Back at the cottage, the toasts began. Aunt Désirée touched her glass to mine. “To the vicomtesse.”
I felt light-headed and had to lie down. I was still a little weak when I rejoined the guests. The men were teasing Monsieur de Beauharnais about the night that lay ahead.
It was almost midnight when the last guest departed. On Aunt Désirée’s instruction Mimi accompanied me to Monsieur de Beauharnais’s room. A fire had been laid, but even so it was chilly. In the dressing room, Mimi helped me out of my gown and into a new lace-trimmed chemise, which was lovely, although scratchy. “You look like an angel,” she said. Mimi tucked my greased and powdered headdress under a boned calash. She began humming:
Calypso, you are a woman just like me…
“How does that song go?” It was familiar.
Mimi sang, “I caressed Sonson, fondled Sonson, I even went so far I nibbled Sonson!”
A dizzy feeling came over me. I grabbed hold of a wig stand.
“Are you all right?” Mimi asked.
“Yes.” Although I wasn’t sure. I heard footsteps in the bedchamber, heard the door close, the bed boards creak. The light in the bedchamber suddenly went out.
“Ooooh!” Mimi hurriedly dabbed jasmine fragrance on my neck, bosom and behind my ears. Then she pushed me through the dressingroom curtains.
I was comforted by the darkness. “I am here,” I heard Monsieur de Beauharnais say. I heard someone coughing downstairs.
I felt my way to the side of the bed. His hand reached out for me. “You startled me!” I said.
“I’m sorry,” he said, pulling back the covers. “I should have left a candle burning.”
I slipped under the covers, felt the warming pan at the foot of the bed. I was trying to think what to say. Was I supposed to say something? I was suddenly aware of the dull, constant ache of my bad tooth. Would I have to have it pulled? Did I have worms in my teeth, like Mimi said? Should I let Monsieur de Beauharnais kiss me if I did?
“What are you thinking?” Monsieur de Beauharnais asked. He turned onto his side, facing me. My eyes were growing accustomed to the dark. I could make out the outline of his head, his shoulder. He wasn’t wearing a nightcap.
“Nothing.” I’d been thinking that in the morning I should rinse my mouth with urine to stop the ache. The thought made me ill, but if doing
so would save the tooth—“What are
you
thinking?” I asked.
“I’m thinking what a strange situation this is. We hardly know one another.” His words slurred a little.
I made a little laugh.
“Perhaps you would prefer to wait,” he said.
“Yes.” Was that what he wanted me to say? I wondered.
The room suddenly became brighter. The moon had come out from behind a cloud. I could see his eyes. His lips were thin, a little disdaining, his nose prominent, giving him an aristocratic profile. My husband, the man for whom God intended me. I had only met him six weeks before, and now I was his wife.
“Perhaps if I just kissed you,” he said.
“Yes.” A pin had come loose in my headdress and was poking into my scalp uncomfortably.
He moved over to my side of the big bed. His head blocked the light from the window. I could no longer see his features. He put his hand on my shoulder. His breath smelled of brandy and cigars. His lips touched mine, and then he pulled away. Was that it? I wondered. Did I do something wrong?
“I forgot something,” he said.
He reached back and opened the cabinet beside the bed. “Aunt Désirée doesn’t want the sheets stained,” he said, handing me a cloth.
What was I supposed to do with it?
“Put it under your…you know.”
Under my bottom?
He lay down beside me. I felt him fumbling with my bed jacket. “Do you mind?” he asked.
“Do you want me to take it off?” I didn’t want to take it off.
He kissed my nose. I wondered, did he miss my mouth? His hand slipped into the bodice of my night-dress. His lips covered my mouth. Then he slipped his hand under my night-dress, found the place between my legs. I cried out, surprised. His fingers were cold. He kissed me hard. He pushed my night-dress up around my waist, got on top of me. His manhood felt warm against my skin. He poked it here and there. I lay still. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do. Then I felt a sharp pain. I cried out and tried to pull away, but he held me. And then he was inside me.
