Polonaise

by Jane Aiken Hodge

  ‘Says he’s neglecting her. That we all are.’ Glynde was fascinated to see that he was blushing. ‘Now that she’s …’ he hesitated, ‘in an interesting condition.’

  ‘Oh, pregnant, is she?’ Glynde was doing rapid sums, hoping he was not responsible. It had been such a brief madness, that. ‘How far gone?’

  ‘As if I’d have asked! She is taking it hard, says she longs for Miss Peverel.’

  ‘For Jenny?’ How odd to have used her Christian name. ‘Oh, of course, I’d forgotten. She saw her through the last time. Well, she’ll long in vain, with Miss Peverel in the enemy camp.’

  ‘Unless the Princess manages to rejoin her husband.’

  ‘But that’s impossible, surely?’

  ‘Not at all. Not if she wished it, and he allowed it. Because you live in such a small country with such close connections, you British forget how different things are in a large one. It’s partly why we beat you, I think.’

  ‘Back to your famous War of Independence?’ Glynde laughed and rose to his feet. ‘Don’t forget we were fighting the French then, too. I must go and pay my respects to Prince Ovinski.’

  All Warsaw knew that Napoleon’s Master of the Household, Marshal Duroc, fetched Marie Walewska to the castle night after night in a closed carriage and the deepest secrecy, and for a while the Emperor’s daytime scowls told Warsaw of her continued resistance. When his public bad temper dissolved into smiles, Warsaw drew its own conclusions.

  ‘I wonder if she gave in gracefully, or if he forced her,’ said the Princess. ‘It’s a miracle she held out so long, with both her husband and her brother urging her on, and all this fine talk of a sacrifice for Poland. I expect she led him on to rape her in the end, and enjoyed every minute of it.’

  ‘Oh, poor Marie,’ said Jenny.

  ‘Nonsense! She’s going to be very rich, Marie, if she plays her cards right, even if she has no chance of being Empress of the French. And if it lasts. He’s off to the front now. Absence doesn’t always make the heart grow fonder. We’ll miss our soldiers. Even your faithful Genet goes this time. Genet and Jenny, how droll. It means a mule, I believe.’

  ‘No, a Spanish horse. And he’s not my Genet, Princess, as you well know.’

  ‘How formal we are all of a sudden! Yes, you do seem to have played the English miss to perfection. I congratulate you!’ Her own affair with Prince Murat had been as flamboyant as the man himself, and Jenny could only wonder if she knew that he had first made a very direct approach indeed to Anna Potocka and been as directly repulsed. But then, Anna was six months pregnant, and closely pursued by young Flahaut.

  What would Prince Ovinski think of his wife’s affair with Murat? Jenny thought, sadly, that it was very likely on his advice. Sometimes, these days, she longed for the quiet of an English country vicarage, the ordered life, the regulated, respectable days. And then, smiling to herself, remembered Petworth House and its troop of illegitimate little Wyndhams. It was class, not country, that seemed to make the difference to one’s moral code.

  ‘What’s so entertaining?’ The Princess’s tone was sharp; she scented criticism easily these days.

  ‘I was thinking that Monsieur Genet never suggested I behave like anything but an English miss. Should I be affronted, do you think?’ But it was surprising how much she missed those brief, chance encounters with Paul Genet on the grand stairway. Or had they been entirely chance? This was not a thought to share with the Princess. But then, she shared so few these days. Her main concern was to protect Casimir from any hint of what was going on between his mother and Murat. It was not easy and, inevitably, it meant increasing the distance between her and the Princess.

  News of the bloody, indecisive battle of Eylau reached Warsaw in mid-February. As at Pultusk, both sides claimed victory, but again it was the Russians who retreated north again and east towards Königsberg. And in Warsaw, Polish families, waiting at full stretch for news of sons and brothers who had joined Napoleon’s conquering army, were not cheered by his bulletin about the battle: ‘Such a sight as this should inspire rulers with love of peace and hatred of war.’

  Paul Genet had brought the news of Eylau to Warsaw. After delivering Napoleon’s loving letter to Marie Walewska, he went on to Honey Street, and was ushered at once into Talleyrand’s study.

