Through a Glass Darkly: A Novel (60 page)

If frisky and young Charolais,
For Richelieu love doth display,
Why, 'tis bred in the bone;
But what trouble for one,
When her mother had more
At her age than a score!

   Everyone had loved it, for her mother, a princess of France, was notorious for her love affairs, as Louise–Anne was becoming.

   Richelieu sharpened the point of a quill pen, quoting softly to himself, "'A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband; but she that maketh ashamed is a rottenness in his bones.' I covet thy crown, Roger." He bent over a piece of paper and began to write.

* * *

   Harry talked Barbara into accompanying him to Marie–Victorie's afternoon reception. It was the first time she had gone out other than to visit quietly with friends, or to shop, or to stroll in the Tuileries with Marie–Victorie and Thérèse and White. She was excited. Harry was good for her. And Thérèse had seen a charming gray hat with black ribbons and roses that were a shade of pink that was almost gray. She wore it.

   She and Harry made a striking picture as they walked together in Marie–Victorie's salon. Across the room, Louise-Anne, standing with St. Michel, watched Harry. She watched when he threw back a glass of brandy as if it were nothing and immediately called for another. She watched the way his eyes swept the room, lingering on the prettier women. She was ready when his eyes found her. She pouted and bit her full, red bottom lip. His eyes widened with interest. He dragged Barbara over.

   Reluctantly, Barbara introduced her brother to Louise–Anne and to St. Michel, wondering why Louise–Anne smiled at her in such an odd way. Why did St. Michel seem to be gloating? Harry noticed nothing. His eyes were full of Louise–Anne. He had meant what he said about Jane, Barbara thought. He was over her. Was love so easily dismissed? She thought of Jane's face that time in the apple orchard. Was she over Harry? And what did it all matter? She left them and went outside to stand on the terrace alone. For the first time in her life, she felt bitter. She could feel the doubts, the hurts, hardening her heart. If only she could have a child. In her search for solace, she kept returning to one chapter in Corinthians—St. Paul's definition of love, which bore all things, believed all things, hoped all things, endured all things. She wanted to believe if she were good enough, if she were patient enough, Roger would love her as she wanted to be loved. It seemed that once he had almost loved her. She had thought he did. She had no idea what had happened. Patience did not come easily to her, and she could feel all the stirrings of her nature fermenting. A child. She had to have a child.

* * *

   Barbara and Hyacinthe and the dogs were playing in the gardens. It was a game of hide–and–seek and the dogs were worthless, for they followed the hider to his hiding place and then yapped shrilly until the seeker found it. But the sun was shining, and Hyacinthe was laughing hysterically as he chased after the dogs, and it made her feel happy inside, like a carefree child again. She hid herself behind one of the tall vases on the terrace and tried to shoo her stupid dogs away. Harry stiffened and growled. She turned to look at what he was growling at. Philippe stood at one of the salon windows staring at her, the dislike on his face so plain it startled her. For a moment, both of them stared at each other. Mischievously, Barbara stuck out her tongue at him. Philippe stepped back, out of sight. She covered her face with her hands and giggled. Poor Roger, Barbara mimicked what she thought Philippe must be thinking. Married to such a child. Why will she not behave, Roger? Why will she not grow up? Bah, bah, bah, thought Barbara. I am grown up.

   Hyacinthe came bounding up the steps.

   "I found you! I found you!" he screamed.

   The dogs barked and leapt up in the air. She grabbed Hyacinthe and turned him up on his heels while the dogs licked his face. He laughed, the sound so full of joy that it made her laugh. But her happy mood was disturbed. Philippe had destroyed it. He dislikes me as much as I dislike him. Why do we pretend? she thought.

   She and Roger quarreled later that night.

   "I do not like him!" she said, slamming her brush down on her dressing table. The top of her dressing table was cluttered with crystal bottles filled with scent, loose jewels, feathers, patch boxes, rouge and powder jars, ribbons, bits of lace. It was a lavish display that usually gave her pleasure. But not tonight. Nothing gave her pleasure tonight. Roger sat in an armchair. He had been watching her brush her hair. She saw his face in the mirror and ran to him and put her arms around him.

