Flowers Stained With Moonlight (29 page)

Like a person in delirium, Camilla has analysed the nature of her pain a thousand and again a thousand times; like the
swirls on the wallpaper, it is always the same and inescapable. She has confronted herself, she has exercised her self-control, clenched her teeth, stared severely at the distraught girl in the mirror and spoken aloud to her, in a voice harsh with misery.

‘And what, exactly, are you finding so very hard to bear?’

There are too many answers. There is no answer. Periods of peace still as forest pools are interrupted, too often, by shocks so severe that Camilla spends the nights walking up and down her room, faster and faster, gnawing her fist and watching the colour of the sky change slowly from black to blue to pink. A pain so intense cannot last for hours, yet it does.

Sylvia is going to be married; she told Camilla about it quite lightly, brushing aside her stammered objections, ignoring the horror in her eyes.

‘Camilla, it won’t change anything – nothing at all. Except that I’ll be freer. You’ll come down and visit – I’ll come up and visit you. Why should you mind?’

She has no idea, no idea of anything; no more idea of other people’s feelings than a buzzing bee who dips for honey or stings. For a fleeting moment, Camilla feels acutely sorry for Sylvia’s future husband, a sharp point of pity piercing the shield of hatred she holds up against him. Hours go by before she asks the only question.

‘But do you love him?’

‘What nonsense! Have you seen him? Camilla – he’s old and rich. I thought he wanted to marry Mother all this time. Mother thought so too, I’m sure. But now he’s asked for me instead.’

‘But why in heaven’s name don’t you refuse?’

‘Oh, Camilla, I have to marry; Mother wants me to. She needs the money; we’ve nothing here, less than nothing, only debts. And what do I care who it is? If not him, it would just be someone else.’

‘But shan’t you hate him touching you?’

Sylvia’s eyes blazed like a cat’s for just an instant.

‘He won’t.’

‘Are you stupid, Sylvia?’

‘You don’t know me.’

And perhaps she is right. She is stupid and ignorant, thoughtless, and yet she is absolute. And Camilla wants to believe her, so desperately.

‘If he touches you I’ll—’

‘If he touches me I’ll—’

Their voices, simultaneously, die away because there is no need.

It is in Paris, beautiful Paris, that Camilla learns about the princess. And the night is lit by a thousand shooting stars.

How could she not have known?

Marie Thérèse Louise de Savoie-Carignan, Princesse de Lamballe.

Lamballe, a name of infinitely many resonances. Lamballe, ball – the days of her glory and her love, sparkling before all the court. Lamballe, lamb – a lamb, led to the slaughter. Lamballe,
lamelle
– the shreds of her flesh torn to pieces by the raging crowd.

It is the little professor who opens, for Camilla, the door to a new existence. He flutters.

‘My researches are so very fascinating, so very fascinating, but it is most difficult to discuss them with the English,’ he says. ‘The English … your Queen … so very prudish. English girls …’

‘Oh, we are not really like that,’ says Camilla engagingly. And learns far more than she ever dreamt. Learns, above
all, that she is not alone, has never been alone, has belonged, forever, to a sorority whose glory and beauty was sung, recognised, celebrated for centuries, before being forced into shame and oblivion by the forbidding decrees of Christianity.

The professor speaks and speaks; timidly at first, then freely, and even passionately.

‘The rabble of the streets grew to hate Marie-Antoinette for her light-heartedness, the flamboyant display of her riches, her life of pleasure, her disregard of duty. And they directed their fearsome hatred to the princess, her closest, her dearest friend, whom she tenderly loved for so many years. And the princess became, in the mouths of the rabble, the sign and symbol of unspeakable dissolution and debauchery.

‘Safe in England in 1791, she returned to France to join the desperate Queen and the rest of the royal family who, confined to the Tuileries palace, daily suffered the increased power of the Assembly led by the monster Robespierre, and the screams and insults of the crowd under their windows.

