Sovay by Celia Rees
From here, she was taken into a public room full of others who had just been brought to the prison. People of all descriptions, from the ragged to the well-dressed. Nobody spoke. Everyone seemed sunk into their own misery. Even the children were quiet, looking round in slow bewilderment or clinging to their mothers. Sovay sat down and waited. For what? She could not guess.
When the intake was complete, the prisoners were divided, men from women, and taken to their places of confinement. The palace’s apartments had been divided up and converted into cells. Some were tiny cupboards, barely large enough for one person, others were more like dormitories. She asked anyone she saw if they knew of her father, of Dr Thery. The guards ignored her enquiries, or told her roughly to keep quiet. The prisoners were just as indifferent, either too wrapped up in their own misery to speak to her, or afraid to talk to anybody, lest they be suspected of conspiracy. Despair sucked at her spirit. How would she ever find her father in this vast place? That she might see him, that they might be united, had been her only solace. At length, she gave up and lay down on the straw pallet which was to be her bed. She stared at the decorated ceiling high above her, a peeling, cracked and stained vision: plump cherubs peeping from behind billowing pink and white clouds, set against the blueness of the heavens, and wondered when she would be under the sky again.
She must have dozed, trying to escape into sleep as many around her were doing. She started awake as a hand shook her shoulder, although the touch was not rough and the voice that spoke was gentle.
‘I’m sorry to startle you, mademoiselle.’
She looked up into a pair of tired grey eyes. The man looking down at her was obviously a gentleman. His clothes were stained, worn and frayed, but they were of good material and he wore a grey wig upon his head.
‘I am Dr Thery,’ he said. ‘Are you the English girl just brought in? Daughter of John Middleton?’
Sovay nodded.
‘I’ve been looking for you, but with so many prisoners . . .’ He looked at the rows of sleeping forms littering the floor. ‘Come with me. I will take you to your father. You know my daughter?’
‘Yes, she has been giving us news of him.’
‘Your messages have been a great comfort. I’m allowed more freedom than other prisoners,’ he explained. ‘They let me do what I can to help the sick. Send out for medicines. Not out of any sense of humanity. Do not think that. They do not want people to cheat the guillotine by dying too soon.’ He gave a little hollow laugh. ‘Although they have been known to cut the heads off the dead. They keep a close eye out for poison, sharp instruments. They make sure we are fed and even allow some exercise. They want us to be as healthy as possible when we meet our deaths.’
Her father was in a small room on his own. There was little in it except a table, chair and a bed. Sovay was glad that he was asleep when the doctor took her in to him. She would not have wanted him to see her face when she saw him, or the tears that sprang into her eyes. He was so changed that, at first, she thought the doctor might have brought her to the wrong man. He had lost so much flesh that he appeared a mere husk of himself, his body scarcely swelling the thin blanket that covered him. He always wore a light brown wig and it was a shock to see his own hair, pure white, a sparse scattering on the pillow. His face was a greyish colour, apart from two hectic spots on his cheeks. Prominent blue veins showed through the thin skin on his temple and forehead. His mouth was open slightly, his jaw sagging, and if it had not been for a slight movement in his chest, she would have taken him for dead.
‘You find him much changed,’ the doctor said.
Sovay nodded, unable to speak.
‘He has been gravely ill but he clings tenaciously to life, mademoiselle. It will give him fresh heart to see you, although we must be careful given the circumstances. The shock, you know.’ He patted her hand. ‘Perhaps they will allow you to stay and nurse him. Sometimes they allow families to be together. I will see what I can do. Meanwhile, sit here quietly and wait for him to wake naturally. He has been told that you are coming. You must have at least one friend on the outside.’
He went away then and left them. Sovay did as he said and sat by her father, taking his hand in hers. It was smaller than she remembered, shrunken like the rest of him down to bone and skin. She didn’t know how long they sat like that, his fingers interlocked with hers, but the little light that came in from outside had almost faded when she felt his grip strengthen. His eyes remained closed but tears seeped from the corners, pooling onto the filthy striped ticking of the pillow.
‘I didn’t expect to see you again, Sovay,’ he said, his voice the faintest whisper, like corn stalks rubbing together.
‘Don’t cry, Papa!’ She was on her feet in an instant, leaning over him, brushing the wisps of hair back from his forehead.
‘It breaks my heart to see you in here,’ he looked up at her, his eyes full of anguish, and began to sob bitterly as he turned his face to the wall.
‘It is the shock,’ the doctor said when he came back. He examined her father quickly, putting his ear close to his chest. ‘His heart is steady, if a little weak in its beating. He has lapsed into natural sleep so we will let him rest.’ He led her away from the bed. ‘I have good news, mademoiselle; you will be allowed to remain here with him. A guard is bringing you a pallet.’
Sovay slept on the floor of his cell, caring for his every need. She kept the room swept and clean, and made sure that there was fresh water. She collected food from the dining hall and fed it to him in tiny spoonfuls. Day by day, she fancied he became a little stronger. Sometimes, he seemed near to his old self.
