Through a Glass Darkly: A Novel (52 page)

   "I will escort you home," St. Michel said, early in the hours of the morning. His eyes were gauging her mood, the amount of champagne she had drunk. She shrugged.

   The carriage was dark. It rattled and lurched across the cobbles. She could hear St. Michel's breathing. The champagne had left her feeling tired and heavy, as if stones were attached to the ends of her limbs and were pulling her down, down, down.

   "I adore you," St. Michel said in the darkness. With a lurching movement, he sat beside her. In another moment his arms were around her as he tried to kiss her.

   "No!" she said, twisting and pushing him. He only held her more tightly. His mouth was on her neck, then on the top part of her breasts where they swelled before they met the edge of her gown.

   "No!" she cried, anger beginning to fill her—and fear, the faintest prickles of fear.

   He raised his head to kiss her mouth, but she reared back and brought her head forward with all the force of which she was capable. Her head hit him squarely on the nose. He yelped and fell back against the carriage seat.

   She was across on the other side, her body tense, ready if he I should try anything again. Her heart was beating like a soldier's drum. There was only silence.

   "Henri?" she said tentatively to the shadows that were his body, his cloak, his face.

   "My God," he said in the darkness, "I think you have broken my nose." His voice was muffled, and he sounded like a child, like a little boy, like one of her brothers.

   "Henri, you should not have grabbed me like that—"

   "My God, you have broken my nose! I am bleeding like a pig! If you were a man, I would kill you—"

   "If I were a man this would not have happened. Hold your head back. Here, use my cloak to wipe the blood. Shall I stop the carriage?"

   "Yes. You think I want to stay another moment in here with you, you, you…" He was silent, apparently, unable to find a word. She knocked on the roof and the carriage lurched to a stop.

   "You are not a lady." His tone was shocked, as if he had made a terrible accusation.

   She was silent. If she had let him do as he wanted, if she had cried or pleaded, would she then have been a lady? The footman was holding a flambeau, and she could see that Henri had his head thrown back and part of her cloak bunched to his face. Carefully, he stepped outside. She leaned out the window as the carriage rolled away. He was still standing with his head back. Sweet Jesus, had she broken his nose? She felt a terrible urge to laugh.

   She lay instead like a limp rag doll against the jolting carriage seat. Well, her foremost admirer was lost, in a style that only her brothers would appreciate. Now she would not be fashionable anymore. Why had Roger been rude to her in public? If he did not care for her…She bit her lip. But then another thought diverted her. Had she truly broken St. Michel's nose? What would Roger say to that?

* * *

   Roger sat sprawled in a chair in his bedchamber, watching Justin put away his clothes. He wore his shirt, breeches, and stockings, but had ripped off his coat, waistcoat, and wig the moment he stepped into the room, as if they were choking him. Justin had taken one look at his face and, without a word, brought him the brandy bottle. Dear Justin, thought Roger, tipping the bottle back and feeling the brandy burn all the way down; Justin knew him better than anyone. Justin had been with him when he was nobody. Since before Philippe. He drank from the bottle the way he used to years ago when he was a brash young soldier, and he had made it through another battle, when the man next to him had died screaming with a pick–axe through his shoulder, slicing it off in one neat stroke, as a butcher does beef. Years ago when the smell of blood and smoke and fear seemed to be everywhere; his hands shook with their memory as he drank to forget. Drank and drank.

   Justin folded his coat and put it away. He brought Roger his slippers. He pulled down the covers on the bed. Deftly, he scooped ashes into the warming pan and warmed the bed with it. He drew the draperies. He did the hundred and one soothing tasks that made Roger's life comfortable. And all the time he never said a word, never asked one question. Did nothing more than glance at Roger from time to time. He knows, thought Roger. He has known since Sceaux. When Justin was finished, he sat in a chair near the fire, silent, ready if Roger should need him. When Roger finished the bottle, he called for another. Justin brought it and went back to his place by the fire.

   "Justin," Roger, said. His words were slurred. The edges were blurred. Good. "Justin. What am I to do?"

   Justin was silent.

   "He is here, you know," Roger said.

   The sound of dogs yapping penetrated to the bedchamber. Justin straightened. He almost smiled.

