Annette Vallon: A Novel of the French Revolution (26 page)

“What do you mean, ‘our town’?” I said. I was drawn into his net, despite myself.

“Oh, I live here now. I am the new music master. I only go to the homes of patriots, where we learn French songs. Don’t you think that’s better?”

I peered out the window, toward the front of the carriage. The line of traffic was still unmoving.

“Oh, I’m afraid we ’ll be here awhile. There’s a cart overturned up ahead. Horses down, harnesses broken. You haven’t introduced me to the lovely lady at your side.”

“Monsieur Leforges, this is Marguerite Vincent, my sister,” I said coldly. She nodded but did not say anything.

“Ah, the wife of the proprietor of a vineyard. You see, I know the people of Blois already. In fact, Mademoiselle Vallon, I have even heard that you are often seen in the company of an Englishman, a frequent guest at chez Vincent.”

“Monsieur Leforges, do you ever tire of inquiring into other people’s business?”

“Ah, many things are a citizen’s business that were mere gossip before. Now—”

“Since when have your politics so radically changed? Why, just in January, at Orléans—”

“One must adopt the disguise of an aristocrat when one is in their company,” he said. “Just as they adopt a number of disguises in ours.

For instance, a poet. A poet, a scholar, is a very convenient disguise.

One can enter the most patriotic clubs, saying one is a scholar doing research on the new constitution. One could write an essay about the constitution, publish it in a traitorous Girondin newspaper, and be extolled as a patriot, when really one is an English royalist.”

I laughed. “If you’re referring to Monsieur William, he hates the monarchy in England. He’s no royalist—”

“People are not what they seem. Why would a foreigner be in France at this time, unless he were a spy?”

I felt my sister squeeze my hand, warning me to be quiet.

“Monsieur Leforges, you are ridiculous.”

“And he has friends who are now challenged in the Assembly as being secret monarchists. They are trying to preserve the monarchy when all of France is ready to throw it off.”

“The Girondins hold the Jacobins responsible for the prison massacres, and for that they are called traitors?”

“Annette,” my sister whispered behind me, “say no more.”

“You had best exercise your own prudence, Mademoiselle. Consorting with a foreign royalist, a Girondin supporter, a writer of monarchist articles—yes, he supported a constitution that had a place for a king; his later article clearly was an attack on Citizen Robespierre and puts your foreign friend under suspicion of counter-revolutionary activities.”

I felt a cold fury gripping me. “Monsieur Leforges, I am tired of listening to you. Go back to your martial music. Just go away.”

“Mademoiselle Vallon, you misunderstand me. It is not I who must go away. It is your friend. I have seen the order for his arrest. It is being drawn up now at the Committee of Surveillance, by the sub-committee that overseees the activities of foreigners. Do you forget how your family has wronged me?”

“Monsieur Leforges, you jest clumsily. You are not on any Committee of Surveillance.”

“Oh, but I am. How do you think that music master was denounced?

I knew the good man in Orléans. We were
colleagues
, after all. We shared all sorts of personal information. His mother
was
German—Metz, his hometown, even has a German-sounding name.”

He suddenly doffed his hat again. The traffic was breaking up.

“It’s a pity,” he said, “he has peculiar talents. But he should have stayed in England. He should have stayed away from the woman who is the object of my revenge in this town. You know what Laclos says,
Revenge will prosper sooner than love
. Laclos is an officer in the patriot army, now, by the way. He knows on which side his bread is buttered.” Monsieur Leforges rode through the throng toward the end of the bridge. He wasn’t a very good rider.

Monsieur Leforges did not threaten idly. When I asked Paul at chez Vincent, he said, Yes, he had heard that the previous music master was arrested as a counter-revolutionary. He was either still in prison, or had been killed in the massacres in the prison in Orléans. “Monsieur William has to leave tonight,” he said. “He no longer has Captain Beaupuy to speak for him. You yourself said others at the Friends of the Constitution have lost their membership because they were Girondin sympathizers, and the club is now Jacobin and has even changed its name to the Patriot Club. These are not times to hesitate. I must ride to his lodgings tonight.”

