For Our Liberty Page 4

  “Be quiet. Be still, imbécile. Let the doctor do his work. He has extracted the ball but you have a fever and must be bled.” She looked concerned but I wasn’t fooled.

  “No! Get him off me!”

  Dominique nodded resignedly at the cadaverous bald headed ghoul who was trying to exsanguinate me. He shrugged and removed the lancet from my vein, applied a dressing to my arm and left.

  “Thank you,” I said with a heavy hint of sarcasm, “now tell me where I am?”

  “You are safe,” she said flatly.

  “How can I be safe when you betrayed me?”

  “Oh, stop being so melodramatic. You are lying in a goose feather bed and being attended to by one of Paris’s best physicians. Does this look like a prison?”

  Her argument wasn’t entirely without merit. The room was a bit overdone for a gaol cell. I don’t know if it was the paintings on the wall, the furniture in the latest Egyptian styles, or the rather large and rather soft bed that I was in that convinced me she might be telling the truth.

  “So where, pray tell, am I?” I tried to sit up yet again. She rearranged my pillows and helped me up but her exasperation with me was clear.

  “In my uncle’s house.”

  “An uncle who happens to work for the police, and who happens to take in stray Englishmen?”

  “Yes.”

  She hadn’t become any less maddening. I lay back on the pillows. I had been knocked down enough times to know when to stay down and when to carry on fighting. Whatever was going on there was nothing that I could do about it. My side burnt like the devil where that damn vulture had dug the ball out, I felt weak from the bleeding and I had the worst headache of my life. Maybe if I closed my eyes, just for second, it would all go away.

  A cool, damp cloth was drawn slowly across my forehead, as soft as a caress. I smiled and reached up to hold her hand. Her skin was hard and calloused, almost wrinkled, and her breath smelt of brandy. I conceived that something was amiss. I opened one eye cautiously, fearing the worst. The physician had returned and was frowning as I held his hand. I let it go. Dominique was not there and the light streaming through the window was the gold of sunset. I must have slept through the day, or perhaps it was dawn? The doctor clicked his bag shut, left without saying a word and closed the door behind him. A key turned in the lock. The room was indeed a cell of sorts.

  My clothes were folded neatly on a chair at the end of the bed. The pain in my left side had dulled to numbness but I was so stiff I could barely move my arm. I swung my legs from under the heavy covers and considered standing but thought better of it. I rolled and shuffled down the bed and reached for my coat. It had been cleaned and now didn’t smell quite so bad. The papers were still there. I sighed with relief and slumped back on to the soft feather bed.

  I imagine that in most narratives this would be the cue for me to throw my clothes on, climb out of the window, brain a couple of dim-witted guards and be on the morning packet to Dover having saved the day. Unfortunately it was all I could do get back up the bed and stuff the papers beneath the mattress prior to passing out again. I really wasn’t getting the hang of this being a hero lark. To be frank I couldn’t see the point of escaping; I had no idea how to get out of Paris, whether Dominique was helping me or betraying me, what was in that bloody packet of papers or even what day it was. I needed more information before I acted, and I needed some more sleep. A drink would not have gone amiss either.

  While I leave myself slumbering, and no doubt snoring as I do when very tired, I’ll take the opportunity to tell you something more of my character. It may help you sympathise with me a bit, but there again after re-reading what I have thus far related to you this may be a forlorn hope. The light with which I have illuminated myself within these pages thus far has not been a terribly flattering one, has it? The drinking, womanising and gambling would be bad enough without Egypt. Perhaps I should concentrate for a time on my redeeming qualities and refrain from mentioning sluicing the ivories, shooting the cat, the demi-reps and the other pursuits of a ‘peep o day boy’, and actually I’ll do my best to refrain from using the annoying slang that we all found so amusing at the time. I tried to stop using it after seeing that play about Tom and Jerry and realising how ridiculous it all sounded.

  I can look back on my life now with a certain level of pride but if I put myself back in the soft Italian leather boots of my younger persona I have to admit I find it hard to think of anything positive to say about myself.

  Perhaps my one redeeming feature was that I tried to be a good brother to my sister Lucy; she had a sharp mind and little opportunity to use it. Our correspondence whilst I had been in Paris had been lively and the only outlet she had for discussing literature, art and politics. Not that she was one of those dreadful blue-stockings you saw whiling away the day at Fancourt’s subscription library. No, she was far too pretty for that. You may be incredulous that I could add anything to the debates we had via the postal system but, like the drink, reading had always been an escape for me from the mundane. Our mother didn’t scrimp on our education and instilled in us a joy of literature. We worked through the classics to Milton and Shakespeare and beyond to Voltaire, Rousseau, Smith and Hobbes, buying books when we could barely afford food. She would often sit in the window seat of her bedroom with a book folded in her hands as she stared down at the busy street below. Lucy and I always thought she was waiting for our father to come back. We were.

