In his later consideration, Jaques would think of Charles in the hours that followed as an escaped detail, a tiny area of neglect in the wider canvas, which would grow to overwhelm all the other elements, like missing one’s own name in a list of other, unknown names and signing the order blind. The Madame spoke in an exaggerated manner. She asked them both to sign a visitors’ book. All her gestures were extravagant. For the moment, Jaques was only glad that Charles was too drunk to require explanations. Already he had drifted into the long salon beyond the hall where two fires burnt briskly and a limp hand pulled him down onto one of the sofas. Jaques paid the Madame some more money. Le Mara, Vaucanson and their men were a tantalizing few streets away. The Indian would be waiting somewhere outside, out of sight. He would be patient. Jaques spoke quickly to Madame Stéphanie telling her a nonsense about practical jokes, lost in the streets and worried friends; the essential point, a messenger. It could be done and Jaques concealed the relief which flooded through him. The Indian had missed his best chance in the corridor, and he had allowed them too long a leash in the streets. Now his own patience would work against him. A boy was fetched. He would use the rooftops which straggled away almost to the ground at the back of the house. He was young and too solemn for his age. No-one would see him, he shook his head at the suggestion. The message was scrawled quickly and the boy left. Jaques moved through to the salon to wait, feeling that the evening’s events were slowing and turning in his favour.
An hour or two hours later, Madame Stéphanie ushered in a short thickset man and Jaques knew that the episode was concluded. It was Vaucanson. The message had been received. The Indian had been caught somewhere in the streets outside. He had been expert, Le Mara’s throat was gashed but it was not deep. The Indian was safe in Vaucanson’s custody and already the man had a design on his captive. The Nawab would be repaid in his own coin. Vaucanson left then and Jaques walked back into the salon to take a glass of wine. The girls and their clients were engaged in low, halting talk, a soothing sound as he sipped at the liquor, with his back to the fire. Charles, whom he had last glimpsed entwined in the thin arms of the establishment, was nowhere to be seen. Jaques finished his wine and asked one of the girls if she had seen him. She had not, but another called over that he was with the ‘little Contessa’. They had ascended to the privacy of the first floor some half an hour earlier.
Jaques climbed the stairs and opened doors, until at the end of the passage he came to a room in which a young woman with a sour expression on her face was sitting up in the centre of a large iron bed. Jaques noted her hair which was thick and black and fell in tresses over her shoulders. Charles lay beside her, mostly undressed, quite unconscious. The woman was naked and did not trouble to cover herself as he stood in the doorway. Details, small details.
The next morning brought nausea and a shivering fever to Charles who accepted them as his lot and sat in bed as small islands of memory floated past him in a sea of rain and drink. He remembered the streets and the tavern, scenes from the brothel, a woman’s face. He swore Jaques to silence on the whole matter. They had departed for their return to Jersey some days later and neither of them had given that part of their adventure another thought until almost a year later when Charles stood in Jaques’ doorway, holding a letter from Paris, stammering that the woman had been got with child that night, the night it had rained. Charles had written his true name in the register in the brothel, another detail. Now the woman wanted money for her baby girl. Jaques stood there in a rage that was all his own, telling his friend to ignore the demand, she would assume from the silence that his name was false.
‘Send it back unopened,’ were his words. But Charles, in his obstinate decency, had sent the money. And more money. Every month without fail, his payments would be sent ‘Villa Rouge’ in the Rue Boucher des Deux Boules, a paper trail of payments and receipts leading back and forth between Paris and Jersey. And that of course was how Casterleigh had found the girl, seventeen years later, a whore like her mother in the same establishment. No more than a child, older than them all. Now Jaques was looking at the same girl seated opposite him inside the coach, no longer a child, almost a woman.
Juliette gazed out of the window as the streets sped by and the low clouds which had loured overhead all day and were now invisible in the dark sky delivered at last their promise of rain.
