Children of the Siege

by Diney Costeloe

  ‘In here,’ she said and banged on the door with her knuckles. The door didn’t open but a reedy voice called out from within, ‘Who’s there?’

  ‘It’s me, Mireille,’ answered the maid. ‘There’s someone to see Arlette.’

  ‘She don’t want to see no one,’ said the voice.

  ‘It is important—’ began Mireille but Emile interrupted her.

  ‘It is I, Emile St Clair,’ he spoke the name imperiously, ‘and I need to speak with Arlette… now. Please open this door at once.’

  The door remained shut, but they could hear voices from inside the apartment. Emile was just about to shout through the door to them again when they heard the sound of a bolt being drawn back, then the turn of a key in the lock and slowly the door was inched open. An old woman’s face, creased with wrinkles and the sunken cheeks of the toothless, appeared in the gap and she looked at both Mireille and Emile before she opened the door any further.

  ‘Please, madame,’ Emile said, his voice tight, ‘I must speak with Arlette.’

  Apparently having assured herself that the two visitors on her doorstep posed no threat to her or her daughter, the woman opened the door wide enough to let them in and then closed it quickly behind them, immediately sliding the bolt across to secure it.

  Emile found himself in a dark space, too small to be called a hall. Two doors led off it, one of them closed. The old woman led them through the other into a tiny living room, crammed with an assortment of furniture. Grey daylight hardly penetrated the grubby windows and at first Emile didn’t see Arlette, sitting curled into an armchair. When she saw it really was him she tried to get up, but he waved her back to her seat. Even in the dull light of the room he could see her face was very swollen, a bruise covering her left cheek and running upward to join with another around her eye. Her nose was swollen and red against the pallor of her face.

  ‘Arlette,’ Emile said, trying to moderate his voice to sympathy, ‘I’ve come to talk to you about what happened this morning while I was out. I know some thieves broke into my house and I can see they hurt you very badly, but I need you to tell me exactly what happened before you ran away.’

  Arlette looked up at him and tears began to flood down her cheeks.

  ‘Come now, Arlette,’ he said and handed her his handkerchief. ‘I’m not angry with you for running away, I don’t blame you, but I need to know what happened.’

  Arlette dabbed at her eyes with the hankie and then held it out to him, but he waved it aside. ‘Just tell me in your own words,’ he said.

  ‘I was in the dining room, clearing the table,’ she began, ‘and then there was this banging on the door. Not a knock, you know, real banging.’ Emile nodded to show he understood.

  ‘Mistress Marie-Jeanne was on the stairs, and she called down to me not to open the front door.’

  ‘But you did?’

  ‘No, monsieur, they broke it down, the men what come in. There was three of them, and one had a gun and the others some sort of clubs. The man with the gun hit me across the face and knocked me down. I screamed and he told me to shut up. Then one of the others yelled at me to get up and get out. And that’s what I did, monsieur. I was out that door like light and I ran, all the way here. Ma barred the door in case they come looking for me.’

  ‘You saw Marie-Jeanne on the stairs,’ Emile said, ‘was Miss Hélène with her? Or somewhere else in the house?’

  ‘She was upstairs too,’ replied the girl, warming to her story. ‘She was looking down through the banisters.’ She dabbed her cheeks again and added, ‘I didn’t stay to see what happened next, I can tell you. I legged it here and if you don’t mind, monsieur, I ain’t coming back. Those men might know who I am and that I work for you. They don’t like people who work for people like you, so I ain’t coming back no more.’

  Emile ignored this and asked, ‘You didn’t see what happened to Berthe?’

  ‘Berthe? No, monsieur, she was in the kitchen when they broke down the door. I didn’t see her, but if she had any sense she’d’ve been out the back fast as you like. Them men wasn’t joking.’

  ‘So you haven’t see Berthe at all?’

  ‘No, I told you, I didn’t hang around to see what happened.’

  ‘And you didn’t see anyone else.’

  ‘Didn’t stop to look. There was some kids in the street, I suppose, like usual.’

  ‘Now I want you to think carefully, Arlette,’ Emile said. ‘What did these men look like? Was there anything special about them?’

  ‘Big,’ replied Arlette promptly. ‘Two of them was big. They all had beards and whiskers, and the one with the gun had black hair on his hands. He weren’t so big, but he had the gun and he was the boss.’

