Caroline turns to me, now smiling and calm, the way she was at school earlier. “We are going to meet a particular friend of mine, at a masked ball.”
“Why have you brought me with you?”
“Because, my dear Eliza, I wish to make you my particular friend as well. And in order to do that, we must have a secret together, non?”
We arrive at the gates of a very grand house. I see many coaches ahead of us, letting out their passengers at the door. All the ladies are masked, but not costumed. They are the kind of masks that make the wearers feel protected but do not fool anyone acquainted with them. If my mother is here, she will surely recognize me. I pray she has either not been invited or is at home with one of her headaches—ungracious as that sounds.
After we descend from the coach Caroline takes my arm as if we are sisters, or at least the closest of friends. She is rather short, and so anyone might think we were quite close in age, not separated by four years.
We enter the ballroom after letting a maid take our cloaks. I have never seen anything so dazzling. It’s as if all the jewels women hid away during the revolution and the Terreur are on display at the same time, glittering in the flicker of thousands of candle flames.
“Don’t gawk!” Caroline hisses in my ear, squeezing my arm a little too hard. Her eyes scan the guests. She is affecting ennui, but I can tell she is searching for someone. I don’t have to be a genius to guess it is a gentleman.
“Merde!” she whispers. An elderly lady standing nearby turns quickly and glares at her, but Caroline doesn’t notice.
“What?” I ask.
“See, over there?”
She lifts her chin toward a corner of the room, where a knot of men in uniforms with sashes is standing, their backs to the dancing couples in the center. They are clearly in deep conversation with each other. I shrug. “What is it?”
“My brother is with them. I did not think he would be here.”
I still don’t know who Caroline is looking for, but if Bonaparte is here then surely Joséphine cannot be far. As I look around, I see the most extraordinary lady, her skin so dark I could almost imagine she is one of the slaves who work our land, but she is dressed in a column of silver silk, with jewels draped over her. Perhaps she has darkened her skin because of the party? “Who is that?” I ask Caroline, turning her so she can see.
She tosses her head. “An actress. She is all the rage at the Comédie Française, I’m told. She is supposed to be the estranged wife of a vicomte, but that is only by her word.”
I continue to stare at the woman, fascinated. She has sharp, high cheekbones and large eyes. Her lips are full, but that is the only feature aside from her dark skin that makes her appear to be a Negro.
“Don’t act like a child!” Caroline says, forcing my attention away from her. “Look! There he is!” She points toward the group of men again, but not in the direction of the one I recognize as Bonaparte. “He’s looking this way!”
Before I can get a good look at whom she means, she yanks me around so that I almost lose my slipper and drags me after her as she walks rapidly away. I am practically limping, until I manage to slip my foot more securely into my shoe. Caroline pulls me into an anteroom that is empty except for a maid who stands ready to fetch something for whoever asks her.
“You see, that is my secret. It is Murat. I am in love with him.” She whispers fast and low, her eyes glittering.
“Why is it a secret?” I ask.
“Because my brother will not consider it. And right now, I don’t know if Murat even notices me. He is so handsome. All the ladies love him. I must see him, alone. And I will need the help of my friends.”
Now I’m beginning to understand. She wants me to do something for her, perhaps carry messages. I hear my mother’s warning voice in my mind. One false step, and it’s back to Virginia. “Oh, Caroline! I can’t help you. I’m only young, after all.”
She takes hold of my upper arm and squeezes so her fingers are digging into me and I have to grit my teeth not to cry out. “Oh, but you must—you will! Because now I have your secret, too.”
My secret? So that’s why she woke me and brought me here. She can hold this over me forever. My first instinct is to be angry. But then, I have to admire her. It was cunningly done.
“Well, then, Caroline, what next?” I say.
She smiles.
5
Hortense
I don’t know what’s woken me, but I am completely alert. I light my bedside candle and glance at the clock. Three in the morning. Thank heavens the Republic decided to leave the clocks alone when they changed everything else into units of ten.
It wasn’t a dream. I heard a sound, quiet and close. I listen, holding my breath.
There it is again. A stone, against my window. A small one, not loud enough to awaken anyone but me.
It must be Eugène.
I leap from my bed and run to the window without even putting on my slippers. I unlatch the window and throw it open. My heart is pounding with joy. My brother must be well enough to steal away and visit me as he once did, when we were both schoolchildren and he would walk from the Collège Irlandais across the street in the old convent buildings.
I look around, eager to see Eugène. But no one is standing below my window. I hear only the wind gently rustling the few remaining leaves in the trees.
Just as I am about to close the window and return to my bed, I hear something else. I swear it is the sound of someone stifling a laugh. I look toward the shrubbery below and see it move, and then I catch sight of the scrap of a lady’s cloak as a figure runs around the corner of the building and out of sight.
It could only be Caroline. Once, when she first came to the school and I thought we would be friends, I told her about Eugène’s signal to me when we were young; in return she told me that she was in love with someone of whom her brother disapproved. She would not tell me his name, but I felt so sorry for her I vowed I would help her.
