One Thing More Page 13

  Should they change them?

  No. Chimay, Bombec and Virieu were the drivers who knew the man who was changing places with the King, and whose clothes they had seen before and would recognise.

  They were caught, trapped in their own foresight and efficiency.

  Madame was watching her. In this strange, upward lighting from the candle on the floor her expression was impossible to read.

  ‘Just bills for transport, routes and so on,’ Célie said, trying to keep her voice at exactly the right level of concern. ‘Perhaps ...’ she swallowed, ‘perhaps it would be a good idea to destroy some of them, just so they don’t know it all. It is a ... a very prosperous business ...’

  Madame considered for a moment. ‘Can you remember them, if we need to know them again?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Célie agreed quickly. ‘I’ll pick just some for each route.’ And before Madame could think better of it she chose all the papers she could see where any of those names were mentioned. She tore them up and put them in the stove, seeing the brief flare-up of light as the last of the embers caught them.

  Then instantly she wondered if she had merely made them conspicuous by taking them out of the records! What if they were fully documented in Bernave’s papers in his place of business? The fact that they were omitted here would make them different from all the rest, marked out. And she had done it herself. How stupid!

  She must make her brain clearer ... concentrate. Think logically. What would Menou be looking for? What would he deduce from what he found here?

  Madame was going through the next drawer. They appeared to be legal papers, to do with the purchase of the house. She took out half a dozen and tore them up sharply. Her strong fingers moved quickly, almost with anger. The papers were shredded into illegibility even before she put them into the flames.

  ‘What were they?’ The words were out before Célie thought.

  ‘Things Menou does not need to know,’ Madame replied without looking up at her. ‘Be quick. You never know when someone else will waken up and might come here and see the light.’ A flash of bitter amusement touched her lips. ‘They might even have the same thought we have, although I doubt it. Marie-Jeanne is exhausted. She thinks she had no love for her father, but sometimes bereavement can show you things in yourself you had not known—or wanted to know.’ There was pity in her voice, but Célie thought she heard anger as well.

  Obediently she bent her attention to further papers. What she needed was the passes. Without them the plan would fail. And something to tell her where to find the man who was prepared to die for the King. Without each of its individual pieces the whole, fragile edifice would collapse.

  There were letters from friends, some dating back several years, with addresses from all over France. There was no time to read them. She glanced at each one, trying to judge the tone and flavour, looking at the dates and discarding them.

  ‘What are they?’ Madame demanded.

  ‘Letters,’ Célie replied. ‘I’m just ... seeing if there is anything ... personal.’

  Madame hesitated, gazing at her in the shifting light from the single candle. The draught under the door made it waver.

  ‘Burn them,’ she ordered. ‘Menou will never know they existed. He won’t miss them. Then we’ll clean the fire out and relight it. We don’t want paper ash found.’

  That was something else Célie had not thought of, she realised with a start of guilt. She should not underestimate Menou—nor anyone else.

  Where would Bernave have put the passes? Would they be well hidden where no one would look? Or in plain sight where they would be taken for granted as being no more than a usual part of business and travel? After all, his trade was the import and export of fabric. He would quite naturally have passes to come and go.

  In the open. Bernave was clever; above all things he would be astute, careful.

  ‘Where do you think he would keep his record of orders in the near future?’ she asked. ‘We need to have those. If Menou takes them away we’ll lose business.’

  Madame did not argue but opened the rest of the drawers and passed the first one across to Célie. Piece by piece they looked at every paper. Madame kept those she considered relevant to possessions, proof of purchase and ownership. Those things belonged to Marie-Jeanne now.

  Célie flicked through seemingly endless orders for wool, silk, leather, even enquiries about cotton from Egypt. There were notes of purchase and sale, expenses of storage, weaving, dyeing, transport. Interspersed among these she found notes for travel, preferred routes, comments on the responsibilities of different drivers.

  Then there they were: passes for Citizen Louis Bombec to leave Paris on 21 January 1793, and one for Citizen Claude Virieu, one for Citizen Albert Chimay, and one for Citizen Joseph Briard. Another driver? Or the King?

