by Joan Smith
“Old Cloutier, the star lunatic,” she said. “He imagines he is in direct communication with God. I’m not at all sure he is crazy, that one. God demands the very best for Cloutier always. God says he should eat only pheasant, and drink champagne, and Cloutier shrieks and screams till God is obeyed. But he is harmless. He is not the one who stabbed Agnès. That was a woman. They keep her locked in her room now, or did. We’d better go next door, eh? I won’t be recognized there. I can go in with you.”
“There might be servants who would recognize you. You’d better stay in the carriage.”
“That’s true. All right. And Degan, don’t tell Mama I am here. She will worry so. With Édouard ill, she doesn’t need any more worries. I hope he is not very ill. It is probably the maggoty bread. We were all sick at the stomach when the bread was bad.”
Sally returned to the carriage, and Degan approached the new doorway to mouth his carefully phrased words. He was asked into a shabby parlor, markedly inferior to the establishment next door. He thought the unhappy people sitting around the chamber were gentlefolk, but did not realize by their worn, outmoded garments they were for the most part nobility like himself. Their eyes were frightened, to see a stranger with a cockade on his hat enter the house. Heaven knew if he might be a spy or petty official come to make trouble for them.
Lady Harlock was called down. Degan sat, wondering how Minou’s mother would appear. He had a hazy recollection of having seen her eons ago, but could not recall her appearance.
He would have known had he met her in a jungle or a tavern who she was. The same eyes as her daughter, the hair similar in color and cut, though a little gray around the temples. The face too, such a pretty face, should have been smiling, not white and drawn, with fine lines forming around the eyes. The figure was still lithe, and the step light. She looked at him in wonder as he arose to greet her.
“Qui êtes-vous?” she asked, the phrase and the voice even reminiscent of Minou.
“Let us be seated,” he said quietly, and they sat, in sufficient isolation that lowered voices concealed their business.
“Your husband sent me,” he said, deciding to leave Minou out of it.
“My daughter, she got to London safely then?” she asked anxiously.
“Yes, she made it a while ago. She is safe.”
“Thank God!” she said with a great sigh of relief. Yes, Minou was right to save her at least this one worry.
“Now our job is to get you and Edward home. How is he?”
“Ah, he is very bad.” She shook her head. “Not fit to travel. I fear—though I daren’t say it or they will throw us out into the streets, but I suspect it is—the plague!” she said, the last dread word scarcely audible.
“What are the symptoms? How long has he been ill?” Degan asked quickly.
“A week with a high fever and headache.”
“Not the plague, I think,” he consoled her, and was vastly relieved himself. “The patient seldom lasts out a week. Has he carbuncles, delirium, nausea?”
“Nausea till three days ago, yes, and tremors.”
“No one else in the place is infected with it?”
“A little dysentery from the food. Édouard is the worst off.”
“I imagine it is a severe case of food poisoning, likely made worse by the conditions, the lack of exercise, the worry. The plague spreads like wildfire. Is he able to travel, ma’am?”
She thought about this, but when she spoke she had a different suggestion. “If you are sure it is not the plague, perhaps you would like to see him, Monsieur—ah, who are you? I don’t even know your name. I know what you are, though—an angel of mercy.”
“I am John’s cousin. Your daughter calls me citoyen,” he answered. The clever mother looked sharply at hearing the tender tone in which the last statement was made. “You have been tending Edward yourself?” he asked.
“Yes. I was afraid to let anyone see him, in case it was the plague. I didn’t know the symptoms exactly, but one always fears the worst, n’est-ce pas?”
“It was dangerous for you to be so close to him if it had been the plague.”
“He is my son,” she answered simply.
Degan was led up to a very small chamber on the top floor, under the eaves, in a garret really. “It is the worst room in the place. We share it,” she told him. “That old shrew Madame Belhomme raised the rates in the big house, and we were forced to come here to save money. We weren’t sure Minou would make it to London, or that John could do anything. We cannot afford the better food, you see. That is half the problem. Not a decent meal have I been able to order the boy all week. Everything costs extra—a piece of fruit or meat.”
