Tuppenny Times

by Beryl Kingston

  Nan dusted the palms of her hands against each other, ready to walk down to the scaffold and see the body, like everybody else seemed to be doing. There were scores of guardesmen on the platform now and they were cutting the greatcoat into little pieces and selling them off, and one of the guards was dancing and whirling the king’s plait in the air, black ribbon and all. And just at that moment, William Henry turned up his eyes and fainted clean away.

  Although she was secretly rather annoyed that he’d chosen such an inopportune moment to fall ill, she hauled his unconscious body into a sitting position against the largest block of stone and took off his gloves to chafe his hands. ‘Come now, Mr Easter sir,’ she urged, ‘speak to your Nan, do.’ She couldn’t leave him in this state. He looked uncommon poorly.

  His eyes fluttered open and gradually became aware of her. ‘Nan, my dear,’ he said. ‘To make such a public exhibition … I am so sorry …’

  ‘Hush now, my dear,’ she said. ‘There en’t nothing to be sorry for. You just lie still awhile and get your ol’ breath back.’ But she glanced at the scaffold as she spoke and that one quick, faintly yearning glance told him more than she knew.

  She is missing everything she wanted to see, he thought, looking at her little loving face, as waves of dizziness washed over him again. And she needs to see it too in all conscience, for how will she know the full horror of it if I keep her here? In his drifting state it seemed important to him that she should see it all and grow wiser from the view. ‘Go you down, my dear,’ he said faintly, ‘for that is what you wish, is it not?’

  Oh, it was, it was, as her face showed only too clearly. ‘Are you well enough, Mr Easter?’

  ‘Yes, yes indeed.’

  ‘I’ll not be long,’ she promised. ‘Now don’t you go a moving nowhere. I shall be right back.’ And she was off at once, eagerly, oh, so eagerly.

  ’Twill be a mortal hard lesson for her to learn, he thought, closing his eyes again.

  Chapter Eleven

  There was such exhilaration in the square. Everywhere she looked people were dancing and shouting, kicking up heels and clapping hands, skirts twirling, clogs stamping, red caps hurled into the air, in a spontaneous outburst of manic rapture. Above the bobbing mass of all those chanting heads she could see the scramble around the guillotine, where people were busily dipping their handkerchiefs in the king’s blood and the executioner was auctioning off the pieces of the king’s coat, but the dance caught her up and whirled her along and as there wasn’t the faintest chance of pushing her way through such a mêlée, she gave herself up to the passion all around her, and danced and shrieked with the best. Or the worst. It was marvellously exciting.

  Presently, down by the guillotine, a raucous war-chant began, ‘Ca ira, ca ira, ca ira,’ and was quickly taken up by everybody in the square. The dancers caught hands and formed circles to stamp and shout, and Nan took the chance they offered and contrived to be tossed from circle to circle until she reached the crush at the foot of the scaffold.

  The king’s body still lay on the block, the severed neck dripping blood and looking to her fascinated eyes no more alarming than a newly butchered joint of meat. He was a fat ol’ mawther, she thought, looking at the surplus flesh on his shoulders and the plump hands tied behind his back. She turned her head to look around her idly at all the eager faces pressing in upon the scaffold and the pressure of the crowd carried her on by several paces, so that when she turned back she found herself staring straight at the King’s decapitated head. The executioner had set it down on the edge of the scaffold, as if it were of no consequence at all, a thick-set fleshy face with its glazed eyes open looking straight at her, and a gross pink tongue sticking out of its mouth. It gave her a shock that made her feel sick.

  ‘Oh, my dear heart alive,’ she said aloud. And then she was overcome with pity for it, and began to tremble.

  Mr Easter was right, she thought, ’tis a terrible thing to kill a king. And she wished she hadn’t come so close to the horror of it. I shall go straight back to that dear man right here and now she decided, and tell him he was right all along and I was wrong, and ’tis a terrible, horrible thing.

