CHAPTER 4

In the four years that followed I saw little of Alexandre: he was often away with his regiment or enjoying the company of people of greater interest and importance than me, like the mysterious “Laura” no doubt, leaving me alone in that cold and gloomy house with a pair of sickly elders and nothing much to do since I wasn’t inclined to sew or read. I wrote him letters, which he returned to me covered in red ink corrections, more schoolmaster than spouse, crowding his comments—all criticism, no compliments—into the margins. When he was at home, in Paris, Alexandre refused to take me out. He was afraid that I would embarrass him. “Ignorant little Creole, let us be frank,” he said. “You have nothing to contribute to a conversation.”

I gorged myself on sweets—candied violets were my favorite—and sat at the front window and watched the world pass by, such as it was, the rue Thévenot being neither a particularly busy nor a fashionable street. Mostly I saw servants and tradespeople hurrying about their business, and the occasional elder out for an afternoon stroll, often accompanied by a man- or maidservant or a pet dog.

Since marrying me secured Alexandre’s inheritance for him, one might be tempted to think that he would have shown me a modicum of gratitude, but he didn’t. The only time he showed a trace of pride in me was when he trotted me out before the bank president, beaming as though I were a prize thoroughbred, pointed to the gold ring on my finger, and introduced me as his wife.

When he was at home, we coupled but rarely, yet these loveless encounters still bore fruit. I gave him a child—Eugène—the son every man wants. But even my fertility was not enough to make Alexandre proud of me. Alexandre said it was unseemly how swiftly and seemingly easily I gave birth, like a peasant woman squatting in a field, then hurrying back to her work. I didn’t think the birthing was swift or easy—it hurt! I felt like I was being torn apart. I thought I was going to die!—but Alexandre didn’t care what I thought.

I loved my golden-haired little boy; I called him “my sweet-faced cherub” and spent as much time as I could cuddling and playing with him. I did not want him to grow up to be a cold and mean man like his father. I wanted Eugène to imbibe love, warmth, and kindness and, when he was a man grown, to never raise his voice, or his hand, to a woman. On his wedding night, I wanted his bride to know only tenderness, not the pain and horror I had experienced. I lived in perpetual dread of the day when Eugène would be old enough for Alexandre to take an interest in him. I feared that the day my husband took my son under his wing, the next time I saw Eugène I would be looking at a little stranger with eyes as cold as ice who had learned to parrot his father and call me “worthless,” “common,” “ignorant,” “provincial,” “savage,” and “fat.” Candied violets had conspired with pregnancy to make my curves more generous than ever and Alexandre found this intolerable as well as unforgivable. He suggested I subsist solely on soup, but I just couldn’t bear it; my life was sad and dreary enough.

I had no friends, apart from my father-in-law and Aunt Edmée, and, truth be told, I didn’t exert myself to make any; I rarely went out. By then my little cousin Aimee was enrolled at a fashionable convent school on the outskirts of Paris, but I couldn’t bring myself to face her.

I kept postponing visiting her, making excuses and filling my letters with lies about how busy and happy and in love with my husband and my adorable baby I was and how our life together was a constant merry whirl of parties and balls and friends. I even invented a story about being presented to the King and Queen at Versailles with my hair piled as high as it could be stretched, powdered like a pastry, and crowned with white ostrich plumes three feet tall, in a gold-spangled white satin gown with panniers wider than I was tall and a train ten feet long. I lied to her because I knew that all it would take was just one look and Aimee would know the truth—my life was a lie, my marriage a sham; I was a failure in every way that mattered. I was too proud; I didn’t want her to see me like that.

I lolled late in bed or lay all day prostrated upon a couch, eating candied violets until I felt sick and suffering excruciating migraines and nausea because we were one street away from an avenue of butchers and a thriving tannery. Even with every window locked the piteous screams of animals dying to be rendered into fine leather goods pierced my ears and made me weep, my sorrow for their suffering cloaking my self-pity, like rain hiding tears. The stench was unbearable! The butchers threw the waste meat right out into the middle of the street and left it there to rot amidst swarms of blackflies and stray dogs. Papa de Beauharnais would pat my hand sympathetically even as Aunt Edmée admonished me for being too softhearted for my own good.

Recognizing that the aged and ailing were poor company for a “pretty young thing” like myself and sensing that Aunt Edmée’s persistent attempts to help me improve myself only made me feel worse, Papa de Beauharnais urged me to attend the Friday night salons of Alexandre’s cousin, Fanny de Beauharnais, where I was sure to meet many interesting people and make friends. “Fanny and her crowd are not as exacting as Alexandre,” he assured me. “By all accounts they are a fun and lively lot.”

Fanny was a lady novelist, subsisting extravagantly on inherited wealth, not the fruits of her pen. Her latest novel was called Blinded by Love. Its entire plot was literally condensed and contained in its title—the hero was blinded by the heroine in a riding accident, but, as is always the way in such books, love conquers all. Fanny was a tall, gregarious woman possessed of a gargantuan appetite for novelty and change in constant motion. Her hair color, her décor, her passions, and her lovers seemed to change every five minutes; it was maddeningly difficult to keep up with any of them.

I never knew when the butler opened the door whether I would walk into faux medieval splendor or the imagined tomb of a long-dead Egyptian king. Another Friday I might find a funereal black room in which all the guests wore shrouds and lay in coffins contemplating death, or a stark white room devoid of furniture where everyone was barefoot and draped in diaphanous white sheets, sitting on the floor in a circle hand in hand communing with the spirits of ancient Greek philosophers or standing up and striking poses, pretending to be statues. After that fad had run its course each guest would be greeted at the door and presented with a palette of paints and urged to choose a blank patch of wall and make it their own immortal masterpiece, which would be papered over with gold-striped champagne silk before the week was out when Fanny had a yen for regal splendor again.

