Dreams So Fleeting

by Sylvia Halliday

  At last, hand to ear, Ninon pretended to hear a noise. Joseph rushed into the wings, while Ninon bent over at the painted window and looked out for her husband, the jealous vicomte of the title. She waited for the noisy but harmless clap of Valentin’s slapstick on her rump, her thoughts already on the third act. When they were lovers, they had always kissed at the final scene. And afterward, sleeping apart, they had still managed to hold hands. But this afternoon they were adversaries: she was not sure she could even look at him.

  She gasped as the slapstick struck her bottom, a sharp, stinging smack that hurt even through her skirts. She spun around to see Valentin grinning at her, dark eyes glittering wickedly through his half-mask. He had carefully removed from the slapstick the extra lath that rendered it harmless.

  Damn him, she thought, and his smug satisfaction! She turned to the table, reaching for the breakaway plates, then hesitated, feeling her anger boiling over—for the smile on his face, for the smack to her rear, for the weeks of aching days and lonely nights. Damn him! Bypassing the plates, she picked up the iron skillet from the table and swung at him with all her might. She hit him on the side of his face and head, the heavy blow catching him unaware and sending him reeling against the table. The plates crashed to the floor, large shards spinning halfway across the stage. Valentin staggered about, clutching at chairs for support, half-senseless from the blow.

  The audience was ecstatic. It was surely the best brawl they had seen in months, the degree of realism worthy of their applause. Ninon smiled at Valentin and tripped daintily to the table to lay down the skillet, then moved to the center of the stage, where she might take her bows and receive the plaudits of the wildly cheering spectators. Valentin, partially recovered by now, waited until she had taken her third curtsy, then kicked her smartly in the rear so that she went sprawling. Gasping, she struggled to her knees to see him bearing down on her, the skillet now clutched tightly in his fist. She gulped, aware for the first time how poorly she had used him. His eyes, through their mask, were burning in fury. Her rump was already sore; if he laid hands on her now, he would be merciless in his punishment. Still on her knees, she tried to back away from him, her hands scraping against the bits of broken crockery, her memories flashing back to Baugin and the evil days of her childhood. No, by Heaven! she thought. He would not touch her! He would not beat her before all these people! By God, she would not endure it! As he reached down a sinewy arm to snatch her up, she found a piece of broken plate in her hand; she struck upward, piercing the flesh of his thigh. He howled and jumped back as blood spurted from the wound.

  “You madwoman!” he bellowed, as the audience stamped their feet with delight. “You willful trollop!”

  She scrambled to her feet, shrieking curses at him. “I shall do as I please! Do you understand? I am not yours! You pig, you villain, you…” She went to kick him, but was restrained by Joseph, who had rushed onto the stage and was shouting for Hortense to close the curtain.

  “Let me go!” roared Valentin, as Sébastien and Marc-Antoine clutched wildly at his arms. “Give me a minute, and I’ll teach the bratling a lesson she’ll not soon forget!”

  In the end, with much shouting and cursing, they were led away separately. Beyond the closed curtain, the spectators continued to cheer and clap, hoping for an encore to rival the scene they had just seen performed.

  Valentin and Ninon kept to their rooms the following day, and had their meals sent in: Valentin was too injured to show himself, and Ninon burned with shame at her own savage behavior. The day after that, limping heavily, his face painted with white lead, Valentin appeared at the theater to play a pastoral, then returned to his room and shut himself up as before. They did not play for the next two days, being Wednesday and Thursday, the least profitable days to perform. On Thursday evening, the company, with the exception of Valentin, went to a nearby tavern for supper. Ninon ate little, still feeling the eyes of her fellow strollers on her, and excused herself early. She walked through the spring twilight, her thoughts in a turmoil. Chanteclair would scarcely recognize her now. Where was the sweet Ninon who had come from Marival nearly a year ago? The shy, retiring, fearful Ninon, holding in her emotions, afraid to laugh or to cry. It was as though the strollers’ life had opened the floodgates of her locked heart, and all the torrent of anger, and passion, and temperament—held so long in check—had come pouring out. She had laughter now, true enough. But she had the dark side of laughter as well—a new awareness of the bitterness and resentment she had kept hidden from herself for so long. And she had done just what she despised Valentin for: turned that bitterness into cruelty against the people closest to her.

