French Passion

by Briskin, Jacqueline;

  We’d reached the east window, which was the end of the long gallery. He held my elbow, preventing me from turning. “Boy or girl, I want you to treat this child the same.”

  I looked at him, startled. “You know?”

  “This pregnancy hasn’t taken me by surprise. We’ve been together day and night. The signs, my dear, are quite well known.” His voice hovered between amusement and annoyance. “I’ve been tactfully awaiting the happy news.” He stopped. “Except I don’t think you’re happy.”

  “Happy?” I sighed. “It’s strange, Comte. With CoCo I was terrified you’d throw me out, I didn’t know how we’d survive the winter. Yet I wanted her with all my heart. And now … maybe it’s the times. No, I’m not happy.”

  We turned and started back. “You will be. This child is your consolation prize for having been trapped into marriage with an ugly old man.” He spoke with sardonic detachment, as if he were able—like the portraits of his arrogant ancestors—to gaze down and see us as a joke. The unwilling young wife. The brilliant diplomat who’d turned into a middle-aged, love-befuddled fool.

  The sadness of love made me want to weep. But then, pregnant, everything made me want to weep.

  Neither of us brought up the subject of my leaving France to bear the child.

  The two days following Goujon’s visit, sun melted snow to slush. On the third day a freeze set in. The broad avenue beyond the grounds was a frozen river.

  The fourth morning after Goujon’s visit, the Comte and I drank our chocolate in his bed. His first two wives may have slept in other beds, distant suites, but I shared his bed, with him curled warm around me.

  His leg was pressed against mine. A footman presented my foamy, steaming cup. The Comte bent, pressing a kiss on my silk-covered shoulder. Though the footmen were too well trained to look, I could feel myself redden. The Comte chuckled.

  The footmen continued their ceremonial whipping of his chocolate. Outside was a rustle that I assumed to be wind in bare branches. We were having our second cups when I realized that the sound had grown louder, like a faraway torrent. My fingers clenched on fragile, antique soft-paste porcelain. I knew the sound.

  The sound of my nightmares. The sound of rape, violence, heads raised on pikes.

  The sound of a mob.

  The footman’s white-gloved hand trembled as he gave the Comte a fresh napkin.

  The Comte glanced out the windows. Swollen purple clouds hung low in a chill gray sky. “Nice weather like this always brings people out,” he remarked.

  “There’s a mob nearby!” My taut nerves snapped. “How can you joke?”

  “Is this the woman who smiles as she’s locked in the Bastille?” he asked. “Don’t tell me you’re frightened?”

  “I’m terrified! And if you’d ever been in a mob, you’d be, too.”

  “My dear, what do you imagine an army is but a mob sanctioned to kill?”

  Through the double windows came a thin metallic cry. My remaining chocolate spilled into the saucer. The Comte gestured a footman to take my cup, then waved their dismissal. The pair left. Their faces were as white as their powdered wigs.

  Pulling on my robe de chambre, I went to a window. The crowd pressed against the palings that fenced off our grounds. From this distance the numerous red wool caps were like blood-red dots.

  “They’re stopping here,” I cried.

  The dangers outside that terrified me had affected the Comte in an opposite way. Ruthlessness showed in his dark face. He was alive, alert, strong, as if in his element.

  “Looking, that’s all,” he said easily.

  “In the Bastille they were cutting off people’s heads, they wanted to cut off the idiot’s head and put it on a pike. Izette said when they went to Versailles, the palace servants’ heads were on pikes. Do you know what they did, the mob? The whole procession halted in Sèvres to have those heads combed and dressed.” My voice was shrill.

  He got out of bed. His incongruously thin black-haired legs showed below a magnificently stitched night shift. At the window, he gazed arrogantly, as if the mob were on his side. “Nothing but a bunch of peasants,” he said.

  “Shall I have my hair done to save them the trouble?” Tears of terror were streaming down my face.

  He took me in his arms, and I pressed my face against his chest. “There,” he soothed. “My dearest dear, there.” He smelled of sleep, chocolate, perfume, and man’s sweat. Something of his vitality came through to me, and I felt safer.

