One Thing More Page 9

  They waited all together in the room, now freezing, except Fernand, who was permitted to go and fetch boards and nails from the workshop in the courtyard and make a rudimentary covering for the window. Menou went with him, and returned with him. Monsieur Lacoste lit a lantern and went up into the roof again to look for the broken slate and replace it. One of Menou’s men went with him as far as the attic window, but not out on to the slippery ledge in the rain.

  Half an hour after they had begun, the other National Guardsmen came back to report that they had not found any knife, except the one Amandine used in the kitchen, and that had far too broad a blade, and anyway, it was perfectly clean. They were obviously disappointed, and expecting criticism.

  Menou gave it in his looks, but he abandoned the issue for the night, warning the household that he was leaving guards posted in the street, and they had better not attempt to dispose of the weapon, because they would be watched. Anyone caught doing so would be arrested immediately. He did not need to add that hardly anyone arrested escaped without some punishment, usually death. They all knew that.

  When he was gone the household turned to stare at each other.

  ‘Did you know he was spying for the Commune?’ Monsieur Lacoste demanded from Fernand.

  ‘No!’ Fernand’s voice rose. ‘I thought he despised them!’ He turned to St Felix, his face darkening. ‘Did you? I suppose that was all those errands you ran for him, to Marat and the like. Who roughed you up, then? Or did they do that to hide what you were really doing?’

  St Felix did not answer.

  ‘Why should they?’ Monsieur Lacoste argued. ‘There’s no sin in helping the Commune. It’s any good person’s duty. No one but a royalist, an enemy of the revolution, would condemn you for that.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter now,’ Madame cut across them. ‘He’s dead. Citizen Menou won’t rest until he knows who killed him, and he believes it was one of us.’

  ‘He didn’t find a knife,’ Monsieur Lacoste pointed out. ‘We couldn’t have done it without one.’

  She looked at him with contempt. ‘That won’t stop him. He’ll be back tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that, until he has someone.’

  Célie knew it was true. If Menou believed Bernave had been a loyal revolutionary, then he would not rest until he had caught whoever was responsible. And she had an idea from his face and his manner that he was not a man to let a puzzle go unsolved. His pride would rest on achieving this kind of victory, the more so since he had now laid his reputation on it in front of his own men.

  ‘Well, was it one of us?’ Marie-Jeanne asked, sniffing and blinking several times. ‘It couldn’t be. Why would we?’

  No one answered, each absorbed in his or her own thoughts.

  ‘That is a question better not asked,’ Madame Lacoste answered her. ‘You should go upstairs and see that the children are all right. Change the bedding, now the roof is mended. You’ll have to tell them in the morning what has happened. Célie will help me.’

  ‘Help you ...’

  ‘Well, I’m not going to leave ... Citizen Bernave ... lying on the floor!’ For the first time her voice cracked and she took a moment to regain control of herself.

  ‘I’m sorry ...’ Marie-Jeanne stood undecided.

  ‘Go on!’ Madame shooed her, waving her hands sharply. ‘We don’t need your help.’ She turned to her husband and St Felix. ‘We can manage. We only need you to carry him. Then you can go.’ Obediently the others went out, feet dragging a little, weariness and shock making them clumsy. Fernand glanced a last time at his mother, then closed the door behind him.

  Célie felt numb, as if the cold had eaten into her bones. Now in the silence the reality of death surged back, enormous, engulfing her. A chasm had opened up where Bernave’s will and vitality had been, his passion, above all his belief.

  Madame looked as if she too were dead. Something had gone from inside her. She bent and slid her hands under Bernave’s shoulders. Monsieur Lacoste stepped forward and took most of his weight, St Felix the rest. Célie followed behind them.

  It was an awkward job to carry the limp body through to the back room, which was out of the way of ordinary domestic use, and certainly the coldest. They laid him on his back on the bench that ran along the wall, and stood away quickly. Monsieur Lacoste’s hands were smeared with blood and he wiped them hard on his thighs, almost scraping them. St Felix shuddered. They were both uncomfortable, not knowing what else to say or do.

