Elementary (25 page)

“How can I help you?”

“You have already done as much as anyone could. More.”

“But what have I done?”

“You gave me safe haven when it was needed.” Mme. Goltier smiled. “Come back with me to my rooms. I would like to have my story known, even if only to you and your good master.”

Night was wrapping Paris in its dark blue cloak bespangled with gems of the new electric lights and stripes of the old gas lamps. Mme. Goltier did not hail a cab.

“Within the confines of a carriage or a car, who knows what could happen? We are safer on foot.”

Aurelia felt as if she would burst with curiosity. “Please, madame, safer from what? What were you writing?”

“What do you know of my life?” the lady countered, with a sideways glance at Aurelia.

The question caused her to stutter, holding back the scurrilous gossip that Alfonse and she had pored over in the society papers. “Well, madame, I know you are very famous. I have never heard you sing . . .”

Mme. Goltier waved a hand. “I know what you are not saying. It is true that I have found affection in the arms of a man not my husband. Many men, if I am frank. But what do you know of the dance of nations?”

“Nothing,” Aurelia said firmly. “We border with a few. Some are our enemies, and some are our friends . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“But none are always one or the other. They do not trust one another. Every subterfuge is employed to make a friendship, but we know it will not last. That is the normal human condition. We deceive to gain our ends.”

Aurelia was taken aback at such a negative view of the world.“I am sure that is not true.”

“Oh, but it is,” Mme. Goltier said. “Your Master creates airs that deceive all the time. You are part of that deception. You cause men to believe that women are more appealing than they truly are.”

“Madame!”

The lady smiled but kept her gaze moving around the crowded street. “Oh, it is all for a good cause. The sexes must mix, or our race is doomed. But I was asked to make myself appealing—and available—to a certain man. The Count Boris Ouspeskiy. He is a very well-placed individual in the foreign service of the Tsar, the confidential assistant of Count Vladimir Lamsdorf, Foreign Secretary to His Highness.”

Such things were beyond Aurelia's experience, but she could not help but ask. “Why are you not Count Vladimir's friend?”

The lady shook her head, smiling. “He is not interested in me, or any woman, but his secret is kept for the sake of foreign relations. Count Boris loves a charming lady who resists only a little. I am only his woman here in Paris.”

“And Count Vladimir negotiates with France?”

“No. France is like the belle who attends the ball, but no one dances with her. While we woo Great Britain, so does Russia. If we are not to be shut out entirely from the party, we must know what is going on between them.”

“What did you write out?”

“A great treaty is being negotiated between Britain and Russia. Count Vladimir came here in secret, to confer with his opposite number from the Court of St. James in my apartment, since it was bought for me by Count Boris. But the draft treaty was kept locked in a private office maintained by the government of Russia. I gained access under pretext of waiting in its anteroom for my dear friend, then entering as soon as the clerk left for a short while. Thanks to the oil provided for me by your master, I was able to read it and memorize it, though the effect lasts only a short time. I brought that information, as you saw, to those they call my handlers, in the French foreign office. Fool that I am, I realized only too late that I should not have worn my personal scent on my quest. It is too distinctive! The clerk who pursued me is a servant of the Tsar. He did not see me, that I swear, but he scented me. That was enough. If I was detected in that office, where I had no business being, I would next be mentioned in the society papers as a corpse found floating in the Seine, my purse and valuables missing. So sad! The notorious singer a victim of yet another robbery by
apaches
or other cutpurses in the dangerous, mad city of Paris.”

Aurelia shivered. This was a world beyond the small village where she had been raised. They crossed the Boulevard Opera, heading toward the lady's apartments.

“But he did not catch you. Soon he must go back to Russia with the Tsar. Can you not stay out of his way until then?”

“Alas, no. Tonight there will be a ball given by Count Boris. I will be his hostess. If I do not come, suspicion will fall on me. If I do,” she said, her head drooping on her lovely neck, “I probably will not survive.”

