Deceit (14 page)

He tries to dive out of its path, but he is dealt a heavy blow by it and tossed like a rag doll into the air. He lands with a sickening crash on the cobbles. Christophe, hearing the commotion behind him, slows and looks over his shoulder. Surely he must see the carriage coming towards
him, gathering speed with every revolution of its wheels?

I cry out, willing him to leap out of the way. Jeanne is sobbing now as if her little heart is breaking. I run towards Christophe with my arms outstretched and calling his name. But it is as if he has been turned to stone and cannot move.

Martha runs after me and gathers me to her as the coachman makes one last desperate effort to rein in the horses. She presses my face into her shoulder. I hear the gasps from the crowd as Christophe is trampled under the horses’ hooves.

The whole world has turned black as if storm clouds block out the light. I cannot move a muscle, though every particle of me wants to run to be with Christophe. Martha tries to soothe me, but her voice is grim. Such accidents are common in every city. She knows, as I do, how terrible Christophe will look.

I must have turned grey as ash and look as if I am about to faint, for Martha sits me hurriedly down on a nearby step. “I will go to Christophe, but I must see how badly injured the Doctor is first.”

I look up at her as if to say,
Why do you care about him, when he is the cause of all our misery?

She says, “We need to know… for the worse he is injured, the more time we have to escape.” She hurries towards the crowd gathered about Nicholas. Already the name Robert Benoit is being whispered from person to person and the crowd is getting bigger with each minute that passes.

Martha is slight of build, but very determined. She pushes through the mass of people like a hot knife through butter. Then a few moments later I see her again, running towards Christophe’s body lying motionless and broken on the cobbles. There is no crowd about him… for his is just another raggedy commonplace accident.

I watch her crouch down over his body. Then she straightens, turns and slowly walks back to me. Kneeling beside me she presses Christophe’s ring into my hand. I know at once what that means. All hope that he may still be alive is extinguished… for only death can part him from the ring.

“I want to be with him. We must take care of his body, Martha,” I say, my voice level and measured as if all emotion has drained from me. I feel strangely calm and my body feels cold as ice.
“The sweeper must not have it…” But then my ring begins to burn even more fiercely and a shadow falls over us on the step.

A foul odour that I had hoped never to smell again fills the air… and I look up into the face of Silas Becke. Violently he pushes Martha aside and kicks her hard on the head as she lies on the ground. Then he drags me up onto my feet.

“So. Here we are then. You left me for dead and now you and the little one will pay….”

“Nicholas will not want us dead,” I say. “If you kill us, I promise you he will kill you.”

“Nah,” he snarls and his spit flecks my face, “he’s finished, that one. He won’t live. He’s knocking at Death’s door and will soon be let in.”

He takes out a knife and holds it against Jeanne’s cheek. I scream and grab the blade in my hand and try to push it away. I can see blood, but strangely I feel no pain at all. Then, just as I think he will pull the knife from out of my hand, slicing it in two, a look of surprise crosses his face and his grip on the knife handle weakens. He topples sideways onto the ground. Martha is on her feet and has plunged her knife into his back and with great accuracy. This time the knife wound is fatal.

Martha looks about her hurriedly, but in the commotion no one has noticed Silas fall. She pulls out the knife carefully and wipes it clean on Silas’s jerkin. Then together we drag his body into the nearest alleyway and run.

When we are far enough away, it is safe to stop and we catch our breath while we lean against a wall. Martha looks a little dazed still from the blow to her head, but she takes my bleeding hand and ripping strips from her skirt, binds it. “Silas is dead and Nicholas is in a bad way. Though he is conscious, for he shouted out and called your name. We have time enough I’m sure, to work out a good plan of escape.”

Escape… not yet, because all I can think of now is Christophe. I cannot let his body be dragged away and tossed into some communal pit. He must be buried properly. But how can that be done? I speak so very little French. Martha none. Who then can I trust?

Luc. At first he is in a state of shock, but he quickly comes out of it when we tell him everything. He says he will go at once and find Christophe’s body and arrange for a burial. He will
need money to pay for it. There is a little gold still in my pocket and that is surely acceptable currency anywhere. But Martha is already holding out a purse bulging with French livres.

