The Academie (16 page)
Authors: Susanne Dunlap
I don’t know quite how, but we have concocted a scheme that has a chance of being successful. Even if it is foiled by circumstances, or we are found out, the thrill of attempting it is most diverting. Pity this is something I can never tell my mother. She would be horrified—and yet, she would probably wish she could have been with us, too.
I have never done anything so deceitful in my life. Not only am I agreeing to help Caroline and Eliza with their scheme, but I am planning to deceive them as well. I shall find a way to ensure they are not blamed for my folly. But after these past few days at Malmaison, I realize I must grasp at a chance for happiness, if it exists at all.
I cannot bear the thought of the future my
maman
has planned for me. At least, not without knowing whether, in submitting to it, I will be turning my back on a true, genuine love.
Monsieur Perroquet comes today for my music lesson. Will he bring Michel with him? I must find out where he stands, what he intends—what I mean to him. Perhaps he was only toying with my affections. And yet, even as I think
it, I believe the opposite. I believe he loves me. His soul is full of music. Surely that is evidence enough.
Everything I do for the next twenty-four hours depends upon whether I see any sign that Michel’s love is true. If his intentions are as I suspect—
hope
—then he will take me away, we will marry in secret, and no one will be able to change it.
Caroline and Eliza have set their maids to working on the uniforms they shall wear. I cannot presume to occupy all of Geneviève’s time in my service when she has others to care for, so I try to do as much as I can myself. Having once been apprenticed to a seamstress, I find I make good time. I am able to put my work away for a few hours during lessons and know that I shall be as prepared as the others.
I find it difficult to concentrate as Madame Campan drills us in etiquette and tests our ability to steer the conversation away from unsuitable topics, and I nearly allow a silence to elapse in our practice drawing room.
“Hortense, are you quite well?” she asks me, coming and laying the back of her hand on my forehead. “Perhaps the excitement of traveling to Malmaison has been too great for you. Or perhaps there is some other cause for your indisposition.”
I am startled by her words. Has she guessed what we are doing? I force a smile. “No, madame. I am quite well.
Just a little tired from the traveling, is all.” I do not want her to guess that there is anything else going on inside my heart.
She lowers her voice so that only I can hear it. “I have had a letter from your mother. I hear that, perhaps in not too long a time, we may have reason to congratulate you.”
I wonder what else Maman wrote to her. How did she explain our sudden return to school after such a peremptory demand for my presence?
Madame Campan returns to her instruction, and I do my best to pay attention. But my heart quickens as the hour for comportment lessons draws to a close and I hear the bell indicating that Monsieur Perroquet has arrived. I strain my ears to discern if there is one pair of footsteps or two, but hear nothing.
A servant comes to Madame Campan and whispers in her ear. She looks around the room until her eyes alight upon Eliza. “Mademoiselle Eliza,” Madame says, “would you do me the great favor of accepting a parcel that the Marquis de Valmont has brought over from the Collège?”
I try not to look at Eliza and see Caroline also turn away, as if she is occupied with pouring herself another cup of tea. But I can’t help noticing that she turns a shade more pink than normal. I hope she won’t give us away!
We continue the lesson without Eliza, and soon I hear the bell again. This time I am certain it must be Monsieur
Perroquet. When Madame claps twice to end the lesson, I prepare myself to take the next step in my daring plan.
Just as I am about to enter the music room, the score for the air I have been practicing tucked beneath my arm, Madame Campan comes forward from the dining hall. “Ah, Hortense. If you would give me just a moment alone with Monsieur Perroquet.”
Her smile is inscrutable. What business can she have alone with him?
I wait as patiently as I can, casting my eyes over the molding that decorates the walls and converges in bouquets of plaster flowers in the corners. It is fortunate, I think, that the mobs did not consider this house important enough to ransack utterly during the revolution. One might almost imagine we are back in the time of Marie Antoinette and her court.
My ears are alive to every sound within the music room, and I distinctly hear the door on the other side open and shut. A moment later Madame Campan’s voice approaches so that I just hear, “Thank you for your discretion, monsieur,” before she opens the door and motions that I may enter. She passes by me and closes the door softly behind her.
