Her bed. A gift from Gagnon. Her whole life a gift from Gagnon.
Marcel responded to her hesitation. “Of course you do. See how you have lured me here?”
“I don’t know what I want.”
“I think you do.”
He bent to kiss her again when they were surrounded by soft light.
“Go to bed, Laurette.”
The quiet authority of Gagnon’s voice filled the room as much as did the candle in his hand. She jumped away as if burned by its flame.
“You’ve no authority over her, Gagnon,” Marcel said, though he remained standing with Laurette between them.
“Perhaps not. But in my home I have authority over you. You’re not invited to sleep inside. Leave my house now. Good night.”
She waited for Marcel to fight for her, but no such argument ensued. Instead, he implored, “Laurette?” Nothing like the tone he’d used to convince her to call down the dogs.
“Bonne nuit, Marcel.” Something inside her loathed the diminishing form of the man who had so recently commanded her body and spirit. She could not bring herself to watch him walk past her, past Gagnon, and out into the night.
At the sound of the latch, Gagnon’s shadow covered the door and all the wall around it, stronger than any iron peg could hold. His face, gold in the light of the candle, cocked to the side, held an expression beyond reading. Curiosity? Enlightenment? Like he was encountering an entirely unknown creature—familiar, yet newly shed of a disguise. She knew her hair was a tumbled-down mess, but he’d seen her in such a state before—clothing askew, skin flushed, breath unsteady. She almost longed for shame, and might have taken it on if not for the fresh, small wound he delivered when he didn’t fight for her, either.
“I won’t warn you again,” he said, salting it. “You have a place in my home for as long as you like, but he does not. Not in my home, not at my table, not again. He’s a dangerous man in dangerous times. You have to trust me on this. Do you trust me?”
She thought about the sheep. Simple, stupid. “Yes. Of course I do. And, I suppose, after tonight it will be time for me to take my place back in the loft?”
“It is always your choice, Laurette, to come and go as you please.” He took her hand and placed the candle within it before leaving her alone in its light.
L’épisode 9
Renée
* * *
VERSAILLES
* * *
For the first week, I know nothing other than the walls of Madame Gisela’s apartments. She escorted me under cover of a massive velvet cloak and brought me immediately to a warm bath, where I was stripped down and scrubbed clean with sweet-scented soap. My hair was washed, too, then combed through with a foul-smelling oil, though I protested that I kept my scalp clean and had never been plagued with any vermin. My words fell on deaf ears, as the maid assigned to bathe me declared she would not take orders from a barn-dwelling peasant. For three days I was kept away from any open flame, lest my hair combust upon my head.
And I ate. And ate, and ate. Pastries and meat and fruit in all forms—fresh, jellied, baked into yet more cakes and pastries. Vegetables boiled and mashed into soups enriched with cream. Cups of hot liquid chocolate that made me feel as if I’d landed in a different, wonderful world. After the first three days, I was actually sickened by the spoils, my stomach not used to being full, my body unfamiliar with such richness. I moaned, doubled in pain, and took only broth for a day. It felt like a punishment, even though it was savory and delicious, and I learned to eat as Madame Gisela does, with dainty pinches, and enough left on the plate to feed the servants twice over.
I’ve been given a soft bed that I share with Madame Gisela’s daughter, Amelie, the girl Madame Gisela claimed to be close to my age but is only eleven years old, the same age as the queen’s daughter. They, too, I learn, are the closest of friends.
Through Amelie’s eyes, I see a world I could never have constructed from my own imagination. She wears stockings and shoes every day, even though her feet never touch any surface that isn’t polished like silk or carpeted with fine wool. When, to Madame Gisela’s delight, we learn that Amelie and I have the same size feet, I am afforded the same privilege, though I am not excited about the prospect. I’m given new clothes, too. Simple dresses in the shepherdess design, once a favorite fashion of the queen. The first time I am brought this soft, flowing garment, belted to make my bust appear fuller than it is, I laugh.
