Belle Epoque (29 page)

“Pleasant enough, a little arrogant, easily bored.” She kicks the hard ground. “Is that reason enough to say no?” She laughs halfheartedly.

“I thought your answer would be a definite no.”

Her eyes meet mine. “Of course my answer is no.” Her voice is strident. “That’s what I told Mother, isn’t it? It’s just …” She stops short of finishing her thought and sighs. “I’ve been thinking about what you said in the library yesterday. Maybe I
am
naïve to think that if I pass an exam I can change my future.”

I feel a gut punch of guilt. My treacherous words have seeped into her mind and soured her confidence.

She goes on, “And what if I don’t pass? Just as you said, do I end up staying a child in my mother’s house forever?”

It’s as if she’s a doll, placed in a box to be sold. Her decisions are being made for her; her future is in someone else’s hands. I look at Isabelle and for the first time I see myself.

“You really might accept him?” I’m shocked at her broken resolve, dismayed to know I had a hand in it.

She shakes her head. “I can’t believe I’m even considering it.” She is beginning to sound desperate. “You probably think I should accept.” She gives me a brief smile. “For someone with an artist’s heart, you can be terribly practical at times.”

I look down at the ground. With each step my boots break the thin layers of ice encasing dead leaves and twigs. I think about everything Isabelle has exposed me to—the techniques of photography, her knowledge of architecture, her passion and drive. My world has opened up because of her.

“I suppose it’s the proper thing for a girl like me to do,” she continues, resigned.

It doesn’t matter the personal cost to me. If there’s the least chance she might go ahead with this match, I must tell her what I know. She’s my friend.

I stop walking and turn to her. “You can’t marry him,” I say. My voice is clear; I commit to my decision.

She looks surprised. This isn’t what she was expecting.

“I found out something about Xavier de Rochefort that you must know.” A crow caws at us from high up in a tree.

Isabelle’s dark eyes grow large. “Tell me.” She’s waiting for me to speak.

“I saw him force himself on a servant.”

Her face contorts in disgust. “When?”

“Last night after you went to bed. I heard a noise in the servants’ stair.”

Isabelle absorbs the news. “But wasn’t it dark? Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. I saw his face in the moonlight, clear as day. I don’t know who the housemaid was, but she got away. That time, anyway.”

Our breath curls about us in the frozen air and we continue walking.

“Why didn’t you tell us in the library?”

I can’t meet her eyes on that question. Isabelle has brought us around to the biggest obstacle: her mother. “I didn’t know how your mother would react and if I would get in trouble—why would she take my word against someone important like Xavier de Rochefort? I’m ashamed to say it, but I was worried about myself.”

“Well, you’ve told me now, so that doesn’t matter. In a way it’s just what I need to go up against Mother. I’m sure when we tell her, she will break the arrangement. She will be furious, of course. Yet more plans thwarted.”

Piles of dead leaves block our path and we stop.

“Until the next time,” I say. “Your mother will find someone else to match you with, and then where will you be?” I can hear the hopelessness in my own voice. “This is the second botched engagement. She might get desperate, and then who knows what kind of person she’ll find for candidate number three.”

She shakes her head. “What do I do?”

“Tell her what you want, tell her your plans for university.”

“Now?” she asks. “Before I even know if I’ll get accepted?”

I nod, aware that I’m going against my best interests. I’m putting the nail in the coffin of my current position, and of course the dangled future in the South of France, but I don’t have a choice. Even if our friendship began with a deception, a true friend is what Isabelle has become.

“Isabelle.” I look her straight in the eye. “I believe in you and your dreams. You can study, have a career and support yourself in time. I know you can.”

Isabelle nods slowly as it sinks in what she’s about to do. “Face Mother and confess everything,” she reflects out loud, and her eyes shine brightly. She grabs my hand. “Will you come with me?”

