The Perfumer's Secret (2 page)

My parents’ life together was short but I am constantly, almost deliberately, assured by others that it was filled with affection. She had loved him completely, according to our old nurse, who was like a mother to mine and a grandmother to me. She told me how Flora St John had wanted to run down the same church aisle I was approaching in her hurry to become a Delacroix of Grasse. The name counted for so much, not just in the south-west but in all of France and England too, and now I was giving up that fine name for an even more powerful one.

Except I did not want it.

The person who did desire it for me cast a look of smug pleasure my way as we rounded the corner to crest the incline to where my future beckoned. ‘I think the whole town has turned out,’ he remarked in an airy tone, tapping my hand in a proprietorial way. ‘You should feel honoured. Look how happy they all are for you, for us.’

‘Father would not approve of your decision,’ I said, finding the courage to throw down one final challenge. ‘And you know it. It was discussed years ago and he told you then he would not sanction it.’

Henri looked back to the adoring townsfolk, cheering and clapping as we passed. I recognised many of them. I should have been smiling, waving to them. I did neither.

‘His last breath was about wishing he’d seen you in your wedding finery.’

‘He’d approve of my gown, Henri, but not of the person you’re forcing me to wear it for. It’s not that he didn’t like Aimery; even you must know he behaved oddly around him, as though there was something about him that made Father’s hair stand on end. I can be specific, though – I don’t like Aimery.’

It was stale debate. Henri did not trouble himself to argue it again. Instead he sighed at me as one might an insolent youngster. ‘You will marry Aimery De Lasset today because it is an excellent match for our family.’

‘For you,’ I whipped back, living up to the label of a petulant child.

‘As head of this family I am tasked to make the decisions,’ he said in a voice leaden with forced patience. I could tell Henri was schooling himself not to be baited today.

‘As eldest by a mere five years,’ I said, feeling a pathetic glimmer of victory at qualifying his status, ‘you may have the power to make decisions, Henri, but it doesn’t capacitate you to make good ones, as you are ably demonstrating today. It’s simply an easy one – solves a problem in your mind that doesn’t exist in reality. If you would only wait, I would help you to make a brilliant decision on this matter and a prosperous one too. Trust me, Henri, I know my role. This is the wrong choice and definitely the wrong time.’

His irritating smile widened indulgently. ‘I’m sorry you feel this way on your wedding day, Fleurette, because frankly I believe twenty-three is an ideal age for marriage. Who knows when you might decide the perfect lifetime partner has walked into your life? No, little sister, we shall not wait for an emotional readiness of your choosing that could be years away and thus miss the chance at this union of our two houses. Between us I think our father indulged you too much; his zealous refusal to consider a marriage between a Delacroix and a De Lasset bordered on fanaticism.’

‘Do you think our father was mad, Aimery?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. You’re twisting my words.’

‘In that case, you’re saying he possessed a genuine and fundamental objection to our houses joined in blood.’

‘I never understood it and he never bothered to explain it. We all know the bitter rivalry of the past but as both fathers got older their blood cooled, plus of course they were both so successful there was no need to keep fighting one another. Until you grew up there was no reason to discuss marriage, and I’ll admit I remain perplexed as to why our father didn’t feel inclined to pledge you to De Lasset, if just to keep our perfume empires strong, but he always did indulge you. Nevertheless, he’s not here now and he’s not the one looking to the future of our family, whereas I am, and I do not share his views. I have no reservations for this union because it makes every bit of sense to me. Furthermore, neither Aimery nor I am prepared to wait any longer. You’re in your prime now; you will never look more beautiful, your skin will never glow as much, your body will never feel or move the way it does now.’

My value was now being reduced to the youth of my flesh and I wanted to accuse him of having no knowledge of my prime – or any other potential bride’s prime, come to that – but he lectured on, trampling my thoughts.

‘Be grateful for your charmed life, Fleurette. You belong to the second-wealthiest family of Grasse and your marriage into the town’s richest family is surely a rite of passage; the timing is perfect and you know it ensures strength for the town as well – the whole region, in fact.’

