The Academie (20 page)

“It will do,” Eugène says, softening his angry edge by tossing the boy a coin.

In no time I find myself seated atop a swaybacked bay gelding whose head hangs down as though he has no more interest in leaving his comfortable stall than climbing to the moon. “I’ll need a crop,” I say. The boy fetches one with two strands of knotted leather at the end.

“Follow the main road until you get to the crossroads. There will be a sign to Paris. At the gates, simply say you are on Napoléon’s business. They won’t question you.” Eugène gives me the instructions as he checks to make sure the saddle is secure.

“What shall I do when I’m finished?”

“Ride the horse back here, if he’s still alive. I’ll make sure you are returned to school without anyone knowing what you’ve done.”

For just a moment he covers my hand with his. I bend forward, not really knowing what I expect.

He kisses me, lightly, on the lips. I do not move away from him, but reach closer. Our lips touch again. I feel the soft warmth of his mouth and close my eyes. For just a moment, he returns my kiss.

Then abruptly, he pulls away and gently but firmly pushes me upright upon the saddle. “Thank you, Eliza,” he says, his eyes full of gratitude, and perhaps something else. Then he steps back, tips his hat to me, and slaps the horse’s rump to get him going.

34
Madeleine

I don’t know how much time has passed since I shut myself in my attic room. I am surprised that my mother has not come with an ax to break down the door. Marianne must have done a great deal to keep her at bay. Marianne, and the opium.

If my mother were awake, no doubt she would be ranting, calling for me, demanding that I come and help her. She is doubtless still sleeping off her drug-induced dreams. Once she awakens, she will commence her torments, and I will have to leave this place.

How differently I thought this day would go! I shouldn’t be here anymore. I feel like an in-between creature, not real, not imaginary. Half white, half black. Part educated, part ignorant. I am not whole, I am in pieces, and if I sit here long enough I will disappear.

“
Pssst
. Madeleine!”

The voice is quiet, but it pierces my awareness. It’s Marianne. What has she come to tell me? I open my mouth to try to speak, but all that emerges is another strangled sob.

“I have heard something. Something that may explain why he is not here.”

There can be no explanation. He promised. But I listen anyway.

“The Directoire and the Council of Five Hundred have fled to Saint-Cloud—supposedly for their protection. But a courier came by the theater and said that the army was there, waiting for them. It seems that several of the actresses expected callers who wouldn’t be able to make it today.”

I try to still my weeping. “Th-the army? Why?”

“The government is falling. They are getting rid of the Directoire. They say Bonaparte will be in charge one way or the other.”

It would have to be something that important
, I think,
to make Eugène break his promise to me
. “So, what happens next?” For me, hope blossoms again. Perhaps he is not faithless after all.

“No one knows. But you see, Beauharnais has not broken faith with you!”

I am silent. Whatever the reason for his absence, the fact remains that I am still here, and now my mother, who surely has discovered that I had plans to run away, will make it impossible to go. “Why could he not send word himself?” I
say, the heavy feeling pressing down on my chest again all the harder for the momentary relief I felt.

“Where is that wretch!”

My mother. She has awakened.

“I—I don’t know, madame,” Marianne answers. But she is not a good liar.

“She’s up there, isn’t she? Hiding!” My mother’s voice somehow manages to be harsh and slurred at the same time.

I hear her angry footsteps below and she mounts the ladder to the locked hatch into my sanctuary, pounding and pounding on it until my ears want to pop open. “Trollop! Minx!
Putain!
You thought you could get away, didn’t you? I’ll send for the director. He will get a carpenter. You’ll have to come out, and then you’ll feel the imprint of my anger!”

I must keep away from her! But how! If she beats me, I will have bruises.

“Madame, you must not exert yourself. You perform this evening. Let me massage your shoulders....”

Dear Marianne. She knows better than anyone how to placate my mother when she is in such a state. I wish I could do something for her. I don’t know why she has taken my side so completely.

