Revenant Eve (27 page)

“Keep the sword,” Jaska said. “You might need…” He frowned at the ground, and for the first time, snatched off the shapeless cap that he had been wearing night and day. Under it his hair was flat and grimy, but even so the color was noticeably paler than the rest of his unkempt locks. He ran his hands through his hair in a gesture of tension, then looked at Aurélie, his smile rueful, almost sweet. “You are as game a youngster as ever lived, but…
sacré nom!
If you run into trouble, go to the Swedish embassy. I don’t know if Madame de Staël is still in Paris, but if she is, she will surely help you, especially if you give her my name.”

He crammed the cap back on and marched off, leaving me wondering if I should try to get Aurélie to seek Madame de Staël. From what I knew of her history, she was outspoken and unafraid of consequences, but she’d also been capricious and got herself into hot water, especially with Napoleon. And even if Madame could arrange to send Aurélie to Dobrenica, what then? Send her to the palace so the crown prince could take one look and fall in love? It sounded ridiculous even to me, and
I
knew what the future was supposed to bring! Sort of.

Argh!

“Duppy Kim?”

Aurélie looked around, fumbled for her mirror, then shook her head.
“It’s not good to talk to you here. I don’t feel safe. But I know what I’m going to do.”

She began to run. All of Paris seemed to be undergoing repairs and renovation. The ghosts thickened exponentially, and I knew we had to be near the Place de la Concorde, where the guillotine still stood. The chill that wreathed the area like invisible fog reminded me of the bone chill I felt in the proximity of vampires. Only this was vast, deep, and somehow
aware
.

My mind swarmed with questions, but foremost was the wish that Aurélie avoid walking anywhere near the guillotine. I didn’t want that memory imprinted on my retinas.

Aurélie reached the broad Place du Carrousel, the square before the Tuileries palace, which was a long building with a central dome like a mansard roof pulled inward and rounded. The square was crowded mainly with men in flashy military uniforms: Gold braid, dolmans, clanking swords, glossy high boots with tassels swinging. They were too busy with one another to pay the least heed to a grubby urchin darting among them.

No one stopped Aurélie until she reached the entrance. There, a couple of guards stood duty dressed in brand new green and gold livery. One was about her age, the other stooped, his face lined with cynicism.

“No entry for the likes of you,” the older one said.

“I am here to visit a relation of mine,” Aurélie declared. “Marie-Rose Josèphe Tascher de la Pagerie, who is now Citizen Bonaparte.”

The older one gave a crack of laughter. “Citizen! That’s Madame to you, brat. Get along—unless you’ve a letter of introduction under those rags?” He burst into loud laughter.

The younger one said more kindly, “I suggest you visit one of the public baths. There are three, the Vigier, the Tivoli, or the Albert. If you return properly dressed—”

“I can do that,” Aurélie said.

“—with your papers—”

“Papers?” Aurélie repeated in dismay.

The first one laughed again, nearly muffling the sound of a female voice floating from somewhere above. But not quite.

Both footmen looked up. So did Aurélie. A window was open on the second story, a girl leaning out. “I said, who’s there? Alphonse? Who is that boy? I know that accent.”

The younger one called up, “Madame, it is an urchin who claims relation to Madame Bonaparte.”

“Send him inside. I will be there directly,” the female said, and vanished.

The young one began to open the door, but the old one pointed at Aurélie. “Hold hard, Monsieur Firebrand. You’ll not be going in there with any pistol.”

In answer Aurélie snatched her pistol from her grubby belt and shook it. “I have no powder or shot,” she said with dignity, causing a guffaw from a number of uniformed idlers who’d gathered to see what the fuss was.

The first one scowled and let her pass. “Go in. You heard Madame Hortense. But don’t touch anything! The days of looting are gone, so you remember that, or the
mouchards
will be on you faster even than me.” He spat on the ground.

Aurélie slipped inside a large vaulted entry hall and looked around with her mouth open.

This was her introduction to Josephine’s taste. She gazed in astonishment (and I’ll get to what she saw in a moment) and I was trying to see as much as I could within my usual limitations. Though I’d visited Paris before I met Alec, all that was left of the Tuileries in my time was the garden.

