Spirit of Lost Angels (7 page)

It was a clear spring day, the streets dry but the traffic congested, as always. These weekly half-days off kept me sane. As I escaped the stifling blue-blood house, I forgot, for a few blissful hours, the limp creature that waited for soft footfall on the stairs with the fatality of defenceless prey.

I strolled along the rue du Bac towards the river, eyeing fashionable ladies bent under the weight of elaborate head-dresses. Some of the decorations soared over a metre high, and were fortressed with wire, cloth, horsehair and the flour so many peasants needed just to survive. All of Paris was copying the Queen’s hairstyles but I did not envy them, especially the ones who rode along with their head sticking out the carriage window like a dog. I laughed at those ladies.

Instead of crossing the river on the Pont Royal, I continued along the left bank until I reached the Pont Neuf — a more lively bridge where swindlers, beggars, thieves, magic healers and entertainers gathered.

A dentist mountebank stood high on a dais, accompanied by a drummer and a trumpet player. Teeth and jawbones embossed the dentist’s gold-trimmed, purple gown. A live cockerel was perched atop his silver hat, and his magnificent horse boasted a necklace of teeth.

The patients’ knuckles white as they gripped the chair legs, the dentist’s assistants extracted their rotten teeth with great long tongs. I hurried along, thankful I had no dental ailment, for now.

‘Messieur Dames, make your eye-glasses for you?’ a man called.

‘Wooden legs to fit all ex-soldiers,’ another cried.

‘Buy my magic luminescent herb,’ a pedlar said. ‘Never again shall you be fooled.’

‘Ma’moiselle, ma’moiselle!’ a man sang out to me. ‘A powdered gem to beautify your lovely face even more?’ he said. ‘To stop the wrinkles and give you long life?’

I smiled and shook my head. I had no sous for such a thing. The small indulgence I allowed myself, I saved for the place where booksellers laid out their books and the public letter-writers had their booths.

As I rifled through the books, the trader handed me one from the bottom of a pile.

‘I recommend this, ma’moiselle,’ he said.

I read the title: ‘
L’Ingénu
. What does it speak of?’

‘It tells the story of an Indian who comes to our sophisticated capital,’ the man said, his eyes wide with enthusiasm, as always when he told me about a book. ‘The author, the enlightened Voltaire, pokes fun at our religion, our justice system, our corruption.’

‘Oh, right,’ I said. ‘Yes, that does sound interesting.’

It would be difficult to understand the words of this Voltaire, but I knew I must persist if I was, one day, to escape the humiliation of the diabolical Marquis in whose home I was a prisoner as sure as if he shackled me to my attic bed.

‘A most valuable work,’ the man went on, ‘because,
naturellement
, the police have censored it, and for you, lovely ma’moiselle, I’ll make a special price.’

‘I will buy your book, monsieur,’ I said handing him the coins.

My illegal purchase concealed beneath my cloak, I stood on the bridge span, gazing up the river at heavily-laden ships, rowboats and fishermen’s punts ploughing the dirty brown water. Barges emerged from under the next bridge ahead, the Pont-au-Change. A flower market burst with colour, floral perfumes mingling with the smell of the great sewers flowing into the river.

A barefoot beggar woman holding a filthy child held out a palm. I shook my head. The child was probably not even hers. Claudine had told me begging was a well-known profession, where people borrowed diseased and deformed children, and manufactured realistic sores from egg yolk and dried blood, working the yolk into a scratch to produce a crusty effect. They made fake humpbacks and clubbed feet, and blacked out eyes to give dramatic impressions of blindness. Beggars were also masters at mimicking epilepsy.

Once on the opposite side of the river, I avoided what must be the most horrible district of Paris — that great stinking central market, and the slaughterhouses, from where rivers of curdling blood and discarded innards flowed into the sewers. Instead, I strolled down the rue Saint-Honoré, gazing into luxury furniture and clothes shops.

I weaved back towards Saint-Germain, through the street vendors selling tobacco, matches, ribbons and paste jewellery, and men waving pamphlets from café doorways — pamphlets printed on illegal presses. My gaze strayed to their portrayals of the Queen in unnatural positions with the King’s brother, and others depicting Marie Antoinette in sexual acts with her friends, the Princesse de Lamballe and the Duchesse de Polignac, along with the caption:

These two ladies help the Queen widen la porte de Cythère so that her husband’s jeanchouart, always soft and bent, can more easily enter it.

I crossed the river, pausing again on the bridge as the dying sun angled itself above the water, the sunset tapering across the slate roofs. How different the city light was to that of Lucie. Perhaps it had to do with so many buildings, but at times the light was so bright I felt it burned the flesh right from my bones.

