Читать книгу The Queen's Dollmaker - Christine Trent - Страница 12

Walking toward the vessel, which was sloshing gently in the Seine, Claudette approached a group of three women who appeared to be slightly older than she. “Are you bound for England, as well?”

The tallest of the group nodded condescendingly to Claudette. The second member of the group did not stop talking long enough to notice Claudette, but the third woman turned aside to address the bedraggled teenager, who was already starting to look much older than her adolescent years.

“I’m Elizabeth Preston.” The woman, whom Claudette guessed to be about twenty, stuck out her gloved hand in a gesture of friendship. She was in a traveling outfit of pink trimmed in fur, with a matching hat jauntily resting on a mass of upswept ebony hair, and her wrist-length gloves had embroidered flowers on them. She was one of the most fashionably dressed women Claudette had ever seen. Claudette looked down at her own sorry state of attire, and apologized for her own appearance.

“Never you mind,” said Mademoiselle Preston. She leaned over to Claudette and whispered confidentially, “They tell me sable is all the rage, but do you know I think I’m getting a case of fleas?” Claudette laughed despite her misery and introduced herself.

“Well, Miss Laurent, it is my pleasure to make your acquaintance. Have a safe journey.” She turned back to listen to what the other women were saying.

Claudette saw another young woman on the dock, standing alone except for a small girl clutching her legs. Realizing that they looked even more pitiable than she did, she walked up and initiated another conversation. The young woman seemed eager for companionship, but was trembling. Her eyes were red-rimmed from some unshared grief.

“I am Béatrice du Georges. This is my daughter, Marguerite.” The woman urged forward a child of no more than four years. The child looked Claudette boldly in the eye and said, “I am Marguerite. My mama is going to buy me a new dress in England.”

Claudette was impressed by the little girl’s bravery, but wondered how she had developed such a forward personality. Surely not from her mother. Noticing the gold band on Béatrice’s left hand, she inquired, “Is your husband joining you?”

Béatrice’s face became suffused with red, and her lower lip quivered. At the same time her cheeks, already noticeable because of their high color, began an odd twitching. “My husband is gone. Gone these last three months from a case of stones. I’ve been living on the bounty of different relatives, both my and my husband’s, but no one wants the responsibility of a widowed mother and her daughter permanently. Our recent keeper was my husband’s brother and his wife. After two weeks there, I came home yesterday from shopping to find the notice of this ship’s departure on my bed.” Tears were welling in her eyes. “What choice did I have? Clearly, our relatives do not want us. I need a better life for my daughter and myself. The English are supposed to be drunken pigs, but surely they will treat me better than my own relations.”

Before Claudette could comment, Captain Briggs began blowing a whistle and calling, “Ladies! Get yourselves aboard ship. We push off within the hour.” Briggs moved through the crowd, shouting for all passengers to climb aboard quickly. The groups of women hurriedly dispersed. Keeping one arm around her small cache of possessions, Claudette tucked her other arm into Béatrice’s, and with Marguerite clutching her mother’s skirt, the three marched grimly onto the ship.

During a light meal with the rest of their shipmates, Béatrice filled Claudette in on her entire history. Born to French merchants of some wealth, she grew up in an affluent, if emotionally austere, lifestyle. Her parents had arranged a marriage for her to a very minor member of nobility, but Béatrice had met and fallen in love with a theology student attending the Collège de Sorbonne, whom she had met at an art exhibition. She thought she could convince her parents to break the marriage contract to enable her to marry for love, but she had not counted on her mother’s determination that Béatrice marry up and improve the family’s fortunes. Several beatings, imprisonment in a closet for a day, and four days without food, finally broke Béatrice, and, weeping at her mother’s feet, she agreed to marry her parents’ choice. However, early the next morning, she stole out of the house carrying just a small valise of personal belongings, and walked to Alexandre’s tiny apartment in the Rue Soufflot near the university. Together they eloped to the countryside, he working random jobs, and returned to Paris a year later with their infant daughter, Marguerite.

Although her husband continued working odd jobs and earning little, the three of them were very happy together. Béatrice used some of her family connections to help establish a small school for teaching young pupils how to play the harpsichord, but when her parents found out about it, they ensured that business dried up completely. Realizing that earning money on her own would be futile, she stayed home and tried to economize wherever possible. Four months ago, her husband had begun complaining of pains in his stomach. At first they assumed it was just indigestion, but as the pain wore on and grew worse, they summoned a doctor, using the last of their savings. He assessed at once that Alexandre was suffering from a serious case of gall stones and required surgery to remove them. Terrified not only of a potentially barbaric surgical procedure, but his ability to pay for it, Béatrice’s husband insisted he would recover on his own. He died in bed a month later, delirious.

