Falcon in the Dive, page 13
Then she remembered her surroundings, the guards at the gates, the second and third parts of her instructions, all the collapsible things that hindered on her ability to keep herself together. Her safety. She stood to her feet, raced up the steps, and closed the door abruptly, leaning her back against it and taking deep breaths. Uncomfortable breaths. Second-guessing breaths.
“Pretty. Parlor. In that order,” she repeated, then went down the hall to her bedroom before there could be questions. Back in her room, she shoved the documents into her satchel, focused on the pretty, and within minutes, Josephine was at the door to help her achieve it. “Please come in,” Ani said.
“Please?” Josephine opened the door slowly, suspicious. “Since when do I warrant a please?”
“Mademoiselle Journeaux, if I may—”
“Oh no, don’t you start calling me that just because he does. He’s touched with the idiocy of a male and can’t help it.” Josephine wagged a finger. “You have no excuse. You’re bright as a lamplight and know how to start a good fire with it—could light the entire theater sector with one thought.”
“The theater sector?”
“Don’t you know that street?” Josephine said. “All those hundreds of lamps lighting the carriageways?” She waved her hand. “No matter—his lord the Duke de Collioure takes his mistress there every night, so it’s fresh on my mind. Likes to tout that he doesn’t fear this city.”
“The duke?” Ani brightened like a lamplight. “Every night?”
Josephine nodded.
Ani softened and extended the plucked stem of angel’s tears toward the servant. “You said you were from Pas-de-Calais. I remember seeing these all over the countryside there. This one was all alone in the front court, as if saying hello, and I thought, well…it is not so terrible to be reminded of where we come from.” She broke off the stem of the narcissus just below the flower, leaving enough to tuck the sprig of two ivory cupped bells into Josephine’s updo. Ani stepped back, smiled, and curtsied.
Josephine reached a hand up to pat the flower, and Ani walked out the door for the front parlor, as instructed. It was to be a full five minutes before Josephine followed.
Chapter Eight
A portrait of revolution
Every man has a right
to risk his own life
for the preservation of it.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Now
Ani entered the front parlor. A large, blank canvas sat on an upright easel with an array of paints to one side of it and a round man to the other. Round was polite; he was set as only a nobleman could afford to be. His height mercifully balanced him out, but his birdlike face featured high, curved eyebrows, thin lips, and flared nostrils saddling an aquiline point. Ani gave him a pleasant nod. Aubrey stood dressed with his usual flair, in fine Parisian fashion, ruffled at the neck with a fully fastened high collar, and clean-shaven. His eyes sparkled like new coins.
“Allow me to introduce to you Monsieur Lethière, Paris’ finest work of art himself,” he said, taking Ani by the wrist and leading her toward the back of the parlor where he paraded her before the painter.
Her eyes widened. She bent into the practiced curtsy she’d learned at the palace. “How do you do, Monsieur Lethière? Please allow my admiration for your Horace and Camille.”
The painter beamed and bowed.
The table by the window had been arranged with an upended teacup and saucer set before a chair, intended for her. Aubrey situated her in the seat, spread her dress in a peacock-tail about her ankles, fixed her hands around the cup and saucer, and positioned her face as if looking out the window beyond her shoulder. When his fingers left her cheek, she was acutely aware of the space, the abrupt absence of his skin—but for the first time, the touch didn’t repulse her. She found herself closing her eyes and pretending he wasn’t a nobleman.
“Open,” he said.
And when she did, he bid her raise the teacup and hold it suspended in mid-drink. Arnaud brought in a steaming kettle, and Aubrey had him fill the teacup with a black tea. When Aubrey looked up, Ani was displayed in the parlor chair like a museum exhibit. His breath caught.
“I really have to hold actual tea?” she refuted.
“Yes. It’s not merely art; it is for you to drink. I think the fine Monsieur Lethière can imagine it being there or not being there and will not be interrupted if you actually consume the tea.”
The painter cleared his throat.
“It’s imported black leaves from the Russian caravans,” Aubrey said. “Dark and smoky. Expensive, so you should appreciate it accordingly.”
“Mademoiselle,” Lethière said, looking over his canvas, “you must sit more still than that.”
“My apologies, sir,” she said with a false smile, though inside she was thrilled at the prospect of a portrait. She’d once been painted as a child, but gendarmes had burned it in a pyre with her father’s belongings when they’d confiscated his house in Le Marais. To be seated here—like this. Her heart fluttered. A portrait meant a person might be remembered.
“Nonsense. You shall do as you please,” Aubrey said, despite the painter’s grunt. “She’ll do as she pleases, Lethière. Is she not a fantastic specimen? Be sure to catch that light across her hair.”
The painter grunted again. “Yes, Marquis.”
“And those eyes must be that truest blue of lightning,” he nearly whispered it. “That’s what will make the portrait.”
“Of course, my lord.”
“If I’m such a fantastic specimen,” Ani said, “then why do you never take me out of these walls?”
Aubrey tilted his head. “You do know that would light some controversy, yay? High society won’t know what to make of you if I were to escort you. They’d call you my mistress, a bevy of colorful misdirections. And more importantly for your reputation…they’d know that I no longer employ you for services, that you are simply…staying…with me. It might hurt you.”
