I Am Madame X by Gioia Diliberto

Author:Gioia Diliberto
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scribner

Seven

On a rainy evening two weeks later, I arrived by train at the gnarled stone depot in Saint-Malo on the northern coast of Brittany. The little station was deserted except for a lone carriage parked by the side of the road and a coachman in leather breeches standing next to it. As I stepped to the wet platform, the coachman ran toward me.

“Mademoiselle Avegno?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. I drew my thin shawl across my chest. Though it was August, the air was raw, and I was shivering.

“Come with me.”

He took my carpetbag and led me to his carriage. No sooner was I settled inside than the reins snapped and the old broughham lurched toward the dark, dripping woods.

We were headed for Paramé, site of Château des Chênes, the estate where Pierre Gautreau had grown up and where his widowed mother still lived with her unmarried, half-witted niece. As the carriage clattered through the muddy roads, past the marshlands and forests where pirates once roamed, water slapped the windows, and the wind bellowed.

It took a half hour to reach the château. We entered through high stone gates and drove along a gravel road past an intricate pattern of gardens. As the rain beat down, water overflowed the fountains and streamed off the statues of Greek gods and goddesses. At the end of the road was a circular drive and, silhouetted against the sky, a four-story malouinière dominated by row upon row of white shuttered windows. The carriage halted; the driver jumped from his seat and opened the door. He helped me to the ground, then removed my carpetbag and placed it on the doorstep. “There you are, Mademoiselle. Good night,” he said, tipping his hat as he ran back to the carriage.

I pulled a thick gold rope that hung on an iron hook, and heard chimes within. A minute later, a maid opened the door and led me through a marble-floored foyer to the salon. It was a high-ceilinged circular room, opening out to a terrace and a garden beyond. The room was decorated conventionally—Pierre’s Oriental aesthetic was nowhere in sight—with red plush sofas and chairs, and mustard damask covering the walls. A porcelain clock ticked loudly on the mantel; the gas lamps hissed. Playing cards at a table at the far end of the room were two somberly dressed old women—Pierre’s mother and aunt.

I hated them on sight. Madame Gautreau was short and wide-hipped, with hooded, watery brown eyes and a wrinkled, liver-spotted face. Her wiry gray hair was arranged in a bun at her neck, and she was dressed in a dark gown with a lace-bordered collar. The ivory-knobbed cane she used to rap on the floor to summon the servants rested across her pillowy lap.

The aunt, Millicent La Chambre, was the ugliest woman I had ever seen. She had a long, bumpy nose dotted with hairy, purple moles, and red-veined, bulging eyes. She was wearing a shapeless black gown with a traditional Breton collar of pleated white muslin.

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