CÉLIE WOKE WITH A start, her head throbbing, her body hunched under the blankets. It was still dark outside, but that only meant that it was not yet seven. Amandine was leaning over her, a candle in her hand, her face pale with anxiety and lack of sleep, her soft hair a dark cloud around her head.
‘Célie, wake up! You’ve got to come and help me!’ Her voice was shaking with anger. ‘Bernave had St Felix out again all night! He’s just come in and he’s been beaten again, worse this time! Drunkards—Marat’s men—Marseillais, I don’t know. Get up and help me—please! He’s bleeding and he looks terrible. Sometimes I could kill Bernave!’
‘They’re going to execute the King,’ Célie mumbled, fighting off the remnants of sleep. She was so tired she felt drugged. Her throat was dry and the edges of her vision blurred.
Amandine’s voice dropped. ‘Yes, I know. St Felix told me. In three days.’
Célie sat up slowly. It was bitterly cold. There was no heating whatever in the room, and the air was like ice on her skin. At this hour probably no stoves had been lit anywhere in the house, except the kitchen. Amandine would have the stove going down there. Bernave’s household was one of the few that could afford to be warm, at least some of the time.
She pushed her hair out of her eyes, and reached for her clothes. She put them on with clumsy fingers fumbling over buttons.
Amandine looked dreadful. She was smaller and more rounded than Célie, her face more delicately boned. There were dark smudges under her eyes. She stood with her arms folded tight and her shoulders hunched.
Célie tied a brown woollen shawl over her blouse and rough, full skirt. It was a sort of peasant garb, and she hated it, but that was what everyone wore in these days of ostentatious equality. The shawl was for warmth, not decoration. She would have liked a pink one, or bright yellow, something daring and individual, not a revolutionary colour. But that would be foolhardy, even if she could have found one.
Amandine moved from one foot to the other impatiently. ‘Hurry, please! His clothes are torn and filthy, and there’s blood on them, and he can hardly speak. You know more about medicine than I do!’
That was true. When Célie’s father had died, and then her husband, leaving her with a two-month-old baby, she had had no choice but to seek the best employment she could find. It had been a stroke of good fortune that someone as extraordinary and talented as Madame de Staël had accepted her as lady’s maid. She had several children herself, and had taken compassion on a young mother alone. In Madame’s service Célie had naturally improved her skills in sewing, laundering, millinery, writing a neat and graceful letter, reading aloud, and seeing that a table was properly laid. She had on several occasions overheard some of the leading philosophers of the age talking into the night in Madame’s salon, before that sort of civilised conversation had become impossible.
And of course a little minor nursing and medicine was necessary. No one called a doctor unless there was absolutely no alternative, and surgery was needed. Certainly one went to hospital only if carried there unable to resist.
Amandine was at the door, impatient, and Célie followed her downstairs and into the kitchen where half a dozen candles were blazing and the warmth of the stove engulfed her the moment she entered.
St Felix was sitting slumped on one of the wooden chairs, his legs out in front of him, soft boots stained with mud and effluent from the gutters that ran down the centre of most of the smaller streets. His coat was torn at the top of the right sleeve, as if someone had tried to pull it off him by force, and there were dark stains of blood on it, as well as smears on his cheek. His fine-drawn, dreamer’s face was ashen pale and his eyes were closed, but from the rigidity of his body Célie could tell that he was obviously conscious.
Célie closed the door behind her to keep out any inquisitive Lacoste children who might be awake and think they could cadge some hot chocolate from Amandine, or any other titbit offered them. She went over to St Felix and regarded him closely.
He opened his eyes, which were wide, grey-green and clear as the sea.
He looked at her, keeping his arms folded across his chest, but she could not tell whether it was to hide a wound, or simply because he was cold.
‘Where are you hurt?’ she asked him firmly, as she would have a child. She was aware of Amandine behind her, watching and waiting. ‘Put the pan on,’ she ordered without looking round. ‘Make some hot chocolate.’
‘I’ve got wine—’
‘Chocolate’s better,’ Célie replied. ‘And get a little bread.’ She heard Amandine move to obey. She herself remained looking at St Felix. ‘Is that blood yours, or someone else’s?’ she asked.
