The Game of Hope

by Sandra Gulland

  MALMAISON

  The school courtyard was jammed with carriages collecting children for the summer break, everyone bidding adieu. I felt like a sleepwalker, emerging into another world.

  “Mouse will be all right,” Ém said. “She’s stronger than we think.”

  But would she ever forgive me? Had I lost my dearest friend?

  I saw Caroline climbing into Citoyen Isabey’s shambles of a carriage for the return to Paris. It seemed like forever since I’d lashed out at her, yet it had only been that morning. She glanced my way and made a rude gesture.

  Citoyen Isabey, who was helping the driver load Caroline’s trunks, called out, “Where were you? You missed my class on two-point perspective.”

  I was relieved he hadn’t heard I’d been punished, confined to my room for hitting Caroline. I winced to think of the story she would no doubt tell him.

  “Do you need a ride in?” he offered.

  “Maman should be here any minute.”

  “Going to Malmaison?”

  I nodded.

  “I’ve never been,” Ém offered.

  “You’ll find it enchanting,” Isabey said, pulling on the ropes that were holding the trunks, making sure they were secure. “I think that’s your mother now,” he said, slapping his gloved hands clean.

  I turned to see a big coach pulled by six gray horses come to a noisy stop outside the gates.

  “Have a wonderful summer, girls,” Isabey said, climbing onto the step of his carriage. “But remember, Hortense—” He wagged a finger at me before pulling the door closed. “Five sketches a day.”

  * * *

  —

  It was Maman. She rarely used the fancy coach that had been reclaimed from my father’s property, thanks to Director Barras. The six gray horses had been a gift to the General after he’d negotiated the peace treaty of Campo Formio. (People thought us wealthy with such a rig, but they didn’t know that Maman rented out the coach and horses.)

  “I needed room for your trunks,” Maman explained, climbing down. She was wearing a simple country gown of brown muslin and looked for all the world like a virtuous woman. I thought of what Caroline had told me, that my father wasn’t really my father. I thought of Citoyen Charles. I hoped he wouldn’t be at Malmaison.

  “As well as room for these.” Maman held the coach door open to reveal crates of seedlings and plants. “But most importantly,” she said, stacking the crates to make room for us, “I have excellent—” She stopped short, taking in our attire. “Why the black armbands?” She looked concerned. “Has someone died?”

  “We do this every year, Tante Rose,” Ém said, climbing in ahead of me.

  I realized that this was the first time Maman had seen us during our ritual days of mourning. There was so much she didn’t know about me. She had been absent from my life for years. “It’s to honor the memory of Mouse’s mother,” I explained, wondering if Maman knew the truth about her death.

  “And my father,” Ém said.

  “And mine,” I added, my voice weak. Was he my father?

  “Oh,” Maman said, taken aback.

  Ém scooted over to make more room for me. “You were saying, Tante Rose, about something important?”

  “Yes!” Maman squeezed in and pulled the door shut. “I have wonderful news.”

  I needed good news.

  “I was going to write, but I thought it best to tell you in person. Eugène has recovered from his injuries!”

  Eugène!

  “And he’s been promoted to lieutenant.”

  Lieutenant Beauharnais. Imagine! “He’s going to be . . . ?”

  Maman nodded, beaming. “He’s going to be fine, dear heart. Our prayers have been answered.”

  I couldn’t believe it. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  I wept with joy, Ém too.

  * * *

  —

  The manor was as rundown as before, but Maman’s passion for gardening had brought some improvements: trees, bushes and flowers had been planted. The place looked cared for. Loved.

  I looked to see if Citoyen Charles’s carriage was anywhere in evidence. It wasn’t, which was a relief.

  “Smells wonderful,” Ém said, coming in the door.

  Maman untied her bonnet. “I asked our cook to make mille-feuilles, cherry confits, apple flan and—especially for you, dear heart—madeleines, to celebrate you winning the Rose of Virtue again.”

  I didn’t want to tell Maman that I’d returned it, that and the vase. “Ém won awards too,” I said.

  “Of course!” Maman said, heading for the cellar kitchens.

  “This is lovely,” Ém said, in the way someone says something only to be polite.

  I raised my brows. “It needs work.” Expensive work. “Maman thinks of it as rustic.”

  “There’s a billiards table?” Ém glanced into the dark room to the right of the vestibule.

  “The felt top is moth-eaten, but we can still play.” I wondered where Pugdog was. Usually he was at my ankles, looking up at me with bulging eyes, every bit of him wiggling with happiness, knowing I would give him a cuddle. “Just don’t play against Maman,” I said, leading the way upstairs to show Ém to her room.

  “Why?”

  “She always wins.”

  * * *

  —

  “Where’s Pugdog?” I asked Maman later. I was going to show Ém around the “estate,” and he always loved an adventure outside.

  “Citoyen Charles has taken him, dear heart,” she said, counting out the tableware.

  Taken him? “Taken him where?”

  “To the city,” she said, glancing up with an apologetic shrug. “Hippolyte found accommodation.”