  And I suppose I prided myself on my appearance, dashing but not flamboyant, but that sounds vain. I was good with languages; our tutors were a polyglot mixture that spoke poor English and so would be content with lower, and frequently no, wages. I had passable Portuguese, Russian and German, as well as fluent French. The only other thing that I can possibly say of myself was that I was conscious of my shortcomings, and knew that I would have to correct them, which, as you will see by the end of this story, I did. Most of them.

  The next couple of days that I passed in that room in Paris are lost in a mist of delirium. I have vague memories of people coming and going and of that incompetent old sot probing my wound to find something that he had missed the first time. I slept fitfully, often having fever-ridden dreams about Egypt, the kind of dreams that my diet of late nights and blue ruin usually kept at bay. It didn’t help that the whole room looked like a Pharaoh’s tomb, all ebony and gold. From the curtains to the carpets, most of the furnishings had the kind of faux Egyptian motifs that suggested the craftsmen hadn’t been further south than Marseille.

  I guessed that it was the sixth morning when I awakened feeling almost, but not quite, myself. It was true that my side still hurt when I breathed, moved or lay still but I was at least able to sit up on my own and to take stock. I had more or less decided that I was safe for the moment. If Dominique and her uncle had wanted to kill, arrest, torture or otherwise mistreat me they had had ample opportunity up to then but had not done so.

  If they were waiting for something before handing me over to the authorities then I couldn’t begin to guess what it was and so I decided not to worry about it. Judging by the number of couriers, gendarmes and guards who came and went through the doorway far below my window I was certain that her uncle did indeed work for the police as Dominique had said. If so, why were they holding me here and not in a cell in the Temple?

  I may not have known the answer to any of the questions that kept me awake at night but I knew that I had to get my strength back. I ate all the watery soups they gave me, drank the Dr James’ Powders that the doctor insisted I take twice a day, and whenever I could I paced up and down the room attempting to get some exercise. When I bored of that I would sit on the window sill and read, looking down at the square beneath, the carriages and tradesmen’s carts passing by, the nurses and their young charges walking across the park, the soldiers marching past and the blossom falling from the trees; watching and waiting.

  It was evening when Dominique usually came. She often looked tired and
only stayed a few minutes. She was amiable enough but whenever I asked more about her or her uncle, about getting out of Paris, or whenever our conversations strayed from anything other than my health, the weather or all the more mundane subjects one attempts when talking to someone you have just met, she was evasive. Usually you find common ground after the first few banal remarks but with Dominique there was an impenetrable barrier just beneath the surface.

  Sometimes however, when I tried displaying my considerable charm, I saw a chink in her armour. Sometimes it was a very slight upward curve to her sensuous mouth, occasionally a glint in her sapphire eyes, but usually she was mocking me rather than being entertained. She had the air of one beyond her years; she had met men like me before and looked right through me.

  On only one evening did I make any kind of progress. She came later than usual and I was just about to close my book after straining my eyes in the light of the single candle when her soft knock came at the door. The key turned in the lock and she came in. We exchanged the usual pleasantries and she asked after my health. We seldom got beyond that but there was something different about her that night; she was more relaxed than I had seen her before and more willing to talk.

  I was seated on a chair near the fireplace and she sat opposite me. She wore a simple grey dress and her hair was pinned up in what I could only presume was an effort to make her look less ravishing, an attempt that failed miserably. The light from the candle on the table flickered across her face, warming the ubiquitous cold look that she tried to affect, and highlighting her cheekbones and the classical elegance of her features. We looked at each other for moment and then both spoke at once, I bade her to speak first.

  “You are looking much better,” she said.

  “I am feeling much better. Perhaps I’ll be well enough to leave soon.”

  “Perhaps,” she smiled but did not rise to the bait. She twisted her hair behind her ear and was about to say something but didn’t.

  “So, are you going to tell me why you are keeping me here?” I asked, laying my book aside, sensing that perhaps tonight we might talk of something of substance.

  “You are not a prisoner.”

  “My door is locked.”

  “For your own safety. We can’t have you wandering around the house with all the visitors we have here,” she waved vaguely at the door but seemed embarrassed by her answer. Either she didn’t like the idea of keeping me locked up or she didn’t like having me in the house at all.

  “Well, Henri obviously thought that you had the means to get me from Paris to England, is that still your intention?”

  “Yes, of course,” she said, frowning.

  “When? How?”

  “When you are well enough, and how we decide.” The coldness in her voice closed that topic for the moment.

  “You’re being very enigmatic,” I stated, trying to be frosty myself.

  “I thought men liked that in a woman,” she replied, surprising me with the flirtation and, I think, even surprising herself.

  “True, but we also like to know where we stand.” I leant back into the shadows and crossed my legs.

  “You do not strike me as a man with such insecurities.” She leant back as well. I could barely make out her expression, but could still see the candlelight in her eyes.

  “Appearances can be deceiving,” I said.

  “True, so why do you think I should trust you with the answers that you want?”

  “I suppose that you have no reason to trust me, but likewise I have little reason to trust you. I am your prisoner. I am no nearer to getting back to England.” I let the frustration leak into my tone.

  “You are nearer than you think,” she said and then continued indignantly, “you do not know what it has been like in Paris these last few years; the denunciations, the lies, the murders. Do you expect us to trust someone like yourself quite so quickly? We know very little about you.”

