Читать книгу Illumination - Matthew Plampin - Страница 12

‘What sort of a fellow is he, though?’ Clem asked, lighting another cigarette. ‘What exactly are we talking about here?’

Elizabeth brushed at her slate-grey gown. She had an impatient look to her that morning; in more ordinary circumstances Clem would have stayed out of her way for at least another eight hours. ‘He is venerated as a hero,’ she replied, ‘and a champion of working Paris. I barely spoke to him, of course – Hannah has retained that possessive streak of hers – but his story is common knowledge in the northern arrondissements.’

‘You asked after him in that place, did you – the Damson, or whatever it was called?’

His mother glanced at him testily across the cab. ‘The Danton, Clement. And yes, I did. Jean-Jacques Allix appears to be a man of rare principle. He travelled to America to side with the Union in the late war, set on ridding that nation of the evil of slavery. It was on an American battlefield that he received the wound on his cheek. Half of his right hand is said to be missing as well.’

Clem blew out smoke. ‘Hell’s bells.’

‘In the present conflict he has served as a free-roaming irregular,’ Elizabeth continued, ‘a franc-tireur, the French call them. He fought in Alsace, his home territory, before falling back to Paris in August to assist with the defence. There’s a good deal of chatter about his valiant deeds in the Vosges mountains: enemies slain, outposts destroyed and so forth.’

This confirmed what Clem himself had learned – the expressive faces and gestures that had met any mention of Monsieur Allix’s name. He nodded; it actually reassured him a little to know that a man like Allix would be watching over Hannah during the horrors that were sure to befall Paris in the coming weeks. Leaving without her felt disgracefully negligent. Upstanding brothers did not do such things, but Clem honestly couldn’t see what further action he might take. He’d heard of certain Englishmen – aristocrats for the most part – having their stray females returned forcibly to the family home, carted away in the manner of lunatics or escaped convicts. Clem’s soul recoiled from the very notion; he was ashamed even to have thought of it.

Elizabeth was acting as if impressed by Monsieur Allix – as if she was intrigued and amused to be uncovering the exploits of her remarkable daughter. There was something darker in her too, however, that she could not fully conceal: the umbrage and injury of a rejected parent, made to see the extent to which their child has cast off their influence. Clem recalled the suitors Hannah had endured back in London – a procession of fey artistic types, selected by their mother, as different from this scarred Frenchman as could readily be imagined. He tapped his cigarette into one of the brass ashtrays fitted to the cab door.

‘It isn’t just a question of soldiering with this chap, though, is it? He’s one of that crew we saw swaggering in the lanes. He’s a red.’

For a couple of seconds Elizabeth said nothing, staring straight ahead at the empty seat before her; then she drew in a breath and brushed again at her now spotless gown. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘it would seem so. But “red” is a designation that encompasses nearly all of those who dwell away from the grand boulevards. There is much discontent after the perversions of the Empire – much desire for change, for a fair society. Monsieur Allix will certainly be among those demanding to be heard once the war is over and a permanent mode of government needs to be put in place.’

Clem turned to the window. They were moving at speed along the rue Lafayette. All of the soldiers they’d seen there the afternoon before were gone; out at the wall, he assumed, or off parading somewhere. ‘So you’re quite … happy with Han’s situation in Paris?’

‘Lord above, Clement, is this really how I raised you? To be passing judgement like a table-thumping paterfamilias? This is not London, my boy. Such matters are viewed very differently here – more sensibly, in a manner that accords with the workings of the human heart.’

‘That wasn’t my meaning,’ Clem said hastily, ‘not at all. I was merely checking that you’d reached the same conclusion as me about that deuced letter – that it was nothing but a mean trick, a hoax. Han thinks that it was the work of her rivals, trying to embarrass her. She said that there were many possible suspects, and that—’

Elizabeth was no longer interested in the letter. ‘You must tell me how you fared last night. Why, I hardly saw you after we arrived at Danton.’ There was a pointed pause. ‘You seemed to be getting on rather well with those people.’

‘Against all expectation, I have to say. It—’

‘I took the liberty of looking in your room before I left the Grand. The bed hadn’t been slept in.’

