Daughters of the Storm, page 1
Elizabeth Buchan was a fiction editor at Random House before leaving to write full time. Her novels include the prize-winning Consider the Lily, international bestseller Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman, The New Mrs Clifton, The Museum of Broken Promises and Two Women in Rome. Buchan’s short stories are broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and published in magazines. She has reviewed for the Sunday Times, The Times and the Daily Mail, and has chaired the Betty Trask and Desmond Elliot literary prizes. She was a judge for the Whitbread First Novel Award and for the 2014 Costa Novel Award. She is a patron of the Guildford Book Festival and co-founder of the Clapham Book Festival.
Also by Elizabeth Buchan
Daughters of the Storm
Light of the Moon
Consider the Lily
Against Her Nature
Beatrix Potter: The Story of the Creator of Peter Rabbit
Perfect Love
Secrets of the Heart
Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman
The Good Wife
That Certain Age
The Second Wife
Separate Beds
Daughters
I Can’t Begin to Tell You
The New Mrs Clifton
The Museum of Broken Promises
Two Women in Rome
First published in hardback in Great Britain in 1988 by Macmillan, an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Ltd.
First published in paperback in Great Britain in 1989 by Macmillan, an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Ltd.
This eBook edition published in 2022 by Corvus, an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.
Copyright © Elizabeth Buchan, 1988
The moral right of Elizabeth Buchan to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities, is entirely coincidental.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
eBook ISBN: 978 1 83895 536 6
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For Benji
With love
Contents
Map of paris
Calais, November 1793
The Rising Storm, May–October 1789
The Tocsin Sounds, January–September 1792
The Terror, January–September 1793
Afterword
CALAIS
November 1793
THERE HADN’T BEEN A STORM LIKE IT FOR YEARS.
Sophie stood by the casement window of the inn and looked out over the sea. Every so often, as the spasms grew more insistent, her hands tightened on her swollen belly. It seemed to her that the water was full of blood and that its noise was the moaning of prisoners. Their cries would not let her rest. They were branded into her memory just as the pains were taking over her body.
‘It was too much,’ she murmured. ‘Too much of everything. Blood. Death. Fear . . .’
Down below a door banged and she knew it was her husband with the midwife. She turned with difficulty, using her arm to support herself against the wall, and tried to walk over to the bed. She recoiled as she brushed against one of the many cobwebs that festooned the room, and at the sight of the bed with its soiled sheets. She did not want to lie on it, but she knew she must.
She forced herself to take a step forward and the process took an age. Gasping, she heaved her ungainly bulk on to the sheets, swung her legs up and lay back with a sigh. The unaccustomed sensations washed over her and she sank on to the pillows, allowing them to take her where they wanted.
Downstairs in the kitchen all was frantic activity. Two kitchen maids staggered into the room with a basket of wood. It was already tropically hot but they piled more logs on to the fire and the flame leapt up under the cauldrons of water which were suspended on the cast-iron spit.
Her husband watched as the midwife divested herself of her dripping outer clothes.
‘Hurry,’ he said tersely.
The midwife nodded as she rubbed herself dry. The cook stood by anxiously.
‘Mon Dieu, what a night for a birth,’ she said, going to the cupboard where she pulled out a large white apron. ‘You will need this,’ she said, tying it around the midwife’s waist.
Upstairs the bedroom was quiet. Sophie imagined for a moment that she was back in Paris, and she was sure she could smell chocolate made hot and thick as she liked it. She could hear the clop-clop of wooden sabots in the street outside. Then the pain closed in again, tugging at her flesh, and her vision dimmed.
She heard a moan, forced out of torment, and was surprised to realize that the sound came from her. What is happening? she wondered. Then she remembered. She was having her baby and it was coming too early. She had tried to stop it, but it had been no use. She raised her head from the filthy pillow and saw a figure bending over a basin pouring something from a jug. She felt the heat of the fire and turned her head to the side. Someone was bending over her with a cloth to wipe her sweating face. She sensed who it was.
‘Hush,’ said her husband, his voice hoarse with strain. ‘Hush now. It won’t be long.’
Sophie made a gigantic effort. ‘Am I . . . ?’ she whispered. ‘Is it all right?’
‘It is well,’ said the midwife, placing a hand on her stomach. ‘You must be patient.’
Sophie moved restlessly. ‘Patient . . . With this?’ She fell back, and tried to find a place to hide, away from a strange half-world peopled with whispering memories and ghosts.
‘It is time to examine her,’ the midwife said, and her husband helped to lift Sophie higher on to the pillows. He stroked back her long, tangled hair and made a clumsy effort to braid it. Sophie brushed his hand away with a cry. The midwife rolled up Sophie’s linen shift and her swollen body leapt into relief. The white thighs were streaked with blood and the distended belly contracted visibly.
‘It’s coming,’ said the midwife. ‘Lift her up.’
He went to raise her up and eased his shoulders between Sophie and the bed.
