The Incredible Honeymoon (Bantam Series No. 46) (14 page)

“What is happening to them now?” Antonia enquired.

“Montmartre is full of them and an angry mob was spitting in their faces and threatening to lynch them until the
Garde Nationale
escorted them with many prods of their rifle butts into the centre of the City.”

“And what else is taking place?” the Duke enquired.

“The great difficulty is going to be to get news out of the City,” Labby replied. “A possible solution may be balloons.”

“Balloons!” the Duke exclaimed in surprise.

“A number have been located,” Labby replied, “unfortunately most of them in various states of disrepair. It is however an idea, though not where passengers are concerned.”

“I was not thinking we should fly from Paris!” the Duke said sharply. “What I am considering is whether it could be any use appealing to the French to negotiate with the Germans for a special pass.”

“I thought of that,” Labby answered. “The Duchess has already requested me to find some way in which you could leave.”

“Is it possible?” the Duke enquired.

“This morning I watched four Britons who I happened to know, climbing gaily into a carriage loaded with hampers of provisions, luggage and with an English flag flying.”

“What happened?” the Duke asked.

“They got as far as Pont de Neuilly where they were seized and taken before General Ducrot. He said to them, ‘I cannot understand you English: if you want to get shot, we will shoot you ourselves to save you trouble’.”

Labby paused for a moment and then went on:

“My friends swear they will try again to-morrow, but I should think it unlikely they will get through.”

“Then what can we do?” the Duke asked.

“Give me a little time,” Labby begged. “The Prussians are bringing up their big guns. The bombardment will not start yet.”

Antonia looked frightened.

“You think they will bombard us?”

“Naturally,” Labby replied. “It is the obvious thing to do if they want a quick surrender.”

That night, Antonia lay awake wondering if she would hear the shells thudding and exploding in the centre of the City, but everything was quiet and she thought that perhaps Labby had exaggerated the danger.

There was however no doubt that the Duke took him seriously and in the next few days he became more and more restless.

He was only prevented with difficulty from going out of the house to see for himself what was occurring.

It was Antonia who finally managed to dissuade him by saying she would be frightened if she were left alone.

“I cannot stay here like a caged animal,” the Duke said irritably.

“S ... suppose you were
...
killed, or
...
arrested,” Antonia said. “What would happen to
...
me?”

It was an unanswerable argument, and the Duke had listened to Labouchere when he said that if he went to the French Authorities and declared who he was, they could take two courses of action.

They might consider an English Duke so important that they would give him no chance of ever leaving Paris in case he fell into the hands of the Prussians.

“Or else,” Labby went on, “they will arrest you on some trumped up charge merely to force the British Government to pay more attention to the siege of Paris!”

Both, the Duke realised, were quite viable arguments, but he was now more determined than ever that they must leave Paris somehow without anybody realising who they were.

However, when he had suffered nearly a week’s inactivity, while getting stronger day by day, he said to Antonia:

“You know I would not wish deliberately to take you into danger, but I am quite convinced that the siege is going to get very much worse before the French surrender.”

“You think they really will surrender?” Antonia asked in surprise. “Surely someone will come to their rescue.”

“Who is likely to do so?” the Duke asked, and she knew there was no answer.

“But if Paris holds out without relief from outside, the siege might last indefinitely.”

“It can only last as long as there is enough food to eat,” the Duke replied.

“But surely there will be enough for a very long time?” Antonia thought as she spoke of all the animals in the Bois.

“Tour has told me,” the Duke replied, “that people are talking, if things get really bad, of slaughtering the animals in the Zoo. And there is no doubt that cats and dogs will be in danger of their lives as soon as what meat is obtainable in the Butchers’ shops is priced beyond the purse of the very poor!”

Antonia gave a little cry.

“I cannot bear to think of it.”

“Nor can I where you are concerned,” the Duke said. “And that is why I have to decide whether it would be best to risk our being caught or shot by the Prussians outside Paris, or to stop here and starve, as undoubtedly the Parisians will do eventually.”

Antonia did not hesitate.

“I know what you would prefer,” she said, “and I am prepared to take any risk that you wish.”

“Thank you, Antonia,” the Duke said. “I knew I could rely on you to show courage.”

He smiled at her in a way she found irresistible as he added:

“Perhaps it will be no more frightening and no more dangerous than leaping over the high hedges and the water
-
jump on The Chase!”

The soldiers guarding the Port de St. Cloud watched a wooden cart trundling towards them drawn by a frisky young mule.

It was driven by a woman muffled in shawls despite the heat and with a dirty cotton handkerchief tied under her chin.

As the cart drew near to the gate she began to cry out loudly and defiantly:

“La
Verole
!”

“
Danger
!”

“
Contagieuse
!”

The Corporal in front of the gate held up his hand and with a little difficulty she drew the mule to a stand-still.

“What is all this?” he asked.

“La
Verole
,” she replied, jerking her thumb backwards to where he could now see a man lying on the straw of the wooden cart.

“Smallpox!”

The Corporal took a step backwards.

“I have my papers if you want to see them,” the woman said speaking in argot, “but I should be careful how you touch them.”

She held them out to the soldier who made no effort to take them.

