The General's Mistress

by Jo Graham

  I went back and threw myself on my bed. The windows were all open; if Lisette’s apartment would be freezing in the winter, at least there was a breeze in the summer. Lisette came in wearing her wrapper.

  “Another late night?” I asked.

  Lisette nodded and sat down tailor-style on the foot of the bed. “A private party. I take it the audition didn’t go well.”

  “No,” I said, rolling over and staring at the ceiling. “Lisette, I don’t think I’m meant for comedy.”

  Lisette shrugged. “You’re only auditioning for roles at the good theaters, not the burlesque in the Palais-Royal or the traveling troupes. Of course it’s hard. And you don’t have a patron. Or any experience.”

  “I’m pretty.” I kicked my shoes off. “But Paris is full of girls who are pretty.”

  “I’m doing a private party next week and we need one more girl,” Lisette said. “If you’re interested. I can tell my friend.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “What kind of private party?”

  Lisette shook her head, smiling. “Not that kind of party. It’s really an acting job. An occult ritual.”

  “What?” I sat up.

  “You know how there used to be laws against the occult and witchcraft, yes? Church laws? You could be burned at the stake for being a witch.”

  “Are there really any such things?” I asked. “I mean, there are fortune-tellers and things like that, but who believes in witchcraft? I suppose some people out in the country somewhere. . . .”

  Lisette’s face was serious. “What about the Masons?”

  I laughed. “My father was a Mason. He joined when he was a soldier, and he was a Mason the entire time we lived in Italy. And I can absolutely guarantee you that there was nothing whatsoever occult about what he was doing. He was an atheist and a rationalist.”

  “Not all men of substance are,” Lisette said. “There were rumors for years about witchcraft at court.”

  “And there were rumors that Marie Antoinette had orgies with footmen and the Princess de Lamballe,” I said, remembering Moreau’s pamphlets. “But that’s just dirt. I’m sure people said she paid witches to ensure drought and famine too.”

  Lisette didn’t laugh it off. She regarded me very steadily. “I can tell you for a fact that there are powerful men in France who take the occult very seriously. There are secret lodges all over the place.”

  “If they’re secret, why do they want to hire an actress?”

  Lisette looked exasperated. “The legitimate lodges don’t! But there are plenty of men who want to get into that kind of thing who can’t get invited by the great. My friend knows this man who runs a scam. It’s not really a lodge. It’s a couple of his friends who invite some marks to pay ‘initiation fees’ to join a lodge, and they pay to go to rituals for a few months before they’re told that they have progressed too far and need to go by themselves on a quest, and that if they’re worthy they’ll be contacted by the Secret Masters. And of course they never are. But in the meantime, he hires actresses to round out the group.” Lisette shrugged. “Men are willing to pay a lot more for atmosphere that includes beautiful girls in classical robes.”

  “So what’s the part? And what does it pay?”

  “He’s looking for a Spirit of the Dawn. You’re supposed to light some incense and walk around with it and say a bunch of lines. I’m the Spirit of Evening. I get to asperge everyone with a sprig of rosemary and some holy water.”

  “So is there the Goddess of Reason?” I asked. Everyone had heard about Robespierre’s plan a few years before to create elaborate festivals to celebrate the Goddess of Reason rather than the festivals of the Church.

  “No,” Lisette said. “There are four Elemental Maidens, and then Clemence, who does the scrying. She tells them all they’re going to be wealthy and have beautiful women pursuing them. Sometimes she says they’re going to be glorious in war or have an affair of the heart with a woman who is far above them, that kind of thing.”

  “All right. Tell your friend I’ll do it.”

  I had a page of lines to learn. There was a long, tedious speech in badly written alexandrines about rosy-fingered dawn and how I was Aurora, the dawn maiden, who spreads her saffron robe over the skies. I also had a saffron robe. It was a muslin chemise dyed yellow, but it actually would look quite nice in limited light. Lisette assured me that these things were always as dark and atmospheric as possible. I wore my sandals with it, glad that I had saved them from the ruin of my life.

