by Aubrey Flegg
‘Mad … bleeding mad,’ he said aloud as he closed the door, and left Gaston to pull his nightshirt over his head.
Gaston sank back in the bed. This was one of the best billets he had had for a long time; it even had a feather mattress. But he would find no comfort in its softness tonight. The fever that he had been holding back all day was tightening its grip. He felt lightheaded and dizzy. As the room began to swim, he fixed his gaze on the girl in the portrait. Bent forward like that, it was almost as though she was reaching out to him …
‘Don’t go … stay with me!’ he whispered out loud, but his voice was lost in the long plunge down into his own private hell.
Raoul pressed a cloth, damp with vinegar, on Gaston’s burning forehead.
‘Bless you sir,’ he said soothingly, ‘they were troubled times indeed.’ Marcel and Pierre, overcome with guilt at having been the cause of their lieutenant’s sickness, stood and watched dejectedly. It was Gaston’s third day of fever. Suddenly the sick man sat up straight in bed. His eyes glowed like coals in their dark sockets.
‘Listen boys, listen. Those aren’t sea creatures, those are human voices, and they’re from the noyades. Listen … can’t you hear?’ He held up a hand, commanding silence. ‘Now … “Vive le Roi”.’ He turned towards them, cupping his hand around his ear as if straining to hear. Then he shook his head sadly and whispered, ‘Rien … nothing … no more’. Raoul clicked his tongue as if he knew what Gaston was talking about. Then Gaston turned his head and vomited out in one long cruel retch into Raoul’s basin.
‘You’ll feel better after that,’ Raoul said approvingly.
The Lieutenant sank back on the pillows, and the boys stood by helplessly, as if their spurs were nailed to the floor. After a while Raoul placed his hand on Gaston’s forehead. He checked his palm. Then he hurriedly dried his hand on his trousers, and laid it back on his officer’s forehead. A broad grin cut his ugly little face.
‘He’s sweating lads, he’s bloody sweating! His fever’s broke.’ The battle-hardened little soldier-turned-servant banged his knee with his fist and then wiped his eyes on his sleeve. They all waited hopefully until at last Gaston’s breathing slowed into a deep natural sleep. The boys turned to go, but Marcel had a question for Raoul.
‘Raoul,’ he whispered. ‘What are the noyades?’
Raoul whipped around. ‘Don’t you ask that, boy. Not never, understand? It were in Nantes, before you joined. It cut us all up, him most of all.’
At last Gaston was dreaming normally. The horrors of his delirium were now replaced by delicious feelings of content. He was dreaming of home, a boy again, listening to the chatter and clatter pickers setting out for the slopes. Perhaps he had been sick, because someone was sitting beside him, Mother probably, sewing. He would keep his eyes tight shut; she wouldn’t go away then.
He must have woken, because he heard Raoul’s voice complaining that it was snowing. This time his mind floated off to an earlier dawn and a younger boy, waking to find his room filled with a magical translucent light. The young Gaston lay there, staring at the ceiling, wondering where the strange light was coming from. Then he hopped out of bed, threw the casement wide, and saw, for the first time in his life, a whole world turned white with snow. He looked up towards the vineyards that lined the shallow cup in which his village lay; to his amazement the vines had gone. But they couldn’t have disappeared! He searched the slopes until at last, where the sun was glancing low over the snow, he saw, like secret writing, soft lines of shadow, the regimented lines of vines beneath.
The scene changed, and the snow became one vast sheet of paper. Cadet Gaston Morteau was about to sit his written examination for the rank of sub-lieutenant. He appeared to be the only candidate. At a high desk in front of him sat his examiner, an ancient general, his sagging jowls giving him the look of a bloodhound.
‘Cadet Morteau,’ said the general with a sigh, as if Gaston was already a lost cause. ‘You are a dreamer and therefore quite unsuited to be an officer of Hussars.’ He laboriously placed his fingers together so that they formed a tent in front of his face. ‘At this point in time, Cadet Morteau, you are in a dream. In other words, you do not actually exist.’ Gaston was relieved to know it was just a dream, at least he could wake up. ‘For your examination today,’ the General continued, ‘your task will be to create the person you really are. Do I make myself clear?’
‘You mean, sir, the person who is dreaming my dream?’
