I followed him down the stairs. We were in a courtyard at the back of the mairie where a coach was waiting. It was shabby and enclosed. A bearded driver, wearing a coat and muffled up about the neck in spite of the weather, was seated in the driving seat. He was holding a whip in his right hand and did not turn as I came out of the mairie.
‘Get in,’ said the Mayor.
‘I want to know where you are taking me.’
I was given a rough push. ‘Be silent,’ hissed the Mayor. ‘Do you want to bring the mob down on you?’
I was pushed inside the coach and the door shut on me. The Mayor lifted his hand and the coach jolted forward.
We had to come round to the front of the mairie and as the coach rattled into the square a cry went up.
‘A carriage? Who rides in a carriage?’
The driver whipped up the horses. I heard the shouts of rage and guessed that the mob was trying to stop the coach.
I lurched from side to side. The driver drove like a madman.
Someone called out: ‘Who is this rogue? Who is in the carriage?’
For a few terrifying moments I thought we were going to be brought to a halt. I could imagine the fury of the people if they discovered who was inside and that an attempt was being made to cheat them of their spectacle.
The driver was silent. He just drove on. We were through the square. The coach gathered speed. Some of the people were running after us and, glancing through the window, I caught a glimpse of angry faces very close.
The coach lurched and trundled on; and the shouts of the people grew fainter. We had left the town behind. Still the driver went on driving with a furious speed so that I was thrown from side to side of the padded vehicle.
Suddenly we stopped. We were close to a wood from which a man emerged leading two horses.
The driver leaped down from his seat and pulled open the door of the coach. He signed for me to get out, which I did. I could scarcely see his face, so heavily bearded was he and he wore a scarf high round his neck.
He looked back the way we had come. The country road seemed very quiet and the first streak of dawn was in the sky.
Then he took off his scarf and pulled at the hair about his face. It came off in his hand and he grinned at me.
‘Dickon!’ I said.
‘I thought you might be rather pleased to see me. Now, no time to lose. Get on that horse,’ he said to me; and to the man: ‘Thank you. We’ll get off now for the coast as fast as we can.’
A wild exhilaration had taken possession of me. I felt faint with emotion; the transformation from terrible despair to wild joy was too sudden. Dickon was here. I was safe and Dickon had saved me.
We rode all through the morning. He would say little except: ‘I want to be out of this accursed country by tomorrow. With luck we’ll catch the paquet. It means riding through the night but we can make it.’
So we rode. My body was in a state of exhaustion but my spirits were uplifted. There came the time when we had to rest the horses and ourselves. Dickon decided when and where. We were not going through any of the towns, he told me. He had a little food with him and we must make do with that. In the late afternoon of the first day we came to a lonely spot by a river. There was a wood nearby where he said we could sleep for an hour. We had to. We needed the rest, and there was a long way to go. First he took the horses to the river and they drank and then he tethered them in the wood. We lay down under a tree and he held me in his arms.
He told me a little then of what had happened. When he had returned to Eversleigh and discovered I had left for France he had followed me at once.
‘I knew that the revolution would begin soon,’ he said. ‘I was determined to bring you away. Abduct you if necessary. I went to the château. They had made a mess of it. But Armand was there with the others. Sophie was looking after him with her servant and that older one. They told me that you and Lisette had been taken. I had to act quickly. You see, Lottie, what it means to have friends in the right places. You have despised me for my interest in worldly goods and money chiefly, but see what useful purposes it can be put to. I have been coming over here now and then. I had business over here, as you know. There were many French who did not like the way things were going … friends of England, you might say. The Mayor, by great good fortune, was one of them. I took the precaution of bringing money with me … plenty of it. I knew I was going to need it. So I came. I was there in the mob. I saw what happened to that girl Lisette. I was waiting for them to get the carriage for me. I would have fought them with my bare fists if they had touched you. But this was the best method. You can’t fight against the mob. It would have been the end of us both. Never mind. I have got you so far. The rest is child’s play in comparison. Now rest … sleep … though that is difficult for me lying here holding you in my arms.’
‘Dickon,’ I said, ‘thank you. I shall never forget what I owe you.’
‘I have made up my mind that I shall never let you.’
I smiled. He had not changed. He never would and I was glad.
We were so tired that we slept and when we awoke evening had come. We mounted the horses and rode on all through the night, stopping only for brief respites.
We came into Calais on the afternoon of the second day. We left the horses at an inn. Only once were we challenged as escaping aristocrats.
Dickon answered that he was an Englishman who had been travelling in France with his wife and had no interest in French politics and quarrels.
His haughty and somewhat bellicose manner intimidated our accusors and it was clearly obvious that he was indeed an Englishman. So trouble was avoided.
We boarded the paquet. Soon we should be home.
We stayed on deck, so eager were we for a sight of land.
‘At last,’ said Dickon, ‘you are coming home to stay. Do you realize that had you come earlier, had you not dashed back to France, you could have saved us a good deal of trouble?’
‘I did not know that I should find my father dead.’
‘We have wasted a lot of time, Lottie.’
I nodded.
‘Now,’ he went on, ‘you’ll take me for what I am. Ambitious, ruthless, eager for possessions … and power, wasn’t it?’
‘There is something you have forgotten,’ I reminded him. ‘If you married me you would be marrying a woman who has absolutely nothing. I am penniless. The vast fortune which my father left in trust to me will all be lost. It will be taken by the revolutionaries. I don’t think you have thought of that.’
‘Do you imagine I should not have thought of such an important detail?’
‘So, Dickon … what are you thinking of?’
‘You, and how I shall make up for the lost years. And you, Lottie, what are you thinking? This man on whom I have foolishly turned my back for many years is ready to marry me—penniless as I am. And he was foolish enough to be ready to give up all he had acquired through a long life of ruthless scheming … and all for me.’
‘How was that?’
‘Lottie, when we drove through that square we were within an inch of being stopped, of being dragged from our coach and hanged on the lamp-post … both of us. If that had happened I should have lost all my possessions, for it is a sobering thought that when you die you cannot take them with you.’
‘Oh, Dickon,’ I said, ‘I know what you did for me. I shall never forget … ’
‘And you’ll take me in spite of what I am?’
‘Because of it,’ I said.
He kissed my cheek gently.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘Land. The sight of those white cliffs always uplifts me … because they are home. But never in all my life did I feel such joy in them as I do at this moment.’
I took his hand and put it to my lips and I held it there as I watched the white cliffs come nearer.