Read Online Spirit of Lost Angels by Liza Perrat - Free Book Online

velvet-nosed horses so close I could see the sweat glistening on their flared nostrils. I flattened myself against the sooty wall of the narrow street and held my breath as the coach screamed past me.
    The liveried footman hanging from the back waved his arms. ‘Out of our way, whore!’
    On impulse, I picked up a stone and hurled it at the footman. ‘I hope you fall off the back of your murderous coach!’ I screeched, but of course, he didn’t hear me, and my stone dropped well short of the disappearing vehicle.
    I took deep breaths and looked about me. The street was seething with women opening their garments for passing men, who snagged them against the wall and groaned and thrust into them. Nobody seemed to have noticed my outburst, or paid me the slightest attention.
    Where were the grazing cattle, the clucking hens, the perfume of spring flowers and new grass; the soft sigh of trees swaying in the breeze sweeping off the Monts du Lyonnais? I had been in Paris only a few hours, but already I missed the kiss of country rain on my face, the warmth of fresh sun on my cheeks, the silence of snow in the woods. I wanted to fall in a heap and cry.
    But I knew homesickness was a luxury I could ill-afford; this awful place that killed the poor and was trampled upon by the rich was now my home — the home in which I would tear out the roots of my peasant poverty.
    Père Joffroy’s words came back to me.
    The suburb of Saint-Germain is on the left bank.
    I realised this was the right bank, and I had crossed the Seine needlessly. I cleared my throat, held my head high and pushed on, recrossing the river on the first bridge I reached.
    I soon began to glimpse neat gardens and handsome coaches, through elegant wrought-iron gates. Over high walls came whiffs of coach leather, the powder of pages’ wigs and the scent of hedges, freshly trimmed for the coming winter. Faint with fatigue, thirst and hunger, I felt relieved to have found the district of Saint-Germain.
    ***
    Columns boasting the sculpted faces of wild animals decorated the front of the house. In the courtyard, I glimpsed two sleek horses hitched to a crimson-lacquered carriage bearing a black and red coat of arms with a wolf crest.
    A maid opened the door and as she closed it behind us, the crystal beads of a chandelier jingled with the light sound of small bells. She led me up a wide staircase into a parlour, where a straight-backed woman in a pink gown sat in a tapestry chair.
    ‘Mademoiselle Victoire Charpentier, your Ladyship,’ the maid announced with a curtsey.
    Never had I seen a room like it; never could I have imagined people living in such luxury. Paintings of richly dressed aristocrats — ancestors I imagined — hung from the walls and the faint smell of coffee, powder, and some cloying perfume hung in the air. Gold-embroidered drapes of silk framed two tall windows. Patterned paper the colour of green apples hung on the walls. A marble fireplace bearing the same wolf crest as the carriage occupied the centre of one wall. Bookcases covered most of the other walls.
    I swallowed hard and curtseyed, bowing my head as Père Joffroy had instructed me. ‘Your Ladyship.’
    ‘You are hired on a yearly basis with lodgings and board,’ the Marquise said. ‘You will receive twenty-five livres per year, one pair of clogs and two ells of cloth.’ Her eyes roved across my crumpled peasant rags. ‘And you shall wear my cast-off clothes, which are at the disposal of all servants. That way at least, the Marquis and I are certain our domestics maintain an acceptable appearance.’ The hint of a smile curved the corners of her painted lips.
    ‘You are granted one half-day off per week,’ she continued, ‘and providing your work is completed, you may have an hour at your leisure each afternoon.’ All the time she spoke, her head never moved, nor did the layers of ringlets jutting from each side of her head.
    A man in yellow satin breeches and a heavily