Emilie's Voice (26 page)

Twenty-six

Madeleine hunched over her embroidery frame and unpicked the petit point it had taken her an hour to do. Her mind was not focused on her task, and she found that she had inadvertently given the shepherdess in her pastoral scene a green face. She could not imagine how she had allowed herself to work the entire one-inch square patch without noticing. It was all so vexing. A waste of good silk thread. She was in a foul mood when her little maid, who now wore a new serge gown with no tears or patches and had learned to keep her hair neat and her fingernails clean, entered the parlor.

“Beg yer pardon, Madame,” she said, and then curtseyed somewhat after the fact. “There’s a gentleman here.”

“Does he not have a name, you-” Madeleine stopped herself from calling the girl something vile. It was a bad habit, to save up all her anger and unleash it on the poor, ignorant creature, who really did not deserve it. Except that she was so unbearably stupid sometimes. Madeleine had told her and told her, just saying someone had come to call was not enough. She had to announce the person, like they did in the best houses. The girl was about to leave the room and ask the visitor his name when Madeleine stopped her. “Oh, don’t bother! Show him in.” She put away her work and tried to look calm and complacent.

To Madeleine’s complete amazement, the gentleman who walked into her parlor was none other than le Comte de St. Paul, who had not come to visit for several months-not since he had told them the news of Émilie’s death. At first she was so confused that she neglected to stand. But Madeleine soon remembered herself, stood, and curtsied, relinquishing her best chair to her distinguished caller.

“To what do I owe this honor?” she asked. “Tea, girl … Or would you prefer some wine?” Madeleine turned on her most practiced smile for St. Paul’s benefit.

“It has simply been too long since I was a guest in your … home,” he said. “I believe these are new curtains?”

“Why, thank you, sir! They are indeed! I hope you are well?” Madeleine felt a little flush of pleasure. She knew that she had been impolite to the count when he was last there, that she had been unable so much as to look at him for fear of losing control of herself, of giving in to a grief that was completely private, and she was happy to have this chance to show him that she could be gracious.

“I am in excellent health. But of course, I did not come here to talk about my health or your furnishings!” St. Paul said, giving Madeleine a knowing look.

She felt herself blush. The man was presumptuous, and she knew he was toying with her: after all, she was several years older than he. It annoyed her that she could not help responding to his provocative behavior. “Where is that girl with our tea?” she said, rising from her chair and starting toward the kitchen.

As she passed by St. Paul, he reached out and caught her by the wrist. “I am afraid that I must open a subject that may give you pain. You see, I look upon you as a friend of a particular sort …”

The luthier’s wife looked at the fine gentleman who did more to raise the tone of her parlor than all the upholstered furniture in the world and wondered what on earth he could be talking about. She gently but firmly withdrew her wrist from his grasp. She was not so blinded by flattery that she could not tell when she was being worked on.

“It concerns your daughter-your late daughter.”

Madeleine said nothing but waited for him to continue.

“I fear that all was not as it at first appeared,” he said, pausing as the maid put the tea tray down on the table and Madeleine poured them each a dish.

“How so, Monsieur le Comte?” asked Madeleine, bringing St. Paul his tea. The memory of Hortense’s revelation was fresh in her mind. She realized that she must be careful. She did not want to give anything away unless she knew it was safe to do so.

“Well, simply that dear, sweet Émilie, whose voice held such promise, may not have taken her own life.”

“What exactly are you suggesting?”

“I mean to say that it may simply have been an accident.”

St. Paul’s expression was damnably blank. Madeleine could not read it. “My poor, poor child,” she said, taking a lace-edged handkerchief out of her sleeve and blowing her nose in it loudly. “What makes you suspect this?”

“Ah, there are mysteries in death, just as in life. One of the ladies at court—a very sober, trustworthy lady, you understand—had a vision, in which Émilie appeared to her.”

Madeleine’s mind worked furiously, although she did an excellent job of maintaining her outward composure. What if Hortense had really seen a ghost? Or what if St. Paul was trying to trip her up, to get her to confirm that Émilie was now in Paris?

“If only, if only my child would come back to me!” said Madeleine, standing and walking to the window. She felt a sudden need to have her back to St. Paul.

