Emilie's Voice (19 page)

Midnight was still over an hour away. Émilie took off her court dress and laid it across her bed. Then she walked to her window. The latch stuck when she tried to open it. When it finally gave way, the casement crashed against the outer wall of the palace, and one of the tiny panes shattered. Clouds scudded across a bright, moonlit sky, although the moon itself was out of sight, on the opposite side of the château. Directly across from her window, on the other wing of the château, one or two of the torches that had been fixed up high still glowed, halfheartedly competing with the moonlight. Below, the shiny surface of the Cour de Marbre was again exposed, the stage having been dismantled as quickly as it had been assembled. The black and white squares seemed to move and heave with the constantly changing cloud shadows.

Past and future fell away. Now was all there was. It was comforting, in a way, to know what she had to do, before a different choice was forced upon her. Émilie turned away from the window and walked back to her desk, where she sat, perfectly still, and gazed unseeing toward the night sky.

Eighteen

“I am expecting an important message from Paris this evening.” On her way to bed after the celebration that night, Madame de Montespan addressed the guard who stood outside the door of her apartments in the château. “It will come by messenger on horseback. Please make certain that he will be allowed to pass by the gate, sometime around midnight, I believe.”

The guard bowed and walked to another guard a little farther along the corridor, who then walked to the next one and so on until the message reached the sergeant who was posted to keep watch over the main gate. By the time it arrived at its destination, Madame de Montespan was in her bed, drifting off to sleep. Satisfying to be able to help an insignificant person and harm her most detested rival at the same time, she thought, as she let herself sink into the luxurious comfort of silk sheets and goose down pillows. Besides, she was almost certain she was pregnant again. And Louis was becoming more and more fond of the children they had together. He had just agreed to allow her to bring them to court. Another baby was sure to cement her position.

Every so often Charpentier looked behind him to see if he was being followed. Sometimes the wind carried the sound of pounding hooves in the distance, but he could not see anything. Still, he was afraid to slacken his pace. He had no idea who it could be that called after him like that as he left the stable. Who would have known of his plans?

He guessed that he was about halfway to Versailles. The horse was already foaming at the mouth, and sweat gathered in white streaks on his flank. Charpentier decided he had to ease up or he might kill the animal. He slowed to a canter. It was hard to see the road anyway; the moon kept vanishing behind the clouds, and he had to traverse deep countryside to get to the little village that had once been the site of only a humble hunting lodge. He had never been to Versailles before. Charpentier had followed the directions he was given but was still anxious in case he had not taken the right road. The fact that it was the most well-kept highway to the southwest of Paris reassured him, however. Best not to dwell on it, he thought, and instead went over the other arrangements as he rode. A parcel had arrived earlier that day that contained twenty louis. The note said to use them if he needed to bribe the guards. He had tucked the pouch of coins hurriedly in his sash; now he let go of the reins with one hand to feel if it was still there. It was.

After half an hour, St. Paul’s satin breeches wore through from rubbing against the sweating horseflesh beneath him. He was in agony. The horse, accustomed to pulling a carriage rather than being ridden, was not a smooth mount, nor was he particularly fast. St. Paul lost sight of Charpentier even before he left Paris.

“Damn it all to hell!” he reined in his horse, which was willing enough to take a rest, and dismounted. They were miles from anywhere and hadn’t a hope of being able to stop Charpentier from carrying Émilie away.

Just off the road St. Paul saw a chestnut tree with a boulder beneath it. He could sit there and wait for his coach to catch up to him. At least, he hoped that the coachman had followed. What a fiasco!

As soon as he slid off, the horse, unused to being ridden so hard, put his head down and commenced tearing up what was left of the grass. St. Paul limped over to the boulder he had spotted. He tried to sit on top of it, but his backside was so sore he could not endure it, and so he settled for the soft ground, using the rock as a back rest. He removed his pistol from his sash and examined the firing mechanism. The priming powder was still in the pan. The flint was dull. He closed his eyes. He thought for a moment that perhaps he would be able to stop the couple on their way back to Paris, but in the dark he did not trust his aim-even if he were able to sharpen the flint enough to make a spark. It would not do to kill the girl by accident. At the rate Charpentier was going, St. Paul figured it would be at most two hours before he passed this way again. He yawned and let his head lean back. Within minutes his jaw fell open and his breathing was loud and regular.

