The Beautiful Ones

by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

  He stood up and walked toward the entrance. He was in his old, collarless lounging robe. He had not expected any visitors.

  “Yes? Who is it?” he asked.

  The silence made him move quickly, telling him he should hurry, and he flung the door open.

  Nina looked at him, her eyes cool and her face composed. He was somewhat sad to see she was perfectly coiffed, her hair gathered at her nape. He’d liked her hair loose, a bit unkempt, as if the wind had been toying with it all day.

  She looked like a lady now, and he thought perhaps her fashionable dress and prim hair were supposed to serve as a type of shield.

  He stepped aside, allowing her in without a word.

  When he closed the door, Nina spoke, her voice brusque. “What do you think you are doing, sending me beetles for many days now?” she asked.

  “I thought you might like them,” he replied.

  “Why would I want anything from you?”

  “I forgot your birthday. I purchased twenty beetles, thinking—”

  “That you might buy my forgiveness with a few presents? That perhaps you can assuage your guilty conscience?”

  “I do not ask you to forgive me,” he said, “but I want to try to make amends.”

  Nina turned toward him and stared at him with utter ferocity. “How dare you say that, when you gave Valérie my letter, when you played me for a fool, when you did not even bother sending word for almost a whole year.”

  “What letter?” he asked, frowning.

  “Don’t pretend you don’t know. The letter I wrote to you.”

  “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

  “You lie.”

  “I would not.”

  She looked surprised, her anger perhaps retreating back a tad, yet only a tad. She shook her head in exasperation. “Fine. That does not invalidate my other points.”

  “Nina, I am sorry. For everything. I want—”

  She brushed past him and he noticed the way she was moving her fingers, frustrated and angry. He could tell she wanted to dash objects about his home, her nervous energy palpable, those fingers of hers almost electric.

  “No, you don’t get to want anything,” she replied. “You tricked me. Both of you. You were not pursuing me, you were chasing after her. I thought you liked me. I thought you were my friend. You should have told me the truth.”

  “How could I tell you?”

  “I don’t know how!” she shouted.

  She sat on the chair by the window, where he’d been lounging, looking outside. On his table, papers rustled under the influence of her thoughts, and he feared she might send them scattering about the room.

  But no.

  She held her hands together tight, as if to keep herself from tearing his house apart.

  “I do like you, Nina,” he muttered.

  She did not look at him. Her eyes were on the sky.

  “I thought, sometimes … I’m not sure exactly what I thought. Valérie, she was like a stubborn splinter under my skin you can’t remove no matter how hard you try. But then, at times … it was pleasant spending time with you. I thought, if I took a chance—”

  “You thought you could make her jealous. Maybe you decided you could settle for second best. Never once did you think about me,” she said.

  How to answer her? He could not deny it. He pressed a hand against the windowpane, staring at the same clouds she was staring at.

  “How can you think to make amends? How can you send me presents, as if to purchase your peace of mind?”

  “I don’t know, Nina.”

  Truly, he did not. The beetles had been a bout of madness. He had wanted to cheer her up; selfishly perhaps, he had thought to summon her.

  There were spells, superstitions of the troupe. Herbs for love and for good fortune and for summoning, and though he never quite believed the folktales, he had wished to believe them in this case. Wished her there, in his home, for it was impossible.

  But she’d come and her pain was raw, and he could not think how to say any of the things he’d thought he’d tell her if he ever had the chance.

  The extent of his regret.

  The explanation for his grievous actions.

  “I did write to you. I wrote several times. If I didn’t send the letters, it is because it is as you say. How could I ask you to forgive me in a single letter?” he asked.

  She offered him no answer.

  “I am sorry,” he said.

  He turned to look at her. Her hands were trembling and he saw the way she swallowed. Would she weep? What had he done, coaxing her to him? He ought to have left well enough alone.

  “I do like you. You must not think … What you must understand is that I truly cherished the moments we had together,” he told her. “There were many times when I would be amazed at how easily you could make me smile. You do not realize how difficult a task that is. I am not good with others.”

  He was growing desperate, anxious, and all he wanted was for her to believe the truth in his words. All he wanted was for her to somehow understand. As if, if she understood, some of the monstrous misery he shouldered might melt away.

  “You do not know what it is like to want something for so long, you forget why you even wanted it in the first place, until the only thing left is a gnawing need and there is nothing that can fill it. And even though everything in your body tells you that you are killing yourself wanting it, you cannot stop.”

  Nina stood up, her movements casual. Her face was distant. He wasn’t sure she had heard him. Perhaps she did not care. She hardened with every second that passed, and he found this alarming.

  He did not want to see her grow this weary.

  “You said you wrote me a letter,” he told her. “What did it say?”

  “Nothing important.”

  “Nina, please,” he said knowing instinctively that it was important.

  And there was a coolness to her eyes, which had been gentle and honest. There were the seeds of disappointment in the curve of her mouth, melancholy in her movements when before he’d only ever found a vibrant joy of the world.

  Hector knew what she’d written. Not the words but the meaning. It was engraved in the space between them.

