Annette Vallon: A Novel of the French Revolution (35 page)

“I am sorry it was all so distressing for you, Maman,” I said, “but you must know that
both
Paul and Monsieur William are no counter-revolutionaries. As for Monsieur William, he is rather the contrary, which I thought was your complaint against him. I am a bit confused.”

“To be counter-revolutionary now is to be against the law,” she said, “and, as Bernard is a lawyer of some recognition in this city, it is important that, whatever the new laws are, we follow them with the respect due from peaceable citizens.”

“Then you ignore your past convictions, and those of my father, for the sake of expediency?”

Monsieur Vergez placed his glass a little too vehemently on the table, and some drops spilled out, which his servant André wiped clean before his master even glanced at his presence.

“I think it is a time of rejoicing,” Angelique said. “Annette is here, and she is safe. And Paul is not in prison, and—well, I’m glad their family escaped—at least, I hope they did. We should all give thanks.

Annette’s by my side. At least one of my sisters is.” And she started to sniff again.

“I give thanks for this lovely dinner,” I said. “It is heaven.”

I couldn’t believe that in one day I had gone from a worm-filled biscuit in the Beauvoir Tower to fresh asparagus and stuffed bream.

I was used to eating so little, though, that I could not finish my portion.

Then over the poached pears Maman said, “Madame Tristant came again the next day, and I admit that, though it was my visiting hour, I was not keen on receiving her. This time she came without her sweet daughter, which I took as not a good sign. By now I had received Marguerite’s letter, which, as I said, was a great blow. You were included in the letter as escaping with them. Madame Tristant proceeded, after she had finished the Tours pastry, a recipe that your little Claudette brought with her, to say wasn’t it a great shame that my first daughter had now fled from Blois and my second daughter had been arrested.

“I nearly collapsed this time, but I held on to the arm of my chair and didn’t give Madame Tristant any pleasure that she had shocked me. I said, ‘Things like that happen in these unfortunate times. We must trust in Providence.’ Madame Tristant had the temerity to correct me: ‘In the Supreme Being,’ she said
.
It’s all from knowing that Englishman, I say to you now, Marie-Ann. Bernard and I knew it from the start, but you didn’t listen. Now my sweet Marguerite is gone. And my grandchildren. And Madame Tristant said that you were taken to the Beauvoir. That’s where the worst people go. My own daughter, whom I held next to my breast as a child. It’s unimaginable.”

“I was hoping someone would visit me,” I said. “I don’t even know how long I was there.”

“I wanted to go, Annette,” Angelique said, “but I couldn’t go alone—”

“I wouldn’t let any of them go,” Monsieur Vergez finally spoke to me. “It’s a triple disgrace. A daughter fled. Another one arrested.”

He held up a finger with each disgrace. He kept the two poised above his wineglass. I was waiting for the third. “Now I am about to be elected to the Trade Commission of this city,” he said. “One must be
elected
now by city officials, not appointed. Do you know what that means? What they will say? ‘He married into a family of counter-revolutionaries,’ they’ll say, and”—he held up the third finger now for his
coup de grâce
—“of women of low morals. ‘The decadency of the old upper bourgeoisie,’ they’ll say, and they’ll be right.”

“But no one knows—,” I started.

“Madame Tristant heard
that
from Françoise, Marguerite’s maidservant,” he said. “Your mother couldn’t sleep that night. Her own unmarried daughter with child, and from a man accused of being a spy. I know responsible citizens on the Committee of Surveillance.

There
are
those who are plotting to destroy us and give us over to the great empires of England or Austria. Don’t be so naïve. But most of all”—and he slammed his fist on the table as the bowls of pears and their attendant spoons hopped up and down—“don’t disgrace my table again by striding in here as if you have done nothing wrong and by eating my food, when a woman of any decency left in her would be living in shame and confinement. But you have no decency. I give you two days—that’s ample time—to gather your things, and I’ll pay for the family carriage to take you to chez Dubourg in Orléans—your mother has already written to them. That is more than generous of me. Another man might throw you out—”

“I’m going too, then, Monsieur Vergez,” said Angelique, and threw her embroidered napkin on her bowl. “I’m going, Maman, if Annette has to go. It’s not right.
She’s
our family—”

“This is chez Vergez now,” her stepfather calmly reminded her.

