The Oracle Glass Part 35

"I'd hardly count the reformed religion as heresy. Besides, thanks to Uncle, I'm probably a better, or at least a more recent, Catholic than you are. Uncle put the conversion bonus to good work and insisted I do the same."

"And because you don't believe in anything, anyway, it didn't matter either way, did it?"

"I believe in any number of things, Mademoiselle Pasquier. Truth, justice, the powers of the rational mind..."

"Not very popular things to believe in, in my opinion. No wonder you're always in trouble. That's family curse enough, thinking things like that."

He lay back on the pillow, his eyes fixed on me, calculating. He was silent a long time. "d.a.m.n!" he said sadly.

"What's wrong?" I asked. "Would you like more calves' foot broth? It won't jell in this heat."

"You're in love with Lamotte, aren't you? You don't have to be embarra.s.sed about it. Most women are. But...I had hoped you were above the common taste..." I averted my eyes from his disappointed face.

"I'm not in love with anybody...and I have important appointments today," I heard myself saying as I fled the room.

The very next day, at the end of another long, sticky afternoon when most of Paris found nothing better to do than to doze behind closed shutters, I returned home from a visit to the suburbs to find an immense sheaf of yellow roses lying in a box on the downstairs table. The whole household was on the shadowy lower floor with the curtains drawn against the all-pervasive heat. Mustapha was fanning himself while d'Urbec, draped in a sheet like a toga, for want of a dressing gown, was seated in my best armchair reading aloud to the a.s.sembled company. Gilles was sitting near the kitchen door on a low stool polishing the silver, and Sylvie had laid claim to my second-best armchair, where she sat darning stockings as they listened.

"So, not only does no one see fit to open the door for me, but you all-Oh, what's that?" I broke off the irritated lecture I planned to give when I spied the little mountain of flowers. Sylvie hastily removed herself from my chair and drew out another stool from the kitchen.

"We have refrained from even reading the card until your return," d'Urbec said. He was looking better, but something inside his soul seemed to have changed. The eyes that followed me about the room were distant and cynical.

"Just as well in this house," I answered, and, putting my gloves back on, I carefully lifted the heavy, engraved card out of the box, shaking it gently before reading it. I could feel d'Urbec's eyes missing nothing. "Oh, ugh, Brissac. The news certainly gets around quickly." I gave Sylvie a hard stare, and she looked as intently at the darning egg as if it were about to hatch. "The lavender ribbons-Looks like La Pelletier's work, doesn't it? Harmless, then. It will be love powder this time." I ran a gloved finger between the yellow petals. A few greenish crystals stuck to my glove. "b.a.s.t.a.r.d," I said. "Sylvie, put a wet kerchief around your mouth and nose and go shake these flowers out the back door before you put them in the vase. I like yellow roses, so I'm not going to throw them out."

"You appear to know a great deal more about the world, Marquise, than the little girl who read Petronius in secret."

"We live and learn, Monsieur d'Urbec," I said as I watched Sylvie flounce out through the kitchen, carrying the flowers. "Love powders, inheritance powders, lovely scented Italian gloves-the fashionable world is not for fools these days-or for cowards, either." I turned to see his dark-rimmed eyes fixed on me, calculating.

"The Duc de Brissac is interested in you, I take it? You must beware of a friendship like that." His voice was even. "Brissac is a ruinous spendthrift who bankrupts his mistresses and...other friends. As a professional nouvelliste, I will be delighted to provide you with particulars." Something about him seemed to have changed.

"Well, Monsieur le Nouvelliste, if I can rely on the laws of hospitality keeping your professional interest quiet, I will tell you that what he wants this time is marriage-a secret marriage of convenience. He has been reduced to owning two shirts and being supported by my patroness. For all I know, he probably even borrowed the money for those flowers from her. He hopes by joining forces with me to regain all his losses at the card tables."

"His current wife proves no deterrent to his plans, eh? And I suppose as the d.u.c.h.esse de Brissac, you'll have a very fine tomb indeed, once his fortune is mended."

"From him? That stingy b.a.s.t.a.r.d? Only if I order it right after the wedding and pay for it myself." I laughed as I took the vase from Sylvie and arranged it on the sideboard. "To what sculptor do you think I should give the commission for my monument? Warin? Or is he falling out of fashion these days?"

"You don't have to accept him, you know, just because I've compromised you," he said quietly.

"I compromised myself when I opened the door. It was my choice. And I choose not to be married. I'll make my own way."

D'Urbec looked at me long and hard, his jaw clenched. Then he announced in a bantering voice that didn't ring quite true, "If a man with no shirt were not even more ludicrous than a man with two shirts in making an offer of marriage, I would propose to undo the damage I have done in the only honorable way open to me. As it is, I must beg your indulgence for a few more days and borrow from you a sheet of paper, pen, and ink."

As I went to fetch the paper and ink, I heard Sylvie ask, "What are you planning?" Her voice sounded shocked.

"This is a historic moment. You are witnessing the foundation of the fortune of the house of d'Urbec," he said in a grim tone, and the tension in the room was heavier than the sultry summer air. He took out the pen and wrote.