Degan stepped up to a small cot in the corner and looked down at a young man who he imagined had once been handsome, rather like his father. There was no red hair here, no little pointed face. A long, square jaw hung loosely. The eyes were closed, giving him the aspect of a corpse. Degan put his fingers to the boy’s forehead, finding it hot, but there were no symptoms such as he had read of in the black plague of London. Malnutrition, generally run down to a state of collapse, he thought. “It’s not the plague, but he isn’t fit to travel till we get him built up a little. I’ll leave you money for decent food, a better room. You will want to stay with him, I expect?”
“I cannot leave him. With food—decent food—and the ray of hope you give us, he will come around if it is not the plague as you say.”
“I’m sure it is not. Don’t fret yourself on that score. There is... someone waiting for me outside. I can’t stay long. I’ll be back tomorrow to see how Edward goes on.”
“Henri is with you? Surely he was not fool enough to come!” she asked in considerable alarm.
“Yes, Mérigot is with me, but he is in the city.”
“Ah, mon Dieu! These boys of mine—what madness! Why did he not come to see me if he is in Paris?”
“He thought it better for one of us to stay behind and see what is going forth in the city.”
“I hope he is well disguised. What a state Paris must be in, with Robespierre to be executed. We hear everything here, but alas can do nothing. I expect Robespierre has gone the way of his victims by now. There won’t be many tears.”
Degan nodded, his thoughts beginning to rise to fears for Minou, outside alone. He put into her hands the money lately obtained from Mérigot. “This will tide you over for a few days.”
“This is as safe a place as any to be till we see what happens as a result of Robespierre’s execution. Before you go, monsieur, tell me how are Minou and Henri?”
“Both well,” he told her briefly.
“That Minou! What an angel she was to me during all this. I behaved very badly, monsieur. I admit it. Cried like a spoiled baby when we were thrown into the Conciergerie, but Minou and Édouard made me ashamed for myself, so brave they were, and just babies really. They gave me the courage to face anything. Do you know what they did, monsieur? They took turns staying awake all night chasing rats, for it was the rats that frightened me more than anything. The place has more rats than people.”
“That at least is over,” he consoled her.
“It is in abeyance,” she corrected. “We made sure we would all three lose our heads. ‘If they behead us, Mama,’ Minou told me, “we die like ladies, making a careful toilette and saying our prayers like good Christians.’ God was outlawed at that time, you must know, and Minou said she would make the sign of the cross, and ask His help in a loud voice, to make all the gawkers ashamed for themselves, and afraid. They believe still, you know, every one of them. It was necessary in the end to give their God back to them.”
“Yes, she would say that,” Degan answered, nodding.
“Chez Belhomme they took good care of me too, my children. Always so cheerful, doing little jobs for themselves to save money. Minou making up our room and sweeping the floor, always pretending she was not hungry, that I could have more to eat, but I got on to her when she began to
go off her looks, and it was my turn to be not hungry. She is very pretty, non?”
“She is beautiful. Nearly as beautiful as her mother,” he responded gallantly.
A silvery tinkle of laughter, very young and charming, was his reward. “I can’t believe you are related to my John, monsieur, despite that dreadful accent you use. You are not at all like him, so dull and proper. No, of course you are not like that, you are very gallant, or he would not have sent you, nor would you have been agreeable to come. I observe your trip has been an eventful one,” she said, looking at his various bruises and bandages. “You are a friend of Henri’s, I take it?”
“More a friend of Minou’s,” he answered.
“My poor baby. If it happens that I don’t get back to London, take care of her for me, monsieur. Will you promise me that?”
“It would be my great pleasure, but you will be back in London, Lady Harlock, and Edward will be back in London. We must hurry. Minou is already planning a ball to make you welcome.”
