The Magician's Wife (5 page)

She heard the spatter of rain, but the walk ahead remained dry, protected by the thick foliage above her. Imagine this huge château filled with servants, furniture, paintings, tapestries, yet used only for a few weeks of each year. If Maman were still alive, I could tell her about the dresses, the dancing, the
cent gardes
and my curtsy to the Empress, but Papa won’t believe we were invited because the Emperor wants Henri to perform some service. What could that possibly be, he’ll say, your husband isn’t a soldier or a diplomat, what can they want of him, what use could they make of him and his tricks?

At the end of the trellis walk, she saw hedges, paths, formal gardens, deserted, curtained by rain. What time is it? She looked back. The cleric had gone in. Suddenly worried she ran back down the dark, now interminable trellis walk to the doorway where her lackey sat on a high stool, waiting. He told her the time. Luncheon at eleven, less than thirty minutes to change. He led her back to her rooms and went off to summon the old maid. Frantic, Emmeline sat, her shoulders bare, while the old maid, mouth full of pins, began to put up her hair.

In the adjoining sitting room, Lambert closed his notebook and said crossly, ‘Why did you leave it so late? We’re late already. It’s five minutes to eleven. How can you do this?’

‘Go then, if you want to. You can make my apologies.’

‘Maybe I will. One of us should be on time.’ He shut the book with a snap and went out of the room.

‘Perhaps I won’t go down,’ she said, half to herself, half to the old maid. ‘I won’t be missed.’

‘No, Madame. It would be noticed. Which dress, Madame?’

She chose the dark-blue poplin, trimmed with dark-blue plush, and struggled into it as the old maid fussed to lock the clasp of her bracelet.

‘You are ready now, Madame.
Bon appétit
.’

A lackey waited by the door. She followed him down the stairs, through interminable corridors, into the great hall where, a bad sign, the
cent gardes
stood at ease, stiffening to attention as she rushed past. The dining-room doors were shut. A footman hurriedly opened for her, as her lackey led her in.

Luncheon had begun. Head bent, blushing, she followed the lackey down the long table. Where was Henri? Where should she sit? Did the Emperor look up as she hurried past him? The First Chamberlain did.

‘There is no formal seating for luncheon,’ the lackey whispered. ‘Madame might sit here?’

A chair was drawn back and she sat at last. The lady sitting opposite welcomed her with a smile then turned to whisper something to her neighbour, an aristocratic young gentleman who put his hand over his mouth as if to stifle a laugh. What are they saying? Making fun of me? And then at the far end of the table she saw Henri leaning forward to catch her attention, giving her an angry look. She tried to stare him down but he, as if to rebuke her, turned his head and spoke gaily to a lady on his left. Where is the Colonel? But the table was so long, the number of guests almost a hundred, he could be anywhere in this crowd. She turned to the gentleman on her right.

‘Good morning,’ she said.

‘Not the best of mornings, is it, Mademoiselle. It’s raining outside. I suspect they’ll have to cancel the shooting party this afternoon. Is your escort a gun?’

What did he mean? At a loss, she smiled at him. He called me Mademoiselle. A gun?

‘There are some very good guns in this
série
,’ the gentleman said. ‘Prince von Lowenstein, an Austrian, is here. Last year at Compiègne, he shot one thousand, two hundred birds in one day. Astonishing. As for me, I’m glad that it’s raining. I’m afraid I’m a very poor shot.’

‘I hope it rains all week.’

The gentleman smiled. ‘For my sake, Mademoiselle? How sweet of you.’

‘No,’ she said, ‘I mean, for the sake of the birds.’

He laughed. ‘You have a tender heart, I see. But I notice you are about to eat pheasant.’

She looked down at her plate. A lackey stepped forward and filled her wine glass from a crystal decanter.

The gentleman raised his glass to her in toast. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘That wasn’t fair. Forgive me. Let me introduce myself. I am Jean de Courcel. And you, Mademoiselle?’

‘Lambert,’ she said. ‘And it is Madame.’

‘Lambert? Are you, by chance, the wife of the magician? I was told that he is here.’

‘I am.’

