Deceit (11 page)

“How far is it?” I ask him and he says a little over fifty miles as the crow flies. It seems like a very great distance.

“Surely they will have moved on by the time we reach there…” I say. The thought of rattling about in a carriage for days fills me with horror. Am I strong enough yet to bear it? Yet Christophe is not downhearted. Not in the least. It is as if the thought of seeing his family again has lit a fire inside him.

He takes my hands and spins me around the room until we are both dizzy and tumble down on the bed. He is joyous and I understand his feelings. I think he is anxious about the birth of the baby. Being with his mother and family will mean his mind can be at rest.

There is a coach that will pass through Ardres on its way to Abbeville, but not until Tuesday, which is in two days’ time. I can see that
Christophe is worried. Two more days, and then two more on the road. His family will surely have moved on by the time we get to Abbeville.

“You would be quicker alone and on horseback and I will follow later in the coach,” I say, though the thought of travelling without Christophe, and in a country where I am only slowly learning the language, fills me with dread.

So when Christophe shakes his head and says that he will never be parted from me, I am very happy.

The coach is a heavy and lumbering thing and it is severely overloaded. There are ten of us squeezed inside, not including a tiny white-haired, wheezing lapdog secreted in the bosom of an enormously fat woman. The smell of unwashed bodies is overpowering. Worse, when we stop overnight at Montreuil we are half bitten to death. I kill more than fifty fleas, cracking their shiny hard black little bodies between my nails.

The bites itch ferociously and the next morning I refuse to get back inside the coach, for I know the heat will make the itching worse. So Christophe and I finish the journey sitting next
to the coachman. I am very glad when we reach Abbeville.

But it seems Christophe’s family has moved on, to Rouen… or Amiens… or Beauvais; everyone we speak to says something different.

Then, as we stand amongst the crowds milling about the market place, cold, despondent and weary, a little ragamuffin tugs at Christophe’s coat. “
M’sieur, m’sieur, je sais où! Monmercy!
”

“
Monmercy?
”Christophe frowns and then says, “
Montmorency!
” and the boy nods his head and smiles back in relief.

“
C’est ca!
” Christophe turns to me at once and says in English, “Montmorency is just a few miles from Paris. It is where my father died and is buried. They will hope to be there in time for the anniversary of my father’s death on the nineteenth day of December.” He breathes out in relief, because he is sure this will mean they will be there for a few more days at least. “We may catch up with them yet!”

In his excitement, Christophe does not at first notice my expression of horror at the thought of yet more travelling. But when he does, he can see from my face that I am quite worn out and at the
end of my tether. I lean heavily against him, letting his arms support my weight.

“The baby may be born soon and I cannot go on much longer…” I begin to say, but then a coach comes clattering into the square, cutting a swathe through the jumble of people and animals and carts. We jump back as it passes within a hair’s breadth of us and comes to a halt.

The horses are skittish and the driver fights to keep them steady as a woman and child jump down from the coach and start to pick their way cross the square. Then a man jumps down from the carriage and hurries through the crowd after them. He is holding a child’s toy above his head. A wooden doll. Child and doll reunited, the man turns back towards the coach. He glances our way and I quickly tuck myself in closer to Christophe, because I know who the man is and can hardly believe it.

It is Ralf. Ralf is here in France. He will not recognise Christophe, I am sure of it, never having seen him above once – and that in the darkness of the Chequers Inn at Woolwich. He must not see me. I still do not know if I can trust him.

“Stay there a minute,” Christophe says, and
before I can stop him, he has run across to the coach and is calling up to the driver. He stands within feet of Ralf, who is stepping up into the coach again. I quickly pull my shawl over my hair and turn my back to the coach. I feel light headed with anxiety and until I hear the coach rattle away across the cobbles, I cannot take breath.

“Pah! The coach is travelling to Amiens. That is no use for us…” Christophe seems cross.

“Amiens?” I say. “Where is that?” I try to sound calm, but my mind is racing. Why is
Ralf
travelling to Amiens? For work? Or is he in pursuit of Martha? And if he is… well that must mean that he believes Martha to be in Amiens. And if she is there… well then… Nicholas must be there too. My blood runs cold when I think of it.

“It is to the south-west of here. Many people make a pilgrimage to the cathedral, to see the holy relic – the head of Jean le Baptiste brought home by the Knights Templar from the Crusades. I have seen it. And the stone carvings on the cathedral are painted in such glorious colours!”

Ah, then Ralf is going to carve stone for the repair of the cathedral. Yes, that must be it. He is a master stonemason and must travel where there
is work. Simple chance makes our paths cross.

