Arentje was clambering up a shell-encrusted basin, stretching his little hand to touch the jet of water spraying from a stork’s beak. “No, Arentje, come down!” she scolded, catching him by the hem of his doublet. “You’ll get drenched!”
“Let him play,” said Perrault indulgently. “It is in play that children learn, Madame. That is the function of this maze. It was built for the edification of the dauphin.”
“The dauphin!” said Lucinda. “Goodness! Arentje, be careful, or we’ll be accused of harming the property of the king! Monsieur Perrault, are we truly permitted…?”
He waved his hand. “It gives me great pleasure to bring young people to this place. It was my idea, you know, my fantasy. You might say that I was the designer.”
Lucinda shook her head. “You are a man of many talents, Monsieur Perrault. Are the verses likewise yours?” There was a plaque beside each fountain with a quatrain describing the fable represented there.
“Sadly, no. The inscriptions were made by Monsieur de Benserade. I had wanted to commission Monsieur de la Fontaine to compose them, but he has fallen out of favor with the king,” said Perrault. “It did fall on me to write the morals, however. They are collected in this little volume.” He withdrew a slender book bound in red and gold leather from somewhere inside his coat, and offered it to her with a bow. “It would do me an immense pleasure if Madame would read it. There she will find some edifying morals, I hope.”
Leafing through the booklet later in her studio, Lucinda did not see much of a connection between the squabbling animals and Perrault’s “morals,” which were mainly pithy quips about the power of love and the phenomenon of female beauty, of both the inner and outward kind.
All this male attention, no matter how unwelcome, was having an effect on her. The numbness that had descended on her after the attack on the baggage train had begun to wear off. She was emerging from a long stupor, and from the conviction that her life was over. An unsettling awareness of herself as a desirable woman was taking hold, and she felt her body’s secret longings reassert themselves, resulting in hot nights and torrid dreams.
John.
She found herself addressing him in her mind as if he were physically present. His face, the way he stood with his chin thrust forward, intent and grave— she could almost smell his scent, feel the weight of his strong hand, heavy on her neck. She wanted to share every thought with him, every insight, every sunset, every dotted landscape.
Sometimes, she told him in sudden rush of excitement, it's like little pieces of paradise raining down. Fragments of paradise, perfect drops of distilled truth, bouncing off your eyelashes, nose and outstretched tongue.
In this frame of mind it was easy to pretend it was John, and not kind, pompous Superintendent Perrault, who stepped back and admired her paintings, and told her she was beautiful.
The countess, whose life was one endless round of divertissements, persuaded her to attend the theatre with her the next week.
“But what if I don’t like it?” Lucinda protested, as she climbed into the carriage.
This made Marie-Lise laugh heartily. “Whoever heard of anyone not liking the Comédie?” she exclaimed. “Really, my dear! It is the place to be seen. Trust me!”
It turned out that Lucinda was spellbound by the play, in which a beautiful queen spurned one nice young king who loved her, and pined for another, who would not marry her. She felt very sad for poor Bérénice, but it was hard to follow the story because the countess kept nudging her and pointing out swains in the audience.
“Shhh!” she whispered, a little irritably. “What is it now?”
“My dear,” said Marie-Lise, “I am sorry! But you are so amusing! You really are caught up in the play, aren’t you! You want to lower your wrap a little, my dear, one doesn’t want to look like a bourgeoise, does one. I just wanted to tell you that Prince Fainéant was looking our way. Over there, by the pillar.”
Lucinda adjusted her wrap to reveal her décolleté, and obediently turned her head to look for the prince. But her eye was caught instead by a neat little man in the throng below their balcony staring at her angrily, as if he were trying to put a name to the face.
She knew that man.
She kept her composure. She turned back to Marie-Lise, and said quietly, “Will you forgive me, dear Countess, for not staying? I have such a headache.”
