Excerpt of A Dish Taken Cold by Anne Perry

Celie stared at her in total disbelief. It could not be true. Jean-Pierre dead? How could it be? He had been perfectly all right when she had left him with Amandine only a few hours ago. And there had been no violence in this area last night. Revolutionaries were swarming all over Paris as they had been ever since the storming of the Bastille just over three years ago. The city was in a ferment of ideas, tearing down the old, reforming everything, creating sweeping changes that needed the force of arms to carry them through. The power of the Church was destroyed. The monarchy itself teetered on the edge of an abyss. There was economic chaos, and the hunger and fear that went with it. France was at war, and the Prussian armies were massed on the borders. But for all the imprisonments and executions, no one had yet slaughtered women, let alone babes in arms.

`He can't be!' she said desperately. `He was ... he ...'

Amandine was white-faced with shock herself, and guilt, her eyes hollow. Celie had left the baby in her care because the usual nurse had been called away on some family emergency of her own. Such care was necessary because, since her husband's death over a year ago, Celie had worked for that extraordinary woman of intellect, letters and dazzling conversation, Madame de Staël. She was daughter of Necker, the great minister of finance, and now wife of the Swedish Ambassador, although she was in her late twenties, no older than Celie herself.

Amandine stood in the middle of thekitchen, the smell of cooking around her.

'It is true,' she said quietly. `He was asleep in his crib when I left him, and when I went back two hours later he ... he was no longer breathing. He never cried out or made the slightest noise. He was not sick or feverish. I cannot tell you how much I wish I had sat up with him in my arms all night! If I had guessed ...' She stopped. Words were no use, only an intrusion into an intolerable pain. Celie was filled with it, every part of her mind consumed, drowned by it.

`I want to see him,' she said at last. `I want ...'

Amandine nodded and turned to lead the way back to the small room with its window overlooking the courtyard. The crib was in the corner. Celie hesitated, putting off the moment when it could no longer be denied. She went over slowly and stared down at the tiny form, still wrapped in blankets as if he could feel the cold, although it was the hottest August in years. His face was white. He looked asleep, but she knew in her heart he was not. The frail spirit was no longer there.

Still, she picked him up and held him in her arms, rocking him gently back and forth, the tears running down her cheeks.

She had no idea how much later it was when Amandine took him from her and made her drink some hot soup and eat a little bread. There were no formalities to be observed except the civil ones. There were no priests to turn to in Paris. Religion was outlawed; it belonged to the greed, the oppression and superstition of the past. This was the age of reason. But she would have liked the comfort of ritual now, even if it was foolish and meant nothing. There must be a better way to say goodbye to someone you loved, who was a part of your body and your heart, than simply a cold acknowledgement by some citizen official.

She returned the next morning to her work at Madame de Staël's house. Thérèse the seamstress met her at the door.

`Where have you been?' she demanded. `Madame has been looking for you. My God, you look terrible! Whatever's happened?'

In a shaky voice Celie told her.

'Jean-Pierre?' Thérèse said incredulously. `He can't be! Oh, my dear Celie, how appalling!' Her fair face was slack with horror, amazement filled her eyes. `I've never heard anything so awful! Amandine let him die! Why? How? What was she thinking of?'

`Nothing ...' Celie shook her head. She was finding it difficult to speak. Her voice choked. `It wasn't her fault. He had no fever, no sickness. He just ... died. Now, please ... I ... I must go and tell Madame why I am late.'

Thérèse stood helplessly.

Celie left and went to the salon to find Madame. It was a gracious room. Only a short time ago the finest minds in France, both men and women, had exchanged wit and philosophy here, talking long into the night, while the Revolution was still a thing of great ideas, of hope and of reason.

Germaine de Staël was not beautiful, but she captivated men and women alike with her charm and her brilliant intelligence. When she saw Celie she drew breath to chastise her, then she saw her face and the words died on her lips.

`What is it? What have you seen, or heard? Sit down. You look about to faint.' She moved a little awkwardly. She was visibly pregnant, although her husband was not presently in Paris.

Celie wanted to get it over quickly. Saying the words again made it more real.

`Jean-Pierre is dead. Last evening. He was with Amandine Latour. I don't know the cause. He just ... died.'

`Oh, my dear.' Madame put her arm around her and held her tightly. `How very dreadful. Such things happen sometimes. No one knows why. There can be no grief like it.' She did not offer any more words. She knew there was nothing to say or to do.

Days and nights passed in a grey succession and Celie did not count them. Her tasks were not onerous. For all her proclamations of brotherhood and equality, Madame was heiress to one of the largest fortunes in France, and she still kept an excellent household. It would be a foolish person in these days of hunger and uncertainty who gave up a comfortable position in it.

However, on the evening of 9 August events began which would change that for ever. Celie had gone to bed exhausted, but she could not sleep beyond the first hour or two. She drifted in and out of dreams, memory returning cold and agonizing with each wakefulness. Then at midnight she heard the alarm bells start to ring somewhere over to the north. It was a wretched sound, rapid, hollow and monotonous. Almost immediately it was echoed from another direction, and then another, until it seemed to be everywhere. The darkness was alive with the clangour of fear.

She rose and lit a candle. There was no need for a robe in the heat, but she felt a prickly sense of vulnerability without it, as if she might be caught in her shift without the protection of clothes. There were other sounds in the house now, other people up.

Her throat tightened as she opened the door and went through the outer room where Thérèse slept. She was not there. She went to the stair. What was happening? The alarm bells were ringing all over the city.

There was another candle at the bottom of the stairs, and in its yellow light she saw the frightened face of one of the menservants.

