The Chevalier Read online

  “It is.”

  She strokes my cheek in a most affectionate manner. “Charming. Your skin is so fresh, like a baby’s. There is no trace of beard.”

  “I know. I’ve never had a need to shave.”

  Her hand slips down to play around my neck, causing me to swallow hard.

  “Your Adam’s apple is so small. Nevertheless you must cover it. A sharp eye might pierce your disguise. Powder alone just won’t do.”

  “It worked with you.”

  She points to the sparse candles. “The light in these rooms is dim.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “A ribbon of silk or velvet should suffice. Come on now, hurry. It’s time to change back to our former costumes.”

  It seems so soon. “A minute longer, please.” She nods.

  I feast upon myself and fix a lasting picture of my image; then those massed ranks of mirrors show the stages of metamorphosis as the red dress once again becomes the black.

  Seeing me in my sister’s mourning wear makes Marie recall our earlier talk about our lives. “What of your family circumstances now?”

  “We’re poor. I have no money to speak of and no one to advise me.”

  “Ever since my husband left my life, I feel the same.” She looks as though she really does so, although our present situation inspires some unkind thoughts. I may of course be dealing with a most accomplished actress.

  “Madame, I pity you. But how about your protector?”

  She gives a little sob: I fear she may break down but within a few moments she collects herself. “Excuse me. It’s nothing. What is your real name?”

  “Charles, the Chevalier d’Éon de Beaumont.”

  “So part of what you told me was correct. And your profession?”

  I hesitate. “Lawyer is true.” But I want to say more. From my many métiers, I choose the one with which she’s sure to have most sympathy. “I’m also an author.”

  “And this is the way you learn how to write?” She touches the front of my dress, implies my subterfuge.

  “Not exactly. I don’t know.” The truth is that I really am unsure. There are any number of methods – and reasons. “Can you understand my actions?”

  “No, I’m not able to describe what drives you, on so fleeting an acquaintance.” She laughs.

  This irks me: I need a serious response. “But can you forgive what I’ve done?”

  The laughter stops immediately. Her dark blue eyes cast light deep into mine. There is a moment where our souls commune. I’m breathless, quite transported. I think it is the first time in my whole life I have lost control of my inner self.

  After a long pause, she speaks. “There’s nothing to forgive.” She turns to examine herself in the glass and I do the same.

  I am now certain this is a woman I must meet again; if I wasn’t sure before, our brief communion and these final words have convinced me. Quite apart from her dazzling garments, her transcendent beauty and her tolerance, it is rare to find someone with so feminine a sensibility and so masculine a mind. Not unlike my own, it might be fair to add.

  However, there is a suspicion nagging me; when I see her evident repose in these surroundings, I cannot shake this feeling she may be a great player on the stage, and might be beguiling me in her turn.

  “And did you tell me your real name?” I ask.

  “What do I have to hide? All know me as Marie de Courcelles.”

  “Very well. I am at your service, Marie – and forever in your debt.”

  Her eyebrow arches as she dabs a final touch of powder on her face. “I’m ready. It’s time for me to go.”

  “I’ll follow you.” My expectations for the night are quite fulfilled.

  She leaves the room, enters the main hall and the beasts and shepherdesses part for her. Back in her bright red dress, she is a poppy in a field of grass and bluebells, corn and daisies; once more I am become the black ship on calm seas.

  Cold air assails us as we exit the great doors of the Opéra; I observe a couple entwined beside two pillars at the top of the steps. The man darts a glance in our direction before returning to his suit. All around us revellers are emerging, drowsy, drunken and satiated from the ball, masks ripped, clothes torn, many of the animals’ heads lolling alarmingly. A line of carriages curves into the middle distance back down the road towards the Palais-Royal.

  “Charles,” Marie breathes, her voice imbued with that rich melody. “My little Chevalier. Don’t forget me.”

  “How could I? Just where and when can I see you again?”

  “You’ll find me if God wills it.”

  “Would an address not be more useful?” There’s a certain acerbic measure to my tone.

