One Thing More (8 page)

Célie wondered what Madame had been like as a young woman, what her life had held, above all what had drawn her to a dour man like Monsieur Lacoste. There was little wit or joy of life in him, but he had endless patience with the children, and Célie had seen a tenderness in him surprisingly often when he spoke to them. Fernand respected him, and Marie-Jeanne liked him better than she liked her own father.

Madame flashed her a quick smile, then went across the kitchen to fetch clean linen from the press, and thanked Célie for it. She was almost to the hall when there was a noise outside the back door, it opened and Bernave came in. He slammed it behind him and stood on the stone floor, dripping water from his coat. He was obviously exhausted, his face gaunt in the candlelight, streaked with rain and almost colourless.

He stamped his feet, shaking the water off himself.

Amandine loathed him for what he was doing to St Felix, but her deepest instinct was to nurture, and before she had time for memory and emotion to curb her, she took a clean towel from the airing rack and went towards him.

‘You are perished, Citizen. Let me take your coat,’ she offered. ‘Dry yourself.’ She held out the towel. ‘I’ll get you some hot soup. Have you eaten today?’

‘No ... no time.’ He took the towel and let her remove the coat and hang it near the door where it could drip without shedding puddles over the whole kitchen.

Célie glanced at Madame, and saw with surprise a look of alarm in her face. Was it concern, or fear? For whom? For Bernave or her own family?

Bernave looked across and his eyes met Madame’s. They stared at each other for a matter of seconds, and then she broke the silence, speaking quite casually, her voice low.

‘You must be cold, Citizen. It is a pity your business requires you to be out on such a day.’

‘Lots of things are a pity, Citizeness,’ he replied, his eyes still unwavering on hers. ‘It does no good to think of them. We can only deal with what is.’

‘I know that!’ There was pain in her voice, raw as if some terrible wound still bled. Then an instant later she concealed it again. All emotion was gone, wiped away. ‘We are fortunate to have a roof over our heads, our food to eat,’ she observed. ‘It is more than many poor devils in Paris can say.’

‘Indeed,’ he nodded, still facing her.

The seconds ticked by. She turned her head away and walked towards the door. ‘Good evening, Citizen,’ she said quietly. ‘I hope you are able to rest now,’ and she went out without glancing back.

He stood motionless for several moments, his expression unreadable in the candlelight. It could have been profound emotion in him, or simply a bitter amusement because he knew what he was attempting to do, knew how desperately it mattered, not only for him but far more for all France. He knew how short time was, and she guessed nothing. For all she understood, he could have been about some money-making affair.

Then he sighed and looked at Amandine.

She smoothed the expression from her face also, erasing the anger.

‘Bring the soup to my study,’ he told her. ‘Célie, come with me.’ He walked out the way Madame had gone, and Célie drank another few mouthfuls from her bowl before following after him. She hated to leave it behind.

In the study there were five candles burning, making the room soft and bright. Amandine had lit the stove over an hour ago, and it was warm. Bernave stood in front of it, the steam rising from his wet jacket and breeches.

‘Did you deliver my message?’

‘Yes, I saw them all,’ she answered.

‘Good.’ He stood wringing his frozen hands. They were white where the circulation had stopped, the heavy scars standing out livid. ‘How was Coigny last night?’

She had told Amandine what she wanted to hear. She should tell Bernave the truth.

‘Cold and hungry,’ she answered. ‘But still determined.’

He smiled, laughter in his clear eyes. ‘You admire him, don’t you, Célie?’ It was hardly a question.

She resented the thought of admiring Georges. An instant denial came to her lips; then she realised Bernave would know it was a lie, and worse than that, he would know why. He seemed almost to look inside her.

‘I admire his conviction,’ she said defiantly. ‘And his intelligence.’

Bernave’s eyebrows rose. ‘Oh? What did he say?’

Her answer was interrupted by Amandine knocking on the door, and at Bernave’s command, bringing in his meal. She set it on the desk. He thanked her. Discreetly she placed Célie’s soup bowl, refilled, nearer the corner. Then she took her leave, closing the door behind her with a snap.

‘Well?’ Bernave asked, going over to the desk and sitting down. He gestured towards the cup. ‘Don’t stand there! Finish your soup. Then go and do whatever it is you do in the house. And, Célie!’

‘Yes?’

‘Thank you.’ For a moment there was affection in his face, as if she might have been a friend.

She stared back at him for a long minute, then finished the soup and left.

