Through a Glass Darkly: A Novel (61 page)

* * *

   White walked through the early morning loveliness of the gardens attached to the house. It was as if, during the night, someone had come and frosted the trees, the shrubs, the flowers, with diamonds, for that was what the morning dew resembled, thousands and thousands of diamond droplets. But White's thoughts were not on the dew or the morning beauty of the gardens. His thoughts were on a piece of paper he had found yesterday afternoon nailed to the stable doors. On the ugly, clumsy verse printed upon it:

Devane, Soissons, Devane—'tis all in vain, Old and young, young and old,

Friends forever, tied with ropes that hold.
Devane, Devane—when all is done and said,
Soissons comes between—in life, in love, in bed.

   Into his mind, like a falling star, had flashed that moment two weeks ago when he had stood on the terrace with Lady Devane and seen the prince touch Lord Devane on the shoulder and felt the earth shake. To his poet's eyes, the gesture had been larger than life, full of something he did not understand. He had put it away as his overwrought imagination; a poet's watchfulness, always observing other people, their reactions, their emotions. But it had stayed with him, lying coiled like a sleeping serpent at the back of his mind, and even as he finished reading the last clumsily composed line it reared up and struck.

   He had crumpled the paper, only to see another pasted farther down, and another and another. They were in the garden, on the front steps, in the stable yard. Anywhere and everywhere Lord Devane—or Lady Devane—might find them. He hunted them down, each and every one, and burned them, his own sweat dripping into the flames. If she should see…if she should see, would she even understand? He felt as if he had been punched in the stomach. He admired and respected Roger, who was everything he was not. Handsome. Charming. Noble. Generous. This was something he could not even think about; to do so made him want to cry, to vomit. His hero with an Achilles heel so monstrous that he could not bear it. His hero, a hero no more. All his verses, the epic poem he had been working on for so long, were nothing if it were true. They were a paean to something false, a man who was not a man. A man who loved another man. He could not think of it without shuddering.

   Thérèse was leaning out an upstairs window, shaking out a rug. She waved to him, and after a moment, he waved back. Thérèse. He had seen her strolling in the gardens in the late evening twice with Harry Alderley. Laughing and talking together, looking at each other like two people who—he would not finish the thought. It hurt him. She had never let him do more than kiss her once or twice. And now she flirted, as he had wanted her to flirt with him, flirted with a spoiled young nobleman. It was not fair. Nothing was fair. What was happening? He felt as if his whole world were crumbling.

* * *

   Hours later, across town, Harry Alderley watched Louise-Anne de Charolais being undressed by her maid. He sipped his glass of wine, grinning at her. Seductively, she smiled at him, now in her hoop and petticoat, her breasts pushed up, white, at the top of her corset. He reached across the dressing table to pour himself more wine, and in doing so the name on a crumpled piece of paper caught his eye. Devane, Soissons, Devane… He put down the wine glass and smoothed the paper, his face changing as he read. Louise–Anne, in her chemise and stockings, a silky robe over her shoulders, motioned for her maid to leave.

   "What is this?" he asked her, a vein throbbing in his forehead. He shook the paper.

   She had been walking toward him, ready for his embrace. She shrugged. "The latest street verses." She looked into his eyes and then away, quickly.

   "The latest street verses," he said slowly. "About my sister and the Prince de Soissons!" He kicked the fragile chair he had been sitting in and it skittered across the room. "It is a lie!" he shouted. "Who would write such filth?"

   "It is not about your sister," Louise–Anne said, watching him. "It is about Roger—and his lover."

   He stared at her. "Roger and his—"

   In two strides, he was beside her, one hand roughly on her arm. There was nothing of the lover on his face now. He shook her.

   "Explain yourself!"

   She tried to pull her arm away. "My uncle is Roger's lover. It is so simple, Harry. Are you as naïve as your sister? Do you not know that men may be lovers? Could you have spent all that time in Italy and never have seen them? It is called the Italian vice." She had put her hand on the front of his shirt as she spoke, her own words beginning to excite her, as did his violence. Now she stared at him, her mouth slightly slack, moist, ready. He dropped her arm as if it were a snake and backed away from her.

   "I do not believe you."

