Carla Kelly (21 page)

She could not tell if he had something to say to her, or if he was just feeling the solitude of the building. The priest had left them with no lights, and the gloom seemed to seep up the walls along with the cold. The only light came from two rows of candles burning in an alcove closer to the altar. He was hardly more than a dark shape beside her.

“Madame, I am Armand Leger,” he began.

“Yes, I know,” she replied, faintly amused, when he paused.

“The name means nothing to you?”

She shook her head, embarrassed at this example of her paltry education.

“I did not think fame was
that
fleeting,” he said, and he did nothing to disguise his condescension.

She felt a little spark burn inside her. “Monsieur, if you have chosen to humiliate me further, now that my husband is absent, I wish you would not. I am well aware of my own lack of accomplishments,” she replied, her voice quiet.

“No, no,” he said quickly. He was silent a moment. “Perhaps I do not know how to speak to anyone anymore.” Another pause then, “I want you to know this: I need to get to the British lines because I have no regard for my own people anymore.”

She knew her surprise must have registered on her face, even in the gathering gloom. He made a gesture with his hand. “Leger is only one of my names. I used to consort with kings, Madame Randall.”

“Oh, my.”

“I am a relative of the Marquis de Lafayette. You
have
heard of him? Pardon, madame, but I am being rude again.”

“Well, you
are
French,” she said, not willing to let him get away with that. She was rewarded with a laugh.

“We were cousins, and we frequented the same clubs. I liked the equality he brought back with him from the new United States of America. He and I were the chief engineers who guided the Declaration of Rights through the National Assembly in the summer of 1789.” He leaned back against the wall. “I do not think there was a finer place to be than Paris, in that summer,” he said simply. “The world was ours, and there was a future for everyone, and not just the aristos.”

“And then it all changed, did it not?” she asked. “If you are royalty yourself, monsieur, how did you survive the Terror? Wasn’t Lafayette imprisoned?”

“Madame, your education is not so piecemeal as you think! Indeed he was. I was safe enough in your own country as a representative of Louis Capet’s government, at least, his government before it turned on him. I thought it prudent to wait out the Terror in London. I prefer my head upon my neck.”

She looked at him, and he must have interpreted the look. “Madame, I am not a very brave man.”

“You left family, didn’t you?” It was only a hunch.

Elinore sucked in her breath when he leaped to his feet and strode out the door of the church. She followed him, berating herself for her unkindness. “Oh, please, sir, I did not mean to upset you,” she said.

He said nothing for a time, then sat down and patted the step beside him. She gathered her cloak tight and sat down. Elinore, be kind enough to not butt into his thoughts, she told herself.

“My wife Amalie and daughters were forced to keep an appointment with Dr. Guillotine in La Place de la Concorde,” he said finally, and there was nothing in his voice of arrogance or disdain now. “I am told that Amalie’s last words before they strapped her to the board was to curse my cowardice.”

Elinore could think of nothing to say. She put her hand on his arm and inched a little closer. He did not pull away, and gradually she felt the tension lessen in his arm.

He cleared his throat and sighed. “I returned to France only after the Directoire was formed, and do you know, I was hailed by that wicked threesome as a great old warrior, a living testament to the revolution.” His laugh was bitter and made her shiver. “They hauled me out for formal occasions like an icon. No wonder! All the other old revolutionaries were dead, cannibalized by the Jacobins and Girondists when they turned on each other, and themselves.”

After a long pause during which she watched the sun set, he turned to her. “I have probably intimidated you into not asking the question that I know must be on your mind: Why am I sitting here in a poor church in a poor town, in a wretched country?”

“The thought did cross my mind,” she murmured.

“How are your arithmetical skills, my dear?” he asked.

“Probably no better than my history,” she admitted.

“You are wise in ways I am not,” he said. “In the Directoire, there were three, and then there was one.”

“Napoleon.”

“Precisely. Something changed for me when he began his rampage through Europe.” Leger took her hand between his own. “I could no longer lull myself with the fiction that he felt much concern for the aims of the revolution. The Declaration of Rights? Bah! In his own way, he is no better than the kings he supplanted.” He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it. “Madame Randall, you are only a few years younger than my Charlotte and Eugenie, and their innocent blood cries out to me.”