  But the crowd carried her along despite herself, for there were far too many who wanted to gloat over their decapitated monarch. She realized that they were streaming towards the side of the scaffold and presently she was pushed aloft with all the others to stumble and jostle past the executioner himself. But at least she had a clear view of the square from that high platform, so as she was pushed along she glanced across at the pile of rubble where she’d left Mr Easter. And the pile was empty.

  She was very alarmed, because he’d given his word to stay where he was, and she’d never known him break his word in all the time they’d been married. Something was wrong, she knew it. She must get back to him at once and find out what it was.

  It took a long time to push through the throng because there were even more people in the square now and all in such a state of frantic excitement that it was impossible to see more than a few inches in front of her face. She struggled forward, being seized by rough hands and kissed on both cheeks and tossed and tumbled about, as the hot faces cheered and roared, ‘Vive la république! Vive la nation!’ It was like a huge street party, and made her feel worse than ever.

  And then she heard the screams.

  At first she thought they were simply yells of excitement, rising a little higher than the rest, but then the pitch became extreme and she knew they were screams of terror and was more afraid than ever. Oh, if only she were back with Mr Easter! What a fool she’d been to leave him. But it was impossible to push through the crowds, for they were all heading towards the screams, sure of a fight and eager to see it. There was a long knife flashing in the air a few feet ahead of her, blue steel bright against a line of red caps.

  She wriggled frantically among the mass of bodies and suddenly the two broad backs immediately in front of her ducked to either side and were gone, and she found herself right on the edge of the fight. She had a quick terrifying glimpse of two furious men, one wielding a pike and the other that long blue knife, of several bulky women punching, of a child in petticoats trying to crawl away from them over the cobbles, one arm uplifted to protect its face, and in the middle of it all, lying spreadeagled on his back with his head in the lap of a boy in striped trousers, was William Henry.

  What’s he doing there? she thought stupidly. He couldn’t be there. She’d left him on the rubble. Then she saw that his eyes were shut and that blood was oozing from his ears and his nostrils and trickling in a dark stream from the corner of his mouth, and fear squashed her heart most painfully and she pushed the fat women out of her way and ran to kneel on the cobbles beside him. ‘What is it, Mr Easter dear? What is it?’ He was so deeply unconscious he wasn’t even groaning.

  ‘You ’is missus?’ the boy said in English, and when she nodded, chafing her husband’s cold hands, ‘’E’s in a mortal bad way. You oughter get ’im ’ome, you ask me. Where d’yer live?’

  ‘Chelsea,’ she said automatically. ‘Mr Easter dear, speak to your Nan, do.’ She was vaguely aware that people were restraining the two combatants and that someone had picked up the child and that a shrieking argument had begun somewhere behind her shoulder, but her eyes were focussed on that ominous blood dripping out of her husband’s ears and her mind was going round and round asking the same question over and over again. What’s happened? What’s happened?

  She must have spoken it aloud, for the boy answered. ‘Took a fair ol’ thump so ’e did. Back a’ the ’ead. I seen it. Went down like ninepins.’

  But the answer meant nothing to her. ‘What’s happened?’ she said. None of this was real. He couldn’t be lying here like this. She’d left him on the rubble. ‘What’s happened?’

  The boy was speaking French across the top of her head. Giving orders by the sound of it, which seemed odd considering his age, for he couldn’t have been more than thirteen. But pr
esently four brawny arms descended into her line of vision and lifted William Henry by the knees and shoulders and went swinging away with him, one man calling as they went, ‘Attention! Attention!’ and the boy helped her to her feet and they followed after. But it wasn’t real. It wasn’t really happening.

  ‘’E come out a’ nowhere,’ the boy said as they dodged through the crowd. ‘They was punching seven bells out a’ some gel an’ her kid, an’ up ’e steps, bold as brass, right smack in the middle of ’em. That gel got off out of it sharp as a razor, I can tell yer. ’E’s got some spunk, your ol’ man.’

