I’d never asked Mrs. DuPont about the comings and goings at the courtyard door — too many other worries had intervened — and she had never asked me about the bells that rang all over the house about once every hour when I was not above stairs. Curiosity seemed to be sadly lacking for the both of us, until on my way to the attic room after my fitting, I happened to glance out the round window on the upper floor. Far below, I saw a young man talking with Mrs. DuPont at the courtyard door. I watched as he put something slyly in her hand, perhaps a letter or something folded in paper.
I hurried down the stairs and around the landings, through the foyer, and into the back corridor. But Mrs. DuPont was no longer there, and there was no one at the door. She wasn’t in the kitchen either, only Mr. DuPont, staring dreamily at the wall, eating a bowl of porridge. I ducked away before he could see me and start one of our bizarre one-sided conversations, and found myself staring at the closed door to the servants’ quarters.
I was not actually lacking curiosity, far from it; the door to Mrs. DuPont’s room was a terrible temptation, even more so than the time I had succumbed and opened Lane’s. And this time I knew the house belonged to me. I reached out a hand for the door latch. For all of our posturing and squabbling over names, for all of her glorious dinners, hoping I would choose ease of service over actual authority in my own house, I was frightened of Mrs. DuPont. I did not understand her, could not make out where her allegiances lay except with the Bonapartes. Was her enthusiasm that of a loyal subject, or a more personal devotion? If she knew enough to lead the emperor’s agents to my uncle, surely she would have already done so? I put my hand on the latch.
Of course, she also might be choosing an income over the emperor, and there was the nexus of my fear. I was afraid of what Mrs. DuPont might do if she thought I couldn’t pay. And despite having searched through many of Mr. Babcock’s papers, the location of my money in Paris was still an enigma. I dropped my hand from her latch, and instead stepped out the back door and into the courtyard.
The sun was lowering, sinking down behind the steeply pitched roofs, and I could hear children in some other part of the garden, behind a screen of hedges, but that was not what captured my attention. I had come to see if there was any sign of the young man, and there he was, just a little way down the path, a large, strapping sort of lad with his pants tucked into his boots. But he was not with Mrs. DuPont. He was with Mary, and Mary was giggling in a way that showed perhaps one-third of the sense I knew her to possess.
The young man took one of Mary’s hands and kissed it before leaning forward to whisper in her ear. I felt my eyebrows rise. Mary Brown had always held strong opinions about her proper duties as my maid, but the role she’d felt most keenly was that of chaperone, a rather prudish, overprotective one, in my opinion. Mary would snap like a disgruntled goose if Lane’s skin ever brushed anything other than my hand. Not that we hadn’t outwitted her. Often. But we’d certainly never done so in public.
Mary caught sight of me and yanked her hand away, pushing the young man from her ear. The boy looked over his shoulder, grinned, made a motion as if he was tipping an invisible cap, whispered one last thing in Mary’s ear, making her giggle, and then trotted away down the path. I walked out to meet her, and Mary tossed up her chin, despite the fact that her freckles were disappearing beneath blotches of pink.
“Robert is a right nice young man,” she said with no preamble. “And you don’t say ‘Robert’ when you’re French, you say ‘Ro-bear’ like there’s a big, furry animal on the end of it. He brings the groceries to Mrs. DuPont, and he’s good to that Mr. DuPont, even though the man ain’t much of talker, if you take my meaning.”
“I thought you said there weren’t any groceries, Mary.”
“I said there weren’t any groceries that time, Miss. He’s a nice boy,” she said.
“I’m sure he is,” I replied carefully. “Does Robert … does he speak English?”
“Not so much. But he’s teaching me French, and I can’t be spending all my years up in the attics, Miss.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to.” Part of me wanted to laugh, the other was aware of a great, empty void in my chest, a reminder that I was full of echoes. “But, Mary, surely … you couldn’t have known Robert very long, could you?” The last I’d counted, we had been in Paris for exactly four days.
I had thought this quite gentle as far as a remonstrance went, but Mary’s brows came down, still on the defensive. I took her arm, and she let out her annoyance in a little puff of air. Then she leaned her head on my shoulder, and we began walking back to the house. This was not the way a lady was supposed to walk with her maid, I supposed, but then again, I did not have a history of correct behavior with the servants. I wondered how she would feel if tonight went badly, if I decided we had to take Uncle Tully and flee from Paris. It seemed that any move I made — or didn’t make — was bound to hurt someone. My feet felt heavy in the gravel as we approached the back step.
“Miss,” Mary said suddenly, straightening up. “I’ve been thinking on this for a while now, Miss, only I hadn’t said, but … that Lane Moreau, now.” My arm stiffened slightly in hers. “Before you was coming to us, he didn’t go about with any of them other girls in the village, not a bit of it, and he could’ve, Miss, Lord knows he could’ve. Mostly he was with Mr. Tully, of course, and we’re both knowing what a job that is. But when you came, you was the only one I saw turning his head, and you turned it proper, if you don’t mind me saying. But, Miss, if all that’s so, and if he weren’t dead these months, and was just next door only now he ain’t, then why in all this time wasn’t he writing to you, Miss? Not even a line or two, not using his name?”
Every muscle inside me was now clenched and tense. Mary, in her usual way, was putting her thumb “right on the sore spot,” as her mother would have said. I didn’t know the answer to her question.
Mary went on. “Unless — and I hope I ain’t hurting your feelings none, Miss — but, unless maybe he was finding somebody else? He’s been gone a long time, and there’s lots of girls running about Paris, I’ve noticed, girls that ain’t so far above him. But what I’m really wanting to know, Miss, is … do you think they’ll all be changing their minds someday?”
I’d been so focused on my own worries that I hadn’t seen the direction Mary’s thoughts were taking. I turned my mind from my own conundrums and squeezed her arm.
“I’m not certain, Mary. But I would guess the shorter the acquaintance, the more changeable a mind could be. Wouldn’t you agree?” I tried to smile at her serious face.
“Well, Miss,” Mary said, “if we’re swapping advice, and if you don’t mind a dose of it from me, I wouldn’t trust that Mr. Marchand, Miss. Not for a minute, Miss. He looks at you like a fox in a chicken coop what’s got only one hen.”
I attempted a smile for the second time, but I couldn’t summon it. It wasn’t Henri Marchand or Mrs. DuPont or even the emperor of France I was afraid of this evening. The name of my deepest fear was Katharine Tulman, and whether tonight she would once again be making a terrible mistake.
At nine o’clock, I stood in front of the mirror in Marianna’s room, fidgeting. Uncle Tully was well, his bruises more faded, the upstairs attic now resembling a mechanical nest. My bruise was almost undetectable, but the small cut, I feared, was going to leave a scar. I had a bag packed beside the door of my room, and one of Dr. Pruitt’s little brown bottles on the chimneypiece, just in case the night went badly. I had not yet mentioned the idea of fleeing Paris to Mary, but I saw her eying the bottle and guessed that she was drawing her own conclusions.