After a pauper’s burial, Béatrice solicited her husband’s family for help. Most of them felt she should return to her own wealthy family, and were reluctant to help her. Those who would help would only do so for a short time, and made it quickly apparent that they were not interested in sponsoring a poor wretch and her daughter. At one desperate point, she even went back to her parents’ home, but when her mother opened the door her eyes narrowed into little points, and she slammed the door loudly in her only daughter’s face. The glimpse she got of little Marguerite was her first meeting with her granddaughter. Defeated, Béatrice returned to her lodgings with her brother-in-law, and then yesterday received the not-too-subtle hint on her bed.

Claudette told Béatrice of her family’s doll shop in Paris, now just a hull of debris. Béatrice expressed surprise that dollmaking was a profitable enterprise, assuming, as many people did, that dolls were typically crude, homemade items hastily thrown together by servants for their children.

Claudette’s grief tumbled out as she explained how her father’s business had evolved from his humble beginnings as a carpenter’s apprentice to his uncle, to a highly respected dollmaker who had customers among members of the nobility. She had shared her father’s love for wood and wax, and in time became his apprentice and heir, since her parents had no other children. Her papa had always told her that she herself would be a formidable dollmaker one day. Claudette’s voice cracked as she thought about her father’s dreams for herself and the doll shop, now just a rain-soaked heap of ashes.

With her heart sunk into the deepest recesses of her chest, Claudette also shared her love for Jean-Philippe with her new friend, and held out the chain that still firmly possessed her betrothal ring.

In May 1779, a month after Claudette turned fourteen, she and Jean-Philippe met again after not seeing each other for nearly twelve weeks during the winter. Claudette was startled by how broad Jean-Philippe’s shoulders had become. She could even see slight stubble where perhaps he had started shaving. His coltish gait even had a bit of swagger to it. What, she wondered, did he think of her?

They strolled together as they always had, hand in hand as they started their trip back to the Renaud home. Jean-Philippe reached down and pulled a clump of wild irises for Claudette. Instead of directly depositing them into her hand as usual, he pulled one out of the bunch and playfully batted her across the nose with it.

“Jean-Philippe, stop!” she protested, laughing.

“Do you remember, Claudette, when we saw the Dauphine out at St. Denis?”

“Of course. We were little children. You nearly got me into unspeakable trouble. Fortunately we met the new Dauphine, which distracted my parents from our reckless behavior. I also remember”—she scrunched her nose at him—“that you referred to me as a baby!”

“What I remember most about that day was the matted mass of posies you were holding. Not a single stem with a decent flower on it left by the time you offered it to the Dauphine. And most of it stayed behind in your hand.”

“I was very young.”

“You were very pretty. You are still…still…”

“I am still what, Jean-Philippe?”

The two teenagers had by this time turned down an alleyway behind a cluster of shops. It was quieter here, and their discussion became more serious. Jean-Philippe stopped Claudette under a stone arch that divided two sets of buildings.

He trailed a bloom along her jawline, the other stems now shoved into his pocket. His face was a breath away from hers. His dark eyes stared intently into her blue ones. “You are still…no…you have become…very beautiful, Claudette. You remind me of the sweet white dove we once saved.” He dropped the flower, and pushed a tendril of her hair back, tucking it behind her ear. He kept his face close to hers.

Why did she feel like she could not breathe? Her heart was pounding inexplicably. Was this what Mama meant when she said that the world seemed to stop when she was falling in love with Papa? Am I in love? she wondered.

Jean-Philippe brought his lips to her ear and whispered, “Claudette, I am almost a man now. My apprenticeship will end in a few years, and then I will be free. You are my best friend in all the world, and I would have you for my wife when that day comes.”

Claudette was paralyzed, torn between joy and the uncertainty of what would come next. Mama had not explained much about being in love, beyond the fact that the stars in the sky would cease movement in order to shine down heavenly approval on lovers. Claudette remained silent.

“Claudette, do you hear me? I love you.” Jean-Philippe gently kissed her ear, then her cheek, and briefly pressed his lips to hers. For all of his mature talk, he was as inexperienced as she. He was also unsure what came next.