“Your sister knows that women like her are usually sent away, so as not to disgrace the family. Usually to a convent, where they never see the world again. Well, convents are now state property, so
that’s
a little harder to do. And chez Dubourg is cheaper. So,
Madame Williams—
” He said the term so disparagingly, the term that was so sacred to me, that I stood up and ran out of the room. This was my homecoming from the Beauvoir Tower.

Maman came running after me and caught me below the stairs. I jerked away from her hand on my arm.

“You must see, Marie-Ann—”

“I see,” I said.

“Bernard said it poorly, but he is only—”

“Let me go,” I said.

“It’s not that simple, Annette. You can’t just go. You’ll be paying for this all your life.”

“Yes, paying through love for a child from a man I love.”

“No, paying and paying for a mistake. I know he may never return.

Probably will not. Our nations are close to war. You’ll then have a child of the enemy.”

I pulled free and started up the stairs.

“Annette,” Maman said. “I understand. I do.”

“How can you?”

“Like many others, I’ve been guilty of my own small weaknesses in my youth. Not having a child as you are, but weaknesses, nonetheless. So I understand. But I was saved because of my discretion. Just be discreet, my dear. The Dubourgs can help you find a place for your child.”

“Is that what you wrote them? This child is mine for all my life, Maman, as you said. You are guilty of weakness again, but of a different sort.”

And I went up the stairs to my old room and lay on my bed and listened to the rain. It was falling again—a fine autumn rain over the vineyards of chez Vincent, over the gray river and over the Channel and over England. I missed my older sister.

And the rain was falling over the streets of Paris. How would William find me now?

After Monsieur Vergez had excoriated me so, I
wanted
to leave in two days, or earlier. I wanted not to talk with or even to see Vergez or Maman. In fact, I saw Maman not at all until she embraced me and wished me well on my parting; perhaps in those two days she had avoided me as much as I had her. We both murmured respectful platitudes, and it was best to leave without anger or rancor. I myself wondered how she could not have the desire to see her grandchild as soon as it was born. Perhaps she did, and it was one of the many sacrifices she thought it prudent to practice. I saw Vergez only once: he was directing several men how to move Papa’s old desk out of the library and into a wagon. They were working well and ignoring him.

I asked Jean to take La Rouge and Le Bleu to the château de Beauregard. I didn’t trust Monsieur Vergez with their keeping. He could sell them to the army. And the count liked the horses and would ride them. That night—
our
last night, for Angelique was indeed accompanying me—we supped in my room. Then, late, when I was sure Maman and Vergez had gone to bed, I took a lantern and went to see my old friend. As soon as I opened the big door and entered the stable, I heard her soft whinny. She knew it was I.

I stroked her soft mane and told her that I would be back. Then, either I would take her with me to England with Monsieur William, or, with the use of my father’s bequest, I would purchase a small cottage across the river in Vienne. It would have wisteria growing along it, like the one William and I had seen near Vendôme. There, La Rouge would not have a nice stable like this one, and she ’d have to share a barn with chickens and goats, but we would be together.

My child would learn to sit on a horse as soon as she could sit at table, and once again Rouge and I would ride the paths through the woods.

Then I asked her if she remembered herself giving birth. I recalled to her the story as I brushed her by lantern light: In the middle of a cold night in early spring I could not sleep because I knew you were close to labor, I said. I went out to the stable, and when I entered your stall, the water was two inches deep. All your straw was wet. I led you to a dry stall and put more dry straw around you, but it did not seem to help your nervousness.

I didn’t want to go wake Jean, for, since your water had broken, I didn’t want to leave you alone, I said. You kept lying down and standing up, lying down and standing up. You had never seen another horse give birth, and you did not know what was causing you this pain. So I had you lie down with your head in my lap, and I stroked your neck and talked to you, as I am talking to you now. Do you remember that, I said.

