The Porcelain Dove (63 page)

"Three wishes," said Jean out of the ensuing silence. "In the tales. If they don't marry, they get three wishes."

"And each wish more foolish than the last is the way it usually goes," I said, "with the wisher no better off at the end than he was before."

Jean pounded his fist on his knee. "No, no, Duvet, it doesn't have to be that way at all. I've thought it out, and the way I figure it is if your requests are neither too humble—like a sausage, for example—nor too grand—like being God—then you'll do well enough." Hopeful and uncertain, he turned to Linotte. "You can grant wishes, can't you, mademoiselle?"

Linotte shrugged. "Bien sûr," she said. "Am I not a sorcerer?"

"Well, then," said Jean. "First, I wish for my body to be comfortable. Second, I wish for my spirit to be at rest. Third . . . "

I leaned across Linotte and shook his arm. "Have a care, Jean, lest you find your wishes leading you to early burial in a silk-lined coffin.
My
first wish is to know how mademoiselle intends to go about granting all this rag-bag of wishes."

"Dear Berthe," said Linotte. "Cautious as always. I'll make you a present of your answer and not count it one of the three. There's a spell my master taught me that will remove Beauxprés from the circle of the world and set it among the enchanted realms. Whoever dwells within its pale will live happily indeed—well-fed, in good health, supplied with whatever he likes most. An earthly paradise, in short."

Strange as it now seems to me, at that moment Linotte's enchanted realm was all my heart's desire. Of late the world hadn't been so pleasant a place that leaving it seemed unbearable. If only I might see Pompey again! But Pompey, I reflected, was a wizard, and as likely
to visit me out of the circle of the world as in it. I'd nothing to lose, and an eternity of comfort to gain, so—

"Bon," I said. "That is my wish, then. To stay in Beauxprés with my mistress, sharing her Paradise as I've shared her Hell. You promise us eternal health, bodily comfort, and peace of mind. What more could one want, after all?"

"What more indeed?" said Linotte. "And you, Jean?"

"This magic realm of yours, it will have horses in it?" asked Jean cautiously.

"If you wish."

"I do. And women? Other than Duvet here and you and madame my mistress, I mean."

Linotte laughed. "That's four wishes, Jean, if I count your first two. Yet I'll grant it. After all, you've wished for bodily comfort, haven't you? And Berthe here desires peace." She tapped her cheek with one finger, a gesture that reminded me of Pompey. "They wouldn't be human, of course."

Jean bridled. "Not human, mademoiselle? What do you take me for? I am a God-fearing man, me, and will have no commerce with beasts or demons!"

Now 'twas Linotte's turn to stare in offended surprise. "What right have you, Jean Coquelet, to question my judgment? Where am I to get these human women for you, hein? From the village? From a brothel? From the side of the road? Do I ask if they'd like to warm your bed, or do I just translate them naked into your arms? A strange way you have of fearing God, I vow."

Jean protested, but after some little argument, supposed he'd learn to make do with the demons, providing mademoiselle did something about their cloven hooves. Linotte, laughing, said he'd get used to them.

While they bickered, my mind was brushed by the tail of a loose end. Linotte had spoken of madame, and of monsieur her father, and of both her brothers. "What of mademoiselle?" I asked abruptly. "Will she stay here in her enchanted realm and live happily ever after with the rest of us?"

"Without a prince?" Jean couldn't have sounded more shocked had I suggested she dance naked in the Palais-Royal. "Our tale may be told, Duvet, but mademoiselle is still young, and much too fair, if she'll permit me the liberty, to die a maid."

"Oh, I'll not die a maid," said Linotte dryly. "That, at least, I
may safely swear. As for a prince . . . Well, there are fewer in the world than once there were. To answer your question, Berthe: No. I'll not stay at Beauxprés."

"Mademoiselle must do as she thinks best," I said irritably. "She's done well enough so far, except for losing Pompey somewhere along the way. Where's Pompey, mademoiselle? Where's your old tutor, who was kinder to you than your own flesh and blood? What reward for his constancy, hein? Did you cut off his head and tail and release him from the evil enchantment that made his skin black?"

Well, she looked up at that, I'll tell you. For a moment she held my gaze, then dropped her eyes as if suddenly uncertain of her ground.

"Of course," she said, "he was dear to you. Indeed, I half-thought I'd find him here, but I should have known he'd not return, not so long as monsieur my father was lord of Beauxprés. The truth is, Berthe, that I sent him away in a fit of temper. I thought he was telling me to do a horrible thing. 'Twas a misunderstanding—I realize that now. At the time, I hated myself and him and, being unable to banish myself, banished him instead. Now I would beg his pardon, ask him to take me once more as his apprentice, for I know I have a great deal yet to learn of life and magic both. I'd call him if I could, but I can't, and I don't know where or how to find him."

By the end of this speech, she sounded so forlorn that my anger was overturned by an upheaving of pity. As I've said, I was always a little awkward with Linotte, so all I could do to show it was pat her arm and say, "There, there, mademoiselle. You'll find him, I'm sure. And when you do, tell him Berthe would be glad to see him, should he choose to visit."

