Annette Vallon: A Novel of the French Revolution (16 page)

“Claudette, with all your time you must be a keen observer of life.

Tell me what you think of this.” And I showed her the poem about the Italian maidens.

“This is written to you?”

“Translated from the English, as a parting gift. I have others, all lovely descriptions of rivers or valleys.”

I sat by the fire now, and she was brushing out my hair with one hand and reading the poem with the other. I waited.

“But this one is about a woman. Women, yes, but really about one.

I wish Benoît would write me poems. He can hardly read. But how many grooms can even do that?”

“But what do you think of it, the poem?”

“Whoever wrote it may not admit it, to you or even to himself, but this, Mademoiselle, this is a declaration of love.” She put the poem in my lap.

I valued Claudette’s insight. I felt foolish enough to clap my hands.

Instead I kept them calmly clasped on top of the poem and said, “Then it is a declaration at a safe distance. It was delivered to me upon our carriage leaving this morning. Notice the tone of departure.”

“Perhaps it is an English declaration. The English are said to be rather reserved, no? One does not follow the words with action. Yet they are nice words. Mademoiselle is touched by them, no? All those boys and men ask for your hand and receive no quarter, and one foreign poet writes you lines, and you are taken by them. I always knew you were a romantic creature.”

“I am not. I am very practical.”

“Yet when one writes of a ‘powerless trance,’ it places you in that same trance, yes?”

I was staring at the fire and felt entranced by it, now. I heard a sudden snap in the flames and at the same time a knock at the door.

The simultaneousness of the actions jolted me. “That must be Benoît with the tisane,” she said. “Poor boy; he’s used to grooming horses, not running up and down stairs. This tisane will calm you down now.”

When Sunday came, Maman and Vergez had not returned, and I made ready to ride to the count’s to honor our old family tradition. I was in the dim world of the stables now. I spoke gently to Le Bleu, whom I rode sometimes to exercise him, but I’m sure he missed his master. He whinnied softly when he
Monsieur William. What was he doing here? I walked out from La
Rouge’s stall and stood before him. I still could not see his face.

“Forgive me for startling you,” he said. “You had a pleasant journey from Orléans?”

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“I am preparing to be a gentleman’s tour guide of the Loire Valley,” he said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“I see. Well, this is a good place to start, then. It has a lot of history.” I went closer to him. His face was still in shadow.

“There’s so much history here,” he said, “one doesn’t know where to start.”

I was a few inches from him now. He seemed taller close up.

“There’s Charles d’Orléans,” I said. “He was a poet.”

“I just read about him,” Monsieur William said. “He was imprisoned in England. Poetry helped him survive.”

“Come here in the light,” I said. “There, that’s better.” He was just as close, but the strip of light fell on half of his face. I could see his eyes, soft now. “Did you
walk
all the way here?”

“It’s nothing,” he said. “Try walking from Windermere to Keswick and back.”

He said the place names in English and smiled. I saw the smile clearly.

“Charles d ’Orléans did come back,” I said. “A quarter century later.”

“I’m glad he returned,” William said. “When I asked for you at the home of your stepfather, a nice servant girl asked me if I were English. When I said yes, she said I could find you in the stables, but I had to hurry. I thought I was too late.”

“You are not too late. I am very glad that you have come.” I put my hand out to him where I stood, right in front of him, and he took it and held it. “You will not be disappointed in Blois,” I said. “There is much to see here.”

We looked at each other in the half-light coming in through the door, with the close dark of the stable around us, and its warm smells entwining with the cold air blowing in.

I suddenly stood up on my toes, put my hands behind his neck, bent his head down, and kissed him quickly on the mouth before I dropped down again, out of reach.

Now I wanted that to seem like an everyday French greeting to a friend, although my heart was beating faster.

“Would you like to start your tour of the countryside today?”

“Would it include the pleasure of your company?”

“I am going to dine at a nearby château. He may be expecting more of my family than just me, so I’m sure you’ll be welcome. He’s a magnanimous fellow. He’s a count.”

