The General's Mistress

by Jo Graham

  “Fishing,” I said. My heart was sinking. Which was ridiculous.

  Victor snorted. “That’s about his speed. He’s a good officer, but he has the imagination of a side of beef.”

  “Oh,” I said. Eyes like the sea and the face of an angel. The most beautiful woman in the world. Surely I was used to compliments by now, even ones delivered with less than the usual panache. It wasn’t what he’d said. It was the way he had looked at me. And I had talked about food. Because I was an idiot.

  “Are you feeling well, my dear?” Victor asked.

  I nodded. “Just a bit tired,” I said.

  Victor did not get a command. For three days he paced around both our houses, alternating between silence and ranting. “The Directors are imbeciles,” he said.

  “Yes, Victor, I know.”

  “It’s all about flash these days. They have no stomach for the kind of hard work we had to do a few years ago.”

  “Yes, Victor,” I said. I refrained from saying that a few years earlier they’d beheaded generals who displeased them, rather than simply not assigning them any troops.

  Victor paced all the way down to the long windows that overlooked my flowering garden. “Since that puffed-up Bonaparte signed the Treaty of Campo Formio with the Austrians, there isn’t anything to do this year. Half the army is in reserve in barracks.”

  “Surely peace is a good thing,” I said, coming to the window. Ney was in camp at Lille. He had command of several cavalry divisions. I had seen all the posting lists that friends had sent Victor.

  “Bah.” Victor scowled out at the gardens. “The Austrians aren’t serious. We’ll be at war again soon. And the English aren’t about to abandon the war with us, not when their navy has ours going and coming.”

  I shrugged. “Perhaps a breather is good for us. Time to reform and time to train and replace. You always tell me how important it is.”

  Victor leaned his forehead against the glass and said nothing.

  “If it’s true that the peace won’t last, then you know that when war comes they will need more experienced generals. You simply need to make sure the Directors remember you.” I put my hand on his shoulder. “You can be patient, Victor. You’re clever and you never give up. And in the meantime, so many people will have a chance to heal. Think of all the thousands of children who are glad to have their fathers home!”

  Victor smirked. “You are turning into a sentimentalist, my dear. How very sweet.”

  I looked at him. “Victor, I wish—” I broke off.

  “What, my dear?”

  “I wish you were someone who cared.”

  He turned and looked at me, his brow furrowed. “I do care, my dear. I care about you, and about my friends.”

  “But not about people.” I put my hands against the glass, pressing against the rain-streaked panes. “You don’t really care if thousands of children are orphaned, or if people starve, or whatever happens. It just doesn’t matter to you. I can’t explain. I’m not saying this right.”

  “I am a pragmatist, my dear. I don’t believe in God and piety and charity. It was entirely corrupt, if you remember, a scam for priests to live well while doing nothing.”

  “Is this all there is, then?” I looked out at the rain soaking my gorgeous tulips. “Nothing matters and there is no reason for anything?”

  He put his hands on my shoulders gently. “My dear, you are softhearted. If it will make you feel better to involve yourself with some respectable charity, then by all means do it. The Fund for the Orphans of the Army of the Republic is well thought of. You may make a donation of any size you see fit. Or even engage yourself in the production of their receptions or endless bazaars. There is no reason you can’t, if it will make you happy.”

  “It’s not about my happiness,” I said. It was hard even to find words for the thing I sought. I leaned back against his shoulder. “Surely there is more to the world than my happiness.”

  Victor slid his arm around my waist. “There’s mine,” he said.

  That night I dreamed. In my dream, I climbed from my bed and walked through Paris, through misted streets like the ones I knew waking.

  The only thing that was different was that it was too fast. I had only to think, and I could hear the river running, see the lights shining from the windows of the Tuileries. It was early spring and the night was warm, with a mist rising off the Seine. I was alone.

  “Why am I here?” I asked.

  Nothing happened. A soft breeze pressed against my face.

  “Why can’t I remember?” I whispered.

  I walked along the quays. Ahead of me Pont Neuf stretched, cool and reflected in the water. I walked out onto the bridge.

  A man stood at the railing, looking downstream. For a moment I thought it was my father—the same brown queue, the same breadth of shoulder. Then I realized that he wore the uniform of the Army of the Republic, a sash around his waist. I would have thought it was some friend of Victor’s if not for the odd shadow behind him, like folded wings.

  “Why don’t I remember?” I asked.

  “You can,” he said, and turned. He was young and tired, with a homely, ordinary face. “You can remember anytime you want to.”

  I went over and leaned my elbows on the rail beside him. “Why?”

  “Because you asked for the Gift of Memory. And I promised I would never take it from you again.” He leaned companionably beside me. “It’s good to see you.”

  “You came with him, didn’t you?” I asked.

  “With Michel, you mean? My namesake?”

  I nodded. “I know him, don’t I?”

  “What do you think?” He looked at me from under long lashes, pretty as a girl’s.

  “I’m afraid to,” I said. “If I do, I will never be safe again.”

  “Probably not,” he said cheerfully. “He does get into a lot of trouble.”

