Through a Glass Darkly: A Novel (49 page)

   She had not thought to find her mind going continually to that lilac tree, to that buried sheet. She found herself imagining what the child might have looked like. Surely time would heal her, as it did all things. She found comfort in her rosary and in the greening buds of the trees and in the tiny green stalks in the garden. But Holy Mother, where was the joy she had once felt in simply being alive? That joy was all that a woman such as her possessed. It made her special, set her above her fellow servants. Was it buried with that sheet which held all she would ever know of a child? She shook her head at her thoughts and went to oversee the laundering.

* * *

   Louise–Anne de Charolais and Henri de St. Michel waited in the governor's room in the prison of the Bastille. They had come to visit Richelieu, who had finally been imprisoned for his duel with de Gacé a week ago, March fourth. His imprisonment had became a sensation; all of fashionable Paris flocked to visit him, to bring him flowers and sweets. In his arrogance, Richelieu had had the cell furnished with his own bed and a table and chairs from his home. Rugs lay over the cold stone floors and tapestries hung on the stone walls. His valet stayed with him to attend him and dress him. In the evenings, he strolled along the wall and in the garden with the governor. Paris loved it. Richelieu was an original. More women than ever vowed they were in love with him.

   Bored with waiting, Louise–Anne went to the window, glanced out, and saw Barbara and Marie–Victorie de Gondrin being helped into a carriage.

   "No wonder we must wait," she said to St. Michel. "He has been entertaining other guests!"

   A jailer escorted them to the cell. Richelieu was dressed as he would have been on any day, in a plum colored satin coat with black cording and brown breeches. His wig was new. His ugly face was thinner. That was the only sign that prison might not be all he said it was. He stood by a birdcage, pushing his finger through the bars and whistling to a small, yellow–gold linnet. His valet at once went to pour wine as Louise–Anne and St. Michel entered.

   "Welcome," Richelieu said. "I have been dying of boredom."

   Louise–Anne turned her face away from his kiss. "Do not mouth 'boredom' to me. I caught a glimpse of your last two visitors!"

   "Ah, yes, the worthy Marie–Victorie and the Countess Devane. As I said, I have been dying of boredom. What could be more boring than a visit from two women determined to protect their virtue? Henri, I begin to think that Lady Devane will outwit us both."

   "I thought you were trying to sneak in ahead of me," St. Michel said.

   "Would I do that?"

   "Yes."

   Both men laughed. Louise–Anne pulled off her long, soft gloves and unpinned her hat. She tossed it on the bed and walked around the room to inspect it, stopping in front of the birdcage to make clucking sounds to the linnet, which burst into song.

   "How charming! Who brought you this?"

   "Lady Devane," Richelieu said casually. "She thought it would cheer me. She had some odd notion that prison is not enjoyable.

   "'Oh? And what other odd notions does she have?"

   "Unfortunately, none of interest, my sweet. I was intent only on playing cards with her. Today I won. She was furious. Tomorrow she will win."

   Richelieu's horse and Barbara's riding it were a topic of much gossip; as was their running card game, in which they traded ownership of the horse back and forth, as one or the other won. Yet the lady in question made no secret of her devotion to her husband and favored none of her admirers, not even the persistent St. Michel. Paris was beginning to consider her both dashing and original. (Virtue was always original. Done with style it became dashing.)

   "She really is boring," said Richelieu, "except that she plays cards so well. Tell me, Henri, the truth. How does your pursuit go?"

   St. Michel was silent. It went badly, as all Paris knew. "I am thinking of dropping her—"

   Richelieu began to laugh, cruel, mocking laughter. St. Michel stiffened.

   "'What a fool you are," Richelieu said. "I could have her in my bed within six months."

   "Implying I cannot!"

   "You will never be the man I am."

   St. Michel's hand went to his sword. Richelieu had no sword since he was in the Bastille for dueling. He grinned.

   "I know a true man," Louise–Anne said softly, "who would laugh at both of you and kill either of you in a second if you dared speak to him as you do to everyone else. He would not wound, like you and Gacé, Armand. Throwing down your swords at the first show of blood. But kill you. Dead."

   "Your Uncle Philippe," said Richelieu, diverted from his game with St. Michel. "Is he back in town?"

