Lola Montez and the Poisoned Nom de Plume (15 page)

At first it had seemed like a fine adventure, leaving my scheming mother behind, imagining her chagrin at having to explain to the old judge she’d tried to marry me off to that her wicked daughter had
already
run off. In the middle of the night, I had crept down the stairs and into a waiting carriage with Thomas inside it. We’d headed out of Bath towards Bristol and traveled for several hours. I’d chattered away about my excitement and the honour he was doing me; he’d sat ramrod straight. Eventually we pulled up at an inn. He was beginning to seem troubled in earnest, so I’d gabbled on with all my might as we’d signed the register (Mr. and Mrs. Smith, if you please), as we’d climbed the stairs, as we’d closed the door behind us. Immediately, he’d thrown me onto the bed and it happened very quickly, with all of my layers still upon me. There was one piece of luck: my courses were just finishing for the month, and Thomas James was the sort of man who checked his handiwork. He was satisfied, he thought I was virginal. I wasn’t. I’d already (secretly) given birth to Emma years earlier, three months after I’d turned fifteen.

When I’d woken in the morning, Thomas had been sitting in a chair, staring at me with creased brow. He was considering his options, but I knew that he didn’t really have any. I had not yet come of age; I was the step-daughter of a highly ranked officer. He would have to marry me. I think he was also imagining my mother, back in Bath—a woman he had flirted with, now a woman he had insulted in the highest degree.

By the end of that day, we were traveling again, headed for Ireland. He had proposed and I had accepted. We were married in Rathbeggen, near Dublin. His older brother officiated (I lied about my age), and we sent out the news. We were received at Ballycrystal, the family home, and settled in there until Thomas’ leave was up and we would head back to India.

His father was the local squire, Protestant gentry. It was the first time I’d lived in the country of my birth (that I could remember), and I was not impressed with it. The village people were superstitious and full of malice towards the “big house.” The Irish women I saw in the village, in the kitchens, were lively, fresh-faced, vicious things, quarreling like banshees and jealous over their men: I could sense my lineage. At least there was life there. I’d imagined the world of the gentry to be one long round of fun, but in fact, it was tedious in the extreme—certainly for the women. Rich, and idle. Plump bottoms, spreading across their chairs. Tea. Cakes and other sweets. More tea. I’d suddenly understood why the entire population of the British Isles have no teeth. The endless cups of sweetened, lukewarm swill, drunk with methodical conscientiousness in the same quantities, in the same rooms—taken as if replete with sacred or medicinal properties—became immediately repellant to me. I haven’t been able to stomach the stuff since. I wanted to ride: the family wouldn’t allow it. My sisters-in-law had chided me unctuously for my tiny rebellions. Their long English faces, whispered cautions, folded hands—dreadful. I had complained to Thomas, at night, about his family. That’s when he’d first struck me. The second time, I’d struck back, and we had stared at each other, aghast. By the time we’d reached India, the situation had become quite appalling. And dangerous, in fact. We hated each other with mutual distrust; feared each other, too, I believe. A baby with that man? A child who’d grow up like him? Who would hate me like him? No wonder I’d been trying to hide my pregnancy from Thomas.

“The mosquitoes in the wetlands,” the Karnal doctor had explained, as I lay there sweating and shivering, “are dreadful this year. Malaria comes and goes, Mrs. James. Once you’ve been infected, it never completely leaves you. You must be very careful; you have a delicate constitution.”

Balls, I’d thought! Why was everyone trying to turn me into a piece of bone china? I would not have it! I did not wish to be a brood mare!

Had I hoped it would all just go away, or something ridiculous? I don’t know what I was thinking. I believe now that I was suffering from a deep-seated though fiercely suppressed despair. Certainly, even after his warning, I did my best to ignore the doctor’s advice. I rode, fast and furious. I ignored the women’s reproaches and played badminton, pulled with the best in archery contests and badgered the men about letting me try the newest craze, kanjai-banzee, or as it was nicknamed, ‘pulu’, wherein you chased a wooden ball with a mallet on horseback (“Sport is sound, not enjoying sport is unsound”—it was a fetish with them). I’m sure that all of this, along with the recurrent bouts of fever, did in fact precipitate events.

I’d just received news that my mother had invited me to the hill station of Simla for the hot months, August and September. Simla’s a fashionable British resort in the Himalayan foothills, at a cool altitude, surrounded by pine forests. It appeared that I had groveled sufficiently and she had agreed. I could get away from Thomas, see my beloved step-father, Craigie, and be in a safer place—with them—when I’d grown huge and ready to deliver. Surely, afterwards, I told myself, they would help me find a way to live, away from the terrible marriage. The fact that there would be a baby, too, was still somehow unreal to me—awful as I’m sure that must seem.