However she manages it, Marianne succeeds in leading my mother down the ladder and toward her dressing room. The banging and shouting cease, and I am again free to close my eyes and imagine Eugène coming for me. I hear the pounding of his horse’s hooves, see the smile on his face
as he rides up to the theater, carrying a warm cloak to throw around me. He strides in. No one dares stop him! Right past my mother, whom he pushes aside to reach me. I open the door and fall into his arms. He sweeps me off my feet and carries me down the stairs, past Gric, who stares and drools. I am gone! Away from here! To a new life ...

“Madeleine—someone is here. With a message!”

Am I still dreaming? No; it’s Marianne. “Find out who it is!”

She runs off. I hear my mother somewhere below, laughing.

35
Hortense

I know I have arrived at the correct house when I hear scales on a pianoforte, interrupted every now and then with a flourish of an arpeggio. A maid opens the door to my knock and looks startled at seeing me. For a moment I have forgotten my disguise in the anticipation of seeing my love.

“Is Monsieur Michel Perroquet at home?” I ask, trying to be gentle and carry authority at the same time.

She curtsies as she opens the door wide and lets me step into a small, tidy vestibule. She has been taught well, I see. And I see as well that the house is commodious enough to welcome prestigious students.

“Who shall I say is calling?” she asks.

She reaches for my hat. The jolting of the ride has loosened the pins that held my hair in place, and when I remove my tricorn, it unleashes my long blond hair and sends it
cascading over my shoulders. She takes a step backward, her eyes round and frightened. I smile to reassure her. It is too late for subterfuge now. “Just tell him a friend awaits, who received his letter and is ready to do his bidding.”

Understandably, the poor woman is beyond speech. She scampers into the room where the music is coming from.

The scales cease as soon as the maid enters. I hear firm, rapid footsteps cross the floor to the door, and in a moment it is flung wide. There is Michel.

I want to throw myself into his arms, to let him take the matter where it must go from here. But his expression—his eyes brim with tears and yet he appears nervous, uncertain. He turns his head just slightly in the direction of the room behind him, and I see beyond to the figure of an attractive young lady seated at the pianoforte.

The maid hangs back, no doubt waiting to see what will happen next.

“Did you not receive my letter? I explained everything in it.”

It is as I feared. The letter Caroline stole contained vital information that might have made me act differently. “I received it, but it was... mislaid... before I could finish reading it.”

“Corinne, take Mademoiselle Hortense up to my sister’s room so that she may refresh herself.” He must sense my confusion. I am a contradiction. A freak. A stupid, stupid girl.

I manage to hold myself together all the way up the
narrow stair until after Corinne closes the door behind her and I find myself in a small but pretty bedchamber. Unable to do otherwise, I throw myself upon the carefully made bed and let myself sob into a stranger’s pillow.

I don’t know how much time has passed, but my tears have ceased. I hear a gentle knock upon the door.
“Entrez!”
I call out, hoping I do not sound as though I have been weeping.

The young lady I saw at the piano enters the room, closing the door behind her. “My brother has told me a little about you.”

She approaches and sits on the edge of the bed. “I am sorry to have intruded upon your household,” I say. “I had no idea Michel had a sister.” And, I must confess, I am very relieved to discover it. My imagination leaped immediately to the conclusion that the lady I saw at the pianoforte must have been his love, his true love, and that he must have written to tell me he had been mistaken about me after all. Curse Caroline for stealing that letter!

“Michel is very distressed. I can hardly console him enough for him to tell me the entire story. Perhaps you could enlighten me as to why such a famous young lady as yourself, Hortense de Beauharnais, stepdaughter to our country’s greatest general, has arrived at our door, dressed in such unconventional garb.”

I can’t quite discern what she thinks about me. She has sympathetic eyes, but she does not smile. “You have the
advantage of me,” I say. “You know my name, but I do not know yours.” I am reluctant to unburden myself to Michel’s sister, who is after all a stranger to me. And I know how protective sisters can be of an only brother.

