‘She has a foul temper, monsieur. My life wasn’t worth living until I grew bigger than she was. As you can see, she is very much older than I am.’
‘What have you done with your two handsome cousins?’
‘I cannot imagine that they could be any more handsome than you two,’ said Wm, feeling that he ought to take a hand in this badinage.
‘I didn’t know that Americans could be such disgusting flatterers,’ said Charles, ‘anyway, the point is, it’s a joke. François and Alex are our Liancourt cousins and we think them a bit plodding.’
‘They haven’t got a chin between them and they spend all their time massacring small feathered creatures.’
At this moment two more young men came in from the loggia, making a good deal of noise. One had a game bag slung over his shoulder and the other had a fowling piece under each arm, the barrels and the silver chasing on the stock glinting in the last of the afternoon sun.
‘Is the lecture over yet?’ one of them called out.
‘Just as well you missed it. You wouldn’t have understood a word.’
Wm noticed a surprising pugnacity about Rosalie’s brother. His delicate marmoset’s face, his long eyelashes and his cherub’s mouth were at odds with the spirit he showed his two heavy cousins, each a good four inches taller than he was.
‘I don’t know why Charles swallows all this nonsense, he used to be such a sensible little boy.’ The fairer of the two, who had the long face of his father Liancourt but a blobbier look to him, sighed. ‘I’m François and this is Alex. Our father tried to make us read the Encyclopaedia but luckily we’re too thick.’
‘Much too thick. All they think of is joining the army so they can start shooting people instead of sparrows.’
‘I think the less you see of these two the better, Monsieur Short. I shall give you a tour of the house instead. Let me tell my grandmother, she always likes to know where I am.’
She went over to the old lady at her light skipping pace that made everyone else in the room seem so slow and bulky. Wm thought how strange they would all seem to most people back home: Rosalie the granddaughter and daughter-in-law, yet at times not seeming like either, more like a daughter who cannot bear to be too long away from her mother; the Duke less like a son than an unfailingly considerate husband; the young brother-in-law who was at the same time a nephew and who seemed like a decent fellow and apparently found nothing odd in the situation, and lord knew what double kin those two cousins were; and the old lady not old at all but dressed up in bonnet and lace to give that impression. As for the relationship between the Duke and Duchess, well, that he could not fathom at all, could not begin to see the true substance of it. He supposed it must be what they called a marriage of convenience and to his sturdy American spirit that was a repulsive conception. In any case, was it not forbidden in the table of affinity at the back of the prayer book, probably somewhere in Leviticus too? Yet he could not deny that there was affection between the two of them and not just a torpid middle-aged kind of affection either. The whole arrangement seemed entirely harmonious, all three of them showed every sign of contentment. All that was lacking was a child. The Duke must surely long for the heir that, so far as Wm knew, his first wife had not borne him before her untimely death. And Rosalie herself must wish to fulfil her natural destiny. But he could detect no hint of strain or anxiety between them.
‘We are released,’ Rosalie said. ‘I would not have you think that my grandmother is my jailor, it is just that she cannot bear to miss any entertainment.’
‘Then could she not come with us? I am sure she would have much to tell me about the history of the house.’
‘There are steps, oh such steps. She cannot bear to exhibit her infirmity even among friends. Come.’
She led him at her charming scurrying pace through the long anteroom into the old part of the house which recalled its sterner military origins: the guardrooms, the lookout window, the three-foot-thick wall of the first fortress on the site, which the Duke’s librarian claimed was Gallo-Roman but the Duke had pooh-poohed the idea. And then back again through the Duchess’s little drawing room and the state bedroom with its great scarlet swags and the tossing scarlet plumes at each corner of the enormous four-poster, which the last king had slept in during his visit, the visit that had gone so badly, Madame d’Enville said, because Louis le Bien-Aimé had just discarded his last mistress, the famous Madame de Pompadour, and had not a good word to say to anyone.
‘Now,’ she said, ‘are you ready for a climb?’
