Celeste

by Roland Perry

  Céleste was stunned. She managed by an exceptional will to control her feelings of shock, anger, indignation and perhaps rejection. Ringing in her ears was Denise’s savvy advice not to antagonise her mother by mentioning Vincent’s attempted rape. But she went close by saying, ‘I hope, Mother dear, you know what brought me here, and that you’re not going to reproach me. You must have known I was here. You’ve taken long enough to come.’

  Anne-Victoire showed her own indignation by commenting that Saint-Lazare did not seem to have reformed her. ‘I only learned you were here three days ago,’ she said, ‘and that was the length of time it took me to receive a visitor’s permit.’

  ‘But I’ve sent you many letters over the year I’ve been here!’

  ‘That can’t be true!’

  Céleste wanted to accuse Vincent of hiding or destroying them. But in the moment’s silence she realised that her mother had been duped again, by Vincent. Céleste steered away from accusing him by asking how long her mother had been back in Paris.

  ‘What were you told when you arrived home? I suppose you noticed I wasn’t there?’

  ‘I was told the truth,’ Anne-Victoire replied.

  ‘What truth?’

  ‘That you were led astray by some woman and ran away from home.’

  Céleste stared in disbelief. The woman in question was Thérèse, whom Vincent must have seen delivering the first letter spelling out Céleste’s plight.

  ‘Who told you this?’ Céleste demanded.

  Her mother’s face flushed but she refused to answer.

  ‘How did you know I was here?’ Céleste pushed further.

  ‘Three days ago the woman who had you arrested stopped me in the street.’

  ‘Thérèse? She didn’t have me arrested. She helped me!’

  Anne-Victoire ignored her. ‘She told me you were here at Saint-Lazare. She gave me a cock-and-bull story about her calling twenty times but that she hadn’t been allowed up and was told that I had not come back.’

  It dawned sharply on Céleste that Denise had been one hundred per cent right. Anne-Victoire was accepting her lover’s version of events without question, simply because she wanted it to be true.

  ‘And how is Monsieur Vincent?’ Céleste asked with a trace of cynicism.

  ‘Well, he came with me,’ Anne-Victoire replied, ‘he’s waiting for me outside.’

  This was a declaration of solidarity with Vincent and it forced Céleste to back off. She now implored her mother to write to the Prefect of Police asking for her release. Soon the time for the meeting ended. Anne-Victoire stood, and after a moment’s hesitation, leaned towards her daughter and gave her a perfunctory kiss on the cheek. Céleste realised that her mother had made her choice clear: her lover was preferred over her daughter. It seemed to be the most unfair thing ever done to her in her short life, and carried far more pain than Vincent’s attempt to rape her. The love between mother and daughter evaporated in that single second of false embrace.

  Céleste’s hatred of Vincent was now set. She wished all sorts of calamities on him. She made a pathetic vow to get even, knowing that the chance to do so was extremely limited. She was a young girl in trouble. He was a man her mother would probably never leave. Behind the happy-go-lucky singing tradesman that everyone else liked, she saw a lying, manipulative individual with surprising guile and cunning. Céleste decided to wait until she was free before she told Anne-Victoire of Vincent’s subterfuge and his attack on her. Otherwise, she feared that Anne-Victoire would leave her in prison for another year, maybe even to rot there for a whole lot longer.

  Anne-Victoire did write to the Prefect of Police. Ten days later, Céleste was told to prepare to leave Saint-Lazare. Denise was devastated. She cried and was bitter about the departure of her young lover, who despite the deprivations had bloomed into an exceptionally attractive individual. The stay inside had matured her beyond her years in more ways than just looks.

  Denise’s deep disappointment caused her to frighten Céleste by warning her that Vincent would come at her again.

  ‘Une fois un prédateur, toujours un prédateur,’ Denise told her. Once a predator, always a predator.

  ‘Please don’t say that!’

  ‘You’ll have to face it, Céleste. Men like him don’t change. You must leave and register as a prostitute. It’ll be your chance for real happiness, and luxury.’

