Cranky Ladies of History

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Cranky Ladies of History Page 12

by Tehani Wessely


  The maids had cleared the plates with their unsightly burdens, brushed crumbs and fallen titbits from the damask cloth. In a proper household the ladies would have now withdrawn, but Missy remained in the chair where she’d been seated during the meal, and Gabrielle found a glass waiting for her as expected at her own place, filled with a tawny vintage.

  Goncourt and the Tessiters rose quickly; Hanse lagged somewhat behind them, one hand on the back of his chair. “Madame,” her husband began, “we have been wondering if, perhaps, there might be some discussion of business?”

  Gabrielle nodded. Goncourt eased the padded chair beneath her as she resumed her spot. “We are on good enough terms now, are we not?” She turned to Tessiter Père on her left. “It is in my mind that you would like best to give us support in the matter of costumery, maquillage, scenery—the materials bought once. As soon as the war ends, of course. While you—” she faced the other way, towards Hanse, “—would be the one to supply ongoing expenses such as rents, advertisements, and dancers’ and musicians’ salaries.”

  “Yes, but how are the proceeds to be disbursed?” asked this worthy. “Proportionally to our costs? Our risks?”

  Missy intervened. “There is no risk. In a few months, when the war ends, we proceed. Our composer is Ravel; our choreographer Nijinsky. Our shining star is Gabrielle.”

  The older Tessiter demurred. “It is 1915. Nearly ten years now since they rioted in the streets over your kiss, Mesdames.” He looked long and meaningfully at Missy’s handsome but aging countenance. “The sensation has died down. Forgive me if I seek some other surety for our investment.”

  “I am good for it,” Missy replied. Her voice was heavy with disappointment, as if she scolded a cat of whom she anticipated nothing better than a certain level of misbehavior. “Goncourt also may be relied upon.”

  ◊∆◊∆◊∆◊∆◊∆◊

  The evening went convincingly, she thought. From her seat on the chaise longue before her boudoir’s velvet-draped window, Gabrielle watched the Tessiters’ carriage rattle away in the dull moonlight with tempered relief. Now the die must be cast.

  Goncourt would be expecting her in their shared bedroom, a long walk and two turns along the passageway. Let him wait. She had a private farewell to make.

  Reaching behind her seat to where the other woman stood, she arrested the hand of her lover, captured it firmly in her own so Missy could no longer toy with the tendrils escaping from Gabrielle’s carefully inexact coiffure. Still plump and smooth, the mound under Missy’s thumb yielded softly to Gabrielle’s teasing bite. A heavy sigh—a sound too soft to be called a moan—escaped her lover’s lips. Gabrielle drew her down to kiss not her mouth but her neck.

  Soon the chaise held them both, a pliant twist of flesh and pleasure. No fire filled the room’s grate, so they didn’t remove their clothing, merely rearranged it. Nor did they linger long in the chill that followed passion.

  Missy sighed again as she moved away, pulling up her stockings and fastening them in place.

  A third sigh. Gabrielle rose to put enough distance between them that she could ask what was wrong without the danger of a collapse into her arms.

  “I wish I could go with you,” Missy replied. The shadows thrown by the candle on the mantel showed only half her face. That half held a stoically sad expression Gabrielle knew from earlier separations.

  “But it is to Goncourt’s estate we go,” Gabrielle objected. “Inviting you would not be fair to him. Here, in the house you let to us, it is different.”

  “Yes.” Missy stood also, shaking out the skirts of her gown, smiling ruefully. “Here, it is different.”

  Kissing her lover goodbye, Gabrielle prayed silently that she and Missy would meet once more in safety. That someday she’d be free of the shadowy militarists who sought to bind Gabrielle to their service by threatening those she loved.

  But not soon. Her ostensible masters would learn where she had fled to, eventually, though they wouldn’t be able to manipulate her so easily at Rozven. Her husband’s family was well-established, his retainers loyal.

  In their bedroom, Goncourt, fully dressed, paced in front of the glowing hearth. “All is in readiness?” she asked, to give him a chance to reprove her.

  “This past hour. Where have you been?”

  “With the child,” Gabrielle lied.

