Under the Poppy (39 page)

We sat silent then, as if beneath a pall, until
Come, Monsieur,
Benny calling softly from the bench, coaxing him into a sentimental waltz, four hands on the keys: M. Bok concentrating on his part, two simple chords, as Benny’s hands danced around his, coat sleeves brushing, smiling sideways into his eyes. It could melt a heart of steel, to see Benny smile so. One wonders how long M. Bok can resist…. He speaks so little, one must infer much, but he is clearly a man of probity, unusual perhaps in one who has spent his days among players. Probity, and clarity, a kind of keenness of the heart; Benny would be safe with him. Anyone might be safe, with him.

Meanwhile Mr. Entwhistle grows ever more steely—and yes, I chose him so, I cannot complain overmuch, but still. Pink hands knotted on the desktop, that blond slick of hair falling into his eyes, in dudgeon not only for Benny’s progress with the Greeks (not a thing he should worry for! though it is precisely that sort of allusion that Mr. Entwhistle deplores), but other subjects, more tedious and abstract:
A moral foundation is all that makes a man truly sound, Madame. And for a youth like Master de Metz, exposed every day to all sorts of temptations, all the dreadful pitfalls of pleasure and wealth
—

Dreadful indeed.

Indeed yes, Madame! And what I implore you to consider
—

—while here came Cook, barging in about the Christmas geese ordered from the farm at Chatiens, too many, or not enough, whatever the dilemma was—as Mr. Entwhistle sat twisting in his chair like a martyr at the stake, then off again on the temptations of feasting and frippery: It is a Christian holiday, our Savior’s birth. One ought to celebrate like a Christian, with prayer.

We do go to Mass, Mr. Entwhistle.

I know that you are Papists, Madame,
with a smile of such hungry disapproval that I admit I lost all patience, and reminded him that his business here is to teach Benny Latin and Greek, not rescue him from the fires of hell:
If you cannot aid Master de Metz in his learning, without provoking him unendurably in the process, then you ought to seek another position, or apply to the foreign missionaries. Is that understood?

Then the tedious apologies, anyone could see the man was near apoplexy; such a clumsy liar, is untruth not a sin? And once he was dismissed, here came the butler! I had to take myself out into the garden to purchase a moment’s peace.

Already the frost has come, to my Belle Étoiles, my favorites, their thick white petals and deep orange hearts; the Lady Beckinsales, the floribundas, all are down to thorny canes. It is so sad to see them go, each year, though one believes in spring’s resurrection; at least the asters are still vigorous, and the greenhouse is always my refuge…. Botanomancy, it is called, using the leaves of a plant to tell one’s fortune, burning them in a brazier fire, the old missus from the village used to do so. Showing me the patterns in the ash, raspberry and daisy and cabbage-rose, vines and twigs, teaching me to read their drift and scatter:
See what the flowers tell you, child.

And the head gardener at Chatiens, Axel, such a kindly fellow, he seemed old to me then but would have been, I hazard, my own age now. Always in his smock and sabots, a scarf wound round in the cold, never too busy to stop and answer my questions, praise me when I remembered, encourage me when I did not, the greenhouse doors left unlatched always so
The young mistress may have roses in the winter,
he would say, clipping a little bloom for me to take inside.

How I loved the smell, there, so fecund and alive, and so different from the formal gardens, lane on lane of roses, yes, but all sharp and unwelcoming, like a minotaur’s lair, to keep the world
en garde
. Not so in the greenhouse, Axel’s greenhouse—I remember the softness of the peony leaves, like flesh under silk, the feel of the moths against my skin, the blind white flutter of their wings—flowers are the procreative organs of the plants, I read that in a book and told it so to Axel, and I can still recall his tender smile:
Why, naturally, Miss. All that lives, loves.

Well. Love one may, whether one will or no, but from the time I could understand how I was damaged, I understood as well that no one would ever want me so: my father’s defect, that fused and twisted hand he never troubles to hide, but it is different, for a woman, a girl. I remember dancing, once, with some guest of my father’s, some Viennese gentleman who twirled me round beneath the lights, he had me laughing until You are not much like your mother was, he said, so wistfully that as soon as the music was ended, I escaped to the greenhouse. Axel was not there, no one was there, only I and the breathing flowers, and the winter rain falling outside. From then on I had the gloves made specially for me. My father never questioned the expense.

