Jean-Jacques took the cloak, but immediately dissolved into apologies, excusing his indiscreet intrusion on the grounds that he had had no idea that I was not alone. I accepted his apology and told him to instruct Luzon to make a large pot of tea, and then, as there was still no fire in the drawing room, to fetch some extra chairs, so that we could all sit around the studio fire.
Then it was Charles Parenot’s turn to apologize for disturbing us, excusing his intrusion on the grounds of the extreme gratitude he wasted to express for my lending him my servants to help him bring some order to his new residence.
After that, of course, it was my turn, apologizing for the mess in the studio and the absence of a fire in the drawing room, excusing myself on the grounds that I hadn’t been expecting visitors.
Eventually, Parenot and I got around to shaking hands formally, and then I was finally able to make the introductions: “Sister Ursule, Mother Superior of the Convent of the Sisters of Shalimar; Monsieur Charles Parenot, painter, his wife, Mariette and his daughter Elise.”
Jean-Jacques, who was bringing in the chairs by then, nearly dropped them in astonishment when he heard the name of my unexpected visitor. The newcomers, who had little or no idea of how remarkable her presence was, took it in their stride.
“Monsieur Parenot’s painting of his wife as Eurydice is hanging in Monsieur de Mesmay’s small reception room,” I told Sister Ursule, for the sake of having something to say.
The Mother Superior looked at Mariette with interest, and then at Elise. Her failure to notice any resemblance was almost tangible.
Everyone sat down except Elise, whose curiosity had been attracted by the triptych near the window. She drifted away, her expression still unreadable. I presumed that she was still uneasy and a little shy, but trying to overcome both.
“It’s all right,” Charles Parenot assured me. “She’s lived in an artist’s studio all her life—she won’t touch anything, and she has a real interest in and appreciation of art.”
I nodded, not entirely satisfied by the reassurance—but Elise was twelve years old, after all, not an irresponsible infant. I kept an eye on her anyway.
“You shouldn’t have walked here in this dreadful weather,” I told them. “I’ll get Jean-Jacques to take you back in the carriage—and you, Sister, to the Convent. You can’t possibly go out on foot again while it’s snowing like this.”
“The weather is remarkably hostile,” Charles Parenot remarked. “Your manservant tells me that a pillar of fire has been seen out at sea. I hadn’t expected the elements to go to such lengths to greet us—is it a warning, do you think?” He was joking, but there was an evident unease beneath his humor.
How, I wondered, had Jean-Jacques got hold of that information? He had probably run errands for his temporary masters in the course of the day, though, and he had had specific orders from me to keep his ears open.
“It’s unfortunate,” I said to Parenot. “Hopefully, the weather will clear up soon, and you’ll see us as we really are.”
“Thanks to your servants, we’ve managed to render the house habitable,” Mariette put in. “I’m sure I can cope with it, even though it’s larger than our little house in the capital.”
“I’m truly sorry that I didn’t introduce myself yesterday evening,” Parenot said, “But I have so much fragile equipment that I had to supervise the unloading of the lighter and the packing of the cart myself. You’ll understand, I’m sure, Master Rathenius.”
“Absolutely,” I assured him. “I hope you’ll be happy here, and that you’ll find it an inspiring location in which to paint. As you’ve already had an overabundant opportunity to see, it’s a good deal closer to raw nature and the roots of mythology than the Capital.”
“I’m sure the change of scene will to me good,” said Parenot. “I’m thinking of branching out from mythological painting, and tackling a wider range of subjects.”
“I fear that I’m only just beginning to dabble in it,” I said, nodding my head toward the triptych, invisible from where we were sitting because the backs of the panels were turned toward us. Elise was still studying it from the other side. “What do you think, Elise?” I asked.
“I can’t see Eurydice,” she replied.
“She’s in the crowd,” I said, “but there’s nothing in particular to designate her; for the moment, she’s just one of the shades.
“But she isn’t in the first painting at all,” she observed, “and she’s hardly visible in the third, if you don’t know where to look.”
