Читать книгу The Poisoners - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 8

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The Widow Bosse sat in her little shop, intermittently studying her face in a hand-mirror. She had taken a long time making up her complexion, her lips, her eyes and her hair, and she was by no means displeased with the result. A handsome cape of red fox fur lay across her shoulders; her dress of green cloth was laced with gold across her broad bosom to where it met her cravat of Mechlin lace.

She was directing a young man with a bilious complexion to tie up some boxes of soap scented with lilac, carnation and rose, and dividing her attention between this occupation and her own appearance.

The shop bell rang and a young woman stepped lightly up to the counter. Madame Bosse was instantly all smiles and attention. The new-comer was tall, dressed in a cheap, grey, mantle and wore a small complexion mask or vizard; her hands were gloved and she carried a plain purse without crest or monogram.

Madame Bosse smiled more broadly. She was used to all these precautions.

"I should like," said the young woman in a provincial accent and lowering her voice, "to purchase a flagon of scent. I am tired of orange-flower water—possibly you have something a little more novel?"

"Indeed, yes," said La Bosse, rising, "in my little parlour at the back of the shop."

The customer followed Madame Bosse past the shelves that were loaded with tin and lacquer boxes and bottles and jars of majolica ware, into a neat, modest parlour, where a tall window discreetly curtained with green serge looked on to a small courtyard. A pleasant fire burnt on the hearth, there was a table, some arm-chairs, a cabinet, and a cat, curled flat as a winkle just drawn from its shell, on a cushion.

When the customer, who was Solange Desgrez, entered this apartment she felt a little twinge of dismay. She did not greatly care to be alone with La Bosse, who was firmly shut ting the door between the parlour and the shop; the young girl, however, soon laughed at her own fears; her courage was equal to any emergency, and this was not an emergency, merely a slight embarrassment. Even if Madame La Bosse recognized her, she had a story up her sleeve to account for her disguise; but the fortune-teller showed no sign of discovering, in the masked stranger, the wife of the young lieu tenant of Police.

"You perhaps have come for the cards, for the horoscope?" she suggested slyly.

Solange nodded and seated herself at the table. She had rehearsed this scene several times with her husband and had her part perfectly by heart; feeling a little amused and a little foolish, she recited the story that she had learnt from Charles Desgrez.

She declared that she was a well-placed lady, who did not wish to divulge her name, that she was in trouble and pre pared to pay highly for any assistance that the Widow Bosse might give her. She admitted that she was unhappy with her husband, whose affection had cooled since the early days of their marriage, that he was behaving to her with injustice and even cruelty, and that she had seen a man whom the greatly preferred to this disappointing partner.

To her surprise the Widow Bosse seemed to accept this story as quite an ordinary one, nor did she try to penetrate her client's disguise; she only asked:

"Who has sent you here, and what makes you think that I can help you?"

To these questions Solange replied: "A lady of some importance has sent me; I do not care to mention her name even between ourselves. You understand? She is a penitent at Notre-Dame. Is that sufficient?"

"A penitent at Notre-Dame," repeated the Widow Bosse. "Tell her, then, to be careful."

"Oh," replied Solange, feeling her way through this conversation, which she did not understand, "she is being very careful—and you helped her considerably. Now, will you help me?"

"It will be expensive," replied the fortune-teller coyly.

"Oh, as for that, it does not matter. I am prepared, of course to pay highly—but only on results," added Solange prudently.

The Widow Bosse smiled, and throwing down the pack of cards she held in her hand, as if they were no longer of any use, said: "Come into the shop with me, and as we are passing through I shall give you a packet of soap balls and a purple phial—this will contain a love potion, which you must give to your husband. I ask no money now. Come back to me in three days' time and if he is not kinder we will try other means."

With this the Widow Bosse waved her plump hands in token of dismissal, and Solange, feeling that she had wasted her time on a silly frivolity, passed out into the shop, received the soap and phial and then went into the street. As the shop door closed behind her she shuddered from the blast of the March wind.

Paris looked dark and gloomy, with tourelles and towers rising up an iron-grey colour against the sky, which appeared like the dappled breast of a grey goose. Solange drew herself closer into her woollen hood and cloak as she crossed the Place du Parvis de Notre-Dame. It was on this wide, sombre square in front of the great Cathedral, and surrounded on either side by the river, that criminals were executed, and as Solange glanced up half in disgust at the heavy Gothic porch of the Church of Our Lady she thought of the scaffold that had been erected there not so long ago, where Madame de Brinvilliers, the poisoner, had been beheaded before her body had been cast into the flames.

A few beggars, mutilated by the wars or disfigured with disease, crawled by, fluttering dark-stained rags; the iron-coloured river ran sluggishly under the Pont Henri-Quatre; Solange stifled a sigh for the old, girlhood days at Caen; she did not regret her marriage, but she wished that her husband had another occupation in another city. She did not know what he was hoping from the errand on which he had sent her to the Widow Bosse's shop, but she feared that she had wasted her afternoon on a piece of folly and she was half-inclined to take the foolish phial of purple glass out of her bosom and throw it into the sullen gloomy river. It probably, she thought, contains nothing but coloured water; she wished, however, to fulfil scrupulously her husband's instructions, so, hunching her shoulders against the wind, she turned towards their modest apartment.