The Porcelain Dove Page 26

"Dead? I've wished to be dead. Death could be no worse than the Hell I've suffered."

  "Hell?" I echoed, bewildered, and bent to look into her face. No, this was indeed Peronel, a little puff-eyed and bruised about the mouth, but beyond doubt the same goosish girl who had talked to madame of laundry while the beggar cursed outside.

  "A very particular ring of Hell disguised as a pleasure-house in the Bois de Boulogne. O Berthe, how I am stupid!"

  In this judgment I concurred, though I did not think it kind to say so. "Softly, softly, petite," I said. "The vicomte de Montplaisir, did he steal thee away?"

  "Yes. Well, no. I went with him willingly. He was so handsome, you see. And he promised me jewels and fine gowns and exquisite pleasures, and vowed that he loved me. He took me up in a closed carriage, just like a fine lady, and made love to me as we drove, paying me pretty compliments on the slenderness of my neck and the roundness of my buttocks. Unless you've labored under the attentions of our so-dear maître d'hôtel, Berthe, you cannot imagine the pleasure to be gained from a sweet breath and smooth hands and a perfumed body.

  "We might have driven so forever, fondling and kissing like true lovers. Yet all good things end at last, they say, and after a space, we alit. He led me through a garden into a little house—a cottage, almost, no more than a vestibule and two salons, with two chambers above. 'Twas vastly elegant."

  I thought she sounded wistful, and said shortly, "This is not Hell, but the Elysian fields you describe. I wonder you troubled yourself with escaping."

  She turned her red-rimmed eyes to me as gently as the silly Peronel of old. "A devil may wear a beautiful face, Berthe. May not Hell also?"

  "Yes, yes: I suppose it may," I answered, a little shamed. "So. The vicomte de Montplaisir took you to a petite maison, and where he came by the gold to pay for it, the Devil alone knows. Oh, how monsieur his father will rave when he hears of it!"

  Peronel fell forward upon her knees and seized my hands. "No one must know of this, Berthe, or I shall die of shame. You must promise me to keep what I say secret, or I'll say no more. Upon thy mother's salvation, Berthe."

  How could I swear any such thing? I know how to keep secrets, me, but there are burdens that, borne alone, may crush the bearer's heart. Peronel's secret promised to be such a burden—already I felt my heart stagger under it. I considered a moment, then, "Very well," I said carefully. "Upon my mother's salvation, I swear to repeat no word of what you say this night to a Christian soul."

  She nodded but did not rise, nor did she relinquish her hold upon my hands. "His valet brought in food and wine to us, and while I ate, he told me of his conquests. He'd had a dozen women, two dozen, fifty; he'd had them perform every amorous trick known to demon or man. This one swooned from pleasure, that one near died of it, another called for a priest. 'I shrove her myself,' he says, and describes her penance to me until I weep with fear. And every so often he stops and shakes his fist in the air and, 'Lord God, I defy you,' he cries. 'Strike me dead if you dare, O Lord raper of virgins!' "

  "Just heaven!" I cried. "And what happened?"

  Peronel shrugged. "Nothing happened. God answered neither his prayer nor mine, not then, and not when the vicomte took me upstairs into a room like a chapel, hung in black and furnished with such paintings and statues as I blushed to look upon. Do you remember how you and Marie once jested how the heir of Malvoeux would collect maidenheads? The truth is nothing so innocent as maidenheads, which interest him not at all. He collects whips, Berthe, and silken ropes, and little, sharp razors. And with them he pursues his true vocation, which is collecting cries of pain."

  "Stop!" I cried. " 'Tis more than I can bear. The monster must be complained of, brought to trial, imprisoned!"

  "Hush, Berthe," she patted my hand. "I am resolved to tell all, and you must resolve to bear it."

  And so I heard it, held both by her tale and by her fingers stroking my hands. That chilled me more than her words, I think, that gentle, absorbed caress.

  "I've learned a new language from him, Berthe. That member Menée called his scepter, he named with a dozen more ungentle names: Cupid's arrow, engine, lance, rifle. My body was the altar of Venus; my secret places were the gates of Heaven. No saint ever stormed Heaven more zealously than he. Day and night he celebrated his rituals of rope and flail and knife, his valet assisting him now as acolyte, now as surgeon. Many and varied were his approaches to bliss, but of all my gates, he favored the postern."

