Finding Emilie Read online

  Lili ignored her. “I’m not you,” she said. “I’m not dainty, or pretty—or interested, for that matter.”

  Delphine snorted. “You act like you’re some ugly little troll, and you’re not bad-looking in the slightest!” Lili would probably be better described as handsome, a word often used to describe women with no irregularities substantial enough to make them unappealing, but lacking in the delicacy and harmony of features that would warrant anything more than the occasional description of “rather attractive.” Her eyes were perhaps a bit too large and an imprecise shade of brown, and her hair had settled into an uncertain hue somewhere between brown and black. Furthermore, as Delphine constantly pointed out, Lili didn’t make the effort to maintain her hair neatly, keep her skin powdered, or put the slightest touch of rouge on her cheeks or lips. “It would make such a difference,” Delphine had admonished, her voice trailing off wistfully, as if she were witnessing a tragedy unfolding before her eyes.

  LAUGHTER FROM THE group playing paille-maille brought Lili’s attention back to the present. What good did it do her that the woods were beckoning, since she was not permitted to walk or ride in them alone, and every possible companion seemed to have an incomprehensible preference for hitting wooden balls for hours on end? She sighed, loud enough to be heard. Julie linked her arm in Lili’s and eased the two of them out of earshot onto a gravel pathway that grumbled under their feet with each step.

  “Scowling will give you wrinkles,” Julie said, looking at Lili from under her parasol. Its rose-colored silk cast a warm glow over her face. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’d so much rather be doing just about anything else,” Lili said, tossing her head just in time to see Anne-Mathilde dissolve into giggles after hitting the ball as poorly as Delphine had done. “What is the matter with those girls? Delphine could hit that stupid ball. Why is she acting like it’s so much fun to be bad at something?”

  “Delphine is quite a flirt,” Julie said. “And she seems to enjoy the attention.” Her expression turned serious as she looked at Lili. “You’re almost sixteen, and it’s normal to start paying attention to the men around you. It won’t be long until you and Delphine are the talk of the court, with everyone wondering who you’ll marry. Aren’t you at all curious about that?”

  “I’m curious whether anyone exists who thinks paille-maille is as boring as I do.” Lili gave her parasol a punishing twirl in her hands. “Please, can’t we go riding instead?”

  “Maman, look!” Delphine called out. She gave the ball a resounding pop and it careened against the metal hoop, but made it through. The crowd applauded, Joséphine and Anne-Mathilde tittered, and Delphine cocked her head in a well-practiced manner before handing her mallet to Jacques-Mars as if he were born to carry it in one hand and her parasol in the other.

  Lili looked away, but felt Maman’s elbow pull her closer. “Riding tomorrow,” Julie said. “I promise.”

  SUMMER THUNDERSHOWERS SPOILED the plan for the following day, and when Julie had a headache the next, she fulfilled her promise to Lili by asking their host to arrange a riding party for the young people staying at the château.

  “I’m going to practice all day on Jacques-Mars,” Delphine had said the night before, as Corinne helped them out of their dresses.

  “Practice what?” Lili snorted, though she needed no answer.

  “Being charming. He’s only twenty, and far too young to marry, but he’ll be a count after his father dies, and everyone says their lands are some of the loveliest in France.” Liberated from the constraints of the corset she had worn to supper, Delphine made small dance steps around their sitting room, wearing only her chemise. “Perhaps we’ll be invited for a visit to his family’s château this fall, if he’s really smitten with me.”

  “I can hardly wait,” Lili growled.

  Delphine stopped and put her hands on her hips. “You used to be fun, but you’re not anymore,” she snapped. “I’d rather be reading,” she mimicked, moving her jaw up and down like a marionette. “I’d rather be doing geometry.” Lili’s jaw dropped in disbelief at the explosive mockery.

  “I’d rather be writing about Meadowlark!” Delphine tossed her head, as if to rid herself of anything so childish.

  “What did you mean by that?” Lili demanded.

  “Well, wouldn’t you?”

