Текст книги "Zipporah's Daughter"

Автор книги: Philippa Carr

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Текущая страница: 20 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

I could hear sounds of ribald laughter, the noise of falling furniture. The mob was in the château.

Lisette had joined us. Her eyes were shining with triumph. ‘They have come,’ she said.

The door burst open. It was a horrific moment—the one for which we had all been waiting. They were here.

In those terrifying moments I was surprised to recognize among the people who burst into the room three shopkeepers whom I knew slightly—respectable men—not the kind I should have expected to be involved in such an outrage; but mob madness could spring up everywhere.

Lisette faced them. ‘I am the daughter of the Comte,’ she repeated. ‘I am of aristocratic birth, but I have always worked for you and the revolution.’

A man was staring at the diamonds at her throat. I thought he was going to snatch them. Then one of the shopkeepers pushed him roughly aside.

‘Be careful,’ he growled. There was about him a hint of leadership and I felt a faint touch of relief. I sensed that this man was uneasy … wary, and it occurred to me that he could command a certain respect and perhaps hold the more bloodthirsty of the raiders in check.

His words certainly had an effect, for the men who had entered the room ignored us for a few seconds and went round the room examining everything. They looked at the men lying on the bed. Both Armand and his companion regarded them with indifference.

‘Who are they?’ asked one of the men.

‘They are half dead,’ said another.

Jeanne and Tante Berthe faced them squarely. ‘We are servants here. We are not aristocrats,’ said Tante Berthe. ‘You don’t want us.’

Jeanne had her arm about Sophie and I saw the men staring at her scarred face.

One of them took Lisette by the shoulders.

‘Take your hands from me,’ said Lisette haughtily.

‘Ah, be careful of Madame la Comtesse,’ said one of the men ironically.

‘I am the Comte’s daughter,’ said Lisette, ‘but I am with you. I worked with Monsieur Léon Blanchard.’

‘They are on our side now it is good to be so,’ said another of the men. ‘It used to be a different story.’

They started to hustle Lisette out of the room. She turned and pointed to me: ‘That is the acknowledged daughter of the Comte,’ she cried.

‘Yes,’ said one of the men. ‘I know her. I’ve seen her with the Comte. Don’t take any notice of her dress. That is put on to deceive us.’

I realized then that I was still wearing the servant’s dress which I had put on that morning and what a contrast I must make to Lisette in her finery.

The men were looking at the others in the room. They shrugged their shoulders. Then, dragging Lisette and me with them, they went out of the room.

What happened afterwards still bewilders me.

I can remember being dragged through the crowds; I remember the abuse, most of it directed towards Lisette. How foolish she had been to dress up as she had!

The flare of the torches, the sight of dark menacing eyes, the dirty clenched fists which were brandished close to my face, the painful grip on my arms, the moment when someone spat in my face … they are scenes from a nightmare which would spring up suddenly and carry me back all through my life to that fearful night.

We were forced into a wagonette which was drawn by a mangy-looking horse.

And thus we drove through the mob into the town.

There followed the strangest night I have ever spent. We were driven to the mairie and there hustled out of the cart and taken to a small room on the first floor which looked down on the street.

We were fortunate in as much as these people were unaware of their power at this time. The revolution which had been rumbling for so long had only just broken out and among those men who carried us to the mairie were some who, a short time before, had been known as respectable citizens of the town … shopkeepers and the like. They were unsure of what reprisals might be taken. They knew that there were risings all over Paris but they must have wondered what would happen to them if the risings were suppressed and the aristocrats were in power again.

The mob would have taken us to the lamp-post and hanged us right away, but there were several who advised a certain restraint. The Mayor himself was uncertain. For centuries the Aubigné family had been the power in the neighbourhood. It was early days and they could not be sure that that power was broken; they were not yet accustomed to the new order. And the more sober men of the town were very much afraid of retaliation.

The mob had surrounded the mairie and were demanding that we be brought out. They wanted to see our bodies swinging on the lanternes.

I wondered what was happening back at the château.

Were they safe there? Armand and his friend were not recognizable; poor Sophie’s face had probably saved her. This was a revolt against those who had what the mob wanted. Nobody wanted what those sickly men or poor scarred Sophie had. There was nothing to envy in them. It was different with Lisette and me. They did not believe Lisette. She had miscalculated badly, and if she had not been so anxious to prove herself an aristocrat she would have realized what a very dangerous position she was placing herself in.

