September 7, 1891
1, rue Rabelais, Paris
“Damn the brutes.” Papa muttered an uncharacteristic curse as he surveyed the wreckage of his office. He lingered over a pile of white plaster shards that had once been a likeness of some Greek goddess or another, shaking his head. “That statue belonged to my mother.”
My lips turned up at the memory of my grandmother, the great Bonne Maman Eiffel. Were she still with us, I liked to imagine she would have fended off the intruders with the power of her steely gaze alone. Where lesser mortals might have needed a blade or a firearm, her fittingly Gorgon-esque stare would have been enough to terrify a workaday thief into a life so virtuous they’d be fit for the Vatican.
“She gave it to you and Maman because she hated it, if it’s any consolation.” She’d muttered as much one day when she’d seen it in Papa’s office and didn’t realize I could overhear. She thought the neoclassical phase, with all the scantily clad Greek deities, was an unmistakable sign that civilization had irrevocably teetered over the precipice of decline. The statue must have been a gift from someone significant enough that it couldn’t be disposed of, no matter how discreetly, but passed along to young newlyweds who so desperately needed to feather their new nest.
She was always a clever one, especially when it served her own interests.
Or those of the Eiffel family name.
“Have the brigands taken anything?” Adolphe stepped gingerly around some strewn papers; sketches of a bridge in some remote corner of the Orient that Papa had been engaged to build some years back. There were dozens of detailed plans for the ambitious projects of the company papering the floor so that the thick Turkish rug was hardly visible beneath them. “Was there anything of value in here?”
My hand fluttered to the ruby collar at my throat. Another expensive token of Papa’s affection and appreciation. And there were many others in the case upstairs. The cool bands of metal felt as though they might constrict around my windpipe. As extravagant as the bespoke silk gown I wore for an evening at the opera and a decadent meal beforehand at the Café de la Paix.
“These weren’t robbers coming after my diamond ear bobs, Adolphe.” My husband crossed his arms, awaiting my explanation. I went to the sideboard for a snifter of cognac before sating his curiosity. “They were looking for evidence to use against Papa and the company.”
With my free hand I gestured to the forest of ledgers that covered the entire surface of Papa’s mammoth desk, all of them open, though nothing ripped or damaged. Those documents were treated with a modicum of care. The looters had been reading them and searching for the evidence to prove their case against the Compagnie Eiffel.
I sipped my cognac. “I’d wager Maman’s rosary that there are several volumes of ledgers missing: 1886 to 1889, when the canal project folded. Even those since then, if they wanted to be thorough.”
Adolphe crossed to the desk and examined the leather tomes for himself. “Every ledger since 1886 up through last year. They didn’t get this year’s because it’s locked in my desk upstairs. For trained police, they treated your father’s property with no more respect than common thieves, whatever you say.”
I nodded. “They acted like thugs, I won’t deny it. The staff were scared out
of their wits. I’m only glad they didn’t try to interfere with the search and get themselves in trouble to protect us. The police had their warrant and I’m certain they planned it deliberately for an evening we’d be away so we wouldn’t have the chance to hide anything.”
“I can only imagine how they must have felt. A miserable business, the lot of it.” Papa flung himself into his chair and rubbed his eyes in exhaustion.
I placed a hand on his shoulder. “You’ll have to speak to them all in the morning. Don’t just assure them that you in no way hold them responsible for the actions of a few zealous detectives, but rather thank them for their cooperation with the authorities in a manner that corroborates the innocence of the Eiffel name and your company.”
Adolphe stifled a growl at the idea of his father-in-law, employer, and mentor having to smooth over such a thing with the staff, but Papa understood what had to be done. “Quite right, I’m sure.”
“You know I am,” I said, my eyes fixed on my husband rather than my father. “But I’d very much like to know one thing.”
“And what’s that?” Adolphe said in a tone that betrayed that he was more than a little frightened of what query I would pose.
“Will they find what they’re looking for?”
Adolphe and Papa exchanged glances that confessed the truth they were loath to speak. The accusations against Papa and the company might be overblown, but they weren’t baseless.