  Denise began crying.

  ‘These tears are for you, if you don’t avoid an awful situation.’

  ‘I promise to keep it as an option,’ Céleste said, hugging Denise, who smiled through her tears.

  Céleste said her goodbyes with tears for her warm and tender teacher Michelle, who told her to follow a ‘pure path’. But regardless, her teacher said she expected Céleste to achieve much in the life she chose, or was chosen for her.

  ‘You have the gifts of will and determination,’ she told her. Not knowing quite what this meant, Céleste was nevertheless buoyed by words of apparent praise from someone she respected highly. She left in the same cart that had brought her to that place of infamy and incident. The two horses that had plodded away, heads bowed, from the police station now took her back there with a little more spring in their clip-clop step, for the cart had only one passenger. She now wore ill-fitting, uncoordinated prison clothes, which caused a few stares rather than abuse. She had given her other dresses and shirts to a girl who claimed she needed them, though no item was ever returned.

  Céleste was placed in the tiny police station waiting room. She stayed there for three nights with half a dozen beggars from Alsace. The food was unpalatable and the unsavoury company kept her awake nearly every night.

  On day four at 8 a.m. she was summoned by the magistrate on duty, Monsieur Regnier. He wanted to know why her mother had not come for her. He took pity on her and, annoyed at Anne-Victoire’s apparent callousness, gave the grateful Céleste enough money to buy food and placed her in a cell on her own. Anne-Victoire, still cold and unyielding, finally turned up just before midnight. She was affronted at the magistrate admonishing her for her tardiness. He ordered her to promise that she would look after her child.

  Regnier then lectured Céleste.

  ‘Be careful,’ he warned. ‘Do not let any of those women you’ve met get you into trouble again.’

  Céleste desperately wanted to protest, but bit her lip and remained mute.

  ‘If you come back here I shall punish you very severely,’ the magistrate said. ‘Your mother would not be able to take you home again.’ He then added the most feared threat he could imagine, saying that if she was in trouble again, he would send her to the convent of Mont Saint Michel for six years. This was no place for fallen angels; the inmates were ‘devils incarnate’, cutthroats and murderers who would make Saint-Lazare seem like a fun park. And, equally as bad to someone with her looks, he reminded her that at Mont Saint Michel her head would be shaved.

  Céleste was most contrite in her promise that she would be good from then on.

  CHAPTER 5

  A Thespian Born

  Céleste was ebullient with her freedom. But Anne-Victoire brought her back to reality on the way home when she followed on from the magistrate’s warnings by saying, ‘Promise me you’ll behave yourself with that poor Vincent.’

  Céleste could not hold back now that she was free. She vented against Vincent and told her mother what had happened. Her mother listened in silence. Once home, Anne-Victoire took a gamble and asked Céleste to repeat her version of events to Vincent. He listened without reaction before Anne-Victoire urged him to respond.

  ‘You know that your daughter hates me,’ he said. ‘I’ve known her since she was a child, and for your sake I loved her. When she came home she was miserable and I simply tried to comfort her. I don’t know what she imagined, but she ran away. It was a pretext.’

  Vincent stayed calm. There was something pathological about his cool explanation and the way he then smiled and left the house. />
  ‘I can’t believe you seem to accept what he just said. He’s a liar!’

  ‘No, Vincent is an honest man.’

  Céleste was exasperated. After a pause, she said, ‘If he stays, I’m leaving home!’ She began crying.

  Anne-Victoire tried to calm her. In an effort to placate her daughter, she held her.

  ‘Don’t be upset,’ she said. ‘We can find another home and live without Vincent.’

  But Céleste was unsure. She was beginning to comprehend that her mother would never leave her man.