She spent a little time working on the laundry, Marie-Jeanne helping her, taking the dry linen and clothes off the airing rack and folding them while Célie hung the fresh laundry in its place. It was wet and heavy and made her arms ache.

‘Sugar’s gone up again,’ Marie-Jeanne remarked, flicking a pillow cover to get the corners straight. ‘Three years ago it was twenty-four sous—today Citizeness Benoit told me they were asking fifty-eight! Can you believe that? She left it—of course.’ She winced in a grimace of pity, and reached for a sheet, matching corner to corner. ‘Her husband was injured in the storming of the Tuileries,’ she went on. ‘Shot in the shoulder, I think. He’d hardly recovered from that when he was called up to go and fight the Prussians. She heard just two weeks ago that he’s been killed. And her eldest child is sickly. Poor soul doesn’t know where to turn.’ She pulled out the sleeves of a jacket and straightened it on the rail. ‘I gave her a cupful, but I can’t go on doing that.’

‘We’ve got more than most people,’ Célie agreed. ‘Citizen Bernave sees to that.’

Marie-Jeanne’s face was deliberately expressionless. ‘Yes. We’re fortunate.’ She shook a small shirt hard to take out the creases. Her fingers moved swiftly, gently over it, as if she were thinking of the child to whom it belonged.

Célie turned away. She could not think of anything so small without a return of the pain. She could remember Jean-Pierre so sharply, the weight of him in her arms, the milky smell. There were times when it was unbearable. She forced herself to turn back to the laundry. Some of the sheets were wearing thin. She would have to start cutting them down for pillowcases, or if things were hard enough, for shirts and drawers.

Marie-Jeanne was frowning, as though she felt the need to explain herself, but could find no words. She was unaware of the turmoil in Célie. She knew nothing of Jean-Pierre’s death, or Amandine and Georges, or the terrible thing Célie had done in her agony.

She was examining a jerkin of Fernand’s when St Felix returned. He came in through the back door again, soaked to the skin, his face and arms covered with mud, his hat missing, his hair plastered to his head.

‘Oh, my heavens!’ Marie-Jeanne dropped the jerkin and rushed forward. ‘Whatever happened to you? You look awful! Where did he send you this time? No—don’t bother! Sit down before you fall!’

Célie thought of the wound in his arm, but Bernave’s haunted face was too sharp in her mind for anger.

Célie was profoundly grateful that Amandine was not in the kitchen. At least she might not see St Felix until they had got him warm and dry. The first thing was to see what damage there was beneath the dirt and sodden clothes. She went to get water and warm it, then a little vinegar to wash any cuts and abrasions, and wine for St Felix to drink. Marie-Jeanne disappeared to fetch him some clean clothes of Fernand’s from upstairs.

Célie had the water warmed by the time Marie-Jeanne returned, followed by Madame Lacoste. Madame’s face was dark and fierce, her brows drawn together, but she expressed no opinion. She could not know the urgency of the errand which had taken St Felix out. Whatever she thought of Bernave, she was too wise, or too careful to speak it aloud.

‘Here!’ she offered, taking the clothes from Marie-Jeanne and holding them out. Without looking at his face, she gestured to the blue jerkin and breeches St Felix had on. ‘Put that lot out of the door. Let the rain clean it!’

He was too exhausted to argue, neither did he hesitate or look at her, but began to strip off. There were clean towels left where she had folded them only moments since.

He stood in the middle of the floor, shuddering, his fair skin raised in goose bumps, his face haggard, cuts and bruises dark, blood seeping red through the linen bound around his arm. He looked beaten and frightened.

Amandine came in. Her eyes went instantly to St Felix; she drew in her breath sharply, her hands clenching as if to stop herself from speaking.

Very gently Célie unwound the bandage and looked at yesterday’s injury. It was angry and red, as if it had been caught by a new blow, but the bleeding was slight, and the edges of skin were still close together. The shock was that of revulsion and possibly terror more than physical damage. She could picture what must have happened. St Felix, for all the simple clothes he affected, might have seemed to someone like a gentleman. A joke would have got out of hand, became rough, and ended in a brawl. Ill feeling rose very quickly where there was drunkenness, and that strange turmoil of emotions that was in crowds these days. At last they had the power they had longed for, fought for, and yet they were still cold and hungry and just as helpless as before. The confusion turned to rage, but they did not know who or what to blame.