Clem was growing uncomfortably warm, as if he sat before a roaring grate on a midsummer afternoon. ‘Yes, well, my attempts to converse with Han’s friends proved rather more—’

‘Then,’ Elizabeth went on mercilessly, ‘you meet me in the lobby, barely able to contain your glee. And I recall that in fact I did catch sight of you somewhere in the back of the café-concert, just as I was leaving with Mr Inglis. You were in the company of a flash young thing in the most revealing dress, who—’

‘We’re there.’ Clem ground out his cigarette and struggled to his feet. ‘Come on, we’ve no time to lose.’

He hauled their bags down to the pavement, handed a coin to the driver and went on ahead. Elizabeth had seen through him at once, of course she had, and would now be making allusions to his Parisian adventure for months to come. It was hard to be annoyed by this; indeed, as Clem strode through the station doors a grin broke across his flushed face. A night with a Parisian cocotte was a seamy enough experience, he supposed, but he felt transformed by it – as if Mademoiselle Laure and her perfumed lair on the boulevard de Clichy had left a sizeable dent in his being.

And a dent it most certainly was. Clem’s body was etched with fresh scratches; there was a bite-mark on his shoulder that he was pretty sure was bleeding beneath his shirt. His left elbow, too, was burning with the weight of Elizabeth’s bag. At one point Laure had rolled them over with such force that they’d tumbled off the side of her bed, wrapped up together in her fine cotton sheets. They’d landed heavily, bashing joints and bruising muscles, but her lips didn’t leave his for an instant. He’d never been kissed with such determined ferocity; it was almost like being attacked, but with an end so sweet it made him quite breathless to remember it.

The concourse was deathly quiet. Clem’s grin disappeared. The only people to be seen were a scattering of worried-looking civilians and some army officers gathered around a map. Overhead was clean air, free from all trace of smoke and steam. Every rivet along the iron girders could be picked out; the morning sun laid a chain of bright rectangles across the limestone floor. The ticket-gates were locked, the booths closed up; and past them, at the platforms, was a long row of dormant locomotives. Clem heard a distant creak and some shouting. Teams of labourers were derailing carriages, turning them sideways to block the station’s mouth.

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.

‘À bas les Prussiens!’ everyone cried. ‘Vive la France!’

Clem took hold of his mother’s arm. ‘We need to find somewhere to stay. This is the best course open to us. Forget your rivalries for the moment. We need to talk with Mr Inglis.’

Elizabeth was gazing skyward, anger and pride wrestling with her common sense. Common sense prevailed; she removed her arm from Clem’s grasp and set off towards the boulevards.

Montague Inglis lived in a splendid apartment building barely a hundred yards from the boulevard des Capucines. He would not see them there, however; a note was sent down to the concierge’s desk saying that he would be in the lobby of the Grand Hotel at ten, where he was due to meet with a friend.

‘See how he tries to put me in my place,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Pathetic man.’

They passed an hour in a large café opposite the hotel. It was an elegant establishment, all polished brass, potted ferns and mosaic table-tops, and it was devoid of both waiters and customers. Their order was served by a woman in a brown velvet dress who Clem guessed was the proprietor’s wife; she quivered at each distant rumble of artillery, spilling his coffee into the saucer as she poured.

Little was said. Elizabeth wrote in her notebook, filling several pages. Clem sat staring out at the boulevard, paralysed by imaginings of the café’s wide windows shattering; the ornamental stonework being blown to powder; the great block of the Grand cracking and crumbling apart. His coffee went cold in its cup, a pastry lying untouched on a plate beside it.

Inglis was twenty minutes late for his meeting. They cornered him at the reception desk, at almost exactly the same spot where he’d greeted them the afternoon before.

‘Still in Paris then, Mrs P,’ he observed. ‘Can’t say I’m much surprised.’

The journalist’s clothes were smarter today, his coal-black coat cut long in the Imperial style. Clem, in his faded travelling suit, felt humble indeed beside him – as was surely Inglis’s intention. Elizabeth was not cowed in the least, though, stating without preamble that they had little money, nowhere to stay and required his assistance. Inglis’s eyes held a hint of scorn, but he seemed to find it amusing to play the charitable gentleman. Clem looked from one to the other, wondering what had happened between them. Could it have been some form of writers’ quarrel, back at the height of Elizabeth’s renown – or a romantic entanglement, after she’d been widowed? Inglis hardly struck Clem as his mother’s choice of paramour. Perhaps this had been the problem.