They had come down a narrow passage past the doorway into a strange little chapel cut in the rock. They peeped in and nodded at the elderly servant morosely sweeping the dust. At the end of the dank gallery that led from the chapel Wm could see stairs, white chalky stairs twining upwards.
‘You must count the stairs,’ she said. ‘No two people ever reach the same figure. According to legend it is because the devil comes in the night and adds to their number or takes some away to bemuse us. In fact it is because one is so out of breath and cannot count properly.’
He thought she was exaggerating and skipped up the stairs after her, following the twirl of her skirt up round bend after bend. Soon he had to admit he was running out of breath in the damp, chalky air and the elbows of his new sky-blue coat were white with chalk dust as he brushed giddily against the walls. At every third or fourth bend there was a window cut into the chalk and he stopped to catch his breath on the pretext of wanting to look out through the rusty bars over the steepling woods and the curling river and the fields beyond.
‘You are not as fit as you think, monsieur, I can feel your heart thumping. Oh, I have left a mark.’
He looked down and saw the white outline of her small palm on the lapel of his coat, like a medal, he thought, or a buttonhole. ‘It does not matter in the least. I am already as white as a pierrot.’
He stood up and cut a clown’s caper in the narrow space and knocked his head on the low ceiling, and she laughed but he did not care. The light imprint of her hand on his heart was still burning in his mind.
‘We cannot repose here or we will never reach the top.’
She seemed inexhaustible. The staircase must have turned on itself a dozen more times and she was still babbling without a pause for breath, about how the Norman knight had murdered Guy de La Roche while he was at Mass in the keep and sent his body on a raft down the Seine to warn the knights of the region not to stray beyond their boundaries and how – but she was two bends ahead of him and he could not hear what she was saying. It was as much as he could do to stagger up the last few steps and come out blinking into the fresh air, dripping with sweat and his mouth and eyes full of chalk dust.
‘Well?’
‘Well what?’
‘How many steps were there?’
‘Oh, I forgot to count. It was as much as I could do to breathe, madame.’
‘Rosalie, I told you to call me Rosalie, everyone does.’
‘I could be the exception and you would remember me all the better.’
‘Only for your pomposity. You may shorten it to R if Rosalie offends you as a name.’
‘Very well then, but I must be William to you.’
‘Weelleearm. Is that right?’
It sounded charming to him and he said so, though he suspected she might be mocking him and could in fact pronounce his name perfectly well. He wished he were more adept at this repartee. The badinage that had sounded well enough when he was walking with Lilite at St Germain seemed so lame in this company. Which made him feel disloyal to Lilite who was not, it had to be admitted, quite as witty as she was sweet.
Still recovering his breath, he looked around him. They were standing on top of the cliff. Far below they could see the river snaking through the haze, and the orchards and the green fields stretching to the horizon. Around the ruins of the old fortress the woodmen had recently cleared the hazel and chestnut brushwood. The sawdust was still thick upon the last
of the bluebells and the boughs were almost white where they had been slashed and coppiced.
‘There it is. Is it not fine, my grandmother’s arch?’
He followed her pointing arm and took in the classical portico that had been stuck on to the ancient masonry where the sides met at an acute angle. It was no doubt an admirable portico, the pediment was nicely proportioned and the twin pillars that supported it might have come straight out of Vitruvius’s copybook. Yet Wm had to confess, if only to himself, that it looked out of place on these remains of a more barbarous time. All he said to her was, ‘It is splendid, I wonder what Mr Jefferson might think of it.’
‘Do not hide behind your master’s skirts. You do not care for it, I can see. I knew you would not. Nobody young likes it a bit. We do not wish our civilisation to put a smiling face on such grim relics of the past.’
‘Well—’
‘There, you are thinking I have brought you all the way up to show you my grandmother’s bêtise.’
‘You must not put words into my mouth. I do truly think it is a handsome piece of work. Surely we should not shrink from trying to improve upon the work of our ancestors.’
