Euridyce's Lament

by Brian Stableford

  I was as intrigued now as Niklaus—even more so, in fact. And unlike him, I had a perfectly legitimate reason to be interested in the hidden motivation of a fellow artist, just as I had a perfectly legitimate reason to want to know why Hecate Rain was visiting the Sisters of Shalimar. Or so, at least, I told myself.

  While Myrica went down to greet Charles Parenot on the quayside, I stayed by the fire. Hecate and Niklaus remained in their seats. We had volunteered to go with Myrica, of course, but half-heartedly, and she had assured us that there was no need for us all to expose ourselves to the snow. She assured us that she would bring her guests up directly, as soon as she had ordered a large pot of freshly-brewed tea and a bottle of brandy.

  When she had left the room, I turned my attention back to Niklaus Hylne. I had a bone to pick with him.

  “Why did you suggest that the commission for the triptych came from the Cult of Orpheus?” I demanded, curtly. Because I was standing and he was sitting I had a positional advantage that backed up my authoritarian tone. It had its effect

  “Mesmay’s said to be a member,” Niklaus retorted, defensively.

  There was no point in asking by whom. Who can ever tell where such rumors start? I continued to exercise my illusory authority.

  “Because he collects works of art associated with the Orpheus myth?” I said scathingly. “That’s not evidence of membership in a secret society. I’ve never heard any mention, during my time here, of the active presence on Mnemosyne of either of the surviving mystery religions. There isn’t even a strong Druidic presence, except for the Sisters of Shalimar.”

  “Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you?” Niklaus retorted, resentfully as well as defensively.

  My jaw is not in the habit of dropping, but it nearly made an exception. I held it in place. “Are you saying that the vicious old fools who feed you your ridiculous fantasies think I’m a member of the Cult of Orpheus?” I said.

  “No,” he said, trying hard not to be intimidated and not succeeding. “Quite the opposite.”

  Since time immemorial, the two principal mystery religions that the Romans had inherited from the Greeks before the advent of the Divine Julius had been thought to be at war. The Orpheans, it was said, believed that Dionysus had ordered his maenads to murder Orpheus. The Dionysians denied it, and claimed that the accusation was a slanderous fabrication—but they would say that, wouldn’t they? I could see that if my image were taken a little too seriously by certain people, I might be suspected of Bacchic tendencies, but I had always thought that my best and most obvious feature was an ironic skepticism that would rule out any suspicion of religious affiliation. I realized, though, that the reason that Niklaus had earlier expressed surprise that Mesmay had commissioned me to paint the Orpheus triptych was not that he supposed me to be an infidel, but that he suspected that I might belong to the enemy camp.

  “It’s ridiculous, Niklaus,” I said, in perfectly level tone. “Mesmay is an art collector, not a secret fanatic, and I’m an artist. I don’t say that we’re two of a kind, or that either of us knows the other particularly well, but we’re both intelligent men—and Mesmay’s wife is reputed to be a spiritist, which probably wouldn’t sit well with being married to an Orphean, even if the cult is nowadays just another club of conspirators and backscratchers, which long ago lost any connection with the faith of its founders. You can’t seriously believe, either, that I’m involved with the Cult of Dionysus?”

  “Toustain left you his books,” countered Niklaus.

  I hadn’t seen that one coming.

  “You’re saying that Toustain was a Dionysian?” I queried, almost laughing at the implausibility. “He was the last man in the world I could imagine consorting with Maenads, or even getting seriously drunk.”

  “Appearances can be deceptive,” Niklaus insisted. This time, he was less defensive. He was surer of his ground. Something he had seen or bought at the auction of Toustain’s assets? No—it had to be something that he’d got from the notary, Guillot, who still had Toustain’s papers. As a notary, Guillot was still supposed to be maintaining confidentiality in their regard, but I hadn’t formed a high opinion of his professionalism when I’d been invited to call on him to receive the good news about my unexpected bequest. Apparently, the man of law felt that, since all the interested parties were dead, his lips didn’t need to be so tightly sealed. It wasn’t surprising that he was Niklaus Hylne’s notary too—an artists’ colony isn’t the kind of place that brings notaries flocking like hungry vultures, so the choice is limited. But Monsieur de Toustain a follower of the Cult of Dionysus? I couldn’t believe it, even though the first rule of being a member of a secret society is to maintain that secrecy.

