My Bonny Light Horseman (23 page)

He looked pained. "No, that is not it at all, it is..."

"Well, here, a last kiss for you, silly puppy, for you shall receive no others from me." I stretched my neck upward and kissed him on the cheek as I did yesterday when we left the carriage after our day in Paris. "There, Jean-Paul de Valdon, Aristocrat of France. Now run along home and tell your
maman
that you were kissed by a bad girl and she will wash your face for you, with strong soap, so you will be clean again! And maybe she'll wipe your bum for you, too! Baby!"

I shoved him away and strode down the street to
Café des Deux Chats,
leaving Jean-Paul de Valdon behind me. The food was, again, very good, but I didn't enjoy it as much.
Stupid boy...

When I arrive at the front door of Madame Pelletier's studio on rue de Clichy, my knock is answered by an old man with white hair and whiskers, dressed in what I suppose is a French butler's rig. He is very courtly and escorts me in to meet Madame Pelletier.

On my way in I notice that Madame Pelletier's establishment is more than a mere studio—it is actually a small theater. There is an entrance hall, a foyer that contains what appears to be a bar, and beyond that, a large open room with seating for perhaps a hundred patrons of the art of dance. The walls are lined with elegantly framed paintings, most of them, to my eye, very fine.

I can see that there is a stage raised about three feet above the level of the floor, with room in the front to seat a small orchestra. I assume the dressing rooms are in back.

Madame, herself, a small, trim woman, is seated at the bar, sipping a cup of tea and reading a newspaper. She looks up, I dip down in a medium curtsy and say, "
Bonjour, Madame.
I am Mademoiselle Jacqueline Ophelia Bouvier. I believe I am expected?"

I hand her my letter of introduction supplied to me by British Intelligence. She takes it and opens it.

As she reads it, the other girls of her troupe come straggling in, singly or in pairs, yawning and whining about the earliness of the hour and the wretchedness of their lives, and asking why do they have to practice anyway when they already know the routines.

"Ah, yes. You are our American girl. Good. Welcome, Jacqueline. I just lost a girl to a Polish general who took her as his mistress last week and I need a replacement. I like to have an even dozen in my
corps de ballet,
and I was assured you were qualified." Madame takes another sip of her tea, puts down the cup, and raises her voice to call, "Blanche, come here!"

A harried-looking older woman with pins held in her thin lips emerges from a side door, looks me up and down, and raises her eyebrows in question to Madame Pelletier.

"
Oui?
"

"This is the new girl. Her name is Jacqueline. Take her back and fit her out in costume. Then we will have practice."

The woman named Blanche looks at me and points to the door of the room from which she had just come. I bow slightly to Madame Pelletier. "Thank you for receiving me so graciously, Madame."

Madame nods and goes back to her newspaper as I follow Blanche into what I find are the dressing rooms ... or rather, dressing
room.

The other girls are already there, getting into their costumes, calling out to one another, making jokes, and laughing uproariously. There are two long benches on either side of the room, two lines of lockers, and two large windows at the rear of the room to let in some light and air.

They quiet down a bit upon seeing me enter.

"And what is this?" asks a tall girl who is seated on the bench, pulling up her stocking.

"I am Jacqueline Ophelia Bouvier from America, here to join your company," I say.

"That is your locker there," says the taciturn Blanche, very little interested in who I am and where I came from. "Take off your clothes, and then stand on that box there."

"But why are you here?" asks the same tall girl. I sense that she is the leader of the pack, and I find I am not wrong.

"I am here to dance," I say. I slip off my shoes and hang my hat on a hook in my locker.

"There is no dance in America, that you have to come all the way over here?"

"There is not much," I say. "Have you not heard of the Puritans? They do not like dancing." I shrug off my cloak and hang it on yet another hook.

"I think she comes to dance
le jig-jig
at 127, rue de Londres," giggles another girl, and this is met with great gales of laughter from the others.

"You know my name, but I do not know yours," I say to the girl who has just made the joke.

