“No,” Marcel soothed, “not a liar. He saw what he saw, and he came to tell. We made no error in watching the carriage drive through our town. Our error was to follow. To chase. There is a difference, is there not, between a hunt and a chase?” He took three steps to Laurette and touched his palm to her cheek. “What are we, chérie?”
“Lions, Marcel.”
He kissed her sweetly, approving the response, then turned back to his men. “Émile Gagnon grazes his sheep not far from here. Sheep, as you know, do not think beyond the moment at hand. Sheep act on command. They startle and they move in one hapless accord, following and following and following some leader who doesn’t know any more about their direction than does the poor one trapped in the middle of the herd. Sheep obey dogs. And dogs obey . . .” He paused, and Laurette knew he was thinking of their dogs. “Dogs obey commands too far distant for the human ear to detect.”
The whistles, high-pitched with varied notes. The clicks. Cossette and Copine could hear them even when they had ranged nearly out of sight.
“We are not sheep. And we are not dogs. We are the lions, circling in wait. And I promise you this, my friend—” he clapped a hand to Dubois’s chest—“the next time one of theirs escapes the flock and runs through our streets, we will strike.”
Whatever animosity lived between the men evaporated as Dubois shook Marcel’s hand with a bonding intensity.
“Now, go. Back to the village. If the men are still gathered, tell them what I have told you. Tell them we are prepared to rip the wool from the sheep of aristocracy.”
Dubois seemed uncomfortable with his charge. “You are not coming?”
“I’ll be along,” Marcel said, turning to Laurette. “After I see mademoiselle safely home.”
Laurette, so engaged in Marcel’s speech, fought back her gasp of disappointment. She clutched his sleeve. “I want to stay with you.”
“In time,” he said—so softly that she knew she alone heard him. A command for her ears alone.
“Allons,” Dubois said, urging the others with his bestowed authority. “And, Gerard, so help me, if it gets too dark, I’ll light your hair as a torch.”
They watched until the three silhouettes, each so distinctly different from the others, dissolved into the gathering darkness.
“This is where Gagnon brings his flock, non?”
Laurette pointed into the void. “Just over there. Renée took them out this morning.” She felt the clench of Marcel’s fist.
“If they harmed her in any way . . .”
“Why should they have?” Laurette moved herself to face him. “I’m sure it’s as you said. The carriage was merely mired. Who knows that Gagnon didn’t come to the rescue and send them on their way?”
“Refusing payment for his help, no doubt.” Marcel’s comment held no admiration for such supposed generosity. “Still, let me take you home. I have to know.”
“Know what?”
“If she’s unharmed.”
“Why should she be harmed?”
“You didn’t see how that driver . . . Dubois’s boy was nearly run down.”
“Renée is not a child to be run down.”
“No. She is not.”
Laurette felt him slipping away. His gaze fell somewhere in the engulfing grayness, no part of him touched her.
“Are you in love with her? With Renée?”
“Such a question,” he said, fully seeing her again. “Are you sure you want an answer?”
“Oui.”
“Then, yes, I do. I love her.”
Laurette stepped back as if slapped. “But—but she is a child.”
“Moments ago she was not, by your own words.”
“But she is younger than I am.”
He shrugged. “Not so much.” Then he laughed and wrapped her in a loose embrace, kissing her despite her feeble protest. “Do not be angry with me, ma lionne. I love her as I do my country. That is all.”
“What does that mean?”
“She was abandoned by her mother in the same way our people have been abandoned by our leaders. Left to starve. Or beg.”
“As was I.”
“Your parents were taken from you, through acts of anger and justice. But hers? They were weak. She had you to fight for her. But now she needs something else.”
“So you would fight for her?”
“I would die for her.”
Laurette let the words sink in. How could the two of them be alone in spring moonlight speaking of nothing but Renée? She loomed everywhere—their words, his thoughts. An uninvited guest perched between them. Not big enough to overshadow, but small enough to nag. And now, if she didn’t do something, Laurette would lose Marcel on his path to rescue Renée.