  That’s a funny-looking boy, she thought, gazing at the earnest face talking beside her, all covered in pock-marks like that. No wonder I thought he was a Frenchie in that ol’ red cap an’ them stripy trousers. ‘He’ll come round presently,’ she said, to comfort them both. ‘You’ll see.’

  But when they’d carried him across the square and down a dark alley and into an even darker wine shop and dumped him on the counter like a sack of potatoes, he was still limp and silent, so limp in fact that when one hand fell from his chest it swung beside the counter in the most horribly lifeless way. A man called Jean-Claude was called for and came shuffling through the baize curtain behind the counter, preceded by the smoke from his pipe and grumbling.

  He didn’t seem the least surprised to find a man lying unconscious on his counter. ‘Et puis alors,’ he said, lifting William Henry’s eyelids with a perfunctory thumb, ‘il est mort.’

  But more means dead, Nan thought. More, that’s what they said in the Assembly. Oh he couldn’t be dead. She wouldn’t allow it. ‘He en’t more!’ she shouted, grabbing at that dangling hand and holding it to her throat. ‘He en’t!’

  The earnest boy was standing beside her, looking straight into her face with small earnest eyes. ‘’E is miss,’ he said. ‘I was tryin’ ter find the way ter tell yer. ’E is. ’E ain’t been a-breathin’ this ’alf hour, to my certain knowledge. ’E is.’

  ‘He en’t,’ she said, pushing him out of the way. ‘He’ll come round like I told you.’ And she tried to look down at her husband to will him back to life, and found that she couldn’t see properly. It was as if somebody had suddenly put a huge blindfold over her eyes so that she could only see through a shifting hole in the middle of total darkness, a shifting, badly focussed hole which gave her very little vision. There was his chest and the brass buttons on his coat and a blood stain by his lapel, but a long way away as though they were at the end of a tunnel, and beyond them, nothing, only that awful furry darkness. She put her hands over her eyes and knew they were trembling, but when she parted her fingers and made another attempt to focus, she could see so very little it made her belly shake too.

  There was a lot of noise all round her, French voices going on and on and something thudding with a terrible rhythm that hurt her head, but she couldn’t see. And he wasn’t more. He wasn’t. Oh she couldn’t bear him to be more. It was the king that was more. Oh, dear God why couldn’t she see? If she could see he wouldn’t be more. But she knew with a deeper, inarticulate level of her mind that he was dead and that it was all her fault because she’d made him come to this awful city, and he hadn’t wanted to. All her fault.

  And then there was nothing except a terrible urge to run away, as far and as fast as she could. She must get away! Now! Now! There wasn’t a minute to lose!

  She ran blindly, staggering out of the shop and into the street, rushing towards the shifting path of that awful broken vision, blundering into walls, pushing at torsos she couldn’t see, tears rolling down her cheeks, heart pounding, sobbing aloud, ‘He en’t more! He en’t more!’ over and over again.

  When she finally gasped to a halt her legs were aching and her chest felt as though it was going to explode. She could just see the broken plaster of a rough wall somewhere to the left of her and she sank back upon it wearily and closed her eyes, too exhausted even to think. She had run because it was necessary and she had stopped running because that was necessary too.

  Afterwards, she had no idea how long she stood there with her feet aching against the sharp stones of the street and her back pressed hard against that cold wall. It could have been minutes or hours, she neither knew nor cared, for by then she was beyond thought or feeling. But eventually an approaching roar brought her back to the world. There was such an unmistakable anger about the sound, like some great bull preparing to charge. She opened her eyes and looked around her, wondering where she was.

  She was in a narrow street between two blocks of stinking, ramshackle tenements, six storeys tall and smeared by dirt and decay, plaster flaking from the walls, slates missing, doors rotting, windows grey with dust and either trailing broken shutters or strings of filthy rags that might have been the remains of old curtains or somebody’s clothing hung out to dry. The street itself served as cesspit, farmyard, workshop and playground, and was full of rubbish of every kind, from the used straw and excrement piled against the walls, to the heap of broken wheels, split barrels, pot shards, and rusty metal where the local urchins climbed and scavenged. Two of them were standing in front of her gazing at her with sullen curiosity as she opened her eyes, but the noise had alerted them too, and before she could say anything they turned and ran off into the nearest doorway.

