Free The Porcelain Dove by Delia Sherman

were left behind in the warm, well-ordered house on the rue Quincampoix and the future stretched before me, cold and bleak and friendless. Would my mistress still love me as she had before? Must I trade Olympe for Dentelle?
    I broke a nail on the latch of the dressing-case. The long-case clock struck four. I laid a silk gauze négligée ready upon the bed, noticing that the curtains were burgundy silk embroidered in black, more suited to a catafalque than a bridal bed. I tucked them back, thought about going in search of another candle to brighten the room, decided my mistress might be happier not seeing it clearly. Would they never come?
    Suddenly in the hall below I heard a great banging accompanied by muffled shouts and cheering and then a man's voice shouting, "Good night to you, my friends, or rather, good morning! You're all very kind, but I can see her to bed myself!"
    If that is the duc, I thought, his voice is a measure less merry than his words. I waited. The front door creaked and closed. I heard an obsequious murmur that could only be Dentelle, my mistress' soft voice responding, steps mounting the stairs. A silence, a rustle, and a hoarse whisper in the hall: "I'll come to you soon, madame. Prepare for me."
    Timidly, I opened the door. My mistress, very dark around the eyes, entered and sank into the bergère with a most un-bridal sigh.
    However strange and melancholy I might feel, I knew where my duty lay. "Come, madame, and let me unlace you," I said gently. "You'll feel much more comfortable without the false hair and the heavy corset. Be of good cheer, madame. 'Tis your wedding night."
    "Yes," said my mistress. " 'Tis my wedding night, and I promiseyou, Berthe, I've heard enough pleasantries on that head to last me until this time next year. As you love me, no more."
    Though she spoke very sharp, her lips trembled. I chattered brightly, as I undressed her, of how Mme Hortense had feared she'd drop her child in the vestry and other such nonsense. Gradually she held up her head again and began to look more cheerful.
    "'Tis the long day and the wine and that monstrous corset, Berthe. I'll soon be myself again." She smoothed the folds of her négligée and surveyed her new bedchamber. The hangings catching her eye, she shook her head and sighed. "Tomorrow I shall ask monsieur my husband to order new bed-curtains. And surely"—glancing nervously towards the long-case clock—"he cannot expect me to sleep with that horrid ticking." She gathered her lace ruffle to her throat and glanced again towards the clock. Following her gaze, I saw she was looking at the gilt outline of a door in the paneling.
    There was a silence, and then, "My mother has told me a little of what must happen this night," said my mistress in a small voice. "I cannot think what Stéphanie-Germaine found so distressing in it. If the man is skilled, maman says it can be very pleasant." She looked up at me pleadingly.
    What, pray, did the child think I knew about it? I was visited by a sudden wild vision of a shrewdness of lady's maids sitting bare-shanked before a convent fire, comparing the manhood of one lover to an anchovy, of another to a battering ram. To conceal my confusion, I bent my face above her head and busied myself with her hair. "So I've heard, madame," I said, very prim. "And consider: why should so many women take lovers to their beds if what they did there were distasteful?"
    "Because 'tis à la mode." She flung her arms around my waist and pressed her cheek to my bosom. "Long ago dids't thou swear to stand by me. Surely, Berthe, thou wilt not leave me here alone?"
    I rested my cheek against her fragrant hair. "Not alone," I said a little sadly. "Never alone."
    She nodded and released me, only to clutch at my hand when the door in the paneling opened in a blaze of light. My heart began to pound painfully and though I could not bring myself to shake her off, I turned away, thus by unhappy chance bringing myself face-to-face with