Birdcage Walk Read online

  ‘God knows what will happen now,’ he said. He looked for once utterly confounded.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘In France, of course.’

  ‘The representatives of the people will restore order, I suppose. They cannot continue like this,’ I said.

  ‘So you believe that?’

  ‘How can anyone know? It’s beyond us,’ I said, meaning not only that the confusion unleashed in France was beyond our understanding, but also that it was beyond us in other ways that made us safe. There was the sea between us and France. There was a different language and other customs. They were not us, no matter how much Augustus spoke as if people much like him were lighting a fuse in Paris that would spark to London and set us ablaze with liberty. Augustus talked constantly about the human condition and yet seemed to know so little about it that he did not even understand how my mother longed to walk freely in the fields and could not.

  ‘It will come close enough,’ said Diner. Later I understood that he had already guessed most of the consequences that there would be for him, once the King of France was off his throne. He knew that the kings of Europe would not stand for that, for fear that the same thing might happen to them. They were right to be afraid. If one king can be seized hold of like a common thief and taken where he does not wish to go, then where does that leave the system of majesty which keeps us all kneeling? What the people of France did today, the people of Spain or England might dream of doing tomorrow.

  My husband had foresight. It was in his bones: he knew how to lay his plans and how to work until the image that burned on his brain grew into a great façade of stone. He could discuss the mixing of lime mortar or the tuck-pointing of a façade so surely that the men deferred to him, but he also had vision. He saw the crowned heads of Europe coming together and deciding on war. He glanced down the corridors of the future and saw disaster, but he looked away again. He pretended that he was like the rest of us, who saw nothing yet. And so he sat there at the table and shrugged, and at last he took my hand. He held it for a long time in silence, and I sat still and thought that while we were together, nothing could harm us.

  Sarah had left some weeks ago. She had seen which way the wind was blowing, she said, and had found herself a better place. Philo and I did the work of the house together now. I changed my dress and sat in the drawing room only when the buyers came. The high pavement was still not paved. Diner feared it would discourage buyers that they had to pick their way through the dirt, but the cost of the stone to pave it would be immense. This work – and much else besides – could not be done until more houses were completed and sold. The building went on from morning to night, but there were never enough hours.

  I had given Hannah the twenty pounds. Instantly and without a word, she tucked it into her skirt. Mammie would never have allowed me to give it to her. Out of what I had left, I’d bought a bed and chest for the attics, and a chair for Philo, so that she might sit in peace there if she liked. I still had enough to buy food and coals, and pay Philo her wages. We had been in the house for four months now, and we lived mostly in the kitchen.

  I was glad to sit with Diner’s hand around mine. He still slept badly, and often I would wake to find him absent. If I got up, wrapped my cloak around me and searched for him, I might find him at the kitchen table, covering a sheet of paper with his calculations. The lines crossed and recrossed so that no one but he could read them. On other nights, the house was empty of him. I thought of him walking the city streets, beating out figures in his head.

  The summer days were passing quickly. All too soon winter would halt the work again, and the men would have to be laid off. One buyer had withdrawn from a house that Diner had believed was safely sold. He had chosen to buy in Bath instead. There were only three houses finished and taken, and not by the fine families Diner had envisaged. One was a widow who kept a lodging house, with every room instantly crammed and earning money. A man who had made his fortune from the pits at Radstock bought the second house in the terrace, but did not live in it. It would be worth good money one day, once the terrace was complete, he explained to Diner, but for now he expected to buy at a substantial discount. He understood Diner’s situation most precisely, and got what he wanted. Diner could not bear to look at him when he came to take possession of his property. The third house contained a family from London with two children in a consumption, who had been advised by their doctor to take daily treatments at the Hot Well. They had money. The father lived in London. I saw only the mother, the servants and two little boys who never played or ran. We had been in the house four months and it seemed that I had spent years picking my way over rutted mud.

