Françoise drew her brows together. “It’s too bad you were so lonely. I wish you’d written.”
I took a deep breath. I didn’t know when I would have another chance to apologize. “I’m sorry I kept silent,” I forced myself to say. “It was cruel of me, and foolish. Forgive me.”
“You really should have written,” Hortense said, “if only for the children’s sake. I could understand you being angry at me and at Father. But Aimée cried herself to sleep every night for the whole first month.”
I felt lower than the lowliest worm. Tears prickled at the corners of my eyes.
Françoise frowned at Hortense. “Hush, you don’t have to make her feel worse.” To me she said, “Of course you were grieving and angry. Anyone would be in your shoes. Only it makes me sad to think of you so alone.”
“But I wasn’t lonely for long. That was the best gift of all I’ve gotten, charming company, men and women of learning and brilliance who’ve come from Paris and Scotland and all over.” I tried to describe my new friends and the conversations we had, though I didn’t tell my sisters about Donatien or his visit to my room the night before and what he had tried to do to me.
“But it’s strange,” Hortense said, “I’d have expected you to come back looking like a duchess, but you’re dressed just the same. We’d have liked to see you in your new finery. Why didn’t you bring some of your clothes back from the manor to show us?”
“And couldn’t you have brought something back for us, too?” Françoise asked, her eyes wistful as she patted one of the twins on the back, trying to get her to burp.
I stammered, “I didn’t think of it. Forgive me. I wish I had. Next time I’ll try.”
Both of them squinted at me and cast glances at each other.
“I don’t know what’s the good of a rich gentleman and a fine manor,” Hortense grumbled, “and leaving your children and losing your good name for his sake, if you can’t even bring away any good clothes or jewels.”
I thought of showing them the silver medallion in my pocket, but to them it wouldn’t look like anything but a shabby old trinket, more fitting for a forest witch than a nobleman’s mistress.
At last they came to the subject of the Marquis himself.
“Is he handsome?” Françoise asked. “Is he young? What does he look like?”
I thought, if I cannot share at least this secret with my own sisters, with whom else could I ever share it? So I confessed to them what I hadn’t told any of my new friends in the Castle of Enlightenment, that I had never seen my lover’s face. That he only came to me in the dark. We talked in the dark, made love in the dark. I couldn’t say whether he was handsome, only that his tenderness and roughness and passion fed my soul.
“But surely you can come up with some way to light a candle or a lantern once he’s gone to sleep and see his face that way?” said Hortense.
No, I explained, I had tried many times, and it appeared to be all but impossible.
“But how can you make love to a man you’ve never seen?” Françoise asked incredulously. “Suppose he’s some monster? Or a wanted criminal, a highwayman who’s taken on the Marquis’s identity and hidden himself away in the woods? Suppose he’s a Jew, or a Moor, even?”
These thoughts hadn’t occurred to me. Françoise might even be right. I was prepared to find out my lover might be a cripple or deformed, but not that he might be in hiding from the law, or a member of some outcast group, or a dark-skinned foreigner. I supposed I would still love him even if he were ugly – but could I still love him if he turned out to be an African or an Arab or a Chinaman?
I hoped I would. I thought of Shakespeare’s Othello. Hadn’t Desdemona loved her Moorish husband truly? Thérion’s mind and soul were beautiful, and he was masterful in bringing my body to a state of ecstasy, making every inch of my skin tingle and feel alive. If he were a villain I could not bear it, but the color of his skin could make no true difference to me. And if I discovered he was of another faith than I, what of it? My God was Nature now. Yes, I hoped I would still love him.
“But I’m almost certain I know who he is, in any case,” I said.
“Who then?” asked Hortense.
“I don’t like to say, in case I’m wrong.”
“Then you can’t be all that certain.”
“But I nearly am. Only I’d be much embarrassed if I said it and it proved false.”
They look at each other again and shook their heads.
“An honest man isn’t mysterious,” Françoise said. “Honest men don’t hide.”
