A Place of Greater Safety (71 page)
Read A Place of Greater Safety Online
Authors: Hilary Mantel
She heard him climbing the stairs; turned her face resolutely to the door. For one dreadful half-second she imagined that—Oh God, is it possible—the dog might burst in, hurl himself upon her, panting and
grinning, whining and slurping, snatching up (as he was prone to do) jawfuls of her very clean and well-brushed hair.
grinning, whining and slurping, snatching up (as he was prone to do) jawfuls of her very clean and well-brushed hair.
But the door handle turned, and nothing and no one entered. He hesitated on the threshold of the room, and looked as if he might back out, and down the stairs again. Then, deciding, he stepped in. Eyes met; of course, they would. He had a sheaf of loose papers in his hands, and as he reached out to put them down, his eyes still on her face, some of them went fluttering to the floor.
“Shut the door,” she said. She hoped it would be all that she would need to say, perfect understanding then; but emerging from her mouth it sounded just a practical suggestion, as if she were incommoded by a draught.
“Eléonore, are you sure about this?”
An expression of impatience and self-mockery crossed his face; it did seem that she had made up her mind. He lifted her hands, kissed her fingertips. He wanted to say, very clearly, we can’t do this; as he bent to retrieve the scattered papers, blood rushed into his face, and he realized the total impossibility of asking her to get up and go.
When he turned back to her she was sitting up. “No one will complain,” she said. “They understand. We’re not children. They’re not going to make things difficult for us.”
Are they not, though, he thought. He sat down on the bed and stroked her breast, the nipple hardening into the palm of his hand. His face expressed concern for her.
“It’s all right,” she said. “Really.”
No one had ever kissed her before. He did it very gently, but still, she seemed surprised. He thought that he had better take his clothes off because in a minute she would start advising it, telling him that was all right too. He touched alien flesh, soft, strange; there was a girl he used to see when he came to Versailles at first, but she was not a good girl, not in any sense, and it had been easier to drift apart, and since then it had been easier not to do anything, celibacy is easy but half-celibacy is very hard, women don’t keep secrets and the papers are avid for gossip … . Eléonore did not seem to expect or want any delay. She pushed her body against his, but it was stiff with the anticipation of pain. She knows the mechanics, he thought, but no one has introduced her to the art. Does she know she might begin to bleed? He felt a sharp, nauseous pang.
“Eléonore, close your eyes,” he whispered to her. “You should try to relax, just a minute until you feel—” Better, he had almost said, as if it were a sickbed. He touched her hair, kissed her again. She didn’t
touch him; she hadn’t thought of it. He pushed her legs apart a little. “I don’t want you to be frightened,” he said.
touch him; she hadn’t thought of it. He pushed her legs apart a little. “I don’t want you to be frightened,” he said.
“It’s all right,” she said.
But it wasn’t. He couldn’t force his way into her dry and rigid body without using a brutality he couldn’t call up. After a minute or two he propped himself on his elbow and looked down at her. “Don’t try to rush,” he said. He slipped a hand under her buttocks. Eléonore, he would have liked to say, I’m not practiced at this, and I wouldn’t describe you as a natural. She arched her body against his. Someone’s told her to work hard for what she wants in life, to grit her teeth and never give up … poor Eléonore, poor women. Rather unexpectedly, and at a faintly peculiar angle, he penetrated her. She did not make a sound. He gathered her head against his shoulder so that he did not have to see her face and would not know if it hurt her. He eased himself around—not that there was much ease about it—into a more agreeable position. He thought again, it’s been too long, you do this often or not at all. And so, of course, it was over quickly. He buried in her neck a faint sound of release. He let her go, and her head dropped back against the pillow.
“Did I hurt you?”
“It’s all right.”
He rolled over on his side and closed his eyes. She would be thinking, so that’s it, is it, is that what the fuss is about? Of course she would think that. It was his own disappointment he couldn’t get over, a kind of bitter, strained feeling in his throat. There’s a lesson somewhere, he thought; when pleasures you deny yourself turn out not to be pleasures, you’re doubly destroyed, for not only do you lose an illusion, you also feel futile. It had been much better, of course, with the Versailles girl, but there was no going back to that situation, there was no conquering one’s spiritual distaste for the casual encounter. Should he say to Eléonore, I’m sorry it was so quick, I realize you didn’t enjoy it? But what was the point, since she didn’t have a standard of comparison, and would only say “it was all right” anyway.
