The boy was still hissing argument at the woman behind them, and somebody behind her was running into the house, dragging a dirty child after her and suddenly there was a space in the hallway big enough to squeeze through. ‘Foller me!’ she said, elbowing into it, because the fierce-faced woman was triumphing out of the courtyard, crowing like a cockerel and pinned to her blood-stained skirts were two human ears.
They pushed through the crush in the hallway, following the dirty child through the tenement and out into an inner yard that was so small and narrow and hemmed about with walls, it was more like a well than a courtyard. But there was a broken gate leading out of it between two dank walls, and below the gate was an ash path that ran along beside a row of overflowing privies and led them through the filth to another narrow alley.
‘Where now?’ she panted, not knowing which direction to take.
‘This way,’ he said, and he looked as though he knew where he was going, so she followed him.
They ran along alleys and through passageways as darkness gathered in the chasms between the tenements, and presently they emerged through a black archway and found themselves in a highway, a well ordered, civilized place, busy with carriages and cheerful with strolling citizens in their Sunday best. This day is just like a nightmare, Nan thought, walking into normality after all that unexpected horror. And like all the worst nightmares it had wrecked her memory. She had a vague sense that all was not well with William Henry, but try as she might she couldn’t recall what it was.
‘Where are we going?’ she said to the boy, as they strode along.
And a carriage reined in just ahead of them, and Mary Wollstonecraft put her tousled head out of the window and called to her.
‘Nan! Nan Easter!’
She ought to have been surprised, but she wasn’t. Anything was possible now that they had gone beyond the bounds of what was normal and acceptable. Why shouldn’t it be Mary Wollstonecraft?
‘What are you doing in Paris?’ Mary said, her rough face smiling. ‘Can I give you a lift anywhere? Is Mr Easter with you?’
‘We came to …’ Nan began, and then she had to stop to get her thoughts into some sort of order. Why had they come? She couldn’t remember. And where was Mr Easter? He hadn’t been at all happy about this visit. She could remember that. He’d said the French were a violent race. Well that was true enough, in all conscience. But where was he?
The pock-marked boy had gone over to the carriage and was speaking to Mary Wollstonecraft in a low urgent voice, but she couldn’t hear what he was saying and didn’t particularly want to. The horse was impatient, tossing his head and chomping on the bit.
‘Climb aboard,’ Mary said. ‘Your boy can ride postillion. We’ll soon have you there.’
‘I’m filthy dirty,’ Nan apologized, looking down at her shoes and the hem of her red cloak.
‘’Twill clean,’ Mary said, hauling her into the carriage. ‘There’s no harm in honest dirt. Continue, Jean-Paul. We shall soon be there, I assure you. What a blessing I chanced to see you.’
‘Yes,’ Nan agreed, as the carriage rocked forward. She would have liked to ask where they were going, but didn’t like to, because she had a feeling she ought to have known. Oh, if only her memory would start functioning again.
Even when the carriage drew up in a dark alley in front of a wineshop she still wasn’t sure. The place was familiar, certainly, and the proprietor seemed to recognize her, for he looked decidedly shifty when she and Mary strode into the shop. But …
‘Où est le cadavre?’ Mary Wollstonecraft was saying.
The man shrugged his shoulders. ‘Le cadavre, citoyenne?’
‘Oui, bien sûr, le cadavre.’
Memory, understanding and control returned to Nan in that instant. She knew so much and with such clarity, the kaleidoscopic muddle of fear and panic and revulsion suddenly shifting inside her head into logical acceptable patterns. She knew that she had run away in panic and that later she would be ashamed of herself, she knew that Mr Easter had been killed and that consequently she was now a widow and would have to care for her family all on her own, she knew that she was a foreigner in a lawless city and that she had been in very grave danger outside that prison and that Mary Wollstonecraft, the woman she had once mocked and derided, was going to help her now, even though she didn’t deserve it, and she knew that the pock-marked boy was an ally too, and likely to remain one long after this moment was past. ‘That man is called Jean-Claude,’ she said. ‘Mr Easter is dead. Last I seen of him he was lyin’ on that counter.’
