Madame Gournay, who was employed solely to look after the marquis’s wardrobe, had found his daughter to be an altogether more delightful model.The marquis was forever changing his mind, ordering bolts of silks and satins that were immediately discarded, demanding alterations that, when made, were never satisfactory. She found in Sido an appreciation that her master never gave.
“Making clothes for you feels as if I am playing my part in the Revolution. There,” said Madame Gournay, standing back. “You look beautiful.”
Sido stared at herself in the mirror. Beauty she did not see, only that her leg appeared stiffer from lack of exercise.
“Perhaps,” said Sido, turning and smiling at the seamstress, “if I were to be pulled along on a cart I might be passable. The moment I walk I am afraid all is lost.”
“No,” said Madame Gournay firmly, “you make too much of it. A little hesitation in a lady adds to her charm.”
Maître Tardieu saw before him an anxious-looking young girl with large blue eyes, dark hair, and pale porcelain skin. It made the count’s letter and what he had to impart all the more distasteful.
“I wish I had happier news for you, mademoiselle,” he said, “but I have not. I think it is best that you read this yourself.” And he handed her the black letter.
Sido, unlike her father, needed no explanation. Her response was immediate.
“I can’t marry him.”
Maître Tardieu sighed. This young girl was not to be duped as her mother had been. He had known at the time that Isabelle Gautier did not love the marquis: She had been blinded by his wealth and the promise of luxury, the seduction of jewelry.
Maître Tardieu cleared his throat. “I greatly regret it, but your father has instructed me to agree to the marriage. You have no choice in the matter when his debts can be so easily solved by this union.”
Sido looked at the letter again, taking in the three words written in red ink at the bottom.
“Do you know what he means by ‘remember your wife’?”
“No, alas, I do not.”
Sido bit her lip and said, “Why have I no family to advise my father against this ill-judged marriage?” She looked up at the old lawyer, fighting back tears.
He suddenly took pity on her and said something that had been locked away for many years, something he had been forbidden to pass on.
“You have family in London,” he said quickly.
Sido stared at him, uncertain if she had heard the lawyer right.
“Family in London?” she repeated.
Poor Maître Tardieu looked appalled by what, without due legal consideration, had just tripped off his tongue.
“Oh dear. I have always been under strict instructions to say nothing on the matter. What is to be done now?”
“Where in London are they?” asked Sido, hardly able to contain her excitement. “How can I find them?”
“I have no idea. I know your mother had a sister there at the time of the accident. She married an Englishman, a Mr. Laxton. Whether she is still alive, I cannot say.”
“What is her name?”
“Please, mademoiselle, do not press me. Truly, I shouldn’t have said a word. And do not put too much store by this news. She is surely dead by now.”
“Why?” asked Sido.
“Because,” said the lawyer, floundering, “because the English have a very poor diet. They live a shorter time than the French.”
Sido looked at Maître Tardieu and felt sorry for him. He looked quite exhausted and his face was gray. She could see that he was not a well man.
“I must leave. I am too old to be doing this, too old and powerless to know how to help you. I wish it were not so.”
She knew it was no good questioning him further. He looked half terrified by what he had already said.
“Are you going back to Paris now?” she asked.
“I am. Immediately. I am worried about my wife. She is not in the best of health and with the state of things in the city . . .”
She followed him out to his waiting carriage.
“Before you go, may I ask you one last thing? Do you think the Revolution might save me? Or is it already too late?”
“I think the world we knew has gone,” said Maître Tardieu. “What that means only time will tell.”
An early-morning mist hung like a veil over the garden. Sido, still reeling from all she had been told and the joyful knowledge, for what it was worth, that she wasn’t alone in the world, lifted her skirts and for the first time in seven months ran down the grassy paths. Nearly falling, she steadied herself on the statue of Pan. At last, finding her balance, she took the walk at a slower pace, pleased to feel her leg becoming less stiff. She wandered down paths where statues of goddesses watched over her. She saw a vista of fountains, and the lake beyond. The groves were full of birdsong.
It did not take her long to discover the metal cages. Pushing back the leaves, she saw aviaries full of wild birds, thrushes, blackbirds, nightingales, wrens, chaffinches, hidden amongst the foliage. She walked back up the path and discovered that the aviaries ran along every one of the groves. What cruelty, she thought, to do this to birds that own the sky.
She was trying to find out how the aviaries might be opened when a group of people appeared ghostlike out of the mist. They were armed with pitchforks, swords, and guns. She stood still with her back to the aviaries, recognizing some of the servants.
“Where are you going?”
“To Paris,” said Jacques. “We have come to free the birds.” He pulled out a key and said almost shyly, “Would you like to do it, mademoiselle?”
One by one, Sido unlocked the cages. They stood there, all of them silently watching the birds thrill to find the wind once more beneath their wings. Only when every cage stood empty did they part, the servants taking one path and Sido another.
chapter sixteen
Under the shade of the oak tree Sido could see in the flickering patterns of the leaves her life already mapped out, her future decided, her husband chosen. It was to be Count Kalliovski.