  I looked out over the quiet water. “This river isn’t the Seine, is it?”

  This time he grinned. “No.”

  Indiscretions

  Victor rattled around snarling at everything until I suggested that he should join Barras as his guide in a tour of our encampments on the Rhine. As was his habit, Victor wrote me almost immediately.

  My dear,

  I have reached Strasbourg in company of M. Barras, and our reception in this city has been exceptional. M. Barras is well known to them, and is esteemed as greatly by them as by me.

  I am well, though the condition of the roads was somewhat worse than I had expected due to the torrential rains that plagued us. Because of this, I shall require my older pair of boots to be sent to me, as I do not wish to spoil the best ones.

  I have received correspondence from my builder regarding the renovations to the kitchen that you and I discussed. I am unable to concentrate on these domestic matters at this time, so if you could contact him and relate to him all the particulars, my gratitude should be extreme. Also, I have ordered new table linens. Pray see what has become of them.

  I am your servant,

  Victor Moreau

  I sighed deeply and put the letter in my reticule. I would deal with Victor’s builder after lunch. I was meeting Lisette and her theater friends in a café in the Palais-Royal.

  The day was gorgeous. The sun was bright, and the weather warm. I took off my shawl and draped it over the back of my chair. Lisette and I were the only women. There was Jean Delacroix, the lead who played Gaius Gracchus, and two more young men, one of whom was wickedly funny. All through lunch he told anecdotes about notable persons who came to the theater, both the Populaire and the Théâtre de la République, which was much more respectable.

  “Ah,” said Delacroix, “but we are more entertaining!”

  “We have Talma,” the young man countered, “the very prince of the theater that he is. If only he didn’t mingle in politics so much! It makes the rest of the company nervous.”

  “It’s just that he likes to be looked at,” Lisette said. “
He’s as kind as the day is long.”

  “He likes to be looked at, all right,” Delacroix said. “He’s posing for Lemot the sculptor now, nude as the day he was born, for a life-size marble, wearing nothing but a pair of manacles!”

  “I’m sure that will be decorative,” I said dryly. “And pray tell me what the subject is? A Dying Gaul, perhaps?”

  Delacroix grinned. “Thettalos Enchained,” he said.

  I felt a shiver despite the warmth of the day. “Ah,” I said. “I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting Monsieur Talma yet.”

  “You spend too much time in military circles,” Lisette said. “We can introduce you.”

  “It must be very boring,” the young man remarked. “All those staid soldiers!”

  “Not really,” I said.

  Delacroix poured everyone more wine. “Some of them are as good as players themselves. There was this fellow at Mannheim who took the town without a shot on sheer theatrics.”

  Lisette laughed. “And how do you do that?”

  “Well, he had some inferior number of men or something like that. But the fellow spoke German perfectly well, since he’s an Alsatian. So he dressed up in peasant clothes and went in by himself on market day to reconnoiter. Big redheaded fellow, must have looked like he belonged.”

  “Ney,” I said, catching my breath.

  Delacroix nodded. “That was his name. Do you know him?”

  “I’ve met him once,” I said. “What did he do?”

  Delacroix leaned back, obviously relishing his position as storyteller. “He wandered around looking at all the defenses and decided that he could never take the town by force. While he was chatting with people in the market, he saw a young woman with a lot of packages. She was heavily pregnant, and he gave her a hand with her purchases to a cart that was going back outside the walls. He asked her if she wasn’t nervous being outside the walls so close to her time.”

  I could just imagine. His friendly manner and perfect German—who would suspect a thing?

  “She said that, no, the commander of the garrison had been very kind and told her that if she needed the midwife, they would be happy to let her in at any time. So this fellow Ney took himself off, acting like some yokel, and made his way back to his men. They found him a dress and an apron and kerchief, and that night good and late he dressed up with a big straw pillow under the dress like a bump!”

  I clenched my hand around the wineglass. It was damp from the condensation on the outside, the white wine still cool from the cellar.

  “So he had fifty of his picked men wait, and then he staggers up to the gate moaning, with the big bump on the front end and a kerchief over his head. ‘Oh, help! Oh, help me! I need the midwife! My time is come!’ and carrying on in German in falsetto. They opened the gate, and as soon as they did his men rushed the guards. They took the city of Mannheim without a shot fired, with nothing more than a few bruises all round. He said the best way to win battles was not to fight them.”

  The company laughed. “How very clever,” Lisette said.

  “I love him,” I said.

  Delacroix looked at me. “What?”

  “I love him,” I said. My hand was perfectly steady on the wineglass and so was my voice. “Lisette, have you ever met someone and just known them? Irrationally, absolutely?”

  “I thought you’d just met him,” Lisette said.

  “I did,” I said. “I’ve only met him once. But I know him. I know him as if it’s been a thousand years. I should have said . . . I don’t know what I should have said, but I shouldn’t have talked about trout.”

  “Trout?” Lisette said confusedly. “Why would you talk about trout?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “He was so overwhelming in person. I should have been witty and clever and amazing and unforgettable, and instead I talked about food and fishing.”

  “Do you know anything about fishing?” Lisette asked.

