There were no more discussions on the subject.
But there was deliriously wonderful news on two fronts. For starters, one day in August, Ban arrived.
“My darling!” He swept into the foyer and scooped me into his arms, carrying me straight to the boudoir, forgoing all preliminaries such as conversation.
I didn’t care. There would be plenty of time later for words. My need for him was unquenchable, my skin on fire from his touch, for the excited attentions of his fingers and tongue. “I’ve even uttered prayers in the hope that you would return to me,” I confessed, between passionate kisses and embraces.
“I’m a firm believer that God helps those who help themselves,” Ban murmured, nibbling my earlobe, fully aware how insatiable I would become whenever his tongue teased me there.
I wriggled against him, feeling the heat rise once more within me. “Whatever do you mean by that?”
“Only that whilst the power of prayer may have had some small effect, it is the power of your pen that wooed me back. Once I read ‘Bounding Billow,’ in the August issue of The Oracle, I could not bear the thought of spending another moment without you.”
Our lips met in a melting kiss.
“And your gaudy mistress?” I asked.
“Gone forever,” Ban replied. “After I read your poem I severed the connexion and rode posthaste for the Channel.”
My arrow had hit the intended target. All reason fled, so willing was I to embrace him once more, happily forgiving his past transgressions and his errant heart.
“Does that mean, then, that this time you have returned to me forever?” I could almost feel my nerves aquiver as I voiced the question for which I dearly wished to hear an assent.
“I’m afraid, my love, this reunion must be brief.”
At this news my stomach churned like an angry sea. “And why is that?” I whispered.
“I have plans to depart for Paris.”
“Paris!” I exclaimed. “It’s hardly safe there nowadays.” I had heard from those who knew firsthand that the situation there was becoming worse by the day. “No one who calls an aristo their friend is considered out of harm’s way.”
“Even Robespierre himself daren’t harm a British MP,” Ban assured me. “It would provoke an international incident the Legislative Assembly can ill afford, particularly when they wish to court the sympathies of other nations. I have some business to see to, and besides, I miss my friends. For all we know, their days are numbered.”
I shuddered at his words.
“But I’ve made my reputation by besting an angry rabble,” Ban assured me as I clung to him, and there was no dissuading him from his purpose.
“Come back to me, safe and whole,” I begged Ban. “I cannot bear to lose you again.”
My only consolation at parting from him so soon was the other bit of good news Ban brought me. Sheridan had decided to produce my opera. I would have been ecstatic at this, for it meant money as well as prestige and a chance to return to the Theatre—my first love—but my fears for Ban’s safety formed my mind’s chief occupation.
My lover was adamant that I return to London at once, as the gates of Paris offered no guarantees that the bloody mob violence would remain contained behind them.
On the second of September, 1792, my mother, Maria, and I sailed for home. As fortune had it, we’d fled in the nick of time, for only a few hours after we departed the arrêt arrived, by which every British subject throughout France was restrained; and the following day was recorded as the most violent since the bloody revolution began. The tumult of discontent perverted the cause of universal liberty. Indiscriminate vengeance swept before it. Twelve hundred French souls loyal to their king and queen were slaughtered like spring lambs.
I despaired for Ban’s life when I read the newspaper accounts of the atrocities perpetrated in Paris on September third—how the breasts and auburn-coiffed head of the Princesse de Lamballe, lady-in-waiting to Marie Antoinette, were paraded on pikes through the street. The hapless young noblewoman had been hacked to pieces by a rabble daring to denominate themselves members of the human race.
Understandably, my elation was boundless when on September twenty-ninth, Ban returned—in one piece, though full of the most alarming reports. “I read about Lamballe,” I said, quivering with anger. “How ghastly!”
“I was there,” exclaimed Ban. “Dining with the duc d’Orleans. There we are, two dozen of us, enjoying an evening of Monsieur’s finest brandy, when we hear the shouts in the streets below. People are singing ‘La Marseillaise’—dreadfully off-key—and a pair of drummers leads the procession as though it were a festival. And lo, we look out the duc’s windows to see the princesse’s head, and what was alleged to be her poitrine and limbs, borne aloft by the mob. The duc gazes upon the carnage, and as is his wont, ever so calmly says to his guests—Mary, may I die unloved if this be untrue—‘Ah, c’est la Lamballe. Je la connais à ses cheveux!’”
“What a vulgar comment. How could he jest at a time like that? To say, ‘I’d know that hair anywhere,’” I muttered.
“I believe they call it sangfroid,” Ban replied tersely. “It may be the only way a man like Philippe can handle the significance of the changes in the Parisian air. Though he’s among the few aristocrats to sympathize with the rabble, I wouldn’t bet it will save his neck from the madmen’s bloodthirstiness.” He took my hands in his and drew me close. “Let us thank God and King George and the patriotism of John Bull that the English are a saner breed than their brethren across the Channel.”
I swam in his embrace as we
