Annette Vallon: A Novel of the French Revolution (27 page)

“She feels secure just being with us,” I said. “I’d like to be like her, William. I
could
be like her, keeping alongside you, all the way to Paris. We don’t know what’s going to happen to us, any more than that horse knows what will happen to her. I want to go with you to Paris, get your name cleared, then back home, or to England if you must—”

I grew silent and listened to the sound of hooves on leaves and watched the silhouette of the horse moving now in front of the white and black orchards.

“Of course I’d like you to come,” William said. “I ache for you to come with me. But now’s not the time, not with Committees of Surveillance and the uncertainty. Any possible danger I want you to avoid. And when you accompany me to England, I want everything to be as comfortable for you as it could be. And the baby—”

“The baby,” I said. “We haven’t decided on a name. I know you’re right. We ’ve talked it through before. It’s just—for a moment I thought it could be different.”

And I lay my head in his lap, tucked my legs up, and pulled my cape over them. William sang softly one of his border songs, a mournful, haunting melody with words unknown to me. And with that, and with the gentle jostling of the wagon, I slipped into sleep and the horse merged with my dreams. I heard her now as in a forest, trotting through thick autumn leaves, snapping twigs underfoot. Through it all I heard William’s voice softly singing, and I waited in the pause between hoofbeats for the horses to land, for the hoofbeats to continue. And they did, with the creaking of the wagon, all through the night.

I woke up, startled by the noise of a cart passing, going in the other direction. Lying on my side, I saw deep pink streaks in the east.

I sat up. “Where is she?” I said. “Where is the horse?”

“Sometime just before dawn I didn’t hear her anymore,” William said. “She just wasn’t there anymore. I don’t know why.”

“Maybe she was just a dream,” I said. “Maybe she was some strange dream we both shared.”

“Then it was a good dream,” William said, “one we can have in memory, together.”

“Any sign of a rider from Blois?” I said.

“Not a sign,” William said. “I suspect he wouldn’t leave till daylight. No one’s been up this road. No one in Vendôme knows that I am a spy.” He smiled, then looked ahead and nodded. “The towers of Vendôme?”

“The tallest is the bell tower,” I said, “of the old abbey. People made pilgrimages to Vendôme for centuries, up until a few years ago.”

“What’s there?” he said.

“A tear,” I said, “a single tear, wept by Christ on the tomb of Lazarus, a tear said to have healing properties. A knight of Vendôme brought it back in a vial, all the way from the Crusades—”

“It didn’t dry up?”

“How could it? It had already lasted a thousand years. William, you, of all people, must leave room for the mysterious, for that which reason or science finds unaccountable.”

“Forgive my skepticism. It was merely curiosity.”

“In any case, pilgrims came to see the Holy Tear. My own father, a practical doctor, went there with me when he had eye trouble, and after that he never had to wear a monocle.”

“We should visit it. We could use it.”

“The local Committee of Surveillance, I heard, stopped all pilgrimages—considered them counter-revolutionary. We must only worship Reason now.”

“Reason alone misses many things,” William said. “Now look at that humble and beautiful cottage. We could live in such a cottage,” he said.

It was just ahead, to the right of the road. Wisteria wound its way up the chimney and along the side of the cottage. A little fence encircled it, and, as we spoke, puffs of smoke started forth from the chimney.

“Yes, we could have such a cottage,” I said. “We ’d have to pick lots of apples.” Behind the cottage an orchard stretched, and, even from here, you could see the boughs, heavy with apples, bending toward the ground.

“I’d have a writing room upstairs, also,” William said. “And you could keep La Rouge in that barn.”

A big barn was below us now, and a broad chestnut tree, on a little rise, stood between the barn and us.

“Let’s stop here,” I said, “give La Rouge a rest.”

William stopped the wagon beneath the low chestnut branches, as under a green and yellow tent, and helped me down. I took Rouge’s harness off, leaving on the halter and lead rope, and let her graze free on the grass beside the road. William opened the basket and passed me the loaf of bread and the jug of water. He took a drink from the wine flask.

