The Academie (3 page)

But as soon as she steps off the stage and the applause has died away, she becomes the bitter monster I know only too well.

Tonight I have retired to my attic room to sleep while
my mother attends a ball. I am not sad or sorry to be alone. I have a letter from my beloved. He has returned!

I shall come for you soon
, ma chérie.
I must attend upon the general tonight. We are to go to a ball, a celebration of the recent victories. But it is just the beginning. Something big will happen soon, something that will change the way France is governed. The Directoire must look to its back, or it will soon find itself out on the street. But I should not tell you this, except that I know I can trust you. Oh, how I wish I could present you to my mother and my sister as my wife! That, too, will come. Adieu
.

I pray that he will not encounter my mother, for I know they must be at the very same ball. Maman would not go anywhere that was not at the precise center of everything, where she couldn’t show herself to the greatest advantage.

I cannot blame her. She has suffered much as well. The only way she knows to survive is to be the most beautiful, most desired woman in her world.

Despite her wishes to the contrary, I have found it impossible to remain a small child, hidden in the background. I have grown, and now I am beautiful. I am still petite and dark skinned, but my big eyes and youthful curves are a threat to her. She sees the way her gentlemen friends cast their hungry gazes over me when I help her maid put away her costumes or bring her cape before she goes out to supper.
Now she sends me away when they come, and dresses me in the meanest rags she can find.

But still, if what my secret friend says is true, I am loved. At first I didn’t believe it. But it has been some months since the first time he sent a note to me after a performance. He does not know the full extent of my life here, how desperate I am. I am afraid to let on, afraid that it will drive him away.

He says he will marry me, when he comes of age. We are both young, although many girls my age are already promised. I’m certain Maman has forgotten how old I am, and conveniently ignores the fact that she should be looking to my future. I have no intention of making that future in this theater, in a world where nothing is real, where every night people pretend to be in love or to hate and then hang up their characters with their costumes.

I close my eyes and imagine myself in some other place, not in my cold attic room alone, but cradled in my sweet one’s arms, wearing a beautiful gown, whirling to music in the warm candlelight of a glittering ball, and I fall asleep at last, contented.

4
Eliza

I spent my entire first day at school observing Hortense and Caroline. I hardly had to observe! The bad blood between them is so obvious it could be embarrassing in any other setting. Here there is no one to pretend for. Even the young ones watch and wait for an opportunity to play one girl against the other. I thought the young students were all Caroline’s creatures in the morning. But by the end of the day, I wasn’t certain. Hortense has a quiet command that draws some of them to her with their needlework, as if copying her motions will make them more like her. And it is clear that Madame believes Hortense to be the ideal student. There is something about Hortense. Not just her beauty. She is fragile, as if some secret weighs on her, or some sorrow is always in her mind. I find myself wanting to protect her, despite the fact that she is older than me.

As to where I am to be in this intriguing game—I have not yet decided. I promised my mother I would write to her each day, and so now I must try to remember every detail, every nuance of expression and meaning so that I can get my mother’s advice on how to play along without exposing my own hand. What is that hand exactly? What do I want to accomplish for myself in this place?

I can see that the school itself is a grand enough setting now that I have resigned myself to being here. In addition to the large, airy parlor, there is a dining hall big enough for all forty students to sit down to dinner. And this leads to a ballroom. It must have been a lovely place once, although the chandeliers are swathed in netting and the gilding on the trim is worn off in most places. Still, I could imagine dancing here, my gown trailing behind me and my jewels glittering in the candlelight....

That is not likely to occur here, however. A school is hardly the setting for an elegant ball. So what, then? What do I want?

And suddenly, I know. I want to fall in love. Paris is so full of dashing young officers, and between Caroline and Hortense, I must be able to meet some of them. Oh, I know I shall likely return to Virginia and marry someone from a good family. But there is always the possibility of a lieutenant or a colonel, or perhaps even a marquis....

And there is a school full of boys just across the street. One of the younger girls told me they sometimes watch
them from the windows on the second floor as the boys take their exercise in the garden of the old convent building that houses them. I imagine they must be much more interesting than the rough lads in Virginia, who are good only at plowing the fields or killing birds with their guns. I have heard that there will be a tea party here in a day or two, and that some of the students from the boys’ school will come. Madame Campan thinks it’s important for us to learn how to behave among young men so that we are not flustered when we first go out in society.

It will be difficult to accomplish even a flirtation, though, that is not fully in view of everyone. I promised my mother that I would behave and follow all the rules. One false step, she said, and she would send me back to Virginia while she remains in Paris to enjoy the society. She is thinking of the time at school last year, I know, when I found out that our teacher had a lover and threatened to expose her for it if she did not make me first in the class. I did not know the man was my teacher’s fiancé. She went to my mother. I had to be very obedient after that, and was never first, no matter how hard I tried. My spirits were so low. That is when Mama decided to bring me back to Paris.

It is very quiet in the school. I expect everyone is asleep except for me. As my pen scratches on the page, I imagine it being as loud as a banging gong. This is the hour when Mama and I normally go over the day, whether we are in Virginia or in Paris. She sends the servants away, brushes
my hair herself, and we talk. Whenever I feel uncertain about something that has happened, she helps me sort out the meanings and threads. So what if the daughter of a minor Virginia landowner pulled my hair and called me a snob? She is not worth bothering about, my mother would say. Her family rose to prominence only because her grandfather was a thief and swindled his partner out of his half of the business. And if the teacher pays more attention to a boy who wants to go to Harvard, I must simply accept that I am only a girl and there are other ways to make a name for myself.

A small blob of ink drops onto the page. I have been sitting with my hand poised above the paper. Yet I still hear scratching. At first it is quiet, but it becomes louder.