“I am so sorry to distress you,” said St. Paul, who rose and approached Madeleine. When he reached her, he placed his hand lightly on her shoulder and then let it slide gently down her back. “If you, or anyone you know in Paris, should have any similar visions, it would help us greatly in our effort to clear Mademoiselle Émilie of the heinous charge of self-murder if you were to tell us about it, right away.” His mouth was so near her ear that she could feel his warm breath as he spoke.

She turned abruptly and stepped away before St. Paul’s hand reached her buttocks. “I can assure you, kind sir, that if I had seen, or if I do see, any vision of my daughter, you will be the first to know.”

Madeleine’s eyes met St. Paul’s. Without speaking, he reached into his coat and drew out a small leather bag. He turned away from Madeleine and walked to the table, where he deposited the bag.

“I have long wanted to make you a special present to help you over the grief of your daughter’s death,” he said, bowing courteously.

Madeleine walked over to the table and picked up the bag. It was heavy. Before, his gifts had been mere tokens. This was something more troubling. She knew from her past encounters with the count that his flirtation was not serious. Nothing ever came of his whispered attentions. And in truth, although she had been flattered, she found his prissy foppishness a little repugnant. For all his rough simplicity, Marcel was much more to Madeleine’s taste. She held the pouch out to St. Paul. “Now that I am in a more respectable position in society, I find it imprudent to accept gifts from men who are not my husband, even those who are as thoughtful and generous as you.”

St. Paul stared at the pouch for a moment before taking it from her.

“Good day,” said Madeleine.

Once the door had shut behind him, Madeleine went to the window and looked down at the street, watching as the nobleman climbed back into his coach while passersby stared. She was certain that she would never see that handsome young man again. particular, as he helped himself to a large pinch of snuff and indulged in a noisy sneeze. It was clear that Madeleine Jolicoeur knew something. She looked guarded. The woman was shrewd, there was no denying it. It would not have surprised him if she had seen her daughter, if she had even known all along where Émilie was hiding. In spite of himself, St. Paul had to admire her perception, her ability to realize the point at which she should back away. He had been too obvious; it would have worked better if he had kept up his visits, however distasteful, instead of arriving after all those months. A rare miscalculation.

“I don’t need her,” St. Paul said aloud, as his coach picked up speed on the road to Versailles. “Everything will turn out just as I plan.”

St. Paul’s unexpected visit put Madeleine in a state. She didn’t know whether to feel relieved, angry, guilty, frightened, or elated. Émilie must be alive. Why else would the count have tried so obviously to pump her for information? He must have thought she was stupid. Madeleine burned with shame to think she had been taken in by him.

The idea that Émilie had not died filled her with joy. But there was something about the whole mysterious affair, something that stopped her from rushing to the workshop that instant to tell Marcel. She knew he was devoted to their daughter and that to deprive him of the happiness of knowing she still lived was cruel. But Madeleine was afraid. Afraid that her daughter would involve them in some illicit activity that would endanger them both. She asked herself what good it would do for Émilie to return to them. She would not want to work, and it was dishonorable for a grown woman to live with her mother, unless she was a widow. Madeleine even had a fantasy that it really was only Émilie’s spirit that had paid them a visit, that St. Paul had been telling her the truth. Although this was preposterous, still she could not understand why a man like St. Paul would lie about a poor young woman’s fate. What was Émilie to him?

And how was she to tell her husband? What would he say if he knew that Hortense had seen Émilie a month ago, and she had said nothing? “Last week. That’s it. I’ll tell him last week.”

“Did you want something, Madame?” The maid entered the room when she overheard her mistress, whom she knew to be alone.

“What? No. Nothing.” Madeleine resumed her restless pacing, shaking her head, knotting and unknotting her hands in front of her.

“Is anything the matter?” Marcel had returned for their midday meal and could not account for his wife’s behavior.

Madeleine continued her pacing. “There’s something I must tell you.”

“Yes?”

“It’s just that, well, you see, Hortense …”

“Is Hortense ill? You want to go to her?”

“No! It’s not Hortense, it’s something that Hortense saw, you see, it’s, it’s …”

“It’s what?”

“It’s Émilie!” The words exploded from her mouth.

