The Porcelain Dove Page 9

  "Bon Dieu," I breathed—a prayer of enlightenment and horror both. "The man is mad!"

  "Chut now, Berthe! You must not speak of monsieur so. He is a duc, the scion of an ancient house, and not like common folk. In you or me, such a quirk would indeed bespeak madness. In a duc, 'tis no more than a sign of nobility."

  I glared at him. He winked broadly at me and we sat for a space in silence, he rubbing, I stitching. A curse! And here I'd thought monsieur's birds to be no more than the signature of idleness, like the gray Angora cats of Mme de Mirepoix that sat on her lotto table and pushed at the pawns with their paws. Why, every man of sufficient means had a craze. M. du Fourchet had money; M. Voltaire and Mme de Châtelet had experiments on the weight of fire; the marquis de Taillade-Espinasse had a vital ventilation machine; M. de Malvoeux had birds. As far as I was concerned, there was nothing to choose among them. I wished with all my heart that M. de Malvoeux's craze were one-half so harmless as that of M. Voltaire; so wishing, I shook my head and sighed.

  "It must be hard on the poor lady," said Artide kindly. "But nobles are like that; 'tis in their blood. Take my advice, Berthe, and encourage your mistress in a cheerful acceptance of M. le duc's little ways."

  "Ah, bah, Artide! You sound just like Dentelle. Why should any wife cheerfully accept that her husband prefers the company of a flock of witless birds to hers?"

  Artide laughed. I'd never before that moment noticed that he brayed when he laughed. "If she cannot accept it cheerfully, then she must accept it miserably. Accept it she must; she cannot change it."

  For a few days after this exchange I was in poor charity with Artide, who'd presumed, I thought, far past the bounds of friendship and decorum. What business had a mere lackey to talk about the duchesse de Malvoeux as though he'd the right to pity her?

  The question now was whether I should tell my mistress what all the world, except us two, knew about her husband. Half a dozen times I opened my mouth to speak. As many times I shut it again. My mistress was, after all, no more than a child, and I an old toy she'd owned for many years. The gloss had worn off me, as it were: I was no longer new. Her husband, on the other hand, fairly glittered with novelty. Furthermore, his aloofness made him hers but not hers: elusive, mysterious, desirable. In such a contest, I must always lose. I held my peace.

  In the event, it was as well that I did, for if madame had mastered anything at Port Royal, she'd mastered the mirror's art of returning to the gazer his own bright and pleasing image. The sudden change of image—love-struck to bird-struck—had briefly clouded her surface, that was all. Her husband loved birds to the point of madness. Bon. So, then, did she. One morning she rang for me at cockcrow and bade me dress her in a white gauze gown monsieur had once said gave her the look of a white egret. Then she directed Pompey to supply himself with a quantity of stale bread and await her in the vestibule. Dismissed, I trailed her at a forlorn distance, reaching the great stair just as monsieur emerged from his apartment, clattered down the steps, and stalked purposefully towards the front door.

  Madame stopped him upon the threshold with a hand upon his wrist. "François, dear husband," she said. Monsieur gave no sign that he'd heard her. "François," my mistress repeated, shaking his arm. "Will you not take me to see your birds?"

  Perhaps 'twas the shaking broke his trance; perhaps 'twas the mention of birds. In any case, I saw him blink, a slow hooding of his sharp black eyes, and then his other hand came up to grasp her fingers. "You are abroad monstrous early, chérie," he drawled. "My birds? They are nothing—a mere whim of mine: a few mangy specimens in a dirty glass house. You will spoil your pretty slippers for nothing."

  "Not nothing, I am sure." Carefully, my mistress released him. "My cockatoo Bébé is a charming creature, as are the lovebirds you gave me on our betrothal. If your other birds are half so clever as Bébé or half so pretty as the lovebirds, then I will be well-rewarded."

  Silence, and then, "Very well. You may come. But I will not have you fidgeting about. An aviary is no place for a chattering woman."

  "Of course not, François," said madame indignantly. "Did I not sit quite still and quiet when you taught Bébé to take bread from my lips?"

  "Hmph," said monsieur. "See that you remember." His tone was gruff, his words abrupt; but as they turned to the door, he took her hand and laid it within his arm.

