For Our Liberty (32 page)

I waited anxiously as I moved slowly closer to the porch entrance to pay my 20 sous. A mounted guard slowly road up and down the queue, probably looking for known pick-pockets and other trouble makers. I wasn’t the only one to look away when he passed. On the other side of the road there were a few buildings but you could see the fields beyond. A few hundred yards away I could just see the Monceaux gate and the city walls. Paris had yet to outgrow its defences the way London had centuries before. Tomorrow night I would be going through a similar gate out of the city with Fulton, I hoped. Eventually I came to the head of the queue and paid the entrance fee then walked along the gravelled paths into the gardens. I could hear music from a band, and the sound of laughter came from a couple playing shuttlecock. I found both noises irritating but my mood began to brighten when I saw Dominique. She was waiting for me on a bridge over a small lake, wearing a cream dress that showed her figure off particularly well and a wide hat with a brim that shaded her eyes. She looked for all the world like a bored rich wife seeking diversion on a sultry day, and I suppose to any observer I was that diversion. I forced myself to grin.

“What are you looking so happy about?” she asked as I walked up to her. I didn’t reply, but ducked under her hat and kissed passionately and a little desperately. “Oh, I see,” she said when we pulled apart. “Did your interview with Fulton not go well?”

“It could have gone better,” I said, taking her arm. We walked across the bridge and through a trellis tunnel covered with roses and honeysuckle. Dominique paused to smell some of the blossom, looking behind us as she did so.

“Duprez told me Fulton was being watched,” she said as we continued walking through to the English garden.

“Yes, he was,” I said. She looked worried.

“What happened?”

“I was followed.”

“Here?” she asked, unable to stop herself glancing behind us again.

“No, I dealt with it,” I said and she looked at me for a moment and then squeezed my arm and put her head on my shoulder. I was grateful she didn’t question me further. “What else did Duprez tell you?” I asked.

“That the Minister of Marine thinks Fulton is an idiot. That his inventions will never amount to anything. They aren’t going to pay him any more.”

“That’s good. He is meeting with the minister tomorrow. He should be discouraged enough to come with me.”

“I talked with my uncle. He made some enquiries. It’s Lacrosse’s men who are watching Fulton,” she watched me as she said it. I must have failed to keep the mix of anger and alarm from my face. She squeezed my arm again.

“Is the yard being watched as well?” I asked.

“No, he said just Fulton himself. They don’t seem concerned about the boats. I think they want to catch the agent who came to meet him. You.”

“They won’t,” I said.

Another couple were walking behind us. The man looked like a banker, and the lady was young enough to be his daughter but with the things they were talking about doing later that afternoon I sincerely hoped that wasn’t the case. I realised if I could overhear their conversation then they could hear ours. I steered us off the path to a little pavilion where they served lemonade and ices. I bought us each a lemonade and we sat at a table in the shade of a cherry tree. Wasps buzzed around the ripening fruit.

“When will you leave?” Dominique asked quietly.

“Tomorrow night,” I said, taking a sip of my drink.

“So soon?”

“I can’t take the risk of staying longer. I wish I could.” I reached out my hand across the table and held hers.

“When will you come back?”

“As soon as I can,” I said and leant across and kissed her on the cheek. “What else did Duprez tell you?” I murmured in her ear as I pulled away. She leant forward, held my hand in both of hers and spoke softly and earnestly as lovers do.

“Everything you already knew about Fulton. I think he may be the one who told the Alien Office about him.”

“You don’t think he’s the traitor then?” I asked, glancing at the other tables. Hopefully we looked to be just another two lovers in a dangerous liaison.

“No, he told me too much that he didn’t need to. If he had been playing me double why would he have warned me about Fulton being watched?”

“Perhaps he was just being very clever. Telling you, us, things we would find out anyway,” I said.

“Perhaps. But my heart tells me he can be trusted.”

“Then let us cross him off the list. I have great faith in your heart,” I said, but she didn’t smile at my clumsy attempt at levity.

“And you don’t think Fauche is duplicitous. So that leaves Jules,” she said. She moved her eyes pointedly to the left. I glanced as casually as I could in that direction. A man sat alone at one of the tables. Sipping lemonade but grimacing slightly every time he took a sip. I drained the last of my own glass, it was too good and the day was too hot to leave it, and then stood and held out my arm for Dominique.
 

“Darling, shall we try the Russian Mountain?” she asked loudly as she got up and let me lead her away. I wanted to frown at her but smiled instead.

“Yes, my dear, why not.”

The Russian Mountain was the latest Parisian mania. It was modelled on the man-made snow hills and sledges that entertained the simple folk of Russia. Of course Paris in the summer was bereft of snow so they had built a small hillock and fashioned metal rails and small carts. One climbed the hill, sat in the cart and came down again. It seemed pointless to me and I had never tried it but I suppose Dominique thought it a reasonable way to see if our lonely lemonade hater was watching us or not. A man without a woman to persuade him would never try it, I thought.

We walked away from the pavilion, from the English garden and through the Dutch. The lone man had left his table soon after us and I could see him sauntering along behind us. That didn’t mean he was following us of course, but I could tell Dominique was getting worried, she glanced a little too frequently behind us and I gently chided her. She sighed, squeezed my arm and nodded. I wondered if I was going to have to kill again, if I could.

Thankfully, when we came to the Russian Mountain and began to climb the hill the man did not follow and kept on towards the exit.

“Good we can go down now,” I said.

“Indeed, we shall,” she said and grinned. I must have looked confused. “It would be a shame to climb up here and not try it,” she continued.

“Why? It seems singularly pointless,” I said.