It was news to me that she was visible in the third at all. Obviously, I didn’t know where to look. I stood up and went to join her. “The thing is, you see,” I tried to explain, party addressing Parenot, Mariette and Sister Ursule as well as the child, “that I’m not at all sure that Eurydice is as important as the popular versions of the myth make out, and I can’t quite make up my mind about the underlying significance of Orpheus’ excursion to the Underworld. But where can you see her in the sketch?”
“Reflected in Orpheus’ eyes, of course,” she said, as if it were the most natural observation in the world.
Orpheus’ dead eyes were just two smudges of charcoal. There was nothing reflected there… or was there? Sometimes, if you look with sufficient imagination, smudges can suggest forms, like wisps of smoke or cloud. For a moment, I wondered whether Eurydice really could be seen reflected in Orpheus’ dead eyes—and whether, if so, I had put her there, unwittingly.
Then I rejected the ideas and said something to myself, silently, that I had never imagined that I would ever say, so heretical was it in the context of my own private creed: That child has too much imagination.
Immediately, I apologized to her, silently, for the inaudible insult. Of course she did not have, and could not possibly have, too much imagination.
Aloud, to cover up the internal monologue, I said: “I hear you play the violin?”
“I used to,” she said. “I have a new instrument now.”
I knew that it couldn’t be the marine trumpet; she wasn’t yet tall enough. “What is it?” I asked, reflexively.
“It’s like a violin but larger,” she said. “Charles calls it a viola da gamba.” She calls him Charles, not Father, I noted.
“I have a friend who’s learning to play the marine trumpet,” I told her. “That’s like a violin too, but much longer, with only one string.
“Then why is it called a trumpet?” she asked.
“It’s a kind of joke,” I said. “Do you think that… Charles would allow me to paint your portrait when I’ve finished my triptych?”
I was currying favor, although I wasn’t quite sure why—perhaps trying to conjure up the delighted expression she’s taken on the previous evening when I’d mentioned the possibility.
“Of course,” she said, “if I want him to.”
I met Mariette’ gaze at that moment. I could see clearly enough that she was no better disposed to the idea now than she had been previously—but I guessed, too, that what Elise had said was precisely true. Charles would permit whatever she wanted him to permit. And I understood the dimensions of Mariette’s unhappy anxiety a little more clearly.
Sister Ursule began making polite conversation with Parenot while they sipped the tea that Jean-Jacques had just brought in. Mariette did not join in; she was watching Elise and me, with an attention that was slightly discomfiting.
“Come and have some tea,” I said to the girl. “I’ll show you round the studio properly another time, when the light’s better,” It was probably not the most diplomatic of remarks, and I looked at Mariette, trying to radiate harmlessness and reassure her that I had no evil designs whatsoever on Elise, or anyone else.
As we walked past the table, Elise stopped. The accursed parchment was still there, on open view, practically begging to be stolen. Elise looked down at it, peering carefully in the dim light.
“It’s supposed to be suspiric language,” I told her, for the sake of something to say.
She nodded her head. “I see,” she said. “I wondered. I thought it might be music.”
“Why did you think that?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “But I can see that you’re right: it’s the language of sighs.” Obviously she had a little Latin too. And a great deal of imagination. Perhaps, in spite of the heresy of the notion and my recent recantation of that heresy, too much.
We sat down, and drank tea. It was very civilized. None of the other guests realized how bizarre it was that we were sitting there, having a civilized cup of tea with the Mother Superior of a Bardic Order, who had emerged from her seclusion to warn a reputed sorcerer that members of the Cult of Dionysus might try to assassinate him in order to take possession of a fake document.
“By the way,” I said to Sister Ursule, still searching for something innocuous to say, “how is Hecate coming along with her lessons on the marine trumpet?”
Sister Ursule looked me in the eyes. “Are you a true friend?” she asked, still with a slight glint of ironic humor in her gray eyes.
“Of course.”
“In that case, I can probably tell you the truth. She’s making every effort, poor dear, but she’ll never be able to play it. Her mind has a fine sense of poetic harmony, but somehow, it won’t connect with her fingers. She has no talent for it, I fear. I’m trying to find a way to tell her that without disappointing her too badly.”
