Minuet (11 page)

She looked at him, questioning, hopeful, then her eyes flew to Mérigot. The glance did not escape Degan, but if Mérigot gave her any signal in reply, he was not fast enough to read it. The two seemed to have some understanding, some agreement not to discuss it further, he thought, from the manner in which Mérigot immediately began to discuss the play, too glibly, too enthusiastically, and Sally too entered into this new discussion.

He hoped the play would cheer the girl up. It was
School for Scandal,
a comedy by Sheridan, some years old by now, but still often played and well accepted. It had some elements of French farce, and Degan expected to see Sally smiling, but as he sat behind her with Harlock at the back of the box, he was unable to confirm it. At the intermission seats were exchanged, Mérigot civilly offering the front seat to Degan. Sally said, however, that she would prefer the back of the box, which inclined Degan to remain where he was. He was enjoying the thing himself. There were some speeches by the old man, Sir Peter Teazle, who had married a young frivolous wife, that almost reminded him of some interchanges between themselves. He glanced at her often, hoping to catch her eye, but she sat unmoved, dispirited. At the high point of the farce, when Sir Peter’s wife was hiding behind a screen and Sir Peter in a cupboard, believing the lady behind the screen to be a French milliner, Degan and the rest of the audience were in loud gaffaws. He looked again at Sally, and saw a tear beginning to trickle down her cheek, while she bit her bottom lip between her teeth.

“I want to go home, Degan,” she said, pulling on his sleeve.

“I’ll take you,” he answered without an instant’s hesitation. He whispèred in Harlock’s ear, telling him to take a hired carriage, and they left at once. Mérigot cast one long, meaningful look on Sally before they went. It unsettled Degan, but he felt he had carried the day as he got her to himself for the trip home.

“You didn’t like the play?” he asked, taking his customary place beside her on the banquette, and waiting for her to take his arm.

“It was very good,” she said. “I am surprised at such a comic flair from an Englishman.”

“I noticed you were not smiling,” he pointed out.

“Ah, it was
too
French,
mon ami.
There is the trouble. The very same thing happened to Mama when we lived with Grandpère Augé. Very like, but it was Monsieur Béron who had to hide behind the screen when his wife came to tell Mama how he was being unfaithful to her. How it makes me homesick for Mama and Édouard! Ten days now. When do you think they will come?”

“I don’t like the way Fox is dragging his heels. I begin to think if we want to see them alive we must make other plans. The ship that was to take the men sits at anchor waiting for approval to leave.”

“You mean to say the ship has not left yet?” she asked, incredulous. “Papa said
any day
I might see them. I thought the ship left a week ago. They have only a little money left, and there is no saying Belhomme has not raised the price of asylum. He is a
cochon,
that one. Oh, Degan, what am I to do?” she asked, her voice rising in panic.

He had the experience of not one hand on his arm, but two, clutching at him as if he were a raft in the middle of an ocean. She was soon sniffling as well, and accepting a handkerchief, while he sat woodenly, wondering what comfort he might offer without being guilty of taking advantage of the situation. He wanted to take her in his arms and comfort her, to say he would personally dash to France and bring the mother back, but prudence held him in check. He did not speak French at all well, had no idea how to get to France at the height of a war and an internal revolution, and would not know what to do if he could by some miracle get himself spirited across the water. There were mysterious cards required, red
toques,
strange outfits.

“It will be all right,” he said, patting her hands, and taking the firm resolution that he would himself go to Fox and put a rocket under him.

“Oh no, it will
not
be all right! Mama told me how it would be. Keep nagging him, she told me, he is a putter-offer, and I have nagged him every day till my face is blue, but he does nothing. The
charrette
will come and take them to the guillotine, while I, who should have done something more than talk to Papa, dance their life away. I am as bad as Robespierre. I too should be put to the national razor.”

“Don’t talk nonsense,” he said, but his own impatience received a sharp boost from her gloomy forebodings. “Let us go to Fox’s place right now, talk to him tonight.”