Perhaps not in their world.
In the morning I rode back to Father’s house. The doctor had already come and gone. To my joy, Father was able to get out of bed to take his midday meal with Edmée and me before going back to his room to rest. In my Book of the Rose I found a new letter from Thérion.
“I’m grieved to learn you didn’t receive my note along with the letters I left out for you from home. I don’t know how it went missing. I’d left instructions for you to take Zéphyr and go to your father’s house at once. I’d already sent Harlequin to Thônes for the doctor and told him to go on from there to Annecy to see to your father’s affairs in town. I had to leave the manor myself to take care of a few matters, but foolishly I had no fear for your safety, thinking you’d be traveling in the day with Zéphyr. I only hope you can forgive me and thank God you arrived safely in spite of the mix-up. I’m much relieved, too, to hear your father is recovering. How soon can you return? I’m sick already with missing you.”
I spent a long time composing my reply, trying to explain what had happened with Donatien. But suppose I wasn’t believed? I could hardly have believed it myself if it hadn’t happened to me. My hand trembled and I felt sick to my stomach as I wrote. I spilled a streak of ink across the paper and had to waste the entire sheet and start over again. I tried to explain, too, how much it meant to me to see the children again, and why I needed to stay at least a week, or maybe two – to help Father and Edmée with the move to Annecy, once Father was well enough, and to see Valentin and take him out of the Jesuit school. As I wrote, it pained me to remember that my new friends at Boisaulne were only there through to the end of the summer, and if I stayed too long they might leave before I got back. Then I scolded myself for thinking of my own selfish wishes instead of my duty.
When I was finished, instead of tucking the letter under the cover of the Book of the Rose, I folded it up and put it in my pocket. I wanted to mull it over, reread it again later, and be sure of my words before letting Thérion read them.
By day’s end, much had been accomplished. Father continued to regain his strength, and Edmée and I made arrangements to send a few wagonloads of furnishings down the mountain to the new house in Annecy, where it was agreed the children and Madame Grasset would go to live as well. Before I went to sleep, I took the letter out of my pocket, read it again, and tore it up and threw it in the fire. I had expressed myself too clumsily, and it would worry Thérion too much. I would write a better letter the next day and wait till I returned to Boisaulne to tell him in person what had happened with Donatien. To ward off any more nightmares of Donatien, I went to sleep with the medallion of Cernunnos around my neck, as if it really were a protective talisman. I wished Thérion were there to wrap his arms around me, but at least the medallion reminded me of him.
In the morning I found another letter from Thérion. “I miss you more than I can express in words,” he wrote. “But I can well understand you must be busy caring for your father and children. Only think of me and know that without you, there’s a darkness in me even deeper than the night I always carry around me. Please return as soon as you can bear to.”
I tried to comfort him by writing a cheerful letter, giving him the news of my family, assuring him I missed him too and was grateful to him for making it possible for me to come. I avoided any mention of returning to Boisaulne.
That day I helped Madame G
rasset pack up her harp into a crate, and we brought it along with the first wagonload of furnishings to the new house in Annecy – Aimée and the governess riding in the wagon and I on Zéphyr. After we had unloaded the wagon, we went to Valentin’s school together.
One of the cassocked fathers brought Valentin down the narrow stone stairwell to us, where we waited in the entry hall. The priest excused himself and went back upstairs. For a long moment Valentin simply stared at the three of us sitting there across the room from him, with the saucer-eyed, dazzled gratitude of a prisoner granted a pardon on the brink of the scaffold. Then he propelled himself into my arms. Aimée piled on with an embrace on top of ours, sobbing. When we had dried our eyes, he showed us the bruises on his back and shoulders, and on his shins under his stockings, from the beatings at the hands of his masters and schoolmates.
