Unsettled and lonely, Spark feels that she may as well not be with them; she nearly goes for a walk by herself, but talks herself out of it. Reluctantly she peels off her jeans and yellow T-shirt, revealing her bikini. The fresh breeze buffets her pale flesh and brings her out in goose pimples. She wraps her arms around her midriff and half crouches, locking her knees together. Spark surveys the beach. They are alone. She stares out at the sea, a pale opal green under a sky of deepening blue. Small, crested waves race to the shore like enthusiastic dogs. A foaming line of surf constantly teases, threatening to engulf her friends but always receding at the last moment. John, Martha, and Jacob lie like ripening chrysalises, soaking up the sun’s rays.
Spark decides she may as well join them and stretches herself out on her striped blue towel. Already her skin feels dry and salty. At ground level she is sheltered from the wind and wraps some of the towel over her. The tufts of cotton feel warm and comforting. The continuous roar of the sea makes her chest vibrate. She closes her eyes. Cool ozone fills her lungs; the cry of a gull speaks of vast distances. In her dream, Ludo is asking her something, though she can’t concentrate on what he is saying. Instead she is noticing the gold hairs on the back of his hand and the way his eyelashes curl.
When she awakes, the tide has gone out and a broad tan beach has appeared. The smell of the sea is in her nostrils and she is very warm. Someone has draped an extra towel over her, which she throws off. The sand is wet and glistening; it reflects and elongates the forms of the people who have now started to congregate here. Raising herself up on one elbow, she observes the transformed scene. A toddler trots unsteadily across the sand, all energies focused on not tipping her slopping bucket; a man flies a giant red kite, pulling alternately on two wires that climb high into the sky; a golden Labrador splashes through the surf, barking at a herring gull. And Martha, Jacob, and John Stone are playing volleyball like champions. They are so good a small crowd of children have gathered to watch.
Spark stretches out on her towel and waves at them. Soon she’ll have a swim, but first she must read through what she wrote yesterday evening. She unzips her bag and takes out a pencil and the picture postcard of Suffolk she bought for Ludo at the station. If she mails it today, it should be waiting for him when he arrives. She tells him her room isn’t much bigger than his fridge; she explains that the mattress will prove tricky for anyone who doesn’t have the physique of a twelve-year-old girl; she promises to try and get back for a weekend.
Spark sighs. Too jokey. Too much emphasis on smallness of room. And set against the tone of the rest of the postcard, the initial Welcome to Mansfield! now sounds sarcastic. But in the sunlight it’s really obvious how many times she’s rubbed out sentences and rewritten them. It’s just going to have to do.
* * *
That evening, at John Stone’s request, the four of them eat alfresco in the orchard, under a starry sky. It has been a good day: She has swum in the sea and made good headway with the archives. Things are more relaxed with John Stone around. Martha, who is clearly a stranger to the ping of a microwave, has roasted a chicken in butter and herbs. It smells delicious, but Spark’s stomach is beginning to tie itself in knots on account of Jacob. He sits opposite her and has reverted to a sullen, glowering presence. He also keeps sliding the oil lamp toward her, which she hates because of all the buzzing, fluttering creatures with a death wish that are attracted to the light; they hurl themselves at the scorching glass, and she’s got a horror of them catching in her hair. Each time Jacob moves the lamp toward her, John Stone moves it away again, without comment, to his side of the table. There is no way Jacob isn’t doing it on purpose.
John Stone and Martha do their best to draw Spark into the conversation. Martha points out the cluster of glow worms under an apple tree, and at one point John Stone recites a funny limerick about James Joyce and a tortoise. Spark doesn’t mean to be so quiet, but it’s difficult to ignore Jacob’s spiteful behavior.
Suddenly, and with no warning, John Stone collapses forward onto the table, his face landing in his plate. Spark springs up, terrified, a hand over her mouth. Martha, although concerned, does not seem overly alarmed.
“Fetch a blanket, can you?” she says to Jacob, who immediately runs toward the house.
