The English Heiress (23 page)

They looked at Leonie, who was very still but whose eyes were so wide that the whites showed all around the irises. Aunay shook his head.

“Believe me, I am not concerned with my custom but with all our safety. If I am open and they come and I serve them, that may suit their humor and they will pass on. If I lock up, they might pass by but it is much more likely that they will break in and drag us all out. We will have become enemies by trying to save ourselves.

“I see.” Roger looked at Leonie, but she seemed no worse. He could not send her away, yet there were things he needed to know. “How likely is it that they will come here?”

Aunay shrugged. “God knows that too. In the past, the clubs here, Jacobins and the Feuillants, were friends of the mob and its attention was directed elsewhere. But this business is not the doing of the clubs. Those in the Hôtel de Ville—the commune—Marat, Danton, who are of the Cordeliers Club—they lead, if anyone leads. Then too, if they should take it into their heads to ‘appeal’ to the assembly…”

“That is only a few streets away,” Leonie breathed.

Suddenly, Madame Aunay began to weep. “Our whole lives are in this place,” she cried. “We are too old to begin again.”

Leonie’s breath shuddered in incipient hysteria. Roger glanced from her to the stricken, white-faced landlord.

“Then let us not sit here like a group of dummies and wait to be destroyed. Aunay, have you a cellar?”

“It is no place to hide in,” the landlord disclaimed, shaking his head.

Leonie whimpered. She had had enough of cellars.

“I do not wish to hide in it,” Roger snapped. “But I think you should put all the brandy and all the good wine there and also as much of the furniture as will fit. The less there is for them to get drunk on and for them to break up, the less chance there will be for damage to be done. If you think we can get away with it, we should fill the empty places on the shelves with bottles of watered wine and well-diluted brandy. That will also reduce the chances of drunkenness.”

“You have a head, Saintaire. You have a head,” the landlord cried, color coming back into his face.

Madame Aunay wiped her eyes. “Yes, Gaston,” she exclaimed, “and do you put on the clothes you clean in and a dirty, torn apron and I will also. Yes, yes, and I will dress Madame Saintaire as a barmaid, and you m’sieu, can be our porter. Come quick, let us get to work.”

They changed clothes first, Roger thinking amusedly that the use of citoyen and citoyenne was a thin veneer. At the first stress the old forms came back. The change of appearance to make them seem of the same class as the rioters was most important. Lives were the greatest essential to be saved. Then Roger’s tools and parts and spare pistols were secreted in the darkest corner of the cellar. Enough havoc was wrought with clubs and knives. No one wanted to see guns in the hands of the mob.

The fine brandies and other “strong waters” followed, the landlord masking them with a layer of empty bottles. The reminder of the empties he brought up, and Leonie and Madame Aunay began to fill them, as Roger had suggested, with watered wine. Then the best glass and china were carried down, and finally, the extra benches and tables that made the café a comfortable, cozy place were piled so as to hide, as best as possible, the most valuable wines and liquors.

It might save the Aunays some losses, Roger thought, as he grunted with the effort of maneuvering a long, heavy table around a corner to set it in front of the cellar door, but far more important to him was that the color had come back to Leonie’s face and the look of helpless terror was gone from it. That had been his intention from the beginning, and he had succeeded. He had broken the feeling that there was nothing to do but wait for disaster to strike. Activity was necessary in time of stress to stem panic.

They were so busy that they did not hear the noise of the mob fade. That was just as well, for it would have given them a totally false sense of security. Having massacred the two dozen people they had taken at the mairie, the agitators had begun to cry, To the Carmelites! Where the nonjuring priests who were to be “transported” were being held. It was the noise of this further massacre that took place in the previously sacred sanctuary that those in the Café Breton had heard faintly. But that had not sated the mob.

“It is not enough! We must purge the prisons of all who would slay your wives and your children while you are marching against the enemy,” the leaders cried. “Back to the Abbaye!”