“Forgive me, of course. I am Louise Perroquet. There are only three of us, with Papa. Our mother died when we were both children.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, a little ashamed that I know so little of this man I love, who I am ready to elope with this very minute if he will have me. “I believe I may have misinterpreted something. Your brother and I... we love each other. But he sent me a letter through your father, and I began to read it, but was interrupted. The letter vanished before I could form anything but a vague impression of what it said.”

I don’t want to tell her more. I still don’t know how she feels about Michel and me.

“It is unlike my brother to enter into a secret correspondence. Still more strange that my father would have permitted it. I wonder why it is that my brother has not mentioned you to me before today. We share all our secrets. He is devoted to the family.” Her eyes shine with pride. I realize then that she considers me an enemy, a rival, someone capable of undermining the security and safety of their family. I understand how that feels: not wanting anyone to upset a fragile balance of affection. “Such an omission would indicate that perhaps you
have
misinterpreted his intentions.”

The words hit me like a slap.
No!
In the times we have
been together I cannot have mistaken his feelings. Something else is going on; I know it. I can say no more to Louise. “Where is Michel? I must speak with him.”

“He has left the house to give a music lesson to the daughter of a wealthy merchant. She is a dear friend of mine, and I have long cherished the hope that she would one day be my sister.”

Clearly, Louise will do everything in her power to obstruct Michel’s and my love for each other. “I must return to the Académie. I fear I ...” I look down at my uniform, now splotched where my tears have fallen.

“Please select one of my gowns to wear. Corinne will help you do your hair. I’m sorry not to invite you to stay for a dish of tea, but I have calls to make.” She stands. She is very pretty, but there is an edge of sadness around her eyes. She curtsies, no more than a dip, says, “Good-bye, Mademoiselle de Beauharnais,” and turns away from me.

“I must know something before you leave,” I say.

She stops and looks over her shoulder at me, not willing to interrupt herself for more than a moment. “Yes?”

“We have never met before, so how can you dislike me so?”

She takes a deep breath before speaking. “With a father and a brother who are both musicians, it is left to me to take care of the practical matters of the household. I know what kind of woman my brother must wed to ensure his
happiness and the security of my father and myself. And that is not someone like you.”

“How can you know what I am like?”

She flares her nostrils. I can see she wishes she could say what is in her heart, but will hold something back, out of respect for her brother’s feelings. “One need only reflect upon your mother’s life, her blatant disregard for economy and desire to be admired by all men, to have a sense of what a man like my brother might suffer at your hands.”

She turns and walks away quickly before I can say another word.

36
Eliza

I am quite astonished at the freedom of traveling dressed as a man, and on horseback as well. At first when I started to gallop away from Eugène, I felt exposed, almost naked. Sitting like that atop a horse, my legs free to move without skirts clinging to them, seems almost indecent. That and the lingering memory of Eugène’s kiss combine so that I am no longer certain who I am. Am I a young American girl on an adventure? Or a boy soldier who has just witnessed the making of history? Am I a foolish young lady with hopeless dreams? Or did I just receive my first real kiss from someone I love?

The events of the morning have become more and more unreal as I ride, yet I became more and more accustomed to sitting astride. I stopped wondering, after a bit, where Hortense had gotten to, and what happened with Caroline and Valmont. Everyone I pass takes it as a matter of course that a
young soldier would be riding a horse on the highway to Paris, looking as though he is on some urgent business or other.

Even the sentry at the city gate did not question me further when, as Eugène suggested, I said I was on Bonaparte’s business.

Now I find myself walking my tired mount through the streets. He hangs his head, foam dripping from the corners of his mouth near the bit. Poor beast. Before I deliver Eugène’s message I must find a place to give him water and food. The actress can wait.

I see a stable and deposit my horse there with a groom, tossing him a coin and telling him I will return. I find my way to the nearest fiacre stand, climb like a schoolboy into the first empty one I find, and ask the driver to take me to the Comédie Française.