Mademoiselle Eiffel, page 1
Dedication
For my parents, Wayne and Kathleen Trumbly,
who never questioned that I was the author of my own story
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Author’s Note
Reading Group Guide
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Praise for Mademoiselle Eiffel
Also by Aimie K. Runyan
Copyright
About the Publisher
Chapter One
September 7, 1891
1, rue Rabelais, Paris
“Damn the brutes.” Papa muttered an uncharacteristic curse as he surveyed the wreckage of his office. He lingered over a pile of white plaster shards that had once been a likeness of some Greek goddess or another, shaking his head. “That statue belonged to my mother.”
My lips turned up at the memory of my grandmother, the great Bonne Maman Eiffel. Were she still with us, I liked to imagine she would have fended off the intruders with the power of her steely gaze alone. Where lesser mortals might have needed a blade or a firearm, her fittingly Gorgon-esque stare would have been enough to terrify a workaday thief into a life so virtuous they’d be fit for the Vatican.
“She gave it to you and Maman because she hated it, if it’s any consolation.” She’d muttered as much one day when she’d seen it in Papa’s office and didn’t realize I could overhear. She thought the neoclassical phase, with all the scantily clad Greek deities, was an unmistakable sign that civilization had irrevocably teetered over the precipice of decline. The statue must have been a gift from someone significant enough that it couldn’t be disposed of, no matter how discreetly, but passed along to young newlyweds who so desperately needed to feather their new nest.
She was always a clever one, especially when it served her own interests.
Or those of the Eiffel family name.
“Have the brigands taken anything?” Adolphe stepped gingerly around some strewn papers; sketches of a bridge in some remote corner of the Orient that Papa had been engaged to build some years back. There were dozens of detailed plans for the ambitious projects of the company papering the floor so that the thick Turkish rug was hardly visible beneath them. “Was there anything of value in here?”
My hand fluttered to the ruby collar at my throat. Another expensive token of Papa’s affection and appreciation. And there were many others in the case upstairs. The cool bands of metal felt as though they might constrict around my windpipe. As extravagant as the bespoke silk gown I wore for an evening at the opera and a decadent meal beforehand at the Café de la Paix.
“These weren’t robbers coming after my diamond ear bobs, Adolphe.” My husband crossed his arms, awaiting my explanation. I went to the sideboard for a snifter of cognac before sating his curiosity. “They were looking for evidence to use against Papa and the company.”
With my free hand I gestured to the forest of ledgers that covered the entire surface of Papa’s mammoth desk, all of them open, though nothing ripped or damaged. Those documents were treated with a modicum of care. The looters had been reading them and searching for the evidence to prove their case against the Compagnie Eiffel.
I sipped my cognac. “I’d wager Maman’s rosary that there are several volumes of ledgers missing: 1886 to 1889, when the canal project folded. Even those since then, if they wanted to be thorough.”
Adolphe crossed to the desk and examined the leather tomes for himself. “Every ledger since 1886 up through last year. They didn’t get this year’s because it’s locked in my desk upstairs. For trained police, they treated your father’s property with no more respect than common thieves, whatever you say.”
I nodded. “They acted like thugs, I won’t deny it. The staff were scared out of their wits. I’m only glad they didn’t try to interfere with the search and get themselves in trouble to protect us. The police had their warrant and I’m certain they planned it deliberately for an evening we’d be away so we wouldn’t have the chance to hide anything.”
“I can only imagine how they must have felt. A miserable business, the lot of it.” Papa flung himself into his chair and rubbed his eyes in exhaustion.
I placed a hand on his shoulder. “You’ll have to speak to them all in the morning. Don’t just assure them that you in no way hold them responsible for the actions of a few zealous detectives, but rather thank them for their cooperation with the authorities in a manner that corroborates the innocence of the Eiffel name and your company.”
Adolphe stifled a growl at the idea of his father-in-law, employer, and mentor having to smooth over such a thing with the staff, but Papa understood what had to be done. “Quite right, I’m sure.”
“You know I am,” I said, my eyes fixed on my husband rather than my father. “But I’d very much like to know one thing.”
“And what’s that?” Adolphe said in a tone that betrayed that he was more than a little frightened of what query I would pose.
“Will they find what they’re looking for?”
Adolphe and Papa exchanged glances that confessed the truth they were loath to speak. The accusations against Papa and the company might be overblown, but they weren’t baseless.
I fought against the urge to hurl the snifter against the brick of the fireplace but restrained myself. The time might come when we’d regret the loss of expensive crystal that could fetch a price. I gripped the mantel and gritted my teeth.
It might not be my face that had been plastered across every scandal rag from Cherbourg to Marseille. It wasn’t my name that would be sullied. But it might as well have been.
