Jack Chiltern's Wife (1999) (9 page)

At regular intervals all along the banks of the Seine, facing the Palais de Justice, there were posts erected to hold street lamps, but it was clear they were used as instruments of execution, for many of them held dangling corpses. Kitty was sickened by them and terrified when she realised that the women meant to add her and Judith to their number.

‘No! No!’ she screamed, trying vainly to break free. ‘We have done no wrong.’

Somehow Judith threw off her captors and hurled herself at those who held Kitty. ‘You let her go! Let my darling go, you imbeciles!’ The last word was easily translated which increased the women’s fury; several of them flung themselves at Judith, holding her while others found a rope. In front of Kitty’s horrified eyes, they fashioned a noose and put it over Judith’s head, then flung the rope over the projecting arm of the lamp post and hauled the struggling woman to the top, screaming with triumphant laughter.
‘Voyons l’aristos! Crache donc sur l’aristo.’
And, suiting action to words, they spat on the hem of Judith’s skirt as it passed them at face level.

‘Oh, God have mercy!’ Kitty cried, as others grabbed her and marched her, stumbling, to the next lamp, leaving Judith’s still-twitching body swinging in the breeze.

‘No! No! No!’ Kitty screamed as they slipped a second rope over her head.

‘Wait,
citoyennes
,’ one of them said. ‘Let us not spoil those beautiful petticoats.’

In seconds Kitty’s clothes had been stripped from her, leaving her in nothing but a shift. She felt the rope tighten about her neck as they began to haul on it. The breath was forced from her body and blessed darkness closed in on her.

The women who crowded the streets impeded Jack’s progress. He encountered them everywhere he went: the Palais Royal, the Palais de Justice, the Tuileries, scene of so much destruction and bloodshed when the King was arrested, along the rue Saint-Antoine to the Arsenal and in every connecting road. It was clear that this was what his fellow card-players had predicted, probably incited.

It would be foolhardy to continue his search for James; it was more important to return to Kitty and Judith and ensure their safety. He was thankful that at the moment the rioting women were only interested in food shops, but it would not be long before they began systematically raiding other premises and the woodworkers might easily be next. If the ladies were found on Pierre’s property, then his life would also be forfeit.

But when he arrived, he was shocked to learn the English women had left. Pierre told him he had tried to detain them, but they insisted.

‘Where have they gone?’

Pierre shrugged. ‘I heard the young one say something about the British Embassy.’

‘Didn’t you tell them we are at war? That makes them enemy aliens. You should have made them stay.’

‘And lost our own heads for our pains?’ Madame Clavier put in. ‘No, citizen, and though we do not condone the killing of a king, it is done now, and we are loyal citizens of France.’

‘Yes, I beg your pardon,’ he said, realising his anger was unjustified. They had helped him only so long as they thought his first consideration was for France and the French people, but now France and Britain were at war, he could no longer rely on their support. He did not blame them, but it did mean the sooner Kitty and Judith left Paris, the better.

‘Jean, I will go now, but make sure you have no evidence for anyone to find. You understand me?’

‘Yes, rest easy, there is nothing to find except this.’ He held out the sovereign. ‘The young one left it as payment for their board. Gold it may be, but I dare not spend it. Take it, I do not want it.’

Jack delved in his overcoat pocket and extracted a small leather bag. From this he selected two
louis d’or
which he dropped into Jean’s palm. ‘Two for one, is that fair?’

‘Thank you.’ He took Jack’s hand and held it in a firm grip. ‘
Bon chance, mon ami
.’

Jack clattered down the stairs and out into the street. Resisting the temptation to run, he strode purposefully down the street, passing knots of women on the way.
‘Vive la République!’
they shouted at him.

Laughing, he answered them and passed on his way unmolested, but his thoughts were not on the women, but on Kitty. What had become of her? If she found the British Embassy closed because of the declaration of war, what would she do? Look for her brother? But James was not to be found and Jack feared he might have been arrested. The same fate might well fall to Kitty and her maid.

