The Academie (21 page)

He cracks his whip above the horse’s flanks, and we trot off for about a minute, if that. Then he stops.

I look out the window and call up to him.
“Qu’est-ce que c’est?”
I ask, now irritated at the fellow.

“
Ici la Comédie Française
,” he says with a mischievous shrug, pointing to the building to our left, with its columns along the facade and an alley beside it.

My face burns. How was I to know I was close enough to walk here? My mother and I took carriages everywhere when we were in Paris together, so I have no idea what is where.

I step down and fish in my pocket for a coin, but the fiacre driver, perhaps thinking he’s taking pity on a green young man going to pay court to an actress he admired when he was among his comrades, waves me off and walks his fiacre forward, where it’s quickly engaged by someone else.

Brushing some dust off my sleeve, I go toward a door where I see men entering, most clutching bouquets of flowers. I assume because it’s easy for them, it will be easy for me to get in.

At first, all is well. The door is not locked, and I step through it into a dim interior that smells of perfume and sweat.

“What do you want, soldier?” says an old man in drab clothing who is seated just inside. He sticks a leg out to prevent me from climbing the stairs.

“I have come with a message for Madeleine de Pourtant,” I say, mustering all the authority I can.

He looks me up and down, an expression on his face I can describe only as disdain. What disdain! No one has ever glared at me like that! “Mademoiselle de Pourtant is not receiving visitors.” He points to the door I came through.

“My message is most urgent,” I say. I ought to be glad not to be able to deliver Eugène’s words of love to his mistress, but I am furious at being treated like this by a mere servant. I will not be denied. “I am under strictest orders by my officer to see that she gets it.”

“I’ll take it to her,” he says, reaching out his hand and grinning, revealing several gaps where teeth should be.

I don’t know what to say to this, and am about to protest, when a head peeks through the door at the top of the stairs. “
Alors
, Gric, what is all this fuss? Has Adèle’s gentleman arrived yet?”

“Only this little cub here who insists he has a message for Madeleine.”

The lady steps through and gasps. “Come up quickly, young man! She is waiting most anxiously.”

I can’t resist looking down my nose at the surly Gric as I pass him and take the stairs two at a time.

The lady who saved me grabs my hand and pulls me through a maze of corridors. I hear snatches of voices practicing songs, the beat of a cane against the floor as dancers rehearse, and a deep male voice declaiming some lines I recognize—from a play by Molière my mother and I saw together before she left. It’s as if the magical world one sees on a stage has been shaken together and tossed on a table like dice.

Before I know it we have entered a room so chaotic and colorful I don’t know where to look. Candles burn even at this time of day, before mirrors that reflect their points of light and make everything glow. Heaps of gowns in vibrant colors hang from hooks and strew the floor. Before each mirror are pots of white lead, red lip stain, lapis blue powder for around the eyes. A lady looks up at me with half her face painted
and the sight frightens me. The contrast between the white of the lead makes the other half of her face appear dark as night. She laughs. There is something familiar about her.

“Is Madeleine still up there?” my guide asks, ignoring her.

The half-painted lady sucks on the end of a pipe and blows out a plume of aromatic blue smoke before answering. “Yes. Crying. I’ll show her why she should cry soon enough!” She jerks her head toward the ceiling.

Suddenly I recognize this lady. She is the very same one Caroline and I saw at the masked ball! The one who tried to engage with Eugène, but was spurned by him. Swathed in dirty robes, her face so strangely made up, she looks like a different creature.

I make a move to leave the dressing room and seek out Madeleine, but the lady at the dressing table stops laughing and leaps to her feet, grabbing my arm. Her eyes roam over my entire body. I swear it feels as if I am meat hanging in a butcher’s shop and she’s looking for the most succulent bit to have sliced off. “What’s your name, lad?” she asks, her voice now sweeter than I would have imagined possible.

“Madeleine! Madeleine! The messenger is here! You must come down!” I hear my guide outside in the corridor.

