Vintage Love (36 page)

The two big women arrived early with a younger thin woman in tow. The two women guards went about the ward rousing up the patients and ordering them to prepare for the serving of breakfast gruel. The thin woman dished the watery stuff out into tin plates as the patients presented them to her. Betsy did not join the line.

The ugly woman who seemed to especially hate her came and shook her. “Take your place for food!” she commanded her.

“I’m ill,” she said weakly. “I don’t want any.”

“You’ll do what I say,” the big woman told her, and she roughly dragged her up from the bed and shoved a tin plate in her hand. “Now get in line!”

She obeyed, not wanting to give the woman another excuse to whip her. As it was, her body was covered with welts. She took her place in the shuffling line and held her plate out for the doleful woman to slop some of the sticky gray substance into it. Then she quietly returned to her own bed.

The tiny blond girl with big, frightened blue eyes who had approached her the previous night now came timidly toward her, staring at her.

Seated on her cot, Betsy told the girl, “You needn’t be afraid of me. You can come and sit here if you like!”

“I have fits!” the blond girl said in a choked, fearful tone. “They chase me away!”

“I’ll risk it,” Betsy said wryly. “Would you like my gruel?”

The tiny girl’s eyes widened. “You don’t want it?”

“No!” And she handed it to the girl.

The tiny girl grasped it as if it were a treasure. Then she sat down on the cot beside her and began to wordlessly gulp down the revolting gruel.

Besty could scarcely believe it — nor any of the other things she saw in the ward. And she knew now what a relentless foe Raymond Valmy was. He had designed a living torment for her, worse than any death! She wondered how long she would remain here in this foul place before she began to lose her own grip on reality!

Would she end up here mad and forgotten? She was sure Valmy would never relent and return for her. And how would Eric or any of the others know what had happened to her? She had been taken from the pension in the middle of the night when all the others were asleep.

What did it matter now whether Valmy staged his uprising and used Napoleon to get power over France? She would never know whether the adventure was successful or not! In time Eric would decide she was dead, killed somehow by Valmy, and he would remember her only with sadness, marry some other girl, and she would then eventually not even be part of his memories.

The tiny blonde finished the gruel and then stared at her. She said, “You’re beautiful!”

“Thank you,” she replied.

“You were talking about Napoleon last night,” the girl said. “There is a woman down the ward who calls herself Princess Marie Louise.”

“So I’ve heard!”

“This is a bad place,” the girl went on. “My sickness has gotten worse since my brother put me here. But his wife would not let me live with them any longer. When I had my fits, it frightened her children.”

“Surely they would get used to them.”

“I don’t know,” the girl said. “I don’t remember them. I feel everything going dark, the fits come, and then I’m on the floor, sweating and ill!”

“Does anyone ever leave this place?” Betsy asked in despair.

“Only when they’re dead, and that doesn’t take long. It’s not healthy here! We had the fever in this ward awhile ago, and more than half died. I wish I’d been one of them!”

Betsy stared at the girl. “You sound as if you meant that?”

“I do,” the mad girl assured her. “Then I would be with the Blessed Madonna and the saints who tend to the sick. I wanted to be placed in a hospital run by the nuns, but it was too far away. My brother couldn’t bother to take me there. So here I am.”

“When does the doctor make his rounds?” she asked.

“Every day,” the tiny blonde said. “He’ll be here soon. But he can’t help you. He’s old and mad himself.”

“I would expect that kind of doctor here,” she said.

“Who put you in here?”

Betsy sighed. “Someone I thought had some feeling for me. I know better now.”

The tiny blonde wandered off, and a little later, true to her prediction, she fell down onto the earthen floor in a convulsive fit. This attracted a group of the other women who stood around her in a circle and gleefully commented on her writhings.

Betsy turned away, sickened. A short time later the iron door opened and a portly man with a writing pad and quill in hand entered accompanied by a bent, frail old gentleman with vacant staring eyes. He was bald and had a woebegone look. Betsy at once knew this had to be the doctor.

The two made their rounds of the ward, and she was the last to be visited by them. The old man peered at her and said, “I don’t know you. Are you new?”