“Émilie’s dead,” said Marcel.

“That’s just it! She’s not!”

Once the statement was out of her mouth, Madeleine let loose a stream of words so fast that her husband could hardly follow them. He heard something about St. Paul, and a cloaked, mysterious figure, but he could not string her sentences together in a way that made any sense at all. He was still trying to figure out what exactly his wife was saying to him when the maid walked into the parlor and cleared her throat.

“What is it, girl!” shrieked Madeleine.

“Dinner’s ready,” she said, and then went back into the kitchen to fetch the stew.

Madeleine stood in the center of the room like a diver at the edge of a cliff, suspended between action and inaction for a moment too brief to measure. By the time Marcel covered the space between them, she began to sob, great dry, heaving gasps, so that she could not draw in her breath. He shook her gently.

“It’s all right! We will find her. If you say she is alive, I believe you.”

All at once Madeleine’s tearless gulps became a torrent of weeping. Marcel wrapped his arms around his wife and let her collapse against his shoulder, allowing his own tears to fall onto her gray head. The young maid tiptoed around them and set their bowls of stew on the table, then returned to the kitchen, closing the door behind her.

Twenty-seven

Sophie arose early the next morning and let herself out of the apartment before Charpentier awoke and Lucille arrived. She walked through the misty Paris streets in the direction of the rue des Rosiers. She knew a merchant there who was adept at converting questionable assets into liquid cash. Although she had never had a reason to visit Monsieur Rothargent before, several of the other women who walked the streets with her had mentioned him. It was not uncommon for prostitutes to supplement their incomes by relieving customers of their gold snuffboxes at the moment when they were least likely to notice. One prostitute prided herself on being able to satisfy her customers so completely that they did not even twitch when, while they were sunk in a deep, postcoital sleep, she removed their gold teeth. Sophie hastened to the fence’s establishment by a devious little route through the cellar of a house of ill repute. Although she had no reason to suspect someone was following her, she decided it was best not to take any chances.

The shop was closed, but Sophie knocked insistently until Monsieur Rothargent let her in. He was still dressed in his robe and nightcap. When Sophie placed the brooch on the table in front of him, he nearly dropped his loupe.

“Where did you get this, Mademoiselle?” he asked her.

“A friend gave it to me,” she answered, knowing that it sounded like the lie it was.

Monsieur Rothargent picked up the bird, letting the light catch it and peering through his glass into the hearts of the precious stones. “Your friend must be very fond of you indeed,” he said, as he continued his examination of the piece. After several minutes of silent contemplation, he blurted out, “Twenty-five écus.”

“But it’s worth much more than that!”

“Twenty-five écus, and I swear on my honor that I will never reveal whose hand this little bird flew from.”

Sophie was torn. She knew that the brooch was almost beyond price, because of the stones, the workmanship, and because of what it could mean to anyone who wanted to cause problems for Émilie and Charpentier.

“Thank you, but I’ve decided not to sell it,” she said, as she wrapped it up once more in the hankie and tucked it away in her bosom. She left quickly, taking a different route back. She stopped at a flower stall on the way, figuring she could use the errand as an excuse for her early excursion.

But her movements that morning did not go unremarked. Around the corner from the rue des Écouffes, St. Paul waited in his carriage for the spy he and Lully had engaged to let him know as soon as the couple made any move to flee Paris or as soon as the maid emerged so that she might be bribed. When instead of Lucille he saw Sophie leave the house at that early hour, the spy went immediately to St. Paul and informed him, so that by the time she returned from Monsieur Rothargent’s, the count was waiting for her a discreet distance away.

“Well! If it isn’t the pretty young maid with the delicate diges-tion!” Sophie’s misadventure with the king five years before had been the talk of the court for weeks.

“Ah, Monsieur de St. Paul. What a surprise. I’m afraid I have no time for pleasantries this morning.” Sophie walked on toward the house.

St. Paul grasped her arm. “I wonder if I might have a word with you? It could be well worth your while.”

Sophie did not like St. Paul. But something told her he could be useful if she decided to pursue her course of revenge against Émilie. “I have only a minute, and then I must return to my employers.”