“And for me?”
“It is different.” He placed his forehead against hers and blazed a trail down her neck with their entwined hands. “You are my moment. This moment. You are what is burning my blood right now. I can only promise that I do not love Renée half as much as I desire you.”
Earlier in the evening, these words alone might have swept her feet from beneath her. After all, what had she become over the course of a day? A goddess. A lioness. The burning of his blood. And what had she been yesterday? Nothing. But half of her spirit remained moored to his declaration of love for her cousin. The world was ever changing, and Marcel a man incapable of a promise beyond a moment. Something told her that if he were given a choice tonight—if he were to see Renée—her moment would pass forever.
“Don’t walk me home, Marcel.”
“You cannot come back to the village with me tonight.”
“I meant—can’t we stay here? For just . . . for a little while?”
This time, Laurette did not wait for him to draw her close. He would not sweep her away. She touched his cheek and angled her face so that her lips could find their purchase. Pressing closer, she deepened the kiss until she was sure she alone consumed this thoughts as well as his breath. Marcel responded with enthusiasm, eventually surpassing her ardency and intent. Soon the heat on her skin matched what she felt when he held her next to the fire at the inn, bringing her straight back to that moment. His hands trespassed all boundaries. His lips muttered praise at every curve. Darkness fell and fell, until she didn’t know if her eyes were open or closed. In time, she felt a breeze blow between them as he stepped away, but only long enough to lead her deeper into the grove. She gave herself over as the coolness of the evening air was replaced with the cool, damp feel of the ground beneath her.
His words stopped. All the promises of her beauty, her strength, her life—she fulfilled them as he wished. Moss entwined her hair. Grass stained her best chemise. She knew—had known, perhaps, since she took her first step into Le Cochon Gros—that the evening would end this way. And while a small voice urged her to stop, to guard her soul and body from this betrayal, a louder voice drowned out any warning. Her own, speaking, “Marcel,” into the night sky.
His, answering, “Laurette . . . Laurette.”
This exchange, this acknowledgment of one another to the night would serve as sacrament. These whispers, her vow.
L’épisode 6
Renée
* * *
MOUTON BLANC, CHEZ GAGNON
* * *
Rarely do I ever fret out loud about the scarcity of our meals, but when I do, Gagnon is quick to reassure with a Scripture about God’s provision. This evening, his words prove true, because while Madame Gisela was traveling without so much as a change of stockings, she did have a hamper full of delicacies for a roadside dinner while the horses rested. There were pots of ground meat and two dozen rolls, fruit and cakes and jams and butter, as if they were planning to feed an army and not one stylish woman and her driver.
I was charged with bringing each item from the basket, and exercised my greatest self-control by not diving in or stuffing handfuls of grapes into my mouth.
“It seems so much,” Madame Gisela says. “You must thi
nk I am quite the pig. But sometimes there are beggars, and it takes only a crust of bread to send them away.”
My own hunger knots itself tighter, and I think that I shall refuse even a bite of all of this, lest she think me a beggar too, but Gagnon, opening a new bottle of wine, compliments her generosity. “You never know, madame, when such a morsel will bring the difference between life and death.”
She has the good grace to look chagrined and holds out her glass for him to fill. “After today, I feel this drink will have the same effect.”
Gagnon laughs. “I’m afraid, madame, that it will not rise to your standards.”
Madame Gisela drinks and seems pleased. “This is the sort of wine I grew up with. It is the stuff of the court that leaves a bitter taste.”
And so we dine, late into the evening, with candles lit all around. We learn that Madame Gisela is, indeed, a special friend of our queen’s. One who wouldn’t tell secrets, she assures, and so we ask for none, though I pepper her with questions about the fashions at court. Are the headdresses really three feet tall? Are some of the dresses really so heavy with silk and jewels that the women have to be helped from one seat to the next? Does the queen really wear a new pair of shoes each day so that her old ones might be discarded to the others who linger at Versailles? This, Madame Gisela deems too much of a secret to reveal, but uses the opportunity to reassure us of Her Majesty’s generous spirit.