She doesn’t know what she’s asking. After this I can imagine the countess will give me my marching orders the moment we return to Paris, and the agency door will slam shut in my face once Durandeau finds out. I can see my future hanging by a thread. My resolve wavers. I squeeze her hand. “Of course I’ll come with you.”

She lets out a giddy shriek, then gives me a tight embrace.

Arm in arm we turn around and head back along the woodland path. Gradually, the temperature drops. The afternoon sky is anemic with the promise of snow. Against the white, the shadow of the chateau looms in the distance, and I try to control my rising panic. I cannot imagine the countess’s reaction to Isabelle’s decision.

W
E FIND THE COUNTESS DOZING
in her room.

Sitting in an armchair, wrapped in a cashmere shawl, she opens her eyes, blinks for a moment, then extends her arms toward Isabelle. “Well, my darling. Did you make a decision? This is going to be an emotional day for your dear
maman
.”

We rehearsed what Isabelle would say to the countess on our way back along the garden path. Isabelle doesn’t make a move toward her mother and keeps her arms locked by her sides as she recites her answer. “Mother, I absolutely refuse to marry Xavier de Rochefort. He arranged this with you like a business negotiation.”

The countess’s face goes blank and she drops her outstretched arms to her lap. “Really, is that so?” she says, all warmth gone from her voice. She turns to the side table and opens a silver cigarette case.

“Not only that, but Maude and I have discovered some disturbing information about Xavier,” says Isabelle.

The countess lights a cigarette and blows the smoke above her head.

Now it’s my turn. My hands are balled into fists so tight I can feel my nails dig into my palms. “Countess, if you let this marriage go ahead, you are throwing your daughter at the worst kind of man—someone who forces himself on a defenseless chambermaid.”

“Nonsense!” She stares at me for a moment, taken aback by my treachery. “Just what are you talking about, Mademoiselle Pichon?” Her expression twists into anger, and I do my best not to shrink back.

Isabelle chimes in. “It’s true, Maude saw it with her own eyes.”

The countess laughs. “You’re talking about the future Viscount de Rochefort.” She’s trying to shrug us off, but I know her feathers are more than ruffled.

She gets up and throws off her shawl, cigarette in hand. “Assuming it’s even true, you take the word of a
servant
as gospel?” She shoots me a glare, and I know she means that
I
am the servant.

She takes a seat at her vanity. “Don’t be naïve, Isabelle. Men are what they are. And besides, he didn’t force himself on
you
—that would be unforgivable. I don’t see that it matters. What’s a chambermaid to us?” She takes a last puff of her cigarette and stubs it out in the ashtray.

Isabelle and I exchange a look. The countess’s dismissive tone is loathsome.

She chuckles to herself. “At least we know he doesn’t share the same tastes as Montesquiou—him you would catch with the valet.” She pinches her cheeks to give them some color.

“The girl probably felt lucky to attract someone as important as the viscount’s son. Gives her something to gossip about belowstairs.”

She opens a bottle of perfume and dabs some on her neck and behind her ears. “I mind that she wasn’t discreet—at least it was only Maude who found out.”

Of course, I think, because who am I? Merely a person of no consequence.

“The decision has been made, Isabelle.” She turns to face us, her expression rigid. “You will marry Monsieur de Rochfort.”

“I won’t do it.” Isabelle stands resolute. “You can’t make me. I have other plans.”

The countess rises and walks toward us. Isabelle has lit a fire in her eyes. “Other plans? There is one future for you and it’s already mapped out.”

She smells of stale tobacco laced with perfume. All I can think is
You
are the repoussoir. You repel me.

As if she can read my thoughts, she turns her attention from Isabelle to me.

“Now, Maude, since you are so helpful and full of revelations this afternoon, why don’t you tell Isabelle who you really are?”

A wave of terror passes over me.

“Go on, I don’t mind; you’ve served your purpose, what little you did.” She folds her arms and watches me, enjoying how the tables have turned. “After all, the engagement is going ahead.”

