Season of Light (47 page)

‘With respect, citizen,’ came a cool voice from behind Asa, ‘you have not listened to Prisoner Ardleigh’s defence.’

It took a while for this crisp intervention to register in the more distant corners of the gallery, but eventually the courtroom fell silent. The judge removed his hat and mopped his brow: ‘Deputy Paulin, I believe you were given every opportunity to speak yesterday. Do you have anything further to say?’

‘I do.’ Didier’s tone was wry, as if he were a little amused by the proceedings. Asa did not turn her head. ‘For the sake of France and the reputation of our great nation, I demand that this woman be given a fair trial. Yesterday, when I was brought to her interrogation, I’d had no time to assemble my evidence. I said, therefore, only what was necessary. Now I have to tell you that you are basing your case against Thomasina Ardleigh on entirely false assumptions.’

The audience in the gallery leaned forward as Didier walked briskly to Asa’s side. Gone was yesterday’s lacklustre delivery, the avoidance of her eye. Today he was dressed in a neat dark blue coat and a laundered cravat tied with jaunty finesse and he actually reached for her hand, pressed it in both of his and gave her a loving glance. None of this was lost on the spectators, who clapped and cheered.

‘Yesterday I understand you gave unequivocal evidence against this woman, Citoyen Paulin.’

‘I beg to differ. The evidence I gave was little more than the information that I had entertained the prisoner to supper in my rooms.’ The crowd moaned with salacious pleasure. ‘I was not asked crucial questions about Thomasina Ardleigh’s reasons for coming to France.’

‘Yet you could have volunteered an explanation, I believe, citizen, you needn’t have waited to be asked.’

‘Yesterday’s interrogation concerned itself with one question only: the prisoner’s connection to Corday. The evidence I shall give you today will show that the prisoner was not concerned with Corday at all. To accuse her of conspiring in Marat’s death will be utterly absurd in the light of what I have to say. It would be like accusing a vole of slaughter simply because it had passed through the same forest as a ravening wolf. Yesterday, we were not even told who had denounced Prisoner Ardleigh. There were two possibilities, I realised. The first was her landlady, Citoyenne Maurice, who had every reason to be frightened of harbouring a mysterious visitor from Caen. The second, I would suggest, is a woman called Estelle Beyle, whom I saw a few moments ago in this courtroom and who is, I confess, a former mistress of mine, and therefore the prisoner’s rival in love.’

The courtroom was now deathly quiet.

‘I will argue that in order to entrap her rival, Thomasina Ardleigh, Estelle Beyle concocted a fabrication so clever and intricate that we have all been seduced by it. I will further argue that the only crime of which the prisoner is guilty is that of misfortune: she happened to be in Caen a few days before Marat’s death, and to become loosely acquainted with Corday. That is all.’

‘Ah, but in my experience,’ said the judge, linking his fingers and twirling his thumbs, ‘there are no such things, in our modern France, as coincidence or misfortune. If a citizen is virtuous, she has nothing to fear. People come to grief solely because they have done wrong.’

‘Well, perhaps the prisoner is guilty of being a little too ardent, too rash. Though you can’t expect me to agree with that, since every action she took was for my sake.’ Didier flashed a self-deprecating smile at the gallery. ‘But surely, in the name of the Revolution we must halt these proceedings. We cannot have a woman condemned simply for being ardent.’

The judge folded his arms, resigned, while the spectators in the galleries roared their approval and leaned forward in delighted anticipation. Where was this woman, Estelle Beyle? Didier stood in a posture he must have employed in court a thousand times, right hand gripping a sheaf of papers, left pressed into the small of his back. ‘Let me show you proper evidence. Far from Thomasina Ardleigh being involved in some devilish English plot – and by the way, my friends, do we really think the English capable of anything so subtle as to send a young woman across the Channel in the hope of inspiring a total stranger from Caen to commit murder?’ Hoots of laughter from the spectators. ‘– or coming of her own volition to conspire with Charlotte Corday, she was lured here by the very woman, Estelle Beyle, who now accuses her. Here are two letters and my mother’s scarf, which I gave to Estelle years ago as love tokens. I wish to God I hadn’t because Estelle kept them safe, not out of love for me – oh no – but so that she might use them against me, if necessary. And behold, the moment came when she could indeed harm me. She pretended that I had sent the letters to England, to Thomasina Ardleigh, as a sign that I needed her. Such is Thomasina’s loyalty and devotion,’ Didier’s voice broke and his head lowered for a moment, ‘that, without asking any questions, she risked everything, and came.