‘You are a diplomat, monsieur, but I know exactly what you are thinking. I can read you like a book.’
‘A very dull one, I fear.’
‘On the contrary, Will, I cannot wait to turn the page.’
She said ‘Will’ with barely a trace of accent, so she had been teasing him before, just as she was teasing him now by shortening his name to suit her fancy. He was nettled to feel himself such a slow partner in this game, for back in Virginia he had been accounted quick enough and the Flat Hat Society had elected him Beau of the Year, though that was a double-edged honour, not without a hint of chaff in it.
‘You cannot fool me, monsieur. You Americans like to play the simple peasant from the backwoods, but in truth you are like oriental pashas. Your estates are ten times the size of ours and you have regiments of slaves to obey your lightest whim.’
‘Not me, madame. I am the proud possessor of a couple of patches of the Tidewater country, which produce more frogs than tobacco, and I haven’t a single slave to my name.’
‘Not one? Poor Will. No, I don’t believe you, I never heard of a Virginia gentleman without slaves.’
‘We sold them all when my father died.’
‘Ah, then you are a slave trader – oh, I am sorry, Will, I did not mean to offend you.’ He had gone red with anger, and she apologised in the same moment that she teased him.
‘No, it is a fair comment. The truth is that we did not know what to do for the best, my brother and I. We had our two sisters to think of. But cash was so scant after the war, the sale raised a very poor sum. We might just as well have freed them, but then our neighbours would never have forgiven us. We tried to place them as well as we could. I still feel remorse whenever I run into one of them on someone else’s farm. They are pleased to see me, I think, at least they say so. But you will think that a sentimental delusion, I dare say.’
‘No, you must not think me so hard. Anyway, how can any of us in France reproach your institutions when we still have the corvée? Those poor wretches who are forced to build our roads are no better than slaves.’
‘I know we Americans may seem clumsy to you—’
‘No, no,’ she interrupted, ‘never. You are more than a match for us. It is only that you prefer to roughen your surface while we waste our time polishing our veneer of civilisation.’
‘Rosalie, you are too cruel. I have spent the past year polishing myself so hard I scarce recognise my face in the mirror any more, it is so shiny, and you refuse to notice.’
‘On the contrary, I think your shiny face is adorable. You will keep your side of the bargain, won’t you, and take me to Dr Mesmer’s the moment we get back to Paris?’
‘But what is he to cure you of?’
‘Don’t worry, by then I shall have thought of something. When you have been a little longer in our country you will realise that no Frenchwoman is ever without her pet maladies.’
IV
The Iron Wand
‘SHALL I CALL for you then? At four o’clock? It will take us half an hour at least to cross Paris and they say it is wise to be early or one may not be admitted to the first session.’
‘No,’ she said after a pause (she was not given to pausing, so he noticed her hesitation and remembered it), ‘I think it would be better if I were to collect you at the Hôtel de Langeac.’
It was his turn to hesitate. ‘I am not sure that would be wise. Mr Jefferson is generally at home at that hour and he might be …’
‘Might be what, Will?’
The way she spoke his name – or perhaps her using it at all – unmanned him and he lost hold of what he meant to say. ‘Well, I do not think … that is, he disapproves of animal magnetism, you know. He would not care to see me wasting time on such an excursion. We are very busy with the Dutch bankers just now and our people back home are anxious to see matters concluded.’
‘My husband disapproves too, as you know. That is why I do not wish you to come to us. Monsieur de La Rochefoucauld has taken to you so much and he would be sure to quiz you.’
Though they used each other’s first names readily enough now, her husband was still Monsieur de La Rochefoucauld to both of them and would, he thought, remain so until they became a good deal more intimate, perhaps not even then. How puzzling the French were. There was the awkward question of the second person singular. Lilite and he had begun to tutoyer in no time, but there seemed no question of that with Rosalie. Was that because she was a duchess or simply because she was married?
