Children of the Siege

by Diney Costeloe

  Emile dismounted and leading his horse, made his way through the lines asking for Georges’s battalion. Several men looked askance at him, a civilian walking amongst them, and he was challenged on several occasions, but at last he found Georges’s unit and spoke to one of the officers, a captain with a haughty stare and an abrupt manner of speech.

  ‘Lieutenant St Clair?’ answered the man. ‘He’s not here. He’s been seconded to General Vinoy for special duties.’

  ‘Then where shall I find him?’ asked Emile.

  ‘You won’t,’ replied the captain tersely. ‘I just told you, he’s been seconded to General Vinoy for special duties and we have no idea where he is.’ It was clear from his tone that the captain resented the fact that General Vinoy had sent for a more junior officer. ‘What do you want with him, anyway?’

  ‘Purely a family matter,’ responded Emile. ‘He’s my son and I need to speak to him.’

  ‘Well, he’s not here, and he has no time for family matters!’ With that, the captain turned away, his back telling Emile that he should not be there.

  As Emile watched him go, a corporal edged up to him and said, ‘Was you lookin’ for Lieutenant St Clair, monsieur?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Emile, ‘I was. Do you know where he is?’

  ‘No, monsieur, but if you wish I will pass on a message when he comes back to us.’

  Emile was about to say that it would be too late when he thought better of it. Any contact with Georges would be helpful.

  ‘Thank you, Corporal,’ Emile said. ‘I’d be very grateful if you’d tell him his father is looking for him as there is a family crisis.’

  ‘I’ll tell him, monsieur, just as soon as I see him, but as Captain Ducros said, we don’t know when he’ll be back here with us.’

  Emile thanked him again and led the horse back to the road. He went in search of a tavern where he could get some food and a drink and decide what he was going to do next. Having come this far he was determined to find Georges if he possibly could.

  *

  Pierre had made his decision. He would go to the funeral first and catch the later train. When he finally left the church and went to the station he was only just in time. He had Emile’s letter stowed safely in the inner pocket of his jacket and as he settled himself into a corner seat of the carriage, he felt himself relax for the first time for days. Delivering the letter was going to bring horrific news to Madame St Clair and Pierre thought Monsieur St Clair spineless not to have taken the news to his wife himself. What good would it be to find Georges at Versailles? What could his son do that he could not? Looking for Hélène was like looking for a needle in a haystack. If the girl was still alive, which was a question in itself, she could be absolutely anywhere in Paris, hidden away in a cellar or an attic, and kept there for whatever reasons her captors chose. Pierre assumed it must be for ransom, in which case she would surely be kept alive and well, but if this were the case where were the demands for money?

  Pierre had to change trains, but when the train finally steamed into the station at St Etienne, he was surprised to find Madame St Clair standing on the platform as if she had come to meet him.

  ‘Madame!’ he called and she waved a hand and hurried across to speak to him.

  ‘What news?’ she cried. ‘What is happening? I had a letter from my husband to say to expect Hélène and Marie-Jeanne, but they haven’t arrived. Has Hélène had a relapse? Has she taken a turn for the worse? I’m on my way to Paris now!’

  ‘Madame,’ said Pierre, his voice the level voice of a trusted servant, ‘I have a letter for you from Monsieur. It will explain everything, but he did ask me to beg you not to return to Paris. He wishes you to remain here in St Etienne with the other children until he comes to you and—’

  ‘A letter?’ interrupted Rosalie, holding out her hand. ‘Give it to me at once!’

  Pierre hesitated and said, ‘Perhaps it would be better, madame, if you read the letter at home.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Pierre,’ Rosalie cried. ‘Give it to me at once.’

  Pierre reached into his pocket and pulling out the envelope, handed it over.

  13

  Hélène drifted back to consciousness and for a moment she was completely disorientated. Where was she? She was very cold and her head ached. When she opened her eyes the world spun round her, and she closed them again. When it ceased revolving, she cautiously opened them again, but could see almost nothing. The place she was in was filled with thick grey light which obscured more than it revealed. For a moment she lay still, remembering nothing, but then the events of earlier in the day came creeping back into her mind. They had been going to go and see Maman in St Etienne. Papa had gone out, but he said he’d be back soon. She remembered going upstairs with Marie-Jeanne to make sure nothing they might need had been forgotten. Marie-Jeanne! A picture of her as Hélène had last seen her filled her mind and she gave a scream. The sound echoed round her and she sat up with a start. The sudden movement made her head spin again and she thought she was going to be sick. She clutched her head in her hands, fighting against the bile that rose in her throat as tears began to stream down her cheeks. Marie-Jeanne was dead, shot by a man with a gun. She, Hélène, had run to hide leaving Marie-Jeanne to be shot by the man with the gun.

