The Oracle Glass

by Judith Merkle Riley

  “I imagined that’s what you would think. You’ve never been more than a parasite. It would not be true to character for you to come for any other reason than money,” I answered.

  He sprang forward with a growl and put both hands upon my desk. “Be careful of your tongue, you little bitch, or it will cost you everything.”

  “Everything, Uncle? Didn’t you take that from me already? And see what good it did you. Be warned, Uncle, I will never be robbed again.” Hard and invulnerable in the iron garments of the Marquise de Morville, I felt exalted by the rising ferocity that came like the smoke of a raging fire deep inside me. I stood. “Beware of what you ask, for I will pay you in exactly the coin you deserve.” I felt that if he came even an inch closer, my rage would spill over him and dissolve him like vitriol. And facing me as he did, Uncle could not see Mustapha return with Gilles, silently motioning him to hide behind the screen that hid the kitchen door.

  I could see the blood twisting the arteries in Uncle’s neck. His breath came hard. “I could wring your neck right here, you smiling, deformed little monster.”

  “Hardly as deformed as you,” I laughed. “Whoremonger, betrayer of innocence, poisoner of old women. What do you intend to do? Blackmail me by threatening to inform the police about me? I’ll have a good bit to tell them about you, myself.” I stepped back from behind my table. He picked up his heavy walking stick from the floor beside the chair.

  “You’ll stop laughing when I identify you and, as head of the family, put you in a convent and lay claim to everything you possess,” he hissed.

  “You? The heir of the Pasquiers? Hardly, Uncle. I’m not an ignorant girl anymore. Anything you do will only enrich my brother, who will take everything. How silly of you not to settle for mere blackmail. How much you could have sucked from me under the threat to tell my brother where I was! And how unlikely for you to miss such an obvious source of money. Clearly you, too, are afraid Étienne will find you. No, you’ve been a fool, Uncle. Your threats have lost you everything. You won’t get a sou from me.”

  “You stand there so cool, so arrogant. Who do you think you are? You’re nothing! I’ve had you, you’re nobody—and I can have you again. And what you have, I’ll take, just as I take whatever I want, now.” His fierce, wolfish smile showed his curious pointed eyeteeth. Like fangs. They seemed somehow as if they were dripping blood from a recent kill. What had he been doing since the police had last heard of him? He seemed ruthless with some recent evil. Careful, careful, I told myself. Don’t set him off by showing fear. Paralyze him with your coldness, as the viper does with his staring, venomous eye. I stood up, smiling, and strolled calmly around the table past him, stroking his arm with my jeweled fingers as casually as I would a cat, until I stood a foot before the screen where Gilles and Mustapha were concealed. He started and swore at my touch, his eyes following my hand. I knew how much he valued jewels.

  “‘Nobody,’ Uncle? No, I am somebody. It is you who have become a nobody. A leech without prospect. It’s really quite pitiful, wouldn’t you agree? Tell me, which of your besotted lady friends paid to get you out of prison this time? Did she turn away when she saw what her husband had done to you, Monsieur Lover of Women? And have you now added her to your list of female enemies? It strikes me that you hold too many grudges, Uncle.”

  “I do not keep them long, dear little niece. The woman who scorned me is dead. So is everyone else who stands in my way. What have I to lose? I will take your money, your jewels, to flee the country. I will buy the women I want with the rings on your fingers, when I have sent you to keep your mother company. She tried to hide her money, too, but I knew she had it. She dared to call me a monster—she who outdid every monster living. My stick convinced her. What a fool she was. And all for five gold louis. But I wasn’t disappointed, for she led me to you. And now, Niece, I want to know where your cash box is…” He smiled, showing a large number of teeth, and tapped the heavy stick on his open palm. Mother. How on earth had a blind, insane woman led him to me? And what had he done there on the rue des Marmousets?

  “You’re a clever man, Uncle, to find me here. Surely Mother did not give you the address.” He smiled again, temporarily distracted by the contemplation of his own brilliance.

  “You were a fool, Niece. You let slip your mask. What fortune-teller gives away money rather than takes it? She said she didn’t have anything more for me—Marie-Angélique had visited and had given her hardly anything. But the stable boy had seen the celebrated Marquise de Morville leave by the back way. It would have been clear to a fool. The blind woman knew her daughter’s voice. Only it was the wrong daughter.” I could hear the breathing behind the screen. Mustapha, silent as a cat, peeped out. I must keep Uncle’s eyes only on me.