  Madame was looking at more letters, her eyes down on the page, but even a flicker of movement would be seen out of the corner of her eye. She would certainly notice if Célie were to slip four sheets of paper into her pocket.

  She laid them down on the floor on the pile of others, but slightly crookedly so she could separate them in an instant. She started on the next pile. There were more letters of business, prices for wool from Scotland, silk from Milan, offers and counter-offers of trade.

  ‘These are all harmless, I think,’ she whispered. ‘What about the letters? Could they get anyone into trouble, even investigated?’

  Madame considered.

  Célie must make her get up, leave the circle of light and take something to the stove and burn it. Then she would have her back to Célie, at least for a moment or two, longer if Madame made sure the ash was crushed as well.

  ‘Even if they are merely personal,’ she went on, ‘perhaps Citizen Bernave would prefer not to have the Guard reading them. I would.’

  ‘You’re right.’ Madame made the decision immediately. ‘We’ll burn all of them. It’s none of Menou’s business, or any of those clodhopping men of his, to read what someone else intended only for Bernave’s eyes. Here, give them to me.’ She held out her hands.

  That was not what Célie had intended. Think quickly.

  ‘There’s nothing private here,’ she answered. ‘At least I don’t think so. This is all information Marie-Jeanne might need. And Menou will know if we don’t leave a certain amount. He’ll wonder what it was. Burn those, and I’ll look through these again, to be certain.’

  Madame rose to her feet and went to the stove.

  Célie took out the passes and stuffed them into her skirt, then made a noise with the other papers to mask the sound. Half a dozen at a time she replaced them in the drawer, in as close to the order she had found them as possible, and neatly, not to look as if they had been disarranged.

  Madame crushed the ashes and placed a small piece of wood on top, leaving it to smoulder as if the fire had naturally burned out by itself. Who would have tended Bernave’s fire, in the circumstances?

  She looked around the room. ‘Is there anything else?’

  ‘The religious books?’ Célie suggested. It hurt to think of destroying them. They were beautiful. The old leather was smoothed by years of touch, the gold lettering gleaming in the light. Someone had poured out their hearts writing them, someone else had printed and bound them, created the physical thing. And Bernave had loved them, or he would not have risked keeping them in these destructive, atheist times. They were a lifeline to another age, an age of hope beyond the known, a part of him he could not let go.

  ‘Leave them,’ Madame said huskily. ‘Let Menou make of them what he will. No one in the house murdered him because of his books.’

  It was as if all the light and even the residual warmth of the stove had fled from the room.

  Célie did not answer her, but watched as Madame blew out the flame and felt for the door latch. They would return to their beds in darkness. Neither felt the need to explain why they would account for this to no one. Who else would understand?

&nbs
p; Chapter Seven

  THE RAIN PASSED AND the morning was bright and cold. Everyone was gathered in the kitchen. It was the warmest room in the house, and it seemed that, for their different reasons, they wished to be together. Marie-Jeanne sat in the largest chair nursing the baby. In the corner Virginie and Antoine were quietly playing a game with a pile of sticks, dropping them in a heap, and then seeing who could remove them one by one without upsetting the pile.

  The other adults sat around the kitchen table slowly eating the last of the bread from yesterday, and drinking hot chocolate. They were probably all thinking—at least in part—of the same things, but nobody liked to say so. Now that Bernave was dead, where would their income come from? How much had it depended upon Bernave’s skill? Could anyone else manage the business now he was gone?

  Monsieur Lacoste was a natural Communard. He was an ordinary man, a locksmith and worker in metal, a man with no natural privileges—and to whom revolution offered the first chance of a voice in his own future, and his family’s, and a feeling of being in control. He had enough repressed anger in him to understand the urge to destroy. Yet even he found Marat extreme. He preferred the abstemious Robespierre, always talking about virtue.

