French Passion (18 page)

“Can you hide me?” he gasped.

“The stables—”

“The boy just went in.”

“The house,” I said.

“Is there nowhere out here?”

“The toolshed,” I said. Since Izette and Joseph's illness, the gardener had refused to keep his things in there, and none of the other servants went near. The pesthouse, they called it. “It's that way. I'll get the key.”

Dropping my paintbrush, I forced my way through the hedge, mindless of sharp twigs, running into the manure-odored dim stable, praying the boy would be busy. He was in the loft, whistling off-key to the thump of pitched hay. A row of keys dangled from nails. I reached up for the large one I remembered so well. Rust covered it.

Then I raced along the path behind the stables. André stood at the door. My hand shook, the key dropped, he picked it up, turned it in the padlock.

“Who's after you?” I asked.

“The police, two of them.”

“I'll head them off,” I said.

As I was refastening the padlock, his voice came to me. “Your hat, darling, your hat's falling off.”

My hat was barely held to the back of my neck by the scarf. Pulling the wide-brimmed straw on, I ran to replace the key.

I was back at my easel less than two minutes after André had come into the garden. Picking up my brush, I waited. A pounding of boots, gasping voices.

“Here's trees and bushes.”

“Yes, a likely hiding place.”

I watched two men round the stables. One, tall, very thin, held a long pistol. The other, short and fat, mopped his crimson dripping cheeks with a dirty kerchief.

“Sirs!” I said. “Please to remove yourselves from my property.”

At this frosty clear command, they jumped.

The skeletal one, who wore all black, recovered with a clod's bow. “Your ladyship. The police at your service.”

“Did one of my servants summon you?” I asked with all the disdain I could muster.

“We followed a prisoner here.”

“Indeed. Did you let him escape, then?”

“He slipped our noose, yes, your ladyship. Tall, young. Without a coat, but gentlemanly looking. Have you seen him?”

“No gentleman would intrude upon my gardens,” I rebuked coldly.

“This's a dangerous criminal. Then you haven't seen him?”

The black-dressed skeletal one was doing the talking. The fat little man sweated and nodded agreement.

“Of course not! And take my advice. Continue on to the Palais Royale. Around there, shops and cafés make excellent hiding places.”

“We've got men stationed in the area already, your ladyship. A clever one, this. He could've hidden without your seeing him.”

“All things are possible, of course.” Mimicking the Comte's most overdrawn polite tone, I dipped my brush into the pewter mug. “Now. I'm sure you'll have the kindness to let me finish my picture?”

“We must search these grounds.”

“Must you, indeed?”

“We're on the King's business, your ladyship.”

“King Louis never would condone such an intrusion. His friend, the Comte de Créqui, owns this house.”

At this, the short fat man woefully clapped his kerchief to his dripping forehead.

The skeleton face changed to obsequiousness, but the voice persisted. “A dangerous criminal, your ladyship. He could've gotten into your house. If he harmed one hair of your head, we'd get the blame.”

“Am I to take it, then, that you insist on rescuing me in advance from some dangerous character you've already let give you the slip?” My sarcasm had changed to ice.

“If your ladyship pleases,” he replied with a bow even more awkward than his first.

I rounded the hedge, leading them into the stables.

While the fat man prodded straw with a pitchfork, the skeleton questioned the frightened stable boy. He kept protesting he'd been working, sir, working all along, sir, and nobody could've sneaked in without his seeing, sir.

I watched with a suitably haughty smile. But my heart was tripping with fear, and I tried to imagine what André's life had been since his return to France. Pursued. Haunted by the fear of pursual. What, I wondered, was his place in inciting a revolution? For his verse he'd hardly be hounded. Others wrote against the monarchy and were censored, no more. How odd, I thought, I feel none of the barriers with André that I've always felt with Comte. André's so open with me. Yet I know so little of him, not even his family name. Did it matter? I loved him, feared for him, and that was enough.

“Show us outside,” the bony man ordered the stable boy.