  “There is absolutely nothing among Toustain’s books to suggest that he was a Dionysian,” I said, firmly, racking my brains in the attempt to figure out whether I was telling the truth. Although I hadn’t unpacked the crates on to shelves, I had looked through the books to see if there might be anything among them of particular interest to me. They weren’t old, for the most part—they certainly didn’t include any manuscripts or incunabula—and I hadn’t noticed anything very esoteric, or that I knew to be rare. There were books on various religions and mythologies, but they were popularizations or scholarly treatments, such as could be found in any decent library.

  “Perhaps not,” said Niklaus, unrepentantly, “but the word is out that he was—and you were the only person on the island he ever talked to, and he did leave you the only bequest he didn’t abandon to the island’s poor. You can’t blame people for wondering.”

  In fact, I could—but for the moment, I didn’t have to. Myrica had reappeared at the top of the staircase, accompanied by two hooded figures: a petite woman barely out of her twenties and a girl, no more than twelve or thirteen. They had both pushed back their hoods to reveal a striking study in contrasts. The woman was thin, with pale blonde hair, an ideal model for a shade, but the girl had black hair and a robust frame, seemingly bursting with health. No one could possibly have taken them for mother and daughter.

  I had to issue a mental apology to Myrica; she had judged me more accurately than I thought. As soon as I looked at the pair of them, partly because of the striking contrast in their very different kinds of beauty, I wanted to paint them—not just because they were beautiful, but because their beauty was interesting, even intriguing. As an expert judge, I very rarely find beauty mysterious, but there was definitely something covert in the anxious eyes of the pale Mariette, and something indefinable in the gaze of the girl, who was also afflicted by a very understandable timidity on coming into a strange environment for the first time, but who gave the impression of not being fundamentally timid at all. She was only a child, as yet, but she was on the threshold of a nascent maturity, and she might well be already becoming aware of the power that her beauty would give her—especially if she were being lavished with praise by the likes of Myrica Mavor on account of her supposed musical talents.

  But where was Charles Parenot?

  “Charles wouldn’t come up,” said Myrica, obviously not pleased by the fact that her plans had gone even further awry—although, given the woeful inadequacy of the welcoming party, she could have reckoned it a mercy if she had put her mind to it.

  “You must excuse Charles,” the blonde woman out in, scanning us all with her pale eyes, the irises of which were turquoise, tending more toward green than blue. “He’s terrified of what the porters might do to his precious paintings, and he won’t let them out of his sight. He won’t be entirely sane again until they’re safe in the house and no one can touch them but him. He doesn’t mean to be rude.”

  Myrica seemed to be too busy seething to make the introductions, so I gallantly stepped into the breach. “There’s no need to apologize, Madame Parenot,” I said. “You husband is entirely right to put his works of art ahead of mere social convention. I too am a painter, and I understand perfectly. Axel Rathenius, at your service. This is my dea
r friend Hecate Rain, the poet, of whom you must have heard, and this is Niklaus Hylne, a noted historian. I’m sorry that we aren’t a larger crowd, but the weather has turned unusually nasty, and artists are notoriously sensitive to the cold.”

  While I was jabbering, Myrica had at least had the decency to pour the tea and the brandy, so the lovely blonde now had a cup in one hand and a glass in the other, while the equally lovely ingénue was holding her warm cup in both hands.

  “Thank you, Axel,” said Myrica. “And this is Mariette”—she indicated the blonde—“and Elise.”

  There was a confusion of inclined heads that might have passed for bows in more aristocratic company.