It was still raining the next morning when the two of them watched their belongings being loaded onto the coach which would take them out of the city. They climbed in and Juliette began settling herself for the long journey. Her canvas bag lay beside her on the seat. Jaques sat in silence opposite. When the coach moved off she thought of the last time she had made this journey. Then, it had been the Viscount. Rain turned the city grey and the hawkers on Pont Neuf huddled for shelter. Paris slipped away under the wheels of the coach until it was only something at their backs, buried in the outlying grey-green sward of their thoughts. The downpour attended their jolting progress through small towns and staging posts, uncomfortable nights in unfamiliar beds and at the last, when the boat from Calais was rolling in the swell and its Captain looking up at a sky that told him snow, Paris was a limping memory that had fallen back irretrievably, crippled in the forethought of its ashes.
Their crossing was a slow, unsettled affair. The wind blew in gusts and the crew were sent scrambling to tack, or slacken sail according to its caprices. Juliette, who had not felt sick on the Saint Malo pacquet, felt sick now. Jaques fed her something sweet and treacly from a dark brown bottle and within the hour her nausea had vanished. The choppy little waves looked to her like polished glass, jagged and moving of course, but the movements came as a series of jolts, quick as lightning one after the other. The yaw of the boat was strange too. If she concentrated on the horizon, a dark strip far off somewhere, the movement could disappear altogether. Or if she shifted her weight from foot to foot with its rhythm, the rolling seemed to grow more and more extreme. With a little effort she felt it would be possible to roll the boat over in a complete revolution, and perhaps it could approach the shore in this manner, sideways on, rolling over and over in the water like a tree trunk. The sky had a purple tinge. The sun was hidden somewhere in the low clouds but Juliette found that by electing a particular part of the cloud cover her eye could gather the dispersed light in a pale disk, not the sun but like it. Or even two of them, which hung like huge eye glasses in the sky. Her face felt cold and prickly as she looked up at her creation and thought of their owner looming into view behind them like a hesitant giant, just the head. Then she was sick. It was extraordinary stuff. Then she passed out.
Again. No. Someone was shoving her. Jaques. He was shaking her by the arm, waking her. Her mouth was foul and she was shivering. The legs of other passengers were walking around them. Juliette rose unsteadily and saw jetties, a low line of buildings with men walking about carrying things and a steep hill, almost a cliff. The sky was still grey and the face she had seen pushing its vague features down on her out of the clouds was gone, though now she put the name to it as Jaques guided her to the gangplank and put her hand on the rail. She was outside all this, looking down on it like the young face in the sky. Her bag. On the quay, a line of men were carrying sacks and loading them onto a cart. Beside the cart a black coach was waiting. Beside the coach stood the Viscount.
Roads, tracks, drovers’ paths, turnpikes, straining climbs and gentle descents, two freezing nights in rooms closed up for the winter months, a flurry of snow and all the miles between Dover and their destination which she did not know. Jaques was gone, by horse to London, their baggage by coach. Not London then, she deduced. The Viscount eyed her in silence. Her enquiry as to her time in Paris was hours ago. He told her nothing. Paris was an old dream. The miles dragged by and it was almost dark. Their progress slowed further, the snow lay thicker and the horses pulled the coach at a snail’s pace. In places the snow had drifted and they would stop altogether before a path was found, then continue on thr
ough the still night.
Juliette was quiet with her thoughts. The Viscount’s legs were stretched out and he shifted position from time to time as though the state of rest was alien to him. He was part of the interior too. Paris was still tagged to the journey and Casterleigh was part of that too: the same silent presence who had escorted her in this familiar space four years before. The two of them had sat there, components in the same system with their different criteria and goals while the environment flashed past as landscape. The coach was neutral, a box on wheels, nothing more. But how to account for the overlaying of the earlier scene? She had assigned him his attributes then, his brutishness and air of brooding confinement. They were inmates of the same logic. Their shadows broke out of postures assigned each by the other. Casterleigh’s parody of fatherhood was always drifting into other modes, the autocrat, the confidence trickster, the rapist, others also. Could they all be parts of this fatherhood? He seemed to physically swell and grow in the four years of her use as his personality grew new projections like tumors. The lines around ‘Papa’ were floating, new construction was underway and she waited to see what would emerge. ‘The Viscount’ was something en route. He was exceeding himself. Her understanding of her own role in this process was growing too; she was an agent somewhere within it, as was the boy about whom their late manoeuvres seemed to revolve. Her role was changing. Her relations with the Viscount were skewed in some way and Lemprière, even in his absence, was part of that change. Even ignorant he was their central interest now, a cipher of them both so that when the Viscount leant across her and indicated the lights of the house up ahead which marked their destination, she felt sure that he would be somewhere within it.
