Every last whisper she had heard about Étienne Bertillon, every unconscious grimace, every frown at the mere sound of the Bertillon name, even the almost invisible shake of the heads in contempt or driven by that other emotion no one wanted to admit out loud but they all shared: fear.
There was no other way to describe the lowered voices, the words turning into mumbles and the eyes drifting around as if to check... for what? He'd rarely been down to the village. Fewer times than the fingers on one hand, and if his conduct had ever been disorderly that had been before her time. Four years was a long time, wasn't it? A whole life.
And even now, she was the one standing inside the Chateau Bertillon on the other side of the hill. Everything had been taken care for him by his man. He’d never had to set foot in the village. He didn't need to. And everyone was much happier thanks to the arrangement.
When the large, cold room had emptied of other people, she stood at a distance before him for quite a while. He sat in a chair at the only desk in the room; there was no fire in the fireplace. She waited silently, her palms damp with anxiety, until he finally lifted his eerie, heavy-lidded eyes from the papers before him with the air of having forgotten her existence altogether. He took a good look at her.
His upper lip lifted into a weird grimace. She couldn't tell if something disgusted him or he was ready to bare his teeth. Or was it a smile? His eyes narrowed as his gaze moved slowly from head to toe, and she rushed to hide her battered shoes under her dress, the best she had.
His clothes were expensive but not new, nor festive either. They suited him well and he felt comfortable wearing them. It was obvious in the way he got up from his chair and stood before his desk, tall and bored.
For a moment, she frowned, almost angry at the offense. No matter how expensive and beautiful they were, he was wearing his everyday clothes, while she was wearing her best dress regardless of how plain and dull it looked. The feeling lasted less than a breath.
Despite the heavy fabric of his brocade waistcoat, the cloud-white of his shirt, the buttons, the cufflinks and the tall leather boots, Étienne Bertillon was an ugly man. He had a hook nose that gave his face the semblance of a bird, two deep lines between his brows, that constant grimace of disgust that contorted his lips, and as if these were not enough, his eyes had a pale blue color that contrasted with his pupils, giving him an otherworldly aura.
Still, that was hardly a surprise. She had heard all the names they called him, some more fitting than others and had prepared herself for the ugliness. She knew he was much older than she, and deep down she counted on that but from that distance she saw no white in his thick dark hair and unconsciously her shoulders hunched in disappointment.
“Time is the only real luxury.” His voice was deep, bored, and had a disturbing quality. It reminded her of something she couldn’t recall and didn’t allow herself to think as she concentrated on his words. “Estates, money, jewels, connections…they’re of value only when they can buy time. When they are time-consuming, they do more harm than good.” Her eyes widened as her mind tried to grasp what he was saying. “My morals are simple and clear: I care to do you neither harm nor good. Do not waste my time. Find something to occupy yourself with. In this house everyone works for the food he eats.” She nodded her agreement. He took one step towards her but then stood still and leaned back on his desk instead. “I know what you’ve heard of me. Most of it is true.” His grimace of disgust became deeper, revealing a flash of white teeth. That must have been a smile. “That was in the past. I have my books to read, my designs. I’m too old for anything else.” His eyes narrowed even more as they locked on her, full of meaning. “No good or evil deeds for me anymore. They’re both a waste of time.”
Turning her face from his persistent stare, she focused on the wooden planks under her shoes, which were visible once more. Pretending she understood him was disheartening.
“Clotilde will show you your rooms. We’ll talk again tomorrow at noon,” he ordered, and like an obedient maid, she rushed to turn on her heel and leave.
Her rooms were more than she expected. More than she deserved. Clotilde believed that, too. She could read it in the older woman’s face, in the way she dragged the tour out by explaining things that didn’t need explanation. Clotilde didn’t think she was worthy of all this, but she didn’t dwell on the woman’s disapproval.
As soon as Clotilde left, she locked the door, and searching around the room, she located a heavy armchair. If she understood Étienne Bertillon right, she had nothing to worry about that night. All the same, she pushed the chair with all her might until it was set against the door. Panting, she sat on it and took in the canopy bed. It looked soft and inviting.
This is where she would spend her first night as Madame Bertillon.
2. A mouse
A mouse. Madame Bertillon was a beautiful mouse afraid of the air surrounding her.
Étienne trapped the inner side of his lower lip between his teeth and corrected himself: Madame Bertillon was afraid of him. It was evident in the way she avoided looking at him, in the way she had tensed while taking that tiny step back when he had risen from his chair, in her words or rather in the absence of them.
She was frightened, but regardless of her fright, she was surprisingly beautiful. Her blond hair suited her green eyes, wide and attentive when she thought he wasn’t looking. Étienne smiled at the image and entered his study. This morning with the marriage he had let everything get behind and he had to make up for it now.
Time. That was what she needed. Time to realize he was not the brute she thought him to be. Time to relax, to realize that in truth she had been granted her freedom.
Her eyes and some stray curls escaping her thick braid came to mind.
Eliane – daughter of the sun. It was a fitting name. The sounds of the sea were silenced as the heavy door of the study closed behind him and he prepared to do the same with the thoughts of his young, lovely bride.
Romain Simonot had been a lucky man to have gained her affections. She had waited more than any other woman would have waited. Étienne had to acknowledge that.
And if he wanted to be honest, what woman wouldn’t be afraid to be married to a convicted murderer? Étienne stretched and grabbed a book from a higher shelf as his teeth sucked the inner side of his lip and instantly let it be, annoyed at the taste of blood that filled his mouth.
3. Selecting a husband
Despite what people thought of her at first sight, Eliane was more than what her petite frame and her pleasant features revealed.
