Under the Poppy (40 page)

Now the young actor in question watches as Istvan approaches Pinky, busy with his paint brush, to draw him aside for some private instruction, Istvan whose approval was necessary for their addition to the troupe, an approval tendered for his own reasons, unshared with Lucy, unshared even with Rupert whose diffidence in asking—
Lucy could do with the muscle, since you’re rarely about these days. But do as you please
—reinforced Istvan’s own conclusions.
Do as you please,
well and so he has, these young men a useful blend of rampart and litmus: let Benjamin be kept where Istvan can see him, and let the general see him there as well. Even borrowed power can make a shield.

Though most times it seems that Istvan himself does not note Benjamin at all, moving him about as brusquely as the furniture, ignoring
or tormenting him by turns, treatment that is distinctly novel for the heir to the de Metz name. Still he bears what he must from this, his rival for Monsieur—Etienne Dieudonne, with his razor tongue and measuring eyes, the faint lines at his lips, the cold grace of his movements onstage: an arch-player, as Pinky says—for the daily chance to watch Monsieur passing through the hallways, or standing, arms
folded, at the back of the house, like a warm shadow falling on his heart…. Miss Bell has said that Monsieur, too, was once an actor, playing
alongside M. Dieudonne in some long-ago days; will he play in this show, now, somehow? But whenever he asks, she only shakes her head and smiles:
You must put your mind back to the piano, Mr. Benjamin. Have you fully learned your part, yet? Look, Didier is come to practice with you.

Yet why else is he here, on this stage at all, if it is not Monsieur’s doing? For surely M. Dieudonne does not like him, though he is always friendly to Pinky: see them now together at the table, bent over the puppets M. Dieudonne has just constructed, funny, ugly things nesting one-in-another, a devil in a magistrate in a fishwife in a girl with a horse’s head like “Bottom,” says Pinky with a grin. “She’s from the same family tree, isn’t she, sir? That fellow with the donkey’s noggin?”

“And she has an uncle, called the Chevalier…. You know a bit of Shakespeare, eh?”

“Why, to be sure. And Kit Marlowe, too—that
Doctor Faustus
is my favorite. D’you know, they say real demons popped up at a
Faustus,
once, drawn by the incantations, and drove all the audience barking mad? What a topping show that must have been!—Now what of that one, sir?” nodding to Feste, who lies well apart from the others, eyes open, half swaddled in a length of violet silk and “I don’t use him on this stage,” says Istvan coolly, but “May I see?” Pinky reaching with reverent hands, admiring the planes of the puppet’s face, the ludic grin, the eyes especially. “This one was cut with a sharp knife! He’s a rouser. But he’s got a bit of sorrow to him, too, hasn’t he.” Not a question, spoken almost to himself, he and the puppet eye-to-eye, as Istvan smiles with a master’s approval—

—but right there at his elbow “May I see?” from the Happy Prince all studious, inserting himself, as always, where he does not belong so “No,” says Istvan, “you may not.” A strained little silence, then, an itch in his sleeve—the forgotten note, yes—so he shakes it free, toward Benjamin who misses, must reach to take it from the floor: “You may read your billet-doux instead,” some rot about stopping at the Chamsaurs’ for his sister, they are dining there this evening, hoopla. Stupid, to send the tutor on a footman’s errand, but the ways of the wealthy are often stupid, stupid as this boy who crumples the note and tosses it aside, who gives Istvan a prideful, wounded, liquid look from beneath his curls, that look that makes Istvan want to string him up like a puppet so “The fellow came especially to bring it,” bending in one smooth motion to retrieve the note and flip it back, hard, so it strikes his cheek, so it almost stings. “You might read the fucking thing, yeah?”

Benjamin stands frozen. Pinky looks from one to the other, asks in as light a tone as he can muster, trying to ease the air, “Why, who came, sir?”

“His teacher,” brusque, “the dry guillotine,” the soubriquet so apt that Pinky barks a laugh, even Benjamin is surprised into a near-smile: and his gaze meets Istvan’s then, meets and holds in a
frisson
so tense and odd that both are struck, though only one understands, and he imperfectly: as if meeting one’s phantom in a mirror, the mirror of time, beauty staring at beauty’s experience, ascendant and at final apogee until “Off you go, Cupid,” Istvan’s tone so brutal that Pinky has to look away. “Off to your tea party…. Are you hard of hearing? I said
go
—”

—as Benjamin turns white, turns on his heel past the jumble of lumber and paint pots, pushing out into the narrow hallway, head bent so he stumbles, tumbles into a body right there in his way—“Pardon!”—but “Hold up,” strong hands to steady him, Rupert’s kindly frown. “What’s amiss, then, Master de Metz?”

