Amanda Scott (20 page)

“Idiotish man,” she said at last, fearing that if he were to examine the papers too closely he would recognize their falsity, “we are in a hurry.” She summoned up what little French she had learned. “
Nous dépêchons, comprenez-vous? Les brigands
!”

The second man nodded, smiling now, and attempted to reassure her that with soldiers at every turnpike there would, for once, be few bandits at large to prey upon travelers. Then, to her surprise, he nodded to his compatriot and spoke to him swiftly. The other man promptly scribbled something upon a sheet of yellow paper and handed it to him. The English-speaking soldier, with a snappy bow, handed the paper in turn to Meriel and explained with painstaking care that he was providing her with a safe conduct.

As the chaise moved forward again a moment later, Gladys let out a long sigh of relief. “I declare, Miss Meriel, I was never nearer having a spasm in my life as when that dreadful man yanked open the door like he did. And I can tell you, when you started ripping up at him like a shrew, I felt my heart just leap into my mouth, I was that frightened. And what be that yellow paper he gave you, may I ask?”

Meriel chuckled. “Can you credit it, Gladys? ’Tis a safe conduct. If I understood him correctly, it will see us safely to Rouen. We have only to show it anytime we are stopped, which I daresay will be at every stage along the way.”

And so it proved. Only twice did anyone seek to question her closely, and on both occasions, drawing on her experience at the first turnpike, Meriel carried the matter off with a high hand. Their progress, despite these successes, was still slow, due to the abominable condition of the road, and it was well after dark before they reached Rouen, their journey having taken them all of nine hours. Directing the postboys to the priest’s cottage, Meriel hoped the elderly gentleman was not one who retired early to his bed.

But there was a light in the window of the stone cottage. Leaving Gladys with the postboys to wait, she descended unaided from the chaise and hurried up the flagged pathway to the front door, knocking imperatively. She had to wait only a moment before there was a small flurry of activity on the other side of the door and it was swung open by the priest’s wiry middle-aged servant.

“Good evening, Fernand,” Meriel said quickly. “Is the good father within?”

The man nodded silently and stood aside to allow her to enter. With only the slightest hesitation and a quick glance back at the chaise, where she knew Gladys Peat waited impatiently, Meriel stepped past him into the narrow hallway.

“There,
mademoiselle
,” the man said briefly, indicating the lighted parlor to the right of the door.

Entering the cluttered little room swiftly, Meriel discovered the priest ensconced in a deep wing chair near a crackling fire, a book in his hand and a glass of amber-colored liquid at his side. He looked up at her entrance, pushed his spectacles down on his nose in order to peer over them at her, then quickly set aside his book and came to his feet.

“
Mon Dieu, mademoiselle
, what brings you to us at such an hour?”

“Father, I require your help. You must know that war has been declared again, but perhaps you do not know that Napoleon has ordered that all British tourists are to be interned at Verdun for the duration. Here, I bring you a letter from your friend Deputy Minister Deguise.” She searched rapidly through her reticule, pushing the identity papers down in order to find the letter. A moment later she handed it to him. “He said it would explain all,” she told him. “While you read it, perhaps I may send for my maidservant to come inside. She is terrified lest we should be stopped by the soldiers before we are able to reach the coast and safe passage across the Channel.”

Having pushed his spectacles back into place, he was already reading and responded with an uncharacteristically curt nod. Paying little heed to what she was certain was a reaction to the circumstances rather than to her request, Meriel turned calmly to the servant. “Will you attend to the postboys, if you please?” When the man nodded, she went on rapidly. “They have been paid for this distance and more, but I do not know what the good father will determine to be the best course of action for us, and I cannot think it is a good idea to leave them standing in the street while he decides.”

“You will come to collect your maid,
mademoiselle?
” the servant inquired politely after a brief glance at his master.

“Yes, of course, if you like. I daresay she will feel the safer for my presence, even for so short a distance as the walk from the roadway into the cottage. You will attend to the rest?”

“As you say,
mademoiselle
,” he replied, bowing.

She hurried back out to the chaise and discovered Gladys Peat on the point of descending from it.

