Annette Vallon: A Novel of the French Revolution (59 page)

“Is it them? Is it Papa?”

She squeezed in between the window and me, then wriggled out and ran out the door. I stayed and watched him go under the eaves of the house and heard him knock at the door. I heard the concierge, Madame Avril, scurry to the door downstairs and open it.

Below the window that same English voice said, “Is Mada—”

Before he could finish, I heard Caroline squeal “Papa!” Madame Avril’s shuffling tread came up the stairs to get me.

“Madame, they are here, your
English
husband”—she emphasized the word disapprovingly—“and his sister. They are here. Shall I have them come up?”

But before I could answer, I heard Caroline’s footsteps running up the stairs, “Come, Papa! Come! Maman is upstairs!” and I heard his boots on the stairs and slower steps behind him. Then Caroline burst in the room from underneath Madame Avril’s arms.

“Maman! They’re here! Here is Papa!”

Madame Avril retired.

William stood at the open door, and Caroline held his hand. Behind him in the hall was a small black figure.

I wondered what I was supposed to do. I had thought so much about this moment. We had embraced, of course, in those thoughts.

Now, for some reason, that seemed out of the question. I didn’t want to shake hands, like English gentlemen. I took a step forward. I felt a bit paralyzed. Caroline was swinging his arm. William had been looking at me, standing still in my silence. Suddenly he lifted Caroline in his arms, kissed her cheeks, and said, “Now
here’s
a beauty. Annette, you did not convey accurately the extent of her beauty. Shame on you.” His French was good. And Caroline hugged him with both arms around his neck.

“This is Papa,” she said to me, as if I, myself, did not know that fact. William came up to me, our child in his arms. “She’s going to be taller than you soon,” he said. And with our child between us suddenly it was easier, and he bent down and kissed me on both cheeks.

“You should be proud of her,” he said. “You should be very proud.”

I felt my confusion melt and was about to embrace him, standing before me carrying Caroline. We would embrace awkwardly, with her between us, and that would be fine. Then he ushered the small black figure in front of him.

“Annette, I want you to meet someone,” he said.

She smiled at me.

“Dear sister,” I said, and extended both my hands to her and leaned forward to kiss her cheeks. She stood her ground and took my hands in hers, and I had to lean far forward to kiss her. I felt as though I had done something wrong.

“It is a pleasure to meet you,” she said.

“Thank you for your many letters,” I said. “You’ve taken good care of William for me.” She smiled again.

“You have raised a very pretty daughter. You have done well, yourself,” she said, in slow, deliberate French. Apparently it was easier for her to write, than to speak it.

“Oh, Caroline, this is Dorothy, the sister of Papa,” I said.

“I know, Maman,” and she stuck out her cheeks, still half full with unfinished roll, to Dorothy, to be kissed, as she still held William’s hand. Dorothy took Caroline’s other hand and pressed it.

“You are a lovely child,” she said, “and an excitable one.”

“She gets that from her father,” I said, and laughed.

“She gets that from her mother,” William said, and smiled. I had not seen him smile in nine years, and I felt a sudden desire to wrap him in my arms and kiss him. But that seemed as impossible as if he were still on the opposite side of the Channel. Instead, I reached out my hand, and William held it.

“It is good to see you,” he said. “You are looking well; the years have been kind.”

“Not exactly kind,” I said.

We would meet that evening at their lodging for dinner, William said. But when that evening came, he sent us a note that Dorothy was tired and ill from the voyage, and they would just have a small meal in their room. Would we please meet them the next morning at ten, at the Republic Café near their lodging? We would walk by the seashore then, together. William was glad that Caroline and I both looked so healthy.

“We didn’t see them very much today,” Caroline said.

“They will be here a whole fortnight.”

“Good, and we can go bathing?”

“Yes, if it continues to be warm.”

Caroline went to bed early. The night was hot, and we slept with the windows and shutters open, and a slight breeze from the sea blew the white lace curtains in front of the windows. I felt the cooling breeze on my face and listened to Caroline’s quiet breathing.

