Chapter 1
ONE
THE FIGURE HAD been standing across the street for an hour now.
When I first noticed it through the window, I had passed it off as simply another pedestrian, perhaps someone waiting for a friend.
I was sure that the rain, just starting, would keep it from loitering about: Paris in the rain was a miserable place.
The streets would be transformed from pleasant thoroughfares into swamps, churned to mud beneath shoes, hooves and carriage wheels.
Grime seeped into the seams of dresses and clung to the legs of urchin children.
Watching this from my room, separated from the squalor by only a thin pane of glass, I was thankful for the protection of my warm apartment.
The figure proved hardier than I had imagined.
When next I glanced outside, it was still there.
Standing in the same spot. The cloak gave it an uncertain shape which seemed to waver at the edges where raindrops blurred the scene.
Tall. Reasonably broad. The silhouette of a woman.
No clues further than that; nothing to suggest that she was anybody of my acquaintance, but as time wore on I became increasingly convinced that whoever it was, she was waiting for me.
I would get like this sometimes, even as a child: sure that the world was conspiring against me. Papa had called it paranoia; Mama, intuition. I supposed that which parent was correct depended upon the outcome. Which of them would prevail this time?
I leaned in to look closer, but my breath soon turned the pane as misty as a storm glass.
All that I spotted before my exhalations obscured the view was a glint of pale skin beneath the shadow of the hood: her face appeared to be turned towards my building.
The sight made me jump, and I stepped quickly back out of sight.
My boudoir was suddenly cold. The fire had burned low, and a creeping sensation was starting across my forehead where it had been pressed to the window.
Silly nonsense. Letting my imagination run away with me.
A fine habit for a child, but not one suited to a fully formed woman.
I would not look again. The figure was surely awaiting an appointment, or perhaps was one of those women of a certain trade – although, granted, the shapeless cloak did not seem to match this latter theory.
But what other explanation could there be?
Whether by the grace of this line of thought, or by the gloomy atmosphere of the day, memories of fairy tales and ghost stories began to stir.
I could almost hear the whisper of Mama’s voice in my ear as she told the midnight secrets of the graveyard.
But this morbidity would not do. I rang for the housemaid, Augustine, and directed her to build up the blaze.
A good heat would soon evaporate these phantoms.
The girl set about stoking and piling and conducting the little manoeuvres that one employs to coax a fire.
It was an alchemy I knew well – better than Augustine, judging by the trouble she was having with stacking the kindling.
The fires back at home had normally been built by Papa; though, when we were older, my sister and I had taken our turn as well.
But now I had servants, and it would have been improper to correct them on their technique.
A lady should not know how to perform such menial tasks; to demonstrate my knowledge could have raised doubt about my position.
Eventually, Augustine managed to bring the fire to life.
Besides her difficulty with this, she was an otherwise competent girl of sixteen, who had been in my service for about six months now; a hard worker, if a little timid, and with a troublesome habit of neglecting to dust in the corners.
Sensible, though. Yes, this would be easy to settle, I thought as I watched her work.
Once the fire was satisfactory, I beckoned her over to the window.
‘Do you see that person standing across the road, Augustine?’ I attempted nonchalance in the tone of the question, but the accompanying gesture of my palm rubbing across my forehead likely betrayed my unease – something that I realized only once it was too late.
Augustine peered out in the direction I indicated and, when I saw that she had noticed the figure, I said, ‘Yes, that one. Please send Virginie to enquire of the porter who it is.’
That done, I hid myself a little behind the curtain, and watched to see what would happen.
Presently, the porter hove into view. He was a stout man with large red whiskers: unmistakable even through the rain.
As I had requested, he crossed the road and shared some words with the woman.
After a moment, she raised one arm and pointed directly at my window.
My heart gave a savage leap against my ribs; I was forced to hurry out of view.
Who could this stranger be? And what could she want?
My husband always warned me to be cautious: a man of his position was sure to make enemies, sure to merit blackmail.
Every secret that I had ever held churned within my brain, as I tried to find one that would explain this strange apparition.