  It came to Lili in a stark moment of insight. For months, Delphine had played with her hair or traced with her fingertips the patterns in the fabrics of Maman’s clothing while Lili read. “When are Tom and Meadowlark going to kiss?” Delphine wheedled from time to time. “That would ruin everything,” Lili always replied, sometimes with such adamance that Maman had to intervene to prevent a quarrel.

  Perhaps she too was growing beyond Meadowlark, Lili thought, writing new adventures as if they were for a Delphine who no longer existed. It had become work to pick up the pen, but after Delphine’s insult, Lili was certainly not going to admit it. “What I’d really like Meadowlark to do, is whack the sense back into you with a paille-maille mallet,” Lili said, refusing to soften the moment with a friendly smirk.

  “Mon Dieu, Lili, you’re making such a terrible impression.” Delphine knotted her dressing gown with an angry tug on the ends of the sash.

  “You sound like the nuns,” Lili retorted.

  “It’s not funny! You act like you’re so much better than everybody, and I have to work hard so people won’t dislike me because of you.”

  “Better? I can’t do any of the things you do—smile, and tease, and say witty things that make people laugh.”

  “Well, you could if you tried!” Delphine exhaled in frustration as she sat down on the bed. “Aren’t you worried that no one will take a fancy to you, the way you grouse around and act like nothing anybody says is interesting?”

  “It isn’t. Besides, what is there about needing help to tap a ball that’s making you more likable?” Lili said.

  “Well it seems to, even if it shouldn’t,” Delphine said. She was quiet for a moment. “I wish things were the way they used to be,” she murmured, turning toward Lili, who had gone to sit at the dressing table to brush out her hair. “Anne-Mathilde is so disgusting, but when everyone talks about her great marriage prospects because she’s so pretty and charming, I don’t know what comes over me, but I want to act just like her.” She paused. “I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

  Lili looked in the mirror at Delphine’s reflection behind her and saw that she was fighting back tears. “I pity the poor dunce who would be satisfied with Anne-Mathilde,” Lili said, trying to lighten the mood, “or that little rabbit who hops along after her.”

  But Delphine was not ready to smile. “It’s nothing to laugh about. I’d rather be married to a dunce than have no offers at all, or maybe get stuck with someone like that horrible Comte de Beaufort. No wonder his wife died so young.” Delphine wrinkled her nose in disgust. “She had no way else to escape having to sleep with someone whose teeth are rotten down to nubs and whose breath smells like … like—”

  “Like dogs passing gas?” Lili gave an unintentionally loud and indecorous snort as she sat down next to Delphine. “Can you imagine hopping into bed and having that big stink waft up from under the covers?”

  Delphine’s somber mood vanished into a gale of laughter.

  “Would you like to make a baby tonight, dear? I’m feeling rather explosive!” Lili said, clutching her stomach in anticipation of how much it was going to hurt to laugh so hard.

  Delphine sucked a loud squealing noise out of her fist. “I can send an extra smelly one your way. Isn’t that how it’s done?”

  “Of course, dear,” Lili simpered. “And in nine months, I’ll blow out a baby Beaufort.” She paused. “Would monsieur prefer a boy or girl?”

  Delphine wiped her eyes. “It has to be a boy because we’ll name him Gas-ton!” she said, dissolving into another gale of wet-eyed laughter before getting up in search of a handkerchief to blow her nose. “Lili, I know gas
jokes are out,” she said, “but can you please—please—try to be even half that funny when we ‘re out riding tomorrow?”

  Lili might have bristled at the reminder of her shortcomings, but instead she narrowed her eyes and gave Delphine a conspiratorial grin. “Want to see something I found in the library?” She got up and retrieved a book from under her mattress, waving it in front of Delphine. “Thérèse Philosophe,” she said. “I picked it off the shelf because I thought it would be about a lady philosopher, but guess what?” She leafed through the book until she found the first picture and held it up for Delphine to see.

  Delphine’s eyes grew wide and she grabbed the book from Lili. “What is she doing?”

  The center of the drawing was taken up with the huge exposed buttocks of a woman whose face could barely be seen at the far edge of the plate. A priest was on his knees behind her, his massive erection disappearing into her body. In the background was the figure of a maid spying on them through a keyhole, bent over from the waist, with her skirts up, while another man dressed in the clothes of a nobleman was doing the same to her.

