Glamour in Glass (19 page)

Anne-Marie blushed deeply, and tucked the bee into her dress so it was out of sight. “A young man.”

“Would this be a certain lieutenant I saw you walking with?”

Anne-Marie’s flushed cheeks confirmed Jane’s guess. “Please do not mention him.” Anne-Marie patted her chest as if to make certain the bee were truly concealed. “I could lose my place.”

“Over having a beau!” Jane shook her head. “Well, it is not unheard of for masters to have that rule, though I cannot say that I approve. You have my silence on the matter.”

“Thank you, madame.”

Jane went down to the courtyard with her bundle and headed for a stone bench which stood near the studio. With the sun shining on it, it made a pleasant place to sit for an afternoon. She unwrapped the
Sphère
and settled herself there, her sketchbook open on her lap. The sunlight illuminated all of the faults they had introduced into the otherwise flawless glass so they stood out with perfect clarity. The path the glamour should take almost glowed in the light, and she could see it even without adjusting her sight. What, then, had caused it to fail?

As she drew, she rotated the
Sphère
so that she could capture all sides of it in her drawings. It occurred to her to wonder if an imperceptible fracture could have marred the ball as it cooled. That would account for how it had stopped working.

Jane wished that she could test her theory by passing a strand of glamour, only a single fold, through the glass, but even the simplest ones were denied to her. Still, it was pleasant to be outside drawing. The courtyard bustled with activity as students came and went from the studio on various errands, and the relative calm of her bench was an oasis in the midst of activity. Through the windows of the studio, she could see Vincent talking with M. Archambault, and resolved to ask him to try passing glamour through it again, with an eye to discovering a possible crack in the glass.

She did not have long to wait before Vincent strode out of the studio and headed toward the stables. So focused was he that he did not notice her on the bench, for all that she was only fifteen feet from his path.

She called his name, to catch his attention. Vincent stopped and turned toward her voice, then looked past where she sat and, frowning, spun completely around.

“Vincent?” Jane raised her hand and waved.

Again he turned, and as before, his gaze passed through her. He faced the building, shading his eyes as though to spy her in a window. Breath quickening, Jane put her hand on the
Sphère
of glass, which practically glowed in the sunlight. “Vincent, can you not see me? I am sitting by the studio.”

Rotating on his heel, Vincent faced her voice. “I cannot. Jane, you should not be practising glamour.”

“It is the
Sphère
!” Only one thing had changed between here and their chambers. Jane pulled the velvet covering over the glass ball to mask it from the sun.

Vincent inhaled in shock, taking half a step back. She laughed, throwing her head back with delight and then, watching him, pulled the velvet from the
Sphère
. By the way his eyes widened and a slow smile grew to match hers, Jane knew that she had vanished from his sight.

Her husband ran forward, slowing as he met the boundary of the
Sphère
. Then he stood within its influence. “Hello, Muse. What have you done?”

“You will have to tell me. I can only tell that I have vanished” She traced a finger across the inclusion which lay closest to the surface of the glass. “It was sunny that day in the glass factory, but rained the next. Since then, the ball has been on your desk in shadow. My best guess is that sunlight is purer than any form of conjured glamour. What do you think?”

“I think that you are the cleverest woman in the world.” Vincent knelt by her and let his gaze go distant. “It
is
bending the sunlight.”

“If we can perfect our technique or make purer glass, then we might be able to use it to direct glamour yet.” Jane tapped her chin, wishing that she could see what he was seeing. “I wonder if indirect sunlight will suffice?”

“Likely not.” Vincent shaded his eyes and tilted his head up to the sky. He pointed. “There is a cloud coming, if you want to test your theory, but since the
Sphère
never vanished from our rooms, I would hazard a guess that the diffraction is too great.”

As he began to rise, Jane caught his hand. “Wait. May I step out of the
Sphère
and watch?”

“Of course.” He glanced past her to the studio. “They cannot see us, can they?”