  She sighed heavily and mounted the stairs to her room, moving quietly down the dark hallway as she passed Valentin’s chamber with its half-open door. She heard a soft oath and peered into his dimly lit room, standing far back so that he would not see her. He was sitting in a straight-backed chair near the cold fireplace; by his side was a small table that held a candle, a basin, and clean linens. He was wearing nothing except his shirt, which was drawn well up so that he might minister to his injured thigh. He cursed again, twisting to reach the wound, which extended to the under part of his leg and partly out of his view. He dabbed at it with a sopping sponge, and groaned as the water ran down his leg and dripped onto the floor.

  “Plague take the damn thing,” he muttered, and threw the sponge across the room. Ninon stepped quietly into the chamber and closed the door, then bit her lip when he looked up at the sound. The entire side of his face was black with bruises, his eye swollen and puffy. Silently she retrieved the sponge and knelt in front of him. She dipped the sponge into the basin of warm water and wrung it out, dabbing gently at the gash in his leg. She dried it carefully with a towel and examined it. The wound had begun to heal around the edges, but the middle was red and corrupt. She frowned. The sisters in the convent, without the means to buy medicines and salves, had devised methods of their own to treat illness and accidents, and they had been effective. She went to the cold fireplace and pulled out a piece of half-burned wood, crumbling the charcoal into a fresh bandage that she could use as a poultice to draw out the poisons from his wound. She wrapped his leg tightly and tied the bandage, then remained kneeling at his feet, too filled with shame and remorse even to look up at him.

  He reached down, his hands under her elbows, and pulled her up to stand before him. He smiled as well as he could, and rubbed her bottom gently through her skirts, a movement both apologetic and conciliatory.

  “Alas! Your face,” she whispered, near tears. “I must have been mad.”

  “You had provocation,” he said dryly. “I was…ahem…somewhat intemperate myself that day.”

  “I didn’t mean to hurt you so badly.”

  “Thanks be to God I was wearing the mask. You might have broken my nose!”

  “Ah Dieu!” She sighed unhappily. “I shall get a leech from the apothecary tomorrow to drain the color from the bruises.”

  He grinned with the side of his mouth, wincing slightly at the pain to his face. “Come now, you needn’t do penance! I have been cruel to you many a time, without a shred of remorse. And I fully intended to thrash you, had you not saved yourself by crippling me! So then. Let us declare a truce.” He laughed softly and wiped a tear from her cheek. “But we gave them a show for their money, did we not?”

  She sniffled and tried to smile, but found she could not. She stroked the side of his face with soft fingers, as though she could cure him with her touch, then bent down and kissed him tenderly, her lips brushing his bruises. But when she would have straightened up, he put his arms around her and pulled her mouth down to his, kissing her softly at first, then deepening his kiss as his ardor grew. She trembled, her lips hungry for his, her body quivering with long-suppressed desire. At last he leaned back in the chair and looked up at her, his questioning eyes seeking an answer in her face.

  “Yes. Oh, yes,” she breathed.

  She sti
ll stood before him. Without a word, he pulled off his shirt so that he sat naked, his swollen member attesting to his hunger, his passion. He gathered up her skirts, raising them to her waist; then, his strong hands about her hips, he lifted her and impaled her on his hard shaft. She gasped in pleasure, straddling him, allowing his hands to move her up and down on his body while her fingernails raked his back and she moaned softly. It was over in a few moments of frenzy. With a cry, he shuddered and thrust violently upward, then was still. They stayed thus for a very long time, his head cradled against her breast, her arms holding him fast. She sighed in contentment, feeling at peace with her body for the first time in months.

