Note: Before I begin, I have to thank my beta reader Allegratree for all her corrections. You've really made this story a whole lot better!
Françoise knocked once at the bedroom door and left the cup of plain, strong tea ―how could anyone drink such a concoction was beyond her― on the side table. Then she knocked at the door across the hall and entered.
"Good morning, Gracie," she said, as she strode towards the windows.
She opened the curtains and let the morning sunlight in. She was greeted with a low grunt from the bed, and Gracie turned against the wall.
"It's quarter past seven," remarked Françoise as she went out of the room. "Breakfast is ready."
She smiled as she saw the child sit up and rub her eyes. There was no better way to get that girl out of bed than to promise her a good meal.
She closed the door quietly, knowing that Gracie wouldn't go to sleep again and that Monsieur Devaux disliked unnecessary noises. He hadn't needed to give her a special instruction on that regard. She had avoided them altogether when she had noticed him wince at the slightest clunk or crash.
On her way back to the kitchen, Françoise noticed the cup of tea had already disappeared into Monsieur Devaux's room. She had never found out how he managed to move so swiftly and quietly. At first it had rattled her when she suddenly found him in a room she had thought was empty, or when he disappeared from the place he'd been a moment before. But he always apologised so civilly when she gave a start and every time she'd jumped up there had been something in his eyes that had struck her. It wasn't only that he seemed to deeply regret having scared her, but it was almost as if her fear pained him. So she had reined her nerves, and had slowly become accustomed to his sudden apparitions and disappearances.
Just as she had learned to follow his instructions to the letter. Not that she had ever gone against his wishes. Not that she had ever been careless in fulfilling his orders. No one could say Françoise Huet had ever been negligent in her work. She might be only a maid, yes, but she had always carried out her obligations most punctiliously. But many of Monsieur Devaux's orders had been so eccentric that Françoise had wondered about his motives for issuing them. The request that she never entered a room without knocking first at the door and receiving an answer was irrelevant and it cast doubt on her good manners. The demand that she didn't start any friendship with the other maids and servants in the neighbourhood had struck her as absurd. His derisive comments on gossip had been unnecessarily harsh and offensive. The order that she never, under any circumstances, abandoned her room at night was, to say the least, utterly irregular.
The first months she had worked for him, he had been aloof and imposing, severe and obsessive. His words were sharp, and his manners curt. And his way of life, always locked up in that apartment, backing up from the windows when he thought he could be seen from the outside, never receiving any visits but that of the mysterious foreigner that had first interviewed her, was odd and suspect. So, in those initial months, Françoise had followed his instructions warily and full of mistrust.
The circumstances that had surrounded her entering into his service had helped to form this first, negative impression of him. Françoise was not from Paris, and she didn't know the city well, although she had lived in it for more than fifteen years. She had come to the city when Mademoiselle Letellier, an old spinster she had come to serve in her native town of Gisors, had set her residence in the capital. It had been an odd occurrence, that such an old lady decided to sell all of her possessions and moved so far away from the place of her birth, but Mademoiselle Letellier had always been an independent type, so Françoise had never questioned her decision. She didn't have anyone back home, either, so it wasn't like she was going to miss anybody. She served Mademoiselle for many years, never venturing farther away from the apartment than the local grocer's. When Mademoiselle died and her heirs sold the apartment, auctioned the furniture and shared out the rest of her belongings, Françoise found herself in need of a position and a place to live.
Marie, one of the servants of the Leiris family, had helped her out. She had found a small room for Françoise and had sought a job for her. Marie had found the ad in the newspaper and had urged Françoise to answer to it. Marie had instructed her about how she should answer the questions and which names and addresses she had to give when asked for references. Marie had advised her to try to get the job, despite the mysterious behaviour of the foreigner who had talked to all of the people she knew in the neighbourhood and who'd sent his servant to follow her for over a week, until Françoise had been half scared with worry. And then there had come the interview with her real employer.
The first talk with Monsieur Devaux had been unsettling, to say the least. She had been showed into a very dark sitting room and there she had stood, trying to adjust her eyes to the disconcerting twilight, long before she spotted the man sitting on the armchair on the darkest corner of the room. She could barely make out his form. He had asked her many questions, not only about her skills as a maid, but about herself, about her family, her acquaintances and her former employers, as if she was applying, not for a job, but to become a member of his family. At last, he had informed her of her duties. They were not extremely complicated. He lived alone with his only daughter, a child of nine. She would work six days a week, and would have one day free. Besides cleaning, cooking and shopping, washing and ironing, she would have to walk his daughter to school every day, and would accompany her to church on Sundays. And then he had said the first thing that had disturbed her deeply:
"I'm not a religious man, Mademoiselle. Gracie knows nothing of what goes on in a church. You'll have to teach her."
Many of the things he had said afterwards had sounded stranger than that, but none had been as striking as his last remark.
"I'm a very private person. I have a lifetime of experiences to prefer the quiet and solitude of my home to the public eye. I'll explain to you why I want it that way. Just once. And then I will not have the matter mentioned again. Understood?"
"Yes, Monsieur."
