by Лорен Уиллиг
“Never had a governess before,” grumbled Jeannette, the white lappets of her cap bobbing. She remained pointedly in her chair before the fire, her elbows sticking out over her knitting. She was a tall, raw-boned woman, the lace of her cap incongruous next to the masculine contours of her face. “Poor poppets. As if they haven’t had enough to get used to.”
Jean the gatekeeper spat on the floor to signal either his agreement or his antipathy for Jeannette. It was hard to tell, since his basic scowl never changed. Without a further word, he disappeared the way he had come.
Pity. Laura had almost got used to him.
Laura set her portmanteau down on the parquet floor and smiled determinedly at the inhabitants of the nursery. No one smiled back except Pierre-André, but his smile was directed more to Laura’s pockets than her person. He had obviously been bribed by indulgent adults before.
The rooms appropriated for the nursery were on the second story, just above the grand reception rooms. In other days, they might have been the suite of the Marquise de Bac. The day nursery—now schoolroom, Laura corrected herself—had been paneled in pale pink, with delicate plasterwork designs of bouquets of flowers outlined in flaking green, gold, and red paint. In the sunlight, the air of dilapidation hanging over the Hôtel de Bac was even more apparent than it had been the night before. The plasterwork was dingy, the upholstery frayed, and the windows could have done with a wash. But the nursery, at least, was warm. Whatever allowance for coal the household was afforded had gone straight to the nursery grate. For the first time since coming to Paris, Laura felt the blue tinge leaving her skin.
Although that might also have been because she was still in her coat, neither Jean nor Jeannette having made any offer to take it from her.
Unlike the rest of the house, someone had made an effort to render the nursery habitable. The small chairs and table were cheap and modern but new. A large doll’s house sat on a low table and there were already toy soldiers, a hobby horse, and a series of paper cutouts scattered across the floor. A rug covered the hard boards of the floor, protecting tender feet and knees from splinters; and curtains, stiff in their newness, hung in ruffles across the windows. A little boy with a mop of brown curls was engaged in coaxing a toy on a string on a bumpy journey across the hearth rug. His sister, oblivious, pulled up her knees beneath her skirt and went on with her reading.
It would have been a charming scene, the nurse knitting by the fire, the little boy tugging at his horse, the girl reading on the rug, but for the matching scowls on the faces of the women in the room.
“Good day,” Laura said in clear, crisp tones. “My name is Mademoiselle Griscogne and I am to be your new governess.”
Jeannette sniffed.
Abandoning his toy, the little boy launched himself at Laura’s legs. “Do you have sweets?” he asked winningly. It was clearly a ploy that had worked for him before.
Laura detached him from her lower limbs before he could go prospecting for pockets. “Good day, Monsieur Jaouen. Shall I teach you how to properly greet a lady?”
Pierre-André’s forehead creased. “I’m not Monsieur Jaouen,” he said apologetically. “I’m Pierre-André.”
There had evidently been some mistake and it fell to him to remedy it, even if it reduced the possibility of sweets.
“But someday,” said Laura, “you will be Monsieur Jaouen. I am here to help you accomplish that.”
Pierre-André looked uncertainly at his nurse. “I like being me.”
“You will still be you,” Laura assured him. “Just an older, wiser, grander you.”
Pierre-André considered. “Grand as in big?”
“Very big,” Laura promised gravely.
“Big as a house?”
Laura thought of Hamlet, banded in a nutshell, but king of infinite space. “Not in size, but certainly in spirit.”
Jeannette sniffed.
Laura turned to the girl by the hearth, who hastily jerked her book up so that it covered the whole of her face, only her eyebrows visible above the red morocco binding.
“You must be Gabrielle,” said Laura, a little bit to the eyebrows, but mostly to the book.
The book slid down just far enough to reveal a pair of scornful blue eyes.
“Don’t you mean Mademoiselle Jaouen?” Gabrielle said, in what would have been a fine show of defiance if she hadn’t marred it by glancing for ratification at Jeannette.
Jeannette smirked her approval. Gabrielle’s hunched shoulders straightened.
