Fires of Delight (30 page)

If, in fact, she ever managed to get out of this underground lair.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I know nothing of any treasure. I do have—not with me, but I do have—paper money. French, British, Spanish. Even American. Just permit me to leave and you can have all of it.”

“She’s lying,” Danton said to Marat, without heat.

“We’ll wait and let Sorbante deal with her. He knows more about the situation than we do.”

It was just an idle remark, but Selena gave it some consideration. Either Royce had known from the start that the jewels had a special significance or he had somehow acquired—legally or illegally, by accident or design—a fortune mysterious and fraught with ambiguous importance. And if the pouch was indeed the “treasure” to which these men referred, what connection might it have to the little cross? Perhaps it was all like a great puzzle in which each of the players—Royce, La Valle, Sorbante, even she—played a limited role, held but a single piece in the grand design.

But who held the master piece? Who knew the parameters of that overriding plan?

If, indeed, there was one.

I’m stumped
, she concluded.
But I’m not about to blabber away
before I have a clearer understanding of what I’m dealing with
. Then another thought came to her: she
knew
that her possession of the jewels was due completely to mischance, her ownership of the little cross scarcely less so. Royce would
never
have placed her deliberately in danger. He would have explained things to her first.

But they had become separated unexpectedly, fleeing Lieutenant Clay Oakley in New York. And then Royce had been killed by the cannon of HMS
Prince William
.

So Selena
had
to be, unwittingly and unknowingly, a piece in a dangerous puzzle.

She knew nothing about the nature of that puzzle.

Except that perhaps when she had given up the jewels, willingly or by coercion, she would have served her purpose.

And her physical existence, not to mention her knowledge of the puzzle,
would no longer be required!

I am getting out of here right now!
she decided.

There was about a half an inch of wine left in the bottom of the bottle. Danton offered it to her. “Go ahead,
cherie
. It’ll ward off the chill. Did you know that rheumatism has ended more revolutionary careers than the guillotine has? We have to hide and even sleep in places that are no good for the bones. Here, for example.”

Selena murmured her sympathies, but declined the wine. Danton finished it off.

“Have you ever heard of Lieutenant Clay Oakley?” she asked the two men.

They looked at each other grimly. “It’s Captain Clay Oakley now,” Marat said. “He’s the new chief of secret intelligence in London. I have never heard of a man to whom monarchy is so sacred. You would think that every little prince was Jesus Christ. He captured, last week, one of our men who was in Britain, seeking to gain editorial support for our cause. Oakley had him beaten to death. Why, do you know the monster?”

“Yes,” Selena said. She told her story about interrogation in Oakley’s cork-lined room of paintings, of her surprise at the coexistent ugliness and beauty within him.

“His parts are too disparate,” Danton decided. “They will never fuse. He will come to an evil end, and I hope to have a part in it.”

“As do I,” said Selena.

The conversation, their agreement about Oakley, their isolation here beneath the streets of Paris: these softened the tension among them.

“Where in the devil’s name is Sorbante?” Marat wondered, getting up and pacing about. “We had the Bastille in our hands even before we came here.”

“He is probably giving another speech,” snickered Danton. And for the first time, Selena sensed in these men the hint of a belief that they could outshine the luminous firebrand, perhaps even surpass him. If given the opportunity. And she recalled something that her father had told her long ago, while he was tutoring her in the history he loved so much and understood so well. “
Selena
,” he’d said, “
war is fairly simple. It kills everyone in its path. But a revolution eats its young, like a tomcat or a boar hog who does not recognize his own
.”

The swish of the blade
.

Marat paced. Danton fretted and looked about. Selena began to fidget. Then she began to fidget more.

“Something wrong with you?” asked Marat.

Selena cast her eyes downward. “I’m sorry, but…but I must…relieve myself soon…”

The two men laughed. “Well, you are certainly in the right place for that!” Danton said.

It was agreed forthwith that Selena should go just outside the cavernous room and do her business on the stones alongside the sludge-filled channel.

“Here,” said Danton, “take a candle with you. We may be radicals, but we are Frenchmen first. No woman should slip into the muck.”

