Children of the Siege

by Diney Costeloe

  CHILDREN OF THE SIEGE

  Diney Costeloe

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  About this Book

  About the Author

  Table of Contents

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  About Children of the Siege

  A lost child, a family divided, the bitter backdrop of war – the ingredients of this classic Diney Costeloe story, set in 19th century France.

  After the Franco-Prussian War and the siege of 1870-71, the St Clair family return to Paris, seeking refuge and security, only to be swept up into the terrible cruelties and violence of the Commune.

  Here their young daughter, Hélène, falls ill and a cruel twist of fate leads her to be separated from her family. Alone and frightened, she is captured by Prussian soldiers before escaping to fend for herself on the war-torn streets. Meanwhile her two brothers face each other as mortal enemies across the barricades.

  Heartrending and unputdownable, this classic Diney story shows the courage of one family in the face of deadly peril.

  Contents

  Welcome Page

  About Children of the Siege

  Dedication

  France February 1871

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About Diney Costeloe

  Also by Diney Costeloe

  Newsletter

  An Invitation from the Publisher

  Copyright

  My heartfelt thanks go to Mike Rapps, solicitor, author and friend, who answered all my legal questions in great detail and with enormous patience. Also to the Cornish Andersons, Rosie and Ian, who offered me bed and board and drove me round Cornwall while I was doing my research.

  Finally to my long-suffering agent, Judith, and editor, Rosie. Thank you both for your continued encouragement, your input and your patience, without which I might well have sunk beneath the wave.

  France

  February 1871

  1

  The cold was bitter. Biting wind swept across the grey-green fields under a leaden sky which promised more snow. Patches of earlier snow still lingered in the hedgerows and sheltered hollows by the wayside, and icy puddles crunched and cracked under the horses’ hooves and carriage wheels. The road, such as it was, was ridged, rutted and iron hard. Furrows of frozen mud, which on a warmer day might have clutched at the carriage wheels, bogging them down, remained unyielding, so that every turn of those wheels jarred the occupants of the carriage, shaking them mercilessly despite the most modern of springing, until their heads ached and their teeth rattled and every inch of their bodies felt bruised and battered.

  Eleven-year-old Hélène St Clair huddled against her mother trying to keep warm, for despite the fur-lined travelling cloaks and rugs, the piercing cold penetrated the jolting carriage and chilled her to the core. When would the journey be over? When could she escape the freezing, rattling carriage and feel warmth seep back through her body? The blinds were drawn down to help keep out the cold, so Hélène could not even watch from the window to pass the time. She longed to ask, ‘How much longer, Maman?’ but she did not speak. It was no use asking, her mother did not know. The journey from St Etienne usually took two days in the carriage, but they had already spent three on the road and in such conditions, with the horses struggling through the wind, who knew how much longer it would take? How cold Papa must be, thought Hélène, and wondered why he chose to ride outside the carriage instead of travelling more comfortably inside as he usually did. She turned to ask her mother, but as she glanced up at her, she saw in the dim grey light which filtered through the blinds that Maman’s eyes were closed, her face drawn and pinched with cold and fatigue. Even as Hélène looked, the carriage jarred violently on a stone. Rosalie St Clair’s eyes flew open in alarm, and her arms tightened round the fur-cocooned child on her lap, Hélène’s younger sister Louise. Louise shifted uneasily in her sleep, but did not waken. The carriage jolted on its way and Madame St Clair smiled reassuringly over Louise’s head at her other two daughters. Clarice, Hélène’s senior by three years, shivered and drawing her hood more closely round her face, said petulantly, ‘How much further, Maman? Aren’t we nearly there?’

  Madame St Clair lifted the blind a little and looked out through the window. The bleak countryside had given way to a scattering of houses as they approached a village, and as they turned into the main square the coach drew to a halt.

  ‘There,’ said the fifth occupant of the carriage who was huddled in a corner beside Clarice. ‘We have arrived.’

  Marie-Jeanne, the children’s nurse, peered out from her enfolding blankets, her face lined and old but her eyes as bright as black buttons. Marie-Jeanne was nearly as dear to Hélène as Maman. Her comfortable face, so familiar and unchanging, always reassured the child, and in times of uncertainty or distress her arms were always warm and sure.

  ‘I’m afraid not, Marie-Jeanne,’ replied Madame St Clair. ‘We’re at an inn. Still, we should be able to get warm and have something to eat, which will make us all feel better.’ Gently she woke the sleeping Louise, who complained miserably at being disturbed.

  The carriage door swung open and Emile St Clair looked inside. He glared at Louise who was still moaning and immediately the child was silent.

  ‘We’ll stop here for a meal and then move on,’ he said to his wife. ‘I want to be in Paris tonight.’