“I’ll call an ambulance,” Spark cries.
“No!” exclaims Martha. “No! John has no truck with doctors.”
Spark can only think about her father. “But he might be having a heart attack!”
“Lord bless you, his heart’s fine. John is apt to fall into a deep sleep, as suddenly as turning out a light.” Martha clicks her fingers for emphasis. “And you can’t shake him out of it, no matter how hard you try. The first time I saw it, I thought he must be peloothered—but it’s not the drink that does it to him. He’s done it since he was a boy.”
Martha gently lifts John Stone’s head and starts to clean the grease from his chin with a napkin.
“Here, let me hold him,” says Spark, gripping his skull between the palms of her hands, trying not to dig her fingernails into the flesh of his face.
Martha shifts the plate and finishes wiping John Stone’s nose. Spark is amazed how heavy heads are. “Sometimes it’s for a few minutes,” says Martha, “and sometimes it’s for hours. It’s his nerves—though John insists that it’s not. He won’t remember a thing when he wakes up.”
“Don’t you think we should call a doctor—just to be sure?” says Spark.
“Certainly not. He’d have our guts for garters if we did.”
* * *
Returning to the house through the orchard, Spark holds the oil lamp high while Jacob takes John Stone’s shoulders and Martha takes his feet. She opens the doors for them as they carry him into the drawing room and deposit him on a couch. Jacob unties John Stone’s laces and levers off his shoes.
“We can manage now,” says Martha, turning to Spark. “But, Lord, look at you, you’re as white as a sheet!”
Spark becomes aware of the tears rolling down her cheeks and wipes them quickly away with the back of her hand. But the tears keep coming. Nodding to Jacob to stay with John Stone, Martha guides Spark to the kitchen, an arm around her waist. To have another grown-up take responsibility. To not be alone when difficult stuff happens. The tears come faster. She just can’t stop herself.
“I thought he might be dead.”
“Hush, now. Drink this.”
Spark sips warm milk laced with a tot of whisky, which Martha has prepared for her. When she looks up, Martha is smiling at her, maternal and reassuring.
“Don’t you be worrying yourself about John. I’m not worried about him, I promise you. Let’s get you to bed and you’ll be right as the mail in the morning—as will he.”
* * *
In her room, Spark undresses in the dark, can’t be bothered to draw the curtains, lets her clothes lie where they fall on the floor, sinks instantly into a deep sleep. But in the middle of the night she is wakened by the sound of tires crunching on gravel. An engine is running. Spark opens her eyes and screws them shut again, dazzled by a strange light. Oh no, she thinks, it’s an ambulance! She rolls out of bed, lands on all fours in front of the French doors, and for a moment, stares out at the floodlit garden. The fountain casts an immense shadow over the lawn, and every blade of grass is sharply defined in the powerful yellow beam. Spark slips out into the night, making her way toward the courtyard. But it’s not an ambulance. She stands shivering on the path, unsure whether to show herself. A long, black car is parked in the courtyard. John Stone, in suit and tie, climbs into the backseat while a uniformed chauffeur places a suitcase in the boot. Martha, in her dressing gown, looks on. The rear window glides down and muffled words pass between John Stone and Martha. Spark fancies she hears her name, but she’s not sure over the purr of the engine.
Spark tiptoes back to her room and eventually goes back to sleep. She awakes late and wonders if she dreamed it.
Notebook 4
XIII
It was early spring before we left the Spaniard’s house on the banks of the River Tarn. He had urged me to start a new life outside France, but I steadfastly refused. Finally we struck a bargain. If, despite my doubts, I agreed to continue my education and training in a manner of which Juan Pedro—my supposed father—would have approved, then the Spaniard would do all that was necessary for me to resume my life as a courtier. He would also, in addition, arrange a meeting with Isabelle d’Alembert. The Spaniard was unhappy with our bargain—he was still concerned for my safety and regarded my feelings for Isabelle as a youthful infatuation—nevertheless, he kept his word.
