Daughters of the Storm (25 page)

Sophie looked up from her writing. She was always writing these days.

‘I rather approve of Marie-Victoire,' she said unexpectedly. ‘Doesn't she represent a new France?'

‘Are you turning political, Sophie?'

‘No... well a little perhaps. We have to grow up, Héloïse, you know.'

Héloïse sat down beside Sophie and tried to see what her cousin had been writing but failed. ‘Yes, we do,' she said. ‘But we don't quite know how, do we?'

Sophie turned to look directly into Héloïse's face. ‘We must take it seriously. We really must.'

There was a small, tense silence.

‘Well, the new France may be invigorating, but it is decidedly inconvenient,' drawled Héloïse in a passable imitation of de Choissy.

Sophie burst into laughter.

‘You are improving,' she said. ‘Can it be that Madame le Comtesse de Choissy has a sense of humour, or indeed harbours liberal sentiments? I will have you declaring yourself a republican next.'

‘Never,' said Héloïse catching at her breath. ‘I will never be that. And nor will you be, Miss Luttrell, for all your fine talk.'

Chapter 7

‘Allons, enfants de la patrie
...'

Marie-Victoire was humming a song which had become very popular in Paris. The tune was infectious and she sang it with a good deal of feeling in her very nice soprano. She was down on her hands and knees scrubbing the rough floor. Plunging in and out of a bucket of suds, she scrubbed away. Slowly, but surely, she liberated the grain of the wood from its coat of dirt for the first time in many years. It gave Marie-Victoire a ridiculous amount of pleasure to see it.

Task finished, she heaved herself to her feet, stretched wearily but contentedly, and lugged the bucket outside and emptied it of the dirty water and walked down the street to pump. It required pumping hard and she had to concentrate. A neighbour called out a greeting and Marie-Victoire responded well aware that the suspicions with which a stranger was always regarded when they first arrive in a small, tight-knit community were already beginning to drop away. Not that the Cordeliers or the St Germain area was unused to strangers: they arrived in their droves every year in every quarter of the city, searching for work and for lodgings; some in reasonable shape, others so bent and ill-formed with hunger and toil that they could barely walk. But lately the immigrants had changed: the men were now invading Paris were arriving because they had heard talk and they were curious, or committed – or on the make.

Well, good luck to them, thought Marie-Victoire.

Stepping around and over the animal skins and offal heaped by the pump and in the gutters, she heaved the bucket back to her room and set about the task of washing down the walls.

The room was small but the water was soon black with accumulated cobwebs and shavings of candle-grease which she was forced to scrape off the wall with a knife.

Standing back to admire her handiwork, Maire-Victoire rubbed her hands dry on her coarse stuff apron. When... when?... she had an odd sou to spare, she planned to buy some whitewash and paint the walls over. Still, even to her critical eye there was a marked improvement. Again, she threw the dirty water into the street. A small boy shouted an obscenity in her direction and she stuck her tongue out at him. She grinned as he ducked out of sight and decided that all small boys were pests.

Sitting down at a very small table which she and Pierre had salvaged, she began to make some calculations on a piece of old broadsheet that she had scooped up from the street. Fifteen sous for candles. Twenty-five sous for sugar. Twelve sous for bread. Eighteen sous for soap. Tongue sticking out of her mouth with the effort... ‘what a sweet little tongue it is...' Pierre had teased her when he caught her at it... she totted the amount up and set it against the sum of money she had made by selling two of Héloïse's cast-off gowns and her mother's silver chain, the one piece of jewellery she had ever possessed. After a deal of addition and subtraction, Marie-Victoire concluded that she possessed twenty sous to last her for the rest of the month. (The money Héloïse had given her was lying wrapped in a stocking at the bottom of her box of clothes, for use only in an emergency.)