The moon had moved across the sky and now seemed to hang just over the slate roof of the old château. It beckoned Émilie, a magnetic disc of light, pulling her off her stool, drawing her slowly toward the window. With her eyes fixed on it, she climbed up onto the casement. In her hand she clutched the jeweled bird the king had given her.

The cool breeze caressed her face. Her own voice rang out and echoed in her head, singing the words of Alceste that Quinault wrote and Lully set to music.

The sound she imagined was more beautiful than anything she had ever heard. She let it engulf her, let it drown out all other noises. Soon she could see the wind pushing and pulling the clouds into fantastic shapes, but she could no longer hear it. Below her was the Cour de Marbre. Somewhere, she was aware of clocks chiming and an insistent pounding, dull, like fists against wood, but very far away. She focused her mind out and over the black and white pattern of the marble below. When the wind was at its wildest, and the song in her head had reached its zenith, Émilie let go of the window frame, spread her arms wide, and balanced on the sill. While she stood there feeling almost drunk with freedom, memories of the hours of singing with Charpentier and visions of her days in the workshop with her father crowded into her mind. She felt her eyes sting, and the moon seemed to swim in front of her. Émilie blinked hard. She would miss both of them in heaven, she thought, more than they would miss her on earth.

A guard stopped Charpentier as soon as he entered the Cour Royale.

“You there! What’s your business?”

“I have a message, for …” Charpentier forgot what he was supposed to say and began to fish for the purse full of coins at his waist.

“Ah yes! You’re expected. Dismount please, sir.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Nobody rides into the Cour Royale except the king.”

With relief, Charpentier slid off his exhausted horse and then led him on toward the door where he expected to find Émilie waiting. He tried to be quiet, but every step they took echoed loudly off the walls of the palace. He looked over his shoulder. There was nobody there, although he was still certain he had been followed from Paris. A noise from the direction of the château made him turn around suddenly. He put his hand over his horse’s nose, signaling for him to be quiet, and then listened. Nothing.

Charpentier stepped slowly forward and his horse whinnied quietly, restless and tired. After three or four steps, he heard the sound once more. Again Charpentier stopped. But all he could hear was the roar of the wind in the autumn trees. In the Cour de Marbre, remnants of the earlier performance, in which Émilie had no doubt enthralled her audience, were still scattered around-a piece of scenery, meaningless and flat without its neighbors, and the orchestra’s stools and music stands not yet taken indoors. A few sputtering torches cast a faint, uneven light that made the black and white marble squares shimmer and dance. He tried, for a moment, to imagine Émilie singing there, but the wind had picked up, and it whistled around the stone palace and whooshed through the dry-leaved trees, drowning out everything he heard in his head.

Something was wrong. Although the atmosphere was alive with the restless night breezes, there was not the faintest sign of humanity anywhere. He was neither early nor late. The clock had struck the three-quarter hour almost at the moment he dismounted. But the door to the right of the Cour de Marbre was shut, and all was utterly quiet, except for the occasional snorting of his horse, and Charpentier’s own pounding heart. It was time to make a move, regardless. To delay might spoil everything. So he tossed the horse’s reins over a post and grabbed the spare cloak he had brought for Émilie, then ran to the door and flung it open, hoping to find her waiting just on the other side. The sudden movement sent a rat scurrying away. It had been nibbling at a dead mouse that was right against the door. No doubt it was this that had pushed it open slightly and made the noise Charpentier had heard. His precipitate entrance not only startled the rat but also awoke a young servant who had nodded off on the floor a little away from the door with a sputtering candle next to him.

“Where is she!” Charpentier, with unaccustomed force, grabbed the lad by the shoulders and lifted him into a standing position.

