Death at Dawn - Caro Peacock [112]
She nodded reluctantly and I went down to fetch Daniel. I’d worried that his presence would make her even more scared than she was already, but I should have trusted more in his natural kindness and gift for putting people at ease. He made a polite bow to her, introduced himself and – after a questioning look to ask my permission – sat down on the edge of the bed.
‘Mrs Martley, I am sorry indeed to intrude on you. Jacques Lane was a very good friend of mine, and I’d be obliged to you for anything you could tell me about your acquaintance with him.’
‘What do you want to know?’
‘How did you come to meet him? Was it in Paris?’
She blinked and pushed back a lock of her lank hair.
‘Paris, yes. When I was trying to get away from the fat devil.’
I opened my mouth and shut it again, deciding to leave as much of the questioning as I could to Daniel.
‘Fat devil?’
‘I don’t know his name to this day. He was keeping me shut up in this house in Paris, a servant on watch in the hall day and night. Only, you see, there was one of them liked a drink and one night I looked out and he wasn’t there on guard. So I got my few things together and ran down the stairs and out of the door. That was all I could think of, getting away, only I had no more idea of how to get back to England than flying to the moon, and I don’t know any French, not a word.’
She stared at Daniel as if her life depended on making him understand.
‘And was that when you met him?’ he prompted.
‘I knew there was a hotel next door with a coach-yard and I’d heard English voices there. So I thought if I went to the coachyard and waited I might come across an English family and beg them for pity’s sake to take me back with them.’
‘When was this?’ Daniel said.
‘I don’t know. I’ve lost track. A lot of the time I didn’t know whether it was day or night even. So it’s no use asking …’
She was becoming perturbed again, twisting her fingers in the fringes of the shawl.
‘Don’t concern yourself about it, then. Did you get to the hotel courtyard?’
‘Yes. There was a gentleman there, talking to a horse. I’m sorry, did you want to say something?’
I must have made some movement. My father talked to all animals, from horses to mice. It brought him back to me so vividly that I felt like yelping from hurt. I pressed my lips together and nodded to Mrs Martley to go on.
‘He was talking to it in English, saying it was going on a long journey and not to be scared. He sounded a pleasant man so after a while I plucked up courage and went over to him. I said I was a respectable Englishwoman fallen on hard times and I wanted to get home. Well, no sooner were the words out of my mouth than his hand went to his pocket. “Thank you, sir, only it’s not just the money,” I said to him. “I’ve no notion how to set about getting back and I’ve got enemies next door to this very hotel who’ll stop me if they find out, then goodness knows what will happen to me.” I don’t know if he believed me then or not. He took me round a corner to one of those places they have in Paris, like a public house only not so cheerful, and sat me down and looked at me. “You’re shaking,” he said. “So would you be shaking, sir, if you’d gone through what I’ve gone through,” I said. Then he ordered us a glass of brandy apiece and I started telling him my story. Even while I was telling it, I thought it sounded so fantastical, he wouldn’t believe me. He did, though.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘My father always trusted people.’
Even the memory of him seemed to have unloosed her tongue.
‘It was more than just trusting. He knew the half of it already. While I was telling it, he kept nodding his head as if it chimed in with something else he’d heard. And when I got to the bit about the fat devil asking me questions as if I was in the dock at the Old Bailey he started laughing. “It’s nothing to laugh at,” I told him. “The fat devil kept on at me until I didn’t know right from left or black from white, and all