  The two girls wiggled down next to each other on a small fauteuil meant for one. They laid out the book between their laps, gaping at illustration after illustration of men and women in different positions.

  “Mon Dieu/” Delphine gasped, putting her hand over her mouth. “Those men’s things are huge. Where does it all go?”

  “I can’t imagine,” Lili said. “The priest tells Eradice—she’s an older lady who’s a friend of Thérèse—that he’s helping her experience a mystical vision of God. She sees his—his thing—and thinks it’s the serpent from the Garden of Eden, but he tells her that isn’t what he’s going to put in her when she turns around. It’s going to be a holy relic, a hardened piece of the cord St. Francis wore around his waist, and she believes him. Thérèse is watching from behind a curtain while he’s—well, you see.”

  “Have you read the whole thing?” Delphine asked, wide-eyed.

  Lili nodded sheepishly. “I found it a few days ago.”

  “You wicked girl!” Delphine giggled. “Read more!”

  “‘I feel my mind detaching itself from matter and going straight to God. Onward! Upward! Harder! Harder! I’m seeing angels! Don’t stop now. Don’t deny me true bliss. Oh! Oh!’”

  They looked at each other, perplexed. “That doesn’t make sense,” Delphine said. “It seems as if she’d be saying ‘ouch,’ and telling him to stop.”

  “Or getting up and running out of there.” Lili shook her head, reading on.

  “‘With each backward move of the priest’s behind, his member withdrew and as its head appeared, the lips of Eradice pulled open, revealing a wondrous crimson hue. As he pressed forward, the color disappeared, leaving visible only short black hairs that seemed to grasp his member as tightly as if it were being swallowed whole.’”

  Delphine gasped, looking at Lili with huge eyes. “I don’t think I want to hear any more,” she whispered, covering her mouth.

  “Me neither. I feel sick just looking at it. I tell myself to take it back to the library, but something always makes me keep it a little longer.”

  Delphine traced the cover with her fingers as she thought. “It’s awful,” she said, “but shouldn’t we know these things, now that we’re not little girls anymore?” She thought for a moment before dissolving into giggles. “I know! Let’s ask Baronne Lomont! ‘What are these hairs and crimson hue we’ve heard about? Please, do tell!’”

  Lili ignored her. “I don’t even want to ask Maman,” she murmured.

  Delphine stopped laughing. “I know. It’s just too horrible to imagine,” she said in a somber voice. “We need to get ready for supper now.” She took the volume from Lili’s hands and put it back under the mattress.

  * * *

  THE AIR REMAINED warm long after dark, creating a shroud of mist over the moonlit lawns of Vaux-le-Vicomte. Later that night, Lili awakened to loud claps of thunder, and spent an hour at the window watching lightning scratch the distant sky.

  Her thoughts were elsewhere, with Delphine. How long has it been since we laughed like that? It felt like years.

  Did the closeness of the evening mean as much to Delphine as it did to her? Lili doubted it. If Anne-Mathilde had walked in while they were lying on their backs groaning with laughter, would Delphine have scrambled to her feet and tried to cover up her childishness?

  Lili fought to convince herself otherwise, but could not. In the past, an evening like this would have ended with the two of them falling asleep in one bed, after a long session of whispering in the dark. Now she felt as if she was unmoored, not knowing where she was, or what direction to turn. The Land of the Floating People, she thought, trying for a moment to picture the scene Meadowlark and Tom might come upon, but the effort didn’t interest her.

  She wishes things were the way they used to be, Lili thought. She said so. But they weren’t, and it was obvious they suited someone pretty and outgoing like Delphine better than her.

  Thunder boomed at the same moment a flash of lightning illuminated the jets of water in the fountains near the entrance to the château. Rain fell softly at first and then torrentially, as a couple appeared from around a corner of the courtyard, slipping and stumbling on the wet stone paving leading to the main doors.

  An image of Eradice’s exposed buttocks came into Lili’s mind, and when the woman’s laughter sounded for a moment just like Delphine’s, Lili felt a shudder deep within. It couldn’t be. Not yet.