He kissed my wet cheeks. He was moaning and moving around. I wondered how long it would go on. I tried not to cry, but it hurt! Then he clasped me to him hard, his feet kicking, and collapsed on top of me, groaning.
Had he had an attack? Was he dead? “Are you all right?” I whispered. What had happened? He rolled over beside me, grunting.
Soon he was snoring. The image of William’s face came to me, his smile.
You would make a lovely queen,
he had told me.
Tears trickled down the side of my face onto the pillow. Was I a woman now?
January 1, 1780, New Year’s Day—Paris.
I have resolved to go to mass every morning. I want to become a good wife. I have asked for divine help in this, for so often a pained expression covers Monsieur de Beauharnais’s brow.
“What is it I do?” I asked Aunt Désirée. “What is the reason?”
“
Reason,”
she said, correcting my pronunciation. “You continue to drop your
r
’s, Rose.”
Aunt Désirée wrote out a list of words. I am to practise them, recite them to her every evening. I try to accept her correction without temper, for I know that it is in
this
that I must strive—to obey without question, to become Madame la vicomtesse, a most excellent wife.
January 13.
Monsieur de Beauharnais practises dance steps all the day long, watching himself in the big looking glass. He has been invited to the Queen’s ball at Versailles…but I have not.
“Why?” I asked Father and Aunt Désirée. “Why might
I
not go?”
“You haven’t been presented at Court, Rose,” Father said.
“Neither has Alexandre.”
*
“But Alexandre is the best dancer in all of Paris,” Aunt Désirée said. “This is quite an honour, Rose. You should rejoice on your husband’s behalf.”
Sunday, January 23.
Monsieur de Beauharnais has returned from Versailles. He danced with the Queen!
Aunt Désirée looked like she might faint. “Alexandre, tell us the truth. You didn’t dance with the
Queen.
”
It was true, he had, for one-quarter turn of a polonaise, he said.
“Did she touch your glove?” Aunt Désirée asked. “This one?”
“Behold, Madame, I give you my blessing.” Monsieur de Beauharnais made an elegant sweep through the air and touched his hand to her shoulder.
We gathered in the front parlour to listen to his account. Even Father came downstairs to join us, interrupting Monsieur de Beauharnais to fill us in on details of proper royal deportment.
Monsieur de Beauharnais said the Queen is graceful—although she doesn’t dance too much now, now that she is a mother, allowing herself only a few quadrilles or a colonne anglaise or two in an evening. When the King joins her he has to dance without turning his back to her, which gets him hopelessly mixed up and behind the music.
Monsieur de Beauharnais said the Queen is an accomplished hostess, keeping the young men from staying in the corners all night talking of horses and duelling.
Oh, there was so much that he told us, it is hard to remember it all: the Swiss Guards in starched ruffs, their spaniels on leashes; a door of glass so clear people almost walked through it; a room of maids to attend to dresses in need of repair; the firemen standing ready with buckets of water and large sponges…
All this evening I have been in a reverie. I imagine myself strolling, cooling myself with a fan of mother-of-pearl. Men in black velvet dance around me, their long plumes bobbing. I imagine the music, the women in court hoops twirling, the swish of silk on silk…
It is dawn. I have danced all night. Around the walls of the gilded room are the slumped bodies of the sleeping pages, the maids, the exhausted dancers. But still, I dance…
Tuesday, February 29.
Oh, sorrow beyond measure. One week ago Alexandre’s sister-in-law, Marie, gave birth to a girl. Aunt Désirée and I have been going to mass every morning, praying for the health of this infant, but in spite of our efforts, she died this morning, at seven days. This is the second infant Marie has lost.
Friday, June 23, Saint John’s Day.
I am seventeen today. Monsieur de Beauharnais presented me with a ruby. Then he informed me that he must return to his regiment. “How long will you be gone?” I asked.
“Six months.”
Six months!
July 18, 3:00
P.M.
Monsieur de Beauharnais is gone. He left a list of readings for me to complete: Agesilaus, Brutus, Aristides. I fall asleep reading.
July 25, 1780—Brest
Dear Rose,
I am glad you have been attending to your studies but disheartened that your efforts are not better reflected in your written expression. Are you sitting at the writing desk properly, as I showed you? Are you holding your quill correctly, bending your arm at the right angle?