  Madame dismissed them abruptly, barely thanking them, and as she closed the door after them, turned to Célie.

  ‘Help me wash him and lay him out,’ she commanded. ‘He must have a proper burial. He was a man of position.’ Her mouth twisted with an anguished irony, pain so close under the surface it seemed any moment her self-mastery must snap. ‘Anyway, if he was a hero of the revolution, it would be unwise of us to do less for him.’ Her voice cracked and Célie thought she was going to laugh or to weep, but she made a painfully visible effort, and the moment after her face was immobile again.

  ‘I’ll get clean linen,’ Célie offered quietly. ‘We can spare a good sheet. After all, they are his!’

  They worked together for some time, neither speaking. It was a strange task. The spirit, the mind and reality of Bernave was no longer in any way present in the dead flesh, but it still felt intrusive to touch him so intimately. An hour ago this had been a man full of passion, intelligence and will to succeed, loved or hated, certainly feared. They would never have presumed to touch him then. Had they but known it, the fate of all of them rested on his courage and the quickness of his mind. Now his hands lay limp and the warmth was already leaving his flesh. There was nothing of life left.

  Looking at Madame Lacoste’s face, the gentleness of her fingers, Célie wondered whether her reverence was for Bernave himself, or for the fact of death. Perhaps it was some suppressed respect for religious faith. Célie had never known her before it had become illegal to believe in God. Maybe she had been devout then, like so many women.

  They washed the blood away. Bernave’s body was powerful, the muscles lean, no spare flesh. Célie was startled to see the white ridges of more scars on his back and across his chest. She looked up at Madame, and saw no surprise, but a tight, hard rage that made her hands shake so badly for a moment she had to stop and regain control of herself.

  Menou was right, the mark of the knife was clear—not round like a shot.

  ‘Could it be one of us?’ The question was out of Célie’s lips before she could think better of it.

  Madame looked at her, her black eyes so deep as to be unreadable.

  ‘St Felix had no love for him,’ she said quietly. ‘Nor Amandine either, because of St Felix. And it depends if Bernave was really a friend of the Commune, and if he was, who knew of it. Perhaps you? You ran enough errands for him.’

  ‘I ...’ Célie stopped. She had no idea how much Madame Lacoste knew, or where her loyalties lay ... presumably to her husband. Now, suddenly everyone was suspect. It would be foolish to trust, even suicidal. She changed what she had been going to say. ‘I see what you mean,’ she answered instead.

  Madame Lacoste almost smiled, and in the candlelight Célie saw her eyes were brimming with tears, but she did not know for whom.

  Chapter Five

  AS SOON AS THE house was quiet, although there was no way of knowing whether everyone was asleep or not, Célie got up out of bed and dressed in a blouse, petticoat, her heaviest skirt and two shawls. She opened her bedroom door and then closing it silently behind her, crept to the stairs. She must tell Georges of Bernave’s death. It changed everything. He was the only one who knew all of the plan, the places and details, the people. He had not only been the force behind it, but also the intelligence. And he had been the only one with money, if it were needed.

  Georges would be frantic, imprisoned as he was, and unable to help. Could they salvage anything now? Or was this defeat?

  She was at th
e bottom of the first flight and about to go down the next when she caught a glimpse of movement on the edge of her vision, and turned quickly.

  Amandine was standing in the doorway, her hair loose and tangled, her eyes dark-smudged with exhaustion.

  Célie went over to her and half pushed her back into the room, closing the door again.

  ‘I must see Georges,’ she whispered. ‘I must tell him what’s happened.’

  ‘You can’t get out,’ Amandine replied fiercely, holding on to Célie’s arm as if she would prevent her by force. ‘Menou left guards outside.’

  ‘I know,’ Célie told her. ‘I’ve thought of a way. Don’t worry.’

