CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Nothing changed. Everything changed.
The sun still came up every morning. Marie still climbed the stairs and unlocked the door to Adrienne’s attic room. Adrienne still got dressed, still took the back stairs, the servants’ stairs, down to the kitchen. She took the cover off her breakfast tray, stared at the food the nuns had brought. She went through all the same motions, just like she’d been doing for months.
But everything inside her was dead. She had no appetite. She poked at the food, pushed it around the plate. She no longer did anything to help Marie. She did not do her hair; she did not pick up her clothing. She no longer dusted. She did not pretend to be the maid, Henriette. And miraculously, Marie did not ask her to.
There was nothing to fuel her any longer. She had no desire to stand at the front windows and stare at the ladies walking by in their fine dresses. She had no interest in where Julien went, or what he did. She didn’t care if Marie lived or died, spoke or stayed silent. She did not read. She did not stand at the window, drinking in the sight of the mountains. She did not watch for the birds to return. She did nothing. She sat in a chair, staring, seeing nothing. Feeling nothing.
Her life was a blank slate, a pale, wasted gray. She felt no anger, no revulsion, no hatred, no shame, because she felt nothing. She knew that if, for one moment, she allowed one sliver of emotion to slip through, it would destroy her, like a wooden stake through the heart of a vampire.
She sat, mostly in her own room at the top of the stairs. It was the one place that neither Julien nor Marie would frequent. She stared. She held her hands in her lap, still and quiet.
And when evening came, and she was expected in the parlor, she found a seat in the corner. She was careful not to look anywhere near Julien’s direction. When he touched his fingers to the pianoforte, when the notes sailed up into the room, she heard only a distant sound, like a long-forgotten memory.
Marie poured wine, every evening. Three glasses. She always took Adrienne’s glass to her first. Adrienne wrapped her hands around it, stared into the rich liquid garnet, raised the glass to her lips, and drained it. She could almost feel the look of satisfaction on Marie’s face. She knew the vial of poison was in the pocket of Marie’s skirt. Sometimes she stared, as if she could see the bottle through the fabric. She only hoped it was strong enough: strong enough to erase everything, strong enough to get the job done, and soon.
This night was just like every other. They sat, bathed in the red glow of firelight. Marie made a feeble attempt at stitching, her eyes traveling back and forth between the linen in her lap and Adrienne’s face, hard and indifferent, her eyes locked on the fire. Julien played.
Marie stood, laid her stitching on her chair, and walked to the bar in the corner. Her heels clicked on the floor. The clock ticked; the pendulum squeaked. The chime rang the time: eight thirty. Marie poured the wine.
She moved to Adrienne, held the glass out. Adrienne let her eyes brush over Marie’s face. She took the glass in her hand and held it in her lap. Marie carried another glass to Julien. He stopped playing and took the glass. He, too, seemed distracted, his attention lost in some other time, some other place.
Marie took her own wine, lifted her stitching, and sat down in the wing chair.
Adrienne held her glass up toward the light of the fire. She watched the way the golds and oranges of the flames flickered behind the crystal. “Wouldn’t arsenic be quicker?” Her words cut like ice in the quiet room.
Julien looked at her, then at Marie.
“What are you talking about?” Marie glared. One tiny flicker of fear moved over her face.
“Laudanum is fine, I guess,” Adrienne continued, still staring into the wineglass she held to the light. She lowered the glass, met Marie’s eyes. “It’s just so damn slow.” Adrienne had never before used a curse word, and she found it gave her a feeling of power.
Marie swallowed. She glowered at Adrienne.
Julien looked from one to the other. “Maman, what is she talking about?”
Marie did not look at him. Her eyes were locked on her niece.
“What are you saying?” He turned to Adrienne, his face still filled with shock.
Adrienne smiled. Here was a power she never knew she had: the power to use her words, whether true or not, to cause trouble. She was frightening to them because it was just possible that she knew the truth about them both. And the truth carried far more force than she had ever believed. The truth could destroy them both. Adrienne stared at her aunt.
“I know you are poisoning my wine, Marie. I’ve known for quite some time.” Adrienne rotated the glass in front of her, allowing the flames of the fire to shoot through the crystal. “I just wish you would use something stronger. Something quicker. Arsenic, maybe. Or strychnine. Isn’t that what you used with Julien’s father? Strychnine?” Adrienne lowered her glass and let her eyes rest on Marie’s face.
From the corner of her eye, she watched as Julien’s eyes grew wide. She watched him turn to his mother, anguish written in every centimeter of his features.
“Let me think . . . he was what . . . thirty-seven when he died? Is that right?” Adrienne stared. The sense of power she felt, the look of horror on Julien’s face, the look of hatred and loathing on Marie’s, was much more gratifying than she could have imagined. “Awfully young, at any rate.”
“How dare you?” Marie rose from her seat and stood in the middle of the room, her arms clenched and tight by her sides.
“I always wondered how you knew so much about poison—and antidotes—when Julien was poisoned. You must have made a study of them? Is that required training in French diplomacy?”
Julien rose from the pianoforte. He moved slowly to the middle of the room, looking from one face to the other. Adrienne slouched in her chair, her wineglass held in one hand. She didn’t bother to look at either one of them, only stared at the flames before her, half a smile playing on her lips. There was none of the fear, none of the panic that would have filled her face and posture just a few weeks ago.
Adrienne raised her wineglass to her lips, and drained it. She stood, put the wineglass on the table. “Bonne nuit.” She dipped in a small curtsy, dropped her eyes, just as a proper servant would.
She turned and left the room, but she felt herself grow taller, her steps sure and confident as she climbed the stairs to her room. She smiled in the dark. Why had she never thought of this before? She had had no vision, possessed no knowledge that Marie had poisoned her own husband. But it didn’t matter. They didn’t know that. Adrienne sucked her bottom lip between her teeth, fighting a smile. The satisfaction was enormous.