Ani’s face reddened, but she remained unmoved.
A breath of air puffed out his cheeks. “Then where do you want to go?”
“The theater.”
Aubrey groaned.
The painter let out a loud ahem and barked, “Mademoiselle, please! You must sit still.”
“What captures your fancy at the theater?” Aubrey asked.
She figured your father would not be an answer that went over well. “Figaro,” she said instead.
“Beaumarchais? A bit subversive, no?”
Lethière shouted again, “Please, subject, I need you to remain still. Very, very still.” He slammed his brush too hard into the paint, and the bristles bent. Splashes of blue landed on the floor.
“You’ve too easily won me,” Aubrey said, pouring some whisky into his own tea. “Figaro, it is.” As she repositioned, he strode toward Lethière’s canvas. “I hope you are painting something equally as subversive for this unconventional woman.” Aubrey peered over Lethière’s shoulder.
“Sir!” the painter ejaculated.
“Paint the Bastille.” Aubrey laughed.
“My lord!”
Aubrey glanced to the harrowed look that filled Ani’s face at the mention of the Bastille. Her eyes emptied, and she blinked it away. Her father. In her childhood, when she’d seen him there. Slumped against the wall of the Bastille, dozens of other prisoners sharing his jammed cell, pushing in against him. Open sores on his mouth. Eyes vacant, gone. Blisters on his hands, clutching a tin cup. The buckets of feces at the bars adding to the nauseating stench of rot and decay.
“Relax, Lethière. I jest.” The marquis waved his hand, unsettled by Ani’s new, painful expression. “Just paint the window and the light and the…blasted teacup.”
“I can’t paint a damned thing if she can’t sit still!” Lethière shouted, throwing his paintbrush down onto the palette.
The outburst broke the spell over Ani, and she pulled herself back, attempted a smile.
“Make it a little blurry,” Aubrey said. “She’ll learn it for the next portrait.”
The painter turned to him. “It will not be I who paint the next portrait.”
Before Lethière could be castigated, the marquis’ military advisor, Yves Lenoir, appeared at the doorway of the front parlor, accompanied by the scowling General de Béquignol. Aubrey went rigid, the humor gone from him. Lenoir motioned to him and nodded, and the two unwelcome visitors headed down the hallway toward the boardroom.
Aubrey draped his arm around Lethière. “Would you rather I get my next portrait from Monsieur David, that old swollen-cheeked tumor face?” The two men exchanged glances. “Portraits are on their way out. Paint them while society can still afford them.” Two pats on the older man’s chest, and Aubrey left the room, leaving Ani to continue posing.
He walked toward his own funeral. He held his head high, but he knew what news the men brought. As he entered the boardroom, de Béquignol and Lenoir stared back at him with the hollow look of war, and the marquis closed the door behind him, waiting to hear the message they bore from the duke.
The strategists spent a half hour in the room with their discussions before the painter dismissed a stir-crazy Ani from her seat. Alarmed by the expressions of the men who’d fetched the marquis, she flexed her sore muscles and tiptoed down the hall to stand outside the boardroom. Placing her ear against the door, she listened for any key words that might stick out. The men’s voices were muffled, but she gathered phrases and heightened undertones. At once, the door opened, and she lurched to the side, behind the bureau, not to be caught snooping again by de Béquignol. The men came into the hallway, headed toward the front doors of the palace.
“The area would be south of the Loire to the Lay,” Lenoir said, “covering Marais, Bocage Vendéen, Collines Vendéennes, part of Maine-et-Loire west of the Layon, and a portion of Deux Sèvres west of the Thouet.”
“That’s a big area,” Aubrey said.
The Vendée. Ani waited until they got past the podium that held the bronze statue of Saint Gertrude the Great, the patron saint of the West Indies—where, Ani imagined, the Beaumercys had slave plantations of sugarcane for this saint to watch over—and she darted behind the podium. The Vendée was at war. Real war. The men who went there did not return.
“Yes,” Lenoir agreed. “You’ll assist the Comte de la Rochejaquelein as he gathers some support to protect Cholet, Nantes, to march inward into our city for protection of the monarchy.”
“It’s treason according to the New Republic,” de Béquignol said. “Should you find yourself outmanned, retreat rather than surrender. If they catch you…”
The marquis looked to Lenoir. “When does my father request I depart?”
“Tonight. After dark. Very quietlike.”
Ani bumped into Saint Gertrude, and it teetered. The men looked back, but Ani tucked in her knees behind the podium, and the statue rocked in its place until it stilled. The men continued.
“What about that mistress you have here?” de Béquignol asked.
Aubrey stopped and snapped, “She is not a mistress.”
“Well, you can nay marry her.”
“I know,” Aubrey said, then continued walking. “I know. Obviously.”
Ani waited for the footsteps to fade away, then stood and stepped from behind the podium. She looked to Saint Gertrude and frowned at the statue, then simply stood there, immobile. Josephine came down the hallway toward her. One cursory look at Ani, and the servant pushed her through her bedroom door and situated her on the bed.
