The English Heiress (34 page)

The problem was whom to approach. All the deputies knew that a dangerous crisis was coming. The creation of the Committee of Public Safety, which the Girondists hoped would be their club to combat the “Mountain”—that coterie of violent radicals including Danton, Marat and Robespierre, who sat in the highest rows of the convention hall—was the first sign of how the wind would finally blow. Not a single member of that party, which appeared to hold a majority in the convention, was elected to the small, all-powerful body. The Girondists saw the handwriting on the wall but still struggled to save themselves. This meant that no one allied to them would wish to do anything that was not strictly routine. On the other hand, the Jacobins, who leaned toward the Mountain, were not yet secure in their power. They too, were not likely to provide exit papers for a man and his wife who could not really prove their identity nor produce a valid reason for leaving Paris.

Needless to say, approaching to the wrong person might cause instant incarceration followed shortly by death under the guillotine. It was not that life did not continue for ordinary citizens. Men did lose their papers of identity and obtain new ones, but those men could prove who they were by longtime friends and family. Roger and Leonie could not produce any evidence beyond their arrival in Paris at the end of August, and they were branded by their accents. Nor were they too eager to use the papers they had obtained on arrival. Brissot was surely one of the first who would fall with the Girondist party. Thus they continued from day to day, watching each move of the Girondists fail.

On May twenty-first the crisis broke. A well-organized mob invaded the Tuileries and besieged the Salle de Ménage where the convention met. Roger thanked God that he had moved in February, but he found that physical removal from the eye of a hurricane does not keep one from being swept into the fringes of the storm. On June first a gentleman of elegant dress entered the shop and laid one of a pair of English-made pocket pistols on the counter. Roger’s breath caught, and he did not make any attempt to touch the gun, which was a beautiful one-of-a-kind creation of Knubley and Brown that Roger himself had purchased as a gift for his father.

“You recognize it, I see, Monsieur St. Eyre,” the gentleman said softly.

“Is my father in France?” Roger asked.

“No, no. It was passed along to me only to identify me as someone trustworthy. Sir Joseph was well, residing in London for the Season, when he gave us that token. I am sure he had no intention of doing anything that might increase your difficulties or those of Mademoiselle de Conyers.”

Roger’s held breath sighed out and he lifted his head. There was no need for any pretense with this man. He obviously knew all there was to know. “What can I do for you?” he asked.

“For me? Nothing. I am not in need of help. What are you willing to do for your country?”

That was a nasty question. The answer, obviously, should be Anything I can, but Roger was not really willing to do “anything”. He felt an odd reluctance to take part in any action against France while he was accepted as a citizen and pretending to be one. As much as he disapproved of the present government, he did not feel England to be in any danger from it. And even though he knew France had declared war, not England, he felt her to be like a frightened puppy snarling defiance. It was more sensible to gentle a frightened animal into obedience; kicking it merely turned it vicious.

“I am ready to serve my country,” Roger said slowly, “but my first responsibility is to Mademoiselle de Conyers. Frankly, I am not willing to do anything that might endanger her. Also, I cannot see what help I can be to you. I am not involved in the purchase or repair of military weapons—”

“I am aware of that,” the gentleman interrupted. “What I wish to ask of you has no connection with military action—at least, no immediate connection with it. As you must have heard, the Mountain is planning to purge the convention of all its moderate members. I—and others, of course—when I say ‘I’ you must understand others than myself to be of the same opinion.”

Roger nodded. No names would be named and Roger felt, as he had in Toulon’s plot, that the less he knew, the better off he would be.

“I believe it too late to prevent the purge,” the man continued, “but it may be possible to save the men themselves—or at least some of them.”

“I will do anything I can to help you in that,” Roger agreed immediately, “but what can I do?”

“Could you hide a man?”

“Not really,” Roger replied, and then snapped his fingers. “Wait! If he is not too old and is reasonable agile, yes I can. However, it will not be a comfortable hiding place, as it is completely exposed to the weather.” He paused a moment and then added, “Do you want to know where?”

“No. The fewer who know the better. However, since I know your name, it is only fair that you should know mine. I am the Chevalier de Rocheville. I was once a colonel of the Grenadiers. My purpose is to see this nation under its rightful king again.”

Roger did not groan aloud, because de Rocheville would not have understood. It would have been all very well that the chevalier should be a gallant gentleman who did not wish to have any advantage over Roger had they been playing tennis or even dueling in England. Here, where a whispered word might be carried on an errant breeze and cost a man his head, Roger would infinitely have preferred caution to gallantry. However, he reminded himself, it was only the gallant who involved themselves in lost causes. If he had any sense himself, he would have refused to have anything to do with de Rocheville. He was quite sure his father’s gun had not been meant for the purpose to which it had been put.

Nonetheless, it was impossible to refuse, just as it had been impossible for Roger to point out to Toulon the danger in freeing Marie Antoinette. He could have no part in condemning those men, and to refuse to help was tantamount to approving their deaths. Sighing at his own foolishness, he even volunteered the use of his horse and carriage if anonymous transport were necessary. The offer was accepted with joy. He said nothing to Leonie that evening, clinging to the hope that the political crisis would ease, but she looked at him very peculiarly and he was relatively sure she guessed he was hiding something. The next day, June second, all hope was gone. Twenty-seven Girondists were formally suspended and placed under house arrest. Roger confessed to Leonie that he had agreed to help them escape to safety if he could, and Leonie enthusiastically approved everything he had done.

“But where can they hide, Roger?” she asked.

“On the roof.”

“The roof is peaked. It is not possible—”

“So is the next roof. A man—even two or three men—might lie down in the trough between the houses. At night they could climb over the roofs to the end of the street and get down with a rope, as we planned to do.”