But far more urgent in Célie’s mind than consideration of St Felix’s state was whether he had succeeded in whatever Bernave had sent him to do. With less than three days left, it had to concern the King’s escape, and that affected them all.

‘Did you see the man Citizen Bernave wanted?’ she asked him quietly as she rebandaged his arm with clean linen.

Madame Lacoste was waiting with the fresh shirt. Her black eyes shot Célie a warning look.

‘Yes,’ St Felix answered quietly. ‘His business is agreed.’

Amandine ran her fingers through her cloud of dark hair, dragging it back off her face.

‘Business!’ she said with stinging contempt. ‘The King is to be executed in three days, the city is on the brink of chaos, and Bernave sends you out with an injury like that—to God knows where—to conduct business!’

Madame looked at her. ‘The King will be executed in two and a half days,’ she corrected. ‘They do these things first light in the morning. Not very long.’ It was impossible to tell from her face whether she thought that a good thing or bad. There was a tension in her body so powerful Célie could only think she laboured under some fierce emotion, but it was beyond her to know what it was.

‘That is all I can do.’ She turned back to St Felix, tying the last knot in the bandage and moving away. She had stopped the bleeding and the bruises would mend themselves.

Madame gave him the shirt and he rose to his feet and put it on, drawing his breath in sharply as it touched his arm. Then he added the jerkin. He thanked her gravely, his eyes far away. Perhaps the horror he had seen, the violence and dirt and stupidity, still haunted him so he could see and hear it even in this quiet, candlelit kitchen with its scrubbed stone floor, the light gleaming on the pots, and the sweet, aromatic smells.

Amandine handed him a mug of hot broth from the pan, her hands shaking a little.

He met her eyes, smiling, and took it from her.

All three women stood watching as he sipped it delicately, trying not to burn himself.

The door opened and Monsieur Lacoste came in, his feet wet and his hair plastered to his head and dripping.

‘I couldn’t find it,’ he said with irritation, looking from one to another of them, his eyes lingering for a moment on St Felix, though he asked for no explanation. ‘I’ll try again tomorrow. I can’t see a thing up there now.’

‘What?’ Madame asked with a frown. ‘What are you looking for?’

‘The leak! The leak in the roof!’ he explained loudly. ‘There must be a slate split.’

Madame glanced at Marie-Jeanne, then back to her husband. ‘Where? It’s not coming through.’

‘It’s not bad, but it’ll get worse in this,’ he replied, raising his eyes upwards.

Madame smiled at him and nodded, handing him a towel for his head. He rubbed himself briskly and gave it back to her. A moment later he went out again.

St Felix finished his soup and put down the empty cup, thanked them again, then walked awkwardly out of the kitchen. They heard his slightly limping step along the wooden boards to Bernave’s study.

‘Why does he allow it?’ Amandine exploded savagely. She glared at Célie, then at Madame Lacoste. ‘If Bernave thinks he has to do business today, then let him do it himself!’

Célie did not bother to point out that Bernave had been out too. She could not explain where to, or why.

‘These are strange times,’ Madame said quietly, her face shadowed, the muscles in her neck tight as if it hurt her. ‘We none of us know what another is doing, or why.’

It was an odd remark. Célie and Amandine glanced at each other. Neither was certain what to make of it. They were prevented from pursuing it by Fernand coming in, still wearing his leather carpenter’s apron. He looked tired. There were heavy lines in his face. He made a quick acknowledgement of his mother, then looked around the room. ‘Where is Marie-Jeanne?’

‘Virginie was upset,’ Madame replied. ‘She was quarrelling with Antoine over something.’

‘What about?’ Fernand said angrily. ‘What’s the matter with him?’

‘He doesn’t know what,’ she answered. ‘He’s frightened because everyone else is frightened.’

His face softened. ‘Don’t worry, Mama.’ He put his arm around her in a quick, assuring gesture. ‘It’s all going to be all right, if we just keep quiet, keep out of sight. In a month or two it will be better. There’ll be order again, and then food. They’ll get rid of the speculators, and when the grain is released to the people, it’ll settle down. Don’t worry.’ He shook his head a little and forced himself to smile. ‘We’ve got a good house here. Bernave may be a pig to St Felix, but he’s good enough to us. We’re warmer than most, and we’ve got food.’ His voice gained certainty. ‘The decision has been taken. The King will be executed, and that’ll be the end of counter-revolutionaries. Marat will control the Convention and start to get things done. By spring we’ll all have food, and there’ll be peace again.’