“Pshaw, that laggard! It is not he who will save them. I see that now. It is more waste of time.”

Just as he braced himself to reach an arm out for her, she suddenly sat up straight and threw back her shoulders. Wiping her tears away with the back of her hand, she returned his handkerchief.
“Merci bien.
The tears do no good at such a time. You are very kind, Degan, but you possess the British phlegm that wants always to wait, to go through channels, instead of darting across them.”

“You’re right. Maybe it’s time to be in touch with some of those émigrés and do it ourselves.”

“Now you begin to speak sense,” she complimented him.

“We’ll get down to La Forge first thing in the morning and arrange it. Henry will know which men are the most reliable. This is what should have been done at the start.”

“It was you who told me to depend on Mr. Fox! A week I have wasted waiting for Monsieur Renard to rise up off his haunches. They could be home by now.”

“It’s not too late.”

“It is nearly too late,” she said impatiently.

“I’ll come around first thing in the morning—early. At eight o’clock. Be up and dressed.” He felt some stirring of the blood at this decision. Some excitement that was caused not only by involving himself in the administration of the affair; he was beginning to tinker with the notion of going to Paris with the men himself. Surrounded by a group of French-speaking fellows, he could deal well enough, and would be of help in a brawl. He could handle his fists better than most.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be up and dressed long before that,” she replied, with a trace of irony that he mistook for worry. As if she could afford to wait till morning! She would go to Henri that very night. Mama would have preferred not to have to make use of Henri, but in her own heart, she had felt all along no one could manage the affair so well as her dear Henri.

Degan received no offer to come in for wine, but with a million things to consider, he was not disappointed. He dashed straight home and went to his safe to count how much money he had available, till he recalled Mérigot’s words that English money would attract attention. His wardrobe was ransacked for outfits, though he realized in advance he was unlikely to find either a
bonnet rouge
or a
carmagnole
there.

When Harlock returned from the play, he found his daughter waiting up for him. “I thought you had a headache,” he said.

“It is gone. Papa, how much money do I have?”

“What, is all the money I gave you gone?”

“Yes, I had much to buy. But I mean real money.”

“You have spent a great deal, my dear.”

“I need five hundred pounds, Papa,” she said bluntly, unapologetically.

“Impossible! Lud, you’ve never taken up gambling, Sal?”

“No, I have heard of a poor émigré family that is destitute. The girl sick and the boy crippled, unable to work. They need a doctor, Papa, and money for food. I want to give them five hundred pounds of my own money, that Aunt Dee left me.”

“It seems a large sum to throw away, but if you want to play Lady Bountiful, I’ll go to the bank tomorrow.”

“I would like it tonight, Papa. Tomorrow very early Henri is coming to take me to them. You have some money in your safe,
non?”

“Not five hundred pounds. Nothing like it.”

“How much?”

“Maybe two hundred.”

“That will do,” she decided, and arose that moment to go with him to the safe to get in her own hands the two hundred pounds.

“I will be gone with Henri when you wake up tomorrow, Papa. Don’t expect me back before lunch. The family is in a great hurry, and Henri and I may do some shopping for them.”

“Very well, but mind you don’t go into a diseased house and come down with a fever. Let Henry do it.”

“You would like that, eh, Papa? For Henri to catch a fever and die.”

“I don’t wish the boy any ill.”

“Kind of you,” she answered quite sharply, and turned to leave. Then suddenly she looked over her shoulder, to see him frowning abjectly at his fall from favor. With a worry that she might not see him again, she ran and threw her arms around him. “I love you, Papa. You are a wicked
chou,
but I love you. Remember that.”

“I love you too, Sal,” he answered humbly. “As to Mérigot,” he went on, in the tone of a concession, “if your heart is quite set on bringing him into this family...” He stopped just short of complete capitulation.

She waited a moment for him to go on, but in the end was in too great a hurry to wait for him to overcome his obvious reluctance. She went to her room, holding the important money, rooting through her drawers for the
carte civile
of Agnès Maillard. The tatters she had worn to London had long since been discarded, but Henri would arrange clothing.