  Marie smiles with the enigmatic conviction of great beauties, kisses me farewell on the cheek and turns towards a far-off carriage. I watch her go, the glimpses of red fading into the last of the night, then, as if floating in a reverie, I start to advance slowly down the steps. The enthusiastic lover from the pillars detaches himself from his amoreuse. He has the fine clothes of an elegant nobleman, a light blue silk coat with silver brocade, black leather boots and the mask of a grey wolf.

  “Mademoiselle?”

  It is not so late that I cannot recall my character. “Who summons me, sir?”

  “May I offer you a ride home?”

  “Thank you, but no. I have a carriage – somewhere.” I wave with vague authority towards the darkness.

  He brushes this spurious detail aside. “Tell your coachman to go home.”

  “Forgive me, but why should I?”

  The nobleman removes his mask to show a boyish, handsome face, tinged with the air of a dedicated sybarite. “You’d be gratifying the whim of the Prince de Conti – and Charlotte, the Comtesse de Boufflers.”

  He gestures to his mistress by the pillar, her shepherdess’s gown falling in folds of even lighter blue around her; her cerulean hat perched upon her softly powdered hair, her pale blue eyes seductive underneath her mask. I can only blink at first, assimilating this news, before I wake myself up. A Prince of the Blood and a great salon hostess – I know who they are, right enough.

  “Monsieur le Prince, I should be delighted.”

  He smiles, and leads the Comtesse de Boufflers to the nearest coach, signalling for me to follow. Danger signals intrude upon my tiredness. Somehow, I believe, my escapade with Marie de Courcelles has landed me in jeopardy. What did she say when we first met? We were outstanding – something of that nature. I have been rash, drawn attention to myself at a time when I wished only to melt into the shadows. However, I am seeking preferment, it is true. Why else did I come? Best to play this game for the moment, and if so, I must play it to the full. I summon a nearby footman, who’s holding a flaming torch aloft.

  “Please go to the last carriage. Tell the coachman that I say he’s free to leave.”

  “My Lady.” The footman seems disappointed with his errand, unwilling to move until the Prince throws him a louis, whereupon he departs.

  Just remembering to accept Conti’s hand as I do so, I climb onto the step of his carriage, doors emblazoned with the crest of orange lilies, to join Charlotte on the forward-facing seat.

  He leaps in after me. “Where to?”

  “I thought you were abducting me.”

  “Pretty as you are, I find the Comtesse de Boufflers sufficient for the moment. I offered you a ride to your own domicile.”

  I hesitate, but at this late hour of the night, I find I am too tired to bluff. “Faubourg Saint Germain. Rue de Tournon. Hôtel d’Ons-en-Bray.”

  He leans out to address his coachman. “Did you hear that up there?”

  “Yes, Monsieur le Prince.”

  Conti raps on the roof with the hilt of his sword. The horses paw at the stones and the coach moves off. I lean back next to Charlotte on the seat and prepare for what I hope will be a gentle inquisition.

  * * *

  Panting, the footman runs up to the final coach
in the line. It’s as showy as Conti’s, resplendent with extravagant livery and a boastful coat of arms, two bears rampant by a tower. The dozing coachman, stunted and goblin-faced, opens an eye as the footman comes to a halt, breath escaping in large puffs into the night air.

  “Your mistress says you’re free to go.”

  The coachman touches a wart on his nose. “That right?”

  “Wouldn’t be legging it out here for nothing, would I?” The footman spits on the ground and turns away.

  The coachman snaps awake, shakes himself against the pre-dawn frost and limbers up the horses. As he does so, a strangled shout comes from Guerchy, approaching in the distance, weighed down by his bull’s head. Behind him weaves Lydia, her shoes clicking an erratic pattern on the stones. The horses clop forward a step, two: the coach is getting underway.

  Guerchy hauls off his mask and cries out again. “Where are you off to, Monin?”

  Now the coachman recognises his master’s voice, brings up the horses in slithering confusion and jumps down to the ground.

  “I was about to return home. Apparently the Comtesse said I wasn’t needed, my Lord.”

