Yvonne Goes to York

by M C Beaton

  Except, thought Hannah crossly when they were seated at the round breakfast table and she saw the admiring look Mr Giles was giving Yvonne, from Lotharios.

  Yvonne was very pretty, reflected Hannah – for a Frenchwoman. Hannah was very English, and like most English, terribly suspicious of foreigners in general and the French in particular. But there was something appealing about Yvonne. She had an oval face and very large hazel eyes fringed with heavy lashes. Her mouth was small and sweet and she had an air of grace and delicacy and vulnerability.

  Benjamin appeared to have taken charge of Yvonne’s welfare and was summoning waiters in a grand manner to attend to Hannah and Yvonne before the other passengers.

  ‘I know you,’ said Mr Giles suddenly, looking at Benjamin, who was standing behind Hannah’s chair. ‘You’re the fellow who downed Randall at Rochester. I did not see you there, but I saw you put up a splendid fight in the middle of Berkeley Square.’

  ‘Why was your footman fighting in Berkeley Square?’ asked Yvonne.

  ‘Because them poxy toads o’ footmen put me up to it,’ said Benjamin.

  ‘That’s enough,’ retorted Hannah crisply. ‘You may go and find your own breakfast, Benjamin.’ Benjamin sauntered off to the room where the coachman and guard were dining.

  ‘What did he say?’ asked Yvonne.

  ‘Oh, it is a long story.’ Hannah buttered toast. ‘He is prone to gambling, and in Rochester he lost a great deal of money and entered into a prize-fight where the purse enabled him to pay his debts. The fight in Berkeley Square I do not know about, or prefer not to know. Benjamin is rather … unusual.’

  ‘And, of course, you are the Miss Pym,’ said Mr Giles.

  ‘How did you hear of me?’

  ‘The report of the Berkeley Square mill was in the social columns, Miss Pym. You were described as Benjamin’s employer. I also believe you to be a friend of Sir George Clarence.’

  ‘You are remarkably well informed, Mr Giles,’ snapped Hannah. ‘Now may I eat my breakfast in peace?’

  He smiled and leaned back in his chair. What was it the gossips were saying only the other day? That Sir George Clarence had taken a mistress and that the mistress was Miss Pym, she the proud possessor of the battling footman. He looked at Hannah Pym, at her thin spare figure, her odd eyes, her sandy hair, and her good but sedate clothes, and decided the gossips must be wrong. He could not imagine Miss Pym being anyone’s mistress.

  Hannah finished her meal, wiped her mouth on the table-cloth, and went out to the necessary house at the back of the inn.

  ‘There is a very pretty garden out there, just off the courtyard. I noticed it when we arrived,’ said Mr Giles to Yvonne. ‘Would you care to take a stroll before the coach leaves?’

  Yvonne hesitated. She looked about. She seemed to decide it was all so safe and normal – the low-beamed inn, the chat of the diners, the giggles of the serving maids from the side room where the coachman was having his breakfast, and the cries of the ostlers from the yard.

  ‘Just for a little,’ she said.

  He came round the table and helped her to her feet. Together they walked out into the sunlight and then through a little gate that led off the inn courtyard. Early roses were rioting in the garden and blackbirds were searching for worms in the daisy-starred grass. Yvonne gave a little sigh of pleasure and removed the shawl from her shoulders and put it over her arm.

  ‘A little oasis of peace in a desert of despair,’ said Mr Giles.

  Her eyes flew to meet his. ‘Who said that?’

  ‘I just did. You looked like a little hunted creature which has found cover.’

  ‘You are a poet, monsieur.’

  ‘Not I.’

  She looked up at him nervously. He was so very tall and powerful. His shoulders were broad although his waist was slim, and his chestnut hair, very thick and tied with a cherry-red ribbon, glinted in the sunlight.

  He opened his mouth to ask her how recently she had come from France and then decided against it. ‘I am amazed at your friend, Miss Pym,’ he said instead. ‘To travel such a distance for pleasure.’

  ‘I can understand that, I think,’ said Yvonne, looking about her. ‘It is so far away from everything here. So peaceful.’

  ‘So far from the tumbrils and the stink and the guillotine,’ he said, suddenly, for some reason, angry. ‘Do the fools who cried for liberty and equality know what hell they were setting in motion? Do they sleep well o’nights, think you?’