So, longing for Simla, and as a final lark in Karnal, I took part in a treasure hunt on horseback. Though by that time I was rather ungainly, I cinched myself tight (or my servant woman did, shaking her head and muttering) and headed out to the fray.

A foolhardy decision. I had managed to organize my partner, an older woman named Mrs. Lord, into helping me find the first two treasures—a bangle and a black feather (not ostrich). The third took some agility and I was in hot pursuit. The treasure was a long red hair, and there was only one woman in the garrison who boasted such a colour. Poor little Mrs. Henley was also taking part in the hunt, and when she (belatedly) realized what the third item called for and saw me swooping down upon her, she squealed loudly and clapped her heels into her pony’s sides. Off we charged across the dusty plain. Mrs. H was giving it a good try, to-ing and fro-ing like a jackrabbit. We must have made quite a sight, both of us in our voluminous skirts, balancing in side-saddles—an idiotic invention that is notoriously difficult. You can’t get a grip; it’s as if it was designed that way on purpose to keep women slow and careful. Anyway, Mrs. H fro-ed when I to-ed, I hit the ground hard—and began writhing in pain. I was carried at the run to the infirmary by four native bearers, my husband was fetched, the doctor came from his dinner.

At first it was hoped that I would be able to keep the baby. There was a period of lull and Thomas was attempting to come to grips with the astonishing fact that he was soon to be a father. He was beginning to admonish me for my willful secrecy when the tide turned again and the horror began. I can’t really describe it in any other way. There were the frantic faces above me, my heaving, straining self, and one quite big baby, not old enough to enter the world. Ready or not, it was being catapulted forth. I gripped Thomas’ finger so hard I broke it and he was requested to leave. It was a wonder he’d been there at all; it was not the ‘sound’ thing, but this emergency was also a wonder and a shock, and I was unaware of everything and anything except the agony of pushing and waves of pain.

The baby was dead. I was alive, but barely. It had been a boy. Thomas wept obscenely, and I was terribly sorry. Sorry for everything that had happened to that guiltless creature, and for what I had done to Thomas, and for myself. How had I become so… Hardhearted? That question terrified me, and I didn’t know the answer. It was not until a few days later, when I was slightly stronger, that the doctor gave me the rest of the news.

“You must prepare yourself, Mrs. James,” he told me.

“Oh, God, what more?”

“Your insides—have been damaged. You will be able to live a normal life, but… There will be no more children. It is not only inadvisable, it is—impossible. It will never happen. I am most sincerely sorry, Mrs. James.”

Now, I have never pretended to be a steady woman who knows her own mind and is solidly comfortable with all of her choices, but when it was gone—and all possibility gone—well. It was a profound, a dismaying shock. I’d always seen myself as a creature with time on her side, as resilient and supple as a fish or an otter, going about its daily business, with tomorrow always ahead and no regrets for the day before. This news forced me to revise that opinion.

When finally I was well enough to travel to Simla, I told my mother that I had made a great mistake. I begged her forgiveness, and pleaded that she and dear Craigie help me untangle myself from the miserable marriage. Craigie did so with tact and forbearance; she joined in, as her conscience allowed.

As time went on—once I’d left India, and had begun to enjoy life and its adult passions—I’d learned to love my secret. The truth is, I realized that it made me free, free in a way that most women could only dream about. No fear of endless pregnancies and childbirths, nor of dying from them. I no longer mourned my childless state—and of course, in point of fact, I wasn’t childless. Though Emma only knew about me as a distant aunt through marriage, and one who never visited or sent her gifts (Aunt Catherine discouraged it), she was blood. She was mine, though she didn’t know it. How I had longed to reveal myself to her in the early days! Now—in my new life in Paris—I was not so sure. Would it harm her if the world knew that I was her mother? Possibly. Very likely.

All of these memories had raced like a fork of lightning through my brain, as I sat there upon Merci’s bed, with my unlaced corset and Dr. Koreff’s little fat fingers poised to strike. I opened my mouth to tell Koreff, once again, that he was mistaken in his diagnosis—but just then Merci hurried in, whispering at us to get up, and looking quite alarmed. She got out a little squeak of a gasp: “Alexandre!”

“What?” Dr. Koreff asked. “Your latest? The
bébé?
”

“Not
fils
, doctor,
père
! Through the key-hole, I could see him!”

