The Porcelain Dove Page 48

  With that, he rose from the bench and would have swaggered out of the laundry-yard had Linotte not muttered such words as to freeze him fast as a pond in February. Through the fading light, I could just see Justin's reproving frown and Linotte's answering shrug. "All the children of Jorre should be present," she said, "and whether it please you or no, brother, I am a sorcerer."

  "A sorceress, a woman," he began, a shadow of his old whine falling upon his voice.

  "Bah!" I interrupted him. "If you can believe that le bon Dieu has used one of mademoiselle's spells to His Own mysterious ends, why not this one also? Can you do nothing, you children of Jorre, without bickering and babbling? I'd be ashamed, me, to argue theology while night falls upon these poor infants, still unburied."

  "Berthe is right, my son," said madame. "Can you not see how they suffer, hear how they plead for rest? They're weeping, Justin. Can you not hear them?"

  From his face, I saw that he could. And then, as if a heavy door between us had suddenly swung open, I heard them, too. There was nothing eerie about the sound of them: no screaming or tormented cries, only the weary, dreary wailing of children who have no hope of being heard or comforted.

  Justin clapped his hands over his ears. Linotte covered her face; Jean, peasantlike, hid his eyes in his sleeve. My own cheeks grew wet, and my chest heaved with sobs while the darkness grew and the wailing with it until I hardly knew whether I wept from pity or terror.

  This is Hell, I thought.

  I heard my mistress cry out—an unmistakable cry of joy—and a light shone through my tears.

  A small light, very bright, like a firefly bobbing above one of the chests of bones.

  A second light, somewhat fainter; a third, sparking gleefully into the black air. And suddenly there were too many lights to count, a myriad feux follets dancing over the chests that held their bones. Save that the chests weren't chests anymore, but a fountain: a wide marble basin white as bone, with a tree in the midst of it all of silver, and ghost-fires twinkling in its branches like stars. Casting aside the black cloak, madame knelt and lifted her hands to the tree; one by one the ghosts flew to her, clung to her, clothed her more brightly than the gown bright as stars.

  Tenderness rose in me, watching her. This was my Adèle, long imprisoned in despair, laudanum, and hysterical fits, released at last to her best self. She knelt by the fountain like a figure of charity, with the ghost children like cherubs clamoring about her. One by one she took them to her overflowing breasts and suckled them; one by one she breathed on them and released them to fade gently into the night.

  At last only one light was left. Hesitant, it hung upon the air a little way from her.

  As she had its fellows, Adèle gathered this last soul to her breast. Like its fellows, it transformed into a child, a little black-haired maid, white-skinned and soft-limbed: the wizard's daughter beyond doubt. Unlike its fellows, this child kicked and struggled until Adèle set her down upon the earth, whereupon she retreated to the chest where the Porcelain Dove was perched and frowned upon the assembled Maindurs. The Dove-light shone upon her small face that was inscribed with hate and reined-in fury.

  "Colette," said Adèle, offering her breasts to her. "Be comforted."

  "My father is dead," the child answered. "Your daughter killed him. I cannot be comforted while he howls in Hell."

  "The choice was his," said Justin loftily.

  "The choice was your ancestor's who slew me." Her voice was as old as her face, I remember, and as bitter as alum or her father's voice when he mocked Linotte. "He wept over me even as he parted my flesh, and bade me, as you have, to be comforted. I swore I would not, and still I will not. I've not done haunting you, madame."

  Adèle smiled. "Haunt me, then."

  Oh, her composure shattered at that! Suddenly childlike, she stamped her foot, and her face twisted as though she'd weep. I yearned to go to her. I yearned to turn away. And just as I thought that my yearning must tear my heart in two, the Dove spread its gleaming wings. I watched as it circled thrice around the yard, landed on Léon's shoulder, its pure light pitiless upon his scabrous face, his predator's eyes, his sparse and fading hair. For a moment it sat there, and then took off again, the flurry of its glassy feathers drawing a line of blood along his cheek, releasing him from Linotte's spell to growl and stumble from the yard.

  And now the Dove had settled upon Justin's fist and cocked its ruby eye at the hand clenched above his heart, the hand that held the pomegranate seed. With trembling reluctance, Justin unfolded his fingers and extended his flattened palm to the bird, who pecked up the seed and left in its place a single ruby bead of blood.