  So, Citoyen Charles would no longer be a guest at Malmaison? I was happy about that. “But why would he take Pugdog?” I asked tearfully. He was our dog. My dog.

  Ém joined us. She’d found her wide-brimmed hat.

  “It’s hard to explain,” Maman said, swallowing. “And Pugdog is—Well, he’s happy with all those dogs.” Not mentioning Citoyen Charles’s name.

  He really must have been a gift to Maman from Citoyen Charles, I realized, a gift she wanted to hide.

  Ém looked puzzled. “Pugdog’s not here?”

  “No,” I said, turning away before I burst into tears. My little Puggy.

  TRUTHS

  Maman went to bed early that evening and Mimi retired as well. A pleasant summer breeze had come up, so Ém and I helped ourselves to more Malmaison wine and sat outside.

  “I’ll tell you a secret if you tell me one,” I suggested. I thought it time we spoke honestly of certain things. “I’ll begin,” I offered. “It was cruel of me to tell Mouse what I did, even if it was the truth. My only explanation is that I was profoundly distressed because of what I’d learned about my father—”

  “From Caroline? And that’s why you slapped her?” There was a hint of admiration in her voice.

  “That, and some other things she said.” It was hard for me to believe, thinking back. I’d hit her hard. “She told me my father didn’t think he was my father.”

  Ém nodded. “He thought that at first, but then he realized his error,” she said.

  I was shocked. “How would you know?”

  “My nounou told me, long ago.”

  Her nounou? I remembered well the severe woman who had looked after Ém when she was little.

  Ém swirled her wine in her glass. “This was before the Terror, before my father fled, when we still had our big house and my mother hadn’t yet been arrested and gone to jail.”

  Back when life was good. Back when her mother was sane.

  Ém pushed her hair back off her forehead. The moonlight touched her cheeks, giving her skin a glow.

  “She told
me that you were born early.”

  I knew this. Maman claimed it was the reason my health was sometimes delicate.

  “And because of that, your father was suspicious.” She took a sip of her wine. “He didn’t believe it possible for a baby to be born early.”

  “What?” Not possible?

  “It was a common belief at the time, and since he hadn’t been in Paris when . . . Well, you know, nine months before you were born, he became suspicious. He knew Eugène was his child, but he had doubts about you because of your early birth.”

  I closed my eyes, as if to shut out the truth.

  “Are you sure you want to know all this?” Ém asked.

  I did. Sort of.

  “So he and his . . . his lover—”

  “His lover?”

  Ém nodded with an “I’m sorry” look. “They were in Martinique together, your father and his—his lady friend, let’s call her. They went looking for evidence that your mother was by nature lascivious.”

  Maman? I groaned. I thought of that book.

  “And that she’d behaved immorally before sailing to France to marry him. So they paid your grandparents’ workers—”

  “Their slaves, you mean?” Maman grew up in the New World, where people could buy and sell people—own them—which wasn’t allowed here. Mimi had been a slave before coming to France; now she was free.

  “Of course,” Ém said. “Your father offered your family’s slaves lots of money to tell stories about your mother. Only one came up with an account, to get the reward, of course. He was a child, merely ten. Based on his fabricated story, your father claimed that your mother was a sinner by nature and that he was not your father. And then he ordered your mother into a convent.”

  “I have no memory of this.”

  “Of course not. You were a baby with a wet-nurse in the country at the time. I was only four or so, but I remember Tante Rose crying. She had to move into a convent with Eugène, who was still little. She was in there for almost two years. When I was older, my nounou explained everything. Your mother took your father to court for telling lies about her, for harming her reputation. She won, so then she could leave the convent and live where she pleased.”

  A gentle, warm breeze brought with it the intoxicating scent of a gardenia shrub in bloom. A wife suing her husband? And winning? I was amazed.

  “It was brave of her. Nana and Grandpapa were all for it. They loved your father, but they didn’t approve of what he’d done. My father didn’t like it either, even though Alexandre was his little brother. My nounou said that nobody in the family would speak to your father.”

  I felt unsteady. The things I didn’t know! I thought of Mouse, and the shock she must be feeling. I wished I could reach out to her, comfort her. I wished I could take away the truth.

  “My nounou said it was all this lady friend’s doing. She wanted to turn your father against your mother so that she could marry him herself.”

  “So what happened to her, this . . . this friend?”

  Ém laughed. “She left your father for a richer man and your father came to his senses.” She reached out to touch my shoulder. “He and your mother remained separated, but at least he realized that he really was your father. He admitted as much in court.” She smiled. “You look just like him, you know.”

  I wiped my cheeks dry. My father was my father—but did I want him as a father now? After what he’d done to Maman? I had always blamed her for driving him away, but now I understood how cruel he’d been to her.

  I heard an owl hoot off in the distance. With a trembling hand, I poured us both more of the Malmaison wine, which tasted better now, not quite so bitter.

  “Thank you,” I said. “Now it’s your turn.”

  “But I have no secrets, Hortense,” Ém said.

  I looked at my cousin’s lovely face. How could she lie and yet look so innocent?