  Arguments continued. After less than a fortnight, Vincent came home intoxicated, found Céleste alone and made another attempt to give her unwanted kisses. He hugged her, she resisted; he groped her, she threatened to bite him again. Vincent made out that he was only being playful. But Céleste had no doubt that he was trying to break her down so that she would have sex with him. She tried to get away from him and leave, but he stopped her. Seeing that she would not let him have his way with her, he changed tack and asked her forgiveness for trying to rape her. Céleste was in no mood for compromise. She refused to forgive him and said she would tell her mother what he had again attempted. But she wanted to escape his clutches. Vincent was taking a big risk but knew that he could push the situation to certain limits because of Anne-Victoire’s dependence on him. Trying to appear somehow gallant, he suggested that he should leave rather than Céleste. This was bluff. He knew that Céleste had nowhere to run. She was now distraught. Her main thought was that she should flee to Denise at the brothel. But she would not be sixteen until the end of 1840, which meant she could not register as a prostitute until then.

  Céleste cried herself to sleep that night, unable to remove these ‘evil’ thoughts from her mind. She began to convince herself that the glamorous life Denise had outlined was far better than suffering in the presence of a cunning, relentless predator. Meanwhile, in the following months, Vincent would go into his ‘playful’ routine when Anne-Victoire was not at home. He even suggested that Céleste and he run away together. This was a further crafty way of seducing her—letting her think his interest in her went beyond the carnal, and that he loved her. But Céleste did not want him. He revolted her and she certainly did not wish to devastate her mother with such an extreme move.

  As her sixteenth birthday approached, Vincent’s continued, sometimes rough, advances caused Céleste to dwell even more on the brothel option. But before she seriously considered that doubtful and dangerous move, she wanted to prove to her mother that Vincent was a diabolical character. Drawing on her passion for and memory of all the melodramas she’d seen along the boulevard, she put a plan to her mother.

  ‘Pretend that you’re going out for the day, hide in my room and listen. You’ll then see who’s telling the truth.’

  Anne-Victoire at first dismissed such a scheme as juvenile. Céleste nagged her all day until she relented. Vincent returned home at 9 p.m. that night. He had been drinking as usual but was not quite as drunk as on earlier occasions.

  ‘Where’s Anne-Victoire?’ he asked, his manner weary.

  ‘She just left for the night market.’

  Vincent poured himself a drink and sank into a living-room chair. He seemed moody and said nothing.

  ‘You don’t even talk to me anymore,’ Céleste prompted. He hardly glanced at her.

  ‘You see how right I was?’ she taunted him. ‘If I had gone away with you, you would already be tired of me.’

  Vincent stared hard at her. ‘Just try,’ he said softly.

  ‘Try what?’

  ‘To come with me,’ he said, his voice mellow and enticing, ‘to be my mistress.’

  ‘What about my mother . . .?’

  ‘Arh, forget her! She’s weak and flighty. She’ll soon console herself.’

  There was the sound of something hitting the floor in the next room. They both hurried to see what had happened. Anne-Victoire had fainted. Céleste could not contain a sweet smile of victory. Not only that—she was thrilled that her acting had worked so well. It had been so successful that her audience of one had collapsed. And she could count a second in the audience, Vincent, who had been deceived.

  He was unsettled as they fetched water for Anne-Victoire, who recovered, but was in no state to respond to what she had heard. Céleste waited for her to throw Vincent out, but she stayed in bed for a week and he catered to her every whim. Each day he implored her to forgive him. He brought her flowers and gifts. Vincent did not attempt to rescind his obvious subterfuge towards her in his overtures to Céleste. There was no way he could lie his way out of the situation. Instead, he grovelled to Anne-Victoire. He promised he would be a reformed character. He would never approach Céleste again. He did claim that alcohol had a strange impact on him and weakened his resolve. He vowed he would consume less and keep control over his ‘natural male urges’.

  After a week of this, Céleste was upset as never before when her mother forgave him. Céleste now made up her mind to leave them and go to the brothel, known by the name with the dubious double meaning, ‘L’Alternative du Paradis’ (Heaven’s Alternative).

  But it was mid-November 1840 and she was still six weeks short of her sixteenth birthday. Céleste would have to endure what she saw as her mother’s cowardice, and the sneering asides from Vincent when out of earshot of Anne-Victoire. Céleste kept her intention secret, wishing her daring move to have maximum impact on her mother. Revenge against Vincent was still very much on her mind. Contempt for her mother’s weakness meant that Céleste did not care about the collateral damage, primarily in the form of shame for her family, that becoming a professional, registered prostitute would cause.

