The General's Mistress

by Jo Graham

  It was idyllic enough to relax anyone but Victor. He picked at his food and said little. His shoulders were tense, and even a second glass of wine did not seem to change him. I chattered on about this and that. I did not bring up Thérèse. Whatever he had said or not, my raw anger at him had long since evaporated. Whether he had confided in Thérèse or had tried to discourage her, he had acted out of jealousy, I felt sure. And that I could not blame him for.

  At last he put his empty glass on the table and looked at me. “And what was it about Thérèse? Did you sleep with her?”

  “I did,” I said lightly. “Any number of times. It was very amusing.”

  “Was it?” His voice was dry.

  “She prefers me in men’s clothes,” I said. “Which is interesting, to be sure. But I do not trust her.”

  “That is wise,” Victor said. He poured himself a third glass. “I don’t trust her either. And I mistrust her with you even more.”

  “I can handle Thérèse,” I said. “In fact, I’ve been handling her with a firm hand, so to speak.”

  Victor raised an eyebrow. “And do you find that to your taste?”

  I shrugged, coloring a little. “I enjoyed it. But nothing more. How were your women over the summer?”

  He laughed. “I enjoyed it. Nothing more.” Victor reached across the table and took my hand. “You are exquisite. And I have always been afraid that you would notice it.”

  “And yet you have given me into the very society that you know presents temptation to me,” I said. “Victor, I don’t understand. You could have sent me to a country house to live in quiet, or at least not given me the means to meet potential rivals.”

  “And I could chain you as well,” he said. “But it would not serve my purpose. If I kept you solely because you could not leave, what would that say? If you answered to my hand only because there were no others who would have you, how should I take pleasure in that? I do not need to chain you. If passion is not chain enough, there is none that would do.” He turned my hand so that mine rested on his, and he caressed my palm, sliding his fingers between my own. The mere touch of a hand should not feel so carnal, as though he had caressed flesh much more tender than this.

  I caught my breath. “I will leave off with Thérèse,” I said. “I do not need the complications.”

  “As you like, my dear.” He lifted my hand like a gallant and touched it to his lips.

  He rolled off me abruptly with an oath. Throbbing with frustrated pleasure, for a moment all I felt was huge, encompassing anger.

  His breathing was very harsh. “I can’t,” he said, and lay on his side facing away from me.

  I was shaking with interrupted passion, catching at my breath in the tight black lace corset that was all I wore, my legs spread and tensed. A brief desire to slap him ran through me, but I did nothing, just lay there until it subsided. I didn’t move. The faint night breeze played over my private parts.

  Victor was in shadow. I could see only the stiff set of his shoulders in his white shirt.

  After a long moment, he got up. I heard him dropping the useless letter in the chamber pot and rummaging for his trousers and shoes while I lay like a broken doll. The door closed softly behind him.

  I slid one finger down and finished what was begun, coming almost silently in little gasps, the corset tight around me. I turned over and clutched the pillow, face against cool cloth through the inevitable descent.

  Minutes passed. The curtains swayed in the breeze. The sweat dried on my skin.

  After a while I sat up stiffly and unhooked the corset. One of the stays had dug into my left breast, and there was a painful bruise starting. I got out of bed and found my wrapper, a new summer one of thin white lawn with no embroidery or ribbons at all, meant for use, not for show. I put it on and opened the door. The curtains were open facing the back of the house. I saw a movement and went to the window.

  Victor was out in the garden. There was no mistaking his shape or the gleam of his shirt.

  I went downstairs and followed him out. The dew was damp on the grass, dragging at the hem of my robe. The breeze felt wonderful, fresh and cool and just beginning to speak of autumn. Dawn was hours away.

  I came up beside him. He must have heard me, but he did not turn.

  I put one hand on his shoulder, laid my face against the back of his neck silently.

  He took and released a deep breath.

  “It’s very peaceful here,” I said.

