Belle Epoque (30 page)

The maid is packing my trunk. All my clothes and jewelry, including the bracelet I was given, are to be sent to the
countess’s room. She lays out all the dresses on the bed and neatly folds them. It should be upsetting to see my precious wardrobe taken away, but clothes don’t seem as important to me now that my future is bleaker than night.

“Do you know anything? Have they mentioned me downstairs?” I ask the maid.

She looks up sheepishly. She must have been instructed not to say anything.

“Please,” I press her. “I need to know.”

“Well,” she sighs, smoothing out a blue velvet evening dress on the bed. “The countess said she found out you weren’t Madame Vary’s niece at all. The countess is saying you’re a fraud—a con artist trying to swindle rich people.”

“Of course,” I say, sitting down on the bed next to the piles of clothes. She wants to destroy me completely.

The maid stops packing and looks at me. “The countess said she’s been racked ever since she found out. Claims she didn’t want to upset her daughter.”

I shake my head. “What theatrics.” She is taking her performance to the extreme.

The maid continues, “Said she finally had to act when she suspected you of trying to poison Mademoiselle Isabelle against her family and ruin her marriage prospects.”

She lays the clothes between layers of tissue paper.

“Do you believe her?” I ask.

She chortles to herself. “Not really. She can say whatever she likes against you.”

The maid is right.

“I heard her give instructions to the staff that you are to be turned out of the chateau at first light. You’ll be given a servant’s uniform to wear. They say you stole all these nice clothes from the people you’ve been conning along the way.”

She closes the trunk and looks at me through pale lashes. “It’s not true, is it, mademoiselle?”

I don’t answer. I am a fraud. I did con Isabelle and try to undermine her dreams.

“What about Isabelle?” I ask. I can’t imagine what she must think of me now.

“They announced her engagement to Monsieur de Rochefort tonight at dinner. At this very moment they’re down there celebrating. The footman said Mademoiselle Isabelle didn’t look too happy, not like a blushing bride-to-be.”

I shake my head. The countess was calculating in revealing my identity. She used the shock of my betrayal to crush Isabelle’s defenses. If only I could explain to Isabelle that I considered our friendship real and that in the end I was trying to protect her.

“Thank you,” I say. “For sharing that with me. I know you didn’t have to.”

She smiles apologetically. “I’ll just call for help with the trunk.”

She leaves the room and moments later returns with a burly valet. I watch as they carry away my belongings. All that’s left is the nightgown on my back.

A few minutes later the maid returns. “Sorry, Mademoiselle Pichon, but I’ve been instructed to lock you in for the night.”
She darts her eyes away, embarrassed to be the one relaying this. “Someone will let you out in the morning, and then you’re on your own, I’m afraid.”

I nod. Of course I am not to be trusted. “What’s your name?” I ask her.

She looks at me, surprised to be asked. “Sophie.”

“
Merci
, Sophie,” I say with as much kindness as I can.

Before she closes the door, she hurries across the room and gives me a brief embrace. “
Bonne chance
, mademoiselle.”

After I hear the key turn in the lock and I know I’m alone for the night, I let myself cry.

I
AM A DIRTY SPECK
in a blanket of white.

The carriage that was supposed to drive me to the train station got stuck in the snow the moment it left the shoveled part of the driveway. The countess couldn’t have planned it more perfectly if she’d tried. With the roads impassable, the driver merely shrugged; what could he do, what did he care—I was a criminal, a con artist in everyone’s eyes. I’m sure he wondered why I wasn’t being arrested instead of being escorted to the train station and given enough money for a fare to Paris. I was forced to get out of the carriage and walk from the chateau, the avenue of trees my only clue as to the direction of the long driveway.

I have no luggage since the countess commandeered the trunk, and Sophie was not lying about the servant’s clothes. When the chambermaid opened my door in the morning she brought me a scullery maid’s uniform: a thin cotton dress, wool stockings, boots too large for me and a moth-eaten wool mantle.

Marie-Josée was correct to the letter: they stripped the clothes off me and turned me out, and in a snowstorm, no less. As I trudge through the snow, it occurs to me that if the roads are blocked, the trains won’t be running either. But I press on, despite the painful bite of cold: where else have I to go?

With everything coated in white, the scratchy dark branches and faint animal tracks are the only break from the monotony. I feel as though I am walking into emptiness. I have nothing now. I have lost a true friend, Isabelle, and cut off another, Marie-Josée. And Paul—how wrongly I treated him. Why couldn’t I have told him the truth?

I keep walking. My feet are turning numb; my stomach is empty. Finally I turn off the tree-lined avenue from the chateau and onto the main road to town. The snow isn’t as deep here. I think of what’s waiting for me in Paris. I will be fired from the agency in disgrace. I have some savings, but not much—getting used to the good life with the Duberns made me live beyond my means on my days off. I have frittered away my wages on clothes and other treats for myself. My future feels as desolate as this countryside is under snow.

The sky is lightening and the sun is trying to burn through the curtain of cloud. It makes me think of the whiteness of photography paper and the image of a face surfacing. The revelation of photography stays with me. That was real.

A twig snaps and I’m startled until I realize it’s just a bird in a tree. As I walk past, it takes off. Its wing flaps sound like sheets snapping on a clothesline.

