Carpentier, he’s home!”
Mother is hanging back by the drawing room doors: a shivery black spectacle in her tulle cap and woolen petticoat. The skirt has been refashioned from an old dress. The slippers have long pulled away from her feet, they seem bound to her now only by habit. Her hands form a funnel round her mouth. She says:
“Oh.”
“Monsieur Hector.” Charlotte is charging toward me. “Are you—”
“He is quite unharmed, ladies,” answers Vidocq, stepping out from behind. “As you can see.”
I will never be certain which part of him Mother fastens onto first. The shabby hat? The tufts of spit-slicked hair or the bullying breast? I tend to think it’s the confounding bulk of him—the hole he makes in his surroundings.
“I was about to send for the police,” she says in a thin voice.
“But there was no need, Madame! The police have already sent for your Hector.” Vidocq takes the back of my neck in a loose, proprietary grip. “This very afternoon, your son has demonstrated exceptional mettle in an inquiry of unspeakable urgency.”
“Inquiry?”
“He would be only too glad to tell you, I’m sure, but he has been sworn to secrecy. By the Prefect himself.”
“By the—”
“Oh, he’s got a brilliant mind, your son. All of Paris seems to chant his praise! Just the other evening, you know, I was passing an hour or two in the library of the Duchesse de Duras, and she said to me—perhaps you know the Duchess, Madame?—she pulled me by the sleeve, and in that charmingly raspy voice of hers, she said, ‘You must introduce me to the marvelous Dr. Carpentier!’ ”
It is those last two words that change the tenor of the conversation. For Mother is even less accustomed to hearing me called Doctor than I am. Her mouth shrinks into a black line.
Vidocq pauses to puzzle out his offense. “A thousand pardons, Madame. I neglected to introduce myself. I am Vidocq.”
It’s quite something, the bow he tenders her. Not the gently toppling head of your average Parisian gentleman but something explosive and battle-bred. (I will later learn he was a sergeant-major.) It all but finishes off poor Charlotte, who is rubbing her ears in wonder.
“This is your daughter, Madame?” asks Vidocq.
“Our maid,” says Mother, in a voice stiff as whalebone.
“Ah, I see loveliness is a prerequisite of living chez Carpentier.” His lips graze the knuckles of the young woman’s hand. “What pretty fingers. Like precious corals strewn across a beach.”
Charlotte’s face, I should say, is always a kind of mottled coral, from bending over fires and clambering up stairs. At this moment, though, something violet bleeds up through the strata of skin. Mother, no fool herself, steps forward and, in the tone used by elderly marquises with dustmen, thanks Vidocq for bringing her son home to her.
“Why, think nothing of it!” he cackles. “It was my dearest—”
“Good day, Monsieur.”
He’s still there when the door closes on him—scratching his ribs, twisting his mouth.
“So nice to make your acquaintance,” I hear him say from the other side.
There is nothing shining in Mother’s face, but there seldom is. I can recall her laughing only four times in my life. (Four times more than my father.) Hers is a face for storing time in. Even her limestone-colored eyes, which must once have been beautiful, seem layered with years in some precise and biologically determinable way, like a shelf of sedimentary rock.
“We had no idea where you were,” she says.
“I know.”
“You might have left a note.”
“I am very sorry, Mother.”
“As if I don’t have enough to do without wondering if you’re dead or dying or I don’t know what. As if I don’t…”
She seizes a shawl from the nearest hook, and her voice, when it comes back, is low and snappish, like something prodded out of its corner.
“Well, take your coat off, for goodness’ sake. Naturally, your boots are filthy. Never mind,
Mother is hanging back by the drawing room doors: a shivery black spectacle in her tulle cap and woolen petticoat. The skirt has been refashioned from an old dress. The slippers have long pulled away from her feet, they seem bound to her now only by habit. Her hands form a funnel round her mouth. She says:
“Oh.”
“Monsieur Hector.” Charlotte is charging toward me. “Are you—”
“He is quite unharmed, ladies,” answers Vidocq, stepping out from behind. “As you can see.”
I will never be certain which part of him Mother fastens onto first. The shabby hat? The tufts of spit-slicked hair or the bullying breast? I tend to think it’s the confounding bulk of him—the hole he makes in his surroundings.
“I was about to send for the police,” she says in a thin voice.
“But there was no need, Madame! The police have already sent for your Hector.” Vidocq takes the back of my neck in a loose, proprietary grip. “This very afternoon, your son has demonstrated exceptional mettle in an inquiry of unspeakable urgency.”
“Inquiry?”
“He would be only too glad to tell you, I’m sure, but he has been sworn to secrecy. By the Prefect himself.”
“By the—”
“Oh, he’s got a brilliant mind, your son. All of Paris seems to chant his praise! Just the other evening, you know, I was passing an hour or two in the library of the Duchesse de Duras, and she said to me—perhaps you know the Duchess, Madame?—she pulled me by the sleeve, and in that charmingly raspy voice of hers, she said, ‘You must introduce me to the marvelous Dr. Carpentier!’ ”
It is those last two words that change the tenor of the conversation. For Mother is even less accustomed to hearing me called Doctor than I am. Her mouth shrinks into a black line.
Vidocq pauses to puzzle out his offense. “A thousand pardons, Madame. I neglected to introduce myself. I am Vidocq.”
It’s quite something, the bow he tenders her. Not the gently toppling head of your average Parisian gentleman but something explosive and battle-bred. (I will later learn he was a sergeant-major.) It all but finishes off poor Charlotte, who is rubbing her ears in wonder.
“This is your daughter, Madame?” asks Vidocq.
“Our maid,” says Mother, in a voice stiff as whalebone.
“Ah, I see loveliness is a prerequisite of living chez Carpentier.” His lips graze the knuckles of the young woman’s hand. “What pretty fingers. Like precious corals strewn across a beach.”
Charlotte’s face, I should say, is always a kind of mottled coral, from bending over fires and clambering up stairs. At this moment, though, something violet bleeds up through the strata of skin. Mother, no fool herself, steps forward and, in the tone used by elderly marquises with dustmen, thanks Vidocq for bringing her son home to her.
“Why, think nothing of it!” he cackles. “It was my dearest—”
“Good day, Monsieur.”
He’s still there when the door closes on him—scratching his ribs, twisting his mouth.
“So nice to make your acquaintance,” I hear him say from the other side.
There is nothing shining in Mother’s face, but there seldom is. I can recall her laughing only four times in my life. (Four times more than my father.) Hers is a face for storing time in. Even her limestone-colored eyes, which must once have been beautiful, seem layered with years in some precise and biologically determinable way, like a shelf of sedimentary rock.
“We had no idea where you were,” she says.
“I know.”
“You might have left a note.”
“I am very sorry, Mother.”
“As if I don’t have enough to do without wondering if you’re dead or dying or I don’t know what. As if I don’t…”
She seizes a shawl from the nearest hook, and her voice, when it comes back, is low and snappish, like something prodded out of its corner.
“Well, take your coat off, for goodness’ sake. Naturally, your boots are filthy. Never mind,
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