Part 23 (1/2)
”Oh, Jesus, don't shout so. My head's breaking in two. What's the news?”
”How could you not know, when you yourself predicted it? Madame de Montespan has been sent away from court by the King. She's here in Paris, licking her wounds, while her rivals sharpen their claws!”
I groaned and sat up. My head felt like an inflated pig's bladder. Ready to burst. ”How...what?” I managed to mutter.
”Oh, it was astonis.h.i.+ng. Pere Bossuet denounced the King's sin with Madame de Montespan from the pulpit on Easter. And he refused the King communion, just on the eve of his departure for the front in Flanders. The King can't go into battle unshriven. They say the King begged for a separation only, as he had done once before as a condition to obtain communion. But that was in the days of Pere Lachaise, who was much less exacting. Monsieur Bossuet was adamant. 'Give up the woman,' he said, 'for you are in double adultery, because she is married as well as you.' Now all the unmarried ladies have their hopes up. If I were near the King, I'm sure he'd notice me! But I'll not have the chance, well, not unless...” Oh my, another consumer of love potions and lucky charms. You'd think the people who sell them would know how ridiculous they are. But they're their own best customers.
But once dressed and downstairs, I noticed that my hostess was not as active an enthusiast as Sylvie. Her two youngest boys, neither yet out of girls' gowns and leading strings, were quarreling over a ball; their older brother, all of ten years old, was just being sent to pick up a parcel at La Trianon's laboratory. Her stepdaughter, Marie-Marguerite, gave her an evil stare as she pa.s.sed through the room with breakfast for her father on a tray.
”Well! The marquise has finally decided to get up,” she said in a sarcastic tone. ”Greetings, O ill.u.s.trious one. Your sun has brightened our horizon at last.”
”What's bitten you this morning?” Headaches do not make me sweet.
”How dare you!” she hissed, her eyes dangerous. ”When I sent you out into the world to create new business, I did not mean for you to stir up trouble between my clients.” My head hurt too much for tact.
”I did exactly what you said. If you don't like it, then maybe you should keep me better informed, instead of always trying to be so devious,” I snapped.
”The Countess of Soissons has been my client for many years. How dare you try to steal her business?”
”I didn't-she called me. When I sent her to you, she just laughed.” Madame's mouth was clamped in a grim line.
”You had no business predicting Madame de Montespan's downfall.” Well, even with a headache, I knew what that meant. The Marquise of Montespan was her client, too. Not two women one would wish to get caught between.
”She asked, and it was in the gla.s.s.”
”In the gla.s.s, in the gla.s.s, was it? Don't you remember any of my lessons? Never read someone else's fortune for a client! You miserable little fool; you'll bring them both down on you!” On yourself, you mean, I thought. But by now La Voisin's rage was billowing like storm clouds. Ordinarily, I would have been frightened, but having already considered myself poisoned once, I had lost all fear. I returned her stare so fiercely that she recoiled from me. ”Steal my clients! You set yourself up, don't you! Who pulled you from the gutter, eh? Answer me! Answer me!” Everyone in the room had stopped to stare at the battle.
”It was the river, and I wasn't in it anyway,” I said in my most precise voice.
”Oh, yes, we've studied philosophy! We're not a poor woman who raised ourself up. We know Latin, we know Greek, like a man. We're not common! We're almost a Matignon on our mother's side. Oh yes, bow to the Matignon blood in the little hussy, if you can find it anywhere!”
”Don't you dare insult my mother, you...you dreadful old witch!”
”A witch, eh? There's more honor among witches than among the Matignons, I can tell you that. I made you, do you understand, I made you! I wanted you, I saved you, I created you, and you're mine! Why do you think the door was unlocked the morning you left home? Why do you think I was there to keep you from the river? Your own loving mother had better plans than that. Ah, the minute they read the will, she was at my door. 'Why pay for a funeral?' I told her. 'Put her out and you'll be rid of her. She'll never be found, and they'll never trace the death to you.' I could see the glint in her eye. The glint of money. 'Take back your fee,' I said. 'You don't need what you came for. You can have it all without cost.' Without cost-that's what made her eyes s.h.i.+ne! Money! That's what makes a Matignon act. Money, money, and only money. The money your father left you-she'd stop at nothing to have it. And how much better at a bargain. Oh, what a thrifty little mother you have! An honorable race, the Matignons, like all the other great ones who come to see me. Oh, indeed! But you, you've got G.o.d-given talent, you eat and drink and clothe yourself at my expense...”
My bones felt like ice. It fit, it all fit, like the missing piece of a puzzle. My mind shrank from it.
”Prove it,” I said.
The sorceress stood still, looking at me with her dark eyes. ”Come with me to my cabinet, and I will show you your mother's entry in my account book,” she said in a calm, bitter voice. With a growing numbness, I followed her into her little gilded cabinet room. It was the next to the last entry, at the top of an empty page. ”Wishes to purchase inheritance powder for her daughter.” The date, after Father's death. The last entry, ”Sent away without.” Mother hadn't been back since.
”I never knew...I didn't know...any of it...,” I whispered, as I leaned against the wall to keep from falling. Oh, truth, how ugly you are, when we meet like this, face-to-face. I would rather never know you.
”No,” said the sorceress, lowering her voice and inspecting me with her shrewd, almost malignant black eyes, ”you didn't know, did you? Tell me-” And her voice became all honeyed and persuasive. ”Tell me, what did you read in the gla.s.s for the Countess of Soissons?”
”She just...asked me what would become of Madame de Montespan, and I looked and saw her leaving court in a hurry, in her carriage with four outriders, on the Paris road.” I felt cold all over. My eyes hurt. My face was wet.