Shadows 7 (11 page)

"Sur la chatte, le chat, / Et sur la reine le roi . . ."
naughtily sang Miou to the cat-baby.

"On the other hand," Semery added, now with great nonchalance, "I did visit the shop today, and one of the eldritch sisters—good lord, I must paint them—no rush, they're each about three hundred years old and will outlive us all—well, Miou-who-has-stopped-singing-and-is-all-ears-and-eyes, well, one of them gave me a note to give to Honorine. Something the spirit guides had revealed that my sister apparently desired to know." And from his jacket Semery produced a piece of paper, unsealed, merely folded in the middle, which he held aloft quizzically. "I wonder what it can be?"

"You shouldn't have brought it here," said Miou. She crossed herself between fawn paws. "Magic. Ghosts."

"Where else then? Papa is out tomorrow afternoon and I can take it to the house. But I could hardly do so today, could I now? One foot on the threshold, and he'd have seized me in his jaws."

"Well," said Miou. "Put it away somewhere."

"Don't you think I should read it? Secret communications to my little sister . . ." He looked back at me. "Actually, I did. Here, what do you make of this?"

And he opened the paper and put it in my hand.

I admit I was curious. There seemed no harm in it, and I have always had a quiet disrespect for "supernatural" things.

On the paper from the mysterious bookshop were these words as follows:

As we have told you, she is to be found as a minor character in some of the history books, and there has also been at least one novel written about her. The name is correct, Lucie Belmains. She did indeed die as a result of hanging herself. The date of her death is the morning of the eighth April, 1760.

"Fascinating, isn't it," said Semery. "What does it mean? Who is Lucie Belmains?"

Miou and the cat were already peering between our shoulders at the paper.

"Lucie Belmains," said Miou, "was a minor aristocrat, very beautiful and very wicked. She would drink and ride a horse and swear better—or worse—than a man. She was the mistress of several princes and dukes. She once dressed as a bandit and waylaid the king on some road, and was his mistress too perhaps, till she became bored with all the riches he lavished on her. Then she fell in love with a man five years her junior. He loved her too, to distraction, and when he was killed in a duel over her, Lucie gave a great party, like a Roman empress, and in the morning she hanged herself like Antigone from a crimson cord."

Semery and I stood amazed until Miou stopped, breathless and in triumph.

"It seems," said Semery then, "there is indeed one novel, and you have read it."

"Yes. When I was a little girl," said Miou, all of seventeen now. "I remember my sister and I read the book aloud to each other when we were supposed to be asleep. And how we giggled. And we dressed up in lace curtains and our mother's hats and raised glasses of water pretending they were champagne and said, 'I am Lucie and you are my slave!' And fought like cats because neither of us would
be
the slave. And then one day Adele hung her doll up by the neck from a red ribbon and we had a funeral party. Maman found us and we were both beaten."

"Quite right. These are most corrupting activities for a future wife of France's leading painter, and the mother of his heir." At which Miou smiled and laid her head on his shoulder. "But even so," said Semery, stroking her hair, "what has all this got to do with Honorine?"

I said, "She's making a study of this woman, or the period?"

"No. She has no interests anymore."

Later, toward evening, we strolled along the riverbank. The leveling rays of the sun flashed over the water. I had arranged to buy the picture of the escaping birds for Anette. I knew she would like it, as indeed she did—we have it still, and since Semery's name is now not unknown, it is worth rather a deal more than I paid for it. But there was some argument with Semery at the time, who thought I was patronizing him, or trying to pay for my luncheon. Thank God, all that had been settled, however, by the hour we emerged on the street, Miou in her light shawl and straw bonnet with cherries. When we reached the Pont Nouveau and I was about to cross over, Semery said to me, "You see, that business with the paper—belle Lucie Belmains. Something about it worries me. Perhaps I shouldn't let Honorine have it. Would that be dishonorable?"

"Yes."

"Or prudent?"

"Maybe that too. But as you don't know—"

"I think perhaps I do. The purpose of the witches' Ouija has often to do with reincarnation—the passage of the soul through many lives and many bodies."

We had all paused in mutual revelation.