This is what it is like to die, thought Sophie, her head hanging down on to her breast. But I haven’t said my prayers.
‘Dear God . . .’ she began, but a roaring in her ears and a burning, splitting sensation blotted out conscious thought. She was back in Paris again, to a time when death smelt in the hot sun and the noise of marching feet rent the peace of the nights, and the thud of falling heads sounded into the breathless silence of watching crowds. Somewhere among it all was Héloïse, but she didn’t know where. She strained to find her but Héloïse eluded her, and Sophie couldn’t remember what had happened.
The baby was not coming as quickly as it should.
‘Turn her on her side,’ the midwife said quietly.
He obeyed, shifting Sophie’s heavy body awkwardly. A log on the fire broke in half with a crack and the flames spurted higher, sending a shadow flickering up the wall.
‘Try to push,’ said the midwife.
‘I can’t,’ Sophie gasped. ‘I can’t. Oh, but I can’t . . . I can’t . . .’
The midwife’s hands darted between her legs and cupped gently at the head emerging between them.
‘It’s almost here,’ she said reassuringly. ‘Easy.’
With a slither the baby arrived and Sophie subsided into the arms that held her. Her husband laid her down and went to look as the baby was lifted clear.
‘A boy,’ said the midwife. ‘Madame, a boy.’
There was a hush for a good few minutes.
Then Sophie’s exhausted face puckered as the pain gripped her again. She cried out. It should be all over. It was all over?
‘There’s another,’ cried the midwife. ‘Quick.’
Sophie’s husband took the baby from the midwife and cradled it in his arms where it cried the desolate cry of the newborn. With infinite care, the midwife helped an even smaller, more delicate baby into the world and placed it on the bed where its downy limbs jerked spasmodically. Sophie stretched out an arm with an effort, and her fingers brushed at its head. The midwife bent to cut the cord and then wrapped the baby in a shawl.
‘There, little girl,’ she crooned. ‘It is over.’
She laid it in the cradle which stood waiting and reached for its twin, arranging them so they lay together like tiny effigies. Sensing each other, brother and sister closed their eyes and lay still.
Sophie was dimly aware of the midwife’s hands busying themselves with the afterbirth. The peace was overwhelming and a cocoon of contentment settled around her, cutting out the sights and sounds of the room. It wrapped her in its embrace, pressing her down into a haven where nothing could touch her. She closed her eyes. Small sparks of light filtered between her eyelashes, twisting and turning like petals in a breeze. How strange, she thought, it’s like apple blossom. It’s like High Mullions all those years ago . . . when
PART ONE
THE RISING STORM
MAY–OCTOBER 1789
CHAPTER ONE
Sophie, May 1789
‘SOPHIE MARIA,’ ADMONISHED HER GOVERNESS. ‘I MUST beg you to adjust your skirts.’
Sophie looked down in some surprise. She had been thinking about other things – the beautiful spring weather, the way the apple blossom was tinged with pink, and of the scents that came with spring. Light, tangy scents that held infinite promise of sun-warmed days and drowsy nights when the warmth closed around you and lulled you to sleep. It seemed such a long time since she had felt like this, for the winter had been hard and everyone, including the animals, had suffered from its iron grip. Now it was intoxicating to be out in the fresh, sunny air and to dream of summer.
She brushed her skirts down over her ankles and settled herself more comfortably on the rug. Miss Edgeworth and she had come to an arrangement. A geography lesson would be so much better out of doors, Sophie had reasoned, so much more appropriate than in the small, darkly panelled schoolroom where they spent so much of their time.
Miss Edgeworth had agreed, as Sophie knew she would. Miss Edgeworth always welcomed a change in the routine and, goodness knows, there was little enough excitement in her life. Not that Miss Edgeworth complained. She knew her duty and her place: but she had not always been so resigned. Once there had beat a tiny pulse of hope and excitement in her breast. It had been quickly stilled. Poverty and her consequent lack of expectations had seen to that, but Miss Edgeworth remembered what it felt like to be eighteen and so she had given in to Sophie’s eager request, knowing that her excellent employers trusted her judgement.
Indeed, the Luttrells, Sir Brinsley and his French wife, Lady Aimée, were unusual, in her experience, in the latitude they permitted their governess over matters concerning their beloved only daughter. Miss Edgeworth had no intention of betraying that trust; neither did she have occasion for regret in taking up the post, for in Sophie she found a willing pupil who if anything had to be dissuaded sometimes from spending too much time with her nose in a book or from scribbling for hours in her journal. Yes, Miss Edgeworth reflected for the thousandth time as she arranged her primers under one of the trees in the orchard, I have been fortunate in Sophie, who is as sweet-tempered as she is lovely. But in Miss Edgeworth’s real opinion, it was the seriousness that underlay Sophie’s youthful high spirits, the suggestion that here was a mind capable of feeling and compassion, that gave Sophie a special quality. Rather disloyally, Miss Edgeworth regretted that Sophie was destined to spend her life at High Mullions as a dutiful wife and mother, although she did not doubt that Sophie would be perfectly content.
