Valentina (25 page)

Outside they heard a sudden cry, and then silence.

‘I can't bear it,' Alexandra said. ‘If it's not him …'

De Lamballe handed his torch to Duclos who took it without saying a word; he seemed dazed. A moment later the Major came back.

‘She's found him,' he said to Alexandra. ‘Poor devil.'

‘I've taken good care of him,' Duclos said suddenly. ‘He would have died but for me.'

‘I can see that,' the Major said, and he spoke very gently. ‘You've done very well, Lieutenant. Now you needn't worry about him any more. Madame has come to take care of the Colonel. You must look after yourself.'

‘Yes,' Duclos said. ‘I must just see if he wants anything.' He disappeared inside the tent.

Alexandra came close to de Lamballe and he put his arms round her. ‘I can't go in just yet. Is it really him, Paul—I can't believe it.'

‘Yes,' de Lamballe said. ‘I wouldn't have known him but Valentina did.'

Duclos came out; he pushed his hand across his hair, and brushed at his ragged coat in the same gesture. His face had a curiously wan look as if he had lost something.

‘He's all right now,' he said. ‘The lady's looking after him. There's nothing more for me to do. If you'll excuse me?'

He bowed to Alexandra and went round the back of the tent. He wasn't needed any more. He took the pistol out of his pocket, primed it, put the barrel in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

He had been dreaming of Valentina so often during the last few indescribable days that he accepted her at first as another manifestation. He was so weak and confused that he had no memory of the last part of that dreadful march, when Duclos kept him alive against his will; he didn't even know that for the last half-mile the younger man had carried him on his back, reeling and staggering like a drunken man under the weight, as his own strength failed. De Chavel knew very little about what had happened or where he was; he knew that he could rest, and that was all he wanted to know. The face bending over him was the face his fevered mind had conjured up; the hands smoothing his hair, drawing the covers over him, were Duclos' hands, they only appeared to be feminine because the whole thing was a fantasy. He knew it must be so because he thought he was in a bed, and no such thing existed. He slept and tried to die, but people dragged him back, and made him eat, and the gentle phantom nursed him and whispered strange, wild pleas in his tired ear. Three days after she found him in the shelter, Valentina knew when he opened his eyes that he recognised her properly and the crisis was over.

‘How long have I been here? Where am I?'

‘You're at Orcha,' she said. ‘My sister and I were given this lodging and you've been here for three days. Don't talk, my love, you've been very ill.' She came and sat on the edge of the bed, and suddenly she was afraid to look at him. While he was helpless and delirious he was hers to care for, and all that mattered was to restore his strength. Now the battle was won; emaciated and so feeble he could scarcely sit up, De Chavel was himself again, the man who had put her away from him at Czartatz and told her that he didn't love her. She kept her eyes down, afraid to see the same truth in his face when he looked at her.

‘I kept dreaming of you,' he said suddenly. ‘The last few days, I was asleep on my feet—and I kept seeing you. Give me your hand.' A moment later the fingers of his left hand closed over hers and held tight.

‘I had to find you,' she said. ‘I couldn't bear being at Czartatz, not knowing what had happened to you.'

‘I can't believe it,' he said. ‘I can't believe any woman would do anything so mad. You could have been killed—I might have been dead. Look at me, Valentina.'

She raised her head and their eyes met; hers were wet with tears.

‘You don't owe me anything,' she said. ‘I came because I loved you. I told you that night before you left. I've never stopped loving you. Now you're safe, my poor darling, and we'll get you back to Poland. But that doesn't mean you have to feel anything for me.'

‘Not even gratitude?'

‘Not even that.'

He didn't say anything in answer; he looked down at the fingers entwined in his. ‘There was an officer called Beaufois with me after Moscow,' he said. ‘I told him about you, Valentina; he had a wife and a mistress, and only half a face. He didn't want to go back to either of them because he wasn't a man any more. He was killed beside me later. I've lost my right arm, and I've a hole in my chest you could put your fist into. I'm not a man either.'

‘Don't,' she begged him. ‘Don't say that. If you were blind and crippled I wouldn't care.'