Most followed, but there were those who were afraid and desired the sanction of the assembly or who did not wish the assembly to escape being smeared with as much blood as the Commune of Paris would be. They rushed across the bridge and across the Place Louis XV—where the statue that had been cast down had already been hauled away to melt into cannon—to demand that the deputies lead them.

“The people,” the commissioners sent by the commune told the assembly, “wish to break open the doors of the prisons.”

The assembly had not the courage to keep out the commissioners, but the guards did manage to divert the crowd that had followed them. This relatively small mob surged through the streets near the Salle de Ménage bellowing the words of the new anthem called “La Marseillaise”.

Madame Aunay froze. “They are upon us,” she cried.

“So? We are ready,” Aunay answered.

He was no coward, and with a plan of action laid out for him, he had taken heart. Roger glanced at Leonie, but there was nothing to worry about there either. She had removed her cap and darkened her hair with oil. The work in the cellar had darkened it still further with dust and cobwebs, and her face and hands were smeared. She looked a proper slattern physically, and in her eyes was the hard light and angry calm they had held when she announced I killed him over Marot’s corpse.

The cellar door was closed. There was nothing they could do to hide it, but the table loaded with mugs and bottles had been drawn across it to give the impression that the door led nowhere and was not in use. The noise of shouting and singing grew louder. Aunay went to stand in the doorway as if curiosity had drawn him there. Sometimes, he had heard, the mob could be turned by a jest or the offer of a gift. Madame Aunay cried out for him to come away, but he told her curtly to be still.

“If we can hand out those watered bottles and keep them from coming in, we will have lost little and gained credit as supporters of the people,” he said grimly.

It was an excellent idea and it might well work. Nonetheless, there was a dangerous side to it. Those who were “friendly” to the mob might be expected to join it, Roger thought. If they were asked to do so, Aunay and his wife might reasonably protest that they had to remain in the café, but it would be more dangerous for Roger and Leonie to refuse than to go along. They could always slip away after a time. The shouts and roared snatches of song were coming closer. Roger gave Leonie one last kiss and warned her what might happen.

“What if we should be separated?” she asked, fear flickering in her eyes again.

Roger had not thought of that. He almost sent her up to their room to hide, but if the mob should come in and find her there and should be in a nasty humor, worse might befall her than she had suffered at Marot’s hands. Suddenly Roger remembered a long coil of thin rope behind the counter. He pulled it out and tied it around Leonie’s waist, wrapping it round and round her like a thick, awkward belt.

“If we should be dragged out,” he said, “I will tie the other end to my arm. Act like an idiot. I will use that as an excuse or think of another.”

He might have said more, but a voice from the outside called angrily, “What are you doing here? Do you not know the enemies of France must be slaughtered before they slaughter us?”

“I am here to serve the friends of France,” Aunay shouted. “Wife, bring me a drink for my friends here.”

Shaking, but with a smile pasted on her face, Madame Aunay carried forward the cheapest of the tin mugs half-filled with wine. It was accepted with a cheer. No more was said about joining the crowd, but other hands were thrust forward. Aunay stood at the door, seemingly the better to hand out the drinks more quickly, but his position was also effective in blocking the entryway. Roger began to hope that they would yet escape anything worse than the depletion of the landlord’s stock of ordinary wine and cheap mugs. Leonie filled cups at the bar, and Roger and Madame Aunay ran back and forth carrying them.

Soon, however, the drinking vessels were gone. Aunay began to hand out the bottles of watered wine. The crowd was good-humored now, laughing and singing, passing the bottles from one to another. However, the bottles were disappearing very quickly, and at the first refusal the temper of the mob might easily change.

“No more than a dozen bottles left,” Madame Aunay hissed into her husband’s ear as she handed him two more.

From his position, Aunay could see that a few more people had crowed the street. He hoped it meant that this was just a splinter group broken off from the main body. In any case, he had to get them moving again. “Where are the enemies of France?” he cried. “You are refreshed. Let us go and destroy the enemies!”

