Free The Perfumer's Secret by Fiona McIntosh

hollow excuse. She nodded, smiled, and moved on to the next person.
    ‘Oh, Madame.’ The housekeeper suddenly startled me. ‘I meant to mention that a small trunk arrived today for you.’
    ‘For me?’ I was puzzled. ‘From whom?’
    ‘From Monsieur De Lasset, the younger,’ she said, eyes glittering.
    ‘Sébastien?’ I sounded the disbelief I saw reflected in her gaze. ‘Is he here?’
    She shrugged. ‘We received a telegram to expect him but no, we have not sighted him yet and now I doubt we shall.’
    I put down my half-drunk cup of coffee. ‘Perhaps you could show me the trunk?’ I was intrigued but, dressed in my night attire, I mostly wanted to be away from the escalating tension of the servants. They surely didn’t want me around as my presence only added to their discomfort. ‘Definitely just for me?’ I asked as we moved to the door.
    ‘Oh yes, Madame. Only your name is attached with it. He sent a separate parcel for your husband.’ She gestured for me to go in front of her. ‘I was going to have it carried up to your room tomorrow, but if you’re sure. . .?’
    ‘I am.’ I turned. ‘Thank you, everyone. Please take heart. We’re all in this together.’ Again, bland, empty words, but what was one supposed to say at a time like this? I had no experience to draw upon. And I did say it with sincerity. I hoped that part came across genuinely. People stood, nodded, curtsied again. ‘Goodnight,’ I said, even though it was far from such a thing.
    ‘
Bonne soirée
,’ they echoed in a miserable chorus because none of us believed we were going to have a good evening at all.
    I breathed in and sighed. ‘I wish I could say something to lift their spirits,’ I admitted to the housekeeper as I followed her silent footfall across the flagstones. How did she achieve that, while I clicked behind her, despite my best efforts to tread quietly? I didn’t mean to sound forlorn, but I was certainly feeling it.
    ‘You are here. That is enough for all of us who have wished a happy marriage for Monsieur De Lasset. Soon the sounds of children’s laughter will echo – it is everything our staff looks forward to. This marriage will help our household to remain optimistic through all of this upheaval.’
    It sounded wonderful as a concept but I felt entirely dislocated as one of the main players of that theatre. I would have to start now, train myself to overcome my revulsion of Aimery if I was ever to give heirs to the De Lasset family.
    We’d arrived at a storeroom. ‘Forgive me, Madame, for not telling you about this. There really wasn’t an ideal time today.’
    ‘No, it’s quite all right. I’m glad to be distracted, frankly. Oh, is that a letter with it?’
    ‘Yes. I signed for this. It is marked for your personal and private attention.’
    I picked it up. It was slightly gritty from its journey but the hand that wrote on its front looked firm, the ink scrawled in a flourish of unexpected purple like a missive from the Pope. I recognised it instantly as the expensive ink from J. Herbin in Paris; I’d seen this colour, had been permitted to test it, writing wet and so fresh against a white page. I had visited this shop with my father on the rue des Fosses Saint-Germain. Father had purchased
la Demi Courtine
, a particularly shaped squat bottle with a tiny shelf near its stopper to rest his pen, and within it he’d chosen a single ounce of a deep
rouge caroubier
he favoured for personal letters, and another ounce of the
perle noire
he preferred for formal writing.
    I could remember being fascinated by the smells alone in the shop and wondered why Monsieur Herbin had not considered a scented range. I could imagine lavender for the blue pigments, rose for the warmer colours and earthy, forest scents for the greens. I had been convinced that Monsieur Herbin’s dark blue ink should smell salty, as though of the ocean, or was I being fanciful in childhood, having been told Herbin was a former sailor?