The Oracle Glass Part 58

"Oh, divinely, Florent, and I have the perfect dress to wear. I've been saving it a long time-everyone said I was foolish, but now it's just perfect." But when I saw Sylvie's eyes narrow as she took the rose silk dress from its muslin, I knew that, within the day, she would betray me to the Shadow Queen. It didn't matter at all to me, for something very strange had happened when I put on the dress. As I stood before the mirror admiring the embroidered flowers and the glistening rose and ivory silk, I realized suddenly that I was seeing the true color, not through a wash of crimson. In the mirror I saw nothing. Nothing, that is, but a girl with a neat waist and dark, tumbled hair, looking back out of the mirror at me with shining gray eyes.

The rest of the day, bright with summer sun, had pa.s.sed in a daze of happiness. As the carriage rattled past the Tuileries Palace and its gardens to mingle with the fashionable equipages on the wide, scenic avenue of the Cours-la-Reine, Florent had no eye for the scenery. Instead he took my hand.

"You said we'd meet again, driving on the Cours-la-Reine, and you were right, Florent. Now will you steal my fortune-telling business?" I teased.

"On the contrary. I said I'd meet the Marquise de Morville-and look! She's nowhere in sight," he said, his arm around the rose silk.

The next morning, when d'Urbec had departed and I spied the new paste buckles sparkling on Sylvie's shoes, I knew she had done the deed and the witch knew everything. Accounting day. It always comes. But I had the memory of his face when he first saw me come from behind the screen in the dress I now knew I'd been saving all along for him. And I could still feel his kisses on my neck as he muttered, "...too young and lovely to wear black..." Accounting day didn't matter. I felt like another person altogether. I could manage anything. Besides, I had a card up my sleeve. In the last days before d'Urbec had left, I had received the ultimate invitation. Who had informed him of me, I do not know. But Louis Quatorze himself had summoned me to Versailles to read the oracle gla.s.s.

I took a hired chair to the rue Beauregard that Wednesday afternoon, for I had dismissed my leased carriage for the weeks I had been with d'Urbec in order to save money. That afternoon, Madame was engaged in the placement of a new tall clock, which depicted the phases of the moon as well as the hours, in her black parlor. As the sweating workmen set it down in the corner by the china cupboard, she said, "No, I've changed my mind. Not over there, after all. Across from the window is better. Here it detracts from my objets d'art." The heavy shutters were closed against the heat and dust, enshrouding the room in twilight. The musty smell of scented candles perpetually lighted around the feet of the statue of the Virgin reminded me of funerals and things long dead. Madame, however, was very much alive, the sweat rolling down from beneath her white lace cap as she fanned herself with one hand and gesticulated with the other.

"Oh, there you are at last, Madame Stay-Abed," she called to me. "You'll have to wait. I'm expecting Madame Poulaillon for her weekly...ah...consultation." So I wandered off to the kitchen, account books under my arm, to see if there were any pastries left over from the previous day's open house.

"There're none left," said old Montvoisin, greeting me at the kitchen door with the crumbs dribbling down his half-open, tobacco-stained shirt. His baggy old breeches looked as if he'd slept in them. He still had on his slippers and a napkin in place of the glossy horsehair wig he'd taken to wearing on weekdays. "Here, have some snuff instead." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a cheap tin snuffbox.

"No, thank you; it makes my nose tickle," I answered, and he shuffled off through the double doors to the black parlor.

There I heard him say as the front door was opened, "Ah, good day, Madame Poulaillon. And how's the husband these days? Quite reformed?"

"Antoine, remove yourself," I could hear Madame hiss. "You interfere with my business." The double doors slammed behind him, and he meandered out to seat himself in Madame's favorite armchair and set his slippered feet on her footstool.

"Marquise," he said, pausing to take snuff and sneeze into a vast, filthy handkerchief, "has my daughter sent you word yet? I said to her, I said, 'Marie-Marguerite, try the Marquise. She has ready cash and doesn't carry tales.'" I looked up at him, puzzled, from where I sat on the smaller armchair opposite, and folded my fan.

