The Glamourist (The Vine Witch #2)(57)
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“Her mother and I were both students at the école de danse de l’Opéra,” Isadora explained. “Back then we were girls still giggling behind our hands. Petits rats. But even then she was a flower among the weeds. Anyone could see she would rise above the rest.”
The hardness had receded from Tante Isadora’s face, softened by pleasant memories of girlhood. Elena believed it was possible both women had met at the ballet school. Young girls from all areas of the city entered the school each year, each ultimately vying for a coveted paid position in the corps. Even now she could see Isadora had the figure and bearing of a trained dancer as her back straightened in her chair, her body also remembering the past.
“It was a difficult life. Few of us had food enough to keep us alive, let alone to perform the rigorous dance combinations demanded of us over and over again, day after day. But you did what you had to do to stay.” She gave a little shrug as she traced a circle on the table with her finger. “After we were promoted, Yvette’s mother met a man backstage one evening. It was where the gentlemen came to watch the girls warm up before the performance. The abonnés. Many were the last of the nobles, men with titles and money. To them we were like racehorses at auction. They put their cash on the table and did their shopping, evaluating the sturdiness of our legs, the straightness of our backs, and all the while their hands measuring the trimness of the waist and the plumpness of the breast.”
Elena had heard stories about the girls at l’Opéra. How they were sometimes deliberately put in the position of having to offer sexual favors to wealthy men, often men much older than they, in exchange for a patronage—someone to pay for their costumes, their evening meals, and maybe provide them with enough coin for a decent dress so they could say yes to a career-advancing invitation to dinner. For many it was simply an economic choice. A strategy for survival. Even a witch with all the talent in the world still needed a dry place to live and bread to fill her stomach.
“Cleo eventually married her abonné. I don’t think she was ever in love with him, but he kept her in silks. At least at first.”
Alexandre interrupted. “Pardon, madame, but you can’t mean Cleo Marchand, the grand ballerina of the Palais Opéra?”
“Oui, but of course.”
Alexandre’s gaze casually drifted above the woman’s head as if to check the veracity of her aura. “You’re saying Cleo Marchand is Yvette’s mother?”
Isadora’s eyes teared up, and she bit her lip as though in awe of her own power of resistance. “I have kept that secret for eighteen years,” she said and let out a breath.
“But what happened to her?” he asked, incredulous. “She was in all the newspapers. Did grand performances. She toured three continents as a prima ballerina. She was at the height of her fame when she vanished from the scene.”
“She fell in love with an artist,” Isadora said, as if it explained everything.
Henri affirmed it with a knock on the table. “You mean Tulane.”
“The same artist who mixed the crystals in with his paint?” Elena was beginning to see how the pieces fell together.
“Yes, I’m sure of it,” Henri said. “His favorite subject was a dancer who was rumored to be married, only he called her Mademoiselle Delacourt.” He turned to Tante Isadora. “I’m right, aren’t I?”
Isadora nodded. “They were inseparable. She admired him, his art, his intellect. And he cherished her, her talent, and her compassion. But,” she said, holding up a warning finger, “she was still married.”
“And I’ll wager she was carrying a child inside her that was not her husband’s,” Elena intuited. “Which I can only imagine created harmful repercussions at home.”
“If you mean the husband was ready to murder Cleo, you are correct. He nearly did kill her when he found out the child wasn’t his. I don’t know what he did to her, but he left her permanently disfigured. Her forearms, just below the elbows, were badly burned. Scarred.” Isadora rubbed the skin on her arms as if reliving the sight of her friend’s injury. “She was forced to wear long gloves every day after that.”
“Was her husband a mortal?” Elena asked.
Isadora shook her head vigorously. “Non, one of yours. I only met him once. Early on. Backstage. He was from an old family, as I recall. Old nobility. Proud. But Cleo mentioned once his father had lost all the family’s money in some bad investment. But you’d never know it the way that man looked down on everyone. He made it very well known to those in his circle he believed he was superior because he had witch blood running through him. If that was the case, why didn’t he magic himself more money? Poof. Rich.”
“It’s not allowed,” Elena said. “Covenant law.”
“Instead, Cleo told me they lived from one job to another, mostly on the money she made off her fame, all the time trying to keep up appearances amongst the socialite crowd. One evening she came to a performance with tar and straw holding the bottom of her shoe together. And her a prima ballerina!” Isadora took out her cigarette case and allowed Alexandre to light a cigarette for her. “Thank you,” she said, maintaining eye contact with him for an extra beat before continuing. “But then something happened. Something big. Cleo wouldn’t tell me what it was, but she came alive again. With her, you could see the sun shining inside her when she was happy.” Isadora swirled the remaining inch of gin in her glass, then swallowed it down. “I’m certain that’s when she decided to leave him for Tulane.”