CHAPTER TWO
ELIN
Below, Monsieur Lebon had barely reached the bottom of the steps.
Beside me, Cécile held the pencil so tightly I feared it would break.
I looked from her to the dust-covered man standing beneath the portico. He had removed his hat and was reaching inside a leather dispatch case while Monsieur waited before him.
Cécile drew back so quickly that the curtain rings rattled against the rod.
Dinah caught her by the arm and pulled her farther from the window.
“What is it?” I whispered.
Cécile looked at me, then pointed urgently toward the man below.
“You know him?”
She nodded.
“From where?”
Her lips parted, but no sound came.
Below us, the messenger withdrew a letter.
Cécile seized my wrist.
Then I understood.
“Commander Vale?”
Another nod.
Not Vale himself.
His messenger.
A man she had apparently seen often enough to recognize even beneath the road dust coating his clothes.
Monsieur Lebon recognized him too.
Whatever greeting he might otherwise have offered disappeared the instant the man extended the letter. Monsieur glanced toward the upper windows, closed his hand around the envelope and hurried the messenger toward the house without opening it.
Even from above, I saw the color leave his face.
“Did he see us?” I whispered.
“He sees what concerns him,” Dinah answered as she released Cécile. “Don’t be of concern, child.”
The messenger removed his hat once more and wiped his forehead with his sleeve before following Monsieur inside.
He had ridden hard to reach Le Champ des Fleurs; dust covered the shoulders of his coat, his boots were white with it, and even his horse stood beneath the portico with its head lowered and foam gathering around the bit.
Within moments, the bell in Monsieur’s study began ringing, sending a sharp summons through the house.
The household responded like a dry field touched by a spark.
A footman hurried toward the front hall, another was sent to find Madame, and someone called for brandy although it was not yet nine o’clock in the morning.
Doors opened and closed along the passage below us while hurried voices carried up the staircase, each one lowered as soon as its owner remembered that Cécile’s bedroom stood directly overhead.
Cécile remained at the window, staring at the place where the messenger had disappeared.
“You are certain he belonged to Commander Vale?”
She hurried to the writing desk and took up her pen.
He carried Nathaniel’s letters.
“How often?”
Often enough.
Of course she would remember him.
Nathaniel Vale had not merely been a visitor to Le Champ des Fleurs. For a time, before his name became something respectable people lowered their voices to discuss, everyone had expected him to become part of the family.
Cécile had been promised to him.
The arrangement had been made before I came to Virginia, although I had heard enough of it afterward to understand that neither Cécile nor Commander Vale had objected.
That alone distinguished their engagement from many I had observed.
Cécile had never spoken of loving him. I did not believe she had. Love seemed too extravagant a word for what existed between them.
She had trusted him.
Once, during my first winter at Le Champ des Fleurs, she had written that Nathaniel never hurried her when she spoke. He did not finish her sentences, laugh when a word refused to come or pretend not to notice while watching every struggle. He waited.
Cécile had thought he would make a gentle husband.
For a young woman whose future would ultimately be decided by other people, perhaps gentleness had seemed enough.
Then something changed.
No one had ever explained precisely what Commander Vale had done.
His invitations disappeared first. Men who once sought his company began avoiding him. Madame stopped mentioning the engagement, and Monsieur removed Vale’s name from conversation as thoroughly as if the man had died.
Within weeks, the arrangement with Cécile was ended.
Then Vale himself vanished from Virginia.
Dinah gathered the remains of Cécile’s breakfast and began arranging the same cup and plate as though their position upon the tray had suddenly become important.
“Best leave Commander Vale’s name alone,” she said.
“Why?”
Dinah looked toward the open doorway. “Because walls carry words where they ought not go.”
The warning was not an answer, but the fear in her face prevented me from pressing her.
Cécile moved toward the door. Dinah did not block her, although her hands tightened around the breakfast tray.
“Your father will not tell you anything today, Miss Cécile.”
“I w-want to f-find—”
“I know,” Dinah said softly. “But going down there will not make him willing to answer.”
Cécile pointed toward the hallway, her face growing red as she struggled to force the words through lips that refused to cooperate with her.
“She has a right to know what has happened,” I said.
Even as I said it, I knew what rights were worth in that house when the person claiming them possessed no power to make anyone listen.
Cécile knew it too. Her arm fell to her side, but the anger did not leave her face.
