Read A Place of Greater Safety Online
Authors: Hilary Mantel
A Place of Greater Safety (43 page)
“I’m surprised your mother didn’t see fit to warn you,” Caro said. “I’m sure she knows everything there is to know about Camille. But if I’d had the courage—and believe me I reproach myself—to come to you before Christmas, and tell you, just for instance, about Maitre Perrin, what would your reaction have been?”
Lucile looked up. “Caro, I’d have been riveted.”
It was not the answer Caro had expected. “You are a strange girl,” she said. Her expression said clearly, strangeness doesn’t pay. “You see, you have to be prepared for what lies ahead of you.”
“I try to imagine,” Lucile said. She wished for the door to smash open, and one of Camille’s assistants to come flying in, and start firing off questions and rummaging for a piece of paper that had been mislaid. But the house was quiet for once: only Caro’s well-trained voice, with its tragedienne’s quaver, its suggestion of huskiness.
“Infidelity you can endure,” she said. “In the circles in which we move, these things are understood.” She made a gesture, elegant fingers spread, to indicate the laudable correctness, both aesthetic and social, of a little well-judged adultery. “One finds a
modus vivendi.
I have no fear of your not being able to amuse yourself. Other women one can cope with, provided they’re not too close to home—”
modus vivendi.
I have no fear of your not being able to amuse yourself. Other women one can cope with, provided they’re not too close to home—”
“Just stop there. What does that mean?”
Caro became a little round-eyed. “Camille is an attractive man,” she said. “I know whereof I speak.”
“I don’t see what it has to do with anything,” Lucile muttered, “if you’ve been to bed with him. I could do without that bit of information.”
“Please regard me as your friend,” Caro suggested. She bit her lip. At least she had found out that Lucile was not expecting a child. Whatever the reason for the hurry about the marriage, it was not that. It must be something even more interesting, if she could only make it out. She patted her curls back into place and slid from the
chaise-longue.
“Must go. Rehearsal.”
chaise-longue.
“Must go. Rehearsal.”
I don’t think you need any rehearsal, Lucile said under her breath. I think you’re quite perfect.
W
hen Caro had gone, Lucile leaned back in her chair, and tried to take deep breaths, and tried to be calm. The housekeeper, Jeanette, came in, and looked her over. “Try a small omelette,” she advised.
hen Caro had gone, Lucile leaned back in her chair, and tried to take deep breaths, and tried to be calm. The housekeeper, Jeanette, came in, and looked her over. “Try a small omelette,” she advised.
“Leave me alone,” Lucile said. “I don’t know why you think that food solves everything.”
“I could step around and fetch your mother.”
“I should just think,” Lucile said, “that I can do without my mother at my age.”
She agreed to a glass of iced water. It made her hand ache, froze her deep inside. Camille came in at a quarter-past five, and ran around snatching up pen and ink. “I have to be at the Jacobins,” he said. That meant six o’clock. She stood over him watching his scruffy handwriting loop itself across the page. “No time ever to correct …” He scribbled. “Lolotte … what’s wrong?”
She sat down and laughed feebly: nothing’s wrong.
“You’re a terrible liar.” He was making deletions. “I mean, you’re no good at it.”
“Caroline Rémy called.”
“Oh.” His expression, in passing, was faintly contemptuous.
“I want to ask you a question. I appreciate it might be rather difficult.”
“Try.” He didn’t look up.
“Have you had an affair with her?”
He frowned at the paper. “That doesn’t sound right.” He sighed and wrote down the side of the page. “I’ve had an affair with everybody, don’t you know that by now?”
“But I’d like to know.”
“Why?”
“Why?”
“Why would you like to know?”
“I can’t think why, really.”
He tore the sheet once across and began immediately on another. “Not the most intelligent of conversations, this.” He wrote for a minute. “Did she say that I did?”
“Not in so many words.”
“What gave you the idea then?” He looked up at the ceiling for a synonym, and as he tipped his head back, the flat, red winter light touched his hair.
