Season of Light (16 page)

‘You, Mr Morton, might have offered insights. I’m afraid I did very little but stand by in awe.’

‘But then I’m considerably more advanced in years than you, my dear Shackleford. I can quite see how the young might have been seduced by all the excitement. Whereas I knew for sure that little good would come of the talk I heard in every salon.’

‘Ah, I remember those salons, particularly that of Madame de Genlis. How could I forget, when it was there that I first set eyes on Miss Thomasina Ardleigh?’

Miss Thomasina sat motionless at his side, unable to eat, filled with the most exquisite pain. Would Paulin be mentioned? Did Shackleford remember him?

‘Just a small part of me regrets coming away when we did,’ Morton continued. ‘There were great business opportunities and I was on excellent terms with Brissot and Roland – and the brother of that friend of yours, Thomasina – Paulin, was it? – who was such a rising star. I tried to persuade them that they must insist on reform at the highest level right from the start. I said that much as we esteemed our own dear king, we would not dream of allowing him to veto the edicts of our parliament.’

‘I wonder you don’t go into politics, Morton, since you know so much about it,’ said Warren, well into his fourth glass.

Morton glanced uneasily at his wife. ‘I am considering it. Having experienced at first hand the consequences of bad government in France, I feel myself well placed to help steer our country away from such turbulence. Now that my dear wife is recovered, I shall join our Guildford Reeve Society. It seems to me that this country is in peril of sliding into insurrection just as our neighbours have done. Only last year a mob ripped up the new toll gate near Chorley. It is time for the right thinking among us to protect our fine system from both radicals and rebels.’

As the conversation drifted to more general matters, Shackleford again leaned towards Asa. ‘Seeing you again, Miss Ardleigh, I can’t help but be transported back to those days. It’s astonishing to think that nearly five years have passed. I have often wondered about you: what you were doing, how you were. Did you stay long in Paris after I’d left?’

She regarded him properly for the first time; the rather heavy-featured face flushed with wine and determination to please, the sheen of his hair. ‘A few weeks only. My sister was not well, as you may recall, and Mr Morton was anxious to bring her home.’

‘And your friends in Paris – the Paulins – do you still write to them?’

The question, spoken in the act of lifting his glass, seemed guileless but the table was suddenly quiet. ‘Goodness,’ she said, laughing. ‘I was there such a short time my friendship with Beatrice Paulin scarcely had time to blossom. But it’s true I am in correspondence from time to time.’

‘Her brother, the lawyer, has done very well, I believe. You’ve probably heard there are to be committees of surveillance all over the country, to keep an eye on strangers and suspicious types who might be engaged in counter-revolutionary activity. I believe he’s been quite a leading figure in drawing up the plans.’

She took a sip of wine. ‘I hadn’t heard. We’re very cut off here at Morton.’

‘Of course. Whereas in London people love to talk about France. Everyone hopes that the French army will collapse. The revolutionary government must be very nervous at present. Seems to me that in France it’ll soon matter very much whose side one happens to be on.’

‘Side? You mean for or against the Revolution? Surely it’s a little too late for that.’

‘I mean factions. Differences of opinion about what to do next. Old arguments about whether or not the king should have been killed and if France should have gone to war. There is rumour of counter-revolution.’

‘I’ve heard the same,’ said Warren. ‘It’s a mess. Normandy, Brittany and the Vendée all champing at the bit. Read in
The Times
that there’s bound to be insurrection there. Civil war. Folks can’t stand being hungry, can’t stand conscription, so they’re fighting back against the National Guard.’ An array of dishes from creamed potatoes to game stew was now paraded down the room and arranged at the four corners of the table. ‘D’you know what I’d do if I was Mr Pitt? Not waste another farthing on kitting out the navy or army to fight the French. I’d send funds to anyone who felt inclined to stage a rebellion, give them a bit of support by the back door. How would that be, Madame de Rusigny?’

The attention of the table now turned to Madame, who, with a most unusual lack of appetite, was gazing at her plate. She shot Warren such a look that even he laughed self-consciously.

Shackleford said: ‘May I ask, Madame de Rusigneux, which part of France you are from?’

‘From the south-west.’

‘I have travelled widely in France. Perhaps I have visited your town?’

‘It is a town called Frenelle.’

