The French Bride (35 page)

Over his shoulder, he jeered at Charles. ‘Not so easy is it? Try passing any of them without me and see how far you'll get!'

Charles did not answer, for the governor had stopped at the third landing and an old man was coming towards them, holding a lantern. The lined old face peered at them suspiciously; in spite of his age, the turnkey was still broad-shouldered and his arms were thick with muscles. He must have been a giant in youth. When he saw the governor he pulled off his greasy cap and bowed.

‘Good evening, Excellency. All the prisoners are quiet. There's not been a squeak out of 713 so far.' There was a look in the governor's eye that troubled him but he could not decide what it was. He glanced long and hard at the man standing behind him and saw nothing there to excite suspicion; the expression on his face was bored. The turnkey supposed it was some government official or court messenger who had some secret business with one of the prisoners.

‘Open 713's cell,' the governor said. ‘We want to have a look at her. Quick, man!' Even without turning, he could sense the tension in the man with the pistol and he grew frightened again for a moment. This was not the time to give the warning; he must wait until the cell door was open and the man was off his guard for a moment.

Down below, a carriage waited outside the fortress' main gate. It was plain and well sprung, the kind of coach the middle classes hired for journeys when they did not possess equipages of their own; the coachman wore no livery, though he had been in the service of the De Bernards since he was a boy in his teens.

The old comte had sent him up from Charantaise as being the most reliable and devoted of Anne's servants. He would do what he was told, without asking a single question and he could handle horses better than anyone on the estate. The comte had also insisted on sending Marie-Jeanne to help care for his niece; she had made her way to the first posting station on the coach road and would be waiting there. Inside the coach, Paul de Mallot took out his watch and swore.

‘Nearly an hour,' he said to Annie, who was perched on the seat opposite. ‘My God, will they never come?'

‘How long are we to wait?' she asked him.

‘Until they come out,' he answered. ‘Or until there's a commotion. If we see guards running out of those gates towards us, we whip up the horses and fly for our lives!'

‘Do you think they'll get away?' Annie asked him; she spoke in English which the comte understood better than her accented French.

He looked across at her in the dimly lit coach and shook his head.

‘I doubt it, it's never been done before. No one escapes from the Bastille, Annie, it's impossible. It would need an army to get Anne out. I don't think we'll ever see M. Charles again.'

‘Who would have thought it?' Annie muttered. ‘Of all people, him going in there to risk his life for the marquise. I'd have sworn he was as bad as any of the murdering Macdonalds, and I know how bad they were, sir, I can tell ye that!'

‘Except for your master,' the comte corrected her, and she nodded.

‘Aye, except for him. But it's taken me half a lifetime to forget what he and his family did at Clandara Castle before he ran off with Her Ladyship. Master Charles would have been at home with all of them, don't doubt it.'

‘Love changed Sir James,' Paul de Mallot said. ‘It may do the same for M. Charles if he gets the chance. But if he's not out of that gate with the marquise inside half an hour, we can give them both up for lost!'

As the turnkey pulled back the bolts on the cell door and unlocked it, Charles whispered to the governor.

‘You go first.'

The turnkey went in before them, holding his lantern up and the governor stepped unwillingly after him. He had a quick glimpse of the bed in the corner and the figure of the woman lying on it as the yellow lantern light fell on her in a sweeping arc. It was the last thing he ever saw because the butt of Charles's pistol caught him on the back of the neck, breaking the vertebrae. He fell dead with a grunt of pain. It was so quick that the turnkey lost the initiative; he saw the cell door bang shut and then the governor fell against him almost at the same moment when he gave a shout, but it was too late. They were enclosed in the cell, inside the thick walls, and the pistol was pointing at his face. He swore furiously and raised one hand as if to strike at Charles.

There was a cry from the corner of the room, a low moan of terror and pain and it almost gave the turnkey his opportunity because for a fraction of a second Charles turned to where it came from, and the turnkey sprang at him. The pistol shot cracked out and echoed round the walls; it seemed as loud as a thunderclap. The old man staggered, blood pouring from his shattered face, and then he fell like a tree, the lantern crashing down. Its light did not go out; it was cushioned by the foul straw and Charles picked it up and righted it quickly. There was another cry, very faint this time, from the bed, and he brought the lantern over to it and fell on his knees. At first he thought he had been tricked, and that the woman staring up at him was a stranger. Her lips moved and the eyes, sunken with pain and weakness, gazed at him in terror. A faint whisper told him that this was indeed his wife.