To reach him, she wore her plainest gown and a dark pelisse and bonnet, like a Christian. Say that at least for England. They had not made God an outlaw, as they had in France. She waited till her father went to his room before slipping silently down the dark stairs, to run through the empty streets like a shadow in the night, unnoticed till she came at last to the district where Henri lived. While this location was respectable, it was not the best district, and an unescorted female passed without comment. He was at the door, looking out for her.

“I knew you would come, Minou,” he said tenderly, taking her hands. They entered together into a smallish, inelegant saloon, where lamps were lit, and wine waiting to be poured.

“Oh, Henri, you are not living in this hovel!” she said, looking around with dismay at the cramped quarters, with shabby furnishings.

“I do better than some of our countrymen,” he replied, reaching to remove her pelisse and take her bonnet. “It is temporary. A rather
long
temporary, but one day things will be better.”

“We will arrange it later. Nothing has been done, Henri. You were right all along, and I a fool to trust the
anglais.”

“Hush,
chérie,”
he cautioned, putting a finger to her lips. “They mean well, but are only stupid and slow-moving. It means less to them. What do they care if two more Frenchies have their necks stretched on the guillotine?”

“Papa cares. Of that I am sure, but he trusts Fox too much.”

“Cares? He would not have cast your mother aside if he
cared.
Nor would he have treated me as he has all these seven years I have been in London, starving half the time. Not a word would he put in for me in the right circles. With only a little recognition from him I might have obtained a post that would have enabled me to live decently. But he has always been jealous of me. It is true. You know it.”

“He has treated you badly, but he has been the soul of kindness to
me.
You are not his son, after all, Henri, and since I am here he has treated you better. I will
make
him accept you. He has as well as done it.”

“He knows your mother would have wished it.
Eh bien, n’importe.
We have more important things to discuss. Now I think you see the wisdom of my preparations. It is clear I must go myself and rescue Marie.”

“Yes, it is the only way. Even Degan thinks so now.”

“That cautious old parson would know,
hein?”

She smiled deprecatingly at the description. “What preparations have you made,
ch
é
ri?”

“I have done all I could do without money. I have the
cartes civiles,
the outfits, a good up-to-date map of Paris, some
assignats.
Not as much as I would like. I have sold or pawned all that I have. I have not arranged for horses to meet us, but Rasselin has made arrangements for a crossing on the smuggling lugger. It remains only to select a few men to go with me. DuVal and—”

“I go with you too.”

“No,
ma ch
é
re,
your mother would never forgive me. You have had one miraculous escape. This time,
I
go.”

“I would be more help than any of them. I have the most recent information on Paris. I have some few connections, with the Maillards at Berck for one thing. I know the Maison Belhomme and can show you Mama’s room there. We might manage to get to her window at night, Henri, and bring her out that way. I know all the routine at the asylum, where she walks in the orchard, and the servants, and so on. I must go.”

“Too dangerous. I don’t want to lose you so soon, when I have just got you back after all these years. I am older. You must listen to me, Minou.”

“Henri, don’t try that old stunt on me. You are older, but I am smarter. Who saved you and Édouard from being arrested for breaking the windows at the Maison de Ville? Who went right into the office and wept bitter tears for the gray hairs it would give Mama?”

He laughed in fond memory. “True, you were a very precocious little girl. But don’t think the old man fell in love with you! You flatter yourself,
ma mie.
Édouard and I paid him handsomely to forget our names, and let us go.”

“He
did
fall in love with me! I received half a dozen
billets doux
from him, but I didn’t tell you, because I knew you would beat him up.”

“So I would, and will do it yet if the guillotine hasn’t beat me to him. You’re very sure of your charms. Still up to your old tricks, too. I see you working them on Degan. He is falling in love with you, you know. I measure his infatuation by the strength of his glares at me. He has taken into his head to be jealous of me.”

“Well, he is not too bright, Henri.” She laughed.