Den of Thieves

by Julia Golding

  ‘Clean it up, you disgusting thing!’ screeched Mimi.

  As if I could in my current state! I rolled over, not to repair the damage but to add to it.

  ‘I want another cabin! I’m not staying in here with her!’ Mimi stormed out, crying for Madame Beaufort, closely followed by her two friends.

  I didn’t care. They could call me all the names under the sun, shout and scream at me. I just wanted to die as the ship bucked and reared like an unbroken horse. Why, oh why, had I thought Mr Sheridan’s idea of sending me to France a good one? It was the stupidest thing ever! I was going to be useless! I couldn’t even travel without collapsing in a helpless smelly heap! My dejection was so complete that I didn’t notice Joseph enter ten minutes later, armed with bucket and mop to cleanse the cabin, nor Frank place a cool cloth on my head. He told me later he’d given up his berth to the fugitives from mine, though they were soon retching with the rest of the troupe as the storm worsened. They should have stayed with me for I had the best nurses in Frank and Joseph, neither of whom – curse their iron constitutions – showed the least discomfort in the heavy seas.

  The crossing to France, which had appeared such a small thing in Mr Sheridan’s study as I had examined a map, now took on an epic stature as our little ship battled its way to Calais. When my stomach was so empty I could be ill no more, I dozed, drifting in and out of nightmares in which our ship foundered on rocks or broke apart, casting us all on the waves.

  ‘Kill me, Frank. I just want it to end,’ I groaned some hours later.

  ‘Don’t be silly, Cat, you don’t mean that,’ he chided.

  I looked across to find him reading by the light of the swinging lantern. Reading! How could he? It was the story Mimi had brandished at me earlier. I crumpled flat on my back.

  ‘You know, this really is capital stuff. I hadn’t realized what an attractive fellow I am till I read it in your own words!’

  ‘Don’t flatter yourself,’ I muttered wretchedly. ‘It’s fiction, remember.’

  ‘You must be feeling better,’ declared Frank, ‘if you are up to insulting me.’

  He was right: I had begun to improve. The storm was still raging but as we drew into the more sheltered waters of the French coast, the terrible stomach cramps subsided. Feeling light-headed and weak, I propped myself up on Frank’s cloak. Joseph was chuckling away to himself, deep in another of the magazines. I couldn’t help but feel proud that my stories had the power to amuse my friends.

  As our ship entered Calais harbour, it came back to me that I had a tricky time ahead. If Mr Sheridan’s reason for sending me all this way was to remain a secret, I had to blend in with the troupe while our papers were examined. Would the officials buy the idea that this little redhead was a bona fide ballerina? If they looked closely, surely they would realize that I was like a duck among the swans? I wished I felt more up to the interview, but after all that retching, I was too washed out to do more than stagger on deck very sloppily dressed. Fortunately for me, the weather had taken its toll on my companions: none of the dancers looked their best. They neither noticed nor cared as I mingled with them in the early dawn.

  ‘Good morning, citizens and citizenesses,’ announced the port official as he came aboard. He had obviously had a good night’s sleep and had not spent the night with his head in a bucket, as his brass buttons were well polished, his uniform crisp and neat. His upper lip was adorned with a splendid black moustache. ‘Now, who do we have here?’ The captain presented him with the passenger list. ‘Where is this Lord Francis, son of the Duke of Avon?’ he asked with a frown on his brow. The master of the vessel pointed to Frank, who had taken up his station alone at the far end of the ship from me, assuming an uncharacteristically aristocratic distance from the commoners he had been thrown among. ‘I’ll deal with him last,’ the official said with relish. ‘Ladies first, n’est-ce pas?’

  As if to rub in his slight to the young noble, the Frenchmen fawned over Madame Beaufort and her charges. ‘I rejoice to see such pretty flowers of French maidenhood returning to our shores,’ he said with overblown gallantry as he kissed her hand. ‘Much has changed even in the few short years since your departure, madame. You left us slaves and return to a free France.’

  ‘Indeed, sir,’ the ballet mistress said with a grave nod of her head. ‘You honour us with your welcome.’