  The fire snapped and the rain tapped at the windows. All else was silent as the grave, except my heart beating in my ears and Peronel's quick breathing. I could think of nothing to say.

  "Do you know the penalty for sodomy?" asked Peronel at last. "He taunted me with it, should I dare to expose him. He would not burn—nobles, as all the world knows, are fireproof. The valet might die, and that would please me. But not enough to burn at his side with my sins unshriven. There were other girls, too, whom I would not betray."

  "Bien sûr," I said, or croaked. "How long did this continue?"

  Peronel released my hands and folded her fichu higher on her throat. "A week. Two weeks. I don't remember."

  "But that was more than a year ago," I said.

  "We escaped, my companions and I, down a rope made of the chapel's hangings, all knotted together and hung out the window. We fled to a place known to one of the girls, where the matron cared for us until we were healed, then took us into her employ. The work is easy enough, after him. Though you'd be astonished, Berthe, how many gentlemen cannot raise their noble rods without a touch of the lash upon their noble tails." As she spoke, Peronel had risen and shaken out her skirts, and now took her shawl from the settle where I had spread it to dry and wound it around her head and shoulders.

  "I shouldn't have come here, Berthe; whores don't call on decent women. But I thought you might fret over me, and I only wanted to tell you there was no need. Keep the servingmaids away from him if you can. But do not betray me. I wish to go to Hell in my own way, not his."

  'Tis difficult for me to remember her voice, and her pretty, foolish face. Not that I cannot recall them: her bitter words and hopeless look are etched upon my mind as though with acid. No, what is difficult is the memory of sitting by the dying fire with my mouth ajar like a Christmas pig, without a kiss for her, nor a word of farewell, nor any sign that I did not judge her soiled beyond redeeming. I'm ashamed, too, to think of my vow of silence, and how I made it intending to break it, or at least to bend it, in relating the whole to Pompey, whom a flood of holy water would never make Christian. Now I make what amends I may. Beg he from now until the Trump of Doom, Jean will never hear this chapter of my history. Colette, however, will read it. And she will shed a sister's tears for Peronel and in her name forgive my broken oath or else set me a penance for it. For not le bon Dieu Himself has Colette's right to judge me in this matter.

  By the autumn of 1781, madame my mistress was finding Paris sadly flat. The haut monde was chewing over the same tired subjects like a particularly indigestible cud: the Compte Rendu, Necker's resignation, Fleury's taxes, the price of salt, Mesmer's animal spirits, the infant dauphin, the war with England, the price of grain, the latest satires, the new robes-chemises in which the queen of France could not be distinguished from a grisette on her way to bed. There was nothing new to talk about, no one new to talk to. Parisian society was eternally the same, she complained, and the Parisian streets stank worse than the aviary in August. Unsummoned and unannounced, we returned to Beauxprés.

  After so long an absence, I'd almost forgotten how mountains can loom over one, how fir and brambles overshadow the road on one side and open to a long and rocky drop on the other. The farmhouses like great stone tents, the church steeples tiled like snake skins, the villages playing cache-cache on the rocky hillsides—mile by mile, they grew more familiar. I found myself thinking fondly of Estienne Pyanet's crusted bread and the back kitchen at Beauxprés with a fire in the hearth, a hot brandy-and-sugar in my hand, a
nd M. Malesherbes, Artide, the sous-chef, Jacques Ministre, even Dentelle regaling me with the small happenings of the year past.

  And Pompey, the child of my heart. Pompey most of all.

  The fire and the brandy-and-sugar and Artide and M. Malesherbes were all just as I'd imagined them. Pompey, on the other hand, was nowhere to be seen. I wasn't too astonished—he was Mlle Linotte's only servant, after all, and not one to take his duties lightly. Yet I thought he might have come down to greet me.

  "Oh, Pompey's a great man now," sneered Artide when I inquired after him. "He's playing Abélard to our little Héloïse and has no time for us."

  M. Malesherbes shook his head over his steaming cup. " 'Twas one thing when he was small, to make a pet of him and laugh at his barbaric ways. But to give a grown savage governance over a Catholic child! I cannot think it right, me."

  "Nor would I think it right," I said, "were Pompey in truth a savage."

  Artide laughed. "Give it up, Malesherbes. You know how Berthe dotes upon our dusky ape." I looked daggers at him; he threw up his hands as though to ward against a blow. "Peace, peace, Mlle Amie des Noirs. I'll admit that Pompey is as civilized as you please, if you'll admit that there are more suitable tutors for a French noble's young daughter than a full-grown male blackamoor."

