“Then you have given me a great deal to do,” he said. “Diplomats must dress properly, and that takes an extraordinary amount of time.”
It was a dismissal, so I thanked him, left the room and headed back home.
I had made progress, or so I thought. That is, I had contacted two powerful people in the Russian and the French camps and opened communication. The next stage was to discover their price, if indeed they were prepared to sell. I realised, however, that I had little enough to offer in exchange.
And if the price was too high? What would happen then? I paused at a café in the rue du Faubourg St.-Honoré and ordered an omelette and a glass of red wine; I had not eaten since morning and I was desperately hungry. I might as well eat and think at the same time.
Britain would be desperately weakened, of course; trade all over the world would shrink; factories would close, ships be laid up. People would lose their jobs. The Government’s revenue, and its ability to pay for the Royal Navy, would fall. The colonies would then be exposed and vulnerable—India, South Africa, the Far East—and the French and Russians would move to drive home their advantage. What could we do? Except go cap in hand to the Germans, asking them to name their price. They would, no doubt, want a free hand in East Africa for a start, maybe much more than that. And would they even want to assist, sandwiched as they were between Russia to the east and France to the west?
All this for a few tons of metal. And I had made things even more complicated by introducing the business of an attempted atrocity, which I would now have to plan. What on earth was I thinking of? It was going to make my life very much more difficult. Still, I could worry about that when it was all over. Waiting and watching, not doing anything unless it is necessary; these have always been my main characteristics in the business of intelligence. It was what distinguished me from others, like Drennan, who no doubt would have blown something up first of all, as a way of catching people’s attention.
And then I smiled, and ordered another glass of red wine and called for paper and an envelope.
“Dear Drennan,” I wrote,
I have been engaged by a mutual friend to act in the matter of a work of fiction which you may know about. I think we must talk over the issue, and swiftly. A neutral place of meeting would be suitable. I will be at the entrance to the Orthodox Cathedral in the rue Daru on Thursday at six-thirty in the evening.
Yours,
Cort
I put it in an envelope, then travelled down to the Ile Saint-Louis and left it, addressed to M. Lefevre, at the bar. He would get it soon enough.
From there, I went back to Elizabeth; it was past nine when I arrived, but it felt like three in the morning—there had been so much going on. I was giddy with tiredness, and I think that my judgement was not what it should have been. I ought to have gone to bed for some rest, but I remembered that stricken look on her face as she held my arm, so lightly, and asked me to come back. Nothing would have kept me away. I even wondered what Stone would have thought, had he known…
Elizabeth roused her cook to get me some food, and was restrained about talking before I had eaten something. I was grateful for that, and made her wait, as I ate quails’ eggs, a little pâté, and drank a glass of wine with great speed and little ceremony.
“Who do you go to for comfort?” she asked as I finished. “Do you have brothers, parents?”
“My father is alive, but we are not close. I have a sort of half-brother. I can tell him most things, and he relies on me similarly.”
“Then you are lucky. What is he like? Is he like you?”
“No. He is hardworking and serious, and much attached to warm fires and armchairs. And you?”
“No one. Just you, at the moment.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Why?”
“That I’m the best you have. Listen, I don’t have good news.”
She composed herself, face set, a little pale.
“Simon is dead,” I said. “It doesn’t matter how. But he didn’t have the diaries. He sold them. He told me as much.”
“Who to?”
“A man called Arnsley Drennan. Otherwise known as Jules Lefevre. You met him with me in Nancy.”
She nodded faintly.
“A much more dangerous character. Much smarter, and not interested in money. The trouble is, I don’t know where he is. I have begun to tackle the problem, and that might work. But for the next few days, at least, I cannot say what will happen. I very much doubt he is involved for gain. This will not end simply by you handing over some cash.”
She cupped her hands against her face and closed her eyes. And I felt bad, sorry to disappoint her.
“I see. What might he want?”
“Me. That’s my main concern. He may see your diaries as a way of getting to me. They would destroy your reputation, but they would also expose me and wreck everything I’ve been doing here. It would cause severe embarrassment to the British Government, and at a time when Britain can least afford it. The French, no doubt, know that there are spies here. Having it plastered all over the newspapers at the moment could be very difficult.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault. But it would help if I knew how powerful a weapon these diaries are,” I said.
“Tell me about Dr. Stauffer.”
“Is it important?”
“I think it is.”
“Why?”
“I need to know everything in advance. I don’t want unpleasant surprises when I pick up the newspaper one morning.”
“Come and sit down,” she said, and led me back into the little sitting room, lit now only by a couple of candles and the fire in the grate. It was warm and I was worried I might fall asleep. At least I was until she started talking, which she did in a soft voice, face turned to the fireplace, as if I wasn’t there.
“Listen,” she said. “I was put into an orphanage shortly after my mother died.”
There was a long, long silence, which I did not break into. She was thinking, and she looked inexpressibly lovely, as though no cares could possibly touch her.
