The Many Lives of John Stone

by Linda Buckley-Archer

  Martha’s features soften. “It’s me that ought to know better. The dead are dead. You’ve just got to be grateful for the life they’ve had.”

  “Yes,” says Spark, without meaning it. It seems to her that death is much more complicated than that.

  Clearly uncomfortable in this company, Martha soon excuses herself, and heads for the orchard with some scraps for Bontemps. John Stone, in the meantime, has got the measure of his guest. Ludo, or so it seems to Spark, is putty in his hands. In the space of the time it has taken for the kettle to boil, John Stone, with that easy manner of his, has found out all about his family, the fact that Ludo is an only child and wishes he weren’t, that he has big ambitions in the world of software design, and that he is due to meet with his university tutor in London. As Ludo intends to stay in South Kensington, John Stone tells him about the museums; the architecture; the cinema at the French Institute, which has the best legroom in London; and suggests a brasserie where Ludo could take his tutor for lunch. He recommends the risotto.

  Ludo makes a note on his mobile. “Thank you, Sir.”

  Spark places the teapot on the table and sits down. Ludo is so drawn in by John Stone, he does not acknowledge her. It was a good feeling being at the center of his attention this afternoon; suddenly she feels eclipsed.

  “So, Ludo, did Spark tell you about Stowney House?”

  “Her description didn’t do it justice,” says Ludo.

  John Stone winks at Spark. “Didn’t it? Oh, dear—”

  “Can I ask how long you’ve lived here, Sir?”

  “For much of my adult life—on and off,” says John Stone. “I grew up in France.”

  “I can see that you admire Versailles.”

  “You are an observant fellow.”

  “I can see that you’re an art lover too. The pictures in the hall, of London street scenes, I’m sure I recognize them. Aren’t they eighteenth-century? They’re not Hogarths, are they?”

  “An observant and inquisitive fellow,” remarks John Stone with an affable smile. “Yes, they are Hogarth prints—full of wit and uncomfortable truths.”

  He shifts in his seat to face Spark, who sits on the edge of her chair taking small sips of Earl Gray tea. “And now, if you don’t mind, Ludo, I should appreciate a quiet word with . . . my employee. Would it be very rude of me to ask you to take a short stroll in the gardens? I promise you that I shan’t keep Spark long.”

  “No problem.” Ludo scrapes back his chair but instead of walking immediately toward the kitchen door, he takes out his phone and prepares to take a photograph. “Could I take a picture of you and Spark—as a memento of her stay at Stowney House? I’m sure her mom would like to—”

  But before Ludo can finish, John Stone gets to his feet and holds up the flat of his palm. “No,” he says, as abruptly as Spark has ever heard him speak. “I would ask that you do not take any photographs of my property. Indeed, if you have taken any already, I would ask you to delete them. We value our privacy here.”

  “Of course, Sir,” Ludo replies and, turning to Spark, adds, “Take your time. I’ll be in the garden. Thanks for your hospitality, Sir.”

  “You’re very welcome.”

  Spark is almost certain that Ludo was taking a picture of John Stone even as he spoke. She opens her eyes wide at him but he merely says, “See you later.”

  Spark and John Stone sit at opposite sides of the kitchen table. When she looks expectantly at him, a powerful emotion passes over his face that Spark cannot decipher, and she presumes that Ludo’s behavior has upset him. Presently he seems to recover a little. She supposes that she had better tell him that she’s not coming back. Get it over and done with.

  “Did you ask Ludo to bring you here?”

  “No, he offered,” says Spark.

  “Is he . . . a friend?”

  Spark blushes furiously. “He’s a friend of Dan’s. We met in New York.”

  “I’m sorry, that was impertinent of me.” John Stone takes Spark’s cup, refreshes it, and pushes it back toward her across the old grain of the table. “You know, I have the feeling that Ludo is a young man who likes to get his own way.” She is not sure if John Stone is expecting a response—and would not, in any case, know what to reply. Spark hides her blushes, as much as it is possible to hide them, behind her bone china teacup, whose rim feels so thin between her lips.

  John Stone tells her what great progress she has made in the archive room and asks, very gently, if she intends staying on at Stowney House. His manner is so warm and considerate that Spark wishes that she could say yes, but now . . . How can she be away from home now? Despite her best efforts, her eyes start to well up.

