Across the Endless River (23 page)

Later, they drove into the woods on the far side of La Favorite. The air was warm, even in the shade of the overarching branches. Twenty yards ahead a small herd of pure white deer crossed in front of them, untroubled by the presence of the horse and carriage. Baptiste reined in the mare and stopped short. Theresa saw Baptiste's astonishment.

“Those are called Duke Eugene's deer. He started the herd ages ago with a gift from the czar,” she told him.

“Where I come from, a single white deer is a great rarity and is respected by the tribes as a messenger from the spirit world.”

“They are exceedingly rare here, too, which is why only the king has such animals.”

Baptiste couldn't understand why the deer didn't run away. “Why aren't they afraid of us?”

“They may as well be a flock of sheep, they are so protected and doted upon here in the Ludwigsburg grounds.”

They soon came to a widening in the path. To one side stood a moss-covered fountain, three cherubs holding a single broad basin above their heads. At its center a single jet projected straight up and collapsed upon its own thin column, overflowing the basin with a muffled splash. A narrow stone-lined channel led down a slight incline to a pool on the opposite side of a small clearing. After he and Theresa drank from a spigot on the side of the fountain, Baptiste led the mare to the other side and let her drink from the pool.

“There is a natural spring,” Theresa explained. “We shall have lunch here.”

Baptiste lifted the hamper out of the surrey. Theresa unfolded a spotless linen cloth and spread it on a broad stone bench, as if it were a dining table. She asked Baptiste to remove a rosewood box from the hamper. It held a set of porcelain dishes, silver utensils, and crystal glasses cushioned in its plush interior. Theresa arrayed them upon the cloth. There was even a tiny Limoges vase, which she dipped in the fountain and filled with wildflowers. The food came last: cuts of cold meat, cheeses, bread and butter, and a bottle of still-cool white wine.

“I do so love eating out of doors,” Theresa said, looking at her handiwork with satisfaction. Baptiste laughed, softly at first, and then louder, until his frame shook. Theresa was perplexed, and she waited for Baptiste's laughter to subside.

“I am very sorry—” he began, but she cut him off with a dismissive wave of her hand.

“You needn't explain,” she said.

“I'm not used to this,” he told her, shaking his head. “For me, eating out of doors means living on what you shoot: a deer's hindquarters, or a turkey stuck on a branch and quick-roasted over the campfire, or, when game is scarce, the buffalo strips you've dried and carried along in your pack roll with a little johnnycake, if you're lucky.” His voice had grown softer as he recited the details. “This is nicer than anything I ever saw
indoors
in St. Louis or even New Orleans!”

Theresa's features relented, and she laughed. “Come, sit with me and tell me of the hardships you endure in the wilds.”

They feasted on what the Ludwigsburg kitchens served up for a princess's outing: quail's eggs in aspic, duck liver pâté, slices of lean beef dressed in herbs, even a small jar of caviar with its own special spoon made of horn. They drank a light white wine with a sweet aftertaste that Theresa explained came from a cousin's vineyards along the Rhine. She replenished Baptiste's glass, sipping from her own infrequently. The midday sun shone fiercely through the green canopy above, raising the temperature noticeably. Even the insects ceased their hum, so the fountain's gentle splashing was all they heard in the heavy air beneath the trees. Baptiste asked Theresa's permission to remove his coat—he had seen Paul do the same once—and when she nodded her assent, he rose and put it aside, then stretched his arms high overhead as he yawned.

Her look seemed to draw him to her, but he hesitated until she extended her hand to him. He caught her arm and drew her into his arms and kissed her. When at last they separated, she was smiling, and her eyes said yes, and he repeated what he had just done, this time holding her tight, as if she were a deer that could escape and disappear into the forest. When he let her go, Theresa kept her hand on Baptiste's neck.

“Let us save the rest for later, shall we?” she said in a languorous tone. To his searching eyes, she responded, “They will have ideas about us at the palace. It wouldn't do to prove it to them.”