He and Madame Grasset sized each other up. She had brought her violin with her in a handsome hard leather case, and she took the instrument out to show him how to hold it with one end tucked under his chin and the bow in the other hand. He almost dropped it when she instructed him on how to draw the bow along the strings and it sang out a quavering note. Oh yes, he said, he’d like to learn to play, and he’d be good, gooder than any boy had ever been in the whole history of the world. He’d learn all of his lessons and never talk back, if only he could come home with us. So I went up the stairs to find the priest and settled up his school fees, and we took him home.
In the morning I rode back alone along the lakeshore, through the valley, and up into the mountains back to Father’s house. At home, I found a new letter from Thérion tucked into the Book of the Rose under my mattress. He told me once again, with even more urgency than before, how he missed me and longed for my return as soon as possible. My absence was like an illness, and with little exaggeration, he said, he might well die of it if I were to stay away too long.
“But there’s something else I wish to ask you,” he wrote. “I hope it won’t cause you any offense, but Harlequin tells me there’s been some trouble among his guests. The young painter, Clio, has made accusations against his friend Donatien and he doesn’t know how to judge the truth of them. The girl claims Donatien accosted her in a way that frightened and hurt her. But Harlequin and Ulysse have known him many years and wanted to avoid rushing to judgment with no proof of his guilt. Donatien says he’s the victim of a malicious falsehood and the girl is merely angry at him for toying with her affections. So I ask you – with regret, since I don’t wish to distract you from your visit home – have you ever witnessed Donatien behaving as this girl described?”
Ice crept through my veins as I read the letter. God in Heaven, what had I done, keeping silent about Donatien? Now Clio, too, had been drawn into the nightmare, and it was all my fault. I sat down at once to write my response, explaining in as much detail as I could bear to my own experience with Donatien and urging Thérion to believe Clio’s story. I couldn’t help but wonder as I wrote – if I had told him sooner, if Clio had never said anything, would I have been believed, given that she was doubted and questioned? Would Thérion believe me now? Would he think I had brought it on myself, as I had accused myself of doing in my own mind?
I asked his permission to stay through the rest of the week, to finish helping Father and Edmée with the move to Annecy. Before I went to sleep, I left the letter inside the cover of the Book of the Rose and put the book back under the mattress. In the morning, my letter was gone, but there was no answer from Thérion. I took Zéphyr and rode alongside the hired wagon driver again to Annecy to bring the second load of furnishings and see the children in the new house. I stayed overnight in Annecy and set out again in the morning to return.
In the last hour before I reached the village, the clouds turned dark purple-green, and then charcoal. A jagged line of lighting speared a tall pine on the ridge above me, so close I could smell smoke as the branches exploded into sparks and flames. Zéphyr reared up and almost threw me. He wheeled around in a circle three times, snorting and shaking his head while I clung to the reins and we veered at right angles. When I urged him back onto the lane, pulling back on the reins to slow him, he ducked his head so low I almost tumbled forward onto the ground. We righted ourselves at last and fell back into the rhythm of a walk, both of us jittery and shaking. Thunder drowned out the clopping of Zéphyr’s hooves and rain began to pour down in such thick sheets I could barely see the path in front of us. By the time we cantered up to Father’s house, Zéphyr and I were both as drenched as if we’d swum through the lake.
It took me a long time to get changed out of my sopping, muddy clothes, and to wring out my hair and dry it by the fire. I warmed myself with the hot verbena tisane and a swallow of génépi that Edmée served me. Outside, the deluge showed no sign of letting up. I went into the back room, my heart pounding in anticipation of an answer from Thérion. But when I pulled the book out from under my mattress, there was still no letter under the front cover. I flipped through all the pages to be sure I hadn’t missed anything, but couldn’t find a scrap of paper with any note from him.
Something was wrong. Did my last letter upset him too much to respond? What if he was sick, or hurt?
