Emilie's Voice Read online

  When Charpentier finished his dinner, he searched through the untidy pile of papers on the spinet and found the parts for his cantata, “Flow, Flow, Charming Streams.” It was time to return to the ballroom to rehearse the singers. There were only three of them, as Lully’s ordinance dictated. Only enough to entertain a party. Not enough to sing an opera.

  As Charpentier approached Marcel’s atelier in the middle of the afternoon a few days later, still brooding over the disappointments of his career, he heard something unusual. At first he simply folded it into the processes of his imagination, assuming that he had become so obsessed with the idea of finding the perfect voice that he had developed the ability to imagine it in his head. But as he drew nearer to the luthier’s workshop, Charpentier realized that what he heard was no fantasy.

  He walked into the Atelier Jolicoeur and removed his hat. Émilie was in her customary place, on the floor amid the wood shavings, and so Charpentier could not at first see the source of this extraordinary voice. He looked questioningly at Marcel, who put his tools down quickly.

  “Good afternoon, Monsieur,” Marcel said. “Émilie, say hello to Monsieur Charpentier.”

  The singing stopped abruptly, and Charpentier’s attention was drawn to the side of the worktable, where he saw a young girl whom he knew to be the luthier’s daughter unfold herself from the floor. There was a faint blush in her cheeks and she looked down. The sunlight that streamed in through the window made the wisps of her fair hair glow like a halo. Her voice, which had sailed out onto the street so pure and strong, now merely whispered an embarrassed greeting. Her awkward curtsey made Charpentier smile.

  “You’ve grown, Mademoiselle Émilie,” Charpentier said.

  “Why don’t you run and help your mother prepare the soup for dinner?” said Marcel.

  Without a word, Émilie skipped off to the door at the back of the workshop. Charpentier could hear her running up the stairs, a perfect decrescendo. And then he stared at the space Émilie vacated for a long while, certain that it had all been a trick of his imagination.

  “The Amati copy is finished, Monsieur,” said Marcel.

  “Yes, yes,” Charpentier said. “I’m sure it is lovely. But I’d like to speak to you about something else.” Charpentier looked toward the door that led to the Jolicoeurs’ apartment. He could not believe what he had just heard. It was a voice in a million, and all the time it had been only a mile away from him where he worked at the Hôtel de Guise. Suddenly it did not matter how skillfully the luthier had crafted his violin. It was not the product of his hands, but the product of his marriage that interested Charpentier now. And so he turned the conversation away from the violin and toward the luthier’s daughter.

  Three

  We always love those who admire us, but we don’t always love those we admire.

  Maxim 294

  By the time Marcel came up for supper, Émilie was bursting to find out how Monsieur Charpentier liked the violin. She had strained her ears to hear him try it out, but no sweet tones wafted up the stairs. Émilie wondered what they could have been talking about for all that time. Something told her when she left that she was really still down there, that they were even—possibly—talking about her. The way the composer looked at her unsettled her deeply. She could hardly meet the gaze of his lively gray eyes. So when her father walked through the door, she ran to him, ready to ask for some explanation. But he just smiled and patted her on the head, turning away from her before she had a chance to ask her question.

  “Did Monsieur Charpentier come for his violin?” asked Madeleine.

  “Yes. We’ll talk about it later,” responded Marcel, as he kissed his wife on both cheeks.

  Émilie sighed and helped her mother put the dinner on the table. Once they were all seated, she plucked up her courage to ask her father about the violin. “Didn’t he like it? Monsieur Charpentier?”

  “What? The violin you mean. Yes, he did,” said Marcel, without elaborating.

  “I did not hear him play it,” she said.

  “No,” said Marcel, between mouthfuls of potatoes. “But he paid his money nonetheless.”