“Let me guess. In the house you were seen to leave a little earlier, the only inhabitants who might be able to afford a lady’s maid would be the Charpentiers.”

“A lucky guess,” said Sophie as St. Paul led her down the street, away from the front door and toward the river. So, they were watching the house, she thought. That was a bad sign. Sophie wondered if Charpentier had seen the count. Surely St. Paul would not be so bold as to accost Émilie in her home. The image of Émilie helplessly waiting, weakened from her recent ordeal, suddenly loomed before Sophie.

“I wonder why you would do such a thing as go to work for a couple who are in hiding. Although it must be more pleasant than spreading your legs for all and sundry. I heard that you were dismissed from the Hôtel de Guise because of a pair of slippers.”

How did he know? Sophie said nothing, but she remembered that the count had been there when she returned with the “borrowed” slippers for Émilie. And doubtless he had his ways with the other servants at the Hôtel de Guise: that Mathilde would have been only too happy to tell him the story.

“I too have a score to settle with Mademoiselle Émilie. I thought, perhaps, that we could work together to achieve the result we both wish for.”

“And what result is that?” Sophie asked.

St. Paul stopped walking. “Riches, respect, and the utter annihilation of the little songbird and her milksop of a husband.”

“What, pray, did she do to provoke you?”

“Two things, really. She slipped through my fingers at a most inopportune moment. But that is not to the point. She has absconded with a certain valuable trinket, the possession of which could send her to the Bastille. We both know about her propensity for thievery.”

“And if you discovered this trinket in her possession?”

“She would be apprehended by the forces of the law and taken to the Bastille—to teach her a lesson, you understand, before her return to Versailles to fulfill her destiny.”

“What destiny is that?” Sophie was curious as to why St. Paul was so concerned with something that, on the surface, had nothing to do with him. She knew how poor he was, so it was obvious that the brooch could not be his.

“That is for the king to say. Now, if you were able to locate this item in Mademoiselle Émilie’s possession, it could be worth, say, twenty-five louis?”

It was five times what the merchant on the rue des Rosiers had offered Sophie. But still she held back from just turning over the brooch to St. Paul there and then. In any case, it would surely be better for anyone who wanted to incriminate Émilie if the diamond bird were actually discovered in the apartment. Sophie told herself that this was why she did not reach into her cleavage and produce the item for St. Paul. “Your offer is very enticing.”

“Do we have a bargain?” St. Paul put his hand out to Sophie.

“I need time to think about it,” she said, curtseying to him politely before turning and walking back to the Charpentiers’ apartment with the diamond brooch jabbing uncomfortably into her left breast.

Sophie locked the door behind her when she entered the parlor. She was surprised to see Émilie up and seated at the table, drinking a dish of tisane.

“I feel so much better. Those flowers are lovely! Lucille never thinks of flowers.”

She looks pale, Sophie thought.

Charpentier came out of the bedroom, dressed for work at the Hôtel de Guise. “Are you certain you do not want to stay in bed one more day?” he asked his wife.

“No. With Sophie here I shall have someone to talk to. And really, I feel fine.”

“If she is tired, please make her go back to bed,” Charpentier said to Sophie. “I would stay here, but there is a soirée this evening at the Hôtel de Guise.” Émilie looked up at him. He saw the expression in her eyes and wished he had not said anything about the party. Charpentier kissed his wife on the forehead.

“Monsieur Charpentier,” said Sophie in a low voice, stopping him as he put his hand on the doorknob to leave.

“What is it?”

Sophie looked back and forth from Émilie to her husband. She was tempted to say something about St. Paul, that he was outside, waiting and watching. But to do so would close off her options. “I’ll take care of Mademoiselle Émilie,” she said.

Charpentier left.

Once she was alone with Émilie again, Sophie picked up her mending. Her mind worked furiously to think of a way to replace the brooch in Émilie’s drawer undetected.

“A cat! How wonderful!” To Sophie’s surprise, Monsieur le Diable walked right up to Émilie and rubbed against her legs. “Listen to him purr! He is singing, I think. I long to sing. You know,” she said looking up at Sophie, “my husband has written some beautiful airs for me.”

“So sing them,” Sophie said, breaking the thread in her teeth.