   "The one who killed D'Arcy last year?" St. Michel interrupted excitedly, forgetting his anger.

   "Yes. And before that he killed Montreal." Louise–Anne shivered. "The only time he was ever human was when he and Roger were friends. I always thought he killed Montreal because of Roger."

   "Roger? Roger Montgeoffry?" said Richelieu.

   "Yes, Roger and Uncle Philippe were fast friends, and then Uncle Philippe killed Montreal and Roger left Paris, and my uncle…" She stopped, unable to explain. "You would have to know my uncle.

   "I am glad I do not," said St. Michel.

   "Well, you will have another chance. He said in a letter to Mother that he is coming to Paris for new clothes and the theater and to see our wonder of wonders, John Law. But I think he is coming to see Roger. Maybe they will duel. That would be something to see. They are both real men. One of them would die." She shivered again and put her arms around herself. The tip of her little red tongue touched her upper lip. Through the fabric of her gown, her breast tips had become hard. Richelieu stared at her.

* * *

   It was the last afternoon of a week in which the Duc and Duchesse du Maine had thrown open the doors of their estate to celebrate the coming of spring. All week long guests had driven up the long front avenue to be fêted with poetry readings and theatricals in which the guests had learned the parts and played them on the private stage built at Sceaux. There were concerts in the ballroom, dinners (observing the Lenten fast, with fish fresh from the Seine each morning), hunting and riding expeditions, strolls in the budding gardens, gambling, and dancing every night.

   Now, Barbara and Roger strolled along the edge of the landscape pool at one end of the terraces at Sceaux. They had been invited to spend the night, after the dancing, for Roger was buying two Arabian stallions from the Duc du Maine, who had been given them by an illegitimate son of the late king.

   He was talking to Barbara of Bentwoodes, and she listened, adoring, aware at some deep level she could not give words to that he was beginning to make a place for her in his life. He was sharing his dreams. He liked the lavish hospitality, the talk of art and literature, the fine wines and foods mixed with scandal and politics at Sceaux. It was a French, rather than an English, tradition. Even at Saylor House there was not this complexity, this magnificence. They were talking of this as they walked, arm in arm, down the graveled paths, paths punctuated by straight rows of young chestnut trees, which led to the fountains, spurting water that glinted like crystals in the fresh, cold, early spring air.

   "It will take ten years to complete the house as I envision it," he was saying. "The first part I want to build is the temple of the arts—imagine it, Bab, a graceful, classical building filled with the finest paintings, statuary, ancient busts and drawings, a building that will uplift the spirit by its very essence. We will entertain in it, and the grounds surrounding it will be magnificent. I will link it with an arcade to the house, a house that will be the most beautiful in England. It will become the most famous in the country. Men of learning and sophistication, of talent, will always be welcome. Our hospitality will be as lavish as this." He spread his arms to include the gardens and main house of Sceaux.

   In ten years, Barbara thought, I will be almost twenty–six…and we will have children. Charlotte and Anne shall be married, and Harry and Tom. Roger will be fifty–two, that made her shiver—her grandfather had died at fifty–eight, and was considered to have lived to a ripe old age. Her grandmother, now in her sixties, was thought to be a miracle of health. Impossible that in ten years, Roger might be dead and she a widow. To look at him now, with the sun shining strongly on his face, was to see a man who looked to be in his thirties, no more. He was handsomer than he had ever been in his life. Everyone commented on it, and he accepted the comments with the natural grace of a man who has never heard anything else. Barbara hoped it was her love that was making him younger. Only the myriad lines about his eyes suggested his true age. She shivered again and squeezed his arm.

   "Make love to me."

   He stopped in the middle of the path and stared at her. His eyes were bluer than the spring sky. "Now? In the afternoon?"

   "Yes. Now."

* * *

   The candles in the huge crystal chandeliers of the ballroom at Sceaux sputtered and dripped hot wax onto the shoulders of the guests. At almost midnight, the ball showed no sign of ending. The servants would have to replace the candles in the chandeliers before the first guest climbed into his carriage and drove back into Paris in the early hours of the morning.

