“Please, Sir,” I said, “forgive me. These are my only clothes, except for my wedding gown. I will go put it on immediately if you prefer. I will be only a minute. I am very sorry to have offended you and assure you that it was innocently done.”
I omitted to mention that the rest of my wardrobe consisted of another black dress, which I had left at Fontfreyde. I had worn it during my stay in the cellar, where it had acquired a musty smell, not to mention an association with the memories of my captivity.
The Baron swore again and muttered something about marrying into a family of paupers.
“I should have known,” he said, “when your old miser of a mother asked whether I wanted to delay our marriage to wait for your trousseau to be ready. The damned bitch felt no shame in sending you to me with only the shirt on your back after I had agreed to take you without a sol.”
It struck me for the first time that I had not been given any trousseau, the set of clothes, undergarments and toiletries a bride received from her family as part of her dowry. During the past weeks, such futilities had not entered my mind. Now their omission seemed to entail new troubles for me.
“I became suspicious yesterday,” continued the Baron, “when I saw you in the dress you already wore in Thiézac instead of a proper wedding gown. Your mother had it made especially for the pilgrimage, had she not? I have to give her credit for something, though: she knows what catches the eye of a man.”
I burst into tears.
“Now, do not be upset, child,” he added. “I am not angry with you. And you do look lovely in that pink dress.”
He raised me to my feet, took me in his arms and patted me on the back in a fatherly manner. “Dry your tears. I will have the carriage ready tomorrow. You will go to Aurillac with Maryssou to order a set of proper clothes. She knows the best shops. You can have 2,000 francs, but tell them, for God’s sake, to make haste. Now let us sit to dinner.”
I was amazed at the change in his mood and his generosity. I had not had new clothes in years, with the exception of the pink dress.
13
I saw little of the Baron during the day since he was busy riding, hunting, inspecting his estates, or otherwise occupied in the outdoors pursuits now forbidden to me. After dinner, he would read the papers for a couple of hours without saying more than a few words to me. I took a seat with my sewing on the opposite side of the fireplace, too afraid of him to address him uninvited. He paid less attention to me than to his hounds. Without interrupting his reading, he would once in a while put down his glass of wine to scratch the animals on the back of the head. They closed their eyes with contentment before returning to their position at his feet, their giant muzzles resting between their front paws. Only the noise of the newspaper being folded and the crackling of the logs in the fireplace broke the silence.
When the time came to retire, I never knew whether I would be treated with a sort of rough benevolence or whether he would have thought of some new idea for his enjoyment and my torment. Even in the course of a single night, his mood could become violent, sometimes at the slightest provocation, and often without any apparent reason.
Divorce did not exist then. One could only request an annulment before a religious court for lack of consummation of the marriage, grounds which were not applicable in my case. True, a cottager’s wife from Vic had requested a few years earlier from the Baillage court a legal separation. Whenever I saw her in town, she always had a black eye or two. Joséphine had told me that her husband had come home one night with half a dozen companions, all drunk. He had dragged her out of bed, lifted her chemise and invited his friends to confirm that she was, as he put it, a handsome bitch. That circumstance, deemed offensive to the sanctity of marriage, had prompted the court to allow the poor woman to live separately. Once alone she had sunk into poverty, and had been seen begging for her bread on the streets of Vic. She had soon returned to her husband of her own accord.
In the case of my own marriage, nothing disgraceful ever came to light. Only the servants, who as a rule know every secret in a house, could have known what was happening. The Baron was careful not to leave any clues to his brutality on my face or on those parts of my body exposed to public view, except for bruises on my wrists. I was ashamed of them and, whenever I wore short sleeves, hid them with velvet ribbons, which I tied with a pair of fine diamond clasps he had given me.
Often, without any particular reason, I wept by myself in my bedroom. I was swept by waves of rage. During these episodes, all I could see was a grey blur before my eyes. I felt the urge to howl at the top of my lungs. To calm myself, I would bite my arms so hard that the pain brought me to my senses. During these moments, I felt briefly that I could have spat in my husband’s face. Yet I cowered at the very sight of him.