  He took the sheaf of papers from her hand and leafed through them, making the occasional remark to the French girls, flirting with each in turn. Mine were at the end – conspicuous for being the only English national among them. ‘What is this?’ he chuckled. ‘You bring a little roast beef with you to turn her into a dancer? Where is she, this marvel?’

  I stepped out from behind one of the tallest of the dancers. The chuckle turned into a full belly laugh.

  ‘You have your work cut out for you, madame. Surely she is too small for the chorus line?’

  Madame Beaufort gave me a nervous look. It had only now struck her what she was doing: smuggling a foreign agent into her native land. Some would think her a traitor.

  ‘Her appearance is deceptive, sir,’ she said hurriedly. ‘Catherine is very promising.’

  Mimi snorted disdainfully. The official frowned. ‘And you, madame, will you be responsible for her conduct while she is here?’ he asked the ballet mistress.

  ‘I . . . er . . .’ Madame Beaufort hesitated, doubtless wondering what repercussions would fall on her if my true role was detected. I felt an unpleasant twist in the pit of my stomach that was nothing to do with seasickness. I could see Frank stirring restlessly as he kept a close eye on proceedings.

  ‘I have agreed to give the girl a trial, sir – that is all.’

  ‘And if she fails? We do not want English girls abandoned in Paris – we have enough vagrants of our own. I cannot grant her a passport unless I know she has the means to support herself. Who will pay for her return?’

  ‘Her sponsor,’ said Madame Beaufort awkwardly.

  ‘Sponsor?’ The official checked the papers again. ‘Who is that?’

  This was not going well. I hadn’t even set foot on French soil and already my connection to Mr Sheridan, a name that would be well-known even this side of the Channel, seemed on the point of being blurted out.

  ‘It’s Mr –’

  ‘My man!’ A haughty voice rapped out from the far end of the deck. ‘When you have quite finished dallying with the ladies, some of us have pressing business to attend to.’ It was Frank. He strode purposefully across the planks to confront the official. ‘Shocking lack of efficiency!’ he continued. ‘I’ll be having words with your superior.’

  The official folded up my papers and absent-mindedly handed them back to Madame Beaufort. ‘And just who do you think you are, citizen, talking to an officer like this?’

  ‘I am Lord Francis of Boxton, the son of the Duke of Avon. I am used to being treated with more respect where I come from. I have had my fill of being made to wait behind a pack of women.’

  The official gave a tight smile, relishing his opportunity to put down a popinjay of a noble. ‘Well, citizen, you are in France now. You’ll wait for as long as I say you should. Ladies, you may go.’ And the Frenchman waved us commoners off.

  I waited on the busy pier for Frank for over an hour. Grumbling at the English boy’s rudeness, Madame Beaufort and her dancers disappeared into a quayside coaching inn to engage carriages for Paris and have breakfast, leaving me kicking my heels with mounting anxiety. Around me the fishwives were screeching in rapid, incomprehensible French. Buckets of forlorn fish gaped on the boards before being swiftly dispatched by efficient fingers, gutted and tossed into crates. Still feeling delicate from my night of sickness, I turned my eyes and sank against a wooden post.

  ‘Cat?’ It was Frank’s voice.

  ‘Thank goodness! I thought he was going to send you back to England.’

  ‘He would have done if he could have found anything wrong with my papers,’ laughed Frank. ‘Inste
ad, he had to content himself with holding me up as long as he could. Joseph here was quite frothing at the mouth by the time he’d finished with the revenge of petty officialdom.’

  Joseph did indeed look very cross. He was fiercely loyal to his master and any slight, real or imagined, was sure to meet with his severe displeasure.

  ‘Thank you, Frank,’ I said. ‘I think you saved my bacon back there. I’m not sure Madame Beaufort is to be relied on any longer now she is out of the reach of Mr Sheridan’s charm.’

  Frank nodded his agreement. ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Over at the inn. She’s seeing to the carriages. Apparently if we don’t leave soon we will not be in Paris until after dark on Monday. I hadn’t realized it was so far.’ All these distances were confusing me. I was used to being able to get to places at a day’s walk at the most. Two or three days at the rapid speed of a carriage suggested miles that I found hard to imagine.

  ‘Well, what are we waiting for?’ said Frank cheerfully. ‘Let’s grab some breakfast before those girls eat the lot.’