   Barbara yawned behind her fan. She and Roger were both tired. As soon as he returned with her glass of champagne, she was going to suggest they excuse themselves and go to bed. No one would miss them. Everybody was too busy gossiping about everyone else. John Law was here and people surrounded him as if he were a magnet. She caught bits and pieces of talk about his national bank, a miracle that would make everybody rich, that would make the national debt disappear, that would provide cheap money, increase trade, fix prices on goods and lending. She could feel the excitement pulsing in the room, pulsing from Law. But after two or so months in Paris, she had decided that the Parisians were always excited over something. If they could not find something, they made it up. She began to work her way through the crowd to find Roger and tell him she was going to bed.

   Someone tapped her on the shoulder with a fan. She turned. It was Louise–Anne de Charolais, which surprised her. She knew the princess did not like her; she was jealous over Barbara's visits to Richelieu and her sudden popularity. (Richelieu had told Barbara just the other day that she must not, under any circumstances, stop visiting him in the Bastille. "My love life with Louise–Anne has improved immensely," he said, "and I owe it all to you. Swear you will continue to visit me.")

   "I have been looking for you," Louise–Anne said, running her eyes up and down Barbara's lilac silk ball gown, trimmed in green and silver bows. The lilac was as pale as the buds on the lilac trees in the gardens, and Barbara wore a thick rope of pearls twined around her neck, and another twined through her hair, which was unpowdered, unlike that of the other women in the room. Heavy pearl earrings hung down on each side of her slim neck. With her rouged lips and cheeks—"Lightly, madame, lightly," warned Thérèse. "Your youth does better than any rouge"—and her darkened brows and lashes, she looked lovely, fashionable, and best of all, unique. Louise–Anne, with her hair powdered chalk–white, two vivid streaks of rouge across her cheeks, and her red slash of a mouth, looked haggard and shopworn beside her.

   "Someone wishes to meet you," Louise–Anne said. "Lady Devane, may I present my uncle, the Prince de Soissons. Uncle Philippe, may I present Lady Devane."

   He bowed over her hand. He was tall and heavy without being fat, with a proud, handsome, full–fleshed face marred by a dueling scar that drew his mouth up to one side. His eyes were brown under heavy eyebrows—the eyebrows and the scar gave his face an ironic expression. He seemed to be in his forties. He was staring at her with a curious expression—part interest, part admiration, part something else she could not read, but perhaps it was just those eyebrows. When he smiled, she saw that he had white, even teeth, and that, combined with the smile, took her breath away. He was a very attractive man.

   "I admired your grandfather. I cannot tell you how I have looked forward to this meeting," he said.

   There was something odd in the way he spoke, as if he were making fun of her. She did not understand.

   "You knew my grandfather?"

   "We fought on opposite sides, but it was an honor to be his enemy; he was as famous in our army as he was in yours. The king used to throw vases at the campaign maps each time your grandfather besieged a city, for everyone knew it was as good as captured. Once I was his prisoner, and I was treated as handsomely as any guest. I felt honor–bound to stand by my pledge not to escape, even though your grandfather beat me regularly at chess. I assure you I came here tonight only to meet you. Louise–Anne will tell you that I have stayed on my estate the last year, and now I am like a country bumpkin in the city."

   He did not seem like a country bumpkin. He spoke with assurance, seeming unusually polished and urbane. There was a slight touch of irony in everything he said, as well as in the way he looked at her. Surely it was more than the set of his eyebrows and the way that scar drew up his mouth.

   "How long are you to be in Paris?"

   "Who knows? I am tempted to go back to the country; the city is too much for me. I had forgotten the noise, the confusion, the people. I would have stayed home tonight, but I could not pass up the opportunity to meet the granddaughter of the famous Duke of Tamworth. A young woman— most lovely, may I add—who shares the distinction of also being Roger Montgeoffry's wife."

   "You know my husband, then—but, of course, you must if you knew my grandfather."

   He laughed, a laugh that was as rich, as full, as melted chocolate.

   "Yes, Lady Devane…may I presume and call you Barbara? Thank you. I know him well. He and I were once very great friends. There he is now—against the terrace windows—still looking ten years younger than I. Marriage must agree with him. I always found his eternal youth most annoying. I still do. Take my arm, Barbara, and we will walk over and surprise him. Run along, Louise–Anne, my child. You have been a most helpful niece. You must walk slowly, my dear, for I limp—an old battle wound of sorts."