‘Duclos,' he said suddenly. ‘Where's Duclos? He saved my life after Krasnoi—where is he?' His eyes were wide and wild with anxiety; he seemed unable to concentrate on one thing for more than a moment or two, and the memory of Duclos distressed him so much that he heaved and struggled to sit upright, without letting go of Valentina's hand. De Lamballe had anticipated this question and warned her not to lie to him.

‘He's dead,' she said gently. There was no reason to tell him how Duclos had died.

‘Poor fellow. He was very good to me, and I never stopped cursing him; I wanted to lie down and die and he wouldn't let me. God, I'm so tired!' He lay back exhausted and closed his eyes; he seemed to have forgotten her, but when she tried to take her hand away, he gripped it irritably and wouldn't let go. An hour later Alexandra came into the room and looked down at him.

‘He'll live now,' she said. ‘But you won't if you don't give up and go to bed yourself.'

‘If I take my hand away I'll wake him,' Valentina said. ‘He knew me; we talked quite rationally. Oh, Alexandra, what he's suffered!'

‘You've been weeping over his wounds for three days,' Alexandra said. ‘I forbid you to start again. I've had more sorrow than I can bear. You've found him and you've saved his life. Now go to bed!'

Gently Valentina freed herself, and on an impulse she came and embraced her sister. ‘You made it possible, Sandra. I'd never have got here without you and Paul.'

‘Nonsense,' Alexandra said. ‘We're only at the beginning of it—there's another three hundred miles between us and Vilna.'

‘We'll get through now, I know we will. Nothing can happen to him now.' She glanced behind her at the bed. ‘He feels a cripple, Sandra. He told me about a friend of his who was terribly disfigured; he couldn't face his family. He was killed, and I think he wished he had been too. I've got to make him want to live—I've got to help him!'

‘Time will help him,' her sister said. ‘Let's get out of Russia first!'

She put her sister to bed and went to look for de Lamballe. He was not in the house, and it was dark and Alexandra had gone to sleep in a chair before the stove when he came back. He bent down and kissed her, and immediately she woke and they embraced.

‘Where have you been?' she said. He kissed her again, and she had to pull herself away. She looked up into his face and laughed.

‘Don't you want to eat first?'

‘No. Later. Stop talking, woman, and be still.'

Upstairs De Chavel stirred uneasily; someone had lit candles and opened the doors of the wood stove, so the room was light and warm, but he looked for Valentina and swore because she wasn't there. The reaction was so instinctive it horrified him when he thought of what the implications were. He depended upon her, he who had lived without asking anything but physical relief from a woman for so long; he was searching the corners for her, cursing and wretched because she had left him alone. He was sitting on the edge of the bed when she came in, and ran to him anxiously.

‘You shouldn't get up! Why didn't you call me?'

‘You're not a servant,' he said angrily. ‘There's a limit to anyone's charity!'

She stepped back from him, and he saw the pain in her face, and immediately he was ashamed of what he had done to her out of pride, and out of fear, the fear of needing her, of even losing himself and loving her. ‘Forgive me, Valentina,' he said quickly. ‘I'm an ungracious dog. I didn't mean that.'

‘I don't blame you,' she said. ‘I understand how you feel.'

‘Do you?' He looked up at her frowning. ‘Do you know what it means to owe so much to someone, and have nothing to give them in return?'

‘You can give me all I want,' she said. ‘Just let me love you and take care of you.' She knelt beside him and covered her face with her hands; she had not meant to weep but the tears flowed and nothing could stop them. She felt his hand on her hair, and his fingers gently touched her face.

‘I never believed a woman like you existed. I never believed there could be love of this kind. Dear heart, don't cry; I'm not worth one of your tears.'

She gazed up into his gaunt face. ‘You're worth everything in life to me. When I thought you were dead I didn't want to live. I'm not asking you to love me—I know you don't. Just let me love you, that's all I beg. That's enough for my happiness.'

‘You're so beautiful,' he said, ‘and so young. You're not meant for a cripple who can't even take you in his arms.'

