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FANNY AND MADAME DE GENLIS packed Marcus, protesting all the way, into a carriage This one was equipped with better springs than the one that had brought hih city streets were not conducive to a smooth ride Then they reached the rutted dirt path that stretched out into the countryside to the west of Paris, and Marcus kneas going to be violently ill if the bouncing and swaying didn’t stop He’d crossed the Atlantic with nothing es, it seemed, utterly defeated him
“Please just letjacket they’d found in an upstairs cupboard, discarded by one of Fanny’s lovers after he discovered she was a vaht The coat al in the shoulders and too long in the ar Marcus had ruined the only coat that fit him properly at the hospital and was forced to arment
“You are too young, and it is broad daylight,” Fanny said briskly, the feathers in her hat swaying this way and that with theto walk there at hu”
“Besides,” Madame de Genlis added, “what if youof hunger?”
Marcus’s stomach flopped over like a fish
“Non,” Madame de Genlis said with a decided shake of her head “You hts away from your discomfort and rise above them Perhaps you could compose your remarks to Comte Philippe?”
“Oh, God” Marcus covered his randfather, like the trained monkey outside the Opéra who tued to Madam Porter’s house when he was a child
“You should begin, I think, with a few verses,” Madareatly admires poetry, and has such a memory for it!”
But Marcus, who had been raised in the fields and forests of western Massachusetts, where verses that were not found in the Bible were suspect, knew no poetry Madame de Genlis did her best to teach him some lines from a poem called “Le mondain,” but the French words refused to stick in Marcus’sthe lesson
“Say it after rettera qui veut le bon vieux tene d’Astrée, / Et les beaux jours de Saturne et de Rhée, / Et le jardin de nos premiers parents’”
Marcus obediently did, over and over again, until Madame de Genlis was satisfied with his pronunciation
“And what comes next?” his martinet of a schoolmistress demanded
“‘Moi, je rends grâce à la nature sage,’” Marcus et out between belches His sense of the poe was hazy at best, but Fanny assured him it was entirely appropriate to the occasion Ulf, as acco them to Auteuil, looked unconvinced “‘Qui, pour e / Tant décrié par nos tristes frondeurs’”
“And do not forget the final line! You h you mean it, Marcus, with conviction,” Fanny said “‘Ce temps profane est tout fait pour mes moeurs’ Ah, how Iwith him, Stéphanie?”
At last the carriage slowed to pass through the wide gates of a house that stretched along the hilltop It was vast and ardens that were h they were largely eine what they would look like in summer Marcus looked at Fanny in amazement
“They belong to Marthe,” Fanny said “She is unco You will meet her, no doubt”
But it was not a woman aited for them at the base of the wide staircase in the forecourt, but a dignified vampire with silver-flecked hair Like the rest of the house, the forecourt was grand in scale and neat as a pin There was a quiet hu aromas Grooms led fine horses out of their stalls Servants and tradesmen shuffled in and out of a warren of offices and roos that were tucked behind a stone wall
“Milady Freyja” The man bowed “Monsieur Marcus”
“Alain” It was the first ti less than confident
“Pepper” Marcus recognized the va me”
“Welco you,” Alain said, stepping aside so they could enter through the central, arched door and into the hall
Marcus crossed the threshold and entered a house that was far grander than the one he had promised to own one day The black-and-white h sheen that reflected the light and li before spiraling up to another floor, and then another A forest of white pillars added substance and style to the airy space, creating an arcade between the doors through which Marcus had entered and the doors opposite them, which led to an expansive terrace that provided a prospect over the river and beyond
Marcus’s sense that he was being watched returned, stronger than before Bay leaves and sealing wax and a fruit Marcus had no naled with the aroma of pepper from Alain, Madame de Genlis’saround Fanny There were other, fainter notes as well Wool Fur And sohtly yeasty that Marcus had detected in some of the older patients at the Hôtel-Dieu It was the scent of aging flesh, he supposed
Marcus took careful inventory of what his nose noticed, but he kept returning to the laurel and sealing wax Whoever belonged to theravity in this house And he was behind him, where Marcus was most vulnerable
His grandfather The man called Far by Fanny, and Comte Philippe by Madalass—or even the disapproving Hancock—were there to give him advice on ould be expected of him He had learned much about hoash clothes,in France, but Marcus had no idea how to properly greet a valass and Fanny used
And so Marcus fell back on his Massachusetts upbringing First, he gave his ed edges or infelicities of line had been sraceful movement that would have made his mother proud Then he plumbed the depths of his conscience and reached for the honesty that had been drilled into him from pulpit and primer
“Grandfather You ive htened and waited for someone to rescue him
“Already the son eclipses the father” The voice was velvet and stone, both controlled and clear It belonged, Marcus surrandfather’s colish was perfect, but it was impossible to identify the accent that colored his words
“You needn’t worry There isn’t any aggression in him, Far” Fanny appeared from one of the many doors off thetwo pistols, both of them cocked and ready to be fired at Marcus
“He is nothing but curiosity, Comte Philippe,” Madaly “He has prepared a poem for you”
Sadly, Marcus couldn’t reain he dipped into his memories of Hadley for reinforcements
“‘Children’s children are the crown of old lory of children are their fathers,’” Marcus said, with all the conviction Madame de Genlis could have wanted
“Oh, well done” The voice of praise was scratchy and nasal, with a bit of a wheeze at the end that ht have been a chuckle There was another man on the stairs “Proverbs Always suitable—especially when the sentiment is sincere A very sensible choice”