Cécile returned to the dressing table and sat down with enough force to make the perfume bottles tremble. I retrieved the blue gown from beneath the bed, shook the dust from its skirts and spread it across the coverlet.
“The blue has already suffered for its crimes,” I said. “We may as well wear it.”
The corner of Cécile’s mouth lifted, and Dinah placed a biscuit upon a small plate before carrying it to her.
“If you can manage two bites,” she said quietly.
“Four,” I added.
Cécile glared at both of us, then took a bite large enough to satisfy our combined demands.
By the time I had dressed her hair and fastened the first row of tiny buttons along the back of her gown, the messenger had gone, taking his exhausted horse and any possibility of easy answers with him.
No one came upstairs to explain the letter.
The household continued its preparations for the arriving guests, but the rhythm of the work had changed.
Doors closed more softly than before, conversations stopped whenever Cécile or I entered a room, and Monsieur’s study remained locked long after the messenger’s departure.
Madame crossed the front hall twice without correcting the placement of the flowers or criticizing the work of a single servant, and that uncharacteristic silence frightened everyone more effectively than shouting would have done.
Shortly before noon, Madame sent for me.
I found the morning-room door already open.
Monsieur and Madame had not yet noticed me.
“We cannot withdraw the invitation now,” Madame was saying.
Monsieur stood at the far window with a glass of brandy in one hand. “I am aware of that.”
“Then stop behaving as though I arranged this.”
“You approved it.”
“Before.”
The single word stopped him.
Madame stood beside the writing table, one hand gripping the edge.
“Before his name became something no one wished spoken at supper. Before Richmond turned against him. Before every woman with a calling card began pretending she had never admired him.”
“And yet the Fairhavens were invited.”
“At his recommendation.”
“Exactly.”
Madame lowered her voice, forcing me to lean slightly toward the doorway to hear.
“If we rescind the arrangements now, everyone will know why.”
“They already know Vale introduced them.”
“That is precisely the problem.”
Monsieur gave a humorless laugh.
“You think Augusta Dewey will not ask? Lavinia George? Half the county? We withdraw hospitality from Vale’s friends the moment he falls from society and they will invent ten scandals before luncheon.”
“They may already have done so.”
“Their rooms are prepared. Their journey arranged. Their arrival expected.”
Monsieur turned from the window.
“And now this.”
His gaze fell upon the letter lying on the table.
Madame followed it.
Neither spoke for several seconds.
I should have backed away.
Instead, I remained where I was.
Madame finally saw me.
Her expression changed at once.
“Elin.”
I stepped into the room.
“You sent for me, Madame.”
“Yes.”
Nothing in her face acknowledged that I had heard a word.
Monsieur turned away and drained the last of his brandy.
“Close the door.”
I obeyed.
Madame folded the letter and placed it beneath one hand.
“Cécile is not to be told about this.”
I looked at the paper.
“Yes, Madame.”
“She saw the messenger?”
“Yes.”
“Did she recognize him?”
I hesitated.
Madame noticed.
“Well?”
“Yes.”
Monsieur swore softly beneath his breath.
Madame’s fingers tightened upon the letter.
“What did she say?”
“She knew he carried Commander Vale’s correspondence.”
“That is all?”
“Yes.”
It was not precisely all, but I did not consider Cécile’s private memories their property.
Madame studied me.
“You will not encourage her questions.”
“I cannot prevent her from having them.”
“You can prevent yourself from feeding them.”
“Yes, Madame.”
She came around the writing table.
“The Deweys and Georges will arrive this afternoon. Cécile will greet them properly and remain with the family through dinner. If she becomes distressed, you may take her into the garden until she recovers, but you will not remove her from the gathering without my permission.”
“I understand.”
“There is something else.”
I waited.
“Cécile is not to be left alone with Judge Dewey or Mr. George.”
My eyes went to Monsieur.
He stared toward the window.
“What if either gentleman asks to speak with her?”
“You will see that it does not happen.”
“How?”
Madame’s mouth thinned.
“You are an intelligent girl, Elin. That is why we keep you.”
The word settled between us.
Keep.
As one kept a horse.
As one kept an account book.
As one kept anything useful until it ceased to be so.
My contract still had an ending.
I reminded myself of that.
One hundred and fifty-seven weeks.
“Will that be all?”
“For now.”
I had reached the door when Monsieur called my name.