“Where did you come by that?” I ask, surprised that she has so much. But she presses her finger against her lips and gives a little shake of her head. Then I understand: Martha stole Nicholas’s purse while he lay injured. Well, what of it? Nicholas has caused Christophe’s death and so it is only right and proper he should pay for his burial. And a great deal more besides…

After Luc leaves the theatre, Annie takes us up into one of the boxes where we can draw the curtains and have some privacy. Between us we make a plan. Martha’s part in it terrifies me, for I am afraid of losing her too. But she is steely in her determination.

She will return to the house on the Rue de Montmorency. She wants to be sure we have enough time before Nicholas is recovered, before he becomes a danger to us again. “And we will need more money, if we are to escape Paris,” she says. “Do not worry… Nicholas did not see
me with you. He only had eyes for Christophe. And he knows nothing about Silas’s death. I will be safe. The moment I am back, Margrat, and Christophe is buried, we will leave Paris and return to England. And with our Lord’s blessing, we will have many weeks of grace before Nicholas is well enough to come after us. I will be back in a trice, you’ll see.”

But we wait and wait. Annie and I sit close together, nursing our babies, making small gestures of affection to comfort each other: a little pat on the hand, a stroke on the arm, but saying very little.

Luc returns with news. Money talks and the priest of a little Catholic church off the Rue St Jacques has agreed to bury Christophe. No awkward questions asked. Christophe’s body is safe now in the church, awaiting his burial tomorrow.

But Martha does not return. The theatre opens for the afternoon performance and is full to bursting. Luc and Annie have work to do.

Jeanne and I tuck ourselves away in a dark corner at the back of the stage and wait. There is still no sign of Martha. But then, just when the theatre is about to close and Luc, Annie and I are
preparing to leave, she appears. She has a livid red mark around her neck. Her voice is hoarse and she can speak only in a whisper.

“The Doctor was in his bed when I went in, but awake and in a great deal of pain. He has broken ribs and a broken leg. He asked me where I had been and he asked after Silas too. I said I had seen the accident and had come back to the house to make ready for his return and was surprised when Silas was not with him. And I said, with my fingers crossed behind my back, ‘When you were brought back to the house, you were delirious and not in your right mind. And your purse had been stolen… and I would not be surprised if Silas had some part in that!’”

The Doctor frowned on hearing this, then he called me closer to the bed and, before I could stop him, he had a cord from the bed curtain about my neck and was pulling it tight. I could not breathe. He drew my face down to his and said, ‘You had better be telling me the truth. Now go and find Silas. Put the word out that he is a thief and there will be a reward for his capture. If Christophe was in Paris then Margrat will be here somewhere too and with my daughter… if Margrat has been delivered safely
of a baby girl. I mean to find them.’ Then he let the cord drop. He fell back on the pillows. His face was grey and his breathing was ragged and harsh. My hands itched to do him more harm, God only knows. But without my help, I don’t think he will be back on his feet for a good while yet. He doesn’t know that Christophe is dead, Margrat. That is a good thing. He’ll be looking for the two of you still. And he doesn’t know for sure about Jeanne. Not yet at least. Now, we must go back to your room. You need to rest. We have a lot to do.”

I take her hand. “Promise me you will not go back there again.”

“Oh, I promise,” she says with a little smile, as she unties the bundle she is carrying. It is full of silver and gold trinkets… and a little music box that she says will amuse Jeanne.

We go back to my little room, Martha and I, and once the door is safely shut and Jeanne is fed and sleeping, I can begin to grieve for Christophe. I press my face into an old shirt that still smells of him and I start to cry. Silently. The stresses and strains of the past months are released like a head of water breaching a mud wall. First a little trickle,
then a riverlet, and then a great flood of anger and love, sorrow and pain, released at last.

“I never once said that I loved him, Martha, because Nicholas was always there in my head, distorting everything. Even now, after all that he has done…”

How I long for some laudanum to ease the pain. I can feel myself slipping down again into that dark place I last visited when my little boy had been stillborn.