“That way!” the frightened lackey squeaked, pointing to the door that led to the stairs. “Two flights up, at the end of the hallway.”

Charpentier let go, leaving the boy rubbing his arms, and charged down the hallway and up the stairs. When he emerged at the top, he saw a servant at the end of the corridor, standing at what he assumed was Émilie’s door. He heard the sound of breaking glass and was vaguely aware of the splash of some liquid on his hands as he threw all his weight against Émilie’s locked door, splintering the hinges away from the frame.

“Good God!”

He bounded across the room in two steps, reaching his arms out to grab Émilie, who was balanced precariously on the window ledge. As he pulled her back in, he felt her body go limp. She had fainted. Charpentier swirled the cloak around her, scooped her up, and carried her out past the servant.

Panic seemed to give him wings. With strength he did not know he possessed he mounted his horse with Émilie in his arms, and they galloped through the gates as the guard called after them. Charpentier kept riding. He looked back once or twice, but no one followed them. Émilie was still slack against his chest, and he rode with one arm around her waist and the other controlling the horse. Émilie’s head lolled backward so that her lips were within inches of his, and he could smell her sweet breath. She was still slender, he noticed, but taller and more womanly than when he last saw her. Charpentier clung to his former student, partly because he feared that she might slide off the furiously galloping horse, and partly because he did not want to let her go.

“We’ll be there soon, my love,” he whispered to the unconscious girl, and then he spurred the beast on faster and faster through the night.

François had arrived at Émilie’s door about twenty minutes before midnight with a small tray bearing a carafe of wine and a single glass. He wished, more than anything, that there had been some easy way not to follow Madame de Maintenon’s instructions. He knew the horrible fate that awaited Émilie if she drank the wine. François thought for a moment of “accidentally” dropping the tray. But the widow Scarron was canny, and she would not expect François to make such a mistake. It passed through his mind that he could drink it himself. But although he took no pleasure in harming others, François had no desire to harm himself either. As the hour drew nearer, he continued to hope that he would think of something, or that events would transpire that would solve the dilemma for him. If the note he intercepted told the truth, then someone would attempt to abduct Émilie that night. Abduct, or rescue, depending on how one looked at it. If not, then it was up to him, to give her the wine and take her to the king, or not. He stood quietly outside the door, listening closely for any sound, trying to read the silence for meaning, trying to find a way to resolve the predicament that he—and Émilie—faced.

François’s thoughts were interrupted by loud noises from below, and he looked up just in time to see a stranger barreling down the hallway toward him, his hard-soled boots ringing against the wooden floor. Before he could say a word, the man—Charpentier, he assumed—shoved him aside, sending the wine spattering against the walls and the glass to the floor, where it shattered. The stranger rammed himself so hard against Émilie’s door that the frame came apart.

There was no time even to utter a sound before the intruder dashed back past him, this time carrying the unconscious Émilie in his arms. Stunned into complete immobility, François heard the abductor take the steps two at a time, marveling that he did not lose his footing. The door to the courtyard slammed behind him, and then the hollow clopping of hooves on cobbles faded as they made their escape.

François shook himself out of his stupor and cautiously entered the room. Émilie’s empty dress was draped over her bed. The window was wide open, and the cold night air blew in unimpeded. In that moment François understood what had actually happened. Charpentier had prevented Émilie from taking her own life. This was an outcome he had not foreseen, and it changed everything. He crossed himself and said a silent prayer.

“Heaven help us,” said François to the empty room. There would have to be an explanation. If he raised the alarm, guards would chase after them, they would be apprehended, and then—anything could happen.

In the course of a lifetime at Versailles, François had seen everything. The most preposterous events seemed to be daily occurrences there, as if there was an unwritten law that life at court should be absurd and exaggerated. He looked at Émilie’s window and pictured her standing framed by it on the window ledge, then just leaning forward and sailing out, to plunge into the courtyard below. It wouldn’t have been the first time such a thing had happened. And why couldn’t it have happened? Who else had seen Charpentier arrive?