Her words are so choked with sobs it’s hard to understand what she is saying. I cannot help but look at Hortense, who sees me. Her eyes are sad—resigned almost. I remember what I saw last night, and I don’t know what to think.
“Maman, if I talk to my step-papa, will you go to your room and wait for me?”
Joséphine looks up into Hortense’s eyes. I see her tears dry up like a puddle in the summer sun. She takes a deep breath. “Oh, my darling, ma petite Eugénia! Would you?”
I am surprised by the nickname. So Hortense is the female version of Eugène, to her mother.
Eugène takes Joséphine’s hand and finally gets her to rise up off her knees.
The three of us—Madame Bonaparte, Caroline, and I—are stuck to our places watching this family drama. Once Eugène has taken Joséphine away, Hortense turns, her back to Napoléon’s door, and stares at us. I have never seen her look so angry. I didn’t think she was capable of it, and I realize it must look to her as if I am on the side of Caroline and Madame Bonaparte.
“Please go somewhere else to gloat. Or better still, don’t gloat at all. You cannot imagine the life we have led, but at least we have each other.”
At that, she turns away and raps softly on the general’s door. “Papa! Cher Papa, it is I, Hortense. I want to speak with you.”
I look down, not wanting to witness Hortense’s humiliation. “Come, Caroline,” I whisper. “Let’s play cards.”
I am surprised when she comes with me, as does Madame Bonaparte. The three of us go into the game room, which it appears is always ready with cards and dice, and sit down to play an indolent game of bezique.
18
Hortense
When I enter the room, at first I cannot see where Napoléon is. He is not sitting on the divan or at the desk. His bed—a narrow cot with a hard mattress—is perfectly made. At this hour, I can only assume he has not slept in it.
“So, Hortense, she has sent you.”
I whirl around at the sound of his voice. He is next to the door. His eyes are red. Not from drinking, which is what most men in his situation might be tempted to have done. Napoléon hardly drinks at all. His mind is always at work, calculating. And yet, he has much passion for my mother. I see that clearly. Whatever it is—pride, love, desire—he has been crying. I almost cannot bear to look at him.
“Sir, please have pity on my mother, your Joséphine. She is weak, but she loves you in the only way she knows how to love.”
His face does not change expression. I send my deepest gaze into his eyes. He must see that my mother needs him—that we need him.
“I ask little of her. I do not question her expenses, although my mother thinks I am foolish. I ask only for her loyalty, and this she cannot give.” His voice is rough and icy at the same time.
“What evidence, pray, do you have that she is disloyal? Has she not worked with every bit of guile and wit she possesses to help you rise in the government?” I try logic. I try reason. But I know even as I utter the words that reason is not what is required.
I have hardly noticed Napoléon’s gradual approach to me until he is standing only an arm’s length away. “She was once like you, I imagine.” His voice barely rises above a whisper. “So pure, so beautiful.”
My mother and I are alike, more than I sometimes care to admit. We both sing. We both love nature and the outdoors. We both like to be surrounded with beauty and kindness. And, as I have come to understand recently, we both feel the keenest pleasure at the admiration of a man, and an answering pull that comes not just from the heart, but from somewhere deeper. Hidden. Forbidden.
And it is worse now—now that I have glimpsed the possibility of something finer, now that I have felt that pull, have been drawn to the pure desire of Michel. His gaze, his soft tenderness—surely these are the things I should value above the commanding presence of my stepfather.
I have never been so completely alone with Bonaparte before. He is vulnerable, I see. Saddened by the betrayal he feels from my mother.
“She adores you, you know,” I say, reaching out to touch his shoulder.
He frowns. It is a stern look I have only seen him wear when I observe him among his generals, plotting and planning. Does he think of Maman as an enemy? Perhaps an enemy to his peace.
“Why must she send you? You are innocent. This is no affair of yours.” He turns his head away so that I cannot look into his eyes.
