Certain that she will not note the coincidence, he lays down the display case in front of her, opens its velvet-lined door and explains, with signs, that he could not be sure of choosing one exquisite enough for her, so she must make her own selection of the diamond brooches here.
Her eyes widen and she abruptly closes the lid of the box, overwhelmed. He opens it again, and gently guides her fingers over the cool faceted surfaces. Her hand is smooth as a tulip, blatantly ring-less, vulnerable under his.
She looks up into his face, as if to ask, “Is it really true? These are for me?”
He kisses her and then turns her face back to the box with a caressing finger.
Delicately, almost reluctantly, she points to the smallest brooch in the collection. So modest! So far from the greedy whores of his previous intimate acquaintance. He thinks how they would have weighed the brooches in their hands for worth, how they would have bargained with him for a second gift.
“You like this one?” he says fondly, lifting it off the velvet and holding it out to her. He is pleased to see that she has been discriminating. The emerald-cut diamonds, while petite, are perfect and lustrous. She lowers her eyes as if his generosity is almost too much to bear. She does not immediately pin on the brooch but lets it rest in his hand where she still stares at it in disbelief.
He turns it over to read Dizzom’s label and is gratified to find that this robbed jeweler is one already known to him. He makes a mental note to send Dizzom off with a proposition: Will this craftsman kindly take on the matter of removing stones from some hundred discarded brooches and creating a tiara, parure, earrings, almost any goddamned thing that can be sprinkled with sparklers? Not a ring, though.
That would be putting too much weight on the thing.
He will follow up this gift with gowns, furs, milk-white pearls, anything that women want for the buying in London! The town is a paradise for women with retail inclinations. He thinks of his ward, Pevenche, who has very recently taught him a great deal on this extensive subject.
In Venice, he thinks, he will buy the actress an island in the lagoon, something of a manageable size with a simple pavilion for summer love-trysts. When things are difficult, he will imagine that pavilion, hung with diamonds.
The evening proceeds as those before. Hard and sweet.
Tom’s body is now in Paris. Valentine has received the news this day and his mind turns over the now-familiar agony: Should he allow Tom’s daughter, Pevenche, to see what is left of her father, as she shrilly demands to do, or should he lie to her and say that the body has been buried in Venice? He is inclined to allow her to see Tom. Dizzom’s contacts report that the embalming has been scrupulously done, and the cadaver has traveled exceptionally well. Valentine had the mistress of her school break the news of the death to Tom’s daughter. He could not trust himself to do it, and by the time he comes to take her to tea she has composed herself enough to talk freely of her father and his passing. There’s something strange about her attitude. There is an absence of delicacy in her curiosity. She wants to know all the details, demands that he draw the murder weapon for her, asks how long her father took in dying, grows ominously quiet when he refuses her this information. He excuses himself a moment on the pretext of fetching a newspaper. When he returns, she chatters bright and brainless as a parrot. It is horrible. She is too old now to assume the ruthlessness of childhood. It is not becoming in a twelve-year-old—or whatever she is—he never remembers—expensively educated and sheltered from the world.
She is so unlike Tom in this. Tom was subtle, charming, clever, usually.
And so unlike Tom she is in her looks, though she shares his notable bulk. Pevenche, young as she is, stands awkwardly at an inch over six foot, and she’s generously endowed widthways too. Today she is dressed to the gills in tawdry black flounce like a Bartholomew Baby, a costume of her own choosing, of which she is immensely proud. However, she is incommoded by ruffles in tight crevices to the extent that she moves stiffly like a doll, and he sees how cruelly the seams cut into her plumpness by the rolls of fat that blossom wherever the fabric relaxes its grip.
Valentine has not hesitated to make Tom’s daughter his ward and has already settled a sum on her, making it known to the simpering Mistress Haggardoon who runs her boarding school. What will happen to her in the periods of holiday is something he shall worry about later. Tom himself never took the girl home, preferring to visit her at the school. Valentine is faintly amused and at the same time slightly horrified at Pevenche’s blatant lack of gratitude for his help. She expects to be taken to elegant teas and luncheons, and on the very day she heard of her father’s death, she shamelessly asked for an increase in her allowance.