I give a great sigh of relief. Perhaps Nicholas is not in France yet after all. Even so, maybe Christophe is right and we should move on to Montmorency. When the next post coach to Paris passes through, we must be on it.

If only we could have made it as far as Montmorency. But just a little way outside Breteuil I start to feel a low dragging pain in my belly. It passes, but then grows stronger again.

Now the cramps are coming faster. I had felt no pain when I miscarried at Darke House. One minute I had been with child… the next I was delivered of a tiny stillborn baby. This sensation, as if a giant has his hands on my belly and is squeezing it tight with his fingers, leaves me mute at first with shock. Then a fierce contraction makes me cry out, and snatch at Christophe’s hand and hold it so tight I see him blanch with the pain of it.

The other passengers in the coach begin to grow restless. They are afraid I will give birth before their very eyes.

I fear it too and I whisper to Christophe, “The baby will be here any minute. I know it.”

And so as soon as the first straggling houses of Breteuil appear, he bangs loudly on the carriage roof with his fist, and we feel the carriage slow down and stop. Christophe jumps out and lifts me down then sweeps me up, and runs as fast as he safely can into the first inn he comes to.

At first I am afraid that the innkeeper will refuse us a room. His wife is away visiting family and he says there is no one there to care for me. But when he sees me bent over with the pain, and sweat prickling my scalp and darkening my hair, he relents and hurries us up to a little room on the first floor. He brings piles of fresh sheets and hot water and has a fire lit in the grate.

“We cannot afford this,” I whisper to Christophe in a lull between the great waves of pain that bear down on me.

“Ssh…” is his only response.

I am laid out on the bed and he is stroking my hair back from my forehead. “Now I must go out and see if I can find a midwife.”

I cry out in terror. “Don’t leave me. You cannot leave me. I will die!”

He unpicks my fingers from around his wrist and says, “I will be as quick as I can.”

Then he is gone. The pain seems unbearable now. Fear is knotting my belly and making the contractions so much worse. He is not gone long, though it feels like hours. And when he does come back it is as if a great weight has been lifted from my shoulders, even though there is no midwife with him.

“She lives,” he says, “in a flea-infested hovel and has hands the size of shovels, only much dirtier. I would rather die than let her near you. No, we will manage well enough alone.”

We do manage, though when the pain sweeps over me like a wave, I shout and curse at Christophe and though he bears it and does not once complain, I think he is a little shocked that I know such wicked words.

It is not a quick delivery, even though the contractions are coming very close together. Then, just when I think I can bear it no longer, Christophe tells me he can see the baby’s head and I grip the bed sheets in my fists and bear down; one last great push. And Christophe gives a shout of joy and she is born. A whole month early, tiny, but very much alive!

Red-faced and bawling as if her lungs might burst, she is covered in a creamy white wax, which Christophe tenderly wipes away. Then, his hand shaking a little, he cuts the cord with a knife he has steeped in eau de vie and ties it. He has seen it done before, though not, he says, on any human baby.

He swaddles her in a sheet and gives her to me. I am so happy to see that she has fair hair, a thatch of it. But dark eyes like her father. I put her to my breast and she suckles so strongly, I feel my belly give one last strong contraction and the afterbirth comes safely away. Now Christophe lifts me gently and changes the sheets. Then he helps me to wash, just as Martha did after my little son was born. Such intimacy, but I do not feel one jot of shame at it. After all we have been through together, Christophe seems like a part of me now. The better part. Then we lie down together, the baby nestled between us. And we sleep, our arms entwined about each other.

It seems it is a blessing that the midwife did not attend the birth. When the innkeeper’s wife, Jeanne, returns the next day, she says that many of the mothers the midwife has delivered die after, of the fever.

Jeanne stands in the doorway of our room and looks at us… our little family… and she takes pity on us. Christmas is but a few weeks away now and she will not see us out on the road before then and with such a small newborn baby. And if Christophe will dance on the rope and entertain the inn’s customers, then that will pay for our bed and board.

“But what of Monsieur…?” I am sure Jeanne’s husband will not think this such an excellent arrangement.

“My husband will have nothing to say on the matter. It is decided.”

And it is.

So we spend what will prove to be the happiest weeks of our lives there. I am able to forget for a while about Nicholas, Silas Becke and Ralf. I think of Martha, though, and would be glad if she could be here with me. My mother and father too. They are nightly in my prayers.

We will call the baby ‘Jeanne’ after the innkeeper’s wife. Said aloud, the name could belong to a boy or a girl; a blessing when Nicholas will be searching for a girl.