“I could never graze the sheep in this. It wouldn’t stand up to the wind and rocks.”
“It’s a fantasy,” Madame Gisela says, pinning my hair in a simple design. “Nothing here is real.”
I am real enough for Amelie, who resents my presence almost immediately, seeing me as a rival for her friendship with the princess, Marie-Thérèse, though I explain over and over that I’ve come to work, not to play, and that I’m too old to play, and that I wouldn’t know how to play even if I were so inclined. To prove myself, I take to altering her clothes, making sleeves longer and shorter at my desire, transferring ribbons from one little gown to another. In a bold move, I cut panels from one discarded dress (tossed aside for a minor stain) and sew them onto another, creating a mix of patterns that Madame Gisela declares delightful.
“Like a little patchwork,” she proclaims, as if patching one bit of clothing to another is a trick to be admired.
“There’s a knack to it,” I tell her, “to find fabrics that will work. If you’re not careful, if the weaving doesn’t match, the stitches will pull away when you wash the garment.”
“We don’t wash our garments often,” Madame Gisela says in the indulgent tone she’s adopted for me. “Something else you’ll learn.”
It is this particular endeavor that brings me my first introduction to the queen. “She has to come to you,” Madame Gisela continued to reassure me during the first weeks of my stay. “Do you understand? One cannot—I cannot—simply walk up to her of a morning and say, “Bonjour, my queen, here is the delightful little seamstress I plucked from the countryside for you.”
Each time I would reply that I had not come with any such desire. That I had no desire at all, only a bewildered sense of adventure and a heart of curiosity.
On an afternoon when Amelie is plagued with the sniffles of an early summer cold, I amuse her by taking the panels cut from the two dresses and fashioning the same dress for one of her favorite dolls. It is not a new thing for her to have matching gowns made for her playthings, but even my untrained eye can see the superiority of my creation. My hands thrill to work with the fine thread and bits of silk; my patterns match perfectly, down to the thin, painted veins of the tiniest vine. My eyes are sharp without need of a glass, my fingers nimble and without callus.
The day Amelie is permitted to play with the Princess Marie, a summons is sent to Madame Gisela’s apartment within the hour.
“Do you see?” She shows me the very note, written in a hand less elegant than I would expect of a queen. “Never underestimate the power of innocence.” Her eyes glitter, and I suspect she holds her tears back only out of fear that they might smudge the ink on the hastily written note.
“Why is it so important to you?” My question seems too bold for my station, but I’ve nothing to lose in asking. “That I meet the queen? It matters much more to you than it does to me.”
Her smile is brave. “You can say that because you’ve never met her. You don’t know what it’s like to be her friend and then . . . not to be. We came here together, you know. All those years ago, I was one of her ladies-in-waiting. We learned this ridiculous language together and spun tales of fantasy. She was already married, of course, but still a young girl. Like me.” She touched my cheek. “Like you. But I’ve fallen, you see.”
“Fallen?”
“Out of favor. Out of fashion. She so desperately wants the love of her people. These people. I fear I’m too much a reminder of her past.”
“But look where you live.” The grandness of
the rooms, I’m ashamed to say, has long since grown comfortable. “At her leisure, non? And you travel in her carriage; her servants serve you.”
Madame Gisela makes a dismissive sound. “Anyone with a decent set of stockings can claim a spot in Versailles. And the carriage? They are always looking for us to take drives out into the country to measure the animosity of the peasants. Had I been viciously attacked rather than rescued by your handsome guardian, there might have been some rueful consequences for that little town. My dear husband, whom you’ve yet to meet, as he is far more interested in his mistress than his wife, is a member of Parlement, and almost as unpopular with the court as I am. It was his decision, you see, to send me on my little jaunt. You’ve no idea how happy I was to come back with such an unexpected treasure.”
A treasure. How Laurette would tease if she heard me lauded in such a way.
“Come,” Madame Gisela urges, pushing me toward the door. “Marie is fickle in her taste and temperament. We must take our audience before she forgets her summons.”