“Oh, m’lady, I’d no notion what to think. Where have you been this age?”

“Don’t be foolish, Gladys, I’ve been gone less than five minutes. You are scarcely like to have been clapped into irons in such a small space of time. But do you come into the cottage now,” she added hastily, seeing storm warnings on Mrs. Peat’s round face. “There is a warm fire and no doubt Fernand will find you a cup of tea once he has seen to the disposal of our chaise.”

“Lord, m’lady, you ain’t sendin’ them postboys off! Why, how be we gettin’ to Loo Haver, may I ask?”

I am merely seeing to it that the chaise don’t stand where it is, Gladys,” Meriel explained, hustling her maid toward the open door. “You must surely realize that a post chaise and four steaming horses standing outside a simple priest’s door must draw unwanted attention. Such a sight cannot be a usual one anywhere but in Gretna Green.”

They were inside now, and Gladys made no reply, merely entering the parlor with her head held high and moving toward the hearth to warm her hands. The priest was no longer where Meriel had left him but was sitting now at a small desk against the far wall, writing busily. He turned to look over his shoulder at her.

“Forgive me,
mademoiselle
, for not rising, but it has occurred to me that with war once more resumed between the two countries, correspondence will become most difficult again. If it is not to ask too much, I am hoping you will once more play the messenger and carry a letter to Mr. Murray. You mentioned that you go to London, so it shall be no great thing, since he is now in residence in that city. I will provide you with his direction if you will be so kind.”

“It will be my pleasure, sir,” she replied, glad to be able to do him even so small a service. “Have you decided what we must do?”

“Indeed,
mademoiselle
. I think the best course would be to proceed as you have, with Monsieur Deguise’s so excellent papers in hand, to the port, where you will desire passage as Americans on any ship departing the harbor.”

“Even a French ship?”

“No, no, that would not do, would it?” He seemed confounded for the moment. “I must think,
mademoiselle
.”

“I must point out,
mon père
, that there will undoubtedly be no English ships remaining in Le Havre, and even an American ship would present potential hazards, since an American might well recognize us as British women and say something, having no particular reason, you know, to stand our friend.”

“You have the right of it,
mademoiselle
. Me, I must ponder the matter, but there is at present little danger. Fernand will show you to the small bedchamber abovestairs where you may spend the night in comfort. I am persuaded that you must be tired.”

Indeed, she was exhausted, Meriel realized. The day had been long and tiring, and despite the exhilaration she had felt with each new hazard to be faced and overcome, she knew now that she needed sleep. But first, she needed sustenance. She pointed out this fact as tactfully as she could, and the little priest clapped a hand to his head.

“How I am thoughtless. I am imbecile,
mademoiselle
.” He raised his voice. “Fernand!” As Meriel began to explain that Fernand had gone to see to the safe disposal of her chaise, there was an answering shout from the rear of the hallway, and the wiry servant appeared in the doorway a moment later. The priest said, “These ladies require refreshment, Fernand. See to it at once.”

The man nodded, but then spoke rapidly and briefly in French. The priest’s eyebrows came together in a beetling frown, and his mouth turned down at the corners as he listened.

“What is it?” Meriel demanded.

He looked at her, but his thoughts for several seconds were clearly elsewhere. At last he spoke. “Fernand says the postboys chattered like sparrows,
mademoiselle
, about the untoward haste with which your journey has been undertaken. Their suspicions have been aroused,
sans doute
, and Fernand has a fear that they might have spoken so before the soldiers at one of the turnpikes. Is it possible, this?”

Meriel considered the matter. “They may have chattered, sir, but would we not then have been questioned more thoroughly, even detained?”

“Not if the soldier who engaged in conversation with the boys did not have immediate opportunity to pass the information along to his superior. Were there a great many soldiers at each turnpike?”

“No, only at the first. After that, only two at each, and our safe conduct from the first saw us pretty quickly through the others.”

He nodded. “None would wish to distress a pair of American lady tourists unduly,” he said, almost to himself, “but if suspicions were aroused, someone might have been set on to follow you to see where you went. It would not do for the soldiers to come here,
mademoiselle
.”