“I do not believe—” Her words stopped as Vincent covered her mouth with his. Jane yielded to him, aware of the softness of his touch, the warmth of the sun, and the breeze which caressed her.

Vincent pulled back, cheeks ruddy and curving with his tender regard. “I quite like this thing you have invented, Muse.”

“Mr. Vincent! You shock me.” Try as she might, she could not keep her voice stern or hide her delight.

He compressed his lips into his private smile and nodded to the sky again. “The cloud is about to cover the sun.”

Jane rose and hurried away from him until she felt certain she must be out of the
Sphère
’s influence. When she faced the direction whence she had come, the bench and Vincent were quite invisible, leaving only a view of the courtyard beyond. She held her breath, hardly knowing whether she wanted them to appear when the cloud masked the sun, thus proving her point, or to stay concealed.

The day greyed, and as if he were watercolour bleeding onto a page, Vincent faded into view, first as an ill-defined shape, then his colour becoming more vibrant until she could see him with unrestricted clarity. She had only time to say, “I see you,” before the cloud passed from the sun and he vanished once more.

Gravel rattled close by and then Vincent appeared before her, walking with the
Sphère
held carefully before him. Jane knew that they had, at that moment, vanished from the view of those around them, and she could hardly contain her exuberance.

“Shall we show M. Chastain?”

Vincent bit the inside of his lip, tilting his head to the side to examine the
Sphère
. “Not yet, I think.” Raising it, he peered into the interior. “I should like to have it written up, and run a few more trials first.”

“But he might offer some suggestions.”

“True.” He paused, seemingly about to say something more, but then shook his head. “You know I prefer to present a finished work than to have someone observe my progress.”

“Surely a colleague…”

“If you prefer.” Some of his reserve had returned. Jane wondered what she had done to cause it, until he answered her unasked question. “The invention is yours.”

Was it possible that Vincent was jealous that
she
had conceived the idea of using glass? Jane considered how long he had been striving to find a way to record a glamour so that it could be moved without effort. And she had leaped past his years of careful notes and theories with a child’s plaything. “The invention is ours. Take the time you need.”

Letting him put more time into understanding the glamour could do no harm.

Fifteen

Ribbons of White and Red

Jane woke the next morning and had an appetite for the first time since she could remember. Sun streamed into their bedchamber, tiny motes of dust dancing in the light. She stretched, feeling all the effects of good health that she had not realized she had lost. Everything about the day seemed as if it were made for wonder.

Vincent had already arisen, no doubt to make his way to Brussels yet again. She could not find it in herself to resent the trip. Her glamour in glass had worked. What could be more perfect than that? Jane threw off the counterpane, unable to contemplate staying in bed. She felt the urge to find an activity to match her spirits.

The doctor had advised her to take fresh air and to go for gentle walks, so that is how she would spend the morning. A hearty breakfast, and then a stroll into town. Perhaps she would even go so far as the old Roman walls. Dressing herself in her blue high-collared walking suit, Jane marvelled at what it was to be hungry again. It had been so long since the thought of food had not turned her stomach that she had not at first recognised the pricking in her middle as hunger.

Jane hurried downstairs to see if she could persuade the kitchen staff to provide her with an egg and some plum bread for breakfast. These acquired, she took herself to the parlour, hoping to find a cup of coffee. Mme Chastain was retying the sash on Miette’s dress as Jane entered. “You seem to be in good spirits this morning.”

They had recorded a glamour in glass. “Thank you! I am feeling well for the first time in ages.” Jane pulled up her chair and took her place at the table.

“I am glad to hear it. The first is always the worst. You will not mind so much with your second.” She brushed Miette’s hair out of the little girl’s face, smiling.

The notion of having a second child seemed utterly foreign at that juncture, but Jane did not care to dispute the claim. They had, after all, recorded a glamour. She poured a cup of coffee to distract herself. “I thought I might go for a walk today. Do you need anything from town?”

“I want a new ribbon!” Miette danced away from her mother, undoing her bow in an instant. “For my crystal.”