  His family disentangled themselves from their rugs and clambered down from the coach. The bitter wind made them gasp and Marie-Jeanne shepherded them hastily across the cobbled yard into the shelter of the inn. Monsieur St Clair engaged a private sitting room on the first floor and as they crowded into it his daughters cried with delight at the sight of the roaring fire which had been kindled in the grate. Cloaks and muffs were discarded and they clustered round the fire, stretching their frozen fingers to the heat. Hélène sat down on a tuffet by the hearth to bring her nearer to the flames, and extending her feet towards the blaze felt a delicious though painful prickling as the numbness left her toes and warmth crept back into her body.

  ‘We can’t stay long,’ her father warned them as he found them thus grouped round the fireplace a moment later. ‘It may snow again and we don’t want to travel far in a snowstorm. We could really run into trouble then.’

  Madame St Clair thought privately that if it were about to snow again, it would be far better for them to stay at the inn overnight than hurrying onwards with no idea of what they might find at the end of their journey. Suppose the house was no longer there? After all, Paris had been bombarded. This fear had nagged her ever since they had set out from St Etienne. The world had changed irrevocably since they were last at home in Paris, and she wished Emile had waited for answers to the letters he had sent before removing the family from the comparative safety of their country house. She had said as much to him, but he had remained adamant in his determination to return.

  When they had
left the capital for St Etienne in early July last year, it was merely to escape the summer heat in the dirty city. Even in the more fashionable quarters, like Passy where they lived, the smell could become oppressive in August. They had expected to return in September as usual and their house was left in readiness, with Gilbert and Margot, the butler and his wife, staying to look after it. But events had overtaken them. The declaration of war against Prussia a few days later, followed by the dramatic advance of the Prussian troops and humiliating defeats of the French armies sent to halt them, had kept the family in the safety of their country home. When Paris was besieged, entirely encircled by German troops, Rosalie and Emile St Clair thanked God they had taken their annual trip to the country as always and thus escaped the horrors of being trapped in Paris. Rumours flew through the countryside; Parisians were dying like flies from starvation and disease, and the city’s defenders, after abortive attempts at a sortie, could do little but tighten their belts and wait for relief from outside. That relief never came. The French armies had surrendered, leaving Paris to fend for herself, and the disgrace of those surrenders weighed heavily. Rosalie and Emile felt it as much as any. Their two sons were both with the army and had been, as far as their parents knew, in the disastrous battle at Sedan when Emperor Napoleon himself had been taken prisoner, but since then they had heard nothing. They did not even know for sure that Georges and Marcel were alive.

  Fear for the safety of her sons was another thing that haunted Rosalie. It was with her day and night like a nagging pain and though she knew Emile was afraid for them too, emotion seldom showed on his face. He never shared his fears with his wife and so she lacked the comfort he might have given her. Emile was a good husband and father, but his feelings for his family were never revealed; he would have considered that weakness, and so the children gave him respect rather than affection. Rosalie had loved him and still did, but when he made it clear that he considered displays of that love unbecoming, she had lavished her affection on her children and received theirs in return. The days after the surrender of the army at Metz and Sedan had turned into weeks and then months and there was still no word from either son. Thousands had been killed, thousands more taken prisoner, and Rosalie, with no news of her sons, ached for them both.

  At last the siege was ended and the armistice was agreed. Emile St Clair was eager to return to Paris. He was a man who hated inactivity and the normal family holiday of two months in the country always tried him to the limit. When the quiet life there threatened to engulf him, he would visit Paris for a few days, leaving the family to enjoy St Etienne without him. Because of the war, the two months had elongated to almost eight and had kept him in a fury of frustration. Like a caged lion he paced the house and garden, longing to return to his beloved Paris and his all-consuming work, the rebuilding of that city.

  Louis Napoleon had had great plans for the city and had cleared the ground, pulling down cluttered housing and slum tenements to clear the way for wide, tree-lined boulevards and gracious buildings. This meant that though some slums were cleared away there was greater crowding in those that remained, but for Emile St Clair, architect, it meant that he was more than fully employed. He designed with simple grandeur and though none of the major public buildings were his, the new comfort of apartments and houses spreading at the western end of Paris owed much to him. As a consequence, he and his family were soon well established in a tall, grey stone house in a quiet avenue, Avenue Ste Anne, in the Passy district, while retaining several properties in Montmartre which added to his income if not his prestige.

  He was thankful that his family had not had to suffer the dangers and privations of existence in a besieged city, but now there was peace, Emile lost no time in arranging his return. He had written to the housekeeper to announce the family’s arrival and to his office to announce his own. Although the war was over, the country was not free from German occupation.

  ‘I have decided we must all go back to Paris,’ he told Rosalie. ‘I cannot possibly stay away longer and neither can I leave you and the girls unprotected at St Etienne. With Prussian soldiers on the loose in the countryside, it is far too dangerous; you will all be safer in Paris.’ He spoke with conviction, believing himself to be right in the matter; Rosalie had not been so certain, but having made a small protest which he swept aside, she accepted his decision. Her place was at his side and the family should not be divided in such uncertain times. She longed for news of Georges and Marcel, and it was the thought that she was more likely to hear of them in the city than buried in the country that went a long way to resigning her to their return to Paris.