“Monsieur,” she began, and could not continue.

He did not release her hand, but he turned slightly on the steps so that he was facing her. “Do you know my only consolation?” He gripped her hand tighter. “I learned from others present that day in the Place de la Concorde that Amalie died first. It is my only consolation to know that she did not have to see the terror and hear the screams of our little ones who followed her. Who went first? Were they bound together? Their necks were so small. Think of the economy.”

“Stop, please!” she begged him. “Oh, stop!” She threw her arms around him, holding him to her. As he cried into her hair, she wondered how many times he had conjured up that nightmare in La Place de la Concorde. She wondered if he ever closed his eyes without seeing his family so alone in the middle of thousands. And I am hurt because he is
rude
? she asked herself. God forgive me.

He released her finally and sat with his hands clasped together. She rested her hand on his back. “Napoleon would like nothing better than to display me in Paris. It is people like me—the old warriors from ’89—who give him any legitimacy, and I refuse.”

“Why Spain, then?” she asked.

He shrugged. “We have already established that I am a coward. It seems that I have no sense of timing, madame. I waited too long in Paris. It was impossible to sail from Calais, once the British began their blockade. Where could
I run to in Europe? Napoleon owns it all. I came south because I am a cousin of Ferdinand, that pathetic Bourbon who sat on the Spanish throne, and then what does Napoleon do but move on Spain as well? And who would have thought the Spanish would rise in revolt? Make no mistake, madame: You are looking at fortune’s fool.”

No, I am looking at a man who is desperately unhappy, she thought. Someone who is still arrogant enough to think he can bear the sins of the world. God forgive him. She leaned against his arm. She felt him draw a quavering breath, and closed her eyes, knowing that he was thinking of his little daughters. “Why did you tell me this?” she asked. “Was it because of Charlotte and Eugenie?”

“Yes.” Another sigh. “I confess that when I saw you and your surgeon, who so obviously adores you, I was jealous, because you have what my darlings do not. I wanted you to know, so you would be reminded how much you have. Don’t take it for granted.”

She could hardly believe what she was hearing. “Oh, monsieur, you must be mistaken. We have been married but three days, and he married me out of charity.” It was her turn. The words tumbled out as she told him about her silly parents, the debt, Major Bones, Captain Randall’s impulsive proposal, the horrible death of the Chief, brought on because of her ramshackle family, and their retreat, unprotected by the army. “Jesse tells me not to blame myself, but I cannot imagine that he would want to continue his protection of me once we are safe behind the lines.” He was holding her hand this time. “If it is love, sir, it is love on very short notice,” she said.

He laughed softly, and she was relieved at the sound, because it told her that at least he was not thinking—if only for a moment—of Charlotte and Eugenie. “I think you are mistaken, Madame Randall,” he said finally.

“I don’t see how it could be any other way.”

“My dear, through the years I have become a great observer. If I cannot explain human nature without exposing my own hypocrisy, I can at least watch it. I have been observing your husband. Are you aware of how often he looks at you?”

“Well…no…I…Oh, monsieur, he is concerned for all of us!”

“Or how often you look at him?”

She could think of nothing to say. Leger released her hand and stood up to stretch. “I am finally too old to sit on cold church steps, even with a charming lady. Good night, my dear. Do think about what I said concerning the redoubtable Captain Randall. And the rest? Take this lesson: We know not what burdens others bear, do we?”

No, we do not, she thought. She was still sitting on the step when her husband returned with the priest. He sank down onto the step beside her. The priest touched his shoulder, and went inside. “I had an interesting experience,” he said finally.

You
did? she wanted to ask. I am beginning to wonder lately if Spain has anything but interesting experiences. “What happened?” she asked instead.

“We saw the old man. He has numerous bed sores. I only had water and soap, but I cleaned them and showed the priest what to do.” He made a face. “He had been applying a local remedy containing sheep dung. Imagine! I couldn’t help but wish for a little permanganate of potassium, but soap and water still trump sheep dung.” He looked across the plaza. “I wonder what could drag Spain into the nineteenth century.”