A full month elapsed before I mustered enough courage to ask for the carriage to call on Mamé Labro. Her cottage, which had been my home for many years, now looked as if it belonged to another time and country. I threw myself in her arms.
“Oh, Mamé,” I asked, “do you think I have changed?”
She took a step backwards and smiled.
“You look beautiful,” she said, “maybe a little paler than before. You’re far better dressed, for sure. You’ve become a fine lady now.”
I was indeed wearing an elegant gown of red velvet trimmed with lace, with a white satin underskirt and matching shoes and bonnet. Mamé asked many questions about my new life, which I answered as cheerfully as I could.
As we spoke, my thoughts drifted towards the river. Autumn leaves were twirling in the eddies like flecks of gold. They would be carried down its current, light and buoyant at first, then soggy and brown, until they sank to the bottom and slowly rotted away between the stones of its bed. By the following spring there would be nothing left of them. At last, I asked Mamé Labro without meeting her eye:
“Have you heard any news of the younger Dr. Coffinhal?”
“Yes, he left for Paris to study law. Around the time of your wedding, I believe. He’s to be apprenticed to his elder brother, Maître Joseph Coffinhal. From what I’ve heard, he’s given up any idea of practicing medicine.” She sighed. “There’s no accounting for young people’s changes of heart these days.”
I was relieved to hear that Pierre-André was free and safe. But we would not meet again. For him too, the short time when our paths had crossed was gone, closed like a book no one ever wanted to read a second time. He would have a new life, new studies, a new profession, maybe soon a new love, in a busy place, far from me and what had briefly brought us together. At the thought of his forgetting me, I was pierced by sorrow. The pain was so sharp that it took my breath away. I closed my eyes to hide my tears.
Indeed I had lost the belief that it was in my power to decide my fate. I now inhabited a place where no joy, no hope, no light, no love could reach. I came to understand that we do not change gradually, peacefully, over time, but that we undergo sudden upheavals that overthrow our best-laid plans, change our character and redesign the shape of our life, all in a matter of moments. I had been robbed of some part of myself, of my youth, my innocence, my cheerfulness, never to recover them.
14
About two months after my wedding, I had reason to suspect that I was with child. I dared not share my thoughts with my husband for fear of angering him by raising futile expectations. He had made no effort to hide his disappointment the month before, once it had become apparent that I had not immediately become pregnant, and for several days I had felt the effects of his displeasure under the guise of a harsher treatment than usual.
“Are you with child?” he asked abruptly one night over dinner.
I twisted my napkin in my hands and kept my eyes fixed on my plate. “I am about two weeks late, Sir. I did not think that you would have noticed anything yet.”
“Do you take me for an imbecile? I can recognize a pregnant woman when I see one. Were you waiting to be six months along to tell me about it?”
“You are silly, dear child. Come and give me a kiss.”
Amazed, I raised my eyes to him. He was smiling. He made me sit in his lap and pressed me in his arms. “I guess I will have to be a bit more gentle,” he said. “We would not want to hurt my son, would we?”
That night, my husband fell asleep in my bed. Until then, he had always left for his own apartment when he was done with me. I looked at him by the light of the candle as he lay on his side, harmless for once, his eyes and lips half-closed. Strands of silky grey hair were spread across his gently heaving chest. Stretching from the breastbone to the left shoulder was a scar, shiny and pale against his olive-coloured skin. One of his arms was resting on my waist. I barely dared breathe lest I wake him. Until then he had only been the man who had the right to seize my body whenever he pleased and do what he liked with it. Now his seed was growing within me. He was my unborn child’s father.