That night they made love in Theresa's rooms. During dinner, Theresa had managed to join Baptiste alone at the buffet table and slipped a note into his hand while she offered him more soup. He opened the small envelope in his room afterward and unfolded a half sheet of vellum. She had written in a bold hand, “Come to the small music room at ten and wait. Leave your boots outside your door. Bring your lovely smile.” No one had ever addressed him that way, and as he heard Theresa's voice say the words in his head, he felt a thrill of anticipation.

He stood before the small oval mirror that hung between the windows, composing his face in the reflection and analyzing its parts. What did Theresa see when she looked at him? His blue-gray eyes were set wide, beneath a prominent brow, like his father's. From his mother came his dark and finely shaped eyebrows, his high cheekbones, and his olive skin, which had caused one woman at court to ask if he was a Sicilian, another to assume he was Spanish. Both were compliments, Theresa had assured him. For the first time he considered that his copper-hued skin and chiseled features might make him attractive to a woman. The idea surprised him.

Theresa's beauty was less pronounced than that of many of the other women at court. Her fine features appeared almost sharp in certain lights, but her curious eyes gave her face its power. She was fifteen years older than his nineteen, and yet she didn't seem old at all. Unlike so many of the unmarried women he had met at Ludwigsburg, many of them younger than Theresa, she wasn't sad or forlorn or frivolous or lonely. Was it because she had been widowed so young and found herself rich and independent? Or was it just who she was, someone who was determined to draw from life everything it could offer?

In the music room, he found a single oil lamp lit and the heavy drapes on both windows pulled shut to ensure that the light would not be visible. The piano that stood against one wall looked like an oblong table, its keyboard inset in one side; it differed from the far larger piano, with its voluptuous curved top, that they called a
Flügel,
a wing, that reigned in the palace's larger music room where concerts were often held. The scale here was more intimate. Only a small harp and a cello laid on its back on a narrow table suggested that this room was given over to music. Baptiste stopped at the piano and lifted its fall board to examine the keys. The door from the hallway opened suddenly, and he let the cover drop with a slam. He looked up in horror, suddenly aware of how anxious he felt, and saw Theresa's maid, Marie-Claire, swooping down upon him with a reproving hiss.

“Shhh! Monsieur, you must be
very
quiet!” Her sharp look softened, as if she were addressing a child. “We must be silent if our passage is to remain undetected.” She picked up the lamp and motioned him to a door in the room's paneling. Baptiste understood that they were to negotiate the hidden world of the servants' interior corridors. Before opening the door, Marie-Claire turned to him and said, “If we come across anyone, conceal yourself at my signal.”

Baptiste walked behind Marie-Claire down a plain, unadorned passageway that apparently continued along the entire inner perimeter of the palace's rooms, providing access to each by one or more service doorways. Racks of keys, piles of fresh linen, serving trays and flower vases, brooms and mops were neatly arrayed at periodic widenings of the corridor alongside small staircases that led to the upper floors. Baptiste saw the backs of each room's heating stove, which servants could stoke without entering the rooms.

His musings were cut short by the sound of voices approaching from a side hallway. Marie-Claire stopped and motioned furiously with one hand behind her back for Baptiste to enter a small alcove on the right. This he did, hiding behind long aprons hung from hooks in overlapping profusion. Two men's voices came closer, their tones strained as they apparently carried a great weight down the passageway.

“Who'd have thought the old lady would call for firewood so late in the season?”

“Ah, she's a hundred if she's a day. At that age, the cold is in your bones for good.”

Both of them grunted and wheezed as they grappled with their load. Baptiste understood most of what they said, though a few words were beyond him. He knew from Schlape that the “old lady” was the dowager queen, the king's stepmother, who lived in semiseclusion in the far reaches of the palace.