  “What did you do to Mother?” Uncle came closer, his eyes sly and triumphant. Mustapha crossed behind him, his Turkish slippers making not a single sound on the heavy carpet.

  “Helped end her misery on earth,” answered Uncle, “as I will now…help…you—” His remnant of a face distorted with rage, and the nose fell away, revealing two raw and oozing holes. His teeth were like a wolf’s, his eyes insane with evil. I saw the stick lash out and instinctively raised my arm before my face, screaming and falling to the ground as the bone snapped under the heavy blow. In another moment, the breath went out of me as Uncle’s body fell on mine. The screen overturned with a crash as my servants rushed to my aid. The ghastly dying thing sprawled across me, suffocating me, its touch filling me with horror.

  “Don’t pull my arm!” I cried as Gilles rolled the body off me and Sylvie pulled at me, trying to right me. “He’s broken it. I swear I heard the bone break.”

  “Well, he won’t be breaking any more, that’s for certain,” said Gilles with calm distaste, as he turned over the body with his toe. Two sharp little knives were sunk deep into the Chevalier de Saint-Laurent’s back, soaking in black blood that was oozing onto my dress, into the carpet, everywhere. “I think the second knife was entirely superfluous, Mustapha. The first seems to have gone to the heart.” Gilles looked at the little man with admiration.

  “Oh, God, you’ve killed him.” I was shuddering all over. Uncle’s hideous face had touched mine, his filthy blood was staining me. His stink was in my nose, rising to my brain.

  “Surely Madame is not sorry for him,” said Sylvie with some astonishment.

  “No, Sylvie,” I answered, clutching my arm and lying absolutely still on the floor. Gradually, I was regaining control of myself. The pain in my arm seemed to spread all through me. “It is the problem of getting rid of the body.”

  “What problem, Madame? We’ll simply bury him in the garden tonight.”

  “And arouse the neighbors? The garden is too narrow, and the wall is directly beneath the windows of the house next door.”

  “Madame is right,” said Sylvie with a sigh.

  “And, Gilles don’t imagine I’ll let you risk trying to dump him in the river tonight. You know the police are uncommonly interested in who goes in and out at night, ever since d’Urbec bled all over the neighborhood.” Gilles looked annoyed, but he knew I was right, too. I sat up gradually, clutching my arm, and made my way to my armchair. “Oh, Lord, my arm hurts,” I said as I settled into the cushions. “Sylvie, go upstairs and get my cordial. Something…something is coming to me. A very good idea.” The idea continued to form as Sylvie pattered off upstairs. “Cleopatra…Ha, there are virtues to a classical education, after all. Gilles, would you and Mustapha be so kind as to roll up my former uncle into the rug? I think we need to have it sent out for cleaning. I want it out of the house before Chauvet comes to set my arm.”

  Late in the afternoon, the neighbors all observed a cart draw up to the front door and a pair of lackeys, directed by a servant maid, load up a heavy, rolled carpet to be sent out for cleaning. The gossips of the neighborhood carried far and wide the news o
f the good fortune by which a terrible accident had been prevented. A torchière overturned, and a dreadful stain and burn mark had to be cleaned up and rewoven.

  “Can you imagine the expense? It is a terrible pity; the carpet looks so costly!” Voices were rising to my open bedroom window, where I lay nursing my arm.

  “It’s just the intervention of God that they didn’t set fire to the house. The whole neighborhood might have gone up in flames.” Excellent, I thought, as I heard them make way for the surgeon, whom they took for a gentleman from his dress and the liveried lackey with him.

  Once shown upstairs, Chauvet had his lackey unpack an assortment of splints and bandages while he inspected my arm.

  “Of course,” he observed in a voice that dripped irony, “there’s no telling how long it takes bones over a century old to heal.”

  “I’ll just put some of the alchemical formula on it,” I replied blandly. He chuckled appreciatively as he tied on the splint.

