Alexandre giggled and covered her mouth with her hand, and the tall boy laughed outright, hysterically, as though what Severine had said was witty or amusing instead of horribly inappropriate. My face was burning hot with anger now, and I had to bite my tongue so hard, it was sore afterward. I’d never been a combative person, but with Elodie shrinking behind me and refusing to even look at the four and Marius glaring but saying nothing, I fought to control my temper.
“I apologize for entering the Orangerie without permission. This is my first day at Versailles, and I am clearly unfamiliar with the customs. But I don’t appreciate the judgment that you’re casting upon me when we’ve only just met.”
What I said didn’t seem particularly offensive, but the girls gasped as if I’d slapped them, and the sneer on the boy in the justaucorps coat turned into an outright glare.
“You can’t talk to me like that,” he said, his voice rising with every word. “You’re just an uncouth country girl whose parents never taught her any manners. People like you don’t even belong in the vicinity of someone like me. I’m—”
“That’s enough!” The younger boy stepped in front of his brother and held up his hands. “Let it go. We’ll miss the boat race in the Canal if we don’t leave now. You’ve been talking about it for weeks.”
With a final glare in my direction, the boy stomped back down the path, the girls following him in a huff without even deigning to look at us again.
The younger boy turned to Marius and Elodie. “I’m sorry. Truly. Please, stay and enjoy the Orangerie for as long as you’d like. I’m sure the king wouldn’t mind.”
How would this boy know what the king would or wouldn’t mind us doing? What a strange thing to say.
The boy ran off after the other three, leaving us alone in the Orangerie. I turned to Elodie and threw my arms around her. She was trembling.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes, I’m fine,” she said, but her voice wavered and her eyes were watery. “I expected something like this to happen eventually. Servants among the courtiers and all. Most won’t be like you and Monsieur le Marquis. I just didn’t expect it to happen so soon.”
“Marius?”
“I’ll be fine,” he said dejectedly. His dark eyes were mournful, and he looked like a little boy again.
“Let’s get out of here, okay? We’ll go to one of the little groves Lady Françoise mentioned.”
Elodie nodded and sniffled. Marius took off ahead of us, weaving across the path. My eyes burned with tears. I wanted to cry, too, but that would only make Elodie more upset, so I held the tears back as we walked to the gate to find an exit.
I should have been prepared for the attitudes that Elodie and Marius would face at Versailles. I would have to ask Papa to get them new clothes so they could blend in better with the other servants. But if this was what Versailles was going to be like, full of snobbery and bullies, I didn’t want any part of it.
Chapter Four
“You all know that when entering a room the king is in, lords must bow and scrape before him, and ladies must make a deep curtsy. But what do you do when the king enters a room that you are in?” Lady Celia asked as she paced back and forth at the front of the room, the swooshing of her gown and petticoats clearly audible in the silence.
I had absolutely no idea. I didn’t know most of the answers to the questions Lady Celia posed during our etiquette lessons. My lack of knowledge put me at a severe disadvantage compared with the other young ladies in the lessons with me, who had been meeting for months already. But I had to attend; Papa said it was required of every young lady at court.
Because the entire royal court and advisors were in residence at Versailles, every room in the palace was already being used, so the twenty of us were shoved into a claustrophobically tiny wood-paneled room in one of the four corners of the Grand Commons, a quadrangular structure directly across from the south wing of the palace.
As the days marched well into summer, the heat in the room was becoming unbearable, so I sprinted to every class to make sure that I claimed the seat next to the window. Lady Celia appeared to wilt more every day, and I wasn’t sure we would make it to the end of summer. Maybe if we were lucky, she would decide to hold the lessons in the garden.
“Severine, would you like to answer the question?” Lady Celia asked, snapping open her fan and waving it vigorously at her face.
Severine sat up straighter in her chair and smiled at our instructor. That was another downside to these lessons. Or more specifically, there were two additional downsides to these lessons: Severine and Alexandre. The horrid girls who had insulted Marius and Elodie in the Orangerie were also here. They had had the nerve to insult me for being “country” but were clearly new to court themselves.
Thankfully, the bulk of our interactions consisted of a few glares or smug smiles shot my way when they said something rude about me to another classmate. By virtue of attending classes together before I arrived, the other girls were already on their side, and while a few were almost friendly to me, the others were much less so and seemed to scare the friendlier ones away. I decided to stay away from all of them. It didn’t bother me much anymore, but I couldn’t deny that I was lonely, even in a stuffy room filled with people.
Severine answered, “If you are in a room that the king enters, you mustn’t bow or speak or approach him. You must avert your eyes and retreat from him in silence. Only speak if he speaks to you first.” Her ice-blue eyes glittered, and she was as beautiful as she was smug.
She was clearly far too pleased with herself for spouting off another one of the court’s etiquette rules. Severine and her sister were thankfully not in matching dresses today, but they were still attired in much too many bows. They had bows on their sleeves, bows on their bodices, bows along the hemline of their skirts, and bows in their hair. Bows were fashionable at the moment, and I enjoyed them on occasion, but this was going too far.
“Very good, Severine! Only those who have the closest relationships with the king may approach him. And always remember to remove yourself from the king’s path as he walks about Versailles. You don’t want to be the person who gets in his way.”
“Now, Cendrillon,” Lady Celia said, turning her gaze to me.
I froze in my seat, completely unprepared for any question. All I wanted was for the lesson to be over with.
I missed Marius and Elodie. While I was at Versailles learning rule after rule after rule about how to behave at court, they were home at the château in relative freedom. Versailles might have balls and fêtes and a theater where I could finally see an actual play, but I’d never heard of so many rules in my life, and nearly all of them were absolutely ridiculous.