  “And I know less about you.”

  “So ask me something. Something that I can answer.”

  “Where were you born?” It was the first thing that came into my mind.

  “It is very conventional to start from the beginning. You surprise me.”

  “As I said, appearances can be deceptive.”

  “Beneath your somewhat affected roguish exterior you are a conventional man?” she said. That was more familiar territory; I had become used to her mocking me.

  “So, I am not to learn your birthplace but I have learnt the sharpness of your tongue.”

  “Perhaps a sharp tongue will cut to the truth all the faster,” she smiled warmly, for the first time since entering the room.

  “You may be right, but why are we fencing? One of us should drop their guard.” I leant forward into the light.

  “After you,” she said, staying back in the penumbra of the candle’s feeble light.

  “Ladies first. I asked you a question.”

  “Bordeaux. My father had a vineyard.” She tentatively leant forward as well, but she looked almost afraid.

  “Is he still there?”

  “No, he is dead, and so is my mother,” she said with as little emotion as she could.

  “I am sorry.”

  “It was a long time ago.”

  “How did they die?”

  “If you expect me to keep my guard down you should not thrust quite so hard.”

  “I apologise. Can I ask another question?”

  “No. It is my turn I think,” she said and retreated into the darkness.

  “Fire away.”

  “What were you doing here in Paris?”

  “Avoiding being in London.” I decided to be honest with her. Well almost.

  “Why?”

  “Debts.”

  “Is that the only reason? Money?”

  “Perhaps there were other debts… Obligations, responsibilities, call them what you will, that I was trying to avoid.”

  “A man who runs away from such things does not inspire trust,” she said and I couldn’t disagree with her there.

  “At least I am honest enough to admit my faults.” If only a few of them, I added silently.

  “And that is a virtue?”

  “A start, perhaps.”

  “Have you any other virtues?”

  “A few, but it is my turn to ask a question.”

  “Very well, but when it is my turn I may return to the subject.”

  “Why are you so interested in my virtues?”

  “Is that your question?” she laughed.

  “No.”

  “Then I won’t answer. Ask me your question.”

  “May I call you Dominique?”

  “Is that all? I expected more,” again there was the mockery in her voice.

  “Well, may I?”

  “Yes, but don’t expect me to waste one of my questions by asking you the same, Benjamin.”

  “I prefer Ben.”

  “I think it is my turn, Ben,” she said and leant forwards again, twisting her hair behind her ear while she thought of her next parry. “Let me think. Does anybody miss you in London?”

  That was a surprise, I floundered for a moment before recovering and saying, “My sister, Lucy, perhaps.”

  “Only her? What of your parents?”

  “That’s another question,” I said. That was one subject I was used to avoiding.

  “Indulge me,” she pouted.

  “My mother died some years ago.”

  “It is my turn to be sorry,” she looked genuinely saddened but she continued with an unknowingly equally difficult question. “And your father?”

  “Rarely acknowledges that I exist.”

  “I don’t understand?”

  “My parents were not married.”

  “I see,” she didn’t know what to say. A reaction I was familiar with. “Your turn.”

  “What was the favour that you owed to Henri?” I decided that perhaps it was best to return to attempting to find something out about my
present situation rather than continuing to uncover aspects of our mutually painful pasts.

  “That I may tell you soon, but not now.” Dominique also seemed more comfortable with evasion than disclosure.

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Because other people’s lives are at stake,” she said and was silent for a moment. I welcomed the pause and ran my fingers through my hair. Dominique stood and walked to the window. Her dim reflection in the glass looked pained as she stared out into the blackness. She closed the drapes and came back to her chair. She sat with her hands beneath her. “My turn now,” she said.

  “But you didn’t answer my question.”

  “True, but I don’t remember that being a condition of the game.”

  “You’re not playing fair!” I laughed.

  “Only you English believe in fair play.”

  “And what do you French believe in?”

  “Winning.”

  “I suppose you have done that, on land at least. At sea I think…”

  “Let’s not talk about the war,” she said quickly.

  “Fine. It is your question, you can change the subject if you wish.”

  “I think we’ll talk about you some more.”

  “I am flattered that you think me worthy of discussion. I appear to be a favourite topic of yours,” I said, grinning.

  “I think you flatter yourself, Ben. I just need to know if I can trust you. Tell me, why do you flirt with me?”

  How is that women always know when your confidence is rising and you actually begin to think that you are making some progress, and then invariably pour cold water over your hopes? I don’t think she was being mean spirited, I was starting to think that perhaps she wasn’t used to men finding her interesting. So either she didn’t meet many men, or she was not very perceptive, or I suppose the men she met were subtler.

  “Is that your question?” I asked. Like any man faced with such an enquiry I stalled. It was one of those questions that we always get wrong, like ‘do I look too fat in this dress?’ If I told Dominique that I flirted with her because she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen she would think I was being trite, which would be true, and ignoring the virtues of her personality. If I said that I liked her sense of humour she would assume that I thought her ugly.