Little Jeanne occupies me completely. When Christophe is out, I spend hours chattering to her, rocking her in my arms and singing lullabies. I did not know how fiercely I would love her. How I would lay down my life in an instant to protect her. I do worry, though, that she is not yet baptised.

Her father’s religious beliefs are a mystery to me. If Nicholas has a religion, then I do not know what it is. He has both Catholics and Protestants among his acquaintance. As for me, I was baptised as a Protestant and if I want Jeanne baptised in my faith, then I will have to wait. This is a Catholic country and Protestants need to live cautiously. In Paris there are no Protestant churches allowed within the walls.

Such difficulties, complications and deceit everywhere. The young, innocent girl I once was, who went to the Frost Fair to spend her money on frivolous things… well, she has no more substance now than a dream.

All too soon it is the New Year and we must move on. There is little hope that Christophe’s family will still be at Montmorency, but we will still pass
through there on the way to Paris, just in case. Christophe has family who work in Paris, a cousin Luc and his wife Annie, who, wanting a more settled life, have put their skills to use in the theatre.

Christophe hopes he will find work too and then we might be safe he says… absorbed into the teeming life of Paris with its streets overflowing with people from all corners of the earth.

H
aving Lindsay just sitting there and being nice and kind and non-judgemental made Claire weaken. She let her guard down and found herself telling Lindsay everything. Every single thing that had happened came tumbling out… from the day she first saw the casket to her last conversation with Jacalyn. How all she wanted was to get Micky back safely. And to do that she was prepared to offer herself in exchange, because she knew who Robert was really after. He would agree to the exchange because he needed her. Only Claire could open the box.

Lindsay didn’t say a word, just listened and squeezed Claire’s fingers so tight she could feel the ring cutting hard and hot into her hand. And when Claire sighed and said, looking up into Lindsay’s face, “I don’t suppose you believe me,
do you? Only Jacalyn knows the truth. I haven’t told anyone else; it all seems too unbelievable.”

Lindsay said, “Of course I believe you, but…”

Claire pushed herself up, shot off the bed, and said angrily, “I’ll show you. I’ll show you what I can do.” And before Lindsay could stop her, Claire fetched Micky’s pet hamster Bilbo and, putting him on the bed, swiftly pressed a pillow down over him.

Claire’s hands were shaking as she did it. Terrified that something would go wrong and she wouldn’t be able to bring him back to life.

Lindsay didn’t know what was happening and she was trying to pull Claire’s hands away from the pillow, saying, “No! No! No!”

But Claire fought to keep the pillow pressed down and when she did finally lift it, Bilbo was dead. Lindsay just sat there looking dazed.

“Now look.” Claire picked Bilbo up gently and placed him on the palm of her hand. She stroked him with her index finger and breathed out over him.

Lindsay leaned forward to look closer, fascinated by the blue sparkling dust enveloping Bilbo’s little body, shocked as Bilbo opened his
little beady black eyes and scurried up her arm and inside Claire’s T-shirt sleeve. Claire gently retrieved him and carried him back to the safety of his cage.

When she returned, Lindsay was still sitting on the bed and hugging the pillow tight to her chest. Her bottom lip was sucked in and she was chewing it thoughtfully. But she smiled radiantly when she saw Claire. “
Now
I believe it. I wondered whether he’d, but… wow… listen to me rabbiting on. Come here and have a hug.” She put the pillow down and held out her arms to Claire. She even made a joke. “If you breathe on me will I get an instant facelift or something? How does it work?”

Claire shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t know how much of the blue dust is still inside me… or if it sort of magically generates every time I need to use it. And it doesn’t just bring things back to life… because, that night at the top of the crane… it was the blue dust that sucked Zac away, that swept him off the platform. So it gives life, but it can take it away… and I seem to be some sort of agent for it, and I don’t want to be. I just want Micky back. Robert can have it all. I’ll open the casket for him as long as Micky is safe. But…”

“But what?” Lindsay’s voice sounded taut and anxious.

“Jacalyn will stop me. The minute I tell her what I’m going to do. I know she will.”

“Well then, don’t tell her.”

“She knows something is wrong already. She’s in London now. She’ll be here very soon. It’s no good, I’ll have to tell her everything, ask her to help me get Micky back safely, and hope that she will.”

Lindsay looked thoughtful. She gave Claire’s hand a squeeze. “You mustn’t put yourself in danger, but
maybe
there’s another way. I’ve got an idea…”

Lindsay was standing in the hall on the point of leaving when the doorbell went. She was saying to Claire that she might as well go and get some work done because, “I think your dad’s going to be busy for a while yet.”