   She laughed at him. He smashed his fist down on her dressing table. Fragile jars and boxes went flying. She stopped laughing.

   "Did you write this filth? Did you?"

   She shook her head.

   "Who did?"

   "I do not know," she whispered. The expression on his face frightened her. He picked up the wine bottle and sent it crashing into the wall. She flinched at the sound. Wine dripped to the floor like blood.

   "Go away," she told him, but he was already out the door.

   On the street behind her mansion, it took him several minutes to calm down enough to orient himself. He began to walk in the direction of his sister's house, not yet noticing the pieces of paper—old and new—pasted to the buildings he passed. Finally, he looked at them.

   "Devane, Soissons, Devane," he read. He ripped the paper from the wall and tore it to shreds. He walked farther down, carefully reading the notices now. Some of them he tore from the wall, crumpling them into balls and throwing them into the mud of the street. By the time he had walked six blocks, sweat was gleaming on his brow. They were everywhere. It would be mere chance if Barbara missed seeing them.

   "Barbara," he whispered, the veins standing out in his forehead. "Barbara."

* * *

   "Now let me see," Montrose said, "if I put Madame de Gondrin here, I will have to put the Comte de Toulouse there." Like a child, Montrose sat in the middle of the floor of the adjoining parlor he and White shared, playing with pieces of paper that were his seating arrangements for Lady Devane's birthday dinner party, two days away. There could be no ball, no reception, because of her mourning, but Lord Devane had insisted on an opulent, small dinner with a recital afterward. The household had been planning it since the beginning of the month. Montrose was working feverishly; he had managed to secure the talents of Adrienne Le Couvreur, the most famous actress in Paris, who would enact passages from Racine's tragic heroines afterward. There would be violins and bass viols on the terrace, where the guests would dine at a series of small tables. The regent and his wife would be coming, Lord Stair, John Law and his wife, the Prince de Soissons, the Duc and Duchesse de Saint–Simon, Lord Alderley, Lord Wharton, the Duc and Duchesse de Noailles, the Prince and Princesse de Condé and the Prince and Princesse de Bourbon, Madame de Gondrin, the Comte de Toulouse. Small, but select. A proper reflection of his master's influence.

   "The regent here, at the table with Lord and Lady Devane and her brother. But who else shall I put with them? The Princesse de Condé or the Duchesse de Saint–Simon? The duchess, perhaps. She might inspire the regent to behave himself—Caesar, are you listening to me? Where shall I put the duchess?"

   "In a dustbin, for all I care." White sat nearby, brooding. It might not be true. It might be some piece of political filth. Something twisted to disfigure a sincere friendship.

   "What is wrong with you? You have been like a bear since yesterday. Have you quarreled with Thérèse again? Or has something gone wrong with your poem—"

   "There is more to life than poems, Francis."

   "How very original. I must write that down somewhere. There is more to life than poems. I sit here struggling with an impossible seating plan, and all you can say is "There is more to life than poems, Fran—'"

   Pierre LeBlanc, the majordomo, burst into the room like an explosion. "Quickly," he panted. "Come quickly! They fight! They fight! It is everything terrible!"

   "Who? Who?" Montrose, still sitting on the floor, looked and sounded like an owl.

   "Lord Alderley! The prince! Lord Devane! He is tearing up the blue– and–gold salon! He is like a man gone mad! Help me!"

   The three of them ran from the room, Montrose's pieces of paper scattering like dust.

   Harry had not come back intending to fight. He stood in the doorway of the salon, swaying from shock, and watched Philippe put his hand on Roger's shoulder and say, "My dear, they are everywhere. What shall we do?" And something exploded in his mind then, red, orange, ugly. It was true. He burst across the room and threw himself on Roger's back, screaming, "You filthy, prick–licking son of a bitch! You are not fit to touch the hem of my sister's skirts!"

   He threw Roger facedown on a table in front of him. Blood spurted, red and dark.

   Philippe grabbed Harry, pulling him off, and like a frenzied bull Harry staggered back, sending them both barreling into plates and vases, crashing around them, porcelain victims. Harry and Philippe grappled like two wrestlers, their faces strained, panting.

   "Bastard!" Harry screamed. "French fucking bastard!"