“But you will, madame,” Aurelia said, with determination. “Since you serve our nation, I will help you if I can. Where is this ball to be held?”

 • • • 

In her most exotic dreams, Aurelia never thought she would attend a grand gala. Men in black suits with stiff white collars and ties or a host of pristine military uniforms danced with ladies dressed like a cloud of butterflies, in all the colors of silk that the designers at Hermès had ever devised. All of them wore different perfumes, the scents of which clashed and bumped elbows like so many coster boys at a market.

Many women in modest black dresses like hers huddled in the retiring room, waiting attendance upon their employers, dabbing a brow, anointing a cheek with fresh rouge, buttoning gloves up to past their ladies' elbows and reapplying more perfume as their ladies wished. Privacy was to be had only in the small dressing rooms along the rear wall. With her master's name as bulwark and shield, Aurelia claimed one of these as her particular province and waited.

Mme. Goltier swept into the retiring room. Her dress was of her favorite deep green, the same color as absinthe. The neckline was so low as to be almost indecent, yet it was scarcely lower than those of the other ladies present. She wore fabulous jewels at her throat and wrists, twinkling like a whole galaxy of stars. A jeweled fan hung by a silken cord from one wrist. And she bore with her the scent that was familiar to thousands, the aroma that was forever Mme. Goltier, the brilliant singer and woman of questionable morals. Only a few knew for certain that her heart as true as a saint's.

As they were her guests here, all the ladies in the retiring room greeted her from their chairs or couches. She returned the gestures grandly. Aurelia could only imagine how majestic she must be on the stage.

Spotting Aurelia, Mme. Goltier swept toward her, in no seeming hurry, but bustled into the tiny chamber that Aurelia indicated. Once the white-painted door was closed behind them, she lowered her rouged lips to the apprentice's ear.

“My patron has arrived,” she whispered, “along with his employer and that man. What can you do? I do not wish these to be the last moments of my life.”

Aurelia felt shy, but now was not the time to be hesitant.

“I thought deeply about what you told me,” she said. “Your scent is so distinctive that no one who breathes it will ever forget it. That is M. Rupier's magic. Therefore,” she continued, taking from her handbag a small bottle, “I made one similar, but it is meant to make one forget.”

“How? How can it work?” Mme. Goltier asked. “I bathe in the scent. I wear it to bed. It is in my skin, as is every sin I have ever committed.”

For answer, Aurelia brought forth another bottle and uncorked it. Hyr flowed out of it in a stream of blue mist, then assumed his usual boyish form.

“What, a genie?” Mme. Goltier exclaimed, her green eyes wide with wonder.

“He is a sylph, a spirit of Air, and my servant. Do what you can,” she instructed him.

“Oh, it will be easy!” Hyr trilled. “She always smells so good, I would adore to consume her scents.”

“Hush!” Aurelia commanded, glancing toward the door. She hoped the other ladies thought they were merely gossiping. But eager to please, Hyr flowed around the lady, surrounding her like a veil. When he withdrew, Aurelia leaned close, and sniffed.

“It is a miracle!” Mme. Goltier said, lifting her hand to her nose. “I smell of nothing, not even my own body.”

“That will allow this—this
spell
,” Aurelia stammered, hesitant to say the word outside the safety of M. Rupier's workroom, “to function without impediment.”

She offered the small bottle and waited while Mme. Goltier anointed herself.

“It is very like my own scent. Did M. Rupier instruct you so?”

“He was not in the shop,” Aurelia admitted. “There was no time. I prepared this myself.”

Mme. Goltier smiled at her with an expression Aurelia believed to be admiration. “You have initiative and courage,” she said. “
You
could be a spy.”

“Heaven forbid!”

Mme. Goltier laughed. “What must I do now?”

“Touch the man's skin,” Aurelia insisted. “And anyone else you feel is a danger to you. Then return to me.”

“What will it do?”

Aurelia smiled. “It will deceive. All who touch you while you wear it will forget everything they know about you.”

