Authors: Anne Perry
‘No talking!’ the guard said loudly. ‘Get on with your work!’
They obeyed, Amandine standing over the bowl, Célie washing the mugs and putting them away. There was no sound in the room but the chink of crockery and an occasional squeak as Célie rubbed the cloth too tightly on the smooth surface.
Menou returned. It was obvious from his expression that he had not yet found the knife. He started to search the kitchen, looking in every cupboard and flour bin, every bag, box and tin himself, running his hand through the few dried peas and lentils they had, tipping out the chocolate on to a plate, and the coffee, lifting the cheese cover, taking the lid off every pan.
He found nothing of interest, and no hidden food.
Next he looked through Célie’s laundry supplies.
‘You haven’t much soap,’ he commented. ‘No starch? No blue?’
‘I used the last of the starch the day before yesterday,’ she answered. ‘It’s hard to get blue any more.’ Actually she had swapped it for coffee for Georges.
Menou returned to the kitchen table, his face creased with irritation.
‘One of you murdered Citizen Bernave.’ He looked round them slowly. Marie-Jeanne was still holding the baby, who was now asleep. Madame Lacoste watched Menou, her face pensive, full of shadows. Fernand drummed his fingers silently. Monsieur Lacoste fidgeted, biting his lip. St Felix was completely motionless, his shoulders slumped. He looked as if he were bowed down with a weight of grief so heavy it crushed him.
Fernand’s fists were clenched and his shoulders were high and rigid.
Menou faced him squarely.
‘You have no right to say that!’ Madame Lacoste replied at last, her voice cold. She sat very straight, with a dignity that did not lie in status or power, but simply in her own belief in herself. She was the wife of a man who laboured for his living, but she could have been of the old nobility as she faced Menou in her kitchen.
A flicker of admiration showed in his eyes, unwilling perhaps, but quite real.
‘We cared for Citizen Bernave,’ she continued gravely. ‘And we grieve for his death. He was one of our family, and a true fighter for the freedom and prosperity of all France, and for justice which will last.’
‘All of you, Madame—’ He realised his mistake and corrected himself quickly. ‘Citizeness?’
‘I don’t know about Citizen St Felix,’ she answered, deliberately not looking at him. ‘Bernave was hard on him.’
‘So it seems,’ Menou nodded. ‘So, indeed, it seems.’ He straightened his shoulders. ‘Remember: you are being watched! The revolution owes Citizen Bernave justice ... and he will have it!’ With that he went to the back door, opened it and went out, closing it with a bang behind him.
Marie-Jeanne rose to her feet, stiff from having sat so long. The baby in her arms had not woken. She walked past them and out into the room beyond.
Fernand looked at St Felix, who was white-faced, then he turned and followed his wife.
Amandine stared at Célie.
Madame Lacoste said nothing, but her eyes were brilliant with tears.
N
OW THAT MENOU HAD
gone it was imperative that both Célie and Amandine, to whom St Felix had spoken, should throw themselves into furthering the plan. It was the nineteenth already. By this time in the morning two days from now, the King would be dead, and those who had gone to see the execution would be back at home preparing a late breakfast.
It was on Célie’s lips to tell Amandine to go and do some shopping, and then find her alone, even outside in the courtyard if necessary, in order to give her more detailed instructions as to what she should say, and what she must learn. But Amandine was the senior servant in the house, and Célie would appear to be giving her orders. It would instantly arouse everyone’s irritation, and almost certainly suspicion as well. She must be more careful than that.
Fernand glanced at the back door where Menou had just left.
‘And what are we supposed to do for business while he has guards posted all round the place to keep us locked up? How does he think we’re going to earn a sou in here?’ he demanded angrily.
‘He doesn’t think!’ Monsieur Lacoste snapped. ‘Why should he care? He’s worried about his own job, not ours. Are there so few beggars in Paris you think anyone will notice a couple more?’
Madame looked up at them. ‘It is barely twelve hours since Citizen Bernave was killed here in this house. What do you expect the man to do? No one has found the knife yet. He isn’t going to let anyone leave except Célie or Amandine to buy food, and only then when he has had them searched. I imagine he doesn’t suspect them, not seriously.’ She glanced at St Felix, then back at her husband and son. She rose to her feet, a little stiffly, as if fear and exhaustion had locked her muscles. ‘The time will hang less heavily if you do something. Marie-Jeanne will care for the children. I am going to return to Bernave’s papers. We can’t let the business slip: it maintains the house.’