‘Charles … I'm going mad. Charles, is it you …?'

He took the skeletal hands in his and held them to his mouth; for a moment he could not speak. The dirty sheet that covered her exposed the grotesque pregnancy; the rest of her body was wasted until the bones in her arms and shoulders stood out under the skin. The blue eyes were all that remained of the woman he had known; the sallow face, hollow-cheeked and pitifully thin, the long hair falling over her, were like a disguise.

‘Oh, Anne,' he said at last. ‘Anne, my love, what have they done to you …?'

‘I've lost my mind,' she whispered, more to herself than to him. ‘Or I'm really dying. You sent me here, didn't you …? Have you come to gloat …?'

She turned away from him and cried out again, hiding her face in the mattress. ‘They mustn't know,' she said wildly, ‘they mustn't know the baby's coming. I don't want them to take it! You're not to tell them, do you hear!'

He lifted her upright, very gently, and felt her convulse in his arms.

‘Oh my God,' he said slowly. ‘This is the end. Hold on to me, my love, try not to make a sound. Is the child really coming?'

‘Yes,' Anne said; he held her close to him, cradling her. ‘The pains are worse. I don't understand this … are you really here, or am I dreaming it …?'

‘I'm here,' he said fiercly. ‘Don't be afraid; I've come to get you out. Wait, my darling, stay quiet for a moment.'

He went back to the bodies lying by the door and bent over them. The governor's neck was broken and the turnkey was dead. Charles took the keys out of his belt, and dragged the two of them away from the door.

‘Anne,' he said gently. ‘Anne, listen to me. Can you stand?'

‘No,' she said. ‘No. You've killed the turnkey.' Her voice trembled. ‘What have you done?'

‘Don't trouble about it,' he said. ‘Stand up! You must! Stand up!' He lifted her off the bed; she was limp and heavy and she sagged against him, but she was able to support herself.

‘We're going to escape,' he said. ‘Do you understand, we're going to get away from here. There's a coach waiting outside to take us to safety. You're going to be all right, you're going to walk out of this place and no one,' he whispered into the distraight face so close to his own, ‘no one is going to take our child away, if you can just hold on a little longer!'

He held her for a moment, giving her time to rally her strength. It was some time since that pistol shot and nobody had come; the walls were very thick and they must have deadened the sound. Everything had gone well until that moment; he had reckoned on everything except finding Anne in labour. He raised her head and made her look at him.

‘You'll have to walk,' he whispered. ‘Do you hear, Anne, you'll have to walk down the stairs and past the turnkeys and out through the wicket gate, even if you have a pain, you've got to keep on walking. If you falter or fall, it'll ruin everything. We've got to get away before anyone thinks of looking for those two. Here, put this on.'

He slipped off the cloak he wore and unfastened another, smaller one that had been hidden underneath it. He pushed her long hair back from her shoulders and made her stand unsupported while he put the cloak over her and pulled the hood over her head. It covered her from head to foot.

‘Now,' Charles said, ‘we're ready. We're going out and down the stairs. How long between the pains?'

She shook her head. ‘A few minutes, ten perhaps … I don't know. Charles, why don't you leave me and escape … we'll never get out without being stopped. I'm lost anyway now.…'

‘God damn it,' he blazed at her deliberately, hating himself because she winced. ‘Do you think I've risked my life getting in here just to walk out alone? Where's the De Bernard courage I used to hear so much about? Stop snivelling, woman, and come on!'

He took her arm and walked her to the door; he unlocked it with the keys taken from the dead gaoler and then they were out in the corridor. He locked the cell behind them. By the light of the torch burning at the head of the staircase he saw that Anne was crying. He bent down and kissed her on the mouth.

‘Be brave, my love,' he said softly. ‘It won't take long.'

