The Pool of Mnemosyne, page 16
“Thank you,” I said, a trifle numbly. “What kind of picture did you have in mind?” I had studied her while she was speaking, trying to penetrate the act she was putting on, but the performance was smooth and accomplished: the perfect mask of someone who had spent the greater part of her life in the upper echelons of Lutecian society, fully adapted to its etiquette and automatic falsity, and had then exported the carefully-honed aristocratic pose to the strange splinter community of Mnemosyne, where it became the voice of superiority, sophistication and, in its purest sense, Empire.
She smiled. “A portrait,” she said.
“Of you?”
“Yes. The vanity might seem to you to be belated, at my age, but it is precisely when the sun of a once-glorious beauty is on the point of setting that one begins to feel a sense of urgency about the preservation of its radiance. The metaphor makes me sound very vain, I know, but you have known me for a long time, Master Rathenius, albeit distantly, and I’m sure that your artist’s memory retains an image of what I once was, and that, while you were studying me a few moments ago, you were very conscious of the extent to which I have been changed by time. You are familiar with the psychology behind my desire, of course; I know that you have been commissioned over the years to paint many women of my…maturity. You doubtless prefer painting those in the full flush of their youthful beauty, but that has never prevented you doing justice—and more than justice—to your clients. I admire that, and that is why I know that I can rely on you now. I can rely on you now, can I not?”
I was familiar with the impulse that led women conscious of the fading of a once-spectacular beauty to want its residues preserved in paint of canvas as well as expert make-up applied to the features, but I had not expected to encounter it in the Marquise de Mesmay. Then again, I had not expected to encounter the Marquise at all, let alone in the role of a hopeful client—and I was sure that her enquiry as to whether she could rely on me was not simply reflective of a desire to be assured that my brush was capable of deft flattery.
Summoning up my own practiced social polish, I contrived to reply: “I do remember you from the days when you first favored the island with your presence, Milady, even though we rarely had occasion to converse in those days, certainly not in such intimacy as this. I can assure you that your beauty has only matured in the interim, as beauty does, gaining in majesty what it loses in naivety.”
“Thank you for the compliment, Master Rathenius,” she said, injecting a slight tone of melancholy into her contrived politesse, which might not have been entirely fake, “but I’m well aware of the toll that time takes—although it seems to me, in remembering you from the days of our first distant acquaintance, that you have not changed at all. Men are often more fortunate in that regard than women, I know. My late husband was still an exceptionally handsome man when he died.”
With an entirely automatic politeness, I had allowed her to select our course, even though she had explicitly invited me to make the choice. She took the left-hand fork in the path, which led in a somewhat zig-zag fashion down into the cove to one side of the headland. The tide was out and there was a considerable expanse of shingle and rocks beneath us, with a plethora of rock-pools. There were a couple of ramshackle huts in the cove, used by fishermen to shelter tackle and nets, but there was no permanent habitation; although the inlet was in the lee of the island with regard to the prevailing wind. It was by no means immune to the effect of storms, and huts built there were inevitable smashed sooner or later by rough water whipped up by a storm.
“The weather has been very bad since you left the island,” the Marquise remarked. “The winter was unusually prolonged, and the snow left behind a nasty black dirt. Fortunately, the first spring rains have washed it away, but they too have been heavier than normal. It’s all due to the after-effects of a distant volcanic eruption, I’m told.”
“So I believe,” I confirmed, as we slowly descended the steep slope. She went ahead, while I remained respectfully behind her in the narrower sections of the path. It occurred to me that I only had to reach out a hand and gave her a shove, and she would take a tumble that might prove crippling, or even fatal. I could imagine Tommaso Dellacrusca’s reaction to the news that I had had such an opportunity and had not taken it—but it seemed to me that I literally could not do any such thing. It would not only have violated the code of etiquette that the Marquise was so casually invoking in her speech and manner, but also my own long-cemented principles, my own carefully-designed identity.
The awareness that the Marquise knew that—that she was absolutely confident that allowing me to walk behind her on the side of a cliff was not exposing her to any danger, believing that if she happened to slip, I would reflexively reach out to prevent her from falling—gave me an odd feeling of helplessness, of being obliged because of the freedom of my will rather than in spite of it.
In any case, I was exceedingly curious to discover the whole of what she wanted to say to me, and to measure the dimensions of the snare that she was weaving and setting out.
“You will paint my portrait, won’t you, Master Rathenius,” she said, as we reached the bottom of the hill and stepped on to the shingle above the high-water mark, a hundred paces away from the line where the waves were presently breaking, in a fashion that seemed surly rather than angry, but was certainly not serene.
“I fear that I will not be able to execute your commission immediately, Milady,” I said, apologetically. “In three weeks, perhaps, or a month, if you have no objection to waiting...?”
“Of course,” she said. “You have only just returned, I know, and doubtless you have other clients…although I far that the summer visitors might be slow in arriving this year, and might not arrive at all.”
“So I hear,” I said, in a neutral tone.