One simply never knew with Fanny; that was the fun of her. Palmistry, pirates, pagans, pottery, painting, confectionary, fairy tales, farm animals, dragons, midwifery, nature foods, astrology, knitting, mesmerism, music, murder, demonology, the mysticism of the ancients, wild Indians, Americans, medieval history, the mysteries of Catholicism, tropical birds, botany, Shakespeare’s plays, and mythology all consumed her soul, devoured her hours, dictated her décor, and filled the pages of her novels before she was on to something new.

One Friday all she wanted to do was dress as a shepherdess and dance on the dew-dampened grass in her bare feet, so she had the lawn uprooted and rolled up like a carpet and carried into the ballroom where white-wigged footmen stood by to drench it regularly with gilded pails filled with rosewater, to keep it delightfully damp and sweet for the guests’ dancing feet.

All her guests were said to be brilliant, and at every salon they would rise and regale us with readings from their novels and essays, recitations of their poems, or performances of music they had composed, or unveil their artwork, and everyone would stand and applaud and shower them with extravagant praise; even the man who presented a stark, blank white canvas framed in gilt was pronounced an “immortal genius whose art would be adored through the ages.” Most of their “brilliance” sailed hopelessly over my head. I understood none of their prose, poetry and philosophy, and though I always smiled and clapped politely along with the rest, I was often bored to tears and happy to plead an unfeigned headache and go home to my bed.

I found only acquaintances in Fanny’s drawing room, never friends, and I knew in my heart I didn’t really belong there. I went only to please Papa de Beauharnais, to prove I was making an effort to ease my lonely plight.

* * *

To escape the tedium and ennui of my life, I began going for a daily walk or carriage ride. Like a fairy-tale princess emerging from a hundred-year slumber, I was slowly awakening to the charms of Paris. Spring seemed to bring out its best. The trees were in full fragrant flower, festooned with blossoms of white and delicate pink, and people strolled leisurely beneath them arm-in-arm and smiled like they were in love. I saw beauty now wherever I looked.

One day I saw a turquoise silk gown in the window of a dressmaker’s shop. The color sent my heart sailing right back to Martinique and the clear warm blue waters I had so often swum in. Impulsively I went in and inquired the price, knowing full well it would be too dear for my purse. Alexandre begrudgingly allotted me only a pittance of pocket money each month; it was barely enough to keep me in candied violets. But the modiste was ambitious and new; she said the “Vicomtesse de Beauharnais”—it still thrilled my heart to be called that, it made me feel so important and grown-up!—had only to select whatever she wished, the goods would be delivered to me, and a bill would be sent to my husband.

It seemed such a sensible and simple thing to do; I marveled that I had not thought of it before. So I bought the turquoise gown, and another of sunset-orange satin, and a third of gold lace. And of course I must have hats and gloves, stockings and shoes, fans, shawls, and parasols to match, and pretty things to wear underneath my new dresses, the modiste said, and I happily agreed. The next day I went back for a softly flowing rose satin negligee to accent my womanly curves and the day after that I fancied a frock the color of wet violets.

I soon found the milliners, corset-makers, perfumers, fan-makers, and jewelers of Paris were all equally obliging to the Vicomtesse de Beauharnais. No one expected me to have ready cash; it didn’t matter at all that I didn’t have enough money. I could still have whatever I wished! I felt like I had just discovered a new world!

Alexandre was irate when he saw the bills, but his indifference and his absorption with the mysterious Laura had helped me grow a backbone, and I calmly reminded him that without me he would have no money at all and surely that entitled me to a few trinkets and trifles. Henceforth, he paid my bills with ill will, but in blessed silence.

And there were many more bills to come. I had discovered that spending money was a balm to my hurt feelings and pride. It relieved my boredom, provided thrills, and, at least for a time, all my feelings of inadequacy melted away beneath the modiste’s or the milliner’s praise and cunning fingers and the meaty caress of the stay-maker’s pink palm against my tightly corseted torso as he stared at me with smitten eyes.

My promise to send half my allowance back to Martinique for Papa each month crumbled away like piecrust and I guiltily swept the crumbs underneath the carpet. I dreaded his letters so much, and the angry or wounded words of reproach they would surely contain. Whenever one arrived I always delayed opening it for several days.

* * *

And so life went on. Overall, it wasn’t all that different from my life in Martinique, except the Paris winters were beastly cold, but I had my furs now—cloaks, coats, and muffs of sable, fox, and ermine—and could endure it while looking ravishing at the same time.

Every time I passed a window and saw something I liked I went in and bought it. I never bothered to ask the price; that was Alexandre’s problem, not mine.

I slept until noon, played with my little son, lounged about eating candied violets, and went out to promenade beneath my parasol or ride in my carriage or, in snowy winter, my bell-spangled sleigh. If I felt fatigued, I could always stop at a café for a cup of chocolate. And there was always more shopping to do. At night there were private balls and supper parties, the opera and plays, or a public ballroom to go to where I could be seen and admired, drink until I was giddy and giggly, and dance till dawn. I still had a weakness for soldiers and Paris was full of them, and they all, with the notable exception of my husband, seemed to find me irresistible. Everyone it seemed, except Alexandre, wanted to make love to me.

In Paris I found that being married was never a hindrance. Half the husbands and wives I discovered despised or were indifferent to each other; rare indeed was the marriage founded on actual love or even fleeting passion. But I never did much more than kiss and flirt. In my own stubborn way, I was still besotted with Alexandre, waiting for, and dreaming of, the day when he would turn to look at me with desire instead of contempt in his eyes.

All in all, it wasn’t a bad life. It was a way to pass the time while waiting for the crown Euphemia David had seen in my palm.