Under the Poppy (56 page)

But when I urged
Take him, at least take Pan,
Istvan shook his head:
We must travel very light, now, Mouse and I. And very swiftly, too—not that I mind. I’ve had a bellyful of this place,
with the old faint lines of scorn and strain, looking around the rooms as if he saw there only that he had never meant to stay so long.

Then his gaze met mine, and we both smiled, though the tears still ran down my cheeks. “What’s the use of tears, my dears?”—it is a song the children sing—and
I’ve something for you,
I told him then,
or rather, for Rupert. From Otilie
, as he made a face,
her friend the kitchen maid
who’d said she kept his things for him, there, at that gaol; most of them, anyroad. A case with its locks snapped, and some bank-papers inside, a rolled-up shirt, a billfold emptied out—a shame there, but no surprise—though I was that surprised to see the knife, that fine little knife with its ivory handle, you’d guess someone would have picked that up right away. Istvan did not seem surprised, though very pleased; he tucked the knife into his own pocket, and left the rest in the case.
I’ll give it him directly—he’d add his thanks to mine, I know.

How is Mr. Rupert?

Mr. Rupert is fine, though his eye wants doctoring. There’s an oculist in London who is said to be the best; we will travel there first, I think.

And then where?

Everywhere. Who knows?
with a careless shrug like first I saw him, so long, long ago, there at the Poppy when I thought—I have to laugh, remembering—I thought, Why, I’d like that saucy puppet-fellow, I’ll have that fellow if I can. Showing my leg like a voudou dancer…! And wanting so much to know the things he knew, hear of the places he had gone: like a chick peep-peeping in the egg, watching a bird fly by above. A blackbird.

He had to leave sharpish, he said, they were for the road that very night, but after he had gathered what he needed there was time for us to share a glass, and I put on, for him, the goldfish brooch; I wore it at the wedding, too. We talked of the big and the small, of Pinky, Pimm, and Mickey—
I owe him a sport at the Calf
, said Istvan,
though I won’t be playing there again. Here, give him this,
taking from one of the puppet cases a thing half a knife and half a kind of buttonhook, with a wicked little blade.
It will carve wood nicely. Just let him be mindful of the edge.

That ceneral—I heard he took some carving.

Why, I heard that, too
, and we had a little smile, because I was glad, and he was glad, and we drank to that passing without needing to say more. And I asked after Mme. de Metz, though he was chary there, saying little beyond
What’s here,
knock-knocking on the lip of the puppet case, the good hard pine,
that’s what’s yours, yeah? Let the rest go diddle itself. Especially the quality.

And what of Master Benjamin?
Though he knew what, really, I was asking.
All’s well, there?

As well as ever will be
….
Give a kiss, then, Puss,
setting down his glass, picking up his hat: and I did, I did not cry, I kissed him with all my heart: for the puppets, and all the things he had taught me, the stages of the Poppy, and the Blackbird; for himself. And I tucked a pippin apple into his pocket, and I kissed him again:
For Mr. Rupert—tell him farewell. And to have a care for his eye. And to stop smoking so!
which made him smile, a smile I kept until his cab was all round the corner and gone, kept it even while I cried…. I touched the little golden fish on my breast, to make its tail move, then set it safe back inside the lockbox, with the little blue eye, that strange old lover’s eye beside my earbobs, the prettiest things I have but for my wedding ring, now, my pearl from Pimm.

Since then, there have been many things I would have cared to share with Istvan: for one, Pinky’s announcement of his wedding-to-be. I don’t know as his missus will be kinder than his father, but Pinky is like Puggy was, a friend of the west wind, he always sees the bright side of the coin:
Why, it’s my thinking we’ll go on fine together. She likes a bit of fun, Adele does. And best of all, when I marry, there’s money set aside from the old stick, money to do as I like with, and I do like to help, Miss Bell—pardon, Mrs. Pimm, now! My, that was a pretty party, wasn’t it?
For not only did he give me away, he poured out the champagne, and gave the salutation, and squeezed the concertina as Didier piped along on the flute:
I’m getting miles better, aren’t I?
And he put into my hands another gift from Mme. de Metz, a pair of gloves so lovely I almost feared to wear them, all trimmed and fluted with Alençon lace, bridal lace, with a little stone—Pinky said it was a peridot—to fasten up with a loop at the wrists. They were snug on me, made for some lady with tinier mitts, but didn’t they look a treat?

And last week who did I see but herself, Madame in a carriage on Dressmakers’ Row: where she spotted me, too, and insisted I take a turn about the promenade. A tippet of purest ermine-white, and a kind of skirt I haven’t seen before, blue-shot silk and quite narrow at the hips:
It’s Christobel’s choice,
showing me the ruching at the sleeves.
She is outfitting me
à la mode
for our journey
—to Greece and Italy and Spain, all the sunny places, though we’ve had our bit of sun here, too: all at once the promenade is greening, tulips tipped out, the little bushes tight with sturdy buds, everything alive again but I heard about your father, Madame, who went in his sleep, Otilie told me, without a damp eye to mourn him, except may be his man-valet, that Prussian whom nobody likes. Condolences, I am very sorry.

You would not be, had you known him. But I thank you, my dear.

Sometimes I think it’s better they run off, as tomcats do, once the kindling’s done.

Your own father is still living?

I hope not!
and she smiled, and I did, too, not a happy smile but a true one. She had the coachman stop for a chocolate-vendor, and she drank it up as if she were thirsty; poor Madame, she must often have had a thirsty time of it, with that dreadful old father—and Monsieur Benjamin too, who’s to marry in Greece, she told me, to bypass all the wagging tongues, wagging of Mr. Rupert, but we didn’t speak of that.