That this person wished me harm, I was certain, as if gripped by premonition. Erring on the side of Mama.
When a knock sounded at my door, I almost cried out in fright. Then I realized that it was Virginie, my lady’s maid. I smoothed my hair and called for her to enter.
‘What word from the porter?’ My voice managed somehow to remain steady despite the gasping of my pulse.
‘Monsieur Coulomb sends his apologies, Madame,’ Virginie replied, ‘but the lady outside would give neither her name nor purpose. She did, however, request that I bring you this visiting card. Only, she directed that neither I nor the porter was to look at it.’
Virginie held the card face-down so that the lettering could not be seen.
I took it from her and turned away. It was a simple design, with none of the fashionable miniatures or messages that many of the upper class preferred.
All that it bore was a name and address: Mlle C.
Mothe, 34 rue de Constantine, Belleville.
At the familiar words, the thrumming of my heart gave way to a strange tranquillity.
I lowered the card. There was a mahogany writing desk against one wall of the boudoir, with a drawer that could be unlocked only by the key that I wore about my neck.
I crossed to this now, opened it, and placed the visiting card inside.
Then I fetched a coin purse and took out a couple of francs.
‘Please show the lady into my rooms,’ I said, moving back over to Virginie. ‘Make sure that my husband does not see – perhaps the servants’ stair would be best.’
Virginie bobbed her head. ‘Of course, Madame.’
‘And Virginie …’
‘Yes, Madame?’
I reached for her hand, pressing the money into it. ‘You will not tell anybody of this?’
‘Of course not, Madame,’ Virginie replied.
Her expression was unreadable, just as any good servant’s should be.
Frustrating when one wished to gauge a reaction, however.
I would have to trust that the money would out-value the social capital one might gain from such gossip.
And Virginie was not known to be a gossip.
While I awaited Mademoiselle Mothe, I relocked my desk, and then examined myself in the looking glass.
It had been over two years – oh, how I had changed in that time!
A smattering of grey had already begun to appear in my hair, and my waist was threatening a decline beneath my stays.
This was the price of having a paid cook to hand!
But my wardrobe was considerably better, my posture more refined: I looked a respectable, well-bred woman.
Taking a seat on the Turkish divan, I tried to arrange myself as impressively as I could, and awaited Virginie’s rap at the door.
When it came, I called out, ‘Enter!’
Virginie led the cloaked figure into the room. This latter was dripping with water from where she had stood so long in the rain, but, appearing now in the warm boudoir, she looked far less ominous.
I directed Virginie to take the cloak and hang it before the fire – which seemed to take an age – then finally dismissed her.
At last, I was alone with the woman who had waited so long to catch my attention. ‘So you found me, Charlotte,’ I said.
Charlotte only smiled in response. Her smile hadn’t been at all altered by the years.
My resolve softened at the familiar features: her square jaw in contrast to my rounded one; her blonde hair honeyed where mine was ashen; her thick, clumsy wrists the disappointing twins of my own.
Yet she was in some ways entirely different, more haggard.
There was a recent wound upon her brow, about the length of a little finger and not quite healed.
Her under-eyes were dark, her face sallow.
My pose on the divan felt suddenly absurd. I rose hurriedly, leaning to kiss Charlotte’s cheeks in order to disguise the awkwardness.
‘I am truly pleased to see you,’ I told her. ‘Certainly, I should have preferred … Well, you are here now; I see no use in quarrelling over it.’
‘I weren’t sure if I should come,’ said Charlotte, all in a rush.
‘I kept turning back, then changing my mind and whirling round again – I must’ve looked like a spinning top!
Then I couldn’t get up the nerve to approach that porter of yours.
I kept thinking, what if he sends me right away without even listening to what I’ve got to say?
Truth told, I thought that’s what he was coming to do just now.
’ She finally paused long enough to take a breath. ‘But here we are.’
‘Here,’ I said, ‘come closer to the fire. It will be no wonder if you have caught your death. You never were one to behave sensibly, were you?’