Surrender to a Stranger (43 page)

The Château de Lambert was seven hours from Paris by coach.

In the past Jacqueline had always traveled in one of her father’s many private carriages, which were large and sumptuous, and therefore the trip had not seemed overly tiresome. But a private coach would attract attention, so she was forced to take the crowded public coach, which only went as far as the town of Orléans. Justin had quickly arranged new traveling papers for her in the name of Jeanne Vacquerie. In her new identity she was a maid who worked in a small Paris household. Her father had just died, and she was returning home to comfort her grieving mother. If anyone asked where she was going when she left Orléans and headed toward the Château de Lambert, she was to explain that the Vacquerie cottage was on land that had once belonged to that traitorous aristo the Duc de Lambert. At first she objected strongly to using such an insult, feeling it was unnecessary to betray her father’s name, but Justin finally convinced her that the more revolutionary she could appear, the less apt people would be to question her.

Early that morning Philippe again insisted he wanted to help Jacqueline free Armand from prison. Jacqueline had great difficulty convincing him it was impossible, and that under no circumstances would she permit him to become involved. Their argument was loud and long, and Justin finally had to order them to lower their voices, fearing that the neighbors might hear them and wonder at their argument. Finally Philippe relented, although it was clear he was not happy. He ate the enormous breakfast Justin prepared for him in stony silence, pausing every now and then to glare at Jacqueline. He then accepted a bag from Justin filled with food and warm clothes, bade the two of them a curt good-bye, and left. As Jacqueline watched him go out the door she felt a sudden painful stab of regret. What would become of him? she wondered miserably. The bag of food he carried would run out quickly, and once again he would be forced to steal. The next time he was caught, he might not be fortunate enough to have someone intervene on his behalf.

If her life had been as it was a few years ago, she would have kept him with her and seen to it that he had a warm place to sleep and decent food to eat. She would have brought him to the Château de Lambert to live, perhaps on the pretense of hiring him, just so she knew he was safe. But she did not have the power to protect him now. She was here to risk her life to save Armand, and no matter how much Philippe wanted to help her, she could not allow him to become involved in something so dangerous.

It was late afternoon when she finally arrived at Orléans. Jacqueline stepped down from the coach slowly, her back stiff and her legs aching from sitting in such a cramped position for so long. She adjusted her bonnet, clutched her traveling bag close, and began to walk toward the road that would take her to the château. She hoped she would be able to get a ride with someone for at least part of the way. Although her bag held only a few garments and was therefore not heavy, the day was cold and a light snow was falling, making walking difficult.

“How much farther is it?” asked a curious voice.

She whirled around in surprise, only to find Philippe casually gazing back at her.

“What on earth are you doing here?” she managed, stunned.

He shrugged his shoulders. “I felt like getting out of Paris for a while,” he told her innocently.

“How did you get here?” she demanded, her shock quickly being replaced with anger.

“Same way you did,” he replied, tilting his head back toward the coach. “Except I rode on the back, of course.”

She noticed he was bundled in the new clothes Justin had given him, including a warm-looking red wool cap and sturdy leather boots. At least he had had some protection from the cold during the long trip, she reflected. “Well, you just turn around and get yourself right back on a coach to Paris,” she ordered firmly. “I’ll pay the fare so you can ride on the inside.”

“No,” he replied, shaking his head. “I don’t think I’ll be leaving just yet.”

She sighed in exasperation. She had no way of forcing him to go back. “Fine then,” she snapped. “Do what you like. But you are not to follow me, is that clear?”

He seemed unfazed by her irritation. “Like it or not, Citizeness, you need me. And I know I can help. So why don’t you just accept it so we can get on with this?”

He spoke with quiet insistence, as if he were much older than his years. She stared at him, slightly torn. It was possible he could be of assistance to her. A woman with a young boy who was so obviously a child of the streets was far less likely to be considered suspicious. A second pair of eyes could keep watch while she got the jewels. And ridiculous as it was, somehow she drew comfort from his presence. He always seemed so calm, so sure of himself. The fact that he was here actually made her feel better, although she could not imagine why. Besides, she did not like the idea of him traveling all the way back to Paris alone. Perhaps it would be better if they stayed together.

“Very well,” she sighed. “You may come with me.”

“I knew you’d see it my way,” he told her cheerfully.

She began to walk briskly. “Do you know why we are here?” she asked, careful to keep her voice low.

“To get money,” he replied. “But I don’t know where we are getting it from.”

“We are going to my home,” she informed him. “For now, that is all you need to know.”

It was almost dark when they finally stood in front of the shadowed facade of the Château de Lambert. At first glance the castle looked much as it had when Jacqueline last saw it, a sparkling jewel of cream-colored towers, huge, shimmering windows, and a gleaming, icy-blue slate roof. The château had been built in the early 1500s, not as a fortress, but as a home, and a fine example of Renaissance architecture. The result was a celebration of balance, harmony, and grace, with turrets and machicolations used for decorative whimsy rather than with any defense purposes in mind. One could imagine that on a sunny day the interior of the château would be flooded with light, for there seemed to be windows everywhere, across the front, around the towers, and along the sides. Many of them were now broken and had rough boards nailed against them, giving the château a forlorn, unloved look. As Jacqueline and Philippe walked up the driveway to the entrance, they passed two rows of classical statues, Greek gods and goddesses who once welcomed visitors with their elegant forms and serene expressions. Some had been wrenched from their pedestals and lay in broken heaps upon the ground, while others had had their heads hacked off, a grim reminder of the violent rage felt toward those who dared to live their lives surrounded by such peaceful splendor and opulence. Dozens of trees and shrubs in the surrounding park had been cut down, undoubtedly for firewood, destroying the carefully planned symmetry of the gardens, which had taken more than a hundred years to achieve maturity. Enormous peach-colored marble urns from Italy, which had overflowed with a riot of flowers every summer, now lay smashed to pieces on the ground. The magnificent dove rising out of the fountain in the front garden, the De Lambert symbol of peace, had also been destroyed, its broken wings and head abandoned in the cracked base of the fountain.

