The Confusion

Eleanor had broadened, sagged, lost teeth, shorn her hair, and given up trying to conceal her old pox-scars beneath black patches, as had been her practice in the Hague. She well knew how her looks had declined, for she would not meet Eliza’s eye, and kept turning her face aside. What she did not understand was that the joy in her face made up for all else; and moreover Eliza, who felt as run down as Eleanor looked, was not of a mind to judge her unkindly. Eleanor stood back half a pace, granting precedence to her daughter, who was a glory. She was not exceptionally beautiful by the standards of Versailles; however, she was more comely than nine out of ten princesses. She had some spark about her, anyway, that would have enabled her to outshine pretty people even if she’d been ugly, and she had a self-possession that made her more watchable than anything Eliza had laid eyes on since her weird audience with Isaac Newton. Eleanor hugged Eliza for a solid minute; in the same interval of time, Caroline greeted everyone on the Zille, asked the skipper three boat-questions, stuffed a bouquet of wildflowers into Adelaide’s hand, hitched the toddler up on her hip, told her to stop eating the flowers, pranced across the cratered and shifting deck of the quay to the shore, taught Adelaide how to say “river” in German, told her a second time not to eat the flowers, pulled the flowers out of her chubby fist, got into a violent row with her, patched it all up, and got the little one giggling. She was now ready to go back to the house and play chess with her Aunt Eliza; why the delay?

Pontchartrain to Eliza APRIL 1694

My lady,

You have given me a strict command not to be grateful. I know better than to disobey it. But you cannot command me not to harbor charitable instincts. Of the benefit that I shall reap from the transaction that you so cleverly devised, and that your lawyers and mine have just consummated, I intend to donate one quarter (after I have paid you your five percent) to charity. Alas, so many years have passed since I had money to donate, that I have quite lost track of where the deserving charities are to be found. Would you care to offer any recommendations?

Ungratefully yours,

Ponchartrain

Eliza to Pontchartrain MAY 1694

My ungrateful (but charitable) Count,

Your letter brought a smile to my lips. The prospect of discussing charities with you gives me one more reason to rush back to Versailles as soon as my business in Leipzig is finished. But do not forget that the government obligations I have sold to you are worthless until the controleur-general has assigned them to reliable sources of hard money revenue. As there is no money in France, or even in England, it must be got from other sources. Ships travel the sea bearing objects of tangible worth, and the laws of nations state that these may be taken as prizes during time of war. While the rest of France has been plunged into despair, Captain Jean Bart has presided over a golden age in Dunkerque, and often brings in prizes whose value is sufficient to cover the payments on those loans, supposing that the controleur-general wishes to manage it thus. As it may be some weeks before I can return to France, I recommend that you take up the matter directly with Captain Bart. If it bears fruit, why, then you and I may look forward to some delightful strolls in the King’s gardens, during which we may plot how your generous donations may be put to work to better the world.

Eliza

The Dower-house of Pretzsch APRIL AND MAY 1694

To suffer, as to doe,

Our strength is equal, nor the Law unjust

That so ordains.

–MILTON,

Paradise Lost

LIKE A GUINEA WORM, Eleanor’s story had to be drawn out of her inch by inch. Its telling extended over a week, and was broken into a dozen installments, each of which was preceded by exhausting maneuvers and manipulations from Eliza and brought to a premature end by Eleanor’s changing the subject or breaking down in tears. But the tiredness that Eliza had felt on the last day of the river-journey had developed into an influenza that kept her in bed for some days with aches and chills. So there was nothing else to pass the hours, and time favored Eliza.

The telling began when Eliza, sick, sore, woozy from mildew-smell and irritable because damp plaster kept falling from the ceiling onto her bed, asked: “A dower-house is where a dowager goes to live out her days after her husband has passed on; but yours still lives. So why are you in a dower-house?”