“But it is, Papa,” I say, forcing myself to own the closeness of our connection. “If you leave us, Maman will be beside herself with grief. As will I.” The words catch in my throat, and I struggle to hold back tears.
“You don’t need a papa. You need a husband.” He turns to look at me again.
What is he saying? I feel the room spin around me and notice that I have not been breathing. I stagger. I feel his steely strong hand grasping my arm. I lift my face to his. Can he guess at the confusion in my heart?
“If I remain with your mother, will you do something for me?” he asks quietly, close to my ear.
My heart slows and the room comes into focus again. He did not mean what I thought he might. I am disappointed and relieved. “Anything. I will do anything for the sake of my mother’s happiness.”
“And for mine?” he asks. “Little Hortense, I wish you and your brother were my children in fact. Everything would be simpler.” He pats me and lets me go once he sees I am again steady on my feet.
“What shall I tell Maman?” I ask.
“Tell her she may come to me.”
19
Eliza
“What is the matter?” I decide that if I don’t ask a direct question I may never find out the truth, and even then I’m beginning to understand that Caroline and her mother see things very differently from Hortense and her mother.
Caroline and Madame Bonaparte look at me at the same time, with the same expressions of glittering triumph in their eyes. It makes me wish I had my mother here too. “I expect my brother to take possession of Malmaison and turn Joséphine and her family out on the streets at any moment,” Caroline says.
“Do you really wish for such a thing?” I ask.
“She won’t be on the street,” Caroline says. “No doubt the wily Barras will take her in, and she has relatives.”
“Barras!” says Madame Bonaparte. “Not if Madame Tallien has anything to say about it. He has never been in Joséphine’s power.”
Madame Tallien is almost as famous as Joséphine. I saw her at the opera when I was with my mother, who would not allow me to be introduced to her by a mutual friend. Madame Tallien is still married, and openly the mistress of the Vicomte de Barras, whereas Joséphine was a widow when she was said to be entangled with the vicomte.
I gather up the cards after losing the game and shuffle them together. I don’t know what to say or do, and am about to pretend that I need to excuse myself for personal reasons, when who should walk in but Eugène. I begin to deal the cards for a new game.
“My mother is most gracious to give you permission to visit us here,” he says, encompassing all three of us in one sweeping gaze. “And I would therefore ask that you respect her in her own home.”
His words sting like a whip. I wish he wouldn’t include me in his hard stare. I don’t know where I stand in this tortuous confusion of plots and lies.
Without giving anyone a chance to reply, he continues. “I bring you the welcome news that Maman has recovered from her indisposition, and wishes to speak with you, Caroline.”
Caroline looks up from the cards she has fanned out in her hand, genuinely surprised. It is the first time I have seen her taken aback by anything.
“She can have nothing to say to my daughter that I too may not hear,” Madame Bonaparte says, leaning heavily on the table and rising from her seat.
“Be that as it may,” says Eugène, “she requested only Caroline.” He strides to the door and stands there, his arm inviting Caroline to pass through. She looks back and forth
between her mother and Eugène, rises in a decisive move, and glides past us all and through the door.
“I shall return to my chamber.” Madame Bonaparte walks slowly out. She is quite stout, and Eugène must move a little to let her go by without brushing against him.
Now only Eugène and I are left. He cannot go without committing a breach of etiquette, to leave me alone in a room in a house where I am a guest.
“Do you play cards?” I ask. Stupid question! Of course he plays. All soldiers gamble, I’ve been told.
“I do.” He doesn’t move and I’m not certain what to do, but I know I want him to linger.
On impulse, I look out the window. “The rain has stopped, and I haven’t yet seen the garden properly.” I’m a little amazed at my boldness. He looks around, as if hoping someone will call him away on some urgent business.
I should let him go, but I’m not sure how, when suddenly he looks at me with a smile that releases all the tension in his face. “Please. It would be my pleasure to stroll with you, although my mother has changed things so much since I was last here that I cannot be certain we will not get lost.” He crooks his arm in my direction. I rise and take his elbow, enjoying the feeling of his stiff uniform and the strong forearm underneath it.