I’d sworn an oath to Papa years ago, and I hadn’t faltered a single step in that time. I would not fail him in his hour of greatest need. The sacrifices had been too great to stumble now.
But try though I might, it might not be enough to save that which mattered most to him.
His legacy.
Chapter Two
September 1877
Levallois-Perret, Hauts-de-Seine, Île-de-France, France
As was often the case after a long day, and this had been the longest of my life, my eyes trailed to the massive tapestry on the far wall of the sitting room. I’d stared at it so often that even the smallest detail was burned into my memory. It was a quaint pastoral scene that had been woven a hundred years before by Papa’s family when they settled in Paris. The grass was composed of a dozen shades of green; the sky was a melody of countless blues. Even the shepherdess’s dress spanned every nuance of pink available to the imagination. Each strand of thread had been chosen with careful deliberation to make the scene seem as realistic as if it had been committed to canvas with the brush of a master painter. I imagined my great-to-the-third-degree grandfather overseeing the work on this very tapestry, perfectly content to have a seamstress remove hours’ worth of stitches if the colors weren’t precisely right. Papa had to have come by his exacting nature somehow, and it served him well. In architecture, there was even less room for imperfection. One botched calculation could cost untold lives.
“At least the worst is over.”
My head—and the thoughts inside it—pivoted to where Bonne Maman Eiffel rested on a plush fauteuil. She was a formidable woman with a solemn face and shrewd eyes that were not tempered with kindness like Papa’s. She leaned forward in her seat, her hand gripping the ball of her cane, and sighed as though the black dress she wore were made of iron instead of crêpe.
A heavy silence weighed on the room. We all looked at her in disbelief. The funeral was over, yes. The last stragglers from the throng of visitors who had come to pay their respects to my much-lamented mother had left, and we now regained some solitude in the house. Only my aunt, uncle, and grandparents remained in addition to our little family of six, and I could admit I was glad for some quiet.
But was the worst of it over? No. Not by half.
The funeral was indeed an ordeal. It involved planning and organization and a generous measure of grace and poise. Things the Eiffel family possessed in spades. But now that the work of the services was over, we didn’t have anything to distract us from the real task at hand: learning how to rebuild our lives without Maman.
Papa seemed as if he wanted to dole out a rebuke to his mother but swallowed back his censure. “Quite” was all he could muster.
“Papa, you should have some coffee.” I leapt from the settee and crossed the room to pour him a cup from the service on the sideboard before he could object. The maids had, on my orders, kept it filled with coffee, tea, and platters of simple food throughout the gathering that afternoon. Strong coffee, I’d insisted, the sort that might peel the enamel from your teeth, just as Papa liked it. I added a couple of his favorite butter biscuits in a wordless plea for him to eat something. He’d only picked at meals, and I was certain from the dark circles under his eyes that sleep was no friend to him.
I expected him to refuse as I approached his seat with the coffee and pastry, but his eyes met mine for a moment and he gave a small smile of appreciation as he accepted them. I felt the muscles loosen in my shoulders as he took a sip from the cup and absentmindedly dipped the edge of a biscuit in the strong brew. It was an improvement. I couldn’t bear the thought of him growing weak and falling ill as Maman had done. He had a far stronger constitution than she had, but it wasn’t a chance I was willing to take.
“I suppose your father is the only one who merits such attentions?” Bonne Maman chided. Of course, no one else could be doted upon in her presence if she were not included.
“My apologies,” I mumbled, rising to fetch her a cup and some biscuits of her own.
“No, I can’t drink coffee after luncheon, or I won’t sleep a wink. It’s the principle of the thing, Claire.”
Papa made no attempt to hide the rolling of his eyes.
Bonne Maman and Bon Papa would return to Dijon next week, which would be a loss and a relief in almost equal measure. Tante Marie and Oncle Albert lived close enough that they would return home after the supper that none of us would likely touch. I wished they would stay to help divert Bonne Maman’s attention, but I wouldn’t impose it on them.
“Dearest Marguerite,” Tante Marie said. “It won’t be the same without her laugh.”
“Such an affable, sweet woman,” Bonne Maman said, for once in agreement with her daughter. And it was true.
Maman hadn’t been as vibrant as Tante Marie or as sharp-witted as Bonne Maman, but her presence had been soothing in a way no one else’s was. No one else’s could be.
I felt, for perhaps the millionth time, the tears burning at the corners of my eyes, begging to be released in a torrent. I kept the dam from bursting, but a few errant tears slid down my cheeks.
“Not now, child. We mustn’t upset the little ones. They’ve lost their mother.” Bonne Maman clucked her tongue in reproach. Little Valentine, seven years old, and the most beautiful girl in all of France in my view, was playing despondently in a corner with the baby, little Albert, who was only four. If they noticed my tears, it would be through a veil of their own.