“I’ll get up now,” she said.
He put an arm round her. “Stay.” He kissed her breasts.
“All right. If you want.”
He made tentative exploration. There was no blood, at least he didn’t think so. He thought, presumably she will actually know that there is more to it, that it gets better with practice, because she will understand that for some people it is such an important part of their lives.
Now at last she relaxed a little. She smiled. It was a smile of accomplishment.
Who can guess what she’s thinking? “This bed’s not very big,” she said.
Who can guess what she’s thinking? “This bed’s not very big,” she said.
“No, but—” If it came to that, he would just have to tell her. He would have to say Eléonore, Comélia, much as I appreciate the free and generous offer of your body, I have no intention of spending my nights with you, even if your whole family helps us to move the furniture. He closed his eyes again. He tried to think what excuse he could make to Maurice when he left the house, how he would cope with Madame’s questions, no doubt tears. He thought then of the recrimination that would descend on Eléonore’s muddled and guiltless head, and the feminine spite. And besides, he didn’t want to go, to cold and unfrequented rooms in another district, and meet Maurice Duplay at the Jacobins, and nod to him, and refrain from asking after the family. And he knew, quite certainly, that this would happen again. When Eléonore decided that it was time she’d just trip upstairs and wait for him, and he wouldn’t be able to send her away, any more than he had the first time. He wondered who she’d confide in, because she’d need advice on how often to expect it; and the disastrous possibilities came tumbling in on his head, as he tried to delimit the circle of her female friends. It was fortunate that she hardly knew Mme. Danton.
He must have gone to sleep then, and when he woke up she had gone. It was 9 p.m. Tomorrow, he thought, she will go bouncing along the street, smiling at people and paying calls for no real reason.
I
n the days afterwards he became sick with guilt. The second time she was easier, less tense, but she never gave any sign of experiencing pleasure. It came to him that if she found herself pregnant they would have to be married very quickly. Perhaps, he thought, when the Convention meets, new people will come to the house, and perhaps someone will like her, and I can be generous and release her from any promise or tie.
n the days afterwards he became sick with guilt. The second time she was easier, less tense, but she never gave any sign of experiencing pleasure. It came to him that if she found herself pregnant they would have to be married very quickly. Perhaps, he thought, when the Convention meets, new people will come to the house, and perhaps someone will like her, and I can be generous and release her from any promise or tie.
But in his heart, he knew that this wouldn’t happen. No one would like her. The family wouldn’t let them like her. The people who’re married, he thought, can get divorced now. But the only thing that will release us is if one of us dies.
A
t the ministry, Camille sat at his desk, and irrelevant thoughts flitted through his head. He thought of the night he had spent in his cousin de Viefville’s apartment, before he had gone to see Mirabeau. Barnave had called. Barnave had spoken to him as if he were someone worthy
of consideration. He had liked Barnave, personally. He was in prison now, accused of conspiring with the Court; of this charge he was, of course, utterly guilty. Camille sighed. He drew little ships at sea in the margin of the encouraging letter he was drafting to the Jacobins of Marseille.
t the ministry, Camille sat at his desk, and irrelevant thoughts flitted through his head. He thought of the night he had spent in his cousin de Viefville’s apartment, before he had gone to see Mirabeau. Barnave had called. Barnave had spoken to him as if he were someone worthy
of consideration. He had liked Barnave, personally. He was in prison now, accused of conspiring with the Court; of this charge he was, of course, utterly guilty. Camille sighed. He drew little ships at sea in the margin of the encouraging letter he was drafting to the Jacobins of Marseille.
The members of the Convention were gathering now in Paris. Augustin Robespierre: Camille, you haven’t changed a bit. And Antoine Saint-Just … he would have to be patient about Saint-Just, stop that disastrous, illogical animosity flaring up … .
“I have the feeling he harbors loathsome thoughts in his head,” he told Danton.
And Danton, preoccupied with solidarity: “Do try, do try,” he said, in his tired barrister’s voice, “to keep the peace, you know, not be a constant disappointment to Maximilien? You do make work for him, tidying up your indiscretions.”
“Saint-Just will not have indiscretions, I suppose.”
“He doesn’t look as if he would.”
“That will endear him to everyone, I’m sure.”