  He took a step toward her. A painting fell down, knocked off the wall by her power. It was but a reflex; he recognized the untamed expression of her talents. But it stopped him in his tracks, and if he’d thought for a second that he might move closer to her, now he realized this was impossible.

  He had no right.

  Hector sighed. “If there was anything in my power that I could give you, if there was anything I could do to make you happy, I would do it. You must believe that. And if you ever would ask anything of me, know that I would answer affirmatively,” he told her.

  “I don’t need anything from you,” she said.

  He could feel around them, all around the room, her restless energy burning the edges of everything in sight.

  “I sent the beetles because I am a silly man who understands nothing. But I also thought you might take pleasure in them. I want you to be happy, I want … to know that you are happy, to know you are well.”

  Nina looked at him blankly, as though he’d spoken in a language she did not understand.

  “You were my friend,” he said. “I was a fool.”

  “You pretended to like me,” she replied.

  “No, no, don’t return to that,” he said sternly. “I liked you. I like you still. You can believe anything you wish about me, but not that my affection was false. I’ve liked you since I met you—more than that, I admire you—that’s the truth.”

  She conveyed a wordless wonder. The conviction in his voice drew her toward him. She took a tentative step, then another, but she stopped at the third as if she’d remembered an important point.

  Nina bit her lip and there was a girlish quality about the gesture, but then she fixed her eyes on him, steady and calm. “I thought I could never forgive you
, but I realize that is not the case. I stand here before you, and I do not hate you as I thought I would. But I cannot forget either,” she said.

  They were quiet. Her talent, which had been perceptible a few moments before, simmered and died.

  “Please send no more gifts, Mr. Auvray. Send nothing more,” she said. She was trying to keep emotion out of her voice and could not manage it, but when she walked out, she did it with composure. She’d broken the colored glass windows in Oldhouse, might have broken the world in half in that moment, but she’d learned to rein herself in.

  He’d taught her card tricks, but he hadn’t taught her that.

  He went to the window and looked down, scanning the street below, until he saw her marching out into the street. She turned a corner and she was gone.

  The sun, as if mocking him, had shrouded itself behind a cloud.

  It was he, then, who sent papers and writing instruments scattering across the table with a flicker of his eyes, happy to hear the noise of them landing against the floor and filling the silence she’d left behind.

  Chapter 6

  SHE WISHED GAETAN WOULD GO away and let her be, but he kept buzzing around her, stubborn. He never sensed anything about her, too obtuse to notice her moods.

  “But, darling, you cannot possibly stay home,” Gaetan said. “It’s the Haduier party.”

  “Why not?” Valérie replied. “Make an excuse for me.”

  He was standing behind her, and she could see his sour face in the mirror. Agnes Haduier was a gossipy, wrinkled wretch. Lucian Haduier was a boor, the kind of fellow who in his cups would loudly bellow the most indecent words. Besides, the Grand Season was brimming with parties. They had already been to the De Villiers’ and the Gannels’, which were the more important balls of the early season.

  Valérie adjusted the sash around her waist and stretched out a hand, running her fingers along the bottles filled with oils and perfumes, settling upon a jar containing a new face cream she’d purchased at Ambre. It smelled like almonds; it would be delicious against her skin.

  If she’d been alone, she could have enjoyed trying it on. But he was standing there, eyeing her without truly seeing her.

  Gaetan didn’t see anything.

  “Go by yourself.”

  “I cannot go without my wife. And after I bought you that new dress! And the brooch! Twenty perfect seed pearls. You were supposed to wear my brooch tonight.”

  “I’ll wear it another time.”

  “When a man goes through a monumental expense for a party, he does not expect this response,” Gaetan said.

  He had not heard her or did not care. It was all about him. His wife who would not wear his dress and his brooch.

  “Besides, Nina will be there. We haven’t seen her in a long time,” he added.

  As if that would induce Valérie to go. She watched as Gaetan took off his jacket, muttering to himself. Was he really going to stay in? She hated him when he acted like this.

  “With this migraine, I can’t do anything but go to bed. Head off on your own,” she said, hoping the prospect might induce him to simply leave her be.

  “No, it’s fine. I am tired and could use the rest. I’ll miss seeing her, though.”

  She really did have a migraine, and this development was not going to improve it. Valérie decided to make the best of it since he had offered her an opportune opening.

  “Take Antonina to dinner sometime,” she replied, making a vague motion with her hand. “Speaking of Antonina, did you meet with Luc Lémy?”

  “As a matter of fact, I did.”

  “He is a pleasant man.”

  “Pleasant enough. I don’t think he knows how to do anything but have fun and drink.”

  “He’s young. Besides, he told you about his business idea, didn’t he?”

  “Yes.” Gaetan nodded as he undid his necktie. “It’s not a bad one, and I think he said he has a fellow interested in providing a portion of the financing, Longder might be the name. Though more backers are needed.”

  “Then what is the trouble?”

  Valérie turned around, fixing her husband with her gaze. He sighed and shrugged and did not answer, which made Valérie frown.

