Finding Emilie (34 page)

“It’s official, ma petite,” she said to Delphine. “Our families have agreed to terms. You and Ambroise will be married this fall, just before the beginning of Advent.”

“Oh, Maman!” Delphine said, rushing into her arms. “Merci mille fois. Merci. Merci.”

“
WHY ARE WE
stopping?” Lili asked a week later, as the carriage taking them to the Jardin de Roi stopped in front of a shop on the Rue Saint-Antoine.

“Just wait here,” Delphine said. “I have a gift for Maman I need to pick up.”

Lili waited in the carriage while Delphine went inside Lacroix et Fils. In a few minutes she came out carrying an oblong box covered with shiny watered silk. Laying it on her knees when she was back inside the coach, she lifted the lid. Inside were two pairs of supple kid gloves, one in black, and the other in a deep rose that was one of Maman’s favorite colors.

“You know why, don’t you?” Delphine said.

Lili smiled at the sudden recollection. “The bet with Maman,” she said.

“She wagered two pairs of gloves that I would prefer to go to the Jardin de Roi than have them.” Delphine’s eyes filled with tears.
“And she was right. I’ve treasured every minute of it, and I thought turning the wager around would be a way to thank her for her confidence in my better nature.”

Lili smiled. “I was betting against you too. It’s easy to be happy there,” she said as the carriage started up again. “But I don’t imagine you’ll be going much anymore. You’ll be too busy this fall, and then—”

“And then I’ll be married,” Delphine said. “I love to say those words. I can’t believe it’s coming true. I was so miserable just a few months ago.”

The carriage was crossing the Pont Marie, where the shops built up on both sides of the bridge made a passage so narrow it was perpetually in shadow. Delphine leaned forward to see Lili better. “Are you all right?” she asked. “You know—about Jean-Étienne?”

“He did what he had to do. It would be wrong of me to wish he had done something less—” Her throat tightened, and she heard the telltale hoarseness in her voice. “Less admirable.”

“Look what happened to me. You shouldn’t give up.” Delphine reached over to take her hand. “It’s not too late yet. He still has months to come to his senses.”

Lili leaned back in her seat. Try not to care. Try …

Delphine’s eyes narrowed. “Or for me to search down that Francine and get her to believe he’s a terrible prospect.”

“You wouldn’t!” Lili sat up straight, bouncing in her seat as the carriage left the bridge and went onto the rough, unpaved quay on the far side of the Seine. Would she?

“Well, how do you think I’d feel if Ambroise put off our wedding just so he could go off on an expedition to look for bugs or leaves or something? Maybe I can make her despise him for it. I wonder where she lives …”

The coach pulled up in front of the Jardin de Roi, and Lili looked out the window to see a distraught Comte de Buffon waiting for them with a letter in his hand. “I’ve received a note from your mother by courier,” he said, handing it to Delphine through the open coach door.

She read silently for a moment before handing it to Lili.

“My dear Buffon,” Julie had written. “Please tell my girls that they must not come back to Hôtel Bercy today. The scullery maid became ill with cholera in the night, and the cook is showing symptoms this morning. I learned of this only minutes after Lili and Delphine left. I have sent a message to Baronne Lomont to ask her to take them in for a day or two until the severity of the situation can be assessed. Tell them I will write to them there later. Gratefully, Julie de Bercy.”

Buffon asked the driver to wait and stepped up into the carriage. It rocked with his weight, but Lili and Delphine sat immobile as porcelain dolls, absorbing the import of the letter. He sat down next to Delphine and looked across at Lili. “I think you should go to Baronne Lomont’s right away,” he said. “We won’t be able to get any work done today.”

“People die of cholera,” Delphine whispered.

“It’s not well understood,” the count replied, clearing his throat. “Sometimes it sweeps through the entire city and sometimes it affects only a single block, or a single household. Sometimes it is fatal to almost everyone, and sometimes—” He stopped, seeing the horror on their faces. “It’s important to determine how severe the situation is at Hôtel Bercy,” he went on, “and your mother is quite right that you must avoid contagion.”