There were many coaches already in the courtyard when their own drew up. Casterleigh guided her to the door which was opened by a little man in a scarlet suit and they were ushered along a long corridor to a hall which was filled with people. She was told to amuse herself and concealed her surprise as Casterleigh took the elbow of a fat man she did not recognise to disappear with him through a side door. The guests in the hall were clustered around in a large horseshoe, all watching someone who announced himself as ‘Monsieur Henry’, a maker of brilliant Philosophical Fireworks. He was apologising for the inclement weather and the cancellation of his outdoor show. Nevertheless he would endeavour not to disappoint.
The crowd were still talking amongst themselves. Juliette moved through the crowd to gain a better view.
‘First,’ Monsieur Henry was saying, ‘I shall show a Vertical Sun and a North Star which will alternately display the colours of the British Navy.’ An appreciative murmur went up. Behind her, Juliette could hear a man talking about a dog and a rabbit. Someone said ‘tortoise’.
‘Allow me to reassure all those of a delicate disposition, that there will be no smoke or scent or powder in my pieces; and above all there will be no detonations.’
‘Thank God for that,’ said a large lady standing a little to Juliette’s left. A cluster of her younger charges giggled into their hands. The piece went off.
‘And now, a Turning Sun with twelve points which form a variety of colours, particularly lilac and a lively red,’ continued Monsieur Henry.
‘And now, two Saxons, turning different ways - let me draw your attention to a fine golden spark….’
Juliette grew bored. She looked around at her fellow guests, many of them familiar faces from other such occasions, but then she had never been more than yards from the Viscount’s side. She turned her head as the thought of this slight freedom ran through her mind and saw Casterleigh as he re-entered the hall by the same door. He was walking up to a small group of young men who were clustered about a grey-haired man with a bandaged hand. Casterleigh’s earlier companion was no longer in evidence. There were eight or nine of them, all engaged in an animated discussion. She had a clear view of three only: the man with the bandaged hand, a young earnest-looking type who was waving his hands and one a little older, three or four years, dressed all in black with well-made features. This last turned at the Viscount’s approach and extended his hand. The Viscount did not look over. He joined the discussion which went on for a minute or two before it seemed a resolution was reached. The whole group moved towards the side door which was opened to reveal, she thought, a serving man holding a bundle of torches in both arms. Each of the group were taking one as they passed him, then the door was closed once more.
Few of the guests noticed, or paid their departure any mind. Most were still held by Monsieur Henry whose lacklustre pyrotechnics had developed their own forward momentum. A double Catherine wheel was being set off. Juliette moved away through the individual spectators who were re-uniting in little cliques. A threadbare hour was passed in gossip with women half familiar to her from past introductions. She was avoiding the eye of a snub-nosed young man when a tap on her shoulder brought her up short.
‘Yes?’ The serving man had been sent across and over his shoulder she saw the tall figure of the Viscount once more, beckoning her over. He was red faced from the cold.
‘Come, we leave now. Hurry,’ he said as she drew near. His boots were muddy. She followed him out of the hall and into the corridor where the rest of the search party were carrying something as though they were pall bearers. It was five or six feet long and wrapped in their cloaks. They were straining under the weight. Juliette walked quickly towards them, in step with the Viscount. She thought of the ones who had frozen in the streets each winter and were carted off like logs on the municipal wagon the next morning. As they walked past she saw grim expressions on the bearers’ faces. Unused to such work, their cloaks did not quite cover the load.
