The Emperor by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles Page B

Héloïse was walking to Sydney Street, and it was safer to stay upon the main road. In hard times there were always footpads about, and though a footpad was likely to have but poor pickings off her, she could hardly expect one to take her word for that and go away without trying.
    It was Sunday, the day of the week she really looked forward to, though she had had to struggle long and hard for the right to do what she was doing. Even now, Vendenoir did not like it, and had he been stronger, he would have prevented her; but his condition had worsened steadily over the past year, and now he was bedridden, leaving it only on his better days to drag himself as far as the sofa. She had worn him down on the subject of her Sunday evenings to the point where, though he complained bitterly that she was deserting him for a parcel of traitors and decadent royalists, his tirades were more habitual than passionate, and soon petered out into self-pity.
    ‘ You wish me dead – don't you think I know it? And by God I'd as soon oblige you as lie here day after day suffer ing as I do. Nobody knows what I suffer!' he said as she put on her pelisse.
    ‘ You need not blame yourself for that,' Héloïse replied, ‘for I'm sure you tell us often enough.’
    Vendenoir glowered. 'Yes, and precious little sympathy I get, too!'
    ‘ You have so much for yourself, you cannot need more for Marie and me,' she said cheerfully. 'Come, why not resign yourself? You know that I will go; and perhaps I may be able to bring you back a newspaper.'
    ‘ Yes, a newspaper a week old,' Vendenoir said bitterly. ‘You starve me of news as of everything else. I know your tricks, madam. I know why you moved me here to this cold, damp place: you thought it would finish me off.’
    Héloïse looked at him with some compassion. He looked like an old man, though he was only a few years older than she; his face was skull-like, his skin pallid and unhealthy, his thinning hair already going grey. If her life was hard, his had been harder, and was made harder still by a bitter, resentful spirit which doubled all his burdens, while her resilience lightened hers. She knew he felt the cold more than any of them. The fire over which he crouched, taking all its warmth, was the best she could afford, and the coals were eked out with kindling gathered at a great expense of labour by her and Marie from such woods as were within walking distance; but there was no sense in expecting him to be grateful, and in her better moments she knew that his inability to feel anything but resentment was something for which he should be pitied.
    ‘ Now, Olivier, you know we moved because we could not afford the other place. And you always said you hated it.'
    ‘ At least it was dry, and the air was not so foul. We afforded it before.'
    ‘ Yes, when Marie was working. Now she is obliged to stay home and care for you, we have only half the money, and everything costs twice as much as before. But you know these things — you are only trying to delay me. I must go or I shall be late.’
    She gave his forehead a dutiful kiss, and Marie's cheek a loving one, and hurried away to Vendenoir's parting plaint: ‘That's right, go and spend an evening in luxury, while Marie and I huddle over this miserable fire.' His voice rose to follow her as she closed the door. 'I'll wager they even have candles!’

    *
    The house in Sydney Street was old, but in good repair, and large enough to seem luxurious to most of the émigrés who hurried there every Sunday evening. A torch flared by the entrance door, but no light escaped the windows, tribute to the good fit of its shutters. Héloïse was alone in the street as she lifted the knocker — everyone must be already here, she thought.
    In this house lived one Madame Chouflon, who had been   a mantuamaker of some renown in Paris, and who, fleeing to England at the beginning of the Revolution, brought with her all her skill and some of her reputation. Consequently,