‘I quite see your point, madame. All the same, the boy enlisted in proper form.’
‘But surely he has to have parental permission?’
‘He said he had it.’
‘And you believed him!’
‘Why not? In any case, madame, we can’t go running to families asking for confirmation every time a young man comes to enlist.’ He saw that his manner was drawing a frown from the great Madame de Tramont, and amended his remarks with: ‘He signed the papers and took the usual oath that all he had affirmed was the truth. We believed him.’
Paulette clasped her sister’s arm. ‘Nicole, we’ve got to get him back!’
‘Exactly. Captain, I want you to send for Robert and … what’s the phrase?’
‘Muster him out? Well now, madame, that’s not so easy. In time of peace, of course, you could buy him out quite simply. But we’ve a war to fight.’
‘My God, if you need boys of seventeen to help you fight the Prussians, I recommend you to sue for peace at once!’
‘Madame, that’s almost treasonable!’ he cried in indignation.
‘Oh, rubbish! What possible use can an untrained boy of seventeen be to you? By all accounts you expect to be in Berlin by the end of August. He’ll scarcely have learned to handle a gun by then!’
Captain Lenoir allowed himself a little smiling bow. ‘In that case, ladies, you need have no great fears, need you? Once the victory is achieved, you can apply for the young man’s release. I’m sure there will be no problems then.’
‘Nicole!’
‘It’s all right, Paulette, I’m not accepting that. Captain, I wish you to set in motion whatever routine is necessary to have the boy released and returned to his home. Is that clear?’
‘I deeply regret, madame, that’s quite impossible. My work is to recruit soldiers, not arrange for their release.’
‘So to whom should we apply? To the commander of the Strasbourg barracks?’
‘Good God, the lad isn’t there, madame! As you yourself have just said, he hardly knows one end of a gun from the other. He’s been sent to training camp.’
‘Where?’
‘I’m not at liberty to reveal that!’
‘Oh, don’t be absurd! Where is my nephew?’
By now the captain was thoroughly annoyed with this pretty, elegant but angry lady. Who did she think she was? A wine-maker ‒ did she really believe she could give orders to the French army?
‘I have no idea which camp your nephew has been sent to, and if I knew it would be against military regulations to tell you. I’m sorry, mesdames ‒ there’s nothing I can do for you.’
He rose, expecting them to do likewise. Paulette got up, but Nicole drew her down again.
‘Captain, I apologise for my bad manners. You must understand, his mother and I are very worried. Robert has had … a blow to the heart, if you understand me. We’re afraid he has joined the army in a kind of despair.’
‘Ah …’ This was different. He was a romantic at heart, despite all that six years in the army could do. ‘I understand. He’s gone for a soldier because life seems empty. Poor fellow … Well, Madame de Tramont, I really can’t help you. I’m not just being obstructive ‒ army regulations forbid me to help you. However, if you were to see a good lawyer …?’
‘That would be the best step?’
‘I think so.’
‘Captain Lenoir, I thank you from the heart. Perhaps in due course you’ll be good enough to accept a case of champagne I will despatch to you.’
‘Oh, madame, you’re too generous …’
With an appearance of goodwill on both sides, they parted. Outside Nicole almost threw her fists in the air, she was so angry. ‘Self-important fool! Army regulations forbid him to tell us which camp Robert has gone to! Well, never mind, we’ll find out. Paulette, we’d better go to your lawyer.’
But he was a gentleman who knew how to deal only with the making of wills and the buying and selling of property. He recommended them to an agent of insurance, because insurance companies had gone into the business of getting young men out of the army during the days of the first Napoleon. If a substitute could be found for the young man being called up, the army had no objections: thus a business grew up whereby agents found and paid substitutes. Under the new Napoleon they still found plenty of work to do.
Monsieur Clarent was such an agent. A heavy, elderly man, he listened with sympathy to their account of events. ‘Well, ladies, the young man has caused you a great distress, I can see that. But as to not being able to say which camp he’s gone to, that’s nonsense. I can find that out within a day or two, and get word to the camp commander.’
