Send Her Victorious

by Alexander Cordell

Genres: Historical Fiction; Sagas; Regency Romance

Synopsis

1848. When the French people besiege Paris, King Louis Philippe flees to England and the French aristocracy run for their lives. Even the Pope deserts the Vatican. Europe is in turmoil. Fearing economic and social collapse, the French provisonal government distracts world attention by recruiting a Queen voctoria 'look alike', one madame Alicia Bernard, and then claiming that they have succeeded in abducting Victoria for a trial in Paris for 'crimes against the poor'. Alicia Bernard stands alone before the howling mobs, until barrister Andre Pelon is appointed to defend her...

Release date: September 4, 2014

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 256

Sample

It might have been the Year of Revolution in Europe, but Monsieur Leclerc appeared unaware of it: lazing among the cushions of his ornate coach, one granted him by the French Assembly in Paris for his espionage activities, he watched the Welsh countryside fly past a darkening window with desultory interest.

With half-closed eyes he nostalgically remembered his youth, for he had been raised in this land before the hazards of a French boarding school in the Loire Valley: in his mind’s eye Welsh milkmaids laboured amid greenness in the pasturelands of Gwent and maids of Iberian darkness bloomed on their little Welsh farms. One of these maids he had kissed, aged fifteen, behind the woodshed of his father’s cottage; her name, if he remembered correctly, was Gwendoline … and summer full and splendid, was into them.

The woman sitting opposite him in the coach bowed her head to a sudden lightning flash that etched her profile behind her heavy veil, filling the ornate surroundings with vivid blue light. Leclerc grunted, saying with heavy sarcasm in French, “Be consoled, madame: there is worse going on in our God-forsaken France; be comforted that your fears now are reduced to a minimum; they no longer torture for confession here, I understand.”

The woman did not reply, shrugging with indifference. Rain suddenly lashed the windows of the coach.

“You are of French blood, madame?”

“My mother was Welsh, my father French.”

“Clearly you love France!” Lying back on the cushions Leclerc regarded her with stifled interest.

“That is why I am here.”

Leclerc smiled at his thoughts. “I also; yet while loving France to distraction, I would not be prepared to die for her — not for a year or two, anyway.”

“I am,” said the woman.

“So I understand; and that is where you are a fool.” He spread big hands towards her. “A little grave in an unknown British cemetery? A trifling epitaph — ‘Here lies Madame Alicia Bernard, youngest daughter of the Compte de Fernate — expired young in the hands of English butchers’. Does not the prospect disturb you?”

“It terrifies me.”

“Yet you undertake it?”

“We are back to where we began,” said the woman.

Leclerc shrugged. It required the pedantry of a peasant, he thought, to obliterate such a future of uncomplicated loyalties, yet this woman, mature if not attractive, was of aristocratic blood, had been beautifully educated and was clearly intelligent. Vaguely he wondered where the Assembly obtained such people, prepared to die for the ethics in which they believed.

Of one thing he was certain: the British, in their smug, self-satisfied certainty of Queen and Empire, would give a great deal to get their hands upon this one; which was a pity, for he liked her. Now a faint perfume touched his nostrils and he turned again to the window in resentment at her nearness, it being a time of blood, not boudoirs …

“Once I lived here,” he said, for no reason.

“You have been fortunate, monsieur.”

“You have lived in Britain, too?”

“For a little while, when I was younger.”

Leclerc warmed to her. “You are not so old now?”

“I am thirty.”

“You surprise me: I’d have taken you for someone much younger …”

“The veil, monsieur; when not wearing it I approximate to the age of the Queen of England, they tell me, which, of course, is precisely the idea.”

He laughed and took a little snuff. “Remove your veil, madame, and I will inform you to what degree of likeness you approximate to Victoria, for I have met her many times.”

She replied, “I am not to remove the veil until I reach the time of declaration, which is when I meet the Welshmen; the Assembly was strong upon the point.”

“Of course. I apologise to you. A young and courageous woman is eternally the ambition of middle-aged Frenchmen like me.”

“Now it is you who is being the fool. At a time like this.”

* * *

As the coach lurched onward, Leclerc relived his youth in Wales, remembering a little stone cottage in the foothills of Snowdon where his father, an émigré from the new French republic, had sought sanctuary from vengeful men who were once his compatriots: an ambush, a sword-thrust and his wife was a widow.

Within the clattering of hooves he remembered his mother’s grief; also sweeter events, such as lying with her on the bank of the Usk River at a place called Llanellen, which was surely the most beautiful place on earth, he thought. Here she had taught him, poacher-style, how to catch trout with his fingers, and in her quaint French articulation how to drug bees before stealing their honey, for although Welsh she had been born in a French bed: her sweetness contrasted with the strict disciplines of his French father he who had once manned the barricades of Paris with revolutionary fervour; but the Clock of Time had changed: the new republicans did not welcome men they had banished into the wilderness of French politics: indeed, so far removed had his father been from the politics of the new Assembly that it had taken his life.