  When we entered the dining room of the inn, we found the ballerinas had already finished. They were distinctly cool towards Frank and barely civil to me.

  ‘I have engaged four carriages,’ Madame Beaufort said in clarion tones as Frank and I sat down at the table. ‘Not of the highest standard, unfortunately. The girls and I will wait for you outside. Please do not delay us any longer, my lord.’ She said these last words in a sharp tone I had never heard her use before.

  ‘I think Madame Beaufort is infected by the revolutionary air of her country,’ I whispered. ‘I think she wants to be rid of us.’

  Frank nodded and took a gulp of his coffee. ‘But Mr Sheridan is a friend to the revolution, isn’t he? He’s not trying to undermine what’s happening here: he just wants to find out what’s happening.’

  ‘I know. All the same, coming home has definitely changed her attitude.’

  Not wishing to give further provocation to my new mistress, we hurried our breakfast and emerged into the yard. Three carriages were drawn up, already filled with dancers.

  ‘Where is the fourth carriage, madame?’ Frank asked.

  ‘Over there,’ Madame Beaufort said with a careless wave of her hand, pointing out a dilapidated four-wheeled fiacre. She saw our downcast faces. ‘It was all I could get, my lord.’ Mimi giggled; Belle looked smugly at me from the safe confines of their relatively comfortable carriage. Joseph marched up behind us, face like thunder.

  ‘My lord,’ he said in a brittle voice, ‘you cannot travel in that deathtrap. The coachman is either drunk or a halfwit. I couldn’t get a word of sense out of him.’

  ‘Not good enough for his lordship, is it?’ demanded Madame Beaufort shrilly. ‘Surely you’re not suggesting that some of my girls should travel in it so his lordship can have one of these?’

  Frank bowed gallantly. ‘Of course not, madame.’

  ‘There really is no other carriage available – ask the hostler if you don’t believe me.’

  ‘I do not doubt you. It will have to do. Joseph, please see to my luggage. Miss Royal is to travel with you, I suppose?’

  ‘You suppose wrong, sir. All these carriages are full.’ Mimi and Belle spread their skirts on the seat, hiding any spare inch of upholstery. ‘She was happy enough to journey with you to Dover; I assumed she would do so again.’

  ‘But madame . . .!’ Frank began to protest. This hadn’t been the plan at all: I was supposed to be mingling with the troop, not journeying conspicuously with a peer of the British realm.

  ‘Leave it, Frank,’ I muttered, pulling on his arm. There was no point making a scene about this. It would only risk attracting more attention. I tugged the stupid bow from my hair. At least I wouldn’t have to continue to look like a doll if I was no longer travelling with the dancers.

  We clambered into our evil-smelling carriage. The poor horses looked on their last legs, fitting steeds for the vehicle.

  ‘Don’t worry about them,’ said Frank, noticing where I was staring. ‘We’ll change horses at the next staging post. The next pair must be an improvement.

  But there was nothing to be done about the driver though I wished we could swap him too. He reeled out of the public bar, and tried and failed to climb to his seat, until Joseph seized him by the scruff of the neck and hoisted him up.

  ‘I’ll keep an eye on him, sir,’ Joseph said from his post behind the fiacre.

  The driver then made a meal of filling his pipe as all the other carriages jingled into life. With a clatter of hooves, they pulled out of the yard.

  ‘Follow those carriages! Allez!’ ordered Frank.

  Our driver gave a shrug and continued to light his pipe. He obviously had no intention of setting off until he was quite comfortable. Joseph gave him a firm shove in the shoulder blades.

  ‘You . . . trot-trot!’ he said loudly in English, balling his fist to emphasize the point.

  ‘Poof!’ said the driver, but this time with a hint of anger. He glared at Joseph and picked up the reins.

  Thinking we were now finally off, I retreated from the window and gingerly sat down on the ripped seat, composing myself for the long journey ahead. Nothing. Frank got up again. Our driver was now talking animatedly to the hostler.

  ‘Monsieur, can we go, please!’ Frank shouted.

  Our man took a swig from a wine bottle he had stashed at his feet, clicked his tongue and the horses started to amble off. Every cobble and pothole made the carriage rattle alarmingly as if it were about to fall apart.