"I am Giselle," she replies, rising to put on her skirt. "And this is Zoé," nodding to the tall girl. "And that is Béatrice, Yolande, Georgette, Yvonne, Isadora, Francette, Héloïse, Véronique, and Sacha."

"I am most pleased to make your acquaintance," I say, with a deep curtsy. "Thank you for making me welcome."

It is then that I unloosen the fastenings on my dress and pull it over my head, exposing my shiv held in its sheath on my left forearm. The room goes dead silent. If I had known this was going to happen, I would not have worn it, but I did. And maybe it's good that they see it and know I am not a helpless waif. Even though, at the moment, I am feeling exactly like one.

I take off the sheath and stuff it on the upper shelf in the locker. I quickly pull off my stockings and underclothes and then bounce up on the box to await Blanche's fitting.

"
Ooh là là...,
" whispers Giselle, looking about at her sisters in wonderment. "She looks like a baby, but she has a sharp tooth."

"And a tattoo," says Zoé, walking about me as I stand there. "And what looks like a whip scar. What do we have here?
Une petite tigresse?
"

"Just a simple American girl," I say, grinning. "And how about this?" I reach up and pull off my wig, revealing my short-cropped hair.

That
gets more gasps than anything. I think I may have won over this audience.

The tape measure goes around my waist, and I am fitted for my costume. It consists of a tight white sleeveless chemise top with narrow shoulder straps, white stockings that reach only the midthigh and are held up by pink garters, and very short drawers with ruffles that run across the rump. A gauzy white skirt that barely comes to the knees completes the thing.
Ooh là là,
indeed.

Then we have rehearsal.

Madame conducts it herself. The old man at the door picks up a fiddle and saws out some music for us to dance to. It's Luigi Boccherini, I think, Concerto in D Major or something or other. The choreography is quite simple, and, since I have been provided with instruction on the dances she stages, I get along quite well. It is mostly step, kick, step, kick, side step, slide back, and kick. There are lots of high kicks and flashings of ruffled tail. If I stumble, the other girls help me out, and soon I have everything down pat. They really are a pretty good bunch.

Lunch is brought in and we have a great time eating and telling stories. I regale them with tales of Boston and my journey down the Mississippi and New Orleans—they can't get enough of New Orleans, being French and all—and then we go back to practice.

After two more hours of rehearsal, Madame calls a halt, we get dressed again, and she warns everyone to be back at six o'clock for tonight's show at seven.

Before I put my hat on to leave, Madame calls me aside for a bit of a talk.

"Ahem," she begins. "As for the men who will come here ... You will not be forced to go with any of them, but we expect you to be friendly—mix with them in the intermission, flirt with them. If you leave with one of them, what you do then is your own business. But we like to keep them happy, so they will keep coming back to
Les Petites Gamines.
Do you understand? Some rich and powerful men come here, and more than a few of my girls have made very profitable liaisons.
Comprenez-vous?
"

"Yes, Madame, I do."

"Good. You did well today. And your accent,
Américaine,
is it? I'm sure some will find it very charming. Good day."

I go back to rue de Londres, take a nap, get up, freshen myself, and go out for a bite before returning to
Les Petites Gamines de Paris.

I'm sitting at
Café des Deux Chats,
polishing off an excellent plate of snails, when the chair across from me is pulled out and my blood runs cold. It is Monsieur Jardineaux, my would-be executioner and now my promised
control.

"A glass of wine with you, Sir?" I manage to offer through clenched teeth.

"Shut up, girl. Listen to me and heed me well. We are too exposed here and will not meet like this again." He looks about him to make sure we are not observed.

"What could be better cover?" I ask, recovering myself a bit. "A man sitting at a table talking to a known denizen of the demimonde. What is more ordinary in Paris, the City of Light?"

"We'll see. Now, here are some rules. When we want to talk to you, we will put a light in the window directly across from your room. You will then go down to the corner to await further instructions. If you want to talk to us, hang this yellow handkerchief out your window and we will contact you. Do you have that?"

"I am not stupid, Sir," I say, taking the yellow rag from him and stuffing it up my sleeve.

