Unchaining Alice

Chapter 20

Chapter Twenty

 

Alice didn’t hear anything for a while. She figured no news was good news. She’d been told that a wealthy family had come into the Met and had demanded that proof be acquired before she was sent back to France. She only knew of one wealthy family and she was more grateful that they had forgiven her deceit than that they were fighting her case.

If she were ever freed, she would have no qualms with inviting the Alcott’s into her life, or them inviting her. Jacques had been wrong in generalising all aristocrats as terrible snobs. Perhaps some were, but she’d come across the good ones and if they’d let her, she would love to call them her friends.

She wasn’t permitted any more visitors and she’d been moved to the cells below the ground. They were a lot darker than the cell she’d been kept in before. There were no windows and there was a constant chill in the air. The summer warmth did not make it down to where she and a few other prisoners were being held. Perhaps it wasn’t even summer anymore. She’d lost track of the days.

Alice spent her days curled up on the little cot in the corner of the small cell and she kept warm by wrapping herself in the scratchy blanket. She didn’t want to fall ill. She could hear several raspy coughs, though she couldn’t see where they originated from. What she missed dearly was her rosary. It had been confiscated and for all she knew it had been melted down for the metal. She couldn’t bear it if it had.

She’d lost weight. She still wore the dress that she planned to marry James in, except it hung off of her. She had already been quite narrow except now she could feel her ribs when she ran her hands down her sides. It wasn’t that she wasn’t been fed, she just didn’t eat enough.

What she wanted more than anything though was to bathe.

It would be two more days until she saw another person. The man was a police officer who carried a letter. He was dressed in a navy uniform and looked at her quizzically. “We received a letter from the French authorities yesterday. We’ve only just had the letter translated.” His eyes travelled down to the letter in his hands. “To whom it may concern,” he began. “We are very interested in acquiring the French prisoner you have in your possession and we implore you to send her back to her motherland. We recognised the surname ‘Devereaux’ as one of the rebel ringleaders though he was a male named ‘Jacques’ and was killed the day of the revolution. We’ve no record of an ‘Alice’ but of course we cannot be sure that she was not involved. As she is a French citizen, we ask that she be sent home. We can personally promise that no harm will come to her without a proper investigation taking place first. Sincerely … some French name that is unpronounceable,” the police officer finished. He clearly could not read French names as he read Jacques’ name phonetically.

Alice didn’t know whether to be happy or scared. What did that letter mean? She wasn’t on any revolutionary records, she was sure Jacques had seen to that, but the French authorities still wanted her returned to them. If she went back home she knew she would see the falling blade of the guillotine before she would see keys unlocking her shackles.

“What are you going to do, Monsieur?” Alice asked quietly, tightening the itchy blanket around her shoulders. She didn’t recognise this officer. She was just glad he was not the officer who’d made sexual comments toward her when she was in the cells upstairs.

“Well, Miss Devereaux, the one thing you should know about the British is that we do not ‘trust’ the French. We’ve had many wars over the years which have made us a better and wiser empire. The powers that be require proof and this letter provides none. You are free to go.” He pulled out a set of keys set on a large metal ring. He slipped one of the keys inside the door on her cell and unlocked it. He crossed the tiny cell and pulled out a smaller set of keys to unlock the shackles that kept her ankles bound.