The Oracle Glass

by Judith Merkle Riley

  “But Madame says he has weakened. He confessed to her that he would consider a secret marriage.”

  “And what good would a secret marriage do me? That’s for silly girls who want to pretend they haven’t been seduced. It’s the protection of an acknowledged marriage that I need—that, and his title, dubious as it is. He must think I’m a simpleton.”

  “But at least say you’ll give the idea consideration. Then I don’t have to lie to Madame.” Her face was serious.

  “Well then, I’ve considered it. There. Now tell me who’ll be at La Voisin’s New Year’s celebration tonight. Brissac?”

  “Of course. But Madame has also hired the most splendid violins. And there’ll be partridges and suckling pig, as well as mutton and ham.”

  “Oh, if there’ll be partridges, then everything will be perfect, won’t it?”

  “That’s what I told Madame, and she said I was a greedy wench, and she was surprised I hadn’t eaten you out of house and home already. She also said wear the antique black with the jet-beaded bodice. You might get some important new customers. The Marquis de Cessac and his friends will be coming. Also some Italian bishop who’s in town. Madame says you must develop foreign connections if you wish to prosper.”

  ***

  The evening was already well under way when I arrived. Through the frosted windows, bright lights blazed, and one could hear the clatter of conversation and laughter each time the door opened onto the snowy street. I picked my way through the crush of carriages at the door just behind a masked actress and her latest escort. The sound of violins and laughter could be heard in the black parlor.

  “Ah, here is the ever charming Madame de Morville, whom the centuries cannot spoil…” Brissac, pushing his way through the crowd to greet me at the door. How offensive. But with La Voisin and Brissac’s creature de Vandeuil hovering in the background. I smiled, but not too much. He bowed an elaborate greeting. He had a new hat but the same velvet coat with the tarnished gold braid and the singe marks from standing too close to the fire during one or another experiment in diabolism.

  “Monsieur de Brissac, I am so enchanted to see you once more.” I removed my mask.

  “Ah! I am overwhelmed. Your features are more radiant than ever, my dear Marquise.” Brissac stepped back, as if dazzled by some overbright object. How long will this go on, I thought, as I smiled an arch little smile at him.

  “My dear friend,” announced La Voisin in tones of false warmth, “Monsieur le Duc has the most splendid idea for a charming little evening that we cannot but enjoy immensely.” We. Oh, damn, I couldn’t wiggle out. La Voisin had accepted for us both.

  “Ah, it is nothing—a trifle—but one that I lay at your feet, gracious lady.” Get on with it, Brissac, you toad. I tilted my head and tapped my cheek with my closed fan, to show my interest. La Voisin beamed.

  “The Duc de Nevers has entrusted me with a little commission. A delightful one. He has joined with the Duchesse de Bouillon in purchasing a number of boxes for the performance of the latest effusion of Monsieur Pradon’s genius, Phèdre et Hippolyte, and wishes, as a mark of his favor, to distribute the places to those connoisseurs of art who can truly appreciate such a masterwork.” Ah, another Mancini cabal. This time with Brissac as the agent. What a pretty little plan of his to regain Nevers’s favor! The Duchesse de Bouillon had bought and left empty all the boxes at the theatre to destroy Racine’s premiere and now she would raise up her pet, Pradon, with the assistance of a claque recruited by Nevers. The way of the artist certainly isn’t simple. For a moment, the memory of Lamotte so long ago, hollow cheeked and idealistic, flashed into my mind. Then I thought of Racine. What had he done to offend them, these Mancinis, that they would destroy his masterwork as casually as one would crush a fly?

  “Surely, you are not proposing that I, a widow of antique reputation, attend the theatre?”

  “In disguise, masked, with a party of ladies and gentlemen of rank. Such a lark, to witness the triumph of Pradon. And, after all, true souls grow in understanding in the presence of great art. Give me hope, Marquise, that in securing your enjoyment I can hope to enjoy your favor.” I opened my fan one compartment and moved it languidly. “Maybe,” it signaled.

  “Madame Montvoisin has offered her kind consent to accompany my dear friend, the Vicomte de Cousserans.” La Voisin’s latest lover. Damn. There’ll be no backing out of this one.