“Yes,” she said, hope rising in her. “I was brought here in the night. And I shouldn’t have been. It was the vindictive act of an enemy.”

The old doctor stared at her oddly and then consulted with the stout man. They murmured in low voices and after the exchange the old doctor told her, “You were brought here by your brother as being occasionally violent and having delusions that Napoleon is still alive!”

She protested, “That man is not my brother! He is a revolutionary named Valmy! And he means harm to France!”

The vacant eyes showed no interested. He raised a palsied hand to placate her. “You must control yourself, dear lady. Your fears for France are groundless!”

“I have friends!” she insisted. “Will you send a message to them?”

“Only if your brother approves,” the ancient doctor said.

“Why must he approve? He is not my brother, and I have to get out of here!”

“Now, now,” the old doctor remonstrated. “We can’t have you troubling people on the outside. That is why you are here. If you cannot be cured of your madness, at least you will be able to live in peace here.”

She jumped up. “But I’m not mad!”

He nodded and smiled weakly. “No madder than the world, I’m sure. But there is some madness in all of us. I advise you to relax, and in due time you will come to enjoy it here!”

“Here in this filthy ward of mad people?”

“Show some delicacy,” the ancient one pleaded in his thin voice. “These are your sisters, and I am your doctor. You must show some respect.”

“I’m English, and I have a task to do, an important task. I must not be detained here,” she told him.

“I understand,” he said. “We will discuss it another day. In the meanwhile you must get to know the other ladies here.” And with that he and the stout man left the ward.

Betsy sat in stunned silence. Slowly she began to realize there was no hope. This was how it would always be with her. She would remain here and grow filthy and as mad as any of them. Her unkempt figure would become familiar to the guards and doctor. She would be known as the lady who wished to save Napoleon from murder!

She closed her eyes and tried to shut out the shrill wrangling of two of the mad women. She debated how she might kill herself and so make the only exit possible from the dread place. And she was continually haunted by the last glimpse she’d had of Valmy’s handsome, sneering face. He had punished her well!

The hours went by, and she still felt too ill to eat anything. Perhaps she would slowly starve to death, or would she become so hollow-eyed and emaciated that she’d finally claw at any wretched scrap of food in the same manner as the others? Hot tears coursed down her cheeks.

She was seated on her cot, her head bent in dejection, trying to shut out the awfulness of her surroundings. She heard the iron door open and then someone come over to her. She raised dull eyes to see who it was.

It was Eric! He gazed down at her in horror. Then he gasped, “Betsy! My poor darling!”

She rose pitifully, almost demented, and begged him, “Take me out of here!”

“At once!” he said. And as she felt the blackness close in on her, he picked her up in his arms.

She was back in their room at the pension. A good wash, some decent food, and a rest of several hours had brought her back to some normalcy. But she knew she would forever be haunted by those hours spent in the madhouse. She could never forget the misery and dejection of the place.

Eric was at her bedside. He said, “You’ve slept soundly for hours. It is evening.”

She reached out and took his hand in hers. “You came when I most needed you.”

“I was far too late at that!”

“The miracle is how you knew where to find me,” she told him.

“I had no idea at first. Felix Black had a boy watching the house outside. He’d paid the lad to keep an eye on it for the night. The lad fell asleep, but he woke up in time to see you being carried to the carriage. Sure that foul play had taken place while he’d been napping, he ran after the carriage as it rolled through the streets.”

“And he followed it to the asylum?”

“Not quite,” Eric said. “He wasn’t that lucky. He lost the trail at an intersection a block distant from the hospital. But he knew you’d been taken somewhere in that area, for he later saw the carriage returning.”

“Then what?”

“Then we began making house calls at every house in the area. At last we found the asylum, and I was certain that was where you’d been taken.”

“I’d given up hope,” she told him.

“We were too long getting to you,” he said. “But it doesn’t matter. You’ll be all right.”

She sighed. “It was the most terrible experience of my life.”

“I’m sure of that.”

“I shan’t forget it.”

He looked stern. “Another debt for Valmy to pay.”