“But I am bored too! This fellow Racine is really too much. Really! His play is not very amusing, not amusing at all. Let’s go!” decided the countess.
As she was gathering up her belongings, Lucinda caught sight of the lady in the next box, whose fan had gone up to her mouth in dismay. She had to turn for one last look. Poor Bérénice was staggering offstage, dangerously waving a dagger.
“Well?” complained the countess. “Are you coming, or not?”
When she was home, Lucinda decided she would keep her excursions to an absolute minimum. She could not afford to run into Vauban’s assistant, or anyone else who might recognize her as a camp follower, again.
“I came across one of Madame’s former acquaintances the other day,” the marquis informed her on his next visit.
“Oh?” asked Lucinda.
“Jean Gonflé. He remembers you well.”
“Jean Gonflé?” she repeated. “I do not think…”
“Yes, yes, he said he knew you from Maastricht. Said you were a great friend of his mentor, the Seigneur de Vauban.”
She busied herself with her paints, and refused to look up at him.
“You do not deny it then.”
“Deny it? Deny what?” she bristled. “I have met the Seigneur de Vauban. As for this other person, I have no idea, no.”
“Monsieur Gonflé saw you at the Comédie. He thought the connection might interest me.”
“I do not see how it could interest you, Marquis,” she said icily. She rose. “And now, you must pardon me, I have a client waiting.”
He lingered over her hand as he took his leave. “Madame need have no fear,” he breathed, his slick moustache brushing her knuckles. “Madame must be assured that her secrets are always safe with me.”
56
PATIENCE
The Superintendent of Buildings was very pleased with his portrait, which was completed in a matter of weeks, but he was reluctant to give up his pleasant visits to the Rue Saint Honoré. He had also gathered that his young English friend was having some financial difficulties, and it was for this reason that he mentioned he was looking for pictures for the walls of a newly-completed salon in the Palace of Versailles.
“Oh—you mean,” she stammered, “you mean—for His Majesty?”
“My portrait, it is very handsome,” he replied, “and your still-lifes, they are exquisite. I am sure that the king will find your work as admirable as I do, and perhaps we can find the perfect little niche somewhere…”
“But,” she blurted out, “…but I can also do big pictures—you know…”
“Big pictures? From such a petite woman?” he teased.
“Wait here!” she cried, and ran out of the room.
She rang for Dieneke and asked her to bring up the painting of Penelope and the suitors.
He examined it gravely. “You did this?” he asked, after a long pause.
“It is mine,” she admitted cautiously.
“But it is excellent!” he exclaimed. “But you are a genius!”
“Oh, I don’t know…” she demurred.
“Certainly. Homer, is it not?”
“Yes, I believe,” she said.
“The Odyssey. Naturally! One can see that. It is the lady Penelope at her loom.” He made himself comfortable on a chair and began explaining her picture to her. “Your painting illustrates, Madame, the point I was making about life and art. Like Penelope and her tapestry, the artist takes the most eventful threads of life, you see Madame, and weaves them just so, to create a story. But life itself is infinite and immutable, whereas in art it is controlled, rew
ritten, constantly unraveled and put together again. Is it not? Art reveals the patterns. Art takes life and makes it legend. This is what your painting says to me.”
“It does?” said Lucinda. She snorted. She found the whole business so futile sometimes—here she was, trying to convey a world of solitude, a world of silence and private meaning, only to have to listen to other people’s glib and noisy interpretations.
“I am quite serious, Madame,” he pouted. “Why do you laugh?”
“I am sorry, Monsieur. But, I mean—your life may be a legend, but mine is not.”
“You are mistaken, Madame! On the contrary! Why, from what you have told me of your life so far, it is quite an extraordinary little history!”
“A fiasco, you mean!” she said grimly, although still smiling. “An unmitigated disaster, I should say.”
“A disaster? Madame! I regret that you think that! Because surely there is no need to think it is a disaster!”
“Oh, no?”
