Her mother chafed her wrists. “And die, as well? Your father would have wanted you safe,” she said. “Safe and working for France.”
Her father? Oh yes. Her father. It was on the tip of her tongue to pour out the truth about Max, but something held her back. What would people say? That she had been a German officer’s whore. Never mind that he loved her, that she loved him, that he had come to her mother’s salon with daisies.
She couldn’t soil it. She wouldn’t let them soil it.
Aurélie lifted her head, her eyes stinging, her throat aching. “My father. He wanted me to bring the talisman back, to tell the world that we had wrenched it from the Germans.”
Her mother absently stroked her cheek. “The demoiselle holds the talisman and France cannot fall? It’s not a dreadful notion. There might be something in it. . . . Ah, Marie. Is that the tisane? Enough of this for the moment, my darling. Bath first, and then sleep.”
So Aurélie let herself be led, first to the bath, and then to the high, soft bed, where a warm drink that tasted like weeds was pressed into her hands. Because what mattered now? All her dreams were ash.
Her mother must have put something in the tisane. Or Marie had. Aurélie, who had spent the past five weeks sleeping fitfully in a third-class train seat, or on a makeshift cot, slept and slept and slept some more. If she dreamed, her only memory of it was in the moisture of tears on her cheeks.
She had a vague recollection of waking in the night to find her mother beside her, stroking her hair, her perfume a soft presence in the air.
“Sleep, my darling,” she had said, and Aurélie had slept.
When Aurélie woke again, it was broad daylight. She knew that, because her mother was vigorously opening the drapes, letting the light stream in.
Aurélie winced and held up a hand against the light.
“I’m sorry, my darling.” Her mother was chic in a suit with a wide, calf-length skirt and a jacket that belted smartly at the waist. “I should have let you sleep, but you’ve been asleep since Tuesday. And Paris-Midi is coming at noon and the New York Times at one.”
“The New York Times . . . what?”
“They want to photograph you with the talisman, here, at the Ritz.” Her mother busied herself with an armful of garments that Aurélie did not recognize as her own, examining and discarding them one by one. Finally, she held one up and gave a little nod of approval. “White, I think. White, with a tricolore pinned to your chest. Innocent, but also patriotic. You’ll look like Liberty on the barricades. Only without the barricades.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You’re a heroine,” said her mother. “The woman who routed an entire command of German officers and liberated a French national treasure.”
From under the pile of garments, her mother tugged out a folded newspaper, tossing it to Aurélie. It was Le Matin, and Aurélie’s own face, her debutante portrait, taken two years before, smirked out at her from the front page.
THE DEMOISELLE DE COURCELLES BRINGS HOPE TO FRANCE.
THE SAINT IS WITH US, SAYS DEMOISELLE DE COURCELLES. FRANCE CANNOT FALL.
“According to that,” said her mother, “you singlehandedly torched the German headquarters.”
The words swam in front of Aurélie’s eyes. She shoved the paper aside, struggling to sit up against the pillows. She felt at a decided disadvantage, still half asleep. Her mouth tasted like the inside of a bird’s cage. “According to whom?”
“To me.” Her mother perched on the edge of the bed, next to her. “I called them. I told them the story. France needs a heroine right now. It needs you.”
Aurélie frowned at her, trying to gather her wits. “But that’s not what happened.”
“Does it matter what happened?”
Dreier, a living flame. Max, with the bronze statue of Mars in his hand. “It matters to me. It mattered to M—to my father.”
“Your father would glory in this.” Gentling her voice, her mother said, “People need something to give them hope. There’s nothing better than a beautiful woman and an ancient relic. And diamonds.”
“But I didn’t do anything.” Other than leave her father and the man she loved.
“Then do something now.” Her mother gave her blanket-covered knees a brisk pat. “Inspire our armies to new victories. Give people the courage to carry on. Be what your father wanted you to be. A heroine for France. And put some clothes on before the photographer from Paris-Midi arrives.”
Paris-Midi arrived and the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune and papers from places whose names Aurélie didn’t recognize, but who were, it seemed, sure that their readers would be passionately interested in the story of the young aristocrat who had broken the German hold on Picardy.
She hadn’t, of course. She had only disrupted one command center, and that had been restaffed within hours after some agitated sending of telegrams and directions from Berlin, but the papers preferred not to focus on that bit, so neither did Aurélie. She just tilted her chin and looked melancholy and noble and went where she was told.
A car was put at her disposal. Not her car, her beloved long-lost car, but a stuffy black car with a driver paid by the government. Aurélie was ferried triumphantly from village to village, displayed with the talisman, the Demoiselle de Courcelles bringing hope to France. They dressed her in white with a tricolore pinned to her chest; she was Liberty, she was the Spirit of France, she was a living sign of defiance against the Germans.
And if she was quietly ill by the side of the road, only her mother noticed.
“Here, take this,” said her mother, handing her a handkerchief to wipe her mouth. They were en route to yet another engagement, at which her mother and the local mayor would speak and Aurélie would stand there looking symbolic, holding the talisman. Then contributions would be taken for the war effort. “How far along are you?”
Aurélie looked at her blankly.
“The child,” said her mother matter-of-factly. “How many months gone are you?”
“Child?”
“Yes, the child that’s making you miserably ill—and will also make you lose your waist,” her mother added drily. “That child.”
The car was parked at the side of the road, the driver smoking a cigarette. It was September again, and the air was starting to get that autumn smell, the smell of damp earth and rotting leaves.
Aurélie stared at her mother. “I thought—I thought I was ill because I was sad.”
For once, she had the satisfaction of rendering her mother entirely speechless. “I knew I shouldn’t have left your education to the nuns,” her mother said at last. “Have you the slightest idea how babies are made?”
“I . . . no.” She supposed she should have thought it. But it wasn’t something one discussed. And she’d never had female friends to share things with her.
“What about the father?” Her mother’s voice was carefully neutral.
“I—I don’t want to discuss it.” The father. Max would have adored being a father. It was what he wanted more than anything. A family. A large family.