Emilie's Voice (15 page)

Once Émilie was gone, Madame de Maintenon sent the footmen away and sat at her desk. She picked up a quill but did not write. Sometimes it helped her think, just to hold the quill in her hand. After a few moments of contemplation, she reached for the bell but did not pick it up. Instead she drew a sheet of paper out of the desk drawer and dipped the quill in the ink. For several minutes only the sound of scratching against paper broke the stillness of her room.

When she finished writing her letter, Madame de Maintenon folded and sealed it, then rang the bell. It was answered almost immediately by a footman.

“Deliver this to François,” she said. The footman took the note, bowed, and left.

Alone again, the widow Scarron knelt at her prie-dieu. The instructions she just sent to François, if they were ever intercepted, could send her to prison. She had told him to ask the wine steward for a particular vintage to serve to Émilie late on the night of her performance. This “vintage” was their secret signal for lacing a fine claret with sublimate, a slow-acting poison. By the time Émilie arrived in the king’s apartments, she would be very ill indeed, possibly near death. Madame de Maintenon picked up her rosary, knitted her fingers together, and began to pray. “Dear Lord, give me the strength to carry through this plan, and forgive me for the harm I may cause to an innocent creature. It is for a greater good, for your glory. I shall bring you a prize worthy of immense sacrifice. I shall bring you the soul of a king. Amen.”

Fourteen

When Charpentier arrived at the Atelier Jolicoeur one fine September afternoon riding a magnificent destrier, passersby stopped and stared. The horse was far more beast than one needed simply to get around Paris comfortably. Charpentier left it stamping and fretting, tied to the post outside the workshop on the Pont au Change, while he went in to share his latest letter from Émilie with Marcel. He knew it was a slight risk to let the luthier know that he and Émilie exchanged letters, but it seemed cruel not to do as Émilie asked him and convey news between the family members, separated for the first time in Émilie’s life.

“She will make her début in a week!” he said, scanning the paper for details that might be interesting to the luthier. Charpentier explained that it was a great honor for Émilie to be cast in the lead in one of Lully’s
tragédies lyriques
, and that it was very good for Émilie’s career. He described the grandeur of the role itself, explaining how Alceste consented to be sacrificed for the sake of her husband, and for her magnificent gesture was brought to life again by the gods.

“Hah!” exclaimed Marcel. “No woman would do such a thing. If she did, she would be a fool. For what man, in his heart, could ask it of her, if he truly loved her?”

Charpentier listened with only half his attention. His mind was racing with all that was ahead of him. He wished he could share his secret with Marcel. The luthier would be happy to know Émilie was coming back to Paris. But, then, would he be happy to know by what means, and for what reason?

“And does she eat well still?” Marcel asked.

“She does not often speak of the food. But she does not complain, so that must mean something!” Charpentier was eager to give Marcel any morsel of information that would set his mind at rest.

“What of the fine ladies and gentlemen? I know my wife would like to hear some of the gossip.”

“Émilie does not repeat gossip to me. I expect she’s too young to hear much of it. Sometimes she sings to entertain the ladies at cards, and she says that their gowns are very fine and that they wear many jewels.” By now Charpentier was fabricating news simply to feed Marcel’s desire for information about the life his daughter was leading. “And it sounds as if they keep her very busy with her lessons. She is learning to draw now.”

Marcel looked into Charpentier’s eyes. “Does she say when she will come home to visit?”

Charpentier looked away. He longed to tell Marcel the truth, but he dared not. “No, she mentions no visit. I think it is difficult. She has no one to bring her, and she must do as they say.” He folded up the letter and tucked it into his waistcoat. “I must leave you now,” he said to the luthier.

The two men walked out to the street. “Good-bye, Marcel.”

“God speed, Monsieur Charpentier.” Marcel held the reins of Charpentier’s horse close to the bit so that the composer could mount. He continued to gaze at Charpentier, as if he were waiting for him to say something more.

But Charpentier simply looked around at the crowd, whose eyes were drawn to the beautiful bay horse, smiled at Marcel, and trotted off in the direction of the Hôtel de Guise.

