Arabella stood upon a small footstool while the costumer, Madame Beliveau, draped silk about her. They were in the costumer's chambers in the upper reaches of the theatre, the noise of the city only a dim rumble, punctuated sporadically by the voices of the rehearsing players.
“The skirt will fall like so,” she said. “Do you see?”
Arabella admired her reflection in a mirror.
The elfin dressmaker glanced up at the mirror herself, assessing the effect. “Good, yes?”
“Tres belle, oui,” Arabella agreed.
“Then the lace. Can you hold…?”
Arabella pinched the fabric between her fingers and held it tight to her waist. Madame Beliveau found a swath of lace.
“That is exquisitely made,” Arabella said.
“Yes, it is from France,” the other woman said in her clear, almost unaccented English. She seemed to offer only the occasional French word, for emphasis, not out of necessity. “There is none finer. We use nothing else.”
“It must have been difficult to come by, these last years.”
“It has been difficult at times, but Madeleine De le C?ur has kept me supplied.”
Arabella smiled at her reflection in the mirror. It was interesting, the way the smuggling had worked over the years of the blockade. The government had gone to great efforts to stop the illegal trade, while its members drank smuggled wine, ate smuggled cheese, and dressed their wives in smuggled fabrics often sewn into dresses in the French style!
“Have you known the De le C?urs a long time?”
“Oh, yes. For much of our lives.”
“Madame De le C?ur told me she dressed the ladies of the court of Versailles.”
Madame Beliveau laughed charmingly. “Well, we can both make such a claim, I suppose.”
“Which means you did, or you did not?”
The costumer pinned the lace in place, regarded Arabella in the mirror a moment, and then shook her head. The lace came off. “We were both seamstresses, a long time past now. Too long. We learned our trade under the great Catharine Brehl. That is how we came here, to London. We fled… what is now called le terreur. But it is true Madame Brehl made many dresses for the great ladies of the court, and we seamstresses sewed them, stitch by stitch.”
She readjusted the lace and stopped to peer at Arabella in the looking-glass. “Non, non, impossible!” she pronounced, and tossed the lace onto a chair. A swath of creamy silk was plucked from among the rainbow of fabrics spread over tables, benches, and chairs.
“Ah!” she said. “Peut-etre celui-ci-this one.” She arranged it over Arabella's shoulders, folding it expertly.
“Perhaps too much decolletage?” Arabella wondered.
“Your character is a saint?”
“No, not really.”
“Well, then. You have a fine bosom.” She rearranged the fabric-for the sake of Arabella's modesty presum ably, though Arabella thought the difference slight.
“So you came to London, and then…?”
“Well, we continued as we had in France, though the gowns were not so-tres ornee-ornate-if that is the word. Then Madame Brehl retired. Madeleine went back to France, and I eventually found my way into the theatre, as you see.”
“But Madame De le C?ur did not stay in France.”
“No, of course. She was there a few years and prospered somewhat. She made gowns for Josephine-Napoleon's Josephine. But then she came back to England. France had changed too much, I think, and her hero had crowned himself l'empereur. That was the end for her.”
“I see.” Arabella gazed at the small woman as she busied herself about Arabella's person, tucking the material here, pinning it there. “Then she was once a supporter of Bonaparte?”
“Many were, madame. Many were.”
Arabella wanted to ask if Madame Beliveau had counted herself among them but thought the question might be too personal. She was, after all, seeking information about the De le C?urs, not Jacqueline Beliveau.
“Do you know this man who supplied the De le C?urs with their French lace and fine wine? Oh, what was his name-Boulot?”
“Jean Boulot? I have only met him once or twice. He tried for some time to make his way on the London stage. Perhaps you met him yourself? He was a singer in Paris. Not of the opera, but the comic opera. Many thought he would one day be a singer renomme-famous. But here in England his talents fell on dark ears.”
“Deaf,” Arabella said before she'd thought.
“Pardon?”
“Deaf ears.”
“Oui, deaf ears.” The small woman continued to busy herself about Arabella, tucking fabric here, letting it out there.
“So he became a smuggler?”
“He became un ivrogne. A victim of his own wares, a drunkard. But he has a friend among the smugglers. Someone who admires his talent-that is what people say at least, though it might be a joke.”
“It sounds a little like,” Arabella ventured. “How did Boulot come to be in London, I wonder. He was not a nobleman, was he?”
“Jean Boulot?!” The Frenchwoman laughed. “No, he is not a nobleman. What was it people said? I can't remember. Ah, oui. He had friends among the intellectu-als-as artistes sometimes do-and they ran afoul of Fouche. These men were dragged off to prison, but when the secret police came for Boulot, he was not home, and he was warned. His escape to England was managed through some relative or friend who dealt with the smugglers. And now he is here, nothing but a vestige of the Jean Boulot who once sang for the Parisian audience and had ladies throwing him flowers. You see, madame, we French do not grow well in soil that is not French. It is une verite-well, a sad truth. Beyond our borders we do not prosper. And now they have taken Napoleon away from France, and he will be like Jean Boulot, but more tragique-sorrowful-and humilie-humiliated.”
And it will all be well deserved, thought Arabella, but she kept this to herself.