The French Bride (34 page)

‘And now your plan,' Paul de Mallot said. ‘What do you propose to do to persuade the governor to release a prisoner to you and how do you expect to get her past the gate? I confess I'm fascinated to know. I don't think I shall ever see you again, my dear Charles, once you've gone into that place!'

‘My plan is simple.' Charles grinned with a flash of his old insolence. ‘Exremely simple, because I haven't got one. I'm going to the governor and I'm going to put a pistol at his throat and make him take me to my wife. I'm prepared to kill him, and, indeed, anyone else who shows resistance. But once I'm with her, I have no idea how we shall escape. But something will come to me at the time. I'm confident.'

‘You're insane,' his sister interrupted. ‘But the devil looks after his own. I think you'll do it!'

‘So do I,' Sir James said. He walked over to his son and held out his hand. ‘I had a brother,' he said. ‘He was killed before you were born, Charles. This is just the sort of enterprise he would have loved. Hugh Macdonald was afraid of nothing. You're very like him, I think. You'll rescue Anne. God go with you.'

He put his arm around his son and kissed him, but he did not look at his wife. After thirty years he had made peace with his dead brother. Katherine left her chair and came close to her son.

‘When are you going?'

‘Tomorrow,' he said. I've arranged for a plain coach and two changes of horses on the route we'll take. We shall drive towards the coast, to Le Havre. I can get a ship from there and we'll be safe in Scotland in a week. Don't worry, Mother; I'll be a father to my family and my Highlanders yet! Isn't that what you always wanted!'

‘I know what I want now,' she said slowly. ‘I want to see you safe. If she's dead, Charles, when you get there, promise me one thing – promise me you'll leave the fortress quietly and do nothing to betray yourself.…'

‘If Anne is dead,' he said quietly, ‘I have nothing to leave it for. Pray for me that I'll succeed. You never know, it might do some good.'

‘I'll pray,' she said. ‘We all will. Annie will be ready to go to Paris with you tomorrow morning. Good night my son.'

It was growing late and the light in the cell was fading; Marguerite got up from beside the bed and patted Anne's hand.

‘I'll go now my child,' she said. ‘You go to sleep. You must reserve your strength, you know.'

She smiled into the haggard face; the girl's listlessness disturbed her. How could she summon the effort to give birth to her child alive when all she wanted was to lie back and slide into death? In spite of her kind heart, Marguerite felt angry with her; she was so afraid of losing the precious baby through the mother's apathy and despair. And how infinitely precious that unborn child had already become to her … she had made a beautiful layette for it, and there was a cradle ready in her attic room. For all these months she had nursed the girl and protected her, and nagged at her husband to visit her daily, just so that she could live long enough to have the child and give it into Marguerite's keeping. Marguerite was so excited now, as the time for the delivery came and overlapped by a few days, that she went round her house humming to herself, and took out the tiny vests and gowns and caps a dozen times a day. She would have been horrified to realise that she had no personal interest in the mother at all by this time; the child had become an obsession with her. She was quite ready to tear it out of Anne's arms if she made any protest. She bent over her again.

‘You're sure you have no pains,' she asked. ‘No discomfort? Call at once when they begin; I'll be with you immediately.'

‘I'll call,' Anne whispered. ‘Good night, madame.'

She shut her eyes, waiting until the cell door was closed and bolted. She had come to dread the visits of the surgeon and his wife. He was kind in his brusque way, but she sensed that the force behind him was the driving maternal instinct of his wife, and his wife she dreaded most of all. She had no wish to live; indeed, there was not the slightest hope of it, but something in her cringed before the bright eyes and greedy expectancy of the older woman, so anxious to gather her poor infant to herself, so indifferent to how she suffered or what became of her as long as she gave away her child. Illogically, because it was ungrateful and she was in no position to complain, Anne sometimes wished the child would die with her. She did not want the other woman to have it, and she could not have given a coherent explanation why.

