Under the Poppy (41 page)

“Beg pardon, my lord, your guest is in the library.”

“I will be there directly,” without looking up from his letter that he signs, blots, seals, and notes in the gray journal, then “Helmut,” as he rises, “inform Mme. de Metz that we will be traveling. We will spend Christmastide in the city.”

“Yes, my lord,” holding the door as his master passes to his appointment, the majordomo, alert and cadaverous, then mounting the stairs to the young Madame’s chambers, where he finds her snipping the fringe from her skirts in a vain attempt to pass the time. She receives the message with puzzlement and pleasure, rattling on to the silent Helmut, silently chewing his digestive mint, of how lovely it will be, such a journey and sojourn, how there are perfect quantities of things to do before departing, how she has been positively dreading the holidays here, alone in the cold at Chatiens—

“How should you be alone, Madame? The master is in residence.”

Silence: Charlotte laughs, an empty little sound, then hangs her head like a child. A pair of crows rise from the lawn, calling one to another in the language of combat and flight. When Helmut has withdrawn, Charlotte takes up pen and scented paper, and fills three sheets with exclamations of delight: how very glad she is to accept Isobel’s Twelfth Night invitation, how wonderful it will be to see the two of them again, her children-by-marriage, and most of all how pleased their dear father will surely be, to celebrate with his loving family the birth of their darling Benjamin, and that other birth, of the Savior of them all.

The smell is the same, that oily tallow odor, and the dampness, too, in this workroom where Istvan sits, scraping wood to life, like those long-ago weeks spent with, what was her name? that matronly whore? Lucienne, yes. Living on scraps and tatters, constructing, from the corpse of Marco, Pan Loudermilk, who now lies as still, face perpetually shrouded with black silk, in his traveling coffin, with no shows to offer and nowhere to go. The same fate has befallen the romantic Chevalier and the sturdy, lovely Miss Lucinda, who hang in comradely near-embrace, dangling arms not quite touching; the Bishop has gone into Lucy’s employ, to become the sad spectre of Death, banished at play’s end by the holy Christmas star, without even a line of his own to speak…. The troupe of puppets-within-puppets, the toys, he made for Pinky and the little lads to use—devil and girl and who knows what else, carved as much to soothe himself as for any larger purpose—but they are a fine size, easy to manipulate, they will do well in this show he has promised Lucy he will play in, a promise he may no longer be able to keep, though it will not do to tell her so. Not yet.

The warped handle of the planing knife lies easy in his hand, and Feste, swaddled in purple like an emperor or a penitent, lies within reach, the both a kind of wordless comfort, as he sits otherwise wholly alone; and this, too, is familiar, this loneliness, from the days of Lucienne: Mouse gone then, disappeared, and gone now, too, into hiding, from himself as much as from Istvan. He wants that boy, and, being Mouse, does not want to want him, and thus makes much of what should be little, a shooting star framed up like the sun. On a stage it would be comical. On a stage…. Instead one must sit and watch as he tries not to watch those curls and graces from the dark back of the house, and deflect enquiries that are simply beneath them both—

That Benjamin—you’re harsh with him, aren’t you.

Not at all, and no more than the little homunculus deserves.

If he—annoys you, why not dismiss him?

Shall I? Would you miss him if I did?

—and that make an ache between them, a raw spot that pains the more as Istvan begins to see how the path is turning, the way he will very shortly have to walk. If only they had kept on the move, and lived the life they were meant to! when one carried all one’s life in two hands, and out the back when the shadows gathered; someday, perhaps, they will do so again. It is something to live for at any rate; and this dream, too, is familiar. Perhaps all life is so, the same joys and sorrows in endless repertoire.

Eyes half closed, his hands stay busy, a new face growing into rapid life beneath the blade, a face all eyes but without a mouth, just a molded slash in the wood; this one will have nothing to say, and little to do, at tonight’s command performance, the General’s dinner at the Hôtel Violette: a public arena, safe enough though he has tipped the meeting to Boilfast; and to Lucy, too, there at the table with her teapot and her Mister Pimm:
I’ll be supping with the quality tonight, yeah? Not a true show, just parlor tricks,
making light of it while making sure she understands; she is quick, she remembers how it was at the Poppy. And Pimm, too, is no fool: whether or not the fellow likes him, still he is shrewd enough to see that what touches Istvan touches Lucy, and the man is clearly taken with Puss. So much the better. She will need a strong hand beside her in the days to come.

Now the light has weakened, darkness is coming on, early winter’s early sunset to drive the strollers from the streets into the taverns, the cafés and arcades, or home to onion soup and loving arms. The old-fashioned oil lamp twists shadows up the walls; it is cold in the room, now, Istvan’s shoulder waking into its sharp familiar throb. The blade glides down the swift-planed face, the wondering eyes, the hair a scrap of boiled wool, stuck so; tie a bit of ribbon for a cravat, an impudent, gallant sprig of yellow silk; enough.

