Sweet Songbird

by Sweet Songbird (retail) (epub)

  They reached the bridge of St Michel, where on that first day Kitty had encountered the columns of wounded coming back into the city. Now the bridge was again packed with streams of moving humanity as the refugees fought to cross to safety. Michael’s light weight had grown heavy in her arms. The strain and the sleepless nights dragged at her heels like lead. Jem turned back and caught her eye, grinning encouragingly. Heartened, she hefted the child more firmly onto her hip and smiled back.

  Just as they reached the safety of the Right Bank the guns opened up again, the crash and whine of the shells filling the winter air with a menace of sound that, despite herself, made Kitty flinch as if from physical pain. Dear God, she thought as she plodded on through the trampled snow, how long will we have to put up with this? I’ll never get used to it. Never.

  But, together with the rest of Paris, she did. The decision finally made to bombard the city, the Prussians did the deed with their usual efficiency. Rarely did a day or a night pass that was not disturbed by the cannonade as 300, sometimes 400 shells a day were hurled into the suffering city. Yet, remarkably, both Paris and her inhabitants withstood the bombardment remarkably well. It was starvation that was the spectre now, and in the poorer parts of the city disease and death were taking a far greater toll of the very young and the very old than were the Prussian shells. In fact, had the invaders but known it, the bombardment was, from the besiegers’ point of view, downright counterproductive. Resistance stiffened at this open attack, and folk who had the week before been ready to surrender for the promise of bread, and meat and milk for the children now were ready once more to spit in the face of the enemy and soldier on. But such an attitude, in face of the overwhelming fear of starvation, the intense cold and the almost total disappearance of any kind of fuel, could not last. One could somehow face the thought of annihilation in a shell-blast; to watch one’s children starve and freeze to death was a different matter entirely. Unrest stirred again. Red posters plastered the city’s walls overnight.

  ‘What is a Commune?’ Kitty asked Jem, reading from the kitchen window the poster which had appeared on the wall across the street, depicting struggling workers bearing a triumphantly streaming red banner above a barricade in a recognizably Parisian street.

  ‘Rule of the people by the people,’ Jem said. ‘A workers’ state, I suppose you’d call it.’

  ‘But—’ Kitty grimaced, confused. ‘They’re at it again, aren’t they? Fighting amongst themselves while the wolf that’s actually at the door waits to pick up the pieces?’

  ‘Looks like it, doesn’t it?’ Jem had been out scavenging for fuel, not very successfully. The small sack of wood that he carried – a part of someone’s prize dining-room table, looted and chopped up – he had managed to obtain in barter for two tins of meat. It was the first such transaction he had been able to make for three days. In fact the fuel shortage was their greatest problem, Kitty’s carefully hoarded supplies, supplemented by the help Jem was able to obtain from the American Legation, being perfectly adequate to feed them all for at least another few weeks. When they had first arrived at the Montmartre apartment the children had not been able to believe their eyes at the sight of the full store cupboards. Their faces as they had tasted their first small, sweet biscuit had been a picture of delight that Kitty was never likely to forget. But the cold was harder to fight. Like almost everyone else in the city they wore almost every stitch they possessed, and the luxury of a fire in the week since the bombardment began was becoming rarer. On at least two occasions Kitty had not had the fuel to light the cooking stove and they had had to eat their meals unheated. Yet despite the hardships she thought the children were looking better as their improved diet of the past weeks took effect. The sores had disappeared from Poppy’s pretty, melancholy little face and Michael was almost his sturdy small self again. Poppy hardly ever mentioned her mother, who had been buried with little ceremony in a communal grave that had taken the other victims of that first night’s bombardment. Jem had quietly handled all the arrangements and no awkward questions had been asked. None of them had been there to see Lottie Smith’s earthly remains finally put to rest, and to Kitty that somehow seemed sadly fitting. There was, after all, no one but poor Poppy truly to grieve at her passing.

  * * *

  As the cold month crept on, shortages grew worse and unrest in the city became more open each day. When rations had to be cut again by half and the Red revolutionaries of Bellevue reappeared to lead the riots in the streets it became clear that the situation could not for much longer be contained. In a desperate bid to placate the rising anger of the people General Trochu’s shaky government planned one last all-out attack upon the besieging forces.

  ‘We’re to stand by for the eighteenth,’ Jem said, his face sombre. ‘God only knows what will come of this.’

