Minuet (30 page)

They stuck to the back streets, entering nowhere, while Henri told them of his recent adventures—the arrest at the Hôtel des Hosiers, how he had told the
garde
he was traveling with a boxer and his girl, neither of whom knew his true identity. “I knew they would go looking for you, but trusted Minou would have the wits to say exactly what I had said myself.”

“But of course,” she told him. “Degan had more wits, Henri. He sneaked us out a window before the
gardes
could find us, for with his awful French, you know, he would have been tossed into prison for a spy at once.”

“I was half afraid Degan was done for,” Henri admitted. “Your salvation was that the proprietor gave you a warning. I wonder why he did it.”

“You forget Agnès Maillard was of our party at the time,” Sally informed them. “He had been giving her certain looks since the arrival.”

“I see you are François again. That too was wise,” Henri complimented them.

“Don’t think
you
are the only one with brains,” Minou said. “We have been up to all sorts of things. How I have
maligned
you, too. Calling you rat and pig and every bad name I could put my tongue to.” She related to him some of their adventures, causing him to think he had been the better off of the three the past days.

“Where did you sleep?” he asked at last.

“Who slept? We stayed together in a room, trembling in our boots, and took turns standing guard, while the other tried to rest,” she answered, just a little reluctant to inform her brother of certain episodes. “Oh, and I told Pierre all about you.”

“Who is Pierre?” Henri asked.

“I mean Degan. He has a French name—is not that odd?”

“Much about our friend Degan surprises me,” Henri admitted, with a warm grip on Degan’s arm. “And pleases me. Oh, and something will displease you, Degan. They took all your beautiful gold. Foolish of me to have kept most of it myself. How much have we left?”

Degan shrugged. “Too bad, but it’s only money. We have about the equivalent of two pounds. I had to give most of it to your mother.” He went on to tell Henri of Edward’s illness.

“I must go to see them at once,” Henri said. “I lost their
cartes civiles,
by the way. The spares I brought with me from London, for them to use to get out the barricade. We’ll have to think of something else.”

Not even this could daunt their spirits. They were merry all the way to the rue de Charonne.

“It would be best for you to get out of Paris immediately, Henry,” Degan mentioned. “Tonight, I mean.”

“Leave Mama and the others behind? Never!”

“Our chances of getting away would be better without the comte de Virais in our party,” Degan continued. This, he knew, was his only chance of getting Henry away from Paris, as must certainly be done.

“Maybe you have something there. I have no card, no money, nothing. It will be difficult,” Henri said, his mind already dealing with these little impediments.

“Mama will give you some money,” Minou said. “And about a card, we have some extras.”

“One
extra,
mon chou,
and I do not think I would make a convincing Agnès Maillard.”

“Take mine,” Degan offered. “You must get out tonight. I have a few days to find one somewhere.”

“He means steal,” Minou translated proudly to her half brother.

“He comes on quickly, this one,” Henri congratulated. Degan felt as though he had been highly honored. “Steal three while you are about it, Pierre. One for Mama and another for Édouard.”

“We will contrive, Henri. My Degan is an excellent contriver,” she said.

“You are contriving rather well yourself, minx. I see you have contrived to put yourself in possession of Le Taureau.”

“Yes, I forgot to tell you, we are engaged.”

“Félicitations, tous les deux.
I welcome you as half a brother-in-law. How much farther to the asylum? I’m bushed.”

“Pooh, you are out of shape. We have been running along the streets for forty-eight hours, Degan and I. We have become a couple of racehorses. This is nothing,” Minou boasted.

“You two racehorses any good at a steeplechase?” he asked. “Come, we take the shortcuts,” he decreed, and they were off through back yards, over fences and through hedges, with no more thought of privacy than if they were a pack of hounds. Henri entertained them as they went.

“Know what I heard in prison? A ghastly thing. They had that woman who ran the waxworks—Tussaud was her name—in prison, and made her make wax statues of the great ones executed. They used the severed head for the mask of the face. She had done some statues for the royal family, that was her crime. I bet they intended to have her do me.”

