The school of mirrors, p.20
The School of Mirrors, page 20
“When will my mother send for me?” she remembers asking her nurse.
“I don’t know.”
“Are you her sister?”
“No.”
“My father’s then?”
“No.”
“Then whose?”
“No one’s.”
In the summer of the year Marie-Louise would turn six, a monsieur from the palace arrived in a black carriage to take her away. Convinced that her mother had finally sent for her, just as it had happened to other children living with their nurses in the village, she became giddy with joy. This is why when the nurse hugged her and asked if she would miss her, Marie-Louise said no.
“Not even a little?” the nurse asked and made a very sad face.
“Perhaps a little,” Marie-Louise conceded, for she didn’t want her nurse to stay sad.
Her smocks, aprons and handkerchiefs were all neatly folded and placed in a wicker basket with a lid. So were her toys: Poupette, the doll her nurse had made for her from two kinds of cloth, cotton for the body and silk for the face; a spin top that twirled into continuous stripes of red and yellow, colors Marie-Louise thought were the most beautiful in the world.
The palace monsieur said he didn’t have all day. He drummed his fingers on the tabletop. He looked at the ceiling first and then at Marie-Louise. The horses neighed outside. That was when the nurse traced the sign of the cross over Marie-Louise’s forehead and gave her a soft pincushion embroidered with a red rose. Marie-Louise began to cry, and her nose got all snotty.
“There, there,” the nurse said and wiped the snot away.
In the town of Versailles the houses were big, golden and glittering; the long lanes leading to them were filled with carriages and people rushing about. Bells rang. Someone yelled, “Make way! Make way!” She saw a boy carrying a caged bird, its feathers green, bright red and blue. A man on a gray horse passed them by. A pack of dogs followed the carriage, barking in excitement.
Before Marie-Louise had the time to worry about how her mother could possibly find her now that she was not with her nurse, the carriage pulled into a small courtyard where a different monsieur, tall and thin, in a purple jacket with shiny gold buttons, waited for her. Marie-Louise thought him odd-looking, a bit like the scarecrows that guarded the fields near her nurse’s house. His wrinkled face had pinkish smudges on it, and his lips were pursed in a grimace, which made Marie-Louise decide that he didn’t like her much and therefore could not be her father.
“I’m Marie-Louise,” she said in case the scarecrow monsieur didn’t know her name and took her to a wrong mother.
“Are you, really?”
“Yes.”
He asked her if she had caused trouble on the way, had been a nuisance, perhaps.
“No,” she said. Although she had been, demanding her doll be taken from the wicker basket because she wanted to hold it. Making the first monsieur call her an incorrigible brat. She was still holding Poupette now, upside down, for this is how Poupette liked it best, her button eyes intent on seeing everything Marie-Louise might miss.
“Come along then.”
She followed him along a path lined with trees growing in giant pots, as if they were flowers. She wondered what her mother would say first when she saw her. How much she had grown? Would she ask if she had been a good girl when she lived with her nurse? Which she was, mostly, wasn’t she?
“Be grateful for being taken care of,” the palace monsieur told her as she climbed the stairs after him in a strange-looking house with many doors that was neither golden nor glittering. “Always obey your guardians. Learn what they have to teach you.”
Guardians, Marie-Louise told herself, must be another word for parents.
“Give them no reason for anger, ever.”
A rooster’s crow, his voice, telling her to avoid the sins of bluntness, caprice and contradiction, as if she knew what it meant. Indolence was also bad, but this word was easier to guess, especially when Monsieur added, “Idle hands tempt the devil.”
This is what adults did. Appeared from nowhere, spoke in riddles and then disappeared. It was pointless to ask them questions; watching them closely worked better. Monsieur in the purple jacket had to be an important man, for the people he took her to welcomed him with a deep bow and a curtsy. “You won’t regret your decision, Monsieur Lebel. Neither will Madame de Pompadour,” the woman he addressed as Madame Gourlon said. “With us, the child will lack for nothing.”
