She cast a last lingering look around the kitchen nooks and crannies. If she were an addict like Dominic where would she hide the bottles? Dominic kept a grey eye trained on her as she glanced over the cupboards, the shelves, the floor. She nodded farewell to the cook and climbed the staircase back to the upper floors.
Marthe rolled the wine around on her tongue, savouring it. Jacques was modest in his appreciation of all things that were flavoursome and enjoyable. She knew he would not understand. It was early, not yet nine in the morning, and she was having breakfast alone as usual. Jacques no longer kept his office in the attic space at the Jardin des Plantes. It was too far for him to walk each day from their new home in Boulevard Montmartre. It was more efficient, he told her, to move his work here where he had a study and a library and he could rise early and finish late. She did not mind. They had one half of the house each and their paths rarely crossed.
But he had recently placed a lock on the wine cabinet. This had infuriated her. Not that she could tell him that. Nor ask for the key. He brought out a demi-carafe of claret or Chablis to have with their dinner and that was all he allowed. Fortunately, she had purloined several bottles before the lock had appeared. But now her supplies were running rather drastically low. And there were some things that a woman could not do—a woman who still wished to maintain her reputation. She could not simply go to a wine merchant or an ale house and buy liquor. It was unthinkable. Unless she went in disguise. All these things were swirling in her mind, swirling like a glowing brandy, or a Cognac, in a large ballon glass.
Her next thought, of course, was the cook’s supply. All she needed was a moment when he was out of the house. Perhaps gone to the market. She could search the kitchen. There would be a cellar somewhere, she was sure of it.
Before long she was waiting in the corridor outside the kitchen with her ear pressed to the door. She couldn’t hear any sounds of movement and when she entered it was empty. She would be quick. Something had always bothered her about the placement of the kitchen table, and those scratches on the wooden floorboards. It looked as though the table was routinely moved, perhaps dragged across the floor and the rug removed.
She pulled the table across and lifted the mat. Sure enough there was a trapdoor and a knot in the wood that had been pushed through to act as a finger pull. She imagined a small cupboard space, enough to hang the meat and keep the vegetables cool, perhaps some shelves for the cheeses, and she was certain she would find a good supply of the Emperor’s brandy.
When she pulled the trapdoor back she saw none of that. Her mouth fell open and she jumped back in shock. The space was larger than she expected, a small room. There were faces, blinking and shielding their eyes against the light. There were men beneath the floor of her kitchen.
‘What are you doing?’ The cook pushed her roughly back, kicking the trapdoor closed.
Marthe staggered, still seeing their startled faces, their blinking eyes. ‘They are deserters!’ she said, comprehension dawning.
‘They are men who have done their share of fighting and don’t like their odds of surviving another senseless war,’ Dominic replied angrily.
She reeled back and took a seat on a stool. There were men hiding under her floor. Men sitting in the dark, surviving on omelette and soup. Men passing back their faeces in a bucket and their piss in empty brandy bottles.
‘What happens to them?’
‘We will hide them until the army leaves for Prussia and they stop scouring the streets for fresh recruits.’
‘And then what?’
‘They go home to their families.’ The cook dragged the table back over the trapdoor. ‘Until the next time.’
‘But if they are found they will surely be shot.’ Her words hung in the air, and a thought began to swing, like it was at the end of a long rope. ‘We all will.’
‘That’s why you stay silent.’ His voice as sharp as a knife.
‘Does he know?’ she said, jerking her head towards the upper floors.
‘Of course.’
That surprised her into silence. Though on reflection, it should not. She knew her husband well enough to know he was no royalist and no supporter of the Emperor. But harbouring deserters? Evading the army draft? He risked more than his career if these young men were found.
‘But he does not want you involved. He does not want to put you at any risk.’
That too surprised her. She opened her mouth to speak but found the words had fallen away. That Jacques had secrets from her was to be expected. But that he cared enough to try to protect her?
