Enchantée(62)

They had gone in secret. Papa wore his finest suit, she her best dress, a dusty pink one of Maman’s that she’d made over and a hat she’d trimmed with a new brown ribbon. He smiled vaguely when she asked him where they were going. “You’ll see when we arrive,” he said. “It’s not far.”

The stern old house stood before them, the panes in its windows narrow as eyes. She and Papa were ushered into a formal salon. The furniture was stiff and painted with gold, souvenirs of Grandmère’s time at Versailles. On the wall hung a small portrait of Louis-Dieudonné, the Sun King, astride his horse. He watched Camille from the painting: dark-eyed, arrogant, knowing.

Grandmère came in and both Papa and Camille bowed deeply, Camille nearly to the floor. “Only a queen deserves such a curtsey,” Grandmère corrected. But Camille saw she was flattered.

She did not invite them to sit. “What do you wish, monsieur?”

“I’ve come without Anne-Louise’s knowledge,” he admitted. “You know she would never consent to my coming here.”

Like a statue, Grandmère waited. A clock ticked in the hall.

“I regret to tell you this, but I was obliged to close the printing shop,” Papa said into the heavy stillness.

“It is old news, monsieur. You are lucky the others did not run you out of Paris.”

“Your fellow nobles?” In his voice was an edge like a blade, and it frightened Camille.

“You might have been arrested for libel—those anti-Royalist things you printed.”

Papa said smoothly, “Perhaps those things were true, and needed saying. Perhaps a new world is on the horizon.”

Grandmère looked at Camille to see if she was listening. “Only through my intercession were you and my daughter spared a court case. Prison.”

Papa inclined his head. Camille noticed for the first time that a few silver strands laced his hair.

“But you have come for something else, I see,” she said imperiously. “Out with it.”

Papa took a deep breath. “Money for our family, for your daughter and your three grandchildren, to take us through the winter.” Camille stepped closer to him, but he held out his hand for her to stay where she was. Her father’s face, Grandmère’s tone, the suffocating stillness of the rooms—Camille wanted to rush out the door and disappear.

Haltingly, Papa added, “We don’t have enough for wood, or food.”

“My daughter would never have been in this situation had she married as I chose for her. She would be at Versailles, an ornament to the court. She would want for nothing.”

“I regret—”

“You regret nothing.” Her voice was biting and cold as ice. “And because of that, I will never give you a sou.”

Camille’s breath caught as Papa dropped to his knees on the carpet. No! Get up, get up! she wanted to shout. She wanted to pull him up and away from this place. Everything was upside down. She could not bear to see her proud Papa on the floor, begging, as if he had nothing, as if they had no other choice, while Grandmère stood over him and gloated.

“I beg you to reconsider, madame. I fear Anne-Louise’s—work—will weaken her to the point of exhaustion. Or death.”

“You mean, her magic?” Grandmère’s mouth was hard. “What of the girls? How old are you, mademoiselle? Do you work la magie?”

“I’m fifteen.” The words stuck in Camille’s throat. “I’m learning.”

Grandmère looked at her more closely then. Camille drew herself up tall, as she knew her mother would want her to do.

Grandmère said, “She might live with me.”

Camille shrank back. Never. She would starve first.

“We might go to court,” Grandmère went on. “I could not give her a title but I might make her a good match. Pity she has red hair.” She sniffed. “It’s unfashionable, but that’s what powder is for, I suppose. But there is another girl, isn’t there? Blond, like my daughter? Pretty?”

“Prettier than I,” Camille burst out.

“Stop,” Papa said, warning in his voice. “My girls have no part in this. Ask what you wish of me, but leave them alone.”

Grandmère put her ringed hand to the bodice of her dress and laughed. The sound was like the scratch of dry leaves across cobblestones. “There is nothing I wish of you, monsieur, except that you had never delivered those printed invitations to my door. Could you grant me that wish? Or this one: that my daughter had never deigned to speak to servants—especially not an upstart printer of cards and invitations who convinced her that her own noble privilege was something corrupt. She ruined her life by marrying you—and for what, exactly? Ask what I wish of you? I wish, monsieur, you had never been born.”

Camille clenched her small fists. How could Grandmère say that to Papa? Her dear, kind, brilliant Papa, who was full of life and ideas and would do anything—even subject himself to this—to keep them all safe?

Papa rose to his feet. In his best coat, shiny at the elbows from too much use, his back straight, he stared at Grandmère. Camille stepped close, took his hand. It was damp with sweat, cold and hot at once.

“Adieu,” he said to Grandmère. He did not bow. “May your pride keep you company when your family is dead.”