  ‘It’s bad news, I gather?’ Talleyrand’s greeting was informal, direct.

  ‘Technically, a victory. A few more like it, and there will be no French army. The survivors are cold, hungry, out of temper. The Emperor wants everything. Bread, blankets, brandy …’

  ‘From here, of course?’ Talleyrand was swiftly reading Napoleon’s letter.

  ‘Yes. He’s not pleased with his “loyal Poles”.’

  ‘Thinks they should have done more, does he? Well, he should have promised them more. Give them a cause, a King, they’ll fight like lions.’

  ‘I think so, too. But, sir …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Forgive me … I think we made a mistake.’

  ‘We’ve made many. Which one? Don’t be afraid; out with it, man.’

  ‘Madame Walewska … It should have been the Princess. She’d not have fallen in love and forgotten her country.’

  Talleyrand laughed and poured wine for them both. ‘I expect you’re right. Your health! But you know as well as I do that he’d never have looked at her. Your Princess.’

  ‘Not mine, thank God.’

  ‘Like that, is it? Pity. I was hoping to persuade you to be a little in love with her.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘She’s beautiful enough; you’ve lived in her house; it would be a great convenience to me … Genet!’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘You’ve served me a long time.’

  ‘You made me what I am. I was nothing, starving in the streets of Bayonne, when you found me.’

  ‘So … Tell me, is it me you serve, or Napoleon, or France?’

  Paul Genet thought for a moment, then: ‘France, I think. You taught me to.’

  ‘Good. So do I. Tell me, does Napoleon?’

  Once again, Genet paused to think. ‘He did, sir.’

  ‘Yes. He’s changed. He should have made peace with England, when Fox proposed it last year. For France, he should have done that. But, for Napoleon, it’s different now. Do you think he would have dealt so savagely with the Prussians – a great mistake, in my opinion – if he had not found those papers of the King’s and Queen’s, when he reached Berlin last autumn? Papers that affronted him personally? Napoleon, not France?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir.’

  ‘I do. He’s beginning to think as Napoleon, not as France. And turning his enemies into those of France. He’s not had the training to think like a monarch. Well, how should he have?’ He drained his glass. ‘I’ve just put my neck in your noose, Genet.’

  ‘It’s safe there.’

  ‘I thought so.’ He got up to warm his hands for a moment at the huge stove in the corner of the room. ‘A pity you can’t find it in you to love the Princess. But there’s a young Englishwoman in her train, a Miss Peverel, a serious young woman, I understand. You’ll be staying there this time again?’

  ‘I had thought so. But …’

  ‘One moment. You’re going to say something rash, like the Gascon I thought I’d trained out of you. Pray don’t. It would disappoint me. From everything I have learned, and, as you know, I learn a great deal, Miss Peverel is as good an English-woman as you and I are French. I believe you have used my influence to protect her from the possible results of her – shall we call it British obstinacy.’

  ‘You know that, sir?’

  ‘My dear Paul – may I call you Paul? – do pray remember that you are by no means my only confidential agent. I have not parted company with the omniscient Monsieur Fouché yet. Reports he receives are passed on to me. Of course. He often takes my advice. You should, perhaps, be grateful, but I am very far from expecting you to be.’ He laughed. ‘Precisely.
Pour us some more wine, would you? An admirably steady hand.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘And so, come to that, should Miss Peverel. Be grateful. She is not, quiet creature though she seems to be, without enemies, here in Warsaw. So – you will go there; you will reopen your pleasant acquaintance with her –’

  ‘And?’

  ‘You will be a little indiscreet. You will let slip a casual remark about Napoleon’s disgust with his Poles. In the Princess’s hearing, if possible, but I don’t ask miracles. I think we can count on Miss Peverel’s passing it on. And, one other small indiscretion? A word about how Prince Murat’s career depends on his wife’s influence with her brother? He’s not written her, by the way.’

  ‘His wife?’

  ‘Don’t pretend to be stupid. No, the Princess. I think she will have recognised that affair, by now, as the mistake it was. And be worrying about consequences? Maybe a delicate reminder that Rendomierz remains neutral territory, so long as Austria stays on the sidelines in this war.’

  ‘You want them to go back there?’