  I had never known how a single house was built before I met Diner, let alone a terrace. I’d thought that houses rose in order, and were roofed and finished all at once. What I learned, as Diner’s terrace grew, was that houses might be like teeth erupting in an infant’s mouth, with pain and trouble. They might look more ugly at first than the smooth gum that was there before them.

  I was used to living snugly, in rooms wrapped around by other rooms, warmed by neighbouring fires in back-to-back fireplaces. Now I had no neighbours. There were only the three houses finished at the northern end of the terrace. On either side of our house, on the turn, there were the shells of houses, unroofed and without floors. They looked like ruins, although they were the opposite. At night, when Philo was asleep and Diner out, I felt like an inhabitant of Rome after the barbarians had taken the stones of the temples to wall their fields. I could not understand why Diner did not come home. What could he be doing in Grace’s Buildings, night after night?

  Before I married, Mammie had asked me how my husband made his money. ‘He is not an architect, Lizzie. He is not a mason or a carpenter. You say that he builds houses, but what is it that he does?’

  I would have explained it all to you, Mammie, if I’d been able. I now understand that he has some capital, although no one ever knows how much. Even I must not know that. With this money he borrows more, until he can buy the piece of land he wants. Once the land is secure he lets it lie, until he is ready to build or until others are ready to believe that this piece of land is as valuable as he knows it to be. The prospectus he writes for his buildings is like a message from the angels and taken down by man. You could not read it and be unmoved. Your heart would be stirred by the desire to live on exactly the spot that John Diner Tredevant had chosen. You would see yourself walking on the high pavement and looking out from the airy rooms into the billowing spaces of the Gorge. You would be on fire with the longing to open one of those doors and call it your own.

  He borrows more money to buy wood and stone, marble and cast iron, glass and glazed tiles. He does not buy all this at once, because the cost would be overwhelming, but his suppliers know that they can extend credit to him. Once the houses are sold they will have their money. They supplied him before when he was building Canford Square and Little Morton Row. He made a handsome profit then and everyone knows it. A terrace looped along the slope above the Gorge may seem fanciful to some, but men like my husband are not fanciful, and they are not deterred.

  Neither are the men who flock to be hired. He hires skilled men and day-labourers, and men to oversee them. He rolls his gold out so thin so that it will cover a whole field. Mammie, I should have told you that the gold would roll so thin that one day no one would be able to see it. But I didn’t know that then.

  It was late again, almost ten o’clock. Philo was asleep, worn out after washing day. The house above me felt heavy, like a weight pressing me down. I wished that Diner would come home, but he did not. I was restless and so I climbed the kitchen stairs into the emptiness of the house, and then crossed the hall into the drawing room. The shutters were open. The black windows showed my candle guttering as I moved. I set it down, but still the light of my single candle prevented me from seeing into the night. I blew it out, and waited for my eyesight to settle.

  The sky
glimmered a little and I thought that the moon must be rising, although I could not yet see it. It would be a quarter-moon tonight. The Gorge showed as a greater darkness. I touched the glass, spreading out my fingers. It was a cool evening for August, and the glass was cold. From here I could see no lights from the far end of the terrace. Everything was still and lifeless. There were pools of rainwater gathered on the unmade pavement. I heard a fox bark.

  It was too dark for me to see into the forest on the other side of the Gorge, and I was glad of it. Owls would be hunting now. I thought again of bears, and wolves, and strange creatures that were half-man and half-beast, sheltering from human eyes in limestone caves. I remembered how Diner had told me that long ago there were men encamped on the highest part of the Downs. They built their fortifications where they could spy their enemies stealing out of the woods. There were such forts on both sides of the water, and they guarded the river.

  Diner told me that there would have been encircling walls beneath the bulge in the turf that the sheep now grazed. The shape of the houses built by those long-ago inhabitants might still be visible, if you knew where to look.