   Shaking, Roger wiped blood from his mouth. LeBlanc and a footman ran in.

   "Stop them!" Roger panted. LeBlanc and the footman seemed unable to move. Harry and Philippe were on the floor, rolling over and over, into tables and chairs. LeBlanc ran out. Picking up a vase, Roger ran forward and smashed it against Harry's head; Harry groaned and lay still atop Philippe. Kicking, Philippe pulled himself away.

   "I…will…kill…him," he said in a shaking, breathless voice. "With… my…own…hands…I will kill him." Blood was gushing from Philippe's nose, staining his linen shirt, his velvet coat.

   "No!"

   Roger's voice rang out. He had to get Philippe past that red rage. Men had died for far less than what Harry had just done.

   "Think of the scandal! Think of me, if nothing else!" Roger's face was hard, commanding, the way it was when he had led troops. Philippe looked at him, and Roger saw the danger in his face.

   "I will not let you do it," Roger said. And he put his hand on his own sword.

   Philippe swung back his leg and kicked Harry in the ribs as he lay there. The sound thudded dully. The footman flinched. Harry groaned.

   "English dog," Philippe said through clenched teeth. "I will eat your liver for supper."

   Montrose, LeBlanc, and White burst into the room. They stood staring at the white–faced footman; at the overturned tables and chairs; at Roger and Philippe, both wigless, both bleeding; at broken plates and vases and scattered paper; at Harry, lying like a dead man.

   "Is he…is he—" stammered Montrose.

   "No! But I wish he were. Drunken fool! Carry him to his room."

   Roger's voice was like iron, the only normal thing in the room. It snapped people back into themselves. LeBlanc and the footman picked Harry up and carried him away; he was strung between the two of them like a dead deer.

   "Your face," Montrose said to Roger. Roger wiped his mouth, which was bleeding. Montrose ran to hand him a handkerchief, his own, starched, white, pristine, unused.

   "What happened, sir?" he asked, his eyes wide as he looked around the destroyed room.

   Roger and Philippe exchanged one glance, a glance that White, standing quietly by the door, was on the alert for. My God, he thought, it is true. They are lovers. He wanted to weep, like a child who has been told all his fantasies are false.

   "He was drunk, and he attacked us without provocation," Philippe said, rage still on his face, in his voice. He dabbed at his bleeding nose.

   "Perhaps he read this." White moved from the door to hand Roger a piece of paper. There was silence in the room.

   "What? What?" cried Montrose, looking from one to the other, feeling the tension.

   Roger flushed, tried to speak, but White had caught him off guard. White turned on his heel and left the room, and Roger gazed after him.

   "There has been some ugly gossip, Francis," Roger said, tiredly handing Montrose the paper. "Gossip that is not true, but which Lord Alderley apparently believed. I trust you will see that the servants do not speak of this. It will be all that is needed to fan the fires. And will you see that this house is thoroughly searched? I will not have my wife exposed to this filth."

   Dazed, Montrose bowed and left the room. Roger slumped into a chair.

   "Dear Christ," he said. "What am I going to do?"

   "I am going to kill him," Philippe said. "If he ever dares so much as to look at me the wrong way, I am going to kill him. And nothing you can say will stop me."

* * *

   Montrose searched for White. Finally, he found him in his bedchamber. He was stuffing shirts into a battered valise. A fire burned in his small fireplace, and Montrose could see whole manuscript pages there, untouched except for curling edges.

   "Your verses!" he cried, running to the fire and trying to pull them out. "My God, Caesar, what are you doing? It is your poem!" He managed to pull about half the pages out. He stamped on their smoldering brown edges. White continued to stuff shirts into his valise. Then he put in his brushes, his shaving razor, his soap cup.

   "Where are you going?" Montrose cried.

   "I am leaving."

   "But why? Is it something I have done? Is it Thérèse? I thought you knew about LeBlanc. Has Lord Devane insulted you? What? What could it possibly be?"

   White stood still, a shirt in his good hand, poised above the valise. "Thérèse and LeBlanc? What about Thérèse and LeBlanc?"

   "Good God, I thought—that is—nothing. Idle gossip. You know how people are." Montrose never lied well.

   "This seems to be my week for idle gossip. Tell me, Francis."