The cold was bitter. Biting wind swept across the grey-green fields under a leaden sky which promised more snow. Patches of earlier snow still lingered in the hedgerows and sheltered hollows by the wayside, and icy puddles crunched and cracked under the horses’ hooves and carriage wheels. The road, such as it was, was ridged, rutted and iron hard. Furrows of frozen mud, which on a warmer day might have clutched at the carriage wheels, bogging them down, remained unyielding, so that every turn of those wheels jarred the occupants of the carriage, shaking them mercilessly despite the most modern of springing, until their heads ached and their teeth rattled and every inch of their bodies felt bruised and battered.
Eleven-year-old Hélène St Clair huddled against her mother trying to keep warm, for despite the fur-lined travelling cloaks and rugs, the piercing cold penetrated the jolting carriage and chilled her to the core. When would the journey be over? When could she escape the freezing, rattling carriage and feel warmth seep back through her body? The blinds were drawn down to help keep out the cold, so Hélène could not even watch from the window to pass the time. She longed to ask, ‘How much longer, Maman?’ but she did not speak. It was no use asking, her mother did not know. The journey from St Etienne usually took two days in the carriage, but they had already spent three on the road and in such conditions, with the horses struggling through the wind, who knew how much longer it would take? How cold Papa must be, thought Hélène, and wondered why he chose to ride outside the carriage instead of travelling more comfortably inside as he usually did. She turned to ask her mother, but as she glanced up at her, she saw in the dim grey light which filtered through the blinds that Maman’s eyes were closed, her face drawn and pinched with cold and fatigue. Even as Hélène looked, the carriage jarred violently on a stone. Rosalie St Clair’s eyes flew open in alarm, and her arms tightened round the fur-cocooned child on her lap, Hélène’s younger sister Louise. Louise shifted uneasily in her sleep, but did not waken. The carriage jolted on its way and Madame St Clair smiled reassuringly over Louise’s head at her other two daughters. Clarice, Hélène’s senior by three years, shivered and drawing her hood more closely round her face, said petulantly, ‘How much further, Maman? Aren’t we nearly there?’
Madame St Clair lifted the blind a little and looked out through the window. The bleak countryside had given way to a scattering of houses as they approached a village, and as they turned into the main square the coach drew to a halt.
‘There,’ said the fifth occupant of the carriage who was huddled in a corner beside Clarice. ‘We have arrived.’
Marie-Jeanne, the children’s nurse, peered out from her enfolding blankets, her face lined and old but her eyes as bright as black buttons. Marie-Jeanne was nearly as dear to Hélène as Maman. Her comfortable face, so familiar and unchanging, always reassured the child, and in times of uncertainty or distress her arms were always warm and sure.
‘I’m afraid not, Marie-Jeanne,’ replied Madame St Clair. ‘We’re at an inn. Still, we should be able to get warm and have something to eat, which will make us all feel better.’ Gently she woke the sleeping Louise, who complained miserably at being disturbed.
The carriage door swung open and Emile St Clair looked inside. He glared at Louise who was still moaning and immediately the child was silent.
‘We’ll stop here for a meal and then move on,’ he said to his wife. ‘I want to be in Paris tonight.’
His family disentangled themselves from their rugs and clambered down from the coach. The bitter wind made them gasp and Marie-Jeanne shepherded them hastily across the cobbled yard into the shelter of the inn. Monsieur St Clair engaged a private sitting room on the first floor and as they crowded into it his daughters cried with delight at the sight of the roaring fire which had been kindled in the grate. Cloaks and muffs were discarded and they clustered round the fire, stretching their frozen fingers to the heat. Hélène sat down on a tuffet by the hearth to bring her nearer to the flames, and extending her feet towards the blaze felt a delicious though painful prickling as the numbness left her toes and warmth crept back into her body.
‘We can’t stay long,’ her father warned them as he found them thus grouped round the fireplace a moment later. ‘It may snow again and we don’t want to travel far in a snowstorm. We could really run into trouble then.’