“What you see and what you hear from her enemies . . .” She looks away in tearful disgust. “Her Majesty hasn’t a hint of cruelty or greed, let alone some of the more salacious accusations . . .”
Gagnon clears his throat and we fall into a silence that lasts until Monsieur Rascon, the driver, diverts us with a tale about the farmer he passed whose cow had thrust its head through the bottom of a feed bucket and was lifting the farmer clear off his feet as the man tried to free her. We laugh as he so brilliantly pantomimes the scene, and I wonder if Madame Gisela would ever have heard the story if she had not the opportunity to dine as a guest in the house of a man who insisted on equality at his table.
We have finished the first bottle of wine and are well into the second—a luxury, as Gagnon usually makes us mix it with water to last the week. My belly is full and my cheeks are warm from the firelight and candlelight and laughter. We are all in a state of mirth when the door opens and Laurette comes in from the night. Her face, too, is flushed, and her hair a wild, uncontained mass. I suppose I can attribute her appearance to a windblown walk from town, but something tells me she, too, has been enjoying a revelry of her own. As she comes closer into the light, I see that she is more disheveled than I first thought—her skirt damp, her sleeves stained, only her embroidered vest unscathed.
“Goodness!” I exclaim. “Did you take some kind of tumble on the road?”
Gagnon leaps to his feet. “Laurette! It’s been dark for hours. Why hasn’t that worthless Marcel escorted you home?” He is unsteady in both his steps and his words, taking both Laurette and myself by surprise when he punctuates his question with a hearty kiss to her cheek.
“He is staying at the inn,” she says, abandoning her curiosity about our company to convey her displeasure at his behavior.
“So he is not to join us?” And now I know that it is all a ruse, even his intoxication, to gain assurance that our outspoken friend will not show up at the table. Marcel flares to anger at the mention of the queen. There could be no assurance that he would behave with civility in the presence of our guest.
“If only he’d known the more festive party was assembled under our very roof.”
I jump up. “Let me fetch you a plate. There’s plenty left.”
“No, thank you.” Laurette puts on an air, raising her voice to an unnatural pitch and looking down her nose at me. “This is nothing like the feast I had in town, and I couldn’t swallow another bite.”
I don’t know why she’s lying, as I couldn’t imagine her letting pride get in the way of such delicacies.
“Join us for a glass of wine, then,” Gagnon says. “We so rarely have guests; we should not be rude.”
“Begging everyone’s pardon,” she says, with something like a curtsy, “I am tired from the walk and only popped my head in to wish you all a good evening.”
More and more her behavior is puzzling, and I try to get her attention to send a private inquiry, but she avoids my eyes and takes her leave without suffering an introduction to our company. When she’s gone, Madame Gisela asks, “Your sister?”
“My cousin. Laurette.”
Gagnon appears to be at a loss to explain her behavior, but diverts attention by filling our glasses with the last of the bottle before declaring that he must be off to begin repairs to the broken wheel.
“Are you in any shape for such an undertaking?” Madame Gisela is flirtatious in her question.
“I’ve accomplished much more under far worse circumstances,” Gagnon says with a convincing slur. “Nothing like a little hard labor to restore sobriety.”
Monsieur Rancon goes off with Gagnon, his demeanor leading me to believe that he will be less than helpful in the process. Thus it is left to me to clear the dishes from the table and carefully store what is left over on the pantry shelf. As I cover each crock with a scrap of cloth and place each piece of fruit in a basket, I plan the following day’s meal, knowing I’ll have fresh eggs and milk for some kind of breakfast. Madame Gisela watches from a reclining position in the best chair, never offering to lift so much as a finger. I don’t know whether to resent or admire her ability to be so resolutely unhelpful.
When I finish, she insists that I accompany her to her room. She is accustomed to having a maid help her prepare for bed, and under these circumstances I will have to do.