A manager was summoned with whom the Sentinel correspondent was particularly friendly. The two men reached an agreement and the Pardy luggage once more vanished behind the desk of the Grand.

Elizabeth’s gratitude was restricted to a brief nod. ‘You will lose nothing, Mont,’ she said. ‘I promise you that. I have funds enough in London to cover any bill that might be run up.’

This was patently untrue. Clem had been forced to pawn a pair of his late father’s silver ink pots just to pay for their travel and a single night’s accommodation. He began a silent inventory of their remaining possessions. By his reckoning, a stay in the Grand of anything over a fortnight would have them down to bedsteads and door handles.

The thump of faraway cannon sent a vibration through the hotel’s glass doors. Without speaking, the manager gathered up half a dozen ledgers and a cash-box and retreated to a back room.

‘Mrs P,’ said Inglis, ‘since you are to remain with us, I must absolutely insist that you come on this morning’s jaunt. My friend and I are heading south, outside the wall. Word is that there’s quite a skirmish being fought up on the Châtillon plateau. What d’you say?’

Clem nearly grinned; this was an obvious ploy, designed to draw Elizabeth out into the open. By accepting Inglis’s invitation she would be effectively admitting a professional interest in the siege, confirming the suspicions he’d voiced the evening before. Clem thought of the notebook, of the many pages that had already been covered, and knew what her answer would be.

‘What else do I have to occupy me, Mont, now that you have been so kind as to help us secure our rooms?’ Elizabeth’s tone was good-humoured and utterly unapologetic. ‘I find that I have a keen desire to see something of these Prussians who are causing so much blessed inconvenience.’

Inglis laughed, a little too loudly; a contest had begun. ‘How wonderful,’ he said.

‘Shouldn’t we unpack first?’ Clem asked Elizabeth. ‘Take stock of the situation – get word to Han, maybe?’

His mother didn’t think so. ‘This may be a deciding moment, Clement. We must leave this minute. You can return to your new friend in Montmartre later on.’

Clem looked off into the hotel, a blush creeping up his neck. She’d seen through him yet again. He had indeed been aiming to slip away to the boulevard de Clichy at some point, just to let Mademoiselle Laure know that he was still in town. If Elizabeth was going on this expedition, though, he would stick with her instead. Spectating at a battle sounded perfectly insane to him; he vowed to keep them within dashing distance of the French fortifications.

A man was watching them from the far side of the lobby, almost hidden behind a column. He wore a modern grey suit with a short jacket and a round-topped hat. At his feet were several bags and cases – more than one person could reasonably hope to carry. He appeared to be waiting.

‘Mr Inglis,’ Clem asked, ‘is that the fellow you’re here to meet, by any chance? Your friend?’

Inglis turned. ‘Why yes, so it is. Dear Lord, what’s he doing over there, lurking in the shadows?’

The journalist took a step in the man’s direction and launched into a stream of imperious French, his voice amplified by the lobby’s marble-clad emptiness. Clem could understand little of it, but Inglis sounded more like a displeased employer than any kind of friend. The man emerged from behind his column and went about picking up his baggage. He did this quickly and methodically, as if following a system. Across his back went a canvas sack containing what appeared to be tent poles; under his arm was tucked a black leather doctor’s bag; in each of his hands was a sturdy wooden box.

Clem suddenly realised what all this gear was. ‘A photographer,’ he said.

‘Indeed.’ Inglis moved closer to Elizabeth. ‘This is the chap from Montmartre I mentioned to you yesterday, Mrs P, the associate of the great Nadar. I have it in mind to commission him to capture certain scenes from the siege – views, key personages and so forth.’

Elizabeth responded with a taut smile. Photographs meant illustration; prints could be sent back to London, engraved and then reproduced in this diary Inglis was planning to publish. The inclusion of pictures brought a strong commercial advantage. Elizabeth, if she did put together a book of her own, couldn’t hope to do anything similar. She’d just been obliged to beg for Inglis’s help in securing her accommodation; she certainly wasn’t in a position to pay for original photographs. Inglis was well aware of this, of course. He was revelling in it.