“He won’t come,” I said. “He ’ll think he can protest his innocence and loyalty and talk his way out.”

“He ’ll come,” Paul said.

I’m not sure of all that Paul said to Monsieur William. He would have tried to avoid telling him who denounced me and why and just impress upon William the urgency of the situation. While I waited for them, I knew that William, though, would be leaving. I knew he would return as soon as possible. But what if that “as soon as possible” was months, or even years, from now? What if the rumors of England joining the Allies were true? What if England wouldn’t let him leave, or France wouldn’t let him return?

So Monsieur William, against his will, appeared at the door of chez Vincent in his battered tricorne, with nothing but a rucksack, the same one he had carried the frying pan and the bread in for my birthday dinner a few months ago. “I’ll be back soon,” he said to me, alone in my room, after a quick supper. “I have friends in Paris. I am not going all the way to England, as you suppose. I am going to Paris to sort this out, get new papers with the help of Brissot—”

“The Jacobins hate him now—”

“Brissot is still powerful. The madmen are in the minority. You’ll see. I’ll return,” William said. “I’ll get a sealed and signed letter from the National Assembly that a thousand Committees of Surveillance couldn’t contest.” He shouldered his rucksack. “I like walking in the autumn night,” he said.

William was ready to walk, but Paul suggested that he would be safer if he were driven inconspicuously in a wagon up to Vendôme; then William could go on from there, avoiding the more obvious route from Blois to Paris, through Orléans.

“I walk fast,” William said.

“A wagon at night can make better time,” Paul replied. “We ’ll load it with vine clippings, as if we ’re bringing some vines to be planted near Vendôme tomorrow. It’s near
vendange
, the harvest time. Nothing will look amiss with vines in a wagon in September. Save your legs, Monsieur William. Drink a last brandy; I’ll explain it to Jean.

He’s always saying life was too dull here.”

And William, who had appreciated so much of the Vincent hospitality over the months, did not gainsay his host of the summer, the good man who risked his own standing to warn him of his danger.

I told William I had to retire to my chamber for a moment and left him talking with Marguerite in the drawing room. I used this time to change into my riding boots, put on a woolen cape, and tell Claudette to let Monsieur William know I would say good-bye to him down at the stables. I found Jean harnessing Paul’s gelding to the wagon.

“La Rouge loves to pull a cart,” I said to him. “She’s been doing it since she was two. She ’ll yield to a wagon. Let me harness La Rouge.”

As I did so, and quietly apologized to La Rouge for this indignity, I saw William come down from the house. I could tell by his gait he was reluctant. He didn’t like running away. He didn’t like giving in to the Committee of Surveillance. If it weren’t for me, for the child, he would have stayed for certain—and yet, I told myself, if it weren’t for me and my past friendship with Monsieur Leforges, William would not be in trouble. But that way of thinking also became ridiculous. If it weren’t for me, William would not be in Blois.

“Monsieur William,” I said, more formal because of Jean, “I do not believe in good-byes. And, as you said, this is not a farewell. I just want to ride to the edge of the vineyard with you. Please help me up, Jean. I can drive.” And Jean helped me onto the seat. I saw Paul had hastily cut some vines and tossed them in the wagon. I also saw a small basket on the seat. “What’s this?” I asked Jean.

“Cook gave it to me. She said Madame Vincent had told her to put some bread and cheese and water in a basket. Cook said she added cold chicken and a flask of wine.”

William hopped up, and before Jean could get on also, I said
“Allons-y”
to La Rouge, and we drove out of the stables. I looked back at Jean and waved. “Tell my sister I’ll be back by tomorrow,” I called.

William stared at me. That September night was clear over the vineyard. “I’m your guide to Vendôme, Monsieur,” I said. “I will get you there by daybreak and be home myself by noon. You need someone to recite poetry to you on the voyage, for I have memorized yours, in French. You need someone with whom to discuss names of children, for we haven’t decided that, and what if you are stuck in Paris, waiting for your papers? A baby needs a name when it enters the world. And you need someone who cares for you to make sure you get at least to Vendôme and no
sans-culotte
or Committee of Surveillance patriot gets to you first. Not that they would send riders out in the night after a lone English royalist Girondin counter-revolutionary spy.”