He suddenly stood up. Françoise was appalled by the swiftness of his movements and by his height. But she was most disturbed when the light of the fire illuminated his face. He was wearing a mask of the same colour of his flesh. It covered the right side of his face.
"I am deformed from birth, Mademoiselle. My face is. . . extremely ugly. That's why I wear a mask. And that's why I don't care for the company of others. Now, you are not to comment this with anyone outside this house if you are willing to work here. The moment I find out you have been talking about my appearance you will be fired. Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes, Monsieur," whispered Françoise. She could feel her knees trembling, but his forbidding expression kept her from bolting out of the room.
"Very well," he said. "You'll hear from me soon."
And with a wave of his hand, he dismissed her.
She curtsied and went out of the sitting room. The foreigner's manservant saw her out of the apartment. Françoise went down the stairs, out of the building and walked all the way to her room in a state of shock. She spent the next night awake, rolling in her bed, unable to sleep. What kind of household was she about to join? A household of heretics, that much was for sure. And who knew whether this masked man was not something worse than a heathen? An infidel had no morals.
It had taken her a long conversation with Marie and another sleepless night to make up her mind. The pay was almost regal, Marie had said. It would allow Françoise to retire, to have a little place of her own in her old age. Françoise knew Marie was right. She had vowed to herself that she would never, ever, find herself in the same position she was now, alone and bereft. Four days later, she had moved her few belongings to the little room by the kitchen, at the back of the apartment.
Françoise shook her head. It all seemed so long ago, and it had only been over a year and a half since she had entered Monsieur Devaux's service. So much had changed since the first weeks in the apartment, when she had wandered uneasily, eaten little and slept less, her nerves constantly on edge, awaiting some kind of terrible crime or catastrophe. Time had passed and other things had happened, things that had slowly undermined and eventually demolished her misgivings.
The first thing that had happened had been, of course, Gracie. Françoise had never lived with a child before, and the little girl had won her heart over. She was kind and sweet, and so intelligent. And the way she spoke of her papa. . . She just adored him. So Françoise had begun to think there must be something good in the haughty, forbidding masked man, for no child would ever love anyone who didn't have anything good in him. And then she had started to perceive Monsieur Devaux's kindness herself.
It expressed itself in odd and distant ways. Like the day in which he had appeared at the kitchen door and demanded to know if she had been feeling well, if she had been eating enough. Only then had she realised that he had noticed her pallor, her nervousness and the deep shades under her eyes. She had tried to downplay her discomfort, but he would not hear a word of it. He ordered her to buy whatever food she preferred at the grocer's, had told her not to spare wood to heat her room, and had informed her that should she still feel unwell by the end of the week, he would call his personal doctor to examine her. At that, her eyes had widened in shock. Never had any of her former employers concerned themselves so much about her welfare. But he misunderstood her commotion. His eyes darted away.
"I assure you, Mademoiselle, that he is an excellent physician. . . and an honourable person," he explained tiredly.
With those words he disappeared, before Françoise could reassure him that she hadn't doubted the honesty of his intentions.
The following days had been awkward, to say the least. Françoise didn't know how to clear up their misunderstanding, and he was curt when he addressed her, if he ever did. She had tried to make herself scarce, but it was hard not to come across him in the apartment.
On Thursday morning, the Persian's manservant had come by carrying several parcels. Monsieur Devaux trusted her to go shopping for groceries, but he resorted to the Persian's manservant for his other errands.
That evening, when Françoise had entered her room, she had found one of the parcels lying on her bed. She unwrapped it to find a soft, woollen blanket. Utterly surprised but also pleased, she had spread it over her bed. How had Monsieur Devaux figured out that it was slightly colder in her room than in the rest of the apartment, she couldn't conceive.
Early the next morning, she had knocked on his door. She heard him shuffle in the room long before he opened it. She was startled by his imposing figure standing on the doorway, but she reigned herself and didn't cower.
"Yes?" his voice was sharp.
"I thought you might like a cup of tea, Monsieur," she explained, offering it to him.
He blinked a couple of times, and then looked down at the cup.
"Oh. . . Thank you."
He reached out and gently took the cup. She curtsied and stepped back.
He was about to close the door when she called to him.
"Monsieur?"
"Yes?"
"Perhaps it would. . . Perhaps it would be more convenient for you if I left your tea on the table every morning?" she asked, motioning towards the finely carved side table by his door.
He raised his visible eyebrow in a quizzical look.
"Yes, thank you," he said at last.
"I should be thanking you, Monsieur. The blanket is most warm and comfortable," said Françoise, smiling.
He dropped his head in the most elegant, most gentlemanly nod she had ever seen.
"I'm glad it suits you. I trust you're feeling better, Mademoiselle?"
She smiled again, this time with more confidence.
"Yes Monsieur. Thank you for your concern."
He nodded again and finally closed the door.
And then Françoise had begun to understand a little of Monsieur Devaux's character, though it could be safe to say that she was often astonished whenever a new trace of his personality was revealed to her. Françoise had thought her former employer, Mademoiselle Letellier, had been an eccentric, but with Monsieur Devaux she had to redefine the meaning of the word.