  “It is.” He reached back and put an arm around my waist, and I stood next to him, my arm around him, looking up at the stars glittering through the full green leaves, just at their largest. One night soon the temperature would drop. October was almost here. The leaves would change. This was the high tide, but already the summer was over, pulling away like a drag far out to sea.

  “Do you love me, my dear?” he asked.

  I put my head on his shoulder, so tall that even sideways my brow was against his chin, the faint unfamiliar feel of stubble against my skin. “I love you, Victor,” I said, and knew as I said it that it was a lie.

  I felt his arm tighten about me. When he spoke, it was with the old mocking tone again, falsely light. “I am sorry to have disappointed you, my dear.”

  I shrugged. “These things happen. It doesn’t matter.”

  “No?”

  “No,” I said firmly. “You’re tired after a long journey. You don’t usually come straight to me, you know.” The wind tugged at my hair, and the branches murmured. “You will have another command, as soon as they realize that whoever relieved you is not a miracle worker either. No one can defeat the Austrians decisively.”

  “Bonaparte can,” he said. “In Italy. And they expect a second Bonaparte. Suddenly competence and service are not enough. They want a poor-man’s Alexander.”

  “Whatever he is, there is only one of him,” I said. “And they will need you. You will see. Now that you’re here in Paris, you can convince the Directors personally that they need to give you a command again next spring. It’s not as though anyone is going to be fighting decisive battles over the winter.”

  “No, it’s not likely.”

  I ran my finger along his jaw affectionately. “And I can help you. You’ll need to entertain a lot. And you’ll be glad of the goodwill I’ve found this summer. I think that instead of hiding in your house as if you have something to be ashamed of, you should give a celebration. You should have a ball to mark your return to Paris. You are not hiding! You are the Republic’s finest general, and you know it!”

  Victor laughed. “What a Machiavellian little thing you are! I see you’ve made the most of your time in Paris.”

  “You sent me to school with Thérèse. Did you expect me to learn nothing?”

  “Nothing except?” He raised an eyebrow, and he was smiling.

  “Nothing except how to dominate a woman and make her beg for pleasure? My dear Victor, I learned that from you.”

  “Touché, Madame,” he said, laughing.

  I put my arms around his neck. “Dear Victor,” I said. “I did miss you. Even with Thérèse for company.” I kissed him, warm and sweet, then drew him down beside me on the grass. “All summer I’ve wanted you here to lie outside with me looking up at the stars.”

  “The grass is wet,” he said. “And I don’t have a letter with me.”

  “Lie on the grass,” I said, pushing him playfully. “And you don’t need anything. We’re not going to do anything except lie here looking at the stars.”

  “Getting wet,” he said.

  “For goodness’ sake, Victor,” I said. “You would think you’d never seen grass before!”

  “I’ve seen stars before,” he grumbled.

  “Not with me,” I said, and settled onto his shoulder.

  “No,” he said quietly. “Not with you.”

  Temperance

  Midwinter came and the year turned. While it was all still the Year VI by the revolutionary calendar, it was hard f
or me not to think of 1798 starting with the snows of winter. It was a difficult one. The cold came hard, and soon the gutters and their filthy contents froze over, and some mornings the trees were festooned with ice. In the country, peasants were starving. In the city, there was bread, but for some little else.

  We gave parties. On the way back to my house from one of them, my coachman shot a beggar who tried to rob us.

  All through the winter, Victor grew more and more testy, driving both of us to extremes. While he had always been cynical and mocked his rivals, now there was a bitter edge to his jokes in company that I thought uneasily was less than funny. Oh yes, it was wicked and amusing! But it also seemed mean-spirited. I didn’t think it showed Victor in a particularly good light.

  I should have been entirely happy. After all, I had everything, even Victor’s apparent devotion. I had money and a beautiful house, fashionable clothes, entertainments and the best society. I might even have influence if I wished. Many a mistress did.

