I Am Madame X (18 page)

Marguerite looked up from the program she had been studying, noticed me watching her, and stared back.

“Let’s go,” I said and grabbed Mama’s arm. I led her through the Palais’s arcade and down the avenue des Champs-Elysées, past the long row of plane trees, the jetting fountains, and the statues of the mythical figures Prometheus, Venus, Diana, and Flora.

We got into a cab at the place de la Concorde and set off up the rue Royale. As we passed the Madeleine, a landau pulled next to us. Our cab speeded up, but the landau kept pace. We turned onto the boulevard des Capucines. The landau followed, then drew beside us, its white horses riding neck and neck with the cab’s drays.

Through the landau’s open windows I saw a flash of peach satin and raven hair. Marguerite Orléans was following us.

Our cab creaked to a stop in front of Magny’s. Marguerite Orléans’s landau stopped behind ours. Before we could enter the restaurant, she ran up to us.

“Mademoiselle, I demand an interview.” Her almond eyes blazed fiercely.

“What is the meaning of this?” said Mama.

“Mademoiselle Avegno knows exactly what I want to talk to her about.”

“I’m afraid I don’t.” I was trembling, and my voice cracked with fear.

Marguerite turned to Mama. “Your daughter may be the age of a schoolgirl, but she is just as experienced as me,” she sneered.

The color drained from Mama’s face. She opened her mouth as if to speak, but no words came out.

“She’s crazy,” I said to Mama. Then I shouted to Marguerite, “Leave us alone!”

“I want to return your earring to you.” Marguerite reached inside her purse and pulled out a dangling gold earring with a pearl drop on the end—one of a pair Grandmère had given me before we left Parlange.

Mama’s eyes grew wide, her face even paler.

“Mimi, what’s she doing with your earring?”

“I found it in the bed of my lover, Dr. Sam Pozzi.”

Mama grabbed my arm and jerked me toward the taxi stand. She pulled me into a cab. “Forty-four, rue de Luxembourg,” she said, her voice quivering.

“It’s not my earring,” I lied.

Mama stared straight ahead, her face a stiff white mask. “As soon as we get home, I want to see the pair of earrings Grandmère gave you.”

The cab pulled to a halt in front of our house. Mama pushed me to the pavement and marched behind me through our front door and up the stairs to my room. She retrieved my onyx jewelry box from the dressing table and held it out to me. “The earrings, please,” she demanded.

I grabbed the box from her hands and flung it across the room. A shower of glittery objects scattered across the parquet.

“I don’t have it!” I shouted and dashed to my sitting room. Mama ran after me, but I got the door shut and locked before she reached it.

“Mimi! Come out!” Mama banged on the door with both fists. “Do you realize what this means? No one will marry you now. You’re ruined. And don’t think I’ll put up with your whoring. I’ll turn you out. You’ll end up working in the refreshment room of the women’s prison at Saint-Lazare!”

“Dr. Pozzi will marry me. We love each other!”

“You love each other!” she snorted. “I’ve raised a fool!”

A moment later, I heard Mama’s heels clicking down the hall. I fell to the floor, sobbing, and cried until I had no more tears left. I was still whimpering on the floor two hours later, when there was knocking on my door.

“Mimi, it’s me, Julie. Open up.”

“Is Mama with you?” I cried.

“No. She came to the Palais to get me, and I left her there with Sophie and Filomena. Let me in.”

My head was throbbing, and I felt an icy sinking in my stomach. I was so ashamed for spoiling Julie’s Salon debut. I opened the door and fell into my aunt’s arms.

“Oh, Mimi,” she said.

“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry,” I cried, my voice breaking with sobs.

“Today doesn’t matter. It’s you I’m worried about.” Holding each other, we collapsed on the settee. “I blame myself for not paying enough attention to you. And I blame
him.
” She frowned. “But this is not the end of the world. You can write to him tomorrow morning. You’ll break with him and move on.”

“But I love him!”

“I’m afraid he’s deceived you, Mimi. You have no future with Dr. Pozzi.”

“That woman Marguerite Orléans was lying. I’m sure of it.”

“I doubt that very much,
chérie.
”

Julie stayed with me for the rest of the afternoon and evening. One of the maids brought us supper on a tray, though neither of us ate anything. I played the piano a bit; we talked; and eventually we both fell asleep in my big four-poster.

That night I dreamed of Valentine. She was running up the alley of oaks at Parlange, while I sat in a wicker chair on the gallery, knitting a child’s sweater. She wore a blue cotton dress that reached just below her knees, white stockings, and black leather shoes. Her thin legs loped gracefully in the slow motion of my dream, her silky red hair undulated out from her shoulders. As she drew close to the house, she stumbled on a stone and began to fall forward. I rose from my chair, dropping my knitting, and leaned over the gallery railing. Then I, too, started to tumble head first, over and over. Before I hit the ground, I snapped awake.