“I mean that it is never too late to turn one’s life around. In your case—see what you have achieved!” He waved at the ornate furnishings. “You have managed to pick yourself up out of the gutter. Thanks to your courage, your beauty, your resilience, and your natural talent, of course, you have built up quite a nice little position…”
“I don’t care for any of that,” she said sullenly. “All I care for is what I have lost.”
“What is lost may also be retrieved. At least, repaired. Evidently.”
She leaned back in her chair, and started fanning her cheeks with a paint-rag. “Not so evidently! Not evidently at all! I have made a dreadful mess of things…”
“Never, Madame! Let me put it this way. We are in charge of our own story. It is up to us to find the story, you see Madame, and trim away the extraneous matter, just as a sculptor chisels at a stone to reveal his sculpture. Your life, Madame, contains the bones of a good story, an excellent story, a story to be proud of. But I am certain of it! All that remains is for you to recognize it. And of course you must find a fitting ending. Your story lacks a proper ending, that is all.”
“An ending!” she said darkly. “You want an ending? Ha! What about death? Isn’t that an ending?” She crumpled the rag and threw it into a corner of the room. “Don’t think I haven’t given it any thought.”
He raised his beetling brow. “Death is an ending, yes, certainly,” he said carefully. “But taking one’s own life—to escape from one’s story by ruthlessly imposing the ending—that is not the answer. Surely! One is searching, you see, not for an escape, but for a satisfying conclusion. Which of these do you think a premature death would achieve? An escape, or a satisfying end? And where would be the moral? That is the real question.”
There was a silence while she mulled this over. The Superintendent, humming, made a great show of examining her Penelope painting, so that she could dry her eyes discreetly.
“My fantasies,” she finally confessed, “usually end with a rescue. A bold hero galloping up in the nick of time, to save me and to make me his.”
“Well then! There’s your ending!” he smiled, mopping his brow. He sat down heavily on a chair against the wall.
“But that doesn’t happen in real life. It doesn’t happen to me. It will never happen to me now.”
“Are you certain of that?”
“Of course!” She added with a hollow chuckle, “Actually, someone almost came to my rescue, once, or at least he said he tried. But of course it came to naught.”
“Ah. You must tell me.” She detected a whiff of jealousy. “Who was he? Have I heard about this personage yet?”
Lucinda decided it was time to put an end to the conversation, which was giving her the jitters. She stretched as if she was suddenly very tired, and yawned, “So I just sit and wait for my hero to show up? And wait, and wait? Like Penelope?”
His laugh sounded forced. “Or the patient Griseldis! Or the beauty in the dormant forest, who waited a hundred years for her prince to come. Ah, Madame! But that is not real life! Such things take place only in fairy tales.”
She looked so crestfallen that he hastened to inject some levity. “I mean to say, Madame, that in real life, unlike Griseldis, our Parisian ladies haven’t a grain of patience. So that it is their husbands who are obliged to practice the art of patience in their stead.”
Lucinda finally smiled. “Then perhaps I would do well to acquire a patient husband.”
“Madame…” He blushed crimson. “Ah…But you would make me the happiest of men…”
“No, no,” she said quickly. “Dear me, that wasn’t what I meant at all. I hope you understand. Although it is so very kind of you—”
“Ah, no, of course not,” he said, looking away in embarrassment. “Please forgive me…” He started towards the door, and Lucinda rang the bell for Dieneke.
He turned back. “But allow me one last piece of advice before I take my leave, Madame. You need not follow in the footsteps of Penelope, or the patient Griseldis, or the dormant beauty. You need not wait passively for your prince to show up. There are other, more practical ways to give your story a happy ending, you know.”
The maid stuck her head around the door. “Dieneke,” Lucinda said to her in Dutch, “Monsieur Perrault is leaving. Will you please bring him his cane?”