  Influence to do what? some part of me whispered. To cause men to give me diamonds in order to have Moreau’s ear? To cause women to wear one mode or another, to all dress in lilac or eschew the color completely? What was the point of all that? There must be something more to all of it. Was I born for this? I did not think so in my heart, but what other answer could there be beyond the one I had tried before and found lacking, being a good wife to a man I hated? In my dreams, there were other choices. I stood behind a queen while she heard cases in court, queen and goddess alike in her pleated white linen, crook and flail in her hands. In my dreams, I defended a city hopelessly besieged, Greek fire spattering with eerie light against the stonework I sheltered behind with helmet and shield. I dreamed of smooth green oceans beneath the prow of a sailing ship, of distant mountains beneath the moon, of faces I had never seen, yet that I dreamed with love. But those were fancies. They were not part of life, of the world as it was.

  We had a February thaw. The branches began to bud, and there were a few days that were unseasonably warm. The appointments for the spring were not all posted, but if the decisions were not made they would be soon.

  We had planned an afternoon reception for one of the Decades, the tenth day of rest that replaced Sunday in the new calendar. Unexpectedly, the day was warm and the sun was bright. The huge pots of forced fuchsia tulips that I had placed all over the downstairs of Victor’s house were lovely in alabaster urns, and the buffet table was simply gorgeous. Silver gleamed on cloths of magenta and aqua silk embroidered with gold thread on the tables, and purple and aqua fringed shawls were thrown over Victor’s very neutral furniture. The chandeliers had been hung with fuchsia and aqua beads. Candles glowed everywhere.

  My dress was aqua silk gauze, fashioned almost like a classical chiton, with brooches on my shoulders in the shape of flowers. A gold chain belt caught the dress just below my breasts, and between them a long gold chain held a single lacquered white rose.

  As the party began, I stood with Victor at the door. We had invited more than a hundred people—all the government types, all the Directors, a good smattering of finance, and a bunch of officers Victor had served with, to underline his experience and his good reputation. I couldn’t stay at the door forever. To begin with, it was clear that the buffet line was backing up, and the footmen weren’t retrieving used glasses fast enough.

  I found the nearest one, who was standing like a rock against the wall. “Go round and pick up all the glassware,” I said. “I shouldn’t have to tell you not to leave dirty dishes sitting about.”

  Another footman was circulating with a tray full of champagne. He was mobbed in an instant, and the glasses were gone while some guests were still empty-handed. We needed two footmen doing that.

  I nipped back in the kitchen. “More champagne,” I said. “We need two men with trays. Gustave, put down those canapés and take the champagne around. Drinks first, then food. Marcel, straighten your cravat.” The first footman came in with a tray of dirty glasses. “Get these rinsed out and back out with champagne. Hurry.”

  I went back to the party, which was in full swing. Victor was talking to Barras and Joséphine Bonaparte across the room. The buffet table had been thoroughly raided and the crowd around it had dwindled. Nothing looked too terribly depleted.

  He was standing by the buffet.

  I had only seen him once, but I knew him at a glance. He wore white trousers and waistcoat with the dark-blue coat of the Army of the Republic. A general’s tricolor sash was around his waist, and the knotting of it did not disguise the hilt of the saber at his side. It wasn’t a dress sword. It was a heavy cavalry saber in a battered scabbard, and he wore boots instead of dress shoes. A poor man’s compromise, I thought. His hair was red and still pulled back in an old-fashioned tail, but he had giant muttonchop sideburns that almost seemed to meet under his chin. He held a plate in one hand and was looking at the pâtés with great suspicion.

  He looked up as I approached. His eyes were as blue as I knew they would be.

  “Wondering which is which?” I asked.

  He looked down at me with his head to the side. I was a tall woman, but the top of my head only came to his chin. “Yes,” he said.

  “That one is duck with chestnuts,” I said, pointing, “and that one is pork with truffles.”

  “I’ll try the duck, then,” he said, picking up the serving knife.

  I handed him the basket of bread with a smile. “You will like that, General Ney.”

  He took a few slices. “I’m at a loss,” he said. “Do I know you?” His eyes were very keen, light blue, like clear water.