  I took a deep, shuddering breath. “Comte, they’ll hurt my baby.”

  He lifted my face, examining me. An odd smile glinted in the dark eyes. “I thought you didn’t care about this one.”

  “I do. Oh, God, of course I do!”

  He held me until I stopped weeping, then led me back to bed, helping me up the bed step. He sat next to me.

  “You’re my wife,” he said. “It’s my child. Do you really think I’d let them harm you?”

  “I don’t know if you could stop them. Aren’t you afraid at all?”

  “Maybe it’s the remains of that wild, stupid boy I was. My dear, I refuse to let the peasants push me into fear.”

  Suddenly shots rang. Three hard, crackling musket shots. A distant roar of voices responded. “They’re coming, Comte! They’re here!”

  And then everything went quiet.

  The Comte wasn’t sitting on the bed. He stood, dressed, looking down at me.

  “… all right?” he was asking.

  I blinked. “What?”

  “I was inquiring about your health.”

  “A—a moment ago you weren’t dressed.”

  “I thought it had happened,” he said quietly. “You were hysterical. Do you remember that? There was a mob—”

  “Was? Have they gone?”

  “They paused, looking through the palings. A few minutes at the most. One of the gatekeepers fired over their heads. They moved on.”

  “Was that long ago?”

  “They left about nine. It’s after one. You’ve been resting.”

  “Four hours,” I said. Knowledge of losing time weakened me. I rested back in the pillows.

  “I’ve sent for my doctor. He’ll be here in a few minutes.” The Comte paused. “If he says it’s safe for you to travel, you’ll join your brother in London.”

  “Won’t you come?”

  “Let that rabble push me out of my own country?”

  “But I want you with me.”

  “Thank you, my dear.”

  “I mean it, Comte.”

  “As soon as you’re delivered, you’ll bring my son or daughter to me. I’m happy that we’ve made a child together. Very happy.”

  I clasped my hands around his neck, pulling him close, one of the few physical advances I’d ever made to him; it was almost as if I had advance knowledge of my part in our tragedy and loss, and was apologizing.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Three days later we set out.

  My plump, garrulous maid was to accompany me, but on the last day she came down with the ague, and had to be left behind. The Comte and I rode alone in the coach. Maybe because the lackeys were heavily armed, our journey to Calais was uneventful.

  I’d never seen the ocean, and I didn’t much like what I saw. Huge waves hurling themselves, breaking, spuming, banging ships against the docks. Among the tall-masted ships, the English packet Dover Queen looked small.

  Her captain greeted us.

  “There’s a storm coming up,” the Comte said.

  “We sail at five, with the tide,” the captain answered. “I trust the sea more than these damn revolutionary brigands.”

  The Comte and I, bracing ourselves, headed into the wind toward the slate-walled inn. The courtyard was covered. High, vaulting timbers made me feel I stood in the overturned hull of a great ship, an unfortunate simile after having seen the power of the ocean. The public room, though, was snug. A fire blazed, and a red-cheeked maid brought us a pitcher, thrusting
a hot poker to sizzle Normandy cider.

  A heavily-dressed English couple sat by the fire. Even in their thick wool it was obvious that the hatchet-faced woman was bony, and the man very fat.

  After a minute or two the fat man came over. He had that curiously ageless, unlined face of the very obese.

  “Are you and the little lady taking the Dover Queen away from this benighted land?”

  “My wife visits her brother in London,” replied the Comte. His excellent English was cold as the wind howling outside.

  “Name’s Bullock. Yonder’s Mrs. Bullock.”

  The Comte inclined his head.

  “Don’t you worry about the little lady. Mrs. Bullock and myself will be happy to keep an eye out for … uh?”

  “The Comtesse de Créqui.”

  The fat face took on an awed expression. However, Mr. Bullock said, “Nobility, eh? Don’t blame you for emigrating her.”

  At this the Comte stood. “The Comtesse and I have a few last matters to discuss.” His dark eyes blazed with anger.

  Mr. Bullock babbled, “Excuse me, excuse me.” And, heavy jowls atremble, he backed toward his hatchet-faced spouse.