The four of us circled the stables. The black-sleeved arm pointed at the toolshed. “That. What's that?”

“The pesthouse, sir,” replied the stable boy, crossing himself.

“The what?”

“In there,” I explained, “two of my servants lived through the smallpox. One died. Since then, naturally, we've kept the place locked.” Sweat broke out all over me, but my voice remained calm. “If you wish, the boy'll show you.”

“Never!” His pimpled face contorted with terror. “Mademoiselle d'Epinay, never!”

“Well, you police are capable. And far more used to danger than we. Search the pesthouse yourself. The key's in the stables. Come.”

The three of them trailed me to the stable door. “There.” I pointed. “It's the large rusty key on the end. You'll excuse me if I don't handle it.”

“Take a look,” said the thin policeman.

His fat little associate didn't move. Horseflies buzzed in lazy circles.

“Go!”

So the fat little man, using his dirty kerchief, managed to lift the key without touching it. He lagged along the dirt path. Sweat soaked my bodice. I held my arms to me, hiding the worst stains. The fat figure stopped in the shade of the plane tree.

“Padlock's on the door,” he called. “Shut up tight.”

“Make sure it's not open.”

“But how could he've replaced—” the fat little man started.

“Look!”

Three more slow steps. “Never been opened.”

“Good,” his superior said.

As the fat man bounded back along the path, the bony man said, “We'll have to search the gardens now, your ladyship, and the house.”

“If you must,” I said, “then you must. However, you'll excuse me.”

“The boy'll do, your ladyship.”

At my easel, I began daubing. Colors ran on the perfect roses I'd previously sketched for Aunt Thérèse. The two policemen circled trees and statues, peered into shrubs and hedges, finally entering the open glass doors to the music room. The stable boy, kicking off his wooden clogs, followed them.

I counted to twenty, then flew along the path behind the stables.

“André,” I whispered. “They've gone inside.”

“Let me out then.”

“Not yet.”

“Can they see from the house?”

“No, but—”

“Let me out!” His voice came muffled and urgent. “Every minute I'm here endangers you.”

“This is safe.… People died from the smallpox here. Nobody comes.”

He said louder, “Manon—”

I interrupted, “They said a lot of others were searching. It's not safe for you to be out in daylight.”

“I know places—”

“André, I can't stand here arguing. They
would
notice I'm not painting. I'll come back tonight.”

“Unlock that door!”

“Tonight.”

“Now!”

“Later.”

After a minute I heard his laugh. Light. Happy. “You had my heart all along. Now you've captured my body.”

I laughed, too, and still laughing, ran back to my painting stool.

The light of a half-moon shone, turning the garden silvery. I kept to the shadows. If Izette was right—and I still couldn't quite believe her—if the Comte paid one of the servants to watch me, this was a necessary precaution. The Comte, of course, was at Versailles Palace for the great outdoor party honoring Emperor Joseph. Jean-Pierre was at a card party, Aunt Thérèse slept.

To hide my pale dress, I wore my brother's old black traveling cape—later I planned giving it to André. On my arm I carried a basket. Pleading weariness, I'd asked Izette for supper in my room, and this was the meal she'd brought.

Izette knew nothing. I'd pretended fury at the police search, loudly wondering about the man they sought. If Izette knew of André's presence, she would have insisted it was too dangerous for me to go to the toolshed. She would have insisted on taking on the danger herself, giving him the food, the bottle of white wine from Champagne, and the three gold coins I carried in a small purse. So I hadn't told her.

Instead, I'd dressed myself in my favorite gown. It was the simple summer style that became me, made of a lovely fabric that Monsieur Sancerre had woven especially for me, a fine lawn of the pale green that intensified the green of my eyes. The skirt was embroidered with sprays of white lily of the valley. So here I was, hurrying through a summer night in my prettiest frock, on my way to love.

A twig snapped behind me.

I stopped, hardly daring to breathe. Silvery light spilled on foliage, an owl hooted, a neighbor's dog barked.