Mme. Goltier laughed again, a trifle ruefully. “A fresh slate. Perhaps I should shake hands with all of Paris.” She shook her head. “Ah, but no, I am too fond of my fame.” She extended her hand to touch Aurelia's cheek, who withdrew in haste. “Yes, you must not forget me. Watch over me, my guardian angels.”

Aurelia opened the door for her and trailed her into the ballroom. Mme. Goltier sallied forth, her head high, and made straight for the handsome man in uniform who held out his hand in her direction. The lady was careful to avoid contact with him.
She follows instructions well,
Aurelia thought.
It must be how she avoids catastrophe in her secret life.

The handsome man, who must have been Count Boris, introduced her to the Tsar's foreign secretary, Count Vladimir, a slight man in faultless evening dress. Mme. Goltier gathered her poison-green skirts in her hands and curtsied to him.

At the secretary's side was the dangerous man with the thick black eyebrows. The dignitary made her known to the man, who bowed, then straightened in haste, his large nose working. He had recognized the lady's scent. Aurelia's heart pounded in her chest. The man tugged Count Vladimir's sleeve.

But Mme. Goltier was quick. She reached out and shook the man's hand, surprising him. Aurelia just caught her words in between the sawing of the violins and the polite chatter of the guests. “Sir, I am pleased to make your acquaintance.”

In a twinkling, the man's face changed from anger and suspicion to the beguiled expression men normally wore when first beholding Mme. Goltier. He was, from that moment, her devoted servant, Aurelia could tell. He looked her up and down and was charmed by what he saw.

“And there goes his memory!” Hyr cackled in her ear.

“Hush!” Aurelia said, hoping no one else heard. The man began to bow over her hand, clicking his heels and talking rapidly. Aurelia could not hear him, but Mme. Goltier fluttered her fan as if embarrassed yet gratified by his outpourings.

The elegant party went on around the small group like eddies dividing around rocks in their path. After a time, Mme. Goltier curtsied deeply and begged to be excused, deftly escaping a move by Count Boris to touch her. Aurelia could read the pantomime. Mme. Goltier regretted her departure, but she would return in but the smallest of moments. She hurried back to the retiring room.

“Oh, I thought I would die of fright!” she burst out as soon as Aurelia closed the door behind them. “He said nothing! I am saved. Well done, child, well done! Now strip me of this potion, or Boris shall forget me, too. Someday I may use the scent to escape him, but not yet. I am too fond of my apartments.”

Hyr obliged, whisking up and down her lush body. When he swirled back into his bottle again, Mme. Goltier drenched herself with her signature scent. The lady leaned forward and embraced Aurelia, surrounding her in a heady, sweet cloud. “Ah! I feel myself again. Mlle. Aurelia, I am forever in your debt.”

“It is for France,” Aurelia said modestly. “The House of Rupier would never let her down.”

“In her name, then,” Mme. Goltier said, highly amused, “I gratefully accept your service.”

 • • • 

“Will the danger to Mme. Goltier pass?” Aurelia asked after she had informed her master of the evening's events in the safety of his hidden workroom the next day.

“Perhaps, perhaps not,” M. Rupier said, toying with a jar of priceless musk. “That is the risk she takes. You should be proud of her, as I am of you.”

“I am . . . though she intimidates me. We have so little in common.”

M. Rupier laughed. “She intimidates me, too! But I am grateful to have one such as her to protect the rest of us. It does not matter what the shape of the bottle, my cherished apprentice, but what good God pours into it.”

Aurelia agreed. “In that, there is no deception.”

Stephanie Shaver

Zephyrs once enticed Aurelia with secrets; now they left her alone. She briefly wished that she could summon them into her kitchen to cool it down, then immediately cast the thought aside and cursed herself for thinking it. No more. Never again.

Chicago shouldn't be this hot, not this late in autumn, but the weather didn't care what should or shouldn't be. She'd flung open the back door and done everything she could to minimize her time at the cookstove, but even so, the kitchen was hotter than the seventh circle of Dante's Hell. When this was over, she vowed to take a bath. And if she had to go jump in Lake Michigan to do so, well, she'd take that chance.

