French Passion

by Briskin, Jacqueline;

  “Yes. Don’t blame him, though. He was being kind.”

  “I’m not blaming him.” The Comte sighed. “I wanted to be kind, too, and comfort you, let you go. Instead, I lost control. And afterward … It’s not often that I’ve experienced fear.”

  “You were afraid?”

  “The next morning, my dear. I stood watching you, terrified of how you’d look at me. And when you woke, I knew. I was still old and ugly in your eyes. And brutally vicious, too. Well, I asked myself, what’s the difference? I’ll take her whenever I want. And what else is a mistress for?”

  From the gameroom came the muffled rattle of dominoes being knocked over.

  “The past few days I’ve thought of nothing but you. Not just your body. Though I do confess, my dear, that has been in my mind a certain amount.” The Comte paused. “I’ve been thinking how brave you are. And of the generosity with which you care for your family and servants. Your impetuous generosity. Taking in that little streetwalker was very foolish, and far too brave. I could tell you were frightened of me by the spirited way you lifted your chin. I’ve thought how your eyes sparkle to a deeper green when you laugh. Your unwise honesty. And the arch of your hands as you pour my coffee and chocolate. Your voice—I enjoy hearing you sing with your brother. And do you know how much I’d give if just once you’d smile at me with that relaxed warmth? It amuses me when you defy me, and I’m almost as amused at my own anger. I love your pleasure in a now gown. I’ve never been happy before, not the way I’m happy in this funny little house.”

  I was touched, profoundly. Yet as the Comte’s voice came low through the darkness, I couldn’t help thinking of my child, who possibly was the Comte’s child, and who in any case would be branded a bastard. I thought, too, of Jean-Pierre’s compulsive gambling, and of Aunt Thérèse’s hurt eyes lit by the tapers of Notre Dame.

  “You’ve fallen in love with your whore,” I said.

  He gave a deep, shuddering sigh. “Not believing in love, my dear, I never comprehended how vulnerable it makes one. I feel all your shame. At my wedding I wasn’t struck deaf. I heard them talk about you, my friends, and their remarks cut me as deeply as they cut you. When you fainted, you fell very slowly, and I felt your weakness in my own heart. I came to you far, far sooner than manners and prudence dictated. I knew I could be ruined at Court. Incur the enmity of the King.” He gave a short laugh. “No sane man would have come here on his wedding night. But, my dear, I realize now that I haven’t been sane since your birthday.” He drew a deep breath. “Do you know what hell is? Hell is where a man lives when he’s shut in a pigpen with a fat sow and he’s aching every second to be here with you.”

  I pitied him with all my heart. Here, again, was that enigmatic duality. He loved me, yet had tied himself to a woman from a family even richer and more powerful than his own, a woman he couldn’t bear.

  He gave a small, mocking laugh. “In short, since Monday I’ve been missing you.” And his arms went around me. The cold on his cloak penetrated my silk gown. I put my arms under the sable lining, holding myself to the warmth of his body. I could feel his heart beating.

  “I missed you, too, Comte.” And as I spoke, I realized it was true. I didn’t love him: love was young, love was André. Often I disliked the Comte intensely, yet undeniably I’d missed him.

  “How?”

  “The salon was very dull without you. I was dull without you. And last time in bed, when … when you said I was your pleasure, you were mine, too.”

  “Sweet.”

  And, because everything had to be completely honest, I added, “I worried what we’d do, the baby, me, all of us, if you didn’t come back.”

  “You still don’t trust me?”

  “When you say you’ll do something, yes. I knew you’d let me keep the gowns, but—”

  “I’ll cherish you. You’re mine to have and to hold from this day forward.” He pressed his face to mine. “You’re my wife. I married you.”

  As if he, powerful as God, could reverse time! “Hush,” I murmured.

  He was shaking as if the blizzard had somehow penetrated the house, and I could feel a dampness, like tears, on his cheek. In the darkness he whispered, “If another man came near you, it would kill me. And I’d punish you until you’d wish you were dead, too.”

