Young bloods

Chapter 33

The artillery officers and the cadets leaped up and stood to attention as the director of the academy entered the room, with his wife on one arm. Madame de Pignerolle was now wearing a crimson silk dress embroidered with silver and had powdered her face and put on a wig. From a distance Napoleon saw that she appeared half the age she was when she had shown them into the room. Her husband wore full dress uniform of a colonel, his last rank in the army before taking up the directorship of the academy. They strode to the centre of the room like royalty and then the director waved a hand at the young men he had invited.

'Please be at ease, gentlemen.'

His guests relaxed their posture but kept their silence as they waited for the director to continue speaking. Napoleon saw that he was an old man, with a wrinkled face and glasses below his neat powdered wig. Nevertheless, under his uniform he was powerfully built and moved with a lithe self-confidence that was born of good health, fitness and breeding. He drew a breath and began.

'I trust our guests from the Artillery Regiment have been well looked after?'

Napoleon and the others nodded politely.

'Good! It is always a pleasure for my wife and me to invite professionals to the small gatherings we hold here from time to time. I'm sure, despite your age and junior rank, you will already have some useful experience to pass on to our young gentlemen. In return I trust that you will welcome the chance to be acquainted with men who will soon be returning to their own countries to take up military careers. You all share a noble profession, and while its ultimate goal is proficiency in battle, today we meet as friends, an international fellowship of gentlemen. I trust that the amity that is established here will in some small way guarantee peace between all our nations in the future. Now,' the director smiled,'I am sure that you have no wish to hear an old man prattle on interminably for the rest of the day…'

Laughter rippled through the cadets' ranks, and the artillery officers, unsure of the permissible degree of levity, smiled politely, before Monsieur de Pignerolle continued, 'If you would be so kind as to follow me through to the dining room…'

The director led them towards a pair of double doors at one end of the room. They were frameless and might have been mistaken for part of the wall but for a set of discreet handles, and the two footmen who had quietly moved over to the doors and now stood to attention on either side. At the director's approach they gently pulled the doors open. Beyond, Napoleon could see another room, smaller and with a wooden floor inlaid with ornate marquetry. A long table, laid for a banquet, stretched the length of the room and a dozen waiters lined one wall.The director handed his wife to a seat at one of the tables before striding its length to be seated at the far end. To one side of the room stood a pianoforte.

Napoleon and the other young men searched for their name places and then stood behind their chairs. The director waited until everyone was in position.

'Please be seated.'

There was a ragged cacophony of chairs scraping across the floor as his guests sat down. Immediately the waiters moved forward, plucked the napkins off the table and arranged them on the laps of the young men. Glancing at the place-names to each side of him Napoleon saw that he was seated between a Prussian and one of the English cadets. Directly opposite him was another Englishman and the other artillery officers had been distributed round the table in such a way as to make conversation with them impossible. The isolation from his comrades made Napoleon feel anxious and as the meal began he found that he had completely lost his appetite, and pushed much of his food to one side of his plate. The Prussian's French was almost incomprehensible and all that Napoleon could make out was that he was a firm advocate of the sabre as a duelling weapon. The rest was an unintelligible torrent of garbled vowels and consonants. The Englishmen paid Napoleon almost no attention and chattered away in their own tongue. So he was able to watch his fellow diners surreptitiously, and found his gaze wandering back to Wesley. The Englishman was seated at the right hand of Madame de Pignerolle and was evidently one of her favourites. She laughed gaily at his jokes and looked deeply attentive when Wesley launched into deeper discussion.

As darkness fell outside the long windows the meal came to an end. The waiters cleared the table and, using long tapers, they lit the candles in the chandeliers that hung over the table.Then they set up decanters of brandy and fine cut-glass goblets on the table and withdrew to the side of the room once again. Once everyone's glass was filled Madame de Pignerolle rose from her seat.

'Gentlemen, if I may ask for your attention…'

The chatter died away quickly.

'Thank you. I hope you will indulge me with your kind attention for the start of the evening's entertainment.'

She made her way over to the pianoforte and sat down. The sheet music was already set up in front of her and after a moment's adjustment of her feet on the pedals she looked back towards the table.

'Arthur, will you join me?'

Wesley smiled, rose at once from his chair and strode over. He bent down behind the pianoforte and emerged with a violin. Napoleon realised that this was all carefully prearranged between his hostess and her favourite. The cadet tucked the violin under his chin, raised its neck and held the bow poised just in front of the bridge. Madame de Pignerolle nodded her head three times and they began to play a minuet.

At once Napoleon was mesmerised. All his earlier hostility to the Englishman faded in an instant.The range of sound that came from the violin and the purity of the notes was sublime. Music had always been a distant pleasure for Napoleon, who could appreciate its quasi-mathematical order and the swirling patterns and variations of theme and melody. Most of the music he had heard before had been played by those with technical competence, and occasionally some feeling. But this cadet played his instrument as if he had been born to it. Indeed, from the ecstatic expression on his face it appeared that life had no greater joy for Wesley than when he was playing his violin. Glancing round the table Napoleon saw that everyone was caught up in the virtuoso display of talent, and watching and listening in rapt silence. And so it went on for more than an hour, each piece of music performed to near perfection, and even Napoleon found himself uncommonly moved by the final performance, played solo, a mournful piece that slowly faded in intensity until there was a last note that Wesley seemed to hold for an impossibly long time, before it diminished, leaving just silence. For a moment the audience was still. Then a chair scraped.

'Bravo!' The director clapped his hands together. 'Bravo Wesley!'

The rest of the guests joined in and the cadet blushed with pleasure and bowed before returning to his seat.

Later, when the dinner party was breaking up, Fitzroy began to collect the artillery officers together to take them to the bedrooms that had been prepared for them.

'Just a minute,' Napoleon raised his hand. He walked over to Wesley and, slightly shame-faced, he smiled. 'I must apologise for what I said to you before the meal. I did not intend to offend you.'

'No offence taken, sir.'

'Good. Might I ask where you learned to play the violin so admirably?'

'I was taught by the best. My father, Garrett Wesley, amongst others.'

'And that last piece. I've never heard it before. What is it?'

'A composition of a friend. I gather he based it on a folk song, popular amongst some of our people in Meath. He wrote it shortly before he died.'

Napoleon mentally flinched at the reference to 'our people'.'It was beautiful. Quite beautiful. And finely performed.'

'Thank you, sir,' Wesley bowed his head. 'It's my favourite piece.'

Napoleon smiled, and raised his hand. 'We're leaving at first light. So I'll say goodbye now.'

With the slightest hesitation the Englishman shook his hand and then returned the smile. Napoleon turned to go, walked a step and then paused and turned round.

'A word of advice, if I may?'

'Of course, sir.'

'Any man who has such a God-given talent for a musical instrument has no business being a soldier.'

Wesley nodded and they exchanged a polite smile before Napoleon turned away and followed Fitzroy and the others off to bed.