He blinked and looked down at his sleeve with slight surprise. ‘Oh. Mostly someone else’s, I think. I’m all right, Célie.’ His voice was beautiful, perfectly modulated, even now when he was frightened and hurt. ‘Just a knife scar on that arm, not deep, and a few bruises.’
‘What happened?’ She knew he had been across the river all the way to the slums and tanneries of the Faubourg St-Antoine, where Bernave had sent him, but Amandine would not know, and that was better so.
He made a tiny, dismissive gesture with one hand, but when he answered his voice shook. ‘I ran into one of Marat’s mobs. They were celebrating the verdict on the King and were a bit drunk. No harm intended.’ His eyes betrayed the lie by omission. There was a fierce and terrible loneliness in him, as if he could tell no one the pain inside him.
‘You’d better take your coat off and let me see.’ Célie could not let the matter drop. He was beginning to shudder as the shock settled in him and she was not sure how much he might have bled or how deep the wound was. He might even have broken bones under the bruising.
‘It’s not ... serious ...’ he said between chattering teeth.
‘Oh good,’ she said sarcastically. ‘If I can’t be your doctor, then as laundress I’ll ask you please at least get those filthy clothes off before you get into bed, or it’ll take me a week to get the mud out of the sheets.’
The ghost of a smile lit his face for a moment, and slowly he obeyed, unfolding his arms and allowing her to unbutton and gently remove his coat. He winced and drew in his breath sharply as she tried to ease it off his shoulder and down over the bloody arm.
‘Sorry,’ she apologised without looking at him.
He allowed her to remove the coat, concentrating on getting it to slide down without turning his shoulder again. When it was off his shirt was exposed, soaked with blood from the forearm down to the hand, but the single wound was drying over. As far as she could see it was clean-edged, as if made by a butcher’s or tanner’s knife.
Amandine came over with a steaming mug of chocolate. It was thick and creamy. She had used the best ingredients, as Célie had known she would. Bernave himself would not get as much. In fact with Amandine’s feelings the way they were, he would be lucky to get anything that did not give him severe stomachache.
‘Put it on the table,’ Célie told her. ‘And get me hot water and a clean cloth.’
‘You can’t do this any more!’ Amandine turned to St Felix, her voice trembling. ‘He’s wicked to send you! You could have been killed! And for what? Another deal? A few more sous?’
‘He didn’t know this would happen,’ St Felix argued.
‘Rubbish!’ she snapped, her face crumpled with fury and distress, the shadows around her eyes dark as her hair. ‘Anyone with two wits to rub together would know there were going to be mobs around last night. Where did he send you, anyway? What was there that couldn’t wait until daylight?’
‘Get me the water!’ Célie ordered briskly. ‘You can argue about it later.’
‘Errands that are safer at night,’ St Felix replied, evading the issue.
‘Oh, yes!’ Amandine said witheringly, turning away to obey, although she already had water on to heat. ‘I’ve only to look at you to see how safe they are!’
‘It wasn’t a personal attack,’ he told her, ignoring Célie, who was now opening his shirt and looking carefully at the purpling bruises on his body to try to judge whether any ribs were broken. ‘Just exuberance and clumsiness,’ he went on. It was perfectly apparent that he had been struck hard several times, almost certainly knocked over and kicked and rolled.
Amandine’s disbelief was clear in her face as she returned with a bowl of water and set it on the table. Clear also was her pain for him as if it were her own body that had been injured.
‘It wasn’t meant that way,’ he insisted, his face softening as he looked at her distress. ‘I was just in the wrong place and they mistook my intention. They were drunk. Poor devils! They dreamed of so much for so long, and the realities are thin ... and bitter. They don’t understand, and it frightens them.’ His voice was tired but there was a sudden vibrancy of emotion in it, of pity and total belief. ‘It’s so easy to make mistakes when you’re frightened.’
Amandine’s eyes reflected her admiration for him, and her impatience for a gentleness that would defend even its own attackers.
‘Celebrating the King’s coming execution, no doubt,’ she said. ‘And wanting to beat anyone who looked like an aristocrat, however plainly dressed. Does it never occur to them that you can’t help your ancestors any more than they can help theirs?’
