Page 43 of The Wondrous Life and Loves of Nella Carter
“Did you find out what happened?” Sebastian’s arms are smooth and strong, an anchor in the storm. “Did you think Jacques had something to do with it? Did you ever think he suspected something between you two?”
I blink. “I don’t think so. Jacques didn’t mean harm. Mostly, he was blind to his own faults. William was dead due to my arrogance. He would never have been in that predicament or have made enemies of those men if it weren’t for me. I knew he cared for me. All of his plans—all of his dreams simply gone ...”
“Don’t you think you’re being unfair to yourself?” Sebastian tips up my chin, his fingers soft as he holds my gaze, his touch comforting. “Love is inevitable. You and William both wanted a good thing, but circumstances got in the way. The only ones to blame here are those men and those men alone.” Rain pitters against the window as I listen to him absolve me of my role in William’s death.
“He was the first person since I’d lost my family to really see me.” I sweep away a tear, knowing there’s worse to come.
Sebastian reaches for my hand. “What happened next?”
Part III: Paris
The Sketch—1871
Thirteen
The tumultuous monthlong journey from New Orleans to Paris matched my depression and forecast trouble on the horizon. As we were shuttered away in our cabin, the portholes closed to keep out the cold wind and salty water, the darkness became welcome comfort in mourning the loss of William and Silas, but it birthed a wedge between Jacques and me. I stayed with him for a few years after leaving New Orleans, a ghost of myself, going through the motions as I accepted my lot and focused on my work. I had some means, having invested all my savings, but I was a shell of my former self, left reeling from my actions. I’d dared to try for what I wanted, and William was dead as a result. Perhaps if I hadn’t met him, I wouldn’t have wanted something different, something more.
Jacques chalked up my sadness to homesickness and tried to cheer me by buying us books. We made a quiet life in Paris, where I passed the time by focusing on writing for plentiful magazines and newspapers under various noms de plume, the literary options seemingly endless, passing as a socialite from the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies or the Algerian colony. But after the death of Jacques’s brother, he inherited the Boudreaux plantation and returned home to oversee it, tired of France’s stormy government. There was no future for me in returning to Louisiana, not when his presence at the plantation would, by necessity,be constant. He honored ourplaçageagreement, leaving me with my money and our trappings as he sailed back to America.
I was an independently wealthy woman. When Jacques left, a chapter of my life—a lifetime in itself—closed. I wanted a complete break, so I rechristened myself, taking the name Marguerite Conte. The time passed, one decade blending into another as the city changed around me from a monarch to a republic and to an empire. I was referred to a banker for the moneyed elite who worked at the kind of institution that put a premium on privacy. Exactly what I required. I lived off my investments and through submitting pieces to Parisian literary journals, newspapers, and magazines—just small articles under assumed names, some male—and moved around the city to avoid suspicion about how I stayed so young as the years stretched on.
It was a nice routine. Simple, and it helped me to pass the years between my meetings with Death. The writing and moving and watching. We met again in 1821, just after Jacques left, at the Salle Le Peletier, the home of the Paris Opera. He summoned me with a jeweled brooch left on my desk. We met again in 1832, after he’d left a journal of blue leather wrapped in gold, the ivory pages soft. As before, a small white card announced our meeting place, this time the Café de Chartres, located inside the Palais-Royal, patronized in the past by the likes of Napoleon and Josephine. And again in 1870 as the city bubbled over with the invasion of the Prussians. He’d left a piece of chocolate, rare during the siege, in my valise at a farmhouse in Tours, where I’d sheltered from the fighting with three widows.
Unlike my time in New Orleans, when Death met me in Europe, I didn’t feel trepidation. My work was good and plentiful, and, living in Paris, surrounded by a different form of beauty, my life had opened up. After three-quarters of a century of grief, the clouds cleared as the beautiful era, la belle époque, began.
