The French Bride (28 page)

She had to bend very low to hear the whisper. Anne closed her eyes again. She wanted nothing except death, and death was very near. She would have stretched out her arms in welcome had she the strength left; she had no fear of her rescuer, only longing and impatience at his delay in coming.

‘Don't go to sleep, dear.' Marguerite touched her gently. ‘Open your eyes like a good girl; there's something I want to show you.' Anne made the effort to please her. ‘This is your pin, isn't it? I found it in your old dress.…'

It was her pin; she had forgotten it completely. It winked at her with its small bright-blue eye in the light of Madame's lantern. Where had she got it …? Her memory refused its office for a moment, and then a face came to her, handsome and gentle, with eyes the same colour as the stone in the pin. She felt his arms around her and his voice in her ear, and her own tears falling because she did not love him and was sending him away. Francis O'Neil.

‘I love you, I've always loved you … come away with me to Metz.'

She had refused him because she loved that other, and that refusal, and that misbegotten passion for a pitiless fiend had brought her to the cell in the West Tower and to the point of death. The baby stirred and she started at the movement in her womb. Time and sickness had erased so much; she had been conscious of nothing but pain and fever and agonising convulsions. Even before she fell ill there were times in the eternity of the days when she forgot her own identity. Now, the pin in the other woman's hand flashed at her like a tiny light. Poor, sad little jewel; the last gift of a ruined and tragic family to their son and that son's gift to her. Something wet travelled down her cheek; she was crying without knowing it. The woman bent over her again.

‘Don't be distressed,' she said quickly. ‘I didn't mean to upset you. Poor child, I didn't know what to do with it. I daren't leave it with you.…'

She could have kept it; the girl might well have given it to her in gratitude.… But it would still be theft and she knew it.

‘I'll have to give it to the governor,' she said. ‘I wanted you to know I didn't keep it.'

‘No!' To her surprise the heavy eyes grew wild and Anne made a helpless movement to sit up, but then fell back; she was too weak to raise herself. ‘No,' the quavering voice implored her from the bed, ‘don't give it to him.… I beg of you. It's my last wish.… Come closer.'

Marguerite bent to within a few inches of her face. ‘I'm listening, child, speak slowly. I'll do what I can to help you.…'

‘I know. You've been so kind.' She hardly knew what she was saying, another voice filled her ears, a voice full of tenderness and prophecy –‘If ever you need me, send it back and I promise I'll come to you. Even out of the grave.…'

Death, defeat, anonymous burial inside the walls of this hell upon earth; her spirit had reached out for all those things. Now, suddenly, she shrank away, making a physical movement of revulsion. Her child moved again. With a great effort she composed herself.

‘I have nothing and no one in the world,' she whispered, ‘but long ago someone who loved me gave me that. Send it back to him for me.'

Marguerite nodded. ‘I will – but without any message. I can't say who it's from or where it came from … you know that, don't you?'

Anne nodded. ‘Just send it,' she whispered. ‘Please send it; promise me. Captain Francis O'Neil, the Royal Army at Metz.'

‘I'll do it for you.' The woman patted her shoulder. She wouldn't tell her husband. If she sent it anonymously to this captain, there could be no harm and she could keep her promise to the dying girl. A daughter of her own could have been just the prisoner's age.

‘Captain O'Neil at Metz. I'll send it, I promise you.'

Anne closed her eyes and smiled. When Francis got the pin, he'd know she was in danger. He would come back to Paris and begin to look for her. When she opened her eyes a moment later, it seemed as if some of the shadows in the room had gone.

‘Please,' she murmured. ‘Some water now. I'm thirsty.'

An hour later Marguerite rapped on the cell door for the turnkey.

‘Send for the surgeon.'

‘Ah! She's dead then?'

‘No, she's sleeping. I think her breathing's deeper. He'd better look at her before I doze off.'

‘I don't know why you don't go to your bed,' the old man grumbled. ‘She won't last the night. I've seen strapping men die of it within the week.'