  “I must admit,” said Mariette, “that I hadn’t realized, when Charles decided to move here, that the island would have such a remarkable climate. Snow in October! And such strange snow!”

  I was the only member of the welcoming committee who knew what the last remark meant, and I smiled at the advantage. “It isn’t typical, I assure you,” I said, “And I’m truly sorry that elements are conspiring to give you such a poor first impression. In fact, it’s the first time in living memory that it has snowed here in October, and so far as I know, black snow has never fallen here before.”

  “What do you mean, black snow?” asked Hecate. “It looks white to me.”

  I was about to explain when I was struck by the curious expression on the little girl’s face, which seemed to be a reaction to the mention of black snow, although I couldn’t quite make out whether it was fear or fascination. I had been observing her mother, having seen her blush very slightly when I had called her “Madame Parenot,” but I had sufficient peripheral vision and more than sufficient peripheral attention to keep them both in view.

  “There’s no need to be alarmed, my dear,” I said to young Elise. “The snow is an oddity to be sure, but you and I have both been exposed to it, and it hasn’t done us the slightest harm, has it? It’s just a freak of nature.”

  I was right, of course, but not everyone is as stern as I am in their refusal to believe in omens. Who could blame the poor child, uprooted from the heart of the capital and brought to an island that must seem to her to be remote, only to be greeted by black snow?

  She made no reply, but looked back at me as if she were trying to weigh me up, not having decided yet what to make of me. I hoped that I would come out of the inspection well. I looked to her mother-substitute for support, but I realized that, in spite of the porcelain rigidity of her features, she was definitely suffering from an unease that was more intimate than any reaction to the strange quality of the local snow.

  Whatever Myrica had not told us about the Parenot household’s reasons for leaving Paris, I guessed, they were not as mundane as she had tried to make out. I resolved to interrogate her about it when I got the chance. I would doubtless find out if I did get the opportunity to paint them both, but I could not think about that seriously until I had finished the Orpheus triptych, which might take some time.

  “What do you mean, black snow?” Hecate repeated, plaintively. I owed her an answer, but for the moment, I felt an odd desire to give the woman and the child a better welcome than Myrica and the weather had contrived to arrange.

  “As Myrica has doubtless told you,” I said, addressing both of them, “I’m your nearest neighbor on the promontory where your new house is located. You’ll be able to see my house when you get down from the cab at your new home—you can’t mistake it. With your permission, I shall send my manservant, Jean-Jacques, and my cook, Luzon, to your house tomorrow, in order to help you settle in. I shall refrain from importuning you while you are still in the process of sorting things out, but I shall call the day after—again, with your permission—in order to pay my respects to your husband. If there is anything you need, please don’t hesitate to ask Jean-Jacques; he’ll be able to find anything you might lack.”

  “You’re very kind, Master Rathenius” said Mariette. “Can we give you a lift back, if you don’t have your own carriage? We’ll have plenty of room—Charles will undoubtedly insist on traveling the cart with his paintings and equipment—but at least I’ll be able to introduce you to him when we get there.”

  “Thank you,” I said, with genuine regret, “but I’ve agreed to visit someone when I’ve finished here, and she promised to send her carriage to pick me up.”

  Hecate looked at me in surprise yet again, even though she must have deduced readily enough that it was Vashti that I had agreed to visit, and Robert who would be waiting downstairs with a carriage to convey me to her house. It was, however, to Mariette that she addressed herself.

  “If you have no objection,” she said, “I’ll gladly accept the place that Axel can’t take up. My house isn’t very far out of your way, and the carriage in which I came”—she shot a meaningful glance at me—“is apparently otherwise occupied.”

  “I would be glad…” Niklaus Hylne began, but Mariette got in ahead of him.

  “Oh, please do,” she said to Hecate. “I’d be very pleased to make your acquaintance. Myrica tells me that we have something in common, since you’re writing a poem about Eurydice. I posed for Charles’ depiction of her.”