Returning to Versailles, we stopped in a small town north of the Cévennes where we saw a troop of soldiers—dragonnades—march through the streets. Their task was to “persuade” the protestant Huguenots, by any means necessary, to convert to Catholicism, a religion that was hateful to them. They were there by order of an increasingly devout monarch. For me, it was a timely reminder of the long reach of the Sun King’s hand, a reminder that words uttered in some antechamber in far-off Versailles transformed, inexorably, into actions that could shatter lives.
What I witnessed that day became the first entry in the first of my journals—written to fulfill my part of the bargain. Reading it today, I see that what preoccupied me was a question: Where did the truth lie in that scene? Was it in the arrogant swagger of the officer leading his men? Or was it, rather, in the ashen face of the Huguenot mother, gathering her children to her skirts as she backed into an alley? Should I write about the soldiers blowing kisses at girls in the crowd, or the cat, terrified by the commotion, and crushed under the wheels of a military wagon? And how was I to interpret the stern expression on the catholic priest’s face as he looked on, hands locked so tightly in front of him that his fingers grew white? I did not understand, then, that we see things not for what they are, but for how we are. Even so, that first attempt was enough to show me that to be a witness is not a simple thing.
* * *
My meeting with Isabelle d’Alembert was to take place in Rambouillet. It would then be a mere half day’s ride from her aunt’s square manor house to the court of the Sun King at Versailles.
I was shown to a whitewashed sitting room, sparsely furnished with three armchairs and a card table. Tall windows looked out on one side over the lush forest of Rambouillet—where I had left the Spaniard hunting wild boar—and, on the other, over a gently rolling landscape dotted with sheep and newborn lambs. Meh-meh! Meh-meh! Their shrill cries penetrated the drafty windows. The calmness of my surroundings made the waiting worse. My ears strained to hear the footsteps of the girl who had inhabited my thoughts for so long. How would she be with me? And, for that matter, how should I be with her?
There was a mottled mirror hanging at the far end of the room that reflected the chalky morning light. I placed myself in front it and took stock. My new mint-green waistcoat (I was excessively proud of it) had ridden up my waist, and my hair was in disarray. As for my neck, it poked out of my cravat at an angle resembling a heron waiting for a fish. I did what I could to improve matters. I retied my hair, straightened my waistcoat, and—a futile gesture—pinched my broken nose between thumb and forefinger. It was at the instant I forced the broadest of smiles, baring all my teeth, that the door swung open. It was Isabelle d’Alembert. Before I could adjust my expression, our reflections met in the mirror. Just as I remembered, her eyes were the smoldering gray of storm clouds. As the idiotic grin vanished from my mouth a smile appeared on hers. How foolish I felt, but how alive. I tried not to stare but could not tear my eyes away from her.
“Welcome to Rambouillet, Monsieur. I hope that your journey was agreeable and that your health is much improved.”
“Thank you,” I replied. “It was. . . . It is.”
Isabelle held out a creamy hand. I kissed it, and held on for a fraction too long, for she had to pull her fingers from my grasp. Rosewater! I breathed her in.
Isabelle was speaking, but the sound of that longed-for voice had mesmerized me, so that her meaning seemed to slip through the net of her words.
“My aunt is kind,” she said, “and promised us a few minutes alone.”
“A few minutes,” I repeated, like a fool. There was laughter in her eyes. The speech I had rehearsed that morning in the fields fled from me, refusing to return. I flapped about hopelessly in the shallows of our conversation until Isabelle came to my rescue.
“I feared for your life when my letters remained unanswered—”
“Forgive me, I—”
“There is no need to apologize, I assure you. Signor de Lastimosa explained that you could not read on account of your injuries, and that he could not risk writing to me directly in case he provoked my father’s anger.” She paused, and added: “He was right, of course. My father reads all my correspondence and he would not have approved. . . .”