A prostitute and her customer came laughing down the alleyway, the customer clearly drunk, the prostitute pretending to be. She laughed uproariously at something slurred and unintelligible the customer said. He had his arm around her shoulder, trying to reach her breast, at the same time applying sloppy kisses to the side of her face. The prostitute was supporting the customer and keeping him from falling. As they neared the teenage couple, the customer made an offhand comment about the young boy also being in the market for a good time. The prostitute’s ringing laughter and teasing remonstrations diverted the man’s attention back to her.

Jean-Philippe hid Claudette’s head against his shoulder until they had passed. He tilted her face back up to him and said, “Claudette, you have my heart. I will forever cherish and adore you.”

He brought his lips back down to hers, this time more inquiringly. Claudette responded by putting her arms around his neck.

Mama had forgotten to tell her that not only did the earth stop moving, the sun and moon directed their rays down only on those in love.

But had both celestial orbs completely abandoned her?

As Claudette concluded, Béatrice reached her hand across the table and gripped Claudette’s in silent sympathy. Claudette noticed a peculiar reddening of her new friend’s face. It engulfed her entire forehead and cheeks, cheeks which seemed to have their own emotions as they pulsated nervously under the redness.

“Oh, Claudette, tu es ma meilleure amie. I have no one else in the world now but you and Marguerite. Let us promise to stay together once we reach England. If we do not, what shall I do? I’m just a poor widow with a child and no resources.”

Attracted to the girl because of her open and honest manner, Claudette was nevertheless concerned about Béatrice’s agitated and nervous state. Realizing, though, that she had no one else as well, she smiled at Béatrice and replied, “Friends unto death, right?”

Béatrice’s cheeks immediately stopped their erratic movement, and a beam of sunshine spread across her face. “Yes, friends unto death!”

“Get your filthy, rotten, son-of-a-whore hands off of me, you common little turd!” Claudette whipped around in time to see Elizabeth Preston bring her fist across Simon Briggs’s face. “Touch me again and you’ll find yourself hanging from your tiny little jewels. If I can even find them, that is.” Laughter and scattered applause erupted in the room.

Briggs pulled his lanky frame up to be as towering as possible, his face nearly black with rage. “How dare you strike your better?”

“Hah! You’re nothing but a snuffling pig. I paid good coin for passage on this ship. I do not recall putting up with crude hands and stinking breath to be part of the fee for passage.”

Briggs’s mouth opened once to retort, then he clamped it shut and stalked out of the room.

“May I join you?” Elizabeth inquired, although she was already sitting down on the bench across from Claudette.

“Certainly. Are you hurt?”

“No. That horse’s arse is a coward. I saw him pinch a passenger’s derriere on the dock before we sailed. I knew I was going to set him straight if he got anywhere near me.”

Béatrice was staring at Elizabeth with clear admiration. What a bold, brave woman!

“Miss Preston, what is your purpose in going to England? You are clearly a native of that country,” Claudette asked.

“I’m actually returning home. I have an aunt who moved to Paris years ago. I am her heiress, so I make sure to visit at least once a year to keep my eye on my inheritance. Once I have it, then I can find a suitable husband.” She winked conspiratorially at Marguerite. Béatrice’s mouth was now a fully formed O.

“Where do you live in England?”

“In Sussex. And please, do call me Elizabeth. I would like to call you Claudette, if I may. After all, people sharing an adventure such as this should be friends, should they not? And who is this blinking little puffer fish?”

“Elizabeth, this is my friend, Béatrice, and her daughter, Marguerite.”

Béatrice recovered enough to nudge Marguerite. “Marguerite, please give your greeting to Mademoiselle Elizabeth.”

“Bonjour, Mademoiselle Lizabut…Mademoiselle Bizalit…Zibeth…Lizbit? Bonjour, Mademoiselle Lizbit!”

The three women laughed congenially at the child’s mispronunciation of Elizabeth’s name. The newly christened shipmate declared, “Well, if this young lady says I am to be Lizbit, then so shall it be!”

Briggs’s performance now forgotten, the three women continued chatting and sharing stories until a deckhand came down to announce that Captain Briggs wanted all women aboard ship planning to seek employment in England to come topside for instructions.

“Well, my friends, I suppose we depart from each other here. It has been a pleasure to meet you. May we meet again.” Elizabeth, now Lizbit, stood and made an exaggerated curtsy to Claudette and Béatrice, who had stood up to go to the upper deck.

