Page 4 of Beyond the Lavender Fields
Gilles wanted to drop his head to his hands. Of course Émile would amuse himself by making Gilles look the fool. He was probably cackling in a corner of the soap factory at the good joke of making his friend try to kiss his older sister.
Her shoes echoed against the office’s wood floor as she strode forward. She stopped before Gilles, the hem of her petticoat lapping against his shoes. She turned her face to him, and if he hadn’t been frozen in place, he would have found her lips an easy target. But she wasn’t a willing tavern girl, and he was her father’s clerk.
“I do not want to kiss you,” she said. “Not now. Not ever.”
“Kiss me?” Gilles sputtered, face aflame. She knew. How did she know? “Pardon,mademoiselle, but I never—”
“I know what sort of boys my brother’s friends are.” Mademoiselle Daubin spun on her heel and swished over to her father’s chair. She sat, then pulled out a piece of paper from the writing box Gilles had positioned there that morning. After pulling off her gloves, she waved absently toward the door. “You may go.”
As though she were the queen, sitting in her finery at the Tuileries Palace. Therévolutionnairewithin him bristled at her orders, but he kept his mouth closed as he sprinted from the office. Though he had tried valiantly to forget every last thing he had learned from life aboard his father’s ship, one memory rang clear in his mind: A stiff wind whipping at their caps, every sail extended and straining, sea spray pelting the deck. His father watching a company of British East Indiamen shrinking into the horizon.You must learn to recognize which battles you can win, and which you must flee, hispèrehad said.It is not cowardice to be wise. A brave fool who goes after the prize when he knows he cannot win is still a fool.
Yet as Gilles fled the office as fast as he dared, somehow he felt both the coward and the fool.
19 May 1792
SavonnerieDaubin
Marseille
My dearest cousin Sylvainne,
I have arrived safely, and Marseille has already given me a greeting so true to its character I cannot help but shake my head. I’d forgotten what loose manners this city upheld. But what should I have expected with the Jacobins grasping tightly to its government?
Maman succumbed to weeping the moment of my arrival, and it was as though I was seven years old again. She’s hardly left my side since I arrived this afternoon. I had to convince Émile to let me ride with him to thesavonnerieso I wouldn’t go mad. But I should have stayed with my mother. It serves me right for trusting my brother not to make a scene.
If my aunt is listening to you read this aloud, please stop here. For what I have next to say, she would not approve of.
Do you remember when last you visited Marseille, we attended a public ball just after Émile began his studies at Montpellier? I’m sure you cannot have forgotten, since Émile dared his friend Maxence Étienne to kiss you in the course of the evening. I did not expect to repeat the experience on my arrival. Unfortunately, my brother has not outgrown his childish games.
As I waited in my father’s office for him to finish his business, I was set upon by Gilles Étienne, Maxence’s brother, who must be at least two years younger than myself. From the moment he entered the room, I knew his aim. The sultry look in his brown eyes, the toss of his wild hair—for a moment I thought he was Maxence, as I had never met Gilles. But the poor young man has not his brother’s height—he is hardly taller than I—nor does he have the same distinctive sharp features that you found so pleasing on the older brother. I will own he has a nicer smile than Maxence. Not so calculating. Indeed, I might have considered him handsome if I didn’t know what he meant to do.
The attractiveness of Gilles Étienne’s smile, however, did not indicate a lack of stupidity. That he or Émile or any other young man would think the average young lady idiot enough to kiss someone on the first meeting belies a deficiency of sense that should have excluded them all from studying medicine. What the professors teach them at Montpellier, I cannot guess, but it is not to have a thinking mind.
Lest you worry over my well-being, I easily put the puppy in his place, and he fled the room with his tail between his legs. I hope the humiliation of the experience taught him to show a greater measure of respect in his interactions with women, but if he is anything like my younger brother or his older brother, the hope is vain. Why must men with supposed intellect assume every woman a glance and a kiss away from being in love with them?
But no matter. It is what women have dealt with since the dawn of time. If only you were near, Sylvie, so that I may share my frustrations in person and not rely on the tiresome pen. How I miss our quiet evenings with your mother and father in Fontainebleau. Do not let my brother Guillaume falter in his studies. Even at seventeen, he is too much like Émile. Maman hates him being so far away, but I think it best. I could not have two younger brothers like Émile without turning into a veritable Lyssa of ancient Greece.
Give my love and gratitude to my aunt and uncle for allowing me to stay so long and for taking on Guillaume’s education as well. Our family is greatly in your debt.
Affectueusement,
Marie-Caroline
Imbecile.
Gilles tromped down the stairs, pulling at the collar of his shirt. Flirting with his employer’s daughter. Was twenty-fivelivresreally worth all this? If she urged her father to give him the sack, where would he go? Monsieur Daubin was a respected member of thebourgeoisiein Marseille. A clerk let go for trying to get too familiar with an employer’s daughter would not be welcome in any of the othersavonneries, let alone the other factories that made their home in the Saint-Lazare district.
It had been a dirty trick. Gilles should have seen through it, just like Mademoiselle Daubin had seen through his own ruse. He clamped his hat onto his head and swung open the door. Instead of one step closer to medical school, he could be ten leaps further away by this time tomorrow. TheSavonnerieDaubin sign, with its sprigs of painted lavender cascading down the wood board, rocked lazily. Its chortling creak taunted his stupidity. Maxence would have sought out Émile immediately, for a word or a fist, but Gilles couldn’t bring himself to face their friend. He needed to go home and bury his shame in his book.
He ducked his head and set his course for the Panier Quarter and home. Most factory workers had cleared the streets. Several clerks and personal secretaries floated about, finishing up their employers’ work or escaping a day of too many tasks.
He wondered what his mother and Florence had concocted for dinner. Something simple, he hoped. And dinner would be all the better if Maman had not invited any old friends she’d met in the market.
“Étienne!”
Gilles jerked to a stop. His friend Honoré Martel pushed off the wall he had been leaning against and stalked over. “What has taken you so long to leave the factory?” the slim man, a couple years younger than Gilles, asked.
“I ...”Was trying to kiss Daubin’s daughter and got thoroughly reprimanded.