  ‘Yes. And I want you to correspond with Miss Peverel. You’ll be relieved to hear that I don’t even insist on her answering, so long as she consents to receive your letters. News from Warsaw? Or from the front? She’ll be superhuman if she refuses. Don’t let her, Genet. Don’t let her.’

  It was good to be back at Rendomierz. Life in Warsaw had been gloomy after Eylau, with society missing its young men, and hunger obvious in the streets, as Napoleon demanded more and more supplies for his troops. And Jenny had another reason to be glad when the Princess suddenly announced that they were leaving. Something had changed, disconcertingly, in her friendship with Paul Genet. Impossible to tell just what, but something was missing from their old easy exchange.

  It had been all the more surprising when he had suddenly asked, the day before they left, if he might write to her. She thought that she would have said no, but he had chosen to do it in the Princess’s presence, and Isobel had answered for her. ‘News from the front. Yes, do, Monsieur Genet. Keep us in touch.’ It would have been making too much of it to do anything then but acquiesce, and she had let it go in silence, and, afterwards, been a little glad that the matter had been taken out of her hands. She would decide whether to answer him when she had had his first letter, but she thought she would not.

  Rendomierz was en fête to receive them. Monsieur Poiret had written a ‘Welcome Home’ cantata for the Princess and trained a group of servants to sing it to her. She listened with the good manners she always displayed in public, thanked him graciously, then announced that she was worn out from the journey and would go early to bed. ‘You must be tired, too,’ she turned to Jenny. ‘Goodnight. Sleep well.’

  It felt like a slap in the face. Jenny always went to her room with her to discuss the events of the day and their plans for tomorrow. Now, suddenly, without reason given, she was excluded, useless again. She had never felt so alone. She was ashamed to be glad when Olga came to tell her that Casimir was overexcited from the journey and no one could get him to settle for the night. ‘He needs a beating – or a father, that child,’ said Olga.

  Jenny could not help but agree. Since the disconcerting day when Casimir had flown out at Murat, his mother had tended to keep him at arms’ length. More and more, he was being brought up in his own rooms by his own group of servants, and Jenny, trying to make up to him for this, had not found it easy, since the Princess was apt to look on attention to him as neglect of herself. But tonight, the Princess had withdrawn, and Jenny was free to sit with Casimir till he fell asleep, telling him the fairy tales he loved: of the Sleeping Beauty and her Prince; of the dragon that lived under the hill in Cracow; or the one she had learned from Olga of Ivan the Tsarevich, who plucked a feather from the firebird’s tail and so gained his heart’s desire.

  ‘What’s that?’ Casimir was sounding sleepy at last.

  ‘The thing you want most.’

  ‘I want to be a Prince, and kill a dragon!’

  ‘Well, you never know.’ Jenny eased him down on to his pillow.

  The Princess stayed shut up in her rooms, seeing no one but her maid for nearly a week, and life seemed suspended at Rendomierz. On the sixth day, Olga appeared in Jenny’s room on one of her usual well-worn pretexts.

  ‘Well, thank God that’s over.’ She was replacing used towels with clean ones.

  ‘What’s over?’

  ‘The Princess’s little problem. She didn’t tell you? I did wonder. Sent for the wise woman from the village, the night we got here. Surprising it took so long really; old Teresa can usually bring them away in a day. Must have been a tough little thing. Pity really. Casimir could do with a brother.’ She moved towards the door, dirty towels over her arm. ‘The question is, do we tell the Brotherhood? They won’t be pleased. I suppose that’s why the Princess kept it from you. Stupid woman; she should know the whole palace is bound to hear.’

  ‘But –’ Jenny could not believe her ears. ‘Sent for the wise woman, you say? But, how, Olga? No one’s been allowed in to see her.’

  ‘You’ve been here as long as I have, and don’t even know that?’ Olga became almost friendly on learning how much better she was informed. ‘Marta told me. There’s a tunnel, built by the Princess’s father, leads from one of the guest-cottages to a stair that comes out in that big closet of the Princess’s. Very useful.’