  “Well, maybe one,” she admitted, pulling her shawl close around her.

  “Tell me,” I said, smiling so that she would feel comfortable about confessing. She needed to know that I would love her no matter what.

  “I like to read romances.”

  “That doesn’t count.” And it was hardly a secret.

  She looked offended.

  “Look,” I said, “we’ve made a vow to be honest, right? I think it’s time that you confessed to the nature of your”—I was in it now, there was no stopping—“your relationship with Louis.”

  She stared at me. “You don’t understand,” she said, in a tone that was almost condescending. “Louis has the soul of a poet. You don’t know what it means to love, to really, really love someone.”

  (I longed to tell her how wrong she was.)

  “But you’re married, Ém.” Like it or not.

  “Louis and I have done nothing wrong.”

  “But what you feel for him is wrong. Exchanging books and notes with him is—it’s not right, and you know it.”

  The moonlight made Ém’s eyes gleam. “You’re always so sure, aren’t you,” she said.

  That took me aback. It wasn’t a question. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

  “You think you always know the right thing to do.”

  “That’s not true!” I protested, though wincing.

  “You pride yourself on it. You were cruel to Mouse, all in the name of honesty.”

  “That wasn’t—!”

  She stood so abruptly her chair fell over, her glass of wine breaking on the flagstones. “You’re blind, Hortense, blind to your own faults.”

  “Ém?”

  She turned from the door. “Sometimes I hate you,” she said—but calmly, which made it even worse.

  And with that, she was gone, and I was alone, picking up shards of glass.

  A VOW

  10 Thermidor, An 7

  Malmaison

  Dear Eugène,

  Today is the fifth anniversary of Robespierre’s death. I’m not sure of the hour, but it’s very early. The fireworks haven’t started going off yet in the village and nobody is awake, not even the servants.

  I was hugely relieved to learn that you have recovered from your injury. I needed some good news, because yesterday I had fights with Caroline, Mouse and even Ém.

  It all started because I had reason to think that Father was not really my father. Now I believe he was—but then I learned things about him that disturb me.

  Do you remember the day when Maman was freed from prison? You and I were living with our Aunt Fanny because Father had been executed and Maman was still in the Carmes. Or so we thought. I was playing Aunt Fanny’s out-of-tune pianoforte when I looked up to see a frightful creature standing in the door. You were in the room as well, and maybe Ém? (I’ll have to ask her—not that she’s talking to me.) The “creature,” of course, was Maman. She’d just been released. She was incredibly thin and her gown was filthy. She stank! It was days before I let her near me.

  Poor Maman—I must have hurt her terribly. I can’t seem to do anything right.

  Please, please, please stay safe. I don’t know what I’d do without you.

  Your Chouchoute

  Note—Pugdog has gone to live with Citoyen Charles. I’m heartbroken. Plus, it makes me suspicious of Maman again, and I don’t like that.

  * * *

  —

  At breakfast, Mimi and the kitchen maid set out food on a table in the sunny room with lots of windows. Down the center they put platters of madeleines, cold mutton, dried sausages and slices of warm milk bread with pots of freshly churned butter.

  “Hortense, could you go get Ém?” Maman asked, adding warm milk to her chocolate.

  “She’s latched her door shut,” I told her. “I knocked, but she didn’t answer.” It filled me with remorse—and anger, I confess. I’d c
alled out I’m sorry, but she hadn’t even answered. “Maybe you could try.”

  Maman looked at me, puzzled, the cup of chocolate in her hands. She had wound her head in a scarlet scarf, Creole-style. It was chilly for a summer morning.

  “We had a disagreement last night,” I explained, my eyes stinging. I hadn’t told Maman about my trouble with Caroline the day before at school, much less about all that had happened with Mouse. Ém had accused me of thinking I always knew the right thing to do, of priding myself on it. Was I blind to my faults?

  “Ah, my sweet,” Maman said, putting her chocolate down and taking me into her arms. “These things happen. You and Ém are like sisters.” She put up two fingers, intertwined. “And sisters do have squabbles. Have something to eat. I’ll go talk to her.”

  * * *

  —

  Ém came back down with Maman and took a seat at the table, not meeting my eyes. She looked pale, yet her cheeks were blotched. She conversed with Maman, but spoke not a word to me.

  Then, as soup was being served, she swooned, slumping over into Maman’s arms.

  Maman and Mimi helped her back to bed and then Mimi went into the village for a doctor.

  A doctor? Why not an apothecary? I wondered. A doctor was sent for only when it was serious.

  * * *

  —

  It was almost six o’clock by the time the doctor arrived on horseback.

  “It’s only a fever,” Maman told me after, making the sal prunella elixir the doctor had prescribed.

  I was relieved! I helped myself to a third madeleine.

  * * *

  —

  “Émilie has broken out in spots,” Maman told me after dinner. “Promise you won’t go in her room.”

  “But you go in,” I said.

  “I had the pox as a child.” She pointed to the scar by her ear.

  Ém had the pox? How awful! I thought of Nelly, dead from that horrible disease.