As if by magic, before we go out the beautiful door to the garden, a maid appears with a heavy shawl. Eugène drapes it over my shoulders. I am in heaven.
“So,” he says, after we have walked far enough away from the house that no one inside will hear us, “can you tell me why my sister is so unhappy?”
I keep walking for a bit, wondering what exactly to say. I can hardly tell him what I saw the other night! “I don’t know what you mean. She seems very happy to me.”
“I gather you don’t know her very well then. Perhaps you are a Caroliniste, rather than a Hortensiste.” He smiles, but it’s not a cheery one. “My stepfather’s family does not approve of my mother.”
I wish I could contradict him, but after all that I’ve witnessed in the past weeks—at school and now here—I know he’d see through it immediately. “I am neither of one party nor the other,” I say, measuring my words as if they have the power to either kill or cure a sick patient. “Both Hortense and Caroline have shown me kindness, and I am grateful to your mother for allowing me to be a guest in her house.”
“Very nicely said,” Eugène says, bending to pick up a stone and throwing it in one strong, graceful movement into a dense copse of evergreen trees. “I understand your father is poised to assume a place in the government of the United States.”
His words surprise me. “My father is a lawyer in Virginia. I know of no such possibility.”
He stops and turns to me. “Forgive me. I hear much in my position as Bonaparte’s aide-de-camp. I assumed you would know. Your mother’s departure for New York was reported in the Gazette this morning.”
I feel as if he has struck me a swift blow to the stomach. My mother? Gone from Paris? Why did she not tell me? I pretend to have a slight cough, trying to cover up my confusion. “Oh, of course. I knew it was a possibility, but not that it would happen so soon. My mother... my mother...” I cannot make myself continue the lie. My throat tightens into a knot that hurts all the way down to my heart, and I feel the sting of tears starting into my eyes.
“Are you unwell?” Eugène asks, placing his hand gently on my shoulder.
His touch unlocks the tears I’m fighting to keep hidden, and to my embarrassment I give a choked sob and they begin to stream down my face.
If Eugène had been a typical American brother, he would have told me not to be so silly and that I should act like an adult, that doubtless my mama would explain everything as soon as she could. But he isn’t American, nor my brother, and certainly not typical. Instead he puts his arms around me and holds me close to him, stroking my hair. “Please don’t upset yourself, Mademoiselle Eliza. If I had known you were unaware of events, I would never have said anything. Please forgive me. Here.” He holds me away from him and removes his handkerchief from his pocket, using it to dab at my face. “There is simply too much crying this morning. Or perhaps it is afternoon, and we must return for the déjeuner.”
I take a deep breath, noticing that my tears have wet a patch on the front of Eugène’s uniform, and I recall the warm feel of his embrace, the smell of wool and a man’s body, reminding me a little of my father. Somehow, it comforts me. “I am better now. I don’t know why I reacted so stupidly,” I say.
“It’s quite all right. You are young. And perhaps you have not seen as much of life as my sister and I have.”
I want to tell him I am not that young, that I am old enough to fall in love, but I cannot. I see by his expression and his glances back toward the house that he is eager to return. And I also see that whatever I may hope, he considers me only the impressionable young friend of his sister. I feel hope drain away from me.
“Yes, I believe it is time to rejoin the others,” I say, pulling myself up and trying to act as calm and grown-up as possible.
He reaches for my hand and places it on his arm. We walk together back to the house.
Just as we come into view of the main front door, I see a woman striding toward us in a black hooded cloak. She is moving very quickly, as if she has an urgent errand. We stop. She approaches, flinging back her hood at the last second so that we can see who she is.
“Maman!” Eugène exclaims.
Before I can curtsy my greeting, she peels off her glove and slaps Eugène hard on the face.
