at this time. You must be eager to put pen to paper and inform my husband of what you think you saw,” Valérie said.
“I know exactly what I saw. You’ve taken Hector as your lover.”
“Dear girl, I have not.”
“What do you call it, then? A friendly hello?”
“A kiss. We only ever shared kisses, even when we were in the thrall of youth.”
Kisses and a few embraces, and one heated evening, it might have come to more but Hector was gallant and somewhat naive, a romantic with high ideals. Valérie—cautious, too—recognized that life had not given women many cards to play and one valuable one she possessed was the stamp of her virtue.
“What do you mean?” Antonina mumbled.
Antonina moved closer to Valérie, as if she were trying to get a better look at her. The towel she held, Valérie noticed, had red splotches upon it. Dried blood. The girl twisted the towel violently between her hands. Had she harmed herself during her fit? It could not have been too badly.
“You can’t guess? Must I say it?” Valérie asked.
She realized that, yes, she must say it. Antonina could not understand implications; she must be shown in stark black-and-white the meaning of words. Not that Valérie minded instructing the young woman this one time.
“I met Mr. Auvray when I was your age. We fell in love and I promised him my hand in marriage. But he went away, to Iblevad, and I was pressured to marry your cousin Gaétan. Once Hector returned to the city, he sought me. He begged me to run away with him, saying that he still loved me and always had.”
Antonina was trembling. Valérie watched her step back and raise her hands, digging her fingers through her hair. “He was chasing after you, wasn’t he?” she whispered. “He wasn’t after me, he wanted you all along.”
She did understand now. Valérie leaned forward, and hearing how Antonina’s voice cracked, she almost felt sorry for her and could have attempted one kind word, except then the girl spoke again in a high voice, which cut Valérie to the bone.
“And you, you … strumpet—”
“Don’t you dare to judge me when you are the silly whore who is willing to rut with the first fool who knocks at her door,” Valérie said, rising to her feet, tall and proud. “I gave him nothing, and still he returned until today he felt compelled to kiss me. I offered no comfort to him and I did not yield. But you there, practically offering yourself on a platter for the man. The passionate words in that letter, they almost made me cry.”
Antonina swallowed and tossed away the towel she had been holding. “You will return the letter to me,” the girl said.
“I shall do nothing of the sort.”
“It’s not yours!”
“It is now. Listen to me carefully, beloved cousin. If you even think to breathe a word of what you saw today or what I told you to anyone, I will immediately produce that letter and hand it to Gaétan. I will say you are accusing me out of spite and madness, to cover your indiscretions. I will prove that you have tossed away your virtue to a man who then decided he would not marry you, making a mockery of you.”
Antonina looked like a wild creature from the forests she loved, her black hair gnarled and her teeth bared. “That is a lie,” Antonina said.
“But those are your words on paper, Cousin Antonina! Your words don’t lie.”
“That is not … You are twisting the intent of my letter!”
“It could be read that way, could it not?” Valérie asked. “Gaétan will be terribly disappointed. And think of the scandal if the letter ended up in the wrong hands! Would you like to see your name emblazoned in one of the dailies? It has the right ingredients: daughter of prominent family and a world-famous performer, embroiled in a salacious tale. One way or another, I think you’d end up in a convent far away, in a place where you can’t see your mother or your sister. I don’t think you’d make a satisfying nun.”
She watched Antonina waver as the full implication of the words she’d penned became obvious. A girl could be destroyed with half as much.
“Gaétan wouldn’t send me away. He wouldn’t believe your lies.”
“After your performance?” Valérie asked, spreading her arms. “They are sweeping away all the shards of glass you left on the floor. Half of Oldhouse thinks you’ve gone mad.”
“Gaétan cares about me,” Antonina