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Part Four
Clopin watched René until he was out of sight, then he slowly turned and headed back in the opposite direction. At first he considered returning to the Goose and Grapes, but he realized that the kitchen would be running at full steam by now, and Madame Darbois would be in no mood for conversation. Instead, he retired to the Court of Miracles, determined to get on with his preparations for the Feast of Fools tomorrow. Let René stew in his own juice for a while.
There was much to do before morning, and many who wanted Clopin's attention, and he found that the day passed more quickly than he had expected. It was late afternoon before he came above ground and went to see how things were taking shape in the great square in front of the cathedral of Notre-Dame. The square was already busy with people, Parisians and gypsies, erecting wooden stages for tomorrow's performances, and setting up tables and benches for the revelers. Clopin was making his rounds of inspection when he spied the two women coming out of the cathedral. Perhaps because of the thoughts still churning in the back of his mind, he recognized them at once as Nerine L'Oiseau and her friend, Marie-Elise Nicolet. They were walking slowly, arms around each other's waists, heads bowed together in conversation. Madame Nicolet, startled by a child who ran past her, glanced up, and her eye lit on Clopin. She stopped in her tracks, and Nerine stopped with her, then she saw him, too.
Disengaging herself from her friend, Marie-Elise took off at a brisk clip, heading straight toward him, fury clouding her brow. Nerine broke into a trot, caught her up, and laid hold of her arm, obviously trying to dissuade her from confronting Clopin. He watched the two of them debating for a moment, then he sauntered carelessly over to join them.
"Ladies," he raised his hat to them.
"Clopin Trouillefou, you should be ashamed!" said Marie-Elise. René was right, she was alarmingly reminiscent of his sister, Josette. "What do you mean by treating your own brother so meanly? Frankly, after all I'd heard of you from him, I expected better."
Madame Nicolet was the taller of the two women, and made an imposing figure, Clopin was compelled to admit. Nerine, with a nervous glance at him, tugged at her arm and whispered, "Elise, don't; it won't help," but her friend shook her off.
"He's got to hear it from someone," she insisted. "I don't care if you are the King of the Gypsies, sir, what gives you the right to stand in the way of two people who love each other?"
"The fact that one of them is my brother, Madame," said Clopin.
"Your brother!" Marie-Elise retorted. "A brother you haven't seen in five years, who's grown into a man while you weren't looking. René and Nerine adore each other. I should know; I watched it happen. They would have been married before now, except that they had too much respect for your feelings. The least you can do is return the favor."
Before he could reply to this, Nerine broke in and begged him, "Clopin, please, talk to René. I left him at the tavern, he's probably still there. I've never seen him so upset. You can treat me as you like, heaven knows I deserve it, but poor René -- You're breaking his heart. He loves you so much; please don't do this to him."
Clopin had no answer for this. Nerine's golden-brown eyes were fixed on his, and the anguish in them was unmistakable. What a fine little actress, he thought to himself, but with less conviction than he expected. When he did not speak, Nerine asked, "What do you want of me, Clopin? Do you want me to beg your forgiveness? I've said enough prayers to the saints for forgiveness, I can say one to you, if it matters. I've asked for my father's forgiveness, oh, so many times I've lost count."
"You should have asked for it when he was alive," said Clopin quietly.
"I know that," she swallowed a sob and held it back in her throat, "and I will carry that to my grave, and I'd think that would be punishment enough to satisfy even you." Marie-Elise, with a murderous look at Clopin, put her arms around Nerine and smoothed her hair. Clopin was surprised that Nerine hadn't started crying. Perhaps she was not such a good actress, after all. "When I left Paris," said Nerine, her voice ragged but strong, "my life was over. All my chances had been lost, or thrown away, and I didn't think I could ever care about anyone or anything again. Then I met your brother. No, don't turn away," she reached out instinctively and held him by the arm. "Please listen. I never meant to fall in love with René, but he's so good, and so dear, I don't know how anyone could not love him. And I never, never expected him to feel anything for me. You think I don't deserve him? You're right, I don't. I don't think anyone does. If you expect him to wait for a girl who deserves him, he'll spend his whole life alone. I'm not half good enough for him, but I love him. Please talk to him, Clopin," she begged him again. "You can't imagine how he looks up to you, and now he's so miserable, thinking you're angry with him..." Nerine let go of his arm and retreated into the protective embrace of Marie-Elise. "I never meant for it to come to this."