‘But how did Estelle Beyle perform such a sleight of hand, you might ask. You see I, fearing for her sanity – she had become very ill following the death of a beloved brother – had sent her to England to keep her safe from herself. Yes, it made her an émigrée, but I thought our country would be better off without her. I was a fool to believe that if she was away from France she might come to her senses. Little did I realise that she would seek out her rival, Thomasina Ardleigh, with whom I’d fallen in love,’ a clearing of the throat, ‘during the summer of 1788, by working her way into the good opinion of Mademoiselle Ardleigh’s family.’

‘Deputy Paulin,’ the judge exclaimed, ‘you are merely replacing one narrative with another. How is the jury to know that you are not offering a fabrication for the sake of the prisoner, your mistress – or should I say, one of your mistresses?’

‘I’m sure the jury is already ahead of me. They will know that just as we believe Charlotte Corday could not possibly have been working alone in Paris, Estelle Beyle could not have pursued her plan all by herself in England. And such, indeed, is the case. Thomasina Ardleigh’s sister, who lives in London, is married to one Geoffrey Warren, a most undesirable type, a frequenter of gaming rooms and drinking dens. In his cups he was more than happy to share Ardleigh family secrets so that Estelle could insinuate herself and even be employed as a companion to Thomasina Ardleigh. Ironic, you might think, that a woman who claims to be a faithful devotee of this new France of ours should disguise herself as a servant to an English girl from an old family.

‘The first package, purportedly from me, containing a letter and this handkerchief, she probably delivered herself, having used an old envelope and copied my handwriting. The second she had forwarded from London. I know this because I have a statement here from this same Geoffrey Warren, in which he admits to being blackmailed by Estelle Beyle, who was then calling herself Madame de Rusigneux.

‘The identity of this Geoffrey Warren will interest you, citizens, since he is a notorious fraudster and crook, wanted both here and in England for his attempts to abuse British and French laws on the trading of slaves, thereby depriving both governments of vital revenue. Estelle Beyle must have been aware of this information, possibly even by rifling through my papers while she lived with me in Paris, and she used it to blackmail Warren.

‘Here is his affidavit. And here are further testimonies; of a post boy who can swear to Warren’s sending the letter from London on the night before it arrived at Ardleigh, and of others, among them respectable matrons, who knew Estelle Beyle as Madame de Rusigneux. Is this the kind of woman – one who would lie and cheat and consort with criminals – upon whose denunciation our great revolutionary tribunal would wish to rely?

‘
Citoyens
, I regret to say that this entire trial is a sham, and that my former mistress, Estelle, has deliberately accused an innocent woman. Out of love for me, the prisoner,’ he shot Asa an affectionate glance, ‘dared to enter France at a time when our countries are at war, because she thought I had sent for her. That is all. I swear that I am telling the truth. If necessary, I would swear it on my life.’

There was a long silence. The chairman leaned back and engaged his colleagues in a mumbled conference. Asa closed her eyes as the floor threatened to tip up and collide with her face.

‘Deputy Paulin, you have shown great courage,’ said the chairman. ‘We might also add that your public life perhaps does you far more credit than your private. But for the time being it is up to the jury to decide on innocence or guilt, and it is a matter of who you believe,
citoyens
: Estelle Beyle, whose denunciation led to the prisoner being arrested for collaborating with Charlotte Corday, or Didier Paulin, who says that the prisoner’s association with Corday was nothing more than a chance encounter. If you believe the former, you must find the prisoner guilty; if you believe Paulin, she is innocent, at least of involvement in the plot to kill Marat.’

The chair-back cut into Asa’s palm and the surface of the judges’ table buckled and swayed. The gallery was quiet as the jury conferred quickly, then someone cried out: ‘We find the prisoner innocent.’

The crowd erupted. There were smiles, shouts, the waving of caps and fanning of faces, then a resettling for the next case. No sign of Madame, just that collection of hot faces, some already turned away to look at the door through which the next prisoner would soon enter, no dark-haired little woman in a pink dress, only a disconcerting flash of a new colour, green.