Madame St Clair thought privately that if it were about to snow again, it would be far better for them to stay at the inn overnight than hurrying onwards with no idea of what they might find at the end of their journey. Suppose the house was no longer there? After all, Paris had been bombarded. This fear had nagged her ever since they had set out from St Etienne. The world had changed irrevocably since they were last at home in Paris, and she wished Emile had waited for answers to the letters he had sent before removing the family from the comparative safety of their country house. She had said as much to him, but he had remained adamant in his determination to return.
When they had left the capital for St Etienne in early July last year, it was merely to escape the summer heat in the dirty city. Even in the more fashionable quarters, like Passy where they lived, the smell could become oppressive in August. They had expected to return in September as usual and their house was left in readiness, with Gilbert and Margot, the butler and his wife, staying to look after it. But events had overtaken them. The declaration of war against Prussia a few days later, followed by the dramatic advance of the Prussian troops and humiliating defeats of the French armies sent to halt them, had kept the family in the safety of their country home. When Paris was besieged, entirely encircled by German troops, Rosalie and Emile St Clair thanked God they had taken their annual trip to the country as always and thus escaped the horrors of being trapped in Paris. Rumours flew through the countryside; Parisians were dying like flies from starvation and disease, and the city’s defenders, after abortive attempts at a sortie, could do little but tighten their belts and wait for relief from outside. That relief never came. The French armies had surrendered, leaving Paris to fend for herself, and the disgrace of those surrenders weighed heavily. Rosalie and Emile felt it as much as any. Their two sons were both with the army and had been, as far as their parents knew, in the disastrous battle at Sedan when Emperor Napoleon himself had been taken prisoner, but since then they had heard nothing. They did not even know for sure that Georges and Marcel were alive.
Fear for the safety of her sons was another thing that haunted Rosalie. It was with her day and night like a nagging pain and though she knew Emile was afraid for them too, emotion seldom showed on his face. He never shared his fears with his wife and so she lacked the comfort he might have given her. Emile was a good husband and father, but his feelings for his family were never revealed; he would have considered that weakness, and so the children gave him respect rather than affection. Rosalie had loved him and still did, but when he made it clear that he considered displays of that love unbecoming, she had lavished her affection on her children and received theirs in return. The days after the surrender of the army at Metz and Sedan had turned into weeks and then months and there was still no word from either son. Thousands had been killed, thousands more taken prisoner, and Rosalie, with no news of her sons, ached for them both.
At last the siege was ended and the armistice was agreed. Emile St Clair was eager to return to Paris. He was a man who hated inactivity and the normal family holiday of two months in the country always tried him to the limit. When the quiet life there threatened to engulf him, he would visit Paris for a few days, leaving the family to enjoy St Etienne without him. Because of the war, the two months had elongated to almost eight and had kept him in a fury of frustration. Like a caged lion he paced the house and garden, longing to return to his beloved Paris and his all-consuming work, the rebuilding of that city.
Louis Napoleon had had great plans for the city and had cleared the ground, pulling down cluttered housing and slum tenements to clear the way for wide, tree-lined boulevards and gracious buildings. This meant that though some slums were cleared away there was greater crowding in those that remained, but for Emile St Clair, architect, it meant that he was more than fully employed. He designed with simple grandeur and though none of the major public buildings were his, the new comfort of apartments and houses spreading at the western end of Paris owed much to him. As a consequence, he and his family were soon well established in a tall, grey stone house in a quiet avenue, Avenue Ste Anne, in the Passy district, while retaining several properties in Montmartre which added to his income if not his prestige.
He was thankful that his family had not had to suffer the dangers and privations of existence in a besieged city, but now there was peace, Emile lost no time in arranging his return. He had written to the housekeeper to announce the family’s arrival and to his office to announce his own. Although the war was over, the country was not free from German occupation.
‘I have decided we must all go back to Paris,’ he told Rosalie. ‘I cannot possibly stay away longer and neither can I leave you and the girls unprotected at St Etienne. With Prussian soldiers on the loose in the countryside, it is far too dangerous; you will all be safer in Paris.’ He spoke with conviction, believing himself to be right in the matter; Rosalie had not been so certain, but having made a small protest which he swept aside, she accepted his decision. Her place was at his side and the family should not be divided in such uncertain times. She longed for news of Georges and Marcel, and it was the thought that she was more likely to hear of them in the city than buried in the country that went a long way to resigning her to their return to Paris.