  “Something’s wrong,” says John Stone, his face full of concern. “Would it help to talk about it? Or are we, at Stowney House, the problem?”

  “It’s Dan.” Spark bites her trembling lip. “His doctor is worried that he might have inherited my dad’s weak heart.”

  John Stone straightens his back and studies the backs of his hands. “Is there a definite diagnosis?”

  “No, we have to wait for him to have some tests.”

  “Then there is no point in expecting the worst,” says John Stone. “The old saying about crossing your bridges when you come to them is a wise one.”

  Spark dabs her eyes with the sleeve of her T-shirt and John Stone hands her his handkerchief. “Here, keep it,” he says. “We won’t even discuss your position at Stowney House. For now you need to be at home with your brother.”

  As Spark covers her face with the cool cotton square, and dries her tears, they hear footsteps hurtling down the stairs. “John! John!” Martha’s cries are urgent and getting closer. John Stone pushes back his chair to get up and at the same moment the door flies open. Spark sees the fear in Martha’s eyes. “Quickly! Before Jacob hurts him!”

  Fight in the Marshes

  John Stone told Spark to wait in the house but he can hear her footfalls behind him. Martha, who is fastest, has gone on ahead. By the time they reach the birch wood, John Stone has to stop to catch his breath. Spark does the same. He looks over at her and Spark’s blue eyes find his. She’s scared. This is not the reunion he had hoped for.

  “I hope you meant what you said about Jacob’s bark being worse than his bite.”

  “Let’s just find out what’s happening, shall we?”

  They’ve lost sight of Martha. John Stone shouts at the top of his voice, “Martha! Where are you?”

  Her reply is only just audible. “Here! The boathouse!”

  The old blue boathouse lies a little upstream on the open riverbank. Martha stands on the decking, shading her eyes from the low sun as she scans the marsh. The light is dazzling after the wood: Spangles of sunlight bounce off the river’s surface. Behind her, as if some ghost is keeping her company, the old hammock rocks in the wind.

  “There!” she cries, and points. John Stone looks in the direction Martha indicates.

  “I see them!” cries Spark, and now she, too, is pointing. “Where the river snakes around—inside the loop.”

  John Stone spots them, two figures struggling through the golden reed beds, rising and falling, up to their thighs in water. Jacob is chasing Ludo; he’s wielding something above his head.

  “What happened?”

  “I wish I knew, John. There were shouts, and then I caught sight of the boy tearing across the lawn, running as if all the hounds of hell were after him.”

  “What’s Jacob holding? I can’t make it out.”

  “His axe,” says Martha, and adds quickly, “but you know Jacob—he’s all bluster.”

  Not entirely true, thinks John Stone.

  “This is my fault,” Spark says. She holds the sides of her head in her hands, transfixed by Ludo’s plight. “I should never have come back—”

  “Stay with her, Martha. Don’t let her follow me.”

  He doesn’t hesitate and plunges straight into the fast-flowing stream, wades across the chest-
high water, and clambers up the far bank. The ground is marshy here: He squelches through mud that sucks at the soles of his sodden shoes. He can’t see anything but can hear Jacob’s roars. Then the wind carries Ludo’s voice to him: He’s screaming something at Jacob—he can’t make out what, but he sounds panic-stricken, a little manic.

  John Stone hesitates—these marshes can be treacherous—and resolves to avoid the open water and force his way through a dense reed bed, parting the stiff stems with his arms, sometimes sinking up to his armpits in water. For a while his vision is obscured by foliage but presently both figures come into view. Whatever Ludo has done to provoke him, Jacob is out of control: chest puffed out, shoulders hunched high, jaws clenched. He has caught hold of Ludo’s T-shirt and is reeling him in. The boy, who is holding his phone high above his head, suddenly shrugs out of his garment, causing Jacob to lose his balance and stagger backward. Ludo darts at his attacker while he has the chance and kicks him in the groin. Jacob lets out a terrible yell and collapses backward into the water. At the same time, the axe flies out of his hand and vanishes with a splash into the marsh. John Stone is almost upon them now.