“So how did you become you?”
She looked puzzled by the question and thought. “Because some body, once, was kind to me,” she said simply. “So I know it is possible, however cruel the world can be.”
I didn’t feel able to respond to this, so I stayed silent.
“It was a terrible place. If God punishes me as I no doubt deserve, he will send me back there. It was cold and mean, and those in charge were harsh. They encouraged the children to be cruel to each other as well. I won’t dwell on it because there is nothing good to say. Except that there was one woman, one of the visitors appointed by the town council to oversee it, who was not like that. She talked to me once, and I was so greatly in need that I worshipped her, just for those few words. Every time she came I watched her, how she dressed and moved, the way she bowed her head slightly when talking to others. On days when the trustees held meetings, I would get up and dress my hair carefully, and be at the gate onto the street, so that she would see me when she arrived. I hoped she would notice me, smile at me, even speak to me again.
“And one day she did. She asked me my name. I was so overcome I couldn’t answer and just stared at her. So she asked, very patiently, if I was a good girl and did everything the guardians asked me. Whether I worked hard, and was quiet and obedient.
“I said that I tried.
“And what did I want to do when I grew up?
“I had no idea. I had never thought about it. So I blurted out the only thing that came to my mind. ‘To get out of here, ma’am,’ I said. And I could see from the look on the custodian’s face that I was going to be punished for that when the time came.
“She saw it too. And understood exactly what had happened, and bent down close to my ear.
“‘Let’s see what we can do, shall we?’ she whispered.
“And she left me to my fate, which was terrible enough. I
was nearly eleven by then, and I do not think you can imagine how cruel another woman can be to the weak and the young. It was not the bruises or the cuts, the cold water, the starvation. There are many things worse than that.”
She stopped and paused, then smiled at me. “Still, they do say that the worse the misery the shorter it lasts. I do not know why they say it, because it is not true. But it did come to an end eventually, after a week or so.
“My saviour came back for me. She needed a maid, and had, in effect, bought me. In exchange for a donation, I was allowed out on licence to work in her home, doing what was needed.
“It was hard work, but like going to heaven in comparison. I was fed, clothed, the cook was kind and not too demanding. The other girls were as you might expect but not too mean to me, as by that stage I had learned how to deflect trouble and ignore all wounding comments.
“And Madame Stauffer was kind, although distant and formal. It was a French-speaking house; until then I had spoken only Swiss-German and had to learn a new language, but did so quickly. She was French herself, and had imposed the language on the household, although her husband was German. Proper German. He was a lawyer, they lived in a big house, with everything you might need—fine furniture, gardens, servants. Everything except children, for the story was that Madame Stauffer was barren, and made desolate by her failure to give her husband the children both wanted. Perhaps that was why she found a place for me, I do not know. I need say little more about her, except that she was kind to me.
“Her husband was different. I found him very frightening. He was older than she, about forty-five years old, and very quiet. He was never around very much, only in the evenings, and said little. When he came home they would eat together, and then he would go to his library, and spend the rest of the evening there reading, until bedtime. They talked little, and slept in separate rooms, but seemed to be fond enough of each other. He was always respectful and polite, considerate of her presence. More than that I did not know, or care. He spoke to the servants only rarely, and was neither a good nor bad presence in the house, for he knew nothing of its running at all.
“One day I was in his library, dusting, as I had to do every week, and found a book lying on the floor, which I picked up to put back on the table. I opened it to see what it was, in case it was some law book which should go on his desk, and saw it was a novel. Balzac, it was, Père Goriot. Have you read it?”
I nodded.
“It changed my life forever,” she said simply. “Such things do happen, although it was very unexpected. I had never read much; it had been forbidden, apart from prayer books. They did not see why we should have to read as our task in life was to work and obey. They only taught us with reluctance. So I hardly had any idea what stories were until that moment, when I read that first sentence: ’Madame Vauquer, née de Conflans, est une vieille femme…’
“I was transfixed by it, could not stop myself reading. I read as quickly as I could, skipping over the words I did not understand. I had fallen into another world and did not want to leave it. You must have felt that in your life? Everything else vanished, there was just this story, which I could not leave.
“I had to, of course; eventually the most senior maid came in and saw me, and clucked around me and scolded me terribly for my impertinence. She didn’t hit me, that did not happen in that house. But I got a good talking to.
“I couldn’t have cared less. If that was sin, then I was ready for hell. All I could think about all day was how to get back into the master’s library to find it again. I couldn’t sleep that night. We all went to bed in the attic, all four women in one tiny room and normally the snoring didn’t bother me. That night it drove me mad, and when I was sure that everyone in the house was asleep, I got out of bed, and tiptoed down the servants’ staircase. It was icy cold, I remember, and I had bare feet which were numb by the time I got down to the family quarters. It didn’t matter; I found the book, sat in the armchair by the fire and read.
