Dangerous Obsession Read online

  I went down to the second floor, to Madame Odette’s room. I looked at my face in her vast dressing table mirror. I had to make it beautiful, like Simone’s. Let’s see, she had worn a little paint on her lips. And I was sure that the pink patches on her cheeks were paint, too. I opened a little pot that had red gook inside and smeared some on my lips. Then I rubbed some more into my cheeks. I wrapped my braids around my head and studied the effect. Not very pleasing. Even a little ridiculous. But it was her clothes that had made Simone really beautiful. I pulled down one of the hat boxes from the top of Madame Odette’s armoire and opened it. Ah, a beautiful bonnet would be just the thing. I put it on, jamming it down so hard that it would fit comfortably over my masses of hair. I found a parasol. I opened it and rested it on my shoulder, as I observed Simone had done when she left her carriage and walked up the path to the house. Then I paraded up and down in front of the full-length mirror on the front of the armoire.

  Madame Odette came into the room. “What on earth!” she gasped. “This is the last straw! Just what do you think you’re doing in here? Put those things down at once, do you hear me? Take off that bonnet! Get out of this room before I take a stick to you!”

  I stood in front of the mirror and shook my head dolefully. “It is ugly. It’s not right!”

  “I should say it’s not right!” Madame Odette stormed. She wrenched the parasol out of my hands and tore the bonnet off my head.”1 come up here to scold you for insulting my guest, and if that wasn’t bad enough—!” She waved her arms at the open hatbox and the few garments I had taken out of the armoire, and at the litter of open pots and jars on her dressing table. Her wrinkled face was bright red under her paint and her old eyes snapped. “Who gave you permission to play with these things? Well, answer me! No one! This is monstrous. I shall call the police. You must get out of this house at once, do you hear? I don’t care what you do or where you go. Only get out, this minute!”

  The corners of my mouth drooped. “I just wanted to see what I would look like.”

  “I can tell you what you look like: a clown! A large, clumsy, horrid clown! Oh, was ever a woman so unfortunate as I?” Madame Odette paced the floor angrily, moaning and twisting her hands. “I took you into this house out of the goodness of my heart. And this is how you repay me!” I didn’t remind her that I had worked for her for four months and that she hadn’t paid me a sou. “I will not put up with it any longer. Get out!”

  I sat heavily on the edge of her bed and hung my head. “Oh, oh,” I wailed despondently, “why did I want to come to Paris? Why did I not die with my family? Why did I let that gorgio bring me here? I never wanted to live here. Why—”

  “For Heaven’s sake, stop that wailing,” the lady barked. “I cannot bear it another minute. You are just too maddening for words! Look at you! Red paint all over your cheeks and that horrid mess around your mouth!”

  “I will never be a woman,” I said sadly. I ran the palm of my hands over my flat chest. “I will always be ugly and big and clumsy. And I will never grow up to be beautiful. You could teach me.” I turned great sad eyes on her. “But you hate me. I understand that. Everybody hates Gypsies. You would teach me to be beautiful if I weren’t a Gypsy, wouldn’t you?”

  “I—you—what on earth are you talking about?” she sputtered.

  “You are a great lady,” I said warmly. “And you are still very beautiful, even though you are old. From the back you look even younger than that Simone!”

  “I do!” She lifted her chin and stole a look at herself in the mirror. “Indeed!”

  “Oh, yes,” I said in a voice that dripped with envy. “I think you must have been the most beautiful woman in Paris when you were young.”

  Madame Odette drew herself up and said proudly, “I was the most beautiful woman in Europe! Men adored me! I was the most glorious creature they had ever seen, onstage or off. They showered me with gifts, jewels and furs and carriages. And some of them still call upon me!”

  “I know,” I said excitedly. “I have seen them! You are so fortunate. So blessed with all good things.” I stood up and waved my hand at the disorder I had created. “I am sorry about this. I only wanted to see if I could be as beautiful as you someday. But I am ugly, and I know now that it will never happen. I do not know what to do, where to begin. And I shall never know.”

  I fell into a dejected posture and crept towards the door, hardly able to move because of the great load of sorrow and self-pity that weighed on my heart.

