Season of Light (27 page)

All these years a letter dated 5 September 1769, written in a child’s meticulous hand, had been lying in a drawer in Mr Lambert’s study; a letter from Didier Paulin and headed rue Leverrier, Caen.

We were enchanted by your visit, dear M. Lambert, and would wish to see you again one day at our house. My father speaks of you much. Next year, when I go to school, my English will be improved if I study carefully the book you gave me, of John Bunyan. Father says, if I am to be like anyone when I am old, he hopes I am to be like you
.

At the bottom a note from little Beatrice, misspelt, blotted, ending with
grosses bises pour cher M. Lambert
.

Asa was crying freely, not so much for Mr Lambert as for the layers of betrayal in which she was embroiled and because those letters, pressed into her hand, were surely an omen. When they hugged she smelt her own tears on her friend’s skin, the familiar, musty scent of her old black gown.

When Asa arrived back at Ardleigh late the following afternoon, Madame de Rusigneux took her aside and said she would be leaving within a week.

‘We will speak about it later, in private,’ Asa said.

‘Let it be in my room, please. I have something to give you.’

After dinner Madame excused herself from the table early and after a few minutes Asa followed, climbing the panelled staircase with its prints of creatures at bay – fox, stag and pheasant – to the first floor. The passage was narrow and long and at the far end the oak boards were illuminated by a spillage of evening light from Madame’s open door. The French woman was seated on the bedside chair as if she’d summoned Asa for an interview. Since dinner, she’d tied her hair back into a tight knot so that her forehead and chin were austerely defined, and she seemed much older. The strap of her portmanteau was undone and on the bed she had laid out her collection of fans, plain and exotic, tattered and intricate, eight in all, spread wide like peacocks’ tails.

Her hand hovered above them as if she were casting a spell or blessing. ‘I wish that you should have something to remember me by. I gave one of my fans to Mrs Shackleford. You are to choose another.’

Asa pretended to hesitate between the ballooning fan and one depicting exotic birds perched among flowers and leaves. ‘Madame, I don’t want a fan. I want to come with you to France.’

‘I can see that you love the balloons the best. Quite right. That is the most precious of all because it depicts an era now gone. Take it. Please.’

‘Madame. Listen to me. When you go to France, I want to go too.’

‘What you say is mad.’

‘If we are together we can look after each other.’

‘I don’t know what you mean. Why would you want to go to France? It is out of the question. The English are at war with our country. You would have only to step from the ship to be imprisoned as a spy.’

‘But I am fluent in French and I need say very little if I came as your companion or maid. I wouldn’t give myself away.’

‘
Non. Absolument pas
. Do you think I would betray your family by allowing you to come with me?’

‘Will you let me explain? Please. I have something to tell you.’

‘It will make no difference. Nothing you can say will make me change my mind.’

Asa perched on the window seat and fixed her eyes on the weathercock across the yard, gripping her knees to her chest. Her meeting and subsequent love affair with Didier, articulated haltingly for the first time, and to a French aristocrat of all people, seemed surprisingly mundane, like the contents of an old trinket box recovered from an attic. Madame rested her head in one hand, as she was prone to do when tired or thoughtful, and made not a sound. Only towards the end of the narrative did she raise her head.

‘Until yesterday,’ Asa continued, ‘when I was with Caroline, I was hesitating. But she has acted decisively in accepting Philippa’s offer and her clarity makes me feel like a fool. All these years I have been waiting for Didier. Now I realise that he was trying to protect me and if he has finally called for me, then his need of me must be urgent indeed.’

Madame’s back was to the light and she was watching Asa.

‘Everything is straightforward now,’ said Asa, ‘because you are travelling to France too. I have Didier’s family address in Caen. I’ll go there first. His family will know where to find him. Or I could come with you to Paris.’

‘If you have an address in Caen, what is wrong with writing a letter?’ asked Madame. ‘Find out where this foolish man is, who can’t trouble himself to give you an address.’

‘And then sit around and wait? No. Madame, in Bristol you accused me of not taking action. Now you are trying to prevent me. His letters are uncompromising. All these years I have been waiting for a sign. Now I have a clarion call. I shall go, if for no other reason than to find out if we still love each other.’