He smiled and looked at her again, now, she sensed, with a certain condescension. ‘Ah! So we are in for a treat, are we? You must introduce me to your husband. I’ve always been fascinated by magicians and magic tricks.’

The rain had stopped. As the guests left the luncheon table, a cold November sunlight shone through long french windows which faced the formal gardens at the rear of the château. Emmeline waited by the door of the dining room until Lambert joined her and then in angry silence walked with him up the long corridor lined by
cent gardes
. At the end of the corridor a group of chamberlains was in conversation with certain guests, one of whom was Colonel Deniau who, at sight of her, came over, bowed and kissed her hand, a true kiss, his lips moist on her skin.

‘Good morning, Madame. And Lambert, my dear fellow, I have news for you. Do you shoot?’

She saw Henri look at her, in warning. ‘Not regularly,’ he said, laughing a false laugh. ‘But I can point a gun. However, I don’t have guns or a shooting costume.’

‘Nor do I,’ the Colonel said. ‘But we’ll be outfitted after a fashion. The Emperor has asked us to join his party this afternoon. Madame also, of course. The carriages will be waiting in the main courtyard at two o’clock.’ He turned to her. ‘The Empress will be joining us, so you may have a chance to meet her. Don’t forget to dress warmly. I look forward to being with you this afternoon.’

With a bow and a smile, he turned and went out into the gardens.

‘What’s come over you?’ she said. ‘Why did you say you shoot, you’ve never gone on shooting parties, you told me you have no interest in that sort of thing. Besides it’s cruel, horrible, stupid.’

‘I know, I know. But I’ve got to go, I’ve
got
to! This is a personal invitation from Louis Napoleon himself. For God’s sake, Emmeline! Please, darling. You’ve been invited as well. It would be an insult to the Empress if you refused. Please? I haven’t asked a lot from you, have I?’

‘No.’ Suddenly, she felt as if she would weep.

‘Then,
please
?’

At two o’clock, footmen helped them into
chars à bancs
, tucking them under heavy rugs. The Colonel sat next to Emmeline, his leg touching hers under the rug. Lambert, at the far end of the
char à bancs
engaged his neighbour in sporadic conversation.

In the main courtyard trumpets sounded a fanfare as the Emperor came through the main entrance arch in company with a gentleman, who, the Colonel said, was Prince Metternich, the Austrian Ambassador. The two men climbed into a small dog cart and the Emperor took the reins. Then the Empress came down the great stone staircase, wearing a green shooting costume and an elegant three-cornered hat trimmed with gold braid. With her was Princess von Lowenstein, the wife of the famous gun. These ladies were seated in a victoria. With a flick of his whip, the Emperor started up his dog cart, leading the cavalcade of vehicles out of the courtyard on to the network of private roads which criss-crossed the vastness of the royal forest. Emmeline, snug in her travelling cloak, her sealskin-lined boots tucked under a heavy bearskin rug, was aware that Colonel Deniau and she were being jostled together and that this both amused and pleased him.

‘Are you warm enough?’ he asked. ‘I’m afraid it will be chilly at the shoot.’

‘I’m quite comfortable,’ she said. ‘In fact, I wish I could stay in this carriage and not have to watch.’

‘But you’ve been to
chasses à tir
before, haven’t you? I suspect that your husband is quite a good shot.’

‘Did he tell you that?’

He laughed. ‘No, but he seems to know a lot about guns.’

‘I’ve never seen him shoot,’ she said. ‘He takes birds and rabbits out of a hat.’

Again, he laughed and looked at her with a delighted, complicit smile.

Why did I say that? Anger against Henri, yes, but it’s something more. I want us both to make fun of him.

Ahead, they could now see a large open space surrounded by thick forest. Assembled there, a crowd waited for their arrival. As they descended from their carriages it seemed to Emmeline as if the entire population of Compiègne had turned out as beaters and spectators. Now, guided by chamberlains, the sportsmen took their places in a long line, the Emperor in the middle, with Prince Metternich on his right and Prince von Lowenstein on his left. She saw that her husband and the Colonel were placed near the end of the line.

