“May you have more luck than you have good sense.”
could hear his voice now. He had come for us. He had cared for us . all the time. It had not been friendship which had prompted Nicole to help me in the first place. It had been done on his instructions.
And now Nicole was dead. How could I tell Kendal that he would never see Nicole again? How could I ever forget that but for me she would not have been in Paris. She would be alive at this moment.
The horror of it all burst on me. Shots such as those which had killed Nicole could take any of us at any time. Oh God, I thought. Kendal!
I ran as fast as I could.
The house was still there. I had half expected it to be destroyed.
War. We were at war. I had never thought of being involved in war. Now it had come with all its tragedy, its destruction, its maiming and killings . its breaking up of lives.
I ran into the house calling “Jeanne! Kendal! Quick. Where are you?”
Jeanne came running to me. Her face was white. She was clearly distraught.
“Where is Kendal?” I asked.
She said: “He’s gone … gone to safety. The gentleman in the Gardens”
The room seemed to be spinning round me. I felt sick with apprehension.
“He came just after you’d gone. He said Paris was no place for the boy. He was going to take him away to safety. I tried … but he just took him.”
“And Kendal…”
“He said he wouldn’t go without his mother… but he was picked up carried away …”
I covered my face with my hands. I said: “This can’t be true. He’s taken him to Centeville. I must go after him. Oh Jeanne … Nicole is dead.”
She stared at me.
“I … I’ve been with her,” I stammered.
“And … while I was with her he came and took my son away. Jeanne I must go after him. I know where. Come with me. You can’t stay here. If you could have seen ” How can we get to this place? “
“I don’t know. But we must go at once. Take all the money we can.
There is not a moment to lose. We have to go after him. “
I ran to my room. I gathered together all the money that was in the house. I put on my cloak. Action, desperate action was the best way to live through a situation like this.
I went downstairs. Jeanne was already there.
I cried out: “Come then.”
The door opened and he was standing there the Baron himself, holding Kendal by the hand.
I gave a cry of relief and ran to my son, kneeling and embracing him, clinging to him. He looked bewildered but clearly shared my relief.
“There’s not a moment to lose,” said the Baron.
“You are dressed.
Where is Nicole? Go and tell her. “
I stared at him for a few seconds unable to speak.
“Hurry,” he shouted.
“This city will be under siege in a few hours .. perhaps it is already. Get Nicole … quickly.”
I said: “Nicole is dead. I have just left her.”
“Dead!”
“She is in the hospital. She was hit … by this … bombardment. I stayed with her until she died.”
He was stunned. I had never seen him moved by emotion before.
“Nicole … dead …” I heard him murmur.
“You … you’re sure?”
“I have just left her. That’s where I was. They sent for me …”
I turned away from him.
I heard him say: “She was a good woman … the best…” And then he recovered himself.
“Come on. There’s no time to lose.” He looked at jeanne
“You too. You can’t stay here.”
We went into the streets. There was hardly anyone about. The bombardment had sent them all scurrying into their houses.
He said: “I have horses nearby. We’ll get away from here as fast as we can. Come now. Every minute is important.”
We were at the top of the street when I heard the second explosion of the day.
I think that was the worst moment of my life. A building beside us had been struck. Time appeared to slow down. I saw it stagger like a drunken man; then it started to crumble . slowly, and the facade seemed to slither to the ground. I saw . disaster. Kendal was staring up at it as though mesmerized. I heard the Baron shout at him.
The boy turned but was too late to move before there was a violent rumbling and the air was full of blinding dust.
Kendal was sprawling on the ground. I knew that that pile of bricks and rubble was about to fall on him. I ran . but the Baron was ahead of me. It was too late to pick up the boy . so he threw himself on top of him for protection.
I screamed. I could see nothing for a second or so because of the blinding dust.
“Kendal,” I called desperately.
Then I was kneeling beside them tearing off the rubble.
There was blood on the Baron’s leg. I kept calling Kendal.
Kendal crawled out and stood before me. I felt a crazy joy because he appeared to be unhurt.
But the Baron was lying there among the bricks and the dust. still and silent.
Jeanne, Kendal and I knelt down in the dust beside the Baron. His leg seemed to be twisted under him. He was unconscious and I thought that he was dead. Strange emotions swept over me. I had seen death once that morning. But it could not happen to the Baron. Never the Baron. He was indestructible.
“We must get help at once,” I said to jeanne
Jeanne stood up. People were now coming out of their houses to see what damage had been done. We called to them and soon there was a little group around us. I could not take my eyes from him lying there, inert, blood on his clothes, his usually fresh coloured face deathly pale, his eyes closed. I was conscious of a terrible emptiness.
Nicole, my dear friend had gone for ever and that was a sadness which would haunt my life. But I could not imagine a life without the Baron, to remember, to revile, to hate.
Someone had brought out a ladder and they put him on it using it as a stretcher. They could take him to the hospital they said.
I replied on impulse: “Bring him to my house. I can look after him there. And go and get a doctor … quickly … quickly …”
He was carried into the house. Kendal clung to my hand.
“Is he dead?” he asked.
“No,” I answered fiercely.
“No… he can’t be dead. Not the Baron.”
That was the beginning of the siege of Paris, the most tragic and humiliating period of that great city’s history.
I gave little thought to the war during the next day. My mind was solely on my patient. The doctor had come. Part of the bone in the Baron’s right leg had been crushed. He might be able to walk again perhaps with the aid of a stick. His vital organs were undamaged and strong and the loss of blood and the shock had not been too great for him; he would recover and be able to resume a restricted way of life.
I sat by his bed throughout that first night. He was unconscious then and we were at that time uncertain how much damage had been done. I was glad they had not taken him into the hospital. They had other victims of the bombardments there and were preparing for a rush of casualties so there was no pressure to send him. I said I could nurse him with the help of jeanne and the doctor was only too glad that I should do so.
