“Is this the whore that is to be your wife?” The other boy spat on her.
Michel knelt down and grabbed her hair. “We found your paintings—the ones at the artist’s house. The ones the maid was trying to burn, but we pulled them out of the fire. Look!”
Juliet could see the sketches scattered on the ground behind them. They’d been looking at them. The sketches were in various stages of burn, and the thought of Michel viewing a private moment between her and Marchant sickened her. With the moon shining, she could see the pink color that Marchant had chosen for her skin tone. The other boy grunted. “It looks like she likes to have her clothes removed.”
Michel snorted and ripped off her dress, holding her down with his other hand. Juliet screamed once, but he stuffed a part of her dress in her mouth and then climbed on top of her. While he unbuttoned his dirty workpants, the other boy came around and held her flailing arms over her head. Michel finished in a few moments and seemed in a hurry to be done with her, as if the act bored him. Juliet was relieved that it had not been worse. She could survive this. She yelped as the other boy slapped her hard across the face. Michel leaned over and held her down while the other boy took his turn with her. The second boy took a long time and seemed to savor hurting her as his thighs slapped hard against her. “Hit her again,” the boy said to Michel before he finished. “For humiliating you and your family.”
When it was finally finished and the boys had grown bored with their prey, Juliet crumpled into a ball, hoping they would leave her, but she found she could not sob. She felt a warm liquid fall over her legs and head and knew what the boys were doing standing over her. She kept her eyes closed as if seeing the act of them urinating on her would make it more real to her and harder to forget. And she needed to forget this night.
“If you tell anyone, we’ll make sure everyone sees these paintings,” said Michel, buttoning his trousers. He leaned in close to her, and she could feel his spit on her face as he spoke to her. “Don’t worry, little whore, I’ll still marry you, but this is what you can expect from me.” He pulled her head up off the ground by her hair. “Do you understand me?”
With the dress still in her mouth all Juliet could do was nod. He released Juliet and her head hit the ground, hard.
The boys gathered the paintings and headed back down the hill toward the Bussons’ house—Juliet could hear Michel’s mother calling to him. Juliet heard them whistling and she didn’t move until the sound had faded away. She knew that she could not tell her father what had happened here. What could he do? The Bussons owned the land he farmed. They’d never take her word over Michel’s. Never. Instead, Juliet pumped out water and scrubbed herself with her torn dress until she was raw. She dumped the water over her head to get the urine and the smell of the boys off her. Then, she wrapped her dress around her and limped home.
Once back at the house, Juliet crawled into bed with Delphine and sobbed. Even a week after her mother’s death, Juliet could not stop the chill that seemed to have penetrated to her bones since that night with her mother. No number of blankets or the warmth of her sister’s small body could lessen the dull pain of cold.
The next morning, Juliet’s face did not look as bad as she’d feared. She told Delphine she had fallen and the little girl accepted the story. Juliet’s father was already out in the fields, and he would not notice his daughter’s red marks when he came back in at nightfall.
Today Juliet decided that she would teach Delphine to fetch water. With her bruised body, Juliet wasn’t sure she could manage getting to the well. She also couldn’t bear to see it again after last night. Delphine would have to fetch a half bucket. The little girl could manage that much water.
Juliet opened the kitchen door to find an envelope on the ground that had been stuffed under the gap in the floor. She looked around but saw no one. The envelope was heavy and luxurious like a fine fabric and was addressed to MADEMOISELLE JULIET LACOMPTE in a flowery signature that looked more like art. She could see a watermark under the cream paper. Juliet broke the seal and hoped to find a note from Marchant. This was the letter her mother had told her to expect. She held her breath as she slid out the paper and unfolded it, praying that Marchant was sending for her after all. What she read instead puzzled her:
Dear Mademoiselle LaCompte:
In response to your inquiry of employment, Monsieur Lucian Varnier of XX Boulevard Saint-Germain, Paris, offers you a position as a maid in his home. The pay includes lodging plus 850 francs per month. He will expect you no later than 14 Septembre 1895.
Regards,
Paul de Passe, Secretary
Monsieur Lucian Varnier
11
Juliet LaCompte
Paris, France, 1895
Juliet had only one small bag when she ascended the steps to the Boulevard Saint-Germain. The large black rounded doors were so imposing that Juliet stopped before she knocked. The cab that had dropped her off was turning the block, and she could still hear the hollow clap of the horses’ hooves. She breathed in and pounded her hand a little too urgently against the door.
Juliet’s father had taken her to the train station in Challans to see her off. He’d needed her help on the farm raising her brother and sister, but the letter had promised money and the offer had been too good for him to let her stay. With the salary Juliet would send back each month, her father could hire two people to help him on the farm. Her only other option was Michel Busson, and the idea of that sickened Juliet. A few days later, a parcel was personally delivered for her father. Inside the package was a heavy bag containing gold francs. With the arrival of the second package with the money, all protests from Juliet’s father about her going to Paris or ending her engagement to Michel Busson had ceased.
As they stood on the empty Challans train platform, Juliet’s father had a formality that she wasn’t used to seeing. He’d worn his Sunday church suit with work boots, something her mother never would have let him leave the house wearing. This little detail caused Juliet’s eyes to well up with tears.
He shifted his weight and looked at his mud-covered boots. “Your mother told me that this man is to be trusted.”
“Monsieur Varnier?”
He nodded. “She made me promise that you would do as the letter said. She insisted that you wouldn’t want to do it, but that I had to make you.” His eyes followed the length of the platform. “I met her here, you know.” He set Juliet’s bag down in front of her as though he were transferring responsibility of it—and her.
“No,” said Juliet. “I didn’t know.” Juliet now realized that her mother had been a complete mystery to her. “I didn’t know anything about her.”
He pointed to a bench near the center of the platform. “She’d just come off the train from Paris. I’d never seen anything so beautiful in my life, my Thérèse. She was trying to get to the coast to get a boat, but she was too sick to make it any farther. I was so mesmerized by the look of her that I missed my train to Paris, but I never regretted it.” He smiled sadly. “I hope she didn’t, either.”
The death of her mother never had weighed heavier on her than now. Juliet looked away down the tracks toward Paris. “She never spoke of Paris.”