The Belles (The Belles #1)(10)
I turn around in a thousand directions. Walls soar up in gold-lacquered stripes to a ceiling adorned with curling Belle-roses. Their petals wink and stretch as I move under them. The room holds claw-footed sofas clutching jeweled pillows; a gold-stitched tapestry of the great kingdom of Orléans swallows one whole wall; a large white desk is nestled into the far corner, boasting an abacus with pearly white beads and cast-iron spintria safes.
Royal servants light night-lanterns and set them afloat. Their pale glow illuminates more of the room’s wonders. Glass cabinets contain beauty-scopes—tiny brass kaleidoscopes clustered by season and year—featuring images of the kingdom’s best and brightest courtiers, taken by the Orléans press corps. Padma holds the slender tip of a scope up toward the floating night-lanterns. The cylinder catches the light, projecting a group of elegant men and women on the wall like glittering, colorful beads. No amount of money can buy you entry into these collections. Not even the princess has a spot. Every man, woman, and child wants to be featured.
Du Barry never allowed us to look at the beauty-scopes, or to read pamphlets, tattlers, or newspapers. We weren’t supposed to be tainted by the outside world.
“Take it all in, girls,” the Beauty Minister coos.
“Yes, enjoy the spoils,” Du Barry adds.
Stacks of beauty pamphlets, including Dulce, Mignon, Beauté, Sucré, and the Dame’s Journal de la Mode cover ornate side tables. Edel and Valerie flip through their pages, flashing them out at us. The pamphlets profile Belle-created looks, feature polls guesstimating which Belles could land someone in the beauty-scopes, and showcase each Belle in our generation and the depths of our rumored arcana, comparing us to the older generation now leaving court.
Newspapers are fanned out on a series of coffee tables. The Trianon Tribune, the Chrysanthemum Chronicles, the Orléansian Times, and more from every corner of the kingdom. I run my fingers across them. Headlines cluster and flash across the parchment, announcing Princess Sophia’s upcoming engagement, and the latest imperial beauty laws to be passed by the queen and the Beauty Minister.
ANY BONE RESTRUCTURING OR MANIPULATION
MEANT TO DEEPLY ALTER THE SHAPE OF
ONE’S BODY OR FACE IS PROHIBITED
THE WAIST MUST NEVER FALL BELOW FIFTEEN
INCHES IN CIRCUMFERENCE IN ORDER TO
MAINTAIN THE HUMAN SHAPE OF THE BODY
SKIN TONE GRADIENTS MUST STAY WITHIN
THE NATURAL COLOR PIGMENTATION AS
SPECIFIED IN ARTICLE IIA, SECTION IV
NOSES SHALL NOT BE SO SLENDER AS TO IMPEDE
THE NATURAL ACT OF BREATHING
CITIZENS OLDER THAN SEVENTY YEARS OF AGE SHALL
NOT HAVE TREATMENTS THAT ENABLE THEM TO
LOOK BELOW SAID AGE, IN ORDER TO PRESERVE THE
NATURAL PATH OF THE BODY’S DEVELOPMENT
Amber looks over my shoulder, the heat of our earlier argument gone. “When I’m named the favorite, I’ll add more.”
“Why? There are so many already. Or did you forget the endless lists of laws we memorized?” We repeat this same debate all the time. “I don’t want to get rid of all of them. Just a few.”
“Like always.” She winks at me before sauntering off.
I lift the Imperial Inquirer and grin at images of royal women stuck in carriage traffic the day before the Beauté Carnaval. I spot the headline the boy from the gate mentioned:
CAMELLIA BEAUREGARD RUMORED TO BE
ABLE TO CREATE A PERSON FROM CLAY
I trace my finger over the curving letters.
On a footstool, tattlers sit in piles like stacks of warm sugar crepes. The pages hold potential suitors for the princess. The Parlor of Titillating Tidbits accuses the princess of having multiple torrid affairs, even with her ladies-of-honor. Another, Speculations of the Foulest Kind, broadcasts royal and courtier relationship breakups, blaming them on appearance shifts or lack of beauty maintenance, and a third, Scurrilous Scandals and Secrets, speaks about a series of black-market beauty products rumored to perform the same feats as the Belles themselves. I laugh at the ridiculous headline. No tonic can act as a substitute for what we do.
Tiny perfume blimps drift about, leaving their scented trails.
“The space will be re-accented to the liking of the favorite,” the Beauty Minister says. “This is where one of you will meet your clients before their treatments begin.” She does a lap around us, touching the most luxurious pieces of furniture, then waves a hand at the servants. They pull back a series of curtains, revealing a glass wall and a magnificent garden alive with roses of every color, flowers of every shape, and plants of every kind. “This is the solarium courtyard to inspire your arcana. I encourage all favorites to walk in it daily. Very therapeutic.”
If Maman were here, she would tell me to pluck flower petals to help me create perfect natural shades, and ignore Du Barry’s extensive color guides. Hana rushes to my side. “Can you believe it?”
“No,” I say.
We race around squealing, scattering like beautiful marbles cast in all directions. I follow one of the perfume blimps down a hall. Gold-framed portraits of past favorites line the walls. I stop in front of my mother’s. Her bright eyes stare back at me. I imagine her drifting from room to room. I imagine her creating one beautiful person after another. I imagine my face beside hers.
I step into a chamber. By the look of the space, it must be a treatment salon: a series of cabinets stretch to the ceiling with drawer labels like ROSE CREAM, SWANSDOWN PUFFS, OILS, and POMADES; portraits and canvases sit on easels; ladders click left and right as servants stock supplies; cases hold pigment-paste pots in every skin color imaginable; baskets contain bundles of candles and wax blocks and pastille cakes and metal instruments; a potbellied stove lurks in the distant corner, boasting trays of hot irons and steam curlers; a large table is covered with fluffy pillows and towels.