Dangerous Obsession Read online

  “Please, please, give me a few kopecks, sir. Please, madame, a few kopecks. I have had nothing to eat in days. Help me, help me.”

  The response was good, but not good enough. I made fifteen kopecks in ten minutes, but at one hundred kopecks to a ruble—and I needed three more rubles—I had a long way to go.

  Quickly and expertly I shaped my eiderdown bundle into a baby-sized lump. A real baby would have been better, but if this one looked still and dead that would be all right, too. I took up my plaintive crying again, and immediately I noticed a difference. A crippled girl is a pitiful sight, but a crippled girl with a starving baby at her breast, one that is too weak even to cry, that is something really pathetic. I hid the kopecks as soon as they fell on my skirts. It’s not a good idea to look too prosperous when you’re playing the begging game. And as each coin dropped I tallied it up in my mind: sixty kopecks, eighty, one hundred! Only two rubles to go. Ah, a man with a bad conscience—only one ruble to go!

  Then a shadow fell across my doorway. I looked up, into Seth’s cool blue eyes. There was no laughter there, only fury.

  “Please, sir,” I said feebly, extending a filthy, shaking hand. “Just a few kopecks, to help a poor cripple. I have not eaten for such a long time. Please, sir. please help me.”

  Even as he stood there watching me, a passing sailor tossed me a coin. I snatched it quickly, secreted it on my person, and continued my refrain.

  “Business is good, eh, Gypsy?” he asked dryly. “You wouldn’t be saving up for a trip to Paris, would you?”

  “Go away,” I hissed. “I’m crippled.”

  “I know you’re not a cripple,” he said loudly. “And I also know that you packed away an enormous meal just this morning.”

  “Go away! Go away!”

  “In fact,” he went on in a barbarous mixture of French and Russian that the gathering crowd could barely understand, “you are a thief and a fraud! Thief, thief!” he shouted, pointing at me. “This girl stole my purse! Thief! Help, police!”

  I was on my feet. “Are you crazy?” I said. “What are you trying to do to me, get me arrested? Stop that!” The crowd was making dangerous noises. I picked up my bundle and ran, nearly tripping myself up on the rag that bound my foot. I could hear Seth laughing as though his ribs would burst. I hoped he would laugh himself to death.

  But I had no time to think of him. I needed just one more ruble to secure passage on that ship, and I needed it quickly. I found a good place to resume my begging, but when I had accumulated only thirty kopecks I heard the steamship whistle blow. I took all the money I had to the steamship office and said to the clerk.

  “Twelve rubles thirty. Take it or leave it. If you don’t take it, I will curse you so that you will never have any sons, only daughters.“

  He took my money and wrote out a ticket for me. I couldn’t read it, but I asked another customer in the office to verify that I really did have a place on that ship. Then I ran to catch the ship and I hurled myself at the gangplank just as they were hauling it in. I shouted and waved my ticket at everyone I saw, just so they wouldn’t try to throw me off, and they took one look at me and shunted me down to the lowest part of the ship, into steerage. As I moved down, I looked up and saw Seth watching me from the rich man’s deck high above.

  “Hey, gorgio!"I yelled. “I am going to Paris, too!”

  When we arrived in Marseilles two months later, in March, I was weak and feverish. I had never been on a ship before, and it had not occurred to me that I would be seasick. But that is what happened. I hardly saw the sky that whole voyage, and I ate next to nothing. A few crumbs of food cadged from the other passengers, and water. But that was all.

  We steerage passengers piled off the ship. Immediately I found a place to sit on the wharf. I wanted to lift my face to the warm spring sunshine and reassure myself that there was, after all, such a thing as dry land that did not move. Seth Garrett strolled past, looking fit and well-fed.

  “I thought you were going to Paris,” he said jauntily.

  I shrugged. “How can I go to Paris when I am dying? Good-bye, gorgio. You have had your way after all. May God go with you.”

  “Now, now,” he said gleefully, “surely it’s not that bad.”

  A surly dock official came along and prodded me none too gently with the toe of his boot. “No beggars allowed here. Go on, Gypsy, get away. Is she bothering you, sir?” he asked Seth. “I’ll take care of her. Go on, you baggage, get away from here before I have you arrested.”

