Finding Emilie (8 page)

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ALONE IN HER
cell, Lili slumped to the floor under the crucifix, leaning her back against the cold stone wall. Her mind felt as dark and blank as the curtain blocking the fading afternoon light. I can’t memorize any more, she thought. I just can’t make myself do it. And even if she did, was there something else the abbess would tell her that anyone truly repentant would have discovered without being told? Is this just a game to keep me here? Will I keep falling short again and again?

“I won’t do it,” Lili said aloud into the gloom. “I’m not repentant, and I don’t care who’s angry with me—even Maman. Let them keep me here until I rot. I’m not memorizing another word.”

E
MILIE DE
Breteuil cast a glance toward herself in a mirror in one of the hallways at Versailles. The outfit she had chosen to go horseback riding that afternoon flattered her body’s newly acquired curves and set off the blue-gray of her eyes and her neatly curled black hair. She loved dressing the part of a young lady at court, especially since she had never expected to be the beauty she had turned out to be. The problem was that her looks now attracted men who had nothing whatsoever of interest to talk about, and she was bored to death with everything about the palace except her wardrobe and the amusing ways young ladies could arrange their hair.

Jacques LeBrun, the captain of the king’s household guard at Versailles, was the worst of the lot. All the appeal of a honking goose. But the chance to go riding was worth enduring a little more of his company. Or was it?

After an hour she wanted nothing more than to get rid of him. “So, Monsieur Lebrun,” she said, in a tone born of desperation, “I have a proposal for our entertainment this afternoon. What would you think if I challenged you to a swordfight?” Emilie cocked her head. “I promise I won’t hurt you.”

Such cheek was too charming to resist. Just as she planned, within a few minutes LeBrun came back with two épees. When Emilie took a practiced fencing stance, his eyes widened in delight. “This will be most entertaining,” he said, assuming the stance himself. Almost too swiftly to see, her épee clicked on a button of his jacket.

“Touché!” she cried out, to the cheers of LeBrun’s friends, who had gathered to watch.

LeBrun got into position again. Emilie feinted, but this time he was quick enough to counter. Before long, however, he was being forced backward and doing all he could to avoid another hit.

“Have you had enough?” she asked, backing away. His amused smile was gone.

“I don’t believe I can continue, since I cannot engage you with the seriousness you intend without running the risk of harming you.”

Harming her? She didn’t think so. “All right then,” Emilie said, handing him the épee. “Call it a draw.” The years of fencing lessons no one at court knew about, which her father had given her to help overcome her childhood clumsiness, had finally paid off.

Within a few days, her embarrassed parents brought her home from Versailles. Someone of high rank and considerable money, they agreed, must be looking for a chance to marry into a family with Louis-Nicholas’s close connections to the king. Emilie would marry the first wealthy nobleman willing to have a wife so willful and out of control. For the time being, let her savor her short-lived triumph alone in her room with her books. At least there, she could not humiliate her family any further.

1761

T
HE SOUND
of the key turning in the lock woke Lili as she lay on the cot in the penance room. “Is it morning?” she asked, seeing the weak light leaking again from the gap in the curtain.

“I am to bring you to the abbess,” Sister Jeanne-Bertrand said, ignoring the question.

“I haven’t memorized anything more,” Lili said, rolling over to turn her back to the nun. “And I’m not going to.”

“Get up,” the nun snarled so vehemently that Lili stumbled over her blanket as she got out of bed. With her hair disheveled and the laces of her dress untied, she followed the nun down the corridor. What now? she wondered.

Inside the office of the abbess, a woman in traveling clothes sat with her back to the door. At the sound of footsteps on the stone floor, she turned around. “Maman!” Lili cried out, rushing toward her.

Julie de Bercy leapt to her feet and held Lili in her arms before pulling back to look at her. “What did they do to you?” she asked, making a vain attempt to smooth Lili’s hair. Only then did she notice the bruise on Lili’s cheek. “What is this?” she asked, wheeling around to face the abbess.

“I disobeyed, Maman,” Lili murmured.

“We make no apologies for what we consider necessary to protect the young souls in our charge,” Abbess Marie-Catherine said.
“Surely you don’t expect we would stand by when we saw the abbey befouled by the presence of a forbidden book.”

Her one eye narrowed. “Really, Madame de Bercy, I should be asking you why you permitted such a vile piece of writing in the home of impressionable girls. Stanislas-Adélaïde said guests leave things for you that you might not know are there, but if that is the case, you should be thanking us that it has been removed.”

“I feel no need to defend what I choose to have in my home.” Julie put her arm around Lili’s shoulder. “What are you so afraid of, that the mere presence of a book inside your walls makes you do this to a young girl?”

The abbess sat in pursed-lipped silence so long that Lili had to struggle not to squirm. “You know very well what true Christians are afraid of,” she said in a voice so low it was almost a snarl.

Maman took in a breath as if she were about to respond. Then, ignoring the abbess’s comment, she spoke. “I am withdrawing my two girls from the Abbaye de Panthémont as of today.”

Lili looked at Maman in disbelief and felt a cool, firm hand enclose her own. “Would you please ring for help emptying their room?” Julie said. “My carriage is waiting.” Without another word, she turned and strode toward the door, bringing a stunned Lili in her wake.