Luckily for Miss Edgeworth, the subject of her speculations could not see into her governess’s incurably romantic heart, for she would have been both puzzled and offended if she had. Sophie was very happy with her lot and far too innocent to question it. The only child of adoring parents, cherished, cosseted and endowed with a loving temperament that evoked love in return, she had passed through an unclouded childhood and grown into a model daughter whose only faults were a tendency to flare up when provoked and an occasional bout of stubbornness.
‘Have you seen my cousin?’ she was asking Miss Edgeworth. ‘He promised to take me riding.’
Miss Edgeworth had indeed seen Ned Luttrell and, if she was not mistaken, he had been making his way towards Wainwright’s cottage in which dwelt Wainwright’s daughter, a remarkably pretty girl of some seventeen summers. Ned had taken to visiting it quite often. It was a predictable development, but one, since she knew of Sophie’s feelings for Ned, that needed to be handled carefully on her part.
‘It is time to continue our lesson,’ she replied, avoiding a direct answer. ‘Where was I?’
‘In France,’ replied Sophie, diverted, the name causing a frisson to go through her.
‘Ah, yes. In France.’
Sophie twisted a lock of fair hair round her fingers, a habit she had when she was thinking. France! A place of mysterious sophistication and allure which she would soon be experiencing for herself. For as long as she could remember, the Luttrells had promised that she could make a prolonged visit, and now that Sophie was eighteen the arrangements had finally been made. A year would be spent being launched into French society by her cousins and nearest relatives, the de Guinots, who were of the bluest blood. They were also rich, powerful and close to the king. Spending time with them, Lady Luttrell had often insisted, would be the very best way of acquiring the polish that Sophie lacked at the moment.
‘Don’t I please you as I am?’ Sophie had once asked wistfully.
Lady Luttrell had looked at her daughter and then grown serious.
‘Of course, ma fille, you please me more than you can possibly guess. But I have a duty to prepare you for life, and your father and I agree that a little knowledge of the world would be a good thing. Once that is accomplished, you may return to marry.’
Sophie watched Miss Edgeworth fumble in her basket for a handkerchief and a little smile hovered round the corners of her lips. There had never been any question of whom she would marry. She would marry Ned, her adored second cousin who had been brought up by the Luttrells after both his parents had succumbed to smallpox. As eldest surviving male descendant of his generation, Ned would inherit High Mullions. Lady Aimée’s inability to provide her husband with a son had seen to that. It was a cross that the Luttrells bore with dignity, even if they determined (in their quiet way) to ensure that the house with its rolling, fertile land would remain in their branch of the family.
Happily, it was possible. Of course, if Ned had proved unsuitable the Luttrells would not have dreamt of sacrificing their daughter. But Ned was more than suitable. Three years older than Sophie, he was possessed of dashing good looks and a charm which could cajole even the most censorious into smiling. If his education sat lightly on him, he was also strongly opinioned but good-humoured too and had all the makings of an excellent squire and landlord. Brought up in the shadow of this god-like being, Sophie was easy prey, and in her eyes Ned could do no wrong. The Luttrells told themselves that it would all work out perfectly. Safely netted in her loving family circle with her dreams confined to her limited world, Sophie was entirely happy with the future that had been mapped out for her. And if Ned had any objections to the arrangement, he never voiced them.
‘Have you ever been to France, Miss Edgeworth?’ she asked, wrenching her thoughts away from Ned.
‘Once,’ replied Miss Edgeworth unexpectedly. ‘I travelled around the country with my father. He was an agriculturalist, you know, and I accompanied him to help transcribe his notes. I have never forgotten it,’ she finished, and there was a wistful note in her quiet voice.
‘Did you?’ said Sophie, sitting up. ‘What’s Paris like?’
‘Crowded and very noisy. It’s a beautiful city even so. Very dangerous to walk in and everybody who can travels by carriage or fiacre, so it is difficult to stop and admire the architecture. I am very interested in architecture.’
Miss Edgeworth spoke absently, the memory of a promising young French architect whom she had once met and failed to excite ever green in her thin, unloved breast. ‘The streets are so narrow that I was sometimes in fear of my life. The hostelries are expensive, dirty and full of vermin. But the area you will be staying in is distinguished by some fine houses. And,’ she added drily, ‘I don’t expect you will be walking anywhere.’
But Sophie was not listening. She had seen Ned coming towards them from the house. Her heart leapt and she sprang to her feet and waved.
‘Sit down, Miss Luttrell, if you please,’ commanded Miss Edgeworth.
Sophie obeyed reluctantly and once again arranged her disobedient skirts. Ned appeared at the gate which led into the orchard and vaulted over it. Sophie bit her lip. He was so very handsome in the short green coat that he favoured, despite the fact that his light brown hair was tied back untidily by a black ribbon. He was wearing a pair of well-worn top-boots and carried his flat-topped hat in his hand. Ned never gave any care to his appearance but somehow it did not matter.