He was so transparent with his manipulation I felt a momentary pity. Henri had always lacked subtlety. It was only I suppose in the last year or two that I’d come to understand Henri so fully, with his odd sense of inferiority. He had so much in his favour simply by being the eldest – that special status of being entitled – but still he envied his siblings, hungered for what we had.

If my father treated us all with what felt like identical affection I suspect my mother held a special and deeply embedded compassion for Henri. I gathered this from the old nursery maid who helped raise us. Henri was Flora’s firstborn; the celebrated arrival of a son and heir made him her most beloved. It also helped, I’m sure, that he echoed her family with hair the colour of the sunbaked beaches of our childhood. He must have looked like a little angel as an infant; the grainy photos attested to this. Now, though, that once shiny hair was thinning and looked less like straw and more like wispy gold thread. His hairline had receded to reveal wings of shiny scalp that made his forehead seem a little too large. He compensated with a wiry moustache, ostentatiously curled so its tips flew north. And a newly grown beard offered the added benefit of making him seem older – the air of the patriarch he was aiming for. He trimmed his gingery beard to a point, like an exclamation to end a debate and prove he was, at twenty-seven, virile and capable of growing hair.

Meanwhile, Felix and I were the antithesis of Henri; we were a pair of midnight sentinels to his once angelic gold. Our fluff of infancy darkened quickly and by five we sported the lustrous near-black hair of our father’s ancestors and we knew we would turn first moonlight silver before we became white as our predecessors, while Henri continued the march into bland baldness. The dissimilarities continued. Where Henri was slightly built with sloping shoulders hidden by skilled tailoring, our brother was strapping and I too was long-limbed, wide of shoulder, and both of us glowingly healthy to Henri’s somewhat wan appearance. He routinely took ‘herbal inhalations’, gargled with salt, had taken to the waters at Lourdes for several years in an annual pilgrimage . . . anything to keep the feared infection at bay. He sniffed eucalypt and had rubdowns of tonic of menthol as he worried incessantly that he might contract the same disease as our mother. He would often ungraciously claim that she’d bestowed weak lungs upon him. Perhaps if he gave up smoking his expensive cigars from Cuba, it might help . . . but who was I to question our family’s head any longer? Soon he would no longer be head of my family. I would belong to another man, another head of household, another controlling son who strived to live up to his ancestors.

Another bully.

The horses drawing our carriage slowed and paced out a wide circle on the cobbles sprawling in front of the cathedral before we finally lurched to a halt. We’d arrived at the place where one half of me would likely give up on life. The other half would bear witness to that surrender but hopefully remain safe, hidden, alive and dreaming of better luck for us both.

‘Marriage, family, duty is everything our father stood for,’ Henri finished, as though wanting to slam the book shut on any further discussion about the suitability of this marriage.

I insisted on aiming to have the last word, though. ‘Well, as you’re selling me off like a stud horse, Henri, you really should take into account my fine teeth!’ I said, my voice finally breaking as my body felt itself sundered. It seemed as though only a shell now remained inside the carriage, dabbing quickly at her eyes, while the spirit version of me shrank and surely floated outside, finally free, to await on the church steps for the Delacroix bride to emerge from the froth of white inside the closed carriage.

‘Do your duty,’ Henri urged in a clipped tone. I watched his face betray the sneer that was close to the surface. Henri had no time for girlish tears. ‘A wise and solid marriage is the only contribution demanded of you . . . that, and some heirs. You can manage that, surely?’

‘Duty?’ I heard my voice squeak on the word. ‘Henri, we’re potentially going to war and you’re more troubled by a strategic marriage arrangement and —’

He made a condescending tutting sound. ‘Hush now, Fleurette. It is not your place to discuss politics.’ I could almost see myself blinking in disgust opposite him. ‘Besides’ – he smirked – ‘this is why young women should not focus on men’s business. You may claim otherwise, Fleurette, but you are as emotionally vulnerable as the next girl. Let me remind you of the shared blood that runs in the veins of the German Kaiser and the Russian Tsar. They are hardly going to prolong any bad feeling against each other. War may well be declared . . . yes, words, but it likely won’t amount to much fighting.’