He went off, grumbling to himself, down the passage. All this fuss over a miserable wisp of a sickly girl and an unborn brat. She'd be better off dead; there was that much pity left in the corner of his soul to wish that the busy-bodies would let her go in peace.

Two days later the surgeon made his report to the governor. Four prisoners had died, two of them from old age, a third after interrogation, and the fourth was a young man who had succumbed to damp and semi-starvation after a mere nine months' imprisonment. The prisoner in Cell 713 was better; he announced it with triumph and his old enemy glared across the room at him.

‘She's been more trouble than the rest put together,' the governor snapped. ‘You damned well don't take such good care of me, or my staff when we're ill! I'll keep an eye on you, sir, and this pet of yours. I'll have that bed out of there as soon as she's able to get up!'

‘That we'll see,' the surgeon said. ‘And it won't be for many, many weeks yet. And my wife will continue to visit her – with your permission!'

‘Get out!' the governor barked at him. ‘I'll put in a report about you yet. By God I will! I'll get me a surgeon who does what he's told!'

A week later Anne was able to sit up; Marguerite brought her food made in her own kitchen and poured the turnkey's cup of fetid drinking water into the chamber pot. She had smuggled a brush into the cell and she brushed the tangled hair into some semblance of order.

‘You're getting better every day,' she said. ‘Eat this now, it'll give you strength. My husband's so pleased with you, my child, he says it's a miracle!'

‘Perhaps it is,' Anne said. She swallowed the broth with an effort. ‘Madame, did you do what I asked you … did you send that pin for me?'

‘Ssh! Be careful, that old devil lurks outside the door. If he heard anything, God knows what would happen to me, child. Yes, I sent it. I thoúght you were going to die and there didn't seem to be any harm. But you mustn't mention it again. Not even my husband knows.'

‘God bless you,' Anne touched the plump hand and the older woman squeezed it.

There was no harm in a little hope, and she had lived among the desperate for long enough to almost smell hope when it was there. She had sent the pin anonymously and that was dangerous enough. But it was worth the risk to see the poor girl smile and make an effort. She had only three months left before the child was born and that was something even the surgeon didn't care to think about. But his wife had been thinking of nothing else. When the inevitable happened and the mother died, she would take the child herself. It would be a comfort to the girl to know that at the end, but Marguerite was careful not to mention it; she had grown extraordinarily fond of her.

‘Finish that up now, and I'll go. My husband says you must sleep as much as you can. I'll try and slip in for a minute this evening. Remember, don't touch the water, whatever you do!'

When she had gone, Anne lay back and pulled the covers over her. Francis would come to Paris and find her. He must come, before the child was born. The next moment she was fast asleep.

The officer commanding His Majesty's fourth company of musketeers at the Royal Camp at Metz had been on horseback since dawn, watching his men carrying out a complicated battle manoeuvre on the hills outside the city. He was not pleased with the result, and he had already visited his displeasure on his captains who were instructed to convey it to the lieutenants and through them to the musketeers themselves. The finest fighting force in the French army, the colonel grumbled to himself, and they had shown themselves lazy and spiritless in the manoeuvre. If it had not been for the outbreak of dysentery following the plague three months ago, he would have ordered systematic flogging to put a little discipline into them. But his ranks were thin; the two terrible diseases – coupled with the ever present scourge of armies, the White Plague as they called syphilis – had already caused the town of Metz to be evacuated, and the civilians were only just creeping back. There had been no new cases for two months, and the infection was past, but it had left the garrison depleted in numbers and unwarlike in temper.

The colonel had settled down with a bottle of wine and begun yet another angry letter to the King's Minister of War, Monteynard, in Paris, listing his requirements and demanding that this time some notice should be taken of his complaints. He needed more men, more officers, and an outstanding sum in back pay. It was useless to write; no one in the damned palace cared what became of the army until it was time to send it off to war; then miracles were expected and punishments levelled on its commanders if they were not achieved. When his junior captan came to the door, he barked at him irritably.

‘What the devil are you doing! I'm not to be disturbed!'