The photographer drew near. Around thirty years old, he had the compact build of an athlete and bore his weighty equipment easily. His features were sharp and dark; his moustache long but neat, bleached a dusty brown by the sun. Inglis introduced him, in English, as Monsieur Émile Besson.

‘This fine lady here, Besson, is Mrs Elizabeth Pardy, the famous adventurer and authoress. You may recall her Notes and Reflections on the French Nation – caused quite a stir it did, back in the late forties.’ The journalist’s beard twitched. ‘And this is Clement, her son.’

Monsieur Besson’s small blue eyes went from Elizabeth to Clement. It was plain that he’d never heard the Pardy name before in his life. ‘Enchanté, Madame,’ he said. ‘Monsieur.’

Inglis ushered them towards the boulevard. Clem attempted to help Monsieur Besson with his camera – a solid Dallmeyer Sliding Box that looked like it had seen a lot of service – but was politely refused. Taking care to speak clearly, he revealed that he’d dabbled in photography himself and mentioned his regard for the portraits of Nadar. The Frenchman made a noncommittal reply. Photographers tended to come on a scale and Clem perceived that Inglis’s man fell very much at the scientific end. This Monsieur Besson’s interest was in chemical formulas and the specifics of lighting rather than aesthetical or theoretical matters. Clem could appreciate this; it was his inclination as well.

They ended up in opposite corners of the cab, one facing his mother and the other his prospective patron. Elizabeth and Inglis began a lively dialogue, discussing tactics and probable outcomes with an assurance that belied their obvious lack of knowledge. Any further communication with the photographer was impossible. Clem watched his mother for a minute as she talked, so ardent and so engaged with it all – and suspicion snapped open inside him like a spring lock. Had there been some truth to Inglis’s accusations? Had Elizabeth been intending to stay from the beginning and deliberately allowed them to become shut in? At that moment it seemed horribly likely. This warranted a reaction – a barbed comment if nothing else. Clem shifted on the cab’s thin cushions; he had no aptitude whatsoever for that sort of thing. He took out a cigarette and opened the window.

The sandbagged Louvre passed to the right; and then they were on a bridge, cutting across the nose of the Ile de la Cité. Clem smoked nervously, glancing at the barges and dredgers moored along the stone channel of the Seine. When he looked around again Besson was sketching in a pad of squared technical paper. The cab turned left, rocking on its suspension; Besson paused in his work and Clem glimpsed of some kind of valve, drawn with extraordinary exactness. What this might have to do with photography he hadn’t the faintest idea.

They wound through the lanes of the Latin Quarter, skirted the deserted gardens of the Luxembourg Palace and rolled over a series of broad starburst intersections. The streets grew busier as they got closer to the cannon-fire; it was as if Paris was being tilted gently southwards, its inhabitants rattling down through the boulevards like ball bearings in a child’s wooden maze. The cab slowed, taking its place in a long queue. By the time they were in sight of the enceinte they were hardly moving at all, caught in a jam to rival anything on Ludgate Hill. Farm carts loaded with forage were failing to get into the city; tumbrels loaded with cartridges were failing to get out. National Guard were everywhere. They stood about the streets like striking workers, drinking cups of wine in their spotless uniforms. Amid the general restlessness and impatience some were making strident declarations of their desire to die for their country, beating their chests as they demanded to be sent into battle.

‘Look at these fellows,’ sneered Inglis, ‘bright and clean in all the bravery of just-served-out clothing.’

Leaning from his window, he hailed a group of militia and asked a question. They answered him with vehement energy; even Clem could tell that things were not going well for France.

Elizabeth held out her hand for the notebook. ‘Clement, if you please.’

‘What’s happening?’

‘It would seem that a French division attacked a column of Prussians, but then broke apart when their fire was returned,’ his mother told him. ‘They are now fighting simply to retain their original position.’

