Secrets of Paris_ A Novel - Luanne Rice [24]
“How did you get into this line of work, anyway?” Patrice asked.
“I started off wanting to be an artist, but …” Lydie said. “This is the closest I could get to it. Sometimes when I’m working I feel like I’m making a collage—but it lasts only until the photographer takes the pictures.”
“The pictures last.”
“Yes, but they’re by the photographer,” Lydie said. “As soon as I take these napkins off the roses, that’s that.”
“I see what you mean,” Patrice said.
Now Lydie was walking around, putting the linens away. “Michael and I bumped into someone the other night I think you’d be interested in. She’s an historian—working at the Louvre.”
“Doing what?”
“Research. It’s really extraordinary, and a little bizarre. She’s obsessed with one woman in French history. In fact, she’s already written about her. Madame de Sévigné. Have you ever heard of her before? Don’t say yes, because I hadn’t and I felt so stupid.”
Patrice smiled, happy in spite of herself to be one up on Lydie in an area besides clothing. “Sorry, honey. I know her well. And she is worth being obsessed by. Most people think she was so loving and sweet, especially to her daughter. I mean, this was long before the days of Freud, and I’m telling you he would have had a field day with those two. Their letters make you cringe—they’re more passionate than what I write to Didier when he goes away on long business trips.”
“Sounds weird.”
“What I find amazing is her influence, which was considerable,” Patrice went on. “She had the ear of King Louis, that is for sure. Get this: little Françoise-Marguerite wanted to be a ballerina, so Madame de Sévigné convinces Louis to let her dance the role of Shepherdess in the Royal Ballet at the Louvre, with Louis himself dancing as Shepherd. I mean, talk about headline entertainment.”
“You’re an expert on this,” Lydie said. “You have to meet this woman.”
“If she’s typical of people who love Madame de Sévigné, she probably idealizes the mother-daughter relationship. Which explains why she would want to hang around the Louvre, her feet touching the hallowed ground where little Françoise-Marguerite first went on pointe.”
“The daughter moved away, is that right?” Lydie asked. “And they never saw each other?”
“Give me a break—she stayed in France. She moved to Provence.”
“In the seventeenth century, that must have seemed very far,” Lydie said. “I wonder if they ever visited each other.”
“Just tell me the name of her book. When I’ve finished the one I’m reading now, I might go for the sentimental point of view.”
“It’s Three Women of the Marais,” Lydie said, standing on her toes to reach a napkin dangling from the top of a topiary rosebush.
“Oh, my God,” Patrice said.
“What?” Lydie said, turning.
“That’s the book I’m reading! It’s fantastic, and not sentimental at all. You actually know Anne Dumas?”
“I don’t, really. But Michael does.”
“Is she pretty?”
“In a gamine sort of way. Like the young Audrey Hepburn, only short. She is so intelligent, that’s what strikes you. And she’s charming, but reserved in a sad way. As if something had happened to her once.” Lydie glanced over at Martine, who was ready to leave. “Excuse me a second,” she said to Patrice.
Patrice sat on a bench. She could not get over the coincidence, the amazing unlikelihood, that Lydie had met Anne Dumas. Patrice had started thinking of her as “Anne,” of the time she spent reading Three Women of the Marais as time spent in Anne’s company, in a sort of seminar. Patrice slid a pair of gold-rimmed sunglasses from her bag and put them on. She recognized, of course, what she’d been doing: using Anne Dumas the way she used Kelly—to fill a void. She adored Didier; she had adjusted very well to France. But she couldn’t deny that until recently, until she’d met Lydie, something had been missing from her life. Lydie was her friend. And as soon as Lydie finished with the photographer, Patrice was going to invite