  My eyes were quite used to the dark by now. I supposed that if anyone were outside they might see the pale disc of my face floating against the glass, and think I was a ghost. My dress would not show at all. I wondered if I should stay within the house, or go outside. Tonight, the one seemed as chill and strange as the other. Only Philo, heavily asleep, made the house human. Sometimes I would tiptoe up the wooden attic stairs and stand outside her little room, to hear her. When she lay on her back, she snored. She did not like sleeping alone up there, and I could not blame her. She missed Sarah’s company at night, even though otherwise she was glad to be rid of her.

  My face made no reflection on the glass. The dark outside, it seemed, was equal to that within. This house could not be haunted, because no one before me had sat at this window and looked out, waiting. Lucie had never lived here. She did not know this window and the glass did not know her reflection. There was no reason for me to feel uneasy, oppressed, as if I did not belong here and someone else was taking my place.

  At that moment, my eye caught movement outside. There was someone there. I moved very cautiously backwards, so that my face would be hidden. A shape showed in the faint moonlight. I breathed sharply, in terror of seeing a woman, and then I knew him. It was his shape: I could not mistake it. Diner. He stepped over one puddle and another, and then stood still. In a moment he would come into the house. I would light the candle quickly so that he would not guess that I’d been sitting in the dark, foolishly. He would say, ‘Well, Lizzie! Have you been waiting up for me?’

  But he did not. He turned towards me, but I am sure he did not see me. The moonlight lay faint and blue and in it I saw his face. It was not distinct: I could not see any feature. He looked up, and seemed to be scanning along the terrace, searching for something in the jagged, half-built outline. It seemed as if his eyes passed over me and my heart thudded again.

  His hands were clasped behind his back and he stood for a long time, unmoving. It gained on me that he was not looking at the terrace. There was something else, something I could not see.

  At last he moved. He stepped away to the edge of the pavement, and disappeared. He was climbing down the steps that led to the track which was not yet a road. He would be hidden from me by the height of the pavement, and then he would reappear.

  Sure enough, he did. He was on the turf now, and walking towards the edge of the Gorge. Moonlight showed the clear outline of his body as he moved. He looked smaller than I had ever imagined him. I must not blink in case the Gorge swallowed him as I might swallow the night air in my breath. But even though I watched and kept on watching, he vanished.

  8

  ‘From the London Times, Monday the tenth of September 1792.’

  How I wished Augustus would not read the newspaper aloud. It had become a regular ceremony, now that Susannah Quinton had left Paris and there were no more letters. He hated the London Times and read it only to disbelieve its reports, but there was no denying the reach of its correspondents. By the time the newspaper came to us it was already well handled, and once we had read it we passed it on.

  ‘We have very good authority for the detail that follows. Many of the facts have been related to us by a gentleman who was an eye-witness to them, and left Paris on Tuesday—and other channels of information furnish us with the news of Paris up to last Thursday noon—These facts stand not in need of exaggeration. It is impossible to add to a cup of iniquity already filled to the brim.

  ‘When Mr. Lindsay left Paris on Wednesday, the MASSACRE continued without abatement. The city had been a scene of bloodshed and violence without intermission since Sunday noon, and although it is difficult and indeed impossible to ascertain with any precision the number that had fallen victims to the fury of the mob during these three days, we believe the account will not be exaggerated when we state it at TWELVE THOUSAND PERSONs—(We state it as a fact, which we derive from the best information, that during the Massacre on the 2d instant, from SIX to EIGHT THOUSAND Persons perished) …

  ‘When the mob went to the prison de la Force, where the Royal attendants were chiefly confined, the Princess DE LAMBALLE went down on her knees to implore a suspension of her fate for 24 hours. This was at first granted, until a second mob more ferocious than the first, forced her apartments, and decapitated her. The circumstances which attended her death were such as makes humanity shudder, and which decency forbids us to repeat:—Previous to her death, the mob offered her every insult. Her thighs were cut across, and her bowels and heart torn from her, and for two days her mangled body was dragged through the streets.