Monsieur Perroquet is alone. My heart drops into my stomach. I notice that his face is flushed, though, and I see his hand tremble as he arranges the sheets on the desk of the
spinet. I pretend not to see, and take my place at the music stand, looking down so that he can compose himself.
It is then that I see the note. A small, folded scrap of paper, left so that anyone might discover it. I don’t know why I assume it is for me, but I cough and turn away so I can slip it into my bodice until later.
My lesson progresses as usual, although I find it difficult to concentrate. At its end, I curtsy in thanks to Monsieur Perroquet and turn to leave, but he stops me.
“It was my hope, Mademoiselle Hortense, that Madame Campan would allow you to share your gifts at a small musical event I am planning the day after tomorrow evening at my humble apartments.”
I know he wishes to say more, but he pauses. I must act quickly. “And where, monsieur, might those apartments be? Did Madame give her permission?”
He squeezes my hand before letting it go. “Alas, Madame insists that you are too fatigued after your recent travels to attend me in the Rue Saint-Pierre, number thirty-six.” Two round, red blotches appear on his cheeks as he says this. It is a message for me—I know it!
“Thank you, monsieur. I, too, wish I could form part of your evening entertainment. But alas, as Madame says, I am rather tired.”
It is all I can do to walk slowly and calmly out of the music room and up the stairs to my bedroom. Rue Saint-Pierre is an easy walk from the Rue de l’Unité, where the
school is located. If I have interpreted Monsieur Perroquet’s unspoken message correctly, then the note I draw from my bodice once I close the door of my room must be from Michel.
I unfold it slowly, wanting to savor this moment, hoping to discover a confirmation of the feelings we began to express the other night, and a justification for all that I plan to do in the coming days.
Chère Hortense
,
Dare I hope—
I can read no more. The door of my room bursts open to admit Caroline and Eliza, their arms full of the clothing their maids have attempted to make for them—and not quite succeeded. For the next half hour, I help them with the fitting. Both Ernestine and Hélène have made shoddy jobs of the alterations, but the damage is easy to fix.
When we finish, we agree to meet before dawn tomorrow.
“I can arrange for the coach,” Caroline says. I do not ask her how she will arrange for such a thing, but by the look that passes between her and Eliza, I deduce that she is practiced in these matters.
They leave to dress for dinner. I immediately reach for the note so that I may finish drinking in the sweet sentiments it no doubt contains.
It is gone. I look around the floor, lifting the edge of the
carpets to see if it was accidentally swept beneath one of them in the confusion. I reach into my bodice. Did I think to stow it away there? No, I would have felt it.
I open the door and look down the corridor. Eliza is gone. Quickly, I go to her door and knock. “Eliza!” I whisper as loudly as I dare.
She opens the door. “Hortense! What’s the matter?”
“Where are the scraps?” I ask, too frantic to be polite.
“Here,” she says, pointing to a pile in the corner of the room.
I rush over and dig through the bits of fabric, shaking each one out.
“What’s the matter? Have you lost something?” Eliza asks.
It’s no use. The letter is not there. “I thought I had, but it’s nothere,” I say. “It’s nothing.”
Eliza’s perplexed expression assures me that she has no idea about the letter. So it must be Caroline. How could I ever have believed she would change?
I didn’t know at first why Madame Campan sent me down to meet Armand. The message to him came from Hortense, whom he knows quite well. She would have been the logical person to greet him.
Yet I was nervous when I saw him in the entryway to the kitchens with his parcel tied up in a basket, its contents looking like a pile of odd rags rather than the garments that would soon let us three pass as young men in the world.
“Thank you, Monsieur de Valmont,” I said, curtsying and trying not to look into his face. But he stared at me, hard. I could feel it. And so I eventually had to look up and meet his gaze.
“Hortense was very mysterious in her note. She can keep secrets. That’s why I asked for you instead.”