* * *

The woman watched the changing expressions on Leclerc’s face with inner merriment: they were all the same, these so-called revolutionaries, she thought: half the time spent on espionage, and the other half in bed with mistresses; though, thank God, most of them knew how to die.

Her own expression changed, for although it was not yet dark the coach had slowed. Leclerc sat up, feeling for his sword hilt, and called through his window to the coachman: “You are having trouble, Anton?”

“Trouble indeed, monsieur,” came the faint reply. “Two miles south of Merthyr town we have been halted by vagrants demanding money,” and Leclerc called back:

“Are they British or French?”

“Welsh, by the sound of them!”

“Then they pose no difficulty. At home it is the Year of a new Revolution, is it not? So one shares with less fortunate comrades. Equality and Fraternity are still passwords to the New Beginning! Come, Anton, be generous to the bastards. Send them round to me and I will accommodate them.” Saying this, he gripped the wrist of the woman facing him, pulled her on to the floor and protected her with his body.

Two bearded faces, haggard with hard living and hunger, appeared at the opposite window of the coach. Leclerc greeted them in English.

“Good evening, comrades! Position yourself in the light of the moon that I may hand you my valuables — including the lady beneath me if you wish, for your personal entertainment,” and he tossed up gold sovereigns. With the other hand he unfastened the coach door and the wind took it, crashing it back upon its hinges. Two ragged spectres stared within at the opulence: the braided silver of the Frenchman’s coat, the white lace petticoat of the woman beneath him. Then light and smoke flared: shot by a two-barrelled pistol, the men fell, clutching at their faces. The Frenchman said: “Alas, comrades, no man can complain at receiving his just deserts: this is also the essence of our new Revolution.” Bending, he lifted the woman back upon her seat, saying, “Closer than I had expected, Madame Bernard; your legs remain beautiful, your bosom still delightful.”

With his pistol he tapped on the window glass, shouting:

“Vagrants, no, Anton? Counter-revolutionaries, more than likely, and they are a pest. Drive on, all is well!”

The horses reared to the whip; the coach lurched onward towards the town of Merthyr: the attackers writhed, dying under a misted moon.

This spring did well for itself, with just enough nip in the air to freeze a baby’s dew-drop. The wind came friendly with humans for a change, booting wailing winter out of it.

With his hands deep in the pockets of his trews and whistling to have his teeth out, Tom Davies, the brother of Blind Gideon, now dead, did a little hopscotch dance along the Merthyr pavement to enchant any female who happened to be watching … and steered a path to the door of the Rising Sun, an isolated public house kept by one Mrs Tamlyn.

“Diawch, here he do come again!” said Mrs Belinda Handy, recently the widow of Mr Billy Handy of Blaenavon, whose career in life was the execution of pigs.

“Who?” asked Mrs Tamlyn.

“That Tom Davies fella, so make sure your pinny’s down — for he’s a terrible man for putting it up unsuspectin’ females.”

“The chance would be a fine thing, mind,” and Mrs Tamlyn sighed. “The nearest I’ve got to a pair o’ trews since me old man went to Bethlehem is seein’ ’em blowing on a line.”

She said this for comradeship with Belinda, but thought: If I loved a man for a son, he would be like this young chap coming in: six foot up, handsome, and with two fingers up to the world …

Mrs Handy said coldly: “Just like his brother, that one: Gideon Davies may’ve been blind, but he didn’t miss a lot; folks reckoned he once kicked a sixpence from here to Ponty. Another glass of this excellent stout, if ye please, Mrs Tamlyn.”

“But handsome is as handsome does, I always say,” came the gentle reply. “I mind the time when Blind Gideon used to come in here and play his fiddle: clean in the mouth and heart he were: my old man said the world had lost a bit o’ gentry when that man passed on.”

“Aye? And Milly Thrust the Sweets lost her virginity an’ all, unless I’m very much mistaken. Born outta wedlock, his child, remember, and his mam with enough diplomas come Sunday chapel to grace a pack o’ gentry. And mind you sommat’ more, Mrs Tamlyn. They reckon he don’t keep all ’is worms in his bait-tin: he sired one outta Biddy Hoppo — a boy they do say.”

“We don’t want no slanders in here,” replied Mrs Tamlyn. “Who he sleeps with ain’t nothin’ to do wi’ us,” and smoothing her apron with slow, trembling hands she put on her brightest smile as Tom Davies came through the door.

“Pint o’ the best,” said he, and slapped down twopence. “How you doin’, missus?” Leaning over the bar he kissed her cheek.

Mrs Tamlyn momentarily stood with her hand to her face as if he had struck her.

Her womb, she had once thought, was fashioned for sons — four large sons just like this one; with their big feet under her table she would watch them grow into manhood and join in their disreputable male outpourings. Men with tenderness for a labouring mother, though with fists up and shouting in argument. For this she had prayed to the Holy Mother — for God, being a man, don’t really understand, me darlin’. And the prayer ended she had lain beneath her husband and imagined an early stirring in her womb, which was not conception but a fashioning of bone and sinew within her profound imagination. And now, with young Tom within her reach, she moved closer for the male smell of sweat and tobacco about him, and sighed, closing her eyes to the pain of her barrenness.

