Authors: Susanne Dunlap
The Academie (23 page)
“You must stay. Nothing can undo what I have done. Please let me help you.”
She smiles. Her teeth are very white against her skin.
Soon she is back underneath the porch with my jacket
warming her again.
What if
, I think,
all our slaves are like this? The same as we are?
They don’t look as much like us as Madeleine does. But in her past are those who must have been every bit as black as the foreman on our plantation.
My thoughts are swirling and confused. Since I was tiny I have thought of people with black skin as less than we are, as property. I was taught not to be cruel to them, as one might be taught not to be cruel to a pet. I never imagined our slaves could be the same as I am, with the same feelings and ideas. And yet here is Madeleine, whom I would never have guessed had Negro blood in her veins, and not only is she like me, she is in love with someone I thought I was in love with. What is more, he loves her in return. If he—the noble Eugène de Beauharnais—does not think she is unworthy because of her ancestry, what right have I to think so?
Madeleine is dear to Eugène. And so she must be dear to me.
My note brings help, but not in the form I wished for. I don’t know what to say when I see not Hortense and Caroline, but Hortense and Valmont appear from around the corner that leads toward the Académie and the Collège.
“You must be Madeleine, if I am not mistaken,” Hortense says, stepping ahead of Valmont. I wonder how she can know. I said nothing about it in my note.
“Yes,” Madeleine answers. “I am the one who might spoil all your mother’s wishes for your brother.” Madeleine’s eyes
flash. How does she know it is Hortense? Can she have seen her before? Or perhaps she just recognizes her because of Joséphine, or a family resemblance with Eugène.
Hortense reaches her arms out to Madeleine. “I want only my brother’s happiness.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Madeleine rushes forward into Hortense’s embrace.
Valmont approaches me. “This is all very touching,” he says, “but you look cold.” He starts to unbutton his own coat to give to me, but Hortense stops him.
“I have brought her clothes, including a warm cloak,” she says, handing me the basket she was carrying. I glance around. How can I change? I look at Valmont and blush. He has the good grace to turn away.
“How are you going to explain this person?” he says, looking down his nose at Madeleine, who is indeed very much smaller than he is.
“Hortense, we need to find Eugène,” I say, ignoring him.
“That won’t be possible,” Valmont says. “All the generals and their aides are occupied in Paris.”
“Then Madeleine must come to school with us,” I say.
Valmont shakes his head.
“Well, she cannot remain out here, nor can she return to where she came from!” Hortense puts her finger to her lips. I drop my voice. “There must be a way. Just for a few days, until Eugène can come for her.”
“Perhaps she can pass as a boy and return with me,” Valmont says, but I can see by his expression that he is joking.
“She can be my cousin!” Hortense says, lifting her chin and gently separating herself from Madeleine. “She is visiting from Martinique, and her parents would like her to spend some time with me at school.”
“Perfect!” I say. “Madeleine is an actress. She can play the role, I’m certain. Now I have to become myself again.” I cast a pointed glance at Valmont, who sweeps an ironic bow in my direction.
“I gather my protection is no longer needed,” he says.
“I have only these clothes to wear,” Madeleine says, looking down at her dress, which is obviously ragged in the daylight.
“I am certain we can think of something,” Hortense says.
“None of us will be worth trusting if we don’t return to school soon,” I say. “And now, I must change.” I look around. The shops across the street are all closed for business now.
“Stand in the shelter there. We’ll shield you,” Hortense says.
Again I glare at Valmont, who suddenly shakes himself out of his stupor. “I’ll fetch a fiacre.”
I have never felt the cold air against my base skin. It’s a peculiarly vulnerable yet free feeling. It doesn’t last long. Soon I am dressed as the genteel young lady my mother is
determined I shall be—and no doubt assumes I have been during these days since she departed for Virginia.
I finish very quickly, wanting to ensure I have transformed myself by the time Valmont returns with our conveyance.
Hortense has just tied my sash and I stuff my uniform into the basket as a fiacre approaches us from around the corner.
