Tender the Storm (30 page)

Referring to his companions, he joked, "These gilded lilies are not good for much, but they'll see you safely to your door.
A
demain
,
Mademoiselle," And with catcalls and much joking and back slapping among the gentlemen, Tresier instructed her coachman to make for home.

The advent of Jean Tresier into Zoë's life marked a turning point. He was young, he was wealthy, he was received in the most prestigious salons of that new breed which now held sway in France, and he brought others with him. With the exception of her good friends, the Lagranges, and their small circle, Zoë had few friends. Suddenly, she was sought after. Scarcely a day went by that someone did not pay a call on the house in St. Germain, or take Zoë for a spin in his carriage. And none was more flatteringly attentive than one of the first friends Tresier brought with him.

Zoë recognized him at once. Paul Varlet had occasionally been a guest in the house in St. Germain. Like her father, he was a financier. According to Tresier, he was one of the richest men in France and had made his fortune in the last number of years as a supplier to the Revolutionary government for everything from tent poles to cannons.

By Zoë's reckoning, Varlet was close to forty. His hair was dark with silver wings at the temples and cut in the new mode, just brushing the collar. With his aquiline features and somnolent expression, to

Z'oe's
eyes, he had the stamp of an aristocrat. She vaguely remembered her father having commented upon it at one time.

Though Varlet's manners were charming, Zoë could never be quite comfortable in his company. She put it down to the difference in their ages. Or perhaps it was because he had a way of speaking to her that made her think he was playing Pygmalion to her Galatea.

"Zoë could be one of them if she had a mind to," he remarked idly, his eyes scanning with approval Zoë's yellow
salle
with its fine furniture waxed to a satiny patina, and its silk drapes and upholstery in shades of gold, the perfect complement to Zoë's beauty. "What do you think, Jean?"

"Indubitably," answered Tresier. His eyes were watchful.

Zoë lowered the lid of the piano and swiveled to face her companions. "What could I be if I had a mind to?" she asked.

With leisurely grace, Varlet crossed to the piano and lounged against it.
"One of the lionesses of Parisian society."

"You're hoaxing me!"

"Why should you think so?"

"I don't know the first thing about society or how to go on in it. You forget
,
I was barely out of the schoolroom when I fled to England."

"How old are you?"

"Eighteen."

'You look older," commented Tresier from across the room in his comfortable chair.

Surprise and pleasure etched Zoë's finely sculpted features. Her eyes danced. "Do you think so?"

Varlet laughed. 'You should be glad that you are so young. Innocence is a priceless commodity.
Once lost it can never be regained."

Zoë blushed, not quite knowing why she should do so. She was glad when Tresier joined them at the piano.

"What exactly have you in mind, Paul?" he asked pointedly.

Varlet made a leisurely study of the blushing girl. "I should like to make Mademoiselle Devereux over," he said. "If she will permit it, that is. With the right clothes and coiffure, she would outshine every other lady of my acquaintance."

"Why should you be the one to make her over?" asked the younger man, a note of hostility creeping into his tone.
"Why not I?"

"I haven't said that I wish to be made over," protested Zoë. Her eyes dropped to take in the fresh white muslin, and her hands wandered to the neatly braided coronet on the crown of her head. "What's wrong with the way I look?" she demanded.

"You look charming," soothed Varlet, and then spoiled it by adding, "
if
you like the
ingenue
look."

What Zoë wanted was that sophistication, that polish which was the mark of all her husband's women, and which he had once denied that she possessed. And if she had to choose a mentor from between her two companions, she knew that she would
chose
Varlet over Tresier.

Varlet was older, more urbane, a connoisseur of everything from fine wines to correct etiquette. She sensed intuitively that he would know to a nicety how to help a lady acquire the polish she so much desired. Oh yes, as a mentor, Varlet would be without peer. But she knew that she would rather have

Tresier for a friend.

"I have no wish to be made over," she said, and rising to her feet, led the way to a circular table in front of the grate. "You'll take a glass of chocolate?"

"Thank you," said both gentlemen in unison.

Zoë graciously poured chocolate from the silver pitcher which Salome had set down only moments before. The door opened, and for some few minutes, conversation flagged as a magnificent black man, a giant of a person, resplendent in white satin breeches and scarlet tunic came sauntering into the room.