“No, indeed, sir,” she agreed, then paled as a sudden clatter of hoofbeats in the narrow street outside assaulted their ears.

“G
OOD GOD, SIR, WHAT
now?” Meriel cried, forgetting her hunger and giving thought to nothing but their immediate danger.

The priest had leapt to his feet, but even as he replied hastily that the situation was clearly altered, he continued to seal his letter. Turning at last to face her, he said tersely, “There can be no thought of your remaining here another moment,
mademoiselle
, for if they have reason to believe you are in this house, they will make a search. Fernand will take you and your maid by the back way to the river. Trust him. He will see you safely to the coast by the water route. No one will detain you, and your progress will be nearly as swift as by road, for the current will be in your favor, after all. If you depart at once—as, indeed, you must,” he added, cocking an ear toward the sounds of horses and men outside in the street, “you will arrive at the village of Lillebonne at the mouth of the Seine before dawn, which is of utmost importance, because now you must not use your American papers. Fernand will find another way. There are persons—”

“Free traders,” Meriel breathed, her eyes lighting with excitement.

The priest shook his head, but his lips quirked in involuntary amusement. “You are a strange one,
mademoiselle
. One expects a proper lady to be repulsed by such a thought. ’Tis more likely Fernand’s friends will be fishermen, but I confess it reposes my soul to know that you will not derange yourself if an untoward eventuality should come to pass. But now, there is no time.
Allez
!” He pressed his letter into her hand and took the liberty of giving her a firm push in the small of her back, turning her toward the hallway, where Gladys Peat, fairly dancing in her agitation to be off, already waited beside the stoic Fernand.

The servant soon showed that he could bustle himself, however, for at the first creak of the front gate, he hissed a warning at Meriel and Gladys, who followed him rapidly down the hallway through a tiny but immaculate kitchen, where they found the two portmanteaux from the chaise awaiting them. Then, with Fernand snatching both of these up to carry one in his left hand, the other under the same arm, they sped out the kitchen door into a small garden. There was a scattering of stars and a slim crescent moon overhead, scarcely enough to light their way, and Meriel and Gladys followed the man more by guess than by sight. As they crossed the garden, Meriel heard a clamorous thundering on the front door of the cottage and hoped desperately that none of the visitors—for she was certain there must be an entire patrol after them—would take it into his head to look round the back.

Fernand led them past a small shed at the rear of the garden, then through a swinging spring-hung wicket gate, which led onto the towpath beside the river. Turning quickly to his left, he said over his shoulder in a low tone, “Along here,
mam’zelle
, we must hurry. We are too exposed until we reach the bend. Then there is a boat, and safety.”

There was silence behind them now, and her heart was in her throat as she followed the wiry Fernand, but there was excitement within her as well. She glanced at Gladys Peat. The dim light made it difficult to see more than the woman’s shape, but Meriel could tell by her rapid breathing and the stiffness of her posture as she hurried along that Gladys was deeply frightened. She reached out a hand to press the maid’s shoulder reassuringly, but Gladys made no response except perhaps to move a trifle faster.

At the bend, heavy foliage overhung the narrow path, plunging them into pitch darkness, forcing them to slow their pace. Only the reflected glitter of the stars and the threadlike moon on the river told them where path ended and water began. Thus it was that when Fernand stopped suddenly, Meriel bumped right into him. He gave a grunt, then set down with a heavy double thump the two portmanteaux he had been carrying.

“The boat is here,
mam’zelle
,” he said, moving toward the shrubbery at the bank. “I regret the necessity, but I shall require assistance.”

“Of course,” she said briskly. “Show us.”

Again by feel more than by sight, they located the boat, which proved to be a wooden rowboat that Meriel was certain could be little more than six feet long and surely not big enough to hold the three of them along with the two portmanteaux.

Despite the fact that once they had dragged it to the riverbank, righted it, and pushed it bow-first halfway into the water, the little boat proved to be closer to eight feet, Gladys clearly shared her misgivings.