Before the Storm (32 page)

Clementine sighed. ‘Thank you, Gaspard.’ She pressed a gold coin into his hand then hurried through the columned archway that led to the arcades, which were even more crowded than usual. It was clear that something was in the air and everyone wanted to be at the heart of the action when it happened. She walked quickly past groups of young men all shouting revolutionary slogans and clapping each other on the back, while the heavily made up whores who roamed the elegant arcades, rolled their eyes and tried in vain to catch their attention.
 

‘There you are!’ Venetia and Phoebe were waiting for her outside the restaurant, which was noisy and packed to the rafters with fashionably dressed diners, all feasting with gusto on oysters and champagne, their rouged lips stretched wide in glittering smiles as they chatted and threw their heads back with laughter. It was as if the Revolution hadn’t happened. ‘We were worried that you might not come.‘
 

Phoebe, dressed in blue silk with a
tricolor
sash tied around her slim waist held the door open as Venetia led Clementine inside, chattering nonstop the whole time. ‘How lovely your dress is, my dear. It really suits you.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Sidonie is here,’ she whispered as they weaved their way between the crowded tables to the stairs up to the private rooms upstairs. ‘So of course, the Comte is here too and...’

‘Antoine.’ Clementine’s eyes shone as she looked up at him.

He gave a small bow. ‘I was just going outside for a stroll. It’s very hot upstairs.’ He smiled. ‘Mademoiselle Roche will be glad that you are here. She was just telling us how much she misses you.’ He offered her his arm and led her upstairs as Phoebe and Venetia exchanged startled looks behind them.

Sidonie heard their voices and was waiting for them at the top of the stairs with her arms open ready to embrace her former pupil. ‘My darling girl,’ she said, hugging Clementine to her then holding her at arm’s length so she could look her up and down. ‘Oh, it does my heart good to see you again. I was so worried when I heard that you were at the Tuileries...’ She linked arms with Clementine and they walked together into a small, cosy private dining room where about a dozen people were sitting around a candlelit table covered with glass vases full of fragrant peonies and roses and open bottles of champagne.
 

‘I am safe now,’ Clementine whispered to her governess as they took their seats at the end of the table. ‘I’ve never been so frightened though.’ Eliza poured champagne into her glass and she shyly raised it to Antoine, who was smiling at her from the other side of the table.

The dinner was excellent and afterwards they all went to a café nearby with an upstairs room in which they could dance the night away should they so desire. Suddenly terrified of finding herself alone with Antoine, Clementine hung onto Sidonie’s arm as they strolled along the busy lantern lit arcade but was aware of his every movement as he walked a little way behind with his father and Lucien, who were rowing about politics.

They went into a smoky café where both men and women sat together at small tables, drinking wine and puffing on long ebony pipes. The sound of violins, laughter and stamping, dancing feet floated down from the rickety staircase at the back of the room as Venetia and Phoebe, as always, led the way.

‘I’ve missed this,’ she heard Antoine exclaim behind her as they walked into a large red painted room lit by a huge crystal chandelier that hung from an ornately painted ceiling. A dozen pairs were dancing in the centre of the floor while another fifty or so people lounged at the sides and watched them, tapping their feet to the irresistibly gypsy music produced by the violins.

‘Did they not have dancing in Martinique?’ Venetia asked Antoine, with a flirtatious look over her shoulder.

He smiled. ‘Not like this.’ Clementine looked at him then, wishing that she was brave enough to ask him to tell her all about his travels. He had seen and experienced so much and she, by contrast, had seen nothing at all. As if he had read her thoughts, he met her eyes and smiled again. ‘I remember you telling me once that you longed to travel, Madame la Duchesse,’ he said in a low voice, coming to stand beside her. ‘I thought of it many times while I was away and would often stop and wonder what you would make of the people and places that I saw.’

She blushed and looked away. ‘I would love to hear about your travels,’ she murmured, aware that Venetia and Sidonie were listening to their conversation. ‘How I envy you, monsieur, for the opportunity to experience so many new things. It was always my most fervent desire to travel and see as much of our world as possible but as you see, that has not happened.’ She looked back up at him and to his dismay he saw that her wide hazel eyes gleamed with unshed tears. ‘I have seen nothing, monsieur.’