  Emile had ridden alone to the headquarters of the German Army corps whose troops barred the way from St Etienne and requested permission to remove his family back to Paris.

  He had been treated with stiff courtesy by Major Schaffer, to whom he had made his application. The major had pointed out that many Parisians such as himself were making every effort to leave Paris now the siege had been raised. Emile was undeterred, even when the major had gone on to discuss the dangers of such a journey from the comparative safety of the country to the war-torn capital – particularly as the railways had not resumed normal operations and they would have to travel by road – but at last Major Schaffer had shrugged his shoulders and signed the necessary paper.

  Emile had ridden home triumphantly with it in his pocket.

  ‘It’s all arranged,’ he cried when he returned. ‘We leave for Paris in two days.’ But as the carriage swayed out of the gates at St Etienne and security and comfort were left behind, Rosalie could not restrain a sigh for what she was leaving, nor repress the creeping fear that all would not be well in Paris when they arrived there. Now she was only a few miles from the city and she longed to put off the moment of truth.

  ‘Don’t you think, my dear, that if it is going to snow again, it would be as well to spend the night here?’ she ventured as she glanced anxiously out of the inn window at the louring sky. ‘If we should get caught in a snowstorm we might all freeze to death.’

  Her husband’s lips tightened into a straight line. He pulled his gold-rimmed glasses from his pocket, set them on his nose and looked coldly at his wife above their rims. It was a habit he had when he felt his authority questioned, and when faced with this bleak expression, his wife seldom pressed her argument.

  He said, ‘I hardly think there is much chance of that. You know we are nearly there and I’m sure the children would be better in their own beds than spending a third night in a village inn.’

  Before Rosalie could reply, the door opened and a maid entered carrying a tray with hot chocolate on it, a plate of chicken pieces and some bread and cheese. She put the food on the table and withdrew without speaking. Marie-Jeanne poured out cups of chocolate and the girls took them gratefully, nursing the warm cups in their hands before they drank.

  ‘It’s snowing,’ cried Louise suddenly, putting down her cup by the fender and running to the window. Hélène joined her and the two girls knelt up on the window seat, pressing their noses against the glass as they watched the huge white flakes come drifting silently from the sky to lay a white mantle on the cobbles of the inn yard and the slates of the stables beyond. With the snow came the darkness and it was with enormous relief that Rosalie heard Emile turn from his original decision to travel onwards at all cost, and bespeak beds for the night.

  ‘Come away from the window and drink your chocolate while it’s hot,’ she said to the girls, and as they turned reluctantly back into the room, Rosalie went to draw the heavy curtains across to shut out the night. As she reached the window there was a sound of hooves in the courtyard below and a troop of soldiers rode up. With shouts and laughter they dismounted and clattered in through the inn door.

  Hurriedly Rosalie pulled the drapes across and kept her children’s attention from the commotion outside. Throughout the last few months she had tried to shelter her daughters from the news of the war and its activities, and now beca
use of Emile’s determination to return with all speed to Paris they were actually staying upstairs in an inn where German soldiers drank below.

  Later, their supper finished, Rosalie and Marie-Jeanne took the girls to their bedchamber and tucked them into the enormous bed all three must share.

  ‘Home tomorrow,’ murmured Hélène as her mother kissed her goodnight.

  ‘Yes, home tomorrow.’

  And to the rhythmic sound of Marie-Jeanne in a rocking chair in the corner of the room, the travel-weary girls fell fast asleep.

  They awoke next morning to a white and glistening world. The snow had not been as heavy as Emile had feared and the gleaming blanket covering the village, on which a wintry sun danced and sparkled, was in fact only an inch or two deep. The wind, so bitter the day before, had died away and as there was little danger of drifts blocking the road, Emile determined they should set forth without delay. The February sky was cloudless, a cold, pale blue, and despite the difficulties of the road yet to be faced, the whole family felt considerably more light-hearted and hopeful than they had on the previous days of their journey.

  Emile had the carriage brought round and the horses stood snorting in the inn yard, their breath clouding the sharp morning air, as the girls, their mother and nurse climbed in once more and settled themselves amongst the rugs. This time they did not draw the blinds and the pale sun brought faint warmth into the carriage.

  ‘Why doesn’t Papa ride with us?’ asked Hélène, as she saw her father mounting his horse once more. ‘Why does he ride outside in the cold?’

  Her mother said carefully, ‘He can see the road ahead that way, in case there is any difficulty.’

  ‘What sort of difficulty?’ persisted Hélène.

  ‘In weather such as this,’ replied her mother, ‘one must always take extra care. There may be drifts across the road, a fallen tree, or perhaps other vehicles which have crashed or even overturned in the snow. We don’t want to have an accident ourselves.’