‘Mr Thomas Paine is in here, you know,’ he said to her one day. ‘He is working on a book, Thery tells me, called The Age of Reason. He is a great hero of mine. I would very much like to visit him when I am fit and well.’
Sovay promised to arrange a meeting, but she did not know when it would be. Mr Paine was sick with a fever and her father’s recuperation was painfully slow. Signs of recovery were often followed by relapses when his mind would wander and he was unable to rise from the bed. He slept much of the time and often, on waking, he thought he was home at Compton and would ask how she did and how her day had been. Sovay would make things up about what she thought would be happening now: how the crops were ripening towards Lammas; how pretty the hedgerows were, and the cornfields studded with cornflowers and red with poppies; how well the gardens looked now it was July. He would grow wider awake and his eyes would flicker round the tall room with its high dark walls and go to the window, boarded and barred. He knew well where they were then, but talk of home comforted him, so they kept up the pretence, hour after hour, until she almost imagined that they were there and she would walk out of his sick room to pass on orders to Gabriel or Stanhope, or to listen to Lydia talk of the latest gossip from the village as the day cooled and she dressed for dinner. Sometimes, her longing was so great that she couldn’t speak of it any more. Then, he would pat her hand and tell her he was tired and he would like to take a little sleep.
Sovay would leave him to slip into dreams of Compton and go out into the corridor. Sometimes the doors were unlocked so that prisoners could take exercise, or mix a little in society. The prison had its own rituals and, although discipline had been much tightened, at certain times of the day the prisoners congregated to look out of the windows that overlooked the Luxembourg Gardens.
Sovay remembered when she had been part of that sad parade loitering below. Day after day, many came in vain, not knowing that their friend or relative had long been moved to another prison. The next time they would see them was in a tumbrel. Sovay went with the others and peered out as eagerly as they did. It was the only glimpse of the outside world, the only bright moments in the succession of dull days. From in here, it seemed shocking to see people strolling about in the sunlight, walking under the shade of the trees. The prisoners beside her teetered on tiptoe, laughing, shouting, screaming and waving to people below who
She went faithfully every day; sometimes to see Hugh, sometimes Virgil, sometimes both together. They would stand for up to half an hour, staring up at the window in silent vigil. She derived great comfort from this, but suffered almost equal anguish. If one was missing, she feared for the other and vice versa. She dreaded the days when neither appeared at all. Whoever appeared, she always told her father that it was Hugh. Each day, she searched the crowd for another, and had almost given him up when there he was, in his distinctive uniform of dark blue and white, his highly polished boots silver in the bright sunlight. His gold epaulettes glittered and the decorations swinging from his lapels shimmered as he swept off his hat and bowed. He stayed for several minutes, staring upwards, his hand on the pommel of his sword, his heavy, handsome face unsmiling, his thick brows drawn together.
‘Comme il est beau!’ The girl standing next to her grinned. ‘Is he your lover?’
‘Yes,’ Sovay replied, almost without thinking, and continued to stare back at him. No word had passed between them, but she knew it to be so. She kept her eyes upon him until it seemed that the prison walls had melted, the other people, the trees, the gardens themselves had faded to nothingness and they were the only ones left whirling in an eternity of time and space.
She was so lost in the intensity of his gaze that she failed to realise the purpose behind his appearance. He had come to deliver a warning.
There was another ritual, as unvarying as the parade. Every evening, at around six o’clock, all talk ceased, all movement stilled, silence spread round the prison like a rippling wave. It was as if the building itself were holding its breath. An officer walked through the public rooms where the people stood frozen like statues; the silent corridors echoed to his slow, measured step. As he walked, he read from the sheet he held before him, the ‘Evening Paper’, the names of those who were to appear the next day before the Revolutionary Tribunal.
Sovay heard his voice and stopped what she was doing. Her father sat up in bed, his ears straining, his face puckered in concentration. It was a quality of listening that everyone adopted, as if sheer intensity of concentration could change what the guard was going to say, or make him go away. One of his feet dragged slightly behind the other. Every night, Sovay tracked his halting step as he went past them and on up the corridor. One evening, he stopped outside their door.
‘Middel-ton!’
Sovay and her father looked at each other. The moment they had most dreaded had come. Her father struggled up and swung his legs out of the bed by gripping them one at a time. He could scarcely walk but he was reaching for his breeches.
‘Help me, Sovay!’
‘No, Father. Stay where you are. I will go to enquire.’
She opened the door. Her father had taken up his sticks and was coming after her.
‘Which?’ she called. The guard was already past them. ‘We’re both Middleton. Which one of us is it?’
‘What does it matter? Me! Take me!’ her father shouted.
The guard ignored him and traced his finger back up his list.
‘It says female here.’ His fingernail was blackened and broken, she noticed, as he pointed to her name written in gothic script. ‘It is for you, Citizeness.’
CHAPTER 38
Anumber was chalked on her door and in the morning that number was called. Sovay went out, her head held high, her shoulder wet with her father’s tears. She had said her goodbyes to him and, although they would never meet again in this life, she did not look back as she left the cell. She needed all her courage for the ordeal ahead.