Clopin took a breath, cast his eyes around the square, and at last said, "I was on my way to the tavern, anyway. I'll see if he's there. Au revoir," he touched his hat to them, turned and walked away. Halfway across the square, he looked back. Nerine's face was buried in Madame Nicolet's shoulder. Well, he considered, that made an effective end to her performance.
René was not at the Goose and Grapes, but Clopin's timing had been fortunate, for Madame Darbois was sitting at the table nearest the kitchen, eating her own supper before the evening rush began.
"Has René been here?" he asked her.
"You're not going to tell him he's being stupid again, are you?" she asked, frowning at him. "Yes, I heard about what happened. It's a wonder he didn't just go right ahead and drown himself in his soup, you had him so upset."
"So I've heard." Clopin sat down at the table with Madame.
"What did you say to him?" she asked.
"Nothing! Well," he reconsidered, "a little more than nothing. Therese, what could I say? I'm not trying to be cruel; he's my brother, and I love him."
"How old do you think he is?" Therese asked him suddenly.
"I know how old he is," Clopin grumbled, tired of hearing this question.
"But, how old do you think he is?" she repeated. "My guess is eleven or twelve, judging by the way you treat him. The truth is, he's twice that, and at his age, he's allowed to make his own choices."
"I don't want to see him hurt."
"Who's going to hurt him? Not his little singer. She's so smitten with him, it makes my teeth ache." Clopin made a face at this, and Therese said, "All right, that's it. Anne's in the kitchen, there's no one else listening, so tell me the story of Nerine L'Oiseau. Go on," she prompted, when he hesitated. "You love telling stories, you know you do. And this ought to be a juicy one. I want to hear it. Go on."
Clopin considered where to begin. "She grew up in the Court of Miracles. Her father was a man named Fario Rohira, a carpenter and wagon-maker. As for Violette, her mother, that would be a story in itself. Fario fell passionately in love with Violette, then fell just as passionately out of love as soon as he realized how profligate she was with her affections. The woman was with child when she left Paris with her latest lover, and the saddest man to see her go was your honored predecessor, Olivier Darbois."
"Don't tell me he was in love with her, too?" Therese challenged.
"Not at all. He was making odds as to the identity of her baby's father, and he had a book full of takers. Fario Rohira was favored no better than half a dozen other men, at the time. He was a swarthy, stocky, big-hearted young man, whose people had come from Constantinople. He ended up married to a good woman called Marguerite, and they had a two-year-old son, and a newly born daughter, on the day that a package arrived at the tavern for him. It was delivered by an official of the town of Fontainebleu. Can you guess what it was?" Therese, with her mouth full, shook her head no and waved her spoon at him to continue.
"It was a child, a little girl, four years old, with swarthy skin and coarse black hair, dressed up in the laces and frills of a proper provincial young lady. Our friend, Nerine. The official of Fontainebleu had been Violette's last lover, and she had recently died, but not before telling him that Fario Rohira was the father of her child. Telling his wife he had business in Paris, the man had taken it upon himself to bring the girl home.
"She looked so much like Fario, he readily accepted her as his own, and he and his wife strove to be good parents to her, despite the fact that Nerine's own mother had spent the past four years alternately spoiling and neglecting her. Nerine was probably twelve when my father became King of the Paris gypsy tribe, and my family stopped traveling to settle here, and already she was earning her own living by singing in the streets. She was good," Clopin admitted. "She had to be; she wasn't pretty enough to charm the coins from their pockets the way her mother had. But, by the winter she turned seventeen, she had enough curves to her figure and enough of her mother's sensual nature to attract the attention of the Comte.
"I will not do him the honor of mentioning his name," said Clopin, "but you would know it if you heard it. He was wealthy and powerful, still young enough to be of interest to a girl her age, and possessed of an elegant manner and a flattering tongue. Under the pretense of furthering her singing career, he invited her to come and live with him, and I sincerely doubt she was too innocent to know what his true intentions were. She was charmed by his silky ways and sweet words, and walked away from her home and her family without a backward glance."