“The minx! I bet she is. There are a million questions I must ask you, but you are in a hurry. I hope Minou does not make a scandal of herself?” He shook his head firmly. “John—he is well?”
“Worried, but well.”
“I mention him last, but it is not necessarily my order of priorities. The others were in such danger. I assume he is not ailing. Does he speak ever of me?”
“Often. It is his hope you will return with him to stay, when this is over.”
“It was my own hope he would ask me,” she admitted. “I am no longer in a position to hold out. How do he and Henri hit it off?”
Degan considered an answer, and said truthfully, “Mérigot has been often at Berkeley Square since Minou’s coming there. Before that, John saw little of him.”
“Stubborn man! I feel a strong desire at times to strangle that husband. Come, we go now.” They went back down to the parlor, where Degan was walked to the door by Lady Harlock.
“À demain,” she said with a cheerful wave. He left, thinking Lord Harlock the greatest fool in the world to have been apart from such a wife for ten years.
He told Sally of the visit. She was worried for Edward, and had soon a dozen plans to hasten his recovery. “The food, even the good food chez Belhomme, is not so very good, Degan. We will find in Paris decent fruit and meat and take them to him. You and Henri will walk with him in the orchard, institute some mild exercise regime, and make him well very fast. Then we can leave. We must devise some new means of travel. Taureau’s strumpet would not be so well supervised, with an elderly lady for chaperon, and who could Édouard pose as? We have a few days to plan all that. Let us go back to the hotel and hear from Henri how the execution went.”
Returning was easier than going, since they had gained some familiarity with the route. Their trip did not take them through the busier section of the city. They stabled the carriage and entered the inn with no thought of further troubles that night. Things were going not too badly. They spoke of celebrating with a late-night dinner, as they had not eaten for hours. In the lobby the manager approached them.
“You are the party who arrived with Citoyen Mérigot, are you not?”
Degan heard a short, sharp intake of breath, felt a sudden, fierce pressure on his arm, cautioning him to silence. “Mérigot? Who the deuce is Mérigot?” Sally asked in a brassy voice. “We travel with Michel Menard, a man who has been managing Le Taureau, my friend here. He is a boxer. Beat the Butcher of Lozère the other day.”
“You have been hoodwinked, citoyenne,” the manager replied. “He told the same tale to the garde who arrested him. That man is Citoyen Mérigot, the former comte de Virais. His family have all been executed already. He is the last. He was recognized by a former servant of the family, and hauled in this evening. You had better stick around. The Committee want to question both of you.”
“What, that clumsy dolt a former nobility?” Sally asked in a jeering tone. “He is common as dirt.”
“He is a fine actor. Let us see what kind of a show he puts on at the Place de la Révolution tomorrow, when he sneezes in the basket.”
“You hear that, Taureau?” Sally asked, and laughed. Had he been unaware of the truth, he would not have detected the slightly hysterical edge to her laugh. “That sneaky rascal Michel is to be beheaded. We won’t miss that, hein? He has been gypping us for two weeks. Where exactly have they got the scoundrel locked up? We’ll go and laugh outside his window.”
“The gardes took him away an hour and a half ago. I don’t know where. The Conciergerie is full; the Luxembourg is full; the abbey at St.-Germain-des-Prés is full, and half the homes of the former nobility are being requisitioned for prisons. You’ll see him at Madame Guillotine right enough. The Committee has been looking for that one a long time. We were afraid he’d got away to England.”
“Imagine that, Taureau! We have been associating with an enemy of the Republic. Come, we go upstairs and have a bath, to remove the stink of him. And a glass of wine to celebrate his death. Bonsoir, citoyen,” she said to the proprietor, and holding to Degan’s arm for dear life, turned and walked away.
“Don’t leave your room,” he called after them. “They are coming back later to question you, the gardes.”