Now she has changed. She uses her knowledge about me to torment me. How can she be so cruel? And what was she doing outside at this hour? Whatever she is up to, there is no need for her to involve me. I don’t understand her vindictive behavior. She and the rest of her family have been so horrid, are trying to destroy my mother because they think Bonaparte could have married a wealthier woman, and that my mother is too old for him.
But now I am awake and there is little chance of falling asleep again.
I decide to write a letter to my brother. I won’t send it, of course. It will sit with the others in my drawer, and I will give them to him when I see him again, which my mother promises will be soon.
I sit by the window and lay my head on my arms. I close my eyes, hoping for rest.
The sun on the island is hot and voluptuous, like a huge, ripe fruit in the sky. Clouds skirt it, casting shadows only on the inland mountains, not relieving any of the heat that makes the puddles from last night’s rain evaporate before noon. I see a slave woman, carrying a newborn infant in a sling made of calico. It is a pretty picture, laid out in front of me as I sit on the veranda.
All is quiet until the stillness is broken by an angry voice, the Creole patois, loud and harsh. It is the voice of the slave master. The woman I watch making her leisurely way stops smiling at the sun and looks fearfully over her shoulder. She quickens her steps, heading to the house where the laundry is done, an even hotter place than the outdoors. Her bare black feet kick up the dirt beneath them, pounding. My heart keeps pace with her feet. But the slave master is faster, because he is not carrying a baby, only a whip, which he holds over his head.
I want to leap out of my chair and run, put myself between the slave master and the young woman with her child, but I am made of lead and cannot move. I want to cry out for Maman, but my throat is dry and my scream is only hot breath with no sound.
So I can only watch, helpless, as he reaches her and brings the whip down on her back, flaying the light fabric that covers it and the skin
beneath. The woman looks up, and her face is my mother’s, only dark as night. The infant starts to cry. She curves herself around it like a snail shell. My own back feels the sting of the whip, the heat.
Tears cool my face.
I jolt myself out of my terrible dream. I must have been more tired than I thought. The sun wakes me, warm on the back of my neck. The pain I felt in my dream is the stiffness of the awkward position I have been sleeping in. My mouth is open, but no sound comes out of it. I haven’t had that dream for a long time. I never actually witnessed such a beating. I heard my mother speak of them, begging her mother to stop the abuse. But no one ever did anything. And the slaves, inflamed by the ideas of the Republic across the Atlantic Ocean, rebelled. We left Martinique in secret, just before the terrible bloodshed began.
I look around and see that my bed has been made. Why didn’t Geneviève wake me when she came in?
I dress quickly and descend to breakfast. I am late. The others are nearly finished, and I can hear excited chatter and laughter. All eyes turn to me when I enter, and the conversation stops suddenly. I don’t know why, but I look at Eliza, not Caroline. She is young enough that perhaps her face will tell me more than that of my stepsister/aunt-in-law/whatever she is.
I’m not disappointed. Eliza’s eyes are cast down, studying her empty plate. She has learned fast, I see. Her hands remain in view of all, forearms resting delicately on the edge of the table, fingers curled. Just yesterday she would have had them folded in her lap like a peasant. The slight pink glow brushing her cheekbones tells me she is hiding something.
“Apparently someone stole out of the school last night and did not return until the early hours of the morning,” Caroline says, lifting her teacup to her lips. She has a way of flaring her nostrils slightly when she sips her tea that makes it appear that she dislikes the taste.
By the way no one will look at me I realize that I am the suspect. They suspect me because I am the one who is late to breakfast. This really is low. And it confirms what I thought last night, that it must have been Caroline who tricked me with the stone at my window. Was Eliza with her? That would be too bad. Why must she also spread rumors that implicate me? I decide I must find out more.
Because Madame does not come down to breakfast, I am spared knowing immediately how far this lie concerning my nocturnal activities has spread. This morning I have my music lesson, the most wonderful hour of my week. No matter what treachery Caroline is hatching, she cannot take my music away from me.
“Ah, Mademoiselle Hortense, vous êtes ravissante!”
Monsieur Perroquet greets me with his usual extravagant compliment. He bows and I curtsy. He takes his place at the spinet, where he has already spread the music out on the desk. Monsieur Perroquet is gray haired but youthful. He must once have been very handsome, and his manners are impeccable. The other girls make fun of him because he always arrives in a cloud of cologne and wearing a carnation pinned to his lapel. His clothes are old-fashioned: he wears a ruffled shirt beneath a cutaway, and breeches with hose and shoes with buckles. I find it oddly charmant.
I expect to begin with the usual vocalises, a comforting routine that takes me away from the pains and sorrows of the present, but Monsieur Perroquet touches my shoulder lightly. “Excuse me, mademoiselle. I should like to introduce you to my son, Michel—my apprentice, as it were—who will soon be teaching students of his own. Madame Campan kindly permitted me to bring him here to observe my methods.”
I turn, and a young man comes forward. He is the image of his father as I imagine he must once have been, only dressed in the fashion of today. I hold out my hand to him. He takes it and bows over it, brushing it with his lips. “Enchanté, Mademoiselle Hortense.” His hand trembles just a little, giving his stiff greeting a certain poignancy.