"I know you are not that. You have been here for only three days and already you have turned one of my valued operatives into a babbling idiot. Monsieur de Valdon is quite unsettled. One more slip on his part and he will be sent back to the provinces for retraining."

"I shall try to be good, and I will bother the confused Monsieur de Valdon no more."

"That is good. Now ... At the performance tonight there will be many men, and you must mix with them all, but I want you to focus in on one in particular, Marshal Hilaire de Groote. He is a General of the Imperial Guard, Napoléon's finest regiment. We need to know when and to where Napoléon is going to move the Grand Army. He had massed it at Dunkerque to move across into Britain, but his fleet was destroyed at Trafalgar."

"I know that, Sir, as I was there."

He greets that statement with a cold laugh.

"That may be so, but what you don't know is where he plans to move that army. General de Groote does know, and it is up to you to find out.

"The General is a tall, heavy man with a large mustache who will be wearing the Imperial Guard uniform—dark blue coat with long tails and red turnbacks, red epaulets, and white lapels. He will probably be wearing his medals, too, as he is not a modest man. It shouldn't be difficult for you to recognize him."

"I am sure I will be able to pick him out," I say. "But why do you think I will be able to get close to him? There are many girls there, and they are all very pretty."

He gets up and looks down at me.

"One thing that is known about Marshal de Groote—he likes his girls little and he likes them young."

"Ah" is all I say.

"Do your duty, girl," he says. "Report to me tomorrow morning.
Adieu.
"

He leaves just in time, as Giselle and Zoé waltz into the place and I wave them over for a final aperitif before we head off to our work.

The place fills up quickly. I peek out through the curtain, excited. Though both myself and my virtue may be in deep trouble, still I do love a show, I do love to perform. There are both men and women in the crowd and all are very finely dressed. There are also many men in uniform, and splendid uniforms they are—Grenadiers, Lancers, Hussars, Light Cavalry, Dragoons, Cuirassiers—all plumes and cockades and tight trousers and boots and epaulets and bright turnbacks and snowy lapels ... and that is just the men, the women are—

"Come back from there, Jacqui," orders Zoé, taking me by the shoulder and pulling me back from the curtain. "Time for mixing with them later. Tell us another story of America, while we wait for the opening number." It hadn't taken them long to figure out that my English name is the same as the French so they shorten it almost immediately to Jacqui. They pronounce it "Jacky" so it sounds right familiar to me.

There is an orchestra out there, too, and they are tuning up. They have two fiddles, a viola, cello, oboe, trumpet, and bassoon. I have never worked with such an ensemble! Joy!

I go back into the dressing room. We are all in costume and ready to go. The orchestra runs through the squeaks and squawks of tuning up and getting ready. I'm in the middle of telling the girls about the House of the Rising Sun in New Orleans while they interrupt with questions, when everybody falls silent.

"All right, girls, places!" announces Madame Pelletier. And we all hit our marks. The curtain rises and the music swells.

The first number is a thing where we all pretend to be fluttering swans on a lake, all on tippy toes and moving our arms like softly flapping wings, and Isadora, dressed as a hunter, lifts her crossbow and shoots Zoé, the head swan, in the breast and she falls fluttering to the ground and the rest of us swans gather around her and mourn her death. Actually, given the caliber of this troupe, she doesn't do a bad job in dying. I could do better, but, hey, let it go.

Curtain down, applause, the orchestra cuts into a new piece, Haydn, I think, and we get a slight break. I do love the applause.

Again the curtain rises and this time we are elves in a forest cavorting about most scandalously. Toads and frogs are involved. Hopping about, I get to the front rank in this one and I spot him, and he is looking directly at me, no question, and his look does not waver. It is, without doubt, Marshal Hilaire de Groote, in full military rig, and with lust in his eye. He is, however, seated next to a very stern-looking woman.
Hmmm...

The number ends, the elf queen is restored to her throne, and the curtain falls. It is intermission and we get to take a bow, lining up, hand in hand across the stage.

The crowd gets up from their seats and heads to the bar for refreshment, and we girls, throwing silken shawls about our shoulders for modesty, go there to join them.