Valour and Vanity (10 page)

Vincent’s sigh was more growl than anything else. “No. No, I suppose not. And we can afford it, if we are very disciplined with our time.”

“Agreed.” Jane lifted her head, bonnet framing her husband against the length of the street. “It will be worth it, though. Once this is all over, we shall look back and laugh.”

Vincent’s tension eased from his face. “You are a wonder. How do you remain so calm?”

“You have met my mother, I believe.”

He rewarded her with a chuckle. Still laughing, they reentered the glass factory and accepted Signor Querini’s terms.

Six

Memories in Glass

The day between the negotiation and their first appointment with Querini passed slowly. Jane availed herself of the pianoforte in the music room at Ca’ Sanuto and worked on a piece by Rossini that had not yet made its way to England. The glamour noted in the score complimented the piece with waves of purple and blue that seemed to ripple from the instrument. It was an exceedingly simple interpretation of the piece, but the practise was good for her.

Vincent sat on the sofa, playing with a small glamour of a lion that he created and dissolved repeatedly. He scowled more often than not.

Jane paused only once in her music to ask, “How is your head?”

“Fine.” Occasionally he rose to check the clock on the mantelpiece, though its ticking was audible through the gaps in the music.

When he pronounced it time to depart, Jane closed the pianoforte with relief. She went to their rooms and put on the gentlemen’s clothing she had ordered. She had not worn trousers since the year prior, with the coldmongers in London, and she had forgotten how importunate the cloth was between her thighs. Still, it was the best option for working with glass and did offer her a greater freedom of movement than her skirts.

With her short cropped hair and plain face, she could pass for a gentleman, but being
seen
to wear trousers still made her feel undressed. She picked up her long cloak and threw it over her apparel. With the addition of her bonnet, she felt as much a lady as she could with cloth bunching around her legs as she walked. Jane had to resist the urge to pluck at the confining fabric.

Signor Sanuto’s gondola took them through the canals to the landing closest to Querini’s. The sun had set, and the combination of shadows on the water with the reflections of lamps made it appear as though Murano floated in the sky. The streets that twisted back to the factory were even darker than the canal, and Jane slipped her arm through Vincent’s to keep from stumbling. This was one of the many times that she wished that glamour cast actual light instead of little more than illusion.

Vincent knocked at the door, and a young man opened it. He stepped back, beckoning them in. During the day, the glass factory had been lit by a series of tall windows and skylights. At night, the red glow of the oven defeated the candles scattered about the room.

The young man had dark hair that blended with the shadows and a strong hooked nose. He nodded to them. “Signor Querini will be but a moment. May I offer you something to drink while you wait?”

“No. Thank you.”

The glassmaker lumbered out of the shadows. “You’ve met my apprentice, then. Good, good.”

“We have not yet been introduced.” Vincent inclined his head with stiff formality.

“Oh … this is Biasio.” He made no move to introduce the Vincents, so Jane did the honours.

The apprentice flashed her a grateful smile in return. “May I hang up your cloak?”

“Thank you.” Jane removed her bonnet, handed it to him, and then untied her cloak.

“By the blessed Virgin!” Querini’s eyes popped open as he stared unabashedly at her legs.

Jane’s face heated. She handed the cloak to Biasio, who kept his eyes studiously averted. “I did say I was going to wear buckskin trousers.”

“You look like a man. This is unholy…” Querini tugged on his little finger and walked in a circle. “I am going to hell for this.”

Hanging up the cloak, Biasio laughed. “I think it is no different than a masquerade, Master Querini. My own sister borrows my clothes at Carnevale.”

Muttering, the glassmaker shook his head. “A woman should look like a woman, and a man should—”

“My wife’s attire is not why we are here.” Vincent shrugged off his own coat and rolled up his sleeves. “We have a limited quantity of your time. I would not like to waste it.”

Grateful to Vincent, Jane followed his example and rolled up her own sleeves. “Agreed.”

Still muttering under his breath, but in Venetian now, the glassmaker pulled a leather work apron over his shirt and tied it around his substantial belly. Producing a pocket handkerchief, he dabbed the sweat from his face. “What is it you wish to make.”