I couldn’t be bothered arguing otherwise. Henri’s tactless hint at the next duty of horror I would be required to perform was suddenly crowding me, smacking in my mind as one might swing at a fly with a swat. He was not a deliberately cruel man but I could almost hear the snapping sound in my thoughts, almost feel the sting of his taunt.

And I replied in a similarly cruel vein, although I was ashamed of myself for stooping this low. ‘
You
should marry him, Henri. You’ve always had a fondness for Aimery.’

His glare was ringed by invisible rage. I could feel it wanting to reach out and grab me by the neck as he used to when we were little and he was up against both of us. Because Felix was bigger, stronger, Henri picked on me instead, even if he wanted to fight back against only my brother. I was never a match physically but Felix had schooled me in how to use my wit instead. But I had failed him today. Today my tongue was a blunt instrument, clubbing Henri with the only weapon I had against him.

His secret had always been safe with us. We were brothers and sister. No matter our differences, we shared the name of Delacroix and nothing stood between that and the rest of the world. Except now. Now the brother I had protected was casting me adrift into a new world I did not want . . . not yet.

I was his chattel. In that moment I hated him as much as Aimery and if not for Felix’s sympathetic grin from the top of the cathedral stairs as he spotted our arrival, I may have faltered. But the glance from Felix told me to bear up. I looked at the male version of me; we had shared our mother’s womb during the same thirty-nine weeks, emerging within a minute of each other. I was born first and took regular delight in reminding him of this. Everything was shared, often our emotions – especially today – and I knew he was losing his best friend in a way that most couldn’t understand and everyone would underestimate.

‘I will forgive you for that insult, Fleurette, though I’m sure I don’t know what you mean by it,’ he lied. ‘Catherine also would not appreciate your sentiment.’

I might have liked Catherine in any other situation and I would be a welcoming sister to her if she married Henri. However, her family’s driving need for her to be a Delacroix at all costs was surely out-muscling her instincts. If only she’d met Aimery first and they could have married, then I wouldn’t be facing my trauma; maybe I could blame poor Catherine for this dark pathway I now had to walk?

‘Fleurette?’ His tone this time was surprisingly gentle.

Yet I responded as if he’d hit me. ‘Yes!’ I clenched two fists in my lap in a bid to contain my fury. ‘I know, Henri, I know . . .’ I gave one last sniff. ‘Let me gather myself.’

‘I want to say something meaningful to you.’

‘Don’t,’ I warned. People were hushing around the carriage, and the coachman was waiting as a footman put down a stool for me to step onto.

Henri held the door closed a few moments longer.

‘Make it work, little sister. This is a match unrivalled in our family history . . . or theirs. It is one made in heaven.’

‘Or rather one on paper, using arithmetic with a lot of French franc symbols.’

‘Fleurette, you are a beautiful, young woman with an intelligence to match. Learn how to use those gifts amongst the others that have been bestowed upon you to get what you want.’

The words drove into me like the chilling blast of the mistral blowing ferociously in November, roaring through my mind, taking with them my haughty resentment and perhaps even the arrogance that I should have the right to choose the man I marry. It was not so for any of my friends. Why should I be different? I was a romantic fool. Felix regularly accused me of wanting to script my life when it would be controlled by seniors, or take its own merry path and would likely throw up obstacles to clamber over, or throw down challenges to fight through. A slit of comprehension opened for me like a shaft of dawn’s sunlight breaking over the hills of Grasse.

Henri’s revolting choice for me would indeed ensure the success and wealth of ongoing generations. ‘Keep it in the family of Grasse’ had been one of my father’s favourite phrases and no doubt that philosophy was one he had wanted to apply to our unions. I couldn’t be selective about when his advice was relevant. It never stopped being relevant. Protecting the industry of Grasse, protecting the family’s interests and its ongoing success, was my job too, and part of my job was to marry strategically.

Love was irrelevant – a lucky by-product, if it occurred.

‘We have to go, Fleurette,’ Henri said, and his tone was even kinder.

The door to the carriage was opened and the sounds of the people who lined the courtyard and some of the narrower alleys that fed into the cathedral square hurried in. Henri stepped out first to applause that turned wild as I emerged to take his hand with as much grace as I could muster.