She tapped her stick of charcoal on the end of her nose. The gesture made her feel extremely businesslike, so she scrawled two decisive lines at the bottom of her sums and pushed the paper aside. It seemed a long time since, clutching a parcel of clothes and a purse of money, she had left the Hotel de Choissy but, in fact, it was only a little over two weeks. Sweetly, Héloïse had been concerned over Marie-Victoire's arrangements and had suggested coming to see where Marie-Victoire was going to live. That would have been too much... to embarrassing really, certainly too private, and Marie-Victoire had not encouraged the idea and Héloïse had not persisted.

Marie-Victoire felt churlish about it all, but she had wanted to walk over the threshold for the first time with Pierre. More important perhaps, she wanted to begin her new life unencumbered by anything from the old. Jealous of her new independence, she certainly did not want to be marked out for gossip and speculation in the tiny street by the arrival of Héloïse in her carriage.

Lying just to the south of the Pont Neuf, the Cordeliers district was one of the oldest parts of Paris and the Rue des Sts Pères was situated on its western boundary. Proud of its idiosyncratic flavour and character, men from the Cordeliers reckoned they were men to be reckoned with. Unless they fancied a fight, fellow Parisians from other areas such as the St Antoine or Pologne, or even from adjacent St Germain, were careful not to insult a ‘Cordeliers'. In the Cordeliers, the streets were densely packed and choatic, following the pattern laid down when the terrain was mostly fields and the black-and grey-cowled monks from the great religious orders walked to and from the heart of the city. The houses tended to be many storied and most were built of wood faced with grey and yellow stone. Here and there the thoroughfares opened out into squares dotted with plane trees where people sat and drank and children played.

It was a busy community, and one that now hummed with added excitement, for many of the men who were involved in the latest political upheavals lived in it – Danton, Desmoulins and Marat. Not only that, since war had been declared the Cordeliers headquarters were crowded with officials caught up in the business of recruitment.

Everywhere there were soldiers; draped over mounting-blocks and fountains, drinking in the smelly, smoke-filled
cabotines
and generally making life unbearable for the mothers of countless excited small boys.

For Marie-Victoire these two weeks had been an education... one which she found herself treading the terrain of a new world. It had not taken her long to discover what she had always suspected, that the Rue des Sts Pères was a very different place from the comfort of the Hôtel de Choissy. It took courage to launch yourself into the life on the streets – a life that ceaselessly spawned, struggled to survived and often died. A life where it was everyone for himself. You lived, or you didn't, and nobody much cared. One stroke of bad luck and that was it. Nevertheless, for the first time in her life the choices were now Marie-Victoire's to make. What freedom was that?

The answer was: everything.

Pierre came each night and left during the day to do his own work. He told Marie-Victoire that he had several business arrangements which involved driving the cart around Paris, plus a string of contacts and friends, from one of whom he leased the cart and horse. He planned to buy his own as soon as finances permitted, he informed her, dropping a kiss onto her shoulder. Meanwhile he was managing nicely with his employers' animals. Marie-Victoire was not sure quite what it all involved, and because Pierre was a little reluctant to discuss his activities in detail she did not enquire too closely. She was still finding out about Pierre, and a little unsure of her ground and she felt it wiser to hold her peace. It was enough that she had him at night. Nights that she blushed to remember.

At first, Marie-Victoire had been shy and more than a little frightened, but Pierre's honesty, tenderness and open good humour soon dispelled her fears and embarrassment. She had much to learn, but Marie-Victoire (and she blushed again) was proving a willing pupil, and the times they enjoyed together brought her a happiness and contentment that she had never dreamed would be hers.

She was hungry. Hacking at a loaf, she broke off a chunk, sliced the cheese. Chewing on the gritty bread, she decided what to attempt next. Even thinking about her decisions gave her pleasure. A draught of fresh air flowing over her life. The joy of being her own mistress and of apportioning her time as she wished! To be alone and free and – naturally - about to make her fortune...

The meal over, she tackled first the materials that Pierre had procured at a good price from a warehouse which had been selling up its goods on the west of the city. The bundles required several layers of dirty sacking to be unpeeled, which made her sneeze, and revealed three rolls of cloth. A white muslin, a pink taffeta and a beige cotton. None of them was of particularly good quality, but they looked well enough if they weren't inspected too closely. Marie-Victoire pondered and then hefted them, one by one, over to the window that fronted the street. Depositing the contents of the table-top on to the floor, she dragged that too over to the window, carefully lifted the rolls on to the table and draped the material over it.