   "Lady Devane is home," he said to Roger. "Go see Lady Devane. She is a good girl, sir. A good wife."

   He went to Roger and took away the bottle and retied the ties on Roger's shirt and helped Roger to stand.

   "Go on, sir," he said. "She will make you feel better. She loves you, sir. Go on. That's it, sir."

   The puppies ran yapping to the doorway of the bedchamber. They jumped up and down, their shrill voices filling the room. Barbara was in her underpetticoat, and Thérèse was pulling off her hoop.

   Roger stood swaying in the doorway. He was drunker than Barbara had ever seen him. She motioned to Thérèse, who called the dogs and left.

   "Barbara?" Roger said her name tentatively. He walked into the room but stumbled into a chair. She ran to him and put his arm over her shoulder, half lugging him to the bed, where he fell back like a dead man.

   "Dear Barbara."

   She pulled off everything but her chemise, and snuffed the candle and crawled into the bed beside him. He took her in his arms. She put her hand to his face; it was wet. She forgot everything else and wrapped her arms around him, cradling his head on her breasts.

   "I feel so sad."

   "I love you," she said. "I love you more than anything else in—"

   His mouth stopped her words. She wrapped her arms and legs around him, and he made love to her as if he were going to die tomorrow. She had no time to meet his passion. Everything was touching, feeling, probing, wet. There was only his need, and her giving. I give you everything, she thought, covering his face with kisses, feeling the moisture from his tears. He was cry ing even as he made love to her. She whispered his name, her love, wrapping herself around him. He sank against her.

   She touched his face, gently, tentatively. "Tell me why you cry."

   "I am too old for you, Barbara. I have done too many things…." His words were slurred. She did not understand them all.

   "Hush," she soothed him, as she would have done Anne or Kit or Charlotte. "Hush. I am here." She thought of St. Michel. The urge to confess, to have her sins forgiven, filled her.

   "Roger. Roger, I have done a bad thing—" She poured out her story, not certain whether to laugh or cry. Roger would know what to do. Roger knew everything. Even if he were angry, at least she would have confessed.

   He did not answer. He was asleep. She pulled the bed covers up about his shoulders and felt his forehead with her lips and smoothed back his hair. He had not heard a word she had said.

* * *

   White sat at a small table near the windows in his sitting room. He was supposed to be working, but he was looking at the gardens. Thérèse Fuseau was there, with the page, Hyacinthe, and the puppies. She was planting pansies in a corner of the garden under a budding lilac tree while Hyacinthe threw sticks, and the puppies ran after them, yapping and falling over themselves. They were roly–poly with fat. The gardens were ready for spring. Fresh gravel had been carted in and raked in the paths. Everywhere, bulbs were lifting their green heads, and already tulips were beginning to unfurl their glorious blossoms. The lilac trees showed purple buds. Everything was wakening after its winter sleep.

   Thérèse finished planting the last pansy. Carefully, she patted the dirt around the thin neck of its blossom and sat back on her heels, satisfied with the tiny, private garden she had created. Even though the day was chilly, the sun was warm on her back. She listened to Hyacinthe's shrill, high, joyous boy's laughter. It made her smile. She wiped her hands off and went to sit on a garden bench to watch him. He ran back and forth with the lithe energy only a young boy possesses, and the puppies fell over themselves to follow him. He threw the sticks and then ran ahead of them as they gamboled after. She had been to see a physician for the bleeding, which had lessened, but not completely stopped. When he had examined her, his probing hands had made her writhe with pain. "An infectious irritation to the female organs," he had told her afterward. He gave her a powder to drink, told her to eat plenty of eggs and beef broth to build up her blood and then said, "When the infection heals, you will be unable to conceive children." Hyacinthe's happy laughter rose and fell in the garden.

   She heard steps crunching on the gravel and looked up to see Pierre LeBlanc, the majordomo of the house, coming toward her. He was fat, middle–aged and ugly, with freckles on his face and hands. What can he want? she thought, standing and shading her eyes as she watched him. Was he going to chastise her for sitting in the garden? Or complain of the slowness of the new laundress? As she was Lady Devane's personal maid, his jurisdiction over her was tenuous. And then she knew. She knew as surely as she knew her own name. There could be no other reason. She kept her face calm and smiling.