  Monin opens the carriage door as Lydia clatters up – he indicates her with his eyes.

  “Did she indeed?” Guerchy looks in befuddlement at his wife – she stares back in silent combat. Behind him, the torch held high by the footman flickers in the breeze carrying the first light of dawn.

  She breaks the mounting tension. “What are you gawping at?”

  “Did you give orders for the carriage to go?”

  “I said nothing of the sort.”

  “Then whoever did?”

  Lydia shrugs. It’s not her concern.

  “She’s gone, my Lord,” the footman butts in, hopping from one leg to the other with the cold.

  “Who?”

  “The woman who sent me. In black, she was.”

  Guerchy tries to cast his mind back through all the events at the ball. His head is aching. He’ll remember more after some rest. He tosses a coin to the footman and pushes Lydia into their carriage. “All right. Carry on, Monin.”

  The coachman climbs aloft, grimaces and once more stirs up the horses.

  As their carriage moves away, the footman, who finds he has now made up for a quiet night, calls out after them. “I think she was joining another couple, last I saw of her.”

  Chapter Three

  Invitations

  The Prince’s coach glides its way towards the river on muffled wheels. We pass all those sights – bakers rising to prepare the bread, whores granting their clients one last kiss upon the doorstep, lamplighters snuffing out their lamps – that make me feel so doleful after a late night’s carousing. My pleasure having been enhanced tonight to so great a pitch, by that much is my melancholy now increased. Charlotte is too fatigued to quiz me hard, contenting herself with some chatter about dressmakers, to which I respond with names of those whose shop fronts and displays I’ve admired. She swears by Mademoiselle Pagelle at Au Trait Galant, an establishment I recall from the Rue Saint Honoré. I echo her fervour with mild enthusiasm. Sitting opposite us, the Prince keeps his eye on me throughout the ride.

  Over the Pont Neuf, I see the first glimmerings of a sunrise. Usually I cannot help but regard this as a favourable portent, restoring my depressed spirits: today I fear it heralds my doom. The broad, brightening skies expose my black gown as out of place, which heightens my discomposure.

  We rush past Conti’s mansion on the far banks of the Seine, one I notice every day as I walk across the bridge; soon we enter the Rue de Tournon. Anxious not to disturb the newly widowed Comtesse d’Ons-en-Bray at such an hour, I request my guests not to disembark in the courtyard of the house. Instead we halt several paces beyond the entrance and, once inside the gates, make our cautious pathway to the corner staircase, a grim spiral unbroken by windows, dark even at the sunniest of noons.

  A single candle glows to light my way. I tread with care, praying neither the sound of the Prince’s heavy boots clumping up the stairs behind me nor the tapping of his paramour’s heels will awaken my fellow residents. I reach the alcove that serves as my apartment, open the door and turn to await them. The disembodied faces of the Prince and Charlotte gradually make themselves apparent in the gloom.

  “A temporary lodging, as you see,” I say.

  Conti grasps the candle from me and peers into the apartment. The rooms, a bedchamber and small closet, are not as grand as their name. In fact, I must confess they’re dingy in the extreme. Around the peeling dark blue walls hang faded prints, with dusty books piled high in towers on the floor – apart from these and a desk, chair and bed, there is only a full-length mirror, already losing its sheen. The Prince uses the flame to light the ancient candelabra and, after a few seconds, his cornflower coat and her country dress swim into focus.

  “Strange place for a woman living on her own,” he declares.

  By good fortune I have remembered to pack all my normal clothes away in the closet before leaving for the ball, a necessary precondition so I could examine and wonder at my feminine self more wholly and exclusively in the long glass. That moment seems an age away.

  “I suppose it is,” I say.

  “Hardly appropriate.”

  I feel my cheeks burn. “We all have to make do.”

  The Prince smiles. “But then you’re hardly a lady, are you?”

  “I’m not quite sure what you mean.”

  “What would you say, Charlotte?” He turns to her.

  She moves forward and strokes me with infinite gentleness on my throat, tracing my small Adam’s apple, before she lets her fingers carry on down over my breastbone, and lower. Amazed, I react too late – but react I do, and stay her hand. She can be in little doubt.