  "Ah, bah!" I said. "He's as suited for the job as any Frenchman of a like age, and more suitable than most."

  "Enough!" said M. Malesherbes. "I see, Berthe, that Paris has done little to mend your temper."

  Artide leaned forward and pinched my chin. "Go seek your monkey in the cabinet des Fées, my cabbage. I wish you joy of your reunion."

  Dismissed and deflated, I mounted the stairs to the hall of Depositions. Absence—or perhaps the sour taste of the scene just past —must have made me more than usually sensitive to the gloomy influence of bleeding Christs and weeping Virgins, for by the time I'd reached the Snuffbox antechamber that led to the cabinet des Fées, I felt myself close to tears.

  Reluctant to greet Pompey in this maudlin state, I stayed where I was and tried to compose myself.

  The Snuffbox antechamber is a good room for distracting the mind. The boxes are arranged in a kind of crescendo—plain enamels nearest the Fan room, moving through beaded and cloisonnéd and jeweled and painted to the most artful, the most precious of all, housed in two cases flanking the door of the cabinet des Fées. These are a hundred oval boxes bound in vermeil, each bearing the miniature portrait of some renowned fairy, wizard, or princess. In the left-hand case, the Yellow Dwarf scowls ferociously, the White Cat lifts a dainty paw, the Fairy Magotine flourishes her wand of serpents. In the right-hand case nestles a clutch of golden-haired princesses, one as like another as hen's eggs. Perfect beauty is perfect beauty, after all, and doesn't vary much.

  I'd just reached the princesses when Pompey's voice sounded through the door. "No, no, mademoiselle," he said, amused and indulgent. "Don't you remember? The roses were Prince Lutin's, and their virtue died with him. They are curiosities only. Now, I ask again. You wish to make a long journey. Which of these objects would you choose to take?"

  Half-ashamed of my stealth, I applied my eye to the keyhole. A broad table occupied my field of vision, and upon it I could see a small green cap ornamented with scarlet feathers, a good-sized walnut, three roses, and a worn leather satchel. Mlle Linotte had her elbows on the table and was studying the objects before her with knotty concentration. She was then ten years old, not nearly so pretty as her mother at that age—thin and tall and sharp-faced like her father. The resemblance was so strong, I wondered how I'd not noticed it before. Her black hair hung in elf-locks about her narrow shoulders, and her white gown was spotty and smudged. I thought her a repellent child.

  "The walnut holds a dress," she said suddenly, "and would be of no use to me unless my journey were to Versailles. The satchel gives food, which would be useful on a long journey. I think I'd rather have something to make the journey short." She squinted up—at Pompey, I suppose, though she seemed to be looking straight through the keyhole at me. As I drew back discomfited, I heard her say, "I can't remember what the cap does. If the roses are curiosities only, then I should take the cap."

  Pompey laughed. "Well reasoned! When you are grown, if sorceresses are not à la mode, you may call yourself a philosophe. Now, go and read 'Prince Lutin,' which you were to read yesterday, and learn about the cap—yes, and the roses, too. And when you have done that, we will go to the aviary and help Jacques Ministre feed the birds."

  Hastily I unbent myself, knocked smartly upon the door, opened it, and stepped inside. "Ah, Pompey," I said briskly. "Artide said I should find you here. Mlle Linotte"—I dipped her the smallest of curtsies—"your mother is returned home from Paris. Pray go and welcome her." I looked her up and down, from beggar's skirt to unkempt hair. "I see mademoiselle has no one to attend her. Shall I find a comb for her, and perhaps a clean gown?"

  If I'd hoped to daunt the child, I was to be disappointed. She tilted up her chin at me, tossed back her hair, and sailed out the door as proudly as one of the snuffbox princesses.

  Linotte gone, I held out my arms to Pompey. He came into them readily enough, and lifted me clean off my feet in a mighty hug. I'd forgotten how big he was—tall as monsieur and a span across the shoulders, with beautiful long hands beside which mine were small as a child's.

  "You intend to stay this time," he said as he put me down again. "I'm glad. There is no one here to talk with save mademoiselle, who is still very young." His soft voice deepened. "You weren't very kind to her, Berthe."

