Chapter Three:
The Making of Madam Tellier
The evening after her meeting with Debussy, Adrienne stopped in front of the door of the bed and breakfast, looking dubiously at the little light that burned over DuPont’s sign. She had no interest in meeting Debussy’s partner, and if there had been any way around it, she would have taken it. But she couldn’t see how to get out of it, so with a sour feeling in the pit of her stomach, she rang the building’s sharp-sounding buzzer.
The door was opened promptly. A tall man answered, dressed in a faded old suit, with a shirt that might have once been red, but was now almost colorless, and a tie that was hardly black anymore. His ginger-colored hair was longish, but suffered from a bald spot at the scalp. His patchy beard, through which large areas of sallow skin could be seen, looked as if it were afflicted with the Bubonic plague.
“You are Miss Rivet, I presume?” he said in a loud, rather haughty voice.
“Yes,” Adrienne said slowly.
“And you know who I am?”
“I have a general idea, but I don’t know your name.”
“I am Frederick Tellier,” he announced. He didn’t hold out his hand to greet her.
He stared at her for a long moment – very rudely, Adrienne thought – before motioning wordlessly for her to come in. Against every last lingering crumb of her better judgment, she stepped into the dim entryway, and he snapped the door shut behind her.
It was so dark, she could hardly see. “Could we have a little more light, do you think?” she asked pointedly, feeling very uncomfortable in her current position – alone with a strange (very strange) man, in a shadowy brothel on Frenchmen Street.
“When there are no customers,” he replied, “I make it a point to keep the lights down. There’s no point wasting electricity when there’s no one here to use it.”
Adrienne didn’t see any point in pretending to be shy. “If we’re going to be working together,” she said sharply, “I think you’ll find that some of your policies need changing.”
“Nothing will be changed,” he returned in an acrid tone. “It will all stay just as it is.”
“We’ll see about that,” Adrienne muttered.
He ignored her, and led her into a side parlor on the left-hand, which was lit by a single tall Tiffany lamp on a low coffee table. The walls were covered with pale blue paper, slightly stained with mildew. On the far wall that stretched the length of the room, there was a large mural of Peter Paul Rubens’s version of Leda and the Swan, the red paint having grown almost black over the years, and the white paint very dingy. The swan looked like a big grimy duck.
Frederick Tellier directed their steps to a narrow card table pushed up beneath a curtained window, and then sat down at one end, gesturing for Adrienne to take a seat at the other.
She frowned at him, and sat.
“We are here this evening,” he began, in the sort of slow, raised voice that one might use while trying to explain something to a child; “we are here so I can describe the details of the position you would adopt, if you were to sign the papers that I’ve had drawn up for you. Before you sign them, however, you must agree to all of my conditions. As I said before – nothing will be changed. It will all stay just as it is, and you’ll have to get used to it.”
He spoke with an almost wonderful air of self-confidence; and Adrienne found herself thinking, it was a pity he was so horribly ugly. It ruined the effect of his steady, unwavering voice, and just made him seem like a cold, hard bastard.
It was a pity.
“You’re a very disagreeable man,” she said plainly. “It seems you don’t intend to make any effort to be civil to me.”
He looked genuinely surprised, as he said, “I’m being entirely civil.”
“Your idea of the word is a strange one,” Adrienne observed. “I can see you’re used to telling women what to do – all of the women who work in this place – and now you expect to tell me what to do. But I’ll have you know, Mr. Tellier, that I’m not very good at taking orders. I have a long history of rebellion, which has been more to my detriment than my benefit, so it won’t do much good to threaten me. I’m used to losing, and I’m not afraid of it.”
She leaned forward in her chair, and planted her elbows on the scuffed tabletop. “The only difference, this time,” she said simply, “is that there’s no way for me to lose. Debussy has given me two-thirds of this business, and it doesn’t matter what papers I sign. If he were to die before they were signed, you know just as well as I do that you’d lose any stake you have in this place. Your stake depends on his. So you need someone to take over for him. That’s either going to be me, or no one. He’s said as much himself.”
