“The pleasure is mine, Madame, all mine!” he swaggered, and put out a hand to touch her hair. She backed away from him quickly. “Do forgive me, but I could not resist!” he laughed. “The blue paint, it is so…becoming!”
She swung around to inspect herself in the mirror. The hair over her left ear was indeed tipped with blue. She tried scraping some of it off with her fingernails.
He cleared his throat to make her turn around again. “Madame must promise me one thing,” he demanded.
“Sir?”
“She must promise me that when I make her mine, she will give up this foolish pastime. A Frenchman likes his mistresses painted on the lip and cheek, Madame, but not upon the coiffure. You must admit that it is a little bizarre!”
She refused to smile back. He intercepted a quick angry glance in the direction of her studio. Her lack of further response emphatically discouraged further conversation.
The marquis sighed loudly, then flung himself down on a bench, burying his nose in the crook of his arm.
Still she said nothing, not a word of encouragement or penitence. After a few moments, he came up for air, his swarthy face flushed.
“You cannot understand, Madame, how I suffer. Believe me! If I did not suffer so, I should not importune you like this.”
“It goes without saying,” she said.
He shot her a look of indignation. “You have no heart, Madame!” he implored.
She did not respond.
He rose, and adjusted the cuffs of his sleeve with dignity. “But Madame must also understand,” he went on casually, “that one’s patience has its limits. We should both be sorry, should we not, if this painful craving I possess for Madame pushed me to the brink, and I should let slip some gross indiscretion about her past…”
Lucinda patted her cheeks, which were now rather flushed, but gave no other indication that his words had ruffled her. “If,” she suggested, “the marquis will allow me to fulfill this one obligation to the king, I think he will find that once it is done, his suit will receive the attention it deserves.”
“Indeed?”
“I assure you.”
“Ah!” he chortled triumphantly. “Madame has no idea how happy these words make me!” He came toward her, arms outstretched. She stepped back discreetly.
“But Monsieur le Marquis must understand that his kind attentions,” she continued, “are of such a distracting nature, that it is difficult to complete my work…”
His arms fell to his sides. “I see,” he pouted.
“If the marquis will permit me to continue without constant interruption,” Lucinda went on with a desperate smile of encouragement, “my picture will most assuredly be finished in record time.”
“In that case, one must leave Madame to her labors.”
As soon as the coast was clear, Lucinda jumped up and made for the studio where poor Dieneke was in all likelihood catching a chill.
Dieneke had been more than flattered when her mistress had asked her to pose for another painting.
“This time, you are the most beautiful woman in the world,” Lucinda told her, “the face that launched a thousand ships, you know!”
“Oh, Missus!” giggled Dieneke. “How ever will you manage that?”
“You’ll see,” Lucinda promised.
And in fact, with just a little artistic license, it was not hard to transform the varicose-veined, heavy-hipped Dieneke into a swooning, voluptuous blonde. “A silk purse from a sow’s ear,” Dieneke scoffed.
“Oh come, Dieneke!” Lucinda chided. “You mustn’t put yourself down! You really are very pretty!”
Dieneke shrugged. “I don’t think you’ll find many men as agrees with you, Missus.”
“Oh, but Arent did, didn’t he?” she said.
Dieneke sat bolt upright, upsetting the composition. Lucinda held up a warning hand, but it was too late. The carefully draped folds slid off Dieneke to the floor in a heap.
“I’m sorry…” Dieneke stumbled.
“Never mind! I’ll just do it again Sit still.”
As she was rearranging Dieneke’s veils, she noticed that the maid was trembling. Carefully, she said, “I am sorry that I upset you, Dieneke. I didn’t mean to.”
“That’s all right, Missus,” Dieneke mumbled. She started sniffling.
Lucinda walked back to her easel. Nonchalantly, she said, “Didn’t you think I knew about you and Arent?”
“You knew—about me and Master?” gasped Dieneke.
