The Queen's Dollmaker (10 page)

Her dress was damp and her hair was plastered down the sides of her face. She stumbled her way to the pergola located in the center of the sculptured garden, two small fountains on either side of it spending futile energy spitting water up against the downpour from the heavens. Inside the relative shelter of the pergola, she sat on a bench, brought her head to her lap and her arms around her knees, and wept. Wept for the loss of her parents, and for the loss of her beloved Jean-Philippe, whose face she was ashamed to admit was becoming blurry in her dreams. She wept for her trapped circumstances in the Ashby household, and for her failure to save herself and Béatrice from their fate. She wept to know that she was only eighteen years old, and already committed to a life of drudgery. She wept especially to know that her father’s legacy was dead. Never again would the world know about Étienne Laurent’s marvelous dolls. People like that William Greycliffe and his precious Lenora Radley would always look down their noses at artists like Étienne Laurent and his daughter. Especially when that daughter becomes reduced to penury.
Oh, Papa, am I the only one in all of Europe who remembers your talent and genius for carving? Who could ever replace you? The English could understand nothing about your unusual artistic gifts. For them, everything is portraiture.
She mimicked previous houseguests to herself: “Johsua Reynolds did such a real likeness of my Welsh terrier, Pompey,” and “Of course, with my connections I was able to secure Thomas Gainsborough for my daughter’s coming out painting.” Tears now fully spent, she laughed quietly to herself. Imagine the obsessive craze the English aristocracy would be sent into if she produced just one of Papa’s
grandes Pandores.
After all, aristocracy is aristocracy, and the dolls had been the rage of the Parisian rich, hadn’t they?

Suddenly a shadow blocked the light from the house that had been shining through the cascading rain. Stepping into view was none other than the object of Claudette’s spite, William Greycliffe, shaking off an umbrella, probably the same one he had carried over Miss Radley’s head.

“I saw you run from the house. Whatever are you doing down here in the rain? Don’t tell me you’re taking a nap again. Are these parties that exhausting for you?”

Claudette’s muddled emotions bubbled over and gave vent to anger. She stood to confront him. “How dare you! You know nothing of me!”

“Nor will you seem to let me.”

“Sir, every time I am in your presence, I get the distinct impression that you are being pointedly cruel toward me and making light of my reduced circumstances. I will respectfully insist that you refrain from conversing with me.”

Ignoring her remark, he said, “You do look quite a fright with your hair in your eyes, which I recall that, when not swallowed up in the dark, are the most astonishing shade of blue.” He dropped the umbrella and approached her, pulling a handkerchief from a pocket. “Miss Laurent.” He cupped a warm hand around the side of her face and tenderly mopped her soaked face. “Truly you misunderstand me.”

Claudette closed her eyes and let him continue, momentarily taken in by his gentle touch. “What could I possibly misunderstand about you?”

He still blotted her face with the handkerchief, even though she was now dry. His hand slid around to the back of her neck and pulled it gently back. She could feel his breath warm against her neck and knew even in the dark his eyes were staring at her intently.

“You think I’m vain and shallow because I have money, because I’m a rising member of the aristocracy, because I look down upon you as working class. On the contrary, it is you, Miss Laurent, who looks down upon me. You cannot imagine the burden I bear, being the successor to the Greycliffe name and legacy. How I have to give up those things that I want, for that which I do not want. In fact, I have to—”

“Mr. Greycliffe, sir?” A voice floated over the darkness and rain.

Claudette’s eyes flew open at the intrusion. William swore impatiently under his breath. “Yes, what is it?”

“Mrs. Ashby is calling for all of her guests. She says she has an important announcement to make.” Having found his quarry, the servant slithered back to the house to escape the pelting rain.

William removed his hand from Claudette’s neck, pausing only to move a strand of hair over her right ear. “I must go inside, but I have much to say to you.” He bent for his umbrella and strode to the house before she could respond.

She stayed in the pergola long after that.

When Claudette returned to the house, the rain had stopped and the guests were gone. She helped the other servants with cleanup, then retired to the attic, where Béatrice was waiting.