She began to write and was soon absorbed. The cannons picked up beyond the wall, eliciting an anxious murmur from the crowds outside and a whinny from the cab’s horse, yet she barely reacted. What have you done, Clem wanted to shout at her; what have you let us in for, merely to boost your damned career? Last night had been a marvellous adventure, one to cherish, but this – the artillery, the bawling militia, the hordes of rampaging Prussians – this was really getting to be too much. The carriage had grown intolerably hot and cramped. He noticed that he was trembling; disposing of his cigarette, he placed his palms firmly on his kneecaps and splayed his fingers as wide as they would go. This brought no steadiness.

Inglis sat back from the window. ‘Dear me,’ he chortled, ‘not a very promising start! This’ll put a crack in the Parisians’ rather exalted sense of themselves.’ He nodded at his photographer. ‘No offence, Monsieur Besson.’

Besson wasn’t listening. ‘Mr Inglis,’ he said in accented English, putting away his sketch, ‘I have a notion. I shall head up to the circular railway. I can get a good view from there – of Montrouge, of the plateau. A fine picture could be taken in this light.’

Spying Elizabeth’s industry, Inglis had dug out a pencil of his own and was scribbling in the corner of an old theatre programme. ‘Capital, capital,’ he said. ‘Just be sure that you’re at that church on the rue du Château within the hour, d’you hear? I know what you’re like, Besson, wandering off wherever your fancy takes you.’

Dislike flickered across the photographer’s face as he slid a case from the luggage rack. He said nothing.

Clem saw a chance for escape. ‘I’ll come along to assist you, Monsieur Besson. I’ve put up a few photography tents in my time. I – I could use the air, to be quite honest.’

Elizabeth made no comment; she turned a page, touching the tip of her pencil against her tongue.

Besson eyed him with a marked lack of enthusiasm, but couldn’t think of a reason to refuse. ‘Very well,’ he said.

The Paris circular railway ran along a steep-sided embankment a short distance from the city wall. Besson’s pace didn’t change as he went from the street to the slope; Clem, despite having only been given the doctor’s bag to carry, soon fell far behind. When he reached the top Besson had already assembled his tent poles and was shaking free the canvas cover. Clem panted across the train tracks towards him.

‘So there it is,’ he gasped, setting the doctor’s bag down next to the camera, ‘a deuced battle.’

They were up above the rooftops, perched on the very edge of Paris. Directly in front of them were the fortifications, heavy ramparts of earth and stone crowded with National Guard. Just outside the city gates lay a village, Montrouge Clem assumed, its lanes blocked by stationary carts. Beyond, perhaps a mile away, was the chain of forts on which the defence of the capital depended. He could see three of them, brownish mounds heaped upon the smooth farmland like shovelfuls of clay. Past this everything grew indistinct, enveloped in a haze of sunlight and vapour; but off to the west a low plateau was boiling with dust, threads of black smoke trailing from the village atop it. Around the buildings was the shifting grey-blue stain of a large body of men, moving at speed as they obeyed some unknown command. Rifles crackled; artillery hammered out a lopsided beat. It was easier to take than Clem had anticipated. The alarm he’d felt in the carriage was allayed, more or less; he even felt an odd invigoration. He lit a cigarette and watched.

Beside him, Besson was hard at work. The Frenchman’s suit rustled as he moved. It was made from some kind of fire-retardant material, with scorch-marks on the jacket cuffs and waistcoat – curious garb for a photographer.

‘Tell me, Monsieur,’ Clem asked, ‘what particular composition do you have in mind? The action seems a touch too distant to me.’

Besson just waved vaguely at the landscape before taking a mallet and tent pegs from his canvas sack. There was something hurried about his actions; this was a man eager to dispense with a chore.

‘How many images is Mr Inglis planning to include?’

The photographer crouched to knock in a peg. ‘Who can say what that fool might want?’

Clem smiled. ‘He’s an old acquaintance of my mother’s, you know.’

‘They are opponents. It is plain. He plans to keep her close to make sure she does not get ahead of him.’

The smile faded. ‘Yes, well, you may be onto something there …’

‘Both are here to feast on our defeat, our misery.’ Besson moved from one corner of the tent to another. He sounded more sad than angry. ‘Vultures on the carcass of France.’

‘I suppose that I am a vulture too then, Monsieur Besson?’