  Kitty watched him. Their relationship, since he had brought them back to Montmartre ten days before, had slipped back outwardly almost to the old, easy friendship: almost, but not quite, and the difference, the hidden change evident only to them was absolutely basic. They had in fact seen little of each other, and hardly ever alone – Jem spending most of his time scavenging for what could be had in the city or serving his duties at the field hospital, Kitty totally engrossed in caring for the children and in building her relationship with them. And that, she had more than once reflected as she had sat through the bitter evenings and watched their sleeping faces, was an unexpected and odd thing – she never, now, thought in terms of Michael alone as before, almost obsessively, she had. In the past weeks Lottie and Moses Smith’s pathetic orphaned little girl had come to mean as much to her as her own son – a gentle irony that she found somehow eased the pain that memories of the past could still bring. Her determination now was that both should be safe and both should be happy, so that in some way, in her own heart at least, some sense might be made of the loss of those other lives – Matt’s, Luke’s, Lottie’s. That their situation might seem close to desperate now – marooned as they were within a besieged city apparently on the point of revolution – did not dismay her. They were alive and they were well. They would survive. And if it came to the worst, as Jem had pointed out, between them their contacts at the Foreign Office and at the American Legation should see them safe once the siege was lifted. No. What dismayed Kitty now as she watched Jem’s wildly shaggy head silhouetted against the winter light of the window, was that even in such extreme circumstances as these pride and stubbornness could estrange two people to the point where they could not even bring themselves to discuss what had gone so very wrong between them. Bleakly and certainly she knew that if the siege were to be lifted tomorrow and she and the children should be spirited to safety in England she would never see Jem O’Connell again. She would have to go, and he would let her, without making the painful attempt to breach the barrier that had risen between them.

  ‘You think this sortie will fail?’ she asked.

  ‘I know it will.’ He turned from the window. ‘And if – when – it does, Paris is lost. I want you to promise me something.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I want you and the children on the first train out of Paris. Whatever happens. When the city surrenders – and I can see no end to it but that – God only knows what may happen. In arming the people’s National Guard this government have armed the people.’

  ‘You mean – revolution?’

  ‘I mean a bloodbath,’ he said, grimly.

  She stared at him. ‘And you?’ she asked at last, very quietly. ‘What will you do?’

  In the other room Michael and Poppy were playing, Michael’s gurgling laughter sounding over Poppy’s quieter voice.

  He jerked his head, flicking his hair from eyes that had become suddenly, hatefully guarded. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Come with us.’ She had spoken the words before her brain had told her she should not. ‘Come to England! Jem – if you’re right it’ll be terribly dangerous here—’ She broke off.

&
nbsp; He was shaking his head. ‘It’s no good, Kitty.’

  In the silence that followed they both understood that he was speaking of more than the simple suggestion that he should accompany them to England.

  Unexpectedly anger suddenly boiled in Kitty, a flash of that temper that over the years she had thought she had learned to control. As he made to turn from her she caught his arm. ‘Oh, no you don’t! You’re not going to walk out again, just like that! This time we’ll talk about it—’

  He shook his head wearily.

  ‘And I say yes! What’s the matter with you? What are you so afraid of?’

  She saw his jaw tighten at that, but he said nothing.

  She still had her hand on his arm. Angrily using all her force, she swung him to face her. ‘Jem’ – her voice all at once was openly pleading and she made no attempt to conceal it – ‘that night – you were drunk – and terribly distressed. It was perfectly understandable. You did things, said things, that you didn’t mean. But, don’t you see—?’

  He did not allow her to go on. ‘No,’ he said. ‘What I did – yes – that was unforgiveable. What I said I meant.’

  Luke’s. You’re Luke’s and always will be.

  ‘No,’ she said.

  He watched her in silence.

  She took a breath. ‘You can’t hold it against me for the rest of our lives that I loved Luke Peveral before I loved you.’ She saw the small flick of shock in his eyes. Colour rose in her cheeks, but she faced him steadily. ‘Did you hear what I said?’

  ‘I heard.’ He made no move towards her. His expression barely changed.

  She lifted her chin. ‘I love you,’ she said, ‘not more than I once loved Luke, but as much, and in a different way. A better way. A more worthwhile way. And if you can’t accept that, it’s your weakness, not mine. If my life were my own I’d stay – I’d do anything – to convince you. But it isn’t, and I can’t. I have the children to think of. They have to be the first consideration. And if, as you say, civil war is likely I can’t keep them here at risk. So you’re right. I do have to go. And if I go and you stay we’ll never see each other again. Will we?’

  He did not speak.

  ‘For God’s sake,’ she said, bitterly, ‘at least do me the courtesy of answering!’

  He bit his lip. Shook his head. ‘You don’t understand.’

  ‘What don’t I understand? Tell me.’ She was astonished at her own calm. A great part of her wanted to scream at him, to shake him. To cry. To throw herself, begging, at his feet. ‘Tell me,’ she said, again, quietly insistent.

  He lifted his head then. His face was pale, his clear eyes pain-filled. ‘I’ve always loved you. From the first time I saw you – an awkward, frightened, brave little girl with a lovely voice and a rapscallion brother to fight for—’

  ‘You never said anything.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have heard if I had. Even before you knew it yourself Luke was there, blinding you, deafening you to anyone else. I don’t chase rainbows, Kitty. I knew then you weren’t for me, and never could be. Why do you think I left London that time – without seeing you, without saying goodbye? Why do you think I never answered your letters? Oh – I’m not pretending it broke my young heart. I’ve more sense than that. And I’ve long ago learned to live without the things others won’t or can’t give me.’

  She remembered his embittered mother, his sister. ‘But – Jem—’

  ‘As long as I stayed away from you I was all right. But then things changed. At La Source they changed. When you were having Michael. When, almost, it seemed that you could be mine—’

  ‘Yet again you never said anything!’

