The Oracle Glass Part 2

Mother was so impatient to hear her own fortune now that she very nearly pushed Marie-Angelique off the seat in order to hear the words of the oracle. In a confidential tone that I wasn't supposed to hear, the sorceress whispered, "Your husband does not understand you. You make a thousand economies for his happiness and he doesn't acknowledge one of them. He is without ambition and refuses to attend the court and seek the favor that would restore your happiness. Never fear; new joy is at hand." An odd, pleased look crossed Mother's face. "If you want to hasten that happiness"-the fortune-teller's voice faded out-"more youthful..." I heard, and I saw her take a little vial out of the drawer in the table. Mother hid it inside her corset. Excellent, I thought. When had Mother ever refused a remedy that promised to restore her fading youth? Now if all those creams actually worked, judging by the number of people selling them, all of Paris would have faces as smooth as a baby's bottom. "If he remains hard and indifferent...bring his s.h.i.+rt...a Ma.s.s to Saint Rabboni..." Fascinating. One trip multiplied into several, with corresponding payments.

"And now, for the cross I bear daily," said Mother, getting up and pus.h.i.+ng me forward. "Tell us all what will happen to a girl with a heart as twisted as her body."

The fortune-teller looked first at Mother, then at me, with an appraising eye. "What you really want to know," she p.r.o.nounced coolly, "is whether this child will inherit money-money concealed in a foreign country." This was not what I'd expected. I looked at the fortune-teller's face. She was looking me over carefully, as if taking my measure. Then her dark eyes inspected my sweaty little palm.

"Unusual, this...," she said, and Mother and Marie-Angelique crowded closer to look. "You see this line of stars, formed here? One indicates fortune. Three-that's entirely uncommon. It is a very powerful sign." Even the fortune-teller seemed impressed. It was quite gratifying.

"A fortune, an immense fortune," Mother hissed. "I knew it. But I must know. In what country is the fortune hidden? Can you use your arts to divine the name of the banker?"

"Stars formed on the palm never indicate what sort of fortune or where it is located, only that it involves great changes, and that it's good in the end. You will need a more specific divination to answer your question-a divination by water. There will be an extra charge for the preparation of the water." Mother's mouth shut up tight like a purse. "Very well," she said, looking resentful. The fortune-teller rang a little bell, and when the maid appeared she consulted with her. "The gift of water divination is a rare one, usually found only in young virgins-and so, of course, in this wicked world, it does not last long, does it?" Her sharp, sarcastic laugh was echoed by mother's silvery "company" laugh. I wished we could leave now. This was quite enough.

The maid reappeared with a gla.s.s stirring rod and a round crystal vase full of water on a tray. She was accompanied by a neatly dressed girl my own age, with brown hair combed back tightly and a sullen expression. The fortune-teller's daughter.

The fortune-teller stirred the water with the rod, chanting something that sounded like "Mana, hoca, nama, nama." Then she turned to me and said, "Put your palms around the gla.s.s-no, not that way. Yes. Good. Now take them away." The little girl peered down into the vase, which was all sticky with my palm prints, as the water became smooth again.

They had done something very interesting with the water. A tiny image seemed to form out of its depths, clear and bright like the reflection of an invisible object. It was a face. The strange, lovely face of a girl in her twenties, gray eyes staring back at me, black hair blowing about her pale face, the wind whipping a heavy gray cloak she held tightly around her. She was leaning on the rail of a s.h.i.+p that bobbed up and down on an invisible ocean. How had the sorceress made the image appear? Mother and Marie-Angelique were watching the fortune-teller's face, but I only had eyes for the tiny picture. The fortune-teller spoke to her daughter:

"Now, Marie-Marguerite, what do you see?"

"The ocean, Mother."

"But how did you make the little face appear?" I asked without thinking. The fortune-teller's dark, heavy-lidded eyes turned on me for what seemed like ages.

"You see a picture, too?" she asked.

"Is it a mirror?" I asked. There was an acquisitive glitter in the fortune-teller's dark eyes. Suddenly she turned her face from me, as if she had made up her mind about something.

"The fortune comes from a country that must be reached by crossing the ocean," the fortune-teller addressed Mother. "But not for many years."

"But what does the face mean?" interrupted Marie-Angelique.

"Nothing. She just saw her reflection, that's all," said the fortune-teller abruptly.

"Many years?" Mother's silvery little laugh tinkled. "Surely, I'll choke it out of her much sooner than that. Dear little wretch," she added as an afterthought, giving me a mock blow with her fan to let everyone know it was all in good sport.

Late that night I wrote in my little book: July 21, 1671. Catherine Montvoisin, rue Beauregard, fortune-teller, trial number 1.

Marie-Angelique-A rich lover, beware man in sky-blue coat and blond wig, perhaps a child.

Mother-Youth cream. Measure lines over next three weeks. Large joy soon.

Me-There is money in a foreign country. A thought: Beautiful women fear old age more than ugly women. When I am old, I will buy books, not wrinkle cream.

That evening, after discussing Seneca with Father, I asked him what he thought of fortune-tellers.

"My dear little girl, they are the refuge of the gullible and the superst.i.tious. I would like to say, of women, but there are plenty of men who run to them, too. They are all fools."

"That's what I think, too, Father." He nodded, pleased. "But tell me, is it possible to see pictures in water, as they describe?"

"Oh, no. Those are just reflections. Sometimes they can make them seem to s.h.i.+ne out of water, or a crystal ball, or whatever, by the use of mirrors. Most fortune-telling is just sleight of hand, like the conjurers on the Pont Neuf."

"But what about when they seem to know people's secrets and handwriting?"