Orphaned at a young age and having to move from the city to the village where her aunt's house was, Eliane had realized that every man, but especially every woman, had to be practical to survive. Practical and thoughtful, with good reasoning skills and a sharp grasp of reality.
That said, by no means was Eliane Ménard, now Bertillon, a heartless woman. On the contrary. When she had first laid eyes on Romain Simonot, it was her heart that started pounding in her chest loud enough for him to hear, for Romain was not only beautiful and charming but also gentle in his ways and everything a woman would want in a man. And if that was not enough, that man had noticed her. Her heart, young and drowned in grief and loneliness, had been warmed by his attention, the cloud of affection he had spread around her, and was filled with hope.
Now, if that cloud had dissolved and spread to the winds, that was not his fault and Eliane could see that. She was not blinded by her heart and her disappointment. Perhaps if she had been bolder, more daring, he would have stayed or he would have taken her with him, or he would have sent for her…. But daring and bold Eliane Ménard was not and she knew it. She was full of fears and as if her own fears were not enough, she sometimes adopted the fears of others: her cousin’s, her aunt’s, Romain‘s.
But as anyone accustomed even to the smallest of fears may know, the only thing able to push you forward when you stare immobilized at the abyss is a terror darker than the abyss itself and more intense. That is when the greatest courage is mustered, when one takes the extra step, jumps and learns the limits of the soul.
Embracing that reasoning, Elaine navigated through life with the fabricated illusion of choices when in reality she was ruled by her fears: When her father died and even though she was afraid of the sea, Eliane chose to live with her widowed aunt and her cousin at the fishing village of her summer vacations, embracing her father's fear of what would happen to her if she didn't.
When Romain left the village and her behind and weeks passed with no letter coming for her, Eliane lifted her chin, straightened her shoulders and walked across the market proudly and defiantly, refusing all the marriage proposals that came for her during the months that followed. She was perfectly aware that that way she had confirmed the rumors of the loss of her virtue to all those who saw her as one more young woman fallen from grace, but her fear of marriage was worse by far at the time and the opportunity to escape it altogether felt a relief, a real balsam to her heartbreak.
That fear had been built and nourished by her cousin, Francine, who freshly-married to her husband, one of the numerous seamen the village produced by the dozens, had filled her sixteen year old mind with ugly images of painful and embarrassing couplings. Eliane didn’t know whether Romain would have taken her with him to the city– the only resort for a man who despised the sea to make a fortune for himself– if she had been bolder and not timid and nervous every time he tried to go further than a kiss with her. But what Eliane did know without a doubt now was that marriage was far more complicated than what her sixteen year old self naively believed and Francine's fate was the sad proof of that.
Without any living relative left and with no source of income Eliane had no other choice but to get married. In a village where the men were either fishermen, sailors or farmers, she knew what was expected from her: to find a husband, produce an heir to the family name and as many working hands as possible while keeping the house clean and in order.
With her “affair” with Romain four years ago reluctantly forgotten, and since in the meantime her behavior had been that of an honest woman, Eliane was granted two marriage proposals one week after her aunt’s funeral. Madame Reynaud, the baker’s wife and the unofficial matchmaker of the village, had introduced them to her with a serene smile on her rosy face, proud and content to live in a world where providence ruled. Because only divine intervention and extreme fortune could explain that kind of luck in a village where widows were a sight as common as seaweed stuck at the bottom of the shoes, mouths to be fed were a curse and there was no way for a woman to make a living even as a maid. After having pointed that out thoroughly, Madame Reynaud mumbled something like “leaving a woman to starve was a sin” which in Eliane’s ears sounded more like “leaving a dog to starve was a sin” but kept the thought to herself.
Truth be told, even Madame Reynaud’s blissful smile faded a bit and lost some of its shine when she uttered the Bertillon name. Being wealthier than the rest of the villagers didn‘t compensate for his reputation as a cruel and uncaring man and even the murder he had committed was not on the top of the long list of deeds the villagers could not forgive or forget.
Since the crime had taken place in the city and the sentence had been served far away from the village, Eliane would have expected Étienne Bertillon’s story to work more as a cautionary tale rather than anything else but there was more than that: the Bertillon family had always inflicted fear among the villagers and the man himself had infuriated everyone when upon coming back he refused to restore the old shipyard– a great revenue source for the village– condemning them all to poverty. Instead, he had bought the forest that spread around the Chateau and extended till the cliffs all the way down to the sea. That way along with the slope of the hill he’d inherited from his father– sent to an early grave by his son’s disgrace and his own black heart– Étienne Bertillon now owned the whole hill that loomed gravely over the village.
This was the first time Bertillon had shown interest in any woman of the village– rumor had it that he had lovers in the city and on the island– so all the old stories were resurrected in full force.
Sensing the emotional currents in the market, Eliane had felt for the first time in years that people were looking at her with newfound interest and mixed feelings– compassion, fear of his wrath in the case she refused him and a sweet sense of revenge in case that happened. Would she be the one who would teach that beast of a man a humbling lesson?
Trying to keep emotions aside, Eliane had weighed her options. She didn’t even allow herself the easy arguments– that he was wealthy, one child may have been enough to inherit his fortune and with a little bit of luck she would give him a son right away…. No, these were fantasies and practical people were not driven by their fantasies.
On one side was Étienne Bertillon, a man with blood on his hands, despised and feared by his fellow-villagers for whom “justice was not yet fully served”– whatever that meant. He was ugly, a lot older than she, with a short temper and a cruel, merciless character– almost crippling a man just because he had disobeyed his orders.
That and a lot more, none better than the rest, was Étienne Bertillon and Eliane knew, she had heard it all in every gory detail, even a bit spiced at times. And yet– as always in her life– Eliane had compared her two fears, the abyss and the other, the even greater one, and she chose Bertillon.