Read Online Before Versailles by Karleen Koen - Free Book Online Page B

now be called—no overwhelming largess had showered down on Louise when she joined this new household. Her mother hadn’t a coin she would spare, and Madame de Choisy had helped Louise arrange to borrow money to purchase another gown or two and frivolous items such as shoes and gloves so that she might not be the plainest flower in Madame’s new bower.
    Putting the ring down a shoe, Louise selected the gown she’d wear, laid it across the bed, then pulled a wicker box from beneath. Inside were odds and ends, castoffs from the Orléans princesses. There were ribbons and shoe buckles, cloth flowers and scarves, shawls and lace collars, a fan or two, some gloves. Louise was deft with a needle and would snip something, a bunch of ribbons or a cloth flower and baste such to her gown, so that at least a gown worn over and over again might have different trimmings once in a while. It was the fashion here at court to buy what one wished and never mind the payment to a merchant or seamstress. Keep them on a string, Fanny counseled, but Louise hadn’t been brought up to regard debt lightly. You really do need to move past that, Fanny advised.
    “What’s Madame wearing this evening?”
    Fanny spoke around the hairpin she had in her mouth as she bunched and pinned curls for the girl sitting in front of her. Louise and Fanny felt like they’d known each other forever because both their families held positions in the Orléans royal household, and they’d become friends as young girls. Louise thought Fanny the cleverest person in the world, other than Choisy, and Fanny thought Louise the dearest, and they considered it a bolt of lightning luck that they’d both been chosen to be Madame’s maids of honor.
    “Silver or lilac,” Louise answered.
    “It’s a pity we didn’t know sooner. We could have matched our gowns,” said Claude, whose hair Fanny was arranging. Louise could not have done so, but she didn’t say the words. She’d learned long ago that those who were given much in life seldom realized or truly wished to know the travails of those who had to struggle. The next thing she knew, Fanny dashed out the door.
    “My hair isn’t done!” wailed Claude.
    “Let me dress, and I’ll finish your hair,” Louise soothed, already the peacemaker among them.
    Quickly, she stitched a big cloth-of-silver and gauze flower to a gown she’d worn more than once. The stitching done, she stepped out of one gown and into this one, her maid there to tie up the back. The style this decade was for a very tight waist that V’d deep into the skirt, for all of a woman’s neck and shoulders and some of her bosom to show, and for sleeves to fall in a voluptuous swell to the elbow from those bared shoulders.
    Excited that evening was here, excited because they were part of one of the most splendid courts in the world, excited because they were fifteen and sixteen and seventeen, and there’s little that isn’t exciting at that age, they took turns helping each other, Louise finishing Claude’s hair and Claude, in turn, lending Louise a pretty shawl. The fourth of their quartet paid no attention, simply continued to concentrate on herself, on which pair of her numerous earrings she would wear.
    Louise and Fanny weren’t certain what they thought of this one, this fourth of their four, this Madeleine. Louise was ready to keep her mind open; the priests said there was good in everyone, but after the first week of living together Fanny had announced in no uncertain terms that Madeleine was selfish and stupid as well, and that’s just all there was to it.
    Louise pulled on white stockings, each kept up with a garter, and was stepping into high-heeled shoes her maid held for her—shoes of soft leather dyed sky blue; too expensive, they’d put a big dent into her little borrowed bag of coins, but she hadn’t been able to resist purchasing them—when Fanny breezed back into the chamber.
    “Look what I have.”
    As proud as if she brought