Hélène drifted back to consciousness and for a moment she was completely disorientated. Where was she? She was very cold and her head ached. When she opened her eyes the world spun round her, and she closed them again. When it ceased revolving, she cautiously opened them again, but could see almost nothing. The place she was in was filled with thick grey light which obscured more than it revealed. For a moment she lay still, remembering nothing, but then the events of earlier in the day came creeping back into her mind. They had been going to go and see Maman in St Etienne. Papa had gone out, but he said he’d be back soon. She remembered going upstairs with Marie-Jeanne to make sure nothing they might need had been forgotten. Marie-Jeanne! A picture of her as Hélène had last seen her filled her mind and she gave a scream. The sound echoed round her and she sat up with a start. The sudden movement made her head spin again and she thought she was going to be sick. She clutched her head in her hands, fighting against the bile that rose in her throat as tears began to stream down her cheeks. Marie-Jeanne was dead, shot by a man with a gun. She, Hélène, had run to hide leaving Marie-Jeanne to be shot by the man with the gun.
And then the man had come to find her. Memory came flooding back. He had found her hiding in the cabinet in her mother’s boudoir and pulled her out. She recalled biting his hand, sinking her teeth into his flesh, biting him as hard as she could. The man had let go and she had run, only to find Marie-Jeanne lying dead on the stairs. The man had caught her again and held her by her hair, but she had hit him and hit him until he had hit her on the head and she remembered no more.
Now she was awake again, and shut in somewhere. But where? And why? What was he going to do with her? Was he going to kill her like he’d killed Marie-Jeanne? Hélène shivered with cold and fear. And then she remembered Jeannot. What had he been doing there? Had he brought the men to the house? She remembered looking down through the banisters and seeing him staring up at her, his expression one of horror, before she’d fled along the landing to her mother’s boudoir. Surely Jeannot wasn’t one of the thieves.
Carefully, Hélène eased herself upright, rubbing her arms to warm them up. She found a hankie in the pocket of her dress and blew her nose. That hurt. She realised that her whole face was aching, and running her fingertips across her cheeks she felt the swelling and the tenderness.
After a while she tried standing up. Her legs felt wobbly, as they had after her stay in bed, but she managed to get to her feet. Her eyes had become accustomed to the twilight of her prison and carefully she edged her way round the room. There was a pile of dirty straw in one corner, but no furniture, simply four walls and a barred window high up on one wall. It was through this that a faint grey light filtered. She couldn’t reach the window to look out and there was nothing to stand on, so she had no idea what was outside. She remembered the dismal streets through which she followed Jeannot when they had gone to find Paul and the Monkey, streets lined with tall, dark tenement houses, so close to each other that they shut out the sunlight, leaving the street in gloomy shade even at midday. Was she in one of those houses?
She thought of the man with the gun again and shivered at the memory. He must have locked her in here. He would come back and find her and then what would happen? She was cold and she was alone and she needed the toilet. Misery flooded through her and she sat back down on the cold floor and wept. She wept for her mother, for Marie-Jeanne and for herself, but eventually she had no more tears and curled in a ball for warmth as an exhausted sleep overtook her.
She was woken by the scraping of a key in the door. She scrambled to her feet and backed away into a corner, terrified at who might be coming into her prison.
The door opened a fraction and a woman’s voice said, ‘I’m bringing you something to eat. Stand under the window where I can see you. Any funny business and I’ll take the food away again and let you starve. All the same to me!’
Cautiously, Hélène moved to stand under the window. The door opened wider and a woman edged her way into the room. She was holding a flagon of water and a loaf of bread. As she stepped into the faint light cast by the window, Hélène could see that she was not old, though her face was lined and her hair, drawn back off her face, was dirty and tangled. A shapeless dress hung from her shoulders, a drab of a woman.
‘Please, madame, I need to go to the toilet,’ Hélène whispered. Although she was hungry and thirsty, it was at that moment her most pressing need. The woman gave a sharp laugh.
‘Do you now? Well, you’ll just have to squat in a corner like the rest of us.’ She dumped the bread and water onto the floor and moved back to the door. ‘I’ll bring you a blanket,’ she said, adding with a grin, ‘Don’t want to kill the goose before we’ve got the egg, now, do we?’ And with this strange remark she backed out of the room. The door closed behind her and Hélène heard the key turn in the lock with a loud click.
Goose? What goose? What was the woman talking about? But Hélène couldn’t think about that now, she had a more pressing need. She crept back into the furthest corner of the cellar, for that indeed was what it was, and despite the fact that there was no one there to see, she had tears of embarrassment in her eyes as she hoisted her skirt and crouched down to relieve herself.
She returned to the water and the bread and found she was suddenly very hungry. She pulled the loaf apart and though it was stale and dry, she stuffed the pieces into her mouth and washed them down with the water.
When the woman reappeared with the promised blanket, she simply tossed it in through the door without a word. Hélène grabbed it and wrapped it round herself, grateful for the minimal warmth it gave her.
She wondered what her father was doing. He must have come back from wherever it was he went this morning. He would have found Marie-Jeanne and would surely now be out looking for her. Surely Papa would find her. He would expect her to be brave. He would expect her to know that he was coming to find her, and that she must be brave until he did.
‘I am Hélène Rosalie St Clair,’ she announced to the room. ‘And I am not afraid.’ This last was certainly not true, but simply saying it gave her a modicum of courage. She said it again, several times. ‘I am Hélène Rosalie St Clair. And I am not afraid.’
She thought again about Jeannot. Was he one of them? Perhaps he would come and see her and she could ask him what was going to happen to her. She hoped he would; she wanted to see him, a face she knew, an old friend.
He did not come. No one came. No one came again before the room darkened completely with the fading of the day. Wrapped in her blanket, Hélène curled up on the stinking straw, her only refuge from the cold stone floor, and finally drifted off to sleep.