‘Well then,’ she said, ‘let us meet halfway. Why not the back of the Palais-Royal. I am told it is a great place for assignations.’
Her dark eyes were brimming with mischief. She was wearing a gauzy dress of sprigged muslin, pale lilac and high-waisted in the new style, which made women look innocent and childish.
‘I shall be lurking under the arcade. You will recognise me by my mask and black cloak.’
Even though he did not resort to disguise, he had hoped to sneak out of the Hôtel de Langeac without attracting attention. But Mr Jefferson was always on the qui vive. His curious vacant gaze never ceased questing for some fresh object and the distinctive sound of his shambling gait penetrated every room in the embassy (which was only a modest building on an acute-angled corner site, like a wedge of cheese). Wm was in the circular hall putting on his light September coat when he heard his master’s footsteps coming from the salon.
‘Where are you off to this fine afternoon, William?’
‘The Palais-Royal, sir.’
‘There is no better place for an excursion. We would benefit from such an institution in Virginia. Our womenfolk would appreciate the convenience of a covered mall where they might make their purchases and meet their acquaintances.’
‘They would indeed.’
‘In the northern states where the winters are harsher, such a thing would be even more valuable.’
‘So it would, sir.’
‘Well, I must not keep you. Ah, by the by, since you are taking the carriage – I see Vendôme harnessing up in the yard – might you be so kind as to drop in on Labiche? He has a copy of Monsieur d’Argenville’s treatise on the laying out of gardens that he has put aside for me.’
‘I should be glad to pick it up for you.’
‘You are a good fellow, William.’
And despite his irritation at being thus waylaid, Wm found himself melted once again by the smile that hurried across Mr Jefferson’s sad
face as though it had no business there.
*
‘Why are you carrying that huge book? Do you expect mesmerism to be so tedious?’
Wm told her about his errand for his master. Rosalie said that she too had told her husband that she was going to the Palais-Royal and he had told her to be sure to take the coachman with her if Madame d�
�Astorg was not available, for the place was full of dangerous characters. They laughed in sympathy at the half-truths they had told and were grateful that the embarrassing topic of animal magnetism should cloak the greater embarrassment that they did not care to name. Wm had already been in receipt of Mr Jefferson’s strong views on the empty bustle of Paris, the flirtations and dissipations of its inhabitants, and the indifference to the conjugal fidelity that was so dear to the chaster hearts of their fellow Americans. TJ had even got wind of Wm’s flirtation with Lilite and adjured him to come home like a good boy. Only a day or two earlier he had said, ‘William, as your adoptive father, though I could not value your services here more highly, I think it my duty to remind you of yours, which is not to leave it too long before you return to Virginia to seek a bride.’ Wm had blushed and mumbled something about needing to establish himself in the world first. But he knew that Mr Jefferson continued vigilant on his behalf, which is why he had asked Vendôme to drop him off at the Louvre end of the Palais-Royal, where there was no danger of the coachman (a beady fellow) spying the Duchess and he could walk through the stately avenue of limes, pick up TJ’s book from Labiche and meet her at the other end.
Her carriage rattled to a halt outside an imposing mansion in the rue Coq Heron. Tall bronze torches were flaring either side of the portecochère and a footman in livery rushed forward to lower the steps, giving three piercing whistles as he did so.
‘Do you greet all your guests so?’ Wm enquired.
‘Three vistles is for nobility,’ the man said in a rough German accent.
‘But I thought Dr Mesmer treated rich and poor alike,’ Rosalie said gaily. ‘This is said to be the only place in Paris where persons of every class mingle freely, soldiers, farmers, nobles, prostitutes, abbés—’
‘Even Americans.’
‘Oh, I think not. Americans are much too healthy to require Dr Mesmer’s services.’
They were inside the hall now and a valet scurried forward to take their coats. The hall was cavernous and dark. Heavy drapes deadened the noises of the street. From the next room there came the sound of delicate music, like a harp but somehow more liquid and resonant.
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