‘Thank you,’ Marie-Jeanne said quietly. ‘I haven’t time to do it, and I don’t want to.’ There was a certain chill in her voice, as if she felt obliged to Bernave for their wellbeing, and it hurt her, even angered her, only for her family’s sake she would not reject it. She held the baby a little tighter and reached out her other hand to touch the head of the three-year-old standing at her knee.
Madame acknowledged the thanks, then looked across at her husband. ‘There are all sorts of things you could be doing,’ she pointed out. ‘The latch on the children’s room is broken, has been for a month or more. The pump handle catches every now and again. I’ve at least three drawers that stick ...’
‘All right! I know.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I was too busy to get to them before. Earning money comes before your own chores.’ He turned to Fernand. ‘And you can finish that chest for Virginie. You’ve been putting that aside since last August. And Amandine says there are lids in here that don’t fit properly, and a hole somewhere that lets mice in.’
‘Doorways let mice in,’ Fernand responded drily, ‘especially when they’re left wide open!’ But there was no ill temper in his voice. He shrugged very slightly and went out of the back into the bright, cold courtyard towards his workshop.
Monsieur Lacoste looked for a moment at Madame, with the same gentleness Célie had noticed before. She saw it with a jolt of pleasure, and loneliness.
When he was gone she looked to Madame. ‘We are far later shopping than usual, because of Menou being here. Amandine and I had better both go to queue, if that is all right? Otherwise we may find we have missed most of what we need. We may find that anyway.’
Madame did not even think about it. ‘Of course,’ she responded straight away. ‘I shall be in Citizen Bernave’s room. You had better get some money from me.’
‘Thank you,’ Célie accepted, following her out, Marie-Jeanne close behind her, leaving Amandine and St Felix alone in the kitchen.
When she returned with the money for shopping they were standing close to each other, and had obviously stopped speaking only the moment she appeared. St Felix was watching Amandine, as if to judge her reaction. Amandine had swung round in apprehension to face the door. Célie guessed he had taken this opportunity to tell her briefly of the plan and their part in it.
Célie made no comment, but walked over, offered Amandine half the money Madame had given her.
Amandine slid it into the pocket in her grey skirt. ‘I’ll try for bread and cheese, and of course if there’s any meat.’
Célie raised her eyebrows. ‘At this time of day? If it’s still sitting around now there’s something wrong with it!’ She lowered her voice to little above a whisper. ‘Where else are you going?’ She glanced questioningly at St Felix, who nodded almost imperceptibly.
Amandine looked at him also, then back to Célie. ‘To find the captain of Bernave’s ship. He’s in rooms in the Île de la Cité. At this hour he should still be there. He won’t even know Bernave’s dead yet.’ Her face was tight. ‘I shall have to tell him.’
‘Watch him,’ Célie warned. ‘Look at his face as he hears. Judge whether you tell him what Menou said or not. I wish I knew more!’
‘We all wish that,’ St Felix agreed with feeling. He moved his weight from foot to foot, his whole body expressing the frustration and sense of entrapment he felt. He could do nothing but give instructions and wait. He did not even have a craft to occupy his hands. ‘Where are you going?’ he went on sharply to Célie.
‘To the Faubourg St-Antoine,’ she replied. ‘To see if the safe house is still safe.’
‘How are you going to do that?’ he persisted.
‘I don’t know! Watch, listen, ask about it.’ She was thinking as she spoke. ‘Maybe I shall pretend I want to buy it! That would give me an excuse to ask all sorts of questions.’
‘But ...’ Amandine began, then stopped.
‘I don’t have to have any money,’ Célie said with raised eyebrows. ‘I’m not going to take it, for heaven’s sake! I’ll look at it carefully, then tell them it is too small for my needs—or my taste!’
‘I was going to say that the Faubourg St-Antoine is so dangerous!’ Amandine’s voice was a little high, threaded through with fear. She knew what had happened to St Felix there. Now she was frightened for. Célie.