“She implied it.”
“Perhaps you mistook her.”
“Would you mind just denying it?”
“I think it’s quite probable that at some time I spent a night with her, but I’ve no clear memory of it.” He had found the word, and reached for another sheet of paper.
“How could you not have a clear memory? A person couldn’t just not remember.”
“Why shouldn’t a person not remember? Not everybody thinks it’s the highest human activity, like you do.”
“I suppose not remembering is the ultimate snub.”
“I suppose so. Have you seen Brissot’s latest issue?”
“There. You’ve got your paper on it.”
“Oh, yes.”
“What, you mean you really can’t remember?”
“I’m very absentminded, anyone will tell you. It needn’t have been so much as a night. Could have been an afternoon. Or just a few minutes, or not at all. I might have thought she was someone else. My mind might have been on other things.”
She laughed.
“I’m not sure you ought to be amused. Perhaps you ought to be shocked.”
“She thinks you very attractive.”
“What heartening news. I was consumed with anxiety in case she didn’t. The page I want is missing. I must have thrown it on the fire in a rage. A literary jockey, Mirabeau calls Brissot. I’m not quite sure what that means but I expect he thinks it’s very insulting.”
“She was telling me something about a barrister you once knew.”
“Which of the five hundred?”
But he was on the defensive now. She didn’t answer. He wiped his pen carefully, put it down. He looked at her sideways, cautiously, from under his eyelashes. He smiled, slightly.
“Oh God, don’t look at me like that,” she said. “You look as if you’re going to tell me what a good time you had. Do people know?”
“Some people, obviously.”
“Does my mother know?”
No answer.
“Why didn’t I know?”
“I can’t think. Possibly because you were about ten at the time. We hadn’t met. I can’t think how people would have broached the topic.”
“Ah. She didn’t tell me it was so long ago.”
“No, I’m sure she just told you exactly what suited her. Lolotte, does it matter so much?”
“Not really. I suppose he must have been nice.”
“Yes, he was.” Oh, the relief of saying so. “He was really extremely nice to me. And somehow, oh, you know, it didn’t seem much to do.”
She stared at him. He’s quite unique, she thought. “But now—” and suddenly she felt she had the essence of it—“now you’re a public person. It matters to everybody what you do.”
“And now I am married to you. And no one will ever have anything to reproach me with, except loving my wife too much and giving them nothing to talk about.” Camille pushed his chair back. “The Jacobins can wait. I don’t think I want to listen to speeches tonight. I should prefer to write a theater review. Yes? I like taking you to the theater. I like walking around in public with you. I get envied. Do you know what I really like? I like to see people looking at you, and forming ideas, and people saying, is she married?—yes—and their faces fall, but then they think, well, still, even so, and they say, to whom? And someone says, to the Lanterne Attorney, and they say, oh, and walk away with a glazed look in their eye.”
She raced off to get dressed for the theater. When she looked back, she had to admire it, as a way of getting off the subject.
A
little woman—Roland’s wife—came out of the Riding School on Pétion’s arm. “Paris has changed greatly,” she said, “since I was here six years ago. I shall never forget that visit. We were night after night at the theater. I had the time of my life.”
little woman—Roland’s wife—came out of the Riding School on Pétion’s arm. “Paris has changed greatly,” she said, “since I was here six years ago. I shall never forget that visit. We were night after night at the theater. I had the time of my life.”
“Let’s hope we can do as well for you this time,” Pétion said, with gallantry. “And yet you are a Parisian, my friend Brissot tells me?”
You’re overdoing the charm, Jérôme, his friend Brissot thought.
“Yes, but my husband’s affairs have kept us so long in the provinces that I no longer lay claim to the title. I have so often wished to return—and now here I am, thanks to the affairs of the Municipality of Lyon.”
Brissot thought, she talks like a novel.
“I’m sure your husband is a most worthy representative,” Pétion said, “yet let us cherish a secret hope that he does not conclude Lyon’s business too quickly. We should hate to lose, so soon, the benefit of your advice—and the radiance of your person.”