  Goncourt laughed. “A likely story! Haven’t I always known—”

  Though she had instigated it, she found herself bored by the prospect of the coming lecture. So she simply stopped listening. As her husband thundered on, she glanced around, noting instead the table newly emptied of his cosmetics: wax for his moustache, cream for the shining skin atop his head. Cologne and manicure set were also gone. A carafe and drinking glass occupied the bedside table, but overall the room’s air was of a location soon to be abandoned.

  That was the doing of this so-called “great” war, which was to have been over by Christmas. Dragging on and on, it had brought “requests” from her government she couldn’t afford to refuse outright: to travel, to spy, to report on their enemies. To monitor even their ostensible friends.

  Now her view of the room was obscured by memories: the awkward approach of her would-be recruiter during a lull in business at the dim café down the street; his laughable attempt to force her capitulation by publicising her African heritage—as if that weren’t a point of which to be proud! As if it weren’t already widely known—and when that failed, his semi-obscure promises to do violence to Missy, which Gabrielle tried to face with equanimity, hoping that her lover’s wealth would shield her from harm. And then his hints about visiting pain upon Gazouette. Which Gabrielle was not able to treat with the same disdain.

  “Do you suppose we fooled them?” Gabrielle asked, and knew from Goncourt’s face she had interrupted what he was saying.

  After being forced to vent his anger he usually became a penitent lamb. As was now the case: he gathered her gently in his arms. “Can you forgive me? In the morning it will be all over town—I have allowed a reporter to write about our little project for the Journal.”

  Gabrielle grimaced, but answered cheerfully, “Then we had best be on our way, hadn’t we?” By the time their departure was known, she and her child would be safe.

  Her husband held the bedroom door open for her with a small bow, and repeated the gesture at the entrances to the kitchen and the courtyard. Inside the cramped stables the loaded automobile throbbed loudly, the purring of an immense, watchful cat. Their driver got out and let Goncourt take his seat, then helped Gabrielle take hers. He arranged the fur collar of her favourite coat so it protected her ears without tickling her chin. He opened the cat’s eyes, or rather, uncovered its headlamps.

  “Where is Gazouette?” her husband asked.

  “Gone ahead, with her nanny.”

  “They are to meet us in Chartres?”

  “No. Tomorrow night, in Le Mans.” That was when she would tell him that their child had embarked for Canada. By then Gazouette would be gone.

  “Fine. As long as you are satisfied.” He waved at the driver to open the courtyard gates and they set off.

  ◊∆◊∆◊∆◊∆◊∆◊

  But Gabrielle’s ruse didn’t work. A miscommunication of some sort. Less than a week after she and Goncourt arrived at Rozven, Taylor and Gazouette arrived also. Taylor sat challengingly upright on the uncomfortable chair in Gabrielle’s office, her timid charge curled at her feet. “There were no suitable lodgings on Guernsey, not on the entire island,” the Englishwoman explained. “I would have continued on, but then I heard the news of the fire on the Mauretania.”

  Gabrielle had not heard of the disaster herself till this morning. The ship on which she’d booked Gazouette’s passage to Quebec was out of commission—suspiciously so, as it baulked her from removing the child from the grasp of government manipulators. For how long the ship would be disabled she didn’t know. Nor did she comprehend why the woman hadn’t journeyed
on to her homeland and stayed there till repairs were effected. Or until some other method of escape offered itself.

  Nonetheless, she nodded. “Of course. The nursery is being readied for you.”

  That change would lessen the space available to board nurses, for the house would soon be filled with wounded soldiers. The nurses would have to be made to fit somewhere—perhaps an outbuilding? Later she would re-examine their disposition; at the moment what mattered was that her plans for Gazouette’s safety were ruined.

  Gabrielle brought the interview to a quick close and went to the library. It had been her site of solace for three years now, during every visit since her marriage: the narrow windows admitting sunlight, stormlight, moonlight, mistlight; the polished stones of the floor, reddish black, stubbornly refusing to reflect more than smudges of those who stood upon them; and, of course, the books.