“Just think of it as the quickest way down. Besides you need to have some fun, I think.”

I sighed, and realised like many a gentleman before me that the path to peace lies with acquiescence. As we got to the top of the hill a boy took our fee, two livres, which by my reckoning made it the most expensive conveyance for the distance travelled I had ever been on. The boy showed us to our cart and held it as we got in. The rails were narrow and that side of the hill was very steep. I gripped Dominique’s hand. With a sudden shove from the boy the cart began to move, wobbling and rattling over the rails. We reached the slope and with a lurch we accelerated quickly down the hill. The cart seemed likely to jump from the rails at any second, the clatter of the wheels became deafening. One of us screamed, a little. We were still travelling very fast at the bottom when a man whose unenviable job it was to catch the carts and slow them down grabbed hold. Dominique was laughing as we stopped, and then laughed more when she saw my face. She clutched her sides as the catcher helped her out, and I, despite myself, began to laugh as well. Perhaps it was just the release of tension but we were soon holding each other up with tears rolling down our cheeks. The catcher looked very bemused as we walked away, still chuckling.

“Thank you,” I said, “I needed that.”

“I know.”

“Now what?” I asked, wiping the last tear from my face and wishing I didn’t have to ask.

“Jules,” she said simply, her own face suddenly serious again. We were walking along a colonnade of orange trees.

“Can you really countenance that a former lover is a traitor?” I asked.

“Yes, have all your lovers been without fault?”

“Fair point, but I don’t think any of them betrayed their country. Their husbands perhaps but not their country.”

“Jules is very vain. He thinks only of himself. It took me too long to realise it but I did. Vanity can lead a man to do anything.”

“But we can’t condemn him just because he is a narcissist,” I said, thinking of a better reason but trying to keep my jealousy in check.

“No, that is why I met you here. Jules lives on the Rue St. Lazare. We will search his rooms and see what secrets he is keeping.”

“I presume you know he won’t be at home.”

“There is an important debate in the assembly. He won’t miss a chance to speak. He loves the sound of his own voice.”

“And how, pray tell, will we gain entrance?”

“I have a key, of course.”

“Of course,” I said, wondering how recently her affaire de coeur with Montaignac had ended and why he had never asked for his key back.

We left the gardens by the same entrance. If anything the queue had got longer, and since it had had got hotter it was more impatient as well. It was a short walk to Rue St. Lazare and we spoke little during it, keeping to the shaded side of the street where possible. We both kept looking behind us but no one was obviously following us.
 

Montaignac’s rooms were in a thin four storey house that, like the man, had pretensions of grandeur. An oversized portico with too many columns and too many little flourishes carved into the stone work made it look overly fussy. Dominique produced two keys from a pocket. The largest fitted the front door, sliding in and then turning with a rattle and squeak. We attempted to look up and down the street without looking furtive but I don’t suppose either of us achieved the necessary air of innocence. Dominique opened the door and went in. The hallway was narrow and smelled of something undefinable but unpleasant.

As she led the way up the stairs, I tried not to think about how many times she’d been there before. There were two doorways off each landing. Montaignac’s rooms were on the top floor and we were both slightly out of breath by the time we reached them. Dominique put the second key in the lock and began to turn it. I reached out and grasped her hand, stopping her opening the door.

“Are you sure he is out?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“And he won’t return this afternoon?”

“No,” she said. I hesitated, then let go of her hand and the door swung open.

She was about to go in but I stopped her again, put my finger to her lips, and tiptoed in ahead of her. She let out a small exhalation of frustration but didn’t argue, for once. I crept into the first room. It was large, and well lit but had that heavy, musty atmosphere of a room left shut up during hot weather. It needed a window opening. The walls were lined with bookshelves. The three leather chairs looked comfortable. The decor was masculine, with dark and heavy colours. Two paintings in the style of David depicted scenes from the Revolution. That morning’s Le Moniteur lay discarded on the floor. Nobody was at home. I took off my hat and left it on one of the chairs. Dominique stomped in behind me, glanced around the room and walked off down a small corridor making no attempt to be quiet. I followed, still unable to stop myself treading lightly.

“So, what are we looking for?” I whispered.

“Evidence he is a traitor, of course,” she said loudly as she opened another door.

“Oh, wait, what’s this?” I said, holding up a letter that had been left on a small table in the passage way. “It’s a bill from the traitors and confidential agents club,” I said, pretending to read what was actually a bill from Montaignac’s tailor. “Dominique, my darling, he is not going to leave anything that might incriminate him lying around for anybody to find, now is he?” She wasn’t listening. I followed her into Montaignac’s bedroom. It was painted crimson and the bed was quite large. She seemed quite familiar with it, I tried in vain to halt the jealous thoughts that came unbidden to my mind. Why is it we gentlemen are quite prepared to welcome wanton behaviour in our mistresses and wives but expect them to have been chaste before they met us?

“He keeps a diary,” she said as she opened some drawers and began to carefully search through the contents.

“How do you know?”

“Don’t ask.”

“And you think he’ll be stupid enough to record his nefarious activities? ‘21
st
March, met with Lacrosse, betrayed ten royalists. Had good game pie for dinner.’ I don’t believe so.”

“He’s vain enough to want to record his cleverness at deceiving those who would betray the Revolution, in his eyes.”

“So where is this diary?” I asked, knowing I wasn’t going to convince her of its banality until we found it.

“I don’t know, he keeps it hidden,” she said, as she closed the last of the drawers and opened a wardrobe. She was getting exasperated with me, I could tell.

“So how do you know it even exists?” I asked, before I could stop myself. I should have just shut up.

“I said, don’t ask,” she said a little sharply.