Rue Marchande. I was my mother’s first and only child; she died forcing my crooked body from her womb. My father, a practical man, remarried quickly to a sturdier woman who bore him two sons with straight legs, and all was right with the world thereafter. If he ever missed my mother, mourned her passing, or saw any resemblance between her and myself, he gave no sign.
When I was a child, my father was occupied with the running of his shop, his wife with the running of the house. I was left to myself. I had no friends, nor a governess; when my brothers were born, my step-mother forbade me to play with them.
Because I could not walk or run as other children do, I was kept indoors. I could not climb the stairs until I was nearly ten, so I was given a room on the first floor, a small warm place behind the kitchen. The servants were sometimes kind. The cook would let me sit beneath her table with my doll, during the day, and the old gardener was the first to fashion me a little crutch, so that I might walk rather than crawl from place to place.
Fortunately the family tutor, who despaired of pounding letters into the thick heads of my two half-brothers, found in me an apt student of both reading and writing. I was permitted to sit with the boys during their lessons, and because I learned quickly, the tutor made use of me as a goad. When I surpassed them at memorization or maths, he would look down his nose at Bernal and Francois with devastating contempt. If I could perform any task that they could not, he would roll his eyes at them. After the first few months, I had learned to fall behind them in our class—but not before both boys had conceived a lively hatred of me, and learned to play cruel tricks when my back was turned.
They had previously taken no notice of me, but now they would steal my crutch, trip me as I went down the stairs, or perform dreadful surgeries upon my rag doll, Jolie. Strangely, despite these new miseries, I was very happy that year, and in the years that followed. That cross old tutor never knew what a gift he had bestowed upon the crippled daughter of old Bertrand. The books that my brothers abandoned when they went out to play found their way into my room. While they splashed in the muddy gutters, I rode in the company of Charlemagne. While they played with their childhood friends, I was left with Renart and Ysengrin, Villons and Voltaire, Montaigne and Marcus Aurelius, Rabelais and Racine.
As I grew older, my hunger for books grew, and I asked my stepmother for any chore that might earn me a small allowance. When she saw that I was not entirely useless, she let me have a few francs a week for mending. I took my earnings to the market stalls to buy old books, and I was content.
Life continued without much change until my eighteenth year. That was the summer my father took ill. For several months he was confined to bed, and although his senior clerks were experienced enough, he did not trust them to run his business without some supervision. My brothers and I, who had been in and out of his shop all of our lives, were sent to oversee his affairs until he was on his feet again.
My task was to keep the accounts. For three months I sat in a quiet corner with the ledgers, receipts, and bills of lading, while my more presentable brothers attended to our customers on the floor. I was sitting in the very same spot on a cold autumn day when I met the woman who would change my life: Madame Cecile Rosalinde de Maurier.
* * *
Madame de Maurier was not unknown to me, by reputation; she was one of my father’s most precious customers. She was a woman of great beauty, wealth and refinement, a person of influence in Paris. Four times a year she came to our shop with her dressmaker in tow, purchasing cloth for the new season. My father was always careful to order fabrics to suit her unusual needs.
Despite her celebrated beauty, Madame was a widow, and for twenty years she had refused to put away her
When I was a child, my father was occupied with the running of his shop, his wife with the running of the house. I was left to myself. I had no friends, nor a governess; when my brothers were born, my step-mother forbade me to play with them.
Because I could not walk or run as other children do, I was kept indoors. I could not climb the stairs until I was nearly ten, so I was given a room on the first floor, a small warm place behind the kitchen. The servants were sometimes kind. The cook would let me sit beneath her table with my doll, during the day, and the old gardener was the first to fashion me a little crutch, so that I might walk rather than crawl from place to place.
Fortunately the family tutor, who despaired of pounding letters into the thick heads of my two half-brothers, found in me an apt student of both reading and writing. I was permitted to sit with the boys during their lessons, and because I learned quickly, the tutor made use of me as a goad. When I surpassed them at memorization or maths, he would look down his nose at Bernal and Francois with devastating contempt. If I could perform any task that they could not, he would roll his eyes at them. After the first few months, I had learned to fall behind them in our class—but not before both boys had conceived a lively hatred of me, and learned to play cruel tricks when my back was turned.
They had previously taken no notice of me, but now they would steal my crutch, trip me as I went down the stairs, or perform dreadful surgeries upon my rag doll, Jolie. Strangely, despite these new miseries, I was very happy that year, and in the years that followed. That cross old tutor never knew what a gift he had bestowed upon the crippled daughter of old Bertrand. The books that my brothers abandoned when they went out to play found their way into my room. While they splashed in the muddy gutters, I rode in the company of Charlemagne. While they played with their childhood friends, I was left with Renart and Ysengrin, Villons and Voltaire, Montaigne and Marcus Aurelius, Rabelais and Racine.
As I grew older, my hunger for books grew, and I asked my stepmother for any chore that might earn me a small allowance. When she saw that I was not entirely useless, she let me have a few francs a week for mending. I took my earnings to the market stalls to buy old books, and I was content.
Life continued without much change until my eighteenth year. That was the summer my father took ill. For several months he was confined to bed, and although his senior clerks were experienced enough, he did not trust them to run his business without some supervision. My brothers and I, who had been in and out of his shop all of our lives, were sent to oversee his affairs until he was on his feet again.
My task was to keep the accounts. For three months I sat in a quiet corner with the ledgers, receipts, and bills of lading, while my more presentable brothers attended to our customers on the floor. I was sitting in the very same spot on a cold autumn day when I met the woman who would change my life: Madame Cecile Rosalinde de Maurier.
* * *
Madame de Maurier was not unknown to me, by reputation; she was one of my father’s most precious customers. She was a woman of great beauty, wealth and refinement, a person of influence in Paris. Four times a year she came to our shop with her dressmaker in tow, purchasing cloth for the new season. My father was always careful to order fabrics to suit her unusual needs.
Despite her celebrated beauty, Madame was a widow, and for twenty years she had refused to put away her
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