  She shrank back, one gloved hand to her mouth.

  ‘I beg your pardon,’ he said quickly. But she ran away from him, half-stumbling, her shawl trailing through the daisies on the grass.

  He cursed himself for his clumsiness and, taking out a penknife, he cut two red roses and walked slowly back to the inn, where he presented one to Hannah and one to Yvonne.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said Hannah, her sharp eyes darting from his rueful face to Yvonne’s white one. She had returned just as Yvonne had come rushing in.

  ‘Gentlemen, take your places!’ came the cry.

  Hannah decided to pass the next stage by thinking of Sir George and luxuriating over his presents, and leave worries about Yvonne until they stopped for the night.

  Mr Smith tipped his hat over his eyes and fell asleep. Subconsciously, Hannah relaxed. She did not yet realize that it was Mr Smith rather than Mr Giles with all his questions who had created an uneasy atmosphere in the carriage. She pictured Sir George as he had looked standing in the inn yard, the way he had swept off his hat and kissed her hand. Hannah raised the gloved hand he had kissed and held it briefly against her cheek.

  As the miles rolled by, her thoughts turned again to Yvonne. There would be no matchmaking on this journey, as there had been on all the others. The idea of the shy and frightened Yvonne making a match with the tall, handsome and assured Mr Giles made Hannah smile. It was sad, but it was obvious that Mr Giles terrified Yvonne.

  For some reason, known only to the coaching companies and not conveyed to passengers, the northern coaches often left the road to make inexplicable detours. So the Stamford Regent left the road at a place called Saint Neots in Cambridgeshire to go around some paper mills which were situated in the middle of the flat countryside. The coach stopped at a wayside inn and the passengers climbed down. It transpired that the river Ouse had, as usual, flooded, and that half a mile of road which lay ahead of them was under water. An extra pair of leaders, ridden by a horse-keeper, would need to be put on.

  The company were invited into the inn and to their surprise were told that, as was the local custom, the refreshments had all been supplied by the local people and there would be no charge.

  On a table covered with a damask cloth were spread plum cakes, tartlets, gingerbread, exquisite home-made bread, and biscuits. Ales and currant and gooseberry wines were presented in old-fashioned glass jugs embossed with jocund figures. ‘These have all been presented by the local cottagers and farmers,’ said the landlord proudly, ‘and they’d be most insulted if any’s left behind.’

  The home-made wine was powerful stuff, and despite the blotting paper supplied by all the cakes and bread and biscuits, the party began to become quite merry. ‘The reason for this fare,’ said Mr Giles solemnly, ‘is that the road is often flooded and the idea is to fatten up the passengers so that they may be strung together and floated across, like so many balloons.’

  Yvonne giggled and said no doubt they would all sink like stones. She appeared to have forgotten Mr Giles’s hard remarks about the Revolution and suddenly seemed determined to enjoy herself. When they had finished and were waiting for the coach, she said gaily she was going out to see if she could see the flood. Mr Smith promptly got to his feet and said he would accompany her and the pair walked off.

  ‘Too slow,’ said Mr Giles, shaking his head ruefully. ‘No doubt our Mr Smith is murmuring sweet nothings in her ear.’

  ‘It must be much further on,’ Yvonne was saying. ‘I cannot see a thing.’<
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  ‘But you will soon see your father, mademoiselle,’ said Mr Smith. He had spoken in French. Yvonne gave a little cry and looked up at him, her eyes dilated with fear.

  He caught her arm as she would have run away and, still speaking in rapid French, he hissed. ‘You do not know me? I am Monsieur Petit.’

  Now Yvonne’s face went a muddy colour. There was only one Monsieur Petit and that was Monsieur Jacques Petit, the most merciless of inquisitors and judges on the Paris Tribunal.

  2

  We shall see Buonaparte the bastard

  Kick heels with his throat in a rope.

  Swinburne

  All the horrors of the Revolution crept about Yvonne like an evil mist. The calm English countryside, the winding road, the cheerful sounds from the inn behind her, the very contrast of her present surroundings to the hell that was Paris, all accentuated her fear.

