Didi: The Tale of a Would-Be Courtesan, Page 2

already just outside the door, it was a certainty he’d come knocking just as soon as he finished with that chatty older man. She looked out the window to see if they were still talking. They were. Except a pretty young blonde in a richly colored pink dress had now joined them in the conversation. Didi didn’t know who that blonde was, but she didn’t like the lady being so close to Fulbert. She didn’t like any other females near Fulbert—except, of course, for Mamma. She considered Mamma to be safe in that respect.

  Mamma had the banker Monsieur de la Fontaine as her “benefactor.” She had been his mistress since she was nineteen, and he kept her in the fine fashion she deemed appropriate. That made him the principal male in her life. Principal but not only. Unencumbered with a marriage vow, it was the privilege of the courtesan also to engage the company of other gentlemen. However, when she had her occasional other dalliances, Mamma confined herself to wealthy married men only, the sort who knew how to be discreet.

  Monsieur de la Fontaine also happened to be Didi’s father, a fact that was something of a footnote in the family history. He was the father of several other children born to his wife, Madame de la Fontaine, whom Didi never met but was told was considered a respectable woman. To Monsieur de la Fontaine’s credit, he was a kind and generous father to Didi on those occasions when she saw him. Those occasions had become less frequent in recent years, but the influx of his money was never interrupted, which kept Mamma contentedly silent to Madame de la Fontaine on the subject of Didi’s paternal relations.

  However, all of this was neither here nor there at the moment. The girl had more immediate things on her mind as she grimaced from her window at the lady in pink. What sort of coquettish responses was that harlot saying to her dear, dear Fulbert?

  Would I mind if you smoked your cigar? Why of course not. But, as a lady, I’d rather you put your big manly cigar between my lips. And, when I say “cigar” and “lips,” I think you know what I really mean.

  Didi growled as she fabricated such fanciful conversation. She knew the lady in pink wouldn’t actually say something like that, but she wasn’t certain the lady wasn’t thinking it. That made Didi scowl.

  Finally, Didi saw the older gentleman hail a horse drawn carriage, and he and that trollop in pink climbed aboard and departed. Fulbert tipped his silk hat to her as they rode off, an act that infuriated Didi. She was so angry, she had half a mind not to go down to greet him when he came inside for his weekly visit. But, the moment she heard knocking at the front door, she galloped down the stairs in giddy delight. She just couldn’t help herself when it came to Fulbert.

  “Bonjour, Madame Dupuis!” the man beamed as he strode through the front door.

  Although Didi’s mother had never married, after her daughter’s birth she chose to replace the title of “Mademoiselle” with “Madame,” if only for the sake of respectability.

  “And there’s my little Didi!” the man called out with jocularity as he saw the girl approaching. “What a cute little dress you’re wearing.”

  It irked her now when he used the adjective “little” to describe her. She had been little when they first came to know one another—a tiny tot for sure. But she’d grown up to become a girl about five feet two inches tall with long brown hair and a womanly frame that had rounded up nicely in the past few years. Although her waistline remained delicately slight, her bosom had blossomed and expanded gloriously to the point where Didi not only served as her nickname but also as a phonetic description of her cup size. (She, of course, never considered that coincidence, as brassieres had yet to be invented and wouldn’t come into the world for another twenty years or more.)

  “Is that all you can say about my dress—that it’s cute?” She’d worn the dress especially for him. The silky fabric clung to her with more snugness than her usual wardrobe, and the pale blue color matched her eyes. She was hoping it would inspire a compliment.

  “Well…” The man stepped back to consider the garment. “It has a certain je ne sais quoi. What else can I say?”

  “You could say it’s alluring.” She sashayed about the parlor as though modeling for a fashion show. “Or,” she teased, “don’t you think I have any allure?”

  “Didi, don’t be a brat,” scolded her mother.

  “My dear Madame Dupuis,” Fulbert injected with good natured charm, “I assure you, even at her brattiest, there’s nothing your daughter could do to topple my spirits when I’m within the comfort of your hospitality.”

  “Such a gentleman!” gushed the older woman. “You’re going to make someone a good husband someday.”

  “And just a husband,” Didi muttered to herself.