“Now, when we dock, you ladies look your best. The rich folk will come to the dock to see you and decide if they want to take you home.” Briggs was speaking, and periodically poking his tongue in his cheek, as though playing with something loose.

“Monsieur, what will our wages be?” a tiny blond girl piped up.

“Well, now, that just depends on how much your employer thinks you are worth. And you’ll be giving me part of the take, since I’ll be helping you in getting your situations arranged. No more questions. Here are contracts for you to sign.”

Briggs had two younger women sitting near him distribute the contract sheets to the group of women seeking employment, which Claudette estimated to number about forty-five. Most women were quickly scribbling their signatures on the contracts. When she received hers, she glanced down at it, and saw immediately that it was written in English. Surely most of these Frenchwomen could only read French, even if they could speak some English. What were they signing? She peered closely at the paper. Béatrice was about to sign her own contract, but Claudette stopped her. “Wait,” she whispered. “We don’t know what this is.”

Claudette raised a hand to be noticed over the laughter and excitement of the other girls. “Monsieur Briggs! Monsieur Briggs, please, I have a question.”

Captain Briggs looked up from where he was collecting signed contracts. Squinting in Claudette’s direction he replied, “What do you want?”

“What does it mean about a commission of fifty percent?”

The captain shifted uncomfortably. “You can read? Well, well. The commission is what you give me for helping you find employment.”

Claudette pursed her lips and approached him. “You will take fifty percent of my wages for as long as I am employed?”

“Yes, yes, I’m giving you free passage to England, am I not? What, are you one of those learned girls? You think knowing a bit of English makes you better than the rest of the girls here?”

“No, but fifty percent, monsieur, it seems a little high.”

“Then you can just go back to France for all I care. But not on this ship! Find your own passage. I don’t take with ingratitude.”

“Monsieur, I am grateful for your help, but just trying to understand my position. What kind of positions exactly will we have? And we should know what our wages might be.”

Briggs laughed and called over one of his mates. “Hey, Jemmy, get your lazy, barnacled arse over here and listen to this. This chippy thinks she deserves special privileges for her free passage on my ship!” Both men dissolved into laughter.

“What’s yer name?”

Confused by their laughter but not wanting to be played a fool, Claudette drew herself up as tall as she could. “I am Claudette Renée Laurent.”

“Well, Mistress Laurent, you might be playing a great lady, but it’s dead serious work. Now sign here.”

At that moment, a commotion caused by two women vomiting overboard, victims of seasickness, or perhaps the several-day-old fish served at dinner, sent Briggs away, shouting to the other women to move off. He threw the contracts down onto a nearby barrel, and Claudette inserted hers in the middle of the pile without signing it. She signaled to Béatrice to bring her contract over, and placed Béatrice’s unsigned contract in the center of the sheaf as well. With Marguerite in tow, the two women retreated into the ship to seek Lizbit’s counsel. Lizbit was outraged, but refused to say why, merely advising Claudette and Béatrice to leave the ship as soon as possible.

Having been in France a full nine years, Marie Antoinette had learned that royal popularity was easily soured, and, once lost, not easily regained. The public was initially wild about the young archduchess, with her pleasing manner and elegant grace, and delighted to read in the local newspapers about her salons, dinners, and influence on fashion. But when no heir was produced, whispering started that would not stop. A daughter, Marie-Thérèse, later known as Princesse Royale, had finally been born in December 1778, but a son, the long-sought heir in the Bourbon line, was nowhere in sight.

The queen despaired of fulfilling the sole purpose of her life in France. Everyone at court whispered behind closed doors, speculating about her ability to produce a boy. Was it the king or the queen who was infertile? Or was the queen unable to, er, inspire the king to his duties?

Her mother, the empress, continued writing letters regarding her intimate life with the king, inquiring about such personal details as the frequency of their bed-sharing, and also the regularity of “Generale Krottendorf’s” appearance. “For if the Generale arrives with regularity each month, daughter, you are certain to get with child soon.”

In reaction to the constant probing and prying about such a delicate situation, the queen developed—in an eloquent fashion—a cultivated private life. Only a very few trusted souls were brought into her inner circle to share in her new private life, the Princesse de Lamballe and Axel Fersen being primary members of this group.