Aurélie recollected herself when she heard the swift hiss-hiss of slippers. A slim figure descended the last of a grand stairway. She seemed to be floating, an effect caused partly by her draperies but also by the rolling, toes-out little steps she took. We were seeing the results of Josephine’s courtly training, gained when her first husband sent her to a convent on Martinique.

As her daughter Hortense approached Aurélie, I thought about the irony of Josephine’s being trained so far away to mimic
la vraie Parisienne
, the true Parisian woman, when she was now the leader of fashion here—in Paris, in France, and soon enough in the Western world.

Hortense stopped, and for a moment the girls regarded one another. They were the same age almost exactly, Hortense a little taller, her honey-colored hair and blue eyes much the same shade as Cassandra’s. But there the resemblance ended.

“You are from Martinique?” Hortense said.

“Saint-Domingue,” Aurélie said. “And Jamaica.”

“Jamaica is English.” Hortense looked askance.

“My mother’s family is English. But my mother’s mother is connected to the Taschers of La Pagerie. I had hoped to find out news of the islands. I want to go home, if I can.”

“I can only tell you that there is much trouble there. In all the islands, English, French, Spanish.” Hortense shrugged a little. “The slaves have revolted.”

“Good,” Aurélie said fiercely.

Hortense betrayed surprise, then stepped closer. “You look like an urchin. And, forgive me, you smell like one. But you don’t speak like one.”

Aurélie said, “I am Aurélie de Mascar—well. I’m a girl, and I hate living this lie. If you’ve no news, then I must go.” Her voice, husky and low at the best of times, went breathy.

Hortense gave a trill of laughter and clasped her hands together. “I dressed as a boy once. When I was small. It was when we left Martinique. There was fire, and
Maman
ran with me onto a ship, and we had no clothes. She had to make a gown out of sailcloth, and they dressed me as a cabin boy.”

Aurélie said with heartfelt sympathy, “It must have been terrible.”

Hortense flushed. “It was fun for me, though perhaps not so much for
Maman
. But that’s of no importance. If you cannot take ship, what will you do?”

Go to the Swedish embassy
, I shouted mentally, poking at her. I was thinking they might be able to send her east.

Aurélie recoiled, and shook her head. “Not now, Duppy Kim,” she whispered in English. “I must think.”

Hortense’s eyes were huge. “Did you say ‘duppy’?”

Aurélie flushed. “And if I did?”

Hortense took a deep breath. “My mother will want to meet you. I know it. Will you stay a bit?”

Aurélie looked down at herself. “But I’m not at all
comme il faut
.”

“That’s easily repaired,” Hortense said. “Come into my mother’s suite. They’re at Malmaison just now. Things could not be more perfect. And here I began the day so sad…”

She led Aurélie into the adjoining salon. Aurélie’s steps faltered as she gazed around at the furnishings freshly covered with blue-violet taffeta and embroidered with golden honeysuckle. Dominating the room was a gold-framed portrait of St. Cecelia. “It’s so beautiful,” Aurélie exclaimed.

“Oh, you ought to see Malmaison. Here, Bonaparte would not permit her new furnishings. She could only refurbish the old.
Maman
hates this place,” Hortense said as she led Aurélie into the next salon, even larger than the first, done in yellow and brown satin with red highlights. The mirrors on the walls were draped, the porphyry side tables supported Sèvres vases and rose granite decorations embellished with bronze.

“She says the ghosts linger, and though she does not see them, she feels them. Her bedroom is through there. That was the room used by the Committee of Public Safety. She says she can feel the grip of death in that room, all those lives they ordered to be ended. Out there, on a table—now gone—in the entry, that is where Robespierre himself lay bleeding while they decided his fate. He shot himself in the jaw, you know. Then they carried him out to the guillotine.”

“I’m glad he’s gone,” Aurélie said as they entered the bedroom.

“Oh, he’s not the worst of them.” Hortense paused and looked around with a frightened face, her hands clasped tightly under her chin, as if she expected spies to leap out from behind the blue and white, gold-fringed coverings. Then she caught herself. “But Bonaparte can stop him.”

“Stop who?”

“Fouché. He has his spies, his
mouchards
, everywhere.”

Mouche
is the word for fly. Aurélie grimaced as Hortense leaned
toward her. “He even pays
Maman
, who always has debts. She tells him little things about life here and pretends to be his friend. She says it’s foolish to turn your back on a snake, just because you don’t like venom.”