‘Frenelle. Don’t know it. Do you have family there?’

Asa, remembering events in the churchyard, was about to intervene, but Warren interrupted: ‘Thing is, Shackleford, as I’ve been telling Morton, now is the time to invest. What do you say? Put money into sugar and coffee and pick up all the trade the French are losing with their wars and their shilly-shallying about the rights and wrongs of how to proceed with this abolition nonsense. The latest I’ve heard is that they’re likely to forbid any trade in human traffic,’ his pale, drunken eye stared at Asa defiantly, ‘so we could slip in there and take over plantations the French will be forced to abandon.’

‘At every stage,’ said Morton hastily, glancing at his wife, ‘what the British must do is set an example. The French have to make a mighty roar about their Declaration of the Rights of Men whereas we have a peacefully elected, democratic …’

Asa could bear it no longer. ‘Oh, the French have certainly followed our example by excluding so many groups from their constitution, not least slaves and the poor and women. And you say we have a democratic parliament, Mr Morton? Is that really the case? Most of our cabinet is titled and therefore unelected.’

Morton flushed but smiled fraternally at Shackleford. ‘You see, Shackleford, how I am ruled by women. Even my newest child is a girl, heaven help me.’

‘Some would call you the happiest man alive,’ said Shackleford.

Morton looked gratified and folded his hands across his belly. ‘Indeed, I count my blessings, now my dear wife is restored to health. Whatever my spirited little sister-in-law says, there’s much to be proud of in being English.’

‘And yet,’ said Asa, ‘did you know that our friend Mr Lambert, who as you well know would not hurt a flea, is threatened with imprisonment because he happens to believe that men should not be slaves? Are you so proud of that, Mr Morton? Forgive me, Phil, but I won’t remain silent. We are very quick to criticise the French, but when an old, frail man is bullied and threatened …’

‘Good Lord, Asa,’ cried Philippa, ‘I’m sure you’re exaggerating as usual. Nobody is going to arrest your Mr Lambert.’

‘I had a letter from Caroline yesterday and she is truly fearful. So no, I don’t believe we live in a land of the free. And Mr Shackleford, you asked me earlier what I have been doing since I left Paris. The answer is that I have never forgotten the marvellous people I met there, nor the hope I experienced then. I wish I could have stayed. Forgive me if this offends you, Madame de Rusigneux, but I would give everything I possess to have been among those women who brought the king and queen back to Paris when they were lurking in Versailles, banqueting while half of France starved. I would have gone to every meeting, joined every club, and one day I shall go back. I must. Certainly,’ and here she looked deliberately across the table at Georgina, ‘I could never marry a mere Englishman, or settle for any kind of half-life in England.’

There was a startled silence. Georgina, glancing in horror at Shackleford, said: ‘Oh, I second that. We must all go to Paris, I say, whenever the Revolution is over. Whatever happens, I’m sure the French will never lose their sense of fashion. Look how smart we all are tonight. Madame de Rusigny has transformed us, haven’t you, madame?’

Philippa moved that the ladies retire to the drawing room, where little Kate would be brought down to be kissed by her aunts. No sooner had Madame retreated to a dark alcove than Georgina hissed furiously at Asa: ‘How could you talk such nonsense in front of Shackleford? After all the trouble I’ve been through to get him here. Well, I wash my hands, I really do.’

The gentlemen followed with almost indecent haste – presumably both Morton and Shackleford were eager to escape Warren’s attempts to embroil them in a business opportunity. Shackleford would not be persuaded to stay the night and therefore had a long ride through dark lanes and intended to leave at once. Despite Asa’s speech at dinner, he stood over her for some minutes as she caressed little Kate, until at last he pressed her free hand and begged that he might soon be allowed to call at Ardleigh, if he happened to be passing.

Asa was convinced that Didier’s reply would be waiting for her at Ardleigh. When she and Madame de Rusigneux arrived home two days after Easter, on 10 April, the squire was away in Northamptonshire and the house smelled of beeswax and underuse. There was no letter from France, though Asa interrogated Mrs Dean and the maids about the post and searched every shelf and drawer. Instead she had to be content with leafing through Didier’s volume of Ronsard’s poetry and plundering the old store of his letters.