  “Who am I, then, to refuse the promise of such a delightful evening?” La Voisin’s eyes glittered. Lamotte and d’Urbec had been vanquished. Her project was under way.

  “Tell me, Madame,” I asked lightly, as if it were nothing to me, “why do you favor Pradon, when the common opinion is for Racine, and he has as his patroness Madame de Montespan?” Her face grew dark with remembered hate.

  “In this, I am with the Mancinis. Out of envy he poisoned his mistress, the actress La Du Parc, who had been my friend since childhood. Her children are being raised at the Hôtel Soissons. I still visit them on occasion, but thanks to the generosity of the countess, they lack for nothing. The Mancinis, they have long memories; just as I do.” She swept off to oversee the dancing, which had begun. As I turned to watch the figures in graceful motion before the wide tapestry of the Repentance of the Magdalen, Brissac, standing behind me, spoke softly into my ear.

  “You do not dance, do you, Madame?”

  “No, Monsieur, it is an old infirmity with me.”

  “Well then, Terpsichore’s loss is my gain. I will offer you one of those lovely little sweet pastries there, and we shall discourse on philosophy, which I hear is an interest of yours.” The confident, intimate tone disgusted me. That old witch has prompted him on how best to approach me, I thought. She has assured him that he will win in the end. The laughter and music rattled shrilly in my ears as he found me a place on a narrow love seat and sent Monsieur de Vandeuil threading through the crowd to the refreshment table.

  The masked woman behind me laughed again as she recounted a tale of amatory adventures. A cavalier with a star-shaped patch laughed with her. Brissac was silent, but his eyes rolled with amusement as he took in the conversation. He was seated so close as to be repulsive.

  “Why do you hesitate, my dear Marquise?”

  “Oh, a sudden faintness. The heat in the room. We are so close to the fire here. Tell me, how go your researches in the…ah…occult sciences these days?”

  “By a most extraordinary coincidence, that old alchemist, the Comte de Bachimont, has revealed to me an entirely novel method for calling up the demon Nebiros to reveal hidden treasures.”

  “Nebiros? But he is only of the rank of field marshal. Surely, you should deal only with infernal spirits of higher rank. Now Astaroth, for example, has the rank of grand duke and is the commander of Nebiros…” We continued in this vein until the great amounts of wine he had drunk caused him to need to absent himself temporarily. The moment he got up, I fled, my train clutched in my hand, with Gilles close behind. Mustapha and Sylvie had brought up the carriage to the front door, as if they had read my mind. Inside the house, the crash of bottles and snatches of drunken song signaled that the party was growing wilder. Outside, in the dark, the snow had begun to fall again. Sylvie brushed the melting flakes off my cloak as I seated myself in the safe darkness of the carriage.

  “Madame, what is wrong?”

  “Brissac—I think he’s going to propose, and I don’t dare refuse.”

  “Oh, think of the advantages, Madame. And besides, there are plenty of people in this city worse than Brissac.”

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  A closed, brass-bound coffer, the lock smashed open, lay on La Reynie’s desk. Desgrez stood beside the desk and watched as La Reynie opened the box and leafed through the papers inside. He picked out from the rubble of receipts and memoranda a bundle of greasy, unsealed letters written on cheap paper. He
read one or two of them through.

  “Interesting, Desgrez. A correspondence between Monsieur Geniers and this Chevalier de Saint-Laurent, who appears to have been consigned to debtor’s prison by Monsieur Geniers. He complains of the food, he asks for blankets, for money, for wine…he begs, he blusters, then threatens…”

  “I thought you would see it immediately, Monsieur de La Reynie. Our suspect.”

  “And…?” The Lieutenant General of the Paris Criminal Police raised an aristocratic eyebrow.

  “We have made inquiries about this Saint-Laurent, Monsieur de La Reynie. His last address was the House of the Marmousets in the Quartier de la Cité. Madame de Paulmy paid for his release last month with her lottery winnings.” La Reynie’s curiously sensuous smile showed Desgrez that he had caught his chief’s interest.

  “I am surprised the marquis tolerated this, Desgrez. His temper and his jealousy are both notorious.”

  “You are, of course, entirely correct. According to the servants of the de Paulmy household that I interviewed, he hired bravos to waylay the man and crop his nose and ears.”