‘All were arrested there together on the 10th of August, 1792: Marie-Antoinette and Louis XVI, their two surviving children, the Princesse de Lamballe and also the Princesse Elisabeth, sister of the king; the entire family was imprisoned together in the Temple. But the day came on which the Princesse de Lamballe was sent, alone, to public judgement.

‘Her trial was one of those many sickening farces which the Revolution has bequeathed us. She would not take the oath against the King, and for this, she was condemned and sent forth from the tribunal, in the full knowledge that the ravening crowd was waiting outside to snatch her from the hands of her guards and tear her limb from limb then and there, in the very courtyard of the prison – you can see the place today, if you wish; it is in the Rue du Roi de Sicile. The prison itself is gone, of course, but the stones still bear the memory of her blood.

‘The violent destruction of her body, the promenading of her head upon a pike under the very windows of the Temple where the poor Queen was confined, the lewd screams and shouts and the accusations of the bloodthirsty crowd – all of these things have been described and documented again and again. My work as a historian, which I have written down in books that you can certainly find in the library if you are really interested, has been to try to determine, from the surface film of envy and revenge and violence that drove the populace into a wild medley of accusations, expressed in all manner of speeches, pamphlets, drawings and jingles – what, in all these accusations, can be taken as the true reflection of a deep, intimate and secret reality. I have spent many years studying every known aspect and detail of the relationship between the two women; I have read the memoirs of their family members and of the ladies-in-waiting who attended them, and I have tried to read between the lines without ever betraying the search for truth. And I came, many years ago, to
the conclusion that the love which bound these two women together was—’ (here the professor, who had delivered the whole of this lecture to his hands, which, fragile and veined, lay before him upon the table, glances quickly up and then down again) ‘—what we call a Sapphic love, a love of passion, that kind of love which, ceding to irresistible impulses defying all rational behaviour, can often lead to terrible disaster. Had the princess not returned from England, or had she accepted the many possibilities of escape which presented themselves to her while she remained with the beleaguered royal family in the Tuileries palace, she would not merely have been safe and well, but she could even have worked, from a distance, at their rescue. Had she not forgiven the Queen for her betrayal, in transferring for a long time her affections and favours to the Princesse de Polignac; had this distanced her from the Queen, she might then have been saved. But as I believe it, her love for the Queen defied all such measure. Having once become bound to her in the flesh, she could never again endure the test of physical separation; she must needs be near her, even when the poor Queen, in her despair, no longer had any mind or inclination for pleasure. It is just as in many marriages, which lead to the binding together of husband and wife in body and soul more deeply than ever, once the fire of youth has died into glowing embers. Of course, the true nature of the relationship between these two extraordinary women will never be known; all this is theory, based on the multitude of clues that history has left us. But I, for one, am as convinced that it was what I say as if I were personally acquainted with the protagonists.’

‘Even if one were personally acquainted with the protagonists, how could one know such a thing?’ says Camilla, teasing yet afraid of the old man’s perspicacity. Again he looks up at her, again that quick glance of flame.

‘Who can ever know?’ he says, quizzically, and quietly. ‘Who can ever know?’

That man seems to me peer of gods, who sits in thy presence, and hears close to him thy sweet speech and lovely laughter; that indeed makes my heart flutter in my bosom. For when I see thee but a little, I have no utterance left, my tongue is broken down, and straightway a subtle fire has run under my skin, with my eyes I have no sight, my ears ring, sweat pours down, and a trembling seizes all my body; I am paler than grass, and seem in my madness little better than one dead. But I must dare all, since one so poor
…

Camilla leaves the library and finds that her legs are trembling underneath her, will barely carry her. She sits down on a bench underneath a chestnut tree, whose large, lush green leaves shade and veil the flushed confusion and amazement that she cannot hide. Camilla has begun to exist; she herself, the person that she is. The flush of shame as she feels this new existence as a birth. A birth is a passage from the womb to the world.

Before, she was hidden, or believed she was; a non-being. It was a torture akin to sequestration. Yet it was safe.

Now, she feels exposed.

‘Nothing has changed,’ she tells herself. ‘It’s only I, I who didn’t know. It was all there, all in the books. There is no difference, no difference at all.’

