A Dreadful Splendor (108)

Epilogue




Paris, April 1853



The trees were blossoming, the length of the avenue stretching out beneath an unending canopy of white flowers. The carriage ride had been smooth, but my stomach was a nest of bees. Gareth had offered to accompany me, but I told him I needed to do this on my own.

We agreed to meet at Notre Dame afterward.

Somerset Park had been sold to Miss Gibbons’s American cousin. Unfortunately, news reached us that a large part of the estate had been destroyed by a fire a few weeks ago. Joseph confided he was certain Audra’s ghost was responsible.

But I knew better. Ghosts did not exist.

My nightmares of drowning were becoming less frequent. The fortune-teller may have been right, after all. I did die in the water that night. A new woman emerged from the dungeon, one who would fight for the happiness she deserved.

With a gentle jolt, my ride came to a stop. I looked up at the elegant house. “Oh,” I whispered, feeling what little resolve I had crumble. The carriage door opened, and the footman stood there, waiting for me. I stepped out into the sunlit street, smoothing out my dress and touching the ribbon at my neck, worried the knot might have loosened.

The front door opened, but unlike at Somerset Park, it was a young maid who answered. “Bonjour, mademoiselle.”

I handed her my card. Her eyes grew wide as she read my name.

I hoped my new dress and bonnet were the right style. I hoped she couldn’t tell I was shaking in my shoes. I hoped they would like me.

“This way, please, Miss Timmons,” she said in her thick French accent. She led me through the foyer and down a hallway. We stopped at a yellow door, which she knocked on and then opened.

Each nervous face turned toward me as I waited at the entrance to the parlour. This time I wasn’t holding a bag of séance props. It was only me.

An elderly woman in fine silk with eyes like Maman’s stood and inched her way toward me. She was slightly hunched, with a white head of hair, elegantly fashioned. She reached out and took my hands in her wrinkled ones. She seemed to drink me up, studying every bit of me. She spoke at length, but I couldn’t understand her quick French. She smiled at me with her whole face.

Warmth grew inside my chest.

A younger woman was at my side in an instant, smiling and touching my shoulder. “She said you look just like her Justine. Same hair, same eyes.”

Justine—Maman.

The heart sees.

My chest swelled. I nodded. “Merci, Grand-mère,” I said, hoping I hadn’t ruined the pronunciation too badly.

She touched my cheek. “Ma petite chérie.” Then she pulled me into a hug.

There was laughter all around us; the room brightened, as if every lamp had been lit. Everyone came closer to greet me. I had cousins and aunts and uncles, and they all wanted to know me.

Food and wine came next. After a while, I sat on the settee with Grand-mère, and we looked at portraits of Maman she’d sat for over the years. I did look like her, so very much. We both wiped tears from our cheeks when she described her despair after Maman ran away. At first, pride had held her back from seeking Maman out, but the longer she did not return, the more her heart cracked. It made Grand-mère realize nothing was worth losing family.

Then one day they received news that Maman’s husband had died, but no one knew what had become of Maman. They all thought she had perished in the accident too. None of them had any idea of my existence until they received a letter from Maman. Grand-mère handed me the note, which had been neatly folded three times.

I lightly touched the faded script, knowing Maman’s handwriting instantly. I was pulled into a memory of sitting on the bed while she did my braids. I could almost feel her fingers combing through my hair.

She translated for me, moving her finger along the words. According to the date at the top, Maman had written the letter a few months before she died, asking her family for money, not for herself but for her daughter. However, she never mentioned my name, only that I was wonderful and beautiful and deserved a better life.

“She thought you never wrote back,” I told them. Maman started sending me out for errands shortly after that. Her last hope had been to beg her family for assistance. When they didn’t respond, she had no choice but to become one of Miss Crane’s girls. I grew ashamed, remembering the last words I had spoken to her, not knowing how much of her soul she’d already sacrificed for me.

Then it was my turn to take out the letter I’d found at Miss Crane’s, explaining she had kept it from Maman. The young woman translated as Grand-mère spoke quickly. She said, “When we didn’t receive a reply, we sent an investigator to the address from Justine’s letter. A woman said Mrs. Timmons was murdered, her own daughter hung for the crime.”

Miss Crane’s vindictiveness had no bounds.

“Darkness settled over the house,” she continued. “It only lifted when we received your letter.”

After a promise to return for dinner, I politely declined the offer of a carriage, and instead decided to walk to my next appointment. The stroll was more than pleasant, and my new shoes with perfectly intact soles hardly touched the ground.

Love had infused me with a lightness.

I paused in front of the cathedral, attempting to take it all in at once. Notre Dame was massive in all its splendor. I thought of the sketch of Maman, the one I had found hidden at the bottom of the jewelry box. I was standing in almost the same spot. I knew she was with me—not because I felt her spirit, but because she was a part of me and always would be.