Emilie's Voice (17 page)

Every time he cast his eye over the lines, Charpentier was filled once again with doubt. It seemed altogether too easy. Who would want to help them like this? Where was St. Paul? As the person who had taken Émilie from her family, he must have some vested interest in keeping her at Versailles. And then, Lully might not want to let her go. Having had the use of her voice for one of his lyric tragedies, he had undoubtedly come to understand what a jewel he possessed.

But all these worries were not powerful enough to obscure the image of Émilie seated behind him on the saddle, her arms about his waist. Together they would slice through the air that divided Versailles and Paris, their bodies and that of the horse cleaving the distance that had separated them for nearly a year. He wanted the black night to stitch itself back up behind them as they passed, hiding all trace of their path. Émilie did not belong to the court, she belonged to his music. She belonged to him.

Émilie at last reached the door of her chamber, which she was very surprised to notice was standing wide open, with a cool breeze flowing through it. She walked in and saw a man’s legs dangling into her room from the windowsill, his torso seated precariously on the outer edge of the window frame. Next to him on the outside was a long ladder that had been leaned up against the building from the Cour de Marbre, a ladder upon which another man perched.

“That’s those three all set,” said the workman whose body was half in and half out of Émilie’s room. He wiggled forward and jumped down to the floor. His hands were filthy, and his pockets were full of nails and a hammer.

“I beg your pardon,” said Émilie, not knowing how else to react.

“Hello, Mademoiselle,” the workman said, tugging on the hair above his forehead. “All done now. Had to put the torches up on the roof for the performance,” he explained as he left the room and shut the door behind him. Émilie went to the window and looked out. The ladder outside was being moved along to the next dormer, while the workman who had clung to it crept along the gutter to the next window, looking very much in fear of his life. She followed his gaze down to the courtyard below. The stage and scenery covered most of the marble squares, but they were still visible here and there. No one would survive a fall from such a great height.

Émilie felt as if she needed to remind herself just to breathe in and out. She moved slowly and deliberately, afraid to break the silence around her. One little noise, and she would forget everything she was supposed to do that evening, and be unable to go on. What she required was complete peace, utter concentration.

At some point when she was at the final rehearsal, a servant had left on her washstand the face paints Émilie would need to transform herself into Alceste. There they stood, in a neat row: kohl to outline her eyes, rouge for her cheeks and lips, and powder to make her face white and masklike. On a wooden stand that looked like a faceless, severed head was an enormous wig, shot through with jewels. It was still too early to start dressing, and so Émilie paced slowly around her room, the words she was to sing circling around her head, all out of order.

Her heart started to race. What was her first line? She could not remember it. She couldn’t breathe. She went to her window and opened it wide and inhaled the fresh air deeply. Émilie closed her eyes and thought of Charpentier. Gradually her heart slowed to a normal pace, and she ceased feeling as if her blood were racing through her veins and trying to get out through her fingertips or the soles of her feet. She had no idea how much time had passed, but after a while, she heard a light scratch on her door.

“Come!”

Marie entered and tried to curtsey, although the heavy costume she carried made it almost impossible. Without saying a word, she laid the jeweled robe across Émilie’s bed, and then helped her apply her makeup, tied back her hair so that she could settle the heavy wig on her head, and then guided her into the costume and laced her and sewed her into it.

After about half an hour, when the feat of transforming Émilie from her everyday self into the character of Alceste was nearly complete, Émilie stood completely still before the mirror. There before her was Alceste. Just behind her, looking at her with a curious expression, stood Marie. There was something disturbing about this scrutiny. Émilie realized that if anyone had asked her, she would not have known the color of Marie’s eyes, because she had never before looked into them. Marie herself prevented it, thought Émilie, by always looking down, or looking away as soon as she could. But now, here she was, staring at Émilie as if she longed to say something. Marie’s eyes were hazel, Émilie noted. The servant’s lips parted slightly.

