Season of Light (28 page)

The soldiers went by, the road was clear and Madame’s firm hand touched Asa’s arm, urging her to whip the mare into a trot. As they journeyed on they saw an immense encampment of tents spread over a dozen fields. Soon the road was crammed with carts and carriages and vendors selling anything from toffee to tarred rope.

The scene of their first disagreement was in Portsmouth itself, in a sun-struck courtyard near the harbour, when Madame announced: ‘Now we must sell the horse and trap.’

‘Madame, we cannot.’

‘But we must.’

‘This was not part of the plan, I would never have agreed to it. The horse belongs to my father. I shall send both horse and trap back to Ardleigh.’

‘Consider, mademoiselle. We must leave no trace of our departure from England. If the horse arrives at your house, your father will be alarmed and pursue us. Besides, we need the money. Did you not give much of our capital to the tailor’s wife?’

‘Neither horse nor trap is mine to sell. Don’t you realise that Mrs Dacre was sentenced to transportation for the theft of a pair of scissors?’

Madame de Rusigneux merely raised an eyebrow.

‘Before we take such a drastic step we should find a boat,’ Asa added less vehemently. ‘After all, it may not be possible to leave the country and without transport we would be stranded here.’

‘We will find a boat,’ said Madame.

Thus far Asa had comforted herself with the thought that she could always turn tail, if courage failed, and be safely ensconced in Caroline Lambert’s cottage before nightfall. Besides, she was very fond of that little trap with its narrow bench seat and clanking iron wheels, having driven about in it all her life. And quite apart from her own affection for the gentle-natured mare, she quailed when she considered the squire’s likely reaction to his horse’s disappearance. But her turbulent state, not to mention the pledge she had made Madame to follow her lead, made her the weaker of the two, although she kept her nerve when it came to the sale and struck a hard bargain on the horse so that by nightfall they were nearly twelve guineas better off.

Next they secured a room at an inn called the Pembroke: ‘We will be confident and we will be public,’ said Madame, ‘then no one will ask questions.’

Having eaten supper they set forth to find a boat. Portsmouth harbour was crammed with naval vessels and the town swarmed with military, some presumably detailed to track down suspicious characters intent on travelling incognito to France. In other circumstances Asa might have been comforted by glimpses of the castle, the sea defences, the munitions and the warships. Ardleigh, after all, was only a few miles from the coast and risked being captured by a hostile army within half a day of its landing. Now she viewed these fortifications as barriers.

They headed for a neat, bow-windowed house in Broad Street, home of one Captain Malloy, recommended by some mysterious contact of Madame’s in Chichester. Negotiations were conducted while Malloy continued his meal of beef and ale pie and green peas so Asa’s last memories of England were inextricably mingled with the smell of gravy. She told him the story she and Madame had concocted, that she had a widowed sister living among the English community in Le Havre who was expecting a child and was in dire need of support, but Malloy gave an indifferent shrug and barely cast his eyes over their papers – acquired by Madame via the same anonymous contact.

‘I’ll see you landed safely,’ he said, spearing the last of his peas. ‘There’s few can promise you that. I have friends on the other side who will exchange your English money and give you a bed. None of it will come cheap, mind. We leave at five tomorrow morning with the tide.’ The price of the Channel crossing made Asa flinch but she judged Malloy sufficiently selfish to take care of his own skin at least, which was a comfort.

‘You paid far too much,’ hissed Madame as they set off back to the Pembroke. ‘We could once have bought a year’s dancing lessons from the greatest master in Paris for that amount.’ But there was a hint of a smile in her stern eyes and Asa felt a quickening of excitement.

Their room was hot and noisy and they had to share a bed. Madame, whose gown fastened with a simple drawstring, undressed rapidly to her shift and sat cross-legged on the bed, plaiting her hair. ‘Sit here, facing me like this,’ she instructed. Asa placed herself knee to knee with Madame. ‘Now our lessons truly begin. Once in France, as we agreed, you will have to behave as if you are my French maid, a farmer’s daughter. If you speak at all, you are to speak like a native. We will claim that your accent is from a region in the south-west and that you are very shy. Under no circumstances must you be discovered to be English. I can assure you, mademoiselle, if you are found out, we will both be in grave danger.’

