Hélène had her breakfast in bed the next morning and asked Annette to stay with her while she ate. In fact she hardly ate anything, simply drank some coffee and picked at a warm pastry Madame Paquet had sent up in the hope of tempting her appetite, but after one mouthful she pushed it away.
‘I can’t,’ she said listlessly. ‘I can’t eat.’
‘You can’t not,’ Annette said in a rallying voice. ‘You have to keep up your strength for tonight if we’re to put our plan into action. And after your nightmare last night, we really have to get you away.’
‘It was only a dream,’ Hélène answered. ‘I used to get them when I was younger.’
‘I know, you used to wake us up with your screams at St Luke’s!’
‘Did I? I’d forgotten.’ She sighed. ‘I can’t remember when I last had one, but it was exactly the same dream.’ And she described it to Annette.
Annette shuddered. ‘Well, we know what caused it last night, don’t we? Listen, Hélène, you’ve always had the courage of a lion. Don’t give in now. You’ve still got one chance.’
‘Running away is the coward’s way out,’ murmured Hélène.
‘And staying is the fool’s,’ Annette assured her. ‘We’ve got it all planned. All we have to do is creep out during the night and get to the station in time to catch the first train to Paris. Once we’re there, even if he does come looking he’ll never find us. We shall be swallowed up by the city.’
‘But we’ve nowhere to go,’ sighed Hélène. ‘It’s no good.’
‘Well, that’s where you’re wrong,’ Annette said. ‘We have got somewhere to go.’
‘Where?’
‘It’s not my secret,’ Annette told her, ‘but I can promise you, Simon Barnier will not find us.’ She noticed a gleam of interest, or possibly hope, in Hélène’s eye and went on, ‘While you’re all at dinner, I’ll pack a bag for you. We can’t take much, as we have to carry our own luggage, but enough to keep us going for a few weeks.’
‘And what happens after that?’
‘We stay safely away until we hear that he’s given up looking and gone back to Gavrineau. Then we can return to Belair, or perhaps go back and live in the Avenue Ste Anne for a while until all the furore dies down.’ She reached and grasped Hélène’s hands in hers. They were like ice and she began rubbing them gently between her own, encouraging the blood to return to them. ‘Tonight, when everyone has gone to bed, I’ll come and fetch you and we’ll leave the house through the kitchen and the stable yard. Pierre will be waiting for us outside by the field gate and he’ll carry the bags to the station for us. We can do it, Hélène, and then you’ll be safe.’
‘I don’t know…’ Hélène still hesitated.
‘Well, you’ve got until tonight to decide,’ Annette said. ‘I will have everything ready, and you can decide, but tomorrow will be too late!’
The day passed very slowly, the hours dragging through a grey morning and a wet and chilly winter afternoon. At times Hélène made up her mind that she would go to Paris, and at others that she dare not.
‘We must pray for fine weather tomorrow,’ her mother said as they sat together by the fire in her parlour. ‘It’ll be cold, but with luck the sun may break through.’ Her mother took her hand and gave it a squeeze. ‘Happy the bride that the sun shines on!’ Hélène managed a faint smile and wondered how she could possibly creep out into the night and leave her mother to face the wrath of Simon Barnier… because she knew without doubt that there would be wrath and her mother would bear the brunt of it. She came closer then to confiding in her mother than at any other time; not the escape plan but that she might, at the last minute, refuse to marry Simon.
‘Maman…’ she began, but at that moment Lizette came into the parlour to make up the fire, and when she had gone, the moment had gone also. Hélène realised that she either slipped away in the night, or she married Simon Barnier in the morning.
Simon had been invited to dinner that evening and he arrived in high good humour, his manners well-bred and charming, his conversation light and entertaining. They did not stand on ceremony but ate as a family round the dinner table. Louise sat opposite Simon and thought as she watched the candlelight dance in his eyes what a lucky girl Hélène was to be marrying such a handsome, beguiling man. By this time tomorrow both her sisters would be married women, with a status in society that she had yet to attain. Louise sighed and wished that Simon had a brother.
At the end of the evening Simon took his leave and the family wished him goodnight. He and Hélène were allowed to walk out into the hall for a chaste farewell kiss. As Simon raised her hand to his lips, he murmured, ‘Ah, my Hélène! Tomorrow you’ll be mine and you’ll learn what it means to be married!’ He looked down into her frightened eyes as he squeezed her hand a little more tightly and added, ‘And tomorrow there’ll be no more screams!’
As the door closed behind him she realised that his final words had made her decision for her. He was right. Tomorrow there would be no more screams. Tomorrow she would not be here. Tomorrow she would be on her way to Paris before they’d even realised she’d gone.
Annette was waiting for her in the bedroom, and as soon as she’d shut the door, Hélène turned to her and said, ‘I’ll go.’