The Emperor (14 page)

She set off briskly down the lane towards the main road,
picking her way carefully over the ruts. One good thing
about the frost, she thought with an inward smile, was that
the mud and other filth that accumulated in the lane were
frozen hard, and much more pleasant to walk over. Pride
prevented her from wearing pattens, the same pride which
had made her only moments ago refuse Marie's offer of a
shawl. Her pelisse, though not very warm, was still smart
enough if you didn't look too closely, but Héloïse refused to
go out with a shawl over her head and shoulders like a
peasant. When I come to that, she had told Marie with a
smile, you will know I am beaten.

Yeman's Row fed itself into the main Brompton road,
which linked the village of Brompton in one direction with
Kensington, and in the other with Piccadilly and Park Lane.
Nicely placed, as Héloïse put it, between the homes of the
gentle and the homes of the genteel, Brompton housed a
large population of French émigrés who, displaced from a
variety of social stations in France, now made a living by
teaching their accomplishments to the rich, by making their gowns and shoes and hats, or by dressing their hair or their
meat. Héloïse was walking to Sydney Street, and it was safer
to stay upon the main road. In hard times there were always
footpads about, and though a footpad was likely to have but
poor pickings off her, she could hardly expect one to take
her word for that and go away without trying.

It was Sunday, the day of the week she really looked
forward to, though she had had to struggle long and hard
for the right to do what she was doing. Even now,
Vendenoir did not like it, and had he been stronger, he
would have prevented her; but his condition had worsened
steadily over the past year, and now he was bedridden,
leaving it only on his better days to drag himself as far as the
sofa. She had worn him down on the subject of her Sunday evenings to the point where, though he complained bitterly
that she was deserting him for a parcel of traitors and
decadent royalists, his tirades were more habitual than
passionate, and soon petered out into self-pity.

‘
You wish me dead – don't you think I know it? And by
God I'd as soon oblige you as lie here day after day suffer
ing as I do. Nobody knows what I suffer!' he said as she put
on her pelisse.

‘
You need not blame yourself for that,' Héloïse replied,
‘for I'm sure you tell us often enough.’

Vendenoir glowered. 'Yes, and precious little sympathy I
get, too!'

‘
You have so much for yourself, you cannot need more
for Marie and me,' she said cheerfully. 'Come, why not
resign yourself? You know that I will go; and perhaps I may
be able to bring you back a newspaper.'

‘
Yes, a newspaper a week old,' Vendenoir said bitterly. ‘You starve me of news as of everything else. I know your
tricks, madam. I know why you moved me here to this cold,
damp place: you thought it would finish me off.’

Héloïse looked at him with some compassion. He looked
like an old man, though he was only a few years older than
she; his face was skull-like, his skin pallid and unhealthy, his
thinning hair already going grey. If her life was hard, his had
been harder, and was made harder still by a bitter, resentful
spirit which doubled all his burdens, while her resilience
lightened hers. She knew he felt the cold more than any of
them. The fire over which he crouched, taking all its
warmth, was the best she could afford, and the coals were
eked out with kindling gathered at a great expense of labour
by her and Marie from such woods as were within walking
distance; but there was no sense in expecting him to be
grateful, and in her better moments she knew that his
inability to feel anything but resentment was something for
which he should be pitied.

‘
Now, Olivier, you know we moved because we could not
afford the other place. And you always said you hated it.'

‘
At least it was dry, and the air was not so foul. We
afforded it before.'

‘
Yes, when Marie was working. Now she is obliged to
stay home and care for you, we have only half the money,
and everything costs twice as much as before. But you know
these things — you are only trying to delay me. I must go or I
shall be late.’

She gave his forehead a dutiful kiss, and Marie's cheek a loving one, and hurried away to Vendenoir's parting plaint:
‘That's right, go and spend an evening in luxury, while
Marie and I huddle over this miserable fire.' His voice rose
to follow her as she closed the door. 'I'll wager they even
have
candles!’

*

The house in Sydney Street was old, but in good repair, and
large enough to seem luxurious to most of the
émigrés
who
hurried there every Sunday evening. A torch flared by the
entrance door, but no light escaped the windows, tribute to
the good fit of its shutters.
Héloïse
was alone in the street as she lifted the knocker — everyone must be already here, she
thought.

In this house lived one Madame Chouflon, who had been
 
a mantuamaker of some renown in Paris, and who, fleeing
to England at the beginning of the Revolution, brought with
her all her skill and some of her reputation. Consequently,
she lived well in a London hungry for fashion, earned
enough to be comfortable, and was successful enough to
ignore the new style of gown she designed for her
customers, and to dress herself as she always had, in the
fashion of thirty years back, when Madame de Pompadour
led society.