  Four hours later, my mistress returned. Her gauze overskirt was laddered by tiny, dirty claws and a malodorous white streak fouled her lace cap. Her forefinger had been pecked to the bone.

  "Oh, Berthe, an emerald cuckoo took grain from my fingers, and I have learned to hold a bird's wings while monsieur my husband examines it, and he says that my hands are very delicate and that I may come with him every morning, and then he kissed me and said that I was a sensible little thing. The bird-handlers feed them, so I won't need the basket tomorrow. I do need an apron, and gloves, and a sunshade. I'm afraid that my pretty gown is all spoilt. Have I a plainer to wear tomorrow? Gray would do, like a wood-dove. Oh, Berthe, I am so happy!" And she embraced me.

  Over her shoulder, I saw Pompey standing by the door with the covered basket still clutched in his small fist.

  Now, the art of reading faces is early learned by servants, being as necessary to the proper execution of our duties as a discreet tongue and a pleasant expression. I've always prided myself upon my skill at the art, but Pompey baffled me. Because he was small and black and did not speak, madame treated him as she treated Doucette. I, too, assumed he understood madame only as Doucette understood her—from tone and gesture and animal sympathy. For the five months I'd known him, no reflection of emotion had troubled his small, round face; he might have been an automaton, cleverly crafted of ebony and ivory and dressed in rose satin for my mistress' pleasure.

  Thus, I was astonished to see his placidity distort, as I thought, into a grimace of rage. The expression lasted only so long as he imagined himself unobserved. When he felt my eyes upon him, he composed himself immediately, so that almost I could think myself mistaken. Almost. It cost me a night's sleep, that almost, turned aside my thoughts that otherwise would have plodded their well-worn track between Paris and my mistress. The shock was so great, you see, like a lady removing her domino at a masked ball to reveal a beak or a muzzle underneath. It ran through and through my head that the most docile dog may run mad. Who can say that the most docile savage might not do the same?

  It was with heavy eyes that I woke my mistress at lark-song next morning. Nor was I cheered by her insistence upon being dressed in a stuff gown that madame her mother would have disdained to wear to count the sheets, with one of my own plain linen caps to cover her hair. She looked in the pier glass and made a moue. "A wood-dove indeed," she said. "I look more like a penitent Magdalene. But monsieur my husband will be pleased. Now, Pompey, my gloves and the sunshade, and then I am ready."

  A low murmur from the dressing-room, then Pompey appeared, sunshade in hand and a wild look in his dark eyes.

  "Come, Pompey," called my mistress. "What a dull creature thou art, to be sure! Come here, I say!"

  "Oh, mistress." At the sound of the soft, hoarse voice, I started and madame stared, first at the cockatoo Bébé, and then at Pompey. "Oh, mistress. I cannot."

  Madame wavered for a moment between anger at being thwarted and surprise that Pompey had spoken. Anger won. "Cannot? Pray tell me, monkey, why not?"

  "Oh, please, mistress." He dropped the sunshade and, running to kneel at her feet, plucked piteously at her apron. "Pompey does not want to go to the glass house again."

  If his face had been silent before, it was eloquent now. Well I knew the language of quivering lips and wrinkled brow, shaking hands and welling eyes, for I'd seen them often enough in my mistress. The child was clearly terrified.

  Madame, one eye upon the ormolu clock, snapped, "Silly baboon. 'Tis thy place to go wherever I go and obey my commands. Otherwise I'll send thee away, and although I do not know where disobedient black pages
are sent, I fancy 'tis a more unpleasant place than monsieur le duc's aviary."

  "Please, madame," I said. "The child is not disobedient but terrified. See how ashen his cheeks have grown."

  "Don't be impertinent, Berthe. There is nothing for him to fear."

  "No, madame. But I am reminded of how Doucette trembles and whines when she sees a broom, and how madame sends Pompey to check whether some maidservant may be sweeping the hall before he takes her outside."

  My mistress pouted a moment, then shrugged. "Oh, very well, Berthe. If you think Pompey is afraid, then I won't insist he accompany me. I'm not a monster, after all."

  "Mistress is an angel," said Pompey gravely.

  "No doubt," said my mistress. "Berthe?"