I was still a pace or two behind her, even though we were no longer on a narrow path. She paused in her stride, in order to match my step, and moved a little closer toward my side than the etiquette she was following so ostentatiously usually permitted, in terms of appropriate social distance. Her manner became more earnest.
“You will doubtless hear many other things, Master Rathenius” she said, in a quasi-confidential tone. “The island has always been a prolific rumor mill, of course, but imaginations have been running wild of late. That is, I confess, one of the reasons why I wanted to see you. Would you believe that the malevolent lie has been spread that I had something to do with the attempt on your life that was made on the evening of your departure?”
She had obviously researched that line, and probably thought that she could deliver it with the utmost feigned sincerity, but her composure faltered, her mask cracked, and my artist’s eye perceived the truth—perhaps the whole truth.
Yes, the Marquise had instructed assassins to kill me, because she feared that I was an agent of Dellacrusca or the Dionysians, but she had done it in a moment of panic, still affected by her husband’s death and the turmoil of trying to take over the reins of his conspiracy. She regretted it now.
My own reflexive reaction to that revelation surprised me. I wanted to tell her that I forgave her. I wanted to tell her that I understood her regret and remorse. I wanted to tell her that she had no need to fear any reprisal from me.
But I couldn’t. How could she have believed me? Even if she had believed me, how could she have trusted her own credulity? And would she not have been correct? How could I trust the authenticity of my own reflex?
“Really?” was what I actually said, by way of a reply. “How strange! Why would anyone want to say such a thing?”
“I have no idea,” she said—and then corrected herself, with a sigh. “No, that isn’t true. I do have a notion. You remember the night of the planned concert, obviously, when my husband offered Lord Dellacrusca the use of our house in order that Hecate Rain and Charles Parenot’s daughter could perform for him?”
“I remember,” I confirmed, trying my utmost to maintain my composure.
She seemed to lose hers slightly—or, at least, to put on a show of doing so. “To my eternal shame and regret,” she said, “I do not. I had never considered myself a weak woman, but one never knows how one will react in a crisis until the crisis comes. I remember a strange shriek, and then the Sisters of Shalimar undergoing a nightmarish metamorphosis, suddenly wielding daggers. My husband seized me by the shoulder and…I fainted. When I recovered consciousness, I was in my bed. Fion Commonal was there, with a bottle of salts, which he had used to bring me round. I was confused, but someone—one of the servants, I think—told me that Lord Dellacrusca and my husband were both dead.
“After that, things became even more confused. The Duc d’Alectryon appears to have taken charge, and he came to tell me, the next day, that, for political reasons, he and other influential people that he did not name did not want it known that Lord Dellacrusca had died in my house, or that he had been on the island at all. Since then...well, to be honest, life has become something of a nightmare. I have heard several accounts of what happened that night, but they conflict with one another. Although no one beyond our immediate circle is supposed to know what happened, everyone seems to have heard something, and everywhere I go, I seem to be regarded with fear and suspicion, as if I were somehow responsible, not merely for that but for other unfortunate events, including more than one murder.
“That fear and suspicion has, also, proved contagious. I no longer know who to believe, Master Rathenius. The only people I feel I can trust completely are Charles Parenot, Vashti Savage and Hecate Rain, precisely because they have no more idea of what happened than I do. Charles was entirely focused on the necessity of removing his daughter from danger. Vashti fell to the floor and kept her head down. Hecate was paralyzed by shock, and only saw guns being drawn in the audience before you carried her away. None of them saw Lord Dellacrusca and my husband die. I have spoken to my husband since, thanks to Vashti’s evocation of his spirit, but he does not seem to know himself—and Lord Dellacrusca remains as enigmatic in death as he was in life. I hope you will not be offended by my curiosity, Master Rathenius, but would you mind telling me what you remember of the tragedy?”
All things considered, that was a very intriguing confession—if, in fact, it was a confession, and not a carefully compounded lie. I realized, to, that it was a challenging question, if answered with complete honesty.
“I fear that I saw no more than you or Charles,” I said. “When I realized that guns were being drawn and leveled in the crowd, the one thought in my mind was that Hecate and Elise were in danger. I reacted exactly as Charles did. While he picked up Elise and ran for the exit, I seized Hecate. Once outside, I fear, we both kept running like rabbits. It was not until Tommaso Dellacrusca came to the house later that night, in order to make sure that his niece was safe, that I learned about your husband’s death. In the following days, I heard rumors and speculations, but as you say, even the accounts given by the people who were actually there were fragmentary and conflicting. Like you, I really did not know who or what to believe.”
“It is an uncomfortable sensation, is it not?” she said. “To have been present at such a terrible event, and to have no reliable knowledge of it! I have been in a continual state of dread and anxiety since then, perpetually haunted by the vague feeling that something dreadful might happen at any moment. And nightmares...such nightmares! Many of my old friends seem to be avoiding me, but I have been very grateful for the ones that remain, and for the new ones I have made. Charles Parenot, in particular, has been a great comfort to me. He is presently a guest in my house. Do you know that his wife and daughter disappeared on the same evening that you left the island?”
“Yes, I do,” I admitted.
