolded.
“I’m not hungry,” I snapped. I had lost all interest in food. I was dropping weight when I should have been gaining. I was sleeping badly, too. Often I dreamed of Dr. Pozzi and woke up yearning for his embrace. These spasms of longing were followed by fits of rage, not only at the handsome doctor but also at myself for behaving so recklessly. I was profoundly confused. One moment I vowed to snub Pozzi if ever I ran into him again, and the next I plotted a meeting with him. In my mind’s eye, I looked breathtakingly beautiful and Dr. Pozzi found me impossible to resist; realizing that he couldn’t live without me, he begged my forgiveness.
Eventually boredom and wretchedness drove me to act foolishly. One evening, I told Mama I was going to Julie’s atelier, and I took a taxi to Dr. Pozzi’s apartment on boulevard Saint-Germain. I had the idea of confronting him when he arrived home from work. I stood in the shadows by a newspaper kiosk. My heart raced, and my face felt flushed, though it was a balmy evening, luminous with starlight. What would I say to him? What would he say to me? I began to panic. Suppose he spoke harshly to me? Suppose he was
with another woman? That thought brought a sob to my throat. I choked back tears, and at that moment, Mama’s carriage pulled to the curb. She had followed me.
“Mimi, come here,” she called as she stepped to the pavement. I ran across the street, hailed a cab, and beat her home by two minutes. By the time she arrived, I had locked myself in my bedroom.
At breakfast, Mama announced that I would leave that afternoon for the Gautreau estate in Brittany. Pierre telegrammed his mother to inform her of our engagement, and to let her know that he was sending me to Château des Chênes for a few weeks so I could get to know his family. It was undecided how long I’d remain in the country, or when we’d be married.
The walk through the woods that first morning in Paramé refreshed me, and I returned to the house at ten. A formal table had been set with china, crystal, and silver, and a footman stood behind each chair. Madame Gautreau was perched at the head; Millicent and I sat opposite one another. Hardly a word was spoken as we ate baked ham and croissants and drank coffee from large white bowls. When the footmen had removed the dishes and departed for the kitchen, Madame Gautreau leaned across the table and said in her coarse rasp, “Mademoiselle Avegno, that dress is too décolleté for morning.”
My yellow silk gown had a low, but hardly plunging, neckline.
“In Paris, this is a regulation daytime toilette,” I replied, not trying to disguise my annoyance. I wasn’t about to let Madame Gautreau dictate my appearance.
“That might be true. But you’re not in the city now. I’ll thank you to wear a shawl at table henceforth.”
Suddenly a frightened look came over Millicent’s face. A moment later, a brown rabbit darted from under the square white napkin on her lap, sprang across the table to the floor, and scurried across the room.
“Millicent!” screeched Madame Gautreau.
Millicent looked terror-stricken. “It was a p-p-present for Mademoiselle Avegno,” she stammered. “For her baby.”
“What baby?” Madame Gautreau snapped.
I felt my face turn scarlet. Pierre had not told his mother about my condition; indeed, he had urged me to try to hide it. Though the increase was barely discernible, I wasn’t taking any chances. That morning I had laced my corset by throwing the strings over the bedpost and then pulling them as tight as I could until I was nearly suffocating. No one would suspect my pregnancy by looking at me.
“For Mademoiselle Avegno’s baby,” Millicent insisted, with the uncanny prescience of an idiot savant.
“Millicent, I’m sure I’ll have a baby someday,” I said, my cheeks burning. “But I’m not even married yet.”
“Babies love rabbits,” said Millicent.
“For the love of God, be quiet!” screamed Madame Gautreau.
The old woman signaled for a footman, who held an umbrella over her head as she hobbled out of the house to a little gazebo in the garden, where she and Millicent perched on stone benches knitting. I sat between them and read a book. At two, we returned to the house for lunch and then a card game. Millicent usually won. It turned out that buried in her simple mind she had a remarkable facility for numbers. After the game, we napped. Dinner was at eight, and we retired at ten.
This dismal routine was repeated every day except Sunday, when it was interrupted to hear Mass at the château chapel. At ten on Sunday morning, Madame Gautreau, Millicent and I made our way down a gravel path at the side of the garden to the little stone church. Earlier, the priest had read Mass for the peasants, and the air was redolent of their old musty clothes and unwashed flesh.
We took our places in the first pew, and the chapel quickly filled with the haute bourgeoisie from neighboring châteaux, all of whom were old friends of the Gautreaus. I despised these dull, somber gentilshommes, and their smug, overfed wives. They led narrow, boring lives but were too closed-minded to see it. Coasting through life on money and pedigree, they lived out their days tending to their lands and houses, enjoying shooting parties and card games, large meals and early bedtimes, with no thought to the outside world. At least that’s how it seemed to me.