  I smiled at the boy, who smiled shyly in return and ran to retrieve the sunshade from the dressing-room and to snatch up a pair of gloves and a light shawl, which he presented to me with a little solemn bow.

  Madame stamped her foot in an agony of impatience. "Quickly, Berthe, or 'twill all be for nothing."

  I rolled my eyes at Pompey and was rewarded, as I hurried after madame, with the sound of a child's delighted giggling.

  Because of the ducks, the aviary of Beauxprés had been built at the edge of a large ornamental water some little way from the château. Led by my master, we crossed the formal gardens, passed under a pergola, and followed a graveled path through a copse to a meadow in the center of which was set a lofty, sunny structure built of wood and glass. As we neared, I saw orange trees through the glass and bright forms darting through its upper reaches like colored lightning. Monsieur bent his head reverently to the lock and let us into an antechamber like a small cage with doors at either end, one to the outside, the other to the building itself. The outer door tightly closed, monsieur opened the inner upon Paradise.

  Now, recall to yourself that I was a child of cobbles and tall houses and parks in which not a flower dares bloom without a gardener's permission. The only birds I knew were sparrows, pigeons, crows, and chickens. Bien sûr, I'd seen peacocks at Versailles, larks in pies, and pheasants roasted whole in their feathers. But the birds of M. le duc de Malvoeux were a higher order of being, the angels and fairies of bird-kind. Fire-breasted widow birds, all jet and flame, bright taffeta honey-birds, toucans with painted beaks, cranes and herons and storks. Parrots—hundreds of them, gaudy as whores and contentious as fishwives. Indigo buntings from the New World. Golden pheasants from Cathay. Black swans from the Antipodes. Their movement and color surpassed the most brilliant ball imaginable, and their calls made a music at once harsh and melodious that I found altogether enchanting.

  A low chuckle at my ear brought me to myself. "Your Berthe is bouleversée, my love. I am glad she attends you and not that blackamoor page, whom I half-repent of buying. Ah, chérie"—to a small cockatoo with a top-knot like a coiffure poudrée that had alighted on his shoulder and was nibbling his ear—"Have patience, little one. Thy master has brought thee grapes."

  Thus a ritual was established. Each morning at seven, I scratched at madame's chamber door and brought in her chocolate. Then I pulled back the crimson curtains to waken her and her husband, who slept beside her with his nightcap rucked over his ear and his arm thrown across her breast.

  The first time I discovered my master in my mistress' bed, I thought I must die of chagrin. Before I could drop the curtain and back out of the room, however, madame yawned a tongue-curling yawn and opened her eyes. Seeing me, she blushed and smiled.

  "Is there enough in the pot for two?" she asked. Speechless, I nodded. "Then take one of those little blue cups from the étagère, yes, the handleless ones, and set it on the tray. If monsieur my husband wishes for chocolate, he may just as well drink it from his great-grandsire's Chinese cup as from a French one."

  Never let it be said that Berthe Duvet cannot acknowledge defeat. Monsieur had won my mistress, body and soul, and if I wished to retain her heart, I must needs take her master for my own. He was, after all, her husband. A necessary evil, like rain and doing penance.

  So. Every morning I set down my tray, opened the curtains and made up the fire. At the rattle of the poker, monsieur would rise, shake himself like a bating hawk, and take himself off to Dentelle to be shaved and dressed. We were in the aviary by nine, and usually remained there until dinner at two.

  In those hours madame busied herself giving the birds treats and whistling to them while monsieur went over the breeding records and checked the progress of any wounded or ailing specimens. They did no real tending of course, no cleaning, feeding, or physicking—that was all done after they were out of the way. Monsieur paid his bird-handlers handsomely and treated them almost as equals, in consequence of which they were all as proud as peacocks, if a measure less colorful. Even the seed-boy and the man who scraped the perches disdained to drink at the inn on market days, but kept their revels—if indeed they reveled at all—strictly among themselves. They were a dour lot, and I remember wondering whether their feathered charges had drained all color and animation from them.