When she woke again, it was early morning. A single shaft of sunlight found its way through the dirty window and for the first time Hélène could see the whole of her prison. It was a depressing sight, grey stone walls, dirty stone floor, completely bare. She stood up and clutching the blanket round her, went over to the window. Standing on tiptoe she could just reach the sill. Gripping the rough stone, she managed to grasp the bottom bar to haul herself up for a moment, her eyes above the level of the sill long enough to see that she was looking out at street level. There were feet walking past and she could hear familiar street sounds, voices shouting, the rumble of wheels, the clatter of a horse’s hooves. The world was out there, but she was locked in here. Unable to hold on for any length of time she dropped back down to the floor. She stood in the shaft of sunshine, lifting her face to its feeble warmth, but it wasn’t long before the sunbeam had moved on, leaving her once more in the gloom of dusty daylight.
At that moment she heard the sound of the key in the door again and then the woman’s voice. ‘Stand by the window. No funny business!’
Hélène did as she was told and the woman came into the room with more bread and water. Keeping a wary eye on Hélène, as if she feared she might attack her, she bent down and retrieved the empty flagon from the night before.
‘Why am I here?’ Hélène asked. ‘I want to go home.’ She had tried to sound brave but her voice trembled on the word ‘home’, and the woman laughed.
‘That’ll depend on your father,’ she said. ‘Whether he coughs up.’ She gave another laugh and added, ‘One way or another you won’t be stopping here very long.’ She closed the door with a bang and Hélène was left alone with the meagre ration of food. She ate the bread, but only sipped at the water, remembering from when she had been confined to the attic room after her jaunt with Jeannot that she had been thirsty again before she was hungry.
She thought of her mother and the tears ran down her cheeks. How she wanted Maman. She thought of her father and wondered if he was looking for her. Surely he would find her soon. Resolutely closing her mind, she did not allow herself to think of Marie-Jeanne.
Sometime later, she had no idea how long, she heard the scrape of the key and the door swung open. This time it was not the woman who came into the cellar, and Hélène shrank back in terror as she saw it was the man with the gun. He wasn’t carrying a gun now, at least she couldn’t see one, but that didn’t make him any less frightening. She could hear her mantra in her head. ‘I am Hélène Rosalie St Clair and I am not afraid.’ But faced with the man who had murdered Marie-Jeanne, the words would not come. No words would come. She simply stared at him, her terror obvious in her eyes, and he grinned at her.
‘Well now,’ he said. ‘I expect you want to get back to your papa, don’t you?’
Hélène nodded wordlessly.
‘That’s what I thought,’ he said. ‘So, we need you to write him a letter. You can do that for us, can’t you?’
Hélène nodded again.
‘That’s a good girl,’ said the man jovially. ‘And in the meantime, you and me can have a bit of fun. I like playing with girls like you. All right?’
When Hélène nodded a third time he said, ‘I’ll be back to fetch you upstairs in a while, so that you can write to your papa. Then you won’t have to stay in here no more. Nicer upstairs.’
The man left, shutting and locking the door behind him, and leaving Hélène wondering what she would have to put in the letter. Would they let her go when she’d written it?
It was not long before the man returned. Again Hélène shrank away, but this time he strode into the room and grasped her by the wrist. His grip was firm and he pulled her towards him.
‘Now, missy, we’ll go upstairs, and you’ll be a good girl and write that letter.’
Hélène followed him meekly enough – anything to be out of that cold dank cellar. Still holding her firmly by the wrist he led her up a flight of steps and into a room that had a window out onto the street. There was a table and chair by the window and a rickety-looking couch along one wall. There was no floor covering except a filthy rag rug before a fireplace, where a fire smouldered sulkily beneath a cooking pot. A pail stood in a corner, and some crocks were stacked on a shelf above it.
The man pushed Hélène down into the chair and stood over her. On the table top was a scrap of paper and a pencil.
‘Now then,’ he said, ‘you write what I tell you, understand?’
Hélène nodded and picking up the pencil, pulled the paper towards her.
‘What’s your name?’ the man demanded suddenly.
‘Hélène St Clair,’ whispered Hélène.
The man stared at her for a moment and then said, ‘Say that again.’
‘Hélène St Clair.’
‘Is it now?’ The man looked thoughtful for a moment and then went on, ‘Well, Hélène St Clair, write this. Dear Papa…’
Carefully, Hélène wrote as he dictated.
‘I am quite safe for now and the people I am staying with will let me come home if you give them 100 gold Napoleons. If you do not give them the money in three days they will kill me.’
The man looked at what she had written and said, ‘Now sign your name.’
Hélène did as she was told and the man picked up the paper and folded it.
‘Now write his name on the outside,’ he said. As she did so he opened the door and bellowed, ‘Francine! Come here.’
In answer to his summons the drab woman appeared at the door. ‘Get that boy in here,’ he said.
Hélène heard her calling and moments later Jeannot crept into the room.
‘You, boy, take this letter to her father.’ He jerked his head at Hélène. ‘Tell him no messing if he wants his daughter back.’
Jeannot took the note and as he did so Hélène caught his eye. She was about to speak but he gave her such a fierce scowl that the words died on her lips.
‘I’ll tell him, Gaston,’ Jeannot said, and beat a hasty retreat.
When Jeannot had disappeared Francine came back, crossing the room to poke the fire into life.
‘You,’ Gaston growled at her, ‘get out. And don’t come back until I call you.’
‘But, Gaston…’ she began to whine.
‘Out!’ He raised his clenched fist and ducking the expected blow, Francine dropped the poker and ran from the room.
‘That’s better,’ said Gaston with a smile as he shut the door behind her. ‘Now we won’t be disturbed.’