“No,” said Laura pleasantly. “Because Mademoiselle Jaouen would have stood to greet a stranger in her schoolroom. A little girl who hides behind her book can only be Gabrielle.”
Jeannette bristled. “It’s the nursery, not a schoolroom.”
“No,” said Laura. She had the feeling she would be getting a lot of use out of that syllable. She addressed herself to the children. Gabrielle, book at half mast, was regarding her with open hostility. Pierre-André was busy trying to be a house. “From now on, this will be your schoolroom. You obviously have much to learn.”
Gabrielle’s eyes narrowed.
Good, thought Laura. Plot revenge. Think of ways to get me back. Nothing served as a better spur to learning than a strong dose of competition.
“Schoolroom, indeed,” muttered Jeannette. “That’s no way for children to live, locked up in a schoolroom, no fresh air, no playmates. Disgraceful, I call it.”
Laura spoke over the nursery maid’s grumblings. Little had her parents realized that those acting classes in her youth, the elocution and projection, would be used not to awe the audiences at the Comédie-Française but to overawe provincial nursemaids and defiant children. In her mind’s eye, stone angels wept.
“I will teach you everything you need to know to comport yourselves as an educated young lady and gentleman. Provided, that is, that you have the capacity to learn.” Addressing herself to Gabrielle, she asked, “What schoolbooks do you have?”
Jeannette jumped in. “Monsieur Beniet taught them out of his own library. And very bright they were, too, he said. He was a wise man, Monsieur Beniet.”
“But his library, I assume, is not here?”
Jeannette nodded reluctantly.
“Is there a library in the house?”
“If there was, it’s not here anymore, is it?” said Jeannette belligerently, as though Laura had accused her of personally appropriating its contents. “Not so much as a lick of furniture, scarcely a pot in the kitchen, not a pint of fresh milk to be had. But what can one expect of Paris? It’s no place for a Christian.”
“I take it that’s a no to the library, then,” said Laura. “Since I do not make a habit of traveling with all my books on my back, new ones will have to be acquired before we can begin our lessons.”
Gabrielle smirked.
Laura clapped her hands together. Like animals, children responded well to basic noises. “Come along, children. I believe we can begin our acquaintance with an outing to the bookshop.”
The smirk disappeared from Gabrielle’s face. Jeannette drew herself up in her chair, prepping herself for outrage. “An outing? In this weather?”
Laura looked pointedly at the window. Through the grimed panes, the sun was shining and a bird chirped determinedly on one of the bare trees in the courtyard. “Better than being ‘locked up in a schoolroom,’ don’t you think?” Jeannette might be obstreperous, but she wasn’t stupid. She knew exactly when she had been had. Laura smiled beatifically at her. “If you would be so very kind as to help the children into their outdoor things, Manette?”
“It’s Jeannette.” The nurse set her knitting aside with an audible click of needles.
“Of course.” Laura’s smile didn’t waver. “Jeannette.”
For a moment, the nurse seemed prepared to defy her. The children watched, expectantly, as Jeannette remained stolidly in place, her hands firmly planted on the arms of the chair. Laura kept on smiling.
Finally, with a cre
aking of joints and a rustle of fabric, Jeannette hauled herself up. She levered herself out of the chair with obvious reluctance, making a production of the simple act of standing.
“Catch their deaths of cold,” she muttered, but the battle had already been lost. She stomped her way to the clothes press, busying herself among a pile of miniature woolens, all sturdily made and decidedly provincial in cut.
Gabrielle cast a stricken look at her nurse’s retreating back, clearly feeling this treachery deeply. Squaring her shoulders, she fought on alone. “What if we don’t want new books?”
“If you prefer to remain ignorant,” said Laura pleasantly, “that is, of course, your choice. It would be unkind, however, to stand in the way of your brother’s education.”
Gabrielle folded her arms protectively across her chest. “I like the books we have.”
“If you only read the same things over and over again, how do you expect to learn? A narrow library leads to a narrow mind.” As aphorisms went, it wasn’t one of her better ones, but it got the point across.
