Pam Rosenthal (23 page)

He frowned, the thoughtful frown of someone puzzling out a difficult conundrum.

“I won’t be your mistress,” she told him, “because I don’t want to be a sort of superior…servant, or…or a possession. I don’t believe a woman should be treated that way.”

“Nor do I,” he protested. “But after all, many wives are treated just as badly, if not worse. And you know that I’d never use you that way, no matter
what
you were called. Anyway, ‘mistress’ is just a word, a convenient way of expressing—”

She shook her head. “We’re creatures of the words we use. ‘Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ aren’t just words, they’re ideas.”

He shrugged, not quite ready to admit she’d scored a point. “And so you’d deprive us both of so much, just for the sake of—ideas?”

She hated it when her feelings got ahead of her ability to express them.

“I
will
come to Paris,” she told him.

“Ah—”

She held up a hand. “But
not
as your mistress, Joseph. As…as your lover, I guess one would say. As an independent person. I’ll work. I’ll see if Monsieur Colet can find me a job as a cook. If I stay here until the end of the year I’ll have my twenty
livres
after all, and I’ll…I’ll sell this dressing gown to buy the coach fare to get to Paris. Well, I need to work out the figures, of course, but—”

“But that’s silly, waiting here for such a tiny sum when I’ll be able to help you so abundantly. Don’t tell me you won’t accept any help from me.”

“A loan, perhaps. Later, when I’m ready to buy a bookstall…you know, it would be very helpful if you could make inquiries about what it actually costs to set up such a thing…”

She would have the most splendid bookstall in Paris, he thought. And surely—as the realities of life in an expensive city became more evident to her—she’d relax some of her stiff-necked notions about accepting help.

But how charming she was, asserting her independence so insistently. He nodded, his mobile features suddenly becoming meek and solicitous.

“Of course, you’ll be dreadfully busy,” he said. “Too busy to see me, I expect.”

She smiled. “I shall be busy,” she agreed. “But not too busy to see you.”

He wasn’t convinced that any of this made sense. But he was too happy to care.

“I’ll inquire about the bookstalls as soon as I get to Paris,” he said. “As it happens, I know some people who make their livings that way, on the quays along the Seine. I’d be honored to be your agent in this matter.” His mouth twisted a bit.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Oh nothing, it’s just that—well, I’d wanted to give you Paris when the fact is that you’re quite capable of taking it for yourself. So tell me, Mademoiselle Bookseller, what
can
I give you? Besides my promise to love you forever.”

She let the coverlet slip down her breasts. “Do you think, Monsieur le Vicomte, that you could give me yourself one more time tonight?”

The sky outside his window was no longer black. No matter, he thought. He’d make love to her as though the night would last forever. Sitting facing her on the bed, he wrapped his legs around her, drew her close, and shuddered as the hard points of her nipples grazed his chest.

He kissed her mouth and cheeks, nose and eyelids, while she slid her tongue along the sinews of his neck. Her hands moved up and down his flanks. Her legs parted a bit; he felt her vulva swelling, the lips moistening, to allow him entrance.

He grasped her buttocks, lifting her an inch or so before he entered her. She growled, and then she laughed, and then she began to moan as he moved her up and down.

Slowly. Sweetly. Strongly and inexorably. Like the rhythm of the tides, the weathering of rock. Like a lullaby, crooned almost silently, after a child has fallen asleep at its mother’s breast.

Forever
, Joseph heard—or imagined he heard; he didn’t know which it was and didn’t care. Whichever it was, the syllables rang, resonated and receded just as his blood began to pound too loudly for him to hear anything at all.

Forever
, Marie-Laure had whispered the word so deeply in her throat that she wasn’t sure if she’d actually given voice to it, or whether she’d moaned it or screamed it or simply breathed and believed it.

To love you forever
, she thought later, as they clung together, wordless in the gray early morning light, next to the door that neither of them could bear to open. She peered over his shoulder and saw their reflection—pale pink velvet and bright blue satin—in the three-part mirror across the room. An infinite procession of reflections. Forever.

Their final words came haltingly.

“I’ll write to you,” he whispered, “and you must write to me, too. The address is on the paper I’ve given you. Two months—
mon Dieu
, it seems such a long time.”

“It’s not a long time,” she said. “You’ll be busy. And productive, too, though I know you won’t want to admit that. You’ll have to adjust to a new life, after all. And a new…home, too.”

She’d almost said a
new wife
. But she hated to think about that part of it.

“You know…” he began.

“Yes, what, Joseph?”

“Oh nothing, it’s just that you needn’t worry…about the Marquise, I mean. She’s…well, it’s difficult to express it tactfully, but she’s not what you’d expect.”

She shrugged, not wanting to hear about the woman he was going to marry He looked relieved, as though he’d been uncomfortable with whatever he’d been trying to say.

“Oh well, you’ll see what I mean when you get there,” he said quickly. “What’s important right now is that you’ll be safe here.”

There were times, she thought, when he’d be better off expressing himself less delicately. But in this case she understood what he was getting at.
Safe from my brother
, he meant, though it clearly embarrassed him to think about it. Well anyway it wasn’t a problem. For the Duc
wouldn’t
be bothering her, as he and his wife would be spending November and December in Paris.

“She’s promised to pay our end-of-year wages as soon as she returns,” Marie-Laure said. “And I’ll leave directly after that.”

“Yes, but if she doesn’t—if she cheats you or if she or…or anyone else—tries to mistreat you, you must leave without the money. Promise me that,” he said.

“I’m not afraid of being mistreated.” She smiled, raising her fist. “But yes, all right, as soon as you’re gone I’ll sell the robe and hide the money. That way I’ll always have coach fare in case I need to leave quickly.”