Clopin obviously considered this the girl's first great crime, and he paused to let the enormity of it sink in. Therese swallowed a mouthful of bread and said, "Is that what you're so upset about? I'll grant you it was foolish of her, but she was what? Seventeen? How sound was your judgment at that age? Good heavens, it's lucky for me that I was no beauty then, either, because if just one of the boys I was smitten with had returned the favor, I can't imagine what I might have gotten myself into."
"Not you, Madame," Clopin smiled knowingly. "And I won't believe you weren't quite a charmer at seventeen."
"And you say the Comte had a flattering tongue!" Madame scolded. "No, no, I wasn't always so sensible, I had to grow into that. But this story isn't about me. Go on."
He resumed: "Fario Rohira was furious with Nerine, as you can imagine. He lectured, he cajoled, he threatened, he begged his daughter not to throw herself away so recklessly. He even appealed to my father, and Papa, and Mama as well, tried to reason with her, but she fancied herself in love and would listen to no one. At last, Fario Rohira, at the end of his patience, did the only thing he could do. He declared that, if she left the tribe for this man, he would disown her and forbid her to use his name. If she was bent on dishonoring herself, at least she would not take the rest of the family with her.
"She cried, oh, I'll give her that much. She cried piteously, that no one understood her, that they all wanted her to be miserable, and all of the usual things. The whole Court of Miracles called her a fool, and worse, but she went to the Comte anyway, and when she told him how she had lost her name, he gave her a new one to replace it. 'You sing like a bird,' said the Comte, 'so perhaps we should call you one, as well.' And that is how she gained the name Nerine L'Oiseau.
"The Comte spoiled her with riches, dressed, fed, and sheltered her lavishly. He kept her as he might have kept a pet, and paraded her before his friends. She sang for the finest ladies and gentlemen of Paris, and all of them praised her talent. Of course, they never accepted her into their society; she was still a filthy little gypsy to them, although no one dared to call her such before the Comte. Nerine L'Oiseau sang, and sang, and her fame spread throughout the city, and beyond. Everyone wanted to hear the voice of the Gypsy Nightingale."
"If she was so famous," Therese interrupted, "why haven't I heard of her before?"
"This was before you came here," Clopin explained. "You've been in Paris, how long? Not quite four years? As you said, Mademoiselle L'Oiseau isn't a girl any more. She fell out of favor here, oh, a year or so before you arrived. The Comte, you see, had a pretty young bride being groomed for him at a chateau in the country. Eugenie was her name, she was all of eighteen, and the marriage had been contracted between the two families since she was an infant. The Comte upheld his end of the contract and married her, but he saw no reason why having a wife should prevent him from enjoying the company of his many other lady friends, as well. Nerine was not the only one, you see; he made no secret of his affairs, and some of his paramours were ladies of considerable standing. The innocent Eugenie was a laughing-stock before she set foot in Paris society, and it was not long before all the gossip about her husband became more than she could bear.
"She was too young, and too insignificant, to stand up to most of his women, but at least she could rid him of his little brown songbird. At the time of his marriage, the Comte had given Nerine her own apartments, as part of a pretense that he really was only the patron of her career. It was there that his wife confronted her, and told her she was no longer welcome in Paris. When Nerine had the nerve to protest that there was nothing going on between herself and the Comte, Madame la Comtesse flew into a rage. The dungeons of the Palais de Justice would make a cozy cage for the Gypsy Nightingale, and her husband's friend, Claude Frollo, would be more than happy to put her there. Charges of witchcraft or thievery were easy enough to concoct against the likes of her, and she would sing very prettily indeed at the stake. In a scene that would not be believed if it were presented on a stage, the Comte chose that moment to burst in upon them, and Nerine appealed to him for protection. The Comte took the part of his wife, and informed his pet songbird that he could no longer keep her. She could take what she pleased, but she would have to go. Nerine took nothing but the clothes she was wearing and enough money to buy her way out of the city. As she walked out the door, she caught Eugenie muttering a vulgar name under her breath, and Nerine, with her last ounce of pride, turned and slapped the Comtesse across her pretty young face. If she had had any thought of staying in Paris, that ended it right there."