‘If you say what you have seen, he will send them away.’
Her heart was beating like a starling with its feet caught in a snare. Marthe felt a burst of elation as she imagined it pulling free.
Marthe chose a cloud-covered night to follow the cook from her house. Ever since she discovered the men beneath her kitchen, she had made it her business to observe the cook’s comings and goings. She had not intended to follow him, had weighed up the risks and decided that it was foolish to act, afraid she might endanger the men hiding in her cellar as well as her own life, and yet she found herself procuring a disguise and choosing this one night when the moon was cloaked to seize her chance.
This part of Paris she followed him through was close to a slum. The homes here were hovels and the streets filled with a sickly sewer stench. She felt conspicuous, even dressed like a soldier in her greatcoat, riding boots and breeches. Her tall skinny frame was covered by the coat, her hands in gloves, her face obscured by an oversized hat.
The cook moved quickly but casually, his loose sleeve flapping slightly as he walked. The night was still. A few late-night revellers were about, and she heard drunken singing from the alleyways. Most able-bodied men were absent, too afraid to be seen on the streets in case Napoleon’s militia rounded them up. Those careless enough to be heard must be old or maimed.
The cook had stopped. Marthe threw herself back against a wall. He looked as if he was listening. Could he hear her boots on the cobbled street? She kept her head down. When she dared to look again there was no sign of him.
Marthe crept out. She walked slowly, feeling her way along the wall, searching for the cook. Where could he have gone? There was no lantern light in this part of the street, and little starlight as the road was narrow and the buildings high. She walked on, hoping that the door the cook had slipped through might become obvious. And what if there was a door? Would she be foolhardy enough to go inside?
‘What do you want?’ a voice hissed in her ear. She felt an arm thrown around her neck and the cold edge of a knife at her throat. ‘Who sent you?’
At her high-pitched squeal the man released his grip. She spun around. The cook stared at her in bewilderment. ‘Madame!’ His expression quickly turned to annoyance. ‘You risk everything!’ He stowed the knife beneath his coat and gripped her wrist, yanking hard on her arm so she had no choice but to follow.
‘I had to know what you were doing.’
He dragged her into a tight alleyway, barely wide enough for two dogs to squat. It stank of urine. The cook pinned her back to the alley wall. She tried to hold her breath against the stench but it was impossible. Her breath puffed out as gusts of steam into the cold night. They waited, listening, and Marthe heard her heart pounding in her chest. Dominic’s hand circled tight around her wrist, pulling her against his side. She looked at him, but he shook his head to silence her. Finally, when he seemed satisfied that no one else had followed them, he spoke.
‘Come.’
Marthe felt reluctant, but she had come too far to back out now. They edged along the narrow gap with its slimy walls and overflowing drains.
‘What is this place?’ she whispered, disgust in her voice.
‘Have you not seen poverty before, Madame?’
He stopped at a low open window, no higher than her knee, and removed the grate.
‘Down there?’
He grunted and stepped asi
de, gesturing for her to climb through the hole. She scowled at him and sat down on the ledge. He gave her a shove and she slid down a ramp like a barrel rolled beneath an ale house.
The distance was not far. She pitched forward when she landed. It was an earth floor, dry beneath her palms. The cook slid down behind her and pulled the grate back into place with his one good arm.
Somewhere in the darkness a lantern flared and Marthe looked up at the faces staring back at her.
‘What’s this?’
‘She followed me.’
There were men and women seated at a table. Their faces were wary. ‘My mistress,’ Dominic introduced her.
‘Are they safe?’ It was a woman’s voice, high and frantic. There were more men and women here than Marthe could see clearly, but she could feel them watching her and smell the stale fear on their breath.
‘For now. She found the cellar.’
‘You are harbouring deserters in my house.’ Marthe’s voice sounded accusatory.
There was a rustle, a shifting, almost a bristle in the air.
‘We are saving lives, Madame.’ It was the woman’s voice again, turned hard.