She glanced up at him and smiled. She was the type he liked—petite, a little plump, hazel eyes, dark auburn ringlets about an oval face—style perhaps a little bit young for her? What would she be, thirty-five? He pondered the possibility of burying his head in her opulent bosom—on some later occasion, of course.
“Brissot has often told me,” he said, “of his Lyon correspondent, his ‘Roman Lady’—and of course I have read all her articles and come to admire both her elegant turn of phrase and the noble cast of mind which inspires it; but never, I confess, did I look to see beauty and wit so perfectly united.”
A slight rigidity in her ready smile showed that this was just a little too fulsome. Brissot was rolling his eyes in a rather obvious manner. “So what did you think of the National Assembly, Madame?” he asked her.
“I think perhaps it has outlived its usefulness—that is the kindest thing one can say. And such a disorderly set of people! Today’s session can’t be typical?”
“I’m afraid it was.”
“They waste so much time—scrapping like schoolboys. I had hoped for a higher tone.”
“The Jacobins pleased you better, I think. A more sober gathering.”
“At least they seem concerned with the matter in hand. I am sure that there are patriots in the Assembly, but it shocks me that grown men can be so easily duped.” They could see the unwelcome conclusion darkening her eyes. “I’m afraid some of them must be willing dupes. Some of them, surely, have sold themselves to the Court. Otherwise our progress would not be so slow. Do they not understand that if there is to be any liberty in Europe we must rid ourselves of all monarchs?”
Danton was walking by, in pursuit of the city’s business; he turned, raised an eyebrow, removed his hat and passed them with a laconic, “Good morning, Mme. Revolutionary, Messieurs.”
“Good heavens. Who was that?”
“That was M. Danton,” Pétion said smoothly. “One of the curiosities of the capital.”
“Indeed.” Reluctantly she dragged her eyes from Danton’s retreating back. “How did he come by those scars?”
“No one cares to speculate,” Brissot said.
“What a brute he looks!”
Pétion smiled. “He is a man of culture,” he said, “a barrister by profession, and a very staunch patriot. One of the City Administrators, in fact. His exterior belies him.”
“I should hope it does.”
“Whom did Madame see at the Jacobins?” Brissot asked. “Which of our friends has she met?”
“She has met the Marquis de Condorcet—I beg your pardon, I shouldn’t say Marquis—and Deputy Buzot—oh, Madame, do you recall that little fellow at the Jacobins that you took such a dislike to?”
How rude, Brissot thought: I am a little fellow myself, which is better than you, who are running to fat.
“That vain, sarcastic man, who looked at the company through a lorgnette?”
“Yes. Now he is Fabre d’Églantine, a great friend of Danton.”
“What an odd pair they must make.” She turned. “Ah, here is my husband at last.” She made the introductions. Pétion and Brissot stared at M. Roland in ill-concealed bewilderment, taking in his bald dome, his grave face with its yellow aging skin, his tall, spare, dessicated body. He could have been her father, each thought: and exchanged glances to that effect.
“Well, my dear,” Roland said, “I hope you’ve been amusing yourself?”
“I have prepared the abstracts you asked for. The figures are all checked, and I have drafted several possibilities for your deposition to the Assembly. It is up to you to tell me which you prefer, and then I will cast it in its final form. Everything is in order.”
“My little secretary.” He lifted her hand and kissed it. “Gentlemen—see how lucky I am. I’d be lost without her.”
“So, Madame,” Brissot said, “perhaps you would like to have a little salon? No, don’t blush, you are not unqualified. We who debate the great questions of the hour need to do so under some gentle feminine influence.” (Pompous arsehole, Pétion thought.) “To lighten the tone, perhaps a few gentlemen from the world of the arts?”
“No.” Brissot was surprised by the firmness of tone. “No artists, no poets, no actors—not for their own sake. We must establish our seriousness of purpose. If they were also patriots, of course they would be welcome.”
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