‘I very much doubt it,’ he answered, wincing again as Célie touched a red weal across his chest where a boot had landed. ‘Hate doesn’t rest on reason, Amandine.’ He spoke her name softly, as if the sound of it pleased him, breaking some tiny part of his loneliness. Célie did not need to turn and look to imagine the pleasure in her eyes as she heard it.
Célie left them and went back into the front room and up the stairs to fetch ointment and salve from her bedroom, and a mixture of restorative herbs she had kept with her from her days with Madame de Staël. She must clean the knife wound without making it bleed again. Somehow she must keep it closed, though she had no way of stitching or plastering it. She would have to bind it with linen. Fortunately the wound was in his arm and not in his chest. All the things she needed were locked in her cupboard, safe from the inquisitive eyes or fingers of the rest of the household.
It took her several minutes to go up and down two flights of stairs, creeping in the near dark, knowing every loose board. When she returned Amandine and St Felix were sitting opposite each other, leaning over the wooden table talking earnestly. He had his hands cupped around his mug—another hideous piece of revolutionary pottery—every now and then taking a sip. Amandine watched him, her face filled with a gentleness which transfigured her, giving a strength to her delicate features and lighting the beauty that was already there.
‘It was only dangerous by accident,’ he assured her again, looking down at the chocolate. ‘Mischance. If I had gone round the other way I wouldn’t have passed them, and then it wouldn’t have happened.’ He raised his eyes to hers. ‘You mustn’t blame Bernave.’ Now there was urgency in his voice and in the angle of his body, resting on one elbow, shoulders tight. It seemed to matter to him very much that she understood.
‘That doesn’t excuse him,’ she insisted, her face in the light filled with concern and fear.
Standing in the doorway Célie wondered if St Felix recognised it, or if his mind was so full of ideals he imagined she shared, and that her passion was impersonal, revolutionary visions for some perfect society. Dreamers such as he was could be blind to the ordinary, everyday feelings of others.
She came in and went to the stove, taking down a heavy iron pan from the rack to brew an infusion that would help restore his strength. Then she returned to him and carefully, painstakingly, cleaned as much as she could of the dried blood from the wound, put balm on it, and bound it up.
‘You must refuse to do this any more,’ Amandine said suddenly, her voice thick with emotion. ‘You don’t have to! Let Bernave carry his own messages.’
St Felix did not reply. Célie knew he did not dare trust Amandine with the knowledge that his actions were part of saving the King’s life. He would want to safeguard her. Or perhaps he had simply given his word to Bernave. Had he any idea how much Célie knew? Probably not. What would he think of Bernave trusting a laundress?
But why not? Weren’t these supposed to be the days of equality?
That was a new and enormous idea. To talk about it was one thing, to practise it quite another. Anyway, equality between all men, between aristocrat and labourer, academician and illiterate, was still quite a different thing from equality between a man and his wife, let alone his maid. There had been a few white-hot arguments about that already. Célie had seen pamphlets and posters on the subject in the streets. There was one woman called Claire Lacombe, who had caused a great stir demanding rights, and some Dutch woman, Etta something, had as well. One day when there was time she would learn more about that! Madame de Staël would have approved.
The water was boiling. She took it off the stove and poured it over the mixed leaves, waiting while it steeped.
Amandine was still smouldering on about Bernave as she left the table and began to prepare breakfast for everyone, cutting bread and cheese and banging the chocolate tin to try to get out every last bit of the powder. Sometimes the whole household ate together; it was more economic, particularly with fuel.
St Felix looked at Amandine, his face sombre. ‘I am doing what I have to, what I believe to be right,’ he said grimly, his voice soft, closed off within himself.
The discussion was over. He had withdrawn into that inaccessible region where his dreams lay, and his pain.
Célie understood that he believed the same as Bernave, that he saw beyond Paris to Europe and the world, and knew the danger of war, invasion, even the possibility of defeat. He also knew he could not explain that to Amandine or anyone else who believed in the revolution, who wanted and needed to. And perhaps he was afraid of the power of her feelings. He would try to protect her from herself, and her anger against Bernave.