‘I don’t know what you are,’ Besson said. He drove the final peg all the way into the ground with a single blow from his mallet. ‘What are you?’

Clem raised his hands, indicating his harmlessness. ‘Merely a brother, Monsieur, motivated by concern for his sister. She lives in Montmartre – that’s why we came. Why I came, at least. And I thought I’d be long gone by now, believe me.’ A shell sparked in the distance, the sound of the blast reaching them a second later. ‘I certainly never imagined that I’d be seeing anything like this.’

The photographer walked around his tent: basic enough, but it would serve. He took in the view for a few moments, then he set up a tripod, attached his Dallmeyer and slotted in a focusing screen.

‘She is not with you, though, this sister,’ he said, ducking under the hood to operate the sliding-box mechanism. ‘Could you not find her?’

‘Oh, we found her all right, tucked in the seediest corner of the seediest dive – and having a bloody whale of a time.’ Clem’s laugh rang hollow. ‘We thought that she might have need of us, Monsieur, but it swiftly transpired that she very much did not. There’s a man involved, you understand. Some red from the provinces named Jean-Jacques Allix.’

The hood was whipped back. Besson looked at him with new interest. ‘I know of him. I have heard him speak.’ He made a connection. ‘Your sister is his Anglaise. The painter.’

‘That she is.’ Clem drew on his cigarette. ‘I suppose she must cut a pretty distinctive figure.’

‘Plein-air painters are becoming common in Montmartre. It is a cheap place to live.’ Besson worked a leather cap over the camera lens and picked up the doctor’s bag. The faintest patch of colour had appeared on his cheek. ‘But a woman, and a foreigner as well – this is not so common.’

‘Have you actually met Hannah, Monsieur Besson? Are you two acquainted?’

‘Yes – no.’ The photographer started for the tent, avoiding Clem’s eye as he passed. ‘We have spoken on a couple of occasions. Only pleasantries. I see her, though, in the lanes and gardens. At her easel.’

Besson was talking quickly, as if attempting to deny something. Clem hid his amusement. It could safely be asserted that this photographer numbered among his sister’s Parisian admirers; the poor cove couldn’t even begin to disguise it. He turned to the tent. Besson was kneeling within, frowning slightly as he mixed his solutions. Keen to advance the conversation, sensing that he’d given himself away, he asked about Clem and Elizabeth’s original plan.

‘You meant to leave today, did you not, but have been trapped in with us.’ The Frenchman slid a glass negative plate from its case. ‘Why did you arrive in Paris so late, Mr Pardy? Surely you could have come for your sister a week ago. Why take such a risk?’

‘We wouldn’t have come at all had we not been summoned. Han is not overly fond of surprise visits.’

Clem paused; he tapped off a half-inch of ash and gave Besson the whole sad story, from the arrival of the letter in St John’s Wood to their restitution in the Grand Hotel that morning. He’d never been one for holding things back; and besides, he’d gained a definite impression that this fellow might be able to help. The photographer was pretty astute, that much was clear, despite his curtness. His perspective, as a resident of Montmartre who knew a little of Hannah’s life, could be exactly what was required.

If any original observations occurred to Monsieur Besson, however, he kept them to himself. While Clem rambled on he set about preparing his negative plate, coating it with treacle-like collodion, dipping it in silver nitrate and transporting it carefully to the camera.

‘It is good that you are still here, Monsieur,’ he said when Clem had finished, as he pushed in the plate. ‘Your sister may have need of you yet.’

Clem remembered his minute-long exchange with Hannah the previous evening. ‘She would disagree with you there, old man,’ he replied with a rueful chuckle. ‘She would most certainly disagree.’

Besson said no more. Taking off the lens cap, he wordlessly counted down the five seconds needed for an exposure; then he replaced the cap, slid out the plate and retreated again to his tent.

A cry rose from the gates, down in front of their position. Between the houses and the fortifications, Clem could see a dozen or so French infantrymen being led back into the city. They were young, as was every regular soldier in Paris it seemed, and they were plainly under arrest, their hands bound and their faces raw and bloody. Some had placards around their necks; they were deserters, those who’d fled under fire, being returned for punishment. The crowd jeered and spat, throwing whatever bits of rubbish they could find. Clem dropped his cigarette into the dirt and scraped over it with his boot. The battle had been brought disconcertingly close.