  ‘You cannot touch me,’ she whispered. ‘You have no power here.’

  ‘I do not want to harm you,’ he said. ‘On the contrary, I am delighted to make your acquaintance, for I am travelling to York to meet your father.’

  ‘To kill him!’ cried Yvonne.

  ‘At his request.’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘I assure you,’ he said smoothly, ‘I speak the truth.’

  ‘But he has been working against you, was working against you and all you stood for.’

  ‘True.’ He took a pinch of snuff. ‘But he has seen the error of his ways, and as he was one of the heroes of our glorious Revolution, we naturally wish him to return to Paris.’

  ‘He thought he was helping to create a new world,’ said Yvonne bitterly. ‘A world of freedom. And when the Terror started, he did what he could to help people escape from France, and I … I am proud of him.’

  ‘He was misguided in that he helped aristocrats escape the guillotine.’ Mr Petit looked calmly out over the landscape of the country which Napoleon wanted to conquer.

  ‘Aristocrats!’ Yvonne rounded on him. ‘Aristocrats! That is what you would like people to think. But few aristocrats have been guillotined compared to the vast number of ordinary decent people. Our neighbour could not pay his butcher’s bill, so he reported the poor butcher to you at the Tribunal, saying he was plotting against the regime. So you murdered the butcher, and the neighbour laughed and said that was one bill less to worry about. The people my father helped were ordinary members of the bourgeoisie like himself.’

  ‘Nonetheless,’ said Monsieur Petit, unruffled, ‘he wishes to see me.’

  ‘I cannot believe you.’ Yvonne looked wildly around.

  ‘But you will believe your father?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Then here is his letter.’

  Yvonne crackled open the parchment. In it, her father, Claude Grenier, stated that his only wish was to work for the Revolution and to help his good friend, Monsieur Petit. She stared at it in dismay. She wondered whether the terrible events of the Revolution had turned her father’s brain at last.

  She silently handed it back to him. ‘So you see, mademoiselle,’ he said, ‘you are in danger. If you betray me, I shall betray you. You are the daughter of Claude Grenier.’

  ‘But he is not a spy,’ said Yvonne. ‘Why should he be under any threat from the English?’

  ‘Because, my innocent, there are many friends of the English king who have lost their lives. Believe me, you and your father would be taken to the nearest jail. And do not be seduced by the seeming friendliness of these English. Underneath, they are savage brutes. Go to any public hanging and see the oh-so-happy English crowds at play and ask yourself if there is any difference. And this Miss Pym, I know she is a stranger to you. Let her remain so or it will be the worse for you.’

  ‘Coach!’ came a cry from the inn.

  Yvonne wheeled about and ran back to the coach. She felt sick and bewildered and wondered what on earth to do. Yes, her father had worked for the Revolution, and with a single-minded passion, before all hell had been let loose. He had planned and organized escape routes from France in case he and his fellow conspirators might have to use them. But he had had to use them finally to help friends and relatives escape the guillotine. He said he was only glad that his wife, Yvonne’s mother, had died of consumption before the horrors of the guillotine had begun and that she had not lived to see the death of all their hopes for a brave new France.

  He had arranged Yvonne’s escape two years ago and she had been living with a French emigré family in Cavendish Square ever since. Then he had written to say that he, too, was now in England and living in York and begged his daughter to travel north to join him.

  Hannah looked sharply at Yvonne when she climbed into the coach. The girl looked terrified, thought Hannah in amazement, and shot a furious look at ‘Mr Smith’. She assumed Mr Smith had been making advances to the girl, despite his age and the whiteness of his hair, and decided when they stopped for the night to give young Yvonne some warnings about strange men.

  Mr Giles looked at Yvonne calmly from under sleepy lids, but he said nothing and showed no more inclination to pay her any attention. The coach set off at a brisk pace. Hannah decided she did not like the atmosphere pervading the coach. There was an air of menace. She darted suspicious glances at Mr Smith, who smiled back blandly and took out his book.

  And then the Stamford Regent entered the flood-waters. At first it was exciting to look out and see a flat plain of shining water stretching on either side. And then the water got deeper and flooded into the coach. Benjamin quickly drew his knees up to his chin as the straw on the floor of the coach began to float. Modesty forbade the ladies from drawing their legs up under them but Hannah, finding her feet getting very wet, put them up on the opposite seat on one side of Benjamin and begged Yvonne to follow her example and place her feet on the seat on the other side of the footman.