Now the leaves drift and litter the narrow paths, now when I sit to smoke my breath makes clouds like my cigarette’s. There is little peace to be found elsewhere. Only yesterday there was a letter from Charlotte, inquiring as to our plans for the Christmastide, and Benny’s birthday; we must have some gala, even if he does not wish one, though to have it here will please him far more than Chatiens. He will be eighteen, a man…. And that communiqué from Hector, for Benny, my girl brought it quite properly first to me: some breezy farrago about a horse, did Benjamin prefer a gelding or a stallion? Is that Hector’s way of being subtle?
Mon Dieu.
If Benny thinks of him at all, Hector, it is as some antique colleague of our father’s, no one he must notice or mind. Especially now, when he is in such a dreamy, lovely, yearning humor: watching the stars, calling me “Bella,” sharing a song he learned at the children’s theatre—
What’s the use of tears, my dears
—and
You ought come and see me play,
he said, smiling over his shoulder until I smiled, too, tears in my eyes that he did not see. What’s the use of tears, my dears, indeed. Oh indeed. My precious boy—does Hector imagine I will surrender him without a battle? I am not entirely powerless, even with only one hand.

“Are you coming or going?” Istvan asks of Lucy crisply crossing the Blackbird stage where he sits, whittling at a little wooden dagger, blade to blade. Bundled in a duster, daubs and spatters, her skirts streaked dark with rain and “It was that tutor fellow,” she says. “Delivering this,” a note marked for Benjamin de Metz. Istvan makes a face—“Oh? Are we his postbox, now?”—as he takes it from her, slitting it with a practiced thumbnail, a smile for her raised eyebrows: “Why goodness, Puss, don’t you read the broadsheets? It pays to be informed. Is the man still out there?”

She shakes her head: gone almost before he came, thrusting the paper at her as if she were contagious, what an odd fellow and “I’ll play delivery boy,” says Istvan, slipping the note into his sleeve. “Are they here, both our noble young thespians?”

Lucy sweeps a hand down her duster. “We’re painting scenery for the Nativity show. That Pinky had a good thought, to use slut-wool for the background, the sheep on the hills—”

“The boy’s got the breath of the stage about him to be sure. Put him in a costume, darling, don’t be shy.”

“And,” with care, “what about the other?”

“The Happy Prince? We’ll give him some work that suits him—dip him in whitewash, call him a statue,” with a little wink that carries no real humor, Benjamin a subject she mostly avoids, no longer a joking matter. Not that he knows it, and in some ways it is not at all his fault, but it is a pity just the same: handsome is as handsome does, and there is something sad and cruel about that young man, something lost amidst the beauty and the gold.

It was Rupert’s idea, to have Master de Metz at the Blackbird: she did not follow his thinking but he has never asked her for anything, has given her everything, so of course she would not refuse him, would not even refuse it in her heart. But Rupert is not the one who has to manage him! nor watch Istvan ignore and criticize him by turns, toying with him like a tomcat does a kit; there is something sad and cruel about him these days, as well.

Still, there is in Benjamin an admiration for Istvan, though neither would ever own it: he is, in life, so much like those poet heroes both boys chatter on about, the ones who defy all the rules and do as they will. Just yesterday Pinky was quoting some poetical nonsense as she sewed, something about dying in the arms of the Muse, it sounded pretty enough but
Have you ever watched a man die?
she asked him, and that took some of the air out of the pillow! Oh, well. There is no malice in Pinky, to be sure, even Benjamin says so:
He wounds only by accident,
with that superior air, but they are fond comrades, one can see, Benjamin as leader and Pinky his lieutenant: both have stopped wearing their gaycoat weeds, since Benjamin seemingly decided he must dress as Rupert does, all grays and blacks, though nothing on earth could make Pinky look grave. They would be a fine addition to the troupe, the pair of them, if only—

—as Lucy breathes a little sigh, Istvan resuming his woodwork, then takes herself backstage to find that Mickey has managed to glue a tin crown to his head, causing much merriment all around, until she pulls out the lye-soap and the snips. As they struggle together, the others finish painting the sky above the rustic stable where the Christmas play will unfold: still weeks away, but there is much to accomplish in the meantime, costumes to fit and devise, music to learn, and lines for a story simple enough: a rich young man arrives by accident at the holy site, burdened by his cares, and is put through his paces by a heavenly spirit. It is to be called
Angels on Horseback,”
Istvan promising to be the angel, as well as help the boys with the marionettes, their ambitions far beyond their current skill.