“Books, books, books,” sang Pierre-André, ignoring Jeannette’s attempts to stuff his arms into his coat. “Books, books, books. Can I wear my red mittens? The ones with the tassels on them?”
The mittens having been provided, Jeannette turned her attentions to Gabrielle, yanking the collar of her pelisse so high that only the little girl’s nose stuck out.
Pawing it down, Gabrielle looked challengingly at Laura. “What happens when we run out of room to put them all?”
Taking Pierre-André’s mittened hand in one of her own, Laura herded Gabrielle in front of her, through a whimsically shaped antechamber, that led, through a cunningly concealed plasterwork door, onto the second-story hall, where tapestries four times the height of a man hung in the space above the great marble staircase. “I don’t think you’re going to have that problem here, do you?”
Gabrielle glanced over her shoulder at the vast bulk of the house and fell sullenly silent. Round one to the governess. It was hard to argue that one couldn’t fit the odd book or two into an immense city palace that had lost most of its furnishings somewhere between the Revolution and its occupation by its current owner. From the way Gabrielle and Pierre-André tiptoed past the statuary and started at the echo of their own voices against the soaring ceilings, Laura felt safe in guessing that their home back in Nantes had been more of the three-bedroom-with-room-for-two-servants variety. One could hide an army in the Hôtel de Bac and still have room for an amateur theatrical troupe, a haberdashery, and a few aspiring sopranos.
What was Jaouen doing in a house like this? The faded grandeur of the Hôtel de Bac sorted ill with the man Laura had met the night before.
There was no sign of the master of the house as Laura hustled his children down the stairs, their shoes sending up strange echoes along the time-dulled marble. Laura wasn’t sure whether to be disappointed or relieved. Relieved, she decided. It was no bad thing to have time to get the lay of the land before encountering those too-keen eyes.
“Is your father at home?” she asked.
“He’s never at home,” said Gabrielle. “And he certainly wouldn’t be at home for you.”
“He’s at the Abbaye,” volunteered Pierre-André. He tugged at Laura’s hand. “Monks used to live there, but they don’t anymore.”
“Monks are a degenerate relic of the old regime,” said Gabrielle loftily. Not quite under her breath, she added, “Like governesses.”
“I’m not quite a degenerate relic yet,” said Laura, “but give me a few weeks.”
Gabrielle looked at her uncertainly, trying to tell whether she was joking. Catching Laura watching her, she hastily looked away again.
“Coats buttoned and mittens in place?” Laura asked as they approached the front door. No circuitous side routes for her today. Pierre-André proudly displayed his mittens. Gabrielle shrugged farther into the neck of her pelisse like an irritable turtle.
There were no servants to open the door, so Laura did it herself, feeling rather as though she had fallen into a strange variant of Sleeping Beauty’s castle. This was the sort of establishment that should command a score of servants at the very least, but the only staff she had seen were Jean and Jeannette. The flowerbeds that lined the walk from the porte cochere to the gate were as scraggly with neglect as the interior of the house. The hedges bristled with several years’ unfettered growth, while dead vines draped like widows’ weeds from the grand stone arch that ran across the center of the courtyard. There had once been a clock in the middle of the arch, but the hour hand had dropped off, leaving only the play of sun and shadows to mark the time.
Laura half expected Jean to stop them, but he emerged from his lair by the gate without a murmur, shoving the gate so that it yielded with the maximum squeak. Pierre-André squealed delightedly at the noise. Gabrielle looked pained.
Gabrielle scuffed her shoes against the cobbles. “Is it far?” she asked in a way that made “Is it far?” translate to “If I make enough of a fuss, will you let me go home?”
“Not very far,” Laura lied. “The walk will do you good.”
That last part, at least, was true. As if repenting of the gloomy drizzle of the previous day, it was one of those crisp, clear January days where the air is cold and thin and the sunshine edged with ice, bringing everything into a relief so sharp as to be almost painful. It pinched the children’s cheeks and quickened their step and brightened their eyes as Laura herded them through the gate and down the street. The buildings of Paris, so quick to turn gray in the rain, shone in the sunlight, in the shades of taupe and beige so peculiar to Paris, so unfamiliar to Laura after her time in London.