"Do you mean your sister is being told she lived a previous life in which—"

"In which she was beautiful and notorious, kings slobbered at her feet, and duels were organized for her favors."

We looked at the river, the womb and fount of the city, glittering with sun, all sequins, which on the dark days of winter seems like lead.

"Well," Semery said at last, "why not? If it makes her happy for a moment. If it gives her something nice to think about. There's nothing now. What has she got? What can she hope to have? If she can say to herself, just one time in every day,
once
I was beautiful,
once
I was free, and crazy and lavish and adored, and loved."

I looked at him. His eyes were wet, and he was pale, as if at the onset of a headache. Impulsively, I clasped his hand.

"Why not?" I said. "Yes, Semery, why
not?"

Miou let me kiss her blossomy cheek as a reward.

I went over the bridge with the strangest feeling imaginable. I find no name for it even now. It seemed for a moment I had glimpsed the rickety facade of all things and the boundless, restless, terrible truth beyond. But it faded, and I was glad of it.

As the glorious summer drew to its close, intimations of winter and discontent appeared. The birds and golden leaves began to be displaced by emptiness in the trees of the Bois; Anette's father returned, foul-tempered, and shut his house like a castle under siege against all comers, particularly one.

It was nearly three months since my chance meeting with Semery. We had met deliberately a couple of times since; I had even been invited to his wedding, the thought of which now made me rather melancholy. As for Charles Laurent, I was sitting at a cafe table one morning, curiously enough reading a review of his latest book—as usual a success—when I happened to look up and saw two women seating themselves a few tables away. I was struck at once by a sense of confusion, such as comes when one is accosted by an old acquaintance whose name one forgets. But it was not that a name had been forgotten, for frankly I was not familiar with either of these women. It must be, then, that they put me in mind of others with whom I was. Because of this I studied them surreptitiously over my newspaper.

The nearer woman, with her back to me now, was apparently a maid or companion, and a withered specimen at that. She seemed ill at ease, full of humble, insistent protestation. No, I did not know her at all. The other, who sat facing me, was not particularly remarkable. Not tall, quite slim, and plainly dressed, her fine brown hair had been cut daringly short and she was hatless. Two little silver earrings flickered attractively in her earlobes. That was all. Her skin was sallow, her features ordinary. Then the waiter came and I was struck again, this time by a quality of fearlessness,
boldness,
out of all proportion to what she did, which was merely to order a pot of chocolate. There was something gallant in this minor action, such as you sometimes find in invalids taking their first convalescent stroll, or the blind listening to music.

Quite suddenly, I realized who she was. It was the graceful bravery, though I had never seen her exhibit it previously, that gave her away. Honorine, of course.

I resolved immediately I would not go over. I had no real wish to, heaven knows. Memories of her wounded social clumsiness did not inspire me. I could only be a ghastly reminder of a hideous event. Let her enjoy her chocolate in peace, while I stayed here, keeping stealthy watch from my covert of newspaper.

So I kept watch, true to my profession, taking rapid mental notes the while. Surely, she was not as I recalled. It was small wonder I had not recognized her at once. She had lost a great deal of weight, yet here she sat eating gateau, drinking chocolate, with the accustomed appetite of a famished child. And there truly was about her a gracefulness—of gesture, of attitude. And a strange air of laughter, mischievous and essentially womanly, that despite myself began to entice me to her vicinity. In the end I gave in, rose, walked across and stood before her.

"Mademoiselle Laurent. Can I hope you remember me?"

Her eyes came up. Those eyes not large nor bright—but they were altered. They shone, they were alive. The oddest thing happened now. The loud blush of shyness, which one might have expected, rushed over her face. It was the order of blush well known to the adolescent, which makes physically uncomfortable with its heat, the drumming in the ears, the feeling the brain may explode under its pressure. All is instant panic and surrender to panic. What is there to be said or done when such a mark of shame is branded on one's forehead? But the eyes of Honorine Laurent did not fall. She drew in a long breath and said, calmly, as if blood and body did not belong to each other, "Why, monsieur, of course I remember you. My brother's friend. Please, will you sit down? We have greedily eaten all the cake, but there's some chocolate left." And she smiled. As she did so, the red blush went out, defeated. Her smile was open, friendly, not afraid—nor false. And her eyes sparkled so they were pretty, just as the smile was pretty. One writes of auras. Honorine had just such an aura. I knew in that moment that I was in the presence of a woman who found her own lack of beauty no disadvantage, who therefore would not use pain or sullenness as a weapon, who believed that in the end she herself was all that she required, although others were quietly welcomed should they come close to warm themselves in the light. In short, the look of a confident woman, a woman who has known great love, and awaits, without impatience or aggression, some future, unhurried, certain joy.

