The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre

by Dominic Smith

  “That was impossibly sweet,” she said.

  Louis began, “My whole life…” He looked off at the window, eyes on the verge.

  “You must treat me like a fledgling. I cannot hear your proclamations yet, Louis. They have scared me to death my whole life. Let me pretend you hold me in fond regard, but I am not ready to hear about love.”

  “As you wish,” said Louis, collecting himself. “Anyway, I meant to say that I don’t think you half bad.”

  She smiled and coughed but managed to curb a full-blown spell. He took her hand and kissed the back of it. He pressed its soapstone cool to his cheek.

  “Don’t tell Chloe about that kiss. I suspect she has feelings for you,” Isobel said.

  “Don’t be absurd,” said Louis.

  “I see it. A mother knows her daughter, no matter what’s passed between them.” There was a pause. She kissed him on the cheek. “Good night, Louis Daguerre.”

  Louis quietly left the room. For a long time Isobel lay there, staring at the ceiling and the walls, waiting for the tide of laudanum to wash over her. She watched the yew branches projected on the opposite wall. She did not know what the future held. Summer was coming, the wallflowers were coming into bloom, the days were lengthening; soon she would collect hyssop on the meadow. Nature doesn’t seem to care if we give ourselves over to love. As for Louis Daguerre, she held but one hope: that the fury of his love would not overwhelm her before she had a chance to develop a lasting affection. She could picture him in the bed beside her each morning, could imagine leaning into the embrace of this vintaged regard.

  The grace note of Louis Daguerre’s courtship was a field mushroom, rare and spotted. He had set out early for a walk with his camera and tripod when he came upon a field of daylilies. He cut a bouquet and brought the flowers to Isobel’s bedside. When Isobel awoke, she found gold and white lilies beside the phial of laudanum that she now regarded with some fondness. She gathered them up to smell and noticed the spotted beige head of a mushroom between the flower stems. She had seen this particular type only once, back on the estate, when she had witnessed a midwife curing a woman’s bleeding with just a speck of the fungus made into a tea. The Trois Lions was a distant cousin of the champignon de Paris, which was first gathered from the graveyards of the capital in the eighteenth century. It was said they got their vitality from the bones of the dead. The one she held in her hand had enough medicinal potency to create a thousand tinctures. She rolled it around on her palm and held it up to reveal the brown velvet gills beneath the cap. She called out to Louis, who rushed in, fearing the worst.

  “What is it?” he said. His hands were wet and he was running them down his trousers.

  “Where did you find this?” she said, holding it up.

  “Out on the field behind the marsh. Down towards Bartot’s farm. Why?”

  “This is very rare, Louis. It was in among your flowers.”

  “Yes. Of course I meant to pick it. I searched over dell and meadow for that rascal. A devil it was.”

  “Kiss me,” she said.

  Louis came to her and leaned down. He allowed her to pilot the kiss, her hand against his jaw. He straightened when the kiss was over. He placed his hands behind his back, then in front, then finally stuffed them into the pockets of his woolen trousers.

  To fill the silence, he said, “They say Napoleon’s nephew might be staging a coup.”

  “Let them have their revolutions. I would like to get dressed today. I would like a sit outside and then perhaps have a real dinner tonight. Would you take me to see where you found the mushroom?”

  “I don’t think that’s wise.”

  “It’s not like you to be prudent.”

  “On the contrary, I am very prudent. I safeguard myself against the future.”

  “How is it you do that?”

  “I try for nothing that I can’t afford to lose. That way I am guaranteed success.”

  “And do you think you will win me?”

  “I have never doubted it,” Louis said, giving his waistcoat an insistent tug.

  The three of them set off in a wagon, pulled by the widow’s old bay horse, in search of a hallowed mushroom field. Louis showed them where the lilies were and the place he suspected he may have picked the rare mushroom. But there was nothing else to be found. Isobel sat bundled in the wagon, directing Chloe and Louis to search certain likely spots—at the base of an oak, beside a patch of briar, in the shadow of a willow. On a hunch, Isobel told Louis to dig two feet at the base of the old gnarled oak. Something about the tree suggested an abundance of mold and rot at its roots, and sure enough, Louis found a perfectly formed truffle, about the size of a fist. He held it above his head, his hands blackened with dirt. Then he wrapped it in his kerchief and they rode back to the house. Isobel said, “Tonight we shall cook a very fine dinner with this truffle.”

  “That would be wonderful,” said Louis. He looked at her and saw the fatigue etched into her mouth and eyes. The lung fever had turned her face a pale, indelible blue, so faint it was like a watermark in the cloth of her skin.

  They cooked all afternoon, the three of them gathered in the stone-floored kitchen. Isobel sat reclined in a wicker chair, instructing in the manner of a benevolent governess before her charges. Louis made a hot fire of cypress and oak. Chloe prepared the assemblage of spices and herbs in the herbarium as her mother called out their locations. Isobel watched her daughter grind juniper berries, sage, and mustard seeds. Chloe added narrow strips of truffle and butter to the herbs and spices and mixed until it became a marbled yellow-brown paste. Louis had bought a leg of lamb from a neighbor and now sliced it open so Chloe could stuff it with the paste. She inserted cloves of garlic into the fleshier parts and sprinkled the entire thing with Asian white pepper, white wine, and rosemary. It went into the oven. They prepared the vegetables, sitting around the kitchen with greens and roots in their laps. Chloe topped the asparagus and carrots; Louis peeled the potatoes and placed them in a pot of rainwater; Isobel cut the Swiss chard on a wooden board.