"I've been busy," I said. "I haven't heard anything."

"Go by La Lepere's new place then, and don't take Sylvie with you. She meant to send for you, I'm sure." He looked around as if the world were all too complex for him, his faded blue eyes all runny. Then, as if it could resolve everything, he took more snuff. "Get off me, you fool cat," he said, as the gray tom leaped from the chair back to his lap. The tom looked at him briefly with hooded eyes and bit his thumb before he managed to sweep the cat off him with a series of nervous, unhappy gestures. "I hate them, too. I hate it all," he said and then lapsed into a somnolent silence while I wondered what to make of it all.

One of the parlor doors opened suddenly, and I knew that Madame Poulaillon must have departed out the front door with her week's installment of a.r.s.enic. But the sorceress lacked the pleasant air of contentment she usually had after such transactions. She appeared irritated as I scrambled to stand, and she took the armchair that old Montvoisin had suddenly seen fit to vacate with a snort of annoyance. She tapped her fingers on the arm of the chair and did not invite me to sit. The sight of me seemed to enrage her further. Cautious, Genevieve, I said to myself.

"So, there you are, the second little ingrate. I suppose you know where Marie-Marguerite is. Everyone knows but her own mother!"

"Marie-Marguerite? What's happened? I hadn't heard."

"Ha, I suppose you hadn't. Too busy disporting yourself with that gutter-crawling galerien, downing wine and oysters at my expense. I make you a marquise and you throw it away on a branded criminal."

"He's not a criminal," I answered, my voice cold.

"Might as well be," she sniffed. "Anyway, Brissac will probably slit his nose for him before the month is out." I changed the subject, in order to channel her rage in another direction.

"Isn't Marie-Marguerite's baby due soon? I thought she'd be home at a time like this."

"That hussy! That ingrate! I offered my dear friend Romani ten thousand francs to make an honest woman of her, and she spurned him." In a sarcastic high voice she imitated an adolescent's whine. "'I'm not going to marry a professional poisoner, Mother.' 'So, young lady, what do you think keeps putting the food in your face, eh? Especially now that you're bloated like a pig and do nothing but lie around! Romani is a genius, a man of a thousand disguises.' 'I don't care if he's a genius; I want a nice man.' Nice, bah! A pastry cook! And not even with his own shop! A journeyman pastry cook! I'll not have my daughter marrying riffraff like that! So now she's run off and hidden herself, although where a girl as big as a sow and as slow as a snail could hide herself in this city, I do not know! I tell you; I'll find her, if I have to have my people search every house in town!"

"My, my, what a pity," I responded. "She really ought to listen to people who have her good at heart." The Shadow Queen glared suspiciously at me.

"I do hope you are not being sarcastic, Mademoiselle. When have you ever listened to me? And I imagine you've not a sou to show me after your recent debauchery."

But here I played my winning card. "For the past two weeks there's nothing, but I've been invited to appear before the King when he returns to Saint-Germain-en-Laye next week. He's fond of novelties, they say, and my reputation has finally reached him."

La Voisin drew in her breath. "Buckingham must have told him," she whispered.

"Either him or Primi."

"No, not Visconti. He's a rival. He'd not promote you so high. Ah! So high! I knew it! Your accent! Your manners! There's no subst.i.tute for the real thing, I've always said. And who groomed you to fly so high?"

"You did, Madame, and I am grateful. I intend to make the best of the opportunity."

"Ah! That's my girl, my darling girl! Truer than my own daughter-or rather, stepdaughter. Tread carefully, my dear, and you may yet replace Visconti at his side." There's a fantasy, I thought. A king who prided himself on never taking advice from women certainly didn't want a female fortune-teller.

But, buoyed up by her imaginings, the Shadow Queen had become expansive. Nothing would do but to have a bottle of excellent wine brought from her cellar, and even old Antoine and her oldest son were offered a gla.s.s.