“Endear,” Danton laughed. “The boy alarms me. That chilly, purposive smirk.”
“Perhaps he’s trying to look pleasant.”
“Hérault will be jealous. The women will be interested in someone else.”
“Hérault need not worry. Saint-Just isn’t interested in women.”
“You used to say that about Saint Maximilien, but now he has the delightful Comélia. Yes, isn’t it so?”
“I don’t know.”
“I do.”
So that was common gossip now, besides the supposed infidelity of Roland’s wife and the menage here at the Place des Piques. What things for people to occupy themselves with, he thought.
Perhaps Danton would leave office soon. For himself he would be pleased. Yet it seemed certain that Roland’s supporters would try to arrange for him to stay on at the Interior, though he had been elected to the Convention. Even after the scandal about the Crown Jewels, the dusty old bureaucrat was riding high. And if he stayed in office, why not Danton, so much more necessary to the nation?
I don’t want to be here much longer, he thought. I shall turn into Claude. I don’t much want to speak to the Convention either, they won’t be able to hear me. Then again, he said to himself, it isn’t a question of what I want.
It was more troubling to think that Danton himself wanted to leave office. Even now he hadn’t thrown over his dreams—his delusions—of getting out of Paris for good. In the small hours, Camille had found him solitary in a pool of yellow candlelight, poring over the deeds to his Arcis property, each boundary stone, watercourse, right of way. As he lifted his head Camille had seen in his eyes a picture of mellow buildings, fields, copses and streams.
“Ah,” he had said, startled. “I thought my assassin had come at last.” He laid a hand, palm down, on the deeds. “To think of the Prussians here, perhaps.”
Fabre had been evasive lately, Camille thought. Not that he was given to plain speaking. If Fabre had to choose, between money and revolutionary fame … No, he’d refuse to choose, he’d go on dizzily demanding both.
“What interpretation are we to put on the removal of the Crown Jewels?” Camille asked Danton.
What are we to think? Or—what are we to say? He watched Danton digest the ambiguity.
“I think we must say that Roland’s carelessness is much to blame.”
“Yes, he should have made better security arrangements, should he not? Fabre was with the Citizeness Roland the day after. He went at half-past ten and came back at one. Do you think he had been castigating her?”
“How do I know?”
Camille gave him an amused, sideways glance. “And after he left the Citizeness, she went straight to her husband and told him that the man who stole the Crown Jewels had just called.”
“How do you know that?”
“Perhaps I’m making it up. Do you think I am?”
“You could be,” Danton said unhappily.
“Don’t trust Dumouriez.”
“No. Robespierre says it. I am sick of him saying it.”
“Robespierre is never wrong.”
“Perhaps I should go to the front myself. See a few people. Get a few things straightened out.”
So—perhaps when these pastoral moods came upon him, it was really a kind of fear. God knows he was vulnerable enough, though it seemed strange to apply the word to him. He was vulnerable to Dumouriez, and to supporters of the Bourbons, too, seeking fulfillment of promises made … . “There’s nothing to worry about. M. Danton will look after us.”
Camille swept the thought away hastily, pushing his hair back in nervous agitation, as if someone were in the room with him. He seemed to hear Robespierre’s voice drifting across a cold spring day in 1790: “Once you bestow affection on a person, reason flies out of the window. Look at the Comte de Mirabeau—objectively, if you can, for a moment. The way he lives, his words, his actions, put me on my guard immediately—then I apply a little thought, and I discover that the man is wholly given over to self-aggrandizement. Now why can’t you come to this conclusion, because it’s plain enough? You don’t yield to your feelings in other respects, when they run counter to your larger aims; for instance, you’re frightened of speaking in public, but you don’t let it stop you. Then, like that—you have to be ruthless with your feelings.”
Suppose he found that persistent unsparing voice at his elbow one day, claiming that Danton lacked probity; he had an answer, pat, not a logical one, but one sufficiently chilling to put logic in abeyance. To question Danton’s patriotism was to cast in doubt the whole Revolution. A tree is known by its fruits, and Danton made August 10. First he made the republic of the Cordeliers, then he made the Republic of France. If Danton is not a patriot, then we have been criminally negligent in the nation’s affairs. If Danton is not a patriot, we are not patriots either. If Danton is not a patriot, then the whole thing—from May ’89—must be done again.
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