  However, Vincent had a plan to push Céleste out of the home in an expedient but less harsh way. He was careful how he put it to Anne-Victoire, but he was sure he could find a suitable marriage partner for Céleste, given her outstanding beauty and growing sex appeal. Her mother was interested in the idea. Why not use her assets, which had led to so much angst, to pass her on to someone else? The chosen man would provide for her, taking the burden off them and keeping her away from them at the same time. After all, marrying off daughters was an aim for most parents and there would be no opprobrium in such a move.

  They implemented the plan. Several hopefuls with suitable working-class backgrounds similar to their own were invited to the home to meet Céleste. She was not happy, and while polite, was somewhat surly about the matchmaking. She had dreams of rising above this social status, partly because she had seen her mother monstered by Guy, and had been herself maltreated by Vincent. More than that, she had witnessed the riots in Lyon and the working-class perpetrators frightened and revolted her. Céleste was not enamoured of men who drank heavily and liked brawling. She had dreams of partners with finesse, style and good breeding. She had spotted the aristocrats at the theatre and in their carriages. They dressed so well and their women always seemed so ravishing and happy. She dared to dream that she could attract someone of the upper class, unaware of the complexities of such couplings.

  Despite the promise of a more egalitarian era in post-Republic France, there was not much evidence of aristocrats who had missed the guillotine wooing the young women of the less salubrious suburbs of Paris. In fact, surviving members of the aristocracy were even more snobbish and precious about their status than their still intact British counterparts (and they remain so). It was true that the rich males of the middle and upper classes had relationships with working girls in brothels and even the streets. But using them for pleasure and company was a far cry from taking them to the altar in front of disapproving family members.

  Although women were emancipated legally in France in the tenth century, there was still a sense that women were like chattels (as they were under British law until the late eighteenth century)—owned by the husband once married. Céleste did not wish to be shackled to someone with that outlook. Naivety led her to believe that men with money would be somehow more respectful and
gracious with women. This was part of the vision presented by Denise and now it seemed a more alluring proposition than ever. The rough working types that Vincent and her mother introduced her to only enhanced it. She did not like the way they ogled her with anticipation and her strong olfactory sense was also offended by some of them.

  Céleste’s continued hostility towards Vincent made him anxious for her to be gone. Anne-Victoire seemed to have lost all real love for her daughter. She began to worry that he might walk out on her if Céleste did not leave. The atmosphere was angst-ridden. Céleste remained steadfast in her rejections and each day brought her decision closer.

  She turned sixteen on 27 December and was noticeably more buoyant. She chose the next day to leave, in the mid-afternoon, when both her mother and Vincent were at work. Light rain was falling. She decided to take a cab. The driver stood at the carriage door and did a double-take when he heard the address. She climbed in. The driver did not shut the door. Céleste had rehearsed this moment many times, but it had not featured a cabbie not knowing Heaven’s Alternative. She checked if he knew where it was.

  ‘Oh, yes, of course I do,’ he said with a laugh and closed the door.

  CHAPTER 6

  Not Quite Heaven

  The bordello near the Champs-Élysées was far grander than anything Céleste had envisaged. It was a four-level mansion with a well-manicured lawn and impressive, solid, dark-green façade with an attractive ivy covering. She rapped on the front door and rang a bell. A tall, plain-looking woman answered and looked around it suspiciously. Céleste was nervous and in awe of the moment.

  ‘I’m Fanny,’ the woman said with a querulous look.

  ‘Is Denise in?’

  ‘Denise?’ Fanny said with a frown. ‘There’s no one here by that name.’

  Fanny showed her into the hallway and left her there. A minute later Céleste was ushered into a room of garish pink décor. A corpulent, grey-haired madam entered the room. She wore a black lace shirt, a long silk dress and a diadem of espensive-looking stones.