‘You should take no notice of what I said in Bristol. I was not myself that day. It was very hot and confined in that drawing room. I should not have spoken as I did.’

‘But what you said was true. And look, here are Didier’s most recent letters. Can’t you see that I must go?’

Madame seemed reluctant to handle anything so private but in the end she took the papers one by one, studied them and spread the handkerchief across her knee. Then, in silence, she stood by the bed, flicked each fan shut, and inserted it first into its case, then the portmanteau. Only when all was tidy did she turn back to Asa. ‘I will consider what you have said. You ask much of me, mademoiselle.’

‘When will I have your answer?’

‘You will have it soon. Very soon.’ The smile came like a promise, lighting the backs of her eyes. She gripped Asa’s hands and kissed her on both cheeks so that, fleetingly, Asa smelt the grainy scent of Madame’s hair and saw up close the disconcerting blackness of her eyes.

The following Friday, 7 June, Asa got up at four and kept her father company as he devoured his breakfast kidneys and bacon.

‘Father, today Mrs Dacre’s case will be heard in Chichester. I intend to be there. Will you come with me?’

No response.

‘She will need money, Father, whatever the outcome.’

He got up and headed for the door. She followed him to his study and watched as he unlocked his desk, rummaged for a coin and handed it to her.

‘A guinea won’t go far. Please come with me. Don’t you think you should be there?’

‘What good would it do?’

She knew he would not come; he yearned to be ripping along the top of the Downs with chalk dust puffing up from his horse’s hooves and the air scented with gorse. When she embraced him his heavy shoulders were unyielding and muscular.

‘You are a good girl, Asa.’

She kissed his cheek and forehead. ‘I shall be driving Madame and myself to Chichester in the trap. We don’t need a coachman. Afterwards we shall stay with Caroline for a week or so, until she is ready to leave for Morton. I’ll write to let you know when we’re coming home.’

He grunted affectionately and let her go. At the turn of the passage she looked back but he was busy relocking his desk drawer. Mrs Dean, when requested, donated a parcel of food for Mrs Dacre but was sullen as usual at the mention of the tailor’s wife. Madame brought down her portmanteau and a maid carried Asa’s trunk out to the trap. The stable-yard, where the mare was already harnessed, reeked of manure. Through a gateway Asa glimpsed a border of her mother’s roses, in need of dead-heading, and as she lifted the reins the corner of a maid’s apron whisked past the open door of the kitchen. A casement on the first floor was flung wide open. The stable-boy whacked the mare’s flank and tipped his cap at Asa as they rattled under the arch, along the side of the house and into the lane.

They drove past the forge, which seemed deserted in the morning heat, past the bakehouse, past the narrow bridleway leading to the Downs, at this time of year choked with nettles. Soon they were in woodland, where bracken was waist high, a tunnel of leaf and branch.

Madame said: ‘With regard to our plans. Before we reach Chichester, we must be clear.’

‘Of course.’

‘First, in all matters related to our journey, I must insist on taking the lead. There will be many dangers and if we disagree we may put ourselves in jeopardy. You must not question my decisions. Whatever I ask you to do, however difficult, you must obey. Secondly, we shall be together in Caen but the moment we reach Paris, we will part company. I will leave you at White’s Hotel, where you will no doubt find English people to advise you.’

‘We won’t disagree, madame. I’m sure.’

‘You must promise.’

‘Yes.’

‘Any further questions?’

‘When can I let my family know where I am?’

‘There are to be no letters until we are in Paris. Surely you don’t want to be discovered.’

‘It does seem very cruel to them, once they realise we’re not with Caroline.’

‘Even with a detour to Caen we’ll be in Paris within the week. They may not even notice you’re missing. Mademoiselle Ardleigh, it seems to me that you are weakening.’

‘No.’

‘You are still determined?’

‘How can you ask?’

In Chichester Asa sold her mother’s sapphire engagement ring for nine guineas. Although she gave the goldsmith an imperious nod as she tucked the money into her bodice and watched him drop the ring into a velvet-lined drawer, she was faint with the irrevocable steps she was taking. Despite Madame’s hard grip on her elbow she pleaded: ‘Please let me have one more look at it.’