  The coach lurched abominably as the waters rose higher. A small wave lapped against Monsieur Petit’s knees. He jumped a little and dropped his book into the water and muttered a distinct, ‘Merde!’

  ‘Ladies present,’ said Mr Giles easily. ‘Oaths in French not permitted, mon vieux.’

  Monsieur Petit cursed himself for his slip. He prided himself on his excellent English and wished he had spoken in that language to Yvonne. For he was sure it was the fact that he had been recently speaking in his own tongue which had prompted him to swear in it.

  Now the fear was that the coach wheels might hit some hidden obstacle beneath the surface of the waters. The inside of the coach was awash. Despite putting her feet up, Hannah’s skirts were soaked. There was a mocking cry from the roof, ‘Land-Ho!’, and sure enough, the six horses pulled up a small rise and the waters fell behind them.

  ‘Thank goodness for that,’ said Mr Giles. ‘I was eagerly awaiting the arrival of a dove with an olive branch.’

  Benjamin gave tongue. ‘What is that whoreson of a coachee abaht, I asks yer? My good livery. Ruined. Shite!’

  ‘BENJAMIN!’ screamed Hannah.

  ‘It’s too much,’ he mumbled. ‘I’ll kill the dimmed arse-face, and be dimmed if I don’t.’

  ‘I will have words with you when we stop,’ said Hannah awfully.

  The wretched passengers climbed down from the coach at Buckden, demanding fires to heat them and rooms to change in. But the luggage, on being lifted out of the boot, proved to be soaked through as well. The coachman, Tom Tapton, was handing over the reins to another coachman at Stilton, where they were to stay the night. There were no pretty maids at the inn at Buckden either, and so the reluctant passengers were cajoled back onto the coach with promises that they would soon be at Stilton, where all their clothes would be dried and pressed for them.

  Stilton, the home of the famous cheese, was soon reached. The cheese was actually made many miles away but had been christened by Miss Worthington, who owned the Angel Inn and sold the cheeses at her door.

  The Angel was a huge inn where over three hundred horses were st
abled for coaching and posting purposes, for Stilton was one of the greatest coaching centres. The ebb and flow of traffic never ceased. All day long, coaches and post-chaises poured in and out of it, and at night the mail coaches thundered in from the north. To add to the commotion and row, Stilton was where the great droves of oxen were shod so that they could make the journey to London with ease.

  Facing the Angel across the Great North Road was the Bell, an equally large hostelry and the Angel’s rival.

  The Angel lived up to its reputation as a fine coaching- and posting-inn. The weary passengers were shown to bed-chambers where large fires blazed, and bustling, efficient servants bore off the clothes from their trunks to iron them dry in the kitchen while their owners shivered by their bedroom fires wrapped in fleecy blankets.

  Hannah was sharing a room with Yvonne, Benjamin with ‘Mr Smith,’ despite that gentleman’s highly undemocratic protests about sharing a room with a servant, and Mr Giles had mysteriously managed to gain the largest and best room for his own use.

  Yvonne sat silently by the fire, answering Hannah in monosyllables, until Hannah decided to leave matters until the girl had dined and might be more relaxed.

  Their dry clothes were delivered to them and each began to dress, Yvonne using the bed hangings on the four-poster as a screen. In an age when women rarely bathed naked even when alone, no female of any refinement would strip off before another member of her sex.

  ‘Thank goodness our hair is not wet,’ called Hannah and received a muffled reply.

  ‘May I come out?’ asked Yvonne. ‘Are you dressed, Mees Pym?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Hannah, thinking that it was that ‘mees’ which gave Yvonne away. She was surprised the inn servants at Holborn had known the girl was French, for Yvonne spoke English very well, but on reflection decided they had seen her name on the list in the booking-office.

  ‘Where did you learn to speak English?’ asked Hannah.

  Yvonne approached the blazing fire. ‘I had an English governess when I was small,’ she said, ‘and during my two years in London, I earned a little money giving French lessons to English ladies. They learned French from me and I perfected my English by listening to them.’