Emile had ridden alone to the headquarters of the German Army corps whose troops barred the way from St Etienne and requested permission to remove his family back to Paris.
He had been treated with stiff courtesy by Major Schaffer, to whom he had made his application. The major had pointed out that many Parisians such as himself were making every effort to leave Paris now the siege had been raised. Emile was undeterred, even when the major had gone on to discuss the dangers of such a journey from the comparative safety of the country to the war-torn capital – particularly as the railways had not resumed normal operations and they would have to travel by road – but at last Major Schaffer had shrugged his shoulders and signed the necessary paper.
Emile had ridden home triumphantly with it in his pocket.
‘It’s all arranged,’ he cried when he returned. ‘We leave for Paris in two days.’ But as the carriage swayed out of the gates at St Etienne and security and comfort were left behind, Rosalie could not restrain a sigh for what she was leaving, nor repress the creeping fear that all would not be well in Paris when they arrived there. Now she was only a few miles from the city and she longed to put off the moment of truth.
‘Don’t you think, my dear, that if it is going to snow again, it would be as well to spend the night here?’ she ventured as she glanced anxiously out of the inn window at the louring sky. ‘If we should get caught in a snowstorm we might all freeze to death.’
Her husband’s lips tightened into a straight line. He pulled his gold-rimmed glasses from his pocket, set them on his nose and looked coldly at his wife above their rims. It was a habit he had when he felt his authority questioned, and when faced with this bleak expression, his wife seldom pressed her argument.
He said, ‘I hardly think there is much chance of that. You know we are nearly there and I’m sure the children would be better in their own beds than spending a third night in a village inn.’
Before Rosalie could reply, the door opened and a maid entered carrying a tray with hot chocolate on it, a plate of chicken pieces and some bread and cheese. She put the food on the table and withdrew without speaking. Marie-Jeanne poured out cups of chocolate and the girls took them gratefully, nursing the warm cups in their hands before they drank.
‘It’s snowing,’ cried Louise suddenly, putting down her cup by the fender and running to the window. Hélène joined her and the two girls knelt up on the window seat, pressing their noses against the glass as they watched the huge white flakes come drifting silently from the sky to lay a white mantle on the cobbles of the inn yard and the slates of the stables beyond. With the snow came the darkness and it was with enormous relief that Rosalie heard Emile turn from his original decision to travel onwards at all cost, and bespeak beds for the night.
‘Come away from the window and drink your chocolate while it’s hot,’ she said to the girls, and as they turned reluctantly back into the room, Rosalie went to draw the heavy curtains across to shut out the night. As she reached the window there was a sound of hooves in the courtyard below and a troop of soldiers rode up. With shouts and laughter they dismounted and clattered in through the inn door.
Hurriedly Rosalie pulled the drapes across and kept her children’s attention from the commotion outside. Throughout the last few months she had tried to shelter her daughters from the news of the war and its activities, and now because of Emile’s determination to return with all speed to Paris they were actually staying upstairs in an inn where German soldiers drank below.
Later, their supper finished, Rosalie and Marie-Jeanne took the girls to their bedchamber and tucked them into the enormous bed all three must share.
‘Home tomorrow,’ murmured Hélène as her mother kissed her goodnight.
‘Yes, home tomorrow.’
And to the rhythmic sound of Marie-Jeanne in a rocking chair in the corner of the room, the travel-weary girls fell fast asleep.
They awoke next morning to a white and glistening world. The snow had not been as heavy as Emile had feared and the gleaming blanket covering the village, on which a wintry sun danced and sparkled, was in fact only an inch or two deep. The wind, so bitter the day before, had died away and as there was little danger of drifts blocking the road, Emile determined they should set forth without delay. The February sky was cloudless, a cold, pale blue, and despite the difficulties of the road yet to be faced, the whole family felt considerably more light-hearted and hopeful than they had on the previous days of their journey.
Emile had the carriage brought round and the horses stood snorting in the inn yard, their breath clouding the sharp morning air, as the girls, their mother and nurse climbed in once more and settled themselves amongst the rugs. This time they did not draw the blinds and the pale sun brought faint warmth into the carriage.