   "I am sorry, Roger. I do not know what is the matter with me. I did not mean it."

   He pulled her into his lap and his eyes searched her face. "What is it, Bab? Tell me."

   "I do not know. I feel so empty. So useless. You are always gone. I want children."

   He stroked her hair. "They will come. They will come. You are not over the deaths yet. That is all."

   She stifled the sudden, maddening urge she had to slap his hand away and scream. It is marriage, she thought. It is me. It is you. Nothing is turning out the way I expected, and I have not the character to make the best of it. Grandmama would be so ashamed of me. She would be so ashamed.

   "We will be going to Hanover in another month," he said, watching her face, guessing more accurately than she knew the moods passing through her. He was becoming too careless. Too many suppers at de Berry's or the regent's. Last week, he had been so drunk he had made love with Philippe without their usual mask of a woman with them. It had been a stupid thing to do. He woke the next morning and wondered for a moment if Philippe had deliberately allowed it. Philippe. He wanted too much. As did Barbara. The choices. They were closing in.

   "I think it will do us all good to get away from Paris." He pulled her head to his shoulder. "I have not been a good husband, Bab."

   The old Barbara would have said yes, you are, you are. But this stranger that now inhabited her skin was silent.

   "Be patient with me," he said to her. "I need time. We both need time for everything to be better between us."

   She lay in his arms. Just once, she thought, I wish you would say you loved me. Charity…love…beareth all things; believeth all things; hopeth all things; endureth all things…I would endure anything for those words. I love you, Barbara. Such simple words. Sometimes I think you never will. And it hurts me, Roger. I am afraid. When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things. I am not a child, Roger. I am a woman. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face—now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

   Love me, Roger. Please love me.

* * *

   In the first early morning light, Thérèse hurried across the gardens and into a side door. She reached down and wiped the dew from her shoes, pulled the mantilla from her head and stuffed it into her apron pocket. Whirling into the kitchen, she gave the orders for madame's luncheon. The cook stared at her, his eyes hostile behind the fat that almost closed them. He knew better than anyone what to cook to tempt Lady Devane's fragile appetite. But this one was under LeBlanc's protection, and no one could say a word to her.

   In the hallway of the floor on which the bedchambers were, Thérèse stopped to look at herself in a mirror. Her cheeks were flushed from her running; her hair was curling more than usual from the morning damp, the damp in the church, which had crept in and chilled her to the bone. Her eyes were swollen. She always cried a little when she said the prayers for the baby's soul. Abruptly, she turned. She suddenly felt the presence of someone else, someone watching her.

   Lady Devane's brother stood some distance away, his feet bare, his wig off—ah, his hair was dark, thick, like hers. He wore a huge, incredibly col ored robe, blue swirling into red swirling into green. She blinked at the sight of it. He stared at her. She grew still. She knew that look. Ah, she knew that look. Holy Mary, Mother of Jesus, how many men had looked at her so? Would he command her now to follow him to his room? Would he trick her into coming there? Or would he force her, now, in the silence, the emptiness of the hall? He was just like the rest. No better. Only handsome, and young with a youth that had charmed her heart. She was a fool. Suddenly she was so disappointed that she drooped, like a flower, and he ran forward to grab her. His mouth, so close to her, was full and red. Once she had allowed herself to think about kissing it. Now it would violate her. Take…before she was ready to give.

   "Where do you go every morning?" His question was completely unexpected. "I can see you from my windows. I do not sleep well, and every morning I have seen you scurry across the terrace like a thief and disappear behind a garden door. You are gone for a while, and then you reappear. And most mornings, you have been crying, like this morning."

   What right had he to pry in her affairs? If he knew the truth, he would truly rape her in the hallway like the whore he would consider her to be. His question was a ruse, a preliminary to one thing, and one thing only. But she surprised herself by answering, "I go to chapel. I pray every morning for a loved one." She waited, tense as a cat, for his next move.