  “But next time, pick your clients more carefully…Oh, don’t look so surprised. No fall I’ve ever seen broke a wrist that far toward the elbow and left a welt, to boot. I’d say a cane, or a walking stick, or the flat of a sword. Your hand up so—across the face. It must have been a man. If it had been one of your witches, now, you wouldn’t have lived out the week, and there wouldn’t be a mark to show. Take a leaf from their book, sweetheart, or he’ll be back.” He finished by taking out a large square of black silk for a sling.

  “I don’t need your advice,” I told him.

  “Sorry, dear. But it’s not good, your living alone and known to have cash on hand. Whatever happened to that fellow with the dueling wound? There’s a solid fellow—plenty sturdy, and he’s stuck on you, too. You should marry him and give up this dangerous business. I’d marry you myself if you weren’t too old for me—and if I didn’t have two wives already. Both happy enough, they are—but, Lord, the expense.”

  “Monsieur Chauvet, that’s not decent!” I exclaimed. I heard his laughter echoing down the stairs until the door was shut behind him.

  I sat on the edge of the bed thinking. My right arm ached horribly. It was hard to believe that Uncle, the inhabitant of my nightmares, was dead. How formidable, how destructive he had seemed. A force of nature, brought down in retribution. And led to me by an old, blind woman who was trying to protect my gift of five gold louis. He must have gone to her for money to flee the country, after the first murder. And if she had had nothing at all, he might have believed her. But the little sum, in gold, convinced him there was more. How desperate, how crazy he must have been: he had beaten Mother to death to get her to reveal the hiding place. If I had walked out without giving her anything, she might still be alive. But instead, I had felt sorry for her. My pity had killed her more surely than the poison that I had thrown away unopened. My mind felt numb with the sadness of it. All at once the world seemed so desolate, so wicked, that I could not bear to live. No wonder people believe in the Devil, I thought. How else could you explain the conversion of a fleeting moment of grace into evil?

  “No, it’s all logical,” I said firmly to myself. “Everything works by logic. The world is made according to rational law—no more, no less. There is no grace and no evil; everything follows the objective laws of nature.”

  “Madame, I thought the surgeon had left. Oh, I see. You’re talking to yourself. Well, the carpet’s been sent off and Gilles with it. Mustapha has gone ahead and will meet them there, and I’ve ordered the carriage. My, that does look neat—the sling matches your gown. What a touch! That Chauvet is an artist!” Sylvie’s voice seemed to come from a thousand leagues away. “Goodness, Madame, what is wrong? I thought you hated him, and yet you sit there mourning. Or have you gone and taken too much cordial again? Not that I blame you this time.” She bustled to the armoire to fetch my light traveling cloak, laid it on the bed, and then got the footstool to reach down the hatbox.

  “Sylvie,” I said dully, not moving, “Mother’s dead, too. I killed her.” With a gift compounded of guilt and good intentions. How stupid. How sad. A waste. It was all a waste.

  “Killed her? Why of course you did. Madame will be delighted to hear that the poison finally took effect. It’s been such a long time! Why, she’s had Antoine down to check your parish death register three times already. Oh, I’ve never seen her so anxious to make someone one of us. But you lacked the basic requirements—and now, at last, you’ve done it! You’re fortunate, you know. She sets great store by you.” She got out the wide-brimmed black hat and blew on the black plumes to get the dust off them. “Now, don’t go moving that arm. Ha, and it’s your right one, too. How will you write your accounts now? What a nasty fellow. We’re well rid of him.”

  ***

  The pharmacological laboratory in the rue Forez was all abuzz with activity when I stepped over the threshold from the black parlor that formed its antechamber.

  “Ah, dear Marquise!” cried La Dodée, perspiring from the fire she had built up under the great kettle that sat on the hearth. “You look so well, all things considered. My, I can’t help but remember the first day you stepped into our workshop. You’re so changed, so elegant now!” I must indeed have looked different from the lost girl in the torn dress. The mirror told a new story these days; it showed me a tiny, straight figure in a black cloak and an old-fashioned, wide-brimmed, high-crowned hat over a lace cap. A nice face except for being all white with a bit of green under the eyes, just like a corpse. A tall walking stick topped with a silver owl’s head and decorated with black satin ribbons. Really, not too unlike the pictures of witches in certain engraved picture books. Altogether delicious, it seemed to me. I was fond of dramatic entrances, predictions made in a thrilling whisper, and curious accoutrements that set people talking. Oh yes, I was different. Well played, Geneviève.