“Enough,” he says aloud, rising to dust away the drift and curl of the wood shavings, flex his arms, slip the planing knife into his pocket where it lies like a comrade beside another, smaller knife, with a scuffed white handle, that never can be lost. Into his rooms for his own toilette, his own brave bright cravat, his hat and a hard swallow of brandy to put heart into him: so weary of this kind of combat, but one does what one must and a show is a show so “Hola,” he salutes little Mickey, who waits in the shadows near the stairwell, just where Istvan placed him an hour before. “Any movements on the front, Lieutenant?”

“No, sir,” stoutly. “No one but Mr. Pimm for Miss Bell.”

“Do you consider,” gravely, leaning down so they are face-to-face, “that he is sweet on our Miss Bell, that Mr. Pimm?”

“I do, sir. I seen ’em kissing out on the promenade.”

“Indeed. Do you consider,” slipping him a coin, “that you might stand by this door awhile longer, and tell me, later, or tomorrow, if anyone at all should come? It’s much to ask,” head to one side, knowing what the boy will answer, Mickey so kin to him that they might have been comrades on the streets long ago, they
are
comrades and “I can stay all night,” says Mickey, to bring Istvan’s smile, a smile the boy cherishes as much as the coin to which Istvan adds a second and “If you are here when I return,” he says, “I’ll take you to the Golden Calf the next I play,” a promise so vast that Mickey’s eyes pop wide, his grin lights up the hallway—

—as Istvan exits down the stairs, not seeing, as he goes, Rupert approaching, hatless and with a bottle in his hand. With a little nod, he acknowledges Mickey’s presence, enters the rooms to leave them again in just a moment, so plainly unhappy with the emptiness inside that Mickey, who likes Mister Rupert, feels moved to remark that “Mister Istvan’s just gone off, sir.”

Rupert pauses in the hallway’s dark. “Did you see him?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did he say—” stupid, to ask a child “—where he was bound?”

“No, sir. But he’ll be back,” as Rupert turns away, stepping into the theatre as empty now, Lucy busy elsewhere, her brood dispersed, only Mickey about, and why is that?—but too dull-hearted to ask more, and what does it matter at any rate? Istvan was the one he wanted, and Istvan, as usual, is gone.

Up he climbs, through the hush all true theatres own, that dim silence like an indrawn breath, up through the dark, the pulleys’ sway, to the dry beams and iron shelter of the catwalk; always the urge, when he is wounded or perplexed, to be up high. Istvan used to tease him for it, ask him if his father was a gargoyle or his mother a bird; and sometimes it was simply for safety, how they roosted on the rooftops, wrapped up together in a coat, fresh in the morning to climb back down and take again to the road…. He can smell it on him, Istvan, that mounting need to be off: and dreads the repetition of the demand, surely it will come, but the question is why, not where or how. To roam as mere travelers would be foolish, would in the end satisfy neither; and they cannot be again as they once were.

He rubs his forehead, yesterday’s headache become today’s, tomorrow’s too no doubt. In some ways all
was
simpler, on the road, though even more wearing—always the need to think and plan at least two jumps ahead—and more hazardous, too: not only cold and hunger were their enemies, Istvan forgets so much…. And the Poppy was no answer, either. This place—in this place they could be safer if not safe, they could live quietly, Lucy too, and Istvan could perform on any stage in the town, all would be overjoyed to have him; or make a theatre of his own if he fancies, they have money enough.

But instead Istvan grows ever more snappish, like a dog chained to a post: out to the Calf and back again with his itch unscratched, toys carved for Lucy’s children but nothing for himself—and Rupert dare not ask or urge him, for what would the answer be?
Puppets for what show, Mouse? For what house?
And when they are alone, his moods more unpredictable than ever, by turns tender and fierce, or sullen and demanding, that look in his eyes—No, there is nothing to say, nothing to do but watch as Istvan vents his temper on those lackwits at the Calf, or dabbles in society, even jousting, Jesu, with the General at that party. Madame de Metz, now, she has been more than kind to all of them, to Lucy, to himself, but Istvan mocks her, too, because of her brother. Because of Benjamin.

Tipping the bottle, more whiskey sucked slow between his teeth; something scrabbles in the scenery far below, false stable, authentic rat. Reaching into his breast pocket, Rupert takes out the little red journal, balances it unopened on his knee: no need to turn the pages again, read the poems written there; they are all for him, all about him. Dark angel of the garden, heart’s desire, lord and master of pleasures, it is strange and amazing to see himself portrayed with such open passion, such—adoration.
Maître, Maître
…. Istvan has often been treated so, to bring his own rage or bemusement; but never before has it happened to him.