In a way, those young fellows are the youngest of Lucy’s charges, just babes on the stage, though each brings his own strengths: Benjamin’s beauty and quite passable piano, Pinky’s industry and dash, and his hard work—for he does work, more joyfully than he ever has before; Istvan has called it truly, he has the breath of the stage about him. Much to the dismay if not outright wrath of his father, upright Honoré dour to ask his wife across the breakfast tea if
That boy is fully mad, now? Costume or no, people will know who he is, who his people are. I ought send him to Austria, or into the army; that will scotch his nonsense.

But Madame Guerlain is more sanguine:
Why trouble yourself? Achille tires of everything so quickly, it will be horse racing next, or perhaps he will marry. Or I’ll take him with me to the country, shall I?
Privately Mme. Guerlain resolves to go and see the show, in disguise of course, it would not do to show too much consent; she will call in the vendeuse, and have something bewitching stitched up straightaway. Perhaps she will dress as an Arabian lady, with silks and scarves, or perhaps those quaint balloon trousers—trousers! Would that not be delightful?

It is a tasty tale in the city’s more refined salons, the errant young men and their playacting folly, the ladies murmuring with raised eyebrows of the milieu: Miss Bell the unmarried proprietress, and M. Dieudonne, her onstage partner, so dashing and apparently dissolute. A few have seen his puppet show at the Golden Calf, though none will acknowledge it, and even less the Fin du Monde, itself so louche a destination that no lady can publicly admit to crossing its threshold. There are rumors that Isobel de Metz has become a silent patron of the Blackbird ménage, for did she not have those players to her home more than once? And does she not, perhaps, have her eye upon the manager of the place, that handsome and melancholy Mister Bok? for whom a noblewoman like Isobel would surely be manna from Heaven, though the connection were necessarily secret and short-lived. And tit for tat:
If one were as unfortunate as poor Isobel,
opines one of the ladies, perhaps it is Letitia van Symans,
any man would serve as a likely warming-pan. Especially one younger than she
—

If it’s Isobel who’ll win him,
shrugs bosom-friend Fernande.
You know little Benny cannot keep his trousers fastened, he taught that tutor a thing or two. Oh, don’t look so shocked
, as Caroline de Mercy makes a face: How dreadful! Benjamin de Metz, a catamite?
What was his name, that German fellow—?

—as the gossip is filtered and digested in other, calmer quarters, considered over a cup of hot Assam, savored along with the port: if M. Bok is truly become an habitué of the de Metz home, it makes him useful indeed, in more ways than one, and the whole situation worth watching from very close range. Hanzel will not accept his commission? His mind may yet change on that score. Dusan plays his hand alone? Perhaps there is a wild card in the deck.

And from the drawing room at Chatiens issue forth the weekly letters, Isidore de Metz’s long epistles to his son, to his far-flung associates, to those whose allegiance is beyond question, to others whom he would not trust within five paces in a noonday light. He feels the growing weight of age and infirmity, he writes more swiftly; imagining Benjamin here, in this chair, carrying on the work begun before his birth, shepherding the de Metz will into the future, shaping the modern age yet to be. Upstairs, in her sumptuous and lonely bedroom, his miserable young wife sees her monthlies come and go as regularly as the carriages to Paris, wishing she were in Paris, or even at the townhouse with Isobel and Benjamin—and what will happen to Charlotte, when
he is master? If she has no children to buffer her, what then? It is true that Benjamin does not seem to despise her as much as does Isobel, but one can never tell with him, Benjamin who, if the rumors are true, is involved in some sort of amateur theatricals, and what will his father say when he hears that?