…
Dear God, Thomasina, if only you were here to see this. We have a National Assembly. I am a member of that assembly. I, Didier Paulin, am a lawyer, not a priest and not a noble, yet I have been given a voice. We are drawing up a new constitution. I rush from meeting to meeting. We draft a thousand proposals and articles a week. We dare to confront great ministers such as Mirabeau as if he were our equal – he
is
our equal – but when I come home, yes, to the same little room with that same varnished screen which you wrote of so fondly in your last letter, the same bed, all I want is you. Too late I understand that where there is no Thomasina, there can be no real joy, even in the midst of Revolution. Even to be part of all this means nothing at all because it is not made real, discussed in the arms of my beautiful girl, my Mademoiselle Anglaise
.

My bird. I feel the beat of you. My body aches for you
…

The letters had to be locked hastily away because Madame de Rusigneux brought down her portmanteau and laid out paintbrushes, dancing manual and a selection of fans. ‘Ah, no, madame,’ said Asa, ‘now we are home there is no time for lessons. Today I must deal with the accounts and tomorrow I have to visit Mrs Dacre, the tailor’s wife, who is in prison.’

Madame shrugged her little shoulders. ‘Then I shall go with you, of course.’

‘I would prefer to speak to her alone.’

‘You may leave me in the town and meet me again at the end of the day. Besides, mademoiselle, you should not be riding out in the trap on your own.’

‘One of the grooms will be with me.’

‘Nevertheless, I must accompany you. It is not a happy experience, I know, visiting a prisoner. You take a commendable interest in this tailor’s wife.’

Asa added a column of figures in her notebook. ‘Do you not think it is my duty? Would you not have done the same, if it were your tenant in Frenelle?’

Madame extracted a drawing book from her portmanteau and began to sketch a vase of catkins and the narcissi which the villagers called ‘Cheerfulness’, brought in by Mrs Dean to welcome Asa home. At one point, when Asa glanced up from her accounts, they exchanged an absent-minded smile. A log stirred, the flames leapt, and Mrs Ardleigh’s little clock, with its pair of floating cherubs above a china face, ticked softly. Perhaps, thought Asa, to have a companion was not such a bad thing after all. There was completion to the room which reminded her of the old days before her sisters’ marriage.

Next day they parted company outside Chichester cathedral and Asa darted along first one side street then another into the teeth of a wind that wafted city smells; tar and fish, manure and soot. Prisons, said Mr Lambert, for too long had been places of sheer hopelessness, the disgraceful anteroom to trial, execution or transportation. Once, a decade or so ago, when he had taken the girls to visit an elderly chandler locked up for debt, a young woman, hearing that Lambert was in the prison, had begged to see him. Caroline and Asa, aged about fourteen, had stood at the door of her filthy cell while Mr Lambert held the prisoner, a stranger, in his thin arms. The previous day she had been found guilty of murdering her husband – afterwards Lambert told the girls that the wretch had beaten her every night for a year, often with a poker on her thighs and buttocks, until at last she turned on him and caught him a single blow with the same instrument. Her punishment was delayed because the judge had decreed death by burning and the place of execution had to be specially prepared. Since her husband owned her, according to the law, she had committed petty treason in killing him. The girl’s face had been hidden in Lambert’s shoulder but a mass of chestnut hair tumbled down her quivering back. Ever afterwards, in nightmares, Asa had seen that hair in flames.

Lambert, who attended the execution, had not eaten for a week.

Asa was to meet the tailor’s wife in another part of the prison, but still she shrank from the memory of the girl. Mrs Dacre took charge, pulled back the rickety chair with her foot, then dropped into it and folded her arms. Her face was arresting with its square jaw and white complexion crowned by a mop of reddish hair. Her eyes were wild and staring between lashes matted with pus. ‘Well?’ she said.

‘I’ve come to see what I can do for you. Mrs Dean has sent a jar of broth and a blanket in case you’re cold.’ The words of cheer rang false in the tomb of a prison. Mrs Dacre leaned back, deliberately revealing the convex curve of her belly. Asa felt a stab of dread. ‘I see you are with child, Mrs Dacre.’

‘Seems so.’

‘Caroline – Miss Lambert – did not mention that to me.’

‘I doubt she noticed. It would not occur to an innocent such as her.’