Miss Jacobson's Journey (16 page)

Obligingly Lavardac moved the box to a chair. The prefect rubbed with a lace-edged handkerchief at the scratches and dents made by the brass studs, while Miriam flipped through the papers. It was sheer chance that when she sorted them in Paris she had noted the wine merchant’s name on the back of a page devoted to diabetes among the Sephardim. Otherwise it would have been discarded.

“Here it is. `Lavardac, Jean-Baptiste, wine merchant of Bordeaux. Jaundice. Prescribed rhubarb, lemon juice, warm baths. Avoid sugar, fat, alcohol.’“

The mayor combined a beaming smile with a guilty look. “Sugar I avoid,” he announced. “Wine and foie gras--I am a Gascon, n’est-ce pas?--I take in moderation. Dr. Bloom was an excellent doctor, and these are indubitably his notes.”

The three of them turned to stare at the prefect. His cannon spiked, Grignol seemed to shrink. He took a clean sheet of paper, scribbled on it, and passed it to the mayor.

“I’m a busy man,” he said petulantly. “Show this to Lieutenant Hébert.” Taking a document from a drawer, he gave it all his attention.

Lavardac scanned the scribbled paper, handed it to Ségal, and picked up Uncle Amos’s box. Leading the way out of the office, Miriam glanced back to see the prefect futilely rubbing at his defiled desk with his dainty handkerchief.

In the anteroom, Hannah had finished her packing and in her execrable French was supervising the youthful gendarme as he roped the boxes. Looking sheepish, he sprang to attention and saluted the mayor.

“Find Hébert and bring him here,” Lavardac commanded.

“At once, monsieur le maire.”

Miriam ran to hug Hannah. “What did Grignol write, monsieur?” she asked over her shoulder.

“`Cohen and Rauschberg to be released with all their goods,’ signed and dated. It suffices. I shall speak to the lieutenant and then I must leave you, mademoiselle. Grignol is not the only busy man, alas.”

He bowed over her hand with a courtly grace as she did her best to thank him for his kindness.

A pallid, hollow-cheeked man came in and announced that he was Lieutenant Hébert. Lavardac gave him the release and he read it suspiciously, then started towards the prefect’s office.

Lavardac grabbed his arm and bellowed, “The gentlemen you have so grievously wronged are not in there. Fetch them at once, have their luggage loaded on their carriage, and see that good horses are provided.”

“At once, monsieur le maire.”

Turning to Ségal, Lavardac enveloped the little man’s hand in both his huge paws. “I thank you, mon vieux, that was very amusing. If you have further need of me, you know where to find me. Mademoiselle, I am always at your service.” He winked at Miriam. “And I shall endeavour to avoid the foie gras. Until we meet again!” With a cheery wave he departed in Hébert’s wake.

Suddenly exhausted, Miriam sat down on Uncle Amos’s box. Ezra Ségal patted her shoulder. “Don’t worry, my dear. You will soon be on your way.”

“With God’s help,” said Hannah, “blessed be His name.”

“And with your help, monsieur.” Miriam smiled at the banker. He blushed.

Hannah’s young assistant came in with another gendarme and started to carry out portmanteaux and boxes.

“I’d best keep an eye on them,” said the abigail. “He’s not too bright, that lad.” She hurried after them.

They came back for another load, and then for a final few pieces, and still there was no sign of Isaac and Felix. Miriam began to pace restlessly, her hands clasped tight before her. She wished Lavardac had not left. She was tempted to rush into the inner office and demand that the prefect emerge from his sanctum to see his orders carried out. Lieutenant Hébert had a sly air, she recalled. What was he doing?

The banker went to the outer door and looked up and down the hall. “Here come two young men,” he said with satisfaction. “I believe they must be your friends.”

Miriam rushed to the door. Hébert, and yes, there they were following him, Isaac tall and dark, rueful, limping slightly; Felix tall and fair, an expression of sardonic amusement on his handsome face. She sped to meet them then stopped, horrified, as she realized they both wore handcuffs.

“Why are they still chained?” she demanded passionately.

The lieutenant scowled. Felix grinned and shrugged. Isaac laughed, and the joy in his laughter reassured her.

“We insisted on coming up rather than waiting below for this fellow to find the right key.”