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I thought you knew,” Émilie said.

Sophie peered through the eye of a needle and pulled the thread through. “Clearly I do not.”

“You see, no one is supposed to know I’m alive. If I sing, they will recognize me.”

Sophie did not lift her eyes from her work. “Who will hear you sing, all alone in here? And anyway, don’t they know now? About you?”

“You don’t understand,” said Émilie. “You know, I was thinking about something. About how to make it up to you, about the slippers.”

Sophie stopped what she was doing for a moment and glanced in Émilie’s direction.

“I don’t own much; there is little of value here. But there is something I could give you. I think it’s worth a lot. I’m afraid it might get you in trouble, though.”

“What’s that?”

“Something I carried away with me from Versailles, by accident.”

“Like the shoes, which you ruined by accident!” Sophie sniffed.

“Well, no. It was a gift, from the king. But still, I did not mean to take it.”

“A gift?”

“For singing. For singing, and for what he expected, later.”

Sophie put down her mending.

“I’d like to give it to you. I don’t need it. You’ll find it at the back of my handkerchief drawer, in my dressing table. My husband does not know I have it, so it won’t be missed.”

Sophie stood, preparing to go into the bedroom. But instead of doing what she knew would have been very easy, leaving Émilie in the parlor and pretending to reach into the back of the drawer to find the brooch, she stayed where she was, put her hand into her bodice, and pulled out the handkerchief with its concealed treasure. “You mean this?”

Émilie’s eyes widened.

“I found it, yesterday, while you were asleep.” Sophie sat down. “I was going to sell it this morning, but I couldn’t get enough money for it.” That’s it, Sophie thought. There’s no going back now.

She resumed her mending while Émilie sat in shocked silence. If Émilie’s enemy had been anyone beside St. Paul, Sophie might conceivably have decided to carry out her plan for revenge. But her intuitive dislike of the count was stronger by far than the anger born of the slipper fiasco. Had it not been for that episode, things between Sophie and Émilie might have been very different. They might have become friends, and perhaps Émilie would have engaged her as a maid and taken Sophie along on her rise to success at court. It seemed all wrong, suddenly, to be on opposite sides.

“I see,” Émilie said. “If you still want it, it’s yours.”

“If I could take just one of the stones, I could live for a year. As it is, I think it is a dangerous piece of property. Not just for me, but for you. You shouldn’t keep it either. Did you know that St. Paul was here? And that he asked about this?” Sophie held the treasure up to the light, and she thought the diamonds looked as though there were tiny fires burning in their hearts.

Charpentier was worried about Émilie. Although she seemed better, he’d never seen her so pale. He didn’t like to leave her, and yet he knew he had to perform his duties for the princess that evening or the alarm would surely be raised. He had done everything else François had told him to do. The doctor had warned him not to move Émilie, but clearly it was more dangerous for her to stay where she was. The carriage was arranged: all that was necessary was to go around to the stand after the soirée and show the driver the way to the rue des Écouffes. He would go with Émilie and Sophie out to the hamlet where a farmhouse stood, and where he had been assured no one would ever look for them. Then he was to return to his life at the Hôtel de Guise as if he had never been married, never fathered a child who perished before it was old enough to live. Charpentier did not know how long he would have to remain apart from his wife.

“Let us start with the second part, gentlemen, the courante. Now, not too fast. It’s not a gallop!” A low chuckle went through the ensemble. Charpentier began to beat the time.

“Pardon, Monsieur, but there is a gentleman here to see you.” A footman spoke quietly into Charpentier’s ear.

“Take a few moments’ rest,” said Charpentier at the end of the movement, and then he went to see who had come to visit him at such an awkward time.

When he entered his apartment, he was shocked to see Marcel Jolicoeur standing in its midst, his large frame dwarfing the small space. “Marcel! How may I help you?” Charpentier tried to sound casual, unconcerned.

“I am sorry to trouble you, Monsieur Charpentier, but I am here because my wife, Madeleine, believes-you will think us crazy, perhaps!—but she believes that Émilie did not die, that our daughter is alive.”

Charpentier went to his desk and pretended to shuffle the mess of papers into some sort of order. This he had not expected. He turned to Marcel.