“Of course. I’ve known—oh, a long time. For ever.”
“Oh!” said Dieneke miserably.
“I found some canvases in the shed, and it was evident it was you…”
“But believe me, Missus, he only took me as a model before…”
“Before he married me. I know that, Dieneke. And I don’t blame you. I really don’t. In fact, I blame myself. After all, you were there first…”
“Missus!” the maid shrieked. “But you should have thrown me out…You should still throw me out!”
“Why should I?”
Dieneke was sobbing too loudly, now, to reply.
“For the longest time, I couldn’t understand what made you stay,” whispered Lucinda, her throat tightening. “But now I think I know.” She was crying too. “You loved him, didn’t you,” she said.
Dieneke shook her head vehemently.
“Yes you did. Even with no hope…”
Dieneke moaned.
Lucinda found herself kneeling on the floor in front of Dieneke, and holding out her arms to her.
There they remained, hugging and sobbing, until they heard Arentje’s bright voice calling out to them.
She worked at the painting in a mad fever, stopping only when the twilight turned to blackness, rising from her bed in the middle of the night to be sure to catch the very first rays of morning light. In six and a half weeks it was done. She had completed the painting in record time.
She frowned at it. She hoped they would like it at court. She herself could not bear to look at it anymore. She was ashamed that she had accepted the commission, even though without it she could not pay her debts or leave Paris. Somehow she felt that this painting violated her integrity. The paint was not quite dry, but she could not wait to get it out of her house, and the other one too. She sent word to the ministry that the pictures were ready.
The very next morning Lucinda received a message from the marquis.
“To the Delicious Object of my Sighs,” it read. “One hears the king is to have his pictures today. Tomorrow the trembling organ that is my heart, Madame, claims that other prize, far too long awaited.”
She showed it to the countess.
“Oh, dear!” said Marie-Lise.
“I need your help, Contesse,” said Lucinda.
58
THE LAST LAUGH
The Dutch serving woman showed the marquis into the blue salon. He noted approvingly that a carafe and some refreshments were set out on the sideboard.
“Madame says she’ll be with you shortly,” said the woman in her execrable accent. The marquis nodded curtly. He resolved to speak to Madame about this lumpish maid of hers again. He could not understand why Madame was so stubborn on this issue. He might have to take it upon himself to arrange for a more acceptable replacement.
After pacing about loudly to let Madame know he had arrived, he tiptoed to the double doors on the far side of the room, which he guessed led to her chamber. There was no sound from within. Stealthily, he turned the knob and peeked in. Indeed, there was the canopy of a bed. The room was empty. He slipped inside. Madame must be in her private closet, for he noticed a thin line of light outlining a door on the other side of the bed.
He patted the silky coverlet, and decided to make himself comfortable. He loosened the elaborate bow of his cravat, and unwound it from around his neck. Next he unbuckled his belt and hung it, carefully, so the rapier would not slip out, over the back of a chair. He eased his shoulders out of h
is tight-fitting coat and unbuttoned the brocade vest underneath, releasing the girdle containing his corpulence. The beribboned shoes were kicked off next, and he rolled down the stockings carefully so as not to disturb the preventive bandage he wore around his right leg, which was prone to the gout.
Ah, that was better! He inspected his moustache in the looking glass, and adjusted its curvature a little above his lip. His shirt was open, and he was gratified to perceive some chest hairs protruding in manly fashion. He sat down at the foot of the bed, and considered. He did not wish to shock the young lady, but surely they were both too sophisticated (given what the man Gonflé had told him about her) to play games. Better to be forthright, and not indulge in pretense. So off came the shirt, and, with admirable dexterity, the breeches were rapidly unbuttoned.
It was when he was trying to ease the breeches down over the bulky bandage on his leg and ankle without tearing the delicate silk, that he heard voices in the outer room. Female voices. Not one, but several.
Hastily he stood up, but, hobbled by the tight garment around his knees, lost his balance and landed on the parquet with a crash.