  Isobel dressed for dinner. She emerged from her bedroom in a magenta gown gathered at the sleeves and the waist. Her hair was down and an amber necklace hung around her neck. Louis looked at her over the pots of simmering vegetables.

  “You look lovely,” he said.

  “Thank you,” she said. Dressing for dinner had given her confidence, a suggestiveness in her smile.

  “Mother, you look wonderful,” said Chloe.

  “The last time I wore this dress was in Paris,” she said.

  They served the meal with a bottle of 1839 burgundy that had been given to Isobel as payment for an herbal remedy. They set a table by the fire. Louis played man of the house and carved the roast lamb. Isobel served the vegetables from a large clay pot. The meal was full of delightful contrasts—the dark, woody taste of the truffle, the subtlety of the herbed carrots. The wine was dry, with a citrus afterbite. They ate and drank, falling into bouts of reverent chewing between conversations about remembered meals and epic parties. Isobel reached for Louis’s hand under the table. He looked up from his plate, fork in hand, stunned by the veracity of the meal and the candlelight and the hand he now held. The women were talking about the department stores of Paris, about barege and silk ball gowns, about extravagant outfits that existed mainly in the mind. Louis listened to the women as if through a long corridor. He nodded. He smiled. Night pressed in at the windows. There was nothing else he wanted. For the first time in his life, he thought, So this is happiness.

  After several glasses of brandy, they retired, leaving the kitchen a scatter of pots and pans. Chloe said good night. Louis helped Isobel up from the table. They were both a little drunk and they moved down the hallway a little unsteadily, their hands gliding out to touch the walls now and then. Isobel opened her bedroom door. She had always instinctively closed a door behind her, ever since she was a child.

  “Are you going to bed?” he asked.

  �
��Yes.” She entered the room, still holding his hand. They fumbled in the dark for a moment before Louis lit the lamp.

  “I need to get into my nightclothes,” she said.

  “I’ll leave the room,” said Louis.

  “Just turn your back until I say,” said Isobel.

  “Very well.” He turned to face the wall farthest from the bed. He could see his own shadow sway in the carbide glow. A moment later, he saw the shadow of Isobel undressing. He watched her arms rise above her head like twin serpents, the dress coming off, the undergarments being unlatched, her body gradually coming into silhouette. Louis felt his heart thrum in his ears.

  “You may turn around now,” she said.

  He did so. She lay on the bed. She was wearing a black slip open at the neck and shoulders. He stared at her collarbones, the delicate hollows at the base of her neck.

  “Come and lie down,” she said.

  “I’m still dressed for a party,” he replied.

  “Take a few things off,” she said. “I won’t look.”

  He came and sat on the bed. He took off his shoes methodically, folding his socks neatly inside. Then he removed his coat and waistcoat and lay on his back. Isobel settled next to him. Their heads were on adjacent pillows, and a net of Isobel’s hair spilled onto Louis’s shoulder. He wanted to hold it to his face and smell it, but he felt timid. She reached for his hand, then rested her head on his chest. She could hear his heart thud. She had expected it to be steady and regular as a waterwheel, but it beat sporadically, fading in and out like a tired waltz from a previous century.

  “I’m sorry I ever doubted your intentions with my daughter,” she said.

  “It’s nothing. Any good mother would be suspicious.”

  “She was such a wonderful child, you know. She used to bring me daisies and leave poems on my pillow.”

  “I can picture it.”

  In the island of lamplight they both felt a deep calm. From outside came the distant call of a screech owl.

  “Are we to be lovers?” Isobel asked.

  “It seems that way.”

  “Well, we should approach this matter like adults. I have not made love with a man in ten years, Louis. I have no intention of doing so beneath the weight of this difficult breathing.”

  “I understand.”

  “Ridiculous.”

  “What?”

  “Lovers at our age.”

  “We’ve been brought together.”

  “You tracked me down like a bloodhound.”

  “I was guided here. I think perhaps I have always been guided.” He thought of a boy being led into a forest.

  “You sound like a man of faith,” she said.

  “Yes, but in what?”

  “I lack faith.”

  “You always have,” said Louis.

  “Yes.”

  A silence.

  “Louis?”

  “Yes.”

  “I think I could grow to love you.”

  Louis leaned on his side. He touched her face so tenderly that he resembled a man roused from prayer. He kissed her forehead, then her closed eyes, her cheeks, and her neck. Isobel let out a low sigh. She took his face between her hands and brought her lips to his. As they kissed, she felt them mingling in a broth of brandy and solace. These were the kisses of the old, she thought, born of a mutual empathy for the frailty of time. Their bodies were neither allies nor enemies at this way station of sentiment; they were like neutral nations being called upon in a moment of war. The kisses would stay on the roof of her mouth, burned in. She would allow herself to be infected with Louis’s love; it had dogged her into the far reaches of widowhood. Love was, finally, a decision. They lay beside each other, half clothed. They took sips of water in the small hours. Every time one of them moved, the other reached out, maintaining the bas-relief of their union. They stayed like this until morning, until the blue light of dawn bled into the room and changed everything.