“Eliza!” The whisper is just audible. I lay down my pen and go to the door of my room. Those of us with maids have private rooms. The other girls sleep in dormitories on the top floor, one for each class. Except for Hortense, who as one who has been at the school for a long time—Caroline told me it has been four years—has her own room down the corridor.

I open my door and am surprised to see Caroline standing there, not in her nightdress but in an evening gown and a velvet cloak.

“Come! We have no time to lose.”

She brushes past me into my room and heads straight for my wardrobe, opening the doors and rifling quickly
through my gowns. She pulls out my best evening dress and tosses it on the bed.

“Quickly!”

Not a word of explanation. She simply expects me to dress and go with her! Where? I can’t help wondering. But if I am to dress for evening, it must be a party! Perhaps I will meet someone handsome and dance.

“I’ll tell you all about it on the way. There’s nothing to worry about. I simply need your help. Do you have any jewels?”

While I slip out of my nightdress and into the silk gown with lace at the neck, she plunges her hands into my jewel case, tossing aside a few pieces until she reaches my pearl ear bobs and sapphire necklace.

“These will have to do. Now get your cloak. It’s cold.”

As we run quietly as ghosts through the dark corridors of the school, I realize that Caroline never gave me the opportunity to deny her, that she simply assumed she could command and I would obey. From all I’ve heard of her famous brother, this presumptuousness is a family trait.

An unmarked but very comfortable coach awaits us outside the gates of the school. As soon as we close the door behind us, the driver cracks his whip and we lurch forward over the cobbles.

“I only hope we are not too late!” Caroline says with a cross glance at me, as though the lightning speed with which I prepared myself had somehow delayed us.

I reach up my hand to pat my hair. I hadn’t yet taken it down for the day, but if I’d known I was going anywhere, I would have repinned it to catch up the strands that had fallen loose.

“You’re fine; don’t worry. No one will look at you.” Caroline chews the side of her thumb and stares absently out the window. Her words hurt, just a little.

“Where are we going?” I ask since she hasn’t volunteered any information.

“To Paris. To a party at a lady’s
hôtel particulier
.”

I want to ask which lady, thinking it possible my mother will be there, but the abrupt way Caroline answers discourages me from saying anything more.

And besides, isn’t this what I want? To go out to parties? I just didn’t expect to be doing so in secret in the middle of the night, without my mother’s knowledge or approval. Why does Caroline need me by her side? What purpose will I serve?

The carriage is racing through the streets toward the gates of Paris. How will we get through at that hour? Must we pay a toll? I didn’t bring any money with me.

Caroline remains silent most of the way. I think about trying to make small talk, but it feels out of place in these circumstances.

After what seems too short a time, I hear the coachman telling the horses to pull up. I see a gate and a watchman ahead and the lights of Paris beyond. Caroline sits forward
in her seat, fumbling for something tucked into her cloak. To my surprise, she draws out two silk masks.

“Here! Put this on!”

I quickly tie mine over my eyes, positioning the slits so that I can see out. Caroline has fastened hers remarkably quickly. Though she thinks I don’t notice, I see her take a small note from the folds of her cloak. The watchman comes to the window. She smiles and leans on the top of the door.

“
Merci, monsieur
,” she says, putting out her gloved hand with the folded note tucked into her palm. I catch the fellow’s eyes. They are that lively dark brown I have noticed in the faces of some attractive Parisian gentlemen. He casts them rapidly over the note, and almost before I can register his reaction, he yells “
Allez
!” up to the coachman and we are off again.

“Are you planning to tell me why we’re going out at this hour?” I ask, by now so mystified and curious I can stand it no longer.

Caroline turns to me, now smiling and calm, the way she was at school earlier. “We are going to meet a particular friend of mine, at a masked ball.”

“Why have you brought me with you?”

“Because, my dear Eliza, I wish to make you my particular friend as well. And in order to do that, we must have a secret together,
non?
”

We arrive at the gates of a very grand house. I see many coaches ahead of us, letting out their passengers at the door.
All the ladies are masked, but not costumed. They are the kind of masks that make the wearers feel protected but do not fool anyone acquainted with them. If my mother is here, she will surely recognize me. I pray she has either not been invited or is at home with one of her headaches—ungracious as that sounds.

After we descend from the coach Caroline takes my arm as if we are sisters, or at least the closest of friends. She is rather short, and so anyone might think we were quite close in age, not separated by four years.

We enter the ballroom after letting a maid take our cloaks. I have never seen anything so dazzling. It’s as if all the jewels women hid away during the revolution and the
Terreur
are on display at the same time, glittering in the flicker of thousands of candle flames.

“Don’t gawk!” Caroline hisses in my ear, squeezing my arm a little too hard. Her eyes scan the guests. She is affecting ennui, but I can tell she is searching for someone. I don’t have to be a genius to guess it is a gentleman.

“Merde!”
she whispers. An elderly lady standing nearby turns quickly and glares at her, but Caroline doesn’t notice.

“What?” I ask.

“See, over there?”

She lifts her chin toward a corner of the room, where a knot of men in uniforms with sashes is standing, their backs to the dancing couples in the center. They are clearly in deep conversation with each other. I shrug. “What is it?”

“My brother is with them. I did not think he would be here.”

I still don’t know who Caroline is looking for, but if Bonaparte is here then surely Joséphine cannot be far. As I look around, I see the most extraordinary lady, her skin so dark I could almost imagine she is one of the slaves who work our land, but she is dressed in a column of silver silk, with jewels draped over her. Perhaps she has darkened her skin because of the party? “Who is that?” I ask Caroline, turning her so she can see.

She tosses her head. “An actress. She is all the rage at the Comédie Française, I’m told. She is supposed to be the estranged wife of a
vicomte
, but that is only by her word.”