Before the Storm (22 page)

Edmond stood up and went to her. ‘Do not be afraid, Eliza,’ he murmured, putting his hand gently on her stomach. ‘General La Fayette’s men are dispersing them. I promise that no harm will come to you.’

‘You can’t promise that,‘Eliza replied, turning away. Her baby was due in only a few weeks time and she held her hand to the small of her back as she hobbled back to the bedroom.
 

‘Look after her,’ Edmond whispered to Clementine, who was still standing beside the window. ‘I have to go now but will return as soon as I am able. We are all doing our best to hold them off but already many have died.’

‘What about my husband, the Duc?’ Clementine whispered. ‘Do you know where he is?’

‘He is still with the King,’ Edmond replied. ‘If I see him, I will tell him that you are safe.’

‘Safe for now, at least,’ she replied with a tiny smile.
 

After she had locked the door behind Edmond again, Clementine went back to the bedroom, where Eliza was sitting on the bed with her arms wrapped defensively around herself. ‘Are we all going to die?’ she asked with a stricken look as Clementine climbed up next to her and put an arm around her shoulders.

‘One day,’ she replied, resting her auburn head against her sisters. ‘But not today.’

‘I wish that we had never come here,’ Eliza said suddenly.

Clementine pulled her head back and looked at her sister with confusion. ‘Why so? I thought you loved Edmond?’

Eliza sighed. ‘Love? Yes, I love Edmond.’ She paused to blink away some tears. ‘He only married me for my money though.’

‘Surely not,’ Clementine said, shocked. She’d seen the way that Edmond looked at her sister.

‘He told me as much after the wedding.’ Eliza gave a rueful smile. ‘He said that I was the loveliest girl that he had ever seen but that he didn’t know if he could ever love me in the way that I deserved.’ She laughed, the sound bitter and jangling in the dimly lit little bedroom. ‘However, he would always respect me. Respect. I would much rather he had said he hated me for at least then I would know that he felt something more than indifference.’ She took a deep ragged breath. ‘I am sure that he’s gone back to Corisande. He’s never said so but he wouldn’t, would he?’

Clementine stared at her sister. ‘My God,’ she breathed, not knowing what else to say. ‘I had no idea.’

Eliza shrugged. ‘How could you? I’m not exactly going to tell anyone about it, am I?’ She shook back her long corn coloured hair and wiped away her tears with the back of her hand. ‘And what about you?’ she said.

‘What about me?’ Clementine felt suddenly cold and unprepared. She didn’t want to talk about herself yet.

Eliza hesitated for a while before replying. ‘People say that the Duc has yet to make you his wife in truth as well as name,’ she whispered.

Clementine blushed. ‘Why would people say that?’ she demanded. ‘How do they know?’

Eliza gave a sad little shrug. ‘You know what Versailles is like, Clementine,’ she replied. ‘It starts with servant tittle tattle and before you know it, it is all over court.’

Clementine pressed her hands to her hot cheeks. ‘Oh no. I had no idea that everyone knew.’ She shivered, remembering the shy awkwardness of her wedding night, his knee between her legs and his warm, sweet breath on the side of her neck. ‘Besides, it isn’t true. It was just once but that’s enough isn’t it?’

‘Not if you want to provide him with an heir,’ Eliza reminded her, self consciously touching her blooming stomach again.
 

‘There’s plenty of time for that,’ Clementine murmured diffidently. ‘I’m only eighteen after all. We want to go to Italy next year and then maybe even Russia. Perhaps after that...’

Her sister looked at her curiously. ‘Do you love him?’ she asked.

Clementine hesitated, thinking of her husband’s pleasant but not handsome face and briefly, another face, darker with laughing blue eyes. ‘We are very good friends,’ she said finally.

Eliza surprised her by giving a shaky laugh. ‘Lord, just look at us both!’ she said. ‘What a pair we make - friendship on one side and indifference on the other. Perhaps we should have married those London merchants after all.’