  He stirred at last and lifted her from his lap, then stood up and limped slowly to the bed. “Come,” he said, holding out his hand for her. Quickly she shed her clothes and left them in a heap upon the floor, then hurried to join him under the sheets. She had never felt such pleasure with his body before. She could not get enough of him, her hands stroking his strong shoulders, his chest, his flat belly ridged with hard muscles. Her senses caught fire from her own fingertips, the very feel of his smooth flesh exciting her beyond anything she had experienced before. She touched his flaccid member, feeling it grow with passion under her soft caresses.

  “You witch,” he said hoarsely. “You tantalizing devil.” He rolled over and pressed her down upon the pillows, his mouth hot and insistent on hers, until she pushed him away, gasping for air. “No,” he said, chuckling softly. “No quarter.” And kissed her again.

  “Will you defeat me totally, villain?” she asked, when she had managed to catch her breath again.

  “Without mercy.” Taking one of his pillows, he slipped it under her hips, then lifted her legs and rested them on his shoulders. She closed her eyes and relaxed, feeling wonderfully comfortable and at ease in this position. When he entered her, thrusting slowly, silkily, it only added to her sense of well-being. He seemed content to make love to her gently; she quivered with the exquisiteness of the soft sensations he aroused within her. Or perhaps the injury to his leg made violent passion impracticable. Whatever his reasons, he did not stop until they were both sated, their naked flesh misted with a thin film of sweat. At last he withdrew; she would have curled up on her side of the bed, but he pulled her into his arms, holding her close while he covered them both with the sheet.

  He sighed deeply, the pillow of his chest rising and falling beneath her head. “Tomorrow, I shall move my trunk into your room. Are you agreeable?”

  “Yes.”

  “It was a mistake,” he said. “We should not have ended our arrangement.”

  “No.” And yet he had. And still she didn’t know why. She waited, hoping, feeling estranged from his heart, from the deepest recesses of his soul—as always. And in spite of her resolve to protect herself from him, she felt the pain of his silence like a knife to her vitals. A mistake. Was that all it had been?

  He seemed to sense her sudden tenseness. He sat up and peered down at her, his eyes searching her face; then he lay back and held her again. “Ninon,” he said at last, his voice so low she had to strain to hear. “I…I didn’t know you were a virgin. Not in Troyes, and not afterward.”

  “But you said…the other day…”

  “Cruel words. Meant to hurt you. But untrue, I swear it. I did not know, until Montargis, when you lost the child. I thought it was Philippe’s. Then Hortense told me…the sheets…”

  She shrugged. “And would it have made a difference to you had you known?”

  He sat up again and stared down at her. “Of course!” he said, his voice sharp with surprise. “I would not have touched you again after that first time!”

  She suppressed a smile. It never ceased to astonish her: the sudden flashes of youth and innocence in him, for all his tough exterior. As if a virgin was less-hated womankind. Eve before the Fall. She felt a surge of warmth and pity for him. That was why he had stopped sleeping with her. Had she slept with Philippe, it would not have bothered Valentin to take her. A whore. It made it so much simpler for him. Hatred could not be confused by any other emotions. But she had been a virgin…and he burned with guilt. What a poor, tormented wretch he was. Well, she could at least ease some of his torment. “I’m not a whore,” she said. “I never shall be. You may rest easy on that score. And put down your jealousies once for all. I have not slept with another man, nor shall I, so long as we share the same bed. Not nobleman, nor soldier, nor coarse lout who calls up to me from the parterre. Your jealousy is unfounded…and ugly.”

  He stirred uncomfortably. “Ninon, I…”

  “You may not think so, but some women are capable of fully as much loyalty as a man. I have been fair to you. And honest. I will not be treated as your enemy. I have earned your friendship, at the very least, Valentin.”

  He turned away. “You shame me to my face,” he said hoarsely.