The Hôtel de Bac stretched along for a full city block, nothing but continuous stone wall. There were other houses like it as they walked, great town palaces hidden behind the anonymity of beige stone, recognizable only from the gates that offered glimpses into hidden courtyards marked by intricately carved pilasters and fanciful stonework. But there were smaller houses too, as they walked along, and little shops whose proprietors, encouraged by the good weather, had piled goods on tables beneath colorful awnings.
Laura led the children down towards the river, navigating by memory and instinct. Gabrielle expressed her feelings by trudging along as though every step pained her, puffing out her cheeks and scowling at the tips of her boots. Pierre-André danced along ahead, singing a song of his own devising, which consisted solely of the word “books,” repeated multiple times at varying pitch.
Laura made a note to herself to begin his musical education immediately, if only for the sake of her own ears.
It wasn’t far from the Hôtel de Bac to the Seine, but the crooked nature of the streets in the Marais made the trip longer. The temperature had dropped as the rain had lifted, freezing the mud in the streets so that the brown slicks shone like exotic minerals quarried in a faraway land. Laura handily caught Pierre-André just as the heel of his shoe went skidding on a patch of petrified mud.
“Gently, now,” she warned. “You don’t want to go flying.”
Pierre-André was favorably struck by the idea. “Don’t I?”
“Not like that,” said Gabrielle, daring Laura to contradict her. “She just meant falling. People can’t fly.”
Pierre-André’s lower lip stuck out. “Butterflies can fly.”
Gabrielle assumed all the superiority of her nine long years. “Butterflies have wings,” she informed her brother.
Pierre-André’s face set in an expression of pure stubbornness. “Then I’ll have wings too,” he announced. He tugged at Laura’s hand. “Can I have wings? Can I?”
Gabrielle started to exchange a “boys!” look with Laura. Recalling that Laura was the enemy, she abruptly pulled her chin back into her collar.
“Come close by me,” Laura said, pulling the little boy to her side as they started across the river. Below, the boatmen plied their trade, ferrying passengers along the Seine. The narro
w crafts looked like water bugs as they darted along between the banks of the river. “Or you’ll need fins instead of wings.”
“I don’t want fins.”
“You will if you fall in the Seine.” When Pierre-André looked intrigued, she added hastily, “I wouldn’t advise it. That water is icy cold.”
“How cold?”
“Too cold for a butterfly to survive—or a little boy.” She reached a protective hand out to Gabrielle as a wagon trundled past them, but Gabrielle jerked away. She hunched her shoulders up beneath her coat and walked faster, doing everything she could to distance herself from the new governess and her brother. To their right, the buttresses of Notre-Dame soared in a feat of medieval engineering, commanding the skyline, while beyond it, one could just make out the long façade of the Louvre palace. In the sunshine, they glowed golden, the windows sparkling like diamonds. Laura saw Gabrielle’s eyes widen at the sight, then carefully drop to her feet, determined not to show she was impressed.
Laura let Gabrielle have her little act of defiance. It was dreadful to be nine. It wasn’t an age one would want to live over: too old to be cooed over, too young to be treated as an equal, stuck betwixt and between, and happy with no one.
Laura and Pierre-André followed behind Gabrielle, responding to the little boy’s chatter by rote as he kept up a running commentary on the boats, the sky, the other inhabitants of the bridge, and what it might be like to be a butterfly with fins.
“There are butterfly fish,” said Laura absently. “But I believe they live in the tropics, not here. We can find you a book with pictures of them when we get to the bookseller.”
Gabrielle twisted around. “There are booksellers,” she said, pointing at the stalls by the side of the river. “Why can’t we buy books there?”
“Those aren’t the right kind of books,” replied Laura imperturbably. “We’re going to a proper shop.”
The Rue Serpente, they had told her. What could be more innocent than a trip to the bookshop? Governesses taught. Teaching required books. Even a nasty, suspicious, French Ministry of Police-trained mind couldn’t find any fault with that.