She squinted critically at her handiwork and went outside to view it from the street. Disappointment. The window display looked meagre and uninviting. Having no experience to draw on, she did not know how to make matters better. But she did know enough to know that she would have to do a lot better to tempt in customers.

Remembering something, Marie-Victoire went out into the courtyard that lay to the back of the building where four bales of straw had been left. Dragging two of them back into the room, - sighing when they littered wisps of straw over her clean floor - she manhandled them over to the window. Then, with the ease of someone country born and bred, she swung them up on to the table and began to drape the lengths of material around them. With the addition of a clever nip and a tuck here and there she was able to fashion them into something that looked deceptively like ready-made gowns. Folding the ends underneath the bales, she went back outside to take a look.

The change was startling. The window looked just right – inviting, professional and hinting at concealed riches inside. Marie-Victoire rubbed her hands together and sent up a silent prayer that the Rue des Sts Pères would attract enough passers-by with some money to spend. Still, she reasoned ( and was this the optimism of youth?) very soon the word would spread.

‘Allons, enfants...
,' she sang again and her voice floated into the street, stopping the man outside in his tracks. He listened with a smile and went inside.

‘You sound happy,' he said, depositing a bottle of wine on the table.

‘Pierre!' Marie-Victoire rushed over to him and threw her arms about his neck. ‘What a surprise. Why are you here?' she asked, her voice muffled by his shoulder.

Pierre dropped a kiss on to the top of her cap and then buried his lips in her neck, savouring her fresh warm smell. He had been collecting saltpetre and was black with grime.

‘Missed me?'

‘Of course.'

‘Well, then, let's see what you have done today.'

Pierre inspected the room. ‘Good,' he said after a moment, and proceeded to open the wine. ‘We must drink to this
Santé
Marie-Victoire.'

He swigged a mouthful and, leaning forward, applied his lips to hers and trickled some wine into her mouth. Marie-Victoire melted.

‘Delicious,' said Pierre, enjoying the little gasp of pleasure that she gave.

‘We will be so happy here,' she said, clinging to him. ‘Won't we? You and me. Won't we, Pierre?'

‘We will,' he replied, and bent to kiss her again. ‘How did I have the luck to find you?' he asked.

Marie-Victoire smiled, the warm, happy smile of a woman who knows she is loved, and settled herself in his embrace.

His arm still around her neck, Pierre drank more of the wine and wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve.

‘I've got you some stuff,' he said.

Marie-Victoire opened her eyes wide. ‘How?' she asked innocently, and then giggled.

‘Looted,' said Pierre without going into detail and winked at her.

‘Dieu!
What is it?'

‘Material, linen, clothes, you know the sort of thing. But first things first,
ma doucette.'

He drew her to him and pushed her gently towards the closet that led off the room and served as their bedroom. It was tiny and airless and the walls were streaked with damp. The floor was almost entirely taken up by a mattress and by two cardboard boxes that contained Marie-Victoire's scanty possessions. Pierre seemed to fill the space. His hands roved over her kerchief and loosened the laces of her stuff gown which fell obediently down over her legs. Then, when she stood naked, he ran his hands up her flanks and stomach, lingered on her breasts, and laid her on the mattress.

When Marie-Victoire awoke the sun was high in the sky, and she lay for a moment trying to remember where she was. The closet was stuffy and smelt of their hot bodies. Pierre's arm lay across her body and she removed it gently. He sighed and murmured and she leant over to kiss the side of his head before sliding noiselessly off the mattress. She pulled on her linen chemise and knelt to say a quick prayer to ask forgiveness for the sin she had committed. The prayer was more for form's sake than anything else. The unmarried Marie-Victoire had no intention of stopping loving Pierre, but she worried about what the church would condemn as fornication because... because the church's teachings were graven deep into her.