But Célie did not understand why he accepted the worst tasks so meekly, or why Bernave gave them all to him, instead of doing some himself. There was a cruelty in it that confused her. It was so unlike everything she knew of either man. Bernave was full of intelligence and power, smooth-boned, his grey hair lean to his head. He read voraciously, and there was always humour just behind his words, as if he knew some cosmic joke that he could share with no one else.
St Felix was a little taller, slighter of build. His face had an elusive beauty to it, as if he had seen a great vision and was on an eternal quest to find its reality. He would be incomplete until he did, and open to pain. She imagined him in the dark alleys of the Faubourg St-Antoine where the abattoirs of the tanneries were, coming round a corner and without warning running into the mob, drunken, hysterical with the taste of blood—a king’s blood. They would have no thought for what they were doing, only hatred, and the thrilling, surging knowledge of their own power. They held Paris in their hands, and they could do anything they wanted. No law could touch them. God was gone, the Church was gone ... who was there to deny them anything at all?
She strained the brew off the leaves into a cup and handed it to St Felix.
‘That will make you feel better,’ she promised. ‘You should sleep for an hour or two at least.’
‘Until noon,’ Amandine corrected her, stirring the chocolate powder into a paste with the last of the milk.
St Felix drank down Célie’s brew steadily, only flaring his nostrils very slightly at the smell, and then replaced the empty cup on the table. ‘There’ll be things to do before then,’ he answered, standing up slowly, and wincing as the movement caused the fabric of his shirt to touch his wounds. He looked at Célie. ‘Thank you. You are very kind.’ He smiled at her, then at Amandine, and walked stiffly out of the kitchen towards his room, his footsteps uneven on the stone floor.
Célie turned to clear away the ointment and dishes she had been using.
Amandine’s soft mouth thinned with loathing. ‘Bernave does it because it amuses him,’ she said between her teeth. ‘He likes the taste of power, to see if St Felix will obey him! Give him a little strength over someone, and he uses it to satisfy his cruelty. He’s like the worst of the revolutionaries, and just as tyrannical as any king!’
‘Be quiet!’ Célie snapped, afraid for Amandine above any concern for St Felix. ‘Haven’t you the wits you were born with?’
It needed no explanation. Amandine stared at her, eyes wide, lips tight. ‘It’s true,’ she repeated fiercely, but this time in a whisper.
Célie put her hand on Amandine’s arm. ‘So are a lot of things that are better not said.’
As if to emphasise her words, the door was pushed open and Marie-Jeanne Lacoste stood in the entrance, a candle in one hand, and holding her baby, wrapped in a cot quilt against her shoulder with the other. She was Bernave’s daughter, but she had little of his suffering in her face, and none of his sharp, probing nature. She looked tired and confused now, and more than her twenty-three years. Her brown hair straggled across her brow and her eyes were full of fear. She was used to broken nights. She had three small children. It was a constant battle to keep them fed, clothed and as safe as possible in these violent and uncertain times. No one could plan for a future with any idea of what it would be, except more cold and more shortages.
‘Has anyone heard if they are going to kill the King?’ she asked, looking from Célie to Amandine and back again. She had no idea Célie had been to the Convention; she was merely asking for news anyone up early might have heard on the doorstep.
‘Yes,’ Célie answered quietly. ‘They are. In three days.’
‘Fernand said they would.’ Marie-Jeanne was referring to her husband. She held the sleeping baby a little closer to her as she came over to the table. ‘He’ll be pleased. He was afraid they would lose their nerve.’
‘Marat wouldn’t let them,’ Célie said cuttingly, putting the last of the dishes over on the bench. They would be washed together with those from breakfast, when there was more water heated.
The meaning was lost on Marie-Jeanne. ‘Fernand is sure he’ll be the saviour of Europe yet,’ she answered, folding the quilt into a place for the baby on the floor near the hearth. ‘I wish he wouldn’t keep saying it in front of my father.’ She spoke the word with almost no emotion, as if it were a mere title, not a relationship. ‘Of course Papa Lacoste agrees,’ she went on, a strange mixture of respect and dislike filling her expression.
‘You should warn him to be careful,’ Amandine responded, returning her attention to the chocolate. ‘Citizen Bernave may have different feelings. These days it’s best to be discreet.’