  “May the sea reach up and swallow you,” I muttered weakly.

  “Why, you little—”

  “It’s all right,” said Seth smoothly and imperiously. “She’s with me. Let’s go, Gypsy.”

  I felt my tired eyes grow brighter. “You are taking me with you? To Paris?”

  “That’s right. And I’ve even thought of a place for you to stay.”

  As we rode together on the train to Paris—my first time on a train—I tried without success to elicit information from him. Where were we going in Paris? Was I staying with his mother? An aunt? Did he have family there? Why wouldn’t he tell me anything?

  “It’s not important,” was all he would say.

  We rode from the Gare du Lyon in a closed carriage. As we drew alongside another carriage at an intersection, a fashionably dressed lady leaned forward in her seat and smiled at Seth. He nodded and smiled back, and touched his hat to her. Then we drove on.

  “Do you know that woman?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Then why do you greet her like a friend?”

  “Because I would like to know her.”

  I considered this. “This is very strange. What if she would not like to know you? She does not know your father or your family. What if you were a truly wicked man? Is this a civilized way to behave?”

  “Of course.”

  “Ah. Will I learn to be civilized, Monsieur Seth? Will you teach me?”

  “No, but someone else will. Be quiet. We’re almost there.”

  Finally our carriage drew to a halt in front of a tall white house on the Rue de Vaugirard, not far from the Luxembourg Gardens. Seth scribbled a note and handed it to me.

  “Give this to the mistress of the house. No one else. Madame Mornay. You can get out now, Gypsy. Farewell!"

  The carriage drove away, and I could hear him laughing.

  4

  Becoming Civilized

  "SO THIS IS Seth’s little Gypsy!” The tinkle of the woman’s laughter filled the room. “Come closer, girl. I want to look at you.”

  I hesitated.

  “Go on, Rhawnie,” said Madame Odette, waving her hand. “Do as Simone asks.”

  I approached the ivory sofa in Madame Odette Mornay’s gold and white drawing room. Simone Gallier was an archetypal Parisian beauty of the 1840s: petite, slender, and as cold as a china doll. Her light brown hair was drawn smoothly away from her forehead and swept over her ears into a bunch of perfect curls at the nape of her neck. The style seemed simple enough, but it had probably taken her hairdresser three hours to achieve. Simone had languid green eyes, pale silky skin, and a spoiled mouth that looked like a ripe berry when she pouted, which was often. Her long-sleeved peach-colored morning dress was a masterpiece of her dressmaker’s art. Dainty white lace ruffles at her throat and wrists, and tiny black velvet bows, cunningly placed at her waist and bosom, accented her perfectly corseted figure.

  I was painfully conscious of how ludicrous I must have looked next to this exquisite creature. In the four months I had been in Paris I had grown two inches taller but no fatter, and I looked decidedly lanky and ungainly. The simple black dress I wore was too small for me, and my wrists and ankles stuck out. Two heavy braids hung down my back to my waist. My white apron and starched collar and cuffs were already smudged and limp, although they had been clean and crisp when I had put them on only a few hours earlier.

  I stood awkwardly in front of the dainty perfumed doll on the sofa,
hating the way she inspected me as though I were a horse at auction, yet unable to take my eyes off her. I wanted to know more about this woman who spoke of Seth with such possessive familiarity.

  “But my dear Odette!” Simone gasped at length. She put a tiny hand to her cheek in an attitude of horror. “She’s enormous! These Russian Gypsies must be a race of giants. And she probably eats like a horse.”

  I narrowed my eyes at her and clenched my fists.

  “But she is still a child,” Madame Odette said. “A healthy appetite is to be expected in one her age. As for her looks, why, surely you were no great beauty when you were fourteen, Simone.” Madame Odette patted her unnaturally red hair as she looked at the younger woman. I could see her gazing at Simone’s waist, which, though corseted to an unbelievable smallness, was a shade thicker than her own.