In the other room, we heard the door suddenly booming as if a rhino had run at it.

“Before he breaks it down!” Merci pleaded, then called out, “Wait just a moment, I am coming!”

I laced myself up quickly and followed her, while Merci unlocked and was about to open the outer door. Before she could do so, the handle was violently turned and the writer burst through, his grizzled hair all wild and unkempt.

Alexandre
père
stood four-square in the centre of the room, stirring his hair about with one distracted fist, while examining us, moodily. “It was a bad night,” he mumbled, “for my Musketeers. I am coming to the climax—and it is treacherous, slippery. Never been done before.” His gaze flicked up and down me abstractedly, then fixed finally upon Dr. Koreff. “I came looking for you this morning, doctor, and your servant said you had come here. I’ve been up since midnight—other deadlines and goddammit! I stopped in at the
pâtisserie
for a jolt of
café
and realized I was nearby… I need pills, I need something… I need…”

“Ah, I see,” Dr. Koreff nodded.

Dumas’ glance had shot across to Merci and stayed there. “Have you finished, doctor?”

“Not quite, perhaps, but the climate has changed. A storm cloud hovers,” the short man replied.

“For me as well,” Dumas intoned heavily, eyes fastened upon Merci. No one now existed in his one-track mind except the pale young woman standing before him, her face welcoming and unafraid before this mountain of a man, so wound up with his inner turmoil. “Nothing would come,” he said, as if the sky had fallen and there was no hope for mankind ever again. “Nothing. All night long. I had a block.” His head was moving slightly from side to side, like a bull trying to focus on a matador’s cape.

Dr. Koreff put a hand on my back and began to steer me to the door. As he did so, the writer gave a great grunt, grabbed Merci’s tiny wrist with a grip which I was sure must have immediately caused a painful bruise on that delicate skin, and began to drag her away towards the bedroom, mumbling, “Then, sir, if you’ll excuse me…”

“Lola,” Merci called softly to me, “not a word to
le deuxième
! Promise!”

Well, the upshot was that I did manage to convince Dr. Koreff to give me some quinine, and tried not to worry about Merci as we made our way to his office. I waited while the little gnome prepared the powder himself. Thank God, for by then I was extremely feverish.

Emerging from the back room, he directed, “Two teaspoons in a glass of liquid and stir well—wine helps to disguise the bitter taste.” Then he handed over the large sachet of medicine. “Take one teaspoon every day even when you feel better, for—as you’re aware—the malaria sits in your system, waiting.” I turned to go. “Did you know?” he added, as I paused, clutching the doorknob. “Quinine is the ground bark of the cinchona trees, in South America.” What’s he going on about, I thought, head spinning. “Known as Jesuit’s bark; they first brought it to Europe. Luckily for you.”

“If you’ll excuse me, doctor?”

I managed to get myself back to my apartment, take the medicine and fall into bed, where I had the most nauseating dreams. One moment I was in the arms of my new beloved, Henri Dujarier, as he cradled me in the street, and the next, that great selfish lump of a famous man was mumbling that he had a block. And what’s the remedy? To scratch his itch on the woman he
knows
is his son’s favourite! “I had a block”—so Merci is to be crumpled and ravaged—no, worse!—to be used, like an enema, to get the shit moving again! Blood boiling, I tossed and turned against the pillows. I was worried for her. How dared he believe this was a reasonable way to behave, to either Merci Duplessis, or to his son. Oh, Dumas was vile in my eyes!

When I finally woke, hours later, feeling a little better but very shaky, I opened the papers to get my latest fix—of
The Count of Monte Cristo
. Damn him.

*

During this whole time, although I’d been trying very hard, there were no dancing gigs for me on the horizon. The bad press I’d received at the Paris Opéra had closed those doors. What else could I do to make some money? I wracked my brains, I wrote lists and scratched them out. As a whole month passed, as spring began to turn into summer, I felt as if I was being lulled, in a sense, into the decadent world of the courtesan, and I adamantly didn’t want that. Eugène had been sponsoring me, yes, and I was grateful, but I knew I must end it, for Henri’s sake. I
had
ended it, in fact, and Eugène had shrugged, “Whatever you wish,” but why had I still not heard from Henri? I had no idea what might have gone wrong. Just thinking about it, my headstrong anger would rise—oh, I should give him a blast!—and I’d quell it again. I didn’t dare to risk losing a chance for Henri to be mine: I wanted it more than anything. I could wait, I told myself. I would wait. Though as time continued to slip sideways and still I didn’t hear from him… Eugène would spot me a dinner, and…