Chapter 55
I did not see DeLuc again for the rest of the evening. It was fortunate for the both of us that his role in Le Baudelaire had been completed before he had come after me. No doubt he had spent the rest of the performance in his dressing room with a cold compress pressed to his broken nose. He would look horrid for the next several days. That thought gave me satisfaction to no end. There was not a doubt in my mind that if he were questioned about his bruised and crooked face, he would concoct some tale of slipping and falling or walking into a doorway. He would be the laughingstock of the Opera if it were revealed that his handsome nose had been broken by a woman and a mere costumer at that.
I would, of course, not tell a soul. My position was too precious to risk. But I was looking forward to gloating over that swollen nose with unholy glee. It was at least something to look forward to when so much of my former happiness had dimmed.
Jeanette and Marie found me in the costume room the next morning with a red-rimmed eyes and a handkerchief fisted in one hand. I had spent a terrible night in my room, replaying that moment with Erik in the shadows beyond the stage. These encounters were so brief, but they were all I seemed to have left of him. After even coffee hadn't roused me and put me in a better frame of mind, I had simply gone to the costume room early to start work. But even surrounded by a hundred possible little tasks I could be pursuing, I sat. And thought of Erik.
My emotions had begun to get the best of me, memories prickling me with a thousand points of pain before the pair of girls had walked in and found me pressing the folded bit of linen to my nose to stop the dripping.
"Genevieve! Whatever is the matter?" Marie pressed passed her sister, rounding the table to my side, but I pushed back my chair from where I had been writing out the list of duties that needed to be performed today. I stood wearily and placed a hand on my hip, surveying the room. The materials we had purchased yesterday were set upon the long tables.
"Nothing. Just thinking of Madame Lefevre. Wishing she were here." My tongue burned from the lie. I hated using my deceased friend in such a way, but I could hardly tell them I was sitting here weeping over my former lover who, by the way, was a wanted murderer.
Marie frowned softly at me, but then turned and flounced down into the chair that I had just been sitting in. "What should we do first?"
I picked up the list, and pulled the pencil out from behind my ear.
"We'll go on just as we did for Le Baudelaire. The corps de ballet should have theirs completed first, as they are the largest number and are all the same. They'll also need their costumes first." No doubt such action would result in another fit from Carlotta Giudiacelli. The woman seemed to believe that without her costume done she simply couldn't rehearse!
I turned to the twins and mustered up a wicked grin.
"I do hope neither of you mind having colorful hands."
One hour later, I found that Marie and Jeanette did, indeed, mind having colorful hands.
The three of us were upon the floor, fresh newsprint spread out beneath us with the tubs of water and dye at our knees. Each of us was elbow deep in the water, working the dye into the yards of muslin we held in our hands.
In the costume rack room, I'd found three peasant blouses with short puffed sleeves and ordered the girls to their room to change and had advised them to wear dark skirts. My own were a set of black traveling skirts that I rarely wore. If they were to be splashed and discolored, it would be no hardship.
The thin muslin dresses would resemble a column like sheath when not in motion, dyed in various jeweled tones. But once the slave girls began to dance, the slits cut up to the hips would be revealed, allowing for a wide range of motion as they whirled about the stage. A simple corded belt would be tied about their waist.
The concept of the ballet costumes was a simple one and very appropriate for the wardrobe of an Egyptian female slave. These ensembles would be created first and finished very quickly. It was the dying of the fabric that would take the longest. Each fibre had to be soaked thoroughly with dye, then allowed to drip dry, then dyed once more. During that process, the muslin would shrink a bit, and the final pieces would be cut from the colored cloth.
Across from me, Marie's blonde curls had begun to loosen and bob in her face. She lifted a hand to wipe them away.
"Ah, ah, ah!" I chided her quickly. She blinked up at me, then looked at her hand, which was dripping with sapphire blue water. "Do you really want blue curls, dear?"
"No!" With a frustrated sigh she plunged her hand back into the water.
"Will this dye come out? Of our skin that is?" Jeanette asked, staring with disdain at her ruby colored skin.
"Haven't you ever dyed cloth before?" I asked, furrowing my brow as I worked my hands into the emerald water.
They shook their heads.
"No. Madame Lefevre always bought pre-dyed muslin."
"Good Heavens! No wonder the costume department has such an outrageous budget! I have a meeting with the new accountant, a Monsieur McInery, next week and I shall have to explain to him why we no longer need so much money!" I shook my head and resumed working the dye into the cloth.
"New...new..." Marie began to mumble. I stared up at her, wrinkling my nose. What was the girl mumbling about?
Her eyes lit up. "Oh! Genevieve! I completely forgot! Monsieur Andre passed me this morning and told me to tell you that your new assistant will be here today!"
"Marie! How could you forget such a thing! Madame Rouchard was not to be here until Monday! It's only Saturday! I don't even have her supply box and station set up yet!" I got to my feet and wrapped an old towel around my hands before hurrying over to the work area that had once belonged to me before Madame Lefevre had passed. I began to put together a supply box as quickly as I could.