Antoine bowed. ‘You underestimate yourself, madame,’ he replied gallantly. ‘You claim to have seen nothing and yet you are far braver and more intrepid than I. You can have no idea how much I admire you.’ They looked at each other then and a silence fell that might have gone on forever had Venetia not stepped between them and broken the spell.

‘My dear,’ she whispered, taking Clementine’s arm and leading her away with one last blushing look at Antoine, who stood very still as he watched them go then turned to say something to Sidonie, ‘I have been waiting to get you alone all evening as I have something important to ask you.’

‘You have?’ Clementine stared at her friend and saw that she was looking oddly self conscious. ‘Is something the matter, Venetia?’ she asked.

Venetia started to shake her head then gave a little sigh and nodded. ‘Believe me, my dear, if I could have avoided asking you then I absolutely would have done. I have no right to expect any kindness for anyone as after all, I have done so little for all of you but the situation is so pressing, so dangerous that I have no choice.’ Her words tumbled out in a rush and to Clementine’s astonishment she began to cry.
 

‘My God, Venetia, what is the matter? What has happened?’ She gasped. ‘Are you...?’

Venetia stared at her then laughed and shook her head. ‘No, it’s nothing like that, thank God.’ She took Clementine’s hand and led her into one of the pink gauze curtained windows, where they would not be overheard. ‘I have been careless lately, not in that way, and my debts...’ She began to cry again. ‘Usually I just pay them a little bit and ignore them but times have changed, haven’t they?’

‘You need a loan?’ Clementine asked dully. ‘How much?’

‘Five thousand livres,’ Venetia whispered as Clementine gasped with astonishment. ‘I know that it sounds like a lot but...’ She shrugged, unable to think of an adequate excuse. ‘I’ve been so unhappy, you see and Jules gives me nothing at all to live on. In fact, he is in the habit of helping himself to whatever little I get from my parents which leaves me with even less for myself and Alexandre. Eugène helps when he can, of course, but he isn’t exactly rich...’

Clementine shook her head. ‘There’s no need to explain things to me,’ she said. ‘I know how it is.’

Venetia laughed then and wiped the tears from her eyes. ‘You don’t,’ she said, leaning forward to kiss her friend’s cheek. ‘Which I am very glad for as this is a miserable way to live.’ She looked at Clementine hopefully as the other girl gazed pensively down over the arcade below. ‘Can you help me?’ she asked in a trembling voice. ‘I don’t know who else to ask.’

Clementine nodded. ‘I will do my best,’ she said. ‘I don’t have the money myself but I could ask Charles for it.’ She looked doubtful now. ‘I’m sure he would let me have the money.’

Venetia grinned then. ‘Do you mean it?’ she asked. ‘Oh, Clementine, would you really do this for me? Only please don’t tell him that it is for me - I’d hate for this to get back to Jules.’

Clementine took a deep breath, already wondering how on earth she was going to ask Charles for five thousand livres, then nodded.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Charles was still awake when she got back to the Hôtel de Coulanges a few hours later, although when she put her head around the library door and saw what a state he had got himself into in her absence, she wished that she had stayed away with her friends instead.

‘Clementine!’ he shouted as she quickly ducked away again, hoping that he hadn’t seen her. ‘Come and join me!’ He waved a half empty bottle of wine at her as she reluctantly came back into the room. ‘Let’s toast the last burning embers of the aristocracy!’

She gave a small smile as he handed her a clumsily filled glass of wine. ‘You should go to bed,’ she said, taking a small sip then putting the glass down on a table. ‘Shall I ring for your valet?’

Charles scowled. ‘There’s no need for that,’ he said. ‘I’m not tired and why would I want to sleep anyway? I have the most terrible dreams, Clementine...’ he shuffled towards her and took her arm. ‘I see them all at the Tuileries, their mouths screaming as their heads are cut off.’

Clementine shuddered and shook off his hand. ‘That will pass in time,’ she said.