   "A lovely day," he said to her gesturing for her to sit back down. "You have no duties, I see."

    "Lady Devane has no complaints of me," she said coolly. "I am stealing a moment of free time. Surely there is no crime in that."

   "No," he agreed genially, sitting down beside her even though she had not invited him. "But there is a crime in stealing other things."

   "What things?"

   "The housekeeper tells me a set of sheets is missing from your room." He pulled a penknife from his pocket and began to clean under his nails. Thérèse did not answer. He was too calm. He knew everything.

   "Look at me, look at me!" Hyacinthe called. She waved to him.

   "What were you doing out so early in the garden some weeks ago, Mademoiselle Fuseau? But I may call you Thérèse, yes? I look from my window, and I see Lady Devane's new maid digging like a madwoman in the dirt under that very lilac tree there. What lovely pansies you have planted. What can she be doing? I think. I am a curious man, Mademoiselle Thérèse, and a careful one. I run a clean house, a strict one. Is she burying jewels? I ask myself. Has she stolen from the young mistress? Does she plan to dig them up and meet a lover in the middle of the night? Yes, these are the things I ask myself. So, after you leave, I go to the garden, and I dig. And what do I find? I find bloody sheets, Thérèse. Bloody sheets. Sheets which I now have in a trunk in my room. And I remember how the pretty new maid faints in the laundry room. And how the chambermaid complains of vomit in the slop jar. And how the cook says you eat nothing on your tray. I run a strict house, as you see. Sooner or later, I know everything. About everyone. And so now I know what the pretty, stuck–up Mademoiselle Fuseau has done. I know. And I think to myself, Pierre, she should be dismissed. Lady Devane should know. But I like you, Thérèse. And then I think, Why not give the young lady another chance? But I am a selfish man; and I also think that I should be rewarded for my kindness. What do you think, Thérèse?"

   Thérèse did not answer. Each time he had said her name, he had said it with a knowing contempt. She watched Hyacinthe playing with the puppies. The morning was chill, but crystal clear, as if the spring sun was shining on the world with a radiance that made everything shimmer.

   "Tonight," LeBlanc said, standing up, closing his penknife and pocketing it. "I will come up the back stairs. Leave your door unlocked."

   He walked away. She did not stare after him, but closed her eyes and lifted her face to the sun. She could feel its warmth penetrating like the touch of warm, gentle fingers on her face. Hyacinthe was whistling to the dogs, trying to teach them to come to him. His whistle was clear and shrill in the quiet of the garden. Once more she heard someone's shoes crunching in the gravel. Involuntarily, she shuddered, but then there was a skittering sound, as if the person walking had stumbled. She opened her eyes. Caesar White stood a few feet away, his good arm against a small lime sapling. He grinned at her.

   "I stumbled," he said. He nodded toward his crippled, shortened arm with its tiny hand. "Sometimes this makes me lose my balance."'

   Thérèse said nothing, neither encouraging nor discouraging.

   "I saw you from my window," he said, coming closer. "You were planting flowers. They were pretty. Your face has a strange expression on it, Mademoiselle Fuseau. Did LeBlanc say something to annoy you…or am I the annoyance?"

   He was remembering the evening she had been rude, as she was remembering it. That evening seemed a long time ago to Thérèse. So much had happened since then. Why had she been rude? Of course, because she was feeling sick. She patted the bench.

   "Sit down, Monsieur White. And stop frowning. I was rude to you the last time we talked, but I was not feeling well. Now I am fine. LeBlanc was complaining because I was enjoying the sun." She shrugged, as if to say, He can complain all he wants, but here I am. "He put me in bad spirits. You, however, Monsieur White, have raised them." She smiled at him. Her maid's cap was very white against the dark of her hair, her lips were soft and rose–colored.

   "Caesar," White said distractedly. "Call me Caesar."

   "And you must call me Thérèse."

   There were several moments of strained silence. Thérèse smiled to herself.

   "I am glad spring is coming," she said.

   "Yes. Yes, I am, too. The—the gardens will be beautiful."

   "Yes, they will."