Illumination. Matthew Plampin
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intending to be on the early-morning train back to Calais. With Hannah.’
‘Wise, Mrs P, very wise. The Prussians will soon be blocking the railway lines. I understand that it’s an initial stage in the process of encirclement.’ Inglis straightened up. ‘I’m rather surprised, actually, that it didn’t happen this afternoon.’
Clem stared over at Elizabeth. She’d predicted confidently that it would be two more days before the invaders reached Paris. He felt sick, his collar tightening. This was a mistake of epic proportions. What on earth did they think they were doing?
Elizabeth remained composed. ‘Is that possible?’ she asked, sounding only mildly irked by the journalist’s revelation. ‘Can a city that is home to millions really be placed under siege? Is this some kind of joke, Mont?’
Inglis was grinning. ‘No joke, Mrs P, upon my honour. All the experts are agreed. The Prussians are more than capable of organising such an operation. That is why the French have been crushed so absolutely – why their best legions have been knocked to bits in a matter of weeks. This is the modern way, you see. Valour and courage have been displaced by planning and logistics.’
‘It seems improbable, to say the very least.’
‘Perhaps, madam, but the strategies are well established. Roads will be barricaded, batteries built, trenches dug. They’re going to lock us in, starve us down to nothing, and deliver a final humiliation so complete that the new republic will submit to whatever peace terms they propose.’ Inglis struck the counter-bell, its sharp chime cutting through the lobby. ‘The siege of Paris is about to begin.’
Evening had arrived whilst they’d been in the Grand. Ornate cast-iron lampposts lit expanses of empty pavement; a soft autumn mist was drifting down through the denuded trees. Inglis hailed them a cab, stopping to give the driver his instructions as Clem and his mother climbed inside. Elizabeth had entrusted Clem with her notebook; he went to draw it from his pocket and pass it over to her.
‘No, Clement,’ Elizabeth said, ‘I fear that would only provoke him. Lord above, I’d forgotten how trying the man can be. Memory is too forgiving at times.’
‘He isn’t easy to like, I have to say.’
‘Liking him isn’t necessary. He might be able to help us locate Hannah. All we have to do is put up with him until then.’
Inglis folded his long limbs into the cab, settling himself at the opposite end of Clem’s seat. The journalist was in high spirits, glad to have been liberated from the dullness of the Grand. He took a squashed-looking cap from his jacket and stuck it on his head. It was a kepi, he informed them, headwear of choice for partisans of the new republic – which made it an essential item for any man who wished to walk about the city and not be lynched either as a Prussian spy or an Imperialist.
‘The latter,’ he confided, ‘for the shabbier class of Parisian, is by far the more grievous offence.’
They went north, passing through yet more roadside army camps, the fires now casting tangled shadows over the fine buildings behind. Inglis held forth on the incompetence of the new republic, the destructive savagery of the masses, the immense wrongs done to the noble, fallen emperor; Elizabeth stayed very still, gazing out of the window.
Entering Montmartre felt abrupt, like walking behind a section of stage-set. The scale and precision of the boulevards disappeared, the cab creaking its way up into a web of crooked, sloping lanes. No one had fled this district; Montmartre was truly alive that night, crammed with its inhabitants. The mood was oddly jubilant, the erratically lit streets resounding with songs and laughter. Every man was in uniform, but not one worn by any of the regular troops; their simple blue outfits were halfway between those of soldiers and policemen, topped off with a kepi just like Inglis’s. The majority were drinking hard. They dominated the cafés and restaurants, debated on corners and lounged around shop fronts. Countless flags and banners were on display. The tricolour was the most popular – but another, plain red, was so common that it could easily have been mistaken for the standard of a new army, separate from that of France.
‘National Guard,’ Inglis said, his voice loaded with disdain. ‘The Parisian militia. Louis Napoleon had the good sense to suppress them, but they’re back with a vengeance now, claiming that they’re the ones to save the city.’ He pointed at a particularly large red flag, propped above the door of a bar. ‘And as you can see, in humble districts such as this, the units are already thoroughly infected with socialistic doctrine.’
‘The International?’ Elizabeth asked.
‘Among others. Reds of every stripe were all over Paris the moment the emperor was captured, spreading their sedition – sowing disinformation and slander.’ Inglis smiled bitterly. ‘Disaster piled upon disaster.’
The cab became caught in a herd of goats that was being driven into the city from the surrounding countryside. Inglis opened the door, leaned out to survey the brown, bleating backs, and suggested that they continue on foot.
‘I know the way from here, Mrs P,’ he said. ‘It ain’t far.’
Skirting the herd, he led them up a steep alley and across a courtyard. A good deal could be seen of the hilltop village Montmartre had been before it was swallowed by the expanding capital. Many of the houses were little more than cottages; whitewashed walls hemmed in gardens and orchards. Between a butcher and a tool shop Clem caught a glimpse of a broken-down windmill, the sails silhouetted against the darkening sky.
The rue Garreau lay a short distance beyond the courtyard. No. 34 was one of the larger buildings upon it, standing at the junction of two quiet backstreets, its floors stacked untidily like books on a scholar’s desk. A portly, middle-aged woman in a grey dress was climbing down from a stool, having just lit the gas lamp above the door. Noticing their purposeful approach, she wiped her hands on her apron and prepared to meet them. Inglis began to speak, assuming command, but Elizabeth stepped smartly in front of him. They had arrived at Hannah’s address; his usefulness was almost at an end.
Elizabeth bade the woman good evening and launched into a double-time explanation of their presence in Montmartre. Her French had remained remarkably fluent – whereas Clem’s, only ever schoolroom level, had rusted to the point of uselessness. Following the conversation was a struggle, but he managed to grasp that this woman was Hannah’s landlady – a Madame Lantier. Utterly overawed by Elizabeth, she was listening closely to what she was being told, her eyes open wide. She’d realised that they were relations of Hannah’s due to the family resemblance, the blonde hair and so forth, and that they had travelled to Paris to effect a reunion; Elizabeth’s talk of her tenant being in some kind of distress, however, came as a complete surprise.
‘Les Prussiens, oui, c’est très grave, mais Mademoiselle Pardy …’ Madame Lantier shrugged. ‘Mademoiselle Pardy est la même.’
Elizabeth shot Clem a glance; this was not the author of their mysterious letter. She asked another question and an agreement was reached, the landlady nodding as she turned to open her front door.
‘She’ll show us Hannah’s room,’ Elizabeth said. ‘The blessed girl isn’t there, of course – she’s off in the city somewhere. But Madame hasn’t noticed anything wrong at all.’
Clem considered this as they followed Madame Lantier into her hallway. It made sense that she was unaware of his sister’s troubles. Who would want their landlady to know that they were out of cash, if they could possibly help it?
They were taken past the main staircase, through a pristine parlour and outside again, into the walled garden at the rear of the house. The air smelled of autumnal ripeness, of fat vegetables and soil; an abundance of tall plants thronged around a brick pathway, their leaves turning blue in the fading light. Madame Lantier had already started up this path, pushing through the press of vegetation. A little bemused, Elizabeth, Clem and Inglis went after her, holding onto their hats to stop them being dragged from their heads. After a few awkward yards they were back in the open. In front of them, set against the garden’s rear wall, was a small wooden outbuilding.