There followed a barrage of questions in French, simple at first, then more complicated. What is your name?
Julie Moreau
. Who are you?
Mon père est fermier
. What is my name?
Madame Elise Lejeune
. Where do we live?
À Paris
. What was the late Monsieur Lejeune’s trade?
Il était fabriqueur des éventails
. Where in Paris did we live?
Rue de Victoire
. From which region of France do you come, Julie?
Les Hautes Pyrenées
.

If Asa’s head drooped or her tongue faltered Madame playfully tweaked her cheek or knee. Once she even seized Asa’s chin and squeezed it in an attempt to correct a vowel. When Asa yelped with pain Madame tapped her face by way of apology but there was no mistaking the anxiety behind that pinch. About two in the morning, Madame abruptly tucked her feet under the sheet, arranged the coil of her plait as a pillow – the one provided having been pronounced dirty – and fell asleep.

Asa lay there, as still as an effigy. The bed was hard, the floorboards creaked, and drunks on the street made a continual racket. It being midsummer, the seagulls began their morning cries remorselessly early. Although her arm was warmed by the woman sleeping beside her, Asa had never felt so lonely, and her thoughts strayed to a vision of swans, a walk through the woods, and the lovely ease with which she might have slipped into Shackleford’s world.

When light the colour of resin filtered through the shutters, Madame opened her eyes as suddenly as if someone had unclipped the lids. The Pembroke supplied them with breakfast and a yawning youth in possession of a little handcart to carry their luggage. The trio set off through dewy streets towards the harbour, which was wide awake, the masts of great naval ships reaching into the pink sky while the first rays of sunshine were absorbed by the matt-black ranks of cannon.

As the sea mist cleared, another ship loomed into view, greater and older than the rest with a vast hull lying low in the water. The youth set down his cart. ‘The
William
,’ he said. ‘Convict ship. Will be there for weeks yet and then off she will go to the Antipodes, fully laden.’

Their own little boat, the
Lorelei
, was moored amid other fishing smacks, her varnish as thick as treacle and her sails half unfurled. Malloy paused in his work to take each woman by the hand and help them on board. They were to stay in the cabin, he said, until the ship had left harbour; there was little danger of the
Lorelei
being searched but his men were superstitious and preferred that women be kept out of sight. The door to the cabin was left ajar and they sat on narrow benches facing each other in a space reeking of male bodies and fish, subjected to the constant clatter and shaking of the boat as she was made ready for sea.

Someone might yet come in search of them. Asa strained for the sound of hoof-beats in the harbour. When a distant bell chimed five o’clock there was a shout and a hiss of rope as England slipped her anchor and slid away. Madame appeared to take no interest, instead opened her portmanteau, withdrew a strip of red cloth and calmly pinned a row of tucks along its edge.

Twenty hours after leaving Portsmouth – the
Lorelei’s
voyage having been prolonged owing to a lack of wind – two women were rowed to a rocky beach west of Le Havre, close to the small town of Viller sur Mer. The mistress, the dark-haired, diminutive Madame Elise Lejeune, wore a plain dress with a white scarf crossed over her bosom, and a muslin cap trimmed with lighter blue ribbon. The maid, Julie Moreau, was much fairer and wore a too-small, faded blue gown and crumpled straw bonnet. Each woman had pinned a tricolour cockade, produced by Madame from her portmanteau, to her sash. When the boat ran ashore they stepped into water over their ankles so that their first action on French soil was to wring out the hem of their skirts.

The
Lorelei’s
other cargo, of baskets and barrels, was landed swiftly and whisked away, hand to hand, by the well-practised human chain strung up the crumbling cliffs known as Les Vaches Noires. Within minutes the English sailors had dissolved back into the sea and a brisk, inquisitive-eyed Frenchman told the women to follow him up a steep winding path that tunnelled through thick undergrowth. Despite the moonlight they stumbled frequently, but at last came to a thatched cottage beside a small church and were received into its smoky interior by a scraggy, nervous woman, name of Madame Bisset, who closed the door firmly behind them, bolted it top and bottom and signalled that they might sit on either side of a thick-legged kitchen table which had been set for supper.

‘Don’t get me wrong. I’m used to seeing all kinds of people – it’s my job but it don’t come cheap.’ She mouthed a sum for bed and board which was almost a quarter of their remaining money.