The boats had disappeared, brief gusts sawing jagged notches across the river’s surface so that the Seine glittered like a scattering of thousands of louis d’or. I imagined all those golden coins were mine — riches to flee the noble home of Saint-Germain, return to Lucie and, perhaps, become Madame Léon Bruyère.

I gripped the book close to my chest, casting my despair, my helplessness, aside, and dreamed of the day I would punish the Marquis de Barberon. I was not yet certain how, but the brute would not escape chastisement.

***

Claudine stood at the stove stirring a pot of lamb ragout. Its rich, garlicky aroma sailed up my nostrils as I rubbed my hands before the fire crackling in the hearth. The copper kettles glimmered orange in the firelight and Roux, curled in a chair also gleamed orange.

I set my book on the table. ‘Look what I bought.’

‘Ah, Voltaire,’ Claudine said. ‘Didn’t the police censor that?’

‘So it must be interesting,
n’est-ce pas
?’ I said with a knowing smile.

Claudine shook her head. ‘You young people … your new ideas.’

‘I must improve the literacy skills my mother taught me, Claudine. I will not be a servant all my life.’

‘Your maman sounds like a wise woman. My father too, taught me a few letters.’

‘Well you must practise with me then.’ I opened the book at a random page.

‘L’Ingénu, plongé dans une sombre et profonde mélancolie, se promena vers le bord de la mer…’

Claudine bent over my shoulder, reading with me.

‘… et souvent tenté de tirer sur lui-même.’

‘So, does he kill himself, this
ingénu
?’ Claudine said.

‘How would I know? I haven’t got to that part yet. Besides, I need to copy out the difficult words, to learn them.’

‘… maudissait … ravager … compatriotes … ’

‘Such beautiful handwriting you have, my child,’ she said. ‘You might one day be a writer yourself
.’

‘What a dream,’ I said, flexing my fingers, cramped from gripping the quill. ‘You know, I think it is easier to write what a person feels, than to tell it to someone.’

I set the paper aside. ‘Tell me more about Versailles, Claudine. If I am ever to get anywhere in life, I must know what is happening with our rulers … I need to understand how it all works.’

‘Well,’ she began, blotting sweat beads from her brow, ‘a great man named Turgot became the Controller General four years ago.’

She left the lamb to stew and began melting sugar and cream to make her delicious caramel. ‘He told them all at Versailles to stop spending, and refused to grant favours to the Queen’s cronies. Marie Antoinette had even bought a cabriolet and drove it herself, very fast!’ Claudine giggled, a chubby hand covering her mouth. ‘Of course the court was shocked and the Austrian woman became his enemy.’

I smiled; it was like listening to Papa’s stories again. 

‘Two years ago,’ Claudine went on, ‘Turgot got rid of the
corvée
. You know the
corvée
, my child?’

‘Oh yes, when they drag peasants from the fields and force them to build bridges and roads … free labour for the crown.’

‘Well nobody liked that decision,’ she said, ‘except, naturally, the voiceless peasants. So our weak King sacked Turgot.’

‘Why is the King weak?’

‘He is a jolly, but childish man,’ she said. ‘He behaves not like a king, but like some peasant shambling along behind his plough. Even his wife teases him, calling him “poor man”. He can’t hear, can barely see and spends his time playing silly jokes like tripping up pages with his
cordon bleu
, pulling faces and scampering around with his breeches dangling around his ankles. All he ever thinks about is his next meal.’

Claudine slid a bowl of eggs towards me. ‘You wanted to learn how to make meringues,’ she said. ‘Well, start by separating the eggs.

‘They do say he’s good with his hands though,’ she went on, as I separated the whites from the yolks. ‘Beating out bronze and copper, carving wood, making locks. The man should have been an artisan, but never a king.’ She nodded at the egg whites. ‘Keep beating, yes, like that. Don’t stop.’

She shuffled back to the stove. ‘And I have heard, Victoire, the word “Revolution” is simmering on the lips of every Parisian.’

My dearest Rubie,

You may wonder about your mother for a long time. I have penned this letter for the day you will finally dare to ask about me. Had I not been blessed with a wise mother, I may have remained illiterate my entire life, and you would have only been able to guess about me. On this day of your birth — the feast of Michaelmas — it is as if I mastered those skills for the sole reason of telling you the truth. Because I want you to know, my child, that I had no choice.

You must have been conceived soon after I came to this noble house in Saint-Germain, as I first felt you move — a quivering butterfly — in the spring. Though I had suspected before, that you were there, my private warmth through the coldest part of winter; a dear little friend to help me endure my bleak existence.