“Claudette, wherever have you been? The most exciting thing happened. That Mr. Greycliffe that you detest so much became engaged to a Miss Radley last week. You may have seen her with him tonight. They are to be married in six months’ time, and Mrs. Ashby announced tonight that she would be throwing an engagement party for the two of them. Miss Radley seemed ecstatic. She is very elegant, don’t you think? I don’t know if Mr. Greycliffe’s family will want an engagement party here, but, oh, can you imagine being so wealthy and important that people actually want to host a party on your behalf?” Béatrice was chattering pointlessly now. “I could never replace my Alexandre, but if I ever did, I should love to have three engagement parties, each with a different theme. And everyone from all of the parties would be invited to my wedding. My veil would be trimmed with real flowers, I should think…Claudette, where are you going?”

Claudette shut the door behind her and slipped into her own room, collapsing on the bed, dry-eyed. William Greycliffe was infuriating. He teased her, taunted her, and just when she thought he was sincere in his manner toward her, he announces to the world that he is engaged to a young lady of society! Not that his engagement mattered. Who cared if he was marrying that spindle-shanked woman? No, she told herself firmly, she was angry only because he treated her as though she were a fool.

Claudette knew then that it was time to leave the Ashby residence, no matter what was required. Being present for—and serving at—William Greycliffe’s engagement party was something she positively would not do. Her parents were gone, Jean-Philippe was lost to her, and Béatrice and Marguerite depended on her. She would put aside dreams of any happiness, and concentrate on making herself independent, bring her father’s marvelous vision back to life, and transform herself into the heir to his dollmaking world.

Claudette tried valiantly to ignore the preparations for the Greycliffe engagement party. Béatrice prattled about it endlessly, but Claudette retreated into her own mind, dreaming of setting up her own doll workshop and working out plans in her mind. Her first need was money, more than she was earning with Jack’s occasional doll sales at Surrey Street Market, which sold more meat and vegetables than household goods.

She discussed with him how they could sell more dolls.

“I’m not sure, Miss Claudette.” Jack scratched his short, bristly hair. “Sounds almost like you’d need to export ’em, and I don’t know how you could go about a big venture like that without Mrs. Ashby finding out what you’re doing. Unless you could find your own shop.”

“A shop!” Claudette laughed without mirth. “Impossible. I barely have enough to keep us in warm stockings. And you’re right, Jassy would ferret out anything like an export business going on. Besides, even if I could hide it all, how could I afford to stock enough fabric and trimmings to create enough dolls to open a shop? There must be another way.”

It was Béatrice who finally came up with the solution. “Didn’t you tell me once that your father sold dolls to some dressmakers to show off their latest designs? Maybe we could do the same thing, in exchange for some of their discarded pieces of cloth.”

Claudette hugged her friend impulsively. “Béatrice! You are brilliant. That is exactly what we’ll do.”

The two women worked even more furiously to put together a tray of dolls. With Jack along as a guide, Claudette slipped away on one of her rare afternoons off, granted while the Ashbys were out visiting, to visit various dressmaking shops and offer to give the proprietors dolls as barter for fabric. The rejection stung. “What? I don’t have enough work to keep me busy, now I have to sew tiny little dresses at night for silly little dolls?” spat one sour-faced crone. “Are my eyes not dim enough without you bringing me this? And you want payment of my fine fabrics for them, as well!” Another door slammed.

Dejected, she sent Jack home and walked into the next alleyway along the street, sat down against the side of a building with her box, and stared at it. How could she get some fabrics right away? She could not resort to stealing. On the other hand, she could not face an interminable existence inside the Ashby household. She sat lost in thought, even dozing awhile, when all of a sudden she bolted upright. Of course! How stupid. She was approaching the wrong people for fabrics.

Claudette picked up her box, and proceeded two streets over to Gifford’s Draper Shop. Inside, a man and his wife were totaling receipts for the day. They looked up in unison as Claudette walked in with her box of wares.

“Sorry, we are not interested in your kittens,” said the wife, a short, portly woman with faded brown hair and a resigned air about her.

“No, madam, I do not have kittens. I have a proposition for you that will help both of our businesses.”