“We’ll be there,” Sally managed to get out in a nearly normal voice. It took the last of her fortitude to accomplish it. The arm that held on to Degan was shaking, and her knees beginning to turn to pudding. But till they got around the bend in the stairs, she showed no trace of all this.
Chapter Eighteen
If Sally had not been so near collapse from exhaustion and shock, she would have been hysterical. Degan thought it was sheer fatigue that kept her silent. She stood inside their room, staring at him while her body twitched involuntarily. “It’s impossible. It can’t be!” she said in an incredulous whisper.
Degan took her firmly by the arms and gave her a little shake. “Come, snap out of it, Minou. This is not the time to lose control. You weren’t afraid of the Conciergerie or of the guillotine. Don’t let this destroy you.”
“It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have let him come.”
“He wanted to come. From the first moment he heard where your mother was, he wanted to come after her.”
“Of course he wanted to, but I shouldn’t have let him. Oh, Degan, what am I to do?”
“The first thing we must do is get out of here. We don’t want to be taken to the Conciergerie for questioning. The man below said they were coming back for us. We’ve got to get out of here.”
“Yes, we can do nothing to help him if we too are arrested. We must go. Where can we go to?”
“I don’t know. The first thing is to get away. We daren’t go back for the carriage. They’ll have orders at the stable to keep it. We’d better get out of the window, or down a back staircase.”
Sally appeared to listen, but walked in a distracted fashion to the bed and sat down, her eyes staring and glazed. Degan saw with pity and dismay that she was beyond thinking or rational action. It was up to him now to get her away to immediate safety. The human spirit could take only so much, and it seemed imminent danger to Henri Mérigot was her breaking point. He didn’t wonder why this should be so. It was no time for emotion; cold, logical thought and action were called for—always Degan’s forte in the past. He walked to the window. They were on a third floor, with nothing between themselves and the street but sheer brick. No exit here, by the obvious means.
He went to the bed and sat down, putting an arm around her shoulder. “I’m going out into the hallway to find an escape route for us, Minou. You stay here. Be very quiet; keep the door closed. You understand?” She looked a helpless question at him. “I’ll be right back for you. It’s going to be all right. Don’t be afraid. I’ll be back in two minutes.”
“All right,” she answered listlessly.
He didn’t think she had heard. He went into the poorly lit hallway and down to the next story and saw at the end of t
he corridor a small window. He ran quickly and quietly toward it. It was still two floors above the ground, but there was a shed roof under it, sheltering a side door into the building. Not on the main street and not into the stable yard, but between the inn and the neighboring building, dark and obscure. Perfect. This was it. They hadn’t time to look for a better exit. He dashed again upstairs to find Sally still sitting on the bed, exactly as he had left her. He took her hand and pulled her to her feet.
“Is there anything we’ve left here?” he asked, looking around the room. She was still unable to act or react. Traveling as lightly as they were, there was nothing—a half bottle of wine, a newspaper. With a glance over his shoulder, he took her arm and led her out the door, down the stairs, along the corridor to the window. She said nothing, made no objection or suggestion. Minou, always so lively and inventive!
“We have to get onto that roof, then to the ground. I’ll go first and catch you. You’ll do it. You’re not afraid.” It was a command.
“I’ll do it. I must,” she answered mechanically.
He heaved up the window, climbed out, dangling by his fingers till his feet were on the roof, then called up for her to come after him. He waited on the gabled, precarious perch to help her, then leaped to the ground, and the operation was repeated by Sally. It was not a frightening leap, and he had to do no more than steady her. They found themselves in a narrow alleyway between the two tall buildings. Sally turned toward the street.
“Better go this back way,” Degan said, taking her arm. They hurried back thirty feet and found themselves at the edge of the stable yard with an adjoining plot of land gone to scrub. Degan decided to just walk through the scrub till they came to the next street, and keep going till they were well away from the Hôtel des Hosiers, trusting to blind luck to come out of it alive.