Therese had stopped eating during this part of the tale, and sat listening raptly with her spoon in her hand. "I can't fault the Comtesse," she remarked, diving a bit too eagerly back into her soup. "Nerine's lucky the woman didn't just toss her out the window. What happened then?"
"Well, she couldn't come back to the Court of Miracles, of course. That avenue had been cut off to her the day her father died."
"What happened to him?" Therese asked.
Clopin leaned forward, with his arms on the table, and lowered his voice. "The same thing that has happened to far too many of my people. A kind-hearted old grandmere had stopped in the street to comfort a little boy who was lost, but because she was a gypsy, the soldiers who saw her assumed that her intentions were evil. When they tried to arrest her, Fario Rohira stepped in -- not to fight, just to reason with them, to explain that the frightened old woman had meant no harm. They struck him down, there, in the street. It was six against one, and when they had finished, his own wife could not bear to look at him. Nerine heard the news, of course, after the fact, and came to the Court of Miracles to pay her respects. Fario's wife, Marguerite, cursed her and had her turned out."
"That's a bit harsh," Therese ventured.
Clopin's temper flared at this remark. "Harsh? Marguerite Rohira was a good woman, who loved her husband. His death all but killed her; her children had to take her away from Paris for her own good. She had been a witness to all the pain Fario's daughter had caused him, and his grief and shame had been hers, as well. Nerine was playing the wanton with the very masters of the men who murdered him, why should she be welcomed at his funeral? She chose her own path to the devil, no one forced her to go. My own father was the one who turned her away, and I won't fault his judgment."
Therese concentrated on buttering another bit of bread for a moment before she said, "But, that really is it? A foolish girl is seduced by the wrong man, Frollo's men kill her father, and she's to be ostracized for the rest of her life? She'd might as well have gone to the stake, if that's your idea of justice."
"I'm not the heartless monster you think I am," Clopin defended himself. "I helped her escape the city. We met here, in this tavern. She didn't beg, or cry, she didn't even tell me what had happened. All she said was, 'I have to leave Paris, and I'm willing to pay.' I did not take her money," he answered Therese's accusatory look. "She was still a gypsy, and entitled to that much of my consideration. I don't know how or where she met the Nicolets, but she was part of their troupe by the time René met her. He'll spin you a very pretty story about that, if you ask him."
"Didn't he know her already?" Therese asked.
Clopin shook his head. "René left Paris when he was nine. Living in the confines of the city had made him sickly, and we thought the fresh air would do him good. Josette had her troupe by then, and was starting a family, and she took him on the road with her. René and the fresh air took such a liking to each other, and Josette grew so attached to him, he never did come back to Paris, except for the occasional visit."
"Heavens," murmured Therese, "he must have been with her, then. With Josette, when I met her, remember? When she gave me the amulet."
"Really?" Clopin mused. "I'm surprised he didn't recognize you."
"Oh, that was a long time ago," Therese brushed this off hastily. "There's no reason he would remember me. Anyhow," she dragged him back onto the subject, "René knew nothing about Nerine?"
"Only a bit of gossip. And whatever tales she's chosen to tell him, herself. If you want to hear those, you'll have to ask him."
Therese ran her spoon around the bottom of her soup bowl for a minute before she said, "I'm going to say something you don't want to hear."
"Let me guess," he grimaced. "I'm being mean and unfair and I should stop picking on my poor little brother, and I should just leave him alone and let him do whatever he wants."
"Well, that, too, but that wasn't what I was going to say. You know I'm not a great believer in true love, but I saw the fuss she made over him after the two of you quarrelled, and I have to admit I'm convinced that Nerine is in love with your brother."
"I know she says she is," Clopin grumbled.
"Trust me," said Therese, "a woman who's had her heart broken once doesn't give it away again easily. I won't argue with you about her past, but people do change. Can you honestly say you've never done anything in your life that you'd shudder to have thrown in your face now? I can't. And I don't care how much respect he has for you, if you think René's going to turn his back on this woman just to make you happy, you'd better think again." All at once, Therese was looking past Clopin's shoulder, and she added, "And you'd better think quickly."
Clopin turned to look, and saw his brother standing in the doorway.