  “How I despise cravens,” the Comte said in French. Sitting, he touched my hand. “You remember all I told you?”

  “Camberwell and Camberwell are your British solicitors. You bank at Lloyds’. I will not look at another man—except, of course, Jean-Pierre.”

  He chuckled. “If we have a son, you are permitted to look at him.”

  “Comte, please. I grasped his hand. “It’s not too late. Come with me.”

  He glanced at the Bullock couple, who had been covertly watching us. Their eyes dropped.

  “Some things a man must do to remain a man,” he said. “One of these is not to run.”

  “Comte—”

  “I’ve never been a coward, my dear, and not even for you will I become one.”

  At the gangplank my husband gave me a brief, hard embrace.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “But for what?”

  “Being sorry to leave me.” Against my ear he said, “You’ll bring back our child. That makes our separation bearable.”

  I boarded.

  The deck bucked, and I had to grasp the rail with both hands. Spray blew in my face. Ashore, the Comte held onto his hat, his heavy sable-lined cape whipping around him. He gazed steadily at me, as if he were impressing me on his memory. I shouted, “Goodbye, goodbye,” and the wind blew away my words. Depression settled over me. The child growing inside me was the Comte’s. I was his. Not through love but through the dominating brilliance of his personality. Leaving him benumbed me, as if certain vital nerves had been cut.

  In the bruise-colored dusk sailors jumped agilely. One shouted that we were casting off and the deck wasn’t safe.

  The thought of my lonely cabin, a chill and damp cubbyhole crowded with my trunks and portmanteaus, was unbearable. I’ll go to the salon, I thought, and the daring of the idea raised my spirits a trifle. The chance decision was a fatal one, but I didn’t know it then. I grasped the cold brass rail affixed to the bulkhead, making my way along the rocking passageway to the small salon.

  Behind the wooden counter a steward dispensed foam-spilling tankards of ale and small mugs of gin. A black stove gave off heat. In this close atmosphere the odors of salt, wet wool, coal, and drink were overwhelming. A few men were paired at tiny tables. Mr. Bullock, his puffy hands clutching pewter, sat alone.

  He raised up in his chair. “Comtesse,” he called.

  Even his company was better than none. Grasping tops of nailed-down chairs, I made my way across the heaving floor. As I reached his table, the boat lurched. He plopped back down.

  “Rough sea,” he said. “Very.”

  “You sound like an experienced traveler, Mr. Bullock.” Like him, I used English. “Have you made this voyage often?”

  “Thirty-one times,” he said, carving at the wheel of cheddar resting in a hollow cut for this purpose into the small tabletop. “To forget the dangers of storms like these, a man needs animal comfort.”

  He pushed the generous wedge into his quivering mouth.

  Sea battering against the small Dover Queen already had disturbed me. Mr. Bullock’s fears communicated more anxiety. How I despise cravens, the Comte had said. I determined to show a brave face.

  “Where,” I asked brightly, “is Mrs. Bullock.”

  “In the cabin. Her cure for dangerous journeys is laudanum. She’s well dosed. You, Comtesse, appear a fine sailor.”

  I’d thrown my heavy green cape over the back of my chair, and he was eyeing me as if my wool-draped bosom could give him courage. As if my body was a talisman. Of course I should have left then and there. Indeed, had I experienced any of the seasick nausea normal to my condition, I would have been spared the tragedy that followed. As it was, my stomach was settled. The only other choice besides Mr. Bullock was a sour-smelling, lonely little cabin.

  “Well?” he asked. “What will it be? Good English gin or ale?”

  I asked for a small gin. He ordered it, and a large one for himself. The steward fitted our pewter mugs in the table slots. Mr. Bullock told me he imported French perfume, and went on to describe his various transactions. He talked too fast, and his gaze never left my bodice. He was fat, afraid. At the beginning I never considered that he was looking at me with lust. I pitied him. Sipping the sweet pink gin, I smiled, asking questions that should have distracted him from his fear. The Dover Queen lurched more violently. From time to time I had to clutch my chair with both hands to keep from being thrown to the floor. The storm had worsened.