As for content, I suggest you ask Aunt Désirée if she has a book of letters you might copy. In this way you might learn correct expression.
My heart is filled with longing for the one whom I hold most dear. In rapture, I fall asleep each night, pressing your image to my lips. Oh, that it were you! How cruel Time, who keeps us apart.
Write, Rose. Do not neglect your studies.
Your husband, Alexandre de Beauharnais, vicomte
August 2.
I stood in front of the looking glass this morning, examining my belly, turning to the right and the left, trying to see if there has been any change. I should have started the flowers two weeks ago…
Thursday, August 31.
This morning when I woke, feeling sick in the way I do so often now, I decided it was time to talk to Aunt Désirée. After the midday meal I asked her if we could talk. She invited me into her apartment. I sat down on the settee with some sense of formality. I told her I’d come to ask her advice.
She looked at me with a cautious but satisfied look. “Yes?”
“How would I know if I were with child?”
I thought for a moment Aunt Désirée had stopped breathing, for the rise and fall of her chest is usually remarkable. She squared her shoulders and said, “Very well,” and proceeded to ask me questions. When I told her I hadn’t had flowers for over two months, she stood up and put me directly to bed, where she’s been feeding me hot chicken broth and wine ever since.
The doctor comes every morning, to see Father. Hopefully he will release me from this prison.
September 1.
The doctor prescribed ten drops of tincture of iron in the morning, meat two times a day, and a pint of beer or a glass of port with supper. I can get out of bed, but for two months I’m not to ride in a carriage.
I endure with joy. I am more than myself.
September 14, 7:00
P.M.
Monsieur de Beauharnais writes words of love now that he has received my news. But, oh, woe, I fear it is too late. A week ago I began to bleed—not much, but I was cautious and took to bed. The baby was held, Mimi said, kept from growing. She made a dragon’s blood mixture that I dutifully ingested two times a day with powdered dried almonds mixed with the
yolks of eggs. This went on for several days. Nevertheless yesterday I was seized with the most terrible pain. Mimi asked if she should fetch Aunt Désirée, but I insisted no.
So it was Mimi who was with me, for which I shall always be grateful. It was hard—it was
all
I could do not to scream—but Mimi knew how to help it pass. When it was over she prayed for me, not a Christian prayer, I confess, but a sweet crooning sort of chant about a woman’s pain and the earth bringing life anew.
I wept the night through. I am no longer with child.
November 1, 1780, All Saints’ Day.
At table the Marquis and Aunt Désirée talked of Marie’s mother “Aunt Fanny,” who has recently returned from Rome. She’s a writer and keeps a
salon.
She has published a booklet,
Hail to All Thinkers!
(which the Marquis
insists
“one of” her lovers must have written) and a romance novel called
Triumph of Love
(which Aunt Désirée forbids me to read).
“Her salon stays open until five in the morning,” the Marquis exclaimed. “I’d like to know what people can be doing at that hour!” It was a small entertainment to see him worked up so.
Tuesday, November 7.
My room is full of the heavy scent of attar of roses, Aunt Fanny’s perfume. I confess to being captivated. Her face is tiny, giving the impression of a fairy. She wears a frightful amount of make-up, especially on her eyes, which are quite lively, never resting. She’s very
theatrical.
(It is hard to imagine that she is Marie’s mother. Marie is so timid.)
Her dress was simple, but she wore it without a corset—I was shocked! There was a mannish quality to her hat, which was mellowed charmingly by a wreath of flowers which she wore in abundance in defiance of her age.
“So,” she said when we met, “this is the beauty all of Paris will be talking about.”
I blushed. Were that it were true! I don’t believe I’ll ever see Paris, in spite of living in the heart of it.
She stayed for only one hour, drinking brandy in her tea. The Marquis seemed only too willing to listen to her wild stories, in spite of his disapproval, which he made clear. She knows artists and politicians, philosophers and poets, all manner of people. She has just finished writing a romantic novel which will be published soon, and has already begun composing yet another. But mostly she was concerned about
me.