Matthew Plampin - Illumination

Elizabeth had stopped by the entrance.

‘We’re too late,’ he said.

‘I can see that.’

Perspiration prickled across Clem’s skin, stinging in his various Laure-inflicted lesions. He set down their bags. In no time at all they had gone from a position of reasonable hope and security to one of total, unsalvageable disaster. He was not going home to his attic study to hide himself away among his designs and models; he was staying in Paris to be shelled and shot at by the Prussian army. It was a bizarre sensation, something like the bottom falling from a pail.

‘So what the devil do we do now? There’s no other way out. We’re trapped, Elizabeth – we’re bloody well trapped .’

Cool as a country church, Elizabeth Pardy swivelled on her heel and started back to the cab stand. ‘The Embassy,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘They will be able to advise us.’

The British Embassy was located in a large mansion-house behind the Champs Elysées. There was no flag above the door; a number of windows had been smashed and a detachment of French soldiers stood at the gate.

‘Your nocturnal antics aside,’ Elizabeth told Clem, ‘we British are not popular in Paris. I’ve been hearing about it all night. The Queen is known to be on confidential terms with the Prussian royal family – Kaiser Wilhelm is her daughter’s father-in-law, for God’s sake – yet she has done nothing whatsoever to rein them in as they rampage through France and menace the capital.’ She asked directions from a soldier before heading inside. ‘I really can’t blame them for hating us, can you?’

Clem, lugging their bags, had no reply.

The embassy was extremely busy. Several dozen anxious Britons, mostly shop-keepers from the look of them, had collected in the ambassadorial courtyard, talking loudly of the Prussians and their famous guns. Elizabeth led Clem through a set of double doors, up a staircase and into a crowded reception room. Everyone was yelling and fuming and throwing their arms about. They demanded action, threatening all manner of repercussions; they called for their ambassador as one might for an insubordinate servant; they offered bribes, money, jewels, even houses, in exchange for safe passage out of Paris. Elizabeth was attempting to discover if any form of queue was being observed when a man climbed onto a chair on the other side of the room and asked for quiet. Straw-thin with a very English pair of mutton chops, he looked both harried and rather bored.

‘My name is Wodehouse,’ he announced in a flat voice. ‘I am in charge here in the absence of—’

‘Where’s that wretched ambassador?’ someone shouted.

‘Lord Lyons left for London yesterday.’

This provoked an explosion of discontent. ‘Treason!’ they cried. ‘Cowardice!’

‘And he advised you, ladies and gentlemen, he advised you in the strongest terms to do the same. You were given plenty of notice to leave. You have chosen to remain at your own risk.’

‘Well then, sir,’ a stout lady declared, ‘I shall go! I am an Englishwoman , and I shan’t be shut up like a beast in a pen! I shall just walk out of the nearest blessed gate, and let’s see our Fritz try to stop me!’

This met with a cheer. In moments a company of twenty or so had assembled, readying itself for a march through the Prussian lines.

‘Madam, before you take such a step,’ interjected Mr Wodehouse, ‘I must advise you that the provisional government has implemented a strict system of checkpoints, to be observed by all regular soldiery and militia of the French army. If you are apprehended outside the enceinte – either by them or by the Prussians – you might or might not be shot, depending on the circumstances.’

The bold company dissolved; the clamour around Mr Wodehouse resumed. Clem and Elizabeth looked at each other. This was useless. Without an ambassador to helm negotiations or petition the French authorities, none of them was going anywhere – via the official channels at least.

‘The Grand,’ Clem said. ‘We’ll keep our rooms on credit. Perhaps a scheme will be established for this very purpose. It’s worth a try. We can lie low and maybe in a few days they’ll—’

‘Credit that will be repaid how, Clement, exactly? A place like that will want some kind of guarantee.’

‘Surely your Mr Inglis would vouch for us. He’s well known there, isn’t he? Couldn’t we call on him and—’

His mother shook her head. ‘Out of the question.’

‘Why not? I mean, the fellow’s an absolute arse, that’s manifestly obvious, but we’re running rather short on options, wouldn’t you agree?’

Elizabeth made for the stairs, not speaking again until they had passed back through the embassy gate. The Champs Elysées lay across some litter-strewn gardens. It had the appearance of a drab, dusty fairground, its broad avenue jammed with stalls and carts, all draped in discoloured bunting. Many hundreds were milling about, mostly women and children from the workers’ districts, playing games and swapping gossip. Elizabeth came to a halt on the pavement. Eyes fixed on the crowds, she explained her refusal.

‘Last night, after we left Montmartre, my intercourse with Mr Inglis became a little difficult. A little heated. You may have gathered that there is a modicum of ill feeling between us; buried, perhaps, but very much present. He imagines that I once did him an injury, you see, decades ago now. It is complete claptrap – I was far more sinned against, Clement, than sinning – yet he insists on regarding me with a degree of bitterness, and welcomes any chance to disparage me.’

Clem was gaping at her, on the verge of revelation. Could Inglis be responsible for the letter – for their current peril? Had the Sentinel ’s correspondent come across Hannah up in Montmartre, and then lured them there so that he might address this unfinished business with Elizabeth? More peculiar things had been done by men seeking to gain Mrs Pardy’s attention.

‘What – what did he say?’

Elizabeth sighed. ‘Mont made it clear that he thought I meant to remain in Paris – that our talk of departure was entirely false. He knows that I still have my contacts among the Parisian press, even after all these years. He believes that I came here to claim this siege as my next subject, and that this might draw notice from his own work.’ She pinched the wrist of her right glove, pulling it tight. ‘Apparently he has plans to publish a diary.’

Clem’s excitement ebbed; he put their cases on the pavement and wiped his brow with a handkerchief. Inglis didn’t want Elizabeth in Paris – quite the opposite. He would hardly pen an anonymous letter urging her to visit.

‘An open exchange of views ensued, I take it?’

His mother’s expression grew positively icy. ‘You might say that. The scapegrace told me that I intended to take what was rightfully his in order to buff my faded star , as he put it. He informed me that all right-thinking people considered me to be—’

From over the treetops came the thud of a heavy impact. The crowds went quiet. Several seconds passed, everything held in a strange suspension; then there was another, then three more, the sounds shaking through the bed of the city.

‘That’s cannon-fire,’ said Clem quickly. ‘That’s where all the bloody soldiers had gone, back on the rue Lafayette. Dear God, Elizabeth, the battle has begun.’

The Champs Elysées was defiant. The people gathered there were not fragile bourgeois worried about their personal safety or the preservation of their property. Liberated from factories and workshops and stoked with patriotic fervour, they were eager for a confrontation with the enemy. Bonnets emblazoned with tricolour cockades were launched into the air; young boys scaled trees in their dozens, barking like baboons.