“You flatter yourself. You rated two small paragraphs in the newspapers,” his sister said to deflate him.

“That proves how important I am. News of my arrest was leaked. They meant to get out a special issue after the Commune members were beheaded, especially to renew interest in the national show.”

“You see how vain he is?” Minou told Degan. “He will be dashing back if we don’t hold onto his coattails. A whole act to himself; it is irresistible to such as he.”

“You rescued me only to prevent my moment of glory,” he told her.

They reached the asylum in a very short space of time. It was decided Degan would remain outside with Minou. Henri was warmly received and was inside for an hour. When he came out, he said, “I have arranged for Mama and Édouard to leave tomorrow night. I am to have a cart or carriage waiting at the deserted convent of Picpus after dark.”

“Where’s that?” Degan asked.

“Just at the edge of the Faubourg St.-Antoine, where they had the guillotine set up earlier. Minou knows where it is. Go out by the Barrière du Trône; it is the closest exit. I mean to go that way myself tonight. It is an isolated area, with a better chance of success for us.”

“Is Édouard well enough to travel?” Minou asked.

“He will be. It is madness to linger a moment longer than necessary. Better a little setback to his health than to lose his head. That is very hard to remedy, that malady. The Terrorists have taken over completely. There are some among them who want the Terror stopped, but at the moment it proceeds at top pace. I leave you two with plenty of contriving to do. You must get cards and if possible a mule or horse for Édouard. Mama says the late afternoon just before dinner when they are in the orchard is the best time to slip away. She will take Édouard out to sit for fresh air, and we must all pray it doesn’t decide to pour rain.”

“What do we do in the afternoon?” Degan inquired. “Just wait around and meet them, or go in and help them escape?”

“I told her you would wait a block away, a block north. They’ll make a dash for it and join you. And now it is time for me to leave you. I got a hundred pounds from Mama for the hire of a carriage and whatever I need—it will see us home, I hope. Have you enough to last one more day?”

“Plenty—two whole pounds,” Minou assured him.

“Good. Then I’m off. Ah—did I remember to thank you two for calling on me this evening? Delightful visit. We must do this again soon. Let me know in advance, and I will have some wine chilled to welcome you.
Au revoir.”

Degan handed him the card of Philippe Ferrier, and Minou threw her arms around his neck. “God be with you, my dear Henri,” she said, clinging to him a moment.

“I wish you two the same. I hope He really has this power of being everywhere at once. His presence is also requested at the Maison Belhomme with Mama and Édouard. Goodbye, Degan,
mon ami.
Take good care of our little girl. I know I leave her in capable hands. I misjudged you. I am sorry—and also delighted, of course,
ça va sans dire. À bientôt.”

The men clasped hands firmly. “Take care of yourself, Henri,” Degan said.

They parted with a last wave, all wondering if they would ever meet again.

“How can we check into a hotel for the night without any identification for you?” Minou asked. “It is dangerous. One never knows when they will ask for the card.”

“Have you ever slept outdoors?” he asked.

“Me, I am very happy in a hayrick, you will recall, but where are we to find one in Paris?”

“There is that elegant abandoned shack we changed in yesterday morning. I doubt the bugs and worms will want to have a look at my card. What do you say?”

“Splendid. Why did not I think of that? You are spoiling me, Degan. With you to take such good care of me, my brain is going soft. Come, let us go. We’ll be the fastest steeds in England by the time we get home.”

They found a similar sort of shack closer than the one formerly used. They stopped at the first one they came to, and finding it empty, put the spare outfits on the ground for a cover, and sat leaning against the shack’s wall with their heads together, feeling not deprived of anything, but relatively easy in their minds with Henry’s neck out of the guillotine, Édouard recovering, and the lure of leaving this pestilential city within twenty-four hours, provided of course they could steal three
cartes civiles,
beg, borrow or steal a mule, and remain unarrested, and provided it didn’t rain.

“When we get home,” Minou said, “I am going to submerge myself into a tub of water and soak for three days, eating as fast as I can the whole time.”

“Just as you did the night you arrived,” Degan reminded her.