I fought against the urge to hurl the snifter against the brick of the fireplace but restrained myself. The time might come when we’d regret the loss of expensive crystal that could fetch a price. I gripped the mantel and gritted my teeth.
It might not be my face that had been plastered across every scandal rag from Cherbourg to Marseille. It wasn’t my name that would be sullied. But it might as well have been.
I’d sworn an oath to Papa years ago, and I hadn’t faltered a single step in that time. I would not fail him in his hour of greatest need. The sacrifices had been too great to stumble now.
But try though I might, it might not be enough to save that which mattered most to him.
His legacy.
September 1877
Levallois-Perret, Hauts-de-Seine, Île-de-France, France
As was often the case after a long day, and this had been the longest of my life, my eyes trailed to the massive tapestry on the far wall of the sitting room. I’d stared at it so often that even the smallest detail was burned into my memory. It was a quaint pastoral scene that had been woven a hundred years before by Papa’s family when they settled in Paris. The grass was composed of a dozen shades of green; the sky was a melody of countless blues. Even the shepherdess’s dress spanned every nuance of pink available to the imagination. Each strand of thread had been chosen with careful deliberation to make the scene seem as realistic as if it had been committed to canvas with the brush of a master painter. I imagined my great-to-the-third-degree grandfather overseeing the work on this very tapestry, perfectly content to have a seamstress remove hours’ worth of stitches if the colors weren’t precisely right. Papa had to have come by his exacting nature somehow, and it served him well. In architecture, there was even less room for imperfection. One botched calculation could cost untold lives.
“At least the worst is over.”
My head—and the thoughts inside it—pivoted to where Bonne Maman Eiffel rested on a plush fauteuil. She was a formidable woman with a solemn face and shrewd eyes that were not tempered with kindness like Papa’s. She leaned forward in her seat, her hand gripping the ball of her cane, and sighed as though the black dress she wore were made of iron instead of crêpe.
A heavy silence weighed on the room. We all looked at her in disbelief. The funeral was over, yes. The last stragglers from the throng of visitors who had come to pay their respects to my much-lamented mother had left, and we now regained some solitude in the house. Only my aunt, uncle, and grandparents remained in addition to our little family of six, and I could admit I was glad for some quiet.
But was the worst of it over? No. Not by half.
The funeral was indeed an ordeal. It involved planning and organization and a generous measure of grace and poise. Things the Eiffel family possessed in spades. But now that the work of the services was over, we didn’t have anything to distract us from the real task at hand: learning how to rebuild our lives without Maman.
Papa seemed as if he wanted to dole out a rebuke to his mother but swallowed back his censure. “Quite” was all he could muster.
“Papa, you should have some coffee.” I leapt from the settee and crossed the room to pour him a cup from the service on the sideboard before he could object. The maids had, on my orders, kept it filled with coffee, tea, and platters of simple food throughout the gathering that afternoon. Strong coffee, I’d insisted, the sort that might peel the enamel from your teeth, just as Papa liked it. I added a couple of his favorite butter biscuits in a wordless plea for him to eat something. He’d only picked at meals, and I was certain from the dark circles under his eyes that sleep was no friend to him.
I expected him to refuse as I approached his seat with the coffee and pastry, but his eyes met mine for a moment and he gave a small smile of appreciation as he accepted them. I felt the muscles loosen in my shoulders as he took a sip from the cup and absentmindedly dipped the edge of a biscuit in the strong brew. It was an improvement. I couldn’t bear the thought of him growing weak and falling ill as Maman had done. He had a far stronger constitution than she had, but it wasn’t a chance I was willing to take.
“I suppose your father is the only one who merits such attentions?” Bonne Maman chided. Of course, no one else could be doted upon in her presence if she were not included.
“My apologies,” I mumbled, rising to fetch her a cup and some biscuits of her own.
“No, I can’t drink coffee after luncheon, or I won’t sleep a wink. It’s the principle of the thing, Claire.”
Papa made no attempt to hide the rolling of his eyes.
Bonne Maman and Bon Papa would return to Dijon next week, which would be a loss and a relief in almost equal measure. Tante Marie and Oncle Albert lived close enough that they would return home after the supper that none of us would likely touch. I wished they would stay to help divert Bonne Maman’s attention, but I wouldn’t impose it on them.