  Not many remained on the emptying shelves. A quarter of the room’s former inhabitants. Gabrielle caught the top of one tall volume with a crooked finger and pulled it down toward her. An old favourite, this one, rescued from the sale of her girlhood home’s contents. It was clad in blue twill, crammed full of coloured plates depicting classical myths. She sat on a footstool and idly turned its pages till she came to Rubens’s portrait of Thetis bathing Achilles. Here was an idea.

  Though the hero had died.

  But perhaps his death was owing to an error on the part of his mother? Or, perhaps the River Styx’s hellish nature had precluded a happy ending?

  Marking her place with one finger, Gabrielle carried the book of myths with her to her bedroom in the turret. The afternoon’s long shadows stretched themselves out upon the naked staircase, concealing and revealing its scars, the result of removing the runner which had covered it so many years. That worn strip of carpet had been rolled up and stored temporarily in the entrance hall. It was to be laid down the middle of the transformed ballroom, between ranks of the hospital beds still stacked in the front drive, awaiting their installation.

  She had written yesterday to affirm that they’d be ready to receive their first consignment of the “great” war’s wounded by March 1. A fortnight away.

  Outside her door she paused. On the other side of the circular landing lay the nursery. From beneath the bottom of its door came murmurs, contented-sounding voices: low and womanly, high and prattlingly childish. Gabrielle wouldn’t interrupt; she could picture the scene clearly enough. Taylor would be unpacking, Gazouette staggering like a drunken doll as she struggled to follow in her nanny’s bustling steps. The jumpers and heavy knitted stockings, the bonnets and leggings and jackets so carefully selected in anticipation of Britain’s cool climate would be stowed away in chests of drawers.

  Couldn’t Gazouette and her clothing stay here? Wouldn’t she be safe enough at Rozven, safe as her father and mother?

  Entering her half-moon-shaped bedchamber, Gabrielle rang for her fire to be lit. The sun would soon set, and she’d need the warmth and light. When the housemaid had come and gone she pulled a white-painted, flower-cushioned armchair to the hearth and reopened her book to the Rubens.

  Bats. They besieged the painting, framed the subjects, surrounded them. In the distance, ghosts clamoured to Charon for release from their dull afterlives—understandably. The river’s waters, green and poisonous-looking, showed nothing of the miracle they were supposed to instill in those brought by supplicants to its shores. Brought to be bathed in the chill and cold, to freeze the body but soothe the soul…

  And Thetis, that foolish nymph, had subjected her child to this treatment—to preserve his life, of course—but had failed to do it thoroughly enough. Why had she not submerged her own hand in the Styx, if that would keep her son from harm?

  Gabrielle studied the painting’s reproduction till the dinner bell. Would she need a dog? Or a friend such as the spinner Clotho to hold up an illuminating flame?

  No—no flames, no bats. She’d try what she could accomplish without them.

  After dinner she fended off Goncourt’s attentions. It took very little trouble. She looked in on Gazouette, spoke a brief word with Taylor about the program for the following day, and went to bed betimes.

  ◊∆◊∆◊∆◊∆◊∆◊

  Gabrielle woke, as always, without recourse to an alarm clock. Only the faintest clues announced the coming of the day: a sky like milk from a dark blue cow, a western breeze laden with the merest hint of brine.

  There was a bit of fuss in the nursery. To save time and lessen the noise, Gabrielle accepted Taylor’s accompaniment out of the house and across lawns crackling with frost, to the path she had discovered during her first explorations. She insisted on carrying the child herself, though.

  Even leafless with winter, the beech trees cut off much of the dawn’s growing light. Taylor stopped at the woods’ edge to adjust her lantern to a wider aperture, but Gabrielle, impatient, darted ahead, trusting to the bark’s silvery glimmering to show her the way. “Leave that thing there!” she called back over her shoulder. No flames.

  Gradually, the land fell. The path, like a young girl, ran straight down precipitous slopes, then dallied flirtatiously with the stream at their bottom, climbing in opposition to its flow to the low granite bluffs occupying Rozven’s eastern boundaries. At last, as glowing pink and yellow tints had just touched the clouds far above, they came to the sacred spring.

  The source.