"A denunciation," he announced, "from an Italian abbe who has perused a dreadful, irreligious work of scandal that should be brought to the attention of the inspector of the book trade and suppressed. The irreligious and mocking Parna.s.se Satyrique. Griffon has left me two hundred copies of this salacious work as my founding capital. An official condemnation will raise the price from twenty sous to twenty livres. An intelligent man may multiply a stock of two thousand livres through many means in this capital of quick money. The only advantage my life has brought me is that I know where corrupt fortunes are born and how quickly they make one respectable. Madame de Morville, I shall now become rich-rich enough to send my old mother a carriage and horses and a new bonnet fit to cause apoplexy in my uncle's wife. Rich enough to buy back my place in the world." He poured sand on the letter to dry it, then shook it off. "Here, Sylvie, I would like you to deliver this to the police," he said, dripping wax across the folded edge of the letter. "I know you know how." Sylvie looked at me, her eyes questioning.

"Yes, Sylvie, go ahead. It's all right. You can count on our discretion, Monsieur d'Urbec."

"Thank you," he answered. I was suddenly frightened of him, of his determination, of the strange look on his face. He seemed like a man capable of anything.

Watching my face, he handed the ink and paper to Sylvie to put back in the cabinet from which I had removed them. His movement shifted the sheet to reveal the edge of the seared mark on his shoulder. I saw his eyes turn bitter as he caught my quickly averted gaze.

"I can't read pictures in water, Athena, but I'll make a prediction about you. You need to find out Lamotte is not your mental equal before you'll have me."

"What makes you think I want either of you?" I sniffed.

"Have you forgotten I am not stupid? Your eyes betrayed you. Did you have me in only to bring him here? That is not beyond your scheming mind, I know. What is it that glittered so attractively in front of those greedy gray eyes of yours? Was it the silk stockings? Was it his dreadful poetry? Or was it the cow eyes he can't help making whenever there's a woman around? When you grow up, little vixen, you'll know where to find me."

"You're nasty, Florent d'Urbec!" I exclaimed, to hide my humiliation at having been seen through so easily. "What is it you want from me? That I should give everything up to go with you and be nothing at all? Haven't I already risked all I have for you? What is enough for a man? Must they own everything they see? Even that ridiculous satanist Brissac offers me a partnership, disgusting as it is."

His face paled, then, eyes blazing with anger, he shouted, "Genevieve Pasquier, you will regret ever saying this to me, I swear." But his anger made me defiant. I stared right back at him and shrugged my shoulders.

"Oh, la, revenge. Everybody wants it these days. It led me to the Shadow Queen, and now I never smell roses anymore. Where will it lead you, Florent d'Urbec? But at least I have a monster who wronged me as the worthy object of my revenge, and not a woman who's risked harm to do me nothing but good. Someday you must tell me more about this celebrated brain of yours, my friend, and how you use it to distinguish who's worth taking vengeance on."

He didn't speak to me for the next two days. On the third day he borrowed a needle from Sylvie and, with the finicky exactness of a longtime bachelor, mended his shirt, from which several washings had removed the bloodstains.

"I'll be going now," he said. "I'll send for my box when I've found a place to live."

"You don't have anywhere?" I asked, suddenly anxious. He still looked wasted and feverish. He swayed as he stood in the doorway, and I realized that only pride held him upright.

"I was living in the back room of Griffon's print shop. He and his family lived above. The Jansenists probably won't be as congenial."

"But-Will I see you again?"

"Oh, that? Yes, of course. On the Cours-la-Reine in a carriage and four. Good-bye, Madame de Morville. Don't smell any flowers."

I fled upstairs, weeping stupid tears for no reason at all.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

With the first days of autumn, the court returned. The weather stayed warm, golden and mellow, with that strange luminous calm that vanishes suddenly with the first rain of the season. Lamotte and d'Urbec had disappeared from my life. D'Urbec, true to his word, sent for his box but did not appear in person. I returned the furniture, threw out the soup bones, and plunged myself anew into my work. Business had never been better, for the Sun King was rumored to be in search of a new mistress, and court intrigue had multiplied accordingly.

"They're all laughing at me, d.a.m.n them!" Madame de Montespan shrilled at me in her gold-and-white salon. "Out, out, all of you! My fortune is none of your business! Leave, or I swear I'll have you all hanged! I still have influence; don't you forget it!" The King's mistress whirled through the salon like a demon in brocade, took up a little bronze cupid from a table, and flung it at one of her terrorized servants. As her ladies-in-waiting vanished and I took out my gla.s.s, she pressed her hands to her temples and sat down moaning. Another of her sick headaches. "Good, they're all out of here. Now, tell me quickly, will that fat, tasteless Madame de Soubise take my place?" Everyone at court knew about the Princesse de Soubise and the secret signal by which the t.i.tian-haired beauty alerted the King to the absence of her husband. When she walked into a room with her emerald earrings on, the murmur of interest followed her, and all eyes went to the King. Those with malicious hearts also enjoyed watching Madame de Montespan's eyes narrow over her fan at the sight of the celebrated earrings. La Montespan's fall was near. Long live the new maitresse en t.i.tre.

I a.s.sessed her face carefully. Despite the headache, her eerie, aquamarine eyes were still bright with fury. The image came up nicely in the gla.s.s this time.

"Your rival's triumph is short-lived, Madame; you may be a.s.sured." She leaned closer, trying to peer into the water herself, and her breath fogged the gla.s.s. "With her next pregnancy, Madame de Soubise will lose her beauty, and the King will lose interest."

"Lose her beauty?" Madame de Montespan's voice sounded maliciously triumphant. "Just how? Does the gla.s.s tell you that?"

"It is plain, Madame. She will lose a front tooth."