‘Why doesn’t Papa ride with us?’ asked Hélène, as she saw her father mounting his horse once more. ‘Why does he ride outside in the cold?’
Her mother said carefully, ‘He can see the road ahead that way, in case there is any difficulty.’
‘What sort of difficulty?’ persisted Hélène.
‘In weather such as this,’ replied her mother, ‘one must always take extra care. There may be drifts across the road, a fallen tree, or perhaps other vehicles which have crashed or even overturned in the snow. We don’t want to have an accident ourselves.’
Hélène thought that at the slow pace they had been travelling so far it was unlikely that they would run into anything and was about to say so when Clarice said, ‘He’s keeping guard in case we’re attacked. They say the people are still starving in Paris, and no traveller is safe. They’ll kill you for a slice of bread.’
‘Clarice, don’t be ridiculous,’ said her mother sharply with an anxious glance at Louise who was settling herself in the corner.
‘It’s true, Maman,’ protested Clarice. ‘I heard the patron in the inn tell Papa to beware of the citizens. They’ve even been eating cats and rats because they were so hungry. Ugh! Rats! I couldn’t eat a rat even if I were dying!’
‘That will do, Clarice,’ snapped Rosalie. ‘I want to hear no more about it.’
Clarice lapsed into silence, but she caught Hélène’s eye and mouthing the word ‘rats’, pulled a face.
‘Shall we have to eat rats, Maman?’ enquired Louise. ‘When we get home?’
‘Certainly not,’ said her mother.
‘Oh, good.’ And Louise snuggled back into the rugs.
‘They might try to steal our horses,’ whispered Clarice to Hélène. ‘They could eat those…’ but the frown on her mother’s face stopped her from elaborating.
Emile looked in through the window. ‘All right?’ he asked.
‘Yes, quite ready,’ replied his wife, and at his word of command the carriage rattled slowly out of the inn yard and once more took the road for Paris.
Rosalie closed the window and they all sat back to endure the last few uncomfortable miles. Hélène, this time sitting beside Marie-Jeanne, thought over what Clarice had said. She knew Paris might be very different from the place she had known before, and she was a little frightened. One of the housemaids at St Etienne, Anne-Marie, had told her about the siege, giving all the lurid detail her fertile imagination could conjure up. ‘And all as true as I’m standing here, Miss Hélène. Robert, my brother, he’s been there. Walking skeletons them people are now, walking skeletons. And some of them Prussian soldiers, well, do you know they eats children? Boils them up and eats them.’ Hélène’s eyes had started from her head at this and well aware of the impression she was creating, Anne-Marie had lowered her voice to a chilling whisper and continued, ‘They do say that some of them soldiers has got two heads, ’cos Prussians is different, see, not like us French, and of course no decent girl is safe within a mile of them. Robert says…’ But Hélène had not discovered the latest saying of this fount of information, for Marie-Jeanne had come into the room at that moment and immediately summing up the situation from the gleam in Anne-Marie’s eyes and the fear on Hélène’s face, she sent the housemaid about her business and did her best to undo the harm that had been done.
In some measure she succeeded even though Hélène would not specify all her fears, but she laid to rest the myths of the two heads and the boiled children, and Hélène’s terror at what she had been told receded a little, though she still puzzled over how a girl could be in danger from the Prussians a mile away from them. Had they got strangely long sight? And why girls only? Did Prussians hate girls more than boys? Afraid of the answer, Hélène did not dare ask the question.
The carriage rumbled its way forward and Hélène watched the country creeping past. It was not at all as she remembered it, but quite strange and rather frightening. In the outlying villages the houses and farms had been deserted, their owners fleeing to the safety of Paris as the Germans approached, and their homes had been taken over by the enemy to be used as billets. Peering white-faced from the window Hélène could see dugouts and ramparts with long trenches linking one place to another, turning the villages into one huge ribbon of fortifications.
‘Maman,’ she whispered, somehow not daring to raise her voice, ‘why are the villages full of soldiers, are they Prussians?’
Tight-lipped her mother nodded, and Clarice gave a little cry. ‘Oh, we shall all be killed.’