For that reason, when the first pain came she turned slowly on her side and tried to sleep, refusing to admit that she had felt anything. It was very dark now; the cell was as black as a pit. She was lying on her back, very still and rigid and she tried to count during the long intervals between the pains. It was endurable; she needed nothing and no one; she lay like an animal, alone and waiting, and the turnkey slept on his stool in the passage outside. For three hours Anne passed through the first stages of a long and painful labour without making a sound.

The governor had dined very well that evening; he was in a good humour, which was rare, and had even begun discussing the possibilities of retirement with his wife. They would live in the country, he declared, and enjoy the life of gentlepeople once again. It was all very well to receive a confidential post like this, but the responsibility was out of all proportion to the salary, and the surroundings sapped the spirit. His wife was not a talkative woman; she had lost the art through ten years of living in the Bastille, and her husband disliked interruption when he felt expansive. She nodded her head and agreed with him, and thought wistfully of having a garden where she could grow flowers and vegetables, without the fortress walls shutting out the sunlight. She was sewing in the small drawing room after dinner and the governor was dozing over a book, when the maidservant announced a visitor.

The governor sat up irritably, all his mellow humour gone.

‘What visitor, you idiot? Don't you know the time?'

It's a gentleman, Excellency; the chief porter admitted him. He has a letter to see you; he says its very important.'

‘Ah, bah!' The governor got up and began buttoning his coat. ‘No peace,' he grumbled. ‘Never any peace in this place. Go to bed, my dear. I'll see the fellow in my office over the way. God knows what he wants.… Why can't these people come in the daytime?'

With the porter lighting the way ahead of them with a lantern, Charles followed the way which Anne's captors had taken seven months ago, carrying their helpless prisoner; he climbed the steep steps that turned sharply against the angle of the walls, and even here the stones glistened with damp and the pervading smell of cells stank in the nostrils. He stooped to pass through the door into the governor's room, and stood where Anne had stood, facing the table and the man who sat behind it, glaring irritably at him.

‘It is very late, monsieur,' the governor snapped. ‘I was about to go to bed. What can I do for you?'

His visitor wore a long red cloak, but gold embroidery gleamed on his coat, and the fine lace at wrists and neck bespoke a gentleman of means. The dark face and light, contemptuous eyes were also aristocratic. This must be some person of importance. The governor decided he had better offer him a chair. The porter had withdrawn and they were alone.

‘I have a pass, giving me authority to see you,' Charles said. ‘I have it here.' He threw the note signed by D'Aiguillon on the table.

The governor decided that this was indeed a nobleman. The way he tossed the paper at him, as if he were a servant, made him sure of it. He read the few lines very quickly, saw the duc's name at the bottom of the letter, and then made his visitor a bow.

‘What service can I do for you, monsieur?'

Charles moved closer to him; he smiled.

‘You can tell me how Mme. Anne Macdonald, Marquise de Bernard, is faring in your charming prison.'

The governor stared back at him; his face was set and blank and he gave a quick glance downwards at the hand bell on his table.

‘We have no prisoner of that name here,' he said. ‘Is this what your business is? I'm afraid you've been misled. There are no names here, monsieur, no marquises. I do not discuss my charges; they belong to the King.'

‘There you are mistaken,' Charles said gently. ‘This particular lady belongs to me. She is my wife.' The fold of his cloak fell back and the muzzle of a pistol appeared on a level with the governor's eyes. ‘Don't touch that bell, Excellency, or I'll blow your brains out. Sit down!'

The governor sat back slowly and let his hands rest on the table; with difficulty he looked away from the small, black mouth of the pistol and into the tense, savage face of the man who stood above him. ‘You're being very foolish, monsieur. That pistol won't help you. You'll lose your life for this!'

‘Ah, no,' Charles shook his head. ‘It's you who will lose yours. Unless you tell me where my wife is, and then are good enough to take me to her.… Speak man, I'm in a hurry!'

He touched the cold muzzle to the centre of the man's forehead and the governor's eyes blinked.

‘I need my records,' he said. ‘They're in the chest over there.'

‘Well, get them then,' Charles murmured. ‘Come, take care.'