She paused, took a barely perceptible breath, and smiled lightly, before going on to say: “It looks like a pretty sure thing, then, that we’re going into business together. I can’t get rid of you, if you don’t want to be gotten rid of – and it’s plain that you don’t. But you can’t get rid of me, either. So it’s obvious that we’re going to have to come to some sort of agreement. And my opinion is: why can’t it be a mutually beneficial one? You know more about this place than anyone, other than Debussy; and I’m sure you’ll be a helpful addition. But don’t expect to tell me to jump, Mr. Tellier, and then wait to see high how I go. You’ll be waiting a long time.”
As she concluded this little speech, Frederick Tellier was wearing an expression of complete, unmasked shock. It was a few long moments before he could regain his composure enough to clear his throat, and say a few words.
“Well,” he said, in an uncomfortable, rasping voice that belied his attempt to look calm; “you’re very different from what I was expecting. You must forgive me, I suppose. I’m used to dealing with the women here – and none of them are too bright, if you know what I mean.”
“I won’t comment on that,” Adrienne returned. “I haven’t met any of them yet. I think I’ll reserve my judgments for now – though, from past experience, I don’t expect to like a single one of them. I don’t like most people, and with good reason. At least – none of them have ever given me a reason to like them any better than I do.”
She paused a moment, and cocked her lovely head to the side. “You have a way about you,” she remarked. “If you tried to clean it up a little, you might seem less repulsive. You’re calm, self-assured – you could use that to your advantage, you know. The fact that you’re not handsome doesn’t have to matter. Shave your beard, cut your hair, and buy some clothes that don’t look like they belonged to Boris Karloff. Debussy told me that you’re rich enough to afford them.”
“I suppose some people might call me frugal,” he said defensively. “But that’s not a bad thing.”
“I didn’t say it was,” she returned politely. “But I’m sure a new suit wouldn’t bankrupt you.”
“As to the beard, though,” he said doubtfully, “I keep it because of my bad skin. The acne doesn’t allow the hair to grow properly – but still, it doesn’t look as bad as it does without the beard.”
“I can help you with all that,” she stated decisively. “Tomorrow morning, we’ll make an appointment with my beautician. She’ll know what to do with you.”
Tellier was quiet for a few moments, obviously thinking very hard about something. “Did Debussy tell you about the rest of my offer?” he finally asked.
“You want to marry me,” Adrienne said simply.
“Yes,” Tellier replied, with the majority of his confidence returning.
“If I don’t find some way to placate you,” Adrienne remarked thoughtfully, “there’s no doubt you could make trouble for me. You know all the people who come to this place; surely you have friends I’d rather not meet.” She paused for a beat, then said firmly, “But I won’t marry you.”
At these words, Tellier became extremely angry. He shot forward in his seat, and pounded his fist on the table, clearly about to launch into a torrent of abuse against Adrienne
. But she held up a hand to silence him.
He fell back again, looking confused.
“I won’t marry you,” she repeated. “But I’ll pretend to be your wife. I’ll even sleep in your room – all funny business aside. I’ll put on a show for everyone who comes into this place. You can call me Mrs. Tellier, if you like.”
He didn’t look as though he’d been expecting an offer like that. He thought about it for a moment; and she could see the wheels turning behind his eyes.
“I’ll call you madam,” he said finally. “Madam Tellier. More suitable for the business, you know.”
He flushed bright pink, and grabbed uncomfortably at the tops of his ears.
“That’s fine,” she said. “I don’t have a problem with it.”
She rose up from her chair, and stood looking down at Frederick Tellier for a moment – not really meaning to wear a condescending expression, but still somehow managing to make him feel very small.
“Will you stand up,” she asked, “and shake my hand?”
He got up, with a slight tremble in his skinny legs, and stuck out his large hand. She took it politely, and shook it to seal their agreement. “All right, Mr. Tellier,” she said. “Where do we begin?”
“The roof,” he answered promptly. “We’ll need to fix the roof.”
“Well, I hope you have someone in mind,” she returned with a light smile. “I’m no great hand at carpentry.”
Frederick Tellier laughed, seemingly in spite of himself. Then he started off with a jerking movement, to introduce his new business partner to DuPont’s Bed & Breakfast.