Do not be anxious. I have no intention of visiting Stowney House. Indeed, I have no intention of doing anything or of going anywhere, suffering, as I am, from a disease of the nerves that renders me unfit to be seen in public.
A disease of the nerves—that detail had passed him by fifteen years ago. John Stone’s sharp intake of breath elicits a backward glance from the driver. But when he first read this letter he was not preoccupied with his own mortality. So, it seems that both his own father, at least according to the Spaniard, and also Thérèse, have succumbed to a weakness of the nervous system. He glances down at his hands, which currently show no sign of misbehaving.
My purpose in writing to you is this: I wish to gift you a house. With this letter you will find enclosed the deeds to the former gatekeeper’s cottage whose land adjoins your estate. I had my own reasons for acquiring the property but those are unimportant now.
What on earth had she intended to do? I had my own reasons! Spy on him? Drive Martha and Jacob away?
You will be astonished to hear that I have caught a little of your philanthropic zeal and have offered the gatekeeper’s cottage to a deserving family. The father is a cook of some sort on the coast. Of late he has been of great service to me; he has two children, and I would ask you to let them live in the house for as long as they have need of it. I am certain they will not bother you at Stowney House in any way. The youngest child, a baby girl, is a favorite of mine and I would ask you to have some thought for the family’s welfare.
I make this request while I can, for my health is failing. It seems unlikely that I shall survive you. Although there was a time when I found your attachment to the maxim “In me the past lives” a little irritating, perhaps now I can take some comfort from it. When the time comes, I hope that you can find it in your heart to keep alive something of me.
* * *
John Stone lets the letter drop onto his lap. Thérèse’s manipulative streak gradually led him to distrust everything she said. How was he supposed to have known that on this occasion she was telling the truth? Fifteen years ago he had thought it was a ruse, a trap, details in some ingenious drama yet to be played out. It is painful to revisit her parting words. What he wanted to find is not there: She is not contrite; she does not beg for his forgiveness; there is no confession; there is no final blessing; she does not—
“Are you all right, Sir?”
John Stone realizes that he has been rubbing his forehead violently as if he has been trying to wipe something away. “Just a headache . . .”
They each address each other’s reflections in the rearview mirror.
“Would you like me to stop at a pharmacy?”
“Thank you, no.”
The driver turns his attention back to the road. John Stone folds up the letter and holds it in his fist by the open window. He is tempted to open his fingers and let the wind carry it away.
Why, even at the end, was Thérèse incapable of being simple and direct? I hope that you can find it in your heart to keep alive something of me. He is certain now that her letter concerned one thing and one thing alone: this baby girl of whom she had become so fond. Why could she not have said: I am dying. I have a baby daughter. Will you help her if she needs it? If she had, he would have done far more. What he did do for the family—a scholarship for the son and, later, an internship—stemmed chiefly from the pity he felt when he discovered that the father died not long after Thérèse’s death. As far as he can tell, this Mrs. Park seems to have brought up the child as her own. That can’t have been easy. In the circumstances, it’s hardly surprising that she became depressed. He’ll see for himself how good a job she has done when he has got to know Spark a little. If any doubt remained after he first set eyes on Spark in New York, this letter is proof enough that the resemblance was not a coincidence. Spark is the daughter of his estranged wife.
John Stone stares out across the sparkling, wind-rippled Thames and has an urge to get out of the car and walk awhile. He instructs the driver to pull over into a side street. They are in Chelsea, among tall, redbrick villas, and he strides out, swinging his arms, shaking his head slowly from side to side as if trying to sweep away difficult memories. Outside a small supermarket displaying boxes of fruit and vegetables on the pavement, he stops to fill a brown paper bag with some yellow plums, warmed by the sun. As he smells the fragrant flesh, a smile of recognition flashes across his face. They are mirabelles, a variety he rarely tastes nowadays, and whose sunny sweetness always conjures up bright images of his youth.
Messrs de Souza & Company, Byng House, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London WC2.
CONFIDENTIALITY AGREEMENT
In consideration of being allowed to read the set of eight notebooks constituting the initial part of a memoir written by Mr. John Stone, of Stowney House, in the County of Suffolk (“the Notebooks”), I undertake and agree as follows:
i) I acknowledge that the existence and contents of the Notebooks is confidential to Mr. Stone (the “Confidential Information”).
ii) I undertake not to remove the Notebooks or any part of them from the offices of Messrs de Souza & Company, Byng House, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London WC2, nor reproduce the Confidential Information in any form, whether by making notes, copies, or otherwise, and further, not to disclose or disseminate the Confidential Information in whole or in part to any third party, nor use the same for any purpose.
iii) I acknowledge that damages would be an inadequate remedy for breach of this undertaking and agree that Mr. Stone shall be entitled to obtain an injunction to prevent such breach.
iv) This Agreement shall be governed by the laws of England and Wales.
Signed: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Name:
Dated: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Prepared 28th July, 20—
Notebook 1
I
1685, Versailles, France.
