The Game of Hope

by Sandra Gulland

  Of course I wanted to know about Eugène, but also about Christophe. Were they safe? When would they return? Would they return?

  Lenormand laid the cards out in four rows of eight, and then a fifth row of the remaining four at the bottom. Each card had an image on it: a snake, a ship, a heart and so forth. “This is you,” she said, pointing to the third card in the second row. “The Lady card. The two cards to the left of it show your past.”

  One showed clouds, and the other a mouse. “What do they mean?”

  Lenormand gave me an apologetic look. “The Cloud card combined with the Mice card signifies anxiety, doubts and confusion.”

  Aïe. Might this have to do with my doubts and confusion about my mother’s relationship with Citoyen Charles? I wasn’t sure I wanted to go on.

  “The cards to the right of the Lady—the Star and the Garden cards—point toward your future. They indicate some sort of public event. A celebration, perhaps,” she said, “a grand ball?”

  That could be anything, I thought.

  “Whatever it is, it will be significant for you in some way. And the four cards at the bottom are the conclusion.” These cards showed a heart, a stork, a bird and a tower. “The verdict,” she pronounced.

  “Which is?” I asked, holding my breath.

  She tapped each card thoughtfully. “They reveal that in matters of the heart, you await developments.”

  Citoyen Jadin raised his eyebrows.

  “Dear heart, you’ve turned bright red,” Maman said in a teasing tone.

  * * *

  —

  “So, Citoyenne Beauharnais,” Jadin said, as he was leaving, “what developments do you await in matters of the heart?”

  “It’s only a game,” I protested. I could hear Mimi and the scullery maid clearing the dining table. Maman was in the salon with Lenormand, sharing stories of their prison days.

  “I’m sure,” Jadin said with a doubtful smile. He smelled strongly of the black cherry brandy we’d all been sipping. “You and your mother are gracious hosts. Are you learning to forgive?”

  “Pardon?” I handed him his threadbare cloak.

  “I’m referring to that person you regard as all virtue and goodness.”

  Maman. “There’s a fiacre stand near the end of the laneway. I’ll walk you out to the road,” I offered, reaching for my shawl. I didn’t want anyone overhearing.

  The stars were bright and the moon nearly full. We didn’t need a lantern. “This was supposed to be a bigger party tonight,” I said, pulling down my hat. The night air smelled of smoke drifting from the chimneys.

  “So I gathered.”

  “A number of those invited didn’t come,” I said. Our footsteps made crunching sounds on the gravel. “Most of them, in fact. All members of the General’s family.”

  “That’s curious. Nothing . . . grave, I hope?”

  “Grave in its way,” I admitted. “I suspect it’s because they think that Maman is—” I paused, shame coming over me.

  He bent his head toward me. “Yes?”

  “That Mother has a—” But I couldn’t bring myself to say it.

  “That she has a lover,” Citoyen Jadin said, his voice low.

  “You’ve heard?”

  He nodded. “A little.”

  I felt ashamed.

  “Rumors can be vicious, Citoyenne, particularly about women—and most particularly about women in the public eye. Is there any truth to it, do you think?”

  “I’m . . . I’m not sure.” I told him what I knew.

  “Hippolyte Charles, did you say?” he asked, stopping at the road. “An amusing young man, quite dapper?”

  “You know him?”

  He chuckled. “I believe it safe to say that people are mistaken with respect to this so-called affair of the heart.”

  But more than that he would not reveal, in spite of my entreaties. Soon a fiacre happened by and then he was gone. I walked back down the laneway, puzzling over this curious revelation.

  * * *

  —

  The next day, back at school, Caroline sidled up to me outside the dining hall. “Enjoy your dinner?” she asked in a sweet voice, false as a fox.

  I looked over my shoulder. “Why didn’t anyone come?”

  “We have our reasons,” she smirked.

  We: the Clan. I grabbed her arm. “You owe my mother an apology.”

  “We don’t owe her anything.” She yanked her arm free.

  “My mother is your brother’s wife.” Like it or not.

  She rubbed her arm. “Not for long.”

  That stopped me. I waited for three girls to go by. “I beg your pardon?”

  “He loves another woman,” she hissed. “My brother Joseph got an overland message telling him all about it. The soldiers call her his Cleopatra.”

  The General kept a mistress in Egypt? “Some whore, no doubt.” That’s what soldiers did, I’d heard.

  “Hardly. If she gives him a child, he intends to divorce your faithless mother and marry her,” she countered.

  “Good!” I exclaimed, but burst into tears.

  OF AN AGE TO MARRY

  Not long after, Ém and Mouse surprised me by showering me with spring flowers on rising one morning. “You’re sixteen,” they sang.

  It was my birthday? How could I have forgotten? Since my “discussion” with Caroline, I’d been walking about as if under a dark cloud.

  They presented me with a deck of Game of Hope cards, which they’d arranged to acquire from Citoyenne Lenormand.

  “We got instructions, too,” Mouse said, holding up a pamphlet, “both for the game, and”—she lowered her voice, dramatically mysterious—“fortune-telling.”

