Lola Montez and the Poisoned Nom de Plume (39 page)

HOW IT BEGINS:
June 1846

The live excitement—the living connection—of a great horse beneath you, travelling fast over even ground, is like nothing else on earth to clear the head of human concerns and sorrows. On a flying horse, you live in the moment or court disaster.

At ten o’clock in the morning, I left Paris in haste and rode at a nonstop gallop, heading north. Magnifique reacted to my urging heel with enthusiasm, delighted to be free of the dark stable where he’d spent too long, snatching at his hay and switching a restless tail. This was a horse that gloried in running, in extending his limbs—neck thrust forwards, ears turned back, black mane and tail streaming. His coppery torso and legs were well-groomed, he’d been well fed, but his love of galloping had been neglected during the months he’d stayed in Alexandre Dumas’ over-stocked stable. This was Henri’s horse—this was
my
horse—and I was so glad to have him back. To be on the move, stretching out—freeing ourselves at last from the bitter tragedy of Paris.

Why north? A mad determination had come into my head as soon as I’d turned Magnifique and ridden away from Henri’s grave—and I clung to this morsel of hope. I had no other plan, any more than I had a fixed address. Following through on the wild idea would entail many hard weeks of travel, so I had to ensure we were pacing it well. Though I revelled in speed and my horse’s endurance, enjoying the changing landscape and warm spring days, I daren’t overtax him. Or myself. The aftermath of the near-death experience I’d barely survived left me as jumpy as a cat, trusting no one.

And astonished to still be alive.

I put up for the nights at coaching inns, keeping myself to myself, hiding my youth and figure in a shawl and bulky riding cape. I wanted to be left alone, desired no one’s company or attention. Occasional necessary encounters with the inhabitants of the small French towns and Picardy countryside, however, began to reveal a new fact: the world hadn’t stayed still while I’d mourned and battled in Paris. I could see with my own eyes that real privation was everywhere, and George Sand was right: working men (and women) were taking a beating. My artistic friends in Paris and others of the intelligentsia blamed Louis-Philippe, the Citizen King, and his faulty regime; the people in front of me, in the markets and stables, blamed more than that.

As I ate the scanty portions of what the kitchens set before me, I listened carefully to men eating and talking at other tables in the inns. Once, in Amiens, I overheard a group of townsmen speaking heatedly with two others who were workers on the new railway line which was also heading north, mile by arduous mile. Building track for the modern, fire-breathing mode of transportation employed both skilled and unskilled men, I gathered; its creation was laborious and dirty to some, thrilling to others—due to its extreme dangerousness. Level grades for the track needed to be cut through bedrock, and tunnels constructed that went straight through enormous hills. How was this done? By means of explosives. I learned the new devices were risky and difficult to control. They could go off erratically, before the workers got clear. I heard snatches of talk—of “
les incendiaires
”—and specialized phrases I interpreted as “professional fire-setters” and “black powder velocity”. At one point a rail worker banged his fist upon the table and the others howled a great laugh, a townsman crying, “Then they shall see!” Another added excitedly, “The bastards spend a fortune on their love of
les feu d’artifice
? So let’s give them fireworks!”

Who were ‘the bastards’, I wondered uneasily.

Galloping along on the following afternoon, I was amazed to see a huge crowd in a field outside the town, gathered around one of the mythological air ships—a Balloon! I’d read about these marvels years ago as a girl in boarding school, but had never seen one. They’d gone out of favour in England, deemed mere amusement or risky showmanship, not worthy of further scientific backing. But trust the French to keep alive a sense of awe and wonder, even in a time of discontent. Imagine, soaring through the skies, leaving your troubles behind! I reined Magnifique and we paused at the roadside. What a marvellous sight it was! The inflated silk Balloon, maybe fifty feet high, was covered in symbols of sun, moon, stars and clouds in glorious shades of turquoise, pink and cream; the basket below it was secured to the ground by many restraining ropes. I could hear the raucous crowd and see them jostling to get closer to the enormous inflated vessel; the airman aboard was a mere speck, agitatedly gesturing at them to stay away. Magnifique was becoming startled and frightened by the loud sounds being periodically emitted by the gases or whatever it was that was heating the thing, and though I longed to have taken a closer look, I didn’t dare. Crowds were unpredictable; things could change suddenly. We galloped onwards, and luckily, too: about two or three minutes further down the road, I heard loud bangs and flares going off into the sky, along with the Balloon, which I could see was rising swiftly. Had some idiotic promoter added
feu d’artifice
to the excitement, and set off rockets nearby in the field? There was screaming and shouting, with the dispersing crowd rushing in several directions. How appallingly dangerous, I thought, wondering anew at the puzzling phenomenon of humanity’s seeming desire to immolate itself for the mere thrill. Above, the Balloon soared majestically in the opposite direction. Though I admit to twisting about in the saddle several times in order to watch the marvellous thing disappearing into the clouds, I found the whole event unsettling. There was something elemental going on that I didn’t understand, and it felt too much like the clenched fist of combat.