‘Be quiet, Clarice,’ Rosalie said sharply. ‘The war is over. We have nothing to fear from the soldiers. Your father has a permit to travel in his pocket.’ Her own fear was not stifled however, as they drew nearer to the walls of the city and saw the devastation caused by the war. Trees and houses had vanished, destroyed to ease the defence of Paris, to give the huge guns mounted on the city walls a wide field of fire, and all that was left were ugly stumps and pieces of rubble; indeed in many places the road on which they were travelling disappeared altogether and the carriage had to proceed at a snail’s pace over rough and stony ground, in extreme danger of losing a wheel or even overturning.
Hélène clung to Marie-Jeanne’s hand as they bumped and swayed along the frozen track and stared fearfully out at the desolation, its starkness increased by the mantle of snow which robbed the countryside of colour and left it etched in black and white against the slate grey sky.
No one else travelled the road that day, the eerie silence which surrounded them was broken only by the sound of their own progress, and so when he did see a troop of horses coming towards them Emile St Clair signalled to Pierre, the coachman, to stop and let them pass.
For a blessed moment the bumping, swaying motion of the carriage ceased and peering once more from the window, Hélène saw the troop approaching, heard the hooves of their horses clattering on the frozen road.
The officer leading the troop called a halt and rode forward to speak to her father. Everyone within the coach waited in silent fear after Hélène had whispered, ‘It’s soldiers. One’s talking to Papa.’
Emile produced the permission to travel he had obtained from Major Schaffer and after a few moments’ conversation the German officer shrugged his shoulders and waved his men forward. They trotted by on either side of the coach and the girls watched them pass the windows. Louise, wide-eyed with wonder, waved her hand and to their astonishment one of the German soldiers smiled and waved back.
‘Louise,’ cried Clarice in horror, ‘those are the enemy!’
‘That one was nice,’ remarked Louise, unconcerned. ‘He wasn’t an enemy, was he, Maman?’
‘He was a German, Louise,’ replied Rosalie, ‘but he may have been a kind man. Perhaps he has a little girl like you.’
‘Do Germans have little girls?’ asked Louise, much interested.
‘Of course they do,’ said Hélène scornfully, but despite her assertion, the idea that the Germans had families was an entirely new one to her and something which she found difficult to accept fully. Germans or Prussians to her meant rampaging armies, invading France and taking her brothers away.
Emile St Clair came back to the window, Rosalie lowered it a little and he said, ‘Everyone all right? We’re not far from the gates now.’ His wife replied that all was well and so he called to Pierre to drive on and the carriage began its lumbering progress once more.
Hélène continued to watch from the window half fascinated, half terrified to see the walking skeletons Anne-Marie had described, but she saw none. At length the carriage rolled to a halt and for a long moment Hélène was only glad that the jolting had ceased. She looked out of the window to see why they had stopped and saw that they had reached the walls of Paris and were waiting outside the gate. Then raised voices from outside the carriage brought the attention of all five occupants to an argument that had arisen. They could hear Papa speaking angrily and another man shouting in reply. Both Hélène and Clarice craned their necks to see what was the cause of the dispute, but were pulled up by their mother.
‘Sit back, please, girls, and wait until your father has finished speaking to the gatekeeper. If there is anything you should know I have no doubt he will tell you.’ Afraid, she spoke more sharply than she had intended, fear sharpening her tongue as she too strained her ears to discern the cause of the trouble.
They were not long left in ignorance, however, as Emile St Clair appeared beside the carriage and opened the door. His face was white with barely suppressed fury and he spoke in the low, tight voice that always betokened his rage.
‘My dear, I must ask you and the children to step down from the carriage for one moment, please.’
He stood aside and handed his wife down the steps, then with unusual care lifted each of his daughters down and set her on her feet beside her mother.
‘You too, Marie-Jeanne,’ he said, glancing back into the carriage, and even gave his hand to the old nurse as she clambered awkwardly to the ground. Then he turned back to the soldier who lounged at the gate and said angrily, ‘There. Now I hope you will be satisfied. You have our permission to travel in your hand, you see the complete party standing before you and now, if you please, we would like to enter the city and go peacefully to our home.’