I had Caroline; he had Dorothy. I had wondered, before I came, if we would make love, and what it would be like. I had assumed, actually, that we would. But that seemed another world, now, another lifetime, those thoughts and those actions. They belonged in another century. Still, if we could just walk alone. If we could hold each other for a moment, wouldn’t we feel all the old feelings? Was he perhaps afraid of them? Why? Had he urged his sister in between us on purpose, when we were about to embrace, or was that coincidence, or a nervous movement, or something he thought he
should
do? She had stood behind him, ignored, when we met. Perhaps he was just being polite. But there was something wrong. I knew it. And it wasn’t just my own fears. I wanted Dorothy to be gone, back in England.

How could we talk with her here? She wasn’t a traveling companion; she was a chaperone.

“Papa is very nice, but I want to talk to him more,” Caroline said over breakfast at the Republic Café.

“He was tired yesterday.”

“I want to ask him things.”

“Like what?”

“Like what is it like in England? Are you going to take us there? Are you going to marry my mother in an English church? Now that the war is over, are you going to live with us in our cottage? I’d tell him I’d prefer that. Am I ever going to have any brothers and sisters?”

“I think it would not be appropriate to ask all those questions yet.”

“Why not?”

“Perhaps he doesn’t know all the answers yet.”

“But you’ve said that we would go to England some day when the war was over.”

“Didn’t I say, ‘might go’?”

“No, you said, when I was a baby, that my father was coming and we were going to live where my cousins lived. I did not know where that was then. I thought it was across the river.”

“It is.” I laughed.

“Yes, very far across.” She laughed back and forgot, for now, what I had said when she was a baby.

“And I have a hard time understanding Papa.”

“His accent’s good, for an Englishman.”

“It’s even harder to understand Aunt Dorothy.”

“I’m not sure if you should call her ‘Aunt Dorothy.’”

“Why not?”

“I’m not sure if she thinks of herself as an aunt.”

The delicious bread was finished, and the coffee and hot chocolate.

“You ate all the jam again,” I said. Caroline grinned up at me. The morning sunlight caught her blonde curls, like Angelique’s.

“Remember those shells we saw yesterday, Maman? I kept one for Papa. It has the white ridges on it. I will show it to him today. It is my present, welcoming him home, after the war. People do that, yes, for men coming home?”

“Visiting home. Most of those men are still in the Grande Armée and must return. They are on leave.”

“I like your new gown, and mine.” She twirled her blue sash a little, at the table. “Does Papa know they are new gowns?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Why does Aunt Dorothy—why does his sister dress in black?

Was someone killed in the war in their family?”

“That may just be the style in England.”

“If it is, I think I will wear French clothes when we go to England.”

It was ten o’clock, and the Wordsworths had not arrived. I asked for a piece of paper and some ink from the waiter, and gave it to Caroline, and she drew a picture of the ship we had been waiting for the day before. At the bottom of the picture she wrote, “Papa’s ship.”

When we saw them approach the café, Caroline ran up to her father. “Look what I’ve drawn,” she said. He stood there, her hand in his, and studied the picture.

“It’s remarkable,” he said. “It looks just like our ship. How did you know?”

Caroline beamed. “May I keep it?” he said.

“Of course,” she said, and he folded it carefully and put it in the inside pocket of his coat.>

“I was a bit ill yesterday,” Dorothy said. “I need to take William’s arm. Why don’t you two walk in front.”

It
was
clumsy for us to walk four abreast along the street, so Caroline and I walked together. “We ’ll show you the way,” Caroline said.

“Maman and I were there yesterday.”

From behind me I heard William’s voice, “Another hot day. Do you not have a bonnet, Annette?”

I turned, “I prefer the sun. And I thought it was always
you
who did not wear a hat.” I smiled teasingly, and then felt awkward. It was almost as if any allusions to our past life were in bad taste. Well, the biggest allusion was walking by my side.

“I think you must be mistaken, Annette. William always wears a hat out of doors,” Dorothy said. “I’ve never seen you without a hat out of doors, William.”

On the boardwalk, we suddenly had to walk together. The sea was on my right, Caroline was between William and me, and Dorothy was between William and the rest of France. Suddenly William stopped.