“I’ve seen cottages like that on the edge of Blois,” I said. “With my bequest from my father I could find one and buy it. It couldn’t be very expensive. I’ll write you when you go to England and tell you to meet me in our cottage. We ’ll have roses as well as wisteria. And a Monsieur William pear.” I laughed. “We ’ll bottle our own eau-de-vie.”

A small thunder of hooves smothered my words, and six National Guardsmen rode from the direction of Vendôme, dusting the bending boughs of the apple trees. One dismounted and pounded on the door of the cottage. A man in shirtsleeves appeared: he towered over the soldier who had pounded on his door. I heard a raised voice from the soldier, and the tall man shrugged, a big shrug with both arms spread out wide to either side. The soldier strode to the barn down the slight hill and beat on its broad doors. They didn’t open. Even though I was sure word could not have reached Vendôme yet of William’s flight, I was afraid, and I’m sure William was too, for he silently took my hand—or I took his. We stood still, hardly breathing, beneath the overhanging chestnut leaves, in earshot but, I hoped, hidden from obvious view by the branches.

The soldier now ordered his men to dismount. They hit the butts of their muskets against the planks of the door, which must have been shut with a crossbar; one even shot his musket at it, and the report echoed through the quiet valley. Finally, the door splintered and gave way. In a few minutes they dragged out a woebegone priest, in dirty robes, as if he had been in hiding for some time.

As soon as they stood him before the officer, one soldier hit the priest in the stomach with the butt of his musket. Then another did the same.

Their officer looked on. They had free license to beat a priest. One took his musket to the priest’s head, as if it were the barn door. Then another followed him, too. Now the priest was down. You could not see him, only the soldiers’ backs and their muskets going up and down. Now and then we heard a moan or a cry that was silenced by the next falling musket. We saw spurts of dust where his legs kicked.

“They’ll kill him,” I said.

“This is intolerable,” William said.

We saw the muskets go up and down again, not in unison, but like some weird water wheel.

What few people understand about William now, as a famous poet, is that he is—or at least
was
—a rash and passionate man. And he acted spontaneously because he always trusted his feelings. He looked at me under those leaves, each muffled cry of the priest louder in our ears than the one before, each rising and falling of a musket more impossible to watch, and each dull thud wrenching our own insides. It was one of those split-second looks that determine lifetimes. I nodded—I don’t know now why I nodded. I think I was a fool for nodding. But I think I felt the same as William, that it was inhuman to stand so close to this suffering man and do nothing, just
watch
.

So with no words passed between us, both thinking that the National Guard could not have heard about William yet, he emerged from under the branches of the chestnut tree and shouted for them to cease. With gaping mouths they held the bloody butts of their muskets still; the priest curled himself around his injuries and lay still in the dust below. All were silent. The officer stared at William.

“Who are you?” he said.

“Monsieur Guillaume,” my husband said. He, too, was much taller than the officer. “I am a member of the patriot club of Blois, the Friends of the Constitution.”

“Are you?” the officer said. “And on what authority do you give my men an order?”

“On no authority, Citizen”—William looked at the man’s insignia—“Citizen Lieutenant. I ask it in the name of humanity, in the name of
fraternité
, of brotherhood.” The lieutenant then snatched a musket from the soldier on his right and shoved its butt, with great strength, into my beloved’s chest. William couldn’t breathe. He doubled over, and I ran out from under the branches also. I fear I screamed. The lieutenant ignored me.

“No one,” he said, “tells my men what to do or not to do but myself.” He raised the musket again, and I moved in front of William.

“You’ve beaten two unarmed men this morning, Lieutenant. Will you start now on a patriot’s wife?” I wondered if he noticed my state, partially hidden as it was by the cape.

The lieutenant lowered the musket and handed it back to his soldier. “Madame, I commend you for your bravery. But I’m afraid I will have to arrest your husband.”

“On what charge?” I said.

“For interfering with my arrest. I have orders to bring in that
priest
.” He said the word with disgust. “Perhaps you and your husband are royalist friends of refractory priests. I notice your husband has an accent. Is he Austrian? That would be quite a find, to bring in a priest
and
an Austrian spy.”

“He’s English,” I said.

William reached in his pocket now and handed the lieutenant his papers. Everyone nowadays carried their papers on their person, as soon as they left their house.