‘Mama would never speak to us again,’ Clementine replied with a laugh. Her mother had been almost speechless with joy on her wedding day and despite everything she’d felt a certain small satisfaction in making her mother proud.

The Duc’s proposal had been something of a surprise. He’d come to their house on the Rue de l’Université just a few days before they were due to return to London and had taken her aback by first insisting upon seeing her alone in the little blue sitting room there and then, with very little preamble, dropping to his knees on the floor and clumsily taking her hands in his.

‘I want to make you the princess of the Château de Coulanges,’ he had muttered, clumsily kissing her fingers. ‘Don’t go back to London, Clementine. I want you to stay here with me.’

Her first instinct had been to refuse but something had stopped her - a lingering memory of the beautiful château on the banks of the Loire, perhaps or maybe the sight of Antoine’s back as he walked away from her through a crowd of wedding guests. ‘Of course I will stay,’ she’d said, smiling down at the Duc, thinking how easy it would be to fall in love with him. He was so kind, so sweet after all. How could she not love him?

Eliza had begun to cry and she hugged her sister close. It was daylight now and the alarming sounds of earlier had vanished and been replaced by the continuous roar of an enormous crowd. ‘What do you think is happening?’ Eliza whispered, terrified.

‘I have no idea,’ Clementine replied, a reckless idea taking shape in her mind. ‘I think I might go and find out. It would mean leaving you here alone though...’

‘No.’ Her sister shook her head. ‘I want to come with you.’ She scrambled off the bed and patted her loosened hair. ‘I would be much more frightened if I had to stay here on my own,’ she explained as she tied a wide pale blue ribbon around her hair and patted some refreshing, soothing orange flower water behind her ears, on her cheeks and across her bosom.

‘I wish that Phoebe was here instead of London,’ Clementine whispered as she shakily unlocked the door and
 
stepped out into the small vestibule. ‘She would have seen them all off.’

The two girls crept through deserted magnificent state rooms until they came to one with a view across the marble courtyard at the front of the palace.
 
A few other intrepid courtiers had also ventured out and they exchanged silent, strained nods. Everyone knew that the court at Versailles was at an end - it only remained to see just how bloody that end would be.

Clementine pulled aside the rich gold embroidered curtains and they both looked down on the mass of thousands of people, both men and women, who had gathered overnight. They roared and screamed with rage as they waved their crude, makeshift weapons in the air, their eyes fixed on the gold painted balcony of the King’s bedroom, the centre of the enormous château in more ways than one.

As they watched, the windows opened and after a pause, Marie Antoinette stepped out onto the balcony, her hair hanging loose about her shoulders and dressed only in a thin yellow and white striped gauze and silk nightdress and dressing gown. She lifted her chin high as she cooly surveyed the gathered crowd, although God only knew what panicked, terrified thoughts were racing through her mind.

She held her two adorable, fair haired children, Madame Royale and the Dauphin by the hands and they peered fearfully over the top of the metal balcony, their huge blue eyes wide as they stared at the mob, who had broken into a chant of ‘No children! No children! Send them back inside!’

The Queen nodded and released her children, turning briefly to pass them to her sister in law, Madame Élisabeth, who hovered just out of sight on the other side of the door. After this she straightened her shoulders and reluctantly turned to face the crowd.

Clementine and Eliza held their breath and clutched each other’s hands as an uneasy silence fell on the courtyard. They could see a few muskets raised and pointed towards the Queen as she stood with no appearance of fear before them, but no shot was fired. The moments stretched before them like an eternity.

The first shout was like a miracle and took everyone by surprise. ‘Vive la Reine.’ There was a pause before a hundred, then a thousand other voices took up the chant. ‘Vive la Reine. Long live the Queen.’

Marie Antoinette looked visibly moved as she inclined her head graciously then swept her lowest curtsey to the mob, while the onlookers in the windows of the palace clung to each other in relief. General La Fayette stepped onto the balcony beside her and with a smile at the mob, lifted her hand to his lips in a gesture redolent of a long lost chivalry as they erupted into cheers.