There were no chairs in the room, so we lay on the floor.

‘I wish that scum would stop shouting,’ said Lisette.

‘You have been so stupid,’ I told her. ‘There was no need for it. You could be back at the château now.’

‘I am who I am and will bear the consequences for that.’

‘Poor Lisette, why do you care so much?’

‘Of course I cared. I was one of you. The fact that I wasn’t recognized doesn’t change that. Léon will save me, you see, and there will be those who will have to answer for the way they have treated me.’

I did not reply. There was nothing to say. Lisette cared more for her birth than she did for her life since she was ready to risk it to convince herself that she was of noble birth.

I saw clearly then how it had obsessed her, how she had believed it—perhaps forced herself to believe it—all those years. She had let the resentment build up to such an extent that it was beyond everything else. She could not face the fact now that she must know it was not to be true. She had to go on believing … even if it cost her her life.

The noise outside seemed to have abated a little. I stood up and looked out. I turned away quickly. They were still there, waiting for us to be brought out.

‘Lisette,’ I said, ‘tell them the truth. They may believe you. It is madness to go on proclaiming that you are an aristocrat and are proud of it. You are saying you are their enemy. They hate us. Don’t you see? They hate us because we have what they have always wanted. Don’t you understand that?’

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I see it, but it doesn’t alter anything.’

‘I shall never forget the way they looked at Sophie and Armand. True aristocrats … legitimately born aristocrats … not like us, Lisette … the bastards. But they took both of us. Why? Because we are young and healthy, because they envy us. The foundation of this revolution is built on envy. Is its purpose, do you think, to make France a better, happier country? No. It is not that at all. I saw it clearly tonight. It is an attempt by people who have not, to take from those who have those luxuries which they want for themselves. When they have them they will be as selfish and careless of others as the rich have been in the past. It is not a better country that these people are destroying for. It is to turn it round so that those who did not have, now have, and those who had, now have not.’

Lisette was silent and I went on: ‘Is that not so with you, Lisette? You are a true daughter of the revolution. You were envious. Admit it. You have let envy colour your whole life. You have built up a picture that was based on falsehood from the beginning. I can see how it came about. It was a natural inference. Then you were Charles’s mistress and that was gratifying because he was going to marry Sophie. Did you deliberately leave the flower in his apartment so that she could suspect me? You always liked to create a drama, didn’t you? You must have been very pleased to have been his mistress while he was engaged to Sophie. But when there was a child … ’

Lisette burst out: ‘He should have married me. I thought he would. I thought he would make the Comte admit that I was his daughter. Why shouldn’t he have done so? You married Charles.’

‘I was the Comte’s daughter, Lisette.’

‘I was too. I was … I was … ’

I sighed. It was no use talking to her. She would not let go of her obsession, although she knew in her heart that what I and Tante Berthe had told her was true. She must go on believing; and I could see that belief had been her lifeline. She clung to it. She was not going to let it go. Even in the face of the bloodthirsty mob she stood up and said: ‘I am an aristocrat.’

Oh, what a foolish woman she was!

But was I any wiser? I had prevaricated. I had been afraid. I had yearned for Dickon—how far away dear Eversleigh seemed now!—and I had refused to go to him. I had allowed my fears and my suspicions to grow. I had always known that there was none of the saint about Dickon. Far from it. But it was the Dickon he was whom I had wanted; and something perverse within me had refused to let me go to him, to take him for what he was … which is what one must always do with others. One cannot mould them; one loves for what a person is … faults and all, and that was how I had loved Dickon.

I tried to think of him now. Would he have returned to Eversleigh? What would he have said when he found that I had gone?

I thanked God that my father had died before this happened. I thanked God, too, that the children were in England, saved from this holocaust.

The noise had stopped. I went to the window and looked out. I saw him clearly riding through the crowd. Léon Blanchard! I wondered if he was coming to the mairie. Perhaps he would say what was to be done and order them to release Lisette.

‘Lisette,’ I cried. ‘Look! It is Léon Blanchard.’

She was beside me. ‘He has come for me,’ she cried. ‘Léon! Léon!’ she shouted; but he could not hear, nor did he look towards the windows of the mairie.

‘I must get down to him,’ she said. ‘I must.’

She ran to the door. It was locked. She came back to the window. She battered at it with her hands. I saw the blood on the plum-coloured velvet. She had broken through and stood on the balcony. I heard her agonized cry: ‘Léon! Léon! I am here, Léon. Save me from this rabble.’