You remained small right to the end — a tiny bump secreted beneath the mistress’s cast-off clothes. No shameful, swollen womb to brand me as a sinner against modesty and have the Marquise cast me out into the filthy streets. I thank you for that.

You came tonight, in the dark, by the sallow taper light. Claudine — that’s Cook, my friend — squeezed my hand and pushed the rag into my mouth. She told me to bite down, to hush my cries.

She held a beaker to my lips and told me to drink; said it was her own brandy, made especially for the Marquis.

I drank her brandy, which helped the pain, a little.

I gnawed on Claudine’s rag and rocked, wanting to scream as the waves rushed, faster and faster, rising to stabbing peaks. I never yearned to cry with the pain, though. No, that was bearable; I wanted to yell at you to stop, to stay where you were because once the agony was over, I knew you would be gone from me.

In the hollows between the pains, Claudine mewed softly, close to my ear, telling me I was doing well; you would soon be here.

I wallowed in those blissful moments of peace when I could imagine it might all be different and I would be able to hold and suckle you; to watch you grow.

Then, with that final, uncontrollable urge to bear down, when the sweat soaked me and I thought I’d burst, you slid from my warmth into the cold night.

Claudine cut the cord with her kitchen scissors, severing, forever, our ties. She wrapped you, still mottled from the womb, in my sweat-damp scullery rags and lay you in a wicker basket, as one might a litter of kittens.

She urged me to go, to hurry off right then, before it became light. She said Marie would cover for me until I returned.

Yes, yes, I told her, I would go, but first I had to write your letter; to tell you your name is Rubie, because you will always be my precious, elegant and hardy gem. On this feast day of the archangel Michael, of 1779, I pray that most angelic warrior will protect you through the dark of night and grant you luck, health and wisdom.

Claudine is pressing me now, to leave. So I shall fold this paper, Rubie, and slip it behind your sleeping cocoon.

I unclasp the pendant too, from around my neck — the little bone angel my own mother pressed into my palm. I slide it in the basket, beside you. It is yours now, Rubie, to give you strength as you begin your journey through life, alone. One day you will hand it down to your own daughter, when she needs it.

As I told you, with the Marquis’s threats to throw us both out on the streets, I have no choice but to hurry through the dawn, carrying your basket across the cobblestones shiny with dew. Once I have laid your basket on the church steps, I will wrest my eyes from your wizened gaze — fewer memories to torture me through the void.

But don’t fret, I will not abandon you on those church steps. No, I’ll retreat to the shadows and wait and watch for Matron to arrive from her foundling hospital. I will stay until I am sure she has found you, and knows to call you Rubie when she carries you to the wet nurses, who’ll come morning and evening to feed you their rich milk.

I think of those wet nurses gathering in a corner with their rows of foundlings, bartering their milk for sous and swapping news. When it is my Rubie’s turn at the breast, you’ll drink in their stories — perhaps the one of your mother, a child scullery maid of seventeen, and your father, a distinguished marquis from the rue du Bac, who bears a duel scar on his left temple.

Your needs are only primitive now and you’ll not understand the wet-nurses’ tales, but one day you’ll want to know. I hope Matron will find this letter and, when you are old enough, she’ll tell you your story.

As I leave you, my sleeping jewel, I know my heart will be torn from my breast, the place in my belly where you’d been, burning with my unquenched desire for you.

As I unfurl my fingers from your basket, I will leave behind a part of me. Perhaps that is what Père Joffroy calls the soul?

I hope, as they feed, clothe and educate you, then give you back to the community as a marriageable girl with a modest dowry, you will understand and forgive a mother who, besides love, could afford you only misery and poverty.

I am your ever-loving mother.

V.C.

***

Matron arrived with her orphans. In puffs of thin white fog, she barked out orders at the two orderly columns of children, graded from smallest to tallest.

From the dawn shadows, I watched her herding the children into church for the Michaelmas sermon, though my eyes did not stray far from the basket.

One of Rubie’s tiny fists freed itself from the wrapping, and flailed about in the cold air, as if she was beckoning me to go back for her. She began to cry, the feeble mewling carving great gashes through my heart, and I cried too — silent tears of agony.

A cart arrived in the square, bringing vegetables for the Michaelmas feast, the clatter of wheels and the horse’s whinny startling me.

No, I couldn’t do it! I could not leave my Rubie. I hesitated, the breath catching in my throat.

I must get back to the house; they would be rising, washing. I had to boil water, light fires and prepare the goose for today’s banquet.

