The Many Lives of John Stone by Buckley-Archer Linda

Author:Buckley-Archer, Linda [Buckley-Archer, Linda]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

XVI

After some weeks in my new position at court, I became anxious that the King had forgotten about me. Louis attended mass at the royal chapel every day, leaving his apartment at ten in the morning, but it was only on Sunday, as Monsieur Bontemps had instructed, that I dared climb the private staircase that allowed me to pass, unseen, from Monsieur’s apartment to that of his brother. The King, who loved music, insisted that the chapel choir perform a new piece every day, and I had got into the habit of opening my windows and sticking my head out, straining for the sound of singing coming from the north wing of the palace. When the music reached me I knew it was safe to climb the stairs and look inside the secret compartment of the tortoiseshell desk.

Ten o’clock had already struck that Sunday morning and I leaned out of my window at the broad courtyard. There was a smell of summer rain. A stooped, ancient gardener was scraping his rake over damp gravel, making it difficult for me to make out if the choir had started to sing. When someone tapped my shoulder I jumped, grabbing hold of the sill for balance. I turned to see Liselotte smiling at me.

“So this is what you do while the rest of us are at mass! You daydream and look out of your window.”

“Madame! You startled me!”

She narrowed her eyes. “What do you get up to on Sunday mornings? I’ve noticed that you avoid the chapel—”

Protesting that I was up to nothing, really nothing at all, I changed the subject, and asked if she intended to hunt that afternoon. She asked if I had seen a ring that she had misplaced and might have left here. I said that I had not, although I did not believe Liselotte’s explanation for her presence any more than she believed I had no reason for being here. She walked over to a mirror and adjusted her headdress, which was slipping to one side. Our eyes met in the mirror and she said: “Who precisely are you, Jean-Pierre?”

My heart sank. It had never occurred to me that she might be suspicious of me.

“But you know who I am, Madame!”

“Do I?” Her eyes slid from mine and she made a face at herself in the mirror, wrinkling up her nose and blowing out her cheeks. “I don’t know which I resemble most—a badger, a cat or a monkey, or all three at once. . . . You know, I was at the theatre last night. Were you there? I don’t recall.” I told her I was not. “It was Monsieur Racine’s Bérénice. Oh, how I lost patience with her! All that wailing. Anyway, the King took me to one side during the interval. And do you know, he was actually rather stern with me.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Madame.”

“It was on your account.” I must have looked suitably anxious because she started to laugh. “Never fear—his Majesty was stern but gentle: I shan’t be carted off to the Bastille quite yet.

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