There were a dozen overcrowded and ill-documented prisons in Paris and anyone could easily be locked up and never heard of again. Or guillotined. The shock and revulsion he had felt on learning of Gabrielle’s fate rolled over him once again and he realised he was not as hard-hearted as he liked people to believe, and if, through his negligence and uncaring attitude, Kitty also died, then he would be twice damned.

He had taught himself to smother his emotions, believing them to be a sign of weakness, especially since Gabrielle had taken all the love he had lavished on her and thrown it in his face. He had sworn never to allow another human being to rule his heart, but now he was forced to admit he did have a heart and one that could feel pain and tenderness. And, if that were so, what else could it feel?

He began to run, pounding the slippery street, unmindful of the strident yelling of a band of women, who congregated along the Quai de la Mégisserie opposite the Palais de Justice. He had almost passed them when a glimpse of white lace carried on the top of a pike caught his eye. White lace was not the usual material used for their banners and he paused to look. It was then he heard a voice screaming in English. ‘No! No! No!’

He turned and dashed into their midst, just in time to see Kitty, almost naked, hoisted to the top of the lamp post. For one terrible second he stood still, staring up at her, feeling sick and hating himself for bringing her to this. Then the need for action forced him to his senses and pushed his way forward, grabbing the rope from the women who had not yet tied it off. ‘What are you doing, citoyennes?’ he demanded. ‘What has this woman done?’

‘She is an enemy of the Republic.
Une Anglaise
and an aristo.’

He knew he could not fight them off and must persuade them to let him have her body. And quickly. Already Kitty’s face was blue and though he tried to let her down, the women were pulling against him. ‘No, she is a poor misguided simpleton, whom I have the misfortune to have married.’

‘Are you rich enough to clothe her in lace?’

‘No, as you see, I am a humble farm labourer.’

‘Then where did she get this?’ One of the women waved a petticoat under his nose.

In the last two or three years he had learned to think fast and if there was any hesitation in his answer it did not show. ‘She stole that from the home of our former
seigneur
after he and his wife were arrested. Don’t all women like pretty things? They took her eye and what must she do but put them on.

‘I told her it would lead to her downfall. I warned her but …’ He paused and shrugged, not wanting to appear in a rush, though every second was critical. ‘Please,
citoyennes
, you have done
what you had to do, let me have her body for burial. Fool that she was, she was my wife and I cannot bear to see her left there to be pecked by hungry birds.’

They looked from one to the other. ‘Oh, you might as well have her,’ their leader said, suddenly letting go of the rope so that Jack found himself almost bowled over as Kitty dropped into his arms. ‘We are more interested in food. Come,
citoyennes
, to the warehouses next.’

Jack put Kitty on the ground and knelt beside her to take the rope from her neck. The knot was tight and it was some seconds, which felt like hours, before she was free of it. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw a light pulse fluttering in her throat. He grabbed her scattered clothes and scooped her up in his arms before looking about for Judith. ‘Where is her mother?’

One of the women who remained pointed along the street and for the first time he saw the dangling body. He would have to come and fetch it later for burial, but now he had to get Kitty to a safe place where she could be revived. He started to walk away, not hurrying, not daring to, but as soon as he had turned the corner, he began to run.

‘Don’t die on me,’ he murmured, as he ran. ‘Please don’t die. Oh, why did I ever bring you to this God-forsaken place? It is all my fault.’

Telling himself that he wasn’t to know how much worse things had become since the King’s execution, that he had expected to find James easily, that she was headstrong enough to have come without him, did nothing to ease his conscience. He had made a mess of it. He should have put her back on the packet to England, he should not have allowed the forger to sway his judgement and he should have told Jean to keep her indoors by force if necessary.

He looked down at her. She was still unconscious and there was a dreadful bruise round her neck, but she was beginning to breathe again in a ragged kind of way, gulping air. ‘Oh, my
love,’ he said, hardly aware of the endearment. ‘You are going to have a dreadful sore throat, but thank God you will live.’

A few minutes later he turned the corner into the market and ran under an archway to what had once been some stables and there, to his unbounded relief, he found his horse and cart and gently laid his burden in the back. He had thrown Lucie’s blankets over the horse to keep it warm, and now he pulled them off, folded one under Kitty’s head and put the other over her, adding his dirty old overcoat for extra warmth.

