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Giuseppina was both sad to see me go and also, I could see, pleased to see me dressed in black. The shock of my conversation with Doro neatly masked me as someone finally beset with grief. When I asked as to where to purchase a mourning toilette in town, she began to weep as well—I had forgotten that, of course, they knew him. A bell rang, and shortly after, Doro appeared to announce there had been a telegram, and we were to leave for Paris at once. Verdi fussed, made me the present of an unwieldy ham for the journey, and both of them kissed me and conveyed condolences of such heartfelt sadness that they made me ashamed of my bringing these theatrics with me as I bid good-bye to them and the sweet golden rooms of their home.
We went in the Verdis’ carriage to the train station, and on Doro’s advice, I bought tickets for travel through Switzerland rather than France so as to avoid any French authorities. Once we were on the train, Doro took out her cards and dealt me into a game of piquet I was grateful for, playing in quiet nearly half the way to Zurich.
Do you truly imagine you will not need a lady’s maid in London? Or do you have one there already? she asked.
I shook my head. I’ve not even a household yet, I said.
And will you bring nothing from Paris?
I want nothing of it, I said. I want to begin with new things. All new things.
I don’t, she said. It was very kind of you to offer me help finding a new position, but I am an old woman or will be soon, and it would be hard to learn the ways of a new mademoiselle, she said.
England will be strange to you, I said.
Not as strange as a new mademoiselle, she said. Bring me with you. I can be new, too.
I studied her then, waiting for her to meet my eyes. I was, in fact, contending with a new maid—she was a stranger to me now. Who had she served before me? From where came all of this knowledge of avoiding the police? When she looked up at last, she smiled, and I returned the smile. I will have Lucy do an inventory of the house in preparation for the sale, she said. I will instruct her to put black paper over the windows, to continue ordering food as normal, and to refuse all visitors, saying you are grieving. And we will get you as thick a veil as they make. You must go in secret.
She set down her cards.
Thank you, I said to her. She withdrew the bottle of gin she kept and poured us each a glass. I had been waiting for it, afraid to ask for it, and drank deeply. She refilled my glass, clucking. I hope they have gin in London, I said, and she laughed at me, and then we played on.
Eight
I WENT TO LONDON dressed in black, like a crow, a bird of death. Even my jewels had to be black except for those emeralds, which I could wear because they were his, at least according to Doro. If anyone should ask, it will look like devotion, she said. And if anyone asks as to the ring, she added, pointing at Aristafeo’s ring, tell them it was a gift from him as well.
She reasoned that this would be enough to placate Aristafeo while I was in mourning for another man. I did not believe it would, but I resolved to try.
On arrival, I checked into a lavish suite at Brown’s Hotel to console myself. I gave them a name I invented on the spot, Peloux Martineau, a somewhat lugubrious name that I forgot instantly so that each time the staff used it to speak to me and deliver the newspaper I’d ordered, they would have to repeat themselves until I remembered, embarrassing them and myself both. I was out of practice.
The newspaper was my vigil, my widow’s walk. I bought the Times each day as Aristafeo was to take out an advertisement in the paper when he arrived, saying he had lost a falcon and giving instructions for the return of the bird “if it was found.” He would give an address and I would write to him there. There was no way for me to get a message to him any longer—and I was in London as we’d agreed, just earlier than we’d agreed.
It was strange to be able to speak English to everyone. I found the words difficult to remember and my accent uncertain, much the way my French had been ten years before.