  When the Dove came to her, Linotte held Colette's reliquary out before her like an offering for it to perch on. It came to rest and its silver light upon the silver casket glared brighter than the moon, brighter than the stars, flooding every corner of the drying-yard with a constant lightning. And in that radiance I saw the chests open of themselves, and the bones pour out of them like Judgment Day and swirl together in the middle of the yard in a triumphant danse macabre, wild and leaping, reaching to Heaven whither their souls had flown, coming to rest at last in the form of a bone-white tree set in a wide basin of dark marble veined and knotted like wood, the whole glowing dim and softly dimmer until all I could see through the gloom was a pale shadow of branches and the Dove perched among them, and a single bobbing feu follet like a fallen star.

  A hand touched me. I startled. It grasped my shoulder firmly, then gave me a friendly shake as if to say, How goes it, my girl? Justin gasped, "Que Dieu me garde!"; Jean muttered, "Merde! Not them again"; Linotte laughed and called for lights.

  Then a thousand lanterns appeared on the hedges and along the laundry-yard wall, and by their yellow light we saw that we stood in a garden first-cousin to Justin's forest glade. The bodiless hands were returned from wherever they'd been hiding all this time. There were hundreds of them, fluttering around us like great white moths, patting our clothes and stroking our hair and faces in happy greeting. Jean lifted his own hands to shoo them away, caught sight of his arm, gaped and stared. For he was no longer clad in the torn and filthy frieze he'd been wearing for five years, but in fine twill, plum-colored, with real lace at the wrists. Laughing, I smoothed my gauze apron and my striped silk skirt, then rose and danced for the joy of clean linen against clean skin. Adèle, in white muslin and a Roman scarf, took my hands and danced with me, light-foot over the starry grass.

  While we danced in the garden, the château was made whole by the bodiless hands: each cup and piece of lace, each bibelot and miniature, each glass case and inlaid table intact, in place and as bright as the day it was made.

  Later, I found some few things missing, mostly from the cabinet des Fées: the boots of seven leagues, the silver walnut, a swan's egg, the homunculus, a horse on wheels, the wand of the Fairy Friandise. That night, lighting madame to the China apartment, I saw only that the riches of Beauxprés had been restored in all their bewildering vanity. The horrors that had flooded my life these past five years—the rioting peasants, Artide, the barren rooms, the balky satchel, madame's metamorphosis—receded from my mind like the insubstantial tide of an evil dream. The quiet, brightly-lit chambers, each a treasury, a wonder opening onto further wonders: these alone seemed real. These, and my mistress leaning on my arm, giving up her garments to me, sighing with pleasure as I stroked the brush through her hair, kissing my mouth as I bent to tuck the coverlet around her, falling asleep with her hand under her cheek.

  First, I thought I'd lie down beside her, and then I thought I'd go to the kitchen and drink a glass of wine, if I could find one.

  Beauxprés appeared so much as it had in the days of Menée and Malesherbes and Jacques Ministre that I half-expected, as I entered the back kitchen, to see them gathered around the fire gossiping quietly with their coats unbuttoned and their stockinged feet propped on the fender. Instead I saw only Jean sitting in what had been Menée's armchair, sil
ent, solitary, and uncomfortably upright. I took Malesherbes' place at the other side of the hearth, and for a space we sat thus like a pair of firedogs, saying nothing and thinking less.

  By and by a hand came in bearing a flambeau, followed by Mlle Linotte, who held cradled in her arm a large and dusty bottle.

  When I saw the light descending the stairs, my heart speeded painfully. It expected Pompey, I think, though my head knew very well that he would not come—could not come, without Linotte's calling him. And Linotte had cast away his feather. Remembering this, I returned her greeting coolly and did not offer to stir as she hunted through the kitchen for a cork-pull. She did know where to look, I give her that, and what to do with it when she found it.

  "I learned this for maître Favre," she said as she deftly unsealed the bottle. "He liked having the daughter of a duc open his wine and empty his chamber pot. To such pettiness does a man sink, when his brain's rotted with hatred."

  I thought of several things to say to this, none of them useful, settled upon a formal, "Mademoiselle is most kind," took the glass she handed me, and sniffed at it contents. Brandy, well-aged, and by the color and the satiny taste of it, worth more than Just Vissot's farm.