“How are you feeling, Miss Foster?” Aurelia called as she pulled the charlotte russe from the icebox and prepared to unmold the pudding by setting a plate over it.

“I feel fine, Miss Weiss,” Alice Foster responded. And she did sound fine—better than Aurelia, in fact, and in no way affected by the sweltering heat of the kitchen.

Aurelia glanced over to where Alice played with her doll by the pantry door. Mrs. Foster had assured Aurelia that she'd find a nursemaid for her only child soon, but “soon” had yet to happen. Instead, Mrs. Foster saw to her daughter's lessons and upbringing, and on nights like this—when entertaining dinner guests—Alice was sent to the kitchen. It wasn't a burden on Aurelia; Alice usually took her dinners in the kitchen regardless, and she was a good child. Mostly.

“Just a little while more.” Aurelia said a little prayer and gave the pudding mold a ringing
thump.
It slid out with no trouble, and she allowed herself an undignified grunt of satisfaction. “I'll get you your dinner shortly.”

“That's okay,” Alice said, stroking her doll's hair. The cloth poppet had been decorated to look like her—golden yarn for hair, blue glass buttons for the eyes. “I'm playing with my friend.”

The pudding was the capstone on what had been a challenging meal. The Fosters were entertaining visitors doing work for the World's Columbian Exposition coming next year, and at least one had informed Mrs. Foster only a day before the dinner that he would “rather avoid meat.” The season was late, but Aurelia had thrilled to the challenge. She'd broiled mushrooms and glazed them with wine, prepared a cold potato omelet
española
, and cracked a can of French peas, which she'd seasoned heavily with butter and chervil. Other delights wove their way through the courses: crisp lettuce drizzled with Roquefort dressing, split artichokes with drawn butter, and a plate of fresh cheeses. The relish platter was a foregone conclusion, piled with her five favorite homemade pickles. She'd even given up some of her precious half-sours, as the guests were all from New York City, so she thought they might like a taste of their hometown.

And there'd been meat, of course. She'd sent out platters heaped with raw oysters on ice, garnished with lemons from Florida. On another platter she'd put boiled calf's tongue over a bed of spinach. A side of dark mustard and pickled onions had gone with that course, along with thin slices of rye bread. At the meal's heart was a larded tenderloin of beef carved tableside by Oscar, the house butler.

She finished the charlotte russe with dollops of sweetened whipped cream, and blew the pudding a kiss as it was carried out to the dining room's boisterous crowd.

Victory. That's what this felt like. The rush and panic of food service was enough to drive all the worries out of her mind. For a few moments she stood there, wiping her hands on her apron, feeling confident and sure. Like she'd finally run far enough to escape her curse.

“Very well. Alice,” she said, turning around, “it's time for your—”

The girl lay on the floor, thrashing.

Alarm welled up inside Aurelia. She bolted over to find Alice's eyes rolled up in her head and her hands clammy. Aurelia heard the door from the servant's hallway scrape and turned to see Julius, the butler's son, standing there.

“Find Mrs. Foster. Quickly,” Aurelia told him, and he dashed off.

Moments later, Grace Foster arrived, moving as quickly as her petticoats would allow her. She knelt by her daughter, a glass bottle in her hand. The many jeweled rings on her fingers flashed as Mrs. Foster swiftly uncorked the bottle. Aurelia caught a brief whiff, like incense and alcohol. Mrs. Foster measured out a teaspoon of syrup and extended it to Alice.

“No—” the girl moaned, but the moment her mouth opened, her mother stuck in the spoon and held it there, waiting until Alice swallowed.

“She'll be all right,” Grace said calmly, tucking aside a stray strand of golden hair that had dared to escape her tightly coiled bun. “Julius, would you be a dear and carry Miss Alice to her room?”

The young man nodded and picked up the semiconscious girl, her limbs flopping limply at her sides.

