Camille dropped his eyes. “Admired it? Annette, I’ve dreamt of it.”
“I could get it re-upholstered.”
“Please don’t think of it.” Camille said. “Leave it exactly as it is.”
Claude looked faintly bemused. “Well, I’ll leave you to it then, if you want to talk about furniture.” He smiled, gallantly. “I must say, my dear boy, you never cease to surprise.”
The Duke of Orleans said: “Are they? Isn’t that wonderful? Do you know, I never get any nice news nowadays?” Some months previously Lucile had been brought for his inspection; he had passed her. She had style, almost the style of an Englishwoman; be good to see her on the hunting field. That toss of the head, that supple spine. I’ll give them a good present, he decided. “Laclos, what’s that town house of mine standing empty, the one with the garden, bit shabby, twelve bedrooms? Corner of thing street?”
“Oh, wonderful!” Camille said. “I can’t wait to hear what my father says! We’re going to have this amazing house! Plenty of room for the
Annette put her head in her hands. “Sometimes I lose hope,” she said. “What would happen to you if you didn’t have so many people to look after you? Camille, think. How can you accept from the Duke a house, which is the largest, most visible bribe he could come up with? Wouldn’t it be a shade compromising? Wouldn’t it lead to a little paragraph or two in the royalist press?”
“I suppose so,” Camille said.
She sighed. “Just ask him for the cash. Now, speaking of houses, come and look at this.” She unfolded a plan of her property at Bourg-la-Reine. “I have been making some sketches for a little house I should like to build for you. I thought here,” she indicated, “at the bottom of the linden avenue.”
“Why?”
“Why? Because I value my holidays, and I don’t intend to have you and Claude in the same house sneering at each other and having meaningful silences. It would be like taking weekend excursions to Purgatory.” She bent over her drawings. “I’ve always wanted to design a sweet little cottage. Of course, I may in my amateur enthusiasm leave a few vital bits out. Don’t worry, I’ll remember to put in a nice bedroom for you. And of course, you’ll not be exiles. No, I’ll come tripping down to see you, when the mood takes me.”
She smiled. How ambivalent he looked. Caught between terror and pleasure. The next few years will be quite interesting, she thought, one way and another. Camille has the most extraordinary eyes: the darkest gray, as near black as the eyes of a human being can be, the iris almost merging with the pupil. They seem to be looking at the future now.
“At Saint-Sulpice,” Annette said, “confessions are at three o’clock.”
“I know,” Camille said. “Everything’s arranged. I sent a message to Father Pancemont. I thought it was only fair to warn him. I told him to expect me on the dot of three, and that I don’t do this sort of thing every day and I don’t expect to be kept waiting. Coming?”
“Order the carriage.”
Outside the church Annette addressed her coachman. “We’ll be—how long will we be? Do you favor a long confession?”
“I’m not actually going to confess anything. Perhaps just a few token peccadilloes. Thirty minutes.”
A man in a dark coat was pacing in the background, a folder of documents tucked under his arm. The clock struck. He advanced on them. “Just three, M. Desmoulins. Shall we go in?”
“This is my solicitor,” Camille said.
“What?” Annette said.
“My solicitor, notary public. He specializes in canon law. Mirabeau recommended him.”
The man looked pleased. How interesting, she thought, that you still see Mirabeau. But she was having trouble with this notion: “Camille, you’re taking your solicitor to confession with you?”
“A wise precaution. No serious sinner should neglect it.”
He swept her through the church at an unecclesiastical pace. “I’ll just kneel down,” she said, lurching sideways to get away from him. It was quiet; a gaggle of grannies praying for the old days to come back, and a small dog curled up, snoring. The priest seemed to see no reason to lower his voice. “It’s you, is it?” he said.
Camille said to the notary, “Write that down.”
“I didn’t think you’d come, I must say. When I got your message I thought it was a joke.”
“It’s certainly not a joke. I have to be in a state of grace, don’t I, like everybody else?”
“Are you a Catholic?”
A short pause.
“Why do you ask?”
“Because if you’re not a Catholic I can’t confer on you the sacraments.”
“All right then. I’m a Catholic.”
“Have you not said”—Annette heard the priest clearing his throat—“have you not said in your newspaper that the religion of Mahomet is quite as valid as that of Jesus Christ?”
“You read my newspaper?” Camille sounded gratified. A silence. “You won’t marry us, then?”
“Not until you have made a public profession of the Catholic faith.”
“You have no right to ask that. You have to take my word for it. Mirabeau says—”
“Since when has Mirabeau been a Church Father?”
“Oh, he’ll like that, I’ll tell him. But do change your mind, Father, because I am dreadfully in love, and I cannot abide even as you abide, and it is better to marry than to burn.”