  Linotte had not heard my tone or had chosen to ignore it, for she raised her glass to me and said, "Not at all, Berthe. Say rather that mademoiselle is most content to find you alive and well after so long and tedious a trial."

  "As are we, mademoiselle," said Jean with feeling.

  Linotte laughed. "I'm sure you are," she said. "Tell me about it—everything that's happened since I've been away."

  Jean drew an eager breath and opened his mouth to begin. Well, I'd no patience, just then, to hear him narrating our sufferings like a messenger in a tragedy. So, "To say true," I interrupted him, "very little has happened worth the telling. We'd much rather hear the adventures of mademoiselle."

  She sniffed at the brandy, sipped it, sighed, and: "Like you, I've little to tell," she said at last. "I quested, I labored, I achieved. The bibliothèque bleu contains a thousand similar tales."

  "And which account would be the most like mademoiselle's?" I asked slyly. " 'La Princesse Printanière'? 'Prince Lutin'? 'Finette Cindron'? 'Barbe-bleu'?"

  Seemingly, my shot struck home, for she bit her lip and glanced askance at me. I met her eye innocently enough, waiting to hear her answer. But all she said was, "The Dove is come to Beauxprés and the prophecy fulfilled. That tale's ended, Berthe. Let be."

  "Amen to that," said Jean, contemplating his empty glass. "What I say is, when the tale's over, 'tis over, and time to write 'finis' and be done. All fairy tales end the same way, after all."

  Linotte held out the brandy bottle to him. "And how do they end, Jean?"

  "Mademoiselle is most generous." Taking the bottle, Jean poured himself a liberal tot. "Why, with people living happily ever after, of course."

  "And what does that mean?"

  "Well, generally it means they marry."

  "Do you wish to marry, Jean?"

  He choked on a mouthful of brandy and coughed. "I? Marry? Who?"

  I snorted at that, whereupon he slapped his palm against one blazing cheek and spluttered, "Oh no, mademoiselle! I mean, I beg pardon, I'd not cause mademoiselle the least offense, but I'm getting old, mademoiselle, and I've never loved any woman but Marie, not to marry, anyway."

  Linotte fixed her bright black eyes on me. "Well, Berthe, what about you? Do you wish to marry?"

  "No," I said, calmly enough. "Not at all."

  Linotte sipped with an aggrieved air. "Well, then, how do you think this tale should end?"

  "With the good rewarded and the evil punished," said Jean. "M. Léon, he should be nailed in a barrel lined with iron spikes and rolled down a mountain. And that foxy manservant of his, that Reynaud, he should be made to fit his name with a red bushy tail and four black paws and a whiskered nose."

  "And sent to England," agreed Linotte. "I've already seen to M. Reynaud's reward, never fear. As for Léon, he has locked himself into his chamber of Eros, and all the words he has for me are 'foutre' and 'bougre' and 'leave me in peace.' I see no cause why I should not grant his wishes. My father already has his reward. He is in the aviary with the Dove. When last I saw him, his hands were bloody with stroking it."

  I shivered. "And how will you reward the good?"

  "Justin wants to become a holy hermit. Madame my mother wants things to be just as they were, only better."

  "And Colette?"

  Linotte shook her head. "Colette is a ghost. I have no power over her, either to curse or to bless. My mother has bade her haunt her; 'tis for my mother to appease her."

  "Well," said Jean after a pause, "it seems to me that all is as it should be, except for there being no wedding. A pity mademoiselle didn't encounter a prince in her travels."

  It occurred to me that she had, if Le Destin's play had any truth to it at all. "Surely the wizard had some handsome apprentice, some charming servant to be mademoiselle's reward?"

  "There was nothing and no one handsome or charming in the house of maître Favre," said Linotte shortly. "No apprentice. No servant. No prince."

  "A pity," said Jean sadly. "Well. Mademoiselle's most kind to ask our advice, but we're only servants. All that's nothing to do with us."

  I'd resolved to add nothing further to this prodigiously foolish discussion. This, however, was too much. "Bah!" I said. "A queer tale it'd be without us! You may be sure that monsieur would've gotten himself killed and madame starved or frozen to death. Where'd your happy ending be then, pray tell me, with no one save vermin to witness mademoiselle's triumph?"