‘That’s what I keep saying,’ Marie-Jeanne nodded, putting the baby down gently, smiling at her and tickling her very gently until she gurgled. Then she rose to her feet and began to set the table with new revolutionary crockery, with its painted political symbols: ancient Roman faces; red, white and blue cockles; a cannon with a crowing cockerel on top. If she thought they were ugly or absurd she was too tactful to say so.
She saw the extra candle Célie had lit to see St Felix’s arm more clearly and, realising it was unnecessary, pinched it out. She was a frugal housewife. Perhaps Fernand did not realise what a blessing he had in her. She was good-natured, energetic, and she could make acceptable meals for the whole family out of vegetables and herbs, and each time they would be a little different.
She had no interest whatever in politics, but in the kitchen she had style, flair and ingenuity, even a kind of inventiveness which could be called wit. Like many ordinary women all over France, her family was what mattered to her. What they did in the Palace of Versailles, in the hall of the Convention, or in the Place de la Révolution where the guillotine stood stark, were of importance to her only as it reflected upon her home here in the Boulevard St-Germain.
Célie had often wondered if she were also like most women in having a religious belief. It went hand in hand with the ordinary decencies of so much of family life. She would not dare to mention it in front of her husband or father-in-law, but Bernave would not have objected. But then perhaps Marie-Jeanne did not know that. Maybe only Célie had seen the old, well-fingered breviary inside his desk, and noticed that he never took the name of the deity lightly or in vain.
‘It will all be over in a few days.’ Amandine smiled bleakly at Marie-Jeanne. ‘Then we can begin to get back to normal.’
‘We can’t go “back” to anything,’ Célie contradicted her. ‘We can only go forward to whatever happens when we’ve no Church and no king.’
Amandine shot her a look of warning.
Marie-Jeanne turned to Célie, her china-blue eyes widening a little with surprise. ‘Don’t you think it’ll be better?’
Célie realised how easily her tongue had run away with her. She must be more careful. Without meaning any harm, Marie-Jeanne could repeat her words.
There was a heavy tread on the floor outside in the next room, and a moment later Monsieur Lacoste opened the door. He was a man of few words, his emotion contained within himself. He was in his early fifties and the scars of life were deeply imprinted on his bony face. Self-pity was unknown to him, but anger lay close beneath the thin surface of his patience. What pain or injustices he had seen were hidden in his memory and he shared them with no one. He was dressed in dark brown breeches, a faded shirt and leather jerkin, ready for work.
‘What are you all doing up so early?’ he demanded. ‘Has something happened? Is there news?’
‘Only what was expected, Papa,’ Marie-Jeanne replied, shaking her head a little. ‘They are going to send the King to the guillotine.’
‘Of course they are!’ he retorted, shrugging sharply. ‘Did anyone imagine differently? Anyway, how do you know? Who said so?’
‘Célie,’ she answered.
He swung around and his glance fell on the sleeping baby. The anger disappeared from him. ‘And how do you know?’ he asked.
‘I was out,’ Célie explained. She could not tell him the truth. ‘I heard them talking in the street.’
His eyes narrowed, fear returning. ‘What were you out for at this time of the morning? It’s too early for bread!’
‘An errand for Citizen Bernave last night,’ she replied, keeping her voice natural. She must not seem to resent the question.
‘I don’t know why he can’t do his business during the daytime, like anyone else!’ he said tartly, turning away from her towards the table. ‘You shouldn’t be sent out at all hours. It isn’t right. Anything could happen to you.’ He wanted to say something more but he did not know what.
‘Nobody should!’ Amandine said with ill-concealed anger.
Monsieur Lacoste forgot the subject and directed his attention back to the news. ‘So Marat won at last.’ There was a faint curl to his lips, but in the candlelight it was impossible to tell if it was satisfaction or not.
No one answered him. Célie recalled the change in fortunes of one leader after another, and how they had pinned their hopes on each in turn. First had been Necker and Mirabeau, who had had such great dreams of order and financial stability, and failed; then Lafayette, whose words were filled with glory and liberty, and who last August had defected to the Austrians. Now Brissot and the Girondins were in power, once her father’s idols, but it was only nominally. They were full of great words, oratory to rival that of Cicero and the ancient Romans—or at least they imagined it did—and internecine quarrels to match. They had been so preoccupied with jostling for position among themselves, they had allowed Marat to overtake them all.