“Oh!” with half a gasp, gazing up into Rupert’s face, and the sudden spring of tears, mortifying, childish—but to be sent away, then run straightaway into this! into his arms, like falling headlong from Purgatory into Paradise…. They stand so for a moment, a long moment in the dim and cluttered hallway, Rupert as close as in one of his dreams: and it would be so easy, here, now, to do as he has done before with others, reach up and caress that cheek, the faint rasp of bristles there, the scent of tobacco and something secret beneath it, astringent, intoxicating, to taste it with his lips—yet this is not some grubby groomsman in a stable, some oaf in a boat, this is Monsieur so “M. Dieudonne,” he says, tries to say but finds instead that he cannot speak, can do nothing but look, all his heart in his eyes for Rupert—

—who ought step back, take his hands away, but the boy is trembling so, perhaps he is ill, or he and Istvan, did they quarrel? Looking down into those tearful eyes, the tremulous and seeking smile, and it is suddenly an effort to make a smile of his own, past the swift and primal uprush of appetite: this boy in his hands like a puppet, stringless and willing, willing him to do as he pleases, whatever he desires—

—so “Be careful,” Rupert’s mutter, drawing back, hands at his sides again and now Benjamin is glowing, scrabbling through his pockets for, what? a book, a red-spined little journal that he thrusts at Rupert, almost pushes into his hands: and kisses his cheek, a chaste, hot, fragrant little kiss, then bolts down the hallway for the outer door, a clatter of boots as Rupert stuffs the thing unseen into his breast pocket, takes a ragged breath, and heads, again, for backstage, where all hands are busy with a toppled backdrop wall, tumbled dust and children’s hubbub, his advent unmarked by all but Feste, who lies silent as a puppet must, when flesh addresses flesh.

Chatiens is famous for its skylarks as well as its roses, the gardens’ air is filled with song on fine spring days, but the crows gather there as well, staring eyes and black wings, scattered like spent ordnance on the lawn beneath the master’s windows, where, in the dregs of a long and sunless afternoon, in ink as black as a crow feather, Isidore de Metz now addresses his correspondence.

The room is a marvel of opulent restraint, dark velvet drapes and spotless floors, an ascetic sultan’s elevation of a very few perfect
objets
: a bust of Pompey, carved from black marble, as small as a child’s fist; an oil study on an ebony easel of Rachel at the well, gaze in downcast modesty, as a satyrlike Jacob approaches stealthily from behind; and, on the cramped and ancient desk before him, a little golden inkwell worked in a pattern of fleurs-de-lys, scored by time to a luminous patina, muted to a wink by the room’s dimness: this last a possession of his grandfather’s, the first Isidore, who used it much as this descendant does, to rewrite the story of one part of the turning world.

As each letter is composed, in his fine and fluid hand, he notes its import in a small pearl-gray journal, in a code of his own devising. If it is written, it will be read, that is the rule; so let it be written in a way that no one but himself can ever understand. Not for the first time, he wishes such caution on his associates and colleagues, men like Victor Rawsthorne, and Edgar Chamsaur, M. Boris in the Urals, and Guerlain in his tidy banker’s box; letters from each lie on the desk before him, to be weighed in the mind’s scales, then answered appropriately. True it is that one needs boldness when that need arises, but it is caution that keeps one’s interests most secure. Examples of the opposite are abundant, of valued associates fallen victim to their own foolhardiness or greed: recall the elder van Symans, say, or that munitions broker from Ghent; or Jürgen Vidor,
there
was a regrettable waste. How many of their sorties met with so much success, and profit, due to Vidor’s fine management? If he could occasionally be ruthless, he was never hot-handed; and if the man had a craving for certain situations, still he balanced both spheres of his life with great discretion, if not the best of taste—

“Beg pardon, my lord, there’s a caller. A gentleman from—”

“Have him into the library. Brandy and tea.”