Jean-Claude assessed the change in their situation with equal rapidity. ‘Par là, Madame,’ he said courteously to Mary Wollstonecraft, and pulling back the baize curtain he led them all into the back parlour, which was small and dark and very cramped, being crammed with barrels and bottles, and containing an assortment of filthy children who were gathered round an upturned crate and seemed to be eating their supper, and two elderly females who were hard at work filling bottles. William Henry’s body lay on a shelf just above their heads. He had been stripped of all his clothes except his shirt, and there was no hope of any doubt about his state now, for he was stiff and cold and his bare feet were quite grey.
But Nan was still quite calm. When Mary required her to identify the body, she agreed that he was her husband, Mr William Henry Easter, and pointed out that all his clothes were missing, and his signet ring, and his hunter watch, and his wig, adding that she would like to know where they were. And Mary translated all this to Jean-Claude, who shrugged his shoulders so violently it looked as though he was trying to sink his head into his neck, and then spoke long and volubly, addressing his words first to Mary, who argued back fiercely, and then to Nan, who remained impassive. For she knew, in this new chill state of hers, that Mr Easter’s clothes had been stolen and that this man knew who had stolen them, and that nobody would be able to force him to return them.
‘The fellow is a rogue,’ Mary said furiously, when the argument had drifted to an inconclusive halt. ‘We shall get no sense from him without recourse to law I fear.’
‘It en’t worth the effort,’ Nan sighed. ‘What’s gone is gone. ’Tis a funeral I should be thinkin’ of.’
‘Do you wish to take the body back to England?’ Mary asked.
The idea was abhorrent. ‘No, no! I couldn’t abide to travel with a corpse.’
‘It shall be as you wish,’ Mary reassured. ‘I will arrange it for you should you so desire. I have lived in Paris these two months. ‘T would be no hardship to me.’
‘Yes. Yes. You are very kind.’
‘Where do you stay?’
‘In the Rue St Honoré. Would I were back in Chelsea!’
‘You shall travel home so soon as all things may be arranged,’ Mary promised. ‘In the meantime, you shall stay with me. You and your servant both.’
‘He en’t my servant,’ Nan said, looking at the pockmarked boy, but Mary wasn’t listening. She had jammed her beaver hat firmly onto that tousled head and was speaking to Jean-Claude again, very sternly. ‘You en’t, are you?’
‘Ah, but I would be, mum, given ’alf the chance,’ he said at once. ‘Paris ain’t the sort a’ city fer folks like us.’
‘I got no money for servants,’ she warned him.
‘Don’t need money, mum. Jest the ticket home. I’d look after yer, help with the – um – funeral an’ all that, fetch an’ carry, pack yer luggage, find yer seats, all sorts. Jest the ticket home, that’s all.’
‘You ready?’ Mary said, returning to them.
‘Well, why not?’ Nan said. So many peculiar things had happened during this peculiar day, why not take on a new servant she couldn’t afford? He could use Mr Easter’s ticket. It would only go to waste otherwise. All this was little more than a dream anyway, and it would be better then travelling back to England all on her own.
And so, in the event, it was.
The next four days passed in the same dreamlike fashion. Sh
e walked from place to place concentrating on the movement of her feet, and signed forms, obediently, and met officials, and finally sat in Mary’s carriage and was driven to a bleak cemetery where she stood, knowing herself conspicuous in her red cloak and watched while a dark coffin was lowered into dark earth. But she was quite numb and felt nothing beyond an untouchable calm.
Even when she and her new servant had travelled to Calais and were boarding the packet boat and the passengers all around her were bewailing the tempestuous state of the sea and the overcrowded state of the vessel, and the pockmarked boy was looking green, she was still as cool as though she were sewing in her parlour.
‘In fer a bad crossin’, mum,’ the pock-marked boy said. ‘Terrible weather, as Noah said to Japhet.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I don’t doubt it.’