“A sphere of
cristallo.
”

“That’s it? Just a ball?”

“A perfect sphere.” Vincent rolled his shoulders. “I shall need you to hold it quite steady as we cast glamour into it. The glassmaker we used in Binché—”

“I know what I am about, sir. You do not need to instruct me.” He took up his long blowpipe and gestured to Biasio. “You. Make certain the fire stays even.”

Jane went to the far side of the oven, heat from the furnace soaking through her shirt and causing it to cling to her back. She stood beside Vincent as the glassmaker thrust the blowpipe into the molten glass and gathered a gob at the end of it. Stepping back, he began to blow. He rotated the pipe quickly.

Vincent raised his hands and stopped. “I need the glass to be steady.”

Querini pulled the blowpipe from his mouth. “You said you needed a perfect sphere.”

“Yes.”

“So I have to turn it, or the glass will droop.”

“Yes, but the end is bobbing too wildly for me to approach.” Vincent shook his head. “I need the glass to remain steady, so please try not to let it move around so much. I will accept the imperfections this introduces.”

Grumbling in Venetian, Querini knocked the cooling gob of glass from the end of the pipe and gathered a fresh ball. Vincent stepped as close to it as was safe and spun the weave for a
Sphère Obscurcie
around the glass. They had decided to try this pattern again because they knew that it worked in glass. Since the shape of the fold itself was spherical, it mimicked the shape of the glass. Jane’s job, as Vincent laid his folds, was to match his glamour with a gossamer skein of cold to enhance its path through the glass.

Using this method, they had been able to record a glamour in glass once before. As the ball of glass spun, they tried to match its movement and to lay the strand of glamour into its surface. It required careful coordination between the glassmaker and the glamourists to be able to settle the glamour into place.

Vincent grimaced. “No. Lost it.”

Querini lifted his head from the pipe in question.

Jane tried to provide a balance to Vincent’s gruffness. This would go more smoothly if the man were willing to work with them instead of merely tolerating them. “Again, if you please, sir.”

He shrugged, cleaning the pipe off, and thrust the end back into the furnace again. He pulled it out of the glowing orange mass and held it again to his lips. The tube wavered before either of the Vincents could get the glamour aligned with the crystal, much less wrap it into place.

The air burned Jane’s lungs as she spoke. “Do you have a stand of any sort? We need the end of the pole to be kept perfectly steady.”

“Those are for amateurs.” Querini snorted and shoved the blowpipe back into the oven. “I can make a perfect sphere without one. A perfect sphere.”

Jane wiped the sweat from her brow with the back of one hand. “I do not doubt it, but for our purposes, the steadiness of the pole is as important as the shape of the sphere.”

He glowered at her for a moment before rolling his eyes. “Biasio! The Y-stand from the corner next to the tempering oven.”

“Yes, sir.” The apprentice ran across the room, grabbed a Y-stand, and hurried back with it. He placed it in front of the furnace at Querini’s direction. His motions suddenly seemed familiar, but Jane could not think of where she had seen him before. She supposed that it was only the similarity of circumstance: He looked nothing like Mathieu La Pierre, but perhaps he reminded her of him simply by virtue of being a glassmaker’s apprentice.

Querini settled the blowpipe on the stand with a muttered grumble. The contrast between working with him and with Mathieu was sharp. The Belgian apprentice’s enthusiasm and the way he joined in an attempt to better the work had made the discovery a delight. Even when the heat from the furnace had made Jane increasingly ill—

No … No, it had not been the heat. She had thought that at the time, but that was only because she had not yet realized that she was with child.

Vincent lay in the thread for the
Sphère
before Jane was prepared. Her memory had distracted her, and when she tried to follow his movements, her alignment was poor. Again Querini thrust the blowpipe into the furnace and again pulled it out.

Jane bit her lip and tried to focus, but her thoughts kept turning back to Binché and how ill she had become. She should not have been working glamour at all back then, let alone something that required so much energy. Lord help her, she had thought it was only an excess of glamour making her so ill. It was laughable that a
child
had not occurred to her until the doctor had arrived.