  “Well done, Desgrez. We have our man with no face. But what is this I see here?” From the bottom of the sheaf of letters and papers, he removed a slip of paper.

  “The address of the Marquise de Morville, written in Monsieur Genier’s hand. I thought you might find that interesting, Monsieur.”

  “The Marquise de Morville—have you any idea how much that woman irritates me? She swept past me at the maréchale’s reception last month in the most offensive manner, almost daring me to uncover her charlatanry. I suspect her…I don’t know what of, but I suspect her. Follow this up, Desgrez; bring her in and question her about this murder.”

  “Monsieur, she has protectors in the very highest circles.”

  “Then proceed carefully, but proceed. I mistrust mountebanks—especially of the female variety.”

  Desgrez’s expression never changed from the eager, attentive look he wore in Monsieur de La Reynie’s presence, but inside, he concealed a certain amusement. It took a great deal to irritate the impeccably controlled Lieutenant General of Police. He wondered exactly what the impertinent little marquise had said to his chief.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  “Take them out and lay them on the bed, Sylvie. I just can’t choose.” I’ve always found it hard to select a gown when I am going out with someone I don’t like. A person wants to look devastating but still not spoil a favorite dress with a bad association. Which gown would I sacrifice to this evening with Brissac? I inspected the embroidered mounds of silk and velvet on the bed. Too nice, all much too nice for that grotesque Brissac, duke or not.

  “Madame, someone is at the door. Brissac is early. He must be eager.”

  “Eager to see me in my dressing gown, you mean. Have Mustapha go down and make him wait. Don’t show him up until you’ve finished my makeup.”

  “Very well,” answered Sylvie as she tied my hair away from my face with a wide blue satin ribbon, and began to apply the heavy white cream that gave my face its unique ghostly pallor. But she had hardly finished when the bedroom door was flung open with a crash.

  “Madame, I swear, they wouldn’t wait,” cried Mustapha. I turned to face Brissac, eyes cold, eyebrows raised. But it was not Brissac who stood in the doorway. It was Captain Desgrez, with two assistants in the baggy blue breeches and plain blue wool jackets of the police. Desgrez himself, his narrow face unshaven, bowed and removed his white-plumed hat. Thank goodness my face is unrecognizable, I thought.

  “Madame de Morville, I am Captain Desgrez of the police,” he said.

  While my mind raced through a list of reasons he might be there, I could hear my voice saying, “Monsieur Desgrez, please pardon my deshabille and do me the honor of taking the armchair over there.” He sat, his assistants standing on either side of the armchair that stood outside the screen in my ruelle. Somehow he managed to make himself look like a magistrate, finding me guilty even before I had opened my mouth.

  “Hellfire and damnation!” announced the parrot. Desgrez looked toward the bird’s perch, and the bird looked back, fixing him with a beady eye. As his assistant stifled his amusement in a cough, Desgrez looked suspiciously at me.

  “Curious vocabulary for a bird.”

  “I got him from someone else who taught him to speak. I am thinking of hiring a tutor to teach him better manners,” I answered.

  “Madame, I have come to ask you a few questions,” he said, while the man standing beside him took out a little notebook.

  “I will be delighted to answer any of which I have knowledge,” I responded, with a condescending nod of my head.

  “Your dressing-table mirror is shrouded in muslin, Madame de Morville. Why have you hidden the chief delight of women?”

  “Monsieur, I have the unfortunate gift of seeing images of the future in reflections. My own future is a skull. I do not wish to see it.”

  “You are aware, of course, of what they say about those who sell themselves to the Devil. They have no reflection. Would you mind, Madame?” As I nodded silently, one of his assistants drew off the muslin shroud. I turned my head away from the mirror, hiding my eyes with my hands.

  “You have a perfectly normal reflection, Madame,” he announced, sounding vaguely relieved, “so why do you hide your eyes? What is it you see?”

  “Blood, Captain Desgrez. Blood like a river, dripping across the face of the mirror.” He got up, came close, and passed his hand between me and the mirror.

  “Whose blood?” he asked softly.