A small frown appeared on Isabelle’s brow—concerned, I suppose, in case I should be offended at the idea that her father considered me unsuitable company. In truth, I cared little what her father thought of me. On the other hand, how I longed to share with her how utterly my life had changed since our last meeting. I longed to tell her that there was a possibility that I would outlive everyone I had ever met, and their children, and who knew how many generations of their children, and that I was supposed to use my time wisely, putting service to others above my own personal happiness. I wanted to tell her that although I could not quite believe it, I could not quite disbelieve it either, and that I no longer felt carefree but was forever wondering if I was a sempervivens or an ordinary boy wasting his precious life wondering if he was different. And, even more than that, I wanted to tell her that despite everything that had happened to me, the only thing that made me truly happy and gave my life meaning was the thought of her. I wanted to tell her that the bloom on her freckled skin reminded me of the texture of a butterfly’s wings, and that when she looked at me with those eyes—which spoke of such tenderness and intelligence—I felt as if she could see my soul. I wanted to tell her that it was my determination to be with her once more that gave me the strength to recover from my injuries. I wanted to say that just to stand next to her was to live life more intensely. Of course, I said none of this, but asked if her father would be angry if he knew that I had come to Rambouillet.
Isabelle nodded solemnly. “After that night in the Colonnade, my father felt obliged to send a written apology to the Prince de Montclair and his family on my behalf. But, you see, what happened made people laugh, and so they like to repeat it. They are still taunting the Prince—mostly behind his back. It infuriates him.”
“What do they say?” I asked, unwilling to summon up a scrap of sympathy for the fellow. “That, like Mademoiselle d’Alembert, they would—”
“Rather die? Yes.” Isabelle bit her lip but her eyes, at least, were laughing. “He hates me now—whenever I enter a room, he leaves immediately.”
“I admit that I should not have repeated what you said about him—and for that I am sorry—but, all the same, it was nothing! I’m certain the Prince de Montclair says worse things about people several times a day.”
“It was nothing yet something. . . . It is not nothing to ridicule a prince. Papa says we have made enemies of the Montclair family—and he has made it clear that he blames me.”
“And me, I suppose?”
“That goes without saying.”
“Ah . . .”
She reached out to point to my nose. “Was it broken?”
“Yes.”
She stretched out her arm a little farther and, very gently, ran the tip of her finger over the scar that protruded from my scalp and down over my crooked nose. Her touch sent shivers of pleasure skittering down my spine.
“Did it hurt very much?” she asked.
“When you are no longer in pain it is difficult to remember what it felt like.”
Isabelle pointed to a spot on my scalp.
“May I?” she asked, and then, resting both hands on my head, she teased out a few strands of hair from my ponytail. I felt the warmth of her breath on my cheek. I could see every golden freckle. It was overwhelming.
“Do you know that you have a small stripe of white hair over the scar?”
I did know. I have it still. “Yes,” I said and, hearing footsteps in the corridor, and unable to resist any longer, I stole a kiss. Isabelle stepped backward and shot a look behind her as a soft rat-ta-ta-tat sounded at the door.
“I came back to Versailles for you,” I whispered urgently.
Isabelle’s eyes were shining. “Come in, Aunt,” she called and retreated to the window. It was only for a second or two at most, but it was enough: She stood calmly, a figure against a landscape, her hands folded neatly in front of her. But her eyes disclosed to me what she felt. The rush of joy was hard to contain.
Her aunt swept into the room along with Isabelle’s three silly spaniels. Their bright, black eyes sparkled, their claws click-clacked on the parquet floor, and they put their eager little paws on our knees. She was a refined woman with an elegant bearing, just as I expected. We exchanged pleasantries; she gave me a tour of her house, pointing out some of her treasures, including several portraits of prominent figures at court. One was of Monsieur’s second wife, the Princess Palatine. She was a good sort, she said, but so ungainly. Did I not think so? And such ruddy cheeks from all those afternoons of hunting without protecting her skin behind a veil! A shocking lack of vanity, would I not agree, for a princess of the blood?