I felt sick to my stomach. I got out of bed, staggered toward the basin, and vomited. It was the first time I had thrown up since I began to suspect I was pregnant, about a month before. The idea was too horrible to face, so I had pushed it to the back of my mind.

Julie rushed to my side, leaned over me, and wiped my forehead with a damp cloth.

“I think I’m
enceinte,
” I said.

“Oh, God,” Julie moaned. “When are you supposed to see him again?” She spat the word “him.”

“Today, at one.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“Mama will never let me out of the house.”

“I’ll take care of your mother.”

Julie went to her room to dress. A half hour later, I heard her and Mama screaming in the hall outside my door. Mama was threatening to send me back to Louisiana, shrieking that I could “rot in the country” for all she cared.

“She’s just a child, Virginie,” Julie shouted back. “It’s not her fault. That man is a horror. You know his reputation. I want to talk to her. I’m taking her out for some fresh air.”

I heard Mama scurry down the hall, then a door slammed. A moment later, Julie entered my room. “The coast is clear,” she said. “Let’s go.”

Outside, filmy white clouds scudded across the blue sky, and golden light filtered through the trees. We took a cab to Dr. Pozzi’s building, arriving just as the maid waddled out the front entrance.

I followed Julie up the stairs to the fifth floor. At the top, she rang the bell.

Dr. Pozzi opened the door dressed as he usually was for our trysts, in a floor-length red dressing gown tied with gold cord. On his feet were red embroidered slippers. “Mimi, you’ve brought your aunt,” he said, actually sounding pleased to see Julie.

In the parlor, Dr. Pozzi took our shawls and hung them on a coatrack. Ignoring me, he said to Julie, “Congratulations, Mademoiselle de Ternant, on your success at the Salon. I hear you’re likely to get a bronze medal.” He smiled broadly.

Julie dug her cane into the Turkish carpet and glared at him. She was about to speak when I blurted out, “I’m pregnant.”

Dr. Pozzi’s smile evaporated, and his eyes hardened. “I rather doubt it,” he said. He looked quickly at Julie, then at me. “Is that why you’re both here? Well, let’s have a look.” He put his arm around my shoulder and began to lead me to the bedroom.

Julie took a step toward him. He put out his hand to stop her. “Don’t forget, I’m a doctor. If you want to know for certain, you must let me examine her.”

In the bedroom, Dr. Pozzi closed the door behind us. “Lie down,” he ordered.

“Have you been sleeping with a whore named Marguerite Orléans?” I asked, trying to keep my voice level.

“Oh, God.” Dr. Pozzi flopped into a leather chair near the window, pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, and wiped his brow.

“You’ve deceived me!” I cried.

“I haven’t deceived you. I’ve supplemented you. We’re not married, may I remind you, and I’ve never promised you anything.”

“Well, you must marry me now!”

“Let’s see if you
are
pregnant.”

I lay across the green satin comforter. Dr. Pozzi lifted my skirts above my waist, fumbled under my petticoats, and pulled my drawers off over my shoes and stockings. He parted my legs, and placing his left hand on my belly, he reached deep inside me with his right hand. I felt a sharp pinching. Then he pulled his hand out and walked to the washbasin. Along the way, he kicked the chest where he kept his French Letters, the sheepskin contraceptives that were popular at the time.

“The uterus
is
enlarged. It’s true. You’re pregnant,” he said as he washed his hands.

“We’ll get married, won’t we?”

Dr. Pozzi looked up to the ceiling, then walked over to the bed and sat down next to me. “Darling, I can’t marry you or anyone else right now.”

“Why?”

“It’s just out of the question—my work.”

“What’s going on in there?” Julie shouted through the door. Dr. Pozzi opened it, and my aunt hobbled into the room.

“She’s pregnant,” he said.

“You will marry her, then?” said Julie.

“I was just explaining to Mademoiselle Avegno that marriage is impossible.”

“May I remind you of your honor, sir.”

“I don’t consider it honorable to ruin both our lives in a hasty marriage. Mademoiselle Avegno is not compelled to have this baby. I can cut it out. I’ve done it dozens of times. It’s a safe, simple procedure if performed by an expert surgeon, which I am.” Dr. Pozzi spoke flatly, his face a blank, dispassionate mask.

“Will it hurt?” I asked.

“I’ll give you ether to put you to sleep,” Dr. Pozzi answered.

