I said my farewells and when we stood waving to the departing guests I asked about the French people.
“They are sleeping,” said my mother. “They are quite exhausted. Madeleine and Gaston Lebrun are too old for this sort of thing. How sad at their age to be driven out of their country.”
“Worse still to be driven off the earth.”
She shivered. I knew all this had brought back to her mind that terrifying experience when she herself had come close to death at the hands of the mob. She understood as none of us could—except perhaps Dickon, and he would always be certain that he was going to get the better of whoever attacked him—the horror of what they called the Terror in France.
“We must do all we can to help,” she said. “They have family connections over here north of London and when they are sufficiently rested they will go to them. Dickon is sending a message to them today to tell them that the Lebruns have safely arrived in England and are staying with us for a few days. He will help them make the journey. Perhaps he and I will accompany them to their friends. Poor things, they must feel lost in a strange country. They haven’t much English either. Oh Claudine, I am so sorry for them.”
“So are we all,” I said.
“I know. Charlot is incensed.” She sighed. “He feels so deeply. I don’t think he will ever adjust himself to living here. He is not like you, Claudine.”
“I feel this is… my home.”
She kissed me. “And so do I. I have never been so happy. It is such a pity all this has to happen…”
I slipped my arm through hers and we went into the house.
We were at supper the following night and with us were the younger Monsieur and Madame Lebrun with their daughter Françoise, who was about my age,
They were very grateful for the hospitality they were receiving, and when Dickon said that he and my mother would accompany them to their destination and that they would spend a night in London on the way, they were overwhelmed with relief.
Conversation, rather naturally, was all about their escape and the state of affairs in France; and it was conducted in French, which shut out Sabrina, Jonathan and David somewhat. David could read French quite well but he did get lost in conversation. As for Jonathan I doubted whether he had ever bothered to learn much of the language. Dickon’s French was a good deal better than he allowed it to be thought and he always spoke it with an exaggerated English accent which suggested that he was determined no one should mistake him for a Frenchman. The rest of us, of course, were fluent.
We learned a little of what it was like to exist under the Terror. People such as the Lebruns lived in perpetual fear of it. They could never be sure of their safety from one moment to another. They had lived with a faithful servant who had married a man who had a small farm; and they had pretended to be relations of hers. But they could so easily betray themselves and it was when Monsieur Lebrun had tried to sell a jewelled ornament he had managed to salvage from his possessions that he was suspected and flight became imperative.
They had disguised themselves as labourers, but they were well aware that one gesture, one lapse from the patois they had adopted, could betray them.
My mother had found some clothes for them, which, if they did not fit very well, were better than the stained and tattered garments in which they had arrived.
Madame Lebrun said: “There are so many people who are kind to us. To see the mob… to hear those who have been one’s servants and whom one has treated well… turn against one… is so depressing. But it is such a comfort to learn that the whole world is not like that. There are many in France who help people like us. We shall never forget what we owe to them, for we could never have escaped but for them.”
Charlot leaned forward and said: “You mean… our own people.”
“Most of our kind would help if it were possible,” replied Madame Lebrun. “But we all have to help ourselves. We are all in danger. Yet there are those who have given themselves up to the task of helping such as we are out of the country and remaining there themselves for this purpose when they could escape. There are houses of refuge. You can imagine how dangerous it is. There has to be perpetual watch for the enemy.”
“Their unselfishness is very heartening,” said Charlot vehemently.
“I knew there would be such people,” echoed Louis Charles.
“I wonder what is happening in Aubigné,” said my mother.
“I saw Jeanne Fougère in Evreaux when we passed through.”
We were all alert now. Jeanne Fougère had been Aunt Sophie’s faithful maid and companion—an important person in the household because she had been the only one who could manage Aunt Sophie.
“When was that?” asked my mother eagerly.
“Oh… several months back. We were a long time there. We stayed at one of the houses I spoke of managed by people who help others to escape.”
“Months ago!” echoed my mother. “What did Jeanne say? Did you ask about Sophie—and Armand?”
Madame Lebrun looked at my mother sadly. “She said that Armand had died in the château. At least the mob had left him alone. I think she said that the young man who was with him recovered and went off somewhere.”
“And what of Sophie?”
“She was still at the château with Jeanne.”
“At the château! They didn’t destroy it then?”
“No, apparently not. They took the valuables and furniture and such. Jeanne said it was a shambles. But she had some chickens and there was a cow and they managed to live in a corner of the place. That was how it was then. People did not seem to bother them. Mademoiselle Sophie was an aristocrat, daughter of the Comte d’Aubigné, but she was almost a recluse… badly scarred. In any case they were living at the château unmolested. Jeanne was uneasy though. She kept lifting her eyes to the skies and murmuring: ‘How long!’ Perhaps even now the mood has changed. Now the King is dead, it will become worse, they say.”
“Poor Sophie,” said my mother.
The following day the Lebruns departed and, true to his word, Dickon went with them as their guide; naturally my mother went too.
After they had gone the whole mood of the house seemed to have changed. The Lebruns had brought into it a threat of what could happen to disrupt people’s comfortable lives. We had known, of course, what was going on over there, but this brought it home to us forcibly.
I soon discovered what was in Charlot’s mind.
It was naturally at the dinner table that we all gathered together and there the talk as usual turned to France and the plight of those refugees who were left behind.
The guillotine was claiming more and more of them every day. The Queen was in prison. Her turn would soon come.
“And our aunt is there,” said Charlot. “Poor Aunt Sophie! She was always so pathetic. Do you remember her, Claudine, in that hood she used to wear to cover one side of her face?”
I nodded.
“And Jeanne Fougère. She was a bit of a dragon. But what a treasure! What a good woman! She would not let us in very often to see Aunt Sophie.”
“She always liked you to go and see her though, Charlot,” said Louis Charles.
“Well, I do think she had a special fondness for me.”
It was true. Charlot had been a favourite of hers, if she could have been said to have favourites. It was a fact though that she had actually asked Charlot to visit her on one or two occasions.
“Those people who are helping aristocrats escape the guillotine are doing a wonderful job,” went on Charlot.