William laughed. “You’ll start me with the Blois aristocracy?”

“Certainly. If you’re guiding English gentlemen, they need to know whom to meet. I was going to ride alone, for it is only six miles, but—would you be so kind as to be my escort?”

“I would be most honored.”

“You said you liked to ride. My father’s horse is a very fine animal. It is good you have long legs, for we won’t have to adjust the stirrups much. I know you will treat him with kind hands.” I entered Le Bleu’s stall, who shook his head excitedly, and Monsieur William followed me.

The sky was stark blue with dark clouds massing to the west, and the air was fresh and cold. We rode slowly down the steep winding streets and passed the little church of Saint-Vincent. “You have procured lodging, then, Monsieur William?”

“Yesterday afternoon; a fine apartment at a good rate, and an interesting captain of a regiment stationed here in town as a fellow lodger.”

“You know your display with that orchestra leader made you rather unpopular with my parents.”

“That was not my fault.”

“I know. I was there. Nevertheless, you are seen as a dread revolutionary and as a disturber of a young woman’s mind.”

“I would think your mind was already formed enough to listen to different opinions.”

“You mean it’s already disturbed enough?”

“Plato can disturb anyone.”

We rode down to the bridge, where we picked our way through a tangle of slow carts and carriages and pedestrians. We began to trot as we crossed the bridge, the water below gleaming in the winter sun; then we were across, and the road was freer and the trees began.

“Have you written any new poems, Monsieur William?”

“I composed more lines of my Swiss adventure as I walked here.”

I pictured him walking briskly from Orléans—he must have set out impulsively, almost as soon as we left. That was a wonderful thought.

“I translated some as I walked, just for practice,” he said. “I thought I’d try something different. I am always interested in old folk stories of the people, and my landlord in Orléans told me one of an unfortunate couple—”

“A love story?”

“Yes, if you will. As I said, I wanted to try writing something new, for me. Obviously, the season had to be the spring—”

“Obviously.”

“So it starts like this—

Earth lived in one great presence of the spring.

Life turn’d the meanest of her implements

Before his eyes to price above gold,

The house she dwelt in was a sainted shrine.

That’s all I have now.”

“‘Before his eyes’; I like so much that everything around him is transformed by his love. The presence is not just the spring, is it? Shall we try these horses out, ‘Monsieur’ William? Show me how an Englishman rides.”

I urged La Rouge into a gallop and rejoiced at the gliding movement. I could hear the eight hooves beating in unison and see rider and horse just behind, at the edge of my vision, and the steam huffing out from Le Bleu’s nostrils. He thrust his head closer, eager to lead, and I looked over and saw his eyes, alive, as at a hunt.

The thundering behind me quickened, and Monsieur William was beside me, smiling from under his cocked hat, his fair hair blowing behind him, his blue eyes catching mine for an instant. He was showing me how Englishmen can ride. He was also on one of the finest horses in the Loire Valley.

Monsieur William sped past and vanished around the bend before one comes to the village of Chalettes. I heard a shout, and when I rounded the curve, Monsieur William was on the grass on the side of the road, and the driver of a cart was cursing at him. The driver was standing up in his cart and had dropped the reins, the better to wave his arms about. I was mildly amused. Monsieur William was quiet, which enraged the driver more, and when the Englishman apologized in a foreign accent, this drew more curses. The driver could not tell whether Monsieur William was an irresponsible youth who should be whipped, a bourgeois who should keep off the road, or a foreign spy who should be arrested.

Le Bleu cropped the stiff, short winter grass. Monsieur William kept his silence and looked bemused. The cart rumbled on, and the driver gave a look that possibly included me in his list, as a witch, a woman who should not clutter public roads, and a prostitute. I was smiling as I drew La Rouge up beside her friend, the horses calm and familiar in each other’s presence.

“I couldn’t understand most of what he was saying. He was speaking so quickly,” Monsieur William said.

“It’s better. He enjoyed the cursing.”