“She hasn't had her dinner yet, Mrs. Foster,” Aurelia said as Julius carried her down the servant's passage, toward the flight of stairs that led to her room on the third floor. “Should I make her up the usual? Milk toast and broth?” After an episode, Mrs. Foster always wanted her daughter fed invalid food.

But Grace shook her head. She looked weary and drawn, nearly as pale as her sickly daughter. “She'll be dull after taking the Soothing Syrup. Best let her sleep, Miss Weiss. If you could have something prepared for the morning, though, that would be ever so kind of you.”

“Very well, Mrs. Foster.”

With her evening unexpectedly cut short, Aurelia grabbed a bottle from the pantry, then sat down on the back doorstep and unlaced her shoes. Toes wiggling in the open air, she opened the bottle of ginger beer and took a long sip. She was too hot and weary to care who saw her.

The sun had long since set, leaving only the ambient glow of gaslight from the Foster mansion's windows. The gardens were an enigma of smudged outlines, darkness upon darkness.

The kitchen door banged, causing her to start. She twisted mid-sip to see Oscar entering with a stack of finger bowls.

“Ah, Miss Weiss,” he said, setting the silver bowls in the copper sink. “Our guests send their regards. One asked if you had ever lived in New York?”

She swallowed her ginger beer, aware that her cheeks were burning slightly. “I did once,” she said. “Why?”

“Something on the pickle tray,” Oscar said. “He said he had only seen the like there.”

So the half-sours
had
been appreciated. She felt a certain pride in that—and relief that the question entailed nothing more.

When he'd gone, she gazed out over the darkened garden. Tonight's work may have been done, but tomorrow's required her to set out a few things. She needed to soak salt cod and beans and start the day's bread rising. Finishing her drink, she climbed to her feet and turned to go back inside.

The dishes began to rattle.

Aurelia froze in the doorway, heart hammering, mouth dry. The hum and vibration of glass, china, and metal surrounded her. The old fear filled her as she waited, ears straining, terrified of not hearing it—

In the distance, a train whistle blew. Her shoulders drooped with relief. One day she wouldn't have this involuntary reaction every time a door banged or the railroad that ran too close to Prairie Avenue sent a locomotive barreling down the line. One day, the feeling of freedom wouldn't be so fleeting, or so easily demolished. One day she could start having a life.

Maybe in a year.

Maybe in ten.

Probably never.

Straightening her spine, she headed to the pantry to start scooping out flour for the bread.

 • • • 

In her dreams . . .

. . . she entered the opium joint with the sylphs and the zephyrs swirling around her. The cheap wall hangings fluttered. The proprietors backed away, fearful.

In her dreams . . .

. . . she pointed, and the gleeful children of Air set forth, knocking over pipes and snuffing open flames, sending the poisonous smoke swirling both up the stairwell and out the basement windows.

In her dreams . . .

. . . there was no question of her Mastery. The zephyrs obeyed. The sylphs whispered in her ears. And Millicent knelt at her feet, sobbing, begging to be let back in. To be forgiven.

That was, ultimately, how she knew it to be only a dream. Millie had never begged.

Aurelia drifted awake, allowing the dream to float away. She opened her eyes on her spartan bedroom in the Foster mansion. A bed, a dresser, a chest, a nightstand, and a washstand. Nothing as sumptuous as what she'd grown up with, but she found she didn't really miss all the frills and ruffles. She'd rather have a kitchen packed full of tools than a bedroom trimmed in eyelet lace.

She washed up, then put on her shirtwaist and skirt and wandered into the kitchen, her hair untidily tucked into a bun. Oscar sat at the long table in the middle of the kitchen, polishing silver in the predawn light.

“Good morning, Miss Weiss,” he said, setting down the tureen he'd been working on.

“And to you, Mr. Pannier,” she replied, walking over to wash her hands in the sink. “Would you like me to start some coffee?”

“I would rather tea, if you do not mind.” His English was faintly stilted. Despite a decidedly French last name, Oscar Pannier had emigrated from Germany to escape discrimination for being a Jew. Aurelia rarely heard him speak German—usually only when he was frustrated or angry. Two things that Oscar rarely exhibited.