I want to listen for a reply, but my attention is dragged away again by the half-painted woman. “I asked you a question. It’s impolite not to answer. I am Gloriande,” she says, blinking rapidly in a coquettish gesture and putting out her hand to be kissed. I cannot ignore this gesture, so I take
her hand. I notice it is well veined, that of someone much older than her face appears.

I bow over the hand, not intending to actually kiss it and hoping my trembling from the strain of keeping up my disguise isn’t too obvious. But who am I? How can I answer her question? I never planned on having to give a name! I seize upon the first man’s name I can think of. “Émile,” I say. “Émile Gouin at your service.” I hope I’ll be able to remember what I’ve told her in case I need to repeat it.

“How old are you, Émile?”

I realize I am very small and there is no trace of a beard on my face. She must believe I’m just a boy and is trying to embarrass me. If only she realized how wrong she was!

But I am saved. A sound draws our attention to the door of the dressing room, where I see a girl standing, a defiant look on her face. She appears not much older than my fellow Blues at school. Her eyes—a beautiful deep brown, impossibly large and rimmed by long, dark lashes—are red and swollen from crying, and her hair is disheveled. This must be Madeleine, the object of Eugène’s love. I am surprised, and somehow touched.

“Marianne says y-you have a m-message for me.” She is hiccuping still. She must have been crying for hours. I am frozen in place. She reaches her hand out to me, and I quickly find the folded and sealed paper Eugène gave me. I walk to her and give her the note.

Suddenly she takes my shoulders and plants two wet
kisses on my cheeks—wet mostly because of the tears still streaking her face. “I’m to wait for a reply,” I say. Seeing how sad she is makes me want to cry, too.

Madeleine tears open the seal and unfolds the letter, her eyes burning into the page as she reads as if her life depends on it. When she gets to the end, she sinks like a wilted flower to the ground and presses the letter to her chest.

“Are you ill?” I ask.

“Yes, she’s sick. Sick to death!” Gloriande’s voice is harsh once more. “She has conspired against me. She wants to leave the theater, she says. Why? Because of her precious Eugène, whose mother spends so much money on herself she can give him none of his own for presents that he might shower upon Madeleine.”

“Maman, tais-toi!”
I’m shocked to hear Madeleine address this woman as her mother.

It’s almost impossible to believe that this dark, deep-voiced creature is the mother of the woman Eugène loves. I cannot help myself. My mouth drops open.

The older lady gives a snort of laughter. “I can read, can’t I?” She fishes in the pocket of her gown and pulls out a filthy scrap of paper.

“Ma chère Madeleine. Words cannot convey my feelings for you. I hope to carry you away soon, but first I must satisfy your mother’s carnal wants....”
She is not reading, I realize, but making up the words.

“How dare you! You don’t know what he says—you
can’t read!” Madeleine leaps toward her mother, but Marianne stops her.

In an instant Gloriande is on her feet. She raises her hand and slaps Madeleine hard, leaving a red handprint on her cheek.

Without thinking, I step between mother and daughter. Marianne has shrunk back out of the way. I don’t blame her; I’m not certain myself what will happen next.

Something shifts inside me. All at once I realize that Eugène has not been ensnared by a scheming actress, but genuinely loves this young girl who, I imagine, has been thrust upon the stage for her mother’s sake. I feel the horrible difference between her situation and mine, and I want to help her. I must think fast.

“Stand away, Gloriande,” I say, feeling brash to address a woman my mother’s age by her first name. “Madeleine is coming with me.”

I feel Madeleine’s delicate hands grasp my shoulders and she breathes into my ear. “I cannot! She will send them after me. But thank you.”

“We are going to leave now, and Madeleine will not return.” I say it as if I can really make such a thing happen. I wonder, briefly, if the courage comes with the uniform.

Before I realize what is happening, I feel Marianne press something into my hand. It is a dagger. I hold it out menacingly toward Gloriande, who takes a step back.

I reach back with my other hand and grasp Madeleine’s
hand firmly. Keeping her behind me, I make us back away from Gloriande. When we reach the door, we turn and run. It is my turn to lead someone quickly through the maze of corridors above the Comédie Française.

Once she realizes I am serious, Madeleine does not resist, but helps me find a different way out that will avoid the nasty gatekeeper, Gric.