“These don’t prove you’re not a spy,” the lieutenant said. “Many, most, spies have perfect papers. Yours, Madame?” He kept William’s.

I fumbled in my pocket, pulled out a poem, then another poem, then reached in another pocket, pulled out a poem and my papers.

I handed the papers to the officer. “Rather a lot of writing there,” he said. “And some of it, I see, is in a foreign tongue.” I had William write out all his translations also in the original, so I could try to sound out the lines.

“My husband is a poet,” I said. “An English poet who loves France.”

He gave my papers back to me. “What do you have in that cart?”

“Vines,” I said. “We are transporting vines, of the cabernet franc variety, from Vienne to Vendôme. Our employer intends to start growing his grapes there, too.”

“A poet hauling vines at dawn. A foreign poet who loves priests. I’m afraid, Madame, that this matter is decided.”

William, though held by two soldiers, struggled to step in front of the officer. “I have friends in the National Assembly,” he said. “I know Citizen Brissot. I have a letter signed and sealed by Brissot.”

“And you’re transporting vines,” the lieutenant said.

“A poet must eat somehow, Lieutenant,” William said, and almost smiled.

“I would like to see that letter,” the officer said. No one wanted to offend someone in the National Assembly.

“It’s in my rucksack, in the wagon,” William said.

“Go with him.” The officer ordered one of the soldiers.

The three of us walked up the little hill, and I prayed to Sainte Lucette that this letter would convince the lieutenant to leave William alone. The other National Guardsmen stayed with their prisoner. A soldier stood him up and roughly tied the hands of the priest behind him. The priest swayed as if he were drunk. Blood ran from the top of his head in several lines down his face and onto his robes.

La Rouge looked up as we approached, then continued nibbling the grass on the verge of the road.

William told the soldier he had to get in the wagon, and as he brushed past me, he gave me another look. Almost a smile, almost a twinkle in the eye, accompanied the look. I put a hand on La Rouge’s side to alert her. I thought I heard him whisper, “Vendôme.” He was standing on the seat of the wagon, going through his rucksack.

Quickly he leaped onto La Rouge’s back. I said “Allons-y.” William grasped the lead rope and kicked her sides, and they rushed off through the apple orchard.

It was all confusion for the soldiers. They didn’t know whether to stay with the priest or mount their horses and pursue their new suspect. The officer cursed the soldier who ran back down the hill from the wagon, then ordered two of his men to follow the Englishman.

He himself stayed with his charge. He and his three soldiers mounted their horses, and the priest, attached to the last soldier by his rope, came behind. I saw La Rouge far away in the orchard and the other two horses running under the boughs bent with fruit. Dust rose there into the morning air. The lieutenant walked his horse up the hill to the main road.

“You’ve lost your husband,” he said.

“You’ve lost your prisoner,” I said.

“I have got mine,” he said. “My orders were for this one,” and he jerked his head back toward the priest, following them up the hill. “You’ve also lost your horse.” He laughed. “It’s a long walk to Vienne.” He gestured for one of the soldiers to ride to the farm-house. “That farmer may have had nothing to do with the hiding of the priest,” the officer said, “but now he and his neighbors will learn it is wrong just to have a counter-revolutionary on one’s property. He won’t have much strength left to help with his harvest. The same could go for you. I don’t know why I’m not arresting you along with this priest and your fleeing husband. Associating with counter-revolutionaries is a crime. Maybe I believe his story of Citizen Brissot. Maybe I’ve fulfilled my duty and am feeling magnanimous. Maybe I’ve noticed your state and for some reason don’t want you to think we are monsters. I don’t know, Madame, but it’s a lucky day for you. Think of my mercy on your long walk home,” and he commenced his horse into a trot and resumed his place before his soldiers and the tottering priest.

I contemplated the lieutenant’s words and silently thanked Sainte Lucette, then prayed again for William.

I myself didn’t know what to do. I stood there for several minutes, staring in the direction of the orchard and now seeing nothing, nothing at all. I sat down on the grass at the side of the road. I looked at La Rouge’s hoofprints in the grass. After a while I got up, climbed into the wagon, and retrieved William’s rucksack and the basket of food and water.