  Chapter Eleven

  She swayed on plump legs, reaching both dimpled hands for the dangling locket. And abruptly fell onto her backside. For a moment her green eyes widened with bewilderment and her mouth opened as if she might cry, then she laughed. It was such a joyous, clear sound that I laughed, too.

  Jean-Pierre dropped the battered locket, her favorite toy, into her lap, and I planted a loud kiss on my daughter’s neck, which smelled of milk and orris flour.

  She was fifteen months old and her name was Claudine Thérèse Jeanne Isabel d’Epinay.

  CoCo.

  Who had fathered CoCo? Even if I’d cared, or wished to know, the evidence was hidden. In her was no trace of the Comte. Or André. She was, everyone agreed, the image of me. Bald at birth, she now had a halo of the softest, palest curls. Her eyes, like mine, were a very clear green without a hint of hazel, and she had seven very white teeth, three on top, four on the bottom. Thwarted, she would hold up her chin, and each time I’d give in to her, laughing. It was as if a mirror had blurred time and I was staring at my own infant reflection.

  Jean-Pierre, too, adored her. He sang nursery rhymes into her cradle from the day she was born, and it was only when his fellow officers of the Royal Guard visited that he showed the least embarrassment for her birth. Aunt Thérèse shared this twinge. Once, cuddling CoCo to her, she confessed to having invented that dead husband for me. I couldn’t bear, said the kind and conventional old lady, for my friends to know this adorable baby has any kind of blot.

  For myself, I never could think of CoCo as having any blemish. She was, very simply, CoCo, ruler of this house. The fat cook called her Mademoiselle CoCoCoCo, and baked rusks for her to cut her teeth on. The two maidservants played peekaboo with her. Even Old Lucien, who’d never forgiven me, unbent, carving CoCo a toy wagon that she pushed and pulled. I tended CoCo myself, but Izette—nominally her nurse—doted on her.

  Only the Comte never succumbed. When CoCo reached up her dimpled arms for him to lift her, he would hand her her rag doll. He never rode her on his black satin knee, he never tossed her, laughing, in the air. I wondered sometimes. Had there been one single identifiable feature of him in CoCo, would he have surrendered?

  Still, he’d permitted me to nurse her at my breast—and every other gentlewoman in Paris gave her child out to a wetnurse. He suffered me to get up in the middle of the night when she cried. He gave her pretty toys and gifts—it was he who’d given her the gold locket she now swung.

  CoCo dropped the battered trinket, reaching for the gold buttons of Jean-Pierre’s Royal Guard uniform. He uncurled her fingers.

  “Will you be in Versailles long?” I asked. The Royal Guard were to practice maneuvers near the palace.

  “Until Friday,” my brother replied. “Manon, while I’m gone, promise me not to walk alone with Izette and CoCo, not even in the Tuileries.”

  On these pleasant September afternoons Izette and I took CoCo to the Tuileries Palace. The gardens were open to everyone. Trees shaded paths where poorer mothers strolled after their children. Titled ladies carried late summer bouquets, which combined with the scent of their powdered hair to perfume the park. CoCo toddled, exploring narrow walkways that were lined with charming statues.

  “But CoCo loves the Tuileries Gardens!” I said. “And so do I.”

  “If you must walk, take Old Lucien.”

  “You know perfectly well he won’t talk to Izette. And he’s the same with me. It’s more than just my living with the Comte, I’m sure of it. Honestly, Jean-Pierre, sometimes I swear he belongs to one of those political clubs.”

  “Old Lucien? Him?” Jean-Pierre’s musical laughter sounded through th
e main salon where we sat. Then his fine features turned serious. “But those political clubs are the very reason I don’t want you walking alone. There’s always unrest when bread prices go up, but this time it’s more serious than is generally known, and in my opinion it’s all due to these infernal political clubs and their revolutionary talk.” His voice lowered. “The army is under orders to disperse any gathering of these malcontents.”

  “You aren’t in danger, are you?” I cried. CoCo looked up at me.

  “Simply on maneuvers,” Jean-Pierre reassured me. “But I don’t want to have to worry about my pretty little sister, or my adorable niece.”

  “Mama.” CoCo pulled at my skirt. “Mama!”