‘And he’ll be sent home?’
‘We-ell … we can get his case started, at least. I take it, since you don’t know where he is, that he hasn’t written?’
‘Not a word.’
‘Ah, that seems to mean he hasn’t changed his mind. Often, you know, these romantic young volunteers come to their senses after a taste of army life.’
‘Robert won’t change his mind,’ Paulette said with a tremulous sigh.
Monsieur Clarent began to think it was rather a pity they wanted him out of the army. He sounded the kind of youngster the military forces could do with. He had heard rumours that the Prussians had a million men under arms, whereas the French army was somewhat less than half of that. A rushed mobilisation and training programme was now in being but it would be a long time before the two opposing armies were equal in strength or ability.
But of course by that time the war would be over and the Emperor Louis Napoleon would be in Berlin. Monsieur Clarent quite believed that. The legend of the Grande Armee was still strong, blotting out the perception that lassitude and inefficiency were rife in it.
‘Leave it with me, ladies. I’ll set everything going. I’ve no doubt I can make a good case. Only son of widowed mother …’
‘No,’ Paulette said, ‘I have another son.’
‘Oh? That’s a pity ‒ at least, of course, I don’t really mean that ‒’
‘But it would have been easier had Robert been an only son?’ How ironic. Robert was in fact Nicole’s only son ‒ but that was not a fact that could be mentioned.
‘Never mind. It’s not a bad case anyway, since he’s so young and his mother wants him at home. And … you know … a little money expended in the right way can work wonders, eh, madame?’
‘Quite so.’
‘In a few days I’ll be able to tell you which camp he’s in, and then after that we’ll enter a plea to have him released.’
‘When will he be let go?’
‘Oh, a couple of months, I suppose ‒ three at most.’
‘Months?’ wailed Paulette. ‘I hoped to have him home next week!’
‘Oh, dear lady, that’s quite out of the question. You see, if he himself doesn’t wish to be mustered out, then it has to go through the army’s legal procedures ‒ parental rights, all that kind of thing. In the end you’ll win, I imagine, because he’s so young …’ And because, he added internally, he’s the nephew of La Veuve Tramont.
Further discussion yielded no greater hopes. Nicole and Paulette left, Paulette on the verge of tears yet again.
‘Darling, you’d better pack up and come back to Tramont with me,’ Nicole urged. ‘You’re not fit to be left on your own.’
‘No, no! If they should decide to let him go, I must be at home to welcome him.’
‘But, Paulie, it may be weeks and weeks ‒’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ She shook her head stubbornly. And since Nicole thought that she would have felt much the same in Paulette’s place, she gave in.
When she got back to Tramont, her daughter came rushing to greet her. ‘Mama!’ She seized Nicole’s hands urgently.
It was the first time since the frustrated elopement that she had used the name in addressing her mother. Nicole felt a gush of emotion ‒ relief, gratitude, love, pity. She took her daughter in her a
rms.
But Delphine struggled free. ‘No, no ‒ tell me ‒ it was about Robert, wasn’t it? The day after you left I suddenly felt ‒ I knew ‒ something’s happened to Robert, that’s it, isn’t it? Tell me!’
Disappointment was like a stab at Nicole’s breast. But she said, ‘It’s all right, don’t be afraid. He’s fit and well, so far as we know.’
‘So far as ‒?’
‘He’s enlisted.’
For a second her daughter gaped at her, totally taken aback. There was a moment when tears seemed ready to spill over onto her cheeks. But she forced a proud smile.
‘How like him!’ she cried. ‘How brave and fine! Oh, I might have known he would find something fine to do with his life!’ She turned away. There was bitterness in her voice as she added: ‘He’s luckier than me. I can only stay here and be unhappy.’
‘Child, there’s nothing lucky in offering yourself as a target to enemy bullets!’ Nicole said angrily.
That brought Delphine round with a jerk. The true facts struck at her. Robert hadn’t gone into a peacetime army to take part in pageants ‒ he had gone to war. ‘Oh,’ she said, on an indrawn breath. ‘Of course ‒ the march to Berlin!’