"My new footman," said Zoë in an undertone and almost cringed when the giant bent over her. "Thank you, Samson." She saw that he was offering her a tray of sweets and indicated that he should set it on the center of the table.

Having done this he straightened and stationed himself behind Zoë's chair.

"You may go, Samson," encouraged Zoë. She breathed a sigh when, after a slight show of reluctance, the footman withdrew.

With a gesture, Zoë invited the gentlemen to help themselves to the sweets. Varlet demurred, but Tresier selected a marzipan and proceeded to munch his way through it. The conversation, quite naturally, turned to the friends and acquaintances the two gentlemen held in common. From there it moved to the salons of the foremost Parisian hostesses.

By a remarkable coincidence, these ladies were mostly known to Zoë, though distantly. Through marriage or birth, they were related to the great international banking families.

Madame de Stael, the wife of the Swedish ambassador, was the intellectual of the group. Poets, philosophers, and men of letters were the patrons of her salon. Madame Tallien was close to government circles. Her former lover, who had since wed her, was a powerful member of the Convention. And Madame Recamier, that child bride of Recamier the financier, attracted an audience of those who came merely to worship at the shrine of her beauty and charm. Of the three, Zoë had paid a morning call only on Madame Recamier, and with good reason. Salome, turning belligerent, had warned her young mistress off cultivating the acquaintance of ladies of tarnished virtue. Juliette Recamier was acceptable since she was as virtuous as she was beautiful.

"Does Madame Recamier frequent Theresia Tallien's salon?" asked Zoë.

"She does. Why do you ask?"

"No reason.

Laughter glimmered at the back of Varlet's eyes. As if reading her thoughts, he remarked, "We live in a new era, Zoë. The old manners and modes have all but vanished. Very few of us can afford to have the embers of our past histories raked over. You must either accept things as they are, or make up your mind to live in a cloister." More gently he added, "Theresia Tallien is accepted everywhere. There is nothing amiss in your attending the salons of Theresia or Germaine, yes and even Josephine Beauharnais's. However, it would be ill-advised for one of your innocence to make a confidante of these worldly ladies."

Soon after, the two gentlemen took their leave, and Zoë flew to the long pier glass between the two windows. She turned herself first one way, then the other, and wondered, rather sadly, how it was possible to make herself over. Perhaps, if he raised the subject again, she would accept Varlet's offer.

As she studied her reflection in the mirror, Salome wandered in unobserved. For a few moments, she regarded Zoë
posturings
before interrupting, "What was he doing here?"

"Who?"

"Varlet."

"Just a morning call, nothing more."

"He was here before."

"Yes, Monsieur Varlet has called a time or two this past week."

"No, no! Salome means long before. She had forgotten, but now she remembers. He came the morning after you set out for Rouen, when your
Maman
and Papa were arrested."

"Really?"
Zoë gave the matter some thought.
"How strange that he never mentioned it.
What did he want? Did he say?"

Salome snorted. "He said he had come to help after he heard your parents were arrested. When he found that you were not here, he was very angry."

"How . . . how kind of him," said
Zoë.
"I wonder if Monsieur Varlet was one of Papa's special friends." Suddenly, she was feeling very much warmer towards Paul Varlet.

"Salome sees the way he looks at you and she doesn't like it," said Zoë's maid.

"By the holy virgin, Salome, he's old enough to be my father!
We're friends, that's
all."

"A man and a woman can never be friends," disclaimed Salome. "He kissed your fingers."

Zoë's back was' to her maid, the delinquent fingers busily adjusting the music on the piano. "What of it? With you and Samson always spying on me, what can go wrong? Lord, it's embarrassing, sometimes, the way you both trot in every few minutes on some pretext or other. Nobody would ever think that I was the mistress of this house."

"That's not it," said Salome. "Neither Varlet nor Tresier is the man for you. It was in the cards. There is one coming who
— "

Zoë spun to face her maid. "Good God, Salome!" she cried out. "We'll soon be stepping into the nineteenth century! We're Christians, for heaven's sake. You mustn't practice that . . . that hocus-pocus which you brought with you from the islands. You'll have us all taken for witches and burned at the stake if you're not careful, that's what you'll do."