Madeleine, Hortense, and I climb in. Valmont tips his tricorn to us. “Aren’t you coming?”
“That would be a fine thing! No, I shall sneak back into the College grounds on my own and reappear in time for afternoon exercises,” he says, nodding to the driver.
I turn and watch him. I don’t understand why he has done any of this. What can we matter to him, really?
My attention is diverted by Madeleine. “I’ve never been to school,” she says, breaking the silence we have fallen into as we roll along the cobbled streets.
“How do you learn your lines?” I ask.
“I can read, of course!” she says, and I remember her reaction to Eugène’s letter.
“In a week, you’ll be walking with a stack of books on your head,” I say. “Now
that’s
what I call education!”
We all laugh, relieved, I think, that the day’s extraordinary adventures are at last concluded—whatever happens next.
When I saw Eliza with Madeleine it was all I could do not to stare. This is the object of my brother’s affection? She is barely more than a child and looks so frail that someone like Caroline could easily crush her. Seated pressed up next to her in the fiacre I am aware only of the sharp points of her elbows, the way her dress hangs off her shoulders rather than clinging to the plump outlines of a bosom as it should.
Why did Eliza bring her back? At Malmaison I was certain my American friend had begun to form an attachment to Eugène, futile as that would be. Perhaps she thinks to ingratiate herself to him by helping him achieve his object.
On reflection, though, Valmont has become oddly attentive to Eliza since he discovered our plan. I wonder if her girlish affections have been swayed by his actions.
We soon arrive at the school and my thoughts are interrupted.
“We’ll all go in the back way, Madeleine, and you come to the front and ask for me. Say you have just arrived from a long ocean voyage,” I say.
“I have no luggage,” Madeleine points out.
Of course. I hadn’t considered that. If she is my cousin, she would have some means, surely.
Eliza speaks. “Say your trunks will arrive soon. Then we can claim they have become lost at sea.”
“Yes! That is a perfect plan.” I am relieved, but also surprised that Eliza might have thought of such a thing.
Eliza and I sneak in easily enough the back way. Geneviève is there to ensure that we are not seen.
Eliza and I descend to the parlor, finding Caroline already there.
“Some broth? Or warm milk?” Madame Campan asks.
Although I have not eaten all day and my stomach is hollow with hunger, the idea of food makes me feel queasy. I don’t have to pretend to be unwell, I am so anxious about what is to come with Madeleine.
“Perhaps just some dry biscuits,” Caroline says, placing her hand over her stomach in a rather melodramatic way. We had already agreed upon the story that something we ate at Malmaison made us unwell.
Poor Eliza eyes the sweet biscuits hungrily, but she, too, abstains. Soon we are all settled in the parlor, sipping tea
and talking quietly when I hear the bell tinkling down in the kitchens announcing a visitor. I listen to the footsteps of the maid who answers the door, and it is only moments before the serving girl appears in the parlor.
“Mademoiselle Hortense has a visitor,” she says with a curtsy.
“At this late hour?” Madame Campan is not pleased. “And she has not been well!”
“She says she has come from very far away and begs to be admitted to see her cousin.”
Caroline almost spoils everything by looking very confused. We have not had time to tell her about Madeleine. I prevent her from asking an awkward question by exclaiming, “She is come—at last! We have expected her these few months now, but the weather has been so bad for sailing.”
I rise and go to greet Madeleine, whose surname we decided would be Mornay—just in case Madame Campan is familiar with the theatrical family and their dubious history.
I bring Madeleine in on my arm, and I feel her trembling. Surely such a consummate actress cannot be nervous in this small theater of our school. It makes me pity her more, knowing she is.
I introduce her to Madame Campan and the rest of the girls—the ones who are old enough to sit up after dinner, that is. For a moment, I am afraid Eliza’s propensity for nervous giggling might give us away, but she controls herself,
turning her reaction instead into an expression of delight at meeting someone new.
Madame Campan calls for more tea and sandwiches for the traveler, and some broth for those of us who have spent the day in bed. I confess it pains me to have deceived her in this manner, the lady who has taken me in for less than the accustomed tuition as a favor to my mother—and never spoken of this arrangement to anyone. But we really have no choice.