Madame Lacoste came in silently. She was a slender woman, of no more than average height. Her features were striking; straight nose, level brows and deep-set eyes almost black. It was a face of passion and strength, and in a few sudden and startling moments, also of vulnerability. Célie knew very little about her; she seldom talked of herself, or where she had grown up, far more often it was of beliefs. But unlike her husband or son, these were not political but moral matters of right and wrong, questions of human love, honour and dishonour. She had no patience with the concepts of virtue by dictate of law in society as preached by Robespierre. Célie hoped she would have the sense of self-preservation not to say so. She had at least been careful enough not to mention the name of God!
‘I suppose the verdict is in?’ Madame asked, looking from one of them to another, then at the set table. Her lips tightened. ‘I don’t know what else you expected? They could hardly retreat now, could they? The very most would be to prevaricate, and then do it a week or a month later—as if that made any difference! It would not be a mercy, just the usual inability to make a decision. Is that chocolate ready yet, Amandine?’
‘They could have lost their nerve,’ Lacoste argued. ‘Settled for keeping him in prison.’
Her face, dark-shadowed in the uncertain light, was full of scorn. ‘It would take far more nerve to tell the people they couldn’t go through with killing the King than it would to make the final gesture and condemn him,’ she said tersely. ‘They’ve gone much too far to turn back now’
‘You don’t understand politics.’ He moved away. ‘It has a force of its own.’
‘It’s people,’ she replied, as Amandine poured the chocolate into a jug and brought it to the table. ‘They don’t change on the inside just because they stand up in a pulpit or on a rostrum.’
He swivelled back towards her. ‘Don’t talk of politics as if it were the Church! These men aren’t risking their lives to free the people in order to get themselves a safe living for the rest of their days, and then a soft seat in heaven!’
‘Even they aren’t daft enough for that,’ she said witheringly, picking up the jug and filling the cups. ‘When they’ve just murdered half the priests in France!’
‘Suzanne! Keep a still tongue in your head!’ he warned moving a little closer to her, and raising his arm in an odd little gesture that was half angry, half protective. It hovered over her shoulder for a minute as if he would touch her, then moved away. ‘Whatever you think, the revolution is a fact! Don’t talk about what you don’t understand.’
‘Are you afraid I’m going to praise the Church?’ she said with disgust. ‘Don’t worry, I thought they were just as corrupt as you did—maybe more.’
He looked a trifle surprised, but relieved also.
‘You never said ...’
‘It’s not political,’ she answered with a smile, but inward, as if only she knew the joke. ‘Sit down and eat.’
‘It’s over!’ Lacoste pronounced with a sudden change to enthusiasm. His eyes lingered on the baby again for a moment. ‘This is the beginning of a new age,’ he said softly. ‘In a few days France will be a republic! The people will rule!’ He smiled across at Marie-Jeanne, his whole countenance startlingly different. ‘No more need to be afraid! Your children will grow up free, able to do whatever they want, be anything.’ He gestured expansively with his hands, still standing up. ‘No more closed professions that only the aristocracy can join, no more refusal of promotions in the army because your family hasn’t a coat of arms! As if that had anything to do with courage or the skill to fight!’ His eyes were bright and gentle. ‘Education for everyone! Justice in the courts! Freedom to say or believe anything you want! No more Church bleeding us dry. This is a great day!’
He glanced at Amandine. ‘Fetch a bottle of the best wine we’ve got left, and we’ll have a drink to the future. Call Fernand. We’ll drink to the rule of the people.’
Amandine moved to obey and they waited in silence around the table until she returned. Fernand came in close behind her.
‘Perhaps we should get my father?’ Marie-Jeanne suggested half reluctantly. ‘And Citizen St Felix?’
‘He’s gone to bed,’ Amandine replied, tight-lipped. ‘He was out all night, and came back hurt again—this time badly.’
‘Bernave!’ Lacoste said with disgust, sitting down at last, followed by the others. He glanced across at the window to the street. ‘It rained most of the night. Where on earth could he have gone that couldn’t have waited?’