Claire’s mum was sobbing still. And then Matthew started to scream his head off and Lindsay really seemed to find
that
noise distressing.

When Claire opened the door to let Lindsay
out, there on the doorstep was Jacalyn. Now Claire was forced into making an awkward, mumbled introduction. Lindsay was smiling, but she was edging out of the door, desperate to escape.
Maybe
, Claire thought,
because Jacalyn’s studying her with such silent intensity
.

Flustered by it, Lindsay leaned in and gave Claire a kiss goodbye. “And ring me tonight? Let me know everything’s fine now.
Et au revoir, Jacalyn. Il a été vraiment intéressant de vous rencontrer
.”

Claire was impressed! A perfect French accent too. Then she was gone and Jacalyn seemed distracted and preoccupied with something… at least until Dan appeared in the hall and started giving her the third degree.

Who was she? How long had she known Claire? Why was she here? How long was she staying? Finally, after he’d taken her name and contact details, he seemed satisfied. But even then Claire expected him to push his way in to the living room after them, listen in on their conversation.

But she was wrong. He just said, “I’ll be in the kitchen.”

And Claire snapped, “Great. Stay there.”

Now Jacalyn was sitting on the sofa next to Claire and looking very tense. She was plucking angrily at the fringe of a cushion and pieces of silk thread were scattering everywhere.

“Claire! Listen to me… if I thought we could get Micky
and
the casket and the spells back safely, I would do it in a heartbeat. But we don’t know where Robert is. I thought my ring would tell me, but it feels hot and tight at such strange times, like just now in the doorway. I do not understand any more what it is telling me. And Robert could be
anywhere
. We don’t even know whether he is still in London. There have been no outbreaks of sickness here?”

Jacalyn clearly hadn’t caught up with the news, so Claire kept quiet about the TB. Shook her head, keeping Lindsay’s plan to herself too.

“I really think we must let the police find him,” Jacalyn continued. “It is bad enough that now he has Micky and the casket. That was your stupid fault, Claire. I do not understand… why didn’t you tell me what you were going to do?
Mon Dieu
, now he has all of the spells and Micky. So if he gets hold of you too, he will use Micky… threaten to
hurt her so that you will open the casket and—”

“And what?” Claire was getting angry. She didn’t like Jacalyn calling her stupid. It hit a raw nerve because, of course, she had been stupid thinking she could trick Robert. But this time she’d be much more careful. Lindsay would stop her doing anything reckless wouldn’t she? Now she had Lindsay on her side she could do it without Jacalyn getting involved. “Last time I opened it, Zacharie died. Robert’s going to be taking a massive risk if he makes me open it again.”

“Is he? Things didn’t work out as Robert had planned last time. He’s going to be more careful second time around. And he’s had plenty of time to think about how he can do things differently. Maybe he needs to say the other spells before he makes you open the casket? Maybe the other spells make a difference and give him total power? He’s going to have a plan, Claire,
non
? So we need to be really careful how we – how do you say it –
deal with
him. But please, just trust me okay? Give me some time to think what we must do… to work out a way of getting Micky back without taking that risk.”

“There isn’t any time. I need to do something
now
. I’ve talked to Lindsay about it and she thinks I’m right and,” Claire took a deep breath and the words rushed out and it was too late to stop them, “besides, how do I know you won’t turn out to be just like your brother… more interested in the power of the spells and what they could do for him than anything or anyone else? Robert said…”

Jacalyn looked stunned. “
Robert
said… and you believe
anything
that monster tells you?!
Zut alors!
I cannot believe what I am hearing. I am
nothing
like Zac. But you… maybe you are not such a good judge of character after all. This Lindsay, for example… is she willing to help you without getting the police involved? And if so, why? Have you thought about that? Have you thought what her motive might be and how much she really knows?” Jacalyn was standing up now, hands on hips… furious. Then she threw her hands in the air and said, “
Pah, c’est incroyable
. You are unbelievable, Claire. I don’t think I can help you if you are so determined to do what you want.”

And then she was gone. Just like that. Without even a backward glance and slamming the front door so hard behind her that the glass rattled and
Dan came peering round the living room door. “Everything all right?”

“Yes!” Claire hissed.

“Okay… just asking, that’s all.” Dan disappeared back into the kitchen and for a second Claire panicked. She was on her own now. Jacalyn was gone. Oh God, what had she done? But then she took a couple of deep breaths and said to herself, “Claire Cottrell. Get a grip. You can do this. Follow Lindsay’s plan and everything will work out just fine.”