Besson emerged from the tent with the dripping negative in his hand. The image captured on the glass was visible against the pale canvas of the tent-flap. It was a failure, the contrast too strong: black rooftops and fortifications in the foreground with little else but whiteness beyond. Besson flexed his wrist and spun the plate towards the railway line, where it shattered against an iron track. He unbuttoned his jacket and sat down heavily on the grass.

‘It is no use. I am no photographer.’

‘Come now,’ said Clem, trying to be consolatory, ‘you know the process well enough. And you have this fine camera.’

‘It is not mine. I borrowed it. I needed the money.’ Besson winced. ‘Foolish.’

‘But you’re an associate of the great Nadar, are you not? Surely that counts for something?’

‘Not with photographs. I let the idiot Inglis think this so that he would employ me. My association with Nadar is in a very different sphere.’ Besson pushed back his hat and with some pride said, ‘I am an aérostier, Monsieur. A member of the Société d’Aviation.’

Clem was dumbstruck. Why the devil hadn’t he realised this sooner? It was virtually bloody signposted. The brittle Monsieur Besson had a clear scientific leaning, yet was also practical in manner and rather weather-beaten: the exact type drawn to ballooning. That strange suit had obviously been made to withstand the mishaps commonly endured by the aeronautical gentleman. The sketch he’d been working on in the cab had been of a gas valve for a balloon.

And then there was his link with Nadar, who had once been quite a name in ballooning circles, almost as prominent as he was among photographers. An exhibition of his innovations at the Crystal Palace a few years ago had inspired in Clem a brief mania for all things air-bound; a bundle of designs for winged dirigibles was still stowed under his bed in St John’s Wood. At the peak of his accomplishments, however, Nadar had been forcibly and very publicly removed from the heavens. There had been an accident on the North Sea coast, with serious injuries – Madame Nadar had only just escaped with her life. Many had chosen to regard it as divine punishment for hubris; Nadar had gone back to his photographs like a man chastened.

‘I thought he’d given it up. You know, after the crash.’

‘He has recovered his nerve,’ Besson said. ‘Nadar considers the balloon, the French mastery of free ballooning, to be a valuable weapon against our enemy. More so, certainly, than the photograph.’ The aérostier turned towards the city. ‘He is airborne now. Right there, above the Buttes Montmartre.’

Clem followed Besson’s pointing finger. Suspended over Paris, over the golden domes and ancient spires and grand boulevards, was a single white sphere, so tiny that it hurt the eyes to pick it out. The basket beneath, the men inside, could not be seen. It looked like a moon that had been fished from the firmament and roped to the earth. Clem stared; he took off his hat. Merely thinking of what it might be like up there, floating alone in that boundless sky, left him dazzled with terror and elation.

‘That one is fixed, of course – for observation only,’ Besson told him, ‘but we have our plans.’

‘Such as what?’ Clem demanded. His mind teemed with visions of bombs being tossed from baskets into the depths of the Prussian positions; of crack troops being delivered straight into the enemy’s headquarters; of cavalry detachments strapped beneath balloons, their hooves dangling in the air. ‘Do tell, Monsieur Besson!’

The Frenchman’s mouth curved downwards, forming a sort of reluctant smile – the first indication that anything resembling a sense of humour might exist within him. ‘We will fly out letters, dispatches, orders to the armies in the provinces. We will bring France together. The Prussians will not silence us, Mr Pardy. We will get word to the world of what they are doing.’

Clem nodded, a little disappointed by this answer. ‘And will you pilot one of these craft yourself?’

‘I will not. We are going to launch a great many balloons, more than the Prussians can count – or chase. Several shops are being set up to make them. There is to be one close to the place Saint-Pierre, in fact, in an abandoned dancing school. That is why I am living there. I shall oversee the work. Train the men who are to fly.’

A balloon workshop in a Montmartre dancing school! It was like one of Clem’s own schemes brought to life. He held out a hand to help the aérostier back to his feet.

‘Monsieur Besson,’ he said, ‘this I really have to see.’