  ‘Do you think we’ll ever get there?’ I asked as we turned out on to the post road to Paris.

  ‘Poof!’ said Frank with an acutely observed Gallic shrug.

  Reader, as you might imagine, we soon fell far behind the other carriages, arriving at each staging post hours after them. This meant we always had the last choice of horses, delaying us further still. It was well past midnight when we clattered into Amiens and found our inn. Frank had to shake me awake. I made my way to a room and tumbled into bed beside one of the dancers. I was asleep before my head hit the pillow – which was as well for the sheets were none of the cleanest and the bed harboured other things beside two tired travellers.

  The next day followed the same pattern except I had the added indignity of angry red bites all over my body. Frank couldn’t help but notice me itching and shifting in my seat.

  ‘Best not to scratch them,’ he advised. ‘It’ll only make them worse.’

  ‘How come you didn’t get bitten?’ I asked enviously.

  ‘I took one look at my proposed bed next to a snoring merchant from Brussels and decided to sleep out in the stables. The hay was very comfortable.’ He removed a strand of it from his hair.

  ‘I’ve heard of people travelling for their health – they must need their heads examining,’ I grumbled as we jolted against a kerb stone.

  ‘Watch it! Regardez!’ shouted Joseph from somewhere above.

  ‘Admit it, Cat,’ teased Frank, ‘you’re loving every moment. The excitement of never knowing what is going to happen next, your first taste of a foreign culture – think how your mind is expanding!’

  ‘The only thing expanding right now are my ankles. They’ve been bitten so badly they are swelling up.’

  ‘Poor little Cat. You should have stayed in your basket at home.’

  ‘I don’t have a basket or a home, thanks for reminding me, Lord Francis of Boxton.’

  ‘No,’ he said brightly, ‘but you have an adventure ahead of you and a job to do. Many girls would love to have the freedom you have.’

  This was very true. ‘You’re a good traveller, Frank,’ I told him. ‘I need to listen to you more often.’

  He grinned. ‘Look and learn, Cat; look and learn.’

  *

  The first thing Frank taught me was not to be too proud to ask directions. It was late as we passed the gates of Paris and headed into the centre of the town. Tall houses loomed up on ei
ther side of the road, chinks of light peeping through slatted shutters, striped awnings billowing, strings of washing swaying, fluttering like naval signals saying ‘Welcome to Paris, Cat Royal’. Closer to the centre the finer the houses became with ornate carvings and smart shopfronts of shining plate glass. Majestic trees rustled in the night breeze. The air was ripe with the scent of cooking – strange smells, pungent and rich.

  We were supposed to be meeting Madame Beaufort at her lodgings near the Opera but the driver was too drunk to understand the address Joseph was shouting at him.

  ‘Why don’t we ask someone the way?’ I suggested.

  ‘No, no, Cat,’ said Frank, getting out a map of Paris from his coat pocket. He spread it out and studied it carefully in the poor light from the carriage lanterns.

  ‘Do you know where we are?’ I asked.

  He shook his head. ‘But it can’t be that difficult to follow a map. We must have come in through this gate.’ He muttered away to himself, consulted Joseph, stared out of the window for inspiration, did everything but humble himself to ask one of the Parisians who were walking along the pavement only a few feet away.

  ‘It’s on the right. I’m sure it is,’ Frank said determinedly over an hour later as we passed a great palace of a building. I was losing faith in his map-reading skills. We’d already ended up in a cemetery, in a blind alley and in the middle of some very bemused nuns in a convent as they filed in to vespers. The horses dutifully turned right, clip-clopped on the cobblestones and came wearily to a halt.

  ‘We’ve stopped,’ said Frank. ‘We must be almost there.’

  ‘Er, Frank,’ I said, tapping his shoulder. ‘Look out my side.’

  It was a moonless night. A darker expanse like a bolt of black silk glinting with starlight marked the passage of the great river at the heart of the city, the Seine. Across the bridge in front of us, the buildings were dwarfed by two square towers rising behind the rooftops. It was a breathtaking sight: they were so tall they seemed to stretch to heaven like Jacob’s ladder. All that was lacking were the angels climbing up and down.