“But what about Maman?” Delphine said. “She should come to the baroness’s as well.”

“She has a role to play. She must keep the household from panic. She must bring doctors in and see that their orders are followed. She would like to reassure you in person—I’m sure of that—but right now she can’t. And of course, she can’t be certain now she hasn’t been—” Buffon stopped short and opened the coach door. “I’m keeping you from further news,” he said. “You must go.”

The driver cracked his whip, sending the coach at frightening speed down to the Seine and across the Pont de la Tournelle to the baroness’s house. Unnoticed, the box of gloves slid to the floor, spilling its contents into the darkness.

* * *

LILI AND DELPHINE
were met at Hôtel Lomont by the valet. “She is waiting in the chapel,” he said. “The priest is here.”

The chapel was barely large enough to contain a bench along one wall and a small prie-dieu in front of an altar. Two candles made white rings on its marble surface and sent soft light upward toward a painting of the Virgin ascending to heaven on a cloud held up by angels. Lili gave an inadvertent gasp at what for a moment looked like Maman’s face under Mary’s blue veil. No, she thought. You can’t die. You can’t leave us. Not now. Not ever.

Baronne Lomont was kneeling at the prie-dieu and the priest was in front of the altar. When Lili and Delphine entered, he helped the baroness to her feet. Her face in the dim candlelight was gray and swollen. “Maman?” Delphine whimpered. “Is there news?”

“Your mother has taken to bed,” the baroness replied. “She is not feeling well, but she says she is certain it can be attributed to exhaustion.”

“I’m on my way to see if I can get some information from the valet,” the priest said. “I was waiting for you to arrive because the baroness thought you might be comforted by the sacrament. Of course to receive it I would have to hear your confession and absolve your sins.”

Lili stepped back, aghast. Confess my sins now? How can I even think of what they are, with Maman in a house with cholera?

Delphine nodded her head. “I would like that,” she murmured. The priest nodded his head. “Of course this must be done privately, so come with me.” He turned to Lili. “And you, mademoiselle?”

You are the last person in the world I would tell my secrets to, she thought with a shudder. Despite the promise of confidentiality, that simpering little priest would find a way to tell the baroness anything he thought she needed to know. “I’d rather just stay here and pray alone,” she replied. He arched his eyebrows and looked at the baroness, whose expression was hidden in the gloomy light of the chapel.

“Very well,” he said, leading Delphine into the parlor.

Lili sat on the bench and crossed herself. Though she tried to focus on God in the dark and airless chapel, a swirl of memories flooded her mind. Don’t cry into your napkin, ma chérie—It would make the baroness truly furious … Your thoughts are the most beautiful thing about you … What are you so afraid of, that the mere presence of a book inside your walls makes you do this to a young girl? … You are going to require an accomplice to have the life you want, and that will require a search worthy of the daughter of the woman who bore you … Meadowlark is your voice—don’t you want it to be heard?… I’m curious why you haven’t asked me how I knew what had happened to you at the abbey …

“You were always watching over me,” Lili whispered, remembering what she had told Maman so many years ago as she rode away for the last time from the Abbaye de Panthémont. She pulled herself up and held her breath, praying with all her heart that Maman would be strong, that she would get well, and that life would resume just as it was.

When I was young, I used to pray for this and that, but now I know the most important thing to wish for is that I will have the grace and good character to handle whatever comes … Lili trembled, hoping that she would not need to put Maman’s advice to use quite so soon.

SEVERAL HOURS LATER
a note arrived from the priest. “Madame de Bercy is afflicted with cholera,” he wrote, “but so far the symptoms do not appear particularly severe. I will send news again this evening.”

In the middle of the afternoon, after picking at an austere dinner, Lili and Delphine went to their rooms to try to rest. As the long summer dusk dragged on, they were summoned by Baronne Lomont. “One of the servants died an hour ago,” she said, “and Madame de Bercy is gravely ill.”