—until he abandoned all caution, let his desires take the reins, and was thus dispatched by those desires: cut down and robbed in a brothel, what a foolish, shabby end. There may have been a way of averting such an undesirable outcome, as John Pepper strongly believes, and Rawsthorne, too, no matter what Hector insists, but then neither have ever cared overmuch for Hector, the man or his methods. And Hector was there, it was his affair to manage, for good or for ill.

Arrowsmith was there as well, but kept his own counsel, then and afterward, as he does on so many other matters; he has always been a silent creature but has grown more so throughout the years. As well as less intimate with Hector, who seems, lately, to prefer single combat—

Where is Arrowsmith? I have not seen him for some time.

His mistress died.

And?

Javier—is grown poetical, I think. And he spends far too much time in the cafés. But doubtless he is still sound.

—while displaying certain poetical relishes of his own, increasingly so, if his own lieutenants are to be believed, as well as Isobel’s stiff communiques:
Hector Georges dined with us this evening, and sends you his regards. He is making a present to Benjamin of a new gelding, it should arrive at Chatiens very soon.

Isobel—what a pity that Isobel was never useful as a woman should be; there were many alliances a daughter might profitably have secured. Charlotte is proving useless as well, four years without one quickening; it is perhaps his life’s greatest sorrow, he who should have fathered many children, a fine and thriving line of succession, to find instead his wives all barren, or nearly so, and his daughter made barren by appearance as well as disposition; Isobel has nothing of her mother, Dorothea was a lovely woman, far more so than Charlotte—Charlotte is a misstep on several levels—though never as beautiful as his lost Rachel. Rachel, the favorite of his wives, does it not follow that their child should be his favorite as well? And such a child: Benjamin, his only heir, a man could ask little more in a son. If only the boy were somewhat more studious, and a better correspondent, when he bothers to write at all his penmanship is atrocious, and unimproved by the upright Mister Entwhistle, whose own writing skills leave something to be desired:
his
last letter was barely legible, and the news it carried tainted with the man’s own opinions and cant.—Though Benjamin is too old, really, to have a tutor at all, no wonder he rebels. He is nearly a man, now.

Isidore sighs, sets down the pen for a moment, flexing his fingers. He uses a boneset-and-hyssop salve for the rheumatism, but it seems in recent months to have lost its best efficacy: the pain is bad, but the stiffness is worse, this cramping that makes a claw of his one good hand. The depredations of encroaching age, as much as he refuses to acknowledge them—the sleeplessness; the sharp new ache in his chest; the weariness that drops like a curtain, separating him from what he would do, wills to do—a pity, that there is only threescore-and-ten allotted to each man; and to some, much less. That is why an heir is so important. That is why Benjamin must come to Chatiens.

Though the move must be accomplished with care: what results can be obtained by force are rarely useful, especially with as proud a boy as Benjamin. Attempting to parse the same for Hector, when last they met at the Emperors’ Club: port wine in the mellow half-dark of a city afternoon, how many pleasant and useful hours has he spent there, since the chair became his? As it will be Benjamin’s—

I can bring him to you in two days’ time. Why tarry?

I do not want him “brought.” He must come on his own.

How can that be, when he’s so busy playing? Onstage, no less, as I assume you’ve heard? And Isobel encourages this.

Isobel has always been a fool. I did wrong in allowing Benjamin to grow so attached to her. Immoderately attached.

He has other attachments as well,
one of Hector’s hints, as if he alone possesses all knowledge, sometimes it is wise to remind him otherwise:
I have that information, yes. My man has been to the theatre.

You have eyes everywhere.

Yes.

It’s a sound principle.

Yes.

He tips the pen again to the inkwell, and begins the letter to Edgar Chamsaur, a brief and cordial missive suggesting that the two of them meet—not at the Emperors’ Club, but his own house in the city—regarding an alliance between Benjamin and Chamsaur’s eldest, what is the chit’s name? Adele, yes.
Other attachments,
that may well be, and must be addressed as well, whether Benjamin will or no; a boy will sow some wild oats, but in the end, how can it signify? Guerlain’s letter carries a postscript grumble of his own son’s gambols with that load of actors, some he-and-she of the boards, some other fellow who owns the place,
a menagerie your boy frequents with my own Achille
, yes. One day they will shepherd the city, these two and their comrades, it is not unwise to remind them so from time to time. Even the most cherished thoroughbred must learn at last to take the bit.