"Oh, yes, and the marzipan. I know what a taste you have for it, little Marquise!" And with a sly, sideways look she went to unlock the secret cabinet where she kept it hidden. And, bother her, she gloried in the fact that in nearly five years of acquaintance, I still hadn't found out where she got it. The best in Paris. I could get opium, I could get a.r.s.enic, I could get pigeons' hearts and toads' toenails, but I couldn't find out where she got that marzipan. She always smirked when she went to fetch it. But then, I reflected, it's better to leave her mellow. Besides, I loved the stuff-so lovely, sticky, sweet, and rich, with the perfumed flavor of almonds and a hint of something else mysterious. I stayed until I had consumed several pieces and a gla.s.s of wine, leaving when I knew she was at last in a good mood.

La Lepere, the abortionist, had moved up in the world, both literally and figuratively. She had two rooms on the fourth floor of a narrow, shabby building that housed a ribbon maker's establishment on the first floor. At the tiny balcony at the top of the outer staircase, I found she had already opened her door, having heard my painful progress up the many rickety flights of steps.

"Antoine Montvoisin sent me," I said to the old woman.

"I know," she answered. "Marie-Marguerite is here. The baby was born safe and sound last night. Come in."

We entered the darkened room to find Marie-Marguerite, her curls dank and matted to her head, sitting up and nursing the baby. "Now see here," announced La Lepere, "don't she look good? And it's a fine boy. The live ones do give more satisfaction, though I do more of the others these days. Oh, what a world! I must have done maybe ten thousand in my lifetime!" Ten thousand? Even in her lifetime, which must be nearly eighty years by now, that seemed like quite a lot of abortions. I rapidly multiplied one-half that figure times the number of other "businesswomen" I knew worked on contract for La Voisin. No wonder the chimney in the garden pavilion smoked all the time.

"See how lovely he is," said Marie-Marguerite, looking pleased with herself. And though I thought him rather too small and red, I agreed. "I've named him Jean-Baptiste, after his father." She did make a pretty picture there, with her small Jean-Baptiste. Hmm, I'd call it "The Little Madonna of the Poisons," I thought.

"Madame de Morville, Madame," Marie-Marguerite said, "I need to borrow money. I need a plan. You are clever; you have to think of something. I want to put my baby out to nurse secretly, where Mother can't find him. You're the only one who has the wit to deceive her. Help me."

"Marie-Marguerite," I said, sitting down beside her on the bed, "your mother isn't going to stay mad at you forever for not marrying Romani. Sooner or later she'll hatch another scheme and decide it's all for the best that it turned out this way."

"That's exactly what I'm afraid of. She'll think of the money and poof! I lose my baby. She's capable of anything when she gets in that greedy mood, or an important client wants a Ma.s.s. It's not wise to leave a new baby in Mother's house."

"Surely not...her own grandchild?" I asked.

"Why not? That ugly old Guibourg uses his own children by his mistress when he runs short. And they're short now. When the court comes back, business picks up. They've bought up everything in the orphanages. You haven't seen the Black Ma.s.s, Marquise, but I have. Several times. Madame de Montespan, she's done several, and I helped get the room ready for all of them. And she's not the only one. Mother does a lot of business. I'll not have my beautiful baby's throat cut just because some fat old wh.o.r.e wants to hold on to her pig of a lover."

She looked down to admire the little, mewling thing at her breast. The pastry cook's baby, eyes closed, sating himself all oblivious of the storms around him.

"Don't send him by common carrier," I said. "So many don't survive the trip, you know. I'll hire a carriage for you in secret and give you a year's fees. Baby-farmers respect payment in advance."

"I knew you'd help. I don't know why; it just seemed like you would," said Marie-Marguerite.

That evening, when Sylvie made several pointed comments about my lateness, I announced that Madame, rather than berating me, had ordered up a celebration on account of my invitation to appear before the King. It was that that had delayed me considerably.

"The King?" gasped Sylvie. "Why, I never knew! You are the sly one!"

"Fortune-tellers have to have some secrets," I announced, as I put away my account books and flung my hat upon the bed.