‘My apologies, sir. I tried to tell you when you came back from the manoeuvre but you were too busy – there's a woman waiting to see you. She was here yesterday and she's been waiting all day today. She says it's important and she won't go away. Will you see her for a moment? She's outside in the passage now.'

‘What woman?' the colonel threw down his pen. ‘Who sent her, idiot, what does she want? Don't you know anything before you come in troubling me?'

‘She wouldn't say, sir. She only says that it's important; she was asking for Captain O'Neil. I thought you might want to have a word with her.'

‘Ha, why didn't you say so before? Send her in.'

Marie-Jeanne came in and stood awkwardly in the doorway, looking uncertainly at the big red-faced man sitting at a table in his shirt sleeves. He had thick dark brows which met above his eyes in an unnerving scowl. The scowl deepened as he saw that the woman in her plain cloak and thick shoes was only a servant.

‘What do you want?' he demanded. ‘Come in, girl, and close the door. What can I do for you?'

‘I am looking for Captain Francis O'Neil, monsieur.'

‘Who are you? Your name, for God's sake, I haven't got all night to waste on you – I'm busy! State your business!'

‘I am Marie-Jeanne Ducro, monsieur, maid to the Marquise de Bernard of Charantaise. I've come from Paris. Monsieur, where is Captain O'Neil?'

‘What do you want with him?' he asked her. The frightened colour was fading from her face; she looked pinched and grey with tiredness. The colonel was not naturally ungallant, even to women of the lower classes.

‘There's a chair there, sit down. You needn't be afraid of me; you're not a musketeer!' He gave a grimace that was meant to be a smile. ‘Paris is a long journey. Why have you come to Metz?'

‘I'm looking for my mistress, the marquise.' The words began to flow from her; she was so nervous and so weary that she stammered.

‘She's disappeared, monsieur; I'm looking for her … I thought I might find her with the Captain. But she's not in the town and no one seems to know anything about her … I'm sorry to trouble you, but I can't find the captain either. Is there a lady with him? I beg of you tell me!'

‘I'm sorry; that fool outside should have told you. There is no lady with Captain O'Neil. There never has been one since he came to my regiment. He died of the plague four months ago.'

‘Oh my God,' Marie-Jeanne's eyes filled with tears. ‘Captain O'Neil is dead.…'

‘Unfortunately, yes. He was one of my best officers in the short time he was with me. I grew fond of him; he had become my friend.'

‘And the marquise never came here, never visited here?' Marie-Jeanne whispered. ‘You are quite sure, monsieur?'

‘Certain. He had no relatives, no friends outside the camp. I still have his personal belongings; I didn't know to whom they should be sent.'

‘I knew it,' Marie-Jeanne said slowly. ‘I knew she wasn't with him. They were all wrong and I was right. Oh, God, monsieur, where is she?'

‘Not here,' the colonel said gently. ‘There's nothing I can do to help you find her. Why did you think your marquise had come here – was she the Captain's mistress? You needn't hesitate with me; I've had ladies join my officers before. It often happens.'

‘The marquise was married, monsieur.' The little maid wiped her eyes. ‘To the worst husband in the world. Captain O'Neil loved her; he wanted her to run away with him, to come here with him. She refused, monsieur; when she disappeared from Paris, without a sign or a word, everyone thought she'd gone to him at last. Everyone except me.'

‘I see.' The colonel shrugged; little pieces of the puzzle his dead officer had left behind were falling into place. No women, no letters, the restlessness at peace-time soldiering. And in the end the filthy plague made off with him. The colonel gathered his emotions and spat furiously into the corner.

‘When you find your mistress,' he said, ‘you had better give her these.…' He was pulling out a drawer in his table and he threw down a small packet, wrapped in a leather pouch. ‘His papers, a medallion he wore, one or two small things. Oh, and this came for him a month after he died. I opened it in case there was a letter, but there was nothing in it, not a word to say who sent it! You'd better take this too.'

The sapphire pin that she had fastened in Anne's dress the night she vanished lay in the middle of the colonel's palm.

‘That's Madame's,' she whispered. ‘He gave it to her … she was wearing it.…'