They say that the grandeur of Versailles in the age of the Sun King has never been surpassed, although, human nature being what it is, one soon gets used to anything. In the middle of Louis XIV’s long reign, the youngest son of a minor nobleman was brought by his father to live at court. Surrounded by art, music, and conversation of the very highest order, to receive an education at the court of Versailles, it was—as his father repeatedly told him—merely necessary for the boy to remain awake.
In the Palace of Versailles, where Louis shone at the center of a universe of his own making, the boy often felt like a spectator at a never-ending circus, relieved that the all-powerful ringmaster had not noticed him, and did not require him to perform. It was only much later that he understood what a privilege fate had bestowed on him allowing him to have observed, firsthand—and at such a tender age—the rules of the game at the court of the Sun King. The boy’s name was Jean-Pierre, and that boy was me.
* * *
What I am about to describe happened so very long ago it begins to sound, even to my ears, like a fairy tale. And yet, here I am, pen in hand, holding up a lens to my own distant past. I recognize that boy but I cannot always feel him. Jean-Pierre is myself and he is also another. When I recall my arrival at court, for example, which was a momentous day in my young life, even though the images are bright and crisp, I see them as if I were a spirit sitting on my own shoulder. My father had often spoken of the magnificence of Versailles but his words did not prepare me for my first sight of it. I was sick after three days in a stuffy, rolling carriage, but they still had to drag me away from the blue-and-gold railings, where I clung on, spellbound, my fingers growing numb in the biting cold.
You must understand that it was an age when one’s knowledge of the world was limited to a radius of a few miles from one’s birthplace. It is difficult to comprehend, today, such ignorance. If anyone in our village traveled to the nearest big town, we would cluster around them for news on their return. The largest house I had ever seen was our own, w
hich was smaller than the King’s stables. And so it was that I gawped in awe at this vast palace, built of brick and honey-colored stone that glowed rose pink in the light of a dying winter sun. Surely, I thought, I will not be permitted to spend my days here.
While there was still light enough to see, my father took me by the hand and we walked to the back of the palace to view the gardens. We stood together, on the brink of a new life, our breath coming out in great clouds of steam. The sense of immense, luminous distances all leading to and from that spot was overwhelming. It was as if the cold air itself had been sculpted by a master hand. Radiating outward from the palace were wide lawns and generous terraces, all perfectly symmetrical. Topiary, statues, and magnificent fountains drew the eye to the misty distance, where a rectangular lake reflected the red evening sky like a gigantic mirror. When I beheld that astonishing vista I laughed out loud, both in delight and disbelief. This was the desired effect: the King was, after all, God’s representative on earth; his power was absolute, and his home should bear witness to the fact.
“You see,” said my father, “did I not tell you that Versailles is the greatest palace on earth?”
It was the only palace that I had seen—although I have seen a great many since. The scale and ambition of its creator’s vision astounds me still. I had no understanding, then, of what this splendor had cost the people. A century later I saw the revolutionaries desecrate the Sun King’s grave. They tossed Louis’s bones into a pit along with the assorted remains of those who had reigned over France for a thousand years. I do not judge. I witness. The wheel of life revolves. To be alive is to change. Nothing lasts forever, and anyone who believes that it does is a fool.
II
I was fifteen years old. No longer a child, but skinny, long-limbed, wild-eyed. Picture me running from our lodgings in the town toward the palace, long hair flying and white stockings wrinkling around my ankles. It was my first summer at Versailles, and I was fleeing from my three elder brothers. I did not fancy my chances if they caught up with me. My father was away attending to affairs on our estate and my brothers had taken advantage of his absence by vowing to beat me to a pulp. It was not an idle threat. I was the youngest by six years and my entry into the world had coincided with our mother’s exit. If I was the apple of my father’s eye, I was also, according to my brothers, the cuckoo in his nest. Later I came to understand their hatred; at the time it was a situation I accepted in the same way that hens accept the existence of foxes.
I made for the Great Courtyard, where there were always lines of sedan chairs, horse-drawn fiacres, endless lines of lumbering wagons bringing in goods to supply the royal household, and, of course, the resplendent carriages of the aristocracy. Here was the din and clatter that one finds at the threshold of two dependent worlds—on the one side the town, on the other, the royal palace of the Sun King. There were many places in Versailles where a quiet decorum was required, where one spoke in a low voice, and where one did not knock on a door but, rather, scratched on it with a fingernail. But here, in the ripe stink of the crowd, you shouted to make yourself heard.
I skidded on some disgusting, putrefying thing, cracking the heel of my shoe as I did so. To stop myself from falling, I caught hold of a soft, plump arm. The arm belonged to a street hawker, a young woman who balanced a basket of fruit on her head. I grabbed hold of her waist and dragged her in front of me like a shield, peeping out to see if there was any sign of my brothers. The woman cried out as small, yellow plums tumbled from her basket. I shot out my cupped hands and caught them in quick succession, clasping them to my chest.
“I beg your pardon, Madame,” I said. The woman gestured at my dripping face, pulled out a cloth, and wiped my forehead, my cheeks, my nose. She was none too gentle, and when I grimaced and spluttered she laughed. I tried to return the mirabelle plums to her, but she thrust them back at me. Women were often kind to me in my youth. She reached up into her basket and gave me another handful. “For you,” she said.