“Dearest Marguerite,” Tante Marie said. “It won’t be the same without her laugh.”
“Such an affable, sweet woman,” Bonne Maman said, for once in agreement with her daughter. And it was true.
Maman hadn’t been as vibrant as Tante Marie or as sharp-witted as Bonne Maman, but her presence had been soothing in a way no one else’s was. No one else’s could be.
I felt, for perhaps the millionth time, the tears burning at the corners of my eyes, begging to be released in a torrent. I kept the dam from bursting, but a few errant tears slid down my cheeks.
“Not now, child. We mustn’t upset the little ones. They’ve lost their mother.” Bonne Maman clucked her tongue in reproach. Little Valentine, seven years old, and the most beautiful girl in all of France in my view, was playing despondently in a corner with the baby, little Albert, who was only four. If they noticed my tears, it would be through a veil of their own.
Albert didn’t fully understand what was going on but could read our sadness like words on a page. Valentine understood better and pined for her maman with heartbreaking candor.
Laure, who was only a year my junior at the age of thirteen, sat beside the spot I’d vacated on the settee. She looked like a miniature version of Maman, and was every bit as elegant. She had daintily dabbed her own tears with a lacy handkerchief throughout the day. Édouard, just eleven and on leave from school for the funeral, tried to manfully keep his tears from surfacing, but he hadn’t been entirely successful.
Tante Marie turned to her mother. “As did Claire.” Her tone was low and soft as velvet but laced with venom.
Bonne Maman shot Tante Marie one of her famous withering glares. She didn’t speak a word, but her meaning was clear enough: It isn’t the same. She’s older and must be mistress of herself for
their sakes.
She wasn’t entirely wrong. Valentine, and especially little Albert, would only have dim memories, faded around the edges, to cling to. I’d had fourteen years with her. It was far more than they would have. But that didn’t mean it was anything like enough.
It was never supposed to be this way. Maman was supposed to live decades longer, and I was supposed to have a mother for many years after I had children of my own. I had questions. About growing into a woman, about marriage and babies, about running a house. All those chapters of my life lay ahead of me, and I knew nothing about how to take them on.
I had spent so much time trying to be Papa’s shadow, I’d never taken the time to be Maman’s. To learn all the lessons she had to teach.
Bonne Maman? She’d tell me I was an Eiffel and clever enough to figure it out on my own and to, for heaven’s sake, stop pestering her.
Tante Marie would be more helpful, but she had her own house to manage and enough to get on with without having me as an added concern. She never had children of her own, and I sensed she enjoyed the freedoms her childless state afforded her.
Maman was only three years older than I was now when she married Papa. When Maman was alive, it seemed like I’d have an eternity before I had to worry about adult concerns like marriage and managing a house and children. Now that she was gone, those milestones in my life would come all too soon, whether I was prepared or not.
And I was not.
A maid came to collect Valentine and Albert for their dinner in the nursery, and the rest of us went into the dining room. Bonne Maman looked askance when Édouard joined us at the table. At the age of eleven, he was a bit young to dine in company, but he was already enrolled at school and perfectly well-behaved enough for a family dinner.
The cook, Monsieur Lebec, had been at dire straits trying to prepare meals that would please us when it seemed nothing could tempt us to eat. I’d tried to reassure him that nothing was amiss with the food itself, only our appetites, but he was still peevish that so much of the food went untouched. Tonight, he set before us course after course of culinary marvels, taking extra care since Bonne Maman was in attendance. He would hear of it if she were displeased, and he knew it well. My head swirled as the canapés were followed by watercress soup. An exquisitely roasted duck in a port wine reduction, braised carrots, and green beans with butter-and-almond sauce were on their way. My stomach rolled at the thought of such richness. We would have to sit through the main course, cheeses, and then poires Belle Hélène—pears poached in sugar, drizzled with chocolate, and served with vanilla ice cream. The dessert was Bonne Maman’s favorite, so
I ordered it especially to please her. And while most of us merely sampled our food, Bonne Maman, Bon Papa, and Oncle Albert ate heartily. At least Monsieur Lebec would be mollified that our guests were pleased.