As he let the horse take his leisurely way back to the rue du Chaume, Charpentier’s mind was occupied with everything that was ahead. He wanted to shout from the rooftops that soon he would have Émilie back, soon he would once again be able to hear her magnificent voice sing his music.

But no sooner did he feel this uncontrollable elation than in the next instant he was assailed by doubts. It all seemed so fantastic, so unlikely. Perhaps it was a trick, and they were both being used. Charpentier hoped that there was nothing out of the ordinary about the dangers Émilie faced. Many a pretty serving girl had caught her master’s eye, but once removed, was soon forgotten. Yet in his heart he feared there was more to the entire thing than he could see from his vantage point in Paris. Émilie was pretty, but it was her voice that caused him alarm. When she gave herself to the music, when she let it take her over, she became a vessel for something beyond the notes themselves. She was possessed, she became another being, and to witness this transformation was to be transformed oneself.

More than anything, Charpentier wanted his music to possess Émilie again. The thought of Lully’s music passing through Émilie’s body and having this effect on her drove him nearly mad.

As often happened at these distracted moments, Charpentier began to form in his mind the contours of a melody. It would lie in the upper middle range of the female voice, the range that suited Émilie best. He would find a text, a poem, and then work melody and words until they fit each other as if they had been conceived in the same moment. Then he would write the air down in his notebook with others of its kind. There it would remain, unperformed like all the songs for
haut dessus
he had composed since Émilie left, waiting for her to come back and bring them to life. They were his gift to her voice.

Sophie found out very little from reading Émilie’s letters to Charpentier. Her dogged surveillance of the composer yielded much more, however. She knew that something was going to happen soon. It was too easy to read the signs. To begin with, she had seen Charpentier take a letter from the hand of a lady in an unmarked coach, and then noticed Charpentier’s subsequent restless and preoccupied behavior as he moved about the city. It was obvious to her that some scheme had been hatched. She had not yet discovered the exact day, time, or manner of the event, but she counted on her near invisibility to give her a certain advantage, and Sophie was quite confident that she would be one step ahead of the composer whatever course he planned to take.

The biggest clue that something was soon to happen came when one day Sophie followed Charpentier to a livery stable, and heard him instruct the groom to make sure his horse was well fed, clean, and ready to be ridden in three days’ time, at nine in the evening.

That was it—the information she had been waiting for. Charpentier had bought a horse and was going to carry Émilie away, she thought. Sophie wondered who was pulling the strings from Versailles. Clearly this was the final result of those letters from some unknown hand. She wished she were better informed about court matters. In her present mode of life, it would be difficult to get gossip from ladies, who were usually much more on top of things than men. But some of the men she knew were close enough to the inner circle to supply, quite inadvertently, vital facts. She knew, for instance, that the king went less frequently to Madame de Montespan’s boudoir these days and that he was often to be seen in deep conversation with the governess, Madame de Maintenon.

Sophie returned immediately to her room, forgoing her afternoon take to spend the next few hours figuring out the most effective way to ruin Charpentier’s plans. She decided fairly quickly that the best thing to do would be to alert someone at Versailles about the impend abduction. The trick was to write something revealing without identifying herself so that she could send it to Versailles and avoid any personal risk.

She stroked the bottom of her chin with the stiff, pointy feathers on the end of her quill, looked at what she had written, then took the paper and crumpled it up, tossing it angrily on the floor. Around her dainty feet were half a dozen dried-up orange peels, two empty wine bottles, and a quantity of similarly crumpled balls of paper. She sat on the edge of the bed in her stays and stockings and leaned on an old wine barrel she had fashioned into a makeshift desk.

“It just doesn’t sound believable!” she said aloud to Monsieur le Diable, who narrowed his eyes and purred a little more loudly, while he lounged next to her and languidly dug his claws into the straw of the bed. “What do I know, after all? They’ve been so goddamned clever!”

Now that she had the final bit of information she needed—a time and a date—all that was necessary was to write the letter, and Sophie would foil an abduction that doubtless involved Émilie. Why was it so difficult to find the right words?

