The Academie (12 page)

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 contradict 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.

“You say there is to be a change in the government?” Maman says, accompanying the words with her most winning smile.

“Hush, Gloriande! No one is to know! I told you in the strictest confidence.” He glances in my direction.

“Oh! Don’t worry about Madeleine. She is no one.”

“It was said that the revolution itself could not have been so successful were it not for the treachery of ladies’
maids.” He nods in my direction. The nod is appreciative, I note.

Maman catches his look. “Ah, but Madeleine is not my maid. She is less than that. She is my daughter.”

The words sting, and yet I am so accustomed to being treated this way that I shrug them off.

“Your daughter...”

The man approaches me and I shrink away. What I thought was sadness in his eyes now turns into something else. I try to meet Maman’s eyes in the mirror, but she gazes steadfastly at herself.

“I must ... excuse myself ....” I can feel my face growing hot, my pulse racing.

“Unlace me!” my mother commands.

I don’t dare refuse. My fingers tremble, and instead of accomplishing my task quickly, I take longer than usual. The man stands directly behind me and puts his hands upon my shoulders. The look in his eyes as he shifts his gaze back and forth between my mother and me sickens me. Maman’s eyes are locked with his, which have glazed over into an expression of lust.

With all my strength, I shove my shoulder against him to free myself from his hands, and I run out of the dressing room.

Behind me I hear laughter.

21
Eliza

For a moment after Joséphine’s slap, we stand frozen in the autumn chill.

“Let us go indoors, Maman. You will catch cold,” Eugène says.

From the expression on her face, I expect Joséphine to yell at him, or scream. But instead, she draws in a deep breath and stands up tall, turns, and walks gracefully back into her house.

Eugène gives me his arm again and leads me in. We stop in the vestibule and watch Joséphine glide up the stairs to her apartments.

“Forgive me, but I must go to my mother,” Eugène says with a bow.

I wander into the salon after leaving my wrap with a servant, wondering whether I should go upstairs and write
a letter to my mother. But Caroline is in the salon, standing in front of one of the long windows. She must have seen Joséphine hit her son. Something about the strange events I have witnessed here makes me bold.