“Marquis?” Lucinda’s voice called gaily. “Are you in here?”
“One moment Madame…” he began, but it was too late.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, from the doorway. “Oh, pardon me, I did not expect…”
“What did you not expect, chère?” came a voice behind her, and “Oh!”—another exclamation of horror, this one from Countess Bienmaline.
Now there were squeals of concern for the countess, who had fainted gracefully in the open doorway, and in less than a moment the sprawling marquis was the object of scrutiny of at least half a dozen ladies, all exclaiming “Oh!” in various keys and levels of outrage, with the most strident vociferation issuing from the lips of the mistress the marquis had but recently jilted, who was also of the party.
“Mesdames…Ladies, my apologies, I…” he began, pulling down some of the bed coverings in a fumbling attempt to cover his privates.
There was an appalled silence for a second or two.
“Please…” said Lucinda, “please…! I’m so sorry…Please, by all means do not rise on our account, Marquis.”
The ladies turned to each other wide-eyed and hand-upon-mouth; then there was an explosion of mirth at the apt phrasing.
“Please do not…rise, Monsieur!” sputtered Madame Patromal, a short, buxom brunette, heaving with delight.
“Not on our account, sir!” choked another—he recognized the actress Marie Vaudage—who was holding on to her friend’s shoulders for support.
“Stop!” thundered the marquis.
The ladies stopped laughing, arrested by the authority of his voice.
“This is a very regrettable situation, ladies,” he panted, “but please hear me out. It…it is a misunderstanding. Allow me to explain. Your hostess is not the virtuous lady you take her to be!”
“No?” said la Vaudage. “But…”
“Let me finish! Madame was but recently a common camp follower of His Majesty’s army, if you must know the truth.”
“But you are a monster, Marquis!” clucked the countess, who had made a remarkable recovery. She turned to Lucinda. “He is a monster, my dear,” she informed her friend, patting her hand.
“I have proof! Ladies, if you turn this into a scandal, if you insist on making me a laughing-stock, you’ll oblige me to tell the tout-monde that Madame is a tart who has made good under false pretenses, and…”
“You rat! Who’s going to believe you!” sputtered Madame Sansfaçon, his erstwhile mistress.
“You must try to see it from our perspective. I mean, even you cannot deny that Madame is fully clothed, and you, Marquis, are not,” the countess pointed out helpfully.
“Let’s escort him outside and have the neighborhood bear witness!” suggested Madame Patromal.
“Bare witness, you mean, my dear Bouqinette!” whooped Madame Sansfaçon, and that set them all off again.
Lucinda had been watching the scene as if it had nothing to do with her. Now she stepped into the bedchamber, and held up a hand, waiting for the laughter to subside.
“Thank you,” she said quietly. “Ladies, friends, I appreciate your…enthusiasm. But now allow me to have a private word with the marquis.”
“But chère!” protested the countess. “I thought…”
“Please. It is enough.”
“Chère!” exclaimed the countess. “Are you feeling sorry for him now?”
“Of course not!” said Lucinda defensively. “But…I think we need not take this any further.” Ignoring the questioning looks, she squared her chin and went on: “If you would just take the ladies into my studio, Contesse, and wait for me there…”
“But you do realize, don’t you,” the countess protested, “that if you dismiss your witnesses, you give this gentleman a free hand? He will be at liberty to say anything he likes about you, and without witnesses, there is no one to contradict him!”
“I know it, Contesse,” said Lucinda. “Trust me.”
Marie-Lise threw up her hands. “As you wish, chère,” she said. “I hope you know what you are doing.”
By the time they were alone the marquis had managed to pull up his breeches and, clutching at a bedpost, heaved himself to his feet.
“She is correct,” he coughed, his color beginning to return to normal, “I shall tell the world that you are a whore, Madame, and give out gratis to all who will listen every last detail of your wild gyrations in the sack.”