  And then the man had come to find her. Memory came flooding back. He had found her hiding in the cabinet in her mother’s boudoir and pulled her out. She recalled biting his hand, sinking her teeth into his flesh, biting him as hard as she could. The man had let go and she had run, only to find Marie-Jeanne lying dead on the stairs. The man had caught her again and held her by her hair, but she had hit him and hit him until he had hit her on the head and she remembered no more.

  Now she was awake again, and shut in somewhere. But where? And why? What was he going to do with her? Was he going to kill her like he’d killed Marie-Jeanne? Hélène shivered with cold and fear. And then she remembered Jeannot. What had he been doing there? Had he brought the men to the house? She remembered looking down through the banisters and seeing him staring up at her, his expression one of horror, before she’d fled along the landing to her mother’s boudoir. Surely Jeannot wasn’t one of the thieves.

  Carefully, Hélène eased herself upright, rubbing her arms to warm them up. She found a hankie in the pocket of her dress and blew her nose. That hurt. She realised that her whole face was aching, and running her fingertips across her cheeks she felt the swelling and the tenderness.

  After a while she tried standing up. Her legs felt wobbly, as they had after her stay in bed, but she managed to get to her feet. Her eyes had become accustomed to the twilight of her prison and carefully she edged her way round the room. There was a pile of dirty straw in one corner, but no furniture, simply four walls and a barred window high up on one wall. It was through this that a faint grey light filtered. She couldn’t reach the window to look out and there was nothing to stand on, so she had no idea what was outside. She remembered the dismal streets through which she followed Jeannot when they had gone to find Paul and the Monkey, streets lined with tall, dark tenement houses, so close to each other that they shut out the sunlight, leaving the street in gloomy shade even at midday. Was she in one of those houses?

  She thought of the man with the gun again and shivered at the memory. He must have locked her in here. He would come back and find her and then what would happen? She was cold and she was alone and she needed the toilet. Misery flooded through her and she sat back down on the cold floor and wept. She wept for her mother, for Marie-Jeanne and for herself, but eventually she had no more tears and curled in a ball for warmth as an exhausted sleep overtook her.

  She was woken by the scraping of a key in the door. She scrambled to her feet and backed away into a corner, terrified at who might be coming into her prison.

  The door opened a fraction and a woman’s voice said, ‘I’m bringing you something to eat. Stand under the window where I can see you. Any funny business and
I’ll take the food away again and let you starve. All the same to me!’

  Cautiously, Hélène moved to stand under the window. The door opened wider and a woman edged her way into the room. She was holding a flagon of water and a loaf of bread. As she stepped into the faint light cast by the window, Hélène could see that she was not old, though her face was lined and her hair, drawn back off her face, was dirty and tangled. A shapeless dress hung from her shoulders, a drab of a woman.

  ‘Please, madame, I need to go to the toilet,’ Hélène whispered. Although she was hungry and thirsty, it was at that moment her most pressing need. The woman gave a sharp laugh.

  ‘Do you now? Well, you’ll just have to squat in a corner like the rest of us.’ She dumped the bread and water onto the floor and moved back to the door. ‘I’ll bring you a blanket,’ she said, adding with a grin, ‘Don’t want to kill the goose before we’ve got the egg, now, do we?’ And with this strange remark she backed out of the room. The door closed behind her and Hélène heard the key turn in the lock with a loud click.

  Goose? What goose? What was the woman talking about? But Hélène couldn’t think about that now, she had a more pressing need. She crept back into the furthest corner of the cellar, for that indeed was what it was, and despite the fact that there was no one there to see, she had tears of embarrassment in her eyes as she hoisted her skirt and crouched down to relieve herself.

  She returned to the water and the bread and found she was suddenly very hungry. She pulled the loaf apart and though it was stale and dry, she stuffed the pieces into her mouth and washed them down with the water.

  When the woman reappeared with the promised blanket, she simply tossed it in through the door without a word. Hélène grabbed it and wrapped it round herself, grateful for the minimal warmth it gave her.

  She wondered what her father was doing. He must have come back from wherever it was he went this morning. He would have found Marie-Jeanne and would surely now be out looking for her. Surely Papa would find her. He would expect her to be brave. He would expect her to know that he was coming to find her, and that she must be brave until he did.

  ‘I am Hélène Rosalie St Clair,’ she announced to the room. ‘And I am not afraid.’ This last was certainly not true, but simply saying it gave her a modicum of courage. She said it again, several times. ‘I am Hélène Rosalie St Clair. And I am not afraid.’

  She thought again about Jeannot. Was he one of them? Perhaps he would come and see her and she could ask him what was going to happen to her. She hoped he would; she wanted to see him, a face she knew, an old friend.

  He did not come. No one came. No one came again before the room darkened completely with the fading of the day. Wrapped in her blanket, Hélène curled up on the stinking straw, her only refuge from the cold stone floor, and finally drifted off to sleep.