  On midsummer’s night, we took a hired carriage to a house near Saint-Germain-des-Prés. We were early. It was barely nine o’clock.

  Charles Lebrun was a well-dressed young man of medium height, the very picture of a junior clerk or a deputy something-or-other. The house was a neat townhouse on a quiet street. The carriages arriving could have been for a respectable party. He greeted Lisette with a kiss on the cheek.

  “Hello, lovely lady! I see you brought your friend! Don’t worry, I’ll pay up afterward.”

  “Before,” Lisette said, still smiling.

  He shrugged and grinned at me. “Mademoiselle Bellespoir drives a hard bargain. Before, then.” He counted out our money. “Now, Madame, do you know your lines?”

  I gave them for him.

  He nodded absently. “Good, good. Nice and easy. No need to shout. There’s only ten of us. Me and four guests, you maidens, and Clemence. It’s not the entire Théâtre de la République. And what is your name, by the way?”

  “Charmiane,” I said, and had no idea why I’d said it. Lisette shot me a quick look, but said nothing. It’s a bad idea to keep your real name, but to be protective of a name that was already an alias seemed excessive.

  “Charmiane, lovely.” He was distracted by the sound of another carriage. “Oh, damn. Is that Monsieur Villiers? How can he be so early? Now I have to go take care of him. You two go on up—and for God’s sake, don’t talk loudly!”

  Lisette took my hand as Lebrun hurried out to greet the first guest. “Come on, then. You can see the room.” We went upstairs to the second floor.

  The room in question was clearly intended to be the dining room, but the furniture had all been removed. There were heavy scarlet drapes at the window, and the walls were painted very nicely with imitations of classical frescoes. The doorways were also hung with heavy scarlet curtains, and an identical sconce had been hung on each wall, lit with tall beeswax tapers like the ones churches used in Italy. There were four small tables, one beneath each sconce. Mine had a heavy brass censer. It looked old. I guessed it had originally belonged to one of the churches in Paris before the Revolution. Inside was a cake of charcoal.

  “You light the charcoal,” Lisette explained, “and then you open this box and drop some of it on the charcoal.” She held out a pretty little china box.

  I opened it. A rich scent rushed out. There were chips of amber-colored resin, some almost the color of honey, some dark brown. “Frankincense and myrrh,” I said, bending my head and breathing deeply. The scent was warm and intoxicating, the scent of churches in Italy when I was a child. “I can do that.”

  Lisette nodded. “Then you just walk around the room that way once, and come back and put it down. The tabletop is tile, so you won’t scorch it with the censer, see?”

  Two more women had arrived. I assumed they were the other two Elemental Maidens, for Lisette greeted them. I said hello and then pleaded that I wanted to go over my lines. I stood quietly, my head bent over the paper. In the middle of the room there was a low table draped in black, one white candle and a blackened mirror. I kept looking away from it, but then looking back.

  In a few minutes Lebrun came dashing upstairs. He closed the door carefully, then spoke quickly. “Clemence isn’t coming. She’s drunk. Anybody want to be our Sibyl tonight? You’ll have to wing it.”

  “I will,” I said, and was startled to hear myself speak.

  Lebrun turned quickly, smiling. “Ah, good! Let me take you aside, then. Give th
at paper to Lisette.” He led me over by the window. “At first, don’t say a lot,” he said. “Just mumble and drop in some nice classical references if you can. Then when we get to the body of it, I’ll try to keep it short. Villiers is going to want to know about his investments. Tell him in vague terms that he’ll prosper, but don’t get off on any particular stocks. Too easy for him to check. Noirtier will ask about the army. Just prophesy victory after long struggle. That’s easy. Again, no specifics. You’re not a damned almanac.”

  I laughed.

  “Anything else, they’re lucky in love and will meet a fascinating woman. You can go on about dark or fair, but don’t give them anything about a particular person. Got it?”

  I nodded.

  “Good girl.” Lebrun patted my arm. “And you can ham it up a bit. Moan. Roll your eyes. Don’t make it look easy!”

  “I’ll do it,” I said.