I moved to Saint-Germain-des-Prés onto one of its tiny streets, folding into the artists, other writers, and thinkers of the time. My three-bedroom apartment overlooked the Seine, and my windows letin snippets of intellectual arguments escaping the plentiful literary salons on Rue de Beaune. I loved disappearing into the daily crowds making their way throughout the Palais-Royal and the labyrinth of shops and curiosities. From the highest of high among Parisian society to peasants and paupers, all were seeking pleasure, for that was what lay at the heart of this city. A trio of jewelry shops stood on one corner, competing for the same passersby. Milliners with exotic fabrics stacked near to the ceiling, with silks, chiffons, and satins spilling out, called to customers, enticing bits of coin from their pockets. The best of all were the tiny bakeries, their ornamented cakes beckoning, the sweet perfume of sugar-coated air wafting through the streets, leaving bellies full and wallets empty.
I’d made a tidy life for myself as my investments continued to grow, and I kept busy sharing my writing and travelogues in various reviews, newspapers, and magazines. As you know, travel narratives were growing in popularity during that time, as they allowed readers to explore the world from the comfort of their own homes. To me, this city was still a feast, even after all these years. I’d folded myself into the social circle ofsalonnièreÉlisabeth Comtesse DuBois. Hergrand mondecontained a who’s who of Parisian society and beyond, the invitations to her never-ending stream of dinners, parties, concerts, and balls filling thepresse mondainebroadsheets for the outsiders. Many of them I’d secretly reported on myself, from the inside.
Tucked into Mme. DuBois’s elaborate gardens with a tarot deck spread across a small table, I’d taken to telling fortunes to pass the time and to explain my odd presence among the white Parisian elite, leading them to believe I was an exotic honey-brown bird from a far-off place. It was necessary, as their understanding of race and color was stilted, shaped by the circus and salacious human exhibitions.
An overly powdered courtier sat across from me, her mouth a frayed rosebud on account of too much rouge and anxious biting. Her pale-blue eyes watched every hand-painted card I placed before her. “TheHierophant and the Three of Cups together speak of an engagement on the horizon,” I said, watching as her eyes twinkled.
She spilled her secrets, detailing her suitors and her heart’s desire. This silly grift kept me close to fascinating stories of the people of this time as I detailed life in the city—visiting museums, partaking in fine French cuisine, attending literary salons, and recording all the wit and loveliness that humanity offered. But I always wondered what Death thought of me doling out fortunes, as if I had an otherworldly power akin to his own.
After I’d fully satisfied her with tales of a blessed future and she gave me a few francs I didn’t need, she scurried off to report to her friends over sips of champagne, and I watched the elite crowd. I enjoyed the early-March breeze blowing away the miasma that rose from the city’s stagnating rubbish, offal bins, and human waste. There wasn’t a corner of Paris, rich or poor, without the stench as its denizens tried to conquer the sewage and water contamination problems. The women tolerated my presence, but I was never quite welcomed into their spirited conversations about the latest philosophy enlightening the elite masses or critiques of the composer du jour.
An artist set up an easel and art supplies to the right of my table. A man with creamy white skin, black wavy hair that ruffled in the breeze, and cheekbones sharp enough to cut paper. I startled, often occupying this area alone at this particular salon. His head tilted in my direction, his hand flowing over a sketch and his grayish-green eyes studying me.
“Wha—”
“Don’t move,” he called, “I’m almost done.”
“I didn’t ask for that,” I said.
“Then it shall be mine to enjoy,” he said. “Now,holdstill.” The way he said it sent a shiver spidering up my neck. Usually, I would have cursed him and sent him away, but I stayed put, feeling more intrigue than annoyance.
“I’m not paying,” I said. It was a common scam at the time, and really any time, sketching and guilting unsuspecting marks into payment.
“I didn’t ask for money,” he said with a small smile and a shrug.
I crinkled my nose at him but followed his instructions, stilling myself. “Were you going to ask permission?”
He shrugged again. The charcoal never stopped moving, an extension of his hand. “Better forgiveness than permission. You cannot blame me, though. I seek beauty, and you happen to have it. Now, hold your head back again, please.”
I did as he asked, resuming my position as I studied him. A fellow soul in search of beauty?
He methodically crumpled up a bit of paper and brought it to the piece, precisely smudging the lines.