  ‘And what were they wearing?’

  Arlette shrugged. ‘Just clothes,’ she said, ‘workmen’s clothes…’ She thought for a moment and then added, ‘and heavy boots, workmen’s boots.’

  Emile could see he wasn’t going to get anything else from Arlette, and suspected anything else she told him would be embroidery. All he had learned was what he had most feared: that Hélène had been upstairs when the men broke in. She’d had no opportunity to escape from the intruders and when Marie-Jeanne had been shot she’d had no one to protect her. He decided not to tell the girl that Marie-Jeanne was dead and Hélène was missing. He wanted no sensational version of events out on the streets, and he could see Arlette would relish the attention such a story would bring.

  He put his hand into his pocket and pulled out two silver coins. ‘Thank you for your help, Arlette,’ he said as he handed them to her. ‘We shan’t be expecting you to come back, but I hope you get better very quickly.’

  Moments later he and Mireille were back in the twisting lanes, heading back to Madame Jourdain. When they reached the house Emile extracted two more coins and slipped them into Mireille’s hand. ‘If you hear anything, anything at all that might help me find my daughter,’ he said, ‘there’ll be plenty more where that came from. But please, do not speak of what you’ve heard this morning.’

  The maid gave her promise and thanked him for the money before scurrying back inside to face Madame Jourdain, twenty minutes beyond her time.

  Emile turned back towards his home with heavy tread and a heavier heart. Hélène had been kidnapped and carried off by some revolutionary ruffians, and it was all his fault. If he had left Paris when Rosalie first asked him to, Hélène would be safely at St Etienne. If only they had left earlier today; if only he hadn’t visited the office first, they’d have been away. Hélène would be safe and Marie-Jeanne would still be alive. If only, if only…and it was all his fault.

  12

  Pierre was waiting for Emile as he approached the house and each recognised his own hopelessness in the face of the other. There was no good news.

  ‘Arlette was knocked down by one of the thieves, and told to get out,’ reported Emile. ‘So, she ran. She doesn’t know that Marie-Jeanne is dead, and she knows nothing of Berthe. She said the men just broke down the door and burst in. They were big and had beards; they wore workmen’s clothes and boots. She couldn’t give a better description and that could fit half the population of Paris. What about you?’

  Pierre shook his head. ‘Nothing, sir. No one saw or heard anything.’

  Emile’s shoulders slumped. He had not expected anything, but even so he was disheartened. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s go indoors and decide what to do next.’

  They entered the house through the broken front door but in the hall Emile stopped short. He looked about him and knew that somebody else had been in the house. The dining room door was open and he saw at once that the silver candlesticks that normally graced the dining table had gone. The drawers of the big mahogany sideboard were pulled out, their contents dumped on the floor, but no silver cutlery was to be seen except for one silver fork, lying forgotten on the hall floor.

  ‘Looks as if they’ve been back,’ Emile said bitterly. ‘Isn’t stealing
my daughter enough?’

  ‘Probably not the same thieves, sir,’ replied Pierre. ‘Just someone noticing the open front door, you know, and taking the opportunity.’

  Pierre’s probably right, thought Emile with a sigh as he made a quick tour of the downstairs to make sure no one was still in the house. It was opportunist theft. As he returned from the drawing room he was surprised to find Pierre had gone upstairs to the first floor and was standing on the landing.

  ‘I don’t think they came up here, monsieur,’ he called down. ‘And I think they left in a hurry.’

  ‘And what makes you think so?’ demanded Emile, surprised into anger. How dare Pierre go up to the family’s private landing without permission?

  ‘Marie-Jeanne is still lying here,’ Pierre replied. ‘If they came up here, I think they found more than they bargained for. They wouldn’t want to be accused of her murder. I reckon they just grabbed what they’d found downstairs and got out fast.’

  ‘Perhaps you’re right, Pierre,’ Emile said, his sudden anger fading. The testimony of the forgotten fork bore this out. ‘But I don’t care what they took. I can only think of Hélène.’

  ‘Monsieur,’ Pierre said softly, ‘we also have to think of Marie-Jeanne. She cannot be left to lie here in this empty house. We must give her the proper rights.’ When Emile said nothing, Pierre went on, ‘She died trying to save your daughter, sir.’

  Pierre had never spoken to his master in that quiet, authoritative tone before and Emile gave him a sharp look before acknowledging, with a slight nod, that he was right. He drew a deep breath and took charge again.