  I glared at Jean, who shrugged, and at Linotte, who said softly, "Just so, Berthe. And I owe to you and to Jean a debt of gratitude I do not well know how to pay."

  "Three wishes," said Jean out of the ensuing silence. "In the tales. If they don't marry, they get three wishes."

  "And each wish more foolish than the last is the way it usually goes," I said, "with the wisher no better off at the end than he was before."

  Jean pounded his fist on his knee. "No, no, Duvet, it doesn't have to be that way at all. I've thought it out, and the way I figure it is if your requests are neither too humble—like a sausage, for example—nor too grand—like being God—then you'll do well enough." Hopeful and uncertain, he turned to Linotte. "You can grant wishes, can't you, mademoiselle?"

  Linotte shrugged. "Bien sûr," she said. "Am I not a sorcerer?"

  "Well, then," said Jean. "First, I wish for my body to be comfortable. Second, I wish for my spirit to be at rest. Third . . . "

  I leaned across Linotte and shook his arm. "Have a care, Jean, lest you find your wishes leading you to early burial in a silk-lined coffin. My first wish is to know how mademoiselle intends to go about granting all this rag-bag of wishes."

  "Dear Berthe," said Linotte. "Cautious as always. I'll make you a present of your answer and not count it one of the three. There's a spell my master taught me that will remove Beauxprés from the circle of the world and set it among the enchanted realms. Whoever dwells within its pale will live happily indeed—well-fed, in good health, supplied with whatever he likes most. An earthly paradise, in short."

  Strange as it now seems to me, at that moment Linotte's enchanted realm was all my heart's desire. Of late the world hadn't been so pleasant a place that leaving it seemed unbearable. If only I might see Pompey again! But Pompey, I reflected, was a wizard, and as likely to visit me out of the circle of the world as in it. I'd nothing to lose, and an eternity of comfort to gain, so—

  "Bon," I said. "That is my wish, then. To stay in Beauxprés with my mistress, sharing her Paradise as I've shared her Hell. You promise us eternal health, bodily comfort, and peace of mind. What more could one want, after all?"

  "What more indeed?" said Linotte. "And you, Jean?"

  "This magic realm of yours, it will have horses in it?" asked Jean cautiously.

  "If you wish."

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nbsp; "I do. And women? Other than Duvet here and you and madame my mistress, I mean."

  Linotte laughed. "That's four wishes, Jean, if I count your first two. Yet I'll grant it. After all, you've wished for bodily comfort, haven't you? And Berthe here desires peace." She tapped her cheek with one finger, a gesture that reminded me of Pompey. "They wouldn't be human, of course."

  Jean bridled. "Not human, mademoiselle? What do you take me for? I am a God-fearing man, me, and will have no commerce with beasts or demons!"

  Now 'twas Linotte's turn to stare in offended surprise. "What right have you, Jean Coquelet, to question my judgment? Where am I to get these human women for you, hein? From the village? From a brothel? From the side of the road? Do I ask if they'd like to warm your bed, or do I just translate them naked into your arms? A strange way you have of fearing God, I vow."

  Jean protested, but after some little argument, supposed he'd learn to make do with the demons, providing mademoiselle did something about their cloven hooves. Linotte, laughing, said he'd get used to them.

  While they bickered, my mind was brushed by the tail of a loose end. Linotte had spoken of madame, and of monsieur her father, and of both her brothers. "What of mademoiselle?" I asked abruptly. "Will she stay here in her enchanted realm and live happily ever after with the rest of us?"

  "Without a prince?" Jean couldn't have sounded more shocked had I suggested she dance naked in the Palais-Royal. "Our tale may be told, Duvet, but mademoiselle is still young, and much too fair, if she'll permit me the liberty, to die a maid."

  "Oh, I'll not die a maid," said Linotte dryly. "That, at least, I may safely swear. As for a prince . . . Well, there are fewer in the world than once there were. To answer your question, Berthe: No. I'll not stay at Beauxprés."

  "Mademoiselle must do as she thinks best," I said irritably. "She's done well enough so far, except for losing Pompey somewhere along the way. Where's Pompey, mademoiselle? Where's your old tutor, who was kinder to you than your own flesh and blood? What reward for his constancy, hein? Did you cut off his head and tail and release him from the evil enchantment that made his skin black?"