They passed the first two landings without incident; at the last one the turnkey called out to him. ‘Hey there! Where's His Excellency – who's that with you?'

‘A prisoner,' Charles barked over his shoulder. ‘Ask the governor if you want to know; he's coming behind us!'

Then they were down the last few stairs and he had an arm round Anne as if he were dragging her against her will. The gatekeeper peered at him suspiciously, holding his lantern up; it shone on the tear-stained face of the woman and he recognised the man who had come in with the governor not long before.

‘Here,' Charles said, ‘His Excellency's following later; he's got business with one of the others upstairs. Here's my authorisation.' He held out the governor's note and the man bent over it.

‘Pass through then,' he said.

Charles put the paper back in his pocket and pulled Anne after him. ‘Come on, damn you,' he said.

He had seen by the gatekeeper's eyes when he bent over the note that he couldn't read. They were in the courtyard then and the stars were bright in a clear sky above them; he squeezed her gently, and at the same moment he felt her steps dragging and the way her body stiffened and arched with pain under his arm. The temptation to stop and hold her, even to make the last part of the journey, carrying her in his arms, was so great that for a moment he almost succumbed to it. But it would have been fatal; a sick prisoner, a woman being taken out of the fortress, showing signs of imminent childbirth, was bound to cause acute suspicion. The guards at the gate would delay them, asking questions, and meanwhile the inquisitive turnkey in the West Tower would wonder why the governor was so long and go upstairs to look for him. If that note committing Anne to his custody was going to get them through the main gate, then it must do so quickly. He forced her on across the cobbled square, and down the side path leading to the governor's quarters. They were in sight of the main gate.

‘Charles,' she moaned. ‘Charles, I can't do it, there's another coming.… They're coming quicker.'

‘You mustn't stop,' he said. ‘If you falter now we're both lost, and the child too. Hold tight to me and don't make a sound. We're coming to the main gate now!'

There were two guards on duty at the gate; one scrutinised the papers aind faces of those who came and went and the other operated the mechanism which opened the small door set in the massive outer doors and controlled the drawbridge. They had seen this man come in alone; as he waited, holding a woman at his side, the guard read the governor's note very carefully. ‘This is an order to release the prisoner in Cell 713, West Tower, into the custody of M. Macdonald, the holder of this authority.' The governor had signed his name at the end of the line, above the blot of dried ink that had formed when his hand shook as the muzzle of Charles's pistol pressed hard into his throat.

The guard read it twice, and Charles saw Anne raise a hand to her mouth and he knew it was to stifle a groan of pain; her body was quivering with the intensity of the spasm.

‘Well,' he demanded, ‘isn't the paper in order? Isn't that His Excellency's signature?'

‘It seems so,' the guard said. ‘You're taking the prisoner into your custody.… Doesn't look too happy about it, does she?' and he laughed.

The tension was broken then; the second guard grinned and went over to the lock mechanism on the door.

‘No,' Charles answered. ‘But a few months' stay here has tamed her down. She'll give me no more trouble now.'

It was not unknown for a ward to find herself in the Bastille for a short period, where money or estates were in question and her legal guardian wished to break her spirit. Recalcitrant wives, unwilling to yield their inheritance, even sons and daughters who exasperated their parents, were disciplined into obedience by a few weeks' sojourn in the fortress.

The little door swung open and Charles stepped through it, holding Anne by the hand ‘Come on, my dear,' he said. ‘There's our carriage waiting over there.'

He heard the door shut and their feet echoed on the planks of the drawbridge. Below them the moat reflected the starry night sky. He walked as fast as he could force Anne along, but as they came to the end of the drawbridge and the edge of the road, she gave a cry and began to sink to the ground. If anyone was watching them from the main towers of the Bastille, and there were always watchers, it was too late to worry about them now. He swung her up in his arms and ran to the carriage. He saw Paul de Mallot jump out and come to meet him; they didn't have time to speak. They lifted Anne inside and sprang in after her; at a shout from the comte, the coachman whipped up his horses and the carriage bounded forward, rocking wildly on the rough, cobbled street, and raced down it towards the main thoroughfare and the coast road.