57
THE FACE THAT LAUNCHED A THOUSAND SHIPS
In order to rescue his young friend from her financial troubles, Superintendent Charles Perrault talked his boss, Minister Colbert, into commissioning a large painting from her for Versailles.
“The king’s preference, naturally, is for battle scenes, and such,” the superintendent informed her, “especially in commemoration of his glorious victories.”
“Ah,” said Lucinda, without much enthusiasm.
They were interrupted by Arentje, who stormed into the room clamoring for a story. Perrault smiled, and bowed low to the boy.
“Certainly I will tell you a story, as soon as I have finished my business with your lovely Maman, my dear Marquis de Carabas.” It was a nickname that never failed to make Arentje squeal with laughter.
“Promise!” he threatened.
“Promised, cher Marquis.”
Perrault turned back to the boy’s mother.
“As I was saying, the king’s victories. Yes, and since you were present at the conquest of Maastricht, that was mentioned as a possibility…”
Lucinda crossed her arms and patted her elbows nervously.
“But—and please excuse me if I was mistaken—I did remind the minister that such a picture might not be suited to the female sensibility.”
“You are not wrong,” she said gratefully. “Battles? Carnage? I don’t think I would do a very good job of it.
“A pity. But it is very understandable, Madame. Believe me, we are mindful of your frailty. But,” he went on, pulling at his lip, “I did have another idea. Might you be willing to part with your excellent painting of Penelope and the suitors?”
She hesitated. “I am very attached to that one, Monsieur. “
“My thought was that that painting might appeal to His Majesty if you were to make a companion piece for it.”
“A companion piece?”
“You see, Madame, your picture tells but half the story.”
“Oh. You mean Odysseus’ homecoming…”
“No, not that. The husband’s homecoming, it is already nicely implied in your painting. Your painting shows the redemption—the penance. What we need now is what went before: the perdition, the root cause…”
“Root cause?”
“Tell me, Madame, why did Penelope’s husband leave her behind in Ithaca?”
“Because of the war. The Trojan War. But…”
“Indeed, and what started this famous war?”
“I don’t know…I suppose it was when Helen…” she began.
“Helen! You are correct. It was she.”
Lucinda laughed. “I didn’t mean that s
he, on her own, started the war, that’s absurd…”
“It is not absurd, Madame. Call her Eve, call her Helen, or by any other name—search for the woman, and you will find the seed, the root, the germ of the corruption. This is the nature of woman, is it not? Your sex is weak and peace-loving by nature, yet you drive men to do terrible things.”
“Ah!” she commented.
“Indeed. I think the king would be most pleased to have, for his private rooms, the abduction of Helen of Greece by Paris of Troy.”
She thought it over. “I could do that,” she said. A picture was starting to form in her mind: a composition of a swooning woman swept up into the strong arms of a warrior on a rearing white horse. “Yes!” she said, with growing enthusiasm, “I think I could do that.”
“I do not doubt it, Madame,” he said. “And I can assure you the remuneration, for the two pictures, will be most handsome.”
“Thank you! Thank you! I’ll start on it at once!”
“It is important to make it the same size as the other one,” he cautioned. “And one other thing…”
“Yes?”
“Madame…let me put this as delicately as I can. Your Penelope, she is very beautiful, but her beauty, it is…subdued. As is necessary, of course, to illustrate her extraordinary modesty and virtue,” he added hastily. “However, when it comes to painting Helen, I think a different approach may be in order.”
“Oh?” she said.
“Yes, especially if His Majesty is to approve the paintings. It would be best to emphasize, if you will forgive me, a certain voluptuous quality…”
“I understand,” said Lucinda. “Don’t worry. I know exactly what you mean.”
She started the new picture that same day, and worked on it feverishly, interrupted only by the marquis, who was now in the habit of calling on her daily.
“I am afraid Madame will be angry with me for drawing her away from her work,” he simpered.
“Not at all, Monsieur,” she said reluctantly. “It is always a pleasure…”
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