He showed me how to dress the leg. The wound appalled me. There was considerable pain, I knew, but the Baron bore that with the fortitude I would expect of him.
I had, with jeanne help, moved the beds down so that we were all on one floor and not too far from each other. I had a terrible fear that I might be separated from Kendal.
Every sound made us start for we feared that the bombardment would begin again, but it did not and the streets were quiet.
It was a strange night that first one sitting by his bed. I could not believe that only the night before I had slept in my bed with Nicole in her room and Kendal safe in his.
My great fear was for Kendal. I lived again and again that terrible moment when I had thought the building was going to collapse on him.
And, if the Baron had not thrown himself upon him, if he had not protected him . my small child would surely have been crushed to death.
It was strange what I owed this man. All my humiliation, my subjection and now. my son’s life.
I kept hearing Nicole’s voice.
“There is good in him. You can find it.
Yes, I had found something good already. He had come to take us away . risking his life to do so, as it was now proved. He had saved my son’s life.
I sat there through the darkness of the night. I did not light a candle. Nicole had said some days before that we must preserve the candles . we must preserve everything. There was certain to be a shortage.
So I sat there and watched the dawn come while I looked down on the contours of his sleeping face. A certain colour had returned to it and it no longer had that look of death on it. He was breathing more easily. I knew that he would live and I felt a great gladness in my heart.
I closed my eyes and I thought: Too much is happening in too short a time. Death is always close, I suppose, but at times like this it comes nearer. Nicole had always seemed so alive . and then suddenly, walking along a street, she is struck down . and that is the end. And the Baron! It could so easily have happened to him.
It was war. I had brushed it aside, shown little interest in it.
Stupid wars which men fought to amuse themselves, for no one ever came well out of war. And people died . one’s loved ones went into the street and that was the end.
I opened my eyes. He was looking at me.
“Kate,” he said.
I leaned over him.
“How do you feel?”
“Strange,” he said.
“Very strange …”
“It was the bombardment. A wall fell on you.”
“I remember.” Then quickly: “The boy?”
“He’s unharmed.”
“Thank God.”
“Thank you, too,” I said.
A smile touched his lips and he closed his eyes.
I felt the tears in my own. I thought: He will get well. Yes, he is indestructible.
I was glad he was with us. Even lying in a bed more dead than alive he brought a feeling of security.
Kendal had slipped into the room. I held out my hand and he ran to me.
“Is he asleep?”
I nodded.
“Is he very hurt?”
“I think he might be.”
“Do you think he would like to come to the Gardens and fly my oriflamme kite tomorrow?”
“Not tomorrow,” I said.
“But perhaps … one day.”
There was an unreality about the days which followed. My thoughts were entirely taken up with nursing the Baron, which was the main preoccupation of our days. It was a great relief when the bombardment stopped and the days were quiet, though ominously so. The Baron spent most of those first days in sleep. The doctor had given me something to make him do so and he had taught me how to dress the wound. He was an earnest young man, very concerned about the situation.
“We were expecting a rush of casualties,” he said, ‘but I think the enemy realizes those sort of tactics don’t work so well. They can batter the town but Paris is a big place and if the people see their city attacked they become stubborn. These Prussians know how to conduct a war and my view is that they will try to starve us into surrender. “
“A grim prospect.”
“For Paris … yes. Those Bonapartes have a great deal to answer for.”
He was a stern republican but I couldn’t care about politics, and I was grateful for what he did for me.
Jeanne was a wonderful help. She went out every morning to see what she could buy and it was the excitement of the day to look through her shopping basket when she returned. We had a considerable amount of flour in the house so we were able to bake bread which would keep us going for some time if everything else failed.
I took Kendal for a walk in the afternoons while Jeanne remained at home in case the Baron wanted anything. I never went far from the house and I would not let Kendal out of my sight.
I explained to him what had happened to Nicole. He was an extremely intelligent child and once again I was amazed by the manner in which children adapt themselves to circumstances. He seemed to grasp the fact that there had been a war which the French had lost and because of this we were now living in a besieged city.
There was pitifully little to see in the shops. Quite a lot of the produce sold in Paris came from the surrounding villages. We had often heard them trundling in in the early hours of the morning on the way to Les Halles. They had come from all directions. Now no one came into Paris and no one went out.
The days had settled into a routine which seemed particularly quiet.
It was an ominous monotony because nothing stays still for long in a siege.
The Baron was regaining his strength. His leg was still in a sorry state but his constitution was just about as strong as a man’s could be and he was fast recovering from the shock and loss of blood.
Now he could sit up. I propped his leg up with pillows and I found a stick which he could use when he hobbled about. But even the shortest walk was such an effort at first that he would collapse exhausted after a few minutes.
It was strange to see him stripped of that strength which had been so much a part of him.
“You’re like Samson,” I told him, ‘shorn of his locks. “
“Remember,” he said, ‘his hair grew again. “
“Yes. And you will regain your strength.”
“And be a cripple?”
“You’re fortunate. It could have been worse.”
“It might have been better too,” he added ironically.
“You are thinking that if I had not stubbornly refused to leave Paris when you first asked, this would not have happened to you. Nicole would be here …” My voice broke and he said: “We all make mistakes sometimes.”
“Even you,” I said, with a flash of the old enmity.
“Yes,” he said, ‘alas, even I. “
Our relationship had changed. That was inevitable. He was the patient;
I was the nurse; and we were living in a situation charged with danger. We did not know from one moment to the next when death would come to claim us.
My great hope was that I should not be left and that if death came it would take me and not Kendal or the Baron. I used to lie awake and think: If I were taken he would look after Kendal. He cares for him.