He was sharp and curt at the most unexpected situations, and Françoise had to learn to be on her guard against his outbursts of sarcasm. On top of everything, he could also be extremely taciturn, his conversation reduced to the shortest monosyllables for days on end. Not that Françoise had ever been the world's greatest conversationalist but she definitely preferred when some polite sentences were intertwined with the 'yeses' and the 'nos'. And then there had been the periods in which Monsieur Devaux displayed a hectic activity, in which he seemed at the brink of bursting out while confined within the walls of the apartment.
The first week Gracie had been to school, Monsieur Devaux had paced the apartment restlessly, and had almost driven Françoise mad with his agitation and irritability. He couldn't sit down for more than five minutes. He opened the newspaper to throw it away a second later. He rummaged in his bookcase or his drawers impatiently, just to put away the object or the book he had been looking for after a heartbeat. He wandered from room to room, muttering curses under his breath, as if he had gone mad.
His dark moods only vanished in the afternoons, when Gracie came back home. Then he would have tea and spend time with her, reading to her, telling her stories or playing with her. Twice or three times a week, he would also give her a piano lesson. And there were also times where they would sit at the bench and play together. It was a joy to listen to them play, not only because the melodies were so pleasant and cheerful, but also because they often laughed when they made music. Monsieur Devaux's laugher was a rich and powerful sound, and Gracie's giggles were bubbling happiness.
Slowly, Monsieur Devaux had started to grow accustomed to Gracie's absence, and began making something out of his time. At first, he would design and construct intricate toys with which he surprised his daughter. After a few weeks, the toys were not enough, so he had given himself into drawing. A week later, he already had covered his desk with all kinds of drawings and had a sketchbook full of pictures of Gracie: Gracie smiling, jumping, sitting at the piano, kneeling by the fireplace, sleeping. He even drew some very funny caricatures of Gracie scowling, which had thrown the little girl into a rant.
And then he started drawing buildings. Every morning, Françoise would come into Monsieur Devaux's room with her brooms and brushes, cloth and feather duster to find the desk brimming with blueprints and drafts, which she would spend the next hour trying to order in neat piles. There were all kinds of buildings in Monsieur Devaux's drawings: houses, cafés, museums, public offices, train stations. The only things he didn't draw were churches.
When drawing had not been enough, he had started reading voraciously.
Twice a week, on her errands, Françoise was sent to one or another bookstore with a small note and she was told not to come back without fulfilling her errand. Sometimes, she would spend a few good hours just from one bookshop to the other, trying to find Monsieur Devaux's book. One day, one of the booksellers had sent a letter with the book Françoise had purchased. Monsieur Devaux's visible eyebrow had creased while reading it, but the next week he had sent Françoise to the bookshop with a letter to the bookseller.
Thus had started a correspondence between the two of them, and Monsieur Devaux had gotten many more books and magazines from that particular bookshop. When the bookseller had asked Françoise for their address so he could visit, she had answered that Monsieur Devaux was sick, that he suffered from a chronic illness, and didn't entertain.
"But surely a brief. . ."
Françoise pressed her lips and shook her head. No, she regretted to say so, but under no circumstance would Monsieur Devaux. . . The elderly bookseller nodded. He understood well. Would she transmit Monsieur Devaux his kindest regards? Françoise curtsied. Of course she would. The bookseller's eyes were kind.
Three days later, when she had returned to the apartment with another book and a letter, Monsieur Devaux's voice rose to a higher pitch when he called her back to the sitting room.
"Françoise. What did you tell Monsieur Renard?"
He was standing by the fireplace, the open letter in his hand.
Françoise looked down at her hands.
"He asked me for your address, Monsieur, so he could call over. I told him you didn't receive any visits because you were. . ." she stopped, uncertain.
"Because I was what?" he asked tightly.
"Because you were gravely ill," finished Françoise, still staring at her fingers. They were a little bit red. She had been scrubbing the kitchen floor earlier that morning.
Now he would be furious. He would cast her out to the streets. She would find herself without an employment and a place to live, and barely ten months after she had started working again. She had, of course some savings, but what would she do alone, in the city?
"Françoise?"
Monsieur Devaux's voice was imperious. She looked up. He was staring at her. He must have been talking for some time, she realised with embarrassment.
"Yes, Monsieur? I'm sorry, I didn't. . ."
"I said thank you, Françoise. For protecting my privacy."
She nodded in confusion, curtsied, and made her way out of the room.
Françoise smiled while she arranged the cups and plates on the table. Thus she had slowly felt more and more at home at the apartment on the fifth floor. There had been so many twists and turns in her life lately. It was like the road to Rouen, winding along the hills outside Gisors. She sighed and looked out of the window on the dining room. She remembered. . . But now she'd rather stop musing, she scolded herself. She had to warm the milk for Gracie's breakfast or the little girl would be late for school.
Author's notes: Whew! This was a long chapter. I hope it compensates for the fact I couldn't update yesterday. There was something wrong with ffnet. Thanks again to all reviewers. Every single bit of feedback is greatly appreciated. Please feel free to review again!
