“A little… how do the English say? Madcap.”
Vi had been called worse. “Since I just climbed in through your window, I can’t argue with that,” she said ruefully.
Jeanne’s throat rippled above her dark collar. “My mistress would have done the same. She, too, approached the world with boldness and ingenuity. A disregard for useless conventions.”
“Boldness and ingenuity,” Vi mused, “I like that. It has a nicer ring than impulsive and reckless, at any rate. The truth is I poked my head out the window, and the rest of me just followed.”
“My mistress believed that one’s impulses are the only true guide—”
“Violet, are you all right?” Em’s voice came from the other side of the blockaded door. “Let us in!”
“I’m fine. Give me a minute,” Violet called back. Seeing Jeanne tremble again, she said, “That is my sister, Emma. She wants to talk to you about Monique—”
“I won’t talk to her—or anyone!” The maid’s vehemence made Vi take a step back, as one would from a feral and unpredictable creature. “I’ll not allow my mistress’ name to be soiled by gossip. She was the last of the noble family of de Brouet, God rest their souls, and I’ll not let the memory of their finest daughter be tarnished.”
“But we have no wish to harm Madame Monique’s reputation,” Vi protested. “We only want to see justice done—”
“Justice.” Jeanne spat out the word as if it were an epithet. “Do you know how many atrocities have been carried out in the guise of justice? The de Brouets, the family I have served faithfully since the age of twelve, they were delivered so-called justice—dragged from the house of their ancestors, carted like chattel in front of a drunken mob. The last thing they heard was the cheering of those stinking barbarians before the guillotine fell.”
Vi’s stomach churned at Jeanne’s words. Anguish blazed like torches in the maid’s eyes.
“Madame Monique escaped from The Terror?” Vi whispered.
“Of course she didn’t,” Jeanne snapped. “My mistress was only seven-and-twenty, far too young to have lived during the reign of that devil Robespierre. Don’t you know anything?”
Violet flushed. Dates had never been her forte. “Er, of course. Sorry.”
Jeanne harrumphed. “It was Monique’smamanand I who escaped, with naught but the clothes on our back. Thecomtessewas forced to sell the last of her family heirlooms for a pittance to pay for our journey across the channel.” The maid’s rheumy eyes swam with tears again. “We sought refuge and instead found ourselves in a different hell.”
Spotting a handkerchief on the dresser, Vi snagged it and handed it over. “What do you mean?”
“Friendless, penniless, what else could she do? What else?” Jeanne murmured, twisting the linen around her fingers.
“What’s going on in there?” Even filtered through wood, Emma’s voice was insistent.
Seeing the crazed darting of the maid’s eyes, Vi guessed the poor thing was a bit let in the upper attics. She needed to calm Jeanne down before the others entered the mix.
“I need another minute,” she called.
Jeanne began to speak again. “Monique de Brouet was conceived in hell, but she survived because she was a fighter.” Pride infused the maid’s voice, and she spread her arms as if she were about to take flight. “She inherited her mama’s beauty and grace, theélanof her ancestors, and so she became anartiste. Revered by audiences wherever she went.”
“She was the greatest acrobat I’ve ever seen,” Vi said.
“The greatest theworldhas ever seen.” Jeanne’s mood changed with shocking swiftness, and she began to sob. “Comment cela pourrait-il arriver, ma petite?”
Cautiously, Vi reached out a hand, patting the other’s bony shoulder. “There, there.” When the maid didn’t pull away, she said, “Why don’t you sit a moment?” and maneuvered the weeping woman into a chair.
Then she hurried to the door, pushing the bed away so that Emma and Marianne could enter. The two looked at Jeanne, who was weeping hysterically, too distraught to react to the presence of newcomers.
“How is she?” Em whispered.
Vi widened her eyes and wiggled her fingers by her ears. Her silent way of communicating,There are bats in the woman’s belfry.
“I have failed her,” Jeanne wailed. “Failed the de Brouets.”
Emma went over. “Of course you haven’t, dear. None of this is your fault.”
The maid went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “We should have stayed in London. I should have stopped her from coming here. But she wouldn’t listen… she never listened…”