But she feels public.

‘Why do you care, Camilla? Why? What does it matter, what other people see and think and believe and gossip about?’

‘I don’t know. I care. The eyes of others are like a … a mirror in which you can see yourself being. Can you imagine standing in front of a mirror and seeing nothing facing back at you? I want to be there! I want to be myself, with my flame and all complete, and see it reflected back in the mirror of their eyes. I want the impossible – I want to walk down the Champs Élysées with you on my arm and stare, head high, at all I cross. I cannot live in secrecy – I’m not a clandestine being. I hate it – I hate it! I need sunlight.’

Sylvia looks at her wonderingly. It is clear that she cannot understand.

‘I like secrecy,’ she says thoughtfully. ‘Looking violates the thing inside. I want to preserve it pure.’

Camilla is still preoccupied by her discovery.

‘Sylvia,’ she says suddenly. ‘How did you learn – how did you know about yourself? Being
this way,
I mean? When did you realise it?’

Sylvia reflects for a moment, stirring the long spoon in her glass.

‘I never realised it, because I always knew it,’ she says finally. ‘There was never any discovery, any break, for me.’ She smiles, remembering. ‘Even when I was a child … You know, I used to have a governess; she was very beautiful. As far back as I can remember, I adored her because she was so tall and dark and noble. I loved her, and loving her, I wanted to touch her all the time. I was constantly in her lap … and even when I was older, I still always wanted to sit on her lap and press myself against her breasts.’

‘And what did she do? What did she say?’

‘Nothing. She let me do it. Now, I think that perhaps she didn’t know how to say something without hurting me or shaming me or making a scandal; perhaps she would have, some day, but she left when I was fifteen. She was always very reserved; she never really responded to me, yet she
never rejected me: never. I used to kiss her and kiss her …’

Sylvia’s voice trails away into memories. Camilla thinks with pain: no wonder she was able to become what she is: so natural, so free from inner conflict. And she thinks of the soft breasts and tender arms of the governess.

They sit in silence, together, next to each other – cool drinks – tall glasses – little round marble-topped table – wide pavement – broad boulevard – arching chestnut trees … and Camilla champs inwardly and desperately over her inner contradiction, while Sylvia turns her glass calmly between her fingers; condensed moisture is dripping down the outside of it. The tips of Sylvia’s fingers are cold and wet, as she touches Camilla’s wrist very lightly, with a little smile.

‘You know,’ she says, ‘you could have your wish, and I mine.’

‘I never can,’ says Camilla gloomily.

‘It depends on what you want,’ says Sylvia, looking at her friend intently. ‘And on how daring you are. Why don’t you dress like a man?’

Her words strike Camilla’s fevered brain like a powerful blow, causing her thoughts to shatter into shards like a smashed glass. Kaleidoscope images tumble in her mind.

Why not?

How could she have never thought of it before?

Could it be done? Is it feasible?

Why not?

Sylvia leans forward, murmurs in her ear, so close that her lips brush a bit of hair. Her voice is warm, contains a vibrating laugh underneath its quiet tones.

‘Let’s do it,’ she says. ‘We can shop tomorrow – for your brother, we’ll pretend. And cut your hair. Oh, Camilla – what an adventure!’

Camilla cannot believe the change which occurs in her the very moment she pulls on the unfamiliar garments, the curtains drawn over the sunny window, her dress, as though it contained her very personality, flung limp and abandoned over the bed; left, temporarily, behind. She stares in the mirror, holds up her arms to hide her too-familiar head, watches her long legs encased in trousers, planted well apart, buttons the stiff jacket over the firm, even surface she has created by binding a cloth tightly over her small breasts, as she has heard that the Japanese ladies do. She feels like leaping and shouting; she whirls about, laughing, to face Sylvia, whose subjugated expression provokes a burning wave. She practises throwing herself onto a chair,
long-legged
and free. She drapes one leg casually over the arm.

‘Pity about the hair,’ she says, letting it down. ‘I can’t go out like this.’