“You’re a marvel,” he said, “a crazy, reckless, lunatic marvel. But now I fear for
you
. Alone, I only have myself to worry about, and I can take care of myself. If you were caught aiding me—”

“No one will be after you until the morning, and by then you’ll be past Vendôme, well on your way to Chartres—without me.”

We were through the north edge of the vineyard now, and turning onto the quai Villebois, then across the bridge, through town and north to Vendôme. William took the reins from me. “I’ve told you before, there is no one like you in England, and probably no one like you in France.”

“I hope not,” I said. “I don’t want you finding two of me.”

“Actually, there are many of you. All within yourself. You contradict yourself. For instance, your sister and brother-in-law, whom you love, you have just now distressed. The woman who is so concerned for her child has just subjected herself to a wagon ride at night with a Committee of Surveillance behind her.”

“And to those people, one must add another,” I said, “the woman who is in love with a foreign spy and must get him safely out of the country.”

“You have lost all reason,” he said. “But I love you for it.”

“Let me give you the latest line I memorized,” I said. “It will be short, for I will try to give it to you in your own language,

Faint wail of eagle melting into blue / Beneath the cliffs

“I’m sorry; it must sound dreadful. It’s hard to get my mouth around all those
l
’s.”

“I like it,” he said.

“That’s like us,” I said. “We ’re the eagle melting into the blue of the night, melting out of sight.”

“Eagles mate for life,” he said.

“Our nest is in the clouds,” I said. “Out of sight.”

“I like walking by myself, Annette,” he said. “I like walking on autumn nights. I wouldn’t mind out-walking any Committee of Surveillance. But I’m glad you’re here. I’m glad you came.”

After midnight William offered me some bread and cheese.

“That’s yours for the trip,” I said. “You’ll need to keep your strength if you’re walking to Paris. You don’t know what you will meet on your way. But I’ll have some water.”

William drove on, and I glanced up at the night sky and drew again from my recent hoard of his words, words to be hoarded all my life. I spoke, this time in French,

Where daylight lingers on perpetual snow;

Glitter the stars above, and all is black below
.

“It
is
rather black below,” said William. “All the precious ideals of the Revolution turning into tyranny. The stars,” he said. “The stars come from another realm.”

The night was clear, and the stars stretched out along the road to Vendôme. A waxing moon was three-quarters full, and the road lay white, the woods huddled in darkness, and the fields and passing apple orchards an overlapping of black and white. You felt that you could see for a hundred miles on such a night, and such a feeling also made me nervous. I listened for hooves behind us, for some pursuing member of a Committee of Surveillance, but only heard the wind through poplars along the side of the road.

Then I heard something stirring, in and out of the trees. “Something, there,” I whispered. La Rouge snorted, and William hastened her along.

Then a horse stepped out from the trees and looked at us—simply stood beside us as we passed and regarded us. La Rouge whinnied softly. The horse answered.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “It must have got away from somewhere,” I said. “Stop. I need to stretch my legs anyway. Look.” We had stopped in the middle of the deserted road, and William helped me down from the wagon. I walked toward the horse. It was grazing on the dewy grass beside the road. It looked up at me, then bent its head and went on eating. “Perhaps it was requisitioned for the cavalry and it escaped,” I said. “Perhaps it belonged to someone, and it’s trying to get back.” I stroked its mane, combed it with my fingers and untangled some knots. “It’s a lovely gray mare,” I said. Now William rubbed between her eyes.

“I wish I could take her home,” I said. “Just tie her to the back of the wagon, or give her to you for your journey. Someone’s bound to catch her here.”

“She might make it home,” William said. “Better leave her that opportunity.”

And we left her there, grazing beside the road in the moonlight. I looked back as we started again, and she suddenly snorted and took off. I heard hooves on the other side of the trees.

“William,” I said. “She’s following us.”

The gray now grew bolder and trotted just a few yards off.

“She likes La Rouge,” William said, “and she’s escaping too. At least we ’re not alone.”

I looked to my right and caught the eye of the mare, who then tossed her head and trotted before us, as if she were leading. Rouge quickened her pace.