The Queen's Dollmaker (22 page)

London, July 1789
. Béatrice stepped into the sitting room, lightly patting her face with a handkerchief. Claudette would have sworn she seemed feverish, if not for the fact that it was an unusually hot day.

“It is so warm outside today. I believe I’ll sit and rest awhile before continuing my errands—Marguerite, my love, yes, we will go to purchase more hair ribbons as I promised—oh, Claudette, here is your mail. Marguerite, come sit and read to me while I lie quietly.” Still chattering in an exhausted but happy way, Béatrice disappeared into her own apartment.

Claudette quickly scanned the letters that had arrived, and a square envelope with a vaguely familiar slanted scrawl leapt out at her. She tossed aside the other correspondence and opened that one.

Claudette folded the letter slowly. The poor queen, suffering so terribly, self-exiled in her apartments. And the king! What a terrible state the country was in. How could his own subjects be so filled with rage, with hate? Was he responsible for France’s woes, or just himself swept up in the political climate? And Marie, always so practical, so focused on her work, was now weeping on paper over her royal patrons.

She shared the letter with William. He nodded gravely. “Yes, the situation in France deteriorates daily. I know how much you love the queen, but you must face the fact that she and King Louis may eventually be dethroned—”

“William, no!”

“And will probably be exiled. The populace has gone mad over there. Claudette…” He put an arm around her and kissed the top of her head. “Things may not end well for them. Do you realize that?”

“I cannot believe that. They are the king and queen! Duly anointed sovereigns, ordained by God. It’s impossible that they would be cast out of their country like common criminals.”

Another kiss, this time to her forehead. “My love, there may come a time when they are indeed treated like common criminals.”

London, July 25, 1789
. They were sitting companionably at a partners desk in William’s London town house study, Claudette bent over her accounts and William sifting through an accumulation of mail.

“I’ve received an invitation to Knole.” William tapped an envelope whose red wax seal had been broken. “Dorset is having a dinner party to celebrate his return home from his posting as British Ambassador to the court of Louis XVI. Claudette, I would like you to accompany me.”

She looked up sharply from her work. “William, no. Your friends despise me for being French and for not having their social standing. I could not bear it.”

“They think they despise you because they don’t know you as I do. This is an opportunity to correct their bad impressions.”

She returned to her ledger. “I will not do it.”

William chuckled from the back of his throat. “The first thing they will learn about you is your enduring stubbornness.”

Several days later, the pair walked about Hevington after William had invited Claudette to see a new lake he was having installed in the rear of the property. They paused together on a stone bridge spanning one of several streams on the property. The stream was to be rerouted as a feeder for the lake. William leaned over with his elbows on the ledge, looking out at the landscape. Claudette tucked her arm through his and leaned against his shoulder, closing her eyes to fully enjoy his warmth and the sound of the flowing water beneath them. She could hear the soft whinnies and snuffles of the estate’s mares in the distance.

William broke into her peaceful silence. “I want you to do this for me.”

“Mmm, do what?”

“I want you to come with me to Knole. You may see whatever dressmaker you wish, and have the bill sent to me.”

His request shocked her out of complacence. “William, I can’t. I’m just a tradesperson. They will mock me incessantly. I remember vividly how one particular rising aristocrat used to do so.” She tried to cover her emerging panic by playfully swatting his arm.

“If they mock you, it is only to hide their great admiration of you. As one particular rising aristocrat used to do.”

She cast her eyes down. “I can’t,” she whispered. “It will be a thousand Maude Ashbys.”

“Claudette, look at me. You handled Maude Ashby skillfully with no concern for her estimation of you. The queen of France even invited you to a private picnic luncheon. I want you to show Dorset’s guests your delightful charm and intelligence, while wordlessly telling them they can go to hell with their opinions.”

“Do you really think I can do this?”

“Foolish girl.” He brought his lips down to hers. “You did it to me.”

Knole House, Kent, August 1789
. The English were observing international affairs with an interested diffidence. Although protesting that the French were, as usual, behaving like boorish heathens, London society still found fascination with all things French—fashion, food, wine, and manners. The storming of the Bastille prison on July 14 had astounded Europe. The Bastille, which housed a handful of prisoners, none of them political, had become a hated symbol of authoritarian rule. A populace frustrated with ever-climbing bread prices and the king’s refusal to accommodate the people’s demands exploded that summer day in a march on the Bastille.