"Why, you sound as if you'd made a study of it. I'm delighted you are applying the light of reason to the darkness of knavery and superst.i.tion. But as for an answer, you should know that fortune-tellers are a devious race, who usually cultivate a network of informers, so that they know the comings and goings of their clientele. That's how they astonish the simple."

"Why, that settles the point perfectly, Father." He looked pleased. "But I have another question, a...philosophical question..." He raised one eyebrow. "Which do the Romans say is better: to be clever or to be beautiful?" My voice was troubled. Father looked at me a long time.

"Clever, of course, my daughter. Beauty is hollow, deceptive, and fades rapidly." His gaze was suddenly fierce. "The Romans believed that a virtuous woman had no other need of adornment."

"But, Father, that was about Cornelia, whose sons were her jewels, and don't you think that she had to be at least a bit pretty in order to be married and have the sons? I mean, isn't virtue in a plain girl considered rather unremarkable?"

"My dear, dear child, are you comparing yourself to your sister again? Be a.s.sured, you are far more beautiful to me just as you are. Your features are exactly my own, and the only proof I have of your paternity." The bitter look on his face shocked me.

But for days afterward, my heart sang, "Not pretty, but special. Father loves me best of all." My secret. Nothing could take it away. I didn't even need to write it in my little book.

CHAPTER FOUR

"Come here and look, Genevieve. He's out in front again." Marie-Angelique lifted the curtain of her bedchamber and beckoned to me. I put down my sketch pad, and together we peeped out into the misty spring morning. Heavy-budded fruit trees, all ready to burst into bloom, lifted their branches above the high garden walls opposite. And there, concealed in a doorway across the street, stood the figure of a man. "He's there every day. What do you think he wants?" Marie-Angelique's face was pink with pleasure. She wanted me to say again what she already thought.

"I imagine he's in love with you. Everybody is, sooner or later." Poor man. It was early in the year 1674, and he had hundreds before him. The heavy scent of narcissus in the vase by Marie-Angelique's bed filled the room with spring. Beside the vase on the little night table lay a copy of Clelie with an extravagantly embroidered bookmark in it. Marie-Angelique loved romances. They were her measure of life; a scene in reality was judged by how well it matched up with the scene in which Aronce declares his love for Clelie, or Cyrus abducts Mandane in his luxurious s.h.i.+p. "Suppose, Marie-Angelique, that Cyrus had a shabby little boat. What would you think then?" I had once asked her. "Oh, Genevieve," she'd answered, "Mademoiselle de Scudery could not even imagine such an unromantic thing." Poor reality-it always came off so badly by comparison to the silly things she read. I was, at the time, reading Herodotus with Father.

"Oh, do you really think he's in love?" she fluttered. "How long has he been there? Three days?"

"No, more like a week."

"Oh, that's terribly romantic. Tell me, don't you think he looks nice?" It must be the spring, I thought. In spring, everyone falls in love with Marie-Angelique. I peeked out again for her. He stepped out of the shadowy doorway, and my heart died a little as I recognized his face. He had on high boots, a short embroidered jacket festooned with ribbons, an epee with an embroidered baldric, and a short cloak dramatically thrown back. His hat was tilted jauntily over his lean face, and he had managed to grow a moustache since I had last seen him. It was my white knight, Andre Lamotte, but now no longer mine, not even in imagination.

"Who do you think he is?" Marie-Angelique said dreamily. "He doesn't have any lace...Oh, is that a ring I see? No...but perhaps he's in disguise." Marie-Angelique was always hopeful.

"I saw him once when Father took me to the Luxembourg Gardens. He was reading," I said.

"Oh, a student." Marie-Angelique sounded disappointed. "But perhaps he is a prince, who is learning responsibility before he takes up his t.i.tle."

"I think his name is Lamotte."

"Oh dear," responded Marie-Angelique. "You had better put down the curtain at once, Genevieve. Mother doesn't approve of staring at strange men." I dropped the curtain and picked up my sketch pad. There, amidst the dutifully copied flowers a.s.signed by the drawing master, I sketched in Lamotte's handsome young profile. Beneath it I wrote, "Do not look at strange men" and showed it to Marie-Angelique, who burst out laughing.

"Sister, what shall I do with you? You will never learn the proprieties!" she cried.

"Come, come, Mesdemoiselles, what are you waiting for?" Mother bustled into the room in her cloak, with a basket of cakes, fruit, and pates over her arm. "Don't dawdle. You aren't children anymore. It's high time you learned Christian responsibility." No, we were not children anymore. I had turned fifteen, and Marie-Angelique was nineteen, and old enough to be married if she had had a proper dowry. Mother looked terribly businesslike. Charity was a new thing she'd taken up, between her visits to the fortune-teller. Now she made weekly visits bringing alms to the sick poor at the Hotel Dieu, the charity hospital that lay on the square near the Cathedral of Notre Dame. Lately it was all the rage, and Mother loved to be fas.h.i.+onable. Besides, one could meet ladies of the highest rank bandaging sores and dispensing sweets in the vast stone salles of the Hotel Dieu; it was the next best thing to a visit to Saint-Germain or Versailles, and far more convenient.

The charitable fit had come on shortly after Father's creditors had seized our carriage and horses. At first, it seemed to me to be quite unlike Mother, who usually turned up her nose at beggars and gave very poor tips. But then again, it was fas.h.i.+onable, so she embraced her missions of charity with the same tenacious energy that preserved her salon. To still the rumors of a declining fortune, she made sure that the women of the Pasquier family were seen well dressed, with heavily laden baskets, murmuring benedictions from bed to bed with the other aristocratic angels of mercy.