  Forgetting everything, I knelt, entranced. My daughter had a vocabulary of maybe twenty words, and each time she said one pride expanded like a huge warm bubble inside my chest.

  “What is it, CoCo?” I asked.

  “Jen,” she said imperiously.

  “Did you hear that? She wants you, Jean-Pierre! She said your name!”

  “Jen could mean anything.”

  “It means she wants her uncle,” I said, picking her up, handing her into Jean-Pierre’s arms. He rode her on his shoulders into the hall, she pulling at his gold epaulettes, chortling with delight, he laughing. If I hadn’t adored my brother already, I would have loved him for this open affection he bestowed on CoCo.

  At the door I took out a small leather purse, heavy with gold coins. The Comte had given it to me, and I always gave Jean-Pierre the Comte’s cash gifts. My brother’s captaincy was an honor, not a livelihood. The salary was inconsequential, and though the Comte paid for uniforms and lodgings at Versailles, my brother was always short of funds. Jean-Pierre, young and handsome, with a repertoire of popular arias of Gretry, Gluck and Mozart had been accepted into the privileged group surrounding Queen Marie Antoinette, and this clique played cards for high stakes either in the rustic simplicity of Le Petit Trianon or in the gilded salons of Versailles Palace.

  “No,” Jean-Pierre said.

  “Yes.”

  “You shouldn’t.”

  “Don’t be silly,” I said, pushing the leather into his pocket. “You’re to have it.”

  “If only it weren’t so deuced expensive at Versailles.”

  “Enjoy the week,” I said, “and the pretty ladies.”

  “You’re more beautiful than any of them. What a crime you can’t be presented to the Court.” And he averted his eyes. It was no secret to me that the more the Comte de Créqui cherished me, the more vicious the Court gossip turned.

  “I promised faithfully,” I said, forcing gaiety into my voice, “to remain within these walls. This house and garden has all I want, anyway.” I took CoCo from him, hugging her.

  She wiggled in my grasp, reaching back to him. “Jen!” she demanded.

  “You see,” I cried. “Jean-Pierre, she is saying your name.”

  And I held out my daughter for her uncle’s farewell kiss. Neither he nor I ever dreamed this would be the last time he’d kiss her.

  “I’ll be back Friday, for the salon,” he promised.

  Old Lucien led Jean-Pierre’s bay stallion into the courtyard, and my brother mounted. Sunlight glinted on polished bridle bits and the gold of his Royal Guard uniform. CoCo waved goodbye. And I counted my blessings. I had CoCo, my brother, my aunt, the bright and clever friends who came to my salon.

  I had the Comte.

  My feelings toward the Comte never would stabilize. I still didn’t understand him. Or my own reactions to him.

  He was proud, brilliant, mocking, and contemptuous. With the aristocrats of his own rank who brought their mistresses to my house, he used a courtesy so overdone as to be insult. To servants, he spoke curtly, though I must admit they responded well—in fact, were proud to work for him.

  He was far too dominating for any woman as willful as I.

  On the credit side, he’d earned my deepest gratitude for continuing to keep me and my family. His honesty pleased me. His conversation delighted me. In his quick, acerbic way, he covered every subject from Plato’s philosophy, to the politics behind the French throne, to methods both ancient and modern for preventing conception. (At certain times in my cycle he used a device made of sheep gut named after an Englishman, Doctor Condom.)

  It was in my uncurtained bed that my emotions toward the Comte swung in the most crazy pendulum. Sometimes I would lie untouched, even repelled by his desire to possess every part of me. Other times I responded wildly, clutching at his heavy shoulders and crying out.

  By now we both accepted his consuming passion for me. Rather than giving me pleasure, it saddened me for both of us. Even in my most ecstatic moments, I knew I didn’t love him. I never could love him.

  I’d given up yearning for that kind of love. Yet at the sunlit front door I couldn’t help reflecting that I was only eighteen and it would never, never happen again for me, never that wild, sweet perfection I’d found with rain battering on the old coach.

  CoCo was pulling at my hair. I unclasped the small hands. In my daughter I’d sublimated these other longings.

  “CoCo hungwy,” she announced.

  So upstairs we went to the nursery.