Before coming to the palace at Versailles, my idea of heaven was Gagnon’s fields in the lush green of spring, blue skies imparting a gentle breeze upon my face. Heaven smelled of life and earth, felt like a full stomach and a quiet mind. To be in heaven meant to be drowsy with purpose, rested from labor, a good day stretched equally before and behind each eternally living moment. But on this morning, my first visit to the queen, everything I thought I knew of beauty disappears like so much dust. Here, in her private quarters, everything is golden—all the colors of the course of the sun brought into one room to shine in simultaneous chorus. The sharpness of dawn reflected on the pillars, the richness of evening on sumptuous carpets. Having shouldered through so many crowds and conversations, without the chance to catch my bearings or my breath, I am immediately embraced by the tranquility of this room. Not silent, by any means. Amelie and another little girl pluck tunelessly at a harp standing in the corner, and the woman seated on the velvet sofa in the room’s center speaks at a rate and volume more robust than necessary for the two women standing, listening, with their hands clasped and heads bowed.
Madame Gisela bows her head and elbows me to do the same. I obey, and hear the small sound of a clearing throat. Then, an explosion.
“Gi-Gi!” Forgetting all protocol, my startled head snaps up in time to see the woman leap from the couch, her dressing gown falling from her shoulders as she does, and fly across the room to take Madame Gisela in a warm embrace. Immediately the two are laughing and rattling off to each other in an unfamiliar tongue, which brings twin glares of disapproval from the two ladies who maintain their subservient pose.
It is not until this moment I realize I am in the presence of the queen, Marie Antoinette. She is tall and matronly, her figure on full display beneath the soft fabric of her gown. I’ve seen her only in portraits, and there are some features that have been truly represented on canvas—her forehead, for example, is high, her jaw thick, her nose long, but no painting can ever represent what it means to be alive in a single moment. No artist, for example, could ever capture the fact that she blinks with the rapidity of a hummingbird, or that she furrows her brow when she communicates in French, clearly searching for words and phrases after all her years as our sovereign. This I notice when she at last pulls herself an arm’s length from her friend and asks, “How long has it been?”
“Too long,” Madame Gisela says with a lightness only I can mistrust.
“Les affaires,” the queen says, pronouncing the phrase with a hard z sound and an unusual syllabic emphasis. “But never mind all of that. Here you are now, and our girls . . .”
She gestures toward the young princess, Marie-Thérèse, who shares most of the features of her mother, including the soft curls of reddish brown, though the queen’s bear the earliest flecks of gray. Or, perhaps, the remnants of powder.
“My Amelie has been longing to come play with the princess.”
“And Marie-Thérèse the same. But who is this new little plaything?”
She refers to me, but when I start to speak, I remember my instruction to remain silent unless specifically addressed. Not knowing if I’ve been spoken to, I look to Madame Gisela for direction.
“This—perhaps you did not get my letter? This is the girl I discovered in that village up north.” She uses her own language to attach an adjective to the word village, an unflattering one if her expression holds any clue.
The queen claps her hands. “Oh yes! The little seamstress. I saw what you did to my gown, naughty thing. Letting it get torn.” This, said to Madame Gisela with all humor of friendship. To me, directly, she says, “And I saw your clever mending. Yes, I saw this days ago and was cross at first, but I was quite impressed with your work.”
“Merci, madame,” I say, surprised to find my voice sounds much the same when speaking to a queen as it does when speaking to mere mortals.
“If you had seen her when she first arrived,” Madame Gisela continues, “starving. Weak. I don’t think I exaggerate when I say that I may have saved her life bringing her here. I believe she can serve you well. Or the princess, even.”
“What a happy accident for both of you,” the queen says. “And what a stroke of timing. Bertin is always in need of women who have quick brains and talented hands. Do you know I’ve lost three of my tirewomen in just this past month? Two dead. Nasty fevers. And one with a baby put there by one of my guards.” She giggles, inviting us to join her, but I am in too much awe at her ability to so easily dismiss death. “So, too,” she continues, “good timing when your husband is in such decline in the court’s favor.” Her smile has not wavered. “Do you think, ma belle amie, that I will put in a good word with my husband to save your place here?”