Behind them wheezed a corpulent jailer in a bulging striped waistcoat, his red face dripping with sweat. His lips moved as he sorted through one of the two huge iron rings of keys hanging at his waist--well, at his middle. Miriam tried not to giggle hysterically. She felt light-headed with relief.

She was tempted to fling her arms about Isaac and Felix, and had they been alone she might have succumbed to temptation. As it was, she turned back to Ezra Ségal.

“I fear we are keeping you from your business,” she said.

He frowned. “I shall stay with you until you depart.”

At once her elation fled. She prayed his cautiousness was unjustified, but Hébert’s sly eyes disturbed her.

The lieutenant ushered them into a room opposite the prefect’s anteroom, furnished with a scratched deal table and several plain wooden chairs. He stayed by the open door while the jailer waddled over to a window and squinted at his jangling keys.

“This is the one,” he said triumphantly. “It is too dark below to make it out.”

Shuddering at the thought of the gloomy dungeons, Miriam watched the fat man unlock Felix’s handcuffs, puffing and grunting as he turned the stiff key. The fetters clanked on the table-top and Felix rubbed his wrists, grimacing. Miriam hurried to examine the damage.

Red indentations and some chafing were the worst of it. “We’ll put on some of Hannah’s witch hazel,” she said, clasping his warm, strong hands and looking up into eyes as blue as southern skies. His gaze caught her, held her in a sudden stillness, burned into her, through her, stopped her breath. Her heart lurched.

And then a second pair of cuffs struck the table. Felix pulled her into a brief, exuberant hug and let her go.

The world started moving again but it seemed unreal. In a daze she checked Isaac’s wrists, again prescribed witch hazel, and enquired solicitously about the limp she had noted. When he dismissed it as mere stiffness, she smiled at him in sympathetic gladness. And all the while her whirling mind demanded wildly, Am I in love with Felix?

“The lieutenant is gone!” Monsieur Ségal’s sharp words dragged her back to normalcy. “I believe you ought to leave with all speed.”

Isaac and Felix swung round to stare at him and Miriam realized they had no idea who he was.

“I shall introduce you later,” she said hastily, starting towards the door. The jailer was ahead of her, panting along with the handcuffs under his arm. He squeezed through the doorway and disappeared.

“Where is the carriage?” Felix asked in his painstaking French.

“They brought us here in it,” Isaac clarified, “but I don’t know how to find it.”

They turned to the banker. He shrugged his shoulders, obviously worried. Miriam stepped out into the hall and looked hopefully in each direction. To the left she saw the jailer’s back view. Isaac and Felix had appeared from that direction, whereas she and Ségal and the mayor had come the opposite way. Neither seemed promising.

Someone had to decide. She turned left, leading the others into the unknown. Then they came to a cross corridor and there was Hannah, trotting along followed by her faithful gendarme.

“What has been keeping you?” she asked in Yiddish. “I’ve waited and waited, may God spare me.”

“You know the way to the berline?” Miriam demanded.

“It’s a regular maze, but Étienne here knows the way.” She patted her youthful companion’s arm. “He’s a bit slow but he’s a good-hearted lad. Just follow us.”

Étienne took them to a walled courtyard behind the building. Stepping out into the heat of the midday sun, reflected from the cobbles, Miriam blinked at the brightness. The berline awaited them, with a team already harnessed.

The groom holding their heads announced that he would go with them the first stage so as to bring back the police horses.

“And to report on which road we’ve taken,” Felix muttered.

“They could as easily follow us,” Miriam pointed out. She turned to Ségal. “Monsieur, have the goodness to give us directions to the Toulouse road. Oh, Felix, Isaac, this is my friend Monsieur Ségal, who was instrumental in obtaining your release.”

The little banker demurred, giving all the credit to his friend the mayor, but the men shook his hand with hearty thanks. He hurriedly explained the way out of Bordeaux.

Felix looked blank. “Did you not understand?” Isaac asked. “I’d better drive first, then.” He headed for the box.

“I’ll check the harness.” Felix followed him.

Miriam kissed Ségal’s cheek, making him blush again. “Give Suzanne a kiss from me,” she requested. He handed her into the carriage, where Hannah was already ensconced, having bidden her pet gendarme farewell.

Felix returned. As he set his foot on the step, he glanced down with a look of absolute horror.

“
Au diable!“
he swore. “Those damned chains have ruined my boots!”

Miriam giggled. “I never taught you those words,” she chided him.