“Oh,” I said, genuinely disappointed on Hecate’s behalf. “She wanted to accompany herself when she recites her Eurydice’s Lament.”
“She told us about that,” Elise put in. “I’ll accompany her, if she likes, on the viola. I’d like that.”
Once again, I could see that Mariette didn’t.
“Do you perform in public, then?” I asked.
“Oh yes,” she said. “People were always coming to hear me in the Capital.”
“That’s not what Master Rathenius means, Elise,” said Mariette. “He doesn’t mean playing to friends, he means playing a formal concert.”
“I can do that,” said Elise, apparently with complete self-confidence. “I’ve played for the Duc de Dellacrusca, and everyone on the Mount says that he’s the devil incarnate. He liked me, though—I could tell.”
“Dellacrusca’s visited your studio?” I said to Parenot.
“Myrica brought him,” he said. “She’s trying to persuade him to give me a commission. Apparently she once persuaded him to commission you to paint his sons. He seemed markedly hostile at first, although he’s obviously listened to Myrica’s argument that it was time to obtain a more up-to-date picture of the twins for the family gallery, but Elise is right. When he heard her play, he softened up considerably, and complimented us on having such a beautiful and talented child.”
“I didn’t really like the way he did it, though,” Mariette put in. “He can send shivers down your spine even when he’s trying to be pleasant—especially then, in fact. At least when he was looking daggers at me I felt that he was being honest.”
“Well,” I said, “If anyone can get a commission out of him, it’s Myrica. She did it for me, in spite of the fact that he obviously didn’t like me at all—although he might have thought that sending the terrible twins to sit for me was the worst punishment he could think of. They’re a lot better now they’re older, mind, and I doubt that they’ll give you any trouble if he sends them to you.”
“He said he might get Father to paint me instead,” Elise put in.
“I think he was just being complimentary, darling,” Mariette told her. “I don’t think he meant it.”
The devil incarnate paying compliments to little girls! That was surely new—unless Dellacrusca’s habits and tastes were even more depraved than rumor dared suggest. I shuddered at the thought.
“Actually,” I said, only a trifle hesitantly, “as it happens, the Marquis of Mesmay, who commissioned my triptych, came to see it this afternoon, and he mentioned the possibility of Elise giving a recital in his house—at a kind of reception to introduce the three of you to the Island Council. Myrica Mavor has apparently told him that that Elise is very talented.”
Mariette was so pale naturally that it was almost impossible for her to go any paler, but her complexion was making the effort. “I really don’t think Elise is ready for something like that,” she said.
Trying to score a point to my credit, I said: “That’s exactly what I told the Marquis. He mentioned the possibility of Hecate performing as well—he’ll be disappointed to learn that she can’t do it either.”
“She can,” said Elise. “I told you—I’ll accompany her with my viola.”
“It’s not as simple as…,” I began to say, not even daring to imagine how Hecate might react to the idea not only of being accompanied by someone else, but by a child—but Elise cut me off.
“Is she writing her poem in the language of sighs?” she asked.
Having been caught in mid-sentence, I couldn’t change tack sufficiently rapidly to say “No,” before Sister Ursule intervened.
“How could one write Eurydice’s Lament in any other language?” She said lightly. Then she looked at me and added: “Figuratively speaking, that is.”
I realized that her answer was much better than mine, and nodded an appreciation.
Elise had already rounded on Mariette. “You liked Hecate,” she said, in a tone that was more threat than plea. She was clearly a child who had become used to getting her own way, and knew that she could usually get it. Mariette presumably knew, too, that if she tried to oppose her, she might come off worse—and that was the presumably the last thing she wanted, if my estimate of her anxieties was correct.
I felt that I ought to intervene.
“I’m sorry,” I said, “but I really don’t think that Hecate would allow that. She’s never allowed anyone else to accompany her poetry, in all the time I’ve known her. It’s something she feels strongly about.”
Mariette almost breathed a sigh of relief—but she didn’t get the chance.
Elise, the seemingly timid and perhaps anxious child of the previous evening, was transfigured now. Something, as they say, had got into her. She looked me in the face, and said: “Leave it to me. I’ll persuade her.”