“If you ask me, she should— Why, good evening, Madame. A latenight errand for your good mistress?” Marie-Claire bantered with the two of them, telling them she had to fetch some correspondence that Theresa had left somewhere and commiserating with them about the caprices of the royal family. They continued down the hallway with their lantern and, Baptiste saw, two large canvas bags of firewood. Marie-Claire proceeded, obliged to make it seem as if she were walking purposefully, leaving Baptiste in utter darkness. A few minutes later she returned and retrieved Baptiste from his hiding place. They turned down another corridor and took a staircase to the next floor. Marie-Claire then led him down a narrower service corridor to a door, knocked lightly three times, then twice, and opened the door. She hurried Baptiste in as if he had been standing out in the rain, then closed the door quietly and set down her lamp.

“Please wait here. Madame will be along presently.” Marie-Claire disappeared into an adjacent room and Baptiste contemplated his surroundings. It was as if he had surfaced from subterranean murk into a world of sunlight and splendor, so great was the contrast between the servants' passageway and this room. The walls were painted the palest yellow, with light blue detailing on the paneling, a scheme that was echoed in the drapery, the embroidered upholstery, even the carpet. A dozen candles flickered in wall sconces and candlesticks, casting a soft glow and pervading the air with the aroma of a spice unknown to him.

Baptiste caught sight of himself in a mirror that hung above a small inlaid chest of drawers, and he was stunned by the transformation of the face that had stared out from the mirror in his own room. The light here was strange, captivating and golden, suffusing his skin with a radiance that seemed to come from within.
How different I look,
he thought.

He heard muffled voices, then the door to the next room opened and Theresa was framed in the doorway. The robe she wore was lightcolored and the room behind her darker, so that she stood out like an apparition before she took a step forward and broke the spell. She wore a long dressing gown embroidered with shimmering metallic threads, and her hair was worked with golden ribbons. Baptiste struggled to find words. He had never seen her look so beautiful.
Is it possible
this apparition has chosen me?

Transfixed by Theresa's radiance, Baptiste was acutely aware that he had done nothing special to prepare for this moment, and he regretted it intensely. His shirt was clean at least, but his trousers were rumpled and his coat had seen long wear since its last cleaning.

Theresa crossed to where he stood, held his hand in both of hers, and said, “Come, Baptiste, you look as if you've seen a ghost. You've reached your safe haven and now you must relax. Sit down here and I'll pour us something cool to drink.” She led him to the couch and kissed him full on the lips, a long, lingering kiss that made him forget everything that had come before it. Then she withdrew from his embrace, poured two glasses of champagne from a bottle that stood on a nearby table, and sat beside him. He was struck by her ease, as though this rendezvous was natural. He wondered if he would know how to play his part.

“To life, and all its myriad surprises.” They touched glasses and Baptiste was about to drink when Theresa caught his arm. “No, Baptiste. Lovers must look in each other's eyes when they toast. Otherwise Cupid's curse will descend upon them.”

He did as she said, looking long into her eyes. He knew then that he had only to follow his instincts and she would do the rest. After they had drunk together he asked, “What is Cupid's curse?”

“It is taking each other for granted.”

Later he remembered that Theresa's dressing gown was covered with tiny embroidered butterflies, and it had seemed important, beautiful, and true to who she was. When she led him into the dark bedroom, she kept two candles burning, and he learned that a dim, flickering light was more inviting than the total dark that had prevailed with the girls he had known. He would remember, always, how she had asked him to remove the golden ribbons from her hair, and how humbled he had felt. When she removed his shirt, she took one of the ribbons and draped it loosely around his neck so that it hung down on his chest, and it had felt like tiny tongues of fire upon his skin. Beneath her dressing gown Theresa wore a sheath of white silk, and in his excitement he had pulled hard at the straps. Without a hint of reproof or dismay she said, “There is no need for haste, my love. We have all the time we need,” as if she wanted him to enjoy with her this great gift of forgetting time. She helped him with the clasp, and then there was the softness of her skin on his, and the expanse of linen and pillows upon which they sailed, and the golden steady light of two candles, like an undying sunset upon the river.