NEVER HAD A
person recovered from a cold as quickly as Delphine did upon hearing that her days at the abbey were over. She danced around her bedroom, while a confused Tintin barked and pawed at her nightdress. “I want to hear everything,” she said, when she finally could be coaxed back into bed.

Maman laughed. “Since you’re well enough for me to cancel the order for your coffin, you’re well enough to put on a dress and brush your hair for supper. Lili and I will meet you downstairs.” Maman motioned Lili toward the door. “I have something to share with you,” she said.

The two of them waited in the parlor while the servants set the table and improvised an unexpected supper for three. Julie had already opened a desk drawer and taken out a letter. “I’m curious why you haven’t asked me how I knew what had happened to you.”

Lili thought for a moment. “I guess I always feel you’re somehow watching over us.”

Julie smiled. “I must say I prefer it your way.” She handed Lili the letter. “Baronne Lomont will be most unhappy when she learns she is responsible for your liberation.”

Lili unfolded the letter and saw the cramped and perfectly written date and salutation. “I write to inform you of distressing news I have just received from the abbess at Panthémont,” the baroness had written.

Lili looked up at Maman. “The abbess wrote to her instead of you?”

“I’m afraid so,” Julie said. “Marie-Catherine and Baronne Lomont are cousins, or so I’ve been told, and the baroness always seemed to know more about your activities there than I did. But read on.”

“This situation has come about entirely because of the laxity with which you manage your household. Stanislas-Adélaïde has apparently smuggled in a book by a M. Roskeau of whom I was fortunate enough to be entirely ignorant until today. We have agreed she must be monitored most closely for evidence of such willfulness. I intend to visit the convent tomorrow to attend the examination Marie-Catherine plans for the girl. I urge you to leave this situation to me, with my assurances that I will apprise you more fully upon my return.”

Maman waited until Lili had finished. “I came right away,” she said. “I prayed the entire way I would get there first and we would be gone before the baroness arrived.” She got up to put the letter back in the drawer. “Of course now I must wait for her response. I imagine it won’t be long in coming, or in the least bit pleasant.”

*   *   *

“
ABBESS MARIE-CATHERINE HAS
unfinished business with Lili and she must be returned to the convent immediately.” Baronne Lomont glanced at her priest confessor, who had accompanied her to Hôtel Bercy the following afternoon. “This is the most profound of insults.”

“She won’t be returned, and the insult is to my family.” Julie rang for the maid. “Would you like some coffee and a bit of the cake we have today, Madame?”

The older woman ignored her. “Surely you can’t feel Stanislas-Adélaïde’s education is already at an end. There is still quite a lot she has not yet—” The baroness locked her eyes on Lili as she formed her thought. “Fully absorbed.” She arched her eyebrows in rebuke.

“I think it is quite time for her education to begin,” Julie replied. “I intend to get the girls a tutor. They will study those subjects that will make them an interesting companion to an intelligent husband, not just catechism-squawking parrots with no minds of their own.”

The priest and Baronne Lomont sat back, speechless.

“If you are concerned about whether Stanislas-Adélaïde will receive proper religious instruction, you may examine her yourself when she visits Baronne Lomont,” Julie said to the priest. “I’ve given my word to the Marquis du Châtelet that the baroness will be involved in his daughter’s upbringing until she is married. And we will continue, as we always have, to go to mass twice a week and confess our sins regularly.”

She reached for her teacup without the slightest quaver in her hands and took a delicate sip. “Is there something more either of you would ask of me?” The priest and the baroness exchanged glances. “She is my ward,” Julie continued, with a firmness that ended the discussion.

“Well, then.” Baronne Lomont rose to her feet and turned to Lili. “See that you are at my home the day after tomorrow, in the morning.” She looked at Julie with a haughty thrust of her chin. “If, of course, that meets with Madame’s approval.”

Julie repaid her with the same icy tone. “I’ll see that she’s there,” she said, as the baroness swept from the parlor.

THE WINDOWS OF
the Hôtel Bercy rattled as the wind from the first cold storm of fall banged the shutters. Julie had gone out despite the weather, but not before ordering that a small fire be lit in the room, where the girls were spending the afternoon. Delphine had tired of playing the piano and was moving around in her stocking feet, imitating dancers at a ball. She worked her way over to where Lili sat at the desk, intent on her notebook.

“Read me what you’ve written,” she pleaded. “I promise I’ll be your slave forever if you do.”

Lili snorted. “You’re already my slave for the next century, at the rate you promise things.” But her concentration was broken, and with a sigh she stood up. “At least let’s sit closer to the fire.”

Delphine wiggled her hips next to Lili’s in a chair meant for one person, looking at the pages while Lili read.

“When Comète galloped to a stop on Venus, Meadowlark was surprised to find people weeping and laying flowers in front of a long row of rocks.

“‘I can’t imagine any rock that could make me cry,’ Meadowlark said to Comète. ‘Wait here—I’m going to see what’s happening.’ Comète nodded his head and snorted fireworks from his white nose.

“‘Why are you crying over a rock?’ Meadowlark asked the first person she came to.

“‘It’s not really a rock,’ he said. ‘It’s my daughter.’

“‘Was she born that way?’ Meadowlark asked.

“‘Of course not! Who would have a rock for a baby?’”

Delphine giggled and looked up at Lili with shining eyes. “A rock for a baby!” Lili grinned and went on.