Guests sat rapturously at the dinner table as the third Duke of Dorset, his scandalous Italian mistress at his side, told tales of revolutionary France. His escape from Paris had been so sudden that he had turned back an English cricket team that had assembled in Dover en route to a match the duke himself had arranged in Paris.

Stroking the smooth and glossy hair of his beloved Giovanna Baccelli, a beautiful but unconventional woman whom the duke had met when she was a noted ballerina, he opined, “The French have no sensibilities whatsoever. Common fishwives are stamping about with pitchforks and torches, threatening their betters. There is no sense of order and tradition in that vile country, and I’ll be happy not to ever visit it again.”

“But, my lord,” asked a guest. “Isn’t it true that many of our countrymen are traveling to Paris just to witness events?”

“Yes, unfortunately. It seems as though there is a mad dash to the Continent to find a piece of souvenir rubble from the Bastille to bring home, and now the grand tour is not complete without a stay near Versailles to catch a glimpse of the idiot King Louis and his whore. We may call our king Old Satan, but he and his queen have dutifully produced a bevy of royal heirs and marriageable princesses, and they know how to behave properly in the eyes of the world.”

A general murmur of agreement passed over the long mahogany table, which was covered in countless salvers of food, sterling candlesticks, and profusions of floral arrangements and candied sweetmeats.

“D’you know, that strange sculptress Marie Antoinette employs—Marie Gershon, Groton, or some such thing—was forced to make a death mask of the Bastille’s governor, Monsieur de Launay, after the mob killed him? Only the French could behave so abominably.”

Claudette breathed sharply inward and her trembling hand spilled some wine from its goblet onto her plate. Poor Marie! She caught long glances from guests, some in sympathy, some in disgust. She heard one gentleman lean over to another to say, “Imagine! William Greycliffe with a Parisian on his arm. After all he has been through with that Radley woman, now this. And if he marries the common little trollop and she begins dropping brats, the entire English countryside will be overrun with fanatical revolutionaries. I, for one, will not have it.” The hearer nodded sagely in agreement. Claudette’s cheeks were burning. William gently squeezed her arm and imperceptibly shook his head, “No.” Claudette clamped her jaws together and continued to steam.

The duke resumed. “The National Assembly has now been recognized, and has adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen. Meaning it has declared the ‘nation’ sovereign, instead of God. Sounds like a nation of fools to me.” The guests laughed heartily at French expense.

Later, the men retired to the duke’s heavily paneled library, while the women gathered in the great hall to play cards and drink sherry from diminutive crystal stemware. It was the largest room Claudette had ever seen in her life. The soaring twenty-foot ceilings were covered in an elaborate plaster frieze, and the walls were paneled in dark oak halfway up to the ceiling. One end of the hall was layered in wood carvings and panels so intricate—including rams’ heads, lions, coats of arms, and lattice work—that Claudette could not help but gawk just like one of her own customers. A fireplace engulfed one side wall, its fire screen taller than any of the women in the room. The interior of it was surely as large as Claudette’s room at the Ashbys’. She had thought William’s country home to be extravagant, but realized now that he lived simply in comparison to his neighbors and others in his class. Unlike how the “common trollops” might live. She narrowed her eyes again, remembering.

As she stood there, taking in the magnificence of the room, the other women were sitting down at card tables around the room. None had acknowledged her presence, and no one invited Claudette to her table. Seeing her discomfort in a room full of society ladies, Giovanna rushed over and took her hands. “My dearest Signorina Laurent, have I told you how simply lovely your dress is? It sets off those luminous blue eyes of yours. I really am most envious.” Giovanna dropped her lilting voice to a theatrical whisper. “You mustn’t be intimidated by these women. Most of them live under their husbands’ strict rules of obedience, and can barely leave the house without permission. They are not like you and I, yes?” Giovanna smiled as Claudette bristled at the implication that they were both mistresses.