Panic enters my body and I lose control; my arms are flailing and I am gasping for breath and I spring up from the bed and rush to the door, trying to open it. I must run as far away from Martha and Jeanne as I can. I bring bad luck to everyone who loves me. I would be better off dead. I will disappear into the nameless alleyways of Paris, then the darkness will roll over me and that will be an end of it all.

But Martha will not allow it. I fight her, but she holds me tight until the panic is gone and I am limp as a pulled lettuce. She undresses me gently and tucks me beneath the bedcovers with Jeanne. Then she lies down beside me. I will not let go of her hand and so we pass the night all three together.

Sometimes we sleep a little. But when Martha senses I am awake, we talk and I tell her where I have buried the casket in the orchard at Darke House, “In case something should happen to me…” Then I tell her about my journey here with Christophe and she tells me about how she found Nicholas half dead on the steps of Darke House.

“The mob had beaten him severely, but he managed to crawl back home and I was there, looking for
you
. But you were gone…”

“I am sorry,” I whisper. “It happened so quickly. There was the chance to escape and I took it. I was on my way to find you when…”

“It doesn’t matter one jot. We’re together now. That’s all that counts. After I found Nicholas, I went back to work for him at Darke House, wanting to stay close to
him
, so that I might hear news of
you
. He was obsessed with finding you, Margrat, he was quite mad with it. The only time he thought of anything else was when he would get up at dawn to recite those spells of his. Then the news came that you had been seen with Christophe, and I knew that wherever the Doctor was going, I had to go too, whatever the cost. Then in Gravesend I saw you and what a stroke of luck that was!

“When the Doctor made enquiries and was told a red-haired woman and a Frenchman had taken the ferry across the river only that morning… well, I knew it was a false trail. ‘Let the Doctor follow it!’ I prayed. And my prayers were answered… that time at least! So we took the ferry across the river and travelled on a little way towards Harwich. The Doctor lived in hope we would hear more news of you and I lived in hope we would not! But the trail went cold and he was plunged into such a misery. He said we would return to Gravesend and if we found out nothing new there, go back to London. My heart sang when he said that. But, when we got back to Gravesend, there was that gorbellied Silas Becke… wounded, but well enough to spill the beans. And goodness, Margrat… his anger with you was burning him up. I should have murdered him myself then and there. The Doctor always carries a vial of hemlock with him – I should have waited until Silas was asleep and snoring like a pig, then poured it into his gaping maw. That would have stopped his heart dead! Sadly, I was too afraid, and then it was too late.

“The Doctor knew you’d been travelling
towards Rochester. So that’s where we went… with Silas Becke in tow, for the Doctor thought he might be useful. From Rochester we followed your trail to Dover. You must have been long gone by the time we reached there. The Doctor set about gathering information straight away. He offered money for news of you. A man called Jonah Spry came forward…”

I feel such disappointment when she says Jonah’s name. I had thought him trustworthy. The ring had told me that he was.

“He said that you had been hoping to travel to France, but had no papers and could find no one to take you. He said he believed you had gone back inland…”

Oh! So Jonah had not betrayed us after all. I am glad of it.

“But the Doctor, would he rest? No. We headed along the coast towards Rye. He sent Silas ahead, but there was no news. No one would say a word for any amount of money. They were afraid that the Doctor had links to the Customs men. So for days we were stuck fast, like cows in river mud. One minute the Doctor was determined to travel back to London. The next we would cross to France, which
we did at last at the beginning of December. Oh, Margrat, never travel then! The seas were so high, I prayed to God that I’d die… and take the Doctor and Silas Becke with me! But I didn’t as you can see… and we landed in Dunkirk. There was no sign of you there and so we travelled straight on to Paris, stopping only once at Amiens.”

Amiens! With the shock of everything that had happened, I had forgotten about Ralf. I sit bolt upright in bed. “Martha… Ralf is here in France! I saw him at Christmas, just before Jeanne was born, in a coach that was heading for Amiens! I thought he must be heading there to work on the cathedral.”