He shook his head. ‘It won’t. It should have been me, you see. I should have died with them instead of hiding in a cupboard like a coward.’ He hurled his full glass into the fireplace so that it shattered into a hundred pieces and red wine splattered all over them both. ‘Like a coward? I
am
a coward. How can you bear to be married to a coward like me? I don’t even want to look at myself in the mirror.’ He dropped to his knees and gave a desperate, raw howl of rage and despair. ‘I should have died, Clementine,’ he whimpered, looking up at her almost as though he was begging her to put him out of his misery. ‘Why didn’t I die?’

His wife shook her head slowly. ‘Charles, you should go to bed,’ she repeated. ‘You mustn’t dwell on this. It won’t do you any good.’

‘Won’t do me any good?’ He laughed bitterly. ‘Do you think I care any more? I’ve brought shame on my family name, Clementine, don’t you understand that?’ He looked at her and sneered. ‘No, of course you don’t understand what the honour of a family name means, do you, little Miss Garland of Highbury Place?’

Clementine stepped away from him then. ‘Don’t insult me, Charles. I won’t put up with it any more.’
 

She turned and hurried from the room, breaking into a run when she reached the stairs that led up to her bedroom. Locking the door behind her, she rang for her maid then began to clumsily pull her wine stained dress off before sitting down in front of her dressing table and pulling off her sapphire earrings and necklace, while staring deep into the mirror.
 
A gentle scratch on the door announced that her maid was outside and she briskly went to let her in, quickly looking up and down the hall as she did so to make sure that Charles was not behind her before locking the door again.

Later on, she lay wide awake and holding her breath as her husband shuffled past her door on his way to his own room. He paused outside for just a moment and her eyes widened as she imagined his hand reaching for the handle, but then after a few seconds she heard his feet drag on up the corridor again before the unmistakable creak of his own door opening then firmly closing.

‘I ought to pity him,’ she told herself as she rolled over in her bed and prepared for sleep. ‘Why don’t I feel more sorry for him?’

To her surprise Charles was already at the dining table when she went downstairs for breakfast the next morning. His valet had clearly worked hard to make him look presentable and although he had bloodshot eyes and a languid air about him, he was otherwise clean shaven and tidily dressed with his fair hair pulled neatly back with a black silk ribbon.

‘I trust that you slept well, ‘ Clementine said politely as she took her seat opposite him and smiled up at the footman who stepped forward to pour her coffee. ‘I wasn’t expecting to see you up and about so soon.’

Her husband gave a wry smile and shakily put his coffee cup down on its saucer, spilling some coffee on the table as he did so. ‘Nor did I,’ he agreed. ‘I hope that I didn’t disturb you when I went to bed?’

She shook her head and began to vigorously butter some bread. ‘Not at all,’ she said. ‘I must have already been asleep.’ She covertly watched him for a few moments before deciding that as he was awake, sober and relatively cheerful this was as good a time as any to ask if she could have some money for Venetia.

She took a deep breath. ‘Charles?’

‘Mm?’ He barely glanced up from the piece of bread that he was spreading with strawberry jam.

Clementine pressed on. ‘I have a favour to ask you,’ she said, more loudly than she had expected.
 

He looked up then. ‘Oh yes?’

She swallowed. It was now or never. ‘I was wondering if I might be allowed to draw some money from our funds?’ She felt sick and even, almost, a bit angry with Venetia for asking her to do this.

Her husband frowned and sat back in his chair as he steadily regarded her. ‘Are you in debt? The allowance that I make you is a generous one, Clementine. I can’t imagine that you’d ever require anything more.’ He gestured to the footmen that they should leave and obediently they slunk from the room.

Clementine shook her head, nervously pleating the white linen tablecloth beneath her fingers. ‘No, I’m not in debt.’ She was starting to flounder now. ‘It is just that I think I need a trifle more this quarter.’

Charles stared at her. ‘How much more?’

She looked away. ‘5,000 livres.’ Her husband was fabulously wealthy and could easily afford to just give her the money but even so it was an enormous sum.