  “Oh. Well! Really, this is too—come back here, child.”

  I obeyed, trying not to look too elated. She had taken my bait, but I would have to play her in carefully. I couldn’t lose her now.

  “You’ve just gone about it all wrong, that’s all,” she said. “You have to use these tools sparingly, you know. Just a soupçon, the merest suggestion. You don’t want to look like a painted harlot, do you?”

  “What is that?” I asked.

  “Oh, you know,” Madame Odette said, looking a little flustered. “A woman who—a lady that—”

  “Like a courtesan?” I suggested brightly.

  “Ah, yes, something like a courtesan. But never mind that. I am telling you that none of this will help you if you don’t know how to use it properly.”

  “But how can I learn?” I asked. “I am so unlucky. I have no one in the world to care for me. No one to teach me how to be a lady. My mother died when I was just a wee baby, and I never had a woman to talk to, to tell me the things I should know when I became a woman myself. My Grandfather the Count Nicholas Oulianov,” I paused slightly to give the words emphasis, “was very fond of me. He would have taught me many things, I know. But he died and I am alone, all alone.”

  “What’s this?” Madame Odette looked up sharply. “A count? Your grandfather? You’re making this up!”

  “No, no, I swear I am not!” I told her how my mother, Galina, had run away with a handsome Gypsy, Gregor, and how she died and her father, Count Nicholas Oulianov, had searched for me and taken me to his estates. “He had much land and many, many serfs. He treated me like a great lady. And he had a big house in Moscow. But he died and his son hated me and he would have killed me if I had not run away with Monsieur Seth. We went to find my Gypsy family but the Cossacks had killed them all.” I turned my face away and wiped my eyes with my cuffs. “It was horrible. I saw them all, dead and burned. And my little brothers. And that is why I am alone now.” I covered my face with my apron and jerked my shoulders a little.

  “Well!” Madame Odette blew her nose loudly. “Here, take this handkerchief and wipe your eyes, child. And rub some of that stuff off your face. A count, you say! You are a Russian noblewoman!”

  “In exile,” I amended sadly. “I can never go back to Russia. They want to kill me, too. I must live among strangers and depend on their kindness for my livelihood. And you have been so kind, Madame! To take in a poor orphan child—it was not an easy thing for you, I know. God will bless you. I have been a great trial to you. You are old and your last years should be easy ones. I will go now.”

  I curtsied slowly and turned away.

  ‘Wait a moment, child,” said Madame Odette. “Come here and let me look at you.” She put her hands on my shoulders and looked up into my face. She was very tiny. The top of her head came only to my chin. “Why, there’s nothing whatever the matter with your face, Rhawnie. You have fine bones. Exquisite bones! Ah, if I had had such cheekbones I would still be the darling of the Paris stage! And your eyes! Ah, they are marvelous, so large and warm and dark. Your nose is good, and there’s nothing the matter with your chin. Your mouth is much too wide, of course. But that won’t be so noticeable when you’ve put on a little weight. Yes, I would say that in a few years you will be very nice-looking indeed, child. Just give yourself a little time.”

  “But I do not want to be—nice looking!” I cried. “I want to be beautiful! As beautiful as you were! As beautiful as that—Simone!” I hissed the name.


  Madame Odette gave a sharp bark of laughter. "So that’s it! You’re jealous of Simone! Well, I must tell you if you want to come anywhere near Simone’s success with men and her looks, you’ll have to worry about a lot more than just your face and your figure!”

  “I do not understand.”

  “You have no manners, child!” Madame Odette threw up her hands. “Look at your disgraceful performance today. Really, you’ll have to learn to insult your enemies with more finesse! Ladies never, ever descend to name-calling. They do not talk loudly or scream or drop things or run up the steps like a herd of cattle. Ladies do not trip over furniture, they do not break things. If a lady hears something that upsets or distresses her, she must give no sign of it. She must pretend that everything is fine, and if her mind is busy with some plan, her face must give no indication of it. But you! You have no self-control, no social grace, no—education!”