So I started that fateful day hot, disheveled, my pockets crammed with mirabelles—and more than a little afraid. Hoping that my brothers had given up the chase, I slipped into the royal courtyard through one of the side gates (the main gate being reserved for the King and princes of the blood), and I hid for a long while behind a line of sedan chairs.
It was my new coat that had provoked my brothers’ jealousy on this occasion. We were all in need of finery, for the King expected his courtiers to be decorative. However, we were not wealthy and it was a terrible expense to bear. My father had ordered his tailor to make me a new coat and waistcoat in blue silk while announcing to my brothers that they must make do with the outfits they already possessed. They were not pleased.
By now the Château of Versailles had become my playground, and I cannot imagine anywhere better suited to hide-and-seek. I kept out of sight for much of that day, first in the King’s kitchens—where I was known, and where I played the joker, and where, in return, I was given slices of venison fresh from the spit, and handfuls of candied fruit. Afterward, I headed for the walled kitchen garden, a short walk from the palace. The garden was divided into many “rooms” and I was able to conceal myself behind rows of espaliered fruit trees. I strolled around the neat beds bursting with feathery asparagus and lines of salad, herbs, and vegetables, and helped myself to strawberries, and then to peas (a novelty much favored then by the King), which I popped into my mouth, sweet and crunchy, out of the pod.
Later I hid in the cavernous icehouse, where the cold, echoing darkness and the sound of constant dripping put me in mind of dungeons. I took to wondering when my brothers had started to hate me so. If my mother had died bringing me into the world, I reasoned, at least she had loved them for a while. Whereas I had never known her. Surely I deserved pity, not hate.
Midafternoon, I risked returning to the palace. Two young ladies, identical twins, invited me to sit with them. We played Reversi, a favorite card game of mine, although, fearful that my brothers might appear at any moment, my concentration was poor. The King, who liked to hear music wherever he went, must have been taking a stroll, for the sound of a band playing reached us through an open window. I was much taken by the melody, and the driving beat set my foot tapping. I said as much to the young ladies.
“It is by Lully,” said one.
“Is it ever by anyone else?” said the other.
“Poor Monsieur Lully,” said the first.
“Why poor?” I asked.
“Did you not hear? He kept such violent time with his stick during a concert last year that he struck his foot—”
“And developed a terrible ulcer—”
“Which Father couldn’t cure—”
“And it turned gangrenous and then he died—”
The two mesdemoiselles were the daughters, as it happened, of one of the King’s physicians (whose tender care everyone feared more than becoming ill in the first place).
“How very unfortunate,” I said.
Presently, bored with cards, the young ladies demanded other entertainment. Unimpressed by my efforts to juggle the mirabelles, they proposed a dare, which I felt obliged to accept. An ancient duchess, fond of terrorizing her servants, was asleep in an armchair next to the doorway of the anteroom where we sat. Her jaw hung slackly open, and she was snoring, but intermittently, so that it came as a shock each time she started up again. One of the young ladies presented me with an ostrich feather from her headdress and, as instructed, I held it beneath the duchess’s nose. With every breath the jewels on her wrinkled chest rose and fell. Her lapdog, who was also half-asleep, regarded me with one bulbous, black eye, revealing a slither of white like a crescent moon. The effort of not laughing out loud made us all long to laugh even more. Suddenly the old lady snorted violently and the fluffy strands of the ostrich feather entered the dark cavities of her flared nostrils. With a start she awoke. Mirroring her animal, one eyelid snapped open and focused first on the feather and second on me. The you
ng ladies clung to each other, helpless with silent mirth, their colorful skirts merging together like flowers in a vase. The duchess screeched for her servant and I made a swift departure.
When I reached the cool quiet of the Queen’s staircase I paused to lean over the balustrade. Too late, I saw my three brothers looking up at me from below and I froze, my feet becoming rooted to the marble floor. Fear, true gut-wrenching fear, is the most terrible thing to provoke in a child—as all the bullies through time have always known and always will know. Only when I heard them clattering up the stairs, did I manage to turn on my heels and run into the Hall of Mirrors. As I darted between one group of gossiping courtiers and the next, Monsieur Grignotte, an actor with whom I was on friendly terms, called out to me in his fine tenor voice. “Jean-Pierre! Such a handsome coat, dear boy! But, you know, one does not run at Versailles.” A long succession of golden mirrors, each the height of three men, reflected my progress across the room, revealing my whereabouts to my brothers.
I would have been wiser to stay inside the palace. Instead, I ran out into the gardens, where, as I crossed the vast terrace, I felt as a mouse must feel with a hawk hovering above it. Hunting was the thing my brothers loved most in the world and I was their favorite prey. And so I raced across the gravel paths, a film of cold sweat sticking my shirt to my back. At last I descended the long flight of stone steps to the orangery, where I was able to lose myself in the forest of fruit trees.
My plan, such as it was, was to get to the gardens—not the formal lawns and alleyways next to the palace but the bosquets, the groves, on either side of the royal walk. My brothers were stronger than me but I was faster than them. If I could manage to outrun them, I would hide there until they grew tired of the hunt.