As if I had been hypnotized, I drew out a chair and sat down. I had only just breakfasted, but I drank the chocolate that was poured for me in a daze. Presently, the withered lady companion, fretting like a horse for hay, was thankfully dispatched to collect some cotton, and arm in arm, Mademoiselle Honorine and I turned toward the graveled paths of the Bois Palais. I had offered to see her to her door, and she had said, "Yes, do. Charles is home in a filthy temper—one bad review, I think, of his excellent book. He'll be delighted to see you. And my father is . . . out." And there was that mischief again. She did not then hate Monsieur Laurent, this elfin woman with her slim hand so lightly through my arm. She did not hate me for being witness to his humiliation of her. And she was used to escorts, she was used to friends.

I recall she asked me about Anette, very graciously and tactfully, and abruptly all my cares came flooding out in a torrent of words that astonished me, so in the end we sat down by the fountain with the nymphs as I made my complaints to life and heaven. Sometimes Honorine patted my arm gently. "Oh, yes," she said, "ah, no?" with such unflurried kindness and sympathy—
she
with all her woes, so tender toward mine—and at the finish I remember too she said, "You have a sound literary reputation and I would say your prospects are fine. Besides, you and she love each other. Could you perhaps," and those eyes of hers flashed like her earrings, like the summer river, "run away together?" I realized, even at the time, that this last piece of advice came straight from the idiomatic guide book of Lucie Belmains.

For that, naturally, was who I had beside me, there on that bench: Lucie Belmains, who had died on the eighth of April, 1760. Lucie Belmains, but at her softest, sweetest—who knew love, and love's fulfillment, and touched my hand from her greater knowledge, ready to listen, and to reassure me. Even to suggest a madcap means of how to win the age-old game. The means
she,
more daring than I, might have taken.

Why not?
Semery had said. Why not let the poor little dumpy bundle of a sister, that sack of sadness, creation of an unjust God, think of some better chance she had been given, once, if it could make her glad? And,
Why not?
I had magnanimously echoed. My God, why not indeed, if this exquisite person was to be the result . . . No, I did not believe in her reincarnation. But her
alteration—this
I believed. How could I avoid belief? The living proof sat with limpid laughing eyes beside me. As tyrants are changed by faith to flawless saints, so faith of her own kind had changed this human failure to a glowing being. There was a loveliness about her—yes, loveliness. Some latent charm, extant in her brothers, formerly lost in her, had evolved and possessed her perfectly. And that smile, those eyes. And her walk. Her carriage. Years have gone by since that day, to dim the vista. I loved Anette then, I love her still, and no woman in the world, in my eyes, can equal Anette. And yet I took back to this Honorine I had the happiness to find that far-off morning, and I must set down the truth as it seemed to me then, and seems to me now, older, wiser, and less innocent as I am. I have never, save for my wife, met any woman who enchanted me so thoroughly. For she was beautiful. Her beauty lay all around us on the air. And even if I did not credit the transference of the soul, yet the soul I did credit. And it was the soul of Honorine that brought the loveliness and the beauty and the enchantment. For you see, she was then completely those things so few of us ever are, and if we are, so briefly: at peace, joyful,
sure.

We reached the house, that dire house, and even this seemed less awful by her light. She was no longer afraid of it. She went up the steps and beckoned me in as if I might be comfortable there, and so I, too, felt no foreboding.

Charles was in the drawing room and jumped up when he saw me out of a snowfall of papers. Having brought us together, she was gone. I stared after her and then at the closed door. Presently, Charles left off talking of his book and said, "Well, what do you think of
her?"