  Émilie knew enough about the process of making and selling violins to realize that this was very unusual. The only way to tell if a violin was any good was to play it. But she did not know what to say, or how to question her father, without seeming impertinent. Before long they finished their dinner, and then all retired with the dying fire. But Émilie knew she would never be able to sleep. We’ll talk later usually meant that her parents had something to say that they did not want her to hear. Those words were a sort of code that she had long since learned to interpret. The first time, she had heard her mother crying over her last, lost infant. Another time, she had heard her parents discuss whose son might make a good match for her when she reached the marriageable age of fourteen or fifteen. And then there had been the time when she had heard her father try to convince her mother that the expense involved in making violins, a new instrument that was not yet popular with the gentry, would pay off handsomely in the end. So although her eyes sprung open every time she tried to close them, Émilie made an effort to pretend she was asleep, forcing her breathing to be louder and more regular, and moving now and again as though she were deeply asleep and dreaming. Yet all the time she was completely awake, listening for that important conversation they did not want her to hear.

  After what seemed an eternity, but which was probably only half an hour, Marcel and Madeleine began to speak in whispers.

  “Monsieur Charpentier has offered to give Émilie instruction in singing,” Marcel said.

  Émilie almost gave herself away by gasping but quickly turned the sound into a deep breath, like those sleepy sighs she sometimes heard her mother utter in the very depths of night.

  “And how much does he think he will charge us for this? I suppose he wants his violin for nothing!”

  “No, he does not. As I said, he paid me for it, in cash. I think it was a sort of pledge,” Marcel said.

  After a pause, Madeleine said, “I cannot do without her, you know!”

  Émilie could not hear them for a moment or two, but soon they spoke again in whispers she could just discern.

  “Think of the opportunity for our daughter! She has a very great gift, and she could better herself, performing in the great hôtels for the rich. There is money to be made.”

  “Better herself? A pretty young girl of no family to speak of and no fortune? I know what she would become! She’s a good girl. I do not want her spoiled.”

  “This is too important to decide in a moment. Let’s see what happens after tomorrow.”

  With that, the conversation ended. Monsieur Charpentier wants to teach me to sing properly, so that I may entertain the wealthy in their fine houses in Paris! Like a chant, the thought echoed in her head. Émilie fell asleep dreaming of rooms full of cakes, silk gowns, and glittering jewels.

  When she awoke the next morning, Émilie leapt out of bed, ran to her mother, and threw her arms around her waist. “Good morning, Maman!” she said.

  Madeleine gently disengaged her and turned away. “No time for that. It’s a busy day today,” she said. Then she attended to the delicate process of making the tisane, the herbal concoction they drank every morning that, so Madeleine believed, was the way to ensure a long and healthy life.

  Marcel was already sitting at the table, looking as though he had not slept well and staring into the fire that crackled and popped noisily in the sleepy household.

  “Will you go for a walk with me today, Émilie? To deliver Monsieur Charpentier’s violin?” he asked.

  “I thought Monsieur Charpentier took the violin yesterday,” she said.

  “I have to make one or two adjustments this morning,” he answered.

  Émilie smiled at her father. Of course she would go. From that moment, she could hardly sit still, she was so excited about this alteration in their daily routine. She knew it must be related to her
parents’ conversation in the middle of the night before. Otherwise there would be no need for her to go along. Her mother would never let her take a walk with her father instead of staying home and helping her with the chores. Mostly Émilie was only allowed to go out when there was some great celebration, to see the magistrates in their costly robes, or to watch displays of fireworks over the Hôtel de Ville. At those times all Paris was out, dancing around bonfires, the city itself dressed up for a holiday. But most days it was just hard work. And today was Tuesday, which was laundry day. Even better. Émilie would be excused from the most grueling chore of the week.

  Once the breakfast things were cleared away and the floor swept, she grabbed her cloak from the peg by the door, flew down the steps to the workshop, and stood in front of her father, trembling and expectant. She waited for him to set aside his tools and remove his leather apron so that they could go for their walk. He washed his hands in the basin, picked up Charpentier’s violin, which he had wrapped in cloths and tied with string, then motioned Émilie to follow him out the door.