  Fernand believed in the Commune, but he actually knew very little about it. At least Célie thought he did! Perhaps that was a misjudgement too. He was a cabinet-maker, occasionally turning his hand to a little other carpentry when business was slow. He was a respectable artisan. He would like to have started his own business, in time to have employed others, but no one did things like that these days. He had ambitions for peace, and he was prepared to fight to achieve it. Like his father, he wanted more justice, more chance to learn, and to speak his thoughts. They understood one another, and beneath the superficial quarrels now and then, there was both affection and respect.

  Célie was also concerned, not only for the others around the table, but for herself. Did she have an employer any more? Would the Lacostes want or need her? Did they even approve of employing people domestically, or—in these days of equality—would they think it wrong, even dangerous? Célie would far rather be unequal in a warm, dry house, than theoretically equal, starving in the winter streets. And she knew perfectly well that most people felt the same, but nobody offered them a choice.

  Apart from that, would there be funds anyway?

  And without money, how would she continue to feed Georges? If she had to find another job, where would she begin to look? Was it callous so soon to think of realistic things? It was better than thinking of Bernave lying on the floor, the spirit fled from him, the emptiness left behind. Where had all that passion and energy gone, all that intelligence, the unflinching purpose? Could it really have become nothing, in a moment destroyed for ever—like Jean-Pierre? Was that the reality, and all the faith of centuries a fairy story to keep the people obedient, and oppressed, as men like Marat claimed? She refused to believe it. Think of the present! Concentrate!

  Foremost in her mind were the two questions: whose side had Bernave been on; and who had killed him? Someone around this table had held that knife and lunged, someone she was sitting here sharing breakfast with, someone sipping chocolate to disguise the taste of stale bread. Why?

  Menou came in through the back door from the courtyard. Everyone stopped moving and stared at him, mugs halfway to their lips, bread in the air.

  ‘Good morning, Citizens,’ he said, closing the door behind him. ‘I’m sorry to disturb your meal, but certain matters will not wait.’ He glanced around curiously, although he had been here before when searching for the knife. Now he looked towards the stove where the last of the chocolate was simmering in the pan.

  Célie felt her whole body tighten with fear. Everything depended on how they conducted themselves now. She could feel Menou’s presence as if it were generating some kind of force in the room.

  ‘You ... must be cold, Citizen,’ she heard her own voice in the silence, a little hoarse. ‘Would you like some hot chocolate?’

  She half saw Monsieur Lacoste stiffen. Who had food enough to share these days? She deliberately ignored him. Who had safety enough not to share with the National Guard? She could hardly point that out to him now. She might later on—except that she never felt very comfortable with Monsieur Lacoste. She disagreed with his views, especially on Robespierre, and she was afraid he would know it if they ever had a conversation of any length. On a deeply instinctive level, Robespierre’s virtue frightened her far more than Marat’s rage. It was less human.

  ‘Thank you,’ Menou accepted.

  St Felix moved a little to allow him room at the table, and he accepted the seat.

  Célie went to the stove, taking down a clean, revolutionary china mug from the rack on the dresser as she passed. She poured out the last of the chocolate and brought it back to the table.

  Menou took it with a gesture of gratitude. ‘I don’t suppose anyone has found the knife which killed Citizen Bernave?’ he said, raising his eyebrows and gazing round at them one by one.

  ‘No,’ Madame Lacoste answered him with very slight surprise—presumably that he should ask.

  He sipped the chocolate. ‘I had not thought so.’ He nodded slowly, swallowing. ‘Never mind, we shall keep looking. It can’t be far, can it?’

  Again no one replied.

  ‘I think ...’ Menou spoke almost as if to himself, ‘that we better go over exactly what happened as each of you remember it.’ He took another sip. ‘It’s very good.’ The shadow of a smile crossed his face. ‘I appreciate a woman who can make even simple things well.’

  Amandine swallowed. ‘Thank you ...’

  He gazed at her. ‘You look uncomfortable, Citizeness. Does it embarrass you to be complimented on your skill? Or are you suffering grief at the death of your employer? Was he good to you?’

