Marie-Josèphe feigned surprise and distress. “Oh, Madame, I beg your pardon, the new gown drove every other thought out of my head!” Fond as she was of Madame, she had no intention of copying her old-lady styles, hiding her decolletage beneath a scarf or a tippet.
“Every other thought but the current fashion.” Madame shook her head, resigned.
“Very well. You will do.” Madame sounded exactly like Lotte’s imitation.
Lotte choked down a laugh. Marie-Josèphe hid her own amusement by dropping into another curtsy.
“Dear daughter,” the portly duchess said, “I began to wonder where you were.”
Lotte laughed. “Why, Mama, I had to rescue Mlle de la Croix from the monster fish!”
Marie-Josèphe approached Madame, knelt, and kissed the hem of her gown.
“Please forgive me, Madame. I didn’t mean to make Mademoiselle late.”
“Forgive you twice in one day?” Madame smiled. “I’m not your confessor, child!
But I wonder if you have too many duties to bother with an old woman’s family.” She took Marie-Josèphe’s hand and raised her to her feet.
“Don’t make me give up Marie-Josèphe, Mama,” Lotte said. “I would offend M. de Chrétien. Besides, I have great plans for her!”
“And His Majesty has great plans for her brother, who needs her. Father de la Croix is more important to His Majesty than we are.” Madame opened her hand in a gesture that took in the whole room, with its faded hangings, the stubby candles. “I don’t begrudge him his place.”
“Madame, you should see our rooms!” Marie-Josèphe said, though she could hardly imagine Madame climbing to the attic, and devoutly hoped Madame would not try. “I could fit my whole chamber within your bed-curtains, and my brother’s is no larger.”
“Ah, that won’t last long, my dear. I honor your brother for his success.” She sighed.
“I only wish I could provide for my children properly and pay my bills.”
“Mama, you’re exaggerating as usual,” Lotte said. “Why, we’re rich, since dear Grande Mademoiselle died.”
“`Dear’ Grande Mademoiselle — Never mind, I mustn’t speak ill of the dead. La Grande Mademoiselle left your brother rich. Monsieur is rich. But I have hardly enough to keep my household, and I can hardly maintain Monsieur’s position with one new dress every other season.”
“Mama, you have a brand new grand habit! We must hurry, why haven’t your ladies got you dressed?”
“They fussed so, I sent them away and wrote my letters until you should come.”
Lotte took charge, sending Odelette to fetch Madame’s stays and stockings, putting Marie-Josèphe in charge of Madame’s petticoat. Together they dressed the Princess Palatine. Their conversation turned to the sea monsters.
“I wrote to the Raugrafin Sophie,” Madame said. “I told her of your brother’s triumph, Mlle de la Croix, and of watching him butcher the monster fish.”
“The creatures aren’t really fish, Madame. They’re like whales, or sea-cows. He’s dissecting it — to look inside, to reveal the wonder of how its body works —”
“Dissection, butchery.” Madame shrugged.
“Chartres has all the family talent for alchemy.” Lotte shuddered theatrically. “I couldn’t understand it — if I did I’m sure I’d never again eat or drink or breathe.”
“You’d have no more choice in it,” Madame said, “than you have in emptying your bowels or breaking wind.”
“Mama!” Lotte laughed, her beautiful laugh like spun silver. “Now you stop breathing for a moment, so we may lace your stays.”
Elderflower, in his wandering, bumped into Madame’s feet and plopped down.
Marie-Josèphe and Odelette helped Madame into her petticoat. Its edge fell over Elderflower, concealing him. Youngerflower, losing sight of the older dog, ran around the room yapping in a panic.
Ignoring Youngerflower, Madame bent down and pushed aside lace and ruffles to pat Elderflower’s long soft ears.
“He’s getting feeble. I’ll be so sad when he dies — and what will Youngerflower do when he’s gone?”
“Mama, don’t be silly, Elderflower’s no more feeble than you are!”
“We should both retire to a convent, where we’d be in no one’s way, and no one would have to think of us. A convent would accept a little dog, don’t you think? They wouldn’t deprive me of my few pleasures.”
They would deprive you of everything they could, dear Madame, Marie-Josèphe thought, but she could not say such an irreverent thing out loud.
“Madame, I think you would not enjoy a convent.” She and Odelette lifted the great construction of Madame’s court dress and settled it upon her.
“Mama, they wouldn’t let you hunt, if you retired to a convent. They might not let you write your letters. What would Raugrafin Sophie do without them?”
“I’d have nothing to write about, from the convent. I’d have to take the veil, and a vow of silence.”