‘Precisely. It is the reverse of your un-soldierly habit of constantly dreaming that you are someone who you are not.’
‘But sir … what if I should wake up before I am finished?’ The General’s eyes glinted red and something that might have been a smile contorted his face.
‘Cadet Morteau … how can you wake up before you have created yourself? You have just one hour – starting now!’ He reached out for a huge hourglass that stood on the desk beside him and turned it with a thump. Gaston jumped; the sand was already cascading through the glass. Sweat sprang out on his forehead. Who am I? He looked around desperately for something to write with. It was all there: quill, penknife, ink, sand. He hacked at the quill, hoping that inspiration would come while he fashioned a nib, but his mind was as blank as the vast sheet of paper before him. He dipped his nib, but still couldn’t think of anything to say. He stared at the paper. Perhaps his story was there, hidden, like the vines beneath the snow. He tilted the sheet towards the light; but still there was nothing. The General coughed and tapped the hourglass.
Somewhere in the present-day building, someone, Raoul perhaps, dropped a saucepan.
Gaston opened his eyes and lay staring up at the ceiling. His first feeling was one of relief at having woken at all; he had thought that he was trapped in that dream forever. Out of the corner of his eye, he sensed that there was someone sitting beside him. He turned, expecting to see Raoul, but it was a woman … a girl really. She smiled at him. Her face seemed familiar, but he could not place her just at the moment. He felt his eyes closing, but then he remembered his dream, and opened them again quickly; he didn’t want to go back to that.
‘Forgive me,’ he said, ‘but do I know you?’
‘I’m Louise Eeden, the girl you rescued from the canal.’
‘Oh God …’ he groaned.
‘I’m sorry… would you like me to go?’
‘Oh no, please stay. It’s just that … I thought I had woken, but I must still be dreaming. The General did tell me that I couldn’t wake up until I had written my story.’
‘That sounds interesting,’ the girl said, leaning forward. ‘Tell me about your dream.’
Gaston explained, as best he could, about the General and the examination he had to undergo. Rather to his surprise, she laughed. ‘My father told me about a philosopher once who said that perhaps we are all part of someone else’s dream. But I don’t think you can be expected to write your own story. We do that by living. Maybe someone else is trying to write your story and is waiting for you to decide who you really are. In any event, I think you can consider yourself awake now.’
Gaston thought about this; then he smiled ruefully. ‘But if I’m awake you’ll have to go, won’t you – and I may never see you again?’
‘You’ll have my picture. Anyway, you may not want me around; I may just be part of your fevered imagination. Close your eyes … I’ll stay here, but only if you want me.’ Gaston closed his eyes. It was all too much for him, but somehow he felt happier than he had in ages and soon slipped into a deep and restorative sleep.
As Louise watched the young man sleeping, she wondered about her presence here. She thought back to the only time, since the explosion in Delft, when she had really ‘lived’ in someone else’s mind. After the catastrophe, Master Haitink, the artist who had painted her portrait, had gone into a decline. But while his body failed, his mind remained strong; Louise’s image grew to be so vivid in his memory that he began to see her as if in life. During that year – a
s the town of Delft froze in grief – Louise came and sat with the old man, just as she was sitting now with this young French officer, trying to be a comfort and a real presence for him. When eventually the Master passed away, she was by his side.
It was Pieter, the Master’s apprentice, who had finished Louise’s portrait after Master Haitink’s death, but because he had no indentures and no master, he could neither teach nor sell his own paintings. It had been a dreadful time. Time and again, racked with grief, Pieter had tried, in his own way, to do what the Master had done: recreate Louise in his mind as he worked, but their love had been too real to allow regeneration, their time together too precious. The pain of another parting would destroy Pieter. So she held back, and as time passed, she saw the possibility of a new love emerging for him. After the Master’s death Pieter had stayed on as a watchman and helper in the public house. Tongues began to wag at his continued presence in the house of the young widow. Mistress Kathenka was not yet forty when she and Pieter married. Though initially a marriage of convenience, it soon matured to love, and Louise was glad for Pieter. It was only when he picked up his brushes to work on her portrait for the last time, however, and painted her name on the plinth of the urn, that the pain of her death finally left him, and the magic and wonder of their lives together burst in on him. There was nothing more Louise could do for him now, so she, who had never longed for heaven, settled for oblivion.