  ‘I was afraid,’ he said, simply. ‘I knew that Luke was there still.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Yes. Always. There between us. And then you left me—’

  ‘For Matt! Not for Luke!’

  ‘So you said.’

  In a frustration of anger she turned from him. ‘Whatever I say you won’t believe me, will you? You’ve made up your mind, and that’s that. Well – listen to me – hear what I say – it was over between me and Luke before I ever knew I was expecting the baby. Even at the end it was his son he wanted – not me. Can’t you see that? And I – oh, Jem, I’d seen long before that what had been between us couldn’t possibly last. It was too destructive. Too violent. I would never have gone back to him. If you can’t accept that then it’s both our loss, but it isn’t my fault. I’d go on my knees to you if I thought it would make any difference. But it wouldn’t, would it? Because when it comes down to it, what I’m fighting, what’s keeping us apart, is your pride, isn’t it? Your stupid, stubborn pride! What woman stands a chance against that? You won’t bend an inch, and you’ll ruin us both.’

  She put her head back, trying to ease the tension in her neck. Tired tears were very close. ‘A man once told me – the man who, as God is just, will carry to his grave the blame for what has happened to me and to Matt, though he knows nothing of it – he told me that a woman affronted a man’s pride at her peril. I should have thanked him for the hard lesson. I should have taken heed. He’s been proved right more than once. But Jem – oh, Jem – I thought better of you.’ There was a small catch in her voice. She swallowed. ‘I thought better of you,’ she said again, quietly.

  Behind her the door closed softly. She heard Jem’s farewell to the children. She leaned against the table, her face in her hands, fighting weak tears.

  Outside the guns had started again.

  (ii)

  She did not see him again until after the grotesquely mismanaged debacle of the sortie of the eighteenth and nineteenth of January. Knee-deep in mud caused by a sudden thaw that was in its way as much of a calamity as had been the bitter weather that had preceded it, the wrecked armies of Paris broke, fled and were slaughtered. The field of Buzenval was littered with French dead and wounded, and it was all for nothing. In thick fog the city, bludgeoned again by misfortune, watched its beaten soldiers return and knew the end to be near. After four brutal, suffering months the truth had to be faced: Paris was lost. A large proportion of her population was on the edge of starvation, fuel had all but run out, disease was rife. And revolution stalked the battered streets, lurked around each fog-wreathed corner. As the shattered National Guard streamed back through the streets of the city the old cry was heard, muttered in a thousand throats: ‘Nous sommes trahis’ – we are betrayed. The casualty figures spoke for themselves – for only 700 Prussian casualties, the French forces had sustained 4,000 dead and wounded, and almost half of them had come from the National Guard, the people’s army that had been thrown into battle so ill-equipped, ill-trained and ill-led. The population of Paris came onto the streets, silent, watching, anger smouldering beneath the surface as they waited for the tidings that they sensed could only mean final disaster. By the twenty-first of the month the worst of the news had been confirmed and for a while the silence of utter defeat fell upon the city. It was Jem who brought to the apartment in Montmartre the news that Trochu’s government had been forced to resign and the way to negotiations with the Prussian invaders was open.

  ‘There’s bad trouble brewing.’ He leaned against the door, gaunt and exhausted. ‘Don’t go out. Not for anything. The Reds have taken over the streets.’

  Since he had left five days before they had heard nothing of him, but he had not for a moment been out of Kitty’s thoughts. When she was busy with the children during the day it had been a nagging worry, nibbling at the back of her mind like a rat at a bone. In the frozen, sleepless small hours of the night it had been a nightmare, a conviction of mutilation or death. Her relief at seeing him whole, if apparently half-dead with exhaustion, expressed itself, since she could not indulge her first impulse to fling herself into his arms, in an idiotic wave of bossy solicitude.

  ‘Lord God, just look at you. Come inside and sit down. Poppy – help me move the chair to the fire. No, don’t take your coat off yet, Jem – it isn’t warm en
ough in here. I’ll build up the fire. Louise managed to buy a sackful of logs – real logs! – from a man down the road. Lord knows where they came from. I don’t think there can be a tree left in the Bois! Michael – fetch a log from the box, there’s a good boy. Now, Jem, what would you like? We’ve tea – no milk of course – and some absolutely dreadful coffee. Are you hungry—?’

  He shook his head tiredly, subsided gratefully into the chair. ‘I ate before I came away. You’ve heard about Buzenval?’

  She kept her voice bright. ‘The defeat? Yes. Louise told us.’

  ‘It was murder,’ he said. ‘Sheer bloody murder. The medical services were completely overwhelmed. God, I’m tired. I could sleep for a week.’ Poppy had sidled up shyly and stood now, leaning by his chair, watching him. Smiling faintly, he lifted his hand and tugged at the lovely, fair curls. ‘Hello, Princess.’

  The child smiled – Jem, Kitty had noted before, was one of the only people that could bring forth that rare, lovely smile – and knelt beside him, her head on his knee. Jem tousled her hair again, lifted clear, tired eyes to Kitty. ‘You wouldn’t have a wee drop of that brandy left?’