“Yes, of course, how clever. Fifi, be still. What are you barking at?”

The little dog hushed on command and Roger listened, but he heard no footsteps in the alley, which was what usually set her off. A moment later, however, there came a faint scratch on the door. He gestured at Leonie, and she snatched Fifi and ran up the stairs. Out of sight, she set down the dog with a further admonition to be silent and drew her pistol, which she half-cocked and concealed in a fold of her skirt.

There was no need for defense, however. Only two nervous, badly frightened men crept in when the door was opened. They were so tense, expecting pursuit any minute, that they would have gone to hide on the roof at once, but Roger objected. He pointed out that there was no sense in opening and closing the trapdoor and moving around in the attic and on the roof more than necessary. It was not likely, but it was not impossible that a neighbor would be in his own attic and wonder about the noise.

They stayed three days, never needing to go into hiding because, if there was a search, no one suspected Roger’s house. It seemed to Roger that de Rocheville was no fool and no one might ever suspect. The refugees did not know his name, did not even know what part of the city they were in. they had been brought in a sealed carriage to the end of the alley and told which door to scratch at and to remove their boots so they would make no noise. The only problem that arose was how to get food for these extra mouths, since Leonie could not simply suddenly buy double quantities. Fortunately, most of the women in the neighborhood were aware of her inexperience as a cook. They were quite accustomed to seeing Roger rush out at dinnertime to bring in food from a cafetier, even though his wife had bought food to cook in the morning. On the second day the fishmonger’s wife called out teasingly to ask if Leonie had forgotten everything she knew.

“Au contraire,” Roger replied, laughing. “She is growing adventurous because what she knows she does so well.”

That brought an answering laugh and an admonition for Roger to be patient. “She is clever, that little one. Now, when she is so beautiful, she learns. Later, when she is old and ugly, you will be tied to her by your stomach.”

Roger smiled a mechanical acknowledgement and went on. Any reference to his future with Leonie dragged him into a maelstrom of conflicting emotions. Ever since Leonie had acknowledged her jealousy and her pleasure in his lovemaking, Roger had been on the verge of suggesting that they marry. It would not be impossible, although it would be dangerous. First, they were supposed to be man and wife already; second, for the marriage to be legal they would have to give their true names. Consideration had convinced Roger it was too dangerous and had raised the idea of asking her to promise to marry him as soon as they arrived in England.

This raised objections more painful than danger. Roger knew what would be hinted behind their backs and perhaps said openly to Leonie herself it he married her as soon as they arrived. Every mother of a son with encumbered estates, every fortune hunter in the country, would say that Roger had grabbed the heiress before she had a chance to choose for herself. It was not true, of course, but how could a man prove such a thing? Would Leonie begin to believe the stories? If she accepted him because she thought she cared for him but thought so only out of ignorance, because she had had no choice, marriage would not prevent her from falling in love with another man. Roger knew he could not bear that. If Leonie chose to marry someone else, he would survive. He could avoid her—even if it meant leaving the country—and live much as he had lived when Solange was alive. If she was his wife and turned cold or betrayed him… There was a well of violence in him, Roger knew, like a dry shaft filled with black powder. Solange had filled it, but it was Leonie who might set a match to the explosive and be destroyed by it.

There was the other side of the coin, of course. Sometimes Roger let himself think about that. If he brought Leonie to England and left her completely to herself, allowed her to go to balls and to be courted, and she still chose him, after the others had their chances, he would be sure. He tried not to think about it too often, tried not to permit himself to believe that dream would come true, but Leonie had said… It was when he believed, even a little, that it was not only youth and inexperience and gratitude that drew Leonie to him that Roger began to devise ways to escape from France. It was bitterly hard to taste her sweetness and to fear constantly that the sweetness hid the bitterness of parting. Better to know at once than to go on drugging himself with a love that might be only ignorance.

Unfortunately, at present there were no hopes of escape, there was only the constant danger of betrayal. Once again Roger tried to convince Leonie to leave him for a safer dwelling. Although their two “guests” had been collected without incident as silently and mysteriously as they had arrived, Roger guessed that they would not be the last. If it had not been for the danger to Leonie, Roger would now have been enjoying himself. He liked the spice of immediate peril, and he acknowledged that what de Rocheville was doing was well worthwhile. In the provinces there was enormous resentment of many of the acts of the convention. If the Girondists could rally those with moderate republican sympathies, the present group of bloody lunatics might be overthrown.

This time Leonie did not laugh or lose her temper. “Oh no,” she said passionately. “Do you think I don’t know this is France’s last chance for peace and a good government? I don’t wish to live here anymore, Roger. There is too much bitterness, too much hurt and heartbreak here for me. I need a new life, completely new. I want to go to England and find that new life, but this is the land where I was born. My father and mother loved it. Papa knew when he was elected to the Estates-General that it might cost him his life, yet he did not hesitate an instant.”

“Enough lives that you love have been given, Leonie,” Roger interrupted.

“And I am still alive,” she said. “And you are telling me to stand aside and watch you—you are all I have, Roger—watch you risk your life too? Oh no. If you can bring yourself to abandon this last hope, I will escape with you because you are all I have—but I will not do it willingly. I am the last de Conyers. I owe my father’s memory one last attempt to save this country.”

“I cannot bear to know that you are in danger,” Roger sighed.

“I cannot bear to know that you are in danger,” Leonie echoed. “But, Roger, this is more important. If the Mountain can be cast down, the constitution that Papa helped to write can be reestablished. A new assembly could be elected, according to the constitution. The dauphin could be king. Certainly he would cause no trouble by opposing the will of the assembly.”