At the door, Anne-Marie paused. ‘If it is not a presumption of me to make this offer, should you have any other questions or wish some help in understanding the local patois and customs, please do not hesitate to ask.’

‘I would not wish to keep you from your other duties.’

‘M. Chastain hired me for the purpose of attending to you and Mr. Vincent, because of my English. My other duties are light.’

Taken unawares by this thoughtful act from a man Jane had begun to consider lacking in feeling, she took a moment before she could reply. ‘Thank you. Or rather, merci. If you would be so kind as to help me practice my French, I would be most grateful.’

‘Let me arrange for the trunks to be removed and then I will return, if you like.’

‘Merci, oui.’

Anne-Marie smiled, ‘Au revoir.’

She shut the door behind her, leaving Jane to ponder what could make a man so inconsiderate toward his own children and yet so kind to a stranger.

SIX

Damask and Rainbows

The school that M. Chastain operated was beyond Jane’s imagining in scale and concept. Seven young men and two young ladies studied with him, learning far more than the basic elements of glamour the young ladies of England were required to know as part of the womanly arts. Aspects of glamour such as the principle of attemperate cooling, which Jane had struggled to acquire through books and experimentation, these fortunate few were learning the way another student might learn the catechism: as if it were a simple, solved, and knowable problem. Her imagination was excited by the possibilities, and she longed to have been a student there herself and to have gained some of the formal training of which she so often felt the lack when comparing her own skills to Vincent’s.

In what used to be a carriage maker’s showroom, the students each had their own working-place in which to practice and create glamurals. The two long walls of the building consisted of windows, one next to the other, and overhead, skylights afforded light enough to work late into the evening. One student, M. Archambault, had created a tableau à la Chinoiserie, which dripped with peonies and had a steaming dragon woven round a fountain. In sharp juxtaposition, an ice palace gave off a satisfactory chill to accompany the crystalline angles of its walls. Speaking in English for Jane’s comfort, M. Chastain discussed his goals of providing a solid base of knowledge so that his students did not have to spend their time discovering the very simplest of principles that most apprentices would learn from their masters. With this pool of knowledge, they would be able to spend their efforts innovating new glamours rather than reweaving worn threads.