The soldier stepped forward, the St Clairs’ permit to travel still in his hand. Remembering Anne-Marie’s tales, Hélène edged closer to her mother and clutched hold of her cloak. Instinctively Rosalie drew the children towards her and stared at the approaching soldier, her head raised proudly and her pale face brave and calm. Hélène stared at the soldier. He must be a Prussian, she thought, he looked fierce enough, his face dark with unshaven stubble, his uniform filthy and needing some repair. Hélène shrank away from him as he approached and stretched out his hand towards her. He did not touch her but as she recoiled he dropped his hand and spoke to her mother.
‘Ah, madame. Your children? Please tell me their names.’
Rosalie spoke the names and the man made a show of consulting the permit.
‘Thank you, madame. Be so good as to wait for one moment.’ He called another man and together they made a leisurely search of the coach. The family stood in the cold, waiting. Suddenly the cumulative fatigue of the past few days overcame Louise who began to cry, and even a sharp call to silence from her father could not quieten her. Rosalie gathered her into her arms and hushed her like a baby, ignoring the studied insolence of the scruffy soldiers as they rifled through the travelling rugs to discover anything or anyone that they might conceal. Not content with looking inside the coach, they made Pierre, the coachman, come down off the box and then unloaded the two travelling trunks which were strapped to the back of the carriage. These they opened and searched thoroughly, making much of the search, tumbling the St Clairs’ possessions into the dirt or tossing them into untidy heaps until the trunks were empty. Emile St Clair stood motionless in icy fury as he and his family, shivering with cold and humiliation, watched their most intimate garments and private possessions discarded carelessly onto the road. At length, the soldier turned back to them and growled, ‘You may proceed.’
‘Put the children into the carriage, Rosalie,’ said Emile very softly as he struggled to hold his temper, ‘then you and I and Marie-Jeanne will repack the trunks.’
Rosalie turned back to the carriage, only to be halted again by the guard who had not yet finished with them.
‘But your horses are requisitioned. We need those. You may proceed on foot.’
The curb on Emile’s temper finally snapped at the cool contempt with which the man spoke and he exploded with rage.
‘How dare you steal my horses? What right do you think you have? You interrupt our journey, despite the written permission we have to make it, which, no doubt, you can’t read, you search our carriage, ransack our possessions and now you think you can steal our horses. We need these horses to continue our journey.’ As he spoke he moved forward and laid a hand on the bridle of his own mount which was standing patiently beside the carriage. From nowhere five more guards appeared and Emile found himself in the centre of a ring of rifles. For a moment there was an absolute silence, for all the world, thought Hélène viewing in a strangely detached way the unreal scene of her father degraded and held at gunpoint, like a photograph; then slowly her father dropped his hand from the horse’s head and stepped back.
‘What about the carriage?’ he asked in a low voice, his temper once more under control; raging could only bring his family into more danger. The soldier shrugged. ‘We have no interest in that,’ he said, and ordering his men to unharness the horses which drew the carriage, he turned away, leaving the little family group standing forlorn, outside the gate.
Emile, still fighting to control the anger his humiliation had caused, turned to his wife.
‘I’m afraid we must walk,’ he said shortly.
‘What about the luggage?’ Rosalie glanced at the two trunks standing empty, their contents disgorged on to the cobblestones.
Emile answered with controlled calm. ‘Don’t worry, my dear, I will arrange something. Now, come along, children, sit back in the coach and keep warm until we are ready to leave.’
As if in a dream the three girls moved back to the stranded carriage and climbed in out of the coldness of the street. A handful of people had gathered and were watching the strange group speculatively, eyeing up the strewn luggage. One braver than the rest, a skinny girl, darted out and snatching up a shawl of Rosalie’s which lay on top of one of the piles of clothes, made a dash through the little crowd and disappeared in through the city gate. With a bellow, Emile discharged his pistol in the vague direction of the thief, which did nothing to hinder her, but had the effect of dispersing the others and causing cries of alarm from the carriage. But the scavengers would not stay away for long. Emile knew there was no time to be lost if they were to salvage anything from this disastrous episode. He turned abruptly to the coachman who was standing at a loss beside the now horseless vehicle and called out, ‘Pierre.’