“Tell me, Madeleine, why did you not go directly to Malmaison instead of here?” Madame Campan asks once we are all settled again.
I hold my breath. We didn’t think of that!
“It was my mother’s express wish that I be permitted to remain at your school, madame.” As she delivers her line, Madeleine’s voice begins to tremble, until by the end two tears spill over the barriers of her lower lashes and make their way down her cheeks, as if she is capable not only of controlling when her tears fall, but how many and how quickly.
“Was?” Madame Campan’s face, normally so placid, becomes the picture of concern.
Madeleine sets her teacup down on the table and starts searching in her pockets for a handkerchief, which she does not find. In the meantime, tears continue to streak her face.
To my amazement, Madame Campan reaches into her own pocket and produces an exquisite lace-edged square with her initials elaborately embroidered on it. She goes to
Madeleine and kneels down by her, dabbing at the now sobbing girl’s cheeks.
Madeleine shakes her head prettily, but takes the handkerchief she is offered nonetheless. Madame Campan gets up off her knees and brings her chair over to Madeleine’s side.
“There now,
ma petite
. Tell me what happened.”
Madame looks up at the rest of us and signals that we should take everyone away. It is nearly time for us all to retire anyway, but I desperately wish I could stay and hear the tale Madeleine is about to spin.
Once upstairs, the three of us gather in Caroline’s chamber, the largest. Eliza and I quickly explain everything to Caroline, who now strides up and down, wringing her hands.
“What will she say! She could put us all in danger. I blame this on you, Eliza!”
Eliza recoils as if Caroline has slapped her. I go to her and put my arm around her shoulder. “It is not her fault, Caroline. Remember, we each left Eliza to attend to our own affairs.”
To her credit, this elicits an apology from Caroline, who then continues, “The fact remains that we now have a problem. Madeleine cannot stay here. Who will pay her tuition? And if she does not stay here, where will she go?”
Caroline seems so distressed, I sense that something is wrong beyond any concern over Madeleine’s tuition. “Caroline, is something the matter?” I ask.
Her eyes begin to fill with tears. “It’s nothing, really. I know he is fine. It was just a scratch.”
“He? A scratch? What is it?” I ask. Eliza and I each take one of Caroline’s hands.
Eliza whispers to me. “It’s Napoléon. He was wounded today at the château. I saw it.” Caroline is now crying in earnest.
The news shocks me. I have not even thought about the outcome of the day, only assuming it was completed to everyone’s satisfaction. “Oh, Caroline! You must know how I can sympathize with you. I was so distressed when my own brother was injured....”
She shakes her head and frees her hands, rubbing them together as if they are cold. “He is well. He must be, or I would have heard. My brother is stronger than that. He can withstand a superficial wound.”
We are silent. I am thinking how selfish I am, to worry about the state of my heart when the future of France is at stake, when my stepfather may be mortally injured.
But I cannot forget Michel. And I suspect Caroline is still desperate for Murat. I wonder if she saw him? Perhaps that, too, weighs on her now.
Added to everything, downstairs is a young actress who could destroy not only my brother’s life, if she chooses, but could expose all of us for the frauds we have been this past day.
We each recognize that we have inadvertently entrusted
our most cherished secrets to someone about whom we know almost nothing, except that she has captivated my brother.
“Bonaparte will survive, and Eugène will make everything right,” Eliza says.
I don’t have the heart to tell her that my mother will use all her powers to prevent him from doing any such thing.
This morning, the news is all over France.
“Caroline! Hortense! Eliza!”
Madame Campan calls to us and I can hear her running up the stairs. I have never seen her run before. She usually chastises us if we move too quickly, so at first I imagine there has been some terrible catastrophe.
Hortense and I meet in the corridor. She is neatly dressed in a white gown with a dark blue sash, her hair done simply but perfectly. I am dressed but my hair has not been arranged. A moment later, Caroline emerges from her room still in her dressing gown. We all three are gathered just as Madame Campan reaches the landing.