  Izette was setting out CoCo’s midmorning food. I tied a bib around CoCo’s neck while Izette poured milk from the pitcher into her little silver mug.

  “There, now, Mademoiselle CoCo,” said Izette, beaming.

  Two years had changed Izette more than seemed possible. Not that she’d miraculously become pretty. She was still plain, with that too-wide nose and lashless eyes of too-pale blue. True, her ginger freckles had faded as her complexion turned to a healthy, well-fed pink.

  It was her body that was different. She’d grown six inches and was taller than I. Her bosom was magnificent, her waist narrow. Even in this neat, drab nursemaid clothing her body was voluptuous. Men noticed her. Izette refused to notice men. She’d confided in me that since her brief stint on the streets, men meant nothing to her. In fact, she blamed men for every evil in the world. Too, because of her time on the street, she remained an outcast among the servants.

  This gave us a bond.

  No married woman would have anything to do with me, an open and unwed mistress. The lovely courtesans who came to my salon were flighty and switched protectors as easily as gowns. They looked down on me for not being the same as they. I had no women friends. So Izette and I had become confidantes. She knew of my mixed feelings toward the Comte. In turn, I knew she never would wed, and aspired to live in a country cottage with that pale, gentle cripple, her brother. By now, of course, she received wages. And saved every last sou. How I admired her discipline and seriousness!

  She never talked much. Today, however, she was quieter than usual.

  As she swept up the crumbs of CoCo’s bread and butter, I asked, “What’s wrong, Izette?”

  “My brother, ma’am.”

  Repeatedly I’d asked her to call me Manon when we were alone, and she slurred the ma’am so it sounded a little like my name. “He ain’t got no appetite.”

  “Any fever?”

  “A little.”

  The lame boy spent his days reading—during my pregnancy I’d taught him his letters—in the garden or in his attic room. He went nowhere, and therefore couldn’t have picked up a dangerous illness. I wasn’t worried.

  “He must’ve gotten the grippe from a draft,” I said. “Is there any of the potion left from my brother’s last cough? If there is, give it to Joseph.”

  “There is. And, ma’am, thank you.”

  “While he’s ill, I’d better tend to CoCo,” I said. No hardship, none at all.

  “He’ll be better tomorrow,” Izette replied.

  With the Comte away for a few days visiting one of his wife’s châteaus, Aunt Thérèse gone to one of her widowed friends, and Jean-Pierre at Versailles, I lunched in the nursery with CoCo. Izette’s cheerfulness had returned. Joseph was much better, she announced.
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br />   “He ate his soup, every drop, and now he’s reading that book you lent him.”

  While CoCo napped, I went up the narrow stairs to the servants’ attic.

  Izette’s room was very neat, and the things I’d given her brightened the room. My discarded shawls covered the narrow cots, and some illustrations from old gazettes were pasted on the slanting walls. A painted screen that once had been in my bedroom hid the chamber pot and washstand.

  Joseph’s pale invalid face shone as it always did when he looked at me. And, as usual, this adulation embarrassed me. I made more of a fuss over the little red dots on his cheeks and chin than I would have otherwise.

  “Izette,” I said, “you’d better hang your coverings in the sun. Joseph’s been bitten by bedbugs.”

  “Ma’am,” she said, hurt, “it ain’t bedbugs.”

  “We’ve killed every flea, louse, and bedbug,” said the boy, his clear voice weak. “The grippe must’ve given me a rash.”

  He’d finished Paul et Virginie, so I took it downstairs, returning with Candide.

  The Comte returned on Thursday, as Aunt Thérèse and I were finishing our supper. He took coffee with us, and immediately led me up to my room.

  As he unbuttoned the small fastenings down the back of my gown, I asked, “Do you ever exercise your marital rights?”

  “As seldom as possible,” he said.

  “You’ll never father children.”

  “That, my dear, is hardly the greatest lack in the world.”

  But, thinking of my friendly, imperious little CoCo, I knew it was.

  One of the happy times—I was roused to sobbing, passionate pleasure. For a long time afterward we lay quiet, he stroking my shoulder. I sat up, pulling on my robe de chambre.