‘That’s very high,’ said Madame.

Madame Bisset got up, shook out her skirts and headed for the door. ‘Very well …’

In a few minutes a deal was struck, mutton soup ladled out and wine served – liberally to Madame Bisset, more frugally to her guests. Though Asa was ignored while the other women talked, with every mouthful her courage was restored. She had done it: she was in France. This cottage with its paved floor, its rush-seated oak chairs, its scent of broth and wine, was indubitably French. Every object seemed momentous; the shape of the loaf, the lace runner along the mantel, the particular shade of blue paint on the shutters. Her attention dipped in and out of the conversation but after a while she understood that Madame Bisset was painting an altogether different image of France.

‘Obviously it’s none of my business,’ their hostess said, taking another swig of wine, ‘and I don’t expect any answers, but I think you’re mad coming back to France at this time, when you might have stayed safe in England.’

‘It’s true we’d heard there was trouble in the Vendée,’ said Madame.

‘Not just the Vendée, believe me. Brittany is up in arms and there are towns, even here in peaceful Normandy – not Le Havre, of course – that are in revolt against Paris. There has been all kinds of trouble around here, much too close for comfort.’ Madame Bisset poured another cup of wine and folded her arms on the table as she fixed her eye on Asa’s spoon and watched its progress from bowl to mouth.

‘Of course in England we didn’t know the truth about what was happening in France,’ said Madame, who was eating from glazed earthenware as daintily as she had from Compton Wyatt porcelain.

In the presence of such delicacy, Madame Bisset spoke more moderately. ‘I have nothing against the Revolution, you understand, I’ve never thought much about politics, but now I believe there’s to be a levy of three hundred thousand men to go and fight France’s so-called enemies, including the English?’ She winked knowingly at Asa, the supposed French maid who hadn’t spoken a word since setting foot in the cottage. ‘Just when those same men ought to be bringing in the harvest. It’s because everyone’s hungry that they’re angry. In Caen, for instance …’

‘How far is Caen from here?’ asked Asa.

‘Goodness,’ said Madame Bisset, ‘barely a dozen miles. It’s normally such a peaceful place. My mother-in-law was from Caen and she was an excellent woman. That broth you’re eating is her recipe.’

‘What has been happening in Caen?’ asked Madame, as if to humour their hostess.

‘There was this official called Georges Bayeux – between you and me my husband’s family knew him quite well – whose job it was to appoint a jury for the new Criminal Tribunal. The local Jacobin Club didn’t like his choices. Well, these days when people disagree it ends in bloodshed, not talk. So next minute Bayeux is torn apart, literally limb from limb, in broad daylight, in St-Sauveur Square. I didn’t see it happen, thank God. But the following week when I was in town I saw the bloodstains. The crowd went crazy, apparently, hacked off his arms, then stuck his head on a pike. Nowadays you never know which way people will turn.’

‘Do you think it’s safe to visit Caen?’ said Asa. Madame glanced at her furiously.

‘Oh, it’s always safe in Caen, by and large, unless your name is Bayeux, obviously,’ said Madame Bisset, laughing nervously. ‘At least, as safe as anywhere else.’

It was dawn by the time they finally lay down. Madame turned her back, tucked herself in hood and cloak and seemed to fall asleep at once while Asa lay wide awake, looking up at the exposed rafters under the thatch. In her imagination, or perhaps in truth, she could hear the distant rush of the sea, just as she might if she’d been staying with Caroline in Littlehampton.

Having exchanged with Madame Bisset their remaining English money at an extortionate rate and been ejected from the cottage at noon, Asa and Madame had their second disagreement; this one conducted between fields of cows and much fiercer than the last. ‘Last night,’ said Madame, ‘you spoke out of turn.’

‘I hardly spoke at all.’

‘You must behave like a maid. You should never make comments or ask questions unless invited to do so, especially as your English accent is still detectable.’

‘She already knew I was English before I opened my mouth – I could tell. Besides, there was nothing to hide. I needed to know about Caen. We don’t want to walk into trouble.’

‘Well now, since you were so indiscreet, I do wonder if we shouldn’t go straight to Paris. That woman, Bisset, will never keep her mouth shut. She’ll tell all her friends about the visitors from England. Caen is a trap.’