‘Yes, monsieur.’ Pierre crossed over to join them.
‘Go quickly into the city and find someone with a handcart. Bring him here and we’ll load the trunks on to the cart. We’ll take them to the Avenue Ste Anne that way. Give him this,’ Emile handed the man a gold coin, ‘and tell him he can have as much again when he delivers the trunks unopened to the house. Stay with him all the way.’ He gave the coachman a push towards the city gate. ‘Go quickly. We will clear up here while we wait for your return. Hurry or I have no doubt everything else will disappear as the horses have done.’ Pierre went unwillingly towards the gate and crossed without hindrance into the city.
‘Try and keep warm until Pierre gets back,’ said Emile, turning his attention to his daughters shivering in the carriage. ‘Wrap up warmly, he may be some time.’
If he comes back at all, thought Rosalie to herself as she tucked the girls into the travelling rugs once more, and Marie-Jeanne and Emile began stuffing the clothes back into the trunks.
Hélène, feeling less frightened now that they were back in the illusory safety of the carriage, said, ‘Why did the Prussians want our horses, Maman? Have they no horses of their own?’
‘Prussians?’ Rosalie looked across at her daughter and laughed bitterly. ‘Those men weren’t Prussians, those men were French. They were from the National Guard.’ The expression on her face halted the flow of Hélène’s questions and the girls sat in silence watching their parents and Marie-Jeanne at their task and awaiting the return of Pierre.
Return he did in a comparatively short time. Emile, who had mounted guard on the reassembled luggage, his pistol conspicuously in his hand, arose from the trunks as the coachman appeared with a scruffy urchin wheeling a ramshackle handcart.
‘Says he’ll do it, but wants double,’ said Pierre, jerking his head towards the boy.
Emile looked at the youngster and said solemnly, ‘You shall have double, providing nothing is missing or damaged when we get there.’
The boy grinned and his grin revealed that he had several teeth missing. Despite the bitter weather, his bare legs, thin as sticks and bowed outwards, protruded from ragged cut-off trousers, over which he wore a much-patched jacket. Perched on his thick matted hair was a filthy cap. It was clear to Emile that this child had been inside the walls of Paris throughout the siege, but he spoke up perkily enough.
‘All right, m’sieur. We’ll make it, you’ll see.’ He had survived the bombardment and the starvation of the siege, and the offer of so much money for such an easy job made him throb with excitement. The food that money could buy! Food and warmth too!
‘What’s your name, boy?’ demanded Emile, hating to trust their possessions to this boy, but knowing they had little alternative.
‘Jeannot, m’sieur.’
‘Well, Jeannot. How do you propose to get the luggage to the Avenue Ste Anne without losing it to some marauding thieves?’
‘I will show you, m’sieur, and if you all walk with me, none of you will be touched. But first we load the trunks, hein?’ He spoke with such confidence that Emile nodded and between them he, Jeannot and Pierre lifted the trunks and manhandled them on to the rickety cart.
‘Now blankets, m’sieur,’ and unquestioning, Emile fetched them from the carriage, telling Rosalie and Marie-Jeanne to get the girls out now.
Jeannot took the blankets and covered the trunks with them; they lay side by side, two long rectangular shapes discreetly draped, completely concealed. Then he turned to Rosalie. ‘Keep the young ladies at your side, madame, and follow behind me. You walk behind them,’ he continued, turning to Emile, ‘and you,’ he said to Pierre, ‘help me push. I can’t manage on my own.’ This last was all too obvious – his strength was in his character, not in his emaciated body, and it was Pierre who would do most of the pushing, but the coachman did not question the command.
Without argument they all took up the positions he had indicated, the adults suddenly aware of the urchin’s superior knowledge, aware that they were about to enter an alien city, no longer the Paris they had left so cheerfully eight months earlier, and the girls too frightened and numb with cold to do anything but obey dumbly and wait for it all to be over.
Ignored now by the National Guardsmen, the little procession passed through the gate, leaving the carriage standing deserted outside the walls at the mercy of the scavengers who were already creeping back.