The pistol was now touching the back of the governor's neck; it stayed there like a cold kiss while he sorted through the ledgers and files and came to the book in which he had entered Anne's name so many months ago. They went back to the table, Charles standing so close to him that their two shadows on the wall merged into one.

‘She is in the West Tower,' the governor said. ‘Cell 713.' He read some notes further down. ‘She is pregnant, she has been ill, the surgeon attended her. She has been well treated, not disciplined or deprived of privileges.… Can't you be satisfied with that, monsieur? She is as comfortable as if she were at home.… Put down that weapon and I promise I'll overlook the whole incident. You can go out the way you came, monsieur, and I shan't stop you. I understand a husband's feelings.…' He made a sympathetic grimace. ‘But this is not the way to help Madame – be sensible now.'

‘I'm being very sensible,' Charles answered. ‘West Tower, Cell 713. Take out pen and paper and write an order releasing Madame into my custody.'

The governor glared up at him; he had been pale and sweating with fear; now he turned red.

‘I'll see you damned first,' he barked. ‘By God, I hope they give you to me for this – I'll stretch your limbs for you, I'll have the tongue torn out of your head! Go to hell … you'll get no paper signed by me!'

He had not expected a blow and it caught him unawares across the face. The man who had struck him leant almost on top of him and now the mouth of the pistol was pressing hard into his throat. He saw murder in the narrow, pale eyes and he shrank back. Never in all his life, not even during military service, and a short campaign, had the governor come so close to death. He swore, and drew out a sheet of paper and scribbled a few lines upon it; his hand shook so hard that he made a blot on his signature. The pistol sank deeper still into his neck until he was forced to twist his head upwards to escape it. In those few seconds Charles satisfied himself as to what he had written. ‘Good,' he said. ‘Now get up. We're going to the West Tower.' At the door he struck the governor once again upon the face.

‘I don't have to tell you what will happen if you make a move or give a sign,' he said very softly. ‘I'll put the ball through your spine, Excellency, and you'll take as long as any of your poor tortured wretches to die, I promise you. No signals now, no tricks! Just take me to the West Tower. If you even stumble, I'll kill you!'

They passed out of the door and the governor turned and closed it behind him; they began the steep descent down the winding stairs and at the end of them a shadow moved; it was the porter, waiting to escort Charles back to the main gate. ‘Dismiss him,' he whispered. The governor nodded. The porter would have to be sent away, but if he could even give a signal, make some grimace of warning, there would be others, turnkeys, someone along the route to the West Tower.

‘I shan't be watching you,' the voice said in his ear. I'll watch his face, that's where I'll see if you've betrayed me; anyone else we see too, remember. And if they even twitch an eyebrow, I'll pull this trigger.'

The governor stopped at the end of the stairs and without hesitation and in a normal tone, told the porter to go back to his post. They went on their way again, down through the open doorway and across a small cobbled yard; Charles was beside him now, the hand hidden by his cloak, prodding the pistol into the governor's back.

‘The West Tower,' he snarled at him once. ‘Don't try to turn east, my friend, I know the compass!'

The governor did not answer. All his adult life he had been in command of men; on his father's small estates, in the army, and in the latter years as Governor of the Bastille. Even with the pistol jabbing at his spine, he was unable to surrender completely, and though he was in many ways a tyrant and inhuman, he was not a coward.

‘I'll take you to the West Tower,' he snarled. ‘But much good it'll do you.… Do you think you'll ever escape from here? Do you think that writing a piece of paper like that is all one needs to take a state prisoner out of the Bastille? You'll find out, by God! Here's the West Tower now.'

‘Go in,' Charles said. ‘And remember what I said. One move, one look from anyone we meet and I'll blow your spine in half. Come on!'

They went past the turnkey on duty at the wicket gate which he unlocked for them and Charles heard him fastening it again; the governor mounted the first steps of the long, steep spiral which wound up to the top of the tower, broken by small landings where a turnkey kept guard over the three cells cut out of the walls. They went by three such landings, and three blackened doors, serrated by huge bolts, and at each stage upwards the governor identified himself.