Reader, as you might imagine, we soon fell far behind the other carriages, arriving at each staging post hours after them. This meant we always had the last choice of horses, delaying us further still. It was well past midnight when we clattered into Amiens and found our inn. Frank had to shake me awake. I made my way to a room and tumbled into bed beside one of the dancers. I was asleep before my head hit the pillow – which was as well for the sheets were none of the cleanest and the bed harboured other things beside two tired travellers.
The next day followed the same pattern except I had the added indignity of angry red bites all over my body. Frank couldn’t help but notice me itching and shifting in my seat.
‘Best not to scratch them,’ he advised. ‘It’ll only make them worse.’
‘How come you didn’t get bitten?’ I asked enviously.
‘I took one look at my proposed bed next to a snoring merchant from Brussels and decided to sleep out in the stables. The hay was very comfortable.’ He removed a strand of it from his hair.
‘I’ve heard of people travelling for their health – they must need their heads examining,’ I grumbled as we jolted against a kerb stone.
‘Watch it! Regardez!’ shouted Joseph from somewhere above.
‘Admit it, Cat,’ teased Frank, ‘you’re loving every moment. The excitement of never knowing what is going to happen next, your first taste of a foreign culture – think how your mind is expanding!’
‘The only thing expanding right now are my ankles. They’ve been bitten so badly they are swelling up.’
‘Poor little Cat. You should have stayed in your basket at home.’
‘I don’t have a basket or a home, thanks for reminding me, Lord Francis of Boxton.’
‘No,’ he said brightly, ‘but you have an adventure ahead of you and a job to do. Many girls would love to have the freedom you have.’
This was very true. ‘You’re a good traveller, Frank,’ I told him. ‘I need to listen to you more often.’
He grinned. ‘Look and learn, Cat; look and learn.’
*
The first thing Frank taught me was not to be too proud to ask directions. It was late as we passed the gates of Paris and headed into the centre of the town. Tall houses loomed up on either side of the road, chinks of light peeping through slatted shutters, striped awnings billowing, strings of washing swaying, fluttering like naval signals saying ‘Welcome to Paris, Cat Royal’. Closer to the centre the finer the houses became with ornate carvings and smart shopfronts of shining plate glass. Majestic trees rustled in the night breeze. The air was ripe with the scent of cooking – strange smells, pungent and rich.
We were supposed to be meeting Madame Beaufort at her lodgings near the Opera but the driver was too drunk to understand the address Joseph was shouting at him.
‘Why don’t we ask someone the way?’ I suggested.
‘No, no, Cat,’ said Frank, getting out a map of Paris from his coat pocket. He spread it out and studied it carefully in the poor light from the carriage lanterns.
‘Do you know where we are?’ I asked.
He shook his head. ‘But it can’t be that difficult to follow a map. We must have come in through this gate.’ He muttered away to himself, consulted Joseph, stared out of the window for inspiration, did everything but humble himself to ask one of the Parisians who were walking along the pavement only a few feet away.
‘It’s on the right. I’m sure it is,’ Frank said determinedly over an hour later as we passed a great palace of a building. I was losing faith in his map-reading skills. We’d already ended up in a cemetery, in a blind alley and in the middle of some very bemused nuns in a convent as they filed in to vespers. The horses dutifully turned right, clip-clopped on the cobblestones and came wearily to a halt.
‘We’ve stopped,’ said Frank. ‘We must be almost there.’
‘Er, Frank,’ I said, tapping his shoulder. ‘Look out my side.’
It was a moonless night. A darker expanse like a bolt of black silk glinting with starlight marked the passage of the great river at the heart of the city, the Seine. Across the bridge in front of us, the buildings were dwarfed by two square towers rising behind the rooftops. It was a breathtaking sight: they were so tall they seemed to stretch to heaven like Jacob’s ladder. All that was lacking were the angels climbing up and down.
‘Now I know where we are!’ exclaimed Frank. I resisted the temptation to point out that he had been confidently claiming this for the past hour. ‘That must be Notre Dame, the cathedral of Paris.’
‘I thought we were supposed to be at the Opera.’
He shook the map out with just a hint of petulance.
‘Please, Frank, let us ask someone.’ I was feeling exhausted. The thought of driving around in yet more circles held no attraction, not even to save Frank’s pride.
‘There’s no one to ask.’
I had to agree that the streets were almost completely silent at this late hour as Monday night shaded into Tuesday morning. A carriage flanked by uniformed men rattled past our stranded vehicle, too fast for us to stop them. That was no good. It would have to be someone on foot.
Frank hopped out and approached a man huddled in a doorway. ‘Excusez-moi, monsieur,’ he began in his best schoolroom French.
‘Quoi?’ the man grunted.
‘Ou est l’Opera?’
‘Quoi?’
Frank was speaking louder and louder as if this would help the man understand him.