And even stranger, in some ways, is to read a tale that is the tale of one’s own life, Benjamin’s daily doings worked into these dreams, these poems, intertwined with his own—
There at the piano, white keys beside black, your hands beside mine
—it is a kind of magic mirror, like the stage itself, as if they all were characters on the boards….

He has made it his business not to be alone with Benjamin, since those moments in the hallway; no one knows except, yes, Istvan, who sees straight through him and always has, and Benjamin who sees, now, that he is wanted in return, the air between them is ripe with it: grown bolder in his overtures,
Did you read my poems yet, Monsieur?
Istvan would scoff, but Benjamin is his best ally in the argument for fleeing back to the road. Those smiles, these poems, nothing in it but rue and trouble—with another swallow of whiskey, a long one, as if he is parched or in pain. And Benjamin himself is troubled, anyone can see that: the changeable moods, now radiant, now downcast; the chameleon clothing; the way he chews a knuckle until it bleeds, Rupert has stopped him once or twice and now when he sees Rupert watching, he will stop himself, give a smile that shows he understands: See, Monsieur? I do just as you tell me. Tell me what to do. Jesu. And a lord’s son in the bargain—! Perhaps he ought to take to the road alone, hire out to sea on a tramp steamer, or hie back to Decca at the Poppy, perhaps she needs a good front-of-the-house man again: he is not too old, he has a few swings left in him, and there is a certain honest pleasure to be had in breaking heads.

Below, a door opens, Lucy crossing swiftly from one side of the stage to the other, a rush basket of props in her arms, tin stars made to spangle the Christmas sky; she carries no light, she does not see him, like some angel, yes, or kobold, roosting up above. When she has gone, the stillness seems deeper, the silence that falls between one act and the last. He takes up the little journal, to replace it in his pocket, but instead allows it to fall open, allows himself to read once more—as best he can through the dimness, the looped extravagant scrawls of ink—that the sound of his footsteps approaching is the sweetest sound in all the world.

To be a woman is to be, in a certain sense, a creature in peril, the city is as the world, a man’s creation, and without a man’s protection, a woman alone turns prey. Still, there are many places where a lady may travel the thoroughfares in safety, at least in the daylight hours: the long stroll of the promenade is one, beneath the blind benevolence of the statues’ eyes; or down the intersecting lanes of the public gardens, though these are more deserted since the weather turned, the leafy trees bare and the flowerbeds empty, nothing left on view but the topiary evergreens, dark spheres and squares beside the brick-paved paths, where the groundsmen creep along like sturdy beetles, gloved and hatted in the cold.

The arcades, while made primarily for evening’s pleasures, have their daylight traffic too, household maids sent trotting on errands, apothecary girls, and the greengrocers’ and market shops are busy with the busy working-class mamans. To find the bourgeoisie and their more noble sisters, one need only cross over to Dressmakers’ Row, its milliners’ and couturier shops, where, alone or with a bosom friend or two, they meet and gossip in clusters, comparing babies’ colics and the distant woes of distant husbands, or the nearer joys and miseries of lovers; and learn that red velvet is the color this season, a brushed and burnished shade more russet than cherry, and that skirts are growing daringly narrow, while feathers have fallen quite out of favor, replaced by flowers worked of beading or sewn so cunningly from silk that one can barely tell them from fresh blooms. And the seamstresses assure each customer before the mirror that this caping, that cameo neckline, this tumble of coffee-colored lace, is exactly what is needed to set off Madame’s individual charms, whether Madame is sister to Venus or daughter of the trolls beneath the dirt. There is little a wise needle cannot accomplish, and money, as elsewhere, sews a fine exacting seam.

But no matter the ultimate destination, still Isobel is unaccustomed to solo excursions, so this day she is attended by Otilie, in a decorous bonnet and cape to her ankles. Madame’s lady’s-maid has been left behind, for what reason Otilie does not guess or care to, but she intends to prove equal to her mistress’ every need on this odd trip: watching where Madame steps in the mucky streets, shielding Madame from the ruck and clutter of the passersby, guarding Madame’s articles as if they were precious relics—not only for the umbrella handle’s carven jade, the black pearls that adorn the reticule’s pink brocade, if they were rag and twig she would treat them with no less reverence, for they are Madame’s, who has all favors to grant and all sorrows to inflict. All the quality are so, and as such well worth the serving, as long as a girl keeps her mind to her task. It is a shame that Master Benjamin is not one for the ladies, that would have been a nice bonanza, but still he has provided Otilie with a penny or two, backhanded though it might have been—funny that anyone would pay for verse, but he writes such a quantity of poetry, Master Benjamin, and scatters it about like falling leaves. She must tell Lucy Bell about it, whenever next they meet….