  Lebrun stepped away. “All right, places, ladies! I’m going down to get our guests.”

  Adele stood by the censer. I didn’t know what else to do, so I went and knelt by the little table. I didn’t touch the mirror. In the darkened room, the faint shadows of people moving reflected oddly off the silvered glass. I looked down at my hands instead. Breathe, I thought. My heart was beating very fast.

  We are all Doves, my mother had said. We see things in mirrors. Elzelina would have been able to hear. . . .

  The gentlemen came in. I did not look at them. I knelt quietly and did not raise my head.

  Adele said the lines that had been mine. The incense filled the room. Frankincense and myrrh. The scent of time. My eyes closed, and I heard the lines around me as from far away.

  “. . . for I am the Spirit of Fire, the breath of life. I am the summer sun, the golden orb of heaven. . . .”

  In my mind’s eye, the sun glanced through stained-glass windows. An angel with a sword of fire glowed bright, a red cloak billowing behind him, a white tabard over his silver armor, red device on white. The window split apart in unbearable brilliance before his glory.

  “. . . for I am the Spirit of Water, the depths of the ocean.” I knew it was Lisette’s voice, but it seemed very far away and strange. “I am the movement of mists, the rains of heaven. . . .”

  Water beneath a leaping keel, the sound of the endless depths. Blue silence, and an octopus moving among submerged stones.

  “. . . the dark places of the Earth, cold stones and lost caves . . .”

  Sunrise, and a cold morning, a standing stone twice my height at my elbow, watching the sun rising out of the cold North Sea. Far overhead the faint honking of geese, great flocks of them, the children of the sun, the children of this endless day when there would be hardly any night, just the sun dipping low for an hour or two. Out across the windswept straits a ship was coming, her prow curved upwards like a swan or a dragon, a ship to bring a prince home.

  “Oh, great Sibyl!” Lebrun said at my elbow. “Will you not speak to us? Will you not look into the depths of time and tell us what you see? Speak! We entreat you!”

  I remembered what I was supposed to be doing and opened my eyes. The blackened mirror reflected the vague shape of my face.

  “Speak,” Lebrun said dramatically to a man out of my line of sight. “Ask your question, my friend!”

  “Shall my investments in the banking house of Ouvrard prosper?” he asked.

  I moaned. “Ah, ah, ah!”

  “Please tell me,” he said, and I could hear the note of excitement in his voice.

  “Jupiter rules a man of power,” I said, trying to be both suitably poetic and obscure. “Power and prosperity are yours. Bright Jupiter ascends the heavens, and gold flows into the laps of the worthy.”

  There were some small delighted sounds.

  “Let Monsieur Noirtier have his turn,” Lebrun said. I assumed he was, directing traffic around the Sibyl. I did not move my eyes from the mirror. The candle flame’s reflection wavered.

  A different voice: “How shall fare Bonaparte’s expedition in Egypt?”

  This time I did not have to seek for the words. They were there as if they always had been. “He who would conquer Egypt must prepare to be conquered by it.” The arching sky looked back at me in the mirror, clear as faience, blue as dreams. My voice ran on, my will somewhere behind it. “There is a ship with an eagle spread upon its sail, great oars moving in unison. Caesar has come in relentless pursuit of his enemy, to conquer and to be conquered. The Black Land does not give up her secrets easily, for we are older than time. We were old when he last came here, golden warrior, son of the gods.”

  There was a swift intake of breath behind me. Noirtier knelt down. “Can you tell me more?”

  The light blurred, streaked like fire on water. “There will be fire on the deep, and Orient’s loss will blind the eagle,” I said. “It is not the sea that answers to his hand, but the deep-buried mysteries of the land. He has come to Alexandria now as once he came to Siwa, seeking truths that only the Black Land can show him, and there he must find his destiny, in the place where he chose it once before, when he turned away from the rest that was offered. It is easy to descend to the underworld, but returning is the difficulty.”

  Lebrun put his hand on my shoulder. “Monsieur, you must not tire her. This is very hard.” Lebrun guided him gently away. “We are tiring our Sibyl,” he said. “Gentlemen, see how she sways!”