She was quiet.
“Unless, of course,” he went on, somewhat encouraged, “Madame granted me freely what I most desired, and saw the advisability of persuading her friends to hold their tongues about this unfortunate little episode…”
Still she said nothing.
“In which case, of course, Madame should be certain that I would defend her honor to the point of risking my life…”
“Oh, that will not be necessary,” said Lucinda, staring at the ceiling.
“What? Ah, I see it now!” he panted, his face growing dark. “I am outfoxed! It’s that upstart Perrault, is it not! Madame has been receiving Monsieur Perrault; oui, I have my informants. And to think that I made the introduction, voyons! Who would have thought the knave would have the audacity to sabotage me! Ah, the lecher, oh, villain…”
“Monsieur Perrault is an honorable man, I assure you. He has never tried to assail my virtue, nor has he tried to impugn me, as you have.”
“But Madame!” he pleaded wetly, for he was at the same time trying to button his vest and the effort entailed a protruding tongue. “To impugn you was not my intent! I only wished to claim what was rightfully mine! You gave me to understand…”
“Marquis,” said Lucinda. “I have given you nothing to understand.”
“No?” he objected. “You…”
“Hear me out.”
“Well?” grumbled the marquis, smoothing his coat flaps.
“I do not need to be persuaded that I mean the opposite of what I am saying. I assure you that I mean it.”
“Say it, then!” snapped the marquis, arranging his cravat.
“Cher Marquis,” said Lucinda, folding her hands carefully, “I have never had the slightest desire to be seduced by you. Even if you took me by force, I would not feel a speck of gratitude. I know that you will find this hard to believe, but I am quite happy not to be your mistress. Nor any man’s toy, for that matter.” She held up her hand, for he was about to interrupt her. “Nor do I need a man to defend my honor, as the marquis has so generously offered.”
“Pah! Madame prefers to be regarded by the world as a slut, then!” the marquis sneered.
“Ever since I reached womanhood,” Lucinda said with dignity, “the world to which you refer has seen fit to regard me as a slut, a useless piece of baggage. The world sees what it wants to see, Marquis. And I never knew what to do about it. But I am strengthened, Sir, by the knowled
ge that there are some who see me as I truly am, and who do not despise me.”
“Aha!” said the marquis. “Well then, I see that Madame chooses to be branded a lewd minx. And if she is happy with that fate…”
“It is time,” said Lucinda severely, “for me to take fate into my own hands.”
“Madame must face the consequences, then,” said the marquis.
“Then I must. I confess,” she went on, “that I am grateful to you for one thing, Marquis.”
“Indeed!” he said.
“Yes, I am grateful to you for showing me that wanting to be liked, not wanting to give offense, has been my greatest weakness.”
“But weakness, Madame, is becoming in a woman! It is this obstinacy you display that is unseemly!”
“If it is obstinacy, then let me stand by it.”
“Very well, Madame,” he scowled, for he could not see the point of continuing this discussion.
“One more thing before you leave. I shall ask the countess and her friends to be discreet. As for my own reputation, I leave that entirely up to you.”
“Madame is too good,” said the marquis, somewhat mollified. “But Madame must also understand that she plays a dangerous game,” he warned, slinking over her hand one final time as he took his leave.
Ruefully, she reflected that the marquis had no idea how tame this little game seemed to her now, compared to the fearful quest upon which she was about to embark.
The king found his new pictures sufficiently intriguing to demand to see the artist and her delightful model. Unfortunately, at the time of the unveiling, the artist and her model had already departed for England. The lady had some urgent business to attend to in her native land, according to Superintendent Perrault. And that, decided Minister Colbert, was probably just as well. He was certain that his aide had had something to do with the little painter’s hasty departure; he suspected that there was more to their relationship than the rogue would let on. If she was indeed his mistress, Perrault would be reluctant, naturally, to share her, or her model, with His Majesty; and who could blame him?
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