  “Where does Monsieur Charpentier live?” asked Émilie.

  “Somewhere very grand,” Marcel answered, smiling at his daughter.

  The beauty of the morning, with its clear blue sky and fresh, frisky breeze, suited Émilie’s mood exactly. Always staying within ten feet of her father, she found ways to gambol like a fawn as they made their way through the streets of Paris. They crossed the Place de Grève, and Émilie was too happy to notice the workmen cleaning up around a scaffold that had been used for a public execution only the day before. Father and daughter both stopped and made the sign of the cross before St. Gervais-St. Protais, after which they continued down the rue St. Antoine, a street that was wide enough for Émilie to spread her arms like a bird and skip ahead of Marcel, without risking injury from the crush of passing fiacres and sedan chairs. From time to time she would stop and whirl around like a windmill, laughing gaily. But she had to stop when they turned up the much narrower rue du Chaume.

  “Émilie!” Shortly before they arrived at the Hôtel de Guise, Marcel called his daughter to him. “You must act like a young lady,” he said, smoothing back a few wisps of her hair that had shaken loose from her plait when she was skipping ahead. “You don’t want Monsieur Charpentier to change his mind, do you?”

  “About the violin?” she asked.

  Marcel laughed. “I have a surprise for you. But you must be a very good girl to deserve it.”

  “A surprise?” she asked, almost forgetting that she was not supposed to have heard her parents’ conversation the night before. But Émilie suddenly looked around her and noticed that the surroundings had changed. “Does Monsieur Charpentier live near here?” she asked. There were no mean little artisans’ cottages in this neighborhood, or rows of houses squashed together and divided into small apartments for the working folk, but fine buildings, with grand entrances that led to cobbled courtyards, with walled enclosures that hid private gardens. She could see the blossoming trees poking above the high stone walls.

  After passing beneath a magnificent arch, she and her father entered a courtyard. A footman who stood at attention by the door stopped them.

  “We are here to see Monsieur Charpentier,” Marcel said.

  The footman looked down his nose at them. “Use the servants’ entrance, if you please. It’s on the rue des Quatre Fils.”

  Marcel smiled ruefully at Émilie. “I suppose Monsieur Charpentier assumed I would know.”

  They found the door easily enough, just around the corner on a tiny side street. It was only a simple wooden one, and there was no footman on hand to sneer at them. A kitchen maid, her hands wet and soapy, answered their knock.

  “Could you tell Monsieur Charpentier that Marcel and Émilie Jolicoeur are here to see him?” Marcel asked, removing his cap.

  “Tell him yourself,” the maid said. “Down the corridor and up the stairs.”

  Émilie grasped her father’s hand. It was cold and sweaty. Nonetheless, he led her on in the direction the maid indicated. It seemed as if they walked a mile before they came to a staircase. Once they reached the top of the stairs, they were faced with a new dilemma. Which way, and which door was Charpentier’s apartment? Marcel scratched the top of his head. Émilie squeezed his hand.

  From far down the corridor and around a corner came the sound of light footsteps approaching. Marcel drew himself up and cleared his throat, ready to ask directions of whoever it was who came into view.

  To Émilie’s delight, it was a very pretty young woman, dressed in what seemed to her to be the height of fashion. Her gown was silk, not homespun, and her hair was done up in curls and ribbons. When she saw the two of them standing at the end of the hallway, she stopped in her tracks.

  “Excuse me, Mademoiselle,” said Marcel, bowing slightly.

  The lady walked toward them. “What have we here! Did you lose your way to the market?”

  Émilie blushed. “We are here to see Monsieur Charpentier,” she said.

  By then the young lady was right next to them. She exuded a light scent of roses, but when she was up close, Émilie could see where her gown had been mended and patched, and she looked not much older than Émilie herself.

  “Do you dance?” asked the lady. Émilie shook her head no. “Do you play?” she asked.

  “No,” said Émilie. “I sing.”