  Twenty-Eight

  Louis and Isobel slept in the same bed each night. They refused to acknowledge the growing illness, the bloody sputum that swam in the bedpan every morning. It became a conspiracy, a pantomime of life. Chloe brought her mother breakfast each morning, but by then Isobel had emptied her bedpan onto the rosebushes outside her window. Between the hours of eight and noon Isobel could summon her brightest face, but by midafternoon she was fatigued and slept under a tide of laudanum and damp-lunged dreams.

  Nonetheless, Louis was buoyed by hope. He took no photographs and the absence of mercury granted him bouts of lucidity. Then, because the mercury was now blended in his blood and bones, he would do something inexplicable—stop speaking in the middle of a sentence, gripped by an ineffable thought, or dress without socks, or give off a shudder in the middle of the night. Isobel was not alarmed by these moments; she accepted that his mind was worn in places. She wondered, in fact, if any man could love the way he did and be mentally sound. Each day he showered her with wildflowers, with strange and half-finished poems.

  They woke sometimes together, in the middle hours of the night, and lay awake talking through a reconstruction of the past. There were so many gaps to fill. They smiled at the surprise of a person unfolded, of secrets and lies offered up to the yewlatticed ceiling. Life had brought them together in this final chapter, and their task, they both felt, was to discover what had happened to the other in the middle of the book.

  “I will of course want to know all about your lovers before we ever make love,” announced Isobel one night.

  “What is it you require?”

  “Names, for a start.”

  “Let’s see. The first was Matilde, then Claire, Rose, and Audrey. Then came Madame Treadwell, an English widow with a penchant for theater boys.”

  “How many were there?” she asked.

  “More than five and less than ten.”

  “Oh.”

  “Are you horrified?”

  “I’m afraid you’ll find me dull and unpracticed. I have made love to only one man my whole life, and that was like tending the compost—a few scraps on the pile. Poor man, may he rest in peace.”

  “Those women meant nothing to me. They were auditions of the heart.”

  They held hands and waited for the next phrase to arrive. They watched the ocean of night at the window.

  “What are we to do with Chloe?” asked Isobel. “She is so lonely.”

  “We will find her a good man.”

  “In these parts they’re all drunks and farmers hard of hearing.”

  “One has to trust life.”

  After a long pause, he turned to face her. She had fallen asleep. He stared at the sibylline calm on her face.

  The next morning Isobel sat in front of the silver-backed mirror. Louis stood behind her, a bone-handled brush in his hand. She sat in her negligee, staring at her own figure. It came to her as if from a very long distance. This was her body. Her eyes were sunken, her skin waxy. The youthful quality she’d had in the early stages of the lung fever had vanished, and in its place there was a dryness, a withered look to her neck and mouth. She visibly shivered as she looked at herself. Louis pretended not to notice and began brushing her hair.

  “Oh, God, Louis,” she said. “Look at me.”

  Louis looked at her reflection in the mirror. There was no denying. She carried it now—the chromatic suggestion of death. Their eyes met in the hologram of the mirror. They both looked away.

  “Fetch me a shawl, Louis.”

  He went to her armoire and took down a cashmere shawl. He wrapped it around her shoulders and knotted it in front of her neck. They couldn’t look each other in the eyes.

  In the afternoon Louis sent for the doctor. He arrived smelling of ambergris and snuff, apparently prospering from the revolution. He sat beside Isobel in her darkened room, the curtains drawn at her insistence. Having this man see her wither seemed like an insufferable affront; would he ridicule her herbal ways again? Here, science, another footnote in the ar
gument against folk remedies. But, to her surprise, the doctor became moved in her presence. She glowed, a jaundiced blue. Louis watched at the foot of the bed as the doctor unwrapped Isobel’s nightgown and examined her chest.

  “My dear woman,” he said. “You should have been dead weeks ago. This is the worst lung fever I have ever seen.” His voice was gentle, almost reverent.

  Isobel smiled weakly, somehow flattered. She had not given up. The brine in her lungs was proof of her struggle to love Louis Daguerre.

  “What can we do?” asked Louis.

  The doctor said, “If you are religious, pray.”

  A sudden sob came from behind them. Chloe stood in the doorway, her hands folded across her front. “I don’t understand,” she said.

  “From the way this has flared up, I’m guessing she’s had the fever for years,” said the doctor. He turned to Isobel. “You have a remarkable grace in illness, dear lady.”

  Isobel looked at him solemnly. “I have given myself over to love, Doctor. I recommend you prescribe it to go with laudanum.”

  The doctor squeezed her hand and closed her nightgown with great tenderness. “When the pain and the breathing become intolerable you may increase the dosage. I don’t want you to suffer anymore.”

  “Thank you,” Isobel said.

  Louis ushered the doctor outside to his carriage.