  “Why don’t you pick a card now?” Ém suggested.

  With my thoughts on my day, I drew the Moon.

  “Aha!” Mouse said, turning the pages and finding the explanation. “The Moon card signifies success in acquiring something long desired.”

  Ém nudged me with a wink. “What might that be?”

  I thought of Lenormand’s prediction.

  * * *

  —

  Now that I was sixteen, I was allowed to put up my hair. Ém coiled and pinned my braids for me. “This signals that you’re old enough to receive a man’s advances,” she said, teasing out wisps of curls around my face.

  “What if I don’t want to receive a man’s advances?” At least not until A Certain Someone returned from Egypt.

  “You are so unromantic, cousin,” she said, flashing her eyes at me.

  I shrugged with a mysterious smile. Little did she know.

  * * *

  —

  Primidi, 21 Germinal, An 7

  Montagne-du-Bon-Air

  Dearest Granddaughter,

  Now that you are sixteen, it is my duty to caution you with respect to the challenges a girl faces going out into the world. Your mother is of a relaxed disposition and isn’t likely to warn you, I know. To that end, I am enclosing a gift, a little book titled The Rules of Courtship, which I’m sure you will find enlightening. It contains advice on the proper way to conduct yourself with young men.

  Your grandmother,

  Nana

  * * *

  —

  I glanced through The Rules of Courtship and put it away. There weren’t any young men in my life, so what was the point?

  * * *

  —

  After our midday meal, Maîtresse invited me into her study. “For a chat,” she said. “You and me.”

  “Oh?” I wondered if she had heard talk of the General’s “other woman.” It humiliated me to think she might know about it.

  But then Maîtresse had sweet red wine served. “Don’t tell the others,” she said with a sly smile. “Now that you are sixt
een, you will be served unwatered wine. It will be prudent for you to learn to imbibe moderately. To your health,” she said, raising her glass.

  I made a show of taking a careful sip. (Maman had been allowing me to imbibe unwatered wine, and sometimes even rum, since I was seven.)

  “You have developed into a lovely young woman,” Maîtresse said.

  “Thank you.” I smiled, but wondered: Was I finished growing? My breasts were still small.

  “And now that you are of age, your mother must find a husband for you.”

  The old pendulum clock ticked and tocked. The time it showed was hours off.

  “But what if I don’t wish to marry? Yet,” I added.

  “It’s not wise to wait, frankly. A girl of sixteen is like a peony bloom at the peak of perfection. Likewise, as with the peony, her attractions quickly fade.”

  Once I turned seventeen, in other words, I would begin to coarsen.

  “This is your year, angel.” She raised her glass again. “Make the most of it.”

  As I accepted her toast, I couldn’t help thinking of Christophe, so very far away. Would I be wilted by the time he returned? (If he ever returned.)

  * * *

  —

  Soon after, Maman arrived with a carriage full of trinkets. She glowed, handing out little gifts and sweetmeats to everyone. “And this is for you, dear heart,” she said in a private moment, presenting me with a parcel wrapped in striped silk. “For those certain special occasions.”

  I gasped. It was an exquisite gown of beige crepe. I held it up to my shoulders. It had a high waistline and short puffball sleeves—but a rather low neckline, almost to my niplets.

  “Th-thank you, Maman,” I stuttered. Did she want me to be wanton?

  —

  21 Germinal, An 7

  The Institute

  Dear Eugène,

  If you were here, you would wish me a happy birthday. You might even have a silly gift for me, nothing extravagant, but something to make me laugh. But this year is different for all of us. Someday soon, I pray, we may all be together again.

  I’ve been lectured a lot today on marriage, and it has caused me to wonder. Is it foolish of me to value fidelity? I know of the rumors about Maman and Citoyen Charles. Most times I think it impossible, but then, at other times, I’m not so sure. I’ve been told—by Caroline, of course—about the General and “Cleopatra.” Caroline told me that the General intends to divorce Maman and marry Cleopatra if she can give him a child.

  Does marriage mean so little? Are my dreams of marriage to a man I love and a man who loves me—a man who will be true—are these naïve fantasies? I think of Ém, her unhappy marriage to a man she doesn’t love (to say the least). I think of Maman, her loyalty to the General and his humiliating betrayal. I bristle at how she is being slandered, yet wonder, too, if there is any truth to the rumors.

  I often dream of Major Christophe Duroc, but aren’t such wishful imaginings as unrealistic as the romantic novels Ém likes to read?

  Be safe, my dear brother. If only you could come home and advise me.

  Your sister Chouchoute, who loves you very much

  Note—Two days ago would have been Easter Sunday by the old calendar. Five years ago, on that night, Maman was taken away. I remember being awoken by the sound of pounding on the door. I sat up trembling. Government inspectors! I could hear Maman weeping, men’s boots, their gruff voices. I had just turned eleven, but I was so paralyzed with fear I made water in my bed. It shames me to think of it, even now.