  “I have always been beautiful,” Simone declared. “And men have always adored me, even as a child. You don’t know how many proposals of marriage I have refused this year alone. It’s so tedious.”

  “Including Seth Garrett’s?” Madame Odette inquired slyly.

  I pricked up my ears. The women had ceased to pay attention to me.

  Simone turned pink. “Of course,” she said with hollow firmness. “Especially Seth’s.”

  “Ah, he is a most persistent lover,” Madame Odette agreed. “So persistent that he stayed in Paris exactly one week in March before taking off for God knows where. He didn't propose then, did he?”

  Simone sniffed. “You know what a dreary bore he can be. So obstinate. Anyway, we did have a slight falling out when he returned from Russia.”

  Yes, I did hear something about that.” Madame Odette fanned herself. “He came home to find you living in his house. He threw you out and piled all your things in the gutter, didn’t he?”

  “That’s a lie!” Simone said hotly. “Really, I don’t know who can be spreading such slanderous tales about me!”

  “Perhaps someone in the crowd that gathered to watch the scene,” Madame Odette suggested.

  “Bah! You know how many enemies I have.” Simone unfurled her fan with an angry snap and wagged it vigorously under her chin. “It is only natural for these other women to be jealous of me. They all want him for themselves. I am surprised at you, Odette. When did you start paying attention to such dreadful rumors?”

  “Since I retired from the stage I have taken a more active interest in human nature,” Madame Odette purred.

  You must forgive an old woman’s amusements, my dear. Remember, I am nearly twice your age.”

  I looked at Simone, who was gritting her teeth. Surely that statement could not be right. I had overheard Marie-Claire, Madame Odette’s maid, telling Cook that the “Old Bat” was seventy-five if she was a day.

  “You will see for yourself, Simone,” Madame Odette went on, “in just a few short years, how the aging process changes one’s outlook on life. Rhawnie, stop that fidgeting and bring us some tea.”

  I jumped. “What? Tea! Oh, yes. Tea.”

  “Yes—what?” Madame waited expectantly.

  I thought.”Oh. Yes—Madame.” I dropped an awkward curtsy and walked sedately out of the room, as I had been taught. Except I tripped over a low table as I looked over my shoulder at Simone, who giggled. I flushed and hated her.

  I closed the doors behind me and then listened at the crack. I heard Madame Odette sigh deeply and say, “Really, Simone, you don’t know the time I’ve had with that child. You should have seen her when Seth sent her to me. Shocking. Simply shocking. A ragged, filthy creature with hollow cheeks and enormous eyes and the most dreadful mats in her hair. You should have heard her scream when Cook threw her rags into the fire! As if she were being murdered. She wouldn’t let us cut her hair. She wouldn’t sleep on sheets like the rest of us. She refused to eat milk and eggs. All sorts of queer habits she had. And she couldn’t even speak decent French. But she’s coming along nicely. Even though she was a disaster in the scullery. But then that stupid cow Paulette went and got herself pregnant and had to go home to the country and so I started training Rhawnie as a lady’s maid. She’s trying very hard to improve, I think."

  “Are you sure Seth would approve of this?" Simone asked. “Perhaps he sent the child to you to be educated, Odette. After all, you did run a finishing school for a short time, didn’t you?"

  I had heard all about that school, from eavesdropping on conversations between Cook and Marie-Claire. After she retired from the stage, Madame Odette attempted to establish a “seminary for young ladies“in her home. Everything had gone along splendidly until the mothers of her charges learned about Odette Mornay’s less recent past: not only had she been a great actress in her day but a notorious courtesan as well! I wasn’t sure what a courtesan was, but from the way Marie-Claire talked I was sure it was something dreadful. According to Marie-Claire, the scandal had rocked the best families in Paris (whose grandfathers had been intimate with Odette) and the school closed abruptly. It had been a humiliating time for Madame, and she hated being reminded of it.

  I was sure that Seth knew all about the finishing school and its failure, and that was why he sent me to Madame Odette. There couldn’t have been a girl in Paris less ready for “finishing“than I, or a woman less tolerant of a dirty urchin who didn’t even speak decent French. And Seth had decided to play a little joke on both of us.