  “Well?” she repeated.

  “He seems boyish.”

  “As if Antonina is the pinnacle of maturity. He is what, twenty-four? About time he settled down and married, and since Nina ruined her first Grand Season by focusing her sights foolishly on a single man, who knows how she might fare this spring? It is one thing to be the new face at all the balls and another to be returning without an escort, milling around the edges.”

  “Valérie, don’t be harsh.”

  “I am being honest. She followed none of my advice, did not pursue any of the young men I introduced her to.”

  Valérie had tried. She’d honestly tried to pour some sense into the empty-headed girl, but Antonina could not remember names and faces, would not make an effort. Antonina did as she pleased, pampered child with a roll of banknotes under her arm that she was.

  It must be amusing to forgo duty and submit yourself only to silly pleasures, Valérie thought with quiet contempt.

  “Luc Lémy is a godsend. Unless you were thinking to marry her to a Delafois back in Montipouret,” she told her husband.

  “Which one? They are already engaged or married. Cedric is widowed, but nearly fifty,” Gaetan said.

  Valérie knew this, and that was precisely why she had suggested it, guessing her husband would start panicking at the thought of his cousin remaining a spinster. Antonina was young enough that she could surely find herself a groom and take a bit of time doing so, but Valérie needed to create a sense of both urgency and opportunity.

  “Luc Lémy is proposing an interesting business venture that would be sealed with a magnificent marriage. I do not understand what you have to lose.”

  “I was hoping she’d be married to a man she liked.”

  “Do you think she dislikes Luc Lémy?” Valérie asked.

  “She has told me nothing of him.”

  “Maybe she is shy.”

  “She could hardly contain herself with Hector Auvray, speaking about every single visit they had together as soon as I walked in through the door.”

  “Maybe she’s learned to be more decorous,” Valérie said, her voice rising.

  “They seemed well matched. I wonder what happened,” Gaetan said.

  Valérie stood up and opened her wardrobe’s door, pretending she was looking for an item in there while taking a quiet breath.

  “What happened is he was obviously of a different category than your cousin and did not mean to take her seriously. We should thank the stars we have not been saddled with a changeable man.”

  “You may be right,” Gaetan conceded.

  Valérie slid hangers to the side, her hands drifting across silks, lace, brocade.

  “He did not even have the decency to speak to you and retire his courtship proposal,” Valérie added.

  If he had shown up at her doorstep, Valérie wouldn’t have allowed him in. Yet, it rankled her a bit that he had not attempted to see her one more time. Did he think about her? He must. She had been in his mind for a decade.

  He would never be rid of her.

  “Luc Lémy comes from a reputable family, he is one of us. Antonina will be received in every house in the city, invited to every single ball, her name splashed over all the papers,” Valérie said, closing the wardrobe’s doors.

  Her husband had moved to change behind a screen painted with white peacocks. Valérie pulled the sheets and reluctantly got in bed. They shared a massive four-poster bed wide enough that five people might fit in it, but certain nights Valérie felt it was not wide enough. Certain nights she wanted him to sleep at the other end of the world.

  Had he gone to the party by himself, he would probably have done her the courtesy of going to sleep in one of the guest rooms, the hour being late and he not wanting to wake her.

>   Inconsiderate oaf, she thought, but she made an effort to candy-coat her words.

  “You must think carefully of Antonina. You yourself told me how difficult it was to find her a proper suitor in Montipouret. All that talk about her talent … and that was before she smashed those windows at Oldhouse. Everyone was talking about it. Remember how even at Jacot’s they’d heard of it?”

  “People have always talked nonsense about Nina. She’s an energetic child,” Gaetan protested from behind the screen.

  “We know that. But what do others think? They probably imagine she is difficult, even mercurial.”

  He did not answer but she knew what he was thinking. Montipouret would be no good for a husband. Not that anyone would have seriously considered it before—Antonina had been sent to the city for a reason the previous spring. A suitor from Montipouret was now a dimmer possibility. And it would look lowly for Gaetan if they had to resort to this. It would stain his pride, going back to the source he had discarded.

  “Antonina made a mistake. She should not have pushed for us to accept Mr. Auvray as a suitor. Then again, what does a young girl know about picking a husband? Should we not counsel her?”

  Gaetan emerged from behind the screen in his silk pajamas, no slippers on his feet. He was not old, he was Hector’s age, but it seemed to Valérie as if he was aging fast. He was rather paunchy and his looks, which had never been especially good, were quickly fading.

  Hector Auvray had a chiseled face, and time had made him harder but more distinctive. There was nothing distinctive about her husband.

  And Gaetan’s breath was sour. His teeth were bad. He had a peasant’s mouth.

  At least Antonina would marry a handsome boy.

  Maybe he won’t even count the seed pearls he gifts her, Valérie thought bitterly.

  But let her have that blond youth, what did Valérie care? It was her family’s position that mattered, the fortune they might snag that tantalized her. Was this not what she had been meant to do? They’d sent Valérie out in the world to battle in their name, and like a conquering general, she would deliver them a new kingdom.