“A child?” He frowned at his hand, which of course had no visible mark. “She’s an alley cat. Julie should do something about those claws.”
A dreadful silence ensued. Then, from the opposite end of the painting-hung corridor, my mother lilted, “And so I shall, my dearest Morny. Please accept my apologies for her inexcusable behavior.” Swathed in patterned blue chinois silk, her hair floating like an aureole about her shoulders, Julie glided forth to lead him to the front door, whispering and caressing as he shook his head and departed in a huff.
As soon as the door closed on him, she whirled around to me. I pressed against Rosine, who stammered, “You mustn’t fault Sarah. Monsieur le duc was most inopportune. He wanted to give her a kiss and she—why, look at her. In her shift. It’s not done.”
“Not done?” echoed Julie. I’d never seen her like this; she’d gone rigid, one of her astonishingly milk-white hands clutching at her robe, strangling the embroidered storks. “She insulted him. He might forsake me, tell the others. How shall we exist then, eh? How will we survive when they hear I keep this feral creature, this inconvenience, in my house?”
Creature. She thought I was an animal. In a rush of rage I hadn’t realized I still harbored, I tore myself from Tante Rosine and shouted, “If you don’t want me, I will kill myself. Then you won’t be inconvenienced anymore!”
Julie fixed her stare on me. Rosine let out a cry as I met my mother’s cold blue eyes, marking their indifference, like a blade scraping down my spine. She did not care. She did not love me. She never had. I could die and it would mean nothing to her.
Reeling about, I fled into the salon. Rosine followed after me, catching me about my waist as I flailed, knocking over the little table with its clutter of porcelain figurines and vase of flowers. Shrieking like the wild animal my mother had called me, I threw myself at the window to grapple with the latch. I fully intended to throw myself onto the cobblestone avenue below. I could see it in my mind: my sliver of a body in my shift spiraling down to splatter before the early morning hansoms and servants going about their morning rounds.
Julie’s voice slashed into the chaos. “Sarah Henriette Bernhardt. That is enough.”
Half-caught in Rosine’s grasp, my fingers clutching the windowsill, I watched my mother approach through the curtained archway and onto the Oriental-style carpet until she stood in the center of the salon—nearly overwhelmed by its excess, the fake Roman busts and overwrought landscape paintings, the stuffed horsehair couches and her upholstered settee, festooned with herb-scented cushions and lace shawls. So small. She was no bigger than I was. How could I be so afraid of her?
But in that instant, she seemed to loom over my entire world, her robe draping open to reveal the mound of her stomach under her nightdress. As she saw my eyes lower to this unexpected sight—she looked fat but only in an oddly specific place—she said, “You disgrace yourself. What is more, you disgrace me. I will not tolerate these outbursts another moment.”
My fear congealed in my veins. The orphanage. It was always there, the threat behind every reprimand, behind every moment that I failed to please her. From behind me, I heard Rosine say, “Julie, she’s but a child. How can she possibly understand?”
“Oh, I think she understands much more than she lets on,” replied my mother.
“Maman,” I whispered. The term I never used with her came out of me in desperation. “Forgive me. I promise it won’t happen again.”
She sniffed. “It most certainly will not. Go to your room and see that I do not hear a sound from you until you are called for.”
I inched past her, treading over the shards of her broken vase. As I made my way to my room, Rosine began to murmur. Julie cut her off. “I’ll not hear another word in her defense. This house is no place for a child; it never was. The time has come to seek other arrangements.”
* * *
—
“I don’t want to go. No! You cannot make me!” My shrieks resounded into the avenue, startling passersby as Rosine hauled me toward the waiting carriage. The team of horses snorted, jangling their harness as the coachman watched in wry amusement and I dug my heels against the pavement.
Ever since Julie had informed me that rather than slap her suitors, I must attend a proper establishment where I could learn much-needed manners, I’d mounted a series of ferocious protests. I refused to eat for an entire day. I refused to bathe or brush my hair, until Julie snapped her fingers as she departed in a cloud of perfume and organza for one of her evening soirées, and her maidservant thrust me into the bathroom with orders to strip and wash, or else. I refused to speak, biting my tongue when Julie arrived late the following morning, pausing to take one look at me, without saying a word, her fan tapping at her waist—which I noticed was so tightly cinched, I wondered how she could breathe—before she shrugged and went into her chamber to sleep away the afternoon. I refused to concede that I might be sent away again, bundled off to a remote place where I’d have to do whatever it was girls were supposed to do—all of it to no avail.
On the appointed morning, Rosine forced me into an uncomfortable dress with a matching black capelet, raked my hair into a knot with a ribbon, and told me we were going to the Tuileries to visit the menagerie, which she knew I loved, as I missed having animals about me since leaving Brittany. The moment I saw the waiting carriage—a fine equipage, which we never would have hired for the short trip to the Tuileries—I knew she was lying and I began to wail.
Rosine was near despair herself. “Sarah, please. It’s not the end of the world. It’s a boarding school. Don’t you want to share lessons with other girls of your own age?”
“No!” I yanked against her, not caring that several ladies paused to frown at me from under their parasols. “I don’t believe you. She’s sending me away like she did before. You and she will abandon me, just as you did in Brittany.”
“That’s not true.” Rosine paused, breathless from our struggle. “Sarah, it was never my choice to send you away.” She tried to cup my chin, even as I turned my face from her. “Sarah, listen to me. It’s for your own good, until you’re older. I swear it to you on my life.”
My anguish waned at her anxious avowal. I loved my aunt, more so, in fact, than I’d believed I could, and certainly more than anything I felt for my mother. Rosine had been so kind, taking charge of me, crooning lullabies as we cuddled together in bed, taking me out on excursions to visit the city, and ensuring I never strayed too far into Julie’s path.
“Then help me now.” My voice cracked. “You’ve already taught me how to read and write. Can’t you teach me whatever else I need to learn?”
She shook her head. “I cannot, my child. We must both do as we are told.”