She lost the thread again. “Sorry.” Her heart raced under her shirt. The heat made it so hard to catch her breath. “Again, please.” In the interval, Jane pushed her hair back from her face. Her hair had been long when they were working in Binché. She had not cut it until Vincent had been taken. She should be cooler here with the short hair, but she could not breathe. But surely that was only her fancy. It was no hotter here than it had been in Binché.

Jane’s hands shook as she reached for the glamour. She should not be tired yet, but the threads seemed to slip through her fingers. Vincent growled as yet another attempt dissolved. It was the past. She tried to push her struggling sensibilities aside. She had not known what would happen, and if she had—if she had, she would have made the same choices again. Still. That keen sense of relief when she had miscarried, and the self-loathing that came with it—

She almost lost the thread of cold again and bore down too hard on it. The sudden change in temperature caused the sphere to crack.

Vincent shouted and ducked. Querini jumped, dropping the blowpipe.

Jane stood where she was as pieces of crystal flew across the room. It was just like in Binché.

In an instant, Vincent had her by the shoulders, turning her from the furnace. “Jane? Are you all right?”

She nodded, but could not form words on the first try. “Apologies.” Her breath hitched, and she forced it down. Was she so fragile as to be undone by a memory? This was not Binché. She was not with child. “I misjudged. It will not happen again.”

Vincent ran his thumb along the line of her jaw. “Jane…” He wet his lips and glanced to Querini. “I think we should take a short break.”

“No, no … I am fine now.”

Querini snorted. “You’ll kill someone—”

“Sir.” Vincent’s voice snapped through the room, like glass, and Querini fell silent. Jane felt as though she had a bonnet and could only see directly in front of her. He put an arm around her shoulder and drew her away from the furnace. “What is the matter? Are you tired?”

She shook her head. “No … I only—it is—” She did not want to say it aloud and remind him of what she had done. The choices that she had made. Jane pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose, closing her eyes. He was her husband. He deserved her honesty. “I am reminded—I am reminded of our time in the Netherlands.”

“Oh, Muse…” Vincent pulled her into his arms and held her there, with his chin resting atop her head. Jane leaned against him, feeling his heart beat through her body. “Let us go home, hm?”

“No. I do not want to. I should—this should not upset me so.” It was only a memory.

“You have stopped me from working at times that I resented it, but had to acknowledge that you were correct.”

She counted his heartbeats, with her eyes squeezed tightly shut until she could trust her voice. “And you think I should stop?”

“I think we both should. Let us walk, and then come back after we catch our breath. Or tomorrow. Please? In exchange, I promise to stop without grumbling the next time you ask me to. Or, at least, without
much
grumbling.”

Jane laughed, because she knew that he would want to hear it. “With that offer, how can I decline?”

Vincent released her and called across the room. “We shall take an early evening.”

“You’re still paying for a full day.”

Vincent held very still. “Then I expect you to wait.”

“Vincent…”

“If it were me, Muse, what would you do?”

She lowered her head. He was right. She was in no fit condition to work. Vincent took her hand and led her gently outside, away from the furnaces and the heat, but the memories followed her. Without speaking, Vincent shifted to pull her arm through his and hold her closer as they walked. A cricket chirped from behind a wall. The water of the canal splashed as an oar settled into the water. Someone laughed inside a nearby house, and in the distance, a woman practised an aria, her voice haunting around the corners of Murano.

Jane leaned into her husband, feeling his warmth against her side. “I am sorry we had to stop.”

“You should not be.” He rubbed his thumb over the back of her fingers. “I had expected it to be me that would need to be pulled away.”

“Yes, well … you seem quite fit.”

He shrugged. “I am not. I tell you that I am, and it
is
little enough of an affliction that I can ignore it, but after working glamour, my head aches. The room still pitches sometimes when I stand too quickly. But I spent so long being told that I was not allowed to work glamour that when I cannot—or even
should
not—I grow resentful.”

“At least you have reason.
You
were injured.”