“What is it?” Émilie asked, turning. But by the time she faced her, Marie had adjusted her expression again. She dipped a curtsey and left abruptly, leaving Émilie thinking that the image she had seen in the mirror was stolen from some other place, no more than a ghostly suggestion of a soul. Marie had been about to speak. Something stopped her. Émilie wished she knew what, and why the maid never dared say a thing to her.

“Monsieur de St. Paul!”

St. Paul looked up, hoping it would be the young boy with his food, but realized that the lad would not have known his name. It was his coachman, a burly, streetwise fellow who, in addition to the virtue of discretion, possessed the even more useful virtue of brute strength.

“I’ve been sent to find you.”

“Did you see our friend?” By now St. Paul was weak with hunger. The child had obviously decided to cut his losses rather than risk being stiffed. St. Paul had to admit it was a good decision on the boy’s part.

“No, but your godmother returned from visiting and invites you to tea.”

“Damn.” Although the idea of tea, preferably accompanied by some cakes, was very appealing, St. Paul was afraid to end his vigil.

“I am a little acquainted with a housemaid here, and she might be prevailed upon to let us know if our man makes a move to leave,” said the coachman.

“You’re a good fellow. If you could arrange it while I do the honors with Mademoiselle?”

The coachman bowed, then knocked on the door to the servants’ entrance. St. Paul walked around to arrive in style at the front gate of the hôtel.

After having conducted Émilie back to her room to rest before the performance, François went through the letters and parcels addressed to Madame de Maintenon that had arrived in the afternoon coach, sorting them into “personal,” “confidential,” “business,” and “not worthy of consideration.” She received literally hundreds of entreaties a day, for everything from prayers to valuable gifts from the king. And, with her increasing power and influence, there was always the possibility that someone would try blackmail, or even, heaven forbid, poison. More than one courtier had been sickened by handling a letter that had been impregnated with some venom.

The letters from individuals whose identities he knew François did not open. But those from strangers, or that looked at all suspicious, were fair game. That afternoon he found one that struck him as very odd. It was in an unfamiliar hand and had traces of dirt on it that were different from those of rough handling en route. His first thought was to protect Madame de Maintenon from the importuning of a petty blackmailer. He took the letter to his own small chamber, warmed the wax seal, and slipped the blade of a knife underneath it. When he read the note, François put his hand to his heart.

He read it again. Its meaning was quite clear. So there was a plan, after all. Or at least, someone wanted the widow Scarron to believe that there was. But he did not know what difference it could possibly make to Madame de Maintenon if someone were scheming to abduct Émilie. Her plan, as he understood it, meant that there would probably be no point. Or if the abduction occurred before he served her the tainted wine, then the girl would be out of the way in any case. Either Émilie would die in possession of her virtue and go straight to heaven, or someone would carry her off right under the widow Scarron’s nose.

After some thought, François decided that it would be better to hand Émilie’s fate over to chance. He liked her, and if it was possible for her not to perish, then all the better. He held the letter over the candle flame and watched it disintegrate into ash. What was the use, in the circumstances, of ruining his position with Madame de Maintenon by letting her know that he was not possessed of all the secrets at court?

Émilie did not have to appear on stage until scene six of Act I—which followed a long prologue designed to heap adulation on King Louis. So she waited inside the palace, in the dark, looking out of the French doors two floors below her own room onto the Cour de Marbre, which had been transformed almost beyond recognition. From her vantage point, she could see the struts and buttresses that held the scenery in place and the twenty or so stagehands who worked the pulleys that set the gears in motion to move the huge wooden structures; the scene would be changed no fewer than five times in the course of the evening. The opera was just like the rest of life at Versailles. It was all blown out of proportion and ridiculous. People pretended to be what they were not. And yet, there was the music …

Waiting there, inside the château, Émilie could hear the orchestra and singers only when they were quite loud. Little snatches she recognized would reach her ears from time to time. Her heart began to beat fast, and she felt as if she were going to faint. In her costume, she could not sit down. François waited there with her: he had come to conduct her downstairs, and she had asked him to stay.