To Sido he seemed soulless, with his impossibly smooth skin, his face stripped of lines and wrinkles, his features wiped clean of life’s tempests. She wondered what pact he had made with the devil, that time itself should not wish to embrace him.
She thought back to that evening of the party some seven months earlier when he and his great black hound had sat in her chamber watching her. It had felt as if the very air was being sucked out of the room, his presence as heavy as mercury.
It was after the fireworks, when she was alone again, that Sido had her dream. She was walking along snowy treetops. The road up ahead was a silvery ribbon in the starlight; it appeared to be far off, yet it wound its way toward her. There on the highway she could make out a coach standing diagonally across the road, as if it had just avoided some terrible catastrophe. The coachman was mopping his brow, looking shaken. By the side of the horses stood Yann. He was holding the bridles and she could clearly hear him talking to them in his curious language. She reached out to touch him, and in that moment he turned toward her and smiled.
Then with a jolt she was back in her room. That was when she knew, as if she had always known, that Yann Margoza would be in her life forever.
At the convent there was a nun called Sister Ignatius, whom Sido liked very much. She was kind and wholesome, her feet firmly planted in the soil. She surprised Sido by telling her that when she was nine years old she had seen a vision of the Virgin Mary standing on ripe ears of barley, holding a baby made of light. In the gentle breeze she seemed to be walking on a golden sea. Sister Ignatius had known from that day forth that she would be a nun. Maybe, Sido thought now, you could have the same certainty about a living person. Maybe her dream too was a vision, a premonition.
In the days that followed, Sido told herself her premonition was just wishful thinking. As the days and weeks slowly tied themselves into months she gave in to her fantasy, for loneliness threa
tened to overwhelm her, to destroy her spirit.
Sometimes she wondered if dreaming about someone you hardly knew was sinful. Then she decided she didn’t much care if it was, for thinking about Yann made the isolation bearable. She told herself the same story over and over again, and every time it comforted her like thick hot chocolate on a cold winter’s day.
This dream of Yann had idled away many desperate months, until at last he seemed so real to her that she could almost believe he was sitting on the chair by her bed watching her.
Today, though, the dream stopped abruptly, for in her mind’s eye the smooth, soulless face of Count Kalliovski smothered her vision like a black velvet curtain, snuffing out her hope of freedom.
The Marquis de Villeduval returned home that same afternoon and called for Sido. She entered the room to find him with his back turned toward her, looking out over the garden. He did not turn around, but started to describe the building of the wall and the landscaping of the terraces as if his daughter hadn’t been there while all this activity was taking place. She stood staring at him, wondering what she should say; but every word felt like dust on her tongue, so she said nothing.
Her silence had an immediate effect. For the first time in Sido’s life, it seemed that her father was prepared to show a grudging interest in her. He took her to the locked antechamber where he kept his collection of shoe buckles, as if to see them was her reward for months of solitude.
It was like the inside of an ornate jewelry box, and glimmered with diamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires, and pearls.
The marquis said with pride, “What do you think of this? My collection is priceless. Not even the king can boast of such fine buckles as these.”
Sido didn’t answer. She had discovered a treasure all of her own: the golden power of silence.
It was the beginning of a strange time in her father’s house. The marquis spent most of his time at Versailles and Sido was left alone to explore the château and read the unread books. On his return her father would talk of the parties he had attended and how well he had been received, of Madame this and the Duchess of that. He never discussed Sido’s forthcoming marriage, just as he never discussed politics or the Revolution. The closest he came to acknowledging that anything untoward was happening was when he bemoaned how many of his friends had seen fit to leave for long vacations abroad. Of Paris all he had to say was that it had become “dull, very dull indeed.” Of Versailles he talked more favorably, of balls, parties, and the card tables, though here too he had his complaints.
“I observe,” he said, “that standards of dress are slipping. It is a tragedy, the loss of whalebone in corsets. Whalebone gives women such excellent stature. Now the fashion is all for ladies to look like milkmaids in their white muslin gowns, without proper support or lacing. As a result,” he announced, as if it were the most shocking piece of news ever, “women are slouching! So inelegant.”
Sido listened quietly, relieved that there was no need for her to comment, for what could she say to such a kaleidoscope of folly? She had become a silent witness to her father’s idiocy. She realized that, like the king himself, the marquis was out of touch with what was happening all around him. The decadence, the waste continued, and still the poor stayed poor while her father and his acquaintances determinedly danced, dined, gambled, gossiped, and spent their way to disaster.
It was only after the murder of his friend Madame Perrien that the fact that something terrible was happening dawned upon him. By then, it was all too late.
chapter seventeen
It had started with one of the marquis’s extravagances, a grand fête, given for all his friends that late summer after the fall of the Bastille, and designed to take their minds off the tedium of the Revolution.
It was held on an overcast day full of clouds that whirled menacingly, windmill-like, across the sky. The skeleton staff of gardeners who had not yet left for Paris had been obliged to work around the clock, for the marquis refused to acknowledge any change. His only concession to economy had been to hold no parties for the past eight months.