Before he takes his seat on the other side of the music room, our eyes meet. His are a crystalline gray, the color of an old diamond my mother possesses and dark enough to be interesting, but remain transparent and honest. A slight smile spreads across his face, as though he is trying to prevent his lips from betraying the pleasure he feels. Something awakens in me, and my fingers tremble as I touch the sheet music on the stand. I start to warm up my voice as Monsieur Perroquet plays the gradually ascending chords. I make mistakes and must start over. I feel myself blushing.
“Mademoiselle Hortense, an audience is something you must become accustomed to,” Monsieur says. “You will be called upon to entertain your guests, and you must be able to do it without showing any nervousness or fright.”
“Yes, monsieur,” I say, relieved that he mistakes my tremblings for nerves rather than complete confusion at the sight of the first young man I’ve ever met who awakens something deep inside me. Only one other person has ever come close to making me feel this way, and he is as forbidden to me as my own brother would be. Michel has music at his core, and I feel that he might understand my own deep connection with music. He looks at me and sees more than simply the famous Joséphine’s daughter. Sympathy hangs in the air between us. That knowledge calms me, and I am able to continue the lesson unperturbed, but suddenly alive to possibilities I have never before imagined.
6
Eliza
I have found it difficult to concentrate all day. I am tired, of course, from our adventure last night. Caroline and I stayed, and we both danced. I danced! I have never before been treated like an adult, not just dancing among children and with my girlfriends, but with dashing young men. I was very glad I had been taught so well by my tutor in Virginia. The intricate steps were wasted on those galumphing farm boys, but here...
Three different officers took me out on the floor. I danced a quadrille and a polonaise. A contredanse, then a mazurka. Then another quadrille.
I think I would have danced more if Caroline hadn’t kept pulling me aside and trying to get us to stand nearer to the generals, who weren’t at all interested in dancing.
But even more remarkable than the dancing was a scene I witnessed between two extraordinary people.
Caroline left me at one point near the punch bowl, warning me not to slake my thirst with it if I was unaccustomed to strong drink. When she’d disappeared from view, I took a cup anyway, thinking it would be odd to stand near the table and have no intention of partaking of refreshment. At first I drank deeply, for the dancing had made me quite thirsty. But my head began to buzz strangely. This was more powerful than the wine we sipped at dinner, and so I merely pretended to drink after that.
I backed away so that others could come, and found myself in the entrance to an anteroom, similar to one Caroline had drawn me into several times to whisper confidences. At first I thought it was empty, and was about to turn my attention back to the couples who were dancing, when a young officer strode into the room from another entrance, stopped in the middle, and put his hand to his head as if it ached.
I turned away, but not before I noticed how handsome he was. Far more so than Caroline’s General Murat, who seemed rather coarse and broad lipped for my taste. This officer was also younger, and slender, but not weak looking. He had a delicate nose and fine eyes rimmed with dark, curling lashes. He stood straight, but not stiffly, as though he must be a wonderful dancer. I imagined myself twining through his arms on the dance floor, certain he would be able to guide me through the most complicated steps with ease.
He stood there only a moment alone, though. Just as he prepared to leave the way he had come, he stopped. Someone appeared in the doorway.
At first I could not see her, but as she advanced slowly, smoothly, I saw it was the dark lady who had so fascinated me when we first arrived. Her skin shone, as if she’d put on some oil to catch the sparkle of candlelight. She approached him unhurriedly, and he made no attempt to avoid her.
“So, monsieur,” she said once she was about an arm’s length away from him. “You make a habit of visiting the Comédie Française, and yet you do not venture backstage to greet me.” She circled him, still slowly
, as though a vast audience were watching her. Only then did I realize that, by now, they must both be aware of me. I turned a little, pretending to find something fascinating just outside the door of the chamber, but making sure I could still see them out of the corner of my eye.
“I mean no disrespect to the greatest actress of the present day,” the young man replied to her.
“No disrespect is a world away from respect—and admiration.” Her voice was dark and smoky, just like her appearance.
I caught sight of the young officer turning his face away as she reached her hand out to him. Spurned, she backed away. “The stage has its generals and kings, you know,” the actress said. “To get what you want in it, you must rise through the ranks.”
She turned, and as she left gave a throaty laugh, like a blue jay about to raid a nest.
I got out of the way just before the officer came striding through the doorway where I stood, went to the punch bowl, and quickly drank two glasses down.
“Eliza! There you are!”
Caroline had found me. She dragged me off to fetch our cloaks.
“Who was that young man?” I asked her, assuming she would know.
“Which young man? I didn’t notice him. No one of consequence, I’m sure.”
When we returned, Caroline insisted on playing a trick on Hortense, and I felt a little bad about it. But I didn’t know how to deny her, and I was too tired to try.
I shall find a way to make it up to Hortense.
7
Hortense
It is the hour after supper, when we sit in the parlor with Madame and read or do our needlework. She sometimes talks to us about the events of the day, pointing out an article in the Gazette that she thinks is important, indicating particular bons mots that have been uttered by famous hostesses. While she also prepares us for the rigors of running a household, Madame is well aware that many of us will be under great scrutiny as hostesses. That is the subject of her words to us this evening.
The Academie Page 3