‘I know, but I’ll be all right,’ Célie said more gently, trying to make herself smile. She did not want to think about it, still less did she want to go there, but the only alternative was to abandon the plan. She could not send Amandine. With her manner and soft diction she would be in far greater danger. Even she must be aware of that, unselfconscious as she was. St Felix could not leave the house, and there was no one else. It was much too far for Georges to risk in daylight. She did not want to explain or discuss it. ‘I’ll look just like anyone else there,’ she assured her.
‘How are you going to explain having the money to think of buying a house?’ Amandine was still full of doubts.
Célie thought quickly. ‘My husband! I’ll say he was a soldier on the Austrian front and got killed. God knows, enough of them have! Still are ...’
‘And more will be,’ Amandine said bleakly. ‘And on the Spanish front, and at sea if Spain and England attack us too.’ Her face was very white, her eyes focused and motionless in the strange stillness of horror. In that moment Célie understood profoundly why Bernave had planned to rescue the King and why now she could not argue with anyone’s risk, or try to protect them at the cost of jeopardising their chance of success. The alternative was overwhelmingly, consumingly awful.
She smiled with an assumed confidence for Amandine’s sake. ‘I’ll be fine. I don’t care if they think I’m a drunk and a fool, reaching after something I’ve no chance of affording. I can always ask the price last.’ She put more bravado into her voice and straightened her shoulders. ‘Anyway, we don’t know what it’s like. It could be awful! Maybe a soldier’s widow could afford it?’
‘It is one of the first social reforms the revolution wants to bring in—decent pensions for army injured and sick after battle ... and the old,’ Amandine said with a mixture of humour and hope.
‘In theory,’ Célie retorted bitterly. ‘Nobody’s seen much in practice yet! Ask some of the crippled soldiers about ... there are enough of them. And if Pache keeps all the guns here in Paris instead of sending them up to the front, they’ll be more!’
The anger in her voice caught them for a moment. There was silence in the kitchen. She could hear the creak of boards as someone moved about upstairs, and the voice of one of the children calling out.
There were footsteps outside in the courtyard.
‘I’m going,’ Amandine said quickly, ‘before anyone catches us talking! We must be careful.’ She took her cloak off its peg and put it on, picking up a basket in which to carry whatever she was able to buy. She looked back at Célie and then St Felix, smiled hopefully and opened the back door just as Fernand came in with his hands full of tools.
‘Me too,’ Célie agreed, striding towards the hook where her own cloak was, and pulling her cap more firmly round her ears.
Should she try walking all the way, and risk being asked why she had been so long? Or see if she could find a public diligence and spend a few sous, and risk having to account to Madame for the money?
Time was more easily explainable. Queues moved slowly. One got to the head of them and found the woman before you had bought the last of whatever it was you needed. It happened only too often. Anyone would believe that, whereas Madame Lacoste would know the exact price of everything to the sou. Every woman did.
Reluctantly Célie put her head down and strode out. It was bright sunshine, but the wind was hard and cold, its raw edge whipping her face as it came up off the river.
She hurried across the Pont Neuf and the few yards of the tip of the Île de la Cite. There were several people about, mostly idling, watching passers-by, waiting for news. A woman sold hot coffee. A youth distributed copies of
L’Ami du Peuple
, Marat’s newspaper.
Célie crossed over the river again. This was where the public laundresses washed, when they could buy soap, starch and blue to do so—crouched on the stones regardless of the weather. She looked down and saw there was no one there today—the shortages were biting everywhere.
Around her the trees along the bank were bare, branches thin and black against the sky. The Church of St-Germain-L’Auxerrois was to her left.
Beyond it was the gorgeous palace of the Louvre.
Would Georges have visited there, before the revolution? What had his life been then? While her father was dreaming of being a great orator who hired men to fight for reform, and her mother had sat with luminous eyes, praising and encouraging him, filling his mind with her ideals and her courage, had Georges been watching empty masques at Versailles? Had he danced the night away, as they had argued, sipping sugar water in the salons of the Girondins, wearing togas and calling each other by antique Roman names?
Now one world was shattered for ever, and the other fast failing in the remnants of dreams they had neither the wit nor the will to seize.
She and Georges had never discussed the days before the Bastille. It was another world, gone for ever. Did he never speak of it because he had not been part of it, or because it did not matter now? Or because he was ashamed? Not only had the world changed, but, like so many others, he had also.