“And it really is safe?”

“Absolutely—if I do it.”

“It is
not
safe, no matter who does it,” Julie cried. Her eyes looked frightened. “In fact, it is extremely dangerous. Why do you think so many prostitutes die?”

She shifted her gaze to Dr. Pozzi. “Abortions are for whores,” she snapped. “I won’t let you risk my niece’s life. We will make other arrangements.”

Julie grabbed my arm and dragged me out of the bedroom. She snatched our shawls off the coatrack and pulled me through the door and down the five flights of stairs.

On the boulevard Saint-Germain, the sun glinted on the cold expanse of new buildings, illuminating their carved cornices. The air smelled fresh, floral.

“What other arrangements were you talking about?” I said as we waited for a cab. My head throbbed with pain, and I felt a sob rising in my throat. Julie stared into the cloudless blue sky.

“Tell me! What other arrangements!” I screamed.

“I have no idea,
chérie,
no idea at all.”

On a rainy evening two weeks later, I arrived by train at the gnarled stone depot in Saint-Malo on the northern coast of Brittany. The little station was deserted except for a lone carriage parked by the side of the road and a coachman in leather breeches standing next to it. As I stepped to the wet platform, the coachman ran toward me.

“Mademoiselle Avegno?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. I drew my thin shawl across my chest. Though it was August, the air was raw, and I was shivering.

“Come with me.”

He took my carpetbag and led me to his carriage. No sooner was I settled inside than the reins snapped and the old broughham lurched toward the dark, dripping woods.

We were headed for Paramé, site of Château des Chênes, the estate where Pierre Gautreau had grown up and where his widowed mother still lived with her unmarried, half-witted niece. As the carriage clattered through the muddy roads, past the marshlands and forests where pirates once roamed, water slapped the windows, and the wind bellowed.

It took a half hour to reach the château. We entered through high stone gates and drove along a gravel road past an intricate pattern of gardens. As the rain beat down, water overflowed the fountains and streamed off the statues of Greek gods and goddesses. At the end of the road was a circular drive and, silhouetted against the sky, a four-story
malouinière
dominated by row upon row of white shuttered windows. The carriage halted; the driver jumped from his seat and opened the door. He helped me to the ground, then removed my carpetbag and placed it on the doorstep. “There you are, Mademoiselle. Good night,” he said, tipping his hat as he ran back to the carriage.

I pulled a thick gold rope that hung on an iron hook, and heard chimes within. A minute later, a maid opened the door and led me through a marble-floored foyer to the salon. It was a high-ceilinged circular room, opening out to a terrace and a garden beyond. The room was decorated conventionally—Pierre’s Oriental aesthetic was nowhere in sight—with red plush sofas and chairs, and mustard damask covering the walls. A porcelain clock ticked loudly on the mantel; the gas lamps hissed. Playing cards at a table at the far end of the room were two somberly dressed old women—Pierre’s mother and aunt.

I hated them on sight. Madame Gautreau was short and wide-hipped, with hooded, watery brown eyes and a wrinkled, liver-spotted face. Her wiry gray hair was arranged in a bun at her neck, and she was dressed in a dark gown with a lace-bordered collar. The ivory-knobbed cane she used to rap on the floor to summon the servants rested across her pillowy lap.

The aunt, Millicent La Chambre, was the ugliest woman I had ever seen. She had a long, bumpy nose dotted with hairy, purple moles, and red-veined, bulging eyes. She was wearing a shapeless black gown with a traditional Breton collar of pleated white muslin. Her vacant expression suggested, as Pierre had warned me, that she was “not right in the head.”

Though Millicent was Madame Gautreau’s niece, they were exactly the same age. Madame Gautreau’s mother had become pregnant at fifty, in the same month that her eighteen-year-old daughter conceived Millicent. The fact that the old mother gave birth to a beautiful child, while the adolescent’s offspring was hideous, seemed a cruel irony. Madame Gautreau’s mother had offered to switch children—“Everyone will expect an old lady to have an ugly baby,” she had said—but her daughter had refused. She remained devoted to Millicent until her own death in middle age, at which time the poor creature moved in with Pierre’s mother and father. Millicent had tried to be useful, helping with the light housework and sometimes, when the governess was ill, looking after Pierre. Her idea of amusing the little boy was to teach him to smoke cigarettes.

The old women interrupted their card game to stare wide-eyed at me. A moment later, Madame Gautreau spoke. “Good evening, Mademoiselle. I trust you had a pleasant journey.” Her voice was raspy, heavy with round Breton tones.

Before I had a chance to answer, Millicent blurted out, “I’ve got cigarettes. Want one?” She reached into her pocket and started to rise from her chair.