I sat down to pen a new note to him, telling him how his silence made me anxious. “But Father’s well enough to travel at last,” I wrote. “So I should be able to take Zéphyr back to Boisaulne tomorrow, or as soon as the rain lets up. Father and Edmée finished packing today, and Pierre-Joseph and his sons came and brought our cows and goats back to their farm. Father’s plan before the storm came was that they’d lock up the house tomorrow morning and drive down to Annecy in the buggy. I only hope they won’t get stuck in the mud, and the rain doesn’t go on too long. But I promise, I’ll come to you just as soon as I’ve seen them off, even if we have to wait another day or two for the roads to dry.”
I fell asleep to torrents of rain and wind pummeling the roof and rattling the shutters. In the dark before dawn, when the storm had finally exhausted its fury and subsided to a light drizzle, the quiet was so abrupt it woke me up. I reached for the book under the mattress, but my groping hands found only scraps of loose hay.
The Book of the Rose was gone.
XIII
“I haven’t seen it, I swear,” said Edmée. Like me, she was woken by the sudden silence outside, and sat at the table now, her face half-illuminated in the glow of a lantern. “I didn’t even know you had a book like that.”
Father hadn’t seen it either. While the last of the rain tapered off, I began a search of the house, looking into every corner from the hayloft to the cellar. The sky lightened outside through the white clouds and mist clinging to the chain of peaks across the valley. Father and Edmée decided it was best to travel right away before the deluge started up again, and Father went out to hitch up Claudette to the buggy.
“I can’t find it,” I called to him as he stalked back into the main room from the stable. I wrung my apron in my hands. “It’s as if it’s vanished into air.”
“Your horse is gone too,” he said, grim-faced.
“What?”
“The stallion. He’s run away. The storm must have spooked him, I don’t know.” He gave a shrug of despair. “I can’t believe it was a thief, out in that weather. The door was unlatched from the inside, so he had to have done it himself, the bugger. Too smart, that horse. You still can’t find the book either?”
“No, it’s nowhere.”
He shook his head, staring away from me at the dead ashes in the fireplace.
“How could it be a thief?” he said. “How could anyone have known you had it under your mattress, or gotten in to take it without us hearing? It’s impossible.”
I let go of my apron to press the fist of my right hand into the palm of my left. “Something’s wrong. I’ve got to go back to Boisaulne at once.”
“How will you get there, with no horse? The Marquis isn’t going to like it when he finds out the stallion’s been lost. That sad
dle of his was worth a journeyman’s wages for half a year, at least.”
“I’ll go on foot. I remember the way. The sun’s not even over the mountains yet. If I leave at once I can reach the village nearest the manor by sunset. I’ll stay overnight in the tavern and then go the rest of the way in the morning.”
“But Violaine,” said Edmée, rising from her chair at the table, “it’s a harebrained … no.”
Father agreed with Edmée. “Go back you must, but alone? Walking through the woods? Suppose you meet with bandits, or worse?”
“There’s nothing along that path but chamois and marmots,” I said. “No one lives in those woods.”
“What if you meet wild beasts?”
“I’m not afraid of marmots.” I drew out the last word sarcastically, but my bravado didn’t fool Father.
“What if you lose your way? What if you’re caught in the storm? I don’t like it. If I had all my strength back I’d go with you, but I can’t trust myself to walk so far and back again.”
“Why don’t you both ride there together on Claudette?” Edmée said. “I’ll wait here.”
“No, it would tire Father too much,” I said, “and there’s no need to put off your trip. You don’t want to lose the dry weather. I’ll take a lantern and a knife and a cloak, just in case. The trail wasn’t hard to follow. I won’t stray from it.”
Father bit his lip and drew his brows together. I was a bad liar and he could tell I was exaggerating how easily I could find my way. But from his desperate glances at the shuttered windows, I knew he was loathe to put off leaving for Annecy while the weather was right, when another rainstorm sweeping in could churn the roads into still deeper bogs and delay the trip for days. Nor could he tell me to come along with them to town, since his finances were still entwined with the Marquis’s interests and we both knew everything could be at risk if I didn’t go back to Boisaulne.
The Prisoner of the Castle of Enlightenment Page 17