Suddenly she became alert and asked, “What is going on?”

“Valmy is in Paris.”

“I know.”

“You would have to,” he said wryly. “We have at last located the house where he is making his headquarters.”

“Then you’ll be able to stop him.”

“I’m not sure about that,” Eric said. “But he has had a serious reverse.”

“What is that?”

“Some member of his own group leaked the word of the planned rebellion to the ruling government. As a result King Louis has called out his troops in strength, and the city has become an armed fortress.”

She sat up in be, all excitement. “Then he won’t dare go ahead?”

“Not as soon as he planned anyway,” Eric said.

“Dr. O’Meara claimed the emperor would be the first casualty if anything like this happened.”

“O’Meara is probably right,” the young major agreed.

“What is Felix Black going to do?”

“He has called another meeting for eight o’clock,” Eric said. “I assume it will be a strategy session.”

She turned back the bedclothes and prepared to get up. “I must be there.”

“No.”

“I’m a vital member of the group.”

“Agreed,” Eric said. “But you are not well enough to try becoming active again.”

“Bosh!” she replied. “I shall be all right. I promise it.”

“He won’t expect you,” Eric warned her.

Expected or not, she dressed and went down with Eric to take part in the meeting. Felix Black was seated and looking even paler than usual. He leaned on his cane for support as O’Meara, Kingston, and Captain Gray stood at various places in the room. When she entered with Eric, there was general surprise and a warm greeting for her.

Felix Black gave her an approving nod. “You are a strong young woman, Betsy. You now know the meaning of not being safe in one’s own bed.”

“Yes,” she said. “I learned it the hard way.”

“You also learned the sort of man Valmy is.”

“My eyes have been opened,” she said.

“Then perhaps it was worth it,” the old master spy said. “We can harbor no illusions about our enemies. We destroy or are destroyed.”

O’Meara said, “How dare he put you in a madhouse?”

“A crass thing to do,” Kingston agreed.

“In America he wouldn’t get away with that so easily,” Captain Gray vowed. “There seems to be no proper check on officials here in France.”

Felix Black said crisply, “We do not have time to commiserate with Betsy or comment on the laws of our various lands. We are here to plan our strategy.”

O’Meara said gloomily, “From all I have seen and heard in the streets, this uprising of Valmy is doomed and so is his hope of passing off this Napoleon on the people.”

Betsy said, “The impact may be different when they know the emperor has truly returned.”

“Louis will have his troops ready with orders to shoot Napoleon on sight,” the Irish doctor said with concern.

Felix Black said, “Now the emperor’s fete depends almost solely on us. I have a plan.”

“I’d like to hear it,” O’Meara said with annoyed doubt.

“You shall,” the old master spy told him. And turning to Gray, he said, “Your ship is still ready and your men still here in Paris?”

Captain Gray agreed. “Everything is in readiness to take the emperor straight to the coast and on board. Within an hour of his stepping on the ship, we shall sail.”

“Excellent,” Felix Black said. “Valmy has taken over an old mansion on the avenue Marceau. He is keeping Napoleon there. It is one of those houses with direct connection to the Paris sewers.”

“So?” Eric said.

“This must be a small operation,” the master spy went on. “It is our only hope of saving Napoleon.”

O’Meara warned, “As soon as Louis’s men know where they are hiding, they will storm the place.”

“Valmy is well aware of that, I’m sure,” Felix Black said with a patient look in the stormy Irishman’s direction.

“What do you plan to do?” O’Meara demanded.

“I have a plan of the sewer lines and the house. You know these sewers are tall enough for a grown man to walk in. Great caves with a deep river of polluted water running through them. I speak of the main sewer lines, but even those attached to the various houses are large enough for a man to make his way through them.”

“They are foul places,” O’Meara told him. “The air is not fît to breathe in them. The rivers you speak of are running cesspools with the waste of the city flowing toward the Seine. And the sewers are famous for being infested with a host of aggressive rats!”

“All true,” the old master spy agreed. “I do not advocate them as a place to enjoy but a means of us managing our well-deserved victory.”