  “I know,” I said. “But I do not understand, Madame. You sat with that woman and pretended to be her friend, but you do not like her and she does not like you. It makes no sense!”

  “It makes a great deal of sense,” Madame Odette said. “If I refused to see everyone I did not like, I would speak to no one for days on end. But Simone and I are ladies, and we have learned how to pretend for form’s sake.”

  “You know so much,” I said admiringly. “I have heard that the daughters of the best families in this city came to you to learn deportment.”

  She stiffened and said, “Yes, that is true. But I am no longer in the business of instructing young ladies. My, ah, health would not permit it.”

  “Oh.” I looked crestfallen. “That is a great misfortune. I would have cut off my hair for a chance to learn from you. I would have found a way to pay you, too. I would have begged in the streets for money. But I have come too late. I am unlucky. I am cursed! I shall never have a home. I will always wander alone and unloved and ignorant over the face of the earth, and no one will care what becomes of me. My Grandfather the Count,” I sighed deeply, “would be very unhappy if he could see what has become of the little one he loved.”

  I looked sharply at the old woman from under my lashes, measuring the effect of my words.

  Madame Odette paced the floor slowly. “It is true,” she said thoughtfully, “that, ah, circumstances forced my retirement from teaching. I must confess that I have found this state of inaction to be very dull. I have missed the company of young girls.” She stopped in front of me and studied me long and hard. I kept silent, waiting. “What a coup it would be,” Madame Odette murmured, “to turn a Gypsy scullery maid into the most beautiful woman in Paris! What a pleasure it would be to put Simone’s nose out of joint—permanently. And to show Seth Garrett—! Yes, it’s possible. It is definitely possible.” She walked around me as I stood motionless. “Stand up straight!” she snapped. I obeyed. “Beauty is not enough, Rhawnie. You need breeding! Without breeding you would be as a beautiful weed standing in a patch of exquisite cultivated roses. Do you understand what I am saying?”

  “No. Madame.”

  “The rose,” Madame Odette explained, “even the flawed rose, has that unmistakable quality, that something special, that a weed can never have. You do have some breeding. I can see that now. Good blood tells, it always tells. Nobility is written all over you. I don’t know why I didn’t see it before! But because you were raised by a band of horrid Gypsies, your upbringing has been sadly botched and this nobility has been forgotten.”

  “They weren’t horrid,” I said staunchly. “They were wonderful!”

  “Yes, yes. But they were wild flowers, child. Weeds! Don’t you see what I’m saying? Among Gypsies your life would have been secure. You know their customs, their ways. I am sure that any Gypsy man would have been quite satisfied with you for a wife.”

  “That is true,” I said eagerly. “I was even betrothed! I would be married now if Django hadn’t been killed.”

  “But fortune,” mused Madame Odette, “has delivered you into my hands.”

  “It is my good fortune and your burden,” I said humbly. “I have already learned so much, just by watching you and the elegant people who come to see you.”

  “Have you, indeed? Then you have seen that the men who come to this house are not like Gypsies. A gypsy man might find your wild, uncivilized ways and your lack of manners charming. But any civilized man would be repulsed by them.”

  “That is true,” I nodded. I thought of Seth Garrett’s ill-concealed disgust. “I will never find a man to marry me. I am Gypsy no more, and no gorgio—no civilized man— would take me as I am. Oh, I need to learn how to be a lady! And you are the only woman in the world who could have taught me what I need to know! But I have come too late.”

  “Perhaps not.” Odette Mornay smiled for the first time. “It may be the best thing in the world that you came here just when I had the, ah, leisure to devote my full attention to your education.”

  “I cannot believe what you are saying,” I breathed excitedly. “You will really teach me? That is so? Oh, Madame!” I fell on my knees and kissed Madame Odette’s hands gratefully. “I will never be able to thank you enough! I will pay you,” I vowed. “I will beg in the streets for the money to pay you!”