Sovay was taken from the Luxembourg with about thirty other prisoners to appear before the Revolutionary Tribunal. Prisoners were now tried in fournée, batches, in the same way that they were herded to the guillotine. They travelled in a long, covered cart drawn by four horses. There were people of every age and condition, from a little servant girl who looked no more than a child, to an old man of eighty or more who still wore a soiled wig and rags of velvet that marked him as an aristocrat. These were people of every sort and class but they had one thing in common: once they had appeared before the Tribunal, they would be dead within twenty-four hours. If there was a lesson in uniting the nation, this was it. United by their shared fate, all differences of degree, age and status melted from them. Laundress comforted countess and vice versa, servant shared bread with his master. Sovay had to smile at the irony of it. She offered her scrap of kerchief to the little servant girl and asked her name.
‘My name is Minette,’ the girl answered as she wiped her tears away.
‘Why are you here?’
The girl looked at her dumbly. She had no idea.
Sovay put her arm round the child and held her close until her shivering stopped.
They were taken to the hall of the Revolutionary Tribunal where they were put together with people from other prisons, some of whom, it was alleged, had been part of the same conspiracy, even though they had never seen each other before. They were directed to their places on the ranges of benches reserved for prisoners. Since 22 Prairial, the number had been expanded so that the accused could be tried a hundred at a time.
Sovay looked around from her place about halfway up the tier of benches. The hall bore some similarities to a courtroom, in that there were clerks, a jury, but in other ways this was markedly different. There were guards everywhere; the judges sat at a long table in the body of the court; there was no witness stand, because there would be no witnesses, and what dock was large enough to accommodate a hundred? The jury came in and sat down on the right-hand side of the judges’ table. Again, this had the semblance of justice, in that they were a jury, but the jury was always made up of the same people, all Jacobin friends of Robespierre or other members of the Committee of Public Safety.
They were told to stand and the judges filed in. There were five of them, all formally dressed in black with white wigs under tall, black hats which were crowned with great black plumes. They wore the tricolour like a badge of office, on the bands of their hats, the rosettes in their lapels and the sashes across their chests. They stood and bowed to the court, their president at the centre, some kind of official insignia swinging from a tricolour lanyard round his neck. They sat as one as he rang a small bell to signal that proceedings should begin. The noise was tinkling and slight and sounded odd in the sombre room, more suited to the ordering of tea, than the deaths of so many.
They had been followed into the room by Fouquier-Tinville, the prosecutor. Hated and feared in equal measure, this was the man who had sent hundreds, if not thousands, to the guillotine. Most eyes were on him not the judges. A tall man dressed in black like the others and swathed with tricolours. He wore black gloves and a black wig under the nodding, funereal plumes. He looked around and held out his hand for the charge sheet. He began to read in a monotonous voice, as if his task had become tedious and wearisome. Proceedings had begun.
Each prisoner was asked to stand, their name and the charge against them read out. At this point any semblance to proper court procedure ended. There were no defence lawyers, no witnesses, even the prisoners were not allowed to speak up for themselves. Any who did were silenced by the president with a peremptory ‘Tu n’as pas la parole’, it is not your turn to speak. Any who persisted were turned out of the court room and condemned in their absence. And condemned they were and quickly. The proceedings went on apace. The charge was read, the jury gave a verdict of guilty, the Tribunal conferred, the president announced the sentence. ‘Death.’ In every case.
The charges varied: conspiracy; hoarding; being a suspect, suspected of being a suspect, associating with people who were suspect; being an aristocrat, having aristocratic connections, an aristocratic appearance; acting in an unrevolutionary manner, uttering unrevolutionary words, thinking unrevolutionary thoughts, even grieving for those who had been sent to the guillotine was enough to land one here. The charges w
Most people heard the charge and the verdict in silence, staring forward without expression, struck by a kind of numbness that Sovay could feel creeping through her, too. She withdrew from the vicious absurdities played out before her and lapsed into a kind of reverie. Part of her remained present, watching everything, but it all seemed to be happening to someone else.
The sound of her own name startled her. She stood up and stared at Fouquier-Tinville. His dark eyes hardly registered her presence. He read out the charge. ‘Proscribed person, English spy and enemy of the Republic.’ He turned to the jury, expecting no answer, when there was an interruption. Virgil Barrett was standing at the bar of the court.
‘This is a case of mistaken identity!’ he shouted across to the prosecutor. ‘She is an American citizen. Married to me. I have papers here to prove it!’
It was a vain intervention, with no hope of succeeding, but at least she was not completely abandoned. The weight around Sovay’s heart lightened just a fraction to know that she had not been forgotten.
Fouquier-Tinville turned to him. ‘We have plenty of evidence to the contrary,’ he said.
His hooded eyes looked towards the back of the room. Standing there was Dysart, dressed in black, with a white wig, plumed hat and tricolour sash, just as if he were a judge at the tribunal.