‘Are you Jacobins or royalists?’
‘Neither,’ growled another voice.
‘Concerned citizens of the Republic,’ the woman concluded.
Marthe judged it wise to remain silent. She looked at the cook with his raised eyebrow. Your turn to play, his expression seemed to say to her. She climbed to her feet, finding she had to bend her neck below the ceiling to stand up straight. ‘What are you all doing here?’
She saw the men glance at one another, judging how much they should reveal.
‘How can we trust her?’ A gruff male voice. As he turned his face to her she noticed his missing eyeball, the hollow in his face the pitted shape of a coffee bean.
‘I want to help. I have nothing to lose.’
She glanced briefly at Dominic. He was staring at her. Appraising. He said nothing.
‘You think I will go to the militia even though I hide and feed your friends in my home? Have I given you cause to doubt me?’
‘You followed him here,’ said the one-eyed man. ‘That’s suspicious enough for me.’
‘Fouché has spies everywhere,’ Dominic explained.
‘How can I trust you?’ she countered. ‘Any one of you could be a spy lying in wait to pull the noose tight on your own friends.’
‘You’re not in a position to worry about who to trust,’ the sour-faced man sneered. ‘We should kill you now and drop your body in the Seine.’
She felt the cook flinch beside her. But the sour-faced bully did not concern her. Strangely she felt no fear.
‘You either trust me now or not at all.’
‘Listen to this, already she talks like one of our betters,’ said a grimy-faced woman wearing dirty white gloves and poking her finger at Marthe.
‘Are you planning an assassination?’ Marthe challenged.
There was silence, an awful weighted silence. Even Marthe held her breath. Had she misjudged the moment? Risked too much?
‘Yes,’ said a woman’s voice from the darkness.
They found her a place at the table. More lanterns were lit. She felt her cheeks glow as she looked around—she saw gaunt faces, maimed faces. No one was introduced by name. In her head, Marthe named each one by their distinguishing features. The woman who had first spoken from the shadows she called Shade. The smaller, grubby woman with her dirty cotton gloves she called Fingers. Among the men were Eyeball, Pox, Sour-face and Toothless.
They spoke in low voices, reciting the list of reasons that the tyrant must go. She saw that they meant it more for their own conviction than hers.
‘He uses men like matchsticks. Takes countries just to give his family more crowns.’
‘And his wife more riches.’
‘We did not sacrifice so many to bring down a monarchy sucking us dry, only to have another despot take his place!’
‘He promised to make France great again, that was all it took,’ the pox-scarred man said, incomprehension on his face. ‘After everything we went through, they let him crown himself Emperor, all for what?’
‘For security,’ Shade said. ‘For the reassurance of a chest-beating, empire-hungry leader. It is what they know, who they trust.’ Shade had come forward into the light. She had wisps of grey hair at her temples but otherwise her hair was dark. Her face was not as gaunt and lined as the others, and her clothes were fine.
Dominic shrugged. ‘I don’t disagree with you. But I understand them. The new order did not give the people any more food in their bellies than the old. It was inevitable.’
‘And now he eats our sons,’ Fingers said.
‘And our husbands,’ Marthe whispered, thinking of her young Michel being swallowed by the battlefield mud.
Shade nodded. ‘He has to be stopped. Whatever the means.’
‘Was it you who blew apart the cart of explosives?’ Marthe asked the group, fearful of the answer. ‘Because it has to be clean. It has to be him alone. No loss of life, no one innocent.’ She thought of the girl, the young girl who had held the horse for the assassins.
‘None of them are innocent—they all have profited from his excess,’ Sour-face growled at her.
‘The royalists blew up that cart—the ones that want a Bourbon king,’ Shade said. ‘We don’t want any king.’
This group of the lame and wounded seemed a poor band of resistance fighters. Marthe had always imagined the heroes of a clandestine group to be young and glorious. Strong and vivid. Passionate in their fervour, not aged and haggard, half starved and desperate. But perhaps this was what it took to truly risk everything for a better world, there had to be nothing left of the old.