They laughed again. Selena, taking the candle, tried to look as embarrassed as possible. “Please don’t look, will you?” she pleaded.

“On our honor,” chortled Marat.

Selena knew that she had only minutes, at most, to get a decent head start.

The candle, while inadequate, was better than nothing. Selena slid along the wall of the tunnel as fast as she could go, holding the candle before her. She could hear the voices of the men diminish behind her, and she barely heard her name when one of them called her. There were various crevices and nooks alongside the
stinking channel, places in which she might hide for a time, but her larger problem was the trackless labyrinth of the sewers. First things first. When she heard one of the men shout, his voice echoing and re-echoing off the stones, she pressed herself into a cranny and blew out the light.

Then she waited.

Danton and Marat cursed energetically and seemed just about to come searching for her when other voices joined theirs. Mirabeau and Sorbante had arrived. There was more cursing then, as the men debated what to do. “If she wants to die down here, that’s her affair,” one of them said, “but I’m not about to.”

She heard footsteps on the stones, uncertain whether they were coming her way or not. Finally, there was silence.

But now her plight was worse than it had been before. She was alone, and her candle was out. In her mind’s eye, Selena pictured the whole vast spinning globe of earth, and all the people upon it, and all the cities and mountains and plains. Then she saw herself, all alone, huddled beneath one of those cities, in the bowels of the earth. There were three possibilities. She could make her way back to the room and wait for someone to come, which might take days. Or she could move on in the opposite direction.

Or she could die there and let her bones be found untold years from now.

This last possibility was unattractive. She dismissed it, and stepped from her hiding place. The channel of sludge gurgled a few feet away, moving on, moving toward…the Seine. Yes, it would lead to the river. In complete darkness, she got down on her hands and knees, began to feel her way along the stony chasm. The most oppressive part of this strategy was that she did not know how far she’d have to go, and soon her hands and knees were bruised and bleeding. When she was tired, she lay flat against the cool stones and waited until her energy returned. But then she moved on again. Several times, misjudging the way, she cracked her head on a rock, and once she almost slipped into the slimy sewage. But the foul channel, distasteful and stinking as it was, gave her a measure of cheer. Because judging by the sound of its flow, she knew she had to be heading toward the Seine.

And then, at last, the wet stones reflected a bit of faraway light, a dim, phantasmagoric ray of hope. She allowed herself a long rest to celebrate, and then moved on. The channel flowed into a
culvert which emptied into the river. Pulling up her skirts, which were by now incredibly tattered and filth-ridden, she sloshed through the sewage-filled culvert, swung herself out over the water and onto the riverbank, panting as if her lungs would explode. The sun was rising in the east. She’d been underground for almost eighteen hours. The day was already hot.

Stumbling toward the LaRouche mansion in the eerie haze of morning light, all too conscious of her matted hair, tattered dress, and still-bleeding cuts, Selena looked like an apparition from hell itself. She was glad that no people were in the streets, but just when she grew confident that she’d reach the house safely, a uniformed guard stepped through a gate in front of one of the neighboring homes and confronted her. The rich, terrified by yesterday’s riot, had stepped up their defenses.

“Get out of here immediately, you filthy old hag!” he cried, unable to conceal his own disgust at her appearance.

He wore a pistol at his belt and carried a riding whip, which he lifted to strike her.

“Please!” she cried, raising her arms to ward off the blow. “I am a guest of Madame LaRouche’s.”

“Like hell you are.”

“No, it is true. I was caught in the mob yesterday. I am a foreigner, unfamiliar with Paris, and only now have I managed to find my way back.”

The guard lowered his whip. “You’re Selena?” he asked doubtfully.

“Yes.”

“Oh, my God. Come with me. I’m sorry. Madame has been beside herself with worry about your fate. She is at home now, under doctor’s care. Which you ought to be as well.”

He shrank from touching her, and in fact walked several paces ahead of her as he led her to Martha Marguerite’s home. Selena did not blame him for his squeamishness; the awful stench of the sewers was upon her and she was unsure if it could ever be thoroughly washed away.