Soon we are out on an unpaved Paris street. Madeleine throws her arms around me and says, “
Merci, merci, merci!
” planting kisses on my face between each word.

I gently push her away from me, holding her off so I can look in her face. “I am not who I seem,” I say, “but you can trust me.”

“Where will we go? Where is Eugène?” she asks.

“We’ll go to Saint-Germain-en-Laye,” I say, knowing I must return to school. “Eugène is still at Saint-Cloud.”

The excitement fades from her eyes. “So it was true. About the coup. But his mother, Joséphine. How will we ever...?”

“I don’t know. But we can’t stay here. I’ll tell you the rest on the way.”

I decide it’s best for us to go in a closed carriage rather than try to make the broken-down horse bear the weight of two. Soon we are on our way back to Madame Campan’s. I have no idea how I shall explain what I have done, who Madeleine is. What is more, I have no idea where Caroline, Valmont, and Hortense have gotten to by now.

We sit in silence part of the way. Once the gates of Paris
are behind us, Madeleine turns to me. “You’re a girl, aren’t you?”

I nod, thinking I may as well start the tale then, but she puts her hand on my arm to stop me.

“And you’re in love with Eugène.”

Now it is my turn to weep. Madeleine comforts me the rest of the way to Saint-Germain.

37
Hortense

As I put the finishing touches on my retransformation into a young lady who attends Madame Campan’s school, I still feel the sting of Louise’s comments about my mother.

There is some truth to what she says, and yet... Louise—like the rest of the world, it seems—does not know the full horror of everything my mother has been through. Maman clings to luxury as a way to stave off want, and she does it not for herself but for us, for me and Eugène. I know this. I see it with my soul.

And yet ... Surely we would be as happy if she could simply have wed any of the soldiers or merchants who have fallen in love with her? We could live in peace and security, and Eugène and I could both marry whom we want, rather than have to live up to her idea of who is worthy of us.

A timid knock at the door. “
Entrez
.”

It is Corinne, the maid, come to see if I need help with my hair. I decline politely and descend to the front door.

The house is clean and simple, but not without its touches of luxury. A painting hangs on the wall of the vestibule, a pastoral scene. A shepherdess brings a basket of fruit to a shepherd. I can tell by the light that it is evening, implying that the two are lovers. For a moment I imagine the pair is Michel and me, and soon my view is misted over with tears I must try to hold back.

“Shall I summon a fiacre?” asks Corinne.

“No. It is not far. I prefer to walk.”

Besides, I have to find a way to return the mare I arrived on to the barracks at Saint-Cloud.

The boy I asked to tend her is still standing across the street, a small circle of younger children clustered admiringly by. He allows them to pat the gentle creature’s nose in a constant rotation. A natural leader, I think.
May he never rise to greatness, and know the unhappiness that goes with it
.

As I approach him, he looks up and I see dawning confusion on his face. He recognizes me but sees I am not the soldier who engaged him to undertake the task. As soon as I am close enough, I open my mouth to begin my explanation.

But I am stopped when Michel suddenly steps out from behind the mare. “I’ll manage from here,” he says to the young lad, giving him a few
centimes
for his trouble. “Run along, all of you.”

Michel may be the son of the music master, the fop my
makeshift groom made such fun of, but he speaks with authority. Reluctantly, they scatter, the more curious among them going not too far away.

“Shall we walk together a little?” Michel says.

I am too overcome with sorrow to do anything but nod.

“You must understand that my feelings for you are no different than I expressed before. I am sorry if my foolish actions have caused you any pain.” A trace of a smile plays at the corners of his mouth. “My sister is a very determined person. She has managed our household since Mother died five years ago, and will not give up her position lightly.”

We are walking so slowly that the horse has time to snatch at bits of grass growing between the cobbles on these quiet streets. “I am not certain exactly what you mean, monsieur,” I say.

Something about the way Michel speaks annoys me. He does not appear crushed, defeated, the way I felt after everything Louise said. How I wish I had that note!

“I mean, foolish Hortense, that simply because Louise says it must not be so is no reason to give up hope.”