  ‘What?’ The fear was sharp in Amandine’s voice, even though she did not move. ‘Be careful! Do you have to go? Can’t you leave it until all this is over?’

  Célie hesitated. She knew Amandine’s anxiety for her, and her love for Georges. The truth was bitter, but she did not deserve lies, at least not about this.

  ‘When do you think that will be?’ she said quietly. ‘It could be days—or longer—before Menou finds out what happened. And he won’t go until he does. We can’t wait for that!’

  ‘It must have been—’ Amandine stopped. There was only one small candle burning in the room, on the table over near the bed, casting shadows on the rumpled sheets, but even so it showed the fear in her eyes. ‘It must have been Fernand who killed him ... or Monsieur Lacoste ... I suppose,’ she finished. There was so much more to say and they both understood it: the tearing away of old beliefs and nothing to put in their place; people you thought you knew who were too frightened to be loyal, and too confused to be honest.

  ‘I have to tell Georges,’ Célie repeated. How could she explain that it was so much more than merely murder, enormous as that was? This was bigger than any one man’s death. Everything of the future might rest on it, the execution of the King and all that would follow in its wake, the fall of the Girondins, more power for Marat and the Commune, even worse chaos in the streets and less food, further riots, and quite soon something as terrible as war.

  ‘I’ll be careful,’ she whispered. ‘Stay here—don’t waken anyone else.’ She turned to the door and without giving Amandine the chance to argue, she went out on to the landing and back up the stairs again, towards the attic. Amandine was right about getting out. Every way that led to the courtyard and the street would be watched by Menou’s men, and she would inevitably be caught. She must leave from the door of another house. The only way to do that was to climb out of one of the windows on to the roof, and in through someone else’s, perhaps even as far as one of those at the back which faced on to the Rue de Seine.

  It was difficult and far more dangerous than she had foreseen. Getting out of the window was not too hard, but once outside the slates were slippery with ice. Her hands were so cold she could barely feel them. And skirts were definitely highly impractical garments in which to do almost anything, certainly crawl up over angled roofs, heave herself over the ridges and slither recklessly and too fast down the other side. At least the roofs had wide valleys between one pitch and the next. Only a blind, overwhelming necessity compelled her to keep trying one window after another, prising them with numb fingers and cursing under her breath. In the end she was delighted to get in through the first one she could pull open from the outside, and find the room unoccupied.

  The people in the house must have been sufficiently used to noises through the night, alarms in the street and perhaps family members up for their own reasons, that no one seemed disturbed by her tiptoeing feet down the stairs, feeling her way to the front door and at last outside into the Rue de Seine.

  She went as quickly as she dared in the near dark, knowing the way so well now that she could almost have counted the paces.

  When she got to Georges’ door she knocked sharply and waited with her heart pounding. She felt as if light and warmth would be inside, but that was absurd. It would scarcely be any better than the street.

  Nothing happened. Panic rose inside her in case he was not there. She banged again, more loudly, bruising her knuckles.

  There was a sound inside.

  Without realising it she had clenched her fists, her body rigid.

  The door opened and Georges’ voice came in a whisper.

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Me, Célie!’ she said urgently.

  His hand came out of the darkness, felt for a second, then gripped her arm, pulling her in. He closed the door.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here at this time of the night?’ he demanded.

  She could feel the warmth of his body. He had been asleep and was wearing no more than a shirt and hastily pulled on breeches.

  ‘Bernave is dead,’ she answered, trying to see his face in the solid blackness of the room.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Bernave is dead,’ she repeated sharply. ‘Someone stabbed him. At first we thought it was an accident, now we know it couldn’t have been. That’s the worst of it, or almost. It was one of us!’

  He said nothing. He must have been too stunned to speak.

  ‘Georges!’

  ‘Yes ... I hear you.’ His voice was low, almost a growl.

  He was still so close she could smell his skin and the warmth of him.

  ‘Put something on,’ she whispered. ‘You’ll freeze.’

  He did not move. ‘What happened?’ he asked. She could hear the shock in him. He must feel, as she had, that same numb disbelief.