  When she woke again, it was early morning. A single shaft of sunlight found its way through the dirty window and for the first time Hélène could see the whole of her prison. It was a depressing sight, grey stone walls, dirty stone floor, completely bare. She stood up and clutching the blanket round her, went over to the window. Standing on tiptoe she could just reach the sill. Gripping the rough stone, she managed to grasp the bottom bar to haul herself up for a moment, her eyes above the level of the sill long enough to see that she was looking out at street level. There were feet walking past and she could hear familiar street sounds, voices shouting, the rumble of wheels, the clatter of a horse’s hooves. The world was out there, but she was locked in here. Unable to hold on for any length of time she dropped back down to the floor. She stood in the shaft of sunshine, lifting her face to its feeble warmth, but it wasn’t long before the sunbeam had moved on, leaving her once more in the gloom of dusty daylight.

  At that moment she heard the sound of the key in the door again and then the woman’s voice. ‘Stand by the window. No funny business!’

  Hélène did as she was told and the woman came into the room with more bread and water. Keeping a wary eye on Hélène, as if she feared she might attack her, she bent down and retrieved the empty flagon from the night before.

  ‘Why am I here?’ Hélène asked. ‘I want to go home.’ She had tried to sound brave but her voice trembled on the word ‘home’, and the woman laughed.

  ‘That’ll depend on your father,’ she said. ‘Whether he coughs up.’ She gave another laugh and added, ‘One way or another you won’t be stopping here very long.’ She closed the door with a bang and Hélène was left alone with the meagre ration of food. She ate the bread, but only sipped at the water, remembering from when she had been confined to the attic room after her jaunt with Jeannot that she had been thirsty again before she was hungry.

  She thought of her mother and the tears ran down her cheeks. How she wanted Maman. She thought of her father and wondered if he was looking for her. Surely he would find her soon. Resolutely closing her mind, she did not allow herself to think of Marie-Jeanne.

  Sometime later, she had no idea how long, she heard the scrape of the key and the door swung open. This time it was not the woman who came into the cellar, and Hélène shrank back in terror as she saw it was the man with the gun. He wasn’t carrying a gun now, at least she couldn’t see one, but that didn’t make him any less frightening. She could hear her mantra in her head. ‘I am Hélène Rosalie St Clair and I am not afraid.’ But faced with the man who had murdered Marie-Jeanne, the words would not come. No words would come. She simply stared at him, her terror obvious in her eyes, and he grinned at her.

  ‘Well now,’ he said. ‘I expect you want to get back to your papa, don’t you?’

  Hélène nodded wordlessly.

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ he said. ‘So, we need you to write him a letter. You can do that for us, can’t you?’

  Hélène nodded again.

  ‘That’s a good girl,’ said the man jovially. ‘And in the meantime, you and me can have a bit of fun. I like playing with girls like you. All right?’

  When Hélène nodded a third time he said, ‘I’ll be back to fetch you upstairs in a while, so that you can write to your papa. Then you won’t have to stay in here no more. Nicer upstairs.’

  The man left, shutting and locking the door behind him, and leaving Hélène wondering what she would have to put in the letter. Would they let her go when she’d written it?

  It was not long before the man returned. Again Hélène shrank away, but this time he strode into the room and grasped her by the wrist. His grip was firm and he pulled her towards him.

  ‘Now, missy, we’ll go upstairs, and you’ll be a good girl and write that letter.’

  Hélène followed him meekly enough – anything to be out of that cold dank cellar. Still holding her firmly by the wrist he led her up a flight of steps and into a room that had a window out onto the street. There was a table and chair by the window and a rickety-looking couch along one wall. There was no floor covering except a filthy rag rug before a fireplace, where a fire smouldered sulkily beneath a cooking pot. A pail stood in a corner, and some crocks were stacked on a shelf above it.

  The man pushed Hélène down into the chair and stood over her. On the table top was a scrap of paper and a pencil.

  ‘Now then,’ he said, ‘you write what I tell you, understand?’

  Hélène nodded and picking up the pencil, pulled the paper towards her.

  ‘What’s your name?’ the man demanded suddenly.

  ‘Hélène St Clair,’ whispered Hélène.

  The man stared at her for a moment and then said, ‘Say that again.’

  ‘Hélène St Clair.’

  ‘Is it now?’ The man looked thoughtful for a moment and then went on, ‘Well, Hélène St Clair, write this. Dear Papa…’

  Carefully, Hélène wrote as he dictated.

  ‘I am quite safe for now and the people I am staying with will let me come home if you give them 100 gold Napoleons. If you do not give them the money in three days they will kil
l me.’

  The man looked at what she had written and said, ‘Now sign your name.’

  Hélène did as she was told and the man picked up the paper and folded it.

  ‘Now write his name on the outside,’ he said. As she did so he opened the door and bellowed, ‘Francine! Come here.’