  I drew myself out of his arms. "The child is a disgrace. Are there no laundresses at Beauxprés? And surely she's not so young that she cannot comb her hair now and again."

  "Ah, Berthe," sighed Pompey, and turned away from me to gather up the enchanted hat and other things from the table and return them to their proper cases and drawers. Stitch by stitch, I felt our old easy friendship raveling into tangle of petty jealousy and broken loyalty. Pompey was no longer the little page I'd comforted in my arms, the soft-eyed youth I'd teased and protected. In this year of absence, he'd grown into a hulking stranger: a savage, alien. The tears I'd banished among the snuffboxes welled up again.

  "I've missed you, Pompey," I said. "Olympe grows old, and all her conversation these days is of old lovers and new aches. I love her still, bien sûr—she is my mother's blood. But I cannot trust her discretion."

  "You have something to tell me that torments you past bearing. I could smell it through the door, like rotting flowers. Poor Berthe."

  Poor Berthe indeed! How dare he snuffle at my emotions without my leave? "Can'st then sniff out what torments me?" I snapped. "Sacré tonnerre, boy! 'Twould become thee better to let me tell my tale in my own way!"

  Pompey bowed his head and waited as I asked until the silence grew thick and heavy between us. He waited while I seethed, while I considered flouncing out of the room, while I considered throwing a magic nut at his inky face. He waited until I began to grow exceedingly perplexed and somewhat ashamed. Then he asked quietly, "You have found Peronel Mareschal?"

  "How do you know?"

  He shook his head. "I only guess. Is she well?"

  "She's alive and she's not ill, at least not yet, though I'd hardly call her well. Our Peronel's a Parisian whore, and Parisian whores seldom keep their health for long, especially in such a house as she inhabits."

  Silently, Pompey came to me, took my arm, and led me into the Fan room, to a window furnished with a deep, cushioned seat. There he sat me down and listened gravely while I told him of Peronel and the vicomte and of his valet Alain Reynaud and their curious, distasteful pastimes. When I was done, I found I could not look at him, so I looked instead at the dusty fans in the case behind him and remembered how I'd cut out M. Léon's breeches in this very room, and how Marie had teased Peronel because a young boy had stolen a kiss of her.

  "Musk and blood," said Pompey from a long silence. "All the Maindurs smell o
f old blood—even Mlle Linotte. But Léon! Even in the womb he stank of shit."

  Confessed, I felt lighter. "Well," I said, giving his hand a pat. "Now there's two of us to keep an eye upon the servingmaids, should the vicomte take it in his head to come visiting."

  "Yes," he said. "But if servingmaids begin disappearing one by one, how are we to prevent it? Monsieur is unlikely to believe his son a monster."

  I thought of M. LeSueur and of Justin's being whipped, more than once, for some misdeed of his brother's. "To be sure. 'Twill end, I fear, as it always ends with M. Léon—with others paying for his crimes. Yet forewarned is forearmed. We'll think of something when the time comes."

  In the life of a village, a year is longer than this eternity we have dwelt in Beauxprés. That Sunday when I went to Mass, I was astonished to hear all that had transpired. The old curé had died, and a foreigner from Bugey had taken his place—a baron's son, godly, learned, and timid. He preached a sermon on the blessing of life in honor of Marie Malateste, who was being churched after the birth of her fourth child in three years, the second child having been twins. I nodded to her courteously at the church door and was rewarded with such a look as I'd give a cat who'd kittened on my Sunday petticoat. Dentelle stood godfather to the brat, and to hear him brag, you'd have thought he'd fathered it himself.

  Mère Boudin was dressed in black, and told me when I greeted her that she was a widow now. Mme Pyanet whispered in my ear that 'twas said that she'd lost her husband's balls to the Devil at dice, whereupon the poor man'd had no choice but to die of shame. All in all, 'twas as good as a play.

  I was not displeased to be home again. Yes, home. Jean says my brain must be going soft. As far as he recalls, I never liked Beauxprés, never ceased for a moment to long for Paris, to praise its theaters, its boulevards, its shops, its pleasures. Well, he's right. I didn't. Nonetheless, Beauxprés had come to feel like home to me. Colette, wiser in the ways of grief than Jean, may understand what he does not: that I was linked to Beauxprés by what I'd suffered there. And the quiet of Beauxprés was not so different, after all, from the quiet of Port Royal and of the hôtel Fourchet, where madame and I had been so peaceful together.