She took out her phone and rang Lindsay’s number, “Hi, it’s me. Jacalyn’s left, so let’s do it.”

Lindsay sounded pleased and relieved. She’d already promised she wouldn’t breathe a word to Claire’s dad. And stupidly that made Claire feel just a little bit uncomfortable; that Lindsay was willing to keep important things secret from someone she was supposed to love. But then Lindsay hadn’t told him the truth about her father either, had she? So that was two secrets she was keeping from Dad.

It has been a tiring journey and, as expected, there is disappointment for Christophe at Montmorency. His family has long gone. So we put flowers on his father’s grave and move on to Paris.

Now it is late afternoon and we are approaching the city through fields and parks. The post coach is stopped by guards at the toll gate and we are examined for signs of sickness. News of plague spreading across northern France from Dunkirk is causing alarm. Christophe and I worry when we hear that, for the plague seems to follow hard on the heels of the 20 spells and we are sure they are still with Nicholas.

I have said nothing to Christophe about seeing Ralf, either in Woolwich or in France. And I still secretly worry about the purpose of Ralf’s visit to Amiens. Perhaps he has not come here to work. Perhaps he really is in pursuit of Martha. And if Martha is here in France… then Nicholas must be here too.

As we enter the city proper through the Porte
Sainte Antoine, a fellow traveller, a tall thin saturnine-looking man, watches me as I look eagerly about. I sense from the way he fixes his eyes unblinkingly on me, he hopes to make me uncomfortable. I think he would get pleasure from it.

He surprises me by saying, in almost perfect English, “They say that Satan visits this wicked city often and feels much at home here and his appearance is always a sign of disaster… for some poor innocent.” He smiles a little secret smile and rubs his palms together. A dry, whispering, lifeless sound. I feel as if he has just placed a curse on us.

“Take no notice of him,” Christophe says protectively, taking my hand in his, “Paris is not as wicked as he says. I have been here many times and see… I have come to no harm.”

Then the traveller leans across and fixes us both in his gaze. He smiles conspiratorially. “You must know how to trick, to lie and to deceive,” he says, “if you wish to prosper in this city, as I, Jean Michel Berard, have prospered. Or put to profitable use whatever other talents you may have…”

I hold my Jeanne closer and turn sharply from
him. What a foul-mouthed man. I do not wish to look at him. The coach rolls on in the shadow now of a towering building with eight stone towers and walls at least eighty feet high. But still he will not be silenced. “And that great building is the Bastille,” he says, “where the wicked and poor unlucky innocents are imprisoned together.”

I let out a little gasp. Christophe, his face darkened with anger now, says something in French, which stops the man’s mouth as quickly as a trap snaps shut on a rat. But his eyes blaze with fury. I take Christophe’s hand and squeeze it and pray we never have cause to find out if what this man says is true.

We descend from the coach, at an inn with a golden cockerel as its sign, and I would have liked to rest there a while, but Christophe says we must go straight to the theatre where his cousin Luc works. And so we set off.

It is lucky that Christophe knows his way about Paris, for I had thought
London
the filthiest, noisiest, most crowded city in the world. Now I know differently. But her stone buildings, oh, they are more magnificent than any I have seen in London.

I find I keep stopping to gaze, open mouthed, at every new wonder. Christophe has to tug at my hand to move me on.

“You must keep close and hold tight to Jeanne,” he says and, frowning, grips my hand harder.

That is just as well, for suddenly a carriage with a grand coat of arms emblazoned on its side passes through the Place Royale, causing the crowd to part. But then the coach is brought to a sudden standstill. A raddled woman with a rouged face and tattered clothes staggers drunkenly in front of it. The coachman shouts at her to move, but the woman laughs and waves a bottle up at the coachman and proceeds to tell him – Christophe translates for me again – that he is the bastard son of the Devil and she will see him in Hell.

There is a moment of absolute stillness… as if the crowd holds its breath. Then the coachman cracks his whip and the carriage moves on, knocking the woman to the ground and rolling over her. And though she is still clearly alive, for I can hear her call out, no one goes to help her. They simply hurry by and pretend not to notice.

I thrust Jeanne into Christophe’s arms and,
before he can stop me, I run across to her. But there is nothing to be done. The coach wheels have crushed her chest. Blood bubbles out of her mouth and her eyes have rolled up into her head.

A man, a street sweeper, muttering and swearing under his breath, comes to move the body. He starts to drag her away, with as little dignity as if she were a dead dog.