The storm was no concern of hers. Let that ol’ sea rage, she thought. He don’t rage for ever. Sooner or later he got to stop. The little ship tossed like a cockleshell and stank of vomit, but what of that? The pock-marked boy kept staggering up the companion way to be sick at the ship’s rail and staggering back again, but what of that? And half way across the Channel the captain decided to haul in all canvas and ride out the storm, but what of that? She was going home to Chelsea, that was what she was doing. Going home. Wasn’t she?
They rode out the storm for more than three hours. It was bitterly cold, even with her redingote and her cloak wrapped closely round her, and eventually she noticed how chill she was and saw that the pock-marked boy was horribly pale, and she pulled her mind back from its drifting stupor to talk to him.
‘I don’t know your name,’ she said.
‘Thiss, mum.’
‘Thiss?’
‘Well, me full name’s Alexander Thistlethwaite. That’s a bit of a mouthful, so ter speak, so they calls me Thiss.’
Her mind detached itself and drifted away again. She could hear him speaking, but the words were just a buzz below her and meant nothing. I can’t go on like this, she thought and was aware that she felt vaguely guilty about the state she was in. She made another tremendous effort and heaved her attention back to listen to him.
‘I worked fer M’sieu Santerre,’ he was saying, ‘him on the white hoss when the king come down fer the chop. I ’spect you saw ’im. Good bloke, M’sieu Santerre. Keeps a brewery. Good English ales, that sort a’ thing. I was cooper’s apprentice there.’
‘What will you do in London?’
‘Can’t say, mum. Sommink’ll turn up I ’spect. I been all sorts a’ things in me time. You don’t need a groom or nothing?’
‘No,’ she said. She had no idea what money she would have to live on now. ‘I could be back to being a servant for all I know.’
‘Not you, mum,’ he said cheerfully. ‘You got too much style. Still, we couldn’t stay in Paris, could we? Not now we’re at war.’
‘Who’s at war?’ This was news, and stirred a flicker of curiosity.
‘England and France, mum. Didn’tcher know?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I didn’t.’ But Mr Easter had known. Mr Easter had predicted it. If they chop off the king’s head, he’d said, there will be war. The packet boat rose and lurched, and black black water pressed against the porthole. ‘Oh no, I didn’t know.’
Chapter Twelve
It was a dishevelled, sour-smelling company that crept ashore that February morning. A grudging dawn was just beginning to ooze through the murk of the eastern horizon, and Dover looked chill and unwelcoming, as if it had huddled in to the cliffs to avoid them and their storm. They had been aboard for a day and a night, and to most of them it felt like a lifetime.
Fortunately the royal George Hotel was awake and waiting for them, its yellow windows promising the stability of lamplight and hot food and blazing fires. The coffee room was familiar and reassuring, already warm despite the raw air of that early hour. The tables were laid ready for breakfast and a squad of waiters stood about like uniformed clothes-horses, hung with white linen napkins and surreptitiously rubbing the sleep from their eyes. Nan and her fellow travellers trooped in to be warmed and sustained, and soon the quiet room echoed with the chomp and clatter of feeding, and the air was clouded with the usual scents and smells of winter travel, the pleasantly tickling aroma of coffee and bacon and grilled kidneys and hot buttered toast, mingled with the stink of a score of dirty greatcoats visibly steaming dry.
Thiss’ eyes bulged with hunger at the first smell of coffee, but Nan had no appetite at all. The peculiar medley of smells was triggering a memory of the last leisurely meal she and Mr Easter had taken in this very room, and that was more upsetting than she could bear. However, she bought a meal for Thiss with the remains of her money, because she was grateful to him for all his kindness. But she was too miserable for conversation.
The stage was late setting off that morning. They didn’t get in to the Swan with Two Necks until after three o’clock, and it was nearly five before Thiss was carrying Nan’s travelling bag up the steps of number 10 Cheyne Row. And having finally arrived, she remembered that Mr Easter had always kept the key in the inner pocket of his greatcoat. It upset her to realize that she would have to knock to be let into her own house.
It was Bessie who opened the door, neat and trim in her pink dress with a clean white apron newly tied about her waist and a huge white cap flopping into her eyes. ‘Why, Mrs Easter mum,’ she said. ‘Welcome home.’ And then, seeing the expression on her employer’s face, ‘Whatever is it? Is it the master?’