He sat down opposite her, grinning. “I picked them up myself,” he said with becoming modesty, “but I beg your pardon for using them in your presence. All the same, my boots will never recover from this. It’s been bad enough having them blacked by inn servants, using soot from the kitchen chimney, I daresay. My valet will never forgive me.”

“You must be shaking in your mistreated boots.” She smiled at him, glad to return to their previous easy relationship, dismissing her earlier overwrought sensibilities as the effect of the morning’s frightening happenings.

She turned to the window to thank Ezra Ségal once more and bid him a final good-by. The berline began to rumble across the cobbled yard. Leaning forward to wave to the banker, she saw standing in a doorway, watching them, the ominous figure of Lieutenant Hébert.

Chapter 15

 “The groom is leaving us here, but someone is following us.” Isaac joined Miriam and Hannah in the carriage, handing each a napkin containing a roll and a piece of cheese.

Miriam spared a mournful thought for the hamper she had left behind at the Prince de Galles. “How do you know?” she asked. “Perhaps he is just travelling the same way.”

“There is little enough traffic for me to be certain it’s the same man, and even an inexpert horseman on an inferior horse could have passed us. I’ve had to drive slowly because the road is in a shocking condition.”

“So we have noticed, though the berline is well-sprung and a vast improvement over the diligence we travelled in last time we came this way. The Garonne floods every winter, I believe, and washes out the road. Do you think it’s Hébert?” She nibbled distastefully at the hard, dry cheese.

“Following us? It could be. Yes, quite likely. Felix told me just now you saw him watching us when we left. He speaks English, you know, so he would be an obvious choice to follow and try yet again to trap us.”

“Felix said he was waiting in the cell when you arrived. They were all prepared for us, were they not? Do you think the Paris prefect has arrested Jakob Rothschild?”

“The Minister of Finance is a powerful man. He should be able to protect him.”

“I daresay he will talk himself out of danger as easily as he talked me into it.” She shivered, though the afternoon was still warm. “I wish we were safely hidden among the foothills of the Pyrenees! I had hoped to disappear as soon as we turn off the main road at Langon, but now they will know which way we have taken.”

“We have escaped them once, we’ll do it again. Tell me how you found Monsieur Ségal, and how he persuaded the mayor to aid us.”

Isaac’s obvious attempt to distract her succeeded for a while. She even laughed when she described Grignol’s discomfiture.

“So your uncle Amos saved our skins again. I’m sorry I never knew him.”

Miriam flushed as she recalled how she had used Uncle Amos as an excuse for rejecting Isaac. He might have forgiven, but she could never forget her unconscionable unkindness.

“Amos Bloom was a saint,” Hannah declared. “Now eat your nuncheon, child, before you faint from hunger. And then Mr. Isaac will excuse you if you take a nap, as I mean to, for if ever there was a wearying day this was it.”

Of course, the overwrought sensibility that brought the past so vividly to mind was due to hunger and exhaustion. Obediently Miriam gnawed on the cheese, then gave up and tore off a piece of the roll, scarcely less hard.

“I’m sorry,” Isaac said with a wry look, “it was the best I could get in a hurry. You did warn us that the country inns cannot be relied upon.”

“What I wouldn’t give for a cup of tea to wash it down! Suzanne Ségal gave us tea. That reminds me, I wanted to ask you what is the purpose of a mezuzah?”

He explained, and she listened while she chewed away at the roll. At last the last crumb disappeared. She did feel better with food, however unsatisfactory, in her stomach. Hannah was nodding in her corner and Miriam was ready to join her. She leaned back against the squabs.

“Sweet dreams,” said Isaac. His voice and his dark eyes were filled with--was it tenderness?

She smiled at him, too sleepy to wonder. Her eyelids drifted down...

...And flew open as she sat up with a start. She had been sound asleep. It took her a moment to realize that she had been roused by the rattle of the shutter above Isaac’s head.

“I thought you ought to know,” said Felix, sounding worried, “that rider is still following us.”

Though Hannah continued to doze, the news drove sleep beyond Miriam’s reach. She was the one who knew the country; it was up to her to devise a way to elude their pursuer. Should they drive on beyond Langon, hoping he might lose interest before they turned south? That would take them out of their way and they had already lost half a day in Bordeaux. Could they evade him in the maze of country roads, even if he knew which direction they were heading? They would need to get far enough ahead to be out of his sight for long enough to disappear.