Marie-Louise felt a tinge of pleasure at these words.
The short, wiry man with a reddened nose who stood beside Madame Gourlon was Monsieur Gourlon. He was holding his hands behind his back the way Marie-Louise’s nurse did when she had a surprise for her. Would he give her a horn she could blow and make dogs bark? Or a new doll, perhaps? But when he dropped his hands, they were both empty, which made Marie-Louise sad and a little bit angry, but not Poupette, who was very jealous and wouldn’t like a new doll at all.
At first Marie-Louise listened carefully to what was said. How Madame de Pompadour’s wishes had to be obeyed. How the child was not to be indulged. “Instructed according to her abilities,” the scarecrow monsieur said. “Offered guidance.” But since no one addressed Marie-Louise, she let Poupette take a good look around the room they were in. They both loved a picture of a stag in a forest meadow hanging on one of the walls, its head up, lit by the silver moon and a shiny candelabra with six candles that stood in the middle of a table. “Fancy,” Marie-Louise’s nurse would have called it.
Finally, the palace monsieur announced that his business was done, and he had no more time to waste. As soon as he left, Marie-Louise turned to Madame Gourlon and asked:
“Are you my mother?”
Madame opened her eyes wide and then frowned. “Whatever gave you that idea, child?” she asked.
“Are you?”
“No.”
“Take me to her then.”
“Listen to this brat, wife.” Monsieur Gourlon scoffed. “Barely inches off the ground and giving us orders already.”
Guardians, it turned out, were not parents. They were strangers who agreed to take her in out of the goodness of their hearts, to do their Christian duty.
When Marie-Louise threw herself on the floor and began to wail, Madame Gourlon asked, “Is this how you show your gratitude? Is this the kind of behavior your mother would like to see?” This made Marie-Louise cry even harder. She didn’t calm down even when Madame Gourlon, who told her to call her Gardienne, opened her hand and put some sugar shavings on it. Or showed Marie-Louise the nook where she would sleep and keep her lovely new dresses. Or greeted Poupette with great ceremony and asked her name. “She won’t tell you,” Marie-Louise said, but Gardienne guessed it anyway.
The Gourlons were Madame de Pompadour’s servants. Madame de Pompadour was a very important lady, a dear friend of the king himself. Gardienne was Madame’s waiting maid, Monsieur Gourlon, whom everyone called Old Gourlon, was her coachman, and this is why he wore livery with purple facings. They lived in two entresol rooms on the first floor of the Grand Commons, the bigger one with the windowless nook where, every evening, Marie-Louise unfolded her bed only to fold it up neatly again each morning.
“Our ward,” Gardienne said when anyone asked. Willful, but settling down, thanks be to merciful God and all the saints. “My own little ones are with the angels in Heaven,” Gardienne also said. “Too good for this earth.”
Sometimes, if more questions followed, Gardienne would whisper in the other person’s ear. The words Marie-Louise heard, “a Polish bastard” or “one of those Deer Park girls,” were always spoken with a frown. Whatever they meant, they always caused knowing nods and curious looks in her direction. As if there was something peculiar about her, something for which no ordinary words were good enough.
Gardienne said that Marie-Louise had wasted enough time already with “that nurse of hers” and that was why she had duties now. She had to learn to be useful so that one day, like her Gardienne, she, too, could become a waiting maid to a grand lady, maybe even to Madame de Pompadour herself. But before this could happen Marie-Louise had to learn how to sew, darn and embroider so that she could watch over her mistress’s wardrobe. And she would also have to learn good manners so that her presence would bring her future mistress nothing but solace and joy.
“Pay attention, Marie-Louise,” Gardienne would say every morning, making Marie-Louise practice different stitches until they looked perfectly even and did not pull at the fabric and make it pucker. Or embroider a sampler particularly appropriate for young girls in her circumstances. The lessons went well unless Marie-Louise turned careless and forgot her manners. Her nail-biting was a case in point. For in spite of the wormwood infusion smeared on her fingertips twice daily, Marie-Louise’s nails were always chewed halfway down, revealing the pink flesh underneath. That was why Poupette the doll had enough of Marie-Louise and fell apart. Her silk and cotton parts both thinned and tore, revealing the stuffing inside, which turned out to be nothing but old rags and balls of crushed hay.