20
Madeleine
The air crackles in the theater tonight. The last time I remember this feeling was after Bonaparte’s victories in Italy. I was just a child then, yet despite the air of celebration, something dark and sinister seemed to lie beneath everyone’s faces. We are a people grown used to bloodshed and horrors, thanks to Robespierre. Although the murders have stopped, their specter can still be felt in the streets, around each corner, in the shadowy spaces between costumes on the racks in the theater.
Maman is to play one of her favorite roles. Fanchette, in Le mariage inattendu de Chérubin. This play was written by a woman, Olympe de Gouges, before the revolution. Maman loves the irony of playing a lowborn daughter who is engaged to a peasant but desired by a wealthy citizen. Fanchette is supposed to be a young girl, though, and my mother requires more and more thick makeup to carry her through the deception.
I am on my way to help the seamstresses with the mending when the sound of voices coming from within Maman’s dressing room stops me.
“This role is beneath you, Vicomtesse.” The voice belongs to the theater director, who rarely ventures into the warren of corridors behind the stage these days. He sounds smooth and soothing, as if he is trying to persuade a child to relinquish a sweet. The director addresses my mother by her title only when he wants something. I am fascinated to know what it is he proposes. “Fanchette is not a woman; she is a simple girl. Why, your daughter, Madeleine—who has nothing like your talent—would be able to play her easily.”
I hear a crash. Maman has thrown something, I think. It was because of the sound of my name coupled with a role she covets.
“My daughter, as you well know, is not healthy enough to play anything that requires speaking upon the stage.” I can hear the blind fury in her voice. If someone doesn’t prevent her, she might start to tear her gowns to pieces, as she did once before when a general she thought would marry her sent her a note saying that his wife required his presence in the country, and he would be unable to attend her that evening.
“My dear Gloriande,” the director says, “I was not suggesting such a thing, only saying that perhaps you should play the countess, and another of our ingénues take the role of Fanchette.” I can tell by his voice that he is frightened. Rumors fly around the small world of the theater that Maman was not thrown out, but that she murdered her husband and has been a fugitive from justice here in the Comédie Française. She has done nothing to c
ontradict them, instead enjoying the gloss of mystery they add to her.
“Get out. Fanchette is mine.” Maman’s voice is controlled now, but her face must still be a frightening sight, because I hear the director’s rapid footsteps. I slip around the corner just in time to avoid being seen.
Although I should be sad and sorry, I am not. I am elated. The director thinks I can play the role of Fanchette, I think. And I know I could. I know every one of my mother’s lines from every play she has ever performed. If she died tomorrow, I could take her place without so much as a rehearsal.
But she won’t die. She won’t go away. This world is hers, not mine. It takes little time for the brief euphoria to fade, and once again I am just a lowly servant, sitting among the old ladies and Marianne and mending tears in cheap fabric got up to look beautiful from a distance.
I tidy Maman’s dressing room, waiting for her to finish bowing to her adoring public. I can tell by the distant roar that the theater is full. She will be happy when she comes up, if she can put the director’s inopportune suggestion out of her mind. She said nothing to me when I helped her dress, but Marianne was there then, too. I’ve since sent Marianne to bed with a headache. I will have to prepare Maman for her evening assignation. I know she has one; I read aloud the note crumpled up on her dressing table, and a huge spray of flowers arrived just before she took her place in the wings for her performance.
Voices approach. It is Maman and a gentleman. Merde! I think. I hate it when her admirers come up and watch me help her take off the thick layer of white makeup to reveal her glossy dark skin and untie the laces that hold the costumes in place until she is wearing only her corset and chemise. Even though I am dressed, I always feel as if I, too, am exposed.
It is too late to fetch Marianne.
The door opens. Maman enters, followed by a tall, slender man with a thin mustache and sad eyes. His lips are red, as if he has been licking them over and over again. I try not to stare at him as I bustle around my mother. She, of course, does not greet me or acknowledge me.
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