“The enemies! The enemies!”

The cry went through from mouth to mouth. There had not been enough drink to inebriate them, but it took little to inflame their minds.

“We have drunk wine,” a voice bellowed. “Now let us drink blood!”

There was a surge of movement toward the corner of the avenue, which would take the mob back to the Salle de Ménage where the assembly sat. Aunay turned slightly in the doorway to look at his wife, who was proffering two more bottles.

“You have served us,” another voice cried. “Now come serve your country.”

The landlord’s arm was seized and he was dragged out into the mob. Madame Aunay shrieked and dropped the bottles to reach for her husband. A man grabbed her outstretched hand and pulled her out also. Roger had started forward to help the landlord and his wife, but two men and a woman burst through the doorway. The woman took hold of Roger’s arm. Leonie rushed from behind the counter, eluded the grasp of the two men, and seized Roger’s other arm. Behind them, the two men surged forward.

After the first minutes of acute anxiety, Roger and Leonie realized there had been nothing threatening about their seizure. The men and women around them, although filthy and ragged and wild as beasts, wished them no harm. Indeed, Roger and Leonie looked little better than their present companions and were taken to be members of the same ill-treated and oppressed group. Those who had dragged them out only wished them to share the pleasure of easing the years of helpless hatred that cruelty had bred in them. They thought they were giving Roger and Leonie a rare treat. A gift of release and revenge that they had been too afraid to take on their own.

As they were pulled and pushed along, they were separated from the woman and the two men who had drawn them into the crowd. Roger managed to unwind the coil of rope from Leonie’s waist and tie it firmly around his left wrist. One man behind them noticed and pushed his way forward.

“What do you do?” he snarled. “Is she of the émigrés?”

“No,” Roger shouted back, forcing a laugh. “She is my woman, but she is a little simple.” He touched his temple in the time-honored gesture indicating an affliction of the brain. “If she is drawn away or lost, she will never find her way home.”

The moment passed, the questioner being pushed elsewhere by the tide of people, Roger drew Leonie to him and held her, concealing the rope as well as he could. In spite of the danger that the question asked of him exposed, he was unwilling to take the chance that Leonie would be dragged away. Several times he tried to edge toward a street opening and escape, but it was impossible. Either they were hurried along too fast, or just as Roger prepared to dart into the darkness, a new group came rushing out of the alley to join them. The crowd was growing larger and tighter-packed in the street.

From time to time Roger glanced at Leonie. If was dark now and he could not read her eyes, but her body moved freely against his, giving no indication of the stiffness of terror, and, when she realized he was looking at her, she smiled at him. He took it for gallantry, for a sign of her remarkable courage. In a way, he was right. Leonie did have courage, but at this moment she was not aware that she needed it. She had realized as soon as Roger did that unless they met some other mob that intended to stop the one of which they were a part, they were in no danger.

In an odd way, Leonie was even enjoying herself. Although Aunay had said the mob desired blood, she was not thinking of that. From behind the counter of the café, she had not heard the shouts about slaughtering the enemy or drinking blood. Thus, she strode along, merely uplifted by the excitement of the crowd around her. Now that fear was gone, and she had not yet considered what would happen next.

“Where are we going?” she yelled into Roger’s ear under the cover of the noise.

“I wish I knew,” he bellowed back. “We’re on the rue de Rivoli now, heading east. There is the Tuileries, but they have been sacked already.”

The wandering route of the crowd had confused Roger. They had set out toward the Salle de Ménage but then had veered away, come almost to the bridge that took one to the Versailles road, and then veered away again to travel eastward. Hopes that the marching was aimless and the crowd would simply disperse after a while alternated with fear that some small incident would suddenly enrage them and they would go on a rampage of senseless looting and burning. This fear made him begin to work his way toward the edge of the group again, hoping he could turn off into a side street.