  “So I understand,” said Hecate. “I really must obtain an invitation to visit the Marquise de Mesmay, so that I can see it. I know her socially, of course, but I’ve never been to her home.”

  “Is it here, then?” Mariette asked, taken by surprise. “I had assumed that it was in the Capital.”

  “Monsieur de Mesmay has commissioned Axel to paint Eurydice too,” Myrica put in. “I believe he brought your husband’s picture here in order to show it to him—by way of inspiration.” She was being slightly mischievous. Again, Mariette had blushed slightly at the mention of the word “husband,” but again she had no intention of issuing a correction.

  “Only as part of a triptych dealing with the mythical exploits of Orpheus,” I hastened to add to Myrica’s comment. “Eurydice will only appear in one panel, in a crowd of shades. But I would be delighted if you would sit for me some time in the near future for an individual portrait—as yourself, not as Eurydice.”

  “Myself?” Mariette echoed, in a tone that suggested that her self could not possibly be of any interest, by comparison with the various roles in which her husband cast her.

  I had already turned my attention to Elise. “And with your permission,” I said, still putting to an appearance of addressing Mariette, “I would love to paint a portrait of your daughter. She’s a talented musician, I hear—perhaps I could paint her playing the violin. It would make a beautiful study.”

  I am not in the habit of trying to seduce girls as young as Elise, but even though I had no hidden agenda, I was delighted with the way that the girl’s face lit up at the suggestion. The equivocation disappeared from her expression, and she was suddenly confident. Presumably, she was no stranger to being sketched and painted, but there is a world of difference, for a child, in being sketched and painted by one’s father and sitting for a portrait by the foremost portraitist in the province. She did not, however, express her enthusiasm verbally.

  All that Mariette said was: “That’s really too kind, Master Rathenius.”

  She meant it literally; she really did think that I was going too far. I resolved to be more subtle in my future flattery. I had no hidden agenda with the regard to the lovely Mariette either, in spite of what Niklaus Hylne’s venomous tongue had alleged about her morals. I was fully prepared to regard her as a faithful wife, if only for reasons of professional courtesy. I do have a reputation, though, that goes beyond painting, and she might not have been aware of the fact that I really do paint a great many portraits simply for the pleasure of... well, not simply painting, but of simply seeing and understanding, without even attempting any earthier physical interaction.

  Niklaus added his assurance of willingness to help, confident that no demand was likely to be placed on him, and that allowed Hecate to make a third attempt to clear
up the mystery that was still nagging away at her.

  “Why did you call the snow black?” she asked me, for the third time.

  “Because the crystals appear to have formed around nuclei of soot,” I said. “When the snow melts, it leaves dark stains behind. If I were not wearing black, and these two ladies had not draped themselves in voluminous gray cloaks to protect them during their crossing, you would be able to see the evidence.”

  “Soot?” Hecate queried. She was wearing pale blue, and looked down anxiously at her silk blouse,

  “Apparently,” I said. “I suspect that there must be a fire somewhere on the island, which has combined its smoke with the low-lying clouds.” Even as I said it, it sounded ludicrously inadequate as an explanation for such a large scale phenomenon—but what other explanation could there be?

  “That’s the prodigy you mentioned when you arrived,” Hecate said, belatedly catching on. I could see that it was on the tip of her tongue to say that she hoped it wasn’t a bad omen, but she stopped herself, and glanced sideways at the little girl. She didn’t want to worry the child with a careless remark that might be taken too seriously. I smiled to thank her for that, although she probably didn’t understand the significance of the smile, and I wasn’t entirely sure why I was thanking her. I took a deep breath, intending to steady myself, but even inside the Sprite, the air seemed heavier than usual, and it really did have a bad taste.

  Something is happening, I thought, and I don’t know what it is.

  And I couldn’t help reflecting that a refusal to believe in omens wouldn’t prevent them from manifesting themselves, if there really were such things.

  IV. The Haunted Medium