“Of course not,” she said, shaking droplets off her hands. “I'll have it going in a moment.”

Oscar snapped his fingers, recalling something important that had slipped his memory. “Mrs. Foster asked that you stop by the chemist and procure a fresh supply of Soothing Syrup for Alice. They are on the dregs of the last bottle.”

Aurelia remembered that one pungent whiff of the medicine that Mrs. Foster had given Alice last night, and a shiver ran down her back.

There was a reason she'd been dreaming about Millicent.

The only people in the kitchen were Oscar and her; indeed, they were probably the only ones awake in the house at this hour. Even so, she lowered her voice for what she had to say next.

“I don't like that . . . that
nostrum
, Mr. Pannier,” she said. “Isn't she long past teething? Don't you think it's odd that we have to keep giving her more and more?”

When next he spoke, Oscar's voice had lost its warm familiarity. “Is Alice your child, Aurelia?”

“No, sir.”

“Then do as your employer requests, my girl.”

“Yes, sir.”

But as she set about getting the morning meal ready, Aurelia could feel an idea forming in her head. And by the time the house had awakened to plow through plates of her biscuits, codfish cakes, eggs, and bacon, she knew what else she'd need to buy when she was out and about.

 • • • 

Aurelia sniffed the mostly empty bottle, then touched one small drop to her tongue. Bitterness flooded her mouth. Yes. No doubt. The aroma alone gave it away—Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup was little more than adulterated laudanum.

It was said that the poison was in the dose. If so, Aurelia could think of no dose of opium that was not poison. Her sister's downfall had only confirmed this notion. That such a substance should be marketed to children was despicable.

She also knew herself to be alone in this thinking. Women like Mrs. Foster didn't deliberately poison their children. Aurelia suspected Grace even thought she was doing Alice good.

Aurelia sat on her heels in the pantry, eyes closed, the flavor rolling in her mouth. There was nothing quite like the earthy-incense bouquet of opium, so reproducing it would not be easy—if possible at all. Then again, an
exact
duplicate might not be necessary; her nose, she knew, was far more discriminate than most, and Mrs. Foster and Alice probably wouldn't detect a minor difference.

Sugar was added to the nostrum to offset both the opium's burnt bitterness and the sting of the alcohol in which it had been dissolved. The bitterness could be likened to a tincture of blessed thistle, a common enough decoction for nursing mothers, and of no harm to a child. But what she really needed was something to ease the transition as Alice's body was weaned off the drug.

She had found such an herb once, in her old life. She knew it by scent rather than name: burnt and green. And finding it hadn't been easy, despite her knowing where to go. She'd been to nearly every shop in Chicago's thriving Chinatown before she'd found it. She'd watched as the herbalist poured a mix of charred leaves and sticks into a waxed bit of paper, thumping the jar to get the last of it out. Now she shook the contents of that packet into a blue glass jar half-filled with strong spirits. She capped the jar and shook it violently. The herbs would need a week to extract, and then she could strain and set about using the resulting tincture.

She heard movement in the kitchen and poked her head out to find Alice opening the door to the cookstove and peering inside. Aurelia cleared her throat, and Alice spun about, a guilty look on her face.

“Checking my cookstove for small cakes?” Aurelia asked.

Alice grinned. “No,” she said. “I was looking for my—” She began to cough, great, wracking spasms that tore at her lungs and turned her even whiter than she already was.

Mrs. Foster suddenly appeared, looking annoyed.

“Alice!” she said sharply. “What are you doing in here?” She looked to Aurelia. “I'm sorry, Miss Weiss. My daughter needs to learn to not be underfoot. Come here, young lady.”

Alice recovered from her spell and closed the cookstove door, then reluctantly walked over to her mother. Grace gave Aurelia a short nod before herding her daughter out, one hand on the back of the child's neck.

When they were gone Aurelia walked over to the cookstove, opened the oven door, and peered inside.