  “I thought you were the Comte de Créqui’s daughter,” Mr. Bullock gabbled. “Such an exciting, pretty little woman—I wonder he lets you out of his sight.”

  “Mr. Bullock, you’re not to say such things.”

  “Don’t take offense,” he said.

  The fear that drove him was stronger, and finally I began to understand where his desperation could drive him. But how could he harm me in a public salon with others about?

  The door flung open. There stood a huge, drenched seaman, a bleeding wound at his jaw. Wind howled. Icy drafts curled through the salon. Water swirled across the tilting floor. I lifted my legs so my traveling boots and wool skirts would stay dry. The sailor was shouting at the steward. “Westridge went overboard. You’re needed.” He turned to us passengers. “Gentlemen—and your ladyship—please get to your cabins. You’ll be safe there.”

  His voice rang false.

  The fears I’d struggled to hide rushed through me. My teeth began to chatter. Unconsciously I held my hands to my flat stomach. I was afraid not only for myself, but for the child in my body.

  At first my pregnancy hadn’t excited me. Since that morning last week, though, when the mob had threatened the Comte’s palace, I’d known I wanted this child—his and mine—as desperately as I’d ever wanted CoCo.

  Mr. Bullock said, “My cabin is just beyond yours. I’ll lead the way. Come.”

  Unnerved, I let him escort me. Grasping the rail tightly, I followed him. The passage was awash with water. The Dover Queen dipped, wallowed, rose, fell. A sudden draft snuffed the lantern outside my door. I couldn’t manage my key. Mr. Bullock’s fat fingers unlocked my door. The raised threshold stopped water from running into my cabin, and I stepped over to the dry boards.

  Mr. Bullock asked, “Aren’t you going to thank me?”

  “Thank you.”

  Before I could close the door, he banged clumsily over the threshold, water from his boots splattering my cape. The door slammed. His arms went around me. He was fat like the carter who had assaulted me so brutally. The same soft yet demanding male flesh. And as Mr. Bullock embraced me, past merged with present, and I was reliving that terrifying day after my release from the Bastille. It all flooded over me: the sharp crack against my skull … André and the sound of blows … violence … soldiers to imprison me again … weakenin
g to unconsciousness.… I struggled and twisted.

  Mr. Bullock’s breath was hot on my face. “I’ll show you the way to forget a storm,” he panted.

  My palms shoved against his soft chest. “Mrs. Bullock—” I said, starting to tell him his wife would quell his fears in her berth.

  He misinterpreted. “She’ll never hear us, not in this wild gale.”

  “Let me be!”

  “No need to put up a fight. I know you sensuous Frenchwomen! Now, now.” His hands moved, shaking and anxious, over me. I shoved harder. The trunks and other baggage, not properly secured, shifted and creaked with each dip of the Dover Queen.

  The bunk, high and attached to the wall, was railed with wooden spooling, like a child’s cot. His flesh forcing against me, Mr. Bullock backed me to the ladder, then clasped my hips to lift me.

  My fingers raked down his cheek. The scratch didn’t stop him.

  “This’ll help you, too,” he panted.

  Suddenly there was a wild, lurching drop, as if the sea had opened, and the boat was dropping into a bottomless chasm.

  “God save me!” Mr. Bullock cried.

  Abruptly he released me. I fell. And with that same awesome drop into the depth of the sea, I slid across the cabin. I lay prostrate against the bulkhead. Just before the ship’s lantern went out, I saw the rope snap around the biggest trunk. The heavy brass-bound wood slithered across the floor to where I lay. Then it went pitch black.

  The trunk pinned my torso to the bulkhead. Agony shot through me. I braced my arms to push the weight from my body. My baby, I thought, oh, please, God, let my baby be all right. There was only room in my mind for my unborn child. I was scarcely aware of the terrible scream pressed from the pit of my abdomen, welling out of my mouth. The ship righted. The trunk slid from me. I lay too stunned to move, the screams continuing to well from me.

  The door was thrown open. A sailor raised a ship’s lantern. He took in everything, me huddled on the floor, the bleeding lines on Mr. Bullock’s suety cheek.

  My screams stopped.