‘Well then, is there a plan?’
Shuffling. Looks thrown among the men. Silence.
‘Say nothing,’ someone whispered.
‘I want to join you,’ she said boldly.
The men looked annoyed. ‘What’s to stop her going straight to the militia?’
‘You have to trust me.’
Grunts of anger, disbelief. ‘Why should we?’
‘Because I’m the only one of you who could kill him.’
When she left the cellar that night she felt buoyant. Her steps were light. An effervescence bubbled through her, and in the darkness, and in the stench of the damp alley, she could not help but smile. Dominic said nothing to her as they walked side by side through the empty streets. She felt an almost overwhelming need to grip his hand, to hold it tight, to link herself to another human being.
‘When do you meet with them again?’ she asked when they parted at the rear of the house.
The cook turned towards his chamber at the side of the kitchen. ‘When they send me the sign.’
‘What is that?’
All those fizzing bubbles returned like a hot flush of energy radiating through to the tips of her fingers.
Dominic looked at her, noticing her flushed cheeks. ‘This is not a game,’ he hissed.
Her smile was tight and mirthless.
He caught her hand. ‘Say nothing about tonight. He will not like you involved.’ The cook flicked his eyes towards the ceiling and Marthe travelled in her mind through the floors above to her husband’s study. She pictured him, head bent above some dusty, dried specimen, a twig and some leaves curling into a claw. She imagined herself a ghost at his shoulder; perhaps her arrival would stir the candle flame, perhaps Jacques would feel a slight chill on the nape of his neck, but otherwise she knew he would not even turn his head.
Marthe blinked. The cook was still gripping her fingers, warning her. She tugged her hand away. ‘Then he will not know,’ she answered.
It was strange to think, while they sat in silence eating their dinner at either end of the long, mahogany table, that if she were to mention the men who were hiding in the cellar two floors beneath them, this common concern, this danger, might actually bring the tw
o of them closer together. Marthe looked down through the tangle of candlesticks at her husband. She was part of a secret society now, the Clandestine. She shivered with a delicious thrill. If she were to speak of it, would Jacques join her? she wondered. No doubt he would spoil all her fun.
Jacques sat, as he always did, with a book propped open at his elbow. He cared nothing for etiquette and the normal rules of good manners. He took small sips of his claret and cut his lamb and white asparagus into tiny little pieces. His knife screeched against the porcelain. The sound of his measured chewing irritated her beyond reason.
Marthe thought of Dominic, preparing all those asparagus spears with his one good arm. Washing them, boiling them, placing them neatly on her plate. They tasted buttery and salty and soft and creamy. White asparagus, the kind that grew hidden from the light. An irony not lost on her.
It occurred to her that the cook could pass her messages with his food. The placement of the vegetables on the plate, the choice of pheasant or duck or beef. They could have a complete conversation, simply by knowing what each cut of meat might signify. They could communicate. Her meals need no longer be quiet, lonely affairs. And she in turn might pluck a petal from the roses on the table and place it on her empty plate, replace the cloche and send it below. She might then imagine the cook as he removed the cloche and found her message—and picture him wondering at the meaning of her gift.
‘I am making progress on my description of the Melaleuca genus,’ Jacques said suddenly, making her jump and drop her fork. ‘I will soon have finished my second volume on the plants of New Holland.’
‘Indeed,’ she said neutrally.
‘Did you hear that Lahaie has had success in germinating the Eucalyptus globulus?’
Marthe opened her mouth to scoff. How could she have heard that? She had no communication with Félix Lahaie and his wife. But then she realised this was just her husband’s strange way of introducing a topic and closed her mouth.
‘I thought we might visit them again soon,’ he said, idly pushing the asparagus around on his plate. ‘To see what he has found.’
Josephine's Garden Page 30