  Above, the familiar harpy, her wings outspread, sailed serenely. A series of large, empty jars stood on the worktable, ready to receive the product of the night’s labors. One of the little girls, grown larger now, was making labels for them. “Brain of a criminal,” “heart of a criminal,” and so forth, written in a clumsy hand. The other was brewing coffee on the strange brick stove, which I now knew for an alchemist’s athanor. Mustapha had pulled up a stool and was kicking his heels while he criticized her labors.

  “Not so much water—you’ll steal the essence. Don’t you know anything about making Turkish coffee?”

  “How would you know, since you’re not Turkish, anyway?” responded the girl.

  “I’ll have you know I’m an honorary Turk. Look at my turban. Anyone who wears a turban like this is an expert on coffee,” Mustapha replied in his strange old-man’s voice. The smell of the coffee, all hot and heavy, filled the room. In the center of the floor, rolled tight, lay the rug.

  “We’ve put the coffee on. It will be a long job tonight. La Voisin may drop in to see us a little later,” announced La Trianon, wiping her hands on her apron. “So kind of you to think of that empty space in our reception parlor. Are you sure you don’t want to charge anything for him?”

  “No. He’s absolutely free, and good riddance.”

  “An old lover?”

  “Hardly,” I answered.

  “Oh, I see. A relative. Well, he’s certainly handy. We’ve had a bit of a dry spell lately. So many customers, and the executioner raising prices every day! Livers are so scarce. You swear he’s a criminal? I don’t want to give false value to my clients when they come in for their formulas.”

  “Absolutely. He’s killed off his mistress and has just bludgeoned an old blind woman to death this very day.”

  “Why, excellent! That’s almost as good as if he’d been executed. Marie, get those two layabout men to unroll the carpet. They’re looking a bit pale—a little exercise ought to bring the roses back into their cheeks.” Silently, Gilles and Mustapha unrolled the carpet. Uncle�
�s blue-gray body flopped out like a fish at the market. “Goodness!” exclaimed La Trianon. “Knives right up the hilt! Whoever threw them was a real professional.” Mustapha bowed to her without a word. The girls got a pair of scissors and a little knife and began to remove Uncle’s clothing, clipping off the buttons for later use and then throwing the cloth into the fire as they finished. The wig sizzled and stank as it burned smokily next to the false nose.

  “If you’ll pardon, I think I’ll wait in the next room,” I said faintly. Sylvie shot me a withering glance.

  “Oh, la, what delicacy!” exclaimed La Trianon. “I suppose philosophers have no stomach for real work. Truly, Marquise, we’d thought you would have outgrown your squeamishness by now.”

  “Oh…it’s my arm that makes me feel faint. He broke it, you know, when he tried to…to…”

  “Marquise, you shouldn’t feel bad. After all, everyone has a worthless relative or two,” broke in La Dodée. Sylvie had donned an apron and poked up the fire around the smoldering clothes.

  “Yes, but I seem to have so many,” I murmured.

  “Well, he’ll certainly be worth something now,” announced La Trianon. “Enough of this and that to keep us in business a good long time, to say nothing of the improvement in the decor of our parlor.”

  “My dear,” said La Dodée comfortably, putting her arm around me, “perhaps you’d like to take coffee and wait outside in the parlor, after all. You look pale.”

  “Why yes, I believe I would, thank you,” I answered. I felt suddenly very drained.

  “I will carry the cup for Madame,” announced Gilles, “because she has only one good arm.” Mustapha swept up my train as if it were what he had been planning to do all along. As I left, from the corner of my eye, I could see La Trianon sharpening a set of knives on a whetstone. I could hear her voice; she was humming.

  In the long silence, I could see Gilles surveying the black parlor from his seat in the corner. Mournfully, he eyed the portrait of the Devil partially concealed by the half-drawn curtain in the alcove. He shook his head, then turned his eyes up to the black ceiling, then looked at me, where I sat in the little armchair poised near the shuttered window. I could hear the faint clatter of the cup and saucer as they rested on my trembling knees.