Hugo and Sebastian, half-awake, were sitting on the floor in the foyer, drinking coffee.

“Jesus, Selena!” they exclaimed, leaping to their feet when the guard brought her in. “We thought you were dead for sure.”

“Maybe I am…” she managed to say, and collapsed onto the floor.

When she awoke, Selena was lying in bed, clean and cool. Old Stella and Martha were seated on chairs next to the bed.

“How do you feel, Selena?” asked Martha, who did not look any too well herself.

Selena tried to sit up. The effort was unsuccessful. But she was able to move her arms and legs. A good sigh.

“The doctor washed you as well as he could, and dressed your cuts,” said Martha. “His orders are that you rest completely in bed for several days at least.”

“He will get no resistance from me,” Selena groaned. “But I need a real bath right away. I want to soak for hours.”

“Stella, get the hot water ready,” Martha ordered.

The old cook, who had been blinking dully at Selena, protested. “That’s not my work. I want an extra bit of money for all this additional work.”

“You’ll have it,” Selena said. “Are Hugo and Sebastian still here? Have them help you. They’ll be rewarded as well.”

“I cannot say how grateful I am to you,” confided Martha, after the cook had gone to see about the bath. “You know, of course, that I’ll repay you for everything as soon as my affairs are in order.”

The previous day’s meeting with Longchamps, which seemed years in the past, had been dismissed completely by Martha. She had decided to think of herself as a rich woman, evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. Selena sighed.

“By the way, we received our first billing from Monsieur Marc,” Martha went on casually. “If I could possibly trouble you for five thousand francs…just temporarily, of course. And the decorators will be arriving later this morning…”

Selena was too tired to protest. Later, when she regained her strength, she would attempt to explain to the older woman that their straits might soon be desperate, especially if Jean Beaumain
did not arrive soon. Martha had chosen to live in a dream world, and it was obviously very pleasant there.

“Yes, I’ll take care of things…” Selena said without spirit. There were always the jewels…

After bathing in lilac-scented water, then changing the water and bathing again, Selena drank some pigeon broth and began to feel vaguely civilized. Hugo and Sebastian appeared to inquire about her welfare and to present to her a concern that weighed heavily on Martha’s mind.

“As you know,” Hugo said, shuffling his feet, “madame wishes to go to the palace as soon as her new wardrobe is completed…”

“Yes?” prodded Selena, propped up on pillows in her bed. The sounds of hammers and saws drifted up from the lower floors of the house.

“Well,” interjected Sebastian, “our buggy got wrecked in yesterday’s brawl. We managed to rescue madame, and we would have you too if we could’ve—”

“But our buggy got wrecked,” Hugo said. “We think we’re owed a new one.”

“One fine enough to take you to Versailles,” commented Sebastian.

It doesn’t pay to be rich
, thought Selena.
There’s no end to what people think you can afford
. But she herself wanted to go to the palace, if only to meet the Scot Zoé Moline had claimed was in residence there.

“All right,” she said. “Step out of the room for a moment.”

The two men, after glancing at each other, did so. Selena dragged her battered body out of the bed and made her way into the closet. Her greatcoat hung there, and a moment’s inspection assured her that the jewels and sovereigns were still in the lining. She took a fistful of Jean’s paper money from inside the lining of a traveling bag, counted out three thousand francs, called the men inside, and gave them the money. “Mind, choose a carriage carefully,” she warned.

“Oh, I’ll bet there’s more where this came from.” Hugo leered playfully, waving the bills like a sheaf of foolscap. “Isn’t there?”

“Don’t bet on it,” replied Selena.

Eventually, as the summer wore on, the carriage, overly grand, was acquired, the refurbished house began to look almost normal,
and after fittings and refittings, the magnificent clothing of Marc Moline filled whole closets.

But the summons to Versailles did not come.

Martha was at first puzzled, then exasperated, then hurt. “I sent word that I wished to call upon their majesties weeks ago!” she wailed. “Zoé promised me that everything would be arranged. What is happening, anyway? Am I perhaps out of favor? Why, I’ve done nothing to warrant being ignored in this manner.”