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“Hup!” the driver said. The carriage rolled forward, the horses’ iron shoes ringing on the cobblestones.
“Wait!” Marie-Josèphe called softly. “Please wait!”
Count Lucien leaned from the window. “Guillaume, stop,” he said. The carriage halted. The footman jumped down again and opened the carriage door. Count Lucien stood to speak with Marie-Josèphe.
“Count Lucien — I’m so sorry, I don’t mean any ingratitude, thank you for the harpsichord, it’s beautiful, but — it’s out of tune, and I cannot find the key.”
“M. Coupillet has been instructed to tune it for you in the morning.”
“M. Coupillet!” she exclaimed, dismayed.
“He will do exactly as you instruct him,” Count Lucien said, as if giving her a gift.
“I’m grateful, sir, but... I’d prefer a harpsichord key to M. Coupillet.”
He smiled. “It shall be as you wish. Will it wait till morning?”
“Yes, sir — otherwise I’ll wake my brother with the twanging!”
He chuckled.
“Thank you, sir.”
“You’re welcome, mademoiselle.”
Monsieur’s carriage, bright with gilt and lanterns, rattled across the cobbles, passed through the gateway to the Place d’Armes, and disappeared down the Avenue de Paris.
“Are you going to Paris with Monsieur?” She envied the men their freedom; she wished to see Paris with a longing both unsophisticated and obvious. She wished she had kept her silence; her curiosity was ill-bred and impertinent.
“I am going home,” Count Lucien said.
“I thought you lived here. Near His Majesty. In the chateau.”
“In the courtiers’ rat warren?” Count Lucien said. “No. I seldom stay in my apartment here. I require all the comfort I can find, Mlle de la Croix. Comfort is not to be found in the chateau of Versailles.”
“Lucien, come inside, you’re abusing yourself with the night air.” The Marquise de la Fère leaned forward and put her hand on Count Lucien’s shoulder, a gesture of concern and affection. The carriage-lantern cast harsh shadows over her pox-scarred complexion. She drew a silk scarf across her damaged beauty.
Count Lucien turned to her. Marie-Josèphe could not make out what he said, but his voice was flirtatious, and equally affectionate. The marquise laughed softly, let the scarf fall, and stroked Count Lucien’s cheek.
“Good evening, Mlle de la Croix,” the marquise said.
“Good evening, Mme de la Fère.” Marie-Josèphe stammered a little with shock and surprise.
“Good night, Mlle de la Croix.” Count Lucien bowed and withdrew. The carriage rumbled away.
Marie-Josèphe returned to her tiny apartment. Now she understood what Madame, what the chevalier, had meant when they referred to Mme de la Fère as “Mme Present” and to Mlle de Valentinois as “Mlle Past,” and she supposed they must have good reason to refer to the exquisite Mlle d’Armagnac as “Mlle Future,” though she appeared to Marie-Josèphe already to be fully occupied with Lotte’s brother.
I suppose I should not be surprised to see Count Lucien with a lover, she thought. Why should he be any better than Chartres? He is an atheist, after all.
Once more she had misunderstood him, misunderstood what everyone had told her about him. Madame had told her, without quite saying so, that Count Lucien was a rake. The Chevalier de Lorraine had warned her as well. She had no right to be disappointed in Count Lucien.
I wonder, she thought, if Mlle d’Armagnac will be the lover of both Chartres and Count Lucien? I wonder if they know they’re rivals?
In Yves’ sitting room, she spread the tapestry over the harpsichord. At the tiny desk by the window, she laid out a sheet of drawing paper and a sheet of music paper. She thought, If only I could draw with one hand and write music with the other!
She chose the drawing paper. The drawing for His Majesty’s medal would require less time. Besides, she had no idea what direction the cantata should take. She would wait; once she had tuned the beautiful harpsichord, playing it might inspire her.
She looked through the dissection sketches and set them aside. They informed her technique but crushed her inspiration. No illustration of dead creature, flayed skin, exposed bone and muscle, would fulfill Count Lucien’s request. His Majesty’s medal must represent the sea monster alive, ferocious, a suitable, dangerous prey of the Most Christian King.
She tried to imagine what the male sea monster must have looked like in life, but instead she sketched its face as she had seen it, haloed by broken glass and bits of gilded lead. Only when she had finished did she understand why her brother had burned her first rendition of this drawing. The sea monster looked like a dead god with a gargoyle face, a demon Christ crowned with thorns of glass.
No wonder past generations thought sea monsters the spawn of Satan, Marie-Josèphe said to herself. She shivered, and slipped the drawing to the bottom of her box.
She imagined the female monster swimming in the sea, leaping like a dolphin, singing like a nightingale. She imagined it ruthless as a kraken. She drew it free, with waves caressing its tails.
In the guttering illumination of the candle flame, the drawing trembled at the edge of life. The creature cried out, not with fury or fear, but with fierce joy.
Marie-Josèphe gasped and wrenched herself upright. Her body quivered with an intense, terrifying pleasure.
Outside, a low bank of fog glowed in the darkness, filling the gardens so the marble statues walked on clouds and the sea monster’s tent floated like an island. A warbling melody filled the night. Shadows cavorted among the orange trees.
Is that Chartres, and his lover? Marie-Josèphe wondered. Or an incubus and a succubus?
The shadows turned to her. Naked and alluring, they beckoned. They promised joy and pleasure in return for her submission. She shivered, distressed at the power of their temptation. She could not think of them as evil.
Marie-Josèphe blinked sleep from her eyes, unable to distinguish between imagination and dream.
The sea monster’s song remained. Marie-Josèphe opened the window. Cold damp night air poured in with the delicate melody. She snatched up a pen and transcribed the refrain.
Hours later, after the moon had set, false dawn turned the ground-mist brilliant silver.
The sea monster fell silent. The shadows disappeared. The pen slipped from Marie-Josèphe’s cramped fingers. She gathered up the sheets of paper that had fallen to the floor all around her, the drawings and the score for the cantata. Shivering, exhausted, her eyes and her hands aching, she pulled the window shut and huddled within the chevalier’s luxurious cape.