Didier took Asa by the hand. As he led her away his arm came round her waist to support her and she was conscious of how smart he must seem beside her own wan figure. People seized her hand, cheered then fell back to let her pass.

‘What happened to the woman who was tried before me?’ she whispered. ‘Lucie. The dressmaker who was wearing a copper gown. Was she also found innocent?’

Didier was distracted by a young man who pounced on him and slapped his shoulder. They embraced, laughing. ‘My God,’ said Didier, ‘that was a near thing.’

‘The dressmaker,’ Asa repeated.

‘You’re free. We won. We beat them. Don’t worry about anyone else.’

‘I want to know. What happened to her?’

‘She could not have been innocent. She was a Girondin, intimate with Roland.’

‘She was just a dressmaker. She made Madame Roland a couple of gowns.’ There was a peculiar freedom, Asa found, in having faced death. She braced herself against the crowd that was pressing her forward. ‘I have to know what happened to her. She was innocent, Didier. You cannot let her go to the guillotine.’

‘What’s the matter with you? There’s no time. We have to get away.’ He put his mouth close to her ear. ‘You were cleared of only one charge – conspiracy with Corday. Don’t you realise that if they were to look again at all the lies you’ve told since arriving in France you would likely be arrested all over again.’

‘I’m not moving until I know.’

Her eyes felt hot and hard. Didier said: ‘I risked my life for you.’

She slid down against a stone pillar and perched on its base. He stared at her, then cursed and disappeared. As she waited, Asa imagined an alternative self, convicted of being an enemy of the Revolution and led to an empty room where they would hack off first her hair, then the cloth covering her neck, to free it for the guillotine’s blade …

Didier seized hold of her arm.

‘She was found guilty. Are you satisfied?’

‘Is that all you know?’

‘She’s not to be executed immediately. There’s been some kind of remission. One of the wardresses suspects she may be pregnant. They’ll wait a couple of weeks to know for sure. It’s an old trick.’

He was shifting her towards the open door but her teeth were chattering violently and her knees refused to support her. ‘Yesterday in La Petite Force I thought I would never see you again. I thought you were on their side.’

‘You should have had more faith in me.’ Yet another cluster of young men fell upon them, squeezed Didier’s hand and flung their arms about his neck. Asa swayed against his arm. ‘To leave you was unbearable for me,’ he said as they walked on, ‘but my instinct was to bide my time rather than protest too much at that moment. I needed to gather my evidence.’

‘I was afraid you’d given up.’ Her thoughts refused to knit together. She was walking free, with Didier. From time to time a tremor ran through her body, first fire then ice. What had changed since yesterday? Ah yes, Warren; testimonies from England.

They climbed the stone staircase and burst forth into the noisy heat of Paris. ‘What are we to do now?’ she said.

He brought his face very close to hers and kept tight hold of her elbow. ‘You are to listen to every word I say. Here is the cab, thank God. The driver has very clear instructions. He is one of my men and he has been told not to let you go. Do you understand? Don’t even think of getting out. Remember that there were many things they didn’t ask about your trip from England and my family’s friendship with Corday. If they did, if they thought about how closely connected I was to her, I’d be done for. You and I must have nothing more to do with each other.’

‘Aren’t you coming with me, then?’

‘I was within a whisker of being dragged down with you. They might have killed us both. I have to get back to work and pretend that all this meant nothing to me.’

‘Where am I going? Tell me what’s happening.’

But already he’d slammed the door and muttered an instruction to the driver. Asa found herself in yet another enclosed space, this time a cab with shabby blue cushions. She could do nothing but watch as Didier walked rapidly away.

The cab edged across a crowded bridge but was soon at a standstill. The stink of the Seine seeped under the door and the flimsy vehicle rocked each time someone barged past. She saw a fat woman with a clutch of children huddled in her skirts, a lank-haired youth with a shaggy broom on his shoulder, an old man with hollow cheeks carrying a heavy sack.

‘Where am I going?’ she said aloud. ‘I don’t know where I’m going.’ She heard the driver yell at the crowd to get out of the way. Someone hammered on the door; the face of a young boy was pressed to the glass, nose distorted, lips pushed back as he made an obscene kissing gesture.