“I—I hadn’t thought . . . ,” Madame Gisela stammers.
“Viens!” The queen spares her friend and summons Amelie, who approaches reluctantly, pouting to have been pulled away from her play. She pulls the girl close and lifts the skirt to examine the stitching from the other side. “Perfect. So small and neat. This is your work, non? The panels?”
“Oui, madame.” I’ve now spoken four words to a queen.
“And how did you choose the fabrics? To go together? Because it doesn’t appear they would fit, but the effect is appealing.”
“They are both inspired by the same palette, madame. If you’ll see, the blue in the stripe? It is the same blue as the outer petals on the floral print. And so, they complement each other. Like siblings separated, if you will. One set of threads destined to strike out and be a stripe, the other to stay behind in the garden. And look how the prodigal is welcomed home.”
It is something I would have said to Laurette, and something that would have earned me a cuff to my ears for such wasteful thought. The queen, however, is enchanted.
“I can only imagine Mademoiselle Bertin’s reaction to such a tale. Thinking she is the only one with an artist’s eye! Tell me, little one—though not so little, I can see. How old are you?”
“Almost seventeen.” It is a deceitful approximation, but adding the phantom few months makes me feel much older.
“And your name?”
“Renée, madame. Renée Brodeur.”
“Well, sixteen-year-old Renée, you have no parents?”
“Non, madame.”
“And would you like to live here? At Versailles?” She adds the last question lest I think she means here—in her personal apartment.
“Madame Gisela is kind to have brought me here,” I say. “I only follow as the Lord leads.”
At my words, the queen makes the sign of the cross, her jewels clacking in the holy gesture. “As we women are fated to do, I suppose. Men, they can forge their own paths. We obey.” She reaches out and grasps my hands, holding them tight at first, then loosening her grip and examining them on her open palms. “Exquisite, aren’t they? Light as little birds.”
“I said the same thing, madame,” Madame Gisela says. The queen
and I both turn, as if we’d forgotten her presence entirely. Indeed, little Amelie has gone back to play, and I just now notice her absence.
“Did you?” the queen says. “And is this the dress our little bird was wearing when she came to us?”
“You know well it is not,” Madame Gisela says, and for a moment I worry at her boldness. “It is one of Amelie’s, as she was so malnourished when she came, it fit perfectly. Her own clothes were—”
“Quite suitable, I imagine,” the queen says, “for her station. Made of strong stuff, I suppose, and well stitched. Am I right?”
I nod. “Though I’m not so sure they were well suited for this place.”
“And I’m not so sure that dress continues to fit ‘perfectly.’ Am I right, again?”
I’m torn, conscious of the fact that the band below my bust cuts into my flesh and that my shoulders strain at the sleeves. I must either contradict my queen or risk appearing ungrateful to my hostess. My mind works quickly. “I assume it is like all fashion: perfect in all ways, but not perfect for all time.”
“Oh! My love, my love, my dear love.” The queen grabs me and pulls me forward, planting a kiss on each of my cheeks, twice over. “The next time I am cross with Mademoiselle Bertin I will bring you to intervene on my behalf.” She turns to Madame Gisela and releases a torrent of what sounds like praise in their mother tongue—praise that brings reassurance to Madame Gisela’s expression.
“Do you have things with you?”
“Things, madame?”
“Just this.” Madame Gisela speaks for me, producing the small cinched sack I brought from Gagnon’s.
“What’s all there?” The small question comes from behind me, and I realize it is the princess, speaking for the first time. She is years younger than I, but we stand nearly at eye level. I do not allow my voice to condescend.
“Not much.” I open the bag and produce my few treasures, beginning with the book of Psalms, its faded blue ribbon unmoved.
The Seamstress Page 10