Gardienne always did something with her lips when she said things like that. Pursed them, or blew air through them, following with a toss of her head, up first then aside. There was no fighting a bad seed, she said. Marie-Louise was a cross to bear. A nail in her guardians’ coffin. A scourge.
When her lessons were over, Marie-Louise was allowed to play outside.
In His Majesty’s stables the red-haired groom with tiny mud-colored freckles taught her how to calm a jittery horse. In the royal dairy, the milkmaid with eyes that crinkled around the corners with every smile showed her how to squeeze the cow’s tits and gave her fresh, foamy milk to drink, still warm from the udder.
“My real mother,” Marie-Louise told them, “is a countess who had to hide me from her evil family. My real father is coming to take me with him any time now. But this is a secret, so don’t tell anyone.”
“If it is thus,” they said, “you are a lucky girl.”
Marie-Louise nodded and skipped away. Or rewarded them with a cartwheel she had learned to execute perfectly. Or with her imitation of Old Gourlon shaving, which involved holding her nose and scraping her throat with an imaginary razor she sharpened on an imaginary belt.
She was quite a mimic, they said. She could earn her keep in the circus.
Was she a lucky girl, though?
If she was, why was she getting into scrapes all the time? Coming back home wet, dirty, with torn clothes, smeared with tar? Making Gardienne cut tangled strands of her hair, despair over her ruined clothes, ask why on earth couldn’t she stay away from trouble?
“Because,” Marie-Louise finally admitted, “I was searching for my mother.”
“‘Searching for my mother’!” Gardienne repeated in a mocking voice, her hands raised up to the Heavens. “And why, pray tell me, would your mother care for such a brat?”
Hurtful words, more hurtful than any slap. They meant that her mother abandoned her because Marie-Louise wasn’t good enough, obedient enough, careful enough.
Her mother didn’t want such a bundle of trouble, such a wayward child.
Her mother had left her for a reason.
* * *
Visitors who dropped by the Grand Commons were mostly Madame de Pompadour’s maids and footmen. Marie-Louise liked them for the stories they told. A fat-headed royal princess walked down the palace corridor leaving a trail of her piss for them to clean. A Versailles officer killed his valet with a blow of his sword. The king had private rooms on the roof, above the Salon of War: one full of maps and strange rocks, another a workshop where His Majesty was turning lead into gold.
One visitor caused a small commotion every time she appeared. Gardienne called her Nicole, but Marie-Louise was to refer to her as Madame du Hausset. “How can you possibly manage it every day, Diane?” Nicole always asked, gasping for breath after having climbed to the entresol rooms. “First this long walk, then these hellish stairs.” To which Gardienne always answered that the walk took a mere ten minutes and the stairs were not that steep. Besides, she knew not to poke a gift horse in the mouth.
“To each his own,” Nicole might say to that, or “If such is your pleasure, indeed.” Or some other puzzling words that always made Gardienne declare in a solemn tone that she had always been grateful for Madame de Pompadour’s generosity.
“Does anyone say you are not, Diane?” Nicole asked with that funny-sounding huff of hers. To which Gardienne replied that she hoped no one would. And if they did, Madame would never pay heed to such words, would she?
Nicole, Madame du Hausset, called herself Madame de Pompadour’s companion and confidante. “Madame trusts me in every matter,” she would say. “And so does His Majesty, who has given me many proofs of his absolute confidence.” Neither the king nor Madame de Pompadour would ever agree to her being away from them even for a day, which was why she lived at the big palace, in a room next to Madame’s apartment. Those who envied her this privilege forgot that she was expected to be at her mistress’s side mere moments after she had been summoned. Day or night, for poor Madame slept badly, on account of the king, who didn’t think of himself enough and let others take advantage of his good heart. This was why Madame de Pompadour was waking up at night in a cold sweat, gasping for breath.