  Lili tiptoed into the other room and saw Delphine asleep, her hair strewn in pale rays on the pillow. The casement window was rattling and rain was collecting on the sill. Lili closed it tightly before crawling into bed next to her.

  * * *

  DELPHINE SAID NOTHING about finding Lili in her bed when she woke up. She hadn’t turned to hug her, or brush her hair away with a tender look. She had jumped up and said something about how late it was, and asked whether Lili knew where she had put her new riding boots. Now, when what Lili had begged for was a quiet day in the woods with Maman, only the loudest squawks of annoyed birds penetrated the sound of the horses’ hooves as the group of six trotted down the path.

  Does everything turn into hell here? Lili wondered. I want to go riding to get away from the people at Vaux-le-Vicomte, not bring them along with me.

  The riding party broke into a slow gallop as they left the stables, aiming to reach the shade of the forest quickly. The fresh smell of the night rain had given way to the cloying odor of blasted flowers and sour grass steaming in the hot summer sun. Lili’s new riding outfit, made of velvet heavy enough to stay in place, caused her petticoats to stick to her thighs and sweat to trickle down the groove of her back inside her tight jacket.

  The trail entered a glade at the edge of the forest, and the party gathered in the dappled shade. The men mopped their brows, uttering mild curses at the heat, while the girls dabbed at their faces so as not to displace the light powder and touch of rouge suitable to their age. After a moment, Delphine and Jacques-Mars Courville trotted off in the lead. Lili could see the feather on Delphine’s hat bobbing as she tilted her head this way and that, just the way she practiced in the mirror. Anne-Mathilde and Joséphine were in the middle and Lili was at the rear with Anne-Mathilde’s brother Paul-Vincent, who, though he was the heir to Vaux-le-Vicomte and the future Duc de Praslin, was of little interest to anyone because he was only thirteen.

  “You don’t smile very much.” Paul-Vincent was looking at her. Lili gave him an overblown, crazed smile she hoped would convey that she didn’t welcome conversation, but he just kept staring. “You always seem to be thinking about something.”

  “I’m thinking about how much I would like to be left alone,” Lili said.

  “And I’m thinking I should be insulted,” he said in return.

  The unexpected self-assurance in his tone caused Lili to pull up her horse and turn toward him. “I’m sorry,” she said. �
�You’ve given me no cause to be so rude.” Her horse snorted and tossed its head, as if it wanted to rejoin the others, but she held it firm while she looked at her riding companion.

  Puberty had given Paul-Vincent de Praslin a gawkiness that made him temporarily unattractive, with a cluster of pimples on his cheeks and a coat of dark down on his upper lip. But his expression hinted at a depth she hadn’t seen in any of the young people chattering away on horseback farther down the trail.

  “People think I’m scowling at them,” she said, “but they’re flattering themselves, because most of the time I don’t even notice they’re there. I’m entertaining myself in my own head—or at least trying to—over all that prattle.”

  Paul-Vincent’s adolescent laughter turned into a bray, and his cheeks reddened in embarrassment. He began sauntering along the dirt path. “Just a minute ago, I was concentrating on a math problem,” he said. “Something like, if I started riding in the opposite direction right now, and none of them noticed for ten minutes, but then my ridiculous sister and that Joséphine person started chasing me, going twice as fast as I was, how long would it take them to catch up and tell me all the gossip I’d missed?”

  She giggled, and he looked over at her. “You have a nice laugh,” he said. “And a nice smile too. I never noticed that before.”

  If he were a little boy or a grown man, I’d know how to take the compliment, Lili thought, but coming from someone who was neither? Still, the math joke was the funniest thing she’d heard in a long time. “Where are you all day long?” Lili asked. “I never see you except at dinner. How do you avoid having to come out and play paillemaille?”

  “No one cares where a thirteen-year-old boy is. I’m too old to be adorable and too young to be entertaining. I just wander around, or stay in my room and do what I want.”

  “Like what?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Little science experiments. I’m setting up a laboratory at Vaux-le-Vicomte, and I look at things under the microscope mostly.”