For I shall bring you crimson leaves
And rippling wheat in golden sheaves;
A cache of berries, red and sweet,
And dappled deer on silent feet.
Madame Bonaparte asked that our theme be nautical in nature, but other than that, we can write whatever we like. Within reason,” Emma amended.
She looked expectantly at Mr. Whittlesby.
Nothing.
Emma tried again. “We can even use your Cytherea. She lives in a casement by the sea. Doesn’t she? Mr. Whittlesby?”
Mr. Whittlesby didn’t answer. Eyes glazed, he was lost in poetic reverie. At least, Emma hoped it was poetic reverie. She had heard rumors about the sorts of aids to invention applied by those of artistic temperament, strange, oriental smokes and potions that dulled the mind but awakened the senses, or so they claimed.
That was all she needed, partnership with an opium eater.
It was all Emma could do not to drop her forehead to her desk and just stay there. She could burrow down among the papers and hide, hide until Kort gave up and cousin Robert went away and tangles of brambles climbed along the walls of her Paris house, leaving only a whisper and a rumor of the crazy American lady who had once lived there.
What had she gotten herself into? She didn’t know the first thing about constructing a theatrical production. She didn’t want to be coaxing a poet into coherence. She wasn’t sure where she wanted to be, but it wasn’t here. Or New York.
Perhaps she ought to find a casement by the sea somewhere.
“Mr. Whittlesby?” Emma waggled her fingers at the poet. “Hello?”
It was all Kort’s fault, Emma decided. Well, maybe not all Kort’s fault. Some of the blame went to Jane. If Jane hadn’t set Whittlesby on her…If Kort hadn’t gotten on her nerves like that…
If, just once, she had been able to curb her own impulsive tongue.
That was what really lay at the crux of it, not Kort, not Jane, not Mr. Whittlesby in his loose shirts and tight breeches, but her own silly tongue, flap, flap, flapping without any reference to rational thought, ruled always by her heart rather than her head. Something would set her off and off she would go, off to Paris, away with Paul, away
Take a deep breath, people suggested. Count to ten. Count sheep. Oh, wait, that was for sleeping. Even in her own head, her tongue ran ahead of her brain. It propelled her into all sorts of absurd situations. Elopements. Scandals. This.
On the plus side, over the years, she had gotten very good at making the best out of bad situations. There was no cloud without a substantial silver lining—even if that lining did more often tend to be silver plate than solid sterling.
All that mattered was that it glitter.
Emma brightened at the thought. Glitter, she understood. She could make this masque glitter. She might not be a Racine or a Corneille, but she could put on a grand and gaudy spectacle with enough fireworks and mechanical effects to make the audience clap and exclaim and ignore the fact that at the core it was all fundamentally hollow.
It shouldn’t be that hard, after all. People would be predisposed to like whatever they set before them, especially with Hortense playing the heroine, and the entire spectacle dedicated to cousin Robert. In fact, she thought, spirits rising, she could send everyone up on stage costumed as dancing aardvarks and this particular audience would still applaud. It didn’t matter what they performed, just that they performed something. It was a very reassuring thought.
“Hark! I heard my name?” Mr. Whittlesby’s words were daft, but his eyes were clear. Not, Emma decided, the eyes of an opium eater. Not that she had ever met an opium eater, but she had the idea that they were meant to be bleary-eyed and vague.
“One word about Cytherea and you were away with the fairies. Love struck?”
“Horror struck! My Cytherea to peddle her wares on the common stage?”
“It’s a very exclusive stage,” said Emma. They could do this. Really, they could. It might even be good, especially if she avoided the extraneous use of aardvarks. “Quite uncommon. Have you been to Malmaison?”
“The deities have yet to invite me to their fair Olympus,” intoned Mr. Whittlesby.
Emma took that as a no. “There’s a lovely little dollhouse of a theatre, right near the main house. It’s quite new, only built the year before last.”
Before that, they used to put on their plays in the house or out in the open in the field outside the house, risking rain and stormy weather. Emma tilted her head, listening to lines long since recited, songs long since sung. It boggled the memory to try to recall how many productions she had seen, how many bit roles she had acted, the laughter, the mishaps, the camaraderie. They had had such splendid times.
The new theatre might have all the conveniences, but it would never be quite the same.
“Madame Delagardie?”
Emma gave a brisk shake of her head. “If not Cytherea, who shall we press into service for our plot?”
“Have you considered as your theme,” Mr. Whittlesby asked, “the New World bringing to the Old the fruits of its bounty? It would,” he said grandly, “be a nice compliment to the envoy, your cousin.”
“Goodness, how very courtly of you. But Madame Bonaparte wanted us to write something nautical in nature.”
Mr. Whittlesby rested both palms on the edge of the desk. “The wonders of the New World,” he said delicately, “would be delivered by ship.”
“Of course,” Emma muttered, feeling like an idiot. “Ships. Water. Nautical. Clever!”
If she kept this up, some day she might even manage a full sentence.
“With waves.” Mr. Whittlesby made his hand go up and down in illustration.
Emma flushed. She had deserved that. “Well, it’s certainly nautical,” she said, doing her best to regain control of the situation. This was meant to be her masque, after all. Whittlesby was just the hired pen, no matter how dashing he looked in those knit pantaloons of his. Emma rested her elbows on the desk, and her chin on her hands. “We’ll need something more than that, something to provide the drama.”
“A chorus of dancing gendarmes?” suggested Mr. Whittlesby blandly.
Emma sat up straighter in her chair as she was hit by an idea, a glorious, wonderful, attention-grabbing beauty of an idea.
“Pirates!” she exclaimed. “Our fleet could be attacked by pirates—nasty, vicious, scimitar-wielding pirates.”
“One seldom hears those terms pronounced in tones of such glee,” murmured Mr. Whittlesby.
Emma ignored him. She could already picture them on stage, vivid in their tattered finery, gold hoops swinging from their ears. Everyone loved pirates. Well, at least in fiction. The real ones were a good deal less attractive. “They can wear bandannas on their heads and carry cutlasses between their teeth, and their ship will be called…well, something scary and nasty. We can figure that out later.”
“Pirates or privateers?” queried Mr. Whittlesby, sounding almost sensible.
“Pirates,” said Emma definitively. “Our ship will be beset on all sides, besieged by the pirates, when in sails the French navy, captained by our hero, to knock the pirates’ heads together, secure the treasure, and save the fair. Now, there’s nautical for you!”
She beamed at Mr. Whittlesby, swept away by the brilliance of her own inspiration. Was this what it felt like to receive the muse? If so, she understood why Mr. Whittlesby spent so much time courting her.
Mr. Whittlesby seemed slightly less swept away. “It has a certain élan.”