Finally, it started to come out. First, the small nose, the size of a teacup, then the long neck, then the whole body came slithering out, and water gushing with it. Some of the sac was still clinging to its face and I pulled it off, so your foal could breathe.

You did not know what this strange thing was, I said, except that it had been causing you great pain. It was dark and wet and trying to stand. You backed away and snorted at it and stamped your hooves on the floor, as if you were confronting a snake, or an angry dog. The poor little one was still trying to rise, and would fall when you snorted at it. I went to you and led you slowly, talking to you all the way, over to the dark wet thing. You sniffed it and still backed away, snorting and stamping. Then I led you again, and you sniffed again, and this time something started to take over. You licked once, then twice, then several times the strange new body in your stall. I held the foal on its weak legs and led it to your teats. I caressed a teat so the milk would flow and placed it into the foal’s soft mouth.

You proved a fine mother, Rouge, and I the horses’ midwife of chez Vallon. Even the count called me to the château de Beauregard, and we rode through the rain to help with one of his mares. Now it is my turn, I said. I rubbed her forehead, and she snorted softly.

The lantern light flickered over her russet flanks. Her intelligent eyes stared into mine.

Jean drove us to Orléans, and before he started his return trip, I asked him to make friends with André, Monsieur Vergez’s servant who usually fetched the mail, and offer to help him with that chore, so that if there were any letters forwarded from chez Vincent to us, Jean could intercept them and send them on to Orléans. I was greatly worried about William having no address for me. I offered to pay Jean in advance for this favor, and he refused and said he would do it for the sake of my father, whom he thought was on Marguerite’s and my side.

The Dubourgs were happy to see us again. They were solicitous and accepting of me, and Madame Dubourg, whom I had often thought of as a bit haughty, said I had to understand my mother’s position in Blois, but she, Madame Dubourg, could give me all the attention my own mother, because of protocol, could not. They were still best friends, although there were now political differences between them. The Dubourgs remained fierce royalists.

Madame Dubourg, who had no children of her own, was now excited at the prospect of having a baby in the house. It was as if she were the grandmother. Angelique, Claudette, and I took walks in the town, and even along the quai where William and I had walked, until Madame Dubourg found out I was promenading in my increasingly visible state, and admonished me only to stroll about the rooms of chez Dubourg, which I did, arm in arm with my sister in our satin slippers, and we daily awaited the arrival of the mail, and daily were disappointed.

Until this missive from England, forwarded by Jean:

My Dear Sister—

I pray to your Lucette and to my Bernadette that the National Guard did not hold you because they had no evidence—you told me about the rope. Because of your courage and your sacrifice, we
are ensconced now safely in England. Paul has friends that he has found among the émigrés, who have been kind to us and invited us for dinner. It is rather sad, though. They seem to be pretending that they are still in France, and the France of former times.

Paul does not want to suffer in that illusion and has been learning
English rapidly and meeting with wine merchants here, who daily
do business with Bordeaux and need a Frenchman to help with their negotiations.

But can you believe it? I have met Sylvie Varache! She has English roses in her garden and Marie is so glad she has Claire to
play with again. They will have a tutor who knows both French and English. Gérard asks daily when you’re coming, and I start to cry
every time he does. Now you know our address, here in the busy port
of Southampton, so tell us when you will arrive. Will Monsieur
William be accompanying you? Has he cleared his name? I’m supposing you’re not wanting to travel now and will wait until after the
baby is born. How exciting for Marie and Gérard to have a little
cousin. Just don’t wait too long for them to see her. How is sweet
Angelique? Everyone should join us now, except poor Maman, stuck
with old Vergez.

I will not bore you with the vicissitudes of our flight to the coast,
but suffice it to say that it was a miracle: not once were we stopped.

The National Guard of Blois seemed content with you. Paul found
passage for us in Saint-Valéry—there were a few other émigrés on
our boat, and Gérard was thrilled with the wind and the spray of the
Channel, and I was quite ill, both with the sea and with the thought
of what had become of you—with the tragic irony that the person
to whom we owed our safe departure was herself unable to depart.