Now that was a toast. Everyone drank. Then it was “to the King!” and then “to the King of England!” meaning James Stuart, then “to Monsieur le duc!” which le duc had to sit out, since it was bad form to toast oneself. Servants scurried about cradling swaddled magnums and refilled glasses for the next round. Then M. le duc raised his glass: “To the Countess de la Zeur, who has done so much to give the Navy its sinews.” Which obliged Eliza to say, “To Captain Jean Bart who, they say, distinguished himself yet again off Beachy Head on his ship Alcyon!”
Madame la duchesse, peering down at Versailles through a spectacular Instrument, now initiated a controversy, as follows: “Louis-Fran?ois, those revelers along the Canal do not celebrate the death of the Prince of Orange, they celebrate you!” and she handed her husband a gold and silver caduceus (emblem of Mercury, bringer of information) with lenses cleverly mounted in the eyes of the two snakes that were wound about its central pole. The duc brought it to his face as if expecting the serpents to drive their fangs into his cheeks, and blinked fiercely into the optics. But anyone who had good eyes could see that a few gilded barques had taken to the wavelets of the Grand Canal, and were jerking about in an extemporaneous re?nactment of the Battle of Beachy Head. As combatants swung boat-paddles to dash up barrages of spray, blooms of white water appeared here and there, looking from this range much like cannon-smoke. From time to time the musket-like report of an ivory-inlaid paddle smacking the water, or a gilded oar-shaft snapping, would echo up from the vale of Galie. A drunken boarding-party, perhaps still fired by the memory of Jean Bart’s visit of a few months past, sprang from one boat to another, swinging like pirates on silken ropes, crashing into the brocade awnings, bucking the ebony and boxwood poles of the pavilions, smashing the velvet furniture. They must have been royal bastards, or Princes of the Blood, to behave so. A smaller boat was capsized; conversation lulled around the gazebo as rescuers paddled to the scene, then welled up into laughter and witticisms as combatants were dragged out of the canal and their bobbing periwigs fished out on the tips of swords.
“Ah, it is a great day,” announced the Duke, who looked, in his formal Grand Admiral uniform, like a galleon on legs. He was saying it to his wife; but something occurred to him, and he added, “and it will only get better, for France, and for us. God willing.” His eyes turned in their sockets towards Eliza. As his head was covered in a wig, and the wig had an admiral’s hat planted athwart it, he did not like to turn his head from side to side if he could avoid it; such complicated maneuvers demanded as much prudent premeditation as tacking a three-masted ship.
Eliza, recognizing as much, sidestepped into the Duke’s field of view. “I cannot imagine why you look to me when you say this, Monsieur le duc,” she said.
“Soon, if I have my way, you shall hear from étienne a certain proposition that shall make it all perfectly clear.”
“Is it anything like the proposition you have spoken of in your letters to me?”
The very mention of this made the Duke nervous, and his eyes flicked left and right to see if anyone had heard; but soon enough they returned to Eliza, who was smiling in a way that let him know she had been discreet. The Duke stepped forward in the cautious bent-kneed stride of an African matron with a basket of bananas on her head. “Don’t be coy, étienne’s proposal will be of an entirely different nature! Though it’s true I should like to see both of them come together at the same time, in the autumn—say, October. My birthday. What do you say to it?”
Eliza shrugged. “I cannot answer, monseigneur, until I know more of both propositions.”
“We’ll get that sorted out! The boy is still young in many ways, you know—not too old to benefit from some fatherly advice, especially where affairs of the heart are concerned. I have been away too much, you know? Now that I am back—for a little while, at least—I shall talk to him, guide him, give him some backbone.”
“Well, it is good to have you back, even briefly,” said Eliza. “It is odd, I feel as if I have met you before. I suppose it comes from seeing your busts and portraits everywhere, and your handsome features echoed in the face of étienne.”
By now the Duke had drawn close to Eliza. He had put on cologne recently, something Levantine, with a lot of citrus. It did not quite mask another odor which put Eliza in mind of rotting flesh. A bird, or some little scurrying creature, must have given up the ghost some days ago under the gazebo, and gone foul in the heat.
“Time for dinner soon,” said the Duke. “My time here is short. Meetings with the King, and the Council. Then to the Channel coast to greet the victorious Fleet. But after that I go south. I have already despatched orders to my jacht. You and I must talk. After dinner, I think. In the library, while the guests are strolling in the garden.”
“The library is where I shall be,” said Eliza, “at your service, and waiting for you to explain all of these cryptic statements.”