“I did not see him until I was right in front of him. He did not have to stop. I leaped immediately over the ditch at the side of the road, and that is when I fell.”

“One must make allowances,” I said, “for the unexpected around the bend.”

Monsieur William mounted Le Bleu, and we were walking the horses. “Do all young women of the upper bourgeoisie ride horseback so well?”

“I’m not sure what classification I am, but I think most prefer carriages. I know my mother and sisters do. But even in a small open carriage, the man always drives, and this I do not care for.”

“What else do you like to do that’s different?”

“I like to hunt; no, that is not exactly true; I like to go hunting; I like the adventure.”

Monsieur William laughed. The laugh seemed to resound in the empty forest.

“You have a sense of adventure as well as a keen eye and wit?”

“My father taught me to hunt and ride.”

He grew serious again. “I would have liked to have met him. I am sorry he was lost so early to you. We have that in common.”

“I want to show you something before we come to the château de Beauregard,” I said. “Can you keep up with me?” And I dashed off the road, drawing in the sharp delicious smell of the pines, and followed a narrow trail, hardly noticeable under the forest duff. It had been years now since I had ridden here. The count had shut the lodge down. He still went hunting now and then, but after Papa died, he said he had lost the heart to have the old gatherings, the suppers in the lodge the night before, meeting in a circle outside in the frosty dawn.

I could hear Monsieur William right behind me now, plunging deeper into the forest, following me blindly. We scrambled down one small ravine and up the other side, and there it was, blending perfectly with the woods.

“Why are we stopped here?”

“Look, through the trees. There.”

“How strange! Such as I saw in Switzerland.”

“It’s the count’s hunting lodge. Some of the best times of my youth were spent there, with my father and the count’s friends. It’s all shut now.”

“Do you want to ride closer?”

“No, I’ll leave it in the past. I just wanted to see it. There’s a lovely meadow just beyond that stream. We can get back to the road that way.”

The two horses recognized the meadow, even with the snowy patches. The sky seemed to lower itself above us, now, as if a storm were due. I led Monsieur William through the brush to the road, and we raced back along it to the count’s tree-lined entryway, up the winding route where the peasants had led Etienne and me—all that tumult seemed a million miles away now—and to the Beauregard stables, a second home to the horses. I won by a length, but only because I knew the way.

We brushed down the horses and went along the side path to the great doors of the château. The impassive Edouard almost smiled when he saw me, and I smiled back. “He wasn’t sure anyone would come,” Edouard said softly to me. “Last year no one came.” He took our coats and gloves. “The count occupies himself mostly in the library these days.” We were passing the ground-floor arcades.

At an inquisitive look from me, the valet ventured upon more information. “He is obliged to answer letters from his acquaintances in exile.” Edouard announced us at the open door. The count was writing by the fire. I saw his sheepskin hat, such as Rousseau had on in his famous portrait, over the top of a high-backed chair. He had moved the Beauregard coat of arms down from the study upstairs, and the gold bells that had meant something to me on a night long ago flickered in the firelight above him. They were pinioned on deep azure and looked more stately in this larger room. When the count stood, he still had on his reading spectacles, and they made him look older.

He took them off and lay them on the writing table.

“Ma chère
Annette!” he said, and came toward me with his big arms outstretched and embraced me. “Are your
maman
and Angelique behind you?” He did not say, “Monsieur Vergez.”

“They are still in Orléans. So I came myself.”

His face fell a little, then he smiled all the way up to his eyes.

“You’re a true believer in tradition,” he said.

“But I could not come alone. This is my escort, Count. A gentleman and a scholar from Cambridge, England, Monsieur William.”

My guest bowed his head.

The count faintly raised his eyebrows at me, as if to say, No chaperone; no stern Agnès, or even Benoît? And he immediately shrugged, as if again to say, You are twenty-two; the Revolution has changed so many things; who am I to say?—or at least that is how I interpreted his gestures.

“Monsieur William is also a poet,” I added.

“I, myself, am unsure on that matter,” the poet said. “A title is a difficult thing to bear.”