  ‘You mean –’ But Jenny did not want it spelled out any more. Princess Isobel had found she was carrying Murat’s child. Had she at first hoped for a miracle? Murat as King of Poland, and the child acclaimed? And then, what fate for Casimir? Lucky for him that Murat had never said goodbye before he left, never written, made it crystal clear that the affair had been just an affair. ‘So,’ she said now. ‘The Brotherhood? If the whole palace knows, I think we’d best tell them, Olga. You’ve not heard from them since we came here?’ The Princess had announced her departure so suddenly that there had been time only to inform the Brotherhood, not consult them. Jenny understood the Princess’s reason now.

  ‘No. They’ll be angry – angrier still now.’ Olga looked frightened and Jenny knew how she felt.

  The Princess sent for her next day; nothing was said; the episode was over. But Jenny knew that, for herself, nothing would ever be quite the same. And she grew increasingly anxious as days passed with no word from the Brotherhood.

  Early in March a messenger struggled through a blizzard to Rendomierz with the news that the wolves were out and a child missing from the village. He brought the first letters from Warsaw, one from Anna Potocka for the Princess and one from Paul Genet, whose servant he was. Jenny found it oddly disappointing. It seemed hardly worth writing if he was going to say so little.

  ‘Good God! She’s out of her mind!’ The Princess looked up from her own letter.

  ‘Madame Potocka? Not the baby –’

  ‘No, no. No trouble there, except that it’s a girl. It’s that fool, Marie Walewska. Imagine! She’s gone off to headquarters, bold as brass, to be with Napoleon! Might as well put an announcement in the Warsaw Gazette!’

  ‘It must mean public disgrace. Oh, poor Marie!’

  ‘You’d certainly think so. Mind you, it’s a deep secret, Anna says, just like those visits of hers to the palace, when he was in Warsaw. Her brother Benedict came for her. A closed coach … every luxury … they were actually leaving the day Anna wrote. Well, she’s very brave, or quite mad. Her husband is bound to cast her off now, and she’ll never see that son of hers again.’

  ‘She must be enormously in love.’ Jenny could not help feeling a pang of envy. ‘Just imagine throwing everything away for a man who could never marry her. The world well lost for love indeed.’

  ‘Or crazy. What does your Monsieur Genet say?’

  ‘Very little. He just wrote to say he was leaving for head-quarters at Osterode.’

  ‘Doubtless travelling with the Walewska and her brother,’ said the Princess.
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br />   ‘He doesn’t say so.’

  ‘Discreet of him. Yes, Leon, what is it?’ Her tone held a mixture of surprise and affront as her chamberlain irrupted into the room, without leave asked or given.

  ‘Highness, the Prince! He’s not with you?’

  ‘Why should he be?’

  ‘He’s disappeared, Highness. We can’t find him anywhere. He was playing hide and seek with Lech, his servant. All over the palace. Lech’s in despair. Not his fault, Highness. He’d been confined indoors so long, the little Prince. They were just playing … The Prince hid. We can’t find him. He’s nowhere.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said the Princess. ‘He can’t have got out of the palace.’ They all looked at the windows, lashed by snow. Did they all, like Jenny, think of the little village boy; the wolves?

  ‘Of course he can’t. There are men at all the doors. But, where is he, Highness?’

  ‘Where were they playing?’

  ‘Everywhere. No harm, surely? They’d been in the dining-hall, then, Lech says, he ran upstairs, to your apartments, Highness. When Lech went to look for him, he wasn’t there. Not anywhere.’

  ‘We’ll search again.’ The Princess was very white. She must, like Jenny, be thinking of the secret passage that emerged into the closet in her dressing-room. ‘Call out all the servants!’

  This time, the search was organised, careful, thorough and totally unproductive. Jenny, returning hopelessly for the third time to the main hall from which they all started out, was accosted in French by a man she had never seen before, and realised that he must be Genet’s messenger.

  ‘Mademoiselle Peverel?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s true, the little Prince is missing?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I am so sorry. He is quite small, yes?’

  ‘Four years old.’ She would be crying in a moment.

  ‘The poor little one. But, mademoiselle, this palace is well guarded. He cannot have got out of it by accident. Do not be thinking of a little boy running into the forest, eaten by wolves. It cannot be like that at all. This is not a village child, mademoiselle.’