Enchantée(38)

“I’ll boil the coffee,” Sophie said, “if you tell me what happened. Immédiatement.”

When the coffee was ready, thick as tar and nearly as sticky, Camille gulped it from the chipped cup. She told Sophie about the gold that shone everywhere, so much of it she wished to pry it off and sell it. She described the lavish costumes of the courtiers and the plainer clothes of the visitors, the marble stairs that led to the abandoned picnic, the food that had been left behind, the snuffbox, and impulsive Chandon, dragging her into the game.

“What was he like?”

“I hardly knew what to think at first,” Camille mused. “He has a quick wit and pretends he doesn’t care about anything. But underneath, I think he does.” She thought of him pressing the gold louis into her palm so she could not refuse them, the way he’d persuaded her to come to the Petit Trianon, as if he knew she needed another chance. “And his lover the Baron de Foudriard is a cavalry officer. He certainly looks the part—tall and handsome, with a scar. You’d think he’d be formal and severe, but he’s soft-spoken and kind.”

“His lover is a he?”

“And what of it? The boys were more in love than the girl was with her husband.”

“And who was that?”

Camille relished Sophie’s surprise when she told her that the aristos from the carriage in the Place des Vosges had been there, too, and she related what she’d learned about Aurélie and her old husband and his chickens.

“And the vicomte?”

“The others don’t seem to like him very much.” She recalled Aurélie’s barely-there smile, Chandon’s jest about the Vicomte de Séguin’s wealth. “I was terrified he’d recognize me.”

“That’s impossible. You were nothing like yourself—”

“You’re full of compliments this morning,” she said, a little hurt. But wasn’t that what she’d intended, after all: to reinvent herself? On the floor by her feet, Fant?me’s paws twitched in a dream.

“And the snuffbox?”

“Gone,” said Camille miserably.

Sophie slumped back in her chair. “What about the rent?”

“As it happens, I came home with eight louis, which I gave to Madame Lamotte before I went to sleep.” She allowed herself a look of triumph.

“That’s fantastic!”

“We’ve still got nothing to eat.” If she’d only taken some of the forgotten picnic home with her. There was nothing for it—she would have to turn more coins. Camille cleared her throat. “I’m going back, you know.”

“Alone?”

“How else?”

“You might take me,” Sophie said wistfully. “I might wish to go.”

“Absolutely not.” She couldn’t keep Sophie safe on top of everything else.

“Don’t tell me it’s because I’m ill. I’m getting better, little by little. I’m almost well again.”

Sophie was still too pale for Camille’s liking. And only better food would help that. “It’s not that—”

“I would be so good at it! How I would love to be there—”

“It’s not a party!” Camille picked up her cup, irritated to find it empty.

Sophie scowled. “It certainly sounds like it. It’s not fun to be the one who’s left behind, you know.”

The hurt and the envy in Sophie’s voice tugged at Camille. This was, after all, the life Sophie had always imagined for herself. But what if something happened to her? On her deathbed, before fever rendered her senseless, Maman had entrusted Sophie to Camille’s care. Whatever you do, take care of your sister.

She clasped Sophie’s hand. She didn’t wish to quarrel. “Forget Versailles. Everything will be so much more fun from now on. We’ll have new clothes and plenty of food. Once we have enough, I won’t have to work magic.” The thought was a profound relief. “Then we’ll go out in an open carriage at Longchamps, we’ll drink hot chocolate and wear furs and whatever else you want.”

“Even in summer?” Sophie said archly.

Camille kissed her sister’s hand. “As you wish. And we’ll move. To a nicer place, with bigger rooms.” A safe place with no forwarding address.

“Without Alain?”

It felt like a test. She steeled herself. “Without Alain.”

Sophie sat still for a moment, her face keen with thought. It lasted only a moment before she nodded. “When will you go?”

“The day after tomorrow. They play on Thursdays.”

Sophie squeezed Camille’s hand. “And tomorrow’s the workshop.”





21


Camille hesitated, then rapped on the cobalt-blue door of the large building.

No answer.

She’d woken too early that morning, her head burdened with dreams. In the last one, Lazare’s balloon descended from a stormy sky, but the boy in the gondola wasn’t Lazare but the Vicomte de Séguin. As his spyglass swept a circle over the ground, she fled. She didn’t want to be seen. Clawing with her fingers in the black dirt, she dug a scrape to hide in, like a desperate rabbit. The balloon sailed right over her; but whether the vicomte saw her or not, she did not know.