  “No!” I put my head in my hands. “I don’t even know why we were talking about fishing. And then the kitchen caught fire.”

  “And he put it out with his bare hands?”

  “No.” I rubbed my forehead. “I went to tend to it, and when I came back he was gone. But it had been nearly an hour, even though I’d told him I would be back in a minute, so I suppose he thought I was trying to get rid of him.”

  “Is he that good-looking?” Delacroix asked.

  “He’s not good-looking at all,” I said. “He has red hair and the most horrible sideburns that wrap around under his chin like he’s got some strange animal attached, and he’s built like the side of a barn, and his face is ordinary and you can see that his hairline is receding and he’s going to be bald, and he doesn’t even have a pair of dress shoes.”

  “Then why . . .” Delacroix began perplexedly.

  “I don’t know!” I said. “I don’t. It’s just that he’s him. I can’t explain. I know him. I’ve been looking for him since the day I was born.”

  Lisette and Delacroix exchanged a look. “What about Moreau?” Lisette asked.

  I took a quick gulp of my wine. “I can’t leave Victor. And he’s been wonderful to me in every way. I can’t wait until he goes out of town and go dashing off to Lille. It’s not fair.”

  “And he pays the bills,” Delacroix said cynically.

  Lisette shot him a quick glance.

  “He does,” I said, “but he’s having such a terrible time right now. I can’t do that.”

  “And you don’t know if Ney would want you,” Lisette said practically. “It’s better if you do nothing. Infatuations fade, or they turn into something real. But either way, it takes time.”

  “You are right, of course,” I said.

  That night I sat down to answer Victor’s letter.

  My dear,

  I am sorry the weather was terrible for your trip! I hope you took the precaution of wearing your greatcoat and a scarf. I know you are susceptible to colds.

  I am sending your boots as you requested, along with several pairs of new stockings. I have taken care of the table linens. The ones you ordered looked terrible when they arrived—the stitching was crude and the quality was not acceptable. I have ordered new linens, and I am sure they will meet your exacting specifications. They are not in the least gaudy, but they do have colored borders for summer dining.

  I have not yet talked to the builder about the kitchen. He is on another job and his wife keeps telling me that he will call upon me, but it hasn’t happened yet. I shall have to make a pest of myself.

  With greatest esteem,

  Ida St. Elme

  I poured sand on the letter and shook it off carefully, then put it to the side to dry completely.

  I could write to him, I thought. I could write and at least apologize for leaving him so precipitously. I could say the witty things I had meant to say. Or at least say something.

  I picked up another sheet of paper and began to write.

  My dear General,

  I hardly know how to begin this. I obey my heart without searching for vain excuses. I do not know the art of disguising my feelings. Besides, there is something in the depths of my soul that tells me that if what I am doing wounds the conventions of mundane people, it may still please someone of your character.

  I have only spoken with you once, and yet your image is graven on my heart.

  Since I first heard your name, I have been one with you in my thoughts. I tremble at all of your perils, rejoice at all of your triumphs, and applaud every recounting of your beautiful deeds.

  My life is wonderful. I know that there are women who envy me. But I would joyfully renounce it all to be your companion in danger.

  Respect and intimacy unite me with General Moreau. Does it carry the risk of making myself contemptible in your eyes to confess to you in a letter like this? But I don’t know how to fight the irresistible demands of my heart!

  I have no other reason for telling you of the feelings that trouble my sleep exce
pt that you should know that I exist. That there is somewhere a woman to whom your glory is no less dear than it is to you yourself.

  I will remember you until the end of the world.

  Love,

  Ida St. Elme

  I blotted the letter quickly, and put both of them in their envelopes. Tomorrow they would set off in different dispatch bags, part of my life and part of my soul.

  Ten of Swords

  Victor returned to Paris far sooner than I had expected, with not even a note ahead to tell me of his arrival. I was reading in my drawing room late one afternoon. I didn’t even hear his carriage on the drive, didn’t realize he was there until he opened the door.

  “Victor!” I got up to greet him, but he backed away from my embrace.

  His face was a study in cold fury. He withdrew a folded paper from his pocket. “Madame,” he said, “what is the meaning of this?”

  “The meaning of what?” I asked, confused.

  “So I assume your lover has not yet warned you of your mistake.” His jaw was clinched.

  “What?”

  “Don’t play innocent with me, Madame!” he shouted. “Grant me the respect my intelligence deserves.” He unfolded the paper and held it at arm’s length. “‘My life is wonderful. I know that there are women who envy me. But I would joyfully renounce it all to be your companion in danger.’”

  “Oh, my God,” I said, grabbing the edge of the table behind me.

  Victor stalked toward me. “I want you out of this house, Madame. Now.”

  “How did you get that?” I said.

  “You sent it to me, my dear,” Victor snapped. “And I assume that you sent your lover the letter you meant for me. No doubt a much less passionate missive.”

  “Victor, I can explain—”

  “I imagine you can,” he said, stopping before me. “I imagine I would hear some very pretty lie. I imagine you are quite used to telling me lies, moneygrubbing little whore that you are.”