‘Try,' she whispered. ‘Try and see, my love.'

She put her arms round his neck and pressed her kiss on his mouth; he felt her trembling and his manhood woke as it had always done whenever he touched her. Desire had never left him; it lurked in his dreams and drove him to the whores who tramped with the army, and it flared between them as they embraced and gave the strength of a steel band to his one arm as it closed around her.

The love-making which had begun at Murat's house and come so near conclusion at Czartatz reached its fulfilment in the shabby requisitioned house at Orcha, while he poured out his strength and his pride in the worship of her body. For Valentina the pattern of response and submission was followed by a climactic response which preceded the absolute fulfilment of mutual passion. It was so complete that they slept as they lay without making the instinctive separation that restores identity after the sexual fusion. He woke first, spent but triumphant, and made himself master of her mouth until she stirred under the growing stimulus.

‘I love you,' she whispered.

He bent and kissed her again, but without the symbolism of passion; his kiss was warm and gentle, and she met it equally.

‘I told you once I didn't love you, Valentina—do you remember?'

‘I remember.'

‘Well, my darling heart, I lied.'

Chapter 9

On the 22nd of November the Grand Armée left Orcha; the news had reached the Emperor that the Russians had captured his supply depot at Minsk, and his men were actually on the march when the final disaster became known. His escape route was cut off; the bridgehead across the Beresina at Borrisov had been attacked and totally destroyed. Ahead of the French the icy river stretched, barring the way into Poland, the Russian Tchitchagov was advancing from Borrisov, the Austrians had let the enemy Wittgenstein through, who was racing to join up at the bridgehead, and Kutuzov and his forces were pressing after them from behind. Napoleon ordered his papers to be burnt and his personal arms made ready, either for suicide or death in battle. Forty thousand men, without horses or guns, their pontoon train fired by the Emperor's orders, began the last stage of the most terrible retreat in military history.

Valentina and De Chavel, with Alexandra and the Major, started off in the rear, and for the first two days they travelled in the sledge; their pace slowed to the speed of the miserable marching thousands, who crawled in a black line across the dazzling wasteland of snow. At night they slept inside it, de Lamballe and Janos keeping watch over the horses. They were as thin as rails, but scores of hungry eyes had followed them since they left Orcha. On the third morning the inevitable happened. Valentina, asleep in De Chavel's embrace, woke to the sound of shots and a hoarse scream. The Major sprang out, followed by Alexandra, her pistol in her hand. When Valentina followed them the scene was indescribable.

Janos lay dead on the ground, and de Lamballe was wrestling with her sister for possession of the pistol. One of their horses was already down, and covered by human ants, hacking at the living animal. It's screams were no more horrible than the yells of greed and imprecation from the rest of the mob who were fighting to pull down the other rearing, terrified horse.

‘You filthy swine!' Alexandra was screaming. ‘You damned cannibals, leave my horses alone. By God I'll shoot them. Leave me alone, I'll kill them!'

Valentina ran to her and de Lamballe finally wrenched the pistol away from her and threw it to Valentina. ‘Take that for God's sake,' he panted. ‘If she fires at one of them they'll tear us to pieces!'

‘My horses!' Alexandra cried. ‘They're cutting them up alive …' She let Valentina take hold of her on one side and the Major on the other, weeping and protesting, swearing in Russian at the starving, murderous crowd. The smell of blood became suddenly overpowering; Valentina's head swam with sickness, and she forced herself back to the sledge. De Chavel, his face ashen, was waiting beside it, and she flew to him, hiding her eyes against his shoulder.

‘I'm going to faint. Oh, my God, my God—what a horror!'

‘It was bound to happen,' the Colonel said, and the Major nodded. ‘We've been watched ever since we set out. They're starving and they've walked a thousand miles in this hell. You can't blame them for this. It's a wonder they didn't kill us.'

‘Swine!' Alexandra spat violently; she was shaking and her black eyes blazed like coals. ‘Filthy dirty French swine!' She wrenched herself free of de Lamballe's restraining arm and leaning against the sledge she wept.