The Lady in the Gilt Mask

I still know the gleam of those large, meadow eyes, even behind the garish sheen of the gold silk of her mask. Her head might be tipped up, every centimetre precisely calculated to showcase a swan-like neck dripping in diamonds, but I recognise every flutter of those lush, upturned lashes. I could instantly detect how her bow lips shake like autumn leaves, even as they’re painted a luscious carmine. She may be a picture of elegance in her luxuriant merlot dress, every jewel scrupulously encrusted on the bodice, but I notice a terrified pinkie twirling the end of one of the ribbons.

Amandine, Comtesse de La Roche, wife of Comte Édouard de la Roche. Oh, how the town of Saint-Antoine celebrated the day she walked down the aisle of the church, her delicate face sheathed by a lace veil carrying histories of the noble-born bearers of the town’s future lords. For the past seven years, she has floated across ballrooms in a treasure trove of gems, wearing her title like the heirloom onyx tiara on her flaxen tresses.

However, as I watch Amandine take the arm of the dauphin from the window of the de la Roche château, as her husband’s annual masquerade ball continues to pirouette into the echelons of opulence, all I could think of is how she had once crowned herself with flowers as she twirled in my arms. In the days not yet hidden by the shroud of the future, it was a silver bracelet I paid for in three poems published in the local newspaper that adorned her wrist. She waltzes under the amber of a crystal chandelier whilst the man she left behind creeps in the shadows.

I wonder, though, if in the deepest, most secluded trenches of her heart, Amandine still allows any affection she once held for me be unmasked.

I wonder if she allows the day she walked into the Librairie Libellule and made every rose in the garden of my mind open to be unmasked. I was browsing the shelves, unearthing inspiration for a novel slowly unfurling itself on the page, when the shine of her gold waves caught my eye. How Amandine cast a spell to dissolve every word encased in my author mind, transformed a being devoted to words and the mysteries of each syllable into a stuttering mess, I do not know. As she revealed a smile that seemed to coat my sense of want in honey, I was undone. I reached out my hand to introduce myself and felt love emerge from the gauzy curtains of my future.

I wonder if she allows the day we snuck to the Coline du Cœur-Caché just outside the village to be unmasked. Oh, how can I forget how those sparkling green eyes widened, as if the were inviting me to plunge in them, before her hairpin smile unlocked a door in my will that let her drag me to take the Number 25 bus to the sun-dappled hill overlooking Saint-Antoine. As Amandine gracefully trudged along the limestone makeshift path, an unction to march wherever she twirls in this wide world grew in me like the pines straining to kiss the clouds. She lay down a thick cerulean blanket she carefully tucked into the lining of her skirts and picked a dandelion from the bright, lion-toothed blooms covering the verdant mount. As she blew on the blossom and wished for tomorrow to unfold with my hand in hers, I felt love emerge from the gauzy curtains of my future.

I wonder if she allows unmasked the day she leapt into my arms, a dove gliding into my embrace, as I unleashed the glowing question searing my insides like fever for a year. Oh had I planned everything to a T. We’d meet at the Café Noirceur, as per usual, adrenaline coursing in our veins as we tried to evade eyes paid by Amandine’s high-born parents. There, our friends would keep their heads down until she entered. And then, ultimately, a single gasp would signal our companions in laughter and strife to pop up before I popped the question. How should I know that her finishing school chum Jacinthe just could not hold back the tide of secret brewing in her and blurted out every detail of our scheme. In the end, none of that mattered, though, as Amadine tearfully kissed me to say yes. As she slipped on my grandmother’s pear-shaped diamond ring, I felt love emerge from the gauzy curtains of my future.

But yes, I wonder if she allows the day she suddenly, like a creeping thief in the night, walked away from my arms to be unmasked. As soon as I crawled out of the strawberry bush of her family’s property and saw Amandine’s father, dark, expectant eyes boring into me, I wanted the ground to swallow my whole. When Baron Richard Lorgeuil called me over, every single question I had evaded for three years reared their stubborn ugly heads. Oh, how my heart was subsumed as the baron handed me a stack of letters, each bearing loopy script once flowing from my hand. He then told me that his daughter had revealed our little trysts to him, hoping to purge her soul of every bit of conspicuous indigo dyeing her soul. Amandine had apparently grown tired of the shadows of hiding and chosen the glittering chandeliers of the de La Roche name. As I dejectedly stumbled away from her family manor, I felt love being locked away in a cupboard, far from the gauzy curtains of my future.

I suppose one day I can bare my heart, unbound and unmasked, out in the open. Perhaps, every gossamer sigh drawn and every crystalline tear shed for Amandine would someday no longer be pushed behind a screen. For now, though, I shall stay in midnight black as she sparkles in gold.

*****

I still know the gleam of those expressive cocoa eyes, even from across the bay window of the château where for seven years, I’ve learnt to measure smiles lest the veneer shatter.

Charles Perdrix, the only man for whom I could unlace all the silk around my face, cast off every gemstone affixed to my body. Can it be that he’s….

No, it can’t be. Father told me the guards saw him drowning in the river trying to retrieve a necklace he was meant to gift me, his corpse hurriedly covered in soil to prevent decay. It must be just my fantasies unfurling their wings again. What else can it be?

I suppose the masquerade goes on, and I must paint on even the tiniest grin.