And that was how it was. Once Pieter was gone, her picture, without the Master’s signature, was not valued. She was passed from hand to hand, an object to hang on the wall; people liked the green of her dress. No one else had the eyes to see beyond the surface of the painting and engage with the girl the Master had painted. The silence that she had chosen seemed to be without end or echo, except for one small occasional noise, which intrigued her. It was a sound not unlike the whisper of a pen on paper.
Now Louise turned to look at the face of the young man who had rescued her from the canal. He wasn’t much older than Pieter. As he slept she could see health and vigour returning to his face. Was her presence here just an accident born out of his fever? Would he want her around once he had recovered or would she once again be consigned to her portrait? She remembered what the Master had predicted about his painting of the Beggar at the Beginhof Gate – a flea-ridden old man with a beautiful singing voice: ‘There will be those far down the river of time perhaps, who will bring the old boy back to life for us. Who knows but that someone may even hear him sing.’
Suddenly Louise was filled with hope.
CHAPTER 4
Wine and Swan
The cheering spread ahead of Adjutant Krayenhoff as he rode in triumph into the village of Maarssen. The Stadtholder had fled and Amsterdam was in the hands of the Pro-Patriots. Even while the adjutant was reporting the success of his mission to General Daendels, Cadet Colbert was pounding up the stairs to Gaston’s room, quite ignoring Raoul’s protests.
‘Nonsense, Raoul, of course he will want to know!’ He burst into the room with a clash of spur and sabre. ‘Sir, Krayenhoff’s back, the Pro-Patriots have taken over. Vive la France!’ He waved his hat, but the ceiling was low and he was rewarded with a shower of loose plaster. ‘But wouldn’t it make you sick, sir!’
‘Sick, Marcel?’
‘Pierre and me were planning on some action, sir. We reckoned we could slice up these Dutch burghers like sausages.’
‘Don’t you believe it. They didn’t create an empire by sitting on their backsides. Anyway, General Daendels is Dutch, as apparently is Mademoiselle Louise here. So be careful who you plan to slice.’
‘Oh, indeed, sir,’ said Marcel, unabashed and happy to put his patriotism to one side. ‘Glad you’re better, sir.’ He turned to the portrait. ‘Could we take her, sir, Pierre and me? We thought we could get the carpenter to make a case for her, with oiled cloth inside, so she doesn’t get wet.’
‘So you think I should keep her, then?’
‘Of course!’ said the boy, horrified. ‘We … well, I mean you, rescued her, sir.’ He blushed to his ears. ‘Pierre and me’s really sorry sir, we didn’t mean …’ Gaston managed to glare at him.
‘I’ll consider your behaviour later. In the meantime, yes you may take her; it will give me an opportunity to get dressed.’
‘What …?’ Marcel looked puzzled.
‘Oh go on … go!’ Gaston snapped. ‘I just need to get my legs under me, that’s all.’
‘Raoul, no … no… don’t let go. I’m a sick man, remember.’ Gaston, somewhat dishevelled, in his dress uniform, stood swaying in the doorway of his bedroom. General Daendels’s celebratory dinner was over; tomorrow Gaston’s hussars would head south as escort to the officer delegated to bring the good news to Paris.
‘Pissed out of your mind, you are sir, and that’s the truth,’ Raoul responded, unimpressed. His campaign against Gaston’s ego was single-minded but private. Woe betide anyone, of any rank from general down, who said a word against his lieutenant.
‘Nonsense. Look, I can stand,’ said Gaston. ‘But I am the one constant point in a world gone mad. Are we in an earthquake?’
‘No, sir.’ Raoul detached Gaston’s hand and put it against the wall.
‘Swan. Have you ever tasted swan, Raoul? Krayenhoff’s men found two swans frozen into a canal on their way back from Amsterdam. Served them dressed up in their own skins, feathers and all. Set them sailing down the table in majesty. Tough as old boots, actually. Must have been starving, the poor creatures. So, Amsterdam has fallen and I never even unsheathed my sword!’
‘Just as well, if you ask me,’ Raoul commented dryly, stepping back to see if Gaston could be left unsupported.