  “No, no!” Madame Odette urged me to my feet. “That would be most improper! Unthinkable! Listen to me, child. If you do as I say, if you obey me in everything, you will be able to marry a gentleman. Don’t you believe all that nonsense of Simone’s about her marriage proposals. Do you think for one minute that she wouldn’t be married now if any one of those men had proposed to her?” She rubbed her hands. “We will show them, you and I. We’ll show them all that Odette Mornay could have done wonders with their stupid daughters. I shall marry you to a nobleman! To a prince! And that will be payment enough for me!”

  “I cannot believe my good fortune!” I exclaimed. “I will do as you say, Madame. I will obey your every command! Oh, Madame, my Grandfather the Count,” I sighed rapturously, “would be so proud if he could know about this!”

  “You will be the granddaughter of an old friend of mine,” Madame Odette decided. “We met while he was visiting Paris—oh, so long ago! He has never forgotten me. He has entrusted you to my care. I shall teach you table manners and dancing and singing. You will learn how to walk, how to speak beautiful French, how to stay awake at the opera, how to dance the waltz—! Ah, there is so much to do! And when I feel you are ready, you will make your debut at the most elegant ball in Paris. I still have the power to make sure you are seen in all the best places.

  “We must begin at once! I will see about having some proper clothes made for you. I have some old dresses that might be altered to fit—I hope the allowance at the seams is generous enough. It would be foolish to buy new things until you have finished growing. And until you are ready to be seen in public. I must keep you hidden until at least two months before the Delacroix ball. And no more working as a maid—it’s death on the hands. Now stand up straight, straight! Don’t be ashamed of your height, my girl. Glory in it! How I wish I had been as regal-looking as you! Be glad you’re not a runt like us French women. When you appear in a crowd, no man will be able to look at any other woman! You will be magnificent, glorious, the toast of Paris. I, Odette Mornay, promise you this!"

  Late that night I sat in my window and looked up at the stars, and I thought about the journeys I had made: from Bryansk to the Rue de Vaugirard in Paris; from Gypsy beggar to gorgio lady. And I thought about Seth, who had said that I would never be anything but a dirty Gypsy. He was wrong. I was willing to endure any discomfort, any torture, just to prove to him that he was wrong. He would never laugh at me again, I vowed. Never. I would learn the gorgio customs and habits, and I would know these people better than they knew themselves. I would sleep in a bed and I would wear shoes in the summertime and drab dresses that had only one skirt and no pockets. I would be a better gorgio than any of them. I would be civilized.

  And when Seth Ga
rrett saw me again—and I was sure he would, for were not our futures linked?—he would see how foolish he had been. He might even fall in love with me. And I would turn the tables on him, and laugh at him, and break his heart.

  I worked hard and progressed rapidly. For the next ten months the litany of beauty sounded in my ears: “Don’t slouch! Don’t eat so fast! Don’t eat so much! Don’t run! Don’t giggle like that! Here, read this book, it will be all the rage this spring.”

  “I can’t read.”

  “What do you mean, you can’t read? You mean you can’t read French?”

  “I can’t read anything. I never learned.”

  “Well!”

  But Madame Odette did not teach me to read. There was no time. Instead she gave me voice lessons and dancing lessons and speech lessons. She taught me how to twirl a parasol and how to look at a man from under my hat, and how to smile coyly and sweetly when he kissed my fingertips. She taught me how to pour tea from a silver pot, how to eat snails, how to use a finger bowl, how to laugh like a lady and not like a wild Gypsy girl. I mastered the intricacies of corset lacings, bonnet strings, petticoats, and fans. I learned how to dance the polka and the waltz, the mazurka and the reel. And I never again sucked my tea through a sugar lump, at least not when anyone was watching.

  Wonderful things happened. I finally stopped growing, much to everyone’s relief because I was five feet eleven inches tall. And then I started to fill out. My little breasts blossomed and became as firm and as round as small oranges. I was ecstatic, delirious. Now when I looked at myself in the mirror I saw a woman, a real woman, and not a gaunt scarecrow. My hips were shapely and my legs were very long and slender. I had a tiny waist and a straight back and nice shoulders, not too bony and not too plump, as Madame Odette said. She pronounced my smile radiant, and my carriage graceful. Too graceful.

  “Don’t swing your hips when you walk!” my mentor cried at least five times a day.