“My dear, no, I mean that society finds us outrageous for no reason other than our birth. Do you know that they call me The Baccelli? It makes me sound like a statue, not a person, doesn’t it? I met the duke when I was dancing at the King’s Theatre in Haymarket. I was not seeking an entanglement with some stuffed poppycock. I had my own money, my own house, and complete freedom. But who can predict what the heart will demand, yes? And so—” The Baccelli clasped her hands together, then threw them wide, as if on stage. “And so now I live here at Knole, with my dearest love, and our son John Frederick. Society accepts me now because they know he will never marry me. Eventually he will have to marry to get legitimate heirs, and I suppose I will be pensioned off to some distant estate.” The hands came back together as Giovanna shrugged dramatically. “But I will have achieved much for a lowly Italian ballerina, yes? You, however, Signorina Laurent, are outrageous too, in your own way. A dollmaker of some repute in London, yes? A woman of her own means, not inherited, is simply not possible in English society. Especially in someone who has the stink of France upon her! They do not hate you; they are jealous. Use this to your advantage, Signorina Laurent. Help the women look beyond their prison walls made of their marriages to see their possibilities.”

Giovanna gave Claudette a quick kiss on the cheek and guided her to one of the larger tables of women, directing her comments to the one who was clearly the most dominant in the group. “Lady Bewley, have you been formally introduced to Signorina Laurent, beloved of our Signor Greycliffe?”

Lady Bewley stiffened but knew her manners. “I do not believe I have had the, er, pleasure, of your acquaintance, Miss Laurent.” She nodded her head very slightly at Claudette, as though any more would indicate an actual pleasure.

With an encouraging glance from Giovanna, Claudette replied, “Lady Bewley, I am honored to be here. With you. This evening.” Laughter broke out in the room at her stilted language. Really, this was just like being at Mrs. Ashby’s, except now she could not run and hide in the library.

A small silence ensued, then Giovanna piped up brightly, “Signorina Laurent has had many adventures. Please, my dear, tell us about your harrowing escape from Paris to London.” How did Giovanna know so much?

Omitting information about Jean-Philippe, Claudette once again told the story of the fire, and her near-miss with prostitution on the London docks. The women at her table gasped. Her story was inconceivable. Everyone knew that women fell into prostitution as a result of bad breeding; they were not
forced
into it. Claudette now had the attention of this table and all the other women in the room. She told of her household employment as a servant, and the browbeating she took from her social-climbing employer, including her forced pantomime of a lady’s maid before Mrs. Emily Harrison. Caught up in her own story, Claudette acted out and mimicked much about her employment. Soon the women were laughing uproariously, causing the men to send in a servant to find out if anything was amiss.

“Stop,” said Lady Bewley, gasping. “You must tell me right now who this harridan was.”

With hesitation, Claudette stated that it was Maude Ashby, née Carter. Lady Bewley clapped her gloved hands together in glee. “Yes, I thought that was whom you might be referring to. Maude Ashby has been trying to enter London society for years. The woman is absolute poison. We always ignore her invitations. I am amazed that you slipped through her clutches. I have no idea why Mr. Greycliffe frequents her parties. Well, I suppose he did meet his Miss Laurent there, didn’t he?” She cocked her head to one side, but she no longer seemed as antagonistic as before. “You are certainly nothing like Lenora Radley. I see warmth in you. Perhaps you’d care to join us for a game of whist?”

The conversation turned to talk of revolutionary activities in France. The women, having heard little but what their husbands had told them and what they read in society newspapers, were convinced that Marie Antoinette was an immoral harlot, and the cause of all of France’s problems. Gently, Claudette told them of her meeting with the queen the previous year, and her conviction that the queen had been much maligned by the populace. She may not have convinced the women of Marie Antoinette’s innocence, but they were duly impressed that she had been presented to the queen of France. By the time the men came to collect their companions at midnight, Claudette had lost terribly at cards, but collected no less than three invitations to tea, a promise that Lady Whittington would call upon her doll shop, and an order from Lady Bewley for “one of those famous
grandes Pandores
I am always hearing about.”

At Claudette’s departure, Giovanna kissed her cheek and whispered delicately in her ear, “Do you see, my dear? Now they see in you a heroine, and they will persuade their husbands that you can be one of them. Marry this William Greycliffe—he loves you deeply—and be as happy as me, without the threat of dismissal. I am certain he will let you continue with your dolls.”

In the carriage ride back to Hevington, Claudette was quiet and thoughtful. When William escorted her to her guest quarters and bowed over her hand, she responded by wordlessly pulling his face to hers in a deep kiss. As he walked back down the hallway, he continued to turn back and look at her, puzzled. She gave him a contented smile. Perhaps Giovanna was right. Maybe it was time to stop fighting against a life with William.