I couldn’t see Léon Blanchard now. The crowd was staring up at the balcony. I saw Lisette leap and she was gone.

There was a hushed silence in the crowd. The mob seemed to stampede forward. There was deafening noise and screaming. The torches threw a grisly light on the scene. I saw a bloody hand come up and in its grasp was a diamond necklace.

I waited at the window.

I was there when they carried away a broken body.

It was quieter down below. Sickened by what I had seen, I wanted to lie down on that hard floor and drift into oblivion. I wanted to shut out the horror of it all. I felt that if ever I should escape from this peril I should be haunted all my life by the memory of Lisette with the fanatical gleam in her eyes. Life had become a nightmare and I believed that the end of it was very near.

I was cramped lying on the floor. I felt desperately alone. A great urge came over me to weep for Lisette. All those years of resentment … and she had been Charles’s mistress … Had she continued to be when I was in England and she was there with him alone? Was it going on them? It didn’t matter now. Why wonder about it? Soon they would come for me.

I went to the window and looked out. My eyes went to the lamp-post with its faint light which showed me the dark liquid running over the cobbles. I saw that it came from the wine shop into which the mob had broken. Some men were squatting on the cobbles scooping up the puddles with their hands and holding their hands to their lips. I heard a woman start to sing in a high-pitched, quavering voice and a man brusquely and crudely telling her to shut up.

Many of them were drunk. Some were propped up against walls. But they were keeping their vigil at the mairie. They had had one spectacle tonight and they were waiting in anticipation for another. The signal would come and they would storm the mairie.

I could not bear to look at them. I sat down and leaned against the wall with my eyes closed. If only I could sleep away the time until they came for me …

I wondered how long it took for death to come.

‘Quickly, please God,’ I prayed.

The door opened quietly. A man came in. I started to my feet, a sick feeling of horror enveloping me. The moment had come.

It was the Mayor who faced me.

He said: ‘You are to leave here.’

‘Leave here … ’

He put his fingers to his lips. ‘Don’t speak. Obey orders. The mob is quieter now but still in an ugly mood. I don’t want to have to tell them that you are being taken to a prison outside the town. They would not allow you to go. They are determined to hang you. Here … follow me.’

‘But where … where am I going?’

‘I told you to be silent. If the mob get wind that you are leaving they will tear you to pieces. They are bent on seeing the end of Aubigné.’

I followed him down the stairs. We were in a courtyard at the back of the mairie where a coach was waiting. It was shabby and enclosed. A bearded driver, wearing a coat and muffled up about the neck in spite of the weather, was seated in the driving seat. He was holding a whip in his right hand and did not turn as I came out of the mairie.

‘Get in,’ said the Mayor.

‘I want to know where you are taking me.’

I was given a rough push. ‘Be silent,’ hissed the Mayor. ‘Do you want to bring the mob down on you?’

I was pushed inside the coach and the door shut on me. The Mayor lifted his hand and the coach jolted forward.

We had to come round to the front of the mairie and as the coach rattled into the square a cry went up.

‘A carriage? Who rides in a carriage?’

The driver whipped up the horses. I heard the shouts of rage and guessed that the mob was trying to stop the coach.

I lurched from side to side. The driver drove like a madman.

Someone called out: ‘Who is this rogue? Who is in the carriage?’

For a few terrifying moments I thought we were going to be brought to a halt. I could imagine the fury of the people if they discovered who was inside and that an attempt was being made to cheat them of their spectacle.

The driver was silent. He just drove on. We were through the square. The coach gathered speed. Some of the people were running after us and, glancing through the window, I caught a glimpse of angry faces very close.

The coach lurched and trundled on; and the shouts of the people grew fainter. We had left the town behind. Still the driver went on driving with a furious speed so that I was thrown from side to side of the padded vehicle.

Suddenly we stopped. We were close to a wood from which a man emerged leading two horses.

The driver leaped down from his seat and pulled open the door of the coach. He signed for me to get out, which I did. I could scarcely see his face, so heavily bearded was he and he wore a scarf high round his neck.

He looked back the way we had come. The country road seemed very quiet and the first streak of dawn was in the sky.

Then he took off his scarf and pulled at the hair about his face. It came off in his hand and he grinned at me.

‘Dickon!’ I said.

‘I thought you might be rather pleased to see me. Now, no time to lose. Get on that horse,’ he said to me; and to the man: ‘Thank you. We’ll get off now for the coast as fast as we can.’

