“What do you want?” I snapped impatiently.
“Mademoiselle, you must find the mistress and young master. They must come home!”
“Why? What is the matter?” I glanced toward the window, but saw nothing unusual, only the comings and goings of tradesmen, the same as always.
“Fever,” she whispered, as if speaking of the thing too loudly would bring it down upon us. “I heard it from the butcher. There were heavy vapors off the river last night, and today there’s fever in the city.”
“I’m sure we have nothing to worry about here,” I said.
“But the mistress,” the maid said, twisting her apron in her hands. “She’s gone to the river! We must fetch her back! The air is unsafe there.”
I told the maid I would go, and sent her off to the kitchen, but I did not rush out right away. I had little enough time to look at Papa’s plans, and I wanted to finish examining the angles. I did not think a few hours would matter. I shall never forgive myself for that. Because you know, René, what happened.
* * *
“Yes, I know,” René says. He looks up from the page. His shield of anger is lowered, and my breath catches at the raw, exposed sorrow in his eyes. Such unexpected kindness weakens me in ways that all his railing could not, and before I can catch it, a sob escapes me, gouging across my battered ribs. I double over with the pain.
I feel the comfort of his presence beside me even before his hand touches my elbow, supporting me and gently guiding me to the cot. Gratefully, I sink onto it.
“I know how hard it is to lose someone,” he says, his voice solemn.
I look up into his deep, compassionate eyes. Not a shallow sympathy, but the understanding of one who has also known loss. “You too?” I ask.
“Not in the plague. My elder brother was a soldier on the Spanish border. But what you suffered . . .” He pauses and shakes his head as if no words can express the unfairness of it. “To lose your mother and brother all at once. And while your father was away too. I don’t know how you carried on.”
“It was a great deal to bear. Georges, my father’s pride and joy. He was so little, René. And the way he suffered . . .”
Seeing the tears that are streaming freely down my face by now, he unfurls a clean white handkerchief from his pocket and holds it out to me. I take it gratefully and wipe my eyes and nose. It comes away from my face ruinously brown with grime.
“Maman too. She didn’t tell me she was sick, and I didn’t see. She sat by Georges’s bed, day after day. It wasn’t until the morning he died that she succumbed. I found her beside him, delirious with fever, still holding his cold, dead hand. And when I put her to bed, I saw the blisters she had concealed beneath her sleeves.”
“Shh,” René soothes, his hand rubbing gently up and down my back, offering the only comfort I have had for days. I lean into him, into his aura of calm, and he offers it freely.
“You did what you could for them, Juliette,” he says kindly.
“No, I didn’t,” I say, and though I have lived with this guilt for almost two years, I can scarcely choke out the words. “I didn’t rush out to find them when the maid warned me. I let Maman sit by his bed when she, too, was ill. By the time I knew, it was too late. She died that very night.”
“You mustn’t blame yourself,” René says, laying a reassuring hand on mine.
We sit like this until my tears subside. Then, to my disappointment, he pulls away. Perhaps I have presumed too much, leaning into him.
He goes to the door and bangs on it to raise the guard.
“It is time we had some sustenance, and not that prison gruel,” he tells the guard. “Bring us bread and cheese from the guardhouse. And more wine. And another chair.”
I continue to sit on the edge of the cot, twisting his ruined handkerchief in my hands and watching through wet eyelashes as he tidies his papers, averting his eyes so that I might regain my composure. His teeth are not clenched, as they have been for so much of the morning. His face has returned to the one that I love so much, unguarded and kind, and I find it hard to pull my gaze away. I could look at that face forever. Perhaps his gentleness is not a renewal of his love, but only the compassion he would have extended to anyone reliving the sorrow of death, but it gives me hope all the same.
I blow my nose and draw some calming breaths, and when he has his pages in order, I take up the thread again.
* * *
I remember little of the next few days. We were lucky, I suppose, that they were among the first to die in that horrible summer of fever, before bodies piled like cordwood in the streets and funerals and private graves became impossible. Papa had long been a patron of the Monastery of Saint-Éloi, and so the brothers agreed to bury Maman and Georges in its cemetery.
I do not know how word of our tragedy reached their ears, but a handful of artisans from the Manufacture Royale and guildsmen from the gem-cutters’ guild arrived at the church for the funeral mass. Among them were Master and Madame Valin, who followed the coffin out to the grave. I shied from them, bumping into André, who took my hand and held it until the prayers were finished and the mourners streamed by me to offer their condolences. Don’t glare, René—it was only as a friend that he comforted me then.
The Valins were the last to console me. Master Valin only muttered a few words, then moved off to talk to André. His wife stayed behind, taking both my hands into hers.
“Oh, you poor, poor child, all alone. You should have sent for us. The guild helps its own, my dear.”
I only stared at her, unsure if this was chastisement or sympathy.
“Come back to our home with us, or we can come and stay with you for a time. You will have to sort out your household affairs, after all, and we can help you. The guild has funds for widows and orphans.”
“I am not an orphan!” I protested. “My father is in Venice.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “Venice, is it?” she said. I pulled my hands from hers. How dare she use me in my grief to pry into Papa’s secrets.
“He’s due back any day now,” I lied.
“Perhaps we can bring you some food, and I could stay for a day or two. You look pale, Juliette,” Madame Valin said, prying at every crack to get into Papa’s workshop.
I looked into her eyes and gave a sickly smile. “I feel pale, madame. I’m afraid the contagion still lingers in our home and will soon take me as well.”
At that, she yanked her hands from mine and took a quick step backward. Covering her mouth with a handkerchief, she hurried to her husband, who had been speaking to André, and pulled him away.