“Goddamn—you live here?” whispered Philippe, clearly in awe.

Jacqueline nodded silently as she took in the pitiful sight of her home. She wanted to cry, but of course she could not. It was just one more thing, one more reason to hate the revolution and what it had done to her and her family. She was returning home, but not to stay, so what did it matter if her chateau had been vandalized? At least it is still here, she told herself firmly. It is still standing, and that is all that matters. They have done their damage, but they have not destroyed it, just as they have not destroyed me. I will never live here again, but one day Suzanne and Séraphine will return, and they will restore it to its former grandeur. Comforted by that thought, she forced herself to walk on, steeling herself for the damage that awaited her inside.

They continued up to the front door, where a sign had been crudely nailed into the heavy polished oak. Jacqueline bit down hard on her lip as she read:
NATIONAL PROPERTY
.
REPUBLIC ONE AND INDIVISIBLE
.
LIBERTY
,
EQUALITY
,
FRATERNITY
,
OR DEATH
!

“What’s it say?” demanded Philippe, looking at it suspiciously.

“It says it is national property,” replied Jacqueline in a tight voice.

“Really?” remarked Philippe with interest. “Does that mean I own part of it?”

“Not exactly,” answered Jacqueline. “The government owns it.”

He shrugged his shoulders in disgust. “Can’t see how that does me any good.”

“It doesn’t. Come on, we’ll get in through the back.” She turned away from the hateful sign, resisting the impulse to tear it from the door.

They trudged through the snow around to the back of the château. Jacqueline tried several of the doors, but all of them were locked. Philippe suggested that they simply smash the glass of one of the doors leading onto the terrace so he could crawl in and unlock it from the inside. Although Jacqueline was reluctant to inflict any further damage on her beloved home, she could see this was the only way they were going to get in. Philippe scanned the back garden for something heavy and finally settled on the smiling head of a broken statue. With a small grunt he lifted it up in his skinny arms and heaved it through a glass door. He then climbed through the jagged hole he had created and quickly undid the latch, throwing the door open for Jacqueline to enter.

She stepped into the cold gray shadows of the library and looked around in horror. The outside of the château was nothing compared with the level of ransacking that had occurred inside. Paintings, furniture, and carpets were either missing or completely destroyed. An avalanche of expensive leatherbound books lay mangled and torn on the floor, making it almost impossible to walk from one side of the room to the other. More books had been stuffed into the enormous fireplace in the middle of the library and burned, a vile display of contempt for those who had time to enjoy the luxury of reading. What few pieces of furniture remained had been viciously attacked; a large sofa had had its legs chopped off, possibly for firewood, while the delicate upholstery of several matching chairs had been slashed for no apparent reason, other than to cause their stuffing to spill forth wildly. Jacqueline picked up her skirts and trekked across the sea of books, trying her best to ignore the destruction. But when she got into the corridor and saw three exquisite oil paintings slashed to ribbons, her resolve not to care wavered. She continued down the hall in silence, pausing to glance into the rooms she passed, taking in the wanton destruction, too appalled to speak. Philippe trudged along behind her, glancing into the rooms with more curiosity than dismay, yet sensitive enough of Jacqueline’s state not to say anything.

She intended simply to go upstairs to her room and find the jewels. After all, that was the only reason they were here. But the door to her father’s study was closed, which normally would not have seemed strange, except that the doors to all the other rooms were open. This small incongruity caused her to stop and push down on the latch. The door swung open with a heavy groan.

Jacqueline stepped inside and looked around in disbelief. Unlike the rest of the château, the Duc de Lambert’s study was perfectly neat and in order, as if the destructive fury of the revolution had simply bypassed it. All the furnishings were there, from the beautifully intricate ruby and charcoal Persian carpet to the duc’s exquisitely carved mahogany desk, which was inlaid with mother-of-pearl and gilded with gold leaf. Although Jacqueline had not been here to see that the room was cleaned for months, there was not the slightest trace of dust anywhere. The duc’s books and papers were neatly laid out upon his desk, and his silver ink set was polished and gleaming. Everything in the room had been carefully tended and preserved, in eerie contrast to the pillaging that had occurred in the rest of the château. Disconcerted by the orderly state of the room, Jacqueline turned to leave.

A startled cry escaped her lips as her eyes fell upon the enormous painting on the wall facing her father’s desk. It was a portrait of her family that her father had commissioned in the summer of 1789, just before the fall of the Bastille. The painting depicted the duc seated on a chair beneath an ancient oak tree, with his four loving children positioned around him. Antoine, tall and proud even at sixteen, stood behind his father, while Jacqueline stood beside him, leaning on his massive shoulder with one hand and gently clasping Suzanne’s delicate little hand with the other. Séraphine, who was only two at the time, played on the grass by her father’s feet. The painting was utterly tranquil and idyllic, a handsome, devoted duc with his beautiful children, a scene perfect in every way except for the obvious absence of the children’s mother, and the trace of sadness Jacqueline had always felt was evident in all their eyes.