“Sit down!” barked Madame Gautreau.

Millicent dropped into her seat. Her mouth was twitching slightly, and a wounded look appeared on her face. Madame Gautreau turned toward me.

“Well, I’m sure you’re tired. Angeline will bring you something to eat in your room.” She waved her large knuckled hand at me and returned to her cards.

“Thank you,” I said. The old lady’s rudeness annoyed me, though I was happy to escape her company.

Carrying a tray containing a bowl of soup, bread, and a bottle of red wine, the maid Angeline led me upstairs and through a maze of dimly lit corridors. “Here’s your room, Mademoiselle,” she said, opening the door onto a square, oak-beamed boudoir. Above the mantel hung a painting of Christ’s Crucifixion. Old brown calico curtains draped the bed; the same fabric covered the sofa and two chairs. Angeline left the tray on the table and mumbled,
“Bonne nuit.”

After she left, I explored the warren of rooms surrounding the bedchamber. Door opened upon door, revealing a cluster of closets, antechambers, and a wainscoted
cabinet de toilette.
There were two garderobes. One held a large armoire; the other contained a bidet, a washbasin, and a chamber pot. A panel behind the bidet hid a door to a secret staircase leading to the garden. I learned later that in pre-Revolutionary times, the house had been owned by the grandfather of Chateaubriand’s wife, Céleste Buisson. It was here, according to local lore, perhaps in this very room, that the famous writer kidnapped Céleste, whose family opposed their union, and fled with her into the forest.

Just as I finished the meager supper prepared by Angeline, there was a knock on the door. I opened it to find Millicent standing in the darkness, holding a lighted candle stub.

“Do you want to see my rabbits tomorrow?” she asked.

“Where are your rabbits?”

“In a cage near the stables. My niece won’t allow them in the house.” She held the candle stub in front of my face and stared at me with her mouth open.

“Millicent, why are you looking at me like that?”

“I want you to see my rabbits. I have white ones and brown ones.”

“Fine. I’ll visit the rabbits tomorrow. Now it’s time to go to sleep.” I closed the door, got undressed, and fell exhausted into bed.

The next morning, I was awakened by chapel bells tolling for an old peasant who had died during the night. The storm had broken, and a cool, fresh breeze floated in from the windows. I flung wide the bed curtains, dressed quickly, and took the secret staircase to the garden to explore the grounds.

Château des Chênes was its own little village, busy with a greenhouse, stables, a laundry, a meadow with grazing sheep and cows, plum orchards, a caretaker’s cottage, workers’ huts, gardens filled with statuary, and a small stone chapel where Pierre’s mother and cousin said prayers every day and heard Mass on Sundays. Surrounding it all was the forest of oaks that gave the compound its name.

At the end of the garden, I took a path that led through the woods to a burbling stream. I removed my shoes and stockings and walked along the edge, letting the water roll over my feet. As I strolled, inhaling the cool, briny air, I brooded about the events that had brought me here.

The discovery of my pregnancy and Dr. Pozzi’s abandonment of me had plunged Mama into paroxysms of rage and grief. Now she had no hope of fulfilling her chief ambition—to marry me off to a French aristocrat. I wasn’t in the room when Julie broke the news to her, but for days afterward Mama stormed around the house, threatening to pack me off to a home in Lyon for incorrigible girls or across the ocean to Parlange. I begged for the latter, but upon reflection Mama decided to keep me in France. “I don’t want everyone at home to see what you’ve become,” she hissed.

“I’ll say I was married and that my husband died,” I pleaded.

“So you’d lie? They’d all see right through you,” Mama snapped.

That evening, Mama went out to dinner with Pierre Gautreau. They returned to the house together at ten and sent the maid to my room to bring me downstairs. When I entered the salon, they were sitting next to each other on a settee, looking white and solemn. Mama rose to let me sit next to Pierre, then settled herself on a chair by the mantel.

Pierre took my hands in his and gazed deeply into my eyes. “Your mother told me what has happened,” he said gravely. “I’m offering to marry you and give a name to your child.”

I yanked my hands from his and slid to the far end of the settee. “Marry you!” An image of Pierre lying naked on top of me flashed through my head. I shuddered.

As if reading my mind, he said, “I’m proposing a
mariage blanc.
I will make no claims on my rights as a husband. You and your child will live in my house, but for the most part our lives will be separate.”

“Why would you do this? Don’t you want a
real
wife?”

“I was engaged once, to a girl in Brittany. A childhood friend. But she died of typhoid five years ago.”

Mama jumped to her feet, twisting a linen handkerchief in her hands. “Tell her about Madame Jeuland,” she said.