In the windowless chapel they sat with no idea of the passage of
time. “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death,” they recited as rosary beads slipped through the baroness’s fingers. And then, just as they finished, they heard the sound of footsteps at the door. The valet’s face was grave as the baroness took the letter from the small silver tray he carried.

Lili held a shaking Delphine up by the waist as Baronne Lomont read the letter silently. She refolded it before speaking. “She is unconscious and has been given last rites,” the baroness said, handing the letter to Delphine. “She will not last the night.”

“She can’t die,” Delphine whispered. “There just isn’t a world without her.”

WHEN THE TAILORS
came to Hôtel Lomont to fit them for their mourning wardrobes, Lili and Delphine stared straight ahead, allowing the tailors to lift an arm or reposition a hip as if they were not inhabiting their bodies at all. Delphine’s marriage had been postponed, and since it was out of the question for unmarried women to live alone at Hôtel Bercy, she would be leaving for the Abbaye de Panthémont after the funeral. There she would live in private quarters until her wedding the following spring. Lili would stay with Baronne Lomont until she could be married.

Robert de Barras was one of the first to pay a visit of condolence at Hôtel Lomont. His cheeks showed signs of color and his voice seemed oddly loud. He’s in his element around death, Lili thought, heaping onto him all the rage in her heart at the unfairness of his being alive while beautiful, vibrant Maman would never charm a guest in her salon again, or offer a scented handkerchief to wipe away Delphine’s and her tears, or pat their knees with a loving smile.

The night of the funeral, Lili awoke to find Delphine crawling into bed next to her. They sobbed in each other’s arms until the first light ushered them into restless sleep.

T
HE HEAT
from the forge was so intense that Emilie stepped back, pulling her ten-year-old son with her. “Don’t get so close, mon cheri!”

“But I want to watch with Papa!” Florent-Louis whined, pulling away and grabbing the hand of the Marquis du Châtelet. Voltaire stood next to him, shouting orders over the roar of the flames. With a sigh, Emilie came to stand with them, mopping her face delicately to avoid smearing her makeup. The beauty mark pasted on her cheek slid off into her handkerchief, and she scowled at it.

“Can’t he see this is pointless?” she whispered to herself. “Can anyone really be that stubborn?” The Academy of Sciences had offered a prize for the best essay on the nature of fire, and as the August deadline loomed, Voltaire was in a frenzy, trying to prove that light and heat were forms of matter by weighing and calculating their mass. Iron and lead were incessantly heated and cooled in the foundry at Cirey. Perfectly measured quantities of wood were burned to see if they expanded before being reduced to ash. Emilie was tired of it all. “Pointless!” she muttered again.

A few weeks earlier, she had stalked away from her husband, who, like everyone else, seemed to think that fire, smoke, and noise must equal science, and that Voltaire’s wildly waving arms and shouted demands were signs of a genius at work. “Why don’t you just burn down the forest and measure that?” she had said, and then, to her astonishment, Voltaire called that an inspired idea. While servants
stood at the ready with buckets of water, he and the marquis had set a small forest fire to calculate how quickly the flames spread. And then, when Voltaire couldn’t interpret the results, they had done the experiment again with a new patch of trees.

“It must work next time,” Voltaire said of each experiment as they discussed it over dinner. “It has to! I’m not just a writer, you know!”

It was easier to go along. After all, Voltaire was the only truly interesting thing in her life, even when he was being a fool.

“I’m not feeling well in this heat,” Emilie said, turning away from the forge. “I’m going back to the house to rest. You can tell me about it at dinner.”

“Can I stay, Maman?” Florent-Louis said, jumping up and down. “Please?”

Emilie smiled. “As long as you mind your father.”

“This is really no place for a woman,” the marquis said, putting his arm around his son’s shoulder. “We’ll see you in a few hours.”