“What is it?” she asked. “You look dumb as an infant in a room of strangers. Did one of those generals say something to you? If he did… Oooh, that de Béquignol. You don’t mind him. He’s the dog to let starve on the chain.” She crossed herself and cupped Ani’s face. The flower still bobbed in Josephine’s hair. “What did you hear?”
Ani shook her head and picked at old scars on her wrists and hands.
Josephine released her cheeks. “You are a stubborn thing.” She sat onto the bed next to Ani. “Slide.” She wiggled against her. “Slide, slide.”
Ani laughed grudgingly. “I’m sliding.” She made room for Josephine next to her.
“When I was young,” Josephine said, folding her hands in her lap, “we discovered my papa had a second family in Valenciennes. I was an only child, and I didn’t understand it, found it wonderful that I’d now have brothers and sisters.” Josephine rubbed her hand across the quilt. “Mother packed the two of us into a carriage, and I thought, ‘This is it! She’s going to murder Papa!’ but we pulled up to his manor, and she told me to get out. I was standing alone on the steps when her carriage drove away, and my astonished papa opened the front door.” She brushed a strand of Ani’s hair behind her ear. “That is where I come from. It seems like only a breath later I was brought here and received another new family.” She scooched off the bed and cupped Ani’s cheeks again. “I live for this household and all who are in it, and you are in it.” She kissed Ani’s forehead. “So, as long as I live in it, I’ll not let de Béquignol harm you.” She ran the back of her hand down Ani’s cheek and turned toward the door.
“But don’t you ever wonder,” Ani said, “what would’ve happened if you’d stayed in that carriage?”
Josephine paused with her hand on the latch, turned slowly, looking at the floor. “Yes,” she said. “But we can only face one direction at a time. I choose forward.” She walked out but was careful not to slam the door behind her this time.
Ani’s chest seized, and she grabbed hold of it, bunched the cloth of her dress, tugged at the lace. There had never been another way. But. The Vendée. She slid off the bed and paced from wall to wall, a sour sensation beneath her tongue as if she might vomit. It was treason to support the divine right. Tithes were made illegal; prayer in public was punishable; clergy were arrested. To support the monarchy publicly now, with the Girondins in control, was—suicide. Death. The Vendée would bring that death to Paris. Right here. The thing her own father had once fought for was coming right to Paris’ door, and Aubrey would die to stop it. This clash of two worlds met right across her breastbone. Her knees weakened, and she fell back down on the bed. She wasn’t supposed to care if he died. He was one of them, and she wasn’t supposed to care. Was she? Did she?
She fretted for hours into the night, skipping dinner, remaining alone in her room that closed in around her like a storm. When the darkness came, she lit no candles. Not tonight. Tonight she’d send no missives to Dr. Breauchard, no messages to the orphans and men who awaited her replies. Aubrey wouldn’t be able to return to Paris if they caught him. She sat quiet on the edge of her bed nearly half the night, until she heard his footsteps lightly graze the hallway. She slid from her bed and flung open the door.
“You’re going now,” she spoke in the hallway behind him, louder than she’d intended.
He turned. “I didn’t mean to wake you.” His blue-and-white uniform shown in the dim light of the hall, exquisite gold embroidery down the lapel and sitting high on his shoulders. A tricorne sat properly upon his forehead, and over one breast was the patch of the Sacred Heart. A decorated baldric crossed his chest and held his saber. Two pistols hugged his waist, tucked into a white sash knotted to one side with a red cord. Riding boots touched above his kneecaps. He was dressed to kill and dressed to die. “I must go quickly.” He managed a pained smile.
“You were not even going to tell me?”
He didn’t reply but gazed at her steadily.
“And if you don’t return?”
He stepped toward her, setting each boot heel down with purpose. When finally he stood before her, he leaned in close and whispered, “Candide.” As he righted himself, he took one deep look at her, into her eyes. Then he walked away, to the Vendée, to the father of all wars.
Part II
Now and
Chapter Nine
Philippe et Georgette
If this be treason,
make the most of it.
—Patrick Henry
The first day of the stagnant palace, the rains came. It pounded so heavy against the orchard trees that Ani heard the hundreds of premature fruits dropping to the ground. There was no other sound but the endless thudding, all remaining bodies of the household avoiding collision with another, a funereal pall unspoken but walking among them as if it had been invited to stay. The second day, Ani sat in a washbasin until the water turned so cold she could finally feel something worse than anomalous silence, and by the end of the third day, she knew for certain he was in the Vendée, knew the horses would have made it, the marching columns behind, pacing into the fourth day, the fifth. She visualized his defeat, recovering some bridge, taking a high ground, imagined the files footslogging toward him.
When the summer heat returned, she woke next to Josephine pulling the covers over the edge of the bed, and the eighth day, Ani absorbed the unsympathetic energy of rue Neuve des Petits Champs—Béatrice in one of Josephine’s hand-me-down dresses, and Ani in her father’s old clothes, her fingers twirling the necklace cord of that brown pouch Dr. Breauchard had given her. Some parts of the city had emptied out; in others, riots reigned, and authority changed hands by the hour.