He squatted by Caroline. “I have a present for you,” he said.

“And I have a present for you.”

“Mine first,” and he pulled from his pocket a small box of chocolates. They were very expensive in France at this time, and almost impossible to find.

“Chocolates!” screamed Caroline, and jumped a couple times. She opened the box and unwrapped one and popped it in her mouth and asked me, with her mouth full, if I would like one.

“Thank you.”

Then she offered one to Dorothy and William, but Dorothy said, “They are for you. William brought them from England for
you
, dear.”

“England must be a good place, with chocolates. Can I go there, Maman?”

All eyes were on me. “We will see.”

“Do you want my present, Papa? It’s in my pocket. We both brought our presents in our pockets,” and she pulled out a delicate small white shell and held it up to him. “See, it has ridges in it. It is the only one we found that was not broken.”

“It is beautiful,” William said. “It shines in the light. Where did you find it?”

“This way,” and Caroline pulled my hand, then suddenly realized she could pull his hand too, and she pulled us both farther down the boardwalk.

“Wait,” I said. “You run ahead. We will follow you. Just stay in sight.”

“She is a spirited girl,” Dorothy said.

“Like her mother,” William said.

“Like her father,” I said.

It was a very sultry day, and when we caught up with Caroline at the edge of the boardwalk, where she and I had gone walking by the ocean the day before, Dorothy said, “It
is
rather hot. I’m still a bit tired from yesterday. Do you think we could continue this walk later?”

“It will be cooler in the evening,” William said.

“I found your shell right down there, Papa,” Caroline said. “There are others. Come and see.”

“We will walk after dinner,
chérie
,” I said.

Caroline walked slowly by me, and unwrapped another chocolate.

“It’s all melted,” she said.

“We must get back and let it cool in our room.”

We let ourselves cool in our room, with our fans, and Caroline dozed, and I looked out the window at the sultry sea. I wrote in my journal:

I was uneasy about meeting this woman with whom I have exchanged
many letters, mutually addressed as Dear Sister. She has given me so many facts of William’s life and hinted that that life is no longer with
me. It is with her. I was right in thinking that she is, in her own way, jealous of me. How I wish William had come alone!

I put my pen down and dressed for dinner. With a fortnight ahead of us, William was not going to see a great variety in my dresses.

At dinner, I asked the Wordsworths about their home in the north of England, and William got very excited and talked about their walks around the lake of Grasmere and up to Loughrigg Tarn. I remembered his wonderful northern names of places, but not this one. I had him write it down. But the strange name made it seem even more like it was another world, up there.

“Tell me about that place in the south of England, the big house, where you got in trouble because you wrote to me in France.”

It was the first time I had said anything to imply that we had a relationship besides, somehow, being the parents of Caroline.

There was a pause, then William said, “Well, that was part of it. It was also because of Coleridge’s writings and lectures. A place called Racedown. Now, there we walked every morning for two hours, up to Pilsdon, or to Lewisdon or to Blackdown Hill or Lowdett’s Castle. Later we lived in Somersetshire, on the edge of the Quantock Hills, near Nether Stowey, where Coleridge lived.” He was speaking French, but with all the proper nouns it sounded like a foreign language.

“England has very strange names,” Caroline said.

“Like Wordsworth,” William said, and laughed. It was the first time I had heard him laugh in almost nine years. I had been waiting to hear that laugh. It hadn’t changed. Things like that don’t change.

They just come less often, I suppose. “Your mother can still not say the name,” he said.

“I can too, it just doesn’t sound right when I say it.”

“What is the difference?”

“Le bois
,
le bois
,” I said. “You told me that is what it means when
I
say it, ‘Woodswoods.’ ” Caroline laughed. “Or should I say, ‘
La
Valeur des Mots
,’ the worth of words?”

“I can say
Vallon
,” William said.

“I think we had this conversation ten years ago,” I said.

“At least we are consistent,” William said.

I liked hearing that.

“William would often want to take longer walks, though,” said Dorothy, continuing the previous conversation. “Just a two-mile jaunt up to the coomb would not do.”