  Amandine was caught completely off guard. Célie could see the indecision in her face. She knew she was thinking of St Felix and what she could say to protect him, and yet still be close enough to the truth not to be caught out. After all, one of those listening had killed Bernave, and meant someone else to be blamed for it.

  Menou was waiting, his clear, grey eyes intent. Célie noticed in the daylight that he had dark lashes. If he had been anyone else she might have thought him good-looking.

  ‘He was ... fair ... yes,’ Amandine said awkwardly. ‘I did not see a great deal of him. He ... left me to get on with my work. He was not mean. He ... trusted me.’ She stopped, aware she was answering far more than he had asked, talking too much. She coloured awkwardly, and put up a slender hand to push her hair back off her brow.

  Menou turned to Célie. ‘And was he fair to you too, Citizeness Laurent?’

  Monsieur Lacoste was watching her, waiting to see what she would say. He knew how often she had been sent out on errands in the rain and cold, and at late hours. Certainly it had been to less dangerous or unpleasant places than St Felix, but did he know that? What would she tell Menou? Her answer must be close enough to the truth. If she were suspected it would ruin everything.

  ‘Yes, I suppose so,’ she replied, meeting Menou’s probing eyes and feeling his intelligence discomfiting. She forced the ghost of a smile. ‘He was generous sometimes. Other times he sent me out late and in the rain. I imagine it was necessary, or at least he thought so.’

  Menou was interested.

  ‘Oh? What sort of errands, Citizeness?’

  There was total silence around the table. Everyone was watching her. St Felix allowed his chocolate to go cold. Amandine was unconsciously crumbling her bread in her fingers.

  ‘Letters sometimes,’ Célie answered, trying to keep her voice light, as if it were of no relevance, and she were not weighing every syllable. ‘And of course to the Convention now and again, to keep him aware of exactly what was happening. He liked to know what was said in the debates.’

  ‘Why did he not go himself?’ Menou asked, cupping his cold hands around his mug. He had good hands, strong
and slim, and his nails were clean. It suddenly brought to Célie’s mind Robespierre’s bitten fingers fluttering as he spoke, and she shivered involuntarily.

  ‘I didn’t ask him,’ she replied.

  A touch of amusement crossed Menou’s face and disappeared. ‘And you reported back to him what you had seen and heard, Citizeness?’

  ‘The best I could.’ She must not appear too clever, or too well informed on political matters. He might suspect her of motives of her own.

  ‘How interesting.’ He stared at her. ‘Not many men in these turbulent days would send a laundress to the Convention, to keep them abreast of matters of state. He must have thought remarkably highly of you.’ He regarded her closely, right from the top of her sleek, pale head to her hands resting on the table, which was all he could see of her. ‘Had you known him for long?’

  She dreaded to think what he might be imagining. She could feel the colour warm up her cheeks. She had nothing to feel guilty for, in the manner she feared he was supposing. She wanted to say something sarcastic and funny, but she suppressed the impulse. Most revolutionaries had no sense of humour.

  ‘Only since the middle of September,’ she replied as steadily as she could.

  ‘Célie and Amandine came here then,’ Madame Lacoste confirmed. She was still white-faced, her eyes ringed with shadow. Her cheeks were gaunt as if she had not slept, but her look was completely steady and there seemed to be no fear in her.

  ‘You came together?’ Menou asked, turning from Célie to Amandine, and back again.

  ‘No,’ Célie corrected him. ‘Amandine came first. She was good enough to recommend me. I came a few days later.’

  ‘I see.’ Menou obviously did not. ‘And you do the laundry and the mending ... and political observation ...’He left it hanging in the air, an unexpected shred of humour behind it.

  ‘I did whatever—’ Célie started, then realised the double meaning and then stopped. ‘I did whatever needed doing in the house,’ she corrected herself. ‘And when I had time, I carried messages or errands also. Citizen Bernave fed us well, and kept a warm house. As far as I know he was a believer in the revolution and wanted liberty and justice for everyone.’