  ‘It is said, though this report seems dubious, that every Lady and state prisoner was murdered, with only two exceptions—Madame de TOURZELLE, and Madame de SAINT BRICE, who were saved by the Commissioners of the National Assembly, the latter being pregnant. The heads and bodies of the Princess and other Ladies—those of the principal Clergy and Gentlemen—among whom we learn the names of the Cardinal de la ROCHEFAUCOULT, the Archbishop of ARLES, M. BOTIN, Vicar of St. Ferrol, &c. have been since particularly marked as trophies of victory and justice!!! Their trunkless heads and mangled bodies were carried about the streets on pikes in regular cavalcade. At the Palais Royal, the procession stopped, and these lifeless victims were made the mockery of the mob.

  ‘Are these “the Rights of Man”? Is this the LIBERTY of Human Nature? The most savage four footed tyrants that range the unexplored desarts of Africa, in point of tenderness, rise superior to these two legged Parisian animals.—Common Brutes do not prey upon each other.

  ‘The number of Clergy found in the Carmelite Convent was about 220. They were handed out of the prison door two by two into the Rue Vaugerard, where their throats were cut. Their bodies were fixed on pikes and exhibited to the wretched victims who were next to suffer. The mangled bodies of others are piled against the houses in the streets; and in the quarters of Paris near to which the prisons are, the carcases lie scattered in hundreds, diffusing pestilence all around.

  ‘The streets of Paris, strewed with the carcases of the mangled victims, are become so familiar to the sight, that they are passed by and trod on without any particular notice. The mob think no more of killing a fellow-creature, who is not even an object of suspicion, than wanton boys would of killing a cat or a dog. We have it from a Gentleman who has been but too often an eye witness to the fact.’

  ‘Very good authority! A gentleman who has been an eye-witness, indeed! I don’t believe a word of it,’ declared Caroline, and her glance swept the room for approval.

  ‘How I wish Susannah had not left Paris,’ said Augustus. ‘We should have had a more accurate account. The Times gentleman is a very convenient fellow; he always sees and hears exactly what is required of him. I cannot believe that anyone above the age of ten would be taken in by these fabrications. Carcasses of mangled victims! Mr Lin
dsay has been reading too much Mrs Radcliffe.’

  ‘His language is highly coloured, certainly,’ said Hannah.

  ‘And he is rather too fond of exclamation marks,’ said Augustus, and smiled. ‘How is your mother, Lizzie?’

  ‘She is sleeping.’

  ‘But she is better?’

  ‘Yes, much better.’

  I had passed the previous night in a chair beside her bed. She had been violently sick, and Augustus had sent for me even though Hannah had tried to persuade him that it was not necessary. Fortunately, Diner had not been at home when Augustus’s message came. He would not have liked my being called away, but as it was I moved swiftly, leaving a note for him and telling Philo to grill lamb chops when he returned.

  Mammie was much better this morning. I would be able to go home soon, and leave her to rest. It was a cream cheese she’d eaten that had made her so ill. She had no pains now.

  ‘I wish we were back in London,’ said Augustus. ‘The London Corresponding Society meets regularly at the Crown and Anchor now. We have so many friends there.’

  ‘We have friends enough here,’ I said, alarmed. Diner would not leave Bristol. But Hannah said:

  ‘We are needed here, Augustus. This is where we are called to work.’ She spoke with such certainty that for the moment he was silenced. Hannah nodded at me. If she could have winked (she never could) I think she would have done so. My heart filled with affection for her: Hannah, whom I mocked too often in my mind. She understood that it was impossible Mammie and I should ever live apart.

  A few days earlier Diner had asked me to draw a design for the garden. I knew very little about such things, because we had always lived in rooms, but I was flattered that he asked me. He thought that if we laid and planted a flower garden in the latest style, it would please the buyers. I did not mention that behind our house lay a mess of rubble: he knew that as well as I did, and we both knew how unlikely it was that he would call the men off the building work to shift rubble, bring in soil and landscape our small plot into a flower garden. And besides, it was already September and flowers were dying.