‘Ha! You’re right, the devils wouldn’t have had a chance,’ Gaston chuckled as Raoul made himself busy at the bed. ‘Remember the engagement at the Pont de Chasse, Raoul, and that black-visaged Royalist I downed?’
‘I remember you falling off your horse, sir.’
‘Nonsense, I threw myself on the man.’ Gaston started some complicated manoeuvres with his sheathed sabre, bracing it against the floor so that it acted as a third leg. ‘Look … steady as a rock now. I learned this from Commandant Pêche – the old soak.’ Gaston gazed about the room and then noticed, for the first time, that the boys had returned the portrait of the Dutch girl. It was standing at the end of his bed; they had had a travelling case made for it, which, when opened up, stood on three legs like an easel. Gaston blinked, the girl’s face was curiously animated by the moonlight breaking through the uneven glass of the window. He bowed to her, feeling embarrassed and a little ashamed at his condition.
He said to himself: ‘Now, how am I to get undressed?’ Unfortunately Raoul heard him; he threw down the pillow he had been straightening and turned on him in irritation. Nursing his officer was one thing, but he was damned if he was going to start undressing him.
‘On your own, sir!’ he flared. ‘Anything else?’
‘A little punch?’ Gaston asked hopefully as Raoul brushed past and clattered dismissively down the stairs.
Gaston turned to the portrait. ‘Mademoiselle Louise, your servant. I’m sorry you find me … shall we say … incapacitated. I will recover my dignity in due–’ He was bending to deliver one of his specially deep bows when he heard a laugh, a girl’s laugh, somewhere in the room. He whipped about, trying to place the sound. Perhaps one of the street women had followed him up the stairs. But that was no whore’s cackle; it was a clear liquid laugh that made him want to smile.
‘Oh, but I like you without your dignity!’
And there she was – the girl from the picture – sitting on the chair beside his bed, just as she had been when he was sick. For an instant Gaston saw, as others had seen before, a flash of beauty as transitory and as intense as a jewel tossed in the air. He gasped, his sword slipped, and he lost his balance. He struggled to recover. She must be a hallucination; perhaps it was the effects of the swan. He wanted to look again … but yet
he dared not. He scrabbled blindly towards the door.
‘Raoul!’ he bellowed down the stairs, then covered his mouth. What if Raoul came up? A door was snatched open below and Raoul’s voice rasped up the stairs.
‘Holy mother of God! What is it now?’
‘Er … forget about the punch,’ he called weakly, and winced as the door slammed below. He turned and peered cautiously back into his room. She hadn’t gone; she was still there, looking about her. Gaston found refuge in his innate good manners. He addressed her from the door: ‘Mademoiselle, I believe it was you who came and sat with me when I was sick?’ She turned with a smile.
‘Yes, you asked me to, if you remember.’
‘Did I? … I was so grateful for your company.’ He moved back into the room tentatively, as if his rights there were now uncertain. He had a soldier’s ability to sober up in a crisis and he was beginning to think clearly now, even if everything appeared a little bit brighter, a little bit sharper than usual. ‘May I close the door?’ Perhaps she would think it improper to be alone with a man. There was a chair near the window. He crossed to it and sat down. ‘Forgive me, Mademoiselle. You see, I thought you were a dream. I had many dreams during my fever.’
‘Yes, I know,’ the girl said. Gaston looked at her warily.
‘You had that strange dream about your examination,’ she went on, ‘how you had to invent yourself by writing your own story?’
‘Ah, that dream,’ he felt relieved. ‘Did I really tell you about that …? It was silly.’
‘Oh no, it told me a lot about you. I think we should listen to our dreams … What were the noyades?’ The room reeled and darkened for Gaston.
‘No!’ he said, sharply. ‘Don’t talk of such things!’ He saw her wince but couldn’t stop. ‘It is none of your business!’ He thrust his hands between his knees and clamped them there as the black clouds of depression boiled up inside him. After a while he raised his eyes. The girl was staring at the threadbare carpet, stricken, her eyes brimming. He wanted to reach out and take her hand; she seemed so real. Then something else occurred to him. ‘Excuse me, Mademoiselle, you are Dutch, I believe? How are you able to understand me, then, when I am speaking French?’ A frown crossed the girl’s face and he thought she looked, if anything, more beautiful when she was serious.