  Ludo, a demented expression on his face, half crouches, shifting his weight from one leg to the other, his eyes fixed on the swirling patch of sludgy water that swallowed Jacob up an instant before. John Stone plows toward them as quickly as his tired legs will go, ready to yank Jacob out. All at once, Jacob explodes out of the water, covered in green weeds, spluttering and roaring and clutching his groin.

  Ludo shrieks and flails his arms around.

  “Enough!” cries John Stone and steps squarely between the two of them. “What is going on?”

  Jacob shakes himself like a dog, golden-red sunlight catching in the needles of water that fly off him. John Stone wipes his eyes with the back of his hand.

  “Keep him away from me!” Ludo’s pupils are so dilated his eyes appear black.

  “He’s a thief and a spy!” says Jacob. “He was skulking in the long gallery.”

  “Is that right?” asks John Stone, turning to Ludo. “What were you doing in my gallery?”

  “Nothing!” Ludo keeps his eyes fixed on Jacob.

  John Stone considers for a moment. “I have a suspicion, Ludo, that it was not only on Spark’s account that you came here today. Am I right?”

  Ludo meets his gaze for the merest instant, but it is enough time for John Stone to make a judgement.

  “Just call off your lunatic, can’t you!”

  It is an unfortunate choice of words. Jacob pushes past John Stone and launches himself once more at Ludo. He brings him to his knees and forces his head forward into the water. Ludo finds enough purchase on the floor of the reed bed to shove Jacob away from him. He spits out a mouthful of marsh water, flicks back his wet hair, and pushes his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose. By some miracle he has managed to keep his cell phone clear of the water. He still holds it away from him at shoulder level. Now John Stone stands over Ludo and Jacob, like a mother over squabbling toddlers, as they face each other on their knees and up to their chests in water. He asks himself what could be stored on Ludo’s phone that makes protecting it such a priority; he wonders how many pictures Ludo has taken here today, and what he intends to do with them. John Stone makes the decision to intervene while he can. With his right hand, he restrains Jacob by squeezing a specific nerve in his neck (it makes him yelp—he will apologize to him later), and with his left hand he wrests Ludo’s phone from his slippery grasp and flings it far out into the marsh. Too late, John Stone notices the sound of someone thrashing through the water behind him.

  “What are you doing?” Spark screams. “Who are you people?”

  There is horror in her eyes as she looks from Ludo to Jacob to John Stone and back again. Ludo stands up and starts backing toward her. Spark grabs hold of his arm and pulls him.

  “You!” Spark shouts at John Stone and Jacob, pointing her finger first at one and then at the other. “Don’t move. Stay exactly where you are.”

  John Stone opens his mouth to speak, but Spark silences him with a look. “I saw what you did.”

  * * *

  John Stone stands watching the concluding moments of this evening’s little drama. He’s so still the avocets, with their curved beaks and black-and-white plumage, ignore him as they trawl through the shallows for food. He feels utterly spent. Spark and Ludo have almost reached the boathouse. He can hear the slap and whoosh as they wade through the water. Spark is supporting Ludo: She holds him around his waist and has draped his arm around her shoulders. From the way he is staggering he can tell that Ludo is in shock. He is bare-chested, and his T-shirt, which Spark retrieved and tucked into his belt, trails in the water. He’ll live, though. He might have swallowed a quantity of marsh water. Perhaps there’ll be some bruising around his neck. But, frankly, thinks John Stone, he’s seen much worse happen to spies. Jacob is busy raking through the slimy mud with his fingers looking for his axe. It is an old one and he doesn’t want to lose it.

  “The girl blabbed,” says Jacob.

  “Spark doesn’t know anything to blab about.”

  “How come the boy reckons he knows something, then?”

  “That I shall need to find out—”

  “But it was her that led him to us.”

  “He’s not the first and he won’t be the last.”

  Jacob finds his axe and lifts it up in triumph, dripping with water and weeds. They walk toward the house. A movement catches John Stone’s eye and he watches Martha dart along the riverbank to help Spark with Ludo. He had forgotten about Martha. When she reaches the two young people, however, John Stone sees that she freezes. Spark is shouting at her. He can hear some of what she is saying and can guess the rest: that Martha is one of them, one of the crazy people, and not to be trusted, that she must stay away from them. He watches Spark hold up the palm of her hand in a warning gesture not to approach. All at once John Stone starts to shake, so violently he stands no chance of hiding it from Jacob, so violently that Jacob drops his axe and holds his friend in his arms, squeezing him in a vain attempt to quell the nervous spasms. Defeated and ashamed, John Stone doesn’t even struggle. Over Jacob’s shoulder he watches the receding figure of his daughter. Spark is lost to me, he tells himself. Lost before I’ve even found her. How right Thérèse was to keep her away from Stowney House.