This is what it’s like to be nervous, thought Émilie. She never recalled being nervous before. She took a few deep breaths, and then quietly, with her mouth closed, worked the muscles in her throat slowly over a few easy exercises. Her trembling gradually ceased. She did not know if it was the breathing or the power of her own will, but she knew she would be able to do her part.

The grinding, squeaking noise of gears going into action startled Émilie, and she realized that the scene was changing from a mythical land of pleasure fed by the principal rivers of France, to the seaport of Thessaly, and that those on stage were celebrating the marriage that was supposedly taking place behind the scenes between herself and her beloved Admète. Very soon she would be called to step out in front of the audience, in front of every single one of Louis’s devoted, ambitious courtiers, and justify the time, effort, and money that had been expended to foster her vocal development. Oddly, she was no longer afraid.

The moment arrived. François held the door open for her and the orchestra’s jaunty snap made her heart leap with excitement. The heavy costume forced Émilie to walk tall and with determination. She lifted her chin and strolled to the center of the stage. She could hear the approving murmurs ripple through the audience. Then she opened her mouth and sang.

Her voice blended with that of Monsieur Clédiere, who until that moment had utterly refused to look into her eyes when they sang their love duet. What Émilie did not realize was that in that instant, when she gazed at Monsieur Clédiere, she saw and heard Charpentier. Clédiere’s tenor was not as close a match for her voice as Charpentier’s high tenor, but it hardly mattered. Love and admiration lit her from within and gave her voice a warmth and truth that transcended the artifice of the tragedy she enacted. The entire audience was enraptured.

The music carried Émilie over all her fears and doubts, and she entered into it so fully that, at the moment when she realized that her husband must die, the musical phrases were punctuated by sniffs in the audience. And there were actual sobs when the image on Apollo’s monument became hers, announcing that she had sacrificed her own life to save that of her husband.

When the tragedy was over, the applause and shouts of
“Bis!”
from all quarters were unrestrained. The effect on the king, who had never before heard her sing, was profound. Émilie had noticed that when he came on stage to sing the role of Apollo, he fixed his eyes upon her without wavering. At that moment she felt that she could have wielded great power over him, or over anyone present. But the impression was fleeting, and when the crowd began to move toward the palace to go upstairs and enjoy the feast, Émilie began to feel like herself again.

Before she could join the festivities, she had to change out of her costume and stage makeup in an anteroom just off the courtyard. A court dress had been provided for her, and Marie awaited to assist her out of the heavy costume.

“Mademoiselle Émilie!
Comme vous êtes charmante!”

A lady-in-waiting accosted Émilie as soon as the door to her dressing room was opened. Émilie did not know how more than a dozen courtiers had managed to reach that place, which was right behind the stage, before she did.

“Please, Mademoiselle, accept this gift from me.” An elderly gentleman with only half his teeth proffered a delicate sugar rose to her. Just as she was about to thank him and take it, another woman bumped into him. He dropped the confection, and it disintegrated into a mess of sugary fragments.

“I’m so sorry!” said Émilie, but the gentleman she wanted to apologize to had already been elbowed out of the way by the woman. She was fat, middle-aged, and sweated profusely.

“Mademoiselle, if I could only have a moment of your time, tomorrow, in private.” She grasped Émilie’s hand. Émilie could feel the imprint of something hard in her palm.

“Shoo! Shoo! Mademoiselle Émilie must change her clothes!” It was François desperately trying to stem the flow of courtiers, who now overwhelmed the tiny space. He had little success. Émilie realized that privacy was not highly valued at Versailles: King Louis did almost everything in full view of the world. Nonetheless it shocked her that when it was clear that she had made a successful début, no one would leave her alone. Even while she had her arms above her head so that Marie could lift the costume off without damage, they swarmed around her. One elderly gentleman actually ducked under the skirt with her to give her a gold locket and pay her extravagant compliments. She tried tactfully to push him away, and he backed off, becoming once more part of the crowd that pressed in on her.