‘To Paris! To Paris!’ the crowd shouted now, wild with excitement as the Queen and La Fayette stepped back through the window and vanished from sight.
 

‘It looks like we are leaving,’ Clementine said with a sigh.

‘Clementine?’ her husband’s voice made her jump before she turned and gratefully fell into his arms. ‘Edmond told me that you were safe.’

‘Is it all over?’ Clementine asked, nestling her face into his chest. He smelled faintly of lavender water, smoke, sweat and gunpowder.
 

He nodded and kissed the top of her head, hiding his tears in her auburn hair. ‘It is all over.’

Chapter Twenty-Four

Clementine would never forget their long, slow journey back to Paris with as many of their belongings as would fit fastened on top of their large travelling
berline
. Edmond and Eliza travelled with them and the Duc made a point of putting down the carriage’s window blinds so as to spare his sister in law the sight of the severed heads of several guardsmen that the mob gleefully waved in the air as they marched alongside them.

‘Savages,’ Eliza whispered as she closed her eyes and leaned her head queasily against the side of the coach. ‘How can they live like that?’ She’d almost fainted with fear as a crowd of ragged women had surrounded them as they got into their carriage outside the palace and Edmond had had to lift her up and carry her through them as they stared and roughly fingered the soft rose pink velvet of her dress.

‘It’s not their fault,’ Clementine said gently. ‘You forget how fortunate we have been, never to have experienced want, fear, starvation and poverty as they have done.’

‘Still, a bath wouldn’t go amiss,’ Edmond remarked with a fastidious shudder. ‘And don’t tell me that they have more important things to think about than baths. My father was one of the old King Louis’ ministers but still managed to have a bath once a week and change his clothes every day.’

‘There is no comparison,’ Clementine replied angrily.

Edmond shrugged and brought out a snuff box. ‘No, I suppose not. They should consider themselves fortunate really that they do not have any real cares to occupy their time.’ He flicked the box open and offered it to the Duc, who shook his head. ‘I see no need for them to live as they do. If they only worked harder then they would be able to afford bread and there would be no need for all this rioting and nonsense.’

Clementine gaped at him. ‘If they worked harder?’ she exclaimed. ‘And you, of course, have worked extremely hard for everything that you have.’

Eliza opened her eyes briefly. ‘Oh, stop shouting, Clementine,’ she murmured weakly. ‘We all know that you secretly sympathise with the rabble - even if they have made it plain that they would cut your throat sooner than look at you.’

‘They haven’t though,’ Clementine replied. ‘They haven’t laid a finger on me. What does that tell you?’

‘Nothing. It tells me nothing.’ Her sister shook her head and closed her eyes again, signifying that the subject was now closed, while Clementine turned her head away and fulminated silently to herself all the way to Paris.

They were all exhausted by the time they reached the Hôtel de Coulanges on the splendid Place Louis le Grand and even Clementine, who hated the huge, ostentatious mausoleum to past glories that was her husband’s Parisian home, was thankful to get out of the carriage and hurry into the echoing marble floored entrance hall.
 

‘Tea please!’ Clementine called to the sullen, dark browed housekeeper, Madame Blanchard as they went through to the large
salon
overlooking the garden at the back of the house. Her sister looked close to fainting again and was being half carried between Edmond and the Duc, her huge stomach straining painfully against the velvet of her dress.
 

‘I feel so ill and have such strange pains,’ she moaned as they helped her on to one of the elegant yellow silk covered sofas and put cushions behind her back and head. ‘Is the baby coming?’

Clementine anxiously took her hands, noticing how hot and dry they felt. ‘I do not know, Eliza,’ she said with a look at her husband, who had backed away nervously. ‘I will send a page out to fetch your
accoucher
if that will make you feel more comfortable?’

Her sister nodded, still clinging to her hand and Clementine realised from her expression that she was downplaying the discomfort that she felt. ‘Yes, send for her straight away,’ she said, clutching her stomach.