  “Ah,” said the lady. “Then you must follow me. I’m Sophie Dupin. Sometimes I dance, but mostly I take care of the princess.”

  So this elegantly dressed young lady is a servant, thought Émilie. Perhaps I, too, will wear such beautiful clothes!

  Émilie and her father followed Sophie through the corridors. She chattered constantly as she led them, winding around and doubling back on themselves. Eventually they arrived at a door.

  “Isn’t this where we started?” asked Émilie, noticing the staircase.

  Sophie laughed. “Just knock on the door,” she said, and then tripped away from them, giggling.

  “Well!” Émilie said, cross that Sophie had played a trick on them. But she soon forgot all about it when Monsieur Charpentier opened the door and greeted them warmly.

  “Won’t you sit down?” Charpentier motioned them to take their places in two upholstered armchairs, whose comfort was beyond anything Émilie had ever known. He rang a little bell, and one of the kitchen servants brought them tea and cakes. Émilie stared at the cakes, trying not to lick her lips and swallow too obviously.

  “Please, Mademoiselle Émilie, allow me.” Charpentier carefully selected the most delicious-looking treat and placed it on a small plate, which he handed to Émilie.

  “Say thank you, Émilie! Monsieur Charpentier will think you were brought up as a savage!” Marcel cast a stern glance in his daughter’s direction and then smiled nervously at Charpentier.

  Charpentier laughed. It was a light, musical laugh, not like the hearty guffaw of her father. “Monsieur du Bois is eager to try the new violin …”

  While Marcel and Charpentier talked of the fine instrument that the luthier had laid upon the table when he entered, Émilie let her eyes wander over the room. This place was so different from the Jolicoeurs’ apartment on the Pont au Change. Here there were shelves with books, a musical instrument with a keyboard, and a desk piled high with lined paper and ink bottles and quills, some of the sheets bearing what looked like dancing dots and dashes. Although Émilie had spent many hours and days in her father’s workshop, his customers never brought music in with them, and her father could not even read words. The divan in the corner must be where Monsieur Charpentier sleeps, she thought. It had linen sheets on it, and a thick, woolen blanket. Monsieur Charpentier’s quarters were more luxurious, but not cleaner than their apartment. The only place that looked truly tidy was a shelf that contained several notebooks, carefully labeled—although because Émilie could not read, she did not know what they were. Otherwise, everything seemed in a complete state of disarray.<
br />
  “Mademoiselle Jolicoeur, I want you to be fully aware that what you are about to undertake will not be easy,” Charpentier said, drawing her attention back to the center of the room.

  Émilie had no idea what Monsieur Charpentier was talking about. She had been so busy looking that she had neglected to listen. She naturally assumed they were still discussing the violin, but clearly the subject had changed.

  “Monsieur Charpentier would like you to become his student,” explained Marcel, who knew his daughter’s ways well enough to understand that she hadn’t been paying attention. “He proposes that you should come here every day early in the morning, and he will teach you to use your voice, to read and write, and to read music. He will also see that you are given instruction in comportment and dancing. If this goes well, he will one day allow you to entertain the guests at the salon of the Duchesse de Guise, where you will sing his songs before the ladies and gentlemen.”

  Émilie smiled. Nothing seemed more fabulous to her than that she should be able to come to this delightful place every day, and spend her time singing and learning to be ladylike, surrounded by beautiful sights, sounds, and smells.

  “Then I gather, Mademoiselle Émilie, that you agree to come?”

  Émilie looked at her father.

  “You must decide,” he said.

  “Yes. Yes, I do agree.” Émilie could barely speak, she was so excited. It was a wonderful, frightening thought, to do something so completely different from anything she could possibly have imagined. And yet she knew that she wanted it, more than she had ever wanted anything before.

  They left after Émilie consumed three more cakes and a dish of tea. She was convinced that God must indeed have singled her out for special blessing, and she decided she would sing a prayer to him every night for giving her the voice that had so miraculously opened this door before her.