“It has made us companions in distress. I have also become close friends with Vashti Savage since she held her first séance at my house. You were present then too, if you remember.”
“I remember,” I said.
“There were some remarkable manifestations, were there not? Lord Dellacrusca was an unbeliever, I fear, and thought that the evocations were all trickery—I believe he even suspected you of contriving them—but I knew differently. I realized then that Vashti is a medium of great sensitivity. We hold séances at my house regularly now. You might assume that the shock of losing my dear husband provoked that interest, and you would not be entirely wrong, but I have always had an abiding interest in the occult, and I like to think of myself as an assiduous explorer of its mysteries. I have two young African seeresses staying in my home too, lovely young women—identical twins. Perhaps I ought to commission you to paint them as well. I describe myself as an explorer rather than scholar because I have a more practical turn of mind than my mother’s sister, who is a veritable scholar, and I have never been able to compete with her intellectually. You know my aunt, I believe—Sister Ursule, the superior of the Convent of Shalimar?”
“We met once,” I confirmed.
“She disapproves of my interest, I fear. There was always a certain sibling rivalry between her and my mother, which she seems to have transferred to me, and which has only intensified with the years. I fear that I blamed her—unjustifiably, I recognize now—for the fact that my husband’s assassins masqueraded as members of her community in order to gain access to the house. Even without that, however, I fear that we would have fallen out. The Sisters of Shalimar are quite benign, but also a trifle bigoted. She considers my explorations and experiments to be dabbling in black magic, inherently evil. I, of course, prefer to think of them as more akin to art.
“Hecate has been seeing a lot of Ursule lately, and although I don’t like to speak ill of my aunt, I fear that she has infected your friend somewhat with her suspicions. I suspect that my aunt might even have begun to lend credence to some very ugly rumors regarding my possible involvement, not only in the attempt on your life, but also the murder of Lord Dellacrusca and my husband. That wounds me very deeply, as you can imagine. I loved my husband, in a way that…well, that a Sister of Shalimar could never understand.”
She looked at me with an expression that seemed utterly sincere. “I fear that I must seem very garrulous, but I felt that I ought to tell you all of this, since you have been away from the island for some time, and presumably have no idea what was being said hereabouts in your absence. Now that you are back, you will doubtless hear a great deal of gossip from various sources, much of it ugly...and some of it, I fear, casting aspersions on my character and conduct. I hope that you will not judge me on the basis of that kind of hearsay. I cannot ask you simply to take my word for anything, but I do feel entitled to ask you not to believe anything simply on the basis of malevolent rumor. I feel that I am due that consideration. It might be the case that you have already been told that I am your enemy, but as you can see, simply by virtue of my being here, that is not true. We are not enemies, are we, Master Rathenius?”
That was a more difficult question than the ones I had been parrying without undue effort. “I can certainly see no reason why you should wish me harm, Milady,” I said, carefully, “and I beg you to believe that I have absolutely no wish to do you any.”
“Thank you, Master Rathenius,” she said. “I will confess to you, because I believe that you will understand, that after my husband and Lord Dellacrusca were killed, I was in mortal fear for my own life. I felt obliged to turn my house into a fortress and surround it with armed men, which the Duc d’Alectryon was kind enough to supply. That contributed, I fear, to the poor opinion some people had of me…and still have. As I told you just now, my anxieties have not entirely eased. I am trying to be brave, and to suppress my anxieties, but I really do feel the need to have friends around me. Charles and Vashti have been godsends. I have always treasured the company of artists—that is why I persuaded my husband to buy a house here and to take up permanent residence, rather than simply coming for the season, as we used to do. I would very much like, Master Rathenius, to have you for a friend too. Do you think that might be possible?”
“I hope it might,” I said, wondering at my own sincerity, and feeling like a fool, even though, when analyzed rationally, there could surely be no better outcome to my present predicament than establishing a simultaneous amity with the Marquise, Madame and the Dellacrusca twins, in order that all of us might live in peace and harmony. I almost had to pinch myself in order to remind myself of the implausibility of such a dream.
“While you were absent,” she said, “I commissioned Charles to paint a portrait of me, which is nearly finished. I cannot possibly tell him so, of course, because I love him dearly, but I am not very satisfied with it. I fear that he has not been able to capture my essence. I thought him a good painter, on the basis of the portrait that once hung in my dining room, but I am beginning to think that he could only paint his wife with any real precision or penetration. He does not have your all-encompassing eye; he cannot adapt, as you can. That is why I would like to commission you to paint me. I have not told him yet, obviously, for fear of hurting his feelings, but I honestly think that there will be no salvation for his painting if he does not find his wife again...and his daughter, of course. Such a tragedy. No one has the slightest idea what has become of them, it seems.”
That, I felt sure, was a bare-faced lie. It was almost a relief to hear it, and to have that certainty.
“Actually,” I said, feeling a slight moral superiority in sticking to the truth, albeit a carefully selected truth, “I believe I saw her going into to the old Toustain house shortly before you rang my doorbell…but I can’t say how long she will remain there.”