  She giggled, her hand going behind his head to turn him back to her. “And oh! ’tis such a very damaged face!”

  He gave her a lopsided grin. “I said once you’d be the death of me. I did not think you’d do it bone by bone!” He swept her into his arms and kissed her, then pulled her down to lie with him once again. “At the very least, I shall be your friend, Ninon.” He hesitated. “And then, perhaps, later…”

  “Wait,” she said. “One more thing. To put your mind at rest, lest you still have doubts. That…ass of a nobleman. Who was to take me to supper. It was not because I cared for him. Nor was it to make you jealous. He told me he was from Dijon. I had hoped to hear some news of Philippe, that’s all. But you were saying…perhaps, later…? What?”

  “Nothing. There is nothing more to say.”

  She frowned, hearing the sudden edge in his voice, and burrowed more deeply in his arms. They lay in silence for some minutes.

  “Did you speak with your foolish nobleman?” he said at last. “To ask about Philippe.”

  “No.” She laughed sadly. “Our battle on the stage frightened him away. I shall never know if he had news of Philippe.”

  She jumped as the door crashed open, and Sébastien stood there, his face white as death. The rest of the company pushed in behind him. They seemed not to notice or care that Ninon was in the bed with Valentin, but crowded around Sanscoeur like children seeking comfort from a parent.

  “Valentin!” cried Sébastien. “Travelers in the tavern. Newly come from Nemours. They said an actor has killed a nobleman and is sentenced to hang. God save us—I think it’s Chanteclair!”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chanteclair gazed out the barred window at the sunny town square. He laughed softly and turned to Ninon and Valentin. “The Rooster crows his last this morning, I fear! Still, I’m glad you came to bid me adieu. I only wish I could have seen the rest of the company.”

  Valentin shook his head. “The townsfolk grow uglier and uglier. LaPierre had much influence—if not friends—here in Nemours. There is talk of banning actors henceforth, and burning down the jeu de paume. And that is the least of the threats against strollers and gypsies and vagabonds. The company is safe in the woods outside of town. ’Tis best they remain so.”

  Chanteclair smiled. “I am grateful, at least, for my ‘brother’ and ‘sister’…” He nodded in their direction. “How much did it cost you to persuade my jailors of that fantasy?”

  Valentin shrugged. “Enough. But I told them we all had different fathers. And that you were the black sheep. They did not, of course, believe me, and were delighted to be confirmed once again in their low opinion of actors.”

  Chanteclair breathed deeply at the window. “It will be a sweet day. A man should not be hanged in May.”

  “Merde!” Valentin swore bitterly, and pounded his fist on the small wooden table in the center of the cell. “Is there no more that we can do?”

  “Name of God—stop!” said Ninon, putting a restraining hand on his arm. “We could not pay the judge enough for him to stay the sentence. And there is no escape from th
is jail, even if we could afford to hire an army of assassins.” She choked back a sob and turned away. She had thought there were no more tears left to cry. For a week now she had sobbed in Valentin’s arms, each night when they returned to their inn after another fruitless day of seeking someone who would accept a bribe, who would speak up on Chanteclair’s behalf.

  “Come, sister,” said Chanteclair, putting his arm around her, “I will not have your tears. Not on a beautiful day in May.” He turned to Valentin. “Have you heard further news of Dorothé?”

  “Only that she has fled back to her convent and renounced her father. Why don’t you write to her?”

  Chanteclair shook his head. “No. We lived our lifetime in the inn near Vauvert. ’Tis enough. I would have her remember that. Not the self-pity I would pour into a letter, despite my best resolve. But I would have you send word to my parents when you can. La Couronne, the draper and his wife in Angoulême—if they yet live. My mother always said I should come to a bad end. I should not like her to be disappointed.” He grinned wickedly at Ninon.

  “Damn! How can you jest?” cried Valentin. “You fool! You mad fool! Risking all for love…”