She takes his intervention for granted, saying, “I’m too big for you to send me to the Angel-Makers, I suppose,” and before he realizes that this is her childishly incompetent idea of a drollity he is racked with worry that she even knows about the women who take in babies for a fee, and dispatch them as soon as possible to a world where they will no longer trouble their parents with expenditure. Indeed the parents and the Angel-Makers, who often subscribe to several Burial Clubs that pay out for funerals, can even profit from a murdered child. Pevenche cannot know it, but this subject is personally dolorous to him. For yes, Valentine has some of these nurses in his pay too, though under strict supervision, and he is the patron of more than one Burial Club, because there are those among his lace-carriers and cure-victims who are afflicted with fertile wombs but lack the wherewithal to get rid of their own unwanted babies. He deplores the need but he is fond of his girls and he’d rather they did not have blood on their hands.
Pevenche too is childishly excited by the great diamond drain on London’s jewellers.
“It’s nawful, ain’t it, Uncle Valentine?” she says happily. “Worsen the Queen of France.”
She is full of theories, some uncomfortably close to the truth, and knows the day’s tally by heart, can list the leading establishments and has added up the value of all the gems stolen this week. Mentally, Valentine Greatrakes makes a note to let Pevenche have one of the diamond brooches rejected by Mimosina Dolcezza before the others are dispatched for refashioning. In this one thing, the extreme fascination with diamonds, the girl does indeed resemble her father, he thinks fondly.
Half listening to Pevenche’s harsh voice, Valentine is almost tempted to share the truth, such delectation would she take in it. She might have some ideas to freshen the game, for that is what all this is to her: a game. Even the death of her father she seems to see not as a tragedy but a swinging stroke in an exciting drama. She has presented to him two ready-formed plots for avenging Tom.
Valentine tells Pevenche that the matter of her father’s murderer is in hand, and she purses her lips. “Why do you not tell me what you are thinkin’, Uncle Valentine? Why must you keep it so prodigious snug?”
He smiles nervously and rises to his feet, reaching for his hat and cane. No one else questions him like this.
“When do you come to me again, Uncle Valentine?” she asks, with her head on one side, and her hand insinuating itself into his. Just for a moment, she creates the peculiar illusion of diminishing in bulk to the proper childlike proportions of her age.
“Soon, dear heart, very soon,” he promises.
“I live for your visits you know,” she whispers. “Since my Pa died you are all the world to me. You know I have nothing else.”
Valentine knows that a declaration of her preciousness to him is now required but he backs away, stammering, disengaging her hand and grasping for his cane, which slides between his legs and trips him up.
She is by his side all the way to the front door, pressing against him in the narrow hallway. He steels himself not to flinch away, but he cannot help it. As he leaves the building he hears the strum of her ukulele shredding the air with tuneless misery.
For Pevenche is not afflicted with the itch of making actual music. She has never needed to fini
sh a tune before tickling the ear of her listeners to such a disagreeable frenzy that whatever she wants is given to her on the instant, so quickly that all she desires is achieved without even disturbing the cerebral processes of her benefactors.
Valentine does not know why he does so, but he finds himself turning on his heel.
He goes back in and summons the headmistress, handing her a packet of cash.
“Buy something nice for the girl,” he says gruffly, loud enough for Pevenche to hear. “Spend it all.”
The music dies away on the instant, and the young votress of harmony is heard to sigh happily.
St. Giles’ Greek, the tongue of the street, styles ready cash as “gingerbread” or “balsam,” and Valentine Greatrakes is pleased with the nourishing and healing implications of these words. It is his experience that money soothes and smoothes over a great many harmful things.