And afterwards,
she said,
I will go to Chatiens. The gardens—at this time of year, they prune off all the dead branches, then heap and weave them in armatures and figures, like a wicker-man, and make a fire to welcome the growing season. It’s quite theatrical
, with a smile for me,
and pagan,
with one for herself.
As are we all
….
I shall miss our conversations very much, Miss Bell.

I shall miss her, too, that brave and tired Madame, and Monsieur Benjamin—“As well as will be,” but for whom?—to set beside the ache for Mr. Rupert, and Istvan. We shan’t have a player like him on this stage again. May be someday, when our Mickey grows up…. May be they will come back one day, and see for themselves; it is a hope. I shall keep the room for them in any case, swept up and ready.

For now, I’m that glad Pinky’s not to be of any traveling party. Cross as he was to miss the Jack, he’s ideas aplenty for the next show—though
he can share them only “
januis clausis
,” as he calls it,
see the jolly new words I’m learning at the bank?
—that I’ve promised to the girls this time, my Rosa and her Snow-White. We’ll do something with a princess or two, I’m thinking, something with spangles and some dancing, and a handsome puppet-prince…. They are all gone, now, or going, to London and Greece and whoever-knows-where, but Pimm and I, and Pinky, and the children, we are here at the Blackbird to stay.

From the windows of the train, the fields and hills, the little towns that pass like faces in a dream, the whole glowing autumn landscape of bounty and harvest, might be a scrim upon a stage, or one of those moving-zoetrope affairs, such as one sees at the Théâtre Optique: or so it seems to Mr. Arrowsmith, half drowsing in his comfortable seat. His griffin cane lies neatly to hand, beside the apricot tisane, and the stack of correspondence still to be accomplished, letters from Paris, and Philadelphia, and Ghent; well, there will be time this evening, they will dine in at the hotel, he and Isobel…. His wife, Isobel.

Their bond, of course, is morganatic, and very few are in the know, though the news flashed between those few like lightning. There was the unavoidable whiff of envy, even Guyon chaffed him, if very mildly:
The eminence grise! Felicitations. But I thought you had retired?
to bring his own modest shrug:
One goes where one is needed. Benjamin is very able, but very young.
Privately he considers it a unique gift, that the cards fell as they have, a kind of philosopher’s revenge on a world without meaning. How incensed would be Isidore! to whom blood was always paramount.

And yet no one of his line was there to see the ship leave shore: not Isobel, for whom he did not ask, nor Benjamin, for whom he died calling, there in the drip and stink of the town-house bedchamber, not Chatiens, his seat of power. The fire so hot that all three of them were wet with sweat: Isidore, his man Helmut, and Mr. Arrowsmith himself, who watched those terrible eyes close, then open, close again, as last instructions were offered, old debts settled, and
That—man killed Hector, did he not?
in a voice that was the voice of the pain itself, an inhuman little mutter.
And Vidor—he told me that himself.

He is an upright fellow, Mr. Bok, all things considered.

You knew, Javier?
with one manacle hand on his wrist, living or dying he had tremendous strength, did Isidore: but what exactly was he asking? when there was so much to know: what the prefect needed, what M. Sellars feared, what Dusan meant by the second rope. So instead
I served the interests we share, as I will serve your son, now. Your only son. Let the dead bury their dead,
which also was accomplished,
with becoming pomp, yet not so ostentatiously as to make the grief suspect; and only Charlotte truly grieved, Charlotte with her red nose and Victoria-veil to her knees; how deeply that annoyed Isobel! The extravagance, the display…. There is much of her father in her, though he will never point that out. And Charlotte’s tears were dried relatively swiftly, packed off to her beloved Paris with her trunks and furbelows, and a generous if not excessive widow’s dowry to compensate for Isidore’s refusal to make her an heir; that last was Isobel’s idea, annoyance or no.

All the rest, of course, belongs to Benjamin, his father’s major legatee: Isaac to Jacob, for whom the faithful Helmut reserved his Esau moment of sour grief:
He ought have come, Monsieur, at least to give his father peace,
Helmut who ought have held his peace, and saved his breath. Helmut has been packed off, too, though Isobel opposed it:
I love him as little as you do, Benny, but he has served our family very well
—

Horseshit. I’d as soon wear the old man’s suits
, and so that settled that. It has been demonstrated that Benjamin has decided tastes—in servants, liquor, décor, itinerary—that are his sister’s joy to foster; and his wife’s as well, apparently, Christobel so like to Isobel that they might be sisters indeed instead of in-law. What the new Mme. de Metz makes of that young fellow there, that M. Gabriel lounging in the seat beside her husband, sharing whispers and a silver flask…. Well. As he has learned from his own brief experience, one must occasionally labor to preserve marital felicity, and silence is often a boon.

Now Mr. Arrowsmith shifts slightly in his seat, sips his tisane, and slightly yawns, glancing across the aisle to where Mme. Arrowsmith—though she never wears that title—sits improving her mind with Diderot, though a mind such as hers needs little in the way of improvement. Does she feel his gaze? and so raises her own, to make a gentle smile that he returns. There is much that is gentle in Isobel, and much that is wounded beyond repair, though he has urged, and will continue to urge, that she consult a surgeon for her poor hand; she still will not show him, not bare without the glove, but one day she will. Or she will not. Nevertheless, he still will try: she deserves the effort, and is so amazed and grateful when it comes.

Now Isobel lets her gaze drop down again to Diderot, but her true attention is elsewhere, roaming the walks and garden lanes of Chatiens: so much to accomplish, she is quite eager to begin. If she had had only herself to please, she would have spent the summer there, content with her sketchbook and shears; but the time belonged first to family affairs, to funerals and weddings.