“We’ll see how you are going to mend my dress,” she says over her shoulder. “Unless you’ve forgotten.”
Forgotten? I’ve thought of little else, and so I enter this forbidden room for only the second time in all my days here. The linens have been left folded at the foot of the bed. I spread them across the ticking, which has flattened over time, and listen to Madame Gisela tell me of the rooms at Versailles. The silks hanging from the walls, the bed that stands so tall the queen needs a stool to climb up on it, the carpets on the floors, and the halls that echo with conversation and frivolity at all hours of the day and night.
“Never a quiet moment,” she says. The deep silence of the night descends upon us, but only for a moment. As if uncomfortable with the stillness, she speaks again. “This is his room, then? Your master’s?”
I cringe at the word but reply, “Yes. That he shared with his wife. She died several years ago.”
“And he has not remarried?”
“No.”
“Nor ever had a woman here?”
“I wouldn’t speak of such a thing if he had.”
Madame Gisela laughs. “Not much of a gossip, are you? Then I don’t know how you’d fit in at court.”
“Well, as I’m not likely to be at court anytime soon, I don’t imagine fitting in is a problem.”
She laughs again, but when I turn, she is studying me carefully, chin propped in her hand. “Come. You’re finished there. Help me with my gown.”
I fight to hide my eagerness as I approach. She turns her back and presents me with a series of tiny glass buttons—two dozen, at least—fastened at the back, and stoops so that I can reach the top one. I’m struck by the coarseness of my fingers, the ragged cuticles around the nails scraping against the silk. Never have I touched anything this fine, this luxurious. My hands know only wool and canvas and any other material homespun on a loom. I fear I will leave a mark, that I will shred the fibers with my rough skin, but no. I slide each button free, and as I do, the gown loses its life. Its form. It is a single garment, and as I move to the front to hold it as Madame Gisela steps out, it collapses into nothing more than an armful of fabric. Beautiful fabric to be sure, but the power is gone.
Madame Gisela sta
nds before me, clothed in a mass of petticoats stretched over the wire and leather contraption that gave the dress its form. I untie the top petticoat, and have to follow her instructions to unlatch the harness of the pannier and unlace the corset. I comment that she must feel like a prisoner in such constraints, and she laughs.
“Never let them tell you there’s no price for beauty. It comes quite dear. Now, to mending my dress.”
“I can’t simply mend the tear,” I say, running a finger along the torn silk. “I don’t have the proper thread, and I think any such mending would look terribly patched. But I thought, something like a cutaway.”
“What do you know about the cutaway?” Madame Gisela sounds more curious than accusatory.
The idea had been so clear in my head—perfectly so until I had the fabric in my hand, but I willed it back. “I could turn it under and bring the flounce up and around to frame it. That would hide the stitching, since my thread is so coarse.”
“And then? Leave this gaping—I don’t even know what to call it? To show my petticoat beneath? It is not one meant to be seen.”
“I know.” I don’t want to mention that I’ve seen such in the unflattering cartoons.
“I don’t have the proper underskirt.”
“No . . .” I studied the plain white muslin of her petticoat. “But—I have an idea.”
“I daresay you do.” Her expression is almost one of pride, as if she played a role in my revelation.
I promise to return and make my way through the empty, dark house and out into the yard. A wide shaft of light spills from the open barn door, and I pause just outside to listen. Monsieur Rancon is nowhere to be seen.
From my vantage point, I can see Laurette, stripped to her chemise with a heavy shawl draped over her shoulders. She is sitting on the ladder’s rung, hair spilled soft. “You’ll be able to fix it, then?” she asks Gagnon. Her question is tinged with an urgency beyond curiosity.
“I hope to.” His voice is terse. Without betraying my presence, I crane my neck to see him busying himself with his tools, never quite meeting her eye. “I had an uncle who was a wheelwright. Did some work with him when I was younger. Just need to replace a spoke, fit in a new piece, and true it. We’ll have our friends on their way by dawn.”
The Seamstress Page 7