  Notebook 6

  XVIII

  Liselotte was as good as her word, and arranged for Isabelle and me to attend her daughter’s dancing lessons. Isabelle was as graceful and quick to learn the steps as I was clumsy and slow—something that the dancing master never tired of telling me. Isabelle was endlessly patient. Thanks to her, I mastered the gavotte and the minuet, and even the volta, which I knew she loved. Liselotte was always present at our lessons, looking on while refusing to dance herself: hands resting on her stomach, her good-natured face glowing. The Spaniard would also attend, being a good and graceful dancer for a man of his size. The dancing master was terrifying—just as young Elisabeth-Charlotte had told me he was. He walked among us, keeping time with his long black stick, adjusting a shoulder, straightening a leg, shaking his head in disbelief (especially at me), pouring down the most imaginative insults on us—always out of earshot of Liselotte—comparing our dancing skills to those possessed by various farmyard animals. I was the perfect fellow pupil for Elisabeth-Charlotte, being the worst dancer in the room, by far. The instructions somehow entered my ears without conveying any meaning: Three demi-coupés . . . three full coupés . . . once forward . . . once back . . . open pas de bourée . . . to the left . . . to the right . . .

  “Poor Jean-Pierre,” Isabelle would tease. “How hard it is to dance when one’s head cannot talk to one’s feet.” You must not imagine that to dance with Isabelle was to take her into my arms and sweep her around the room. Dancing was an altogether different affair then. It was a question of display, elegance, control—and memory. Nevertheless, we always fou
nd the means to communicate. Isabelle would flutter her fan in front of her face and draw it down to reveal her smiling eyes. Whenever the gavotte demanded that we turn our backs, we held hands and mouthed sweet nothings. Over the weeks we grew more daring. Once, as we stood behind the dancing master and Liselotte—they were watching the Spaniard and Elisabeth-Charlotte perform—I cupped Isabelle’s face in mine and kissed her long and hard. The little girl saw us, and her jaw dropped, but she did not give us away. Later, she came up to me and said: “You are very bold, Jean-Pierre. But I shall not tell Mama.” I did not doubt—I have never doubted—that Isabelle’s love for me was as strong as mine was for her. She filled my heart and mind and soul. It was very simple: When I was young, the existence of Isabelle d’Alembert gave my world its meaning.

  * * *

  In the meantime, the King started to speak with me more regularly, always in secret. I grew accustomed to our conversations, though never lost a sense of awe in his presence. Sometimes he would take a pause while hunting, and we would ride in his carriage through the woods. Sometimes I would be smuggled into the Château of Marly, where he would go to escape the court and all its formalities. We would meet in the gardens, far from the house and the rows of guest pavilions that looked out over the lake.

  He liked to talk to me about his childhood. Out of five babies, Louis was the first to survive. His mother, Anne of Austria, understandably thought of him as God-given, and refused to be parted from her precious son. Because she adored the theatre, Louis grew up loving spectacle and drama and dancing. In fact, he soon gained a reputation as an excellent dancer himself. “I would appear as Apollo, god of the sun, dressed all in gold,” he told me. “For I understood at an early age the importance of dazzling my courtiers. It is a lesson I would have you pass on to my heirs.”

  But I also know that he lived through moments of terror and anguish. His father died when he was only four years old (a clock in the courtyard at Versailles forever marked the hour of his death to remind Louis that life is short). Then, when he was ten, during the Frondes—it was a period of civil unrest—an angry mob broke into the palace. A circle of threatening strangers entered Louis’s bedchamber and crowded around his bed. He pretended to be asleep, and eventually, they drifted away. But while he lay, terrified, beneath the sheets, Louis tried to prepare himself to behave with dignity whatever might befall him. The child being father of the man, Louis resolved to transform himself into a monarch whose hold over his subjects was absolute.