The Keeper of Happy Endings(11)

For generations, my family has been part of a kind of conte de fée—a fairy tale. Though perhaps fairy tale is the wrong term. Fairy tales have happy endings. Fables are meant as cautionary tales, lessons intended to teach us about life and its consequences. And over the years, the Roussels have learned much about consequences.

There are many names for what we are. Gypsies, hexers, white witches, and shamans. In England we’re called cunning folk, though I’ve always hated the term. Perhaps because it conjures thoughts of slick-handed cheats, waiting to separate the unsuspecting passerby from the few pennies in his pocket, the charlatans with their phony magic and vulgar showmanship, making up fortunes and doling out platitudes. We are not those people. For us, The Work is sacred, a vocation.

In France, where I come from, we are les tisseuses de sort—Spell Weavers—which is at least closer to the truth. We possess certain skills, talents with things like charms and herbs, cards and stones—or in our case, needle and thread. There are not many of us left these days, or at least not many who depend on the craft for their living. But there are a few still, if one knows where to look. And for a time, I was one of them, like my mother and her mother before her, living in the narrow, twisty lanes of Paris discreetly known as the craft district.

We were the Roussels, a family of dressmakers—bridal designers to be precise—but with a particular specialty. The bride who wears a Roussel gown on her wedding day is guaranteed a happy ending. We are the chosen, or so the story goes. Handmaidens of La Mère Divine—the Divine Mother. And like all handmaidens, we’re meant to be content with our solitary lot, to sacrifice our happiness in service to others. Like the holy Catholic sisters, the black-and-whites as Tante Lilou called them, we are taught from a tender age that happy endings are for other people.

A gift, Maman claimed, though looking back, I’m not convinced it was ever worth the price. And yes, there was a price. With magie, something must always be rendered. And the Roussels have learned only too well the price for disobedience.

A maléfice—a curse passed down through the generations—because one of us, some foolish Roussel whose name has long been forgotten, once used la magie to steal another woman’s husband, breaking the first tenet of our creed: do no harm.

A myth, probably, though I suspect like all myths, some thread of truth runs through it. And a thing repeated often enough takes on a truth of its own, like the steady drip of water carves its way through stone. And so the curse has been drilled into us, into my mother and hers, and hers before that, warning us against the unhappy fate of those who have strayed from their calling. Our hearts are to remain locked up tight, closed to temptations that might cause us to forget our true purpose—to ensure the happiness of others. So goes the Roussel catechism. But the heart often demands its own way, and the Roussels have fallen prey to both love and its consequences.

Superstition, some might say. But I’ve seen the evidence myself, or at least heard of it. Giselle, my mother’s mother, deserted by her failed-artist husband after giving birth to a second daughter. Tante Lilou, widowed when her handsome Brit husband rolled his car into a ditch the day they returned from honeymooning in Greece. Maman, abandoned by her mysterious young lover when she turned up pregnant. And me, of course. But that is a story for another time.

For now, let us return to The Work. Maman called it sacred, a vocation carved into our hearts long before we were born. That, too, is like the Catholic sisters, I suppose, though we take no formal vows. Our name is our vow. Our blood is our vow. Our work—charms painstakingly sewn into the seam of a white silk gown—is our vow. And we are well paid for our work.

In Paris, where fashion and name-dropping go hand in hand, we were relative nobodies. The name Roussel wasn’t likely to be heard in the fashionable salons, where the bon ton sipped champagne and nibbled tarte tropézienne. Such distinctions were reserved for the likes of Chanel, Lanvin, and Patou. But in the more discreet corners of the city, where women with certain skills were paid to keep other women’s secrets, Maman, born Esmée Roussel, daughter of Giselle Roussel, was known as La Sorcière de la Robe.

The Dress Witch.

The name passed to her when my grand-mère died and was to be mine when Maman finally laid down her needle. But it wasn’t a name I ever wanted for myself. I had inherited my mother’s gift with a needle and far exceeded her abilities in design, but I could never match her when it came to spell work. I had no patience for such things. Because my thoughts—my dreams—lay elsewhere.

Maman did her best to rid me of them. She was a harsh taskmaster, quick to scold and slow to praise. To her, I was selfish and ungrateful, a wildling who would come to harm one day if I didn’t stop my silly dreaming and bend myself to my calling. Un rêveur, she would bark when my mind would wander and the distraction came out in my hands. Daydreamer. I deserved it, of course. I was a daydreamer. As starry-eyed and fanciful as any young girl should be.

And like any other young girl, I kept my dreams in a book. Not the one I used to record Maman’s teachings but an entirely different sort of book. One with blank white pages just waiting to be filled with my very own designs. Pages and pages of clothes I would create one day and put my name on. Dresses and suits and stunning evening gowns in every color of the rainbow. Ocher and azure and aubergine.

Such were the colors of my girlhood dreams. Alas, we women seldom get the life we would choose for ourselves. Instead, our lot is chosen for us, by those who claim to know best, and before we know it, we’ve been shaped into someone we don’t recognize, remade in someone else’s image. For the Roussels, this is especially true.