  So monsieur whistled and madame petted, and Noël Songis—the chief of the bird-handlers—lurked among the potted orange trees, making it clear he could do no real work while his master was present. My only duty was to sit quietly out of the way, holding madame's sunshade and a kerchief until she called for them. Often, watching the Second Estate work as the Third Estate idled, I fancied myself the great lady for whose sole pleasure the ruby hummingbirds flashed from branch to branch and the emerald cuckoos perched like enamelled bibelots among the polished leaves.

  CHAPTER THE FOURTH

  In Which the Future of the House of Malvoeux Is Secured

  Home to Paris! I was transported by joy. Monsieur had business, madame stood in need of a new corset, and the long and the short of it was that we were to spend the winter in the rue des Lions.

  "I shall be so happy to see Mme la baronne, and Stéphanie-Germaine, and Mme de Fleuru, and the marquise de Berline. The court is quite gay now that Mme du Barry has become maîtresse en titre to the king. She's nothing more than an adventuress, of course, but Stéphanie-Germaine writes that she is the most amiable of women and so beautiful that 'tis no wonder the king forgets his advanced age." My mistress sighed. "How I should like to see her! I love Beauxprés passionately, of course, but I must confess I have missed going out into society."

  My "Yes, madame," was heartfelt. Our only company that autumn having been an aged naturalist and his no less aged wife, madame was feeling rather ennuyée, and I as restless as a caged lark. So high in the mountains, the first snow had fallen in October, curtailing my visits to Mme Pyanet and renewing my longing for the Comédie Française, for the back kitchens, the peopled streets, the whirligig modes and gossip of Paris. Even the prospect of monsieur's graceless town lackeys could not daunt me; now that he'd found his tongue, Pompey was a charming companion and Marie was to accompany us as laundress-cum-sewing maid.

  Even in the midst of our planning and packing, we contrived to spend the greater part of each forenoon at the aviary. Monsieur had more to do there than ever, with a thousand details to attend to of fuel and furnaces, of grain and fruit and maggots and beetles. He was constantly with Noël Songis in anxious consultation over this or that, and madame obediently accompanied him although she must leave her jewels unsorted to do so.

  One hard, crisp morning not long before we were to leave, we set off across the garden as usual. With the white of the snow, the black-green of the firs, and the hard, bright blue of the heavens, it was like walking through a Sèvres bowl, though amazingly cold; by the time we reached the aviary, madame was pinch-mouthed and shivering. Monsieur opened the outer door and glared back at us lagging behind. "Hurry yourself, Adèle," he said. "The air chills."

  Madame stumbled over the threshold. I took her arm; unsteadily she smiled at me and I saw the sweat standing in drops on her brow. Just then, monsieur opened the inner door and the aviary exhaled a warm breath laden with the conc
entrated stench of charcoal braziers, potted trees, and the droppings of a thousand birds.

  "Oh," said madame faintly, and brought up her morning chocolate and biscuits.

  Monsieur held his lace kerchief to his nose and made a moue of disgust. "Why did you not say you were ill, Adèle? There is no need for you to accompany me if you are ill. What if the complaint be contagious? You know yourself how parrots are prone to fevers, particularly in winter."

  Tears rose to my mistress' eyes. "Indeed, François, I'd not considered it. I'm very sorry. I was well enough when I rose this morning; I don't know what has come over me."

  I bethought me of cholera, of typhus, of quartan fever. Did not the plague sometimes commence in cold sweats and vomiting? "M. le duc," I ventured, "these sudden purgings are not common with madame. Is there an apothecary in the village who might prescribe for her?"

  Monsieur, who had already stepped through the inner door, lingered there looking over his shoulder like a blessed soul held back from Paradise. "Yes, yes, Duvet, I suppose so," he said impatiently. "Ask Menée or Jacques Ministre—one of them will know."

  Well. In the past weeks, I'd managed to put myself in a fair way of liking the man, or at least of tolerating him. Now my most charitable thought would have earned me a beating. Even as I supported my mistress' weak steps homeward, even as I murmured soothing nothings in her ear, I raged inwardly. Madman (thought I). Feather-wit. Parrots can catch human fevers, can they? Then maybe she'd caught her death from one of them. Did you think of that, M. Bird-brain?

  As we entered madame's bedchamber, I heard Pompey singing to Doucette, a strange, sad little chant like nothing I'd ever heard before.