She opened the door to Héloïse herself, and the lights
from within revealed her in a gown of black satin, the bodice
stretched tight over whalebone stays, the skirt full and
deeply flounced, the whole tinkling and flashing with a
multitude of jet beads and spars. Madame's white forearms
emerged from the stiff triple ruffles of her sleeves, her neck
was encircled with a little starched gauze ruff, and her soot-
black hair was elaborately piled and curled and embellished
with ebony combs and black feathers. In all, she presented
to Héloïse's affectionate amusement the appearance of a
rich French widow of the 1760's, though as far as she knew
there had never been a Monsieur Chouflon.

‘
My dear child, come in, come in! I knew it must be you
— you are the last. How cold it is — you must be starved in
that poor little pelisse! I wonder that women should ever
have given up cloaks, especially in this cold, damp country.
A cloak is such a comfort, and holds in the warmth, you
know. Depend upon it, these pelisses are the cause of a
great deal of ill health.’

Hèloise was enfolded briefly but affectionately in a stiff and nubbly embrace, and led into the drawing-room, where
the rest of the party was assembled.

‘
There is such a good fire, I think you may take off your
pelisse at once, don't you? But, love, have you no shawl?
And those poor little shoes! You must have the seat by the
chimney. Thiviers, come, give up your seat to the poor
Countess; you have had it long enough. Now, if we are all
ready, I think we may begin. Father?’

Here was true comfort, Hèloise thought blissfully, easing
her way through the
familiar
group towards the great
roaring fire, exchanging smiles and nods with old friends,
and settling herself like the others, facing towards the far
end of the drawing-room where Father Jerome, the Jesuit
priest, was preparing to say Mass. It was the invariable
beginning to their Sunday gatherings, and a great comfort,
though she never mentioned it to her husband, who, like
many young revolutionaries, had abandoned the Catholic
Church along with privilege and monarchy.

After the Blessing, there was a moment of thoughtful
silence, and then everyone began talking at once, and the
noise and movement was like a flock of starlings suddenly
descending on a tree. In a moment the double doors to the
dining-parlour would be thrown back, and the
émigrés
would rush as fast as their various states of ill-health and
decrepitude would allow to the buffet table, which was
spread with a supper which to many of them was a feast.

Many a dull old eye took on a youthful shine at the sight
of the cold meats and pies, cheeses and brawns, bread,
cakes, sometimes even fruit on display. There was beer to
wash it down with, sometimes wine, though the war had made French wines hard to come by. Madame Chouflon
provided the bulk of it, but others brought what they could
to add to the board. Héloïse, still warming herself at the fire,
watched her countrymen pass her, their faces alight with
pleasure; shabby, most of them, thin many, some still
attempting to maintain a former elegance, all speaking the
French tongue, words tumbling over one another in their
eagerness to express seven days' worth of ideas in one
evening. This, she could see, for them as for her, was as
strong a reason for coming here every week as the food and
the fire.

There was old Merlot, telling anyone who would still
listen how he used to have two-and-forty indoor servants;
and Madame Chard, whose once-mighty flesh hung sadly
about her like borrowed clothes, describing dish by dish in
loving detail a banquet she had attended long ago at
Cheverny. There was the Comte de Thiviers discussing
wines and vintages with Romorantin, who, having no teeth
left, was rendered speechless and thus a good listener while
he laboriously mumbled his food about with his bare gums.
There was the Vicomtesse Limoux looking about her for
someone to whom she could explain once again how she
had had to leave her carriage horses behind when she took
ship at Nantes, and what she supposed the revolutionaries
would have done with them.

Héloïse filled her plate and stepped back from the buffet
table, and was trying not to eat like a starving peasant when
Madame Chouflon came up and dropped a shawl about her
shoulders.

‘
There, child, that's better. Charivey lends it for the
evening — don't forget to return it before you leave. My dear
Héloïse, I can't bear to see you looking so pale and thin. I
am sure you do not get enough to eat.'

‘
Dear Flon, I assure you I am quite well,' Héloïse smiled.
'I am too much confined within doors, that's all. I was used
to take a great deal of exercise in the old days, riding and
walking —' She stopped herself abruptly. In her eagerness to
divert Madame's attention, she had fallen into a trap, and now she laughed. 'Ah, no! I promised myself I would not
talk about the old days, like our poor friends. I am not yet
come to that.'

‘
You could never be like them, my love. You are too
brave and merry. Oh, yes, don't turn away your face like
that, just because a poor old woman gives you a compli
ment! I may be silly — I am sure I am — and nothing but a
mantuamaker; and who my father was, only the dear Lord knows; but I know that there is something very fine about
you, my love. You are better than the rest of us, and it hurts
me sadly to see you go hungry, and support your worthless
husband by the toil of your hands. It should be he who
works to keep you!'

‘You should not say such things,' Héloïse said, redden
ing. 'Vendenoir is too ill to go out to work, indeed he is.' Madame sniffed. 'I suppose that is what
he
tells you!’

‘
The doctor tells me so,' Héloïse countered. 'He says Vendenoir may never recover his strength.'

‘
Ah, but is he a good doctor?' Flon asked suspiciously.
Héloïse smiled. 'Doctor Cranton is a
very
good doctor.
He never presses for payment of his bills.’