‘This way,’ the Viscount directed her. Once outside, they walked between the carriages to their own. Casterleigh held the door as she mounted the step. A figure was already sitting inside, waiting for them. It was the fat man she had seen earlier, talking with the Viscount, the one with whom he had first disappeared.
‘Well?’ asked the man as the coach left the courtyard. The Viscount nodded.
‘And the boy?’ Lemprière. Juliette felt her fingernails dig into the palms of her hands.
‘No trace.’
‘This is no night for walking. The cold creeps into you, you hardly notice….’
‘If he lives or dies is not my concern,’ the Viscount said shortly.
‘The leader would not….’
‘Not my concern,’ Casterleigh repeated, but in harsher tones. The coach moved off. Juliette kept her face averted, her cheek pressed against the glass. The coach’s rough movement could not keep her awake, not even when it gathered speed and carried her dreaming, speeding through the white fields, their surroundings. The light was almost blue, coming off the snow. She was racing along at the coach’s side with long, shallow leaps. It was easy to keep up. There were low fences which she took cleanly, then more and more of them. There was nothing but snow as far as she could see and she could see as far as she wished. Then the snow began to break up with little jagged crevices appearing before her, sometimes a split second before she was about to land and leap once more. They grew more and more frequent, but the road was unaffected and the coach was tearing along. She wanted to look down into the crevices, but she was falling behind. The coach was pulling ahead of her. She was calling out to the driver to slow down, dim cries, then to the occupants of the coach. She could not see them, but they were in there, watching as her progress became more desperate. She tried to hammer on the sides of the coach then looked inside but saw only the monotone of the Dover skies and the luminous disks she had hung there like huge lenses, then came the face behind them. It swooped down at her, it was pressed right against her and the hammering was deafening like a hand slamming against the side of her head, Lemprière’s angular face with its owlish glasses, his mouth open like a fish’s behind the glass, moving, someone shouting ‘No! Stop!’ Suddenly she was awake, his face falling away into the night. It was not a dream. The shouting was her
own. As the coach sped away she looked at the Viscount whose face registered the effect of her outburst as astonishment, then rage. Papa was gone, ripped away like a cloth mask. Somewhere behind her on the freezing road she imagined Lemprière, standing there alone as the coach-lights disappeared into the darkness, taking her away from him. She looked back at the Viscount, then out into the night. She was between them now, and she realised that she too was alone.
An hour, perhaps two had passed. The coachlights had faded to points and been lost in the gloom. Lemprière had given up walking. He had stopped shivering. Sitting by the side of the road, he could hardly be bothered to turn his head at the faint noise rising behind him. He had walked and found nothing but the road and the surrounding darkness. And the snow. The noise was a little louder. It would be a coach. A coach, he thought. The cold was a dull ache in his bones. His face was numb, his head lolling. A coach, no doubt now. His legs were stiff and heavy. There it was, in front of him. It had halted. People getting out. Septimus. Asking, ‘what was he doing here?’ Something on top. Blue. Hello? He should answer at least. Being carried. Lydia’s lap. When he woke up.
‘He is asleep,’ said Lydia.
‘Unconscious,’ said Septimus.
‘Five to one his toes are black.’ Warburton-Burleigh was tugging at his boots. The coach hit a pot hole concealed beneath the snow and they all jumped in their seats as something thudded loudly against the roof. Lydia looked up and blanched.
‘Could not Casterleigh have taken her?’ she asked. ‘After all, he was the first to leave.’
‘We should have tied her face up,’ said the Pug. The coach jolted again, and again there was a harsh thud.
‘Horrible!’ said Lydia, covering her ears to shut out the sound. Lemprière’s head lolled in her lap. The other three were quiet. The coach continued on over the rough London road with the woman’s body lashed to the roof. Every time the coach rode a bump, the head jerked and the stump of metal from its mouth banged on the roof of the coach. Collapsed in the interior, Lemprière dreamed of women leaping through the fields over streams of burning gold. The coach went on through the fields of ice and snow, back towards London.
Lemprière's Dictionary Page 34