He had a flask under the driving seat, but he dare not try to give her anything to drink while she remained unconscious. She was breathing a little more easily and he bent to kiss her before slipping off the back of the cart and going to the driver’s seat. It was not safe to stay in Paris, he could not burden any more of his contacts with his personal problems. Nor would his superiors condone it. There was too much at stake. But Kitty must be saved and there was no time to lose.

It was not just that she was another human being needing help—it was far more than that. She had taken that hard-shelled heart of his in her small hands and cracked it wide open to reveal the core of him, the need in him, the capacity for love he had stifled for so long.

How had she done it, when he had put up a solid wall against such a happening? By being herself, he realised. There was nothing half-hearted about anything she did; that business with the guards at the barriers had proved that. Tiny as she was, she had immense courage. Her laughter was full-bodied, her anger red-hot. She was infuriating sometimes, but loyal and capable of infinite tenderness. Her hatred, he guessed, could be terrible, but her love steadfast to death. He knew it and he knew also that he loved her.

‘Oh, Kitty, what have you done to me?’ he murmured as he picked up the reins and the cart jolted out into the market place and made its way northwards to the Porte Saint-Denis.

Kitty felt as though her throat was on fire and her body ached with every jolt of the cart. What had happened? Where was she being taken? Where was Judith? She tried to cry out, but could not. She was beset by images of women’s faces, of noise and a pounding in her ears, of her feet leaving the ground. Slowly, the horror of it all came back to her. She had been hanged and now, believing her dead, they were taking her for burial. She tried once again to move, to cry out.

‘You are safe,’ said a disembodied voice, somewhere above her. ‘Lie still. Don’t try to talk.’

She knew the voice. Oh, blessed, blessed relief!

The jolting of the cart increased until she could hardly bear it. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, hearing her groan and wishing he could take her pain on himself. ‘We’ll soon have you comfortable again.’

They stopped at last. Jack came round to the back of the cart and picked her up in his arms as if she weighed nothing at all. She tried to speak, to thank him, but could not. He carried her into the farmhouse they had left only three days before, though it seemed like a lifetime. Up the stairs they went to the room she had occupied before, where he put her gently on the bed and covered her before turning to light a candle.

‘You must stay here until you have fully recovered,’ he said, his voice thick with emotion. ‘Then we will talk.’

He took the candle to the window and stood passing it from side to side, before setting it down and returning to sit on the side of the bed. ‘Lucie will see the light from her mother’s house and know that I need her. She will be here soon. Shall I fetch you a drink?’

She managed to croak ‘Please’, but it hurt dreadfully and she put up her hand to her throat. She could feel the ridges left by the rope and shuddered.

He took her hand away and held it in his own. ‘Don’t talk. I will get you a drink of water with a few drops of laudanum in it and that will help you sleep.’ He raised her hand to his lips, then got up and left the room.

As soon as he had gone and she was alone, the terror returned. Every shadow caused by the flickering candle held a menace, the sound of the wind in the trees outside the window was threatening voices. The creak of the stair was her executioner coming for her. She sat up, opening her mouth to scream, but no sound emerged. She was dumb.

And she had lost the one person she held dear, the one person who cared enough to give her life for her. Judith. Judith had tried to protect her. She had died, hadn’t she? It wasn’t a terrible nightmare. What had happened to her body? Had someone taken her down and buried her? Poor, poor Judith. She had not wanted to come to France but, staunchly loyal, she had been prepared to follow her mistress wherever she went, whatever mad scheme she dreamed up.

It was all her fault. All of it. Kitty flung herself face down and sobbed, thumping her pillow with a clenched fist.

‘Now, that will do you no good at all,’ Jack said, returning with a glass of cloudy liquid and sitting on the side of the bed to help her to drink it. ‘You must stay calm.’

‘Calm!’ she mouthed, turning to face him. ‘How can you talk of being calm? I don’t feel calm. I feel angry. Angry! Angry! Angry!’ With every silent word, she thumped the pillow.