The conversation had been muted through the appetizers, but it seemed Bonne Maman could not let the soup course come to completion without getting down to the business at hand.
“Now that poor Marguerite is laid to rest, your work will require your attention again, Gustave. Even in such sorrowful circumstances, you cannot allow mistakes to happen when the company bears the Eiffel name.” She thunked her spoon down next to the bowl, which sounded as definite as the hammering of a gavel.
“Maman, I hardly think this is the time—” Tante Marie interjected.
“If not now, when, Marie? Gustave cannot afford to stain the reputation of a company in its infancy. No one will much care that he is mourning for his wife if one of his bridges collapses or a building tumbles over.” Bonne Maman’s expression dared anyone to contradict her.
“Gustave knows better than anyone the value of reputation in this business, and he doesn’t need you to remind him of it, woman.” Bon Papa spoke for the first time since arriving beyond “hello,” “goodbye,” and general pleasantries with the guests that afternoon.
“Thank you,” Papa said, his voice several degrees lower and huskier than I was used to. He sat up taller in his seat and directed his gaze toward Bonne Maman. “I’m getting daily reports from the workshops and regular reports from our projects abroad. I’m keeping an eye on all of it, even now.”
“That is all well and good, Son. But your clients need to see you with feet on the ground overseeing things,” she pressed.
“In due time, Maman,” Papa said.
“Gustave, I really must insist—”
Papa, for perhaps the first time in his life, put up a hand to silence her.
She glowered at her son’s directive. He was a grown man in his own home, and she owed him some measure of deference there, but it was evident she loathed it. “Very well, but your father and I are resolved to take Claire and Laure back to Dijon with us when we leave. You don’t need added distractions here. Édouard is occupied with school, and I trust Marguerite had adequate help for the little ones. But the girls will need more looking after than you should devote time to.”
I bit my tongue. Never once had Papa acted as though the time he spent with us was in any way a distraction for more important duties. He’d be mortified if we’d ever thought such a thing.
“Claire stays with me,” Papa insisted. “Laure may go for a visit if she wishes, but we will depend on having her home for Christmas. Her tutoring will resume here in the new year.”
“Gustave—”
“The younger children will need Claire’s attentions. Hired help cannot replace a mother.”
“Neither can a girl barely free from her leading strings,” Bonne Maman countered.
Papa slammed a hand down on the table, causing the china to rattle. “On this, I will not yield, Maman. I lost my wife, but I will not be separated from Claire.”
Bonne Maman’s face was pinched as she sat taller and rounded on Papa. “I insist—”
“Insist all you wish, Maman. Claire’s place is with me. I cannot run a home and a business alone, and I cannot depend on staff to do it. I will have no more conversation on the matter.”
Bonne Maman opened her mouth to protest, but closed it just as soon, looking oddly like a fish gasping for breath. It was a day that would be etched in my memory, not only because it was the day we’d laid my beloved mother to rest, but because it was the first time anyone had seen Bonne Maman Eiffel at a loss for words.
“You call that proper stitching, do you?” Bonne Maman asked, appearing out of nowhere and peering over my shoulder to examine the sampler I’d been embroidering.
I’d chosen to fuss with my embroidery that morning, knowing it was an activity Bonne Maman deemed suitable for a young lady, but she had managed to find fault even with this. “Your mother should have taken more pains with your education,” Bonne Maman said, clucking her tongue.
“She was ill, if you remember,” I said through clenched teeth. I’d regret my cheek later, but I found it too irresistible in the moment.
Bonne Maman glowered. “That will be quite enough of your impudence. I know full well that your mother was of a weak constitution for quite some time, but if she was unequal to oversee your training, she ought to have engaged the staff to see to it in her stead.”
“I can read and speak three languages fluently, have earned highest marks from my tutors in French composition, and have long since outstripped Édouard in mathematics. I am proficient at the pianoforte and amuse myself by reading many of the great works in Papa’s library. I apologize if you feel my needlework isn’t up to snuff, but Maman occupied my time with more serious pursuits.”
