The Oracle Glass (28 page)

“An old family secret—a restorative broth. My children have loved it since they were small. They owe their health to it.” She beamed.

“Oh my goodness, my dear Chevalier, how gracious of you to visit.” D'Urbec's aunt, not to be left out, had trailed in behind him. Then Sylvie appeared from nowhere and began dusting the furniture—low down, where the view of Lamotte's famous calves was better. “What lovely shoes!” exclaimed d'Urbec's aunt. “Of course, in Orleans, we hardly ever see anything so elegant!” Lamotte's shoes, with their high red heels and silk bows, set off the celebrated calves even more. He was in yellow silk, with a narrow falling band of exquisite lace. A wide plumed hat sat atop his magnificently expensive wig of tightly curled, pale blond human hair.

“I just meant to pop in while I was in town and see how you were doing today—I'm terribly busy just now. So many arrangements…They're rehearsing my new play for presentation at court, and I'm off to Fontainebleau to make sure it's done properly. The last light comedy of the season, before the winter of tragedy sets in. Then the stage is ruled by absolutely
dreary
verse and tragic queens. Though they say Monsieur Racine is planning something that will quite overtop the throng. We wait, we wait, but Racine reads bits and pieces at salons, always preparing, never finishing. I say he has exhausted his genius. No, the world awaits my next tragedy without rivals.” He glanced at the women to find them staring at him with admiration, and a little smile of self-satisfaction flitted across his face. “Say, d'Urbec, what's in that crate outside? It looks like one of Griffon's.”

“It is. He's leaving, you know.”

“So I heard, so I heard. Let me satisfy my curiosity and see what he's left you.” The train of women followed him into the next room.

“The man's a blasted magnet for women,” announced d'Urbec to me, as I lingered.

“Aha, broadsides,” we heard coming from beyond the open door. “Madame de Brinvilliers—execrable verse. ‘Man slays himself and family in front of tax collector'—that's old. Oh, here's a new one: ‘Infernal Machine Discovered in Toulon Harbor—a Conspiracy of Traitors, Attempts to Explode Flagship, et cetera, Ingenious self-igniting clockwork fuse—'” There was a faint shriek from one of the women.

“Stop him. Shut him up. That busybody Lamotte—” D'Urbec tried to get up. Then he winced and thought better of it. “Go see to Mother, Geneviève—this is a disaster in the making. Tell Lamotte to keep that thing from her.”

I hastened into my own bedroom to find Lamotte sitting on the bed cheerfully reading the details of a conspiracy against His Majesty's fleet at Toulon harbor to the attentive crowd of women. But Madame d'Urbec was deathly pale, her hands clasped tight. Mistaking her feelings, Lamotte cried, “Don't be alarmed, Madame, the King's police will trace the conspirators and execute them without delay.”

“Enough, Lamotte. Madame d'Urbec has become ill through overwork. Madame, sit here…”

“Oh, dear Lord, oh, he's done it. He's the only one who could have—my Olivier, my son. Why have my sons been born to trouble? Oh, I must go to him—”

“Why, this is terrible,” cried Lamotte. “Hey, lackey, some wine for Madame. She's gone all pale.” I took advantage of the moment to snatch up the broadside from where he had set it down and shut it back in the crate.

When Gilles had brought the wine, I said quietly, “Gilles, take this crate and put it—You know.”

“Understood, Madame,” he said, and hoisted the heavy thing to take it down to the cellar, where there was a secret door hidden behind the wine bottles.

“We must pack at once, Marie-Claude. The next diligence—if only it's not too late.” Madame d'Urbec's voice was weak as her sister fanned her where she lay, half fainting, in my best armchair.

“Mesdames, I will offer the use of my patroness's carriage and footmen to see you to the diligence at whatever hour you may wish to depart. The very least I can do for the honored mother of a dear friend,” said Lamotte with a flourish. She looked up gratefully at him, as if half in love already.

“Madame d'Urbec, may I be of assistance?” I asked, suppressing all signs of emotion from my voice and face. The little woman sat down suddenly in her hired armchair and burst into tears. Taking a large handkerchief out of her sleeve, she wiped at her face in between sobs.

“Oh, what can you, with your rank and ease…and all of this…a lovely town house of your own…gowns, nice furniture…”—she sniffled and wiped her eyes again—“…what can you understand of the grief of being a mother? Six sons I have, and every one a giver of grief. Taxes! Religion! Politics! The old law! The new law! All the things polite people don't mention. But them—they are human incendiaries, every one. It's a family curse, from their father's side. Oh, God, if they were only daughters, it would be so much easier…”

She sobbed for a while in the midst of the packing chaos, then put away her handkerchief and went into the next room to bid farewell to her son. She emerged dry-eyed and announced: “Madame de Morville, I could not leave my son in more capable hands. God bless you for your charitable act. The furniture can be returned to the
tapissier
on the rue de Charonne just beyond the ramparts. Just send word and they'll remove it. Here's the account; don't let them overcharge you.” And she was gone in a flurry of emotion, Lamotte at her elbow, her sister trailing behind, having left the calves' feet still boiling in the kitchen.

“Well,” sighed d'Urbec, lifting his head from the pillow, “there goes my mother and my life savings.”

“Don't worry, Florent,” I said. “I'll see that you're buried properly.” He gave me a swift, sharp look.

“I have every intention of living. I wish to erase the memory of this romantic disaster.”

“First, tell me what it was all about. Mustapha, if you must listen in, don't be so obtrusive.” The curled-up toe of Mustapha's little Turkish slipper withdrew from view behind the half-open door. D'Urbec sighed and looked at his hands.

“Father would be rich, you know, if he had an ounce of sense. He's a first-class clockwork builder and inherited a good business. But he spends his time grieving over lost titles, tracing his ancestors, seeking unwary patrons for his fantastical schemes, and dreaming of being awarded a pension and a title for one of his pet projects. It's Olivier, my older brother, who keeps everything together. In my opinion, he's even better than Father at designing mechanisms and considerably more practical. So, you see, it's only natural that when Mother saw that an infernal machine with an unusual clockwork fuse had been found in the Toulon harbor, knowing the family predilections, she leaped to conclusions. That's all. My mother is one of those who lives for drama. I suppose we all do, after a fashion…”

“But what's all this about a family curse? That is, besides being secret
frondeurs
and, as I gather from your aunt's busy tongue, heretics?”

“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. “Damn!” 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 embarrassed 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 assembled 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. “Bastard,” 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 Duchesse de Brissac, you'll have a very fine tomb indeed, once his fortune is mended.”

“From him? That stingy bastard? 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 abbé 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
Parnasse
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.