  ‘Put something on! I’ll tell you,’ she responded.

  He stepped away at last, fumbling to find the candle and light it. The flame sprang up, showing the horror in his face, the shadows around his eyes, the dark stubble on his cheeks. He looked bewildered as he put on a second shirt and then a doublet. It was the first time she had ever seen him at a loss. Even at the beginning of the September Massacres, when the screaming, drunken crowd had swept them along and at last torn them apart from each other, he did not seem to have lost his instinctive confidence. She had expected him always to be like that: suave, sure, believing in himself. It was part of what she liked most about him, and at the same time it angered her because it made him different from everyone else she had known, and unreachable.

  Now it was gone. He looked as frightened as she was. His hand holding the candle was shaking.

  She took it from him. Her hand was steadier. She had had longer to get used to the news.

  ‘What happened?’ he asked again.

  She sat down in the single chair.

  He sat on the mattress opposite her, hugging his arms around himself as if he were chilled, or wounded, watching her face while she recounted to him bitterly and with defensive sarcasm, exactly what she could remember, up to the point when the National Guard had come.

  ‘National Guard?’ he said quickly.

  ‘Yes. The leader’s name is Menou. He’s investigating what happened, and he won’t go away until he has the answer.’

  ‘You mean until he finds which one of the intruders fired the shot?’

  ‘No.’ Her voice was flat, without life or timbre. She could hear the fear in it herself. ‘Bernave was standing facing the men who broke in after the shots in the street. I saw him, and so did the others. Anyway, only an idiot would have turned his back to that crowd.’

  He stared at her, frowning, at first not comprehending the meaning. Then it came to him.

  ‘It was someone in the room?’ His voice was hoarse. ‘Someone behind him!’ He looked bruised, as though he had been hit harder than he had ever expected or felt before, and he did not know how to accommodate the hurt.

  She nodded, refusing to allow herself sympathy for him, or at least not so he could see. It made her too vulnerable herself, and she could not afford it. ‘There isn’t any other possibility,’ she agreed more steadily. ‘If the shooting hadn’t stopped outside, or Bernave hadn’t faced them down, if they’d been braver, or angrier and surged around him, we would never have kn
own. Whoever murdered him would have got away with it.’

  He looked at her earnestly, his face crumpled. ‘Do you know who it was, Célie?’

  She hesitated. If only there were any way to protect him from the blow, but there wasn’t.

  ‘What?’ he asked urgently, his voice sharp. Her face with its clearly defined bones and wide mouth had always been too easily readable. ‘Who was it?’ he demanded.

  She shook her head a little. ‘It isn’t that. I don’t know who killed him. But Menou said he was determined to find out who it was because Bernave was a loyal supporter of the revolution.’ She swallowed and licked her dry lips. ‘He said Bernave had been a spy for the Commune, against the royalists still planning to restore the King.’

  He stared at her, slowly comprehending the full meaning of what she had said.

  She longed to see his confidence return. She waited for him to deny that Menou could find evidence that would betray them. Then like ice in the pit of her stomach, for the first time the realisation came that Menou could be right. Of course he would never find proof that Bernave had actually been working to save the King, to prevent invasion and civil war, because there was no proof! Not for Menou ... and not for them either!

  How could Georges’ confidence return—now, or ever? To be sure after this would be incomprehensible ... insane. Who knew what the truth was, except that Bernave was dead and one of them had killed him?

  Instinctively Célie reached forward and touched Georges’ hand with her cold fingers. She had no idea what to say or do. One lunge with a knife ... and everything was changed. The whole struggle had become hopeless. She tightened her fingers a little, holding on to him.

  Then suddenly she realised what she was doing and withdrew quickly.

  There was so much that needed to be spoken of, sitting hunched up in this icy attic. Climbing over the roofs and creeping through someone else’s house she had been too frightened to think of physical discomfort, but now she was aware of how cold she was. It seemed to fill her body and she was starting to shake.