I couldn’t help crying out with pleasure, for ahead of us was a noisy crowd of people—mostly women—parading before the onlookers in all sorts of garments. Some wore hats with feathers; others had pulled gowns over their own. They screamed and laughed and chattered; and the vendors at the stalls looked on crying out: ‘What a miracle!’ ‘The fit is perfect!’ ‘It becomes you, Madame. You are a lady in that garment.’
‘Come on,’ said Lisette, and we were part of the crowd.
Lisette found a brown gaberdine dress—sombre in hue but which somehow set off her beautiful blonde hair. I found a dark purple which was plain, the sort which might have been worn by a shopkeeper’s wife.
Gleefully we made our purchases and no one took any special notice of us as we scuttled away through the streets back to the
We could scarcely wait to set out on the real adventure. Lisette knew exactly where to go. The serving-girl who had told her about the fortune-teller had walked past the place with her only the day before.
On the way we passed the Bastille and I shivered as I always did and wondered how many people were incarcerated there who were innocent of any crime.
I tried to interest Lisette in the subject. She would surely know something about
We found the house. It was in a narrow street of tall houses. We mounted the steps and found the heavy door was open. We stepped into a hall. There a concierge sat in a boxlike room with glass panes through which he could see who came in.
‘Up the stairs,’ he said.
We went up. It was different from what I had expected. There was a carpet on the stairs of a rich red and a certain air of brash luxury about the place.
A girl in a low-cut blue dress came out of a room at the top of the first flight of stairs. She studied us very closely and smiled.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘You have come to have your fortunes told.’
‘Yes,’ said Lisette.
‘Come this way.’
She took us into a little room and told us to sit down, which we did. Lisette giggled. I think now she was a little nervous. I certainly was and I had a feeling that we were being watched and began to wonder whether we had been unwise to come. I remembered that stroll we had taken and the young men who had come along and seized us and I started to wonder what would have happened if that crowd of people had not come along precisely at the right moment.
I looked at Lisette. Her eyes were brilliant, as they always were when she was excited.
‘Why are we waiting here?’ I whispered.
‘Perhaps Madame Rougemont has another client.’
The girl who had shown us in appeared.
‘Madame Rougemont will see you now,’ she said.
We rose and the girl signed to us to follow her. We did so and were ushered into a room with a large window looking down on the street.
Madame Rougemont’s face was painted and patched to such an extent that it was difficult to know how much of what we saw was really her. She wore a red velvet gown the colour of her curtains, her hair was most elaborately dressed and I guessed that a great deal of it was not hers either. Her plump hands were loaded with rings; she looked rich and vulgar and she frightened me. If I had been alone I should have been tempted to turn and run out of the house.
‘Ah my dears,’ she said, smiling falsely at us, ‘so you want to look into the future?’
Lisette said: ‘Yes, that is so.’
‘Why else should you come to Madame Rougemont, eh? Well, sit down.’
She peered at us. ‘Two very pretty young ladies. There is nothing I like better than finding a happy future for pretty ladies. Have you the money for the sitting?’
Lisette reached into her pocket and found it.
Madame Rougemont took it and put it into a little drawer. She looked intently at Lisette, and then at me.
‘Come and sit at this table, dears. I’ll tell you together, shall I? First one … then the other … unless of course there are secrets. Those I shall tell you when we are alone … if that is necessary. But first let me see if they are there. You are very young, aren’t you? Tell me your ages, my dears. It helps a little.’
Lisette said she was seventeen. I exaggerated a little and said I was sixteen.
‘And you live here … in Paris?’
‘Some of the time,’ I told her.
‘Not always. You are with one of the rich families, eh?’
‘Yes,’ I said quickly. ‘Yes.’
‘I thought so. Give me your hands.’
She took mine first. ‘A pretty little hand,’ she said. ‘So white and clean. How do you manage to keep them so white … a lady’s hands. That’s what they are.’
Her fingers gripped my hand tightly and the look of speculation in her eyes alarmed me. I knew we shouldn’t have come. I glanced at Lisette. She was still enjoying the adventure.
Now Madame Rougemont had taken one of her hands so that she held us both.