  “No,” I said. “Madame St. Elme. We’ve never met.”

  There was an awkward moment as he tried to figure out how to bend over my hand while holding a plate and a pâté knife. I took the pâté knife and put it back on the table. He bowed quite correctly. “I am enchanted,” he said. “You must be our hostess. But how in the world do you know me?”

  “I saw you a number of years ago,” I said. “And I am acquainted with a friend of yours, Colonel Meynier.”

  “Ah.” He straightened up, looking at me again. “You wouldn’t be Meynier’s runaway bride, would you?”

  “Colonel Meynier was the soul of gallantry,” I said. “He promised me he would not talk of it.”

  “He didn’t,” Ney said. “At least, not your name or anything. But he said . . .” For a moment he looked embarrassed. “He said you were the most beautiful woman in the world, with eyes like the sea and the face of an angel.”

  I stared at him. The conventional pleasantries deserted me. “I don’t look like an angel,” I said. “I am too hard.”

  Ney smiled, a wonderful, gentle smile that could have lit the room and banished February forever. “How do you know?” he asked. “Have you ever seen an angel?”

  I hardly knew how to take it, and so I stood there stupidly, the appropriate compliments dead on my lips. “General . . .”

  “Yes?”

  I lifted a plate of trout terrine. “Do you like fish?”

  He looked at the plate. “Yes,” he said.

  “It’s very good. It has herbs of various sorts. Parsley, maybe. Or dill. I don’t know. I didn’t make it. I mean, I don’t usually cook. The cook does that. But it’s very good.” I was babbling and wasn’t sure how to stop.

  “Good,” he said. He took the plate out of my hand and looked at it in bafflement. “I like fish very much. Trout is good.” I could see him visibly casting about. “I used to fish for trout when I was a boy.”

  “Did you enjoy it?” I asked.

  “Very much,” he said. “My brother and I fished. For trout. And other fish.”

  “I’m glad,” I said. “I’m sure fishing is very pleasant.”

  “It is,” he said.

  He was smiling as if he could not stop looking at me, those warm blue eyes on my face as though I were some dream that had stepped suddenly to life. “Madame . . .”

  “Ye
s?”

  He lifted a tray of tarts. “What are these?”

  “Onion tarts,” I said. “With port marmalade.” Now there was a plate of tarts in the air between us too.

  “Are they good?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I’ve never had them before.”

  “There’s a first time for everything,” I said. That was a lead line I knew what to do with. “Sometimes you don’t know if you’ll like something until you try it.”

  His eyes widened. Not a gambler, I thought. Everything he thinks he shows on his face, transparent as glass.

  “Madame?” One of the footmen was trying to get my attention. “We have a slight difficulty in the kitchen.” The man almost had to grab my arm.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “There seems to be some crisis I must attend to.”

  Ney bowed slightly. “Of course. Your servant, Madame.”

  “I will—” I started to say.

  “Please, Madame!” the footman said.

  “In a moment,” I excused myself to Ney.

  The kitchen was on fire. Someone had started a grease fire, and one of the footmen in a fit of helpfulness had thrown a dish tray full of dirty water on it, which of course had only spread the flames and broken all the champagne glasses that were being washed.

  The cook had then smothered the fire with flour, covering almost every surface in the kitchen at the same time. It looked like something very large and white had exploded. The glassware was gone, and the raw chickens that were being roasted were now covered in flour. It took me nearly an hour to sort everything out, then clean up and get the flour off my dress. When I went back to the party, Ney was nowhere to be seen. The guests were beginning to go, and the party was winding down.

  I went and stood by Victor at the door as we said farewell. “Is Ney gone?” I asked him.

  Victor nodded. “He left a few minutes ago. Did you make his acquaintance?”

  I took his arm. “Yes,” I said. He had not waited. But then, why should he?

  “What did you find to talk about?” Victor reached for the hand of an officer who was leaving, and they exchanged farewells and pleasantries.