• 7 •
The Decoction Called Sacrum
Take Virginia Snake Root powder’d 6 drams; boil it in Water 1 pint to half a pint; strain and reserve the Liquor by itself: boil the remaining root in a pint more of Water to half a pint as before (adding when it is near boiled enough. Cochineal half a scruple); strain it, and having mixed together both the Liquors, dissolve in it Venice Treacle half an ounce; Honey 1 ounce; and then strain it once more for use.
Here I present you with a most desirable Alexipharmack, second to none, for it inspires as twere, the Blood and Juices flowing in the Vessels and Viscera with a new Ferment; and by moving them gently, and keeping them in an equable uniform mixture, frees them from Coagulation and Putrefaction. By the same kindly Agitation it dissipates the Poison Particles that begin to gather in tumultuous Clusters, and hinders their coming to Maturation; and then so occupies, animates and confirms the Blood and Spirits, as to defend them from taking the Venomous Impression.
Valentine Greatrakes is taking his time with Mimosina Dolcezza. Gradually, they start to remove their clothes when they make love. Each time, another garment is finally discarded and another small acreage of flesh revealed to the eyes and fingertips of the other.
No one would believe it if they saw the angles that lovers see, thinks Valentine. That’s why love conjures so many metaphors.
An upside-down view of a slightly puckered thigh half turning away, a shadowed nipple like a fisherman’s knot… even when he cannot be with her, such images crowd his shuttered retinas and paint them with a hot and shadowy pink palette.
He knows there have been others before him. Not many and none such as he, of course. He thinks of her sentimentally as his little soiled dove, but this only draws him closer. He himself has been far from chaste in his life, and yet he feels his virginity renewed by this love. It must also be so for her.
He has never known a woman so intimately. Within a week he has made love to her more times than to any other woman he has ever known. Her narrow body is delicate as a petal. Her eyes are pure candlelight. She is never looking away from him. He has never experienced such attention to his desires, even from women trained for the purpose. Her hands are peerless, shameless, yet delicate. He feels dizzy merely to think of her lips.
He knows what she loves to put inside her mouth. She likes everything exalted with sugar. She drinks her coffee, tea, and chocolate sweetened dramatically. She likes all kinds of sugared and honeyed things, and even insists on fruited sauces for meat and fish dishes. The only person he knows with such a surrendering weakness for sweet things and a capacity for the consumption of confectionery is of course his ward, Pevenche, who is sorely afflicted with worms. But he mislikes comparing the two women.
The love of Mimosina Dolcezza is a continuous revelation, a daily peeling of flakes from his eyes. He did not know it could be like this. He did not begin to suspect it, and he is never replete with the sensations of it.
Now he has unwrapped the actress to her natal state, and he has made love to her in all the ways his fantasy can permit, and has been amazed at the additional postures permitted by hers. He averts his mind from how she knows what she does in the way of generating pleasure. Indeed, such pleasure is generated that he becomes mindless and numb with it, so much so that there is mercifully soon no need to think of its provenance. He spends whole nights with her, whole days too, neglecting his businesses apart from cursory visits to the depository when Mimosina Dolcezza must run some mysterious feminine errands or perform at the theater.
Dizzom eyes him strangely, but says nothing. He presents the inventories of the nostrums, makes a rapid précis of the incomings at the depository, and asks for instructions on specific matters, slowly, as if he understands that his master now hears everything filtered through the muffling gauze of love.
Of course Dizzom understands more after he first beholds Mimosina Dolcezza, not in the theater but in her own rooms, in a tender deshabillé. When Valentine hears his man announced, he calls him in directly, forgetting where he is, and with whom. Perhaps he wants Dizzom to share this—not merely the public woman, but the flushed, tousled angel he alone knows. And despite the impropriety, she seems to understand that with Dizzom nothing is to be hidden, for she smiles at him enchantingly from between the sheets, with no reproofs for the intrusion.