“Who is Madame Jeuland?”

“Madame Jeuland is Pierre’s
petite amie—
” Mama began.

“She’s married to a well-known Paris lawyer,” Pierre interrupted. “He knows about us but will not separate from his wife, as it would ruin his career. My marriage to you would give Madame Jeuland and me a convenient cover. And it will get my mother off my back about remaining a bachelor.” Pierre stroked his beard. His eyes looked large and sad.

This was the first I had heard of his having a lover. I had always assumed he was secretly in love with Mama.

“Do I have any other choice?”

“No.” Pierre and Mama answered at the same time.

Over the next few weeks, Pierre came several times to rue de Luxembourg for dinner. It was just the three of us in the dining room, Mama and Pierre sitting at either end of the long table with me on the side facing the marble fireplace. Neither of them mentioned the baby, or marriage. Mostly they talked about furniture and their various plans for redecoration. I had no interest in this subject, and I said nothing.

For a while, I’d listen resentfully. Then my mind would wander off. I’d be far away in a daydream, imagining Dr. Pozzi proposing to me on bended knee, then our romantic wedding at Saint-Sulpice. Once, when I was envisioning myself floating down the steps of the church on Pozzi’s arm, the train of my white silk gown billowing out behind me like a sail, Mama’s voice burst through the reverie. “You’re not eating a thing,” she scolded.

“I’m not hungry,” I snapped. I had lost all interest in food. I was dropping weight when I should have been gaining. I was sleeping badly, too. Often I dreamed of Dr. Pozzi and woke up yearning for his embrace. These spasms of longing were followed by fits of rage, not only at the handsome doctor but also at myself for behaving so recklessly. I was profoundly confused. One moment I vowed to snub Pozzi if ever I ran into him again, and the next I plotted a meeting with him. In my mind’s eye, I looked breathtakingly beautiful and Dr. Pozzi found me impossible to resist; realizing that he couldn’t live without me, he begged my forgiveness.

Eventually boredom and wretchedness drove me to act foolishly. One evening, I told Mama I was going to Julie’s atelier, and I took a taxi to Dr. Pozzi’s apartment on boulevard Saint-Germain. I had the idea of confronting him when he arrived home from work. I stood in the shadows by a newspaper kiosk. My heart raced, and my face felt flushed, though it was a balmy evening, luminous with starlight. What would I say to him? What would he say to me? I began to panic. Suppose he spoke harshly to me? Suppose he was with another woman? That thought brought a sob to my throat. I choked back tears, and at that moment, Mama’s carriage pulled to the curb. She had followed me.

“Mimi, come here,” she called as she stepped to the pavement. I ran across the street, hailed a cab, and beat her home by two minutes. By the time she arrived, I had locked myself in my bedroom.

At breakfast, Mama announced that I would leave that afternoon for the Gautreau estate in Brittany. Pierre telegrammed his mother to inform her of our engagement, and to let her know that he was sending me to Château des Chênes for a few weeks so I could get to know his family. It was undecided how long I’d remain in the country, or when we’d be married.

The walk through the woods that first morning in Paramé refreshed me, and I returned to the house at ten. A formal table had been set with china, crystal, and silver, and a footman stood behind each chair. Madame Gautreau was perched at the head; Millicent and I sat opposite one another. Hardly a word was spoken as we ate baked ham and croissants and drank coffee from large white bowls. When the footmen had removed the dishes and departed for the kitchen, Madame Gautreau leaned across the table and said in her coarse rasp, “Mademoiselle Avegno, that dress is too décolleté for morning.”

My yellow silk gown had a low, but hardly plunging, neckline.

“In Paris, this is a regulation daytime toilette,” I replied, not trying to disguise my annoyance. I wasn’t about to let Madame Gautreau dictate my appearance.

“That might be true. But you’re not in the city now. I’ll thank you to wear a shawl at table henceforth.”

Suddenly a frightened look came over Millicent’s face. A moment later, a brown rabbit darted from under the square white napkin on her lap, sprang across the table to the floor, and scurried across the room.

“Millicent!” screeched Madame Gautreau.

Millicent looked terror-stricken. “It was a p-p-present for Mademoiselle Avegno,” she stammered. “For her baby.”

“What baby?” Madame Gautreau snapped.

I felt my face turn scarlet. Pierre had not told his mother about my condition; indeed, he had urged me to try to hide it. Though the increase was barely discernible, I wasn’t taking any chances. That morning I had laced my corset by throwing the strings over the bedpost and then pulling them as tight as I could until I was nearly suffocating. No one would suspect my pregnancy by looking at me.