An orphan girl pointed to the basket. Matron scurried over. I lurched forward. Too late. Matron grasped the basket and, as she carried it off, my tears fell, unheard, onto the hard cobblestones.

***

Rubie gone from me, I could not bear the Saint-Germain house any longer. Of course, I had no choice but to remain, so I tried to forget my grief; to bury my melancholy in reading the Voltaire book, and in writing letters — skills I was convinced would, somehow, help me flee this noble prison.

I wrote to my brother. I knew someone would have to read the letters to Grégoire, and that my brother would not reply. Rather than pursuing our mother’s literacy lessons, Grégoire had preferred to master the wood-working skills.

Despite my bitter memories of Lucie-sur-Vionne, I felt the tug of those familiar childhood things; of a time I was blissfully unaware I was only a poor peasant girl.

I wrote to Père Joffroy too. I did not tell him about Rubie, no, I avoided this grim event and spoke rather of my friends — Claudine and Marie — and about the gossip of the streets of Paris.

The Queen styles her hair in more and more ornate poufs. One I find especially amusing —
la pouf à la jardinière —
with artichokes, radishes and a head of cabbage piled on her head! I do find it odd that people are so obsessed with hair and clothing when everybody says our country is on the brink of bankruptcy.

Do not worry for me, Père Joffroy. Even as I long for the day I can return to Lucie, I have shelter, clothing and nourishment here in Saint-Germain.

With God’s grace,

I am Victoire

As much as my quill itched, I stopped myself writing to Léon. If he’d grown fond of a village girl in my absence, or worse, become engaged, the embarrassment would be too much to bear, but when Père Joffroy’s replies arrived, I tore the letters open, scanning his words for any mention of Léon Bruyère.

One afternoon as I sat at the kitchen table reading the priest’s words, the Bruyère family did indeed figure.

My dear
Victoire,

I hope this letter finds you well and content, for the life of a scullery maid is harsh. I write to tell you of Armand Bruyère. You remember, everyone gathering around his hearth to hear your father’s stories? Well, the honest farmer has lost his wife — dead birthing the thirteenth child. The infant too, passed on.

Armand now looks for a new wife to care for him and his remaining children, the three youngest having succumbed to the speckled monster.

Aware that you are only seventeen — still quite too young for a commoner to marry, younger even, than three of Monsieur Bruyère’s own children — I have recommended you to the good farmer.

On a happier note, your brother, Grégoire, wishes me to share his joy with you. With the fine carpentry skills your father would be proud of, he has succeeded in building a sturdy cottage. He is much excited at the prospect of seeing you again, and showing off his fine work.

I write with God’s grace,

Père Joffroy

I felt the rush of blood to my face. A new cottage. A husband. Escape from the Marquis’s attic visits — so much excitement at once.

‘I’m going back to Lucie!’ I shrieked at Claudine, waving the letter at her. ‘I am going home!’

Thoughts of Léon startled me from my rapture at fleeing the Marquis. I inhaled deeply, trying to still my trembling hands; to push away the tug in my breast when I pictured Léon Bruyère.

Claudine’s little raisin eyes held mine. ‘You’re not dreaming, surely, of this boy you speak to me of — your childhood love from Lucie?’

I stared at the tiled floor. ‘He is the son of this widower. If I marry Armand I can never be with Léon.’

‘Listen to me, Victoire.’ She took my chin in her hand. ‘You may think love is a wondrous thing but it is only a passing fantasy; nothing compared with the fondness and attachment of a blessed marriage. Besides, the only paltry items of bed linen you own make for such a miserable dowry. True, I could gather a few clothes for you, undergarments, toiletries, but what better could you hope for than to marry a stable, ageing widower? Besides,’ she said, ‘he would more likely accept you, than a young boy.’

‘Accept me? What do you mean?’

‘Your husband will realise things, Victoire, on your wedding night. Things you cannot hide from a man.’

I stared at Claudine in dismay. ‘Oh … oh yes, I hadn’t thought of that.’

The despair swamped me again, my hopes tarnished.

‘But I must get away … I can bear it no longer, Claudine. You know, I hear the Marquis and his wife talk, saying how they, the authentic ancient nobility, hate the vile bourgeoisie. But I am certain now, those aristocrats are the vile ones,
n’est-ce pas
?’

Claudine clasped my hands between her pudgy ones. ‘I understand you must flee the Marquis. So go, my child, but you must tell your future husband about … about everything. If he has a nasty surprise on your wedding night, he’ll throw you out of the nuptial bed. We can only pray he is an understanding man.’ She smiled and pinched my cheek. ‘Now, promise you will write to me?’