“Nothing like the feel of clean sheets, Maude Madeleine.” A blustery laundry day at home, where my mother is hanging out
the washing. I dispense the clothes pegs while she wrestles with the linens. Her hands are cold and red from the scrubbing. She smiles at me broadly. “Like being wrapped up in springtime.” The sheets wave around her like sails, breaking up the slant of sun on her face.

Her image fades to white.

It takes me about an hour, frozen to the bone and damp through, to reach what must be the stone wall of the train station. I stop at the entrance, prying open the wrought-iron gate stuck in a drift of snow. The stationmaster’s little cottage looks shut up, but a puff of smoke from the chimney tells me he’s inside. I knock on the door and wait until eventually he comes out, flustered, not expecting anyone today. He sells me a ticket to Paris and lets me into the waiting room, where I am the sole passenger. It is several hours until the snow has melted off the tracks and the trains start running again. That’s a long time to think over the mistakes you’ve made and to contemplate an uncertain future.

I arrived back in Paris late on Saturday night. One reprieve is that today is Sunday and I don’t have to face Durandeau and the rest of the agency until tomorrow. I hole up in my garret room with the curtains drawn—I have no desire to venture outside. I stay in bed, not sleeping or reading but lying as still as can be, not wanting to move or feel, my insides hollowed out. I could fall in on myself. I am not sick, I am not dying, but I keep as still as I can to see what death would feel like—to disappear, to become invisible. I don’t want to occupy space
or a place in the world; I want to quietly vanish into my surroundings.

The rotting window frame allows a current of air to push against the curtains, making them shiver in the breath of the draft; patterns of sunlight dance, then dissolve on the wall by my bed—a shadow play from the hand of the unseen. Could I capture that with my camera? With another wave of sadness I realize that there is no point messing about with photographs now; I’ll need every franc for food and shelter, not plates and chemicals. I close my eyes to beauty and fall into an unrestful sleep.

When I wake on Monday I know I must return to the agency, even though every part of me recoils at the thought of it. My own clothes are still in the agency dressing room, not to mention my last week’s pay, which is all the more vital to me now.

I pull myself together, wash, dress and brush my hair, feeling the whole time as though I’m about to attend a funeral. The route to work is familiar: the omnibus across the river, then a walk up avenue de l’Opéra. But this time it feels worse than my first day of work, worse than the first day I met Isabelle. Walking through the long hallway to the dressing room, I regret all the times I chose to keep on my Dubern outfits and swan through the agency rooms for all to see. I enjoyed feeling better than the other girls. Now I have come full circle. I want to return to being the anonymous wallflower with the muddy hem who came in for the interview so many months ago.

Everyone must have heard of my crushing defeat with the
Duberns. Surely the countess will have sent word to Durandeau outlining her termination of the contract, along with her fury and her desire to have the remainder of the clothes returned. Durandeau’s favorite client, his foothold in the aristocracy. These words play over and over in my mind until I finally stumble onto the question that I’ve been trying to avoid: how is he going to punish me?

I open the dressing room door. For a moment, when I am met with the familiar scene and the friendly faces, I feel a flood of relief, but it’s short-lived. I step into the room and walk to my dressing table, and one by one the girls stop chatting and simply stare at me. That’s when I know that news of my dismissal has reached everyone’s ears.

And there is Cécile, standing triumphantly center stage, the rest of the repoussoir company, including Marie-Josée, present and accounted for, waiting for me to speak.

I take off my hat and sit down at my dressing table. I will save Cécile the bother of asking.

“The countess fired me,” I say, looking straight ahead at my reflection in the mirror, not turning around.

“We all know that, Maude. But why?” I see Cécile in the mirror, rushing toward me, gleeful and hungry for details.

“I wouldn’t do as I was told,” I answer simply. “That pretty much ended my contract.”

Cécile wasn’t expecting such a vague answer. “That’s it? But what did you do?”

I think of Marie-Josée coaxing me to share details with the girls about my experiences with the aristocracy.
Pay these girls some mind
, she said.

Not today, I think. Let them make up the worst stories they can about me—I don’t care.

I turn to look at them and survey the faces: my colleagues are judging me. Some show pity, some contempt. I don’t care about any of them, just Marie-Josée. I find her ruddy face and try to catch her eye. I’m looking for a sign of friendship. She doesn’t avoid my gaze, but she meets my request for friendship with a blank stare. There is no familiar sparkle or warmth. I don’t blame her. I treated her unforgivably.

There’s a knock on the dressing room door. Laurent’s handsome face appears, but today he looks serious, for once.

I know why he’s here.

“Let me guess,” I say. “Monsieur Durandeau would like to see me in his office?”

Laurent nods.

To
MY SURPRISE
, I
AM
still an employee of the Durandeau Agency. February, cold and drab, has blown past. It’s now March, marked by showers and occasional sun. Spring is coming, but my mood is still in winter. I am somber and listless. I take refuge in my room and watch the sunlight glimmer through a rain-soaked windowpane. Sometimes I stroll the streets, ending up by the banks of the Seine, which is as close an experience to the beach as I can find in the city.

As I stand with my colleagues in the salon for a client selection, I recall Durandeau’s tirade of furious words.

“I knew you were trouble when you came in for the interview. Refusing the job in the first place, then coming back weeks later with your tail between your legs. Miserable waif, you would be nothing without this agency.”