  “I don’t know, but it’s very bad. Sometimes I see it seeping between the stones of the Place Royale. Blood and more blood, enough for all of France,” I answered, looking down at the floor, away from the mirror.

  “It’s about blood that I have come, Madame de Morville.” His voice sounded lulling, disarming. “Tell me, did you know Monsieur Geniers, the magistrate?”

  “Monsieur Geniers?” I looked up with a start. “Yes, I do know him. Why do you say ‘did’?”

  “He is dead, Madame—murdered. And your name and a receipt for money were found among his papers—Why, your hands are trembling. Tell me, what do you know about this crime?”

  “The Chevalier de Saint-Laurent. It must be—Oh, God, he is vengeful!”

  “The Chevalier de Saint-Laurent? How, Madame, do you come to know these men? Have you told their fortunes?” He sounded bland, but somehow beneath the gentle voice was something sinister. You are in too deep already, Geneviève; the truth will have to do. Or, at least, part of it.

  “Monsieur Desgrez, I was a silent partner of Monsieur Geniers. I lent him money to buy up the Chevalier de Saint-Laurent’s gambling debts, so that Monsieur Geniers could put him in debtor’s prison. Monsieur Geniers wanted vengeance for the seduction of his wife. And I, I had been cheated in an investment by the Chevalier de Saint-Laurent, so assisting Monsieur Geniers served my vengeance too, while preserving my reputation.” The two men behind Captain Desgrez looked at each other as if something significant had been said. Suddenly I felt anxious. “Tell me, Monsieur Desgrez—have you taken the Chevalier de Saint-Laurent yet?” I asked. My body felt cold. Either he was on the street, and I must pray he never connected me with Monsieur Geniers, or he was in prison, undergoing the question, and I must pray he did not connect me with his vanished niece. They’d bring me in. They’d question me. The words of La Dodée echoed in my mind: “You can’t withstand police questioning. You can’t even withstand the pain of a tight corset.”

  “Unfortunately, he has eluded us,” answered Desgrez.

  “Does he know…?” My voice was faint and hoarse.

  “…that you are the other one upon whom he must visit vengeance? Possibly not. The paper was locked in Monsieur Geniers’s cabinet, and Saint-Laurent beat him to death with
a heavy walking stick in the street before his own doorstep. The magistrate’s servants raised a hue and cry and pursued him for some distance before he vanished.”

  I put my hand to my heart. “Then perhaps, Monsieur Desgrez, the blood is not mine—at least not yet.”

  Desgrez looked avuncular. “Then you wouldn’t mind coming with us to make a statement before a police notary.”

  Danger, my mind cried. Once there, they might keep me for forcible questioning. “Monsieur, I am not dressed.”

  “Then get dressed. I can wait.”

  “But, Monsieur, I have an engagement this evening.”

  “Surely, you owe it to the peace of His Majesty’s realm to assist in the apprehension of a murderer. It will only take a moment of your time—besides, a little lateness is fashionable.” He settled deeper into the armchair as if he owned it. Delay him, my mind hummed. Delay him until Brissac arrives. That will at least complicate matters.

  “Would you like refreshments while I am dressed?”

  “I am content to wait for you, Madame.” Oh. Horrid Jansenist. Duty before all. I began a lengthy conference with Sylvie about my toilette. My hair, what a complexity: should I use the jeweled combs or have it sprinkled with brilliants like the night sky? My hands: should I set them off with bracelets, or were the rings sufficient? I watched his bored gaze scan the room, taking in the tall carved and painted screen by the armoire, the little desk in the ruelle, the shelf of edifying classical works above it. With a sly sideways glance at the now-fidgeting assistants, Sylvie launched into an inventory of my box of mouches.

  “The crescent moon is not so much in fashion since Madame de Ludres was seen wearing it. I would suggest the butterfly, Madame,” she concluded.

  “It is winter; I find butterflies inappropriate.” A corset lace had snapped and had to be replaced. My green silk stockings were exceedingly difficult to locate. Once behind the screen to dress, we rearranged the order of petticoats several times and changed the bows on my shoes. Every so often I would peek at the back of the armchair, which could be seen through the joint of the screen. There sat my unwanted guest as stiff as a statue. But the back of his neck appeared to have turned red. His men were inspecting the furniture and peering out the window.