Precious Things Read Online Free PDF Page B

She’d believed then that Nounou had never really loved her. How could she have, and then left? Father had refused to discuss it, or speak about either of the women with her. Aimée had seen the alarm in his eyes at her tears.
    Now in her darkening parlour, Aimée thought of all the hours she’d spent sewing. ‘The only proper occupation for a young lady of your class,’ Father always said, nodding approvingly, when he saw her at work. Except it was different for Aimée. Most other women she knew, judging from the limited social calls Father let her go on, sewed together in fragrant, giggling groups, gossiping and laughing, trading confidences as easily as threads. Aimée was always on her own. Finishing and perfecting her skills in the utter silence that accompanied the grave.
    She looked down at the collar. Its intricate adornment – the thousands of beads, diamantes and tear-shaped seed pearls in silvery hues, arranged in a delicate repeating pattern of fleur-de-lis. There were sequins as well, tiny circles of sheeny hue. It had taken so much longer to complete than she’d first thought. Aimée wasn’t sure why she’d embarked on such an ambitious project. Perhaps because she’d known that when she completed it, her marriage would be imminent. If only she had the power to delay the inevitable.
    But there was no escaping it. This time tomorrow she would be a bride, leaving the only home she’d ever known. Aimée didn’t know what terrified her more: to be leaving the château – a place she both loved and hated, where she knew every room, every creaking stair anddusty passageway – or to be going into the unknown with a man she barely knew.
    Aimée remembered the day she’d begun work on the collar. It was the same day Father had told her of Bernard’s proposal. Entering Maman’s dusty, undisturbed dressing room, Aimée had found her mother’s wedding dress, a silk damask gown, still hanging in the old cedar wardrobe. Wreathed in lavender sachets, its lace bodice felt oddly warm to the touch. There was no point having the tailor come – she was the same size Maman had been at nineteen, and there was no money for new dresses anyway. Apart from a small smudge on its collar, her mother’s dress was perfect. Aimée held it to her nose, detecting something beneath the lavender. A faintly acrid tang, strangely familiar. She hugged it close and breathed it in deeply, filling her lungs with her mother’s scent.
    Back in her parlour, Aimée had snapped the small, firm stitches apart with her metal pick, removing the stiffened, stained chiffon neck band from the silk gown. She wondered if Maman had once, like her, sat down to sew this dress, and reasoned that she most likely had. What was she thinking? Aimée wondered. Was she excited, or just as nervous as I am? Would she have wanted me to marry Bernard for his money? She laid the collar down over some finely woven linen and took hold of the heavy brass scissors, cutting a swathe to match the fabric beneath. The new collar would not be the same as the original; this one would dazzle all the guests at the wedding Father was planning, a wedding he hoped would signal a revival in their family’s fortunes. Her collar would give her pride and strength. It would not betray her fear.
    When the collar was formed – a curved band shaped wider than her own slender neck – Aimée picked up a sheet of translucent paper and traced a pattern upon the surface of the weave with her pen. Doubling back occasionally to correct her mistakes, she gouged new lines in the linen until the imprint was deep. Then she removed the paper to fill in the pattern with her fine-tipped pen. Aimée watched as the indigo ink seeped into the fabric, and felt a small quiver of excitement. Picking out the tiniest of beads in her polished woodenwork box, she fancied each of the motif’s tips digging