I felt superior to them, as I did to Madame Gautreau and Millicent. Yet, I must admit, I also was a bit jealous of their stability and their firm place in the universe. If we had been at Parlange, not Château des Chênes, the tables would have been turned. Among the sophisticated, pleasure-loving Creoles, these dour rural Bretons would be nothing, their commonness evident to all. But we weren’t in Louisiana. We were in Paramé.
After a while, Pierre’s mother gave up pestering me about my clothes. She also began averting her eyes whenever she spoke to me, which was as little as possible. Millicent, however, was fascinated by my toilettes and studied me carefully when I came down for breakfast in the morning. Once, during a Sunday luncheon to which several neighbors had been invited, Millicent stared at me throughout the meal. Finally, as the coffee was brought in, she blurted out, “Mademoiselle Avegno is a swan in a pond of ugly ducklings.”
That’s my secret solace, I thought, though I ignored her, as did everyone else.
My only diversion from the boredom at Château des Chênes was the rare occasion when I joined Madame Gautreau and Millicent on a shopping trip to Saint-Malo. Originally a fortified island at the mouth of the River Rance, Saint-Malo began as a monastic settlement, walled and built with the same gray granite stone as Mont-Saint-Michel, the famous spired abbey forty-three kilometers to the east. Later, during the interminable wars of Louis XIV and Louis XV, Saint-Malo became home to a brutal breed of pirate-mariners who grew rich from shipbuilding and slave trading and erected a network of tall stone palaces within the city walls.
One morning, after I had been at Château des Chênes several weeks, we took the carriage into town and parked on the rue des Marins, in front of the Gautreau Banking House, Pierre’s Brittany office. “Would you mind if I went for a walk on the beach?” I asked.
“Do what you like,” snarled Madame Gautreau as the driver helped her out of the carriage.
I left the main gate at Port Vincent and strolled out onto the sand toward the promontory of an islet, the Grand Bé. A plain black cross rose from the jagged rocks, marking the grave of Chateaubriand, who had died in 1848. A lone ship with a monogrammed sail bobbed behind the grim tomb; a few gulls swooped about. As I gazed out into the endless sea, a longing for my own death came over me.
Looking back at that time, I realize I was in a state of shock. My affair with Dr. Pozzi had scarred my heart and left me profoundly confused. I saw no relief from this agony, only more torment ahead in a mariage blanc to Pierre.
Impulsively, I gathered stones from the beach and filled the pockets of my jacket. Then I walked toward the water. Images of Papa and Valentine flashed through my head. Soon the waves would swallow me, and I would be with them in heaven.
But at that moment, I thought of my unborn child, and a picture of a red-haired little girl appeared in my mind’s eye. She looked just like Valentine. I put my hands on my abdomen. Yes, I was sure it was a girl. Tears filled my eyes. I was beginning to love the baby. How could I kill it? It would be like letting Valentine die again. I saw ahead several years to when the baby was walking and talking. She would keep me company when I was lonely and Julie was busy with work. I had not had a real friend since Aurélie at convent school. Now the baby would be my companion. I thought of the games Aurélie and I had played, the hours we had spent whispering and laughing, and I imagined repeating those pleasures with my little girl. I grabbed the stones from my pocket and hurled them into the waves.
Suddenly my heart felt light, almost buoyant. I ran along the sand to the Port Vincent Gate and made my way to rue des Marins. Madame Gautreau and Millicent were waiting in the carriage, poring over a letter written in the burgundy ink favored by Pierre.
“My son wants to be married next Saturday,” Madame Gautreau said as I entered the carriage. “I’ll have to see if the priest is available.” She was not planning a big celebration. She disapproved of
me because I was American, because I had no dowry, and because I was too young. She had decided she didn’t like me before she met me, and meeting me had not changed her mind.
Just as quickly as it had appeared, my lighthearted mood vanished.
“Does Saturday suit you, Mademoiselle Avegno?” Madame Gautreau asked. Her eyes looked as cold as stones.
I wanted to tell her that I hated her, that I wouldn’t stay in her house another night, and that I’d never, ever marry her son. Instead I said, “Next Saturday would be fine.”
Five days later, a month into my stay at Château des Chênes, Mama, Julie, and Pierre arrived from Paris. The civil marriage ceremony took place at city hall in Saint-Malo that afternoon, and the religious wedding at the château the next day.
The morning of the religious ceremony was overcast and cool. An early frost had withered the garden flowers, but the breeze floating through my bedroom windows held a faint floral scent, reminiscent of magnolia, as if Charles and the spirit of Grandmère were calling me across the ocean from Parlange. I closed my eyes and saw the familiar alley of oaks and the green-shuttered house with its white pillars and wide gallery, where I had spent so many happy moments. I longed to be there.
Julie had slept on the little bed in my cabinet de toilette, and in the morning we ate breakfast in my boudoir. As I sipped coffee, I gazed at the muslin bag holding the white silk gown that Mama had brought from Paris. Hanging from the top of an armoire door, it looked like a shroud. I felt a wave of misery in the pit of my stomach. I’d be dead in a mariage blanc to Pierre.
I Am Madame X Page 16