Raising an eyebrow, the man, who was as short and portly as his spouse, asked, “What is this proposition?”

Claudette told the couple that she was a dollmaker in immediate need of fine fabrics to complete a commission for a set of dolls. It was impossible to wait for a shipment to arrive from the Continent. She showed them her box of samples, which they examined, picking up dolls, moving their jointed limbs and running fingers over their painted faces. She offered to give them dolls dressed in their fabrics, if they would give her extra fabric for her own use. She would then have the fabric she needed at no cost, and they would have a way to show off the fine quality of their cloth other than it sitting on a bolt.

“Eh,” said the woman, shrugging her shoulders, unimpressed.

In desperation, Claudette took several dolls to the shop window and showed them how the dolls could be displayed to best advantage to passersby. The couple exchanged a look Claudette could not interpret.

“Hmm, what do you think, Diane?” asked the man of his wife.

“Eh, why not? Give her a few of the bolts that are soiled. She can cut around the stains to get her patterns cut, and we can get use out of bolts that are otherwise of no use to us.” Looking at Claudette critically she asked, “Miss, you seem very young. You say you are already an established dollmaker in London?”

Murmuring quickly that her dolls were known as far away as France, Claudette took her leave, promising to return in two weeks with the finished dolls.

She had Jack find some current fashion plates from local dress shops so that she could copy the latest clothing designs for the dolls. She took up the detailed stitching again as though she had never left her father’s shop. Béatrice preferred the less detailed work of painting faces. Soon they had more than a dozen dolls ready for Jack to deliver to the Giffords, since his absence from the Ashby house would be less noticeable than Claudette’s. He came back to the two women keyed up and animated.

“They took them all, and praised them to the heavens. I probably could have sold them all, and for twice the price I’d get at the market.” He produced a heavy package tied with twine. Inside were generously cut lengths of fabric, plus embroidered ribbons and sequins in a small pouch. Claudette pawed eagerly through her new acquisitions, then had Jack and Béatrice help her unfold the fabrics and roll them up together to avoid their becoming wrinkled beyond repair.

The two women learned to operate on just five hours of sleep each night, working long after the rest of the household was asleep to construct dolls for the London fashion industry. The chest now began to swell with coins, and Claudette began to think that in another year they might be able to leave the Ashby employ. They could sail back to France, and Claudette would finally find Jean-Philippe. And she would finally rid herself of Mr. William Greycliffe’s presence.

Claudette was organizing Mrs. Ashby’s toilette tray one morning when Jassy entered, as sly and secretive as Claudette had ever seen her.

“Mistress wants to see you in the dining room,” she said, a smirk on her face.

Claudette replaced the silver hand mirror she had been polishing and stood up to join Jassy, but the girl had already slipped out of the room.

In the dining room, she found Mrs. Ashby and Mrs. Lundy together. Mrs. Lundy was standing next to the sideboard, her hands clasped tightly in front of her and her mouth turned down disapprovingly. Maude Ashby sat erect at the head of the table, drumming her fingers on the smooth mahogany top.

What now?

At Claudette’s entrance, Mrs. Ashby rose imperiously. “Have you an idea why I have summoned you here?”

“No, madam, I was arranging your toilette tray when Jassy—”

“Never mind what you were doing just now. It is what you have been doing under my nose these past months with which I am concerned.”

“Madam? I do not understand.” Dear God, did she know about the dolls?

“Don’t use your Parisian deceit on me! After all we have done for you, taking you and that half-wit and her chattering brat in, feeding and caring for you like one of the family. All against my better judgment, of course.”

Mrs. Lundy sniffed agreement, while her employer continued her tirade.

“When I think of how I so
generously
elevated you beyond your station, putting you in a position of trust as my lady’s maid, and you repay me this way. I am simply outraged—no, I am in disbelief—” Maude ranted on, while Claudette stood still, not sure yet of what she was being accused.

“I am so fortunate that Jassy is a
proper
servant, and has her employer’s best interests in mind. What in heaven’s name might have happened had she not reported this to me? You might have gotten in trouble and embarrassed me.”