“Where do you think you are going,
Madame
?”

“We’ve been turned out,” she answered. “There’s not a man amongst the sniffling cowards in this City who’ll touch a smallpox case as bad as his!”

Without moving his feet the Corporal peered over the edge of the cart. He could see the face of the man lying on the straw was covered with flaming red pox-marks and shuddered.

“Go on, get out of here!” he said harshly, “and the quicker the better!”

The woman whipped the mule, the gate was opened and they proceeded until they came to the Prussian out-post just outside the town of St. Cloud.

Here the same explanation was given, but the papers signed by the doctor were inspected and there was some delay while a junior Officer was produced.

“The man you are conveying,
Madame
,”
he said in guttural but just intelligible French, “may have smallpox, but that is no reason why you should leave the City with him.”

She did not answer, but pulled back a ragged cuff that
covered her wrist. On her skin he could see two flaming red pox-marks! Hastily he handed her back the papers.

“Go away as far as you can from Paris,” he ordered.

“We’re going to Nantes,
Mein Herr
,”
the woman said. “That’s if we reach it before we die!”

The German officer was however not listening, as he hurried away to wash his hands after touching her papers. The soldiers watched them go with a look of relief on their smileless faces, and one of them said:

“I would rather die from a bullet than that disease.”

“For such filth it would be a waste of ammunition,” the other answered.

Antonia’s back was very straight as she drove away, and it was an effort not to look behind her.

She touched the mule with her whip and made him go faster. Only when the Prussian out-post was out of sight did the Duke sit up from the floor of the wooden cart and say:

“I am being rattled to bits!”

“You can come up here and drive,” Antonia replied over her shoulder.

“It is certainly what I would prefer,” he answered.

Antonia slackened the speed of the mule a little, but she did not pull up to a stand-still.

The Duke climbed into the front of the cart and took the reins from her.

“Is it safe to wipe this blasted paint off my face?” he asked.

“I should leave it for the moment,” she replied. “There will be, as Labby warned us, Germans all over the place and whatever happens we must not get captured.”

“I am aware of that,” he said, “but according to reports they have not yet reached Amiens.”

“Can we trust the reports?”

“Tour will get to Le Havre all right,” the Duke said.

The valet had left two days earlier in the company of some Americans who had managed by some extraordinary good luck to obtain permits both from the French and Germans.

There had been no chance however, even if they had wished to do so, of taking anyone extra with them. The pass was merely for themselves and their servants.

Only by bribing the American’s French servant with what seemed to Antonia an almost astronomical amount of francs had Tour persuaded the man to stay in Paris while he took his place.

Once Henry Labouchere and the Duke had worked out a plan of campaign, they had instructed Tour down to the minutest detail as to what he should do.

Horses were to be left for Antonia and the Duke at a village which Labby was certain was not at the moment under Prussian occupation.

“Buy the best you can,” the Duke said, “and then hire the fastest conveyance that is obtainable and get to Le Havre where the yacht will be waiting.”

“The Prussians will not touch a British ship,” Labby had said firmly.

“No, but they might prevent us boarding her,” the Duke replied, “and that is why if Le Havre is under Prussian occupation, Tour must somehow get in touch with my Captain and tell him to take the yacht to Cherbourg.”

“It is much, much further,” Antonia said nervously.

“I know that,” the Duke said, “but I intend to take no risks where you are concerned. Somehow, if it is necessary, we will make our way across country, and we may be lucky.”

“The reports at the moment,” Labby told them, “but of course they are not completely reliable, are that the Prussians have not advanced, at least in any strength, further than St. Quentin.”

“In which case Versailles and Evreux will be all right,” the Duke said, “but I do not intend to visit any towns. We will keep to the fields and we may find something to eat in the small villages.”

“Having seen the way the people were behaving in Paris, Your Grace,” Tour said, “I should not rely on it, if they have any food, I am quite certain that the French, when they fear that they themselves might go hungry, will not give away or even sell anything that is edible to passing travellers.”

“I am afraid that may be true,” Labby agreed. “Hundreds of stragglers have brought the Army into disrepute with the locals. I am told French farmers have barred their doors and threatened to fire on the starving troops begging for food.”

“We will take what we can with us,” Antonia said quietly. “Otherwise we shall just have to be hungry for a day or two until we reach the yacht.”

As she spoke she felt worried not for herself, but for the Duke.

He was much better, but she knew this journey would be a tremendous strain and she wondered what she would do if he collapsed, perhaps in some hostile French village where there would be no doctor.

But when they set off the Duke was in good spirits simply because he was at last being active.

He had laughed at the clothes that Labby had bought for them as a disguise, and when he saw the wooden cart and the mule that was to carry them from Paris he had said to Antonia:

“I am sure, Your Grace, you will find this as impressive, though perhaps not so fast, as the Phaeton in which we set out on our honeymoon.”

“I only wish Rufus was drawing it!’ Antonia replied.

“So do I,” he said quietly.

She had felt a sudden warmth within her because they were sharing their love of horses and a secret which was their own.

But when they had driven away from the house leaving Labby staring after them with an expression of despair in his eyes, Antonia felt frightened.