“But no, I had only a short bath that night, with Papa sending up for me every five minutes. This time I mean to remain till my skin is all wrinkled up like a prune. How long ago that all seems! And
you, vaurien,
telling me I would catch hydrophobia to eat without washing. I bet it was
you
sent word up to hurry me, and me with still sixteen layers of grime on me. How I wanted to shake you up!”

“You did, when you came into the saloon wearing that exquisite golden curtain, and very little else.”

“I wore Miss Pringle’s petticoats, and somebody’s stockings.”

“True, and very chic they looked, but you weren’t wearing the curtain from the waist up there at one point.”

“I think I shocked you, Degan. Did I?”

“You did, and I realize now it was your intention—
épater les bourgeois,
as you say.”

“That sounded almost French, that last speech. The tongue thaws out. But the gown fell quite by accident. I didn’t do it on purpose. I am not that bold. You don’t find me
fast,
I hope!”

“Just right for me.”

“Then I cannot be at all fast,” she said happily, and snuggled into his arms, a single young lady spending the night alone with a man in a hut.

Chapter Twenty-two

After sleeping under such poor protection from the elements, joints ached and noses sniffled when the dawn broke over Paris the next morning. It was a beautiful, rosy dawn, however, promising a good day. “I prayed it wouldn’t be raining,” Minou said.

“So did I,” Degan told her. “Shall we say a few for His continued help during this day?”

They sat huddled together for half an hour before leaving their sanctuary, as they awoke at six. “There must be
cartes
available for purchase, if only one knew whom to approach,” she said.

“Or if we had enough money,” he reminded her. “We need the mule for Édouard too. How on earth are we to get one?”

“Any good at gambling, Pierre?” she asked. “If you could get into a game of cards...”

“I never approved of gambling,” he confessed. “I bet Henri could have won us a mule in half an hour.”

“It must be done by stealing then, the cards and the mule. What a foul trick to play on anyone, to steal the
carte civile.”

“What’s done with the cards of the guillotine’s victims?”

“I have no idea—burned, or sold on the black market by an enterprising clerk.”

“Maybe your mother could use Agnès Maillard’s card—that would mean we have to find cards only for Édouard and myself.”

“The age is on the card, but at night perhaps Mama could pass for a girl. No—we’d better not use Agnès’ card. Her name might be on some
interdit
list by now. Better not to chance it.”

“She’ll have to know you’re here now. I hope it won’t throw her into hysterics.”

“We do not indulge in hysterics, we Augés! She’ll give me a great thundering scold, and I’m used to that after you. The worst is over now. She’ll be
aux anges
to see me.”

“About the cards...” He reverted to the important matter.

“Ah yes, the cards.
Revenons à nos moutons.”

“What?”

“An old saying—let us get back to our sheep. Our subject, it means.”

“Sheep... I wonder if they check out the cards of shepherds at the barriers. They’d be so happy to see meat coming in... oh, but it would have to be going out, wouldn’t it?”

“You might as well look for an aristo as a living sheep in Paris. You are not using your head, Pierre.”

“What would be going out that might hide a couple of people beneath it?”

“Nothing much leaves the city. Much produce is brought in, vegetables and so on, but as to going out, it is mostly supplies for the army. The one at Toulon and the others scattered about.”

“Army vehicles wouldn’t be searched, I bet.”

“No, but closely guarded at the depot of loading. And how to escape from the wagon after getting through the barriers?”

“I wonder if Madame Belhomme couldn’t help us get cards?”

“Her business is to keep people in, not help them escape. Her patients have no cards. That is why they are in there.”

“What are the chances of getting out of the city without a card, at some point other than a barrier?”

“I come to think it is the best chance. To risk robbing someone today, at the critical moment, is dangerous. We might get caught. But we are a pair of fools, Pierre! The Picpus convent is abandoned. The yard of it was used as a cemetery when the guillotine was at the Faubourg St.-Antoine, near a barrier. We are a couple of mourners going... No, we can’t be mourners for the executed, or we will be suspicious. I bet curious gawkers go to look around the graves all the same. What do you think?”