‘Ask Bernave.’ Amandine spat the name. ‘I don’t know what for.’
‘Is he going to be all right?’ Madame asked, passing the bread round and cutting the cheese carefully.
‘It’ll heal,’ Célie answered, ‘if it gets the chance.’
Lacoste took the bottle from her, and Madame opened the cupboard and placed six glasses on the table for him. He poured the wine and passed the glasses round. The hot chocolate could wait. ‘To the rule of the people ... at last!’ he said with a smile.
‘To the rule of the people,’ they all echoed, each one with a different inflexion, and assuredly with different thoughts. Madame’s face was unreadable. Monsieur held his glass high.
Late in the morning Bernave sent for Célie again. As usual he was sitting at his desk. The polished wooden surface was littered with papers, wax, sand and two jars of ink. Three different quills lay about. The penknife was open and nib shavings were scattered on a sheet now marked with splatters of ink.
In the grey daylight Bernave looked haggard. There was a pallor to his skin. The lines from his nose to mouth were deeply etched and there was grey stubble on his jaw. But in spite of exhaustion his eyes were clear and hard when they met hers, and there was no weakness in him, no indecision.
‘I have messages for you to take,’ he said, studying her carefully, weighing his judgement of her. ‘I can put little on paper, in case you are caught and searched. You must memorise most of it. Can you do that?’
‘Yes,’ she answered immediately, but it was out of defiance rather than any inner certainty. There was nowhere to go but forward, and she would not let Bernave see any doubt in her.
He was regarding her now with wry humour, as if he were conscious of the incongruity of the situation: the wealthy middle-aged merchant sharing a desperate secret with his laundress, which could save France, or get them both killed. Here in this room with its shelves of books containing the thoughts and dreams of men down the ages, success did not seem impossible. There was something within Bernave, a power of faith he seemed able to call on, which when she was with him, she could grasp as well. She thought of the books on religion in amongst the other philosophies. Were they so precious he could not part with them? Or had he simply forgotten they were there?
‘Find Citizen Bressard,’ he said so quietly she had to concentrate to hear him. ‘He is the manager of my office on the Quai Voltaire. Ask him to let you speak to Citizen Bombec, Citizen Chimay, and Citizen Virieu.’
She started to protest, then the words died on her lips. She could not let him see she was afraid.
‘Are you listening to me, Célie?’ he said sharply. ‘Repeat the names!’
‘Citizen Bombec, Citizen Chimay and Citizen Virieu,’ she obeyed.
Bernave nodded almost imperceptibly. ‘Tell each of them that we will act as planned—no more than that. Trust no one, not Bressard. A word in the wrong place ...’ He did not bother to complete the sentence.
‘Are they coach drivers?’ she asked. ‘What about getting out of the city? They will need passes ... more than ever that day.’
He looked at her curiously, aware of her intelligence and perhaps even more of her feelings. She had caught the vision of the disaster which threatened them all, and she cared. An appreciation of that flickered in his eyes. There was something which might even have been respect, and it mattered to her more than she wanted to admit. It was uncomfortable to care what he thought of her. It restricted the anger she wanted to let free.
‘Yes, they will need passes,’ he replied coolly. ‘St Felix will attend to them. It’s not your concern.’
She accepted the paper but stood her ground. ‘Is it dangerous again ... getting the passes?’ she asked him. ‘He was hurt last night. He could have been killed!’
Bernave’s expression was impossible to read. ‘Life is dangerous, Célie. We all take risks for what we want. Go and deliver my messages.’
It was dismissal, and she dared not press him any further, but she was perfectly sure he was sending St Felix into another situation in which he might well be injured again, or worse. She did not understand why St Felix accepted the situation. Bernave could perfectly well have carried many of the messages himself, and yet St Felix never seemed to rebel, or even to question. Such meekness was beyond her understanding. She could not decide whether it was nobility or cowardice.
‘What is it?’ Bernave asked as she remained standing.
‘The man who will take the King’s place?’ she said quietly, thinking of someone prepared to be murdered by an enraged crowd when they discovered him. What passion of loyalty drove a man to sacrifice his life in such a way? Was it love of the King, the idea of monarchy, or a terrible vision of France as it could become? She had no idea. Bernave had told her nothing of him, except that he existed.