And then the panelled hall was full of people, Mrs Dibkins, all working lips and wobbling chins and ready to cry, Annie and Billy squealing forward to greet their mother and cling to her damp skirts, Mr Dibkins clomping up the kitchen stairs with a tattered mop under his arm and his scrubbing-brush hair standing on end with surprise, Thiss bent sideways under the weight of the carpet bag, not sure whether to put it down and go, or to stay where he was. And all their emotions focussed on her, pressing upon her, waiting to be told, already half knowing the worst. As she led them into the double dining-room, she could feel the fatigue of their expectations dragging her down, so that her shoulders drooped and her spine ached.
‘Sommink orful ’as ’appened,’ Bessie said, tears welling from under that white cap, ’ain’t it?’
‘Mr Easter,’ Nan told them, struggling for control, ‘is dead. He en’t …’ And then there was a dull roar filling her ears and the carpet was rushing up towards her, and she put out her hands to protect her face as she fell.
They brought her round with sal volatile, and then Bessie whisked the children back into the nursery and Mr Dibkins took Thiss down to the kitchen ‘to say what you got to say without no harm to no one, if you take my meaning’, and Mrs Dibkins eased Nan out of her cloak and her greatcoat and her wet broken shoes and put her to bed like a child, with a hot brick under her feet and warm flannel over her head.
‘You cry all you like, Mrs William-dear,’ she said. ‘What a dreadful thing! A dreadful thing. You cry all you like. You’re home now, Mrs William-dear. You cry all you like.’
And as if the old woman had given her permission, Nan turned her head into the pillow and cried with abandon, because she had been a poor sort of wife in all conscience, and he had been a good man, and it had been because of her they’d gone to Paris and he hadn’t really wanted to, and it was all her fault that he was dead.
She cried for the rest of the afternoon and most of the night, helplessly and without feeling relieved, even though she could hear poor little Annie and Billy murmuring outside the door and she knew she was upsetting them and that she ought to try not to. Finally at two o’clock in the morning, when the ashes in the grate were barely glowing, she got up and lit a candle and opened Mr Easter’s medicine cabinet and poured herself a dose of laudanum. ‘You can’t go on like this,’ she rebuked her candle-lit reflection in the mirror. ‘You got things to do.’ And the most important of them was to earn a living. For there were children to fe
ed and servants to pay and a house to run and without Mr Easter she was the only one who could do it.
She woke with the lurching sensation that she was falling through space. There was a metallic taste in her mouth and the swollen images of her nightmare were still clogging her mind. She’d been running down a filthy street in Paris, all alone, with the mob charging after her, brandishing cleavers. She knew that one ear had been hacked from her head. Or was it Mr Easter’s? Mary Wollstonecraft was pulling her out of harm’s way, but if she didn’t run faster they would cut out her heart and squeeze it. She was still shuddering with the horror of it when she woke, and put her hand up to her ears, gingerly, just to make sure they were still there. Then she shook the nightmare out of her head and rang the bell. The sooner she stopped being silly and got on with the day the better ’twould be for all of them.
‘The master,’ Mrs Dibkins said, sidling into the room with both hands in the pocket under her apron, ‘the master said I was to give this letter to ’ee, in the event – um – of anything should – um – happen to him. I’m that sorry, Mrs William-dear.’
‘There are mourning clothes to sew,’ Nan said, taking the letter but not looking at it. ‘I will wear full black, and so will you and Mr Dibkins and Bessie, if you please, but half-mourning will be sufficient for the children. Lilac with black trim for Annie and Billy, white for John. We could manage that without too much expense. My red cloak will dye well enough, I fancy. We will start by removing the lining. I shall go down to the haberdasher’s for a quantity of black serge and dyes and cottons and so forth just so soon as I’m dressed. My grey wool gown will serve well enough meanwhile.’ And she was pleased with herself for being so cool and businesslike.
Then she looked down at the folded paper in her hand and recognized William Henry’s careful handwriting, and was momentarily afraid that her painfully gathered control would be lost all over again. Surely she’d cried enough. She broke the seal quickly and began to read.
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