  BAD HOUSE

  Maman stopped by school after the midday meal. The spring weather being fine, I was outside playing Prisoner’s Base with some other girls during free time. I was, at first, alarmed to see her, thinking, of course, that it might be news of Eugène—bad news. But then I noticed the happy way she came walking toward me, swinging her arms and smiling. She was wearing a chain of spring daisies on her head, as if she were a young woman.

  I conceded my base to Mouse and ran to greet her. “News?” But just then Maîtresse and Citoyen Isabey came out to greet her.

  “And?” Citoyen Isabey asked mysteriously.

  “And?” Maîtresse said.

  Maman threw her arms up in victory and they embraced her with cheers.

  “I believe this calls for a celebratory libation,” Maîtresse said, inviting us up to her rooms.

  “Come,” Maman said, taking my hand. “I’ll explain.”

  * * *

  —

  And news it was. Maman had bought a country property. I couldn’t believe it!

  Maîtresse and Citoyen Isabey already knew about it. They were both of them pleased.

  “Bonaparte wanted to buy it before he left for Egypt,” Maman told me, “but he thought it too expensive. The owners dropped the price this year, so . . .”

  It turned out she’d been negotiating for over four months. “And you didn’t tell me?” How much more did I not know?

  “I didn’t want you to get your hopes up, dear heart. Malmaison is an old estate, not far from here. You pass it on the way to Paris, just after the road turns in from the river.”

  “We do?” I tried to remember.

  “How many acres?” Maîtresse asked.

  “Only three hundred, so it’s not very big, yet it brings in twelve thousand a year.”

  “Excellent,” Maîtresse said. (I imagined she looked forward to being paid for my tuition.)

  “In fact, it’s quite productive. There are five farmers living on the property and they all pay rent. The grapevines produce over a hundred barrels of wine—”

  “We shall enjoy helping you with that,” Isabey said, and we laughed.

  “Dear heart, you will like this. There are seven horses.”

  At last!

  “Farm horses, for the most part,” she qualified, before I got too excited. “Although there’s one rather old bay mare and an ill-tempered pony we can ride.”

  As well as a donkey, over a hundred sheep, plus pigs, chickens, twelve cows . . .

  A real farm, I thought, a bit giddy.

  “There’s a farmhouse, as well as the manor itself, of course,” Citoyen Isabey added, but Maman rather laughed at this.

  I gathered it wasn’t grand. “Is this . . . manor habitable?” I asked. Maman had a weakness for ruins, which she found poignantly romantic.

  She glanced at Isabey. “What would you say?”

  “Fairly,” he said, tilting his head. “Well, most of it.”

  “I would describe it as rustic,” Maman told me with a smile. “But the grounds are beautiful, and it’s a pleasant walk to the village.”

  “Will we move there?” I couldn’t imagine Maman giving up her little house on the outskirts of Paris.

  “We’ll spend time there now and then, especially when the weather is pleasant in the summer.”

  “But it’s called Malmaison?” I made a face. Bad house?

  * * *

  —

  I loved Malmaison the instant I saw it. It was rundown, and not very big, to be sure, but full of promise. The grounds would be lovely once tamed.

  “Where did the money come from for all this?” I dared to ask Maman as she gave me a tour of the tower, dovecote, mill and other outbuildings.

  She looked uncomfortable. “Citoyen Charles and I . . .”

  My heart sank.

  “We have a company, I suppose you’d call it,” she said. “We provision the army, just as several of Bonaparte’s brothers and sisters do. We’ve made a bit of a profit recently, so I used some of that for Malmaison.”

  * * *

  —

  Nasty: When Citoyen Charles shows up and Maman is all smiles.

  * * *

  —

  3 Floréal, An 7

  Malmaison,
<
br />   Dear Eugène,

  Did you know about a property called Malmaison that the General wanted to buy before leaving for Egypt? Maman just bought it! I’m here right now. It’s lovely, although rather in disrepair. Maman fancies it “bucolic.” (Alas, the only musical instruments are an out-of-tune pianoforte and an ancient harp missing three strings.) I think you will love it, especially for the riding trails.

  It’s raining—five leaks in the roof!—so it will be a good day to attend to my studies. Tomorrow I return to school, which is really close, only a half hour by carriage, if that, so I will be going back and forth quite a lot.

  Au revoir. I pray that you are safe and out of danger, you and all the other aides. Ém and Mouse pray for you, too.

  Your Chouchoute

  Note—If one dreams and thinks of someone constantly, does that mean one is in love? How can one know? Maman thinks I’m going to end up an old maid if I don’t marry immediately. It’s making me lunatic!

  Uh-oh! Speaking of Maman, Citoyen Charles has just arrived to talk to her about their “business dealings”—dealings that helped finance the purchase of this property. I’m heartsick over it, to tell you the truth. I don’t know what to think.

  AN UNWELCOME GUEST

  The next time I visited Malmaison I was kept awake by yapping dogs, which of course got Pugdog going.

  “Where did all those dogs come from?” I asked Mimi at breakfast, yawning.

  “Citoyen Charles is staying in the farmhouse,” she said.

  “He’s staying here?” I made a face. “At Malmaison?”

  She grimaced. “And with all his dogs.”