  ‘We’d better try and fix the door so that no one else breaks in,’ he said, ‘then you must go to the priest and arrange to have Marie-Jeanne’s body taken to the church. I will, of course, pay the necessary expenses. Have masses said for her soul and see that she is decently buried.’

  ‘And you?’

  Emile accepted the question as from an equal. Master and man, they were in this together now.

  ‘I? I shall take the horse, if he’s still in Thiery’s stable, and go to find Georges. He’ll want to help. He may even be able to bring some of his men, which would let us widen our search and maybe flush out the kidnappers.’

  ‘His men were bivouacked in the Luxembourg Gardens,’ Pierre said, ‘but they may have moved now. Most of the regulars have been sent out to Versailles.’

  ‘Well, I shall go and see, but he was certainly in the city last night, because he came here. Now, Pierre, the door!’

  The two men managed to lift the front door and push it back into the frame. It was still lopsided, sagging on its hinges, but it was no longer hanging open and from the outside it was not immediately apparent that it was not secure.

  ‘From now we’ll use the back entrance,’ Emile said, ‘so we don’t have to move that door again.’

  Before he left to find Georges, Emile made a quick tour of upstairs, but there was no sign that anyone else had been up there. Pierre followed him, meaning to straighten poor Marie-Jeanne’s body to a more respectful position, but rigor mortis had begun to set in and there was little he could do.

  ‘When I find my son, we’ll come back here,’ Emile said. ‘Wait for me here when you’ve made the arrangements for Marie-Jeanne.’ With that both men left the house by the kitchen door and checking that they each had a key, Emile padlocked the courtyard gate.

  Emile was relieved to find their horse still in his neighbour’s stable. He found saddle and bridle hanging on pegs in the tack room and several moments later he emerged into the street, pulling the yard gate closed behind him.

  He rode through the city, picking his way through the streets which despite the confusion in the city were busy with people going about their daily business. An ordinary day for the ordinary people. When he reached the Luxembourg Gardens his heart fell. They, too, were busy enough, but there were no troops bivouacked there, just the detritus left from the hasty evacuation of the camp being picked over by the usual scavengers. Emile dismounted and looked about him. A grey-haired old crone was sitting on the ground, her back to a tree, smoking a clay pipe. Held firmly between her knees she had a black canvas bag in which, Emile supposed, she had secreted the items she had scavenged. She watched him through rheumy eyes as he stared bleakly at the remains of the camp.

  ‘You looking for the soldiers?’ she croaked. ‘They’ve gone, and good riddance!’ She gave a cackle, but Emile ignored her. He could see they’d gone and it was clear they weren’t coming back. They must have been ordered out to Versailles where the government had set up after it had beaten a hasty retreat from its offices in the Hôtel de Ville.

  Emile remounted his horse and headed back to the Avenue Ste Anne. It would be far harder to find Georges among the numerous troops now mustering at Versailles. He felt he should go at once, but it was already late afternoon and it would be dangerous to travel alone in the gathering twilight, a lone man on a horse a tempting target for a wayside robber. And, he thought, even if he set off straight away, it would be well after dark before he arrived. He’d have little hope of finding Georges before morning and he’d have nowhere to lay his head in the meantime. As he retraced his way home he suddenly thought of Rosalie. Rosalie! He must send a message to Rosalie. She would have been expecting Marie-Jeanne and Hélène in St Etienne and would be worried sick at their non-arrival. When he got home, he’d send Pierre with a note, explaining what had happened and what he was trying to do. It would make grim reading but he knew she had to know what had happened. He considered going himself, but realised that first he must ride to Versailles, find Georges and enlist his help. Pierre must go to St Etienne.

  Pierre was in the stable yard when Emile got back. He had visited the priest and Marie-Jeanne’s body had been fetched and carried to the church.

  ‘He will hold the funeral tomorrow,’ Pierre said. ‘She will not go to a pauper’s grave.’

  Emile told Pierre of his fruitless search for Georges. ‘I’ll ride out to Versailles tomorrow,’ he said. ‘You must go to St Etienne and let Madame know what has happened. I will give you a letter for her.’

  ‘You want me to go tonight, sir?’ Pierre sounded less than enthusiastic.

