The Portrait of Mrs Charbuque by Jeffrey Ford

Author:Jeffrey Ford [Ford, Jeffrey]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Portrait painters, Fiction, Literary, Fantasy, Suspense, Historical, Thrillers
ISBN: 9780330413183
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Published: 2004-04-01T23:00:00+00:00

Page 67

"Your record remains unbroken," I told her. "How long did you perform as the Sibyl? You've already said that you continued with the act after your father passed away."

"I not only continued, Piambo, I became famous and, as you can see by the trappings of my life, wealthy," she said. "Yes, for someone who for all intents and purposes did not exist, I did quite well."

"Tell me about how that happened," I said as I sketched the twin arches of her eyebrows.

"My father and I were to go to the mountains twice more, and in the summers following each season of snow, we performed in the city. A goodly piece of everything we made on the act was handed over to the police to keep my father from being prosecuted for the murder of my mother. This weighed on him, not out of guilt but because he was loath to share our wealth. As much as he enjoyed playing the assistant to my Sibyl, he was still first and foremost a crystalogogist. Once we were back in the mountains, he buried himself in his work. The tale told by the snowflakes became grimmer with each reading, but barring his obvious concern for the future, he was always pleased to trudge out to the tin laboratory and climb the ladder to the optical magnifier.

"Then, at the end of the second summer, Ossiak called father and all the other diviners on his payroll to a meet-ing at his estate on Long Island. I did not attend, but when my father returned, he was pale as death. He told me that Ossiak had never made an appearance, but one of his underlings had told all those present that they were being let go and that their records and equipment would be con-fiscated. That was it. With his work gone, my father had no will to continue. I told him we would make our way by performing the act, and he sighed and nodded, but I could never get him to agree to set new dates at the hotel. Eventually he took to staying indoors and sleeping much of the day away.

"One afternoon, while sitting in his chair in the parlor, he asked me to take up my guise as the Sibyl and foretell his future. I told him I didn't want to, but he insisted. He made me go into the bedroom and bring out the screen. Once it was set up, I slipped behind it and sat on my chair.

'Sibyl, what does the future hold?' he called out in a weak voice. I was quite upset, but I tried to calm myself and con-centrate on listening for the Twins. Nothing came to me. He waited patiently for my answer. I got no sign from the benefactors in my locket and felt they had abandoned me. Of course, I knew that Father was in a bad state, so I con-sciously fabricated pleasant imagery. 'I see sunshine,' I said, 'an ocean of sunshine and great good fortune,' and other such satisfying bits of nonsense.

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