  That had been a dreadful day. Madame Odette had been terrible in her anger, shouting about mortal insults and despicable actions. She was on the verge of throwing me out into the street when Marie-Claire came in to announce that the scullery maid had just run off with the butcher’s boy. So I was sent to the kitchens, to wash pots.

  “I am sure it was never Seth’s intention that the girl be educated,“Madame Odette said stiffly. Simone’s remark had struck home. “But after all, he could hardly look after her himself, and he knew that I would be kind and charitable enough to take her in. Poor homeless waif."

  “Yes, you are the very soul of generosity, dear Odette," Simone said. “Oh, that Seth! Utterly unpredictable! I wonder he didn’t bring you a hottentot!"

  “My dear, this one was bad enough," Madame Odette sighed.

  “But it is good of you to undertake such a thankless task as civilizing a little savage," said Simone. “And of course Seth is paying you to look after her?"

  “What?” Odette sniffed. “He couldn’t pay me enough!” I suspected that his mocking gesture wouldn’t have rankled so if he had paid her something. “I am helping the child out of the goodness of my heart,” the old woman simpered. “And of course because I know his family.”

  “His family?” Simone said eagerly. “You know his family? You mean the man of mystery—”

  “Oh, yes,” said Madame Odette smugly. “I knew his father very well. That was a long time ago, before he married that little spitfire who had been a pirate.”

  “What?” I could tell that Simone wanted to hear more. So did I. I applied my ear more diligently to the crack between the doors.

  “Forgive me, Simone, but I cannot say more,” said Madame Odette regretfully. “Not because of Seth, that wretched boy! But his father did me a great kindness once, and out of respect for him I shall keep his scapegrace son's true identity a secret. Really, the only thoughtful thing that boy has done in his life has been to adopt another name. The way he misbehaves: drinking and gambling and carrying on with the most disreputable women in Paris!” She paused and I heard Simone make a choking noise. “His conduct would humiliate even the humblest family.”

  “Ah, but you can tell me, Odette,” said Simone with great warmth. I heard the rustle of satin as she moved over to sit next to the older woman. “You know that I am your dearest and most loyal friend! Who else would come out and visit you on such an atrociously hot day as this? Paris in July is uninhabitable!”

  “Obviously you wanted to satisfy your curiosity about something,” Madame Odette said crisply. “You heard about the Gypsy child and you wanted to s
ee your rival.”

  “Are you mad?” Simone’s voice was shrill. “My dear Odette, how can you possibly suggest that I would even consider that dirty little ragamuffin a rival? She is nothing but a grotesque, uncouth piece of trash who attached herself to Seth because she wanted him to take her away from the squalid, horrid life she was living.”

  With on outraged bellow I burst into the room and confronted Simone.

  “I am not dirty,” I said in a low, dangerous voice. My fists were clenched and I was quivering with rage. “I am not uncouth. And I am no piece of trash! It is you who are trash!” Simone gave a shocked little cry and put her hand to her throat. I advanced. She leaped off the loveseat where she had been sitting with Madame Odette and retreated behind the sofa. “And if you ever speak of me again in such a way,” I said, waving my fists in her face, “I will blacken both your eyes, pull out your tongue, and rip your hair out!”

  “Oh! Well!” Simone’s eyebrows were somewhere up in her hairline. Her jaw was flapping loosely. “How—how dare you!” she breathed when she found her voice.

  I dare because I am Gypsy!” I shouted. “And a Gypsy never forgets an insult, lady. So beware!”

  I left the two women gaping after me and I ran up to my little room on the third floor, under the roof. I was furious with them, furious with Seth, and furious with myself. How dare they laugh at me and insult me and mock me? I would show them. I would show them all. I would be beautiful, more beautiful than any woman in Paris, and all the men would fall in love with me and propose marriage to me five times a day. I would wear peach-colored silk with black velvet bows, and I would carry a parasol and wear dainty kid gloves. And I would break their hearts. All their hearts. But especially one heart. And his I would not only break, I would tear it into tiny pieces and throw it on a dung heap. And he would see what he had lost, and he would be sorry.