The queen organized, and participated in, theatricals of her own devising as a means of escaping the oppressiveness of everyday court life. These plays were fanciful and silly, but harmless, and she loved escaping her daily life by performing. The king approved and welcomed his wife’s changes, which also included the abandonment of heavy makeup and the adoption of plainer clothes in place of ostentatious court dress. Marie Antoinette could frequently be seen strolling about the sculptured gardens of Versailles without any jewels adorning her neck, fingers, hair, or clothing, and wearing the simplest of muslin gowns with not so much as a stitch of embroidery on them. Many of the senior women of the French court were severely disapproving of this escape from court tradition, and vengefully gossiped that she was guilty of the sin of pride.

Another victim of her new lifestyle was Rose Bertin, the queen’s couturier.

“Majesty.” The Duchesse de Cosse, mistress of the robes, entered the queen’s chamber clutching the wardrobe book and a pincushion. “Would you like to select your outfits for today?”

The queen was expected to select several clothing changes each day. One dress might be for breakfast and taking a short walk afterward. Another might be a horse-riding habit, should she choose to follow the king on the hunt. Yet another change of apparel was required for receiving visitors later in the day, and perhaps a fourth change for a supper party. The queen sat up in her canopied bed topped with ostrich feathers and turned the pages of the well-worn book, each page cataloging a separate outfit with swatches of fabric, lace, and other trims attached. It was her privilege each morning to mark the pages containing selections she wished to see by inserting a sharp pin into the appropriate pages. The mistress of the robes then had the porters bring in taffeta-covered baskets containing the apparel for the queen’s final approval.

The queen flipped past the pages of Flemish laces and East Indian silks, and arrived at the back of the book, which contained newer creations. She marked three pages with pins, and handed the book and pincushion back to the duchesse, thinking that her choices created an ensemble Count Fersen might find flattering on his planned visit that day. The duchesse curtsied appropriately and backed out of the room, her face in a scowl over the queen’s distasteful selection. She knew exactly whom to see before giving the book to the porters.

Twenty minutes later, the queen heard a soft scratching at the door. One of her ladies entered, apologizing for the intrusion, but before she could state her mission, a loud voice behind her drowned the woman out.

“Madame! This is outrageous!” A large, overbearing woman stalked into the chamber, waving the queen’s selections in her hand. The other woman quickly fled the room.

The queen sighed good-naturedly. “What ails you today, Madame Bertin?”

“This.” She held the wardrobe book pages out to the queen. “Surely you wish to wear something more suitable, instead of a peasant’s costume?”

Rose Bertin was one of few people with such familiar access to the queen, who relied on the dressmaker heavily for the creation of extravagant court outfits. Such was Rose’s influence with the queen, and subsequently with all the court ladies, that she was referred to as the Minister of Fashion.

Marie Antoinette ignored the proffered pages. “I have no court business today, so what I have chosen pleases me very much.”

Bertin tamped down her impatience. Really, this simplicity phase of the queen’s was intolerable. Rose Bertin had built her considerable reputation largely on the queen’s patronage. The more extravagant a gown she wore, the more profitable her business, as ladies of the court flocked to her shop to imitate what the queen was wearing. However, no one wanted to wear a commoner’s garb. And there was little profit in outfitting someone who did.

“But it is unseemly for the most important woman in Europe to be dressed so, so…shamefully.”

The queen laughed lightly. “Unseemly for the monarchy, or unseemly for Madame Bertin?”

The couturier reddened, but pressed her case. “Your Majesty,” she cajoled. “The people love to see their queen dressed regally so they can admire her.”

The famous Hapsburg lower lip jutted out, a sure sign of impending stubbornness.

“The last thing the people care for is to see me strolling about in finery. I am pleased with the light blue muslin and straw hat I selected. In fact, I think I should like a pink sash for my waist. Please tell the duchesse this.”

Bertin made no move to leave, her mind still furiously working to concoct a way to convince the queen to abandon her love affair with common garb.

Marie Antoinette prompted her. “You will need to tell the duchesse right away, before the porters have finished gathering my clothing.”

Madame Bertin huffed, but realized she could push the queen no further. She departed with the wardrobe book pages still in her hand, tossing them to the lady-in-waiting posted outside the door. “Tell the Duchesse de Cosse that the Antoinette wants a pink sash to go with the splendid milkmaid’s dress she is wearing today,” she said imperiously, hardly glancing at the woman. The woman gaped at Bertin’s coarseness in referring to the queen just outside her bedchamber. After all, most people talked badly about the queen out of earshot, and in whispers.

As for Marie Antoinette, she could not please the people of her country, no matter how she dressed. Only the birth of a Dauphin could soothe them and return her to a favored place in their affections.