Albert didn’t fully understand what was going on but could read our sadness like words on a page. Valentine understood better and pined for her maman with heartbreaking candor.
Laure, who was only a year my junior at the age of thirteen, sat beside the spot I’d vacated on the settee. She looked like a miniature version of Maman, and was every bit as elegant. She had daintily dabbed her own tears with a lacy handkerchief throughout the day. Édouard, just eleven and on leave from school for the funeral, tried to manfully keep his tears from surfacing, but he hadn’t been entirely successful.
Tante Marie turned to her mother. “As did Claire.” Her tone was low and soft as velvet but laced with venom.
Bonne Maman shot Tante Marie one of her famous withering glares. She didn’t speak a word, but her meaning was clear enough: It isn’t the same. She’s older and must be mistress of herself for their sakes.
She wasn’t entirely wrong. Valentine, and especially little Albert, would only have dim memories, faded around the edges, to cling to. I’d had fourteen years with her. It was far more than they would have. But that didn’t mean it was anything like enough.
It was never supposed to be this way. Maman was supposed to live decades longer, and I was supposed to have a mother for many years after I had children of my own. I had questions. About growing into a woman, about marriage and babies, about running a house. All those chapters of my life lay ahead of me, and I knew nothing about how to take them on.
I had spent so much time trying to be Papa’s shadow, I’d never taken the time to be Maman’s. To learn all the lessons she had to teach.
Bonne Maman? She’d tell me I was an Eiffel and clever enough to figure it out on my own and to, for heaven’s sake, stop pestering her.
Tante Marie would be more helpful, but she had her own house to manage and enough to get on with without having me as an added concern. She never had children of her own, and I sensed she enjoyed the freedoms her childless state afforded her.
Maman was only three years older than I was now when she married Papa. When Maman was alive, it seemed like I’d have an eternity before I had to worry about adult concerns like marriage and managing a house and children. Now that she was gone, those milestones in my life would come all too soon, whether I was prepared or not.
And I was not.
A maid came to collect Valentine and Albert for their dinner in the nursery, and the rest of us went into the dining room. Bonne Maman looked askance when Édouard joined us at the table. At the age of eleven, he was a bit young to dine in company, but he was already enrolled at school and perfectly well-behaved enough for a family dinner.
The cook, Monsieur Lebec, had been at dire straits trying to prepare meals that would please us when it seemed nothing could tempt us to eat. I’d tried to reassure him that nothing was amiss with the food itself, only our appetites, but he was still peevish that so much of the food went untouched. Tonight, he set before us course after course of culinary marvels, taking extra care since Bonne Maman was in attendance. He would hear of it if she were displeased, and he knew it well. My head swirled as the canapés were followed by watercress soup. An exquisitely roasted duck in a port wine reduction, braised carrots, and green beans with butter-and-almond sauce were on their way. My stomach rolled at the thought of such richness. We would have to sit through the main course, cheeses, and then poires Belle Hélène—pears poached in sugar, drizzled with chocolate, and served with vanilla ice cream. The dessert was Bonne Maman’s favorite, so I ordered it especially to please her. And while most of us merely sampled our food, Bonne Maman, Bon Papa, and Oncle Albert ate heartily. At least Monsieur Lebec would be mollified that our guests were pleased.
The conversation had been muted through the appetizers, but it seemed Bonne Maman could not let the soup course come to completion without getting down to the business at hand.
“Now that poor Marguerite is laid to rest, your work will require your attention again, Gustave. Even in such sorrowful circumstances, you cannot allow mistakes to happen when the company bears the Eiffel name.” She thunked her spoon down next to the bowl, which sounded as definite as the hammering of a gavel.
“Maman, I hardly think this is the time—” Tante Marie interjected.
“If not now, when, Marie? Gustave cannot afford to stain the reputation of a company in its infancy. No one will much care that he is mourning for his wife if one of his bridges collapses or a building tumbles over.” Bonne Maman’s expression dared anyone to contradict her.
“Gustave knows better than anyone the value of reputation in this business, and he doesn’t need you to remind him of it, woman.” Bon Papa spoke for the first time since arriving beyond “hello,” “goodbye,” and general pleasantries with the guests that afternoon.
“Thank you,” Papa said, his voice several degrees lower and huskier than I was used to. He sat up taller in his seat and directed his gaze toward Bonne Maman. “I’m getting daily reports from the workshops and regular reports from our projects abroad. I’m keeping an eye on all of it, even now.”
“That is all well and good, Son. But your clients need to see you with feet on the ground overseeing things,” she pressed.
“In due time, Maman,” Papa said.
“Gustave, I really must insist—”
Papa, for perhaps the first time in his life, put up a hand to silence her.