Once the sportsmen were in position the ladies were asked to stand behind them, much too close, Emmeline thought, for directly behind the ladies were gamekeepers, darting forward to load and hand fresh guns to their masters. Suddenly, Louis Napoleon raised his hand and in an enormous hubbub the lines of beaters moved through the forest, forcing birds to fly up above the trees and rabbits and hares to come scuttling into the open. Hundreds of animals had been frightened and hoarded into an area from which they could not escape and now were being driven to their deaths.

Emmeline stood, deafened by the roar of guns, shutting her eyes to the rain of dead animals falling from the sky, aware that all around her beaters were rushing about, picking up the dead and dying animals and putting them into numbered sacks, thus making a tally of each sportsman’s kills. Henri? And the Colonel? She turned and looked down the line. Lambert raising his gun, firing, exchanging the empty gun with his loader, skilful yet theatrical in this movement as he was in everything, the butchery of sport forgotten in his eagerness to be seen as one of these rich and idle aristocrats. She looked past him, to Colonel Deniau. His scarred face impassive, he stood like a soldier firing implacably at some unseen enemy in the sky, ignoring the pitiable dead and dying creatures that fell at his feet.

Ill, turning this way and that to avoid the gun loaders, the men picking up the dead birds, the jolting echoes of firing, the smell of gunpowder, the stench of death, Emmeline suddenly knew that she would vomit and so, holding up her long skirt, ran back towards the carriages. As she did she saw, ahead, the Empress and a lady-in-waiting hurrying towards the victoria as a postilion readied a wooden step to help them to mount into the carriage. The Empress, turning back, saw Emmeline, her pale face, her panic.

‘Are you all right, my dear?’

Unable to speak, Emmeline nodded, choking back the bile in her throat.

‘It’s too cold,’ the Empress said. ‘It’s this November damp. We are going back now. I advise you to do the same if you’re not feeling well.’

With that, the Empress and her-lady-in-waiting were helped up into their seats. Emmeline turned away so that they would not see. She retched.

A chamberlain came running across the grass. ‘Madame is ill. Would you like to go back, Madame?’

Miserable, she nodded her head, fumbling in her muff for a handkerchief to wipe her mouth. She heard the chamberlain call, ‘Georges!’

A coachman came up, touching his fingers to his cap in salute. ‘If Madame will follow me?’

He led her to a phaeton, helping her up and tucking her in under a heavy robe. Some of the watching villagers turned to look at her as the little carriage trundled off down a royal road. In the distance the angry staccato of guns sounded strangely like the cawing of crows. And then she was alone, quiet, away from the noise of carnage, hearing only the clop of the horse’s hoofs, the coachman on his bench in front of her, head nodding as the phaeton jolted towards the château of Compiègne.

The sky went dark. Spits of rain increased to a drizzle. The coachman raised an umbrella, handed it back to her, then whipped his horse into a gallop. Emmeline sat, eyes shut, head bent, the umbrella stick clutched in her hands like a processional cross, nausea again rising within her. If this rain continues the shooting will end and they’ll come back to the château looking for some new diversion. Killing birds, hunting stags, tea parties, banquets, charades, concerts, dancing, anything and everything to get them through the boredom, snobbery and indifference of their lives. Why did I pretend the Colonel wasn’t one of them, he’s the one who brought us here, how could he ever be attracted to someone like me, whatever it is he wants from Henri, it suits him and amuses him to flirt with me, I’d be a fool to think it’s anything else. If only this carriage were taking me to Rouen. Papa would give me medicine to stop this retching, Marie would undress me, make me a tisane, and put hot-water bottles in my bed. I’ll tell Henri I’m sick, I’ll say I have a fever, I’ll say I can’t be sick here, I’ll ask him to send me back to Tours with that old servant, she’ll take care of me, he doesn’t have to come, he can stay on for the rest of the week, showing off, talking to the Emperor about whatever it is they want him to do, anyway he’s angry with me, he was furious this morning when I was late for lunch and when I didn’t want to go to the
chasse à tir
. No one will miss me. I’ll go to bed now. Tomorrow morning, I’ll leave.