  A curved wall had been built into the earth. From a crack between its grey stones poured a cascade of singing water. Caught momentarily in a round pool, it laughed and splashed itself out by way of a channel bridged with slabs of that same stone. Above the wall and to one side stood a gracefully bowed beech, its lower branches festooned with ribbons: gay and bright or tattered, faded, old. Each ribbon represented a prayer, so the old women seated before nearby cottages had intimated.

  Gabrielle knelt on the ground, Gazouette in her lap. Taylor spread the rug she had stubbornly brought. Gabrielle was glad of it; the dead leaves were damp. She lay the drowsy child down on the rug and went to work on removing her clothes.

  Despite the harsh temperature, Gazouette seemed to enjoy her nudity. No sooner had her mother divested her of the last of her garments than she hoisted herself to her feet, fully awake now, running and stumbling in spirals and zigzags as the two women chased her. To Gabrielle’s pride it was she who gathered the giggling girl into her arms, not Taylor. But she had to relinquish her to the nanny anyway in order to remove her own boots, coat, and skirt, and to roll and tuck up her crinoline and her blouse’s long sleeves.

  For a ribbon she had brought the band off an old gardening hat of Sido’s. That old straw hat was the only remnant Gabrielle had of her mother’s practical wardrobe, which had been sparse at the height of its glory and was now all but vanished with time. The band’s pale blue spoke of the dusty, sunny days she’d spent under Sido’s watchful maternal eye, guarded with the best of care.

  So many others had petitioned the spring before her. Rumors among the women of the village said every single one had gotten her wish. But as Gabrielle chose her twig and tied her prayer to it she wondered if some other sacrifice would be required.

  Taylor parted with Gazouette reluctantly. Gabrielle carried the squirming, wriggling little child to the bridge and lay on her stomach on the big flat stone. Using both hands—she was not afraid, not she—she gently lowered her daughter into the babbling brook. Cold stole into Gabrielle’s bones, but she held the girl firmly, swishing her back and forth, twice changing her grip to ensure every inch of skin received its blessing. Then she pulled the wailing, dripping wet and now hopefully invulnerable child back out of the water and wrapped her in the driest part of her under-chemise.

  A weird, skirling cry split the air—getting louder and louder, sharper and sharper, hurting her ears. Gabrielle sheltered Gazouette beneath her breasts and shoulders, peered up and saw a swelling black thing falling toward her. Its wide wings unfurled—an eagle?—osprey?—she could
see its grasping claws, its dark, hooked beak—

  It swerved aside! With a crash, it hit the pool. Only a few feet away… And now she perceived Taylor squealing with fright, running forward with arms stretched out—what good would that do?

  Gabrielle rolled to lessen her weight on the baby and saw the bird surface from the pool’s depths and fly to the tree of prayers, a flash of silver held struggling in its feet. This it transferred to its mouth. It hopped higher, out of sight, but Gabrielle had no doubt the silver signified a fish, which the osprey—only ospreys dived so—would now eat in peaceful retirement.

  Fending off Taylor’s stupid attempts to take Gazouette from her, Gabrielle raised herself onto her hips. She’d received an omen, but what did it mean? She couldn’t decide.

  Her hands, as she resumed her dress, felt oddly nimble. Shouldn’t they be numb? Yet she barely required Taylor’s assistance with her ties and buttons. Gazouette’s were more trouble, but just because the girl ran about like a zany, and even once caught, refused naughtily to submit to being clothed.

  The way back seemed to take a shorter time than had the trek to the stream’s source. They reached the house at the hour Gabrielle was accustomed to take breakfast. Early for visitors, and yet an unfamiliar car stood parked next to the piles of unassembled bedframes. It was empty. But Goncourt’s man met her at the door and informed her of Missy’s presence in the library.

  Without any hesitation, Gabrielle gave Gazouette into the nanny’s care and hurried to greet her unexpectedly-arrived lover, almost running along the gallery in her haste, plunging down the three steps to the Low Wing, thrusting open the library’s door—and halting on the room’s threshold.

  Missy was not alone. She’d brought someone with her. A man.

  A moment passed. Hardly any time. Gabrielle recognised her other guest: the younger Tessiter, M’sieur Robert. What could the fellow possibly want? The ballet’s premiere was far in the future.

 

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