Hortense opened a door.

“This was Marie Antoinette’s bedroom, and
Maman
says she knows her sad ghost is lurking. Here’s the wardrobe.” They passed the great mahogany bed in its alcove and entered a dressing room filled with mirrors as well as shelves and trunks, the hangings simple blue and white muslin.

“Look through the clothing while I summon the servants.” Hortense flitted away, leaving Aurélie staring at an enormous room full of trunks and shelves holding every color of fabric. The number of hats alone seemed to stun her. She stood there unmoving.

When Hortense returned, she let out a peal of laughter. “I see that I’m going to have to take you in hand! There’s nothing I like better. Now, you must choose one of these pretty muslins. We have ever so many, but Bonaparte hates to see us in them. Everything must be French silks and velvets, he decreed, but you’re a young girl, not married, am I correct?
You
can wear muslin. And it’s a shame for these not to be seen.”

As she spoke Hortense pulled out one gown after another, while shaking her head or pursing up her mouth. The flimsier gowns of the Directoire were instantly discarded, the older tunics modeled on Greek figures, everything diaphanous.

Hortense settled on a pretty gown with tiny puff sleeves. “And if we need to pin up the hem, why, it’s still very much in fashion to drape and hold it in place with cameos. Come, the bath should be ready by now.” She pointed to the adjoining chamber.

A short time later, Aurélie stood straight in the gown, her skin glowing clean as Hortense fussed happily with her wet hair. “It will dry in kiss curls—oh, you are so beautiful, Aurélie! I am charmed, and envious, all at once.
Maman
is going to love you. I think I have an idea, but…who did you say you were?”

Aurélie stared down, her face reflected her inward struggle, then she said, “My mother sent me here with the name de Mascarenhas and a
dowry, she said to help me. And it did, but the name, it’s not truly mine, and the dowry, my English relations kept.”

“If that is not just like the English,” Hortense exclaimed. “Though I must confess I very much liked the Duchess of Devonshire. We’ve met some very fine English, but those newspapers! The horrid things they say about
Maman.
And that
mechant
Lord Morpeth, who would not permit his wife to be presented to her—” Hortense gave a little shrug and threw up her hands. “What is a name? Bonaparte changed his. He changed my mother’s! Did you know she was always Rose, until she met him? Keep your fine name, for these days it’s Madame this and that, instead of Citizeness, and some whisper it will soon be Her Majesty. I wish I could see your duppy!”

Aurélie ran to the mirror and touched it. I laid my hand over hers. “There she is, do you see?” Aurélie cried.

Hortense gazed into the mirror. For a moment her eyes met mine, but then she frowned and shook her head. “For a heartbeat, I saw a woman, but there was another woman, like smoke, or steam, and many men. It makes me dizzy.” She pressed her hands to her eyes, then turned away.

Aurélie looked around quickly. She spun too fast, but I thought I saw shifting shadows in the corners, the shape of an inclined head here, a silhouetted arm there. A lifted wing, or wings, smoky and blurred.

These were not like any of the ghosts I had experienced so far, so I didn’t know what to make of them. It was clear to me that Aurélie didn’t see them as she walked away from the mirror, examining the gown with its embroidered bunches of grapes.

Hortense dropped her hands and regarded Aurélie in satisfaction. “Yes, you simply must come to Malmaison. We’ll go today. I was so unhappy that I refused to go with them, for they’ve been arguing. Mr. Charles James Fox wishes to visit, you see, and Bonaparte won’t permit him to present his wife. I don’t know if it’s spite because of Lord Morpeth, or what, but he and
Maman
argued and argued, and…” Hortense gave that little shrug. “I was feeling ill this morning and begged to be left behind. But we may order up a carriage.”

Hortense pulled a pair of shoes from a shelf. “These are mine. I think I only wore them once. See if they fit.”

Aurélie slid her feet into the slippers, careful to keep her ankle from showing. “They fit well enough.”

“Then it’s perfect. You shall be, how do they say it there? Donna Aurélie de Mascarenhas, and that’ll be good enough. Bonaparte will never trouble himself beyond that, not for a mere girl. And if you come among us, no doubt he will soon marry you off to one of his generals, and then you’ll have another name altogether.”