A wild exhilaration had taken possession of me. I felt faint with emotion; the transformation from terrible despair to wild joy was too sudden. Dickon was here. I was safe and Dickon had saved me.

We rode all through the morning. He would say little except: ‘I want to be out of this accursed country by tomorrow. With luck we’ll catch the paquet. It means riding through the night but we can make it.’

So we rode. My body was in a state of exhaustion but my spirits were uplifted. There came the time when we had to rest the horses and ourselves. Dickon decided when and where. We were not going through any of the towns, he told me. He had a little food with him and we must make do with that. In the late afternoon of the first day we came to a lonely spot by a river. There was a wood nearby where he said we could sleep for an hour. We had to. We needed the rest, and there was a long way to go. First he took the horses to the river and they drank and then he tethered them in the wood. We lay down under a tree and he held me in his arms.

He told me a little then of what had happened. When he had returned to Eversleigh and discovered I had left for France he had followed me at once.

‘I knew that the revolution would begin soon,’ he said. ‘I was determined to bring you away. Abduct you if necessary. I went to the château. They had made a mess of it. But Armand was there with the others. Sophie was looking after him with her servant and that older one. They told me that you and Lisette had been taken. I had to act quickly. You see, Lottie, what it means to have friends in the right places. You have despised me for my interest in worldly goods and money chiefly, but see what useful purposes it can be put to. I have been coming over here now and then. I had business over here, as you know. There were many French who did not like the way things were going … friends of England, you might say. The Mayor, by great good fortune, was one of them. I took the precaution of bringing money with me … plenty of it. I knew I was going to need it. So I came. I was there in the mob. I saw what happened to that girl Lisette. I was waiting for them to get the carriage for me. I would have fought them with my bare fists if they had touched you. But this was the best method. You can’t fight against the mob. It would have been the end of us both. Never mind. I have got you so far. The rest is child’s play in comparison. Now rest … sleep … though that is difficult for me lying here holding you in my arms.’

‘Dickon,’ I said, ‘thank you. I shall never forget what I owe you.’

‘I have made up my mind that I shall never let you.’

I smiled. He had not changed. He never would and I was glad.

We were so tired that we slept and when we awoke evening had come. We mounted the horses and rode on all through the night, stopping only for brief respites.

We came into Calais on the afternoon of the second day. We left the horses at an inn. Only once were we challenged as escaping aristocrats.

Dickon answered that he was an Englishman who had been travelling in France with his wife and had no interest in French politics and quarrels.

His haughty and somewhat bellicose manner intimidated our accusors and it was clearly obvious that he was indeed an Englishman. So trouble was avoided.

We boarded the paquet. Soon we should be home.

We stayed on deck, so eager were we for a sight of land.

‘At last,’ said Dickon, ‘you are coming home to stay. Do you realize that had you come earlier, had you not dashed back to France, you could have saved us a good deal of trouble?’

‘I did not know that I should find my father dead.’

‘We have wasted a lot of time, Lottie.’

I nodded.

‘Now,’ he went on, ‘you’ll take me for what I am. Ambitious, ruthless, eager for possessions … and power, wasn’t it?’

‘There is something you have forgotten,’ I reminded him. ‘If you married me you would be marrying a woman who has absolutely nothing. I am penniless. The vast fortune which my father left in trust to me will all be lost. It will be taken by the revolutionaries. I don’t think you have thought of that.’

‘Do you imagine I should not have thought of such an important detail?’

‘So, Dickon … what are you thinking of?’

‘You, and how I shall make up for the lost years. And you, Lottie, what are you thinking? This man on whom I have foolishly turned my back for many years is ready to marry me—penniless as I am. And he was foolish enough to be ready to give up all he had acquired through a long life of ruthless scheming … and all for me.’

‘How was that?’

‘Lottie, when we drove through that square we were within an inch of being stopped, of being dragged from our coach and hanged on the lamp-post … both of us. If that had happened I should have lost all my possessions, for it is a sobering thought that when you die you cannot take them with you.’

‘Oh, Dickon,’ I said, ‘I know what you did for me. I shall never forget … ’

‘And you’ll take me in spite of what I am?’

‘Because of it,’ I said.

He kissed my cheek gently.

‘Look,’ he said. ‘Land. The sight of those white cliffs always uplifts me … because they are home. But never in all my life did I feel such joy in them as I do at this moment.’

I took his hand and put it to my lips and I held it there as I watched the white cliffs come nearer.