In truth, Maman had lamented over my mediocre needlework and knitting but had always been supportive of my weightier academic interests. As I wasn’t permitted to attend a proper school like Édouard did and little Bébert soon would, Maman had always engaged tutors of the first order. And it wasn’t that I found no enjoyment in these ladylike arts; it was that I simply had no natural talent for them and had taken too little time to improve myself in them. Maman had understood.
“And she’s a brilliant artist,” Laure supplied, shooting me a supportive glance. She meant well, but I doubted Bonne Maman would respond graciously to her defense of me and my education. Maman had found numerous art tutors for us over the years, and it was the diversion I loved best in the world.
“Don’t be boastful,” Bonne Maman snapped. “All the Greek and Latin in the world won’t find you a suitable husband. Quite the contrary, men don’t like their wives to be smarter than they are. They look for wives to be decorative, obedient, and sweet. Not clever.”
“Were you not instrumental in furthering Bon Papa’s career?”
I wished instantly I could swallow the words back into my mouth. Papa had spoken with deep admiration of how his mother had pushed his father to greater heights.
“Of course I was,” she replied. “But I had the good sense never to let him know it. Now rip out that last row and try again. Pay attention and keep your work tidy. I’ll be inspecting it later.”
She padded out of the room, whether to pester the children or Bon Papa, I didn’t know. “She is so awful,” I muttered when I was certain she was out of earshot.
“You shouldn’t say that,” Laure whispered, her eyes darting about the room as though she expected Bonne Maman had stationed hidden informants throughout the house. “She’s merely trying to help.”
“We buried Maman yesterday, yet she insists on finding fault with everyone and everything. No, Laure. That isn’t trying to help. She’s an overbearing witch.”
“Who’s that?” Papa asked, entering the room with a thick book in his left hand. The dark circles under his eyes were still prominent, but he
did look as though he had slept better last night.
“No one, Papa,” I said hastily. “We were just discussing a novel.”
“Careful with those around your grandmother,” Papa said with a roll of his eyes. “She doesn’t approve.”
What doesn’t she find wanting? I swallowed the question and found a more pressing query waiting on my tongue. “Where is she now?”
“In the library,” he said.
“Didn’t you tell us you were not to be disturbed there?” Laure interjected.
“Your grandmother does not respond well to such directives, so I retreated here with my book if you ladies don’t mind my company. Though you have a guest in the foyer, Claire, who is quite eager to see you.”
“Ursule?” I had few intimate friends, and she was the only one who was dear enough to me to drop by without an invitation.
“Indeed. Canvas in hand and ready to set to work in the gardens, I should think.”
“May I go, Papa?” I asked.
He nodded. “Off you trot, little Monet. Degas is waiting. Your sister and I will make excuses for you.”
I tossed my needlework aside and bounded across the room to kiss Papa’s cheek before collecting my own art case and rescuing Ursule from the foyer before Bonne Maman discovered her. Ursule Blanchet, our neighbor and my closest friend, was of average height, but wiry and thin as a greyhound. She had frizzy hair that couldn’t decide if it was strawberry blond or caramel brown, and the most arresting green eyes I’d ever seen. We’d been friends since we were small girls and had cultivated a love of art together. Our keenest wish was to go to art school together in the city and shock our parents by making a name for ourselves in the male-dominated world of art. Nothing would do until our work was on display at the Louvre itself.
“I hope it’s all right that I came today,” Ursule said. “You must feel free to send me away if you’d rather I hadn’t. I wasn’t sure if you would want company and diversion or if you’d prefer solitude and time with your family.”
I kissed both her cheeks with gusto. “You’re the most welcome sight I’ve seen in ages. Let’s go.”
We lugged our cases, replete with canvases, easels, and paints, to the farthest reaches of the gardens, where we were certain the scope for the imagination was at its best. The warm autumn sun, still clinging to the last vestiges of late summer, seemed to mock me with its cheer, though simply having Ursule nearby was such a comfort that it warmed me just as thoroughly. I knew the grief would come surging back, like a wave crashing onto the shore, but for now I could enjoy a few hours where the pain was at low tide.