My heart remained in my throat for the whole long journey. Magnifique, sensing it, was ready to spook at every turn. On horseback, I was stared at with undisguised wariness and, often, a flintier speculation: a woman, alone? Damned handsome animal, that: perhaps I should take it. I rode with my pistols on display, the flick knife in my waistband always ready to hand.

I was genuinely relieved to at last arrive in Caen—Calais—where I booked a ticket for the next ship’s crossing of
La Manche
. Leave the provincial French, their excitements and their woes, I thought; I need a rest from the aggressive ferment, from this continual sense of rising chaos.

The following morning, I rode to the docks, and was leading Magnifique towards the enclosure where the horses were kept prior to boarding the ship. Just as I handed the reins to an attendant, there was an enormous noise off to our left. Objects, followed by dust and wind, flew into the air. Magnifique startled mightily, knocking the young man off his feet and then dragging him back in the direction of the avenue. I managed to run after them and, in a few minutes, to calm my horse. Thank God. But fifty yards away, where the sound had originated, smoke was still clearing and I could hear the whistles of
gendarmes
, approaching at a run. An explosion, surely! Who was it meant for? Near me, both men and women were snatching goods up from off the ground, where crates and boxes bound for England had smashed open, revealing food stuffs. A woman jabbed me in the elbow and cried, “
Vite!
Don’t let them see you—but take as much as you can!” Even some of the ship hands seemed to be hastily helping themselves. As I turned to lead Magnifique back to the ship, a burly man raced towards us and grabbed the reins, tugging my horse away at great speed and attempting to place his foot in the stirrup, ready to swing up. I lunged after him with a cry, slashing at the hand on the reins with my knife, instantly drawing blood. “Let him go,
bastardo
,” I hissed, threatening the thief’s narrow cheek with the blade. He turned and ran off, dripping blood onto the cobbles. Mon
Dieu
, I thought, get me out of this volatile country!

Throughout the channel crossing—as the steamship
Water Witch
battled a rough sea and passengers lurched to the railings to noisily spew—I finally let my jangled mind return to its determined goal: to the thought of her. Shivering in my shawl, wind and spray streaming through my hair, I questioned what she would think of me. The only gift I’d ever managed to give the object of my impatient journey was a cherished pair of peridot earbobs that had traveled with me to Spain and back. When I’d sent the earrings, I’d made myself a secret promise: that I would return some day to hug her and hold her and become part of her life. Four years had passed and I’d not managed to do so—until now. She was eleven years old. What would I do? If all went well? Would I live nearby? Oh God, what will happen, I asked myself.

Landing in Dover, we galloped onwards, bypassing London. What had begun as a desperate morsel of hope outside the gates of Montmartre Cemetery had become an urgent quest to undo years of silence, years of regret. It took another week and some days until we were cantering at last through the outskirts of my destination and entering Durham’s old town. I was calmer and steadier than when I’d set out, though nervousness about the immediate present overrode the relief I should have felt to have arrived in one piece (not blown to bits,
merci à bon Dieu
).

Presumably my step-relatives were expecting me, but… What had their reaction been, upon receiving my letter? I reached behind to touch the saddlebag: a warm lump, still there.
Bon
. I’d picked him up in Calais as I boarded the ship. I don’t know what he was, but he certainly wasn’t royalty. It didn’t matter though, because the moment I’d set eyes upon him, I’d never seen anything so adorable. His face was furry and ridiculous and his nose appeared squashed, but there was something delicious about him, even so. I chose him out of a basket of wriggling siblings and named him Zampa, the titular hero of an opéra comique I’d seen in Paris: the white pup had the same hairdo as the actor’s blonde wig, falling over one eye in a vagabond manner.