I had my hand on the basket handle and pulled it toward me. I wanted to end this conversation as quickly as possible. “I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Is it a theatrical entertainment? Or something else?” He wouldn’t let go of the basket. I felt awkward standing there.
“It’s simply—sewing practice,” I said, giving a tug that almost sent me reeling backward, since he let go as soon as he felt it.
Now I was furious. “I could have fallen!”
“Ah, but you didn’t. And you’ve told me far more than you realize. What time do you three plan to steal away from the school?”
My mouth dropped open before I could stop it. I approached him so I was near enough to whisper. “This is none of your affair!”
“In fact, I would argue that it is very much my affair, since you have involved me in it. If I am thrown out of school for helping you in whatever it is you plan, I shall be on the streets. My family does not want me back. I’m not yet able to earn my own keep as a portraitist.”
I took a long look at his confident stance, his smooth, calm face. Valmont might be poor, but he was every inch the aristocrat. Yet was he blackmailing me? Trying to get me to give him information that might incriminate us or allow him to spoil our plans? My father is a lawyer. I have heard him speak of such things.
“Monsieur le Marquis,” I said, my voice as smooth and calm as if I were in the parlor still, going through the motions with Madame and the other students. “We are only schoolgirls playing an innocent game. I’m certain I don’t know what you could be talking about.” I tossed my head as I had seen Caroline do and turned away. But Valmont caught hold of my arm.
“This is no game,” he said. “I know that Hortense and Caroline often hear things because of who their relatives are. Something is going to happen, isn’t it?” His fingers dug into my arm.
“Ow!” I said. He let go, a look of genuine contrition on his face.
“I’m sorry. Only, you see, it could make all the difference to me. If there is a chance—even the slightest chance—that things will go back as they were, when people valued a title and a family history, I shall have a future.”
He took hold of my shoulders and looked hard into my eyes. Only then did I see real sorrow, evidence of pain from difficult times, just beneath his elegant features. I realized that he did not intend to expose our plans. I took a chance. “It’s possible, Armand. They think we are just silly girls, but we heard things that make us think tomorrow will be an important day.”
“So you are going somewhere... in disguise?” He let go of me and tapped the basket. I felt a little cold without his hands on my arms.
“Yes. Before dawn. We hope to be back by nightfall. Please don’t say anything!” It was my turn to be sincere.
He smiled. It was a warm, gentle smile, and I noticed his teeth were straight and white. I shook my head a little and forced myself to look away. He was not Eugène!
And besides, he doesn’t like me
, I reminded myself.
Nonetheless, I could feel his gaze following me as I left the anteroom.
Now the day is at an end. It is hard to remain calm during dinner and afterward at our needlework. I keep feeling as if I need to get up and pace around the drawing room, but to do so would make Madame Campan suspicious, so I force myself to sit still and listen to Hortense read from a memoir. Her voice is very sweet, but when she reads the tender portions, where the lady recalls her first love, I hear her voice crack just a little. She clears her throat and takes a sip of wine. Madame Campan looks up at her without lifting her head, watching her as if she knows something.
At long last Caroline stands and stretches. “I am still fatigued from our traveling in the last few days. Might I beg leave to retire a little early?”
Both Hortense and I echo her sentiments and Madame Campan gives us permission to go to bed.
As we part to go to our separate rooms, we clutch hands together quickly. I look at both of them, but Hortense
stares only at Caroline. Her eyes are beseeching. I have the impression that something has transpired between them.
I let that thought pass, and we part. Ernestine helps me undress and carefully drapes a shawl over the uniform I shall wear in a few hours. She drops a quick curtsy on her way out and puts her finger to her lips, indicating that she will say nothing.
I can hardly close my eyes. Tomorrow I will see Eugène again! And perhaps he has been persuaded by his mother to relinquish his love for this actress. I cannot help hoping for such a thing, as unlikely as I feel it is.
But even more than the fact that I will see Eugène, I find something utterly thrilling in the idea that I will enter the world of men, dressed as one of them. How strange it will feel! Caroline seem quite unperturbed by the idea. I wonder if she has done it before?