  “Remarkable,” she says, breathing a little faster.

  I back away. “So what do you want?”

  “The truth, for a start,” says Conti. “Your name, if you please?”

  My brain must now work with prodigious speed. What if he is determined to betray me? A Prince of the Blood has great influence with the King. Perhaps my actions could be deemed against the laws of France. I doubt I would be the first to indulge myself in such desires; I am sure it was one of the lesser foibles of the Duke of Orléans. But what men in power do is one thing, and what’s allowed to outsiders another. If they have any reason to want to crush me, an excuse can always be found.

  “Does it matter?”

  “Yes. This could mean a great deal – for all of us.”

  So perhaps he does want to employ me? He’s powerful, after all. My ambition wrestles with my yearning for the safety of anonymity and, after a short struggle, wins the field. My specious cloak of secrecy gives way.

  “I’m Charles, the Chevalier d’Éon de Beaumont.”

  “Really. Where’ve you been hiding, Chevalier?” His eyes trace their way along the blue walls to the closet.

  “I work in the office of the Paris buildings commission. In my spare time, I’ve been engaged in writing a book.”

  He glances at the swarm of papers scattered on my desk. “Your subject, sir?”

  “It’s a history of the French economy under Louis XIV and the Regency.”

  A scornful puff of air escapes his lips. “No one will read it. Try fashion – that should be more in your line – or gossip, like that little duke. You know, Saint-Simon.”

  “My conclusions would help France become a just and free society.”

  Conti flashes a brief, weary smile at Charlotte. She responds in kind but turns to look at me with what I imagine to be greater respect.

  “A creature of ideals,” she murmurs.

  “Positively philosophical,” he concurs.

  I am roused. “Why else do we live?”

  Conti’s cynical smirk shows me there are plenty of other reasons. His teeth gleam in the growing light. Whether from her contemplation of my escapade or some recollection of princely attentions, Charlott
e also has a pleasing flush about her face.

  There is a pause before Conti continues: I feel he may be sporting with me as a huntsman plays a hare. He indicates my cheek. “You’re beardless.”

  “I’ve never visited a barber in my life.”

  “That’s good. That’s very good.” He nods at Charlotte.

  I am in the dark. “What is your meaning, Monsieur le Prince?”

  He does not reply at first. His eyes again take in the unadorned room. Next moment, his expression becomes grave. “You don’t have a carriage, do you?”

  Of course, I don’t wish to admit this, yet I am compelled to speak the truth. “No.”

  “Any other income?”

  “I carry out some special tasks for Monsieur de Savigny. I’m a lawyer.”

  “You all are these days. Now listen. Do you wish to serve your King?”

  “It’s been one of my dreams. I…”

  He holds up his hand, damming my flow. “Splendid. We may have some work for you, of a most particular nature. Come to Versailles on Thursday evening at six: there’ll be a royal presentation. Be sure to wear the scarlet dress. I’ve no doubt its owner will oblige – again.”

  “I don’t know how to find her,” I protest, cursing myself for not having been more forthright earlier.

  “Leave that to me.”

  Charlotte fixes me with her limpid blue eyes, her hand smoothing the creases in her shepherdess’s dress. “I could,” she checks herself, “assist – if she is busy. My wardrobe is quite extensive.”

  She holds my hand and smiles at me with rather more encouragement than I might wish. I lower my gaze, still recalling the feeling of those same fingers brushing against my unprotected neck and running down my chest. Her advances echo the words of her lord libertine; in each case, I sense that I am on the verge of great danger. Why else would they pursue me? Yet there is something impelling me to find out where this path will lead.

  “Thank you,” I say. “Both of you. I’ll be there.”

  Conti nods – he affects the stance of the elder statesman who’s seen everything, although I wager he’s barely ten years older than I am. Nevertheless, he’s intrigued. I can tell these things: I’ve always been sensitive to the reactions of others. Besides, my adventures tonight have taught me the value of my appearance, and I am aware that my mind also attracts favourable comment.