  ‘If there is a train; if not, first thing in the morning. Whatever happens, you must tell her that on no account is she to return to Paris. She’s to remain in St Etienne in safety with the other children.’

  Reluctantly Pierre set off for the station carrying the hastily written note with which Emile had entrusted him, but there were no more trains tonight and before long he was back at the house and very relieved to be so.

  ‘No trains until tomorrow,’ he said.

  Though he wouldn’t have admitted it, Emile was relieved to see him. As dusk had crept into the city, darkening the evening sky and filling the empty house with shifting shadows, Emile listened to his home’s nocturnal creakings, magnified by the deep silence around him, and he found he was loath to spend the night alone in the insecure house. He went into all the rooms, lighting lamps and candles in his effort to dispel the darkness in the house and the darkness in his mind. Suppose the vagabonds came back! He would be powerless against them if they came in numbers. He went back into the dining room where the contents of the sideboard lay strewn across the floor. Suppose they came back for more!

  Emile poured himself a cognac for courage and having downed it in one swallow, poured himself a second and sat down at the table. He found he was hungry and realised he’d had nothing to eat all day, his breakfast coffee being all that he’d taken.

  He was in the kitchen looking into the pantry to see what he could find when Pierre called to him to unlock the door, and slipped back into the house. He was carrying the food basket Berthe had packed and loaded into the chaise that morning.

  ‘I thought you might be hungry, sir,’ he said and placed the basket on the table.

  The two men sat at the kitchen table where Pierre had unpacked the food Berthe had pr
epared for the journey, and as they ate each retreated into his own thoughts. Emile was wondering how he was going to find Georges the next morning in the multitudes at Versailles, and what they might be able to do when he did. He was at a loss to know what to do for the best. He must rely on Georges; Georges would know what to do.

  Pierre was thinking of his errand to St Etienne. He wasn’t looking forward to delivering the letter with the sad news it contained, and he knew he couldn’t carry out his master’s instruction, to forbid Madame St Clair to return to Paris. He thought of Marie-Jeanne, lying in the church awaiting her funeral mass in the morning. He had told the priest that he would be there. Should he take the train first thing as instructed, or wait until the service was over? There would be no one at the church unless he went. Would it make that much difference if he took a later train? Would Monsieur St Clair even realise he had?

  Neither of them slept very well that night, Emile alone in his bedroom without the comfort of knowing Rosalie was in her boudoir next door, and Pierre in his loft above the stable. They slept fitfully, jerking awake at each night-time noise in the street, and though the house itself remained undisturbed, they were both glad when they saw daylight fingering the ceiling and they could give up on sleep and face the new day; Pierre to St Etienne and Emile to Versailles.

  *

  When Emile reached the Porte de Versailles, he was relieved to see that it was open to travellers, but they were being stopped by men of the National Guard and asked their business. Seeing one lone traveller being turned back, Emile paused out of sight, waiting, trying to think of an acceptable reason for leaving the city. Looking for a son with the government troops was not the answer to give a National Guardsman. As he watched and waited, a small family group appeared and were stopped by one of the two guards on duty. There appeared to be some sort of altercation taking place, with the husband waving his fists in the air and shouting. The second guardsman walked over to assist his comrade and Emile saw his chance. The road ahead was clear. He rode slowly towards the gate, as if prepared to stop when he reached it. The second guard looked up as he heard Emile approach and called out to him to halt. Emile raised his hand as if in acknowledgement, but did not stop, and as he reached the waiting guard, he dug his heels into the horse’s flanks and crouching low over its neck, he almost rode the man down as he galloped out through the gate and along the road beyond. The guard leapt for safety and raised his rifle, but the bullets flew wide of the diminishing target as Emile galloped on into the morning mist. Only when he was well out of sight did he slow his exhausted nag to a walk. He was out, on his way to Versailles to find Georges, but he’d had a close shave. He dismounted and led the horse to a wayside trough to drink before walking him slowly along the road. There were few other travellers on the road, but twice he was stopped by outposts of government troops and questioned as to where he was going and why. Now at least he was able to give a truthful answer and say he had urgent messages for Lieutenant Georges St Clair with General Vinoy’s regulars. It was afternoon by the time Emile finally arrived at Versailles and found the army camped in companies with men coming and going, bugles blown, shouted orders and the general hubbub of hundreds of men living in the widespread confusion which had dogged the army throughout the war.