Now that the National Assembly had collectively lost its mind and agreed to pass this ridiculous declaration of the rights of man, he felt it his duty to throw one of his spectacular parties, a reminder, if one was needed, of how preposterous this Revolution was. For the idea that all men were equal was laughable; no one in his right mind could believe it. In his opinion, the sooner the populace was crushed the better.
For the time being the marquis was more concerned about deciding on a theme for his fête, and he called for the painter Etienne Bouchot to design the setting and the winged chariot in which he was to make his entrance.
After days of deliberation he settled on the idea that everyone would come dressed as a character from the Commedia dell’arte: Zannis, or clowns, with interesting costumes and witty masks, were much in fashion. An informal picnic would be held in his Arcadian garden. The guests would be transported across the lake to an Italian piazza, where they would dine and be entertained by jugglers, fire-eaters, and tightrope artists.
The marquis fussed and threw tantrums over every detail of this fête. His fury at finding that the cages had been emptied of birds knew no bounds until one of the gardeners suggested a novel idea that the marquis immediately claimed as his own, and set all his poor tenant farmers to work with butterfly nets.
On the opposite side of the lake a stage was built, while in front of the temple itself a wooden floor was laid and painted to look like a marble piazza. Scores of scene painters, carpenters, and metalworkers were needed to make such an ambitious vision a reality.
The invitations had been sent out, with one notable and fatal exception. The marquis had not asked Count Kalliovski. His reason for leaving the count off the guest list was childish, with, alas, no thought to the consequences. The marquis was bitterly jealous of Count Kalliovski’s new acquaintance with Robespierre, a bourgeois lawyer from Arras, one of the leaders of the Revolution. It was beyond his comprehension as to why the count would want to keep the company of such a humorless, dull man, of little or no consequence. Misguidedly, he believed that once the count discovered he had not been invited to this party, he would come back full of remorse: for how could he ever have risen so high in count circles without the marquis’s help and guidance? You could say the marquis had a talent for rearranging unpalatable truths to suit his narrow point of view.
What concerned him the most at the present time, and had almost turned the pink clouds of his mind gray with worry, was what to wear so as to outshine all his guests. Finally he concluded that none of the characters from the Commedia dell’arte reflected his noble nature or did justice to the ancient name of Villeduval, so he decided upon a costume that would truly enhance the glories of his personality. He would be the sun itself. To create the desired effect, tailors, shoemakers, glovers, and perfumers, fan- and mask-makers, and suppliers of gold and silver stuffs were called for.
All this fevered activity shook the château awake as if it were emerging from a long afternoon’s sleep. The marquis felt alive again, with a total disregard for any form of self-restraint. It was as if the Revolution had only been a glint in a starving man’s eye.
Sido, on hearing that the count was not coming, had felt a huge sense of relief. Now she could enjoy the fête without any worries about her forthcoming betrothal. Yet in all the preparations, her father never once asked to see her, and as the day drew nearer she realized that she had once again been forgotten.
On the eve of the party the marquis, as if at last remembering her, called for Sido to be brought to his chamber.
He was sitting in his dressing robe, his feet in a bowl of rosewater while his fingernails were attended to, a tall glass of champagne in the other hand, and beside him on the table a small pyramid of confectionery.
As the last rays of sunshine broke forth through the shutters, he looked at Sido and said irritably, “Don’t stand there. The light is most unbecom
ing.” He dusted the corners of his mouth with a napkin and addressed Luc, his valet. “She may observe the party from the side room in the temple, but that is all. I don’t want her wandering about tomorrow. Everything must be charming.” With that he lifted his pampered hand and waved her away.
Not for the first time did Sido wonder why it was that her father disliked his only child so very much.
On the day of the fête, the servants were up at dawn, bringing down long tables and laying them with fine damask, porcelain, and silver. An ice sculpture in the shape of a harlequin was placed in the center, and cut-glass chandeliers were hung from a series of ropes. They looked like strange, elaborate beehives floating in the sky above the tables. All around were urns filled with huge displays of flowers.
Boats shaped like swans and peacocks, their painted wooden feathers splayed out, were brought down to the lake on carts, and sackfuls of pink rose petals were floated gently on the metallic surface of the water.
Before the party started, Sido was taken down to the temple, where a concealed door in the wall was opened to reveal a cubbyhole with a good-sized window to look out of, and a spyhole to see into the temple itself. Gazing out of the window, she was reminded of the toy theater she had had as a small child. The scene before her had the same magical quality.
The orchestra struck up, and the guests began to arrive.
They came as Punchinellos, Scarpinos, Scaramouches, Pantaloons, Pierrots, Columbines. Tumblers and jugglers from the Paris circus performed amongst them, while a tightrope walker in a harlequin costume crossed back and forth above their heads.
At last the marquis made his entrance to the sound of trumpets, his winged chariot pulled by four men dressed in tunics with headdresses in the shape of the sun, their bodies oiled and shining. The marquis was helped out, an apparition in gold silk brocade. He wore a breastplate with the face of the sun on it. His wig was gold, studded with gems. His mask was made of thin gold leaf, and looked as if it had been blown across his face. The effect was dazzling—so much so that the sun might well have decided not to shine, out of envy