He never came.

Perhaps Linotte never found him to give him my message; perhaps she found him and never told him. Perhaps he tried to come and couldn't get through Linotte's spell without breaking it. Perhaps he couldn't get through it, tout simple. Sometimes I wonder whether Linotte couldn't get through it either, and if that's why
she
never returned. I've wondered, too, what tale she entered when she left, and whether she found Pompey, or true love, or adventure, or only a solitary death at the end of it. I wish I knew, just as I wish I knew what happened to Peronel, and Marie, and Mme de Bonsecours, and Olympe, and Malesherbes, and Artide, and mère Boudin, and all the rest of those whose tales, for a time, ran alongside mine.

When first I picked up this quill, the things I did not know and understand filled my soul with a regret as sour as wine hoarded long past its prime. Writing, I have poured them all out upon this paper, and find, now that I have come to the end, that their bitterness has leached away. I'm left with the paper itself, a monstrous stack of it thick as a folded blanket, covered with what I know and understand. And the sight of it makes me feel as light and clear as an empty bottle waiting to be filled with new wine.

As I write these words, I sit in the enchanted garden that was once a laundry-yard upon the stone bench where I once sat with Marie, the bench Adèle calls Berthe's throne. My lap-desk rests upon my knees, heavy with the weight of my tale. This paper is the last blank sheet. This ink is the last drop wetting the belly of my crystal nestling.

By the bone-white fountain, Adèle and Colette rehearse Colette's new play. Adèle is tearing a passion to tatters and Colette is sprawled on the grass at her feet, laughing helplessly. Jean has told me the play is a prodigious droll tragedy concerning a pair of servants waiting for their master who never appears. Not to spoil the performance, I have not yet read it, but I have helped Adèle to sew all the dresses for it —artful rags of brown and gold like the Forêt des Enfans in October. Justin, perched upon the basin's rim with the playbook in his hand, listens to his mother rant. I see that he is smiling.

On the bench beside me, Jean is whittling goose feathers to a fine, sharp point.

I've told him that my quill is magic, that I'll need no more pens, that my tale is almost at an end. He says he'd prefer to be prepared when I recall some conversation I've left out and need a sharp pen for adding it.

Adèle drops her hand from her brow and bends to pull Colette to her feet. Justin shuts the playbook and offers it to Colette, with a comic little bow and a remark that sends her off laughing again. Adèle cuffs her son's head lightly, ruffles his hair, turns and sees me watching. Now she beckons, arms outstretched, and calls to me.

"Here, Berthe, Colette has a part for you to play. Come and see."

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Greer Gilman for reading this as many times as I rewrote it and always keeping the threads untangled.

Ellen Kushner for helping me find Beauxprés, both in France and in Boston.

Ann Downer, Mary Hopkins, Deb Manning, Pam Summa, and Elizabeth Willey for honesty and critical acumen. What they don't collectively know about reading mss. isn't worth knowing.

Anne Hudson for invaluable help with research.

Dr. Patricia Craddock for getting me into the Bibliothèque Nationale.

Dr. Patricia Papernow for advice on matters psychological.

Faye Ringel Hazel for finding and translating La Grotte's song from the Provençal.

Patri Pugliese for explaining the ins and outs of the minuet.

Adelaide Kent, Beverly Momoi, Mimi Panitch, Caroline Stevermer, and Patricia Wrede for analysis, encouragement, and hole-spotting.

Jo Ann Citron, for asking the hard questions and living with the struggle for the answers.

HISTORICAL NOTE
AND
BIBLIOGRAPHY

Beauxprés was never in the Jura Mountains or anywhere else upon the earth. The small medieval town of Nozeroy, however, looks very much like it, and can be found 70 kilometers south of Besançon in the Franche-Comté. There was never a Jorre Maindur, but there was a Gilles de Rais, and anyone familiar with accounts of that unlovely gentleman's trial will recognize Jorre's description of his own crimes. There was no Mme de Bonsecours among the prisoners at Port Libre, but there was a M. Coittant, who kept a detailed diary of his stay there, which was reprinted in Charles A. Dauban's
Les Prisons de Paris sous la révolution
(Paris, 1870).

Anyone seeking further information on the bibliothèque bleu and French folklore may consult Robert Danton's
The Great Cat Massacre
(New York, 1985). Most of my history comes from Simon Schama's
Citizens
(New York, 1989), and most of my gossip from a variety of memoirs and letters. For the cultural history, I am indebted to the work of Braudel and his school of Annalistes. Because of their work among the city halls and armament rooms of France, finding out exactly how much a lady's maid earned in 1775 is much easier than you'd think.

Braudel, Fernand.
The Structures of Everyday Life
. New York, 1981.

Manceron, Claude.
The Age of the French Revolution
, Vols. I-V. Paris, 1979; New York, 1989.

Maza, Sarah.
Servants and Masters in Eighteenth Century France
. Princeton, 1983.