And I was almost ready to believe her. She was, after all, a child who had charmed Lord Dellacrusca himself; Hecate Rain would probably be putty in her hands.
Mariette was as puzzled as I was. We exchanged a glance, and for the first time there was a spark of comprehension and sympathy between us.
Perhaps I might get to paint her after all, I thought, meaning Mariette this time. But my original intention now seemed uncertain. I had wanted to paint her as herself, not as Eurydice, but now, I was no longer sure that I could see her “as herself.” Just as Elise could see Eurydice reflected in the charcoal smudges of my Orpheus’ eyes, I was beginning to see Eurydice in the pale and delicate features of Mariette Parenot—and I was not at all sure that I could banish her therefrom if I managed to persuade her to sit for me.
This obsession is taking hold of us all, I thought. It’s all too much.
Jean-Jacques came in then to inform me that the horses were harnessed to the sociable, and that he could take my guests home whenever they wished.
“If you don’t mind a slight squeeze for the first two hundred paces,” I said, “I’d like to come with you. There’s someone I need to see in town.”
Nobody minded—it was my carriage, after all.
This time, I was careful to return the accursed parchment to its hiding-place in the cellar before leaving, although I couldn’t help thinking that it might be better all round if someone did break in and steal it, as long as they did no harm to Jean-Jacques and Luzon.
Elise sat on Charles Parenot’s knee, and there was no discomfort, even for the short distance separating my house from the one that everyone would now have to get used to calling the Parenot house.
When we had dropped them at their door, I apologized to the Mother Superior for the fact that our private conversation had been rudely disrupted.
“Please don’t apologize,” she said to me. “It was a most unexpected treat to be in such company. I did have more that I wanted to say to you, and I dare say that it won’t be easy to find another occasion to resume our conversation, but I’d like to seize the brief opportunity we still have now to ask you a question, if I may.”
“Fire away,” I said.
She did. “Are you a visionary. Master Rathenius?”
I blinked. “I’m a painter,” I replied. “I have, or believe I have, a particularly acute vision, which sees things other people don’t, and sometimes penetrates secrets that my sitters don’t realize that they’re giving away. In that sense, I have a gift. But if you mean, do I have acute visionary episodes, when I see things with the apparent force of revelation, no I’m not.”
She probably nodded her head, but it was too dark inside the carriage, at that particular point between street-lamps. “Neither am I,” she said. “There was a time when I was disappointed by that, because I wanted to be more like Shalimar, and the other bards, and the Christian saints. I wanted revelation; I wanted the sense of certainty that it seems to bring. But now, I no longer envy those who have that particular...I can’t even think of it as a gift any more. It’s too dangerous, and not only to the visionary. Do you understand what I mean?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Good,” she said. “You can see, can’t you, that that poor child is a visionary?”
“I suspected as much,” I admitted.
“The trouble is,” said the other Superior, “that one can never tell in advance what visions a visionary might have, and what their revelations might reveal… or appear to reveal. It might be wise to keep Hecate away from her, if we can, because I believed her when she said that she could persuade her to let her accompany her.”
“So did I,” I said, “even though it goes against everything Hecate has ever said.”
“Hecate is more vulnerable than she thinks or likes to appear,” opined Sister Ursule, “as you must know very well.”
I did. “Thank you, Sister Ursule,” I said. “You’ve been an immense help to me this evening. I believe that I understand what’s happening much better now. I only hope I can steer my way through it successfully, without anybody getting hurt. That might not be easy, if you’re right about the danger posed by those who might want to get their hands on the parchment.”
“No,” she said, “it might not be easy, and I’m quite prepared to hope that I’ve been misled in my inferences. But if there is danger, not merely to you but to Hecate, I think that with my faith and your artistry, we might just manage to avoid it.”
Then she had to get down, because we had stopped outside the gates of the Convent of the Sisters of Shalimar. I was genuinely sorry, because she really was a very interesting woman. I almost offered to paint her portrait, but I knew that she’s refuse.
“Au revoir, Sister,” I said to her.
“Adieu, Master Rathenius,” she replied.
And that was that.