  She just had time to notice the building immediately opposite, black stone oozing moisture, iron railings like spears, an iron gate and a courtyard where two ragged men waited like vultures. And then the street was suddenly full of angry people, men and women, red-faced and bare-armed in the heat of their rage, roaring as they marched, and carrying so many pikes and knives and muskets that the space above their heads bristled like a porcupine. They marched at such a rapid pace they were down the street and gathering before the iron gate before she could get out of their way.

  She was so frightened she didn’t know what to do. Instinct told her that they were exceedingly dangerous, but her mind had stopped functioning and she couldn’t think where to run to get away from them. But as she dithered a warm hand seized hers and she was dragged into the partial protection of an open doorway. She was aware that there were smelly bodies all around her, watching but silent, and that someone beside her was whispering, ‘Shush! Shush!’

  It was the pock-marked boy. She could see his face quite clearly, even though it was dark in the doorway with the daylight fading, all that tousled black hair tumbling over his forehead from under his red cap and that flat nose and that wide mouth with the teeth inside it all higgledy-piggledy and sloping inwards. And he was frightened.

  ‘Nick a’ time, eh miss,’ he said attempting bravado, but he didn’t look at her. He was keeping his eyes on the mob.

  ‘Where are we?’ she asked, as the crowd pushed and roared. She was so frightened of them she was whispering.

  ‘Faubourg Saint Antoine,’ he said. ‘One a’ the worst places in Paris. An’ that’s the prison. You picked a fine place ter stop. We’ll move on, first chance we get.’

  But they didn’t get a chance, because they were stuck. The pressure of bodies in front of them was so intense that there was no possibility of any movement at all except forwards into the prison, where, as Nan could see from the vantage point of her top step, the two ragged men were opening the gate.

  ‘Who are all these people?’ she whispered. ‘What they doin’?’

  ‘Sans culottes,’ he whispered back. ‘On the rampage. Someone’s gonna catch it. That big feller’s a choice spirit. ’E’s got a cleaver.’

  The big feller wore a butcher’s bloody apron and was roaring drunk, like the two men who supported him on either side. She watched as the three of them staggered into the courtyard, and were greeted by a brutal cheer from the crowd already gathered there. A fierce-faced woman was sitting on the prison steps, sprinkling black powder into a brandy bottle. When she saw the butcher she stood up and thrust the bottle into his hands.

  ‘Gunpowder,’ the boy explained in answer to Nan’s questioning look. ‘
Gunpowder an’ brandy, gawd ’elp’us. I seen this afore. August. They done some terrible things in August. We oughter get out of ’ere, sharpish.’ And he turned and spoke in urgent French to the woman standing behind them, his face strained with fear.

  The butcher was drinking his terrible concoction, to raucous cheers, but there were other sounds now, rising above the general roar, high pitched wailing screams, howling entreaties, gabbled prayers, and she could see that three men were being dragged out of the prison door into the courtyard, and resisting every inch of the way, clinging to the door posts, squirming and kicking to free themselves from the hydra hands of the mob. Three thin, pale, ragged creatures, with shorn heads and haggard eyes, pitifully afraid of the howling anger all around them.

  And then the butcher strode forward, pushing the rabble aside and spitting speckled foam, and he lifted his cleaver and brought it down with a crack against one of those shaven heads, and the wretch staggered backwards into the fierce woman, with the side of his face hanging off and blood pouring down his arm and the terrible scream he emitted gurgling and bubbling.

  And Nan watched in horror, because there was no escape, and the mob surrounded the prisoners and beat them to the ground, so that the courtyard was full of flailing arms and punching fists, and long knives smoking with hot red blood, and faces distorted with hatred, and the terrible, tortured, endless screams of their victims. It was too dreadful to be believed. Too dreadful to watch. And there was no escape.