   "A loved one…fortunate loved one, who makes you cry. You are so lovely, Thérèse. Much too lovely to cry. I will not make you cry. When we are together, I will not make you cry. I promise that."

   He walked back to his room, and she stared after him, angrier than if he had tried to steal a kiss.

* * *

   Roger sat in the richness of Philippe's green salon. Everything here pleased the eye: the arrangement of the paintings; the masses of flowers in low vases atop small tables; the upholstery of the chairs, richly green; the matching draperies; the extravagance of gold fringe; the glass clocks; the porcelain figurines; the way in which the sun poured in, like gold spilling from a pot, through the open doors and windows; the fragrance of the garden's flowers drifting in through the windows along with a bee or two.

   The two of them were near the opened windows, where they could feel the breeze and the sun and smell the gardens. They had spent many afternoons thus, watching spring tint the white winter landscape with soft color, talking of everything—their pasts, their future, Bentwoodes. Today Roger was silent while Philippe talked. Of the margin of success Law's new bank might enjoy; of the tangle France's finances were in; of the profit Roger might make; of the cost to build Devane House; of the plans Lord Burlington's protégé, William Kent, had drawn up; of the scandalous conduct of the Duchesse de Berry. She had strolled through the gardens of her palace at Luxembourg, gardens open to the public. She had dressed herself as a lower–class bourgeois to hear what people said of her, and what she heard so infuriated her that she attacked three men and their wives and had to be dragged off screaming and cursing by her own guards. He talked of anything and everything, anything to fill the silence between them with words, words which allowed other words not to be said.

   "She needs a child," Roger said. As easily as that she came into their conversation.

   Philippe's knuckles tightened on the curling arm of his chair. There was no need to identify the "she."

   "Of course she does." He tried to make his smile genuine. "She should have several children, all of them, we can only hope, as handsome as you or her famous grandfather."

   Richard, thought Roger. What would he think of me now? Of this coil I twist myself on? Of the unhappiness I have caused? Would he understand and forgive? Could he? Could any man? Who can understand but two men such as Philippe and myself? Who are we? Who am I?

   "She is unhappy, Philippe. More than I have ever seen her. I think it is mostly the deaths, but some of it is my fault also. And I find it hard to forgive myself. She is a child, and for her, the world revolves around me."

   As for us all, Philippe thought bitterly, but he said, "What do you want me to do?"

   Roger smiled at him, his wistful, charming smile. "How well you know me. Nothing. Everything. We talked of meeting this summer in Hanover and then traveling together to Italy. Could you understand and forgive if I wanted to be with Barbara alone? Just for a few months. I feel that I must give her that time; that I must devote myself to her. And perhaps, out of it will come a child, and she will not need me so completely then."

   Philippe's knuckles were white against the arm of the chair. As white as his face. How ironic, he thought, that he should be the stronger of us. That I should need him more than he needs me. And all because of a skinny, red–haired girl young enough to be his daughter. He loves her. I think he loves her. And what I shall do when he learns it himself, I do not know. Ah, pride is bitter. It tastes like copper in my mouth. I want to kill him, I love him so. And yet if I lose him I shall die, wither in the sun of my life. And so I will be silent. I will swallow my pride, I will do whatever he asks and pray that it is enough. Pray that she does not become stronger with the years, taking away all his love for me with her youth and beauty and devotion and leaving me nothing. Ah, Barbara Devane, I wish you had been strangled at birth. I hurt more than the time I caught the splinters of a cannonball in my leg. More than the time I lay bleeding with my face slashed open. I hurt. I hurt.

   "Take her to Hanover. To Italy. I will stay away. Do what you must, and I will be here for you, my dear friend. I cannot fight you, Roger, or fight what I feel for you."

   Roger closed his eyes at all he heard in Philippe's voice.

   "She suspects something," he said. Philippe saw the sorrow in his face.

   "Then we will be more discreet," Philippe said calmly, although inside his heart was like a stone, even colder. I will show you no mercy, Barbara Devane, he thought. No mercy at all.