  I swayed for good measure. “I cannot . . .” I whispered.

  “Rest yourself,” Lebrun said. He covered the mirror ostentatiously with a piece of silk. I sat still and almost frozen. About me I heard their voices, the Maidens again with their last lines, the gentlemen getting up as it ended. I did not move.

  At last Lebrun put his hand on my shoulder again. I lifted my head. He was grinning.

  “Charmiane, you are a natural!” he exclaimed. “That was well done!” He helped me to my feet. “And here’s a little bonus for you! All that blathering about Bonaparte in Egypt was perfect. You could read into it anything you like. A regular Nostradamus!”

  “Thank you,” I said. I felt a little unsteady on my feet. “Do you think I might have a glass of wine?”

  He fetched me one, and when we left, Lisette and I went out to eat on my bonus at a little café not far away. I thought we deserved it. It was very merry and pleasant, and I felt all the strangeness going, replaced instead by a dawning sense of triumph. Here was something I could do well.

  Debuts

  I wrote to Victor again the next week.

  Victor,

  Since you persist in this silence, this is the last note you will have from me. I am perfectly capable of supporting myself, and will soon be doing so on the stage.

  Ida

  This received a prompt reply. I tore it open and read it by the window in Lisette’s apartment, a cup of coffee in my hand.

  My dear Madame,

  Knowing your imprudent and impulsive nature, I am hardly surprised by your decision to take up acting. However, I beg you to reconsider. Despite the life you have led for the past several years, you are not entirely devoid of reputation in the eyes of the world, and are a woman of some consequence and distinguished antecedents.

  However, if you go on the stage you will tarnish that reputation irretrievably by allying yourself with the lowest types of men and women. Actresses lack your breeding, birth, and taste, and are engaged in the lowest forms of commerce. I beg you to reconsider this hasty decision and consider better alternatives. It is from my abiding respect for you that I speak.

  Victor Moreau

  For a moment, I could scarcely see straight.

  But I would not act precipitously, no. I would wait two days and then answer it. Because my answer would be the same.

  My dear General,

  It is unbecoming for the champion of liberty and social equality to suggest that I am superior to my sisters because of my breeding and birth. However, I expected no less than this hypocrisy from you, who of course are such a paragon o
f virtue and traditional values.

  As for my hasty decision, my decision is based upon necessity that you have forced upon me. If you had not acted as you did, for as little reason, I should not find what you term “the lowest forms of commerce” necessary to my survival.

  You are not the man I hoped you were. And for that reason, we have nothing more to say to one another.

  Ida St. Elme

  There was no reply. I did not expect one.

  The next session with Lebrun was not nearly as spectacular, probably because the questions did not give me as much scope for poetry. “Shall my wife have a son or a daughter?” was particularly problematic. The gentleman in question was soon to become a father for the first time, and the answer must be either one or the other. I prevaricated and said that I could not tell.

  Which, it turned out, was the right answer. Lebrun informed me the next week, grinning broadly the entire time, that the gentleman’s wife had delivered safely and without incident healthy twin babies, a girl and a boy. It had made my reputation. He wished to engage me weekly as his medium.

  This was a good thing, for my bank account was dwindling, I had no stage role, and I was not yet ready to start taking on private parties of a more intimate nature.

  Following Lisette’s advice, I had started going to the auditions for the small companies as well as the big, respectable theaters. I was talking with Delacroix after one more endless and fruitless audition at the Théâtre de la République in early fall. He had dropped in to watch and was lounging in the last row of seats, his feet up on the back of the seat in front. I came back and sat with him after it was my turn. I hadn’t done well and I knew it.

  Delacroix sneezed delicately into a handkerchief. “Look, dear girl, you’re never going to get a part this way. Most of the bit parts go to girls who are students of the theater. Sometimes when there’s not someone it will go outside, but that’s rare. And quite frankly, you’re too old. They usually start in their early teens. How old are you, anyway? When’s your birthday?”