The jeweller laughed unpleasantly. ‘Now don’t you be changing your mind. The deed’s done,’ and he watched jealously as she slid the ring back on her finger. But already it was just a cold thing of metal and stone; a necessary casualty of the adventure ahead.

Madame said she would guard the trap while Asa went to the court to see Mrs Dacre brought up for sentencing. When the crowd in the gallery saw the prisoner, obviously pregnant, it bayed for her to be hung. Mrs Dacre’s eyes scanned the courtroom until she noticed Asa. For a moment there was a flash of hope. But no squire.

Sensation in court: a slickly dressed lawyer stood up to defend Mrs Dacre. In a sonorous London drawl and with great deference he begged leave to address the learned judge, who removed his wig and dabbed at his brow under the strain of being confronted by so sleek an advocate. ‘Owing to lack of alternative evidence, the court must accept Mrs Dacre’s version of events, namely that she chose to leave the cottage following the charivari because she could not bear the shame she had brought upon her husband. But somewhat unfortunately – she is a simple woman with simple logic, as I’m sure Your Honour, with vast experience in sad cases of this nature, will have surmised – she removed her husband’s scissors with a view to raising money, never considering that Dacre would see no alternative but to take his own life following the triple blow of losing not only his good name and his wife, but his only means of making a living into the bargain.’

The crowd was silenced by the lawyer’s sophisticated air, but if anything the atmosphere grew more hostile. It wasn’t right that someone so lowly should be represented by such a superior advocate; surely this was proof that Mrs Dacre was guilty, at the very least, of overstepping the mark. Suggestive comments were yelled as to the cause of her pregnancy but the judge, who dined annually at Ardleigh and hunted with the squire, barked at the crowd to be quiet. Given Mrs Dacre’s callous theft of her husband’s scissors, he pronounced, she would be sentenced, despite her condition, to transportation for seven years.

Afterwards Asa bribed a gaoler and was admitted to a cell hardly bigger than a privy. The tailor’s wife stood against the wall, her face as pale as Caroline’s, her hair a matted mop under her cap. There was no sign of the lawyer.

‘I thought you’d come,’ she said. ‘In at the kill, as your father’d say.’

‘I have brought you some money, Mrs Dacre.’

‘Did he send me this? Three guineas?’

‘It’s for the baby.’

The tailor’s wife stared relentlessly from those oozing eyes.

‘And look; some clothes.’ Asa showed her a bundle of baby nightgowns sewn by her mother and preserved by Mrs Dean all these years in a chest on the landing, and one of her own plain gowns. ‘Sell them or use them, up to you.’

Mrs Dacre didn’t even glance at them.

‘Where did you find that lawyer, the one who represented you?’ asked Asa.

‘I thought it was your father’s doing. Wasn’t it?’ Another glimmer of hope.

‘It may have been.’

‘Not him, then. But who?’

There was only one man with a reach long enough to instruct, with a dash of the pen, such an advocate to descend on Chichester and snatch Mrs Dacre from the jaws of death. But Asa swept aside thoughts of Shackleford.

‘I’ve no idea. A benefactor, of some kind. Mrs Dacre, is there anything else? Will you shake my hand?’

Mrs Dacre folded her arms. Her stare followed Asa as she stepped through the filth on the floor, hammered on the door, turned one last time and, receiving no response, walked away.

It was noon. A light drizzle fell. Madame waited with the hood of her cloak pulled up over her straw hat. Her eyes met Asa’s but neither woman spoke. They climbed into the trap, Asa took up the reins, and thus they set out, Miss Ardleigh and her French companion, for Portsmouth.

Portsmouth, 7 June 1793. Five years and one month after Asa’s first departure for France. Then she had been nineteen, heart whole, fizzing with anticipation but safe under the wing of prosaic John Morton. This time?

Terrified.

In driving west out of Chichester the fugitives were rushing towards a war. Less than a mile from town they were forced to veer into a field while several hundred militia marched past on exercise, lustrous in close-fitting scarlet tunics and tall peaked hats. Their polished boots struck the soft surface of the road with a uniform thwump and sometimes impudent eyes met Asa’s and winked. Stranded in a barley field veiled by drizzle, she had a moment of red-hot panic. Here she was, bound for her elusive French lover while English redcoats prepared themselves for battle and possible death at French hands.