these servants need a bit more training when there’s a new family. Even if they were very good with the last.”
I put my hands under the covers and sat back again.
“I’m sure you are a wonderful mother to Lucie,” said Marcelle, looking at the picture again. “And if you did decide to have another child, and something ever did go wrong for you, the world is very modern now. We have something to help fix everything these days, don’t we? Even women’s trouble like that.”
“Indeed,” I said, looking at the way she was running her thumb rhythmically over the bedspread as she spoke. It was very much like how I was touching my ring under the covers.
“I don’t know what kind of care is available here in Indochine,” Marcelle went on. “I imagine most local women simply have to deal with these realities in a primitive way. But for us French—or almost French,” she said, grinning, “things are better. My mother is very well-informed on these developments, as she is constantly pressing me to have a baby, even though I’m so far away now. My sister Alice worried when she had her first son, because of the way our mother suffered. There was talk of sending her to Switzerland, just to be safe. Leaders in such care, she said. And that’s not so far from France, is it?”
She stood up and stretched, glancing at the portrait of Lucie again. “Anyway, I don’t know why I’ve been going on so much. I suppose I always enjoy talking about such things with women who already have children, as I consider taking the plunge myself. I will be thirty in two short years, after all. How terrifying. I remember when I turned twenty, it rattled me. And back then I was sure that thirty meant that a woman was practically deceased. Turns out we still look all right at this advanced age, don’t we?” She turned back to me and smiled. “Anyway, I’m sure Victor would want you to return to Paris if you were to become pregnant again. He seems very protective of you. You’re quite lucky.”
“Switzerland?” I asked after too long a pause. I knew it was too long. I shouldn’t have said anything. I should just have nodded and changed the subject. But I wasn’t myself, I was a shaken version of me, and it tumbled out. Three syllables fell out of my mouth, and as soon as they did, I knew it was a mistake.
“Oh, yes,” Marcelle said, her expression turning sunnier. “You know the Swiss. So advanced with medicines and therapies. We should probably all be giving birth there, instead of under a bush in Indochine.”
“It’s a different experience for everyone, I imagine, but I love being a mother,” I said, trying unsuccessfully to keep my voice steady. “And I’m sure when the time comes, you will, too. Even if you have to give birth under a bush,” I added, forcing a smile. If there was a moment not to show how rattled I was, it was now.
Marcelle went to close the window, saying something about the heat. As she did, she changed the subject, telling me a funny story of her early courting days with Arnaud in Paris.
I watched her carefully as she walked around my room, pulling the curtains closed, giving them several tugs so no light shone through, chatting easily as she did.
Something in her carriage, her very upright posture, her tense arms as she pulled that material, struck me as confident. Too confident. Too rigid. Her body was different than it was the night we spent laughing together at the club. Her thumb, moving back and forth as if to the beat of a song as she sat next to me, had been a hint, but now, with the way she moved her shoulders, her legs, the quickness of her voice as she spoke, it suddenly became obvious.
She knew.
When Marcelle turned back, her posture had changed. The tension in her body was gone. She’d ridden the wave of adrenaline and managed to beat it down in a matter of seconds.
“I should be off,” she said, straightening her dress. “I don’t want to keep you up. That is, if you really are feeling better. You are, aren’t you?”
“Much,” I said, smiling, the corners of my mouth strained. “I’m so lucky you decided to call on me today. You helped me take my mind off the difficult morning.”