There was no other sound.

Sighing with relief, I hurried through the opening in the hedge, ducking into the pitch-black stable. I'd given the boy the night off, along with some money, his reward for “helping the police.” He'd gone off to a wineshop, and, I hoped, a brothel. Anyway, he'd be gone for hours, and would return fuddled. A horse whinnied, stamped, and I grabbed the key, hurrying along the path. Here, hidden from the house, I moved freely, not clinging to the shadows.

At the door I set down my basket.

“André?” I whispered.

“Manon. Are you all right? It's been dark for hours.”

“The servants just went to bed.”

“I've been terrified for you.”

A finger of a cloud had passed in front of the moon, and I had trouble with the big rusty key. Then the lock clicked. I lifted it.

André pushed open the door.

The cloud faded, and moonlight touched his proud arch of nose, shadowing his eyes. Moonlight gleamed on the loose shirt that billowed from his wide shoulders to his narrow waist. As I gazed at him, he gazed back with the same intensity.

“You're so beautiful,” he whispered.

“You are, too.”

And we were in each other's arms. Our kiss, long and tender, merged us. I clasped his waist with all my strength, his hands moved down my sides, lingering at the roots of my breasts.

When the kiss ended, we were both trembling.

“Since you locked me in, I've been thinking of this.”

“And all this time I've been afraid.”

“Of the police?”

“No. That you weren't thinking of this.” I touched his lips. “I've brought us a picnic supper.”

“A picnic. Darling, you're crazy. You can't stay. And neither can I.”

“I'm alone tonight. The servants are in bed. The later you leave, the better.” My voice caught as I thought of his danger. “André, André. We've only got this one evening.”

His jaw tightened. After a moment he nodded. I picked up the basket, and as he closed the door, I fumbled for the flint.

“There's chinks in the wood,” he said. “A candle's not safe.”

“The only one who could see anything is the stable boy, and he's getting drunk. Besides, he's so terrified of the place he never even looks at it. He thinks it's haunted.”

The toolshed was haunted, haunted with the memory of my guilts. Don't think of CoCo, I told myself. Don't question her paternity, her life, her death. These few hours are for happiness.

The wick caught. He spread out the cape, I unfolded a linen napkin, laying out cold chicken breast, thin-sliced pork, glistening liver
pâté
, fine-milled white bread, a fragrant bosk pear, the wine bottle. We sat side by side, eating, sometimes touching each other.

I asked André where he'd been the last six weeks. Orléans, he said. He belonged to a secret group, and they had sent him there to help the peasants draw up a list of grievances—few peasants could write, he said, and the group wanted the King to read of the misery in every corner of the kingdom. Life in Orléans was unbearable. Jobs were scarce, and even if a man worked eighteen hours a day, he could not afford bread for his family. Old people and children starved in the streets, and every morning the charnel wagon picked up the bodies. “I wrote list after list of grievances, but what good is writing when there's no food?”

“The treasury's buying up grain to hold for higher prices. That's how the King raises money.”

“The King follows cruel advisers,” André said grimly.

“If it weren't the grain, it would be higher taxes, and it would end the same. People starving.”

“No,” André said. “There's another answer. Let the King and his Court curb their appetites.”

At this point we both stopped eating. The food on white linen had been bought with money squeezed from starving people.

After a long silence, I asked, “Why did you come back to Paris?”

“To find a way to see you.”

I blushed, shy as a very young girl with her first beau. “André, what's your family name?”

“That's something I can tell nobody. To the others, I'm Égalité. To you, I'm André, the fool who cares too much for a girl he's seen three times. Well, it's true. Love's a mystery even to poets.”

“Yet it's not mysterious between us. André, sometimes I know exactly what you're going to say before you say it. It's as if I've known you always, understood you always.” Suddenly that fear for him clutched at me. “There's so many watching for you. They don't intend to let you escape.”

“I've been trapped before,” he said.