Now that I was Head Costumer, I needed a new assistant. Our workload had doubled since Madame Lefevre's passing and the twins, while very accomplished, still did not possess half the knowledge that I had. They were apt learners, but quite silly and absent minded at times. I really needed someone with previous costuming experience on their resume. Madame Amelia Rouchard had come with sterling references.
An American, she had married a French-born American man and had moved to France after serving as Assistant Costumer at a well known theatre in New York. Many Parisian modistes had been loathe to hire an unfashionable American, and she was only twenty-two. But her references had simply been too good to pass up and I'd immediately informed M. Andre and M. Firmin that she was my choice. I had yet to meet her.
Her husband, an actor and a tenor, was also auditioning today as the replacement for Devre DeLuc, who do to an unfortunate accident involving a door and his handsome nose, was unable to perform tonight. Monsieur Hugh Rouchard knew the role of the Prince in Le Baudelaire quite well, apparently, and if he passed muster, he would be put in until DeLuc's nose had healed.
"When will she be here?" I asked Marie as I finished the supply box.
"Oh, I believe Monsieur Andre said nine o'clock."
I glanced up at the clock just as a knock came at the door.
"Marie!"
"Sorry!"
I soon found that Madame Amelia Rouchard was a woman well worth her salt.
Within only one hour of meeting her, I had given her a tour of the costume department, introduced her to the twins, explained her duties, and showed her the progress report on the costumes for Aida. She listened quietly and took notes, her intelligent brown eyes observant to every detail. At the end of the hour she was also dressed in a peasant blouse and on her knees beside us, her hands sunk in dark gold dye and water.
To say I was impressed with her would be an understatement. She had a very thorough understanding of street and stage fashion. After showing her the list of costumes for the Bal Masque, she had already made several suggestions for various designs, and we resolved to sit down after luncheon to begin sketching.
She was a petite, slender young woman with long, straight black hair tied back from her face in a braid down her back, wisps of hair falling over her brow. With pale skin, almond shaped brown eyes that hinted at an Oriental ancestry and a contagious smile, she was instantly likeable and approachable. She spoke with a charming American accent that had the girls giving her dubious glances that I hushed with a glare. She was the daughter of a seamstress, taught to sew her own clothes since girlhood. She'd worked in the theatre since the age of sixteen and had met her husband, Hugh, there.
As we sat together upon the floor she told us how she had met him, one day upon the stage. The handsome, cheeky young actor had quickly charmed her with his wit and affability. Her smile went dreamy as she described the first time she had heard him sing. Her beloved was a rich, melodic tenor with a voice that could caress the audience's ears in a soft whisper or shake down the rafters with its power.
The twins beside me were sighing with every breath, stars in their eyes. I shook my head at their silliness. They were positively green with envy.
Close to lunchtime a knock came at the door.
The four of us were hanging up the dyed muslin soaked from their first coloring, but I called out for the visitor to enter.
The door opened and a tall, devilishly handsome, raven-haired man entered with a rakish smile.
"Darling!" Amelia came toward him with open arms, and he accepted her hug, gold-stained arms and all. She turned to us after giving him a very forward kiss. "Genevieve, Marie, Jeanette, this is my husband that I have been bragging about so shamelessly, Hugh Rouchard."
I came forward with a smile, wrapping my hands off on a towel and giving him a curtsey. He took my emerald hand and kissed it, then folded it into his own.
"Miss Devereaux, I cannot tell you how pleased I am that you've taken in my Milly," he said, a hint of his accent showing as he spoke his wife's nickname. "I'm sure she won't disappoint you."
I couldn't help but blush before his lopsided smile and twinkling dark brown eyes. This man was a charmer!
Behind me the twins were sighing with gusto. He turned the same charming smile on them, and I think I heard their bones melt. With a kiss to each of their small hands, he once again bowed to me, winked, and whisked Amelia off for their lunch together. They left the room with their dark heads bent together as if sharing some tender secret, his hand giving her a firm pat on the bottom. She gave him a reciprocal swat to the backside and they disappeared.
I stared after them. And I couldn't help the small, unworthy twinge of jealously.
What I would give for Erik and I to be able to share such moments, let alone in public, unafraid of who may see and what repercussions might come about.
I looked down at my emerald stained hands. Hmmpf! Green with envy, indeed!
If you read the original, you know that the American woman in this chapter was originally Julie, but on a good suggestion from Mominator, I changed her name for less confusion.
I had a PM asking me about where I'm at in the writing and I've edited up to chapter 64 of the original story and I'm writing all new chapters at this point. The story won't last many chapters past 64, perhaps 10 more or so. As for pricing, I am thinking of having the ebook be about 4.99 and the print be perhaps 7.99.
I apologize for how slowly the chapters are coming. Without having internet at home and just using my breaks at the library I work at, I don't have much time. I'm a supervisor there, so even when I do have breaks I often have to leave them to handle this and that, so I try to get as much done as I can in such a short time.