“You have been educated, I know. Books to you are commonplace, something you take for granted. But for me such books were like a weary traveller in the desert finding an oasis. I was fascinated, excited, thrilled. I had stepped into another world, full of extraordinary things and people. I fell in love with Rastignac and saw in him the first glimmerings of my own ambition. He had nothing and wished to conquer Paris. He taught me that sweetness and kindness would serve me little. Yet he kept a goodness that could not be corroded by the world. Books taught me of friendship and loyalty, of betrayal and how to suspect others. And it taught me to dream, of worlds and people and lives that I had never thought existed.”
She stopped as she recaptured, very briefly, the joy of that discovery, one of the moments in her life which would be an unalloyed treasure for the rest of her life. Whatever else had happened to her, would happen to her in the future, she had that moment of enchantment in a chair, with cold feet and a spluttering candle.
“I read almost until dawn, then made myself go back up the stairs to get some sleep. I should have been exhausted the next day, so tired I could hardly move. But I wasn’t; I was exhilarated beyond imagining. It was like a first love. It was a first love, with Rastignac and the way we had met.
“But I now embarked on a life of crime. I could not do it every night, as even my young body could not manage to go without sleep forever, but every night I could manage I slipped down those stairs to read. I read more Balzac, everything I could discover in the library, tried Victor Hugo, Flaubert. I was so moved by the fate of poor Madame Bovary I wept for days afterwards, and felt myself in mourning.
“After a week, though, a very strange thing happened. I came down, and discovered a new book on the table. Stendhal, and a thick blanket on the chair. I was frightened, a little, but the temptation was too great, so I wrapped myself up warmly and settled down. I devoured the book as I had all the others, and wished I knew people as interesting as the Duchess of Sanseverina, or as dashing as Fabrizio. A few nights later, when I had nearly finished it, I found another one on the side table, and a glass of milk.
“And so it went on, until one night, as I stretched over to wrap myself up more comfortably, I knocked the glass over. Milk spilled over the rug, and there was a terrible noise as the glass broke on the floor. It was still early; I had begun to take more chances, and was coming down earlier and earlier. There were still people awake. I panicked, as I knew I would be thrown out of the door if I was discovered. There were footsteps coming down the corridor. And then I heard footsteps in the room itself. It was one of those rooms where there were so many books that the shelves went up to the ceiling, and a ledge had been built halfway up the wall, with a little iron staircase leading up to it. It was down this that Dr. Stauffer was now coming.
“‘Quickly,’ he said in a quiet voice. ‘Up the stairs, and hide behind the desk. Keep quiet.’
“In one little corner was a small desk which I had never seen used. It was always covered in piles of paper which were never moved.
“I stared at him, and he gestured at me urgently to do as I was told. With seconds to spare, I fled up the steps, and crouched down behind the papers. The evening maid, whose duty it was to close up the house for the night, knocked and came in.
“‘It’s quite all right,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid I knocked over a glass. Please don’t worry about it. It’s late, and I am working.’
“The maid nodded and withdrew. The door shut, and I heard it being locked.
“‘You can come back down now. It’s quite safe.’
“He had a gentle voice, not the voice of someone who was going to throw me out into the night, but nonetheless I was petrified, shivering from fright and cold.
“‘Stand by the fire and warm yourself,’ he said. ‘And don’t be frightened. I’m not going to eat you.’
“I began to stammer out an apology, which he brushed away. ‘I have been keeping an eye on you for several days,’ he said with a faint smile. ‘I won
dered who was moving my books, but as nothing went missing, I didn’t mind. Then two evenings ago I was up there, working, and I saw you come and curl up on my chair. I thought it was so charming I couldn’t bring myself to disturb you. And very curious, too. Why do you spend so much time reading?’
“I did not really trust myself to answer. ‘I can’t stop myself,’ I said eventually.
“The answer seemed to please him. ‘And which of those books did you like the most?’
“I felt like saying all of them. ‘The ones with Rastignac in.’
“‘Really? You don’t find stories of young girls finding true love more appealing? Why do you like Rastignac?’
“‘Because he is trying to make something of himself.’
“He seemed to find this reply quite fascinating, and he came across the room, sat opposite me and stared hard at me. ‘How extraordinary,’ he said. ‘How remarkable. Well, well…’
“‘I’m truly sorry, sir…’
“‘What for?’
“‘For my impertinence.’
“‘No, you are not. At least, I very much hope you are not. Are you?’
“‘No.’
“‘You notice that this room of mine is terribly untidy and messy? Not to say dusty?’
“I looked around, and could not see a book or ornament out of place. And as for dust, I don’t think there was a single speck anywhere.
“‘I think that what I need is someone to tidy it up more often. Once the job is done, there would be no reason why that person could not fill up the remaining hours reading a book. As long as they put it back in its proper place again. Once they were finished. Can you think of anyone that might suit?’