The Moon and the Sun

She still felt light-headed, but she no longer feared she would faint. She carried the score through the chateau to the musicians’ room. She peeked in, hoping to find M. Minoret, the King’s strict music master of the third quarter, or M. de la Lande, the charming master of the fourth quarter. For His Majesty’s celebration, all four chapel masters and all the King’s musicians gathered at Versailles. His Majesty’s guests were never without music.

Master Domenico Scarlatti sat alone at the harpsichord. Marie-Josèphe waited, enjoying the unfamiliar music, till he finished with a cascade of embellishments, stopped, looked out at the beautiful day. He sighed heavily. Staring out the window, he fingered variations one-handed.

“Démonico.”

“Signorina Maria!” He jumped up. He sat down, despondent. “I’m not to rise for two whole hours.”

“I won’t interrupt.” She embraced him. “That was lovely.”

“I’m not supposed to play it.” He played another variation. “Only what papa has planned for the King.”

“Is it your own?”

“Did you like it?”

“Very much.”

“Thank you,” he said shyly.

“You’ll be able to play whatever you like, when you’re older,” she said. “I doubt anyone could stop you!”

He grinned. “In two years—when I’m eight?”

“Perhaps in two years—when you’re ten.”

“What’s that? His Majesty’s cantata? Can I see?”

He paged through it, jerking his head to its rhythms, humming an occasional note, fingering with his free hand.

“Oh, it’s wonderful! It’s ever so much better—” He stopped, embarrassed. “I mean—that is—”

“Than what I played at St Cyr?”

“Forgive me, Signorina Maria, but, yes, ever so much better.”

“You said you liked the other songs.”

“I, that is, they were pretty, but I—I wanted you to like me so you’d marry me. When I grow up.”

“Oh, Démonico.” She smiled, amused through her distress, but she could not humiliate him by telling him their stations were impossibly distant. “I’m far too old for you, I’ll be an old lady before you’re ready to marry.”

“I wouldn’t care—and M. Coupillet is an old man!”

“No, he isn’t.” Then she understood: Domenico was jealous. “He is selfish and mean—who would want him?”

“I’m not selfish, and I’m not mean—”

“Of course you aren’t!”

“—and even though I love you, your cantata is wonderful! Your other songs were very pretty, but—”

“—I hadn’t practiced or played or composed a song in many years. I wasn’t allowed.”

“That is horrible,” he whispered.

“It was,” she said.

“How will you ever catch up?”

“I never will, Démonico,” she said, “but that time’s past, stolen, and I must stop feeling sorry about it. The sea woman gave me this music as her gift, it’s entirely to her credit if it has any quality.” She wondered if it did have any quality, if Domenico saw excellence in it because he loved her. She wondered whether her unpracticed talents had debased the song of the sea woman’s life.

M. Coupillet strode into the practice room, followed by a group of sunburned string players wiping their brows, blinking in the dim room, and calling for wine and beer.

Démonico leaned closer, conspiratorially. “M. Coupillet said you’d never finish. He said you couldn’t.”

“Did he!” she exclaimed, then relented. “After all, he was nearly right.”

Domenico bent over the keyboard as if he had never paused in his practice. He played Marie-Josèphe’s cantata.

“The varnish on my viola melted, I swear to God,” said one of the younger musicians. “Next time I have to follow the King around the garden in the sun without a hat, I’ll use my oldest instrument.”

“Michel wants to put a hat on his viola,” said another of the musicians, laughing.

“I’ll use my newest strings,” said a third musician, looking ruefully at the broken string on his violin.

“Your broken string was the fault of that plump little princess,” said Michel. “Under those silver petticoats, I’ll wager she’s bleeding like—”

M. Coupillet stamped his director’s baton on the floor. “Enough, Michel. You’ve blasphemed, insulted the King, and spoken lewdly, all in the space of a minute. And in front of M. Scarlatti’s little arithmetic teacher.”

“I beg your pardon, mamselle.” Michel the viola player bowed to her and turned his attention to a cup of wine and a slice of bread and cheese.

“What do you want, Mlle de la Croix?” M. Coupillet asked. “Why are you here? To beg relief from composing His Majesty’s cantata?”

“It’s finished,” she said. She could hardly listen to him, because she was listening to Domenico. When he played, the music sounded as she imagined it.

M. Coupillet waited. When she neither replied nor gave him the music, he thumped his baton on the floor again, startling her, snatching her attention back.

“You must give me the score,” he said.

“But Domenico is—” She stopped, amazed. The score lay on the seat beside Domenico; he played from memory.

Marie-Josèphe reluctantly gave M. Coupillet the pages. He weighed them in his hand; he riffled through them.