My husband seemed to grow fonder of my company and more content with our marriage. He would speak with much confidence and anticipation of his son and make numerous schemes for his education. Those filled me with dread, for it was all too easy to imagine how he would react to the birth of a girl. In the meantime, he stopped beating me and granted me permission to stay in bed past seven whenever I felt tired in the mornings. During the evenings, he spoke to me more and taught me to play piquet and backgammon, games that could not even be mentioned in Fontfreyde because my mother considered them the works of the Devil. I would let him win, because it had not escaped me that he could be fierce in his displeasure if he lost.
I had noticed a fine harpsichord in the main drawing room. My fingers caressed the keys with some hesitation at first, then with more assurance as I remembered a piece by Couperin, part of the Leçons de Ténèbres, the “Lessons of Darkness” written for the services of the Holy Week. I had learned it at the convent and was amazed to feel how easily the tunes came back to me. Never before had I found such solace, peace and comfort in music.
I discovered a library on the second floor of the château. The books had been for the most part purchased by the late Baron, who must have been quite different from his younger brother. My husband, if he had read any book in his life, did not consider it worth mentioning, and it was not a subject on which I felt at liberty to question him. Since I had to occupy the ample time I had to myself, I began to read anything that came my way. The library contained a full edition of the Encyclopedia, as well as works by Montesquieu, Rousseau, Diderot, Voltaire and Pascal, one of the greatest minds Auvergne has ever produced. In addition, many works of a more libertine nature, amply illustrated, were included. I began to understand that my husband’s tastes were shared by other men.
15
I cherished the constant companionship of my unborn child, especially after I began to feel it moving and kicking inside me. The Baron seemed to find increased satisfaction in the new shape of my body. He told me that, seen from behind, I was still thin as a reed, that my step was as light and graceful as ever. I carried my child forward, which he interpreted as a promise of male offspring. The servants were not slow in noticing the improvement of my standing. They treated me with more respect and paid greater attention to my requests. For the first time since my marriage, I allowed myself to hope that my life might change for the better.
Those thoughts were very much on my mind, when one winter morning, I opened the door to a drawing room. There I found the Baron embracing Thérèse, the youngest of the chambermaids, a year or two older than me. She was trying to push him away, but he was grasping one of her bare buttocks. With the other arm, he held the back of her skirts aloft above her waist. I knew from personal experience the strength of his grip and guessed that poor Thérèse had not much of a chance to escape. Her back was turned to me, but he was facing me. He noticed my presence and became red in the face without letting go of her. Thérèse could not have seen me. I doubt that she even heard me. I had a sudden inspiration. Putting my index finger to my lips to intimate silence, I smiled and closed the door as quietly as I could. I returned to my apartment, my heart beating wildly, wondering how that chance encounter could change the course of my life at Cénac.
A few minutes later, I heard a knock at my door. The Baron came in and took my hands in his, looking rather sheepish.
“Gabrielle, my dear,” he said, “I have a favour to request. I would be very grateful if you could keep quiet about what you just saw. Maryssou, as you know, has rather strict notions. She would dismiss Thérèse if she learned of it.”
I looked at him, my voice even, carefully considering my words. “I am surprised to hear it, Sir. You are the master of this house and its inhabitants, including Maryssou.”
I pointed at the door to a little dressing room, which could only be accessed through my bedroom and was furnished with a bathtub, a little marble table and a couch.
“Maryssou would never go there unannounced,” I continued, “as she does in the servants’ quarters or the rest of the château. Feel free, Sir, to use it at your pleasure, right now if you wish.”
The Baron seemed delighted. He kissed my hands and cheeks with great affection and could not express his thanks warmly enough. I felt sorry for Thérèse. She seemed like a good girl, pretty and very shy, but she could not, any more than I, or any other eligible female within the house, escape the Baron’s attentions. That was part of her fate in being a maid at Cénac, just as it was part of mine by virtue of my marriage.