“What if they don’t believe me?” And then there was the question of whom to send it to. She knew that if she addressed her letter directly to the king, it would probably never reach him, and if it did, he would dismiss it as some vindictive misinformation. And if she sent it to Madame de Montespan, there might be other hazards. She had heard that the king’s mistress was spending more and more of her time at Clagny, and she feared that news might take a while to filter through to her, so she might not act as quickly as necessary. Besides, if there was any chance that Émilie could engage the king’s affections, Madame de Montespan would quite likely prefer the abduction to succeed.

“I know!” Sophie said after a pause, taking up her quill with renewed enthusiasm. In a few short minutes she had written what she knew was the letter she would send.

Although Sophie had no idea whether the stern, devout widow Scarron had anything at all to do with Émilie, she thought the odds were even that she might be interested in preventing a defection from court, especially if what Sophie had heard was true, that the widow was working her way up in the king’s esteem and would do anything to oust Madame de Montespan.

Sophie put down her quill and stood up. Her elbows cracked as she stretched her soft, white arms over her head and yawned. When she brought them down, she scraped her knuckles on the rough plaster. If she stood sideways to the window, there was hardly an arm span between two of the walls of her room. Sophie remembered the vastness of Versailles. How she loved to dance in the Salle de Bal! It was there that the king had noticed her. But she had no illusions. She would have ended up doing exactly what she was doing now, only in finer clothes and in more elegant surroundings. And yet that would still have been something.

After carefully sealing the letter with a nub of sealing wax she had borrowed from a notary with a penchant for being spanked, and a hot ember from the tiny stove in the corner of her room, Sophie leaned the finished missive up against the mirror, then got down on her hands and knees and looked beneath her bed.

“Yecchhh!” she said. Monsieur le Diable had deposited a half-eaten mouse carcass there. No wonder it smelled so bad! But although she preferred to be clean, tidy, and organized herself, she left this place dirty on purpose, to discourage nosiness in her landlady. Tucked under the boards of her bed was a little leather pouch, which Sophie gently released from the groove that held it fast. She untied the drawstring of the pouch and emptied its contents onto the rough woolen blanket.

“Five, ten, twenty-five, forty!” Sophie counted with satisfaction. It was enough to purchase a fine dress, rent a better room, and make a fresh start. Sophie weighed the sealed letter in one hand and her hoard of coins in the other. She could forget all about Émilie and Charpentier if she wanted to. She could leave them to the luck of their own folly and walk away from this degrading life she had been forced to pursue for more than six months. Sophie had decided that instead of returning to a life of service, she would become an actress. Drawing herself up and adopting a regal air, she opened her mouth and began to sing a comic song. Her voice was husky and rough, but she could carry a tune. She stood and tried to mark the steps of a dance in the tiny space of her room. When she finished her performance, Sophie placed herself so that she could see almost her entire body in her little mirror. She ran her hands over its firm, youthful contours. All she needed was stays and a decent dress, and she could pass for a fine lady. Her present circumstances were only temporary. “I could have stopped any time before this. I had three proposals of marriage, I did!” she said to Monsieur le Diable once more, who opened his eyes wide suddenly, as if he did not actually believe her.

Sophie gathered up her treasure and hid it away again. Then she picked up the letter and fanned her face with it as she stared out of her window. Why should Émilie not have to suffer the consequences of her actions? she thought. Sophie noticed that the sky was becoming dark. Time to go out on the streets and earn a little more money for her nest egg. After she put on a dress that was hiked up very high on one side, and a cloak that she could open to reveal the leg the dress did not cover, Sophie put the letter in her pocket. She decided to let luck be her guide. If she happened to see the valet she knew who was acquainted with a groom who, in exchange for a little sex, could get the letter to Versailles by tomorrow, then she would send it. If it remained in her pocket by the end of her night’s work, she would burn it and think no more of the wretched slippers. She patted Monsieur le Diable on the head, then walked out of her tiny room into the cool autumn night.