‘With God’s help, he won’t go on that,’ Nicole said, ‘I’m arranging to have him released. It may take a month or two but we’ll get him safely back. But Delphine, dear … I beg you, put him out of your mind. You must, in the end.’
Delphine nodded. ‘I know that. I’m trying, Mama. But … oh, it’s so hard.’
This time, when Nicole put an arm about her, she accepted the embrace. Together they went into the drawing-room. It was the first time in weeks they had been close.
Monsieur Clarent wrote to say he had found Robert. He was in a training camp of the 7th Army Corps at a village a few miles north of the great fortress of Sedan. ‘I have had a clerk seek him out and speak with him. When he discovered the reason for Masson’s visit, he walked away. He seems adamant that he wishes to remain with the army. Masson spoke with the major in charge of recruit-training who told him he had singled out your nephew as officer-material, so that it may well be that he will be moved on after basic instruction to an officer-training corps. Unfortunately, that may make it more difficult to get him out.’
After some inner debate, Nicole let her daughter read the letter. It was, after all, about a family matter. The time must come when Robert could be mentioned in front of Delphine without causing her to go pale with hurt emotion.
Almost at the same time came a letter from Edmond, who had heard from his mother about Robert’s enlistment. ‘I must confess to you, Aunt Nicci, I’m amazed. He’s the last man I’d have thought would do a harebrained thing like that. Never mind, if he wants to help give those Teutonic oafs the hiding they’ve been asking for, good for him! Only Mama is very upset so, dear Aunt Nicci, if you can get him out, I suppose it would be best. Though why she’s so perturbed I don’t know because according to what they’re all saying here in Paris, King William will be hiding in his cellars in Berlin in a week or two.’
The news, when one could get any, didn’t bear out that optimistic view. Far from the French army invading Germany, it seemed the German army was in France. What was more, it wasn’t behaving as if it were made up of stupid oafs. Quite the contrary.
At first it appeared that a French army under Frossard had taken Saarbruck, a town on the German river Saar a few miles inside the German border. Glorious reports of the victory appeared in the Paris papers and were repeated in the provincial: the German army had been annihilated.
But if that were true, how came it that the Germans were reported at Weissenbourg on the French side of the Rhine? Moreover, what were they doing there? Could they possibly be going to attack Strasbourg?
In the midst of rumour and counter-rumour, Nicole became very anxious for her sister. That anxiety was relieved when Paulette herself arrived in a hackney coach from Rheims.
‘Oh, Nicci!’ she cried, falling into her younger sister’s arms. ‘Oh, you’ve no idea how terrible it’s been!’
‘What, darling? What’s happened?’ For the first few moments Nicole thought it was bad news about Robert.
But no. ‘The Prussians are outside Strasbourg! I only just got away in time! I was on the last train out!’
During the following week it was rumoured that the Germans had taken first Brumath, then Strasbourg. Some believed it, some did not. But the truth of it was shown as refugees from Alsace and Lorraine began to trickle into the Champagne region. Communications had totally broken down: the postal system was gone, the railway by means of which letters and newspapers were distributed was largely out of action. Provincial papers issued broadsheets consisting of what they had gleaned from occasional copies of Paris papers and from news sent by telegraph ‒ but nothing seemed certain, no one knew what was happening except that some great disaster was taking place.
All hope of getting Robert released from the army was acknowledged as lost. The agent charged with the task had fled from Strasbourg under the German bombardment, as had Paulette herself. Besides, in the midst of this chaos, who would trouble himself over a young volunteer about whom his relatives were anxious? Mothers and sisters throughout France were in grief and concern for their menfolk, struggling wearily hither and thither under commanders who seemed scarcely to know what they were doing.
On the 22nd August Alphonse the postman trotted up, but with no letters. Nicole was called from the vine rows to speak to him. She’d been discussing with Compiain how soon the grapes would be ready for picking or if, this year, they ever would be.