Ursule had begun a fine painting of a rather charming chestnut tree and was
anxious to make progress on it. My canvas was blank, as I had spent much of the summer frantically painting the flowers until they went out of season. Since many of the varietals in our gardens were going dormant for the year, I’d have to find a new subject.
I studied Ursule’s canvas, admiring her talent and her patience. “You’ve been working on that painting for weeks and weeks. Haven’t you grown tired of staring at the same tree all this time? The flowers are far more fun. You have to capture them before they wilt.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Ursule said. “It’s never the same tree twice. I’m trying to capture all of its moods. To this tree, your flower friends are just passing through.”
“What a lovely thought.” I smiled at her, always happy to get a glimpse inside her brain, which was often more philosophical than my own.
“It’s the beautiful thing about art. We can capture the fleeting and the eternal. A dandelion or a mountain, all as we please. Now that you’ve spent months on flowers, you ought to choose something that will last the winter and spend some time on it,” Ursule said, her eyes already fixed on the chestnut tree she’d dubbed Hector.
And this was why I loved Ursule. She didn’t just enjoy making pretty things; there was a philosophy behind all that she did. Like me, she was a passionate reader, and her parents had encouraged her education just as mine did.
I chose to paint the corner of the house that jutted into the garden. There was something pleasing about the angle as it encroached into the greenery of the out-of-doors, the way the light bounced off the gray stone, the way the vines spiderwebbed up the side of the building. I sketched outlines for some time, then I concentrated on the various hues of gray in the rock and all the greens in the vines, trying to capture the nuance of the color and the subtleties of the light.
Our habit was to chat for a while as we worked, but inevitably we’d be pulled into our work and lose ourselves in it. We simultaneously forgot the other was there and were somehow comforted by the presence of our fellow artist. There was no need for idle conversation to feel the camaraderie as we immersed ourselves in a sea of burnt sienna and viridian.
I couldn’t have told a soul if we’d been at our work for an hour or six by the time I heard the slam of a door and angry footsteps rushing toward us in the garden. Bonne Maman Eiffel had discovered my escape.
“What on earth are you doing out of doors? In the sun, and without a hat too. Have you lost your senses completely, or were you never born with any?”
I fought the urge to fling paint at her with my brush and did exactly as Maman would have done. I pretended that Bonne Maman hadn’t said anything beyond “Good afternoon” or “How do you do?”
I plastered on my smile that I reserved for the moments I was fighting not to lose my temper. Always turn to manners when your anger gets the better of you, Maman had said. “Bonne Maman, I’d like to present my dear friend Ursu—”
“I don’t care who this is.” Bonne Maman turned to Ursule. “Go home to
your parents, child, if you have any. I don’t want to see you here again.”
Heat rose in my cheeks. My mother had loved Ursule and her family and always welcomed them into our home. And this harpy was insulting the one person who had thought to look after my needs when I’d run myself to the point of exhaustion taking care of everyone else’s. “Bonne Maman, she’s our neighbor. Her father is friends with Papa. How can you speak to her in such a way?” I tried, for Papa’s sake, to keep my tone even, but wasn’t entirely successful.
“How dare you contradict me,” Bonne Maman fired back. She glanced at my painting and grabbed the canvas from the easel. “You’ve wasted time enough for one lifetime on childish things. You’ll take your paints to the nursery for the children and spend your time profitably from now on.”
I yanked the painting back from her before she could damage it, which was surely her intent. “I will not, you nasty cow. I wish you’d never come here. You’re just making everything worse.”
She stood slack-jawed, and I didn’t wait for her to regain her composure to give me the tongue-lashing I was due. I took my easel, case, and canvas awkwardly in my arms. My pained look was an unvoiced apologetic farewell to Ursule. I marched back to the rear entryway of the house with Bonne Maman trailing in my wake, no doubt aggravated that her age kept her from matching my stride.
“Back already?” Papa asked when he saw me reenter the drawing room. I glanced to the clock and saw we’d been at our travails for two hours. ...
We hope you are enjoying the book so far. To continue reading...
Copyright © 2024 All Rights Reserved
Please log in to recommend or discuss...