  The next hour passed pleasantly enough. Madame Dupuis served tea and cookies while Fulbert entertained them with a story about a wealthy business owner who had fathered children with four different women in four different countries while being simultaneously married to two other women in two other countries.

  “I hope that wasn’t the man you were talking to on the sidewalk,” said Madame Dupuis.

  “Him?” said Fulbert. “Oh, no. He’s a big railroad executive I interviewed once. Bumped into him quite by accident.”

  “And the woman?” asked Didi with a tone that betrayed more than just idle curiosity. “You seemed very interested in her.”

  “Did I? Were you spying?”

  Fulbert’s sparkling eyes taunted the girl to the point where she ruffled with conspicuous unease.

  “If people carry on right there on a busy boulevard,” she flustered, “how is one not to notice?”

  “Were you carrying on, Fulbert?” Madame Dupuis smiled.

  “Shamelessly!” he chuckled. “She’s the man’s daughter. He was waiting for her while she was inside their house across the street getting dressed to visit her great aunt on the occasion of the old girl’s eightieth birthday. I wished them both a pleasant visit.” He paused for comic effect. “I should be horsewhipped!”

  “Hmph!” grunted Didi. “Seemed like an awful lot of talk just to say ‘Have a nice trip.’”

  “Is she pretty?” Madame Dupuis winked at Fulbert.

  “Yes, I suppose,” he replied with a nonchalant air.

  “Any chance you might see more of her?” The older woman’s tone spoke volumes.

  “Unlikely,” he responded.

  “She lives right here in the neighborhood,” reasoned Madame Dupuis. “And you come here often enough.”

  “That’s true.” The man scratched his chin in contemplation.

  “So what’s he supposed to do, Mamma?” interjected Didi with impatience. “Just knock on her door and say, ‘You barely know me, but your neighbor thinks we should be together’?”

  “Don’t worry, Didi,” the man grinned. “I won’t be knocking on any doors. I’m not nearly so bold.”

  “That’s why you’re still a bachelor,” said Madame Dupuis.

  “True,” he agreed. “But, if I were in the market for a wife, that might be a door worth knocking on. There’s money in that family. Lots of it. I’d be set for life.”

  And, in a flash, an idea came to Didi. She recalled her mother’s words only a couple of hours earlier when she said she couldn’t foresee Fulbert being able to afford a mistress unless he marries into money.

  That was the answer. That was the one and only way she could become his mistress. He needed to marry a wealthy woman so that he would have her money to spend on Didi. All the girl had to do was to get him to marry into wealth. Then the path would be clear for her to be a properly kept woman by the man she most wanted to be kept by. All she needed was the right wife for him.

  The plan seemed simple enough. But the execution of it hit a stumbling block right away. Wealthy available women don’t just grow on trees, waiting to be plucked. They have to be lured. Money and power were the most obvious lures a man could possess. Fulbert had neither. That meant Didi would have to cast a different kind of bait.

  She did so the next day in the schoolyard during recess. Tal
king with her classmate Madeleine, she steered the conversation to boys, which was never a difficult thing to do with schoolgirls.

  “Have you ever dreamed about what it would be like to be with a boy?”

  The school chum reacted with blasé enthusiasm. “Sometimes.”

  “The boys here are so immature, though,” continued Didi. “What about a man? I mean, a real man.”

  “What’s a real man?” Madeleine questioned.

  “Oh, you know…one who’s a man where it counts. Like, uh…oh, for example…Fulbert Lémieux.”

  “Your mother’s friend?” The girl seemed unconvinced. “What makes him a real man?”

  “Don’t you know?” Didi leaned in as though sharing the most intimate secret. “I thought it was common knowledge. He has an enormous cannon.”

  “A what?” The girl had not a clue what was being alluded to.

  “You know,” said Didi with a suggestive glance toward her friend’s crotch. “His weaponry.”

  Madeleine’s jaw dropped and she blushed a bright red. Girls their age weren’t supposes to know anything even existed inside a man’s pants. Of course, that was despite the fact that any field trip to the Louvre provided more than ample opportunity for even the youngest visitor to view graphic displays of male genitalia depicted in the exhibited artworks. However, this was La Belle Époque, and maintaining certain fictions was simply expected in polite society.

  “And, when I say ‘cannon,’ I don’t mean a little