“You shall have one.” For that blessed, beautiful crystal which had delivered such elation that Jane could hardly contain herself. One ribbon? Why, the child should have a dozen, and still it would not be thanks enough.

Jane found that, though her appetite had returned, her excitement was too great to allow her to sit still for long. She took her leave with her errand in mind, and began the walk to the centre of town. Out of doors, the spicy scent of early geraniums mingled with the earthiness that marked the passage of carriages. Her feet rang against the cobblestones paving the street, and everything seemed scrubbed clean just for the purpose of giving her walk pleasure.

The town buzzed with life. Women in neat linen leaned out of their windows to converse with their neighbours on the street. A boy ran past with a wood hobby-horse, toy sword held over his head, shouting “Viva Napoleon!” For a moment she thought it was young Luc Chastain, but it was another child with similar colouring. A pack of boys chased him, so intent on their game that they bumped willy-nilly into the pedestrians.

As Jane approached the centre of town, she became sensible of a change in the knots of people lining the street. There was, in their general carriage, a tension that ignored the beauty of the day. Jane stepped into the notions store and found it astonishingly thronged with customers, but with a sharp line down the middle of the crowd. It took her a moment to comprehend the difference between the people standing on opposite sides of the divide. She noted that one group held red, blue, and white ribbons and the other held only white, but nothing else unified the sets, save for a clear animosity of each toward the opposite group. In all other ways, it was a cheerful space. The spools of ribbons lining the shelves caught the light from the street, and a glamour arched overhead to create the illusion of a ceiling full of fluttering ribbon and lace.

In the space between the groups, two women stood, pulling a single white ribbon between them. They shouted insults at each other, tugging the ribbon back and forth while the crowd jeered them on. The woman on the left had red and blue ribbons dangling from her grasp, while the one on the right had only the shared white ribbon.

“You are a traitor to your nation!” the one with white ribbon shouted.

“Ha! France is not my nation, you haughty bourgeois!” Red and blue jerked on the white ribbon.

Behind the counter, the gaunt shopkeeper tried to call for order, but was roundly ignored.

An older gentleman holding a white ribbon approached Jane with apparent trepidation. “Madame, you are British? You should return home.”

“What has happened?”

“Napoleon has returned to France.”

Jane’s knees threatened to give way under her. Though she had understood the man perfectly, she felt the urge to ask him to repeat himself, as if that would make his words mean something different. Napoleon out of exile! How was that possible?

The import of the brigands who had accosted them on the road returned to her. She had thought that they had little to fear if Napoleon’s only supporters were such ragged men as those. Around her, she saw the evidence that the Ogre had far more support than she had guessed possible.

On the outskirts of the crowd, a woman holding red and blue ribbons sneered at her. “She is British!” Her words brought silence to the room, and Jane felt the full weight of both groups’ attention fall upon her. “What is she doing here?”

“She is here to buy ribbon. Are you not, madame?” The shopkeeper took advantage of the lull in fighting and drew himself erect. “In my shop, one only purchases ribbon or lace. Do I make myself understood, mesdames and messieurs?” When no one responded, he pointed to the ribbon held between the two women. “That piece of ribbon is spoiled, and I will not sell it to either of you. But I will gladly sell you both lace, which is also white. Will that suit?”

The women looked down at the white ribbon, stretched and spoiled by their struggles. As one, they let it drop to the floor.

Not willing to lose control, the shopkeeper rapped the counter. “Who is next, please?”

As the crowd began to sort out who had precedence, the gentleman with the white ribbon who had spoken to Jane first, gestured toward the door. She needed no further hint.

On her way out, one of the women with red, blue, and white ribbons shifted abruptly, driving her elbow into Jane’s middle. “Go home, British.”

The breath left Jane’s body in a rush, and she struggled to draw in the next. Pain, sharp and quick, drew a line from her toes to the base of her skull. Folded over, she wrapped her arms around herself and became more conscious of the child she carried than she had ever been previously. Heretofore, the inconvenience had taken precedence, but all she could think of now was that the child—her child—might be harmed.