So, after weeks of travel, there I was, standing on the front step of my step-aunt and uncle’s two-story house at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac. In England, a place I thought I’d never see again. “Prepare yourself, Zampa,” I whispered, “you must storm the citadel and win the princess.” The fixed purpose of all my travel was behind that door, and my heart was beating hard with the hope that I might, just might—if I was terribly lucky—experience a new kind of love: from a little girl. I knocked.

Poor Aunt Catherine was a ball of nerves, welcoming me inside. Uncle Herbert, grounding his agitation with frequent glimpses at the floor, looked even older than his years. He went to the street to see to my horse. In the flurry of setting down the saddlebag to hug Catherine, Zampa wiggled free and frolicked across the room to sniff the hem of a bright yellow day-gown that appeared in a doorway.

“Praise be, it’s Betty!” came from a shrill, over-excited voice inhabiting the dress. “My darling, my precious, let me take you in my arms!”

Gob-smacked I was, clutched by the canary-coloured woman whose exclamations rang through the house, and my hope exploded, falling to the earth in tatters. This was not the she I’d come so far to find.

We have never seen eye to eye, my mother and I. Even when I was a tiny thing in India, I’d done my best to avoid her—and she me. When we were forced together, it always ended in tears or a tantrum, and sometimes both. She could cry like a waterworks, and anything at all might set her off—someone else’s pretty baby, a sentimental song, or my little face glaring at her defiantly over some piece of mutual stubbornness over which we were at odds. “Go away, Betty, I don’t like you staring.” (I’d been christened Eliza, her name—I’m not remotely like her!—but she’d always called me Betty, which I hate.) At each rebuff, I’d trail off fiercely, and kick something on the way. She’d been lucky: my step-father had given her a life of comfort. But two years ago, dear Craigie died, and she’d sent a black-edged letter from India, summoning me. I didn’t respond, for without him I wanted nothing to do with her.

Now, here she was, the original Eliza Gilbert, her formerly mouse-brown hair in bouncy ringlets, dyed a defiant shade of improbable black.
¡Diablo!

*

For the next hour the woman never stopped talking. I have no idea what she said; my ears were ringing, the anxiety unbearable. Catherine tried to smooth a sociable path, but I could sense the strain in the sharply edged lines upon her brow. Finally, the gabbling, ringletted creature proclaimed she must retire for her afternoon nap (thank Christ), and I was able to breathe. To prepare my shattered self as well as I could.

I met Emma upon her return from school. I waited in the drawing room, wringing the material of my skirt in nervous anticipation. The outer door opened, I could hear soft footsteps in the front hallway and a high, silvery voice calling, “Mama, I’m home!” Catherine bustled out to meet her, there was a flurry of whispering, then Emma entered the drawing room, one hand clasped in Catherine’s.

Face to face, at last. It was a shock, a very strange sensation: like looking in a mirror, back through time. At the very first glance, my heart was smitten; the sight of her made it clench into a tight ball of love and longing. She was tall for her age, and willowy, with that curly black hair and the dark sea blue eyes. She was quiet, much calmer than me; elegant, not the wild child I had been when I’d briefly resided with Catherine and Herbert years before. They’d been trying to run a school and, as her brother’s six-year-old step-daughter, I had served as one of their test cases. When they’d reprimand me by closing me into a closet for half an hour to consider my behaviour, I would burst forth like a tigress kitten, unrepentant.

In contrast, Emma displayed a deep thoughtfulness in her demeanour, though I suspect this masks an unquenchable imagination. After tea, I took her with me—with Catherine’s nervous permission—to check upon my horse, stabled down the street. Emma confidingly placed her small hand in mine as we walked; I was amazed at the lift in my spirits that this caused. Oh, I will have to be terribly careful, I thought… We petted Magnifique (“he’s
beautiful
,” she sighed, eyes wide) while I spoke (breathlessly, from nearness to her more than anything else) about my journey—the Balloon, rising!—and a bit about Paris. In turn, she confided some of her dreams of the future: she wanted a horse, very badly—but “not just for the carriage”, as she put it, “for me. To love, the way you love your horse. But they’d be too worried,” she added, already aware of how over-protectively she was cosseted. I believed this longing of hers for an animal to look after was a lovely segue for Zampa, the pup—who, after sniffing the hem of my mother’s gown, had been captured by the maid and taken to the garden shed.