The shadow of a smile touched Bernave’s mouth. He laced his fingers together in front of him. His hands were beautiful, in spite of the scars.
‘I told you, Célie, sometimes one has to pay a great price for what one wants. Sometimes what he will pay is a better measure of a man than what it is he is paying for.’
‘A royalist?’ She tried to imagine him, a man who could love a myth, a figurehead so intensely, even above life.
Bernave’s eyes were gentle. There was a kind of love in him she had not seen before. It made him almost beautiful. ‘Yes ... but more than that, a Frenchman,’ he said softly.
There was no answer she could give. It was complete and final. She had no right to intrude.
‘What else?’ he asked as still she did not move.
She took a deep breath. ‘I need some money,’ she replied.
His eyes narrowed, the fight dying from them. ‘What for?’
‘Food.’
Understanding flooded his face, and a swift amusement which made her blush. ‘Ah ... for Coigny. Of course.’ He opened a drawer without the slightest disguise of what he was doing, and she noticed with surprise that it had not been locked. He took out a handful of coins and gave them to her, then closed the drawer again. He had never bothered with the paper assignats of the early revolution, which had proved worthless within a short space of time.
‘Thank you.’ She pocketed the money and turned to leave.
‘Be careful, Célie!’ he said again, but this time sharply. ‘Say nothing, however you may be provoked! Ask no questions and give no opinions. You are a laundress. You have no thoughts! Do you hear me?’
‘Yes, Citizen,’ she answered sarcastically. ‘Liberty, Brotherhood and Equality!’ And she went out of the door and closed it without waiting for his response.
Célie hurried through the grey, wind-scoured streets. It was not far—less than a mile—but time enough to get thoroughly cold, and to see other women with their heads down, carrying half-empty baskets after the morning’s struggle for food.
A wagon trundled past with firewood, covered over, to keep it from getting wet. She passed a group of National Guards, their uniforms ragged, but the red, white and blue cockades in their hats still brave. Most of them had muskets, a few only swords or pikes. Her hand went automatically to her shoulder, to make sure her own cockade was safely pinned. It was illegal to be without it.
‘Run, Citizeness!’ one of the men yelled cheerfully after her. ‘Home to your fire!’
The others laughed.
She would like to have pointed out to them how few people had fires these days, but it was a stupid thing to draw attention, especially by arguing.
‘Thank you, Citizen,’ she called back. ‘Keep the streets safe for us!’ Hypocrite, she thought to herself afterwards.
A copy of last week’s Père Duchesne blew across the pavement into the gutter. There was a crude drawing on the front, and the usual masthead silhouette of the comfortable old man with his big nose, and the pipe in his mouth.
Further up the street there was a loud argument, two women in browns and greys fighting over a loaf of bread. Half a dozen others stood by, faces sullen and frightened. Célie knew why. She had felt the same frisson of panic run through her when she had arrived at the end of the baker’s queue too late and had had to return home empty-handed and hungry. It was happening more often. It was a long time till harvest. Where was all the grain?
‘You got bread!’ someone shouted, voice sharp and accusing.
‘Liar!’ came back the answer. ‘I got nothing ... jus’ like you! Jus’ like all of us!’
‘Not like all of us ... some got bread, an’ onions, an’ cheese!’ another said, her face twisted with hatred.
‘Yeah? Who? Tell the Commune! Hoarding’s a crime.’
The woman gave her a filthy look. ‘If I knew who, I’d kill ’er meself! They’re murderers o’ the rest of us ... that’s what they are!’
The woman with a loaf of bread was enraged. ‘Who are you calling murderer, yer ol’ bag? I got me loaf, same as you, an’ six kids ter feed! An’ my man’s up fighting the Austrians, God help him!’ She spat on the cobbles, completely unaware of having called on a deity who officially no longer existed. ‘Go an’ look at some o’ them rich bastards up St-Germain! They got plenty, I ’eard!’
A few yards along the street a National Guardsman swung a musket round threateningly and loosed a shot off into the air.
The women grumbled and started to move away.
Célie turned towards the Quai Voltaire and increased her pace.