`What's happening?' she called out. `What's all the noise?'

`I don't know,' he answered breathlessly. `It's everywhere.'

Celie went down the stairs and across to the salon. Madame was inside, a dozen or more candles lit and filling the room with yellow light and dense shadow. The curtains were drawn back so she could see out of the windows. Thérèse was at the other door.

`Are we being invaded?' she asked, her voice rising sharply to a shriek.

`No, no!' Madame answered with a shake of her head. She, too, must have felt the need to dress, because she had a plain morning skirt and blouse on. She looked extraordinarily calm, although the hand that held the candelabra was not completely steady. `Jacques said there is a rumour that the suburbs have risen and are marching on the Palace of the Tuileries.'

`The king!' Celie gasped. `They are going to murder the king!'

`They may try,' Madame replied grimly. `They say it is Santerre at the head, and I would put nothing past him. But don't worry, my dear.' She lifted her chin a little higher. `There are nine hundred Swiss Guard to protect him, two hundred gendarmes and three hundred royalist gentlemen, not to mention about two thousand National Guard. The rioters will quickly be driven back.' She turned to the manservant just as there was a loud noise from the street. `Still, it would be a good idea to bar the doors and make sure all the bolts are shot. It will all be perfectly all right, a lot of shouting, I dare say, but no more. We should go back to our beds and get what sleep we can.'

But the bells went on all night with their hollow, soulless sound, and then at seven in the morning there was the violent shock of cannon-fire. Celie sat up in bed, the sweat trickling down her body. The air was hot already. Outside there were still people shouting and the tramp of feet. Then the cannon-fire came again, louder and more rapid.

She had kept most of her clothes on and she scrambled out of bed, put on her shoes and ran to the window. There were a dozen men in the street below, bare-armed, many of them wearing the red bandannas and kerchiefs of the rabble who had marched from Marseilles, dregs of the seaport slums and prisons. They were all armed with pikes or sabres. A woman on the far side grabbed at a child and scuttled away into a courtyard, avoiding looking at them. An old man shouted something incomprehensible, a precious half-loaf of bread clutched in his hand.

Celie drew her head in and went downstairs to the salon where Madame and Thérèse were standing in the middle of the floor. Madame was pale but composed. Thérèse's fair gold hair was dishevelled, her blouse was fastened crookedly and she was quite obviously terrified.

`Philippe says the suburbs have risen and are marching on the Tuileries!' she said the moment she saw Celie. `There are thousands of them and they have cannons! We shall all be killed—'

`Nonsense!' Madame snapped sharply. `Why on earth should they hurt us? We are daughters of the Revolution, as much for freedom and reform of injustice as they are!' She went over to the window and looked down, but standing back a little so as not to be seen from below. Then she turned. `I think we should have something to eat, and perhaps some hot coffee.'

It was an order. Celie went to obey and Thérèse followed her. In the kitchen Celie riddled out the old ashes and built a new fire in the stove. It was airless in the room but neither of them wanted to open the door, even into the courtyard.

`How are you feeling?' Thérèse said, her voice dropping with pity. `I suppose you can hardly care about the king, or anyone else, right now. I wouldn't if I were you.'

Celie watched the flames catch hold, and closed the stove door. There did not seem to be any sensible answer to make. She did not want to talk about Jean-Pierre, although she knew Thérèse meant to be kind. She had no children of her own. She could not be expected to understand. She had had a lover a while back, but apparently it had come to nothing. She had not talked about it.

Thérèse was putting cups onto a tray. They could hear the noise from the street even in here. `I don't blame you for hating Amandine,' she went on.

`I don't hate her.' Celie denied it, filling the pot with water from the ewer. She was glad she did not have to go out to the well to draw it. `It wasn't her fault.'

`You're very charitable,' Thérèse said drily.

Celie looked at her, wondering what she meant.

Thérèse shrugged, a little smile curling the corners of her lips. `Come on, my dear, she did leave him alone! She should have known better. He was so little ...'

`Stop it!' Celie blurted out. In her mind she saw him lying there, alone, dying. She should not have left him with Amandine. She should have stayed with him herself. Pain filled her till it seemed she could barely hold it.

Thérèse put her arm around her. The gesture did not even touch the coldness inside; it only suffocated, although it was intended as sympathy.

`You are blaming yourself,' Thérèse said softly. `You mustn't. It is not your fault. No mother stays with her child every minute. You left him with someone you thought you could trust. You must never chastise yourself!'

The water was boiling.

`I can't help it,' Celie admitted. `I should have been there.' She moved away and fetched the ground coffee. She poured the water and brewed it automatically, smelling the bitter, pungent aroma. There were no clear thoughts in her mind. The noise outside was getting worse.

They returned upstairs and waited in the salon. Some of Madame's friends arrived and watched with her from the windows. News came every now and again, sometimes shouted from the street, sometimes in the mouth of a breathless servant or visitor.

`The streets are sealed off!'

`All the shops have been closed.'

`The people are evacuated!'

`The Marseillaise are storming the Palace!'

They had known that. They sat huddled together and stared towards the window and the street. Someone else arrived, hot and dirty from running, fighting her way through angry crowds.

`There's a terrible battle going on around the Tuileries!' She dropped her shawl where she stood, a plain brown thing over a drab skirt and blouse. It was the only dress that was safe these days. `They're killing people everywhere! I saw half a dozen Marseillaise hack a man to death just a hundred yards from here. They've gone mad.'

Thérèse stifled a scream.

Celie felt only a distant horror, but it was something of the mind. Her heart was already numb.

(Continues...)