The Consequences of Champagne and Murder

Chapter Five - Even Proper Gentlemen Falter In the Presence of the Bastille

I emerged from my room the next day once the sky looked as if someone had spilled a bottle of calligraphy ink across the horizon. Though I’d intended to spend the time with Renée discussing what we wished to say to the prison governor once entered the Bastille, every time I imagined venturing belowstairs, the unforgiving embrace of fear gripped my heart, and I went right back to lying on my bed to watch sunshine and shadows flit across my ceiling. 

However, the semblance of control I’d mustered earlier disappeared the second I stepped into the grand salon and my eyes landed on Mother. She leaned back against a white velvet chaise, legs propped on a stack of satin pillows and jeweled slippers dangling precariously from her feet. Her hand clasped a crystal glass filled with a clear liquid I had a sneaking suspicion wasn’t water. When I crossed the threshold, she glanced up, raised her glass in greeting, and waved me over with a flick of her alabaster wrist.

“Olivier, mon petit chou, come give your Maman a kiss.”

I shuffled into the room, only then noticing Renée in the corner with a mint and cream striped pillow hugged to her chest. She flicked her eyes to me, and in them was all I needed to know; Mother was in one of her moods—one that came on whenever any of her children were sick, hurt, or in need of care.  

“Maman.” I leaned over to give her a hasty kiss on the cheek, nearly toppling into her rose-scented décolletage. She was in an impossible position, head angled away and one hand thrown across her forehead. But her moods rendered her immovable, no matter the circumstance. I assumed she’d been in the same position for at least an hour.

“My head aches terribly,” Mother said, words whispered in a tiny whine. “I had to have something to drink.”

“Your son was arrested, Maman!” Renée burst out. “Don’t you have anything to say about that?”

Mother flinched, hand tightening around her glass. Her eyes didn’t move from where they were fixed on the cloud-covered fresco along the ceiling. “I know what happened, Renée. You needn’t shout. It worsens my headache.”

I looked at Renée, and she responded with an unspoken plea, eyes wide and begging for me to come to her aid. Though I wasn’t certain what she expected me to do. Talking to Mother when she was in this state was like talking to a damask chaise. All she ever did was whine and fuss and demand more of whatever she was drinking, all the while remaining frozen as a blanket of fresh fallen snow. She’d remained frozen when I had my first nervous attack as a child, when I was certain I would choke to death on my own frantic fear. And I knew she would remain frozen now. It was what she did—what she had always done. 

“Renée is right, Maman,” I said, voice halting and tentative. I hated attempting to reason with Mother after countless years of being brushed off when I needed her most. But this was for Étienne, dammit, and I had to at least try. “We’re going to the Bastille later this evening to meet with the prison governor. Perhaps if you or Father joined us, we could get everything straightened out.”

Mother’s fingers gripped the glass tighter, until I feared the crystal would shatter under her touch. “I couldn’t. I— My headache. There is nothing I could do— No, I couldn’t.”

“Why not?” Renée leapt up from the couch. “I don’t understand why you never want to help.”

I placed a hand on Mother’s wrist. “If you’re feeling unwell, perhaps Father could—”

“Your father is at the Palais-Royal, chéri.” Mother said nothing more, but that was all the explanation I needed. Father was gambling. Father wouldn’t dare tear himself away from his games even if we were able to travel to the palace and find him in the smoke-filled dens.