“You all right, missus?” he asked, over his pewter.

“Aye, son — fine and dandy!”

“You still grievous about losing your fella?”

She lowered her face. “No, it isn’t that.”

“Sorry in my heart about him dying …” He brightened, seeking to change the mood. “Are they all here now?”

Glancing towards Belinda, Mrs Tamlyn replied, “All except the Frenchman …”

“Christ, where is he?” He pulled out a watch.

“Due earlier, but dunna come.”

“And Sam Barlow, my mate, and Dandy the dwarf?”

“Both down in the cellar, waiting.” Mrs Tamlyn moved uneasily. “Don’t talk more now, son — walls have ears — and she whispered behind her hand, “They do say as how the Frenchman’s got a woman with him …”

Tom recoiled as if slapped in the face. “What?”

“He’s brought a woman.”

He straightened, pushing away his glass. “If that’s so, I’m out. I’m not laying my life on the line with French Streams of Loveliness around …”

“They say she’s the spit an’ image of Vicky Victoria.”

“Oh, aye? We’ll see about this!”

* * *

Later, the Frenchman and the woman arrived and immediately went down to the back entrance of the inn. Leclerc entered the cellar as if he owned it, gave a glance at big Sam Barlow waiting there, and paused before Dandy. “Who are you?” he demanded.

“I’m Dandy,” said the tiny man. Unfolding his small legs, he stood up before the Frenchman.

“Who sent you here?”

“Search me, guv, I got a letter. ‘Come to the Old Sun tonight sharp on ten o’clock’, so I come — and been by here bloody hours.”

Tom now entered the cellar, scowled at the woman sitting beside Leclerc, and said, “Ye want someone to go down a bloody chimney, don’t you? There he is.”

“I suggested a child.”

“And you’ve got a dwarf; I thought it was better, but perhaps I’m mistaken. And while we’re at it, who’s she?” He faced the Frenchman inches taller, and Leclerc was over six feet.

“If you take a seat and calm down, I’ll tell you,” said Leclerc. “And before we start, let us get something clear, my friend. You had your Chartist rebellion and it failed: ours didn’t, so don’t tell me who works on this one.” He smiled at the woman beside him. “This lady is necessary to us, if my plan is to succeed.”

“If she’s in, I’m out.”

“As you wish, but will you not be seated with your friends and listen to what I have to say?”

The dwarf said in a croaking soprano, “Come orf it, Tom Davies boy, be your age. The fella’s in charge, ain’t he?”

With a final look of dislike Tom took a seat.

The woman sat quietly in the cellar before the assembled men with her hands clasped in her lap: with an authoritative gesture Leclerc took a chair facing them. Sam Barlow, the giant Englishman, and Dandy the dwarf sat alone.

“Gentlemen,” began the Frenchman, “I greet you with apologies for the lateness of the hour: my coach was delayed a little on the Merthyr road, so let us now begin without further delay. The representative from North Wales please stand,” and Sam Barlow rose to his great height.

“I stands for North Wales, your honour,” said he.

“An Englishman?”

“English but Welsh-speaking, me da was Welsh.”

“South Wales, please stand,” and Tom rose to his feet.

“I stand for South Wales, and since there’s no West Walesman here, I stand for West Wales, too.”

Leclerc said next, “Good. I take it that you are both conversant with the English Commissioners Reports of 1847?”

“We are.”

“I hope so, for your knowledge of them will doubtless later be tested by the appointed Avocat de la Defence. He is famous, they tell me, in his demands for authentic statements during trials.” Leclerc shuffled his papers. “All is correct, then.”

“Except for one thing,” said Tom. “We’re a revolutionary committee representing Wales. So will someone tell me why we’ve got a Frenchman here as president and one of his Streams of Loveliness sitting beside him? We keep our women for the kitchen and the bed, and don’t mix ’em up with politics.”

The dwarf interjected in his cracked falsetto: “Ach, away, Tommy! Leave it to your betters! This gent comes from the French Assembly in Paris, remember!”

“And he can bloody go back there! We get rid of one frog in Nappy Napoleon, and now we’re landed with another — this is a Welsh revolution, too.”

Watching the men, Leclerc said calmly, “Much has happened to make you critical, so let me explain my presence and that of the lady here, and when I am finished all can have their say.”

The Welshmen grumbled assent, but not Tom Davies, for he was looking at the woman.

Her face was up defiantly now, her small hands gripped together. She looked, he thought, as the wife of Malatesta of Rimini must have done before being caught in adultery by her husband. He had heard the story from Dante’s ‘Inferno’ at his mother’s knee; she had learned the benefits of good education and passed it on to her son. Thus was he educated in the classics, while using the rough speech of his compatriots.

Behind the veil the woman’s dark eyes were now raised to his own and a mischievous smile was on her lips. There was about her a strange, winsome beauty. He, no longer callow, had become impatient of the giggling half-women of his youth, and this one’s maturity came over the distance between them and touched him with an urgent finger, as one touches another wordlessl. . .