‘Madame, the French army under General Macmahon is in Rheims.’
Compiain, who had accompanied her to the courtyard, gave a grunt of surprise. Nicole said: ‘Are you sure of this?’
‘I saw them myself last night. Listen, madame, you can be sure the general isn’t there to conduct a victory parade. He’s there because he expects the Boches.’
‘But the Germans would never attack Rheims! My God, think ‒ if the cathedral should be damaged ‒!’
Compiain said: ‘Never mind the cathedral ‒ what about the people? What are they doing?’
‘Well, those of them that can, are leaving. Like me.’ Alphonse made a grimace and a shrug which lifted his shoulders expressively.
‘You’re leaving?’
‘You bet! No sense in staying to be hit by mortar shells when the attack begins. No, I’m off.’ He jerked his head towards the little mail cart.
‘That’s government property,’ muttered Compiain.
‘Really? Which government is that? If you ask me, there’s nobody in charge, so I’m taking what I can use to get out of danger. And, madame, I advise you to do the same. Everything’s really bitched up ‒’
‘Alphonse!’ Compiain rebuked him.
‘Sorry, madame. But it makes you use bad language! “To the Rhine!” they cry when they start this damned war, but now it’s “Every man for himself!” If I were you, I’d pack and go.’
Nicole shook her head at him. He was a foolish old man, well-known as a spreader of gossip. All the same, to steal the mailcart … He must really have seen soldiers in Rheims.
A couple of days later news came that the army had moved out of the city. It was said Macmahon was going to join General Bazaine at Sedan, though whether this was true in any part, no one was sure.
‘Sedan!’ gasped Paulette. ‘That’s where Robert’s training camp is!’
‘Don’t distress yourself, Paulie. There’s no certainty in any of this. Oh, if only one could get hold of the true facts!’
These were supplied from, of all places, London. A messenger arrived in a postchaise with a letter to Nicole from Lord Grassington.
‘My very dear Nicci, Since the postal service between London and Paris is all but suspended and in any case I shouldn’t like this letter to fall into the hands of a postal censor, I am sending it by a confidential clerk.
‘His instructio
ns are to wait while you pack and then escort you and your family to Switzerland, where a house of mine in Bienne is at your disposal. I beg you not to wait, but to leave at once.
‘Despatches from the British Ambassador in Paris speak of misgivings over the Emperor’s reign ‒ no one, he reports, speaks loyally of him. The series of defeats suffered by the French is not likely to be halted by a change to Republican government and it seems inevitable that the German army will continue its march south and east, relatively unchecked, so that Metz, Nancy, Chalons, and perhaps even Paris itself will fall.
‘This means that your estate will lie directly in the path of the advance. You are in great danger. You must get out before it is too late.
‘Your loving and anxious friend, Gerrard.’
Nicole felt the blood drain from her heart as she read the letter. The clerk, standing respectfully in front of her desk, watched with sympathy. ‘I am to wait and arrange for your removal to Bienne, madame. When do you wish to leave?’
‘Not so fast!’ She folded the letter, laid it on her desk. ‘I have to confer with my manager.’ She rang the bell and when the butler came, sent the clerk to have a meal in the kitchens. She also sent for Compiain, who arrived soaking wet and covered in mud.
‘This confounded rain! It’s the worst season I can remember. God knows when we’ll be able to pick, madame ‒’
‘It’s not about that, Arnaud. I’ve had a letter from a friend, with reliable information about the war. He says the Germans will be here soon.’
‘Here?’
‘On their way south and east, to Paris ‒’
‘Huh! They’ll never let the Germans get to Paris.’
‘Perhaps not. But as they try to prevent them, they fight their battles ‒ and we seem to be on the route the Germans are taking.’
Compiain cocked an eyebrow. ‘Well, madame?’
‘My friend recommends that we should pack and go.’
Compiain looked surprised. ‘Go where, madame?’
‘I am offered a sanctuary in Switzerland.’
‘Oh, then, I think you should go, if you’re worried.’
The Wine Widow Page 27