She kissed him for the last time, opened the door, and gently shook Baptiste until he groaned and began to rub his eyes.

“I won’t worry about anything, Joseph,” she said. “And I shall love you forever too.”

Forever, God
willing,
he whispered to himself as he stood at his room’s threshold and watched her hurry down the dim corridor. And even some minutes after she’d disappeared around a corner, he stood motionless, his eyes directed upon the empty space where she’d been. As though he could discern the path she’d traced through the air. As though he could keep her safe.

The hunched figure watching him from beneath the carpenters’ scaffolding, hidden behind the folds of a drop cloth, silently cursed the man standing in the doorway. Bad enough, Jacques thought, that he had to endure this nightly reminder of Marie-Laure’s rejection of his own advances. And even worse that he was obliged to scrunch himself up every night and listen to all that fucking without being able to see anything. There was a clear chink in the stone wall—good for listening, but placed at a frustrating visual angle—all he got was a shadow once in a while, or even worse, a pair of shadows; he’d had to use his imagination to supply the imagery.

Which had been entertaining in its own way, but ultimately uncomfortable and frustrating. As uncomfortable as his right leg, which tended to fall asleep during these vigils. And the itch on his rump. Not to speak of a bursting bladder.

Would the young mooncalf never go back into his room so that Jacques could scratch his arse and hop about a bit? Still, he thought, he’d certainly gotten the goods tonight. If he told the story skillfully enough, they might even pay him a bonus.

The door closed and Jacques sighed ecstatically. Revenge on the standoffish little bitch would be its own reward. But right now, all he wanted was a good scratch, a good piss, and the prospect of a few more
livres
clinking in his pocket.

Interlude

Paris and Provence

November—December, 1783

Mon cher
Joseph,

How good and how strange it feels to write to you. The post is expensive, you know, and so I shall have to write very small and in the margins. Which is fitting, as I have only small things, and of marginal importance, to write about. But I’ll try to tell you everything, because it makes me feel that you are nearer…

“You’ve received the letter you’ve been waiting for.” The Marquise de Machery’s low, even voice was as smooth as the breakfast chocolate she poured from a silver pot.

She handed a cup across the table to her husband of two weeks. “And you’re dumbstruck with happiness. I’m so glad,
mon ami
—but I must stop addressing you that way.” Her face was grave, but her brown eyes glittered above wide pink cheeks. “It sounds too sympathetic. People will find it indecent and I’ll be an object of scandal again.”

Joseph laughed. “We shall have to practice ignoring one another—except for the occasional insult in company. We have an excellent model in Hubert and Amélie; we can study their manners tonight at supper.”

He downed his chocolate in one long swallow. “But you’re wrong about one thing—I’m not in the least dumbstruck. Be forewarned, you’re going to hear everything. More than everything. I shall amplify, exemplify, explicate and pontificate—assault your ears with Marie-Laure this and Marie-Laure that until you beg for mercy. I’m awfully relieved to hear from her, Jeanne. I didn’t tell you I was worried about her, but I was. I know how ridiculous that sounds.”

“Of course it’s ridiculous. But of course you worried. And of course I knew.”

“Anyway, she’s safe and well,” he said, “except for missing me terribly, though she confesses to enjoying her full nights of sleep. She took some books from the chateau’s library—there was no one to stop her—she found the Shakespeare and she says that when she gets a spare moment she reads the romantic comedies. And then she says…hmmm…where is it? Ah yes, squeezed in at the bottom:
‘The only thing I want to read more is a letter from you.’
Well, by now she must have received one—or more than one, I hope.

“Unfortunately, it seems that she doesn’t get a great many spare moments, because they’re busy making jams and jellies, preserving fruit and vegetables for the winter…” He shrugged. “Peeling, blanching, pickling…I’m not sure what she’s actually talking about in this paragraph.”

The Marquise laughed. “I am. We used to have to help in the kitchen at convent school, though I could sometimes contrive to work in the orchard instead.

“But it’s delightful,” she continued as they rose from the table, “to see a gentleman puzzling over the mysteries of pickles and preserves. And since you’re showing such an interest in life’s homelier details, Joseph, do you think you could assist me in the garden this morning?”

“Of course. There’s a meeting of the Anti-Slavery Society today at La Grange—Lafayette has been very genial, welcoming me back into his circle and introducing me around; Marie-Laure was right, it’s been good for me to get settled into a productive life here. But I have a few hours before I have to go. I’d be delighted to help.”

She led him into the house’s inner courtyard, where a gardener who’d been trimming a large, conical yew stepped down from his ladder to help her into a smock like his own.

“Thank you, Gaspard,” she said. “And we’ll need another smock for Monsieur le Vicomte.”

Her daily routine didn’t admit of alteration. Mornings—in all but the most inclement weather—were devoted to planting and weeding, raking and hoeing, pruning the trees and tying up the vines in the formal garden behind the Hôtel Mélicourt, her family’s vast Paris townhouse. She’d then take a plate of fruit, a glass of
eau-de-vie
, a bath, and a siesta, before settling down for an afternoon with Homer or Herodotus, her progress carefully recorded in her journal. After which it would be time for an evening at the salons or the theater, followed by an intimate supper with a companion or two. It was a civilized gentleman’s life, she’d explained to Joseph, and she was happy to share it with him.

“We’ll be spreading mulch over these flowerbeds,” she told him now. “Here’s a trowel and a cushion for you to kneel on. You can continue to chatter about your Marie-Laure, but only so long as you make yourself useful.”

He shrugged, pretending to grimace at the prospect of getting his hands dirty. And then he buttoned his smock, hoisted up his breeches at the knees, and gracefully lowered himself to the cushion. He took a deep breath; there was a bracing chill in the air and the dead leaves and peat moss had a pleasant, earthy smell.