“A miracle?”

He laughed, and tucked her arm through his. “At least! Elinore, while I was cleaning the sores, the priest cooked a little parched corn for him. You won’t believe this, but when it was cool enough, the priest chewed a bite, then put it in the old fellow’s mouth! He’s quite toothless, and relies on the priest to chew his food for him.” He patted her hand. “At first it disgusted me, and then I began to wonder if I could ever be as kind as that priest, or as humble as his parishioner. Forgive the pun, but it’s food for thought.”

How is it that such kindness and such cruelty exist side by side in this world? Elinore asked herself. She leaned against her husband, and closed her eyes when she felt his lips on her hair. I shouldn’t be feeling as good as I do, considering everything. “Let me tell you what I learned tonight from Monsieur Leger,” she began.

She told Jesse everything except what the Frenchman had said about him. “We’ll have to do all we can to get
him to the border, won’t we?” he said when she finished. She could tell by the way his arm had tightened around her that he was affected by the story.

“I’m not so certain that is what he really needs.”

“He probably needs absolution worse than most of us,” Jesse said frankly. He shook his head. “But who am I to say what will make a man’s heart right? I try to heal bodies, don’t I?”

“You do it well.”

“It’s just puny medicine, Elinore. Up you get.” He pulled her to her feet, and kept his hold on her hand as they went inside the church. He stopped, and she held her breath as he dipped his fingers in the holy water at the door and crossed himself, something she had never seen him do. “You know, I hope that someday there is room in medicine for physicians of the mind and heart.” He laughed, and it sounded self-conscious to her ears. “A lunatic idea, eh? No one ever said you were married to a rational man, Elinore Randall.”

She thought he would come to bed, but he didn’t. When she finally closed her eyes, he was standing by the altar, then kneeling by the row of candles, which gleamed a little brighter.

T
he next day was like the one that preceded it, and so on through a week of rain. Each day had its differences, and they stuck out like little jewels against the dark wool of long hours of walking, and hunger. At every sick call in every scabby village, Jesse knew the gratitude that comes to a surgeon who does so little that seems so much to those who have even less. The only pay they could ask for was food, but it was in scarce supply.

None of them took much when it was offered, but it broke his heart to watch Elinore scarcely able to chew a slice of bread because of young ones who watched her every swallow. More than once she had given up, and handed out the bread to one of them, protesting that she was full. When he tried to remonstrate with her in private, she only cried. What could he say? They were all doing the same thing, even Wilkie, who found excuses for handing out the sausage he carried. “Captain, it’s just too heavy,” he said at one stop, and gave him such a look that Jesse knew better than to comment, even if he was the officer, and according to a piece of paper, the gentleman among them.

He was able to take his consolation in the little good he did. He knew it was his skill that kept them moving, and it gave him huge satisfaction to provide, even in such puny measure, for those he was coming to love. He already knew he loved Elinore, but the others began to work their way into his heart in ways he had not expected. He knew he was a man of compassion, but like others of his class and station, he knew the chasm that separated officers from soldiers. As the days passed, he began to see them as men.

One thing troubled him. He continued to hear riders at night, not every night, but now and then, as though someone watched, but did not appear too concerned that they would suddenly disappear. No one else seemed to be aware of them, which made him wonder if his hearing was more acute than anyone else’s or if his mind was starting to wander. He wanted to saying something to Elinore again, but decided against it. They had enough to worry about without tackling his overworked imagination.

Wilkie was his greatest surprise on the retreat. One night they came to a village so poor there was no church. He found the alcalde and Elinore made the usual offer of medical help in the morning in exchange for food and lodging. He could tell it pained the alcalde to say there was no food, and unlike in other villages used to hoarding and hiding, Jesse believed him. Lodging then, Elinore had asked. Again the alcalde shook his head. Jesse winced at his embarrassment and what years of war had done to the village. There was no food, no lodging, no hope, only the wish that enemy and ally alike would vanish.