And so it was that the St Clair family returned to Paris, tired and on foot, pushing their possessions before them on a handcart.
Anne-Marie’s stories came flooding back to Hélène and she clutched her mother’s cloak as they followed the boy, Jeannot, along the narrow cobbled streets, sometimes so enclosed by the tall buildings on either side that it was like walking down a gloomy, noisome corridor. The road was slippery and foul underfoot, slimy with ordure, human and animal, giving off an indescribable stench which on occasion threatened to overcome them. Only by following Jeannot, trudging ahead with the rattling handcart, did they keep moving. Hélène found herself fighting not to be sick, concentrating her attention on the man and the boy ahead of her, keeping her eyes away from the filth around her feet, clutching Marie-Jeanne’s hand for strength. And all the time she knew she was being watched; she felt unseen eyes staring at her from doorways, spying from windows and shadows. Strange people loped along the street, ducking into buildings, emerging from alleys, and every time someone approached Jeannot cried in alarm, ‘Beware! Keep away! Fever! Fever! The sickness is here.’ And a pathway cleared before them and they kept on moving. But at last, one group braver than the rest, or more driven by hunger or greed, barred the way and did not retreat at Jeannot’s cry.
‘Well now, mon brave, what have we here then?’ The leader stepped forward and made to draw off the blanket. Jeannot tugged the scruffy cap from his head and turning it agitatedly in his hands, cried out, ‘Only two coffins, m’sieur. So far only two of us have died, but already my grandmother,’ he waved a casual hand at Marie-Jeanne, ‘has begun the shakes and may be in the cart herself before the journey’s end.’ The man drew back a step, but still very suspicious, pointed at the St Clairs.
‘And these? Who are these so fat and well-dressed? They never lived in Paris these last six months.’
Emile fingered the pistol he carried under his coat, ready to fire at the man if he made a further advance, but young Jeannot, determined to keep the money he had already received from Pierre and to collect the rest as promised, knew that his fortune was, for the moment, inextricably linked with this well-to-do family so foolishly returning to the city, and he was prepared. He gave a thin laugh.
‘You’re right,’ he squeaked, ‘but they’ll surely die as well, for we’ve been locked up in the guardhouse together these last three days. The guards only let us out ’cos Ma and Pa died of the fever and they’m afraid of taking the sickness from us. See how pale that child is.’ Jeannot pointed a grubby finger at Louise who once again burst into tears and buried her face in her mother’s skirt. The thief gave a little ground and Jeannot said cheerfully, ‘Would you like to see in the coffins? They stink something powerful ’cos we’d no way to lay ’em out proper when they died. Still, I ’spect you’ll want to be sure.’ He reached for the blanket and there was a moment’s pause, then Hélène, entirely overcome by the foul-smelling midden beside her, lost her battle against her stomach, retched and was violently sick all over the cobbles. It was enough and the thieves lost their nerve. To a man they melted away into the shadows, their avarice overwhelmed by their fear of the sickness.
Marie-Jeanne comforted Hélène and wiped away the vomit from her face and clothes, but the child was horrified by her lack of control, knowing she had disgraced herself and that she must have incurred the anger of her father. But strangely Papa did not seem at all angry at the exhibition she had made of herself in the public street. Indeed, when her face was wiped clean he patted her cheek in a rare display of approval and said, ‘Clever little chick. Brave little girl.’ Bewildered at his reaction but somewhat comforted by it, Hélène reattached herself to Marie-Jeanne’s hand and once more the little procession continued, this time unhindered, until they came out to the wider streets and boulevards nearer their own district of the city.
Rosalie gasped in dismay at their strangely denuded aspect. Gone were the spreading trees which had lined them; only ugly stumps remained in the ground to show where they had once stood to lend their gracious shade.
‘The trees,’ she whispered. ‘What happened to the trees?’ It was strange, but of all the horrors they had seen and experienced in the last hour, it was the remains of the trees that finally cracked her iron control and silent tears crept down her cheeks.
‘Firewood,’ said the boy laconically and moving a little faster now on the broader thoroughfare, at last trundled the handcart into the Avenue Ste Anne, which had also been stripped of its trees, and turning to Emile he said, ‘Which house?’