Thérèse was a simple country girl who did not seem to entertain any loftier ambitions than to keep her place. I felt assured that, when I became incapacitated by my confinement, she could take over my conjugal duties without interfering with the Baron’s affections for me as Maryssou would have done. I took pains to know the poor girl better and promoted her, with the Baron’s permission, to the place of lady’s maid, with double wages.
My husband was happy with our new arrangements and manifested his satisfaction by his increased goodwill towards me. His attentions towards Thérèse did not seem to lessen in the least his interest in me. I even received the honours of the couch during the day whenever my enlarging body captured his fancy on the spur of the moment. I measured the success of my scheme by the increased malevolence of the glares Maryssou cast at me. Soon deep vertical lines began to mark the sides of her mouth.
The Baron would now speak to me in a friendly manner after dinner. He had traveled in Germany and America while in the service and had much to say about people he had met and places he had visited.
“Military life can be damned tedious, my dear,” he said, “and its glory is not what one imagines. It was better than taking orders, though. That was an idea of my late mother’s. She had the most tiresome notions about religion. How she cried, poor woman, when I told her that it was out of the question! Even my father was angry. He said that I was being too fastidious and that one did not need to believe in God to become a bishop.” He chuckled. “I simply could not picture myself dressed as a priest. I was shipped to the army. A gentleman has to do his duty, of course, but I found nothing as heartrending as the sight of a field strewn with the dead and the dying after a battle.”
“I noticed a scar on your chest. Was it a battle wound?”
“Yes, by a Prussian bayonet at the Battle of Krefeld, during the Seven Years’ War. It was the very first time I saw action. I was a second lieutenant then. It is not a fond memory, my dear, and I would rather not talk about it. Even when the Prussians were not trying to hack us to death, and we were not busy returning the favour, it was a miserable life. I will spare you the petty intrigues among the officers, the rivalries between the noblemen and the commoners, for at that time it was still possible for those to be commissioned. That was bad enough, but I have never seen worse specimens of humanity than the rabble under my command. The one way to keep any discipline was to dole out floggings at the slightest infraction. Scoundrels, all of t
hem, thinking only of deserting at the first opportunity, drinking and chasing after whores of the lowest description.”
I looked up from the baby cap I was embroidering. “You do not like prostitutes?”
“Hell, no! What could have given you such an idea, child? I wonder how anyone can find pleasure in the company of females who have served hundreds, maybe thousands, of men and are infected with every sort of pox and vermin. One would be a fool not to prefer a fresh little thing like you.” He pinched my cheek.
The Baron had been at Court and visited Paris.
I gazed into the fire and sighed wistfully. “I would dearly like to visit those places.”
“Do not count on it, my dear. All husbands are cuckolds there. I would not be kindhearted if I found that I had suffered that common misfortune. So, you see, it will save both of us much trouble to stay quietly here, where we lack nothing.”
I resumed my sewing with alacrity. “I would never do anything so heinous, Sir.”
“Maybe not, but I find that keeping a woman from temptation is the best manner to ensure that she not stray.”
“You are of course the sole judge of it, Sir. Still, since I am not to see anything of Court or city life, I would enjoy hearing you speak of it.”
“The King is a man of great learning and intelligence,” said the Baron, “an excellent horseman and hunter. Unfortunately he is surrounded by a horde of scoundrels, the worst of whom come from his wife’s entourage.”
“What about the Queen? Is she not beautiful?”
The Baron put down his glass of wine. “She has the long face and thick lips of the Habsburgs, for, as you know, she is the daughter of the late Empress Maria-Theresa of Austria. Yet she fancies herself pretty and encourages the most ridiculous fashions, such as those towers of feathers, flowers, bows and pompons, all held together by pounds of pommade, she likes to wear on top of her head. I saw her once with an arrangement of radishes in her hair. I asked around whether she had taken leave of her senses. I was told that she was trying to prove that Frenchwomen would follow any new fashion she promoted, no matter how absurd. Of course no lady in her right mind was ever seen with a headdress of vegetables.”
Mistress of the Revolution: A Novel Page 10