I open my mouth to speak but there’s nothing I can say. I plead with her silently. Yes, I’m willing to sacrifice my job if it helps save Isabelle from a disastrous marriage. I expect to be
ripped to shreds once the countess has an audience with me alone, but for her to tell Isabelle the truth—to reveal her own scheming—I could never have predicted her cruelty would go that far.

“Mother, what are you talking about?” Isabelle looks from her mother to me, baffled.

The countess cocks her head playfully. Her coolness terrifies me. She is so very in control that her wrath doesn’t billow wildly like smoke but burns with the intensity of a white-hot poker. “Didn’t you know that your little friend works for me?”

With that brief utterance my world is shattered. I want to scream. This can’t be happening.

The countess addresses me. “What did you think, that you could cross me and fill my daughter’s head with dangerous ideas? You were paid to do a job.”

I’m light-headed; it’s the same sensation as facing into a driving wind, when you feel the breath blown out of you.

Isabelle interrupts. “I don’t understand. What are you talking about?” She takes a step away from me.

The countess ignores her daughter’s question. “Honestly, at first I did just want a plain girl to make my daughter stand out. If you hadn’t become such a confidante to her, the opportunity to become my informant wouldn’t have arisen. You blazed the trail of influencing Isabelle, and took to it so naturally—you obeyed me effortlessly. This is all your own doing.”

Her expression is the very same self-satisfied smirk she wore that first day of my interview in the salon.

“Would someone explain to me?” Isabelle’s voice is raised.

The countess looks at her daughter. “Isabelle, dear, Maude is what’s called a repoussoir—she’s a foil, a plain girl hired to make you look more beautiful. I felt you needed all the help you could get this season.”

“What?” Isabelle breathes the word, barely audible. Her face dissolves into bewilderment. None of this makes sense to her.

The countess is unmoved. “She then became my little spy. You’re so secretive, and I am just a concerned mother, trying to help her daughter.”

Her recklessness with Isabelle’s feelings is what finally causes my anger to erupt. “Why do you pretend to care about Isabelle?” My voice is shrill and quavering. “Are you truly looking out for her future? Or is your interest in her season, the chance to live it again for yourself?” I take a step toward her. My legs feel like jelly and my insides have withered, but I force myself to say what I think. “You envy your daughter. She has her youth, beauty, and her whole life to lead. You already made your choices, and you’re miserable.”

To reach this point of anger makes me want to cry, but I hold myself together.

The countess laughs, mocking me. “You are nothing more than filth from the streets, desperate for a morsel of what I have. You really are a repellent little creature.”

Isabelle stammers, “Wh-why? Why did you do this to me?” I look back at her. She stares at her mother with horror and then looks at me, her face crumpled in an expression I’ve never seen before.

The countess replies calmly. “Your first season is the only
one that counts. Other girls your age are positively giddy about the idea of finding a husband. I couldn’t let you throw it away. Maude was to be an accessory, like Grand-Maman’s jewels or a new dress. Something to make you stand out and shine like a Dubern. Then I saw how well you two got along and it seemed only sensible to keep control of you.”

My heart twists in my chest at her words, as though she’s managed to reach in and grab it in her talons. She claims it was my fault, and maybe it was. She found my weakness, my need for friendship and acceptance. I was her puppet. I excelled at being manipulated and in turn manipulating others.

Isabelle looks at me, her face stricken. “Maude, tell me this isn’t true!”

I look her straight in the eye. The lie sits on my lips, but I can’t voice it.

“It’s the truth.”

Shut in my room at the chateau, I look outside at the snow falling in heavy flakes, thick and lush like peony petals from the sky. It’s been falling like this for hours. If I were to step into the cold night and look up, perhaps I would see a host of servants leaning out from upstairs windows scattering handfuls of petals from baskets, just for our pleasure. After everything I have seen of this gilded life, it wouldn’t surprise me if the rich could summon the weather.