Valentine is oddly satisfied that Dizzom has now seen his treasure: He neglects at first to ask what confidential matters could have sent him in search of his master at the actress’s rooms. He watches his old friend with intense interest. On seeing the actress for the first time, Dizzom is visibly moved. He looks at her with glistening eyes. His expression suggests fear and abject devotion, all at once.
Dizzom too is almost distracted from the matter in hand, but after a moment he pulls his wits together and apologetically draws his master aside. He has matters to discuss that he judges unsuitable for the ears of such a lovely lady.
In whispers, Valentine is made to understand that Tom’s body has encountered troubles in Paris. Coffins have become so commonplace a vehicle for smugglers that—the greatest of ironies—Tom’s has been confiscated and opened up by the officers of the law. Now it reclines on a bench in a Parisian mortuary, awaiting fresh documents of release. Valentine shivers and turns away, his mind immediately filled with the sight of Mimosina Dolcezza, mercifully blotting out the image of Tom’s corpse peered at by Frenchy customs officers with no great show of compassion.
Dizzom leaves and Valentine stumbles back into the arms of the actress.
He shudders to think that only the merest chance has put her in a production bound for London, that only the frail thread of her theatrical ambitions, thrown randomly across Europe, has now tethered her here, for him to love her.
Her English has improved amazingly, though she still minces her participles in the most endearing fashion. In fact, it turns out that she already possessed much more than a rudimentary grasp, though she has never been in England before. When he asks her about it, she casts a veil over how she came to acquire her relative fluency.
“I met English people, you know, before you, caw” she says. “You are not a rare breed in this world, you Englishmen.”
It is just another miracle, he thinks, that she was able to restrain herself from talking so much at the beginning of their relationship, as if she guessed that in his sad state he had need of simple physical comforts. For by now of course he has told her, sketchily about Tom. He has spared her the details of the murder naturally; has implied a sad rather than a violent end. He has been baptized with the sweetly salt tears of her commiserations. She has held him while he cries, she has knelt over him, stroking the blistered ridges of his back that he has never allowed another woman to touch. She has rubbed aloes and oils into its dry excrescences and laid her cheek upon its old puckerings without any disgust and only with tenderness.
But tonight she will give him a moment of the purest horror.
This night, he undresses only her hair, laying the tresses about her shoulders. The mustard light of the candle has spiced her eyes so he can look nowhere
else until she leaves the room, some time toward dawn. Then he lets down his shoulders, lassitude blooming like a branch of red blossom down his spine, and he’s dropping on the sag to crush the vivid tiredness out of his back.
It’s then that it impales him and he’s leaping up, too much winded by shock to scream.
“Eecch,” he wheezes, scraping its talons from his skin: A bat is hunched in the bed she’s just vacated, and it’s lying there quivering in a crook of the linen, misshapen, evil, with a taste for his flesh. He brandishes a candle, but the thing’s impervious to light, afraid of nothing. Now it flattens its fluttering, feigns death, to draw him closer, so it can fly at him and dip its mandibles in his neck. Why even now it’s cultivating the throbs for a richer feed, he’s read of such things. He feels more naked than the moon. He’s never been so naked and never needed his clothes so much.
What’s that smell?
Do bats smell? He perceives atoms of the inimitable perfume—white musk and apples—of Mimosina Dolcezza rising almost visibly from the disturbed sheets, a sweetness bursting out of the faint sweat of mildew.
Where is she?
In his panic it seems to him that his mistress has been transformed into this bat.
And his eyes do not once leave the brute as he backsteps to the too-close wall, where, espaliered, he prays for her to come back, and he prays for her not to come back and find him jellied by a bat, though surely of a rare and spiteful species, and the minutes pass and the decades of minutes and still the thing plays dead, garnering its venom, and still he’s stricken to a standstill, only his heart skittering like a nutmeg grater, the guttering candle gouting down his wrists, binding his hairs to the skin that fear has plucked to goose. Then she sweeps back into the room, luminous, fresh, dressed for the world.