Poor Madame, indeed, Gardienne agreed. Though how fortunate to have someone like Nicole at her side.
For Marie-Louise, Madame du Hausset always had the same questions. Was Marie-Louise a good child? Not inclined to frivolity like some girls she did not wish to mention? Was she grateful to her guardians for taking care of her? How much progress had she made in her lessons? Did she already know how to darn silk stockings? Has she started learning her catechism?
Marie-Louise answered these questions carefully, mindful of Gardienne’s hovering presence. Her guardians were kind to her. She was making progress but not as much as Gardienne would have liked, which was her own fault. No, she had not yet started to learn her catechism, but Gardienne said she would, in the new year.
Madame du Hausset believed in speaking her mind, which mostly meant listing Marie-Louise’s faults. Her unruly mop of hair, her chewed-up nails, her “puzzling but absolute” lack of grace that testified to the undeniable fact that some apples do fall far from the apple tree. The fact that she and Gardienne both considered curious and quite unexpected and that caused some intense whisperings about “these Deer Park girls.” How some things could’ve been predicted. How some things only proved that blood never lied.
“I do not envy you, Diane. Oh no, I don’t.”
Gardienne was not always pleased with Madame du Hausset’s visit. “Would you listen to her,” she might say, after her friend had left. Or “As if I asked for her envy!” Or “As if she were made of a different clay.” Or “Sometimes I wonder what she is telling Madame about us behind our back.”
“Piss and fart, sound at heart,” Old Gourlon would always say to that, which truly made no sense at all.
Marie-Louise still believed that her mother was searching for her, though now that Marie-Louise was no longer living with her nurse how would she know where to find her? That is why she began leaving signs, a trail for her mother to follow. Broken twigs shaped into an arrow pointing in the direction of the entresol rooms or a small pyramid of pebbles with a scrap of paper inside it on which she had drawn the Grand Commons.
But her mother did not come.
1763
THE COURTYARD PAVING STONES were slippery from the snow. Marie-Louise was trailing behind Gardienne on the way to Madame de Pompadour’s wardrobe to collect Madame’s clothes for mending, for she was old enough to help now. She was minding her steps, just as Gardienne told her to, when she was yanked by her shoulder and told to curtsy.
Only then did Marie-Louise see a lady with a kind, smiling face, a bit like her nurse’s. But unlike her nurse she wore a splendid silvery-gray cloak and a black bonnet tied under her chin. Funny-looking, Marie-Louise thought, like a small cushion with frills. A step behind her, court ladies followed, all dressed in pearly blue, their hands hidden in thick muffs. Could it be that the lady was Madame de Pompadour herself?
A curtsy must be flawless. No wavering, no wobbling, eyes down. Gardienne had taught Marie-Louise that.
“What a beautiful face this child has!” the lady in the black bonnet exclaimed. “Like an angel!” Her companions were flanking her now, murmuring their agreement. Look at this copper tint in her hair! The dark blue of her eyes! And how graceful she is! Ah, the perfect innocence of a child!
Gardienne gave Marie-Louise a look of warning, though what she was being warned against was a mystery.
The kind lady bent over her. A gloved finger lifted her chin up, carrying a sweet lemony scent of perfume.
“What is your name?”
“Marie-Louise.”
“And how old are you, Marie-Louise?”
“Almost seven,” she said, presenting five fingers on her left hand and then adding two from her right.
“And where is your Maman taking you?”
Marie-Louise blushed crimson.
“She is my ward, Your Majesty,” Gardienne said and curtsied. Then, turning to Marie-Louise, speaking in what Marie-Louise by then thought of as her outside voice, soft and cheerful, Gardienne said, “Thank Her Royal Majesty, the Queen of France, for her immense kindness!”
“Are you a real queen?” Marie-Louise asked, gasping, for the queen had to be even more important than Madame de Pompadour.
