Royal Beauty Bright

by Ryan Byrnes

  “Yes, I have the note in my pocket but I cannot read the words so I will give it to one of my friends.”

  “No officers,” he said. “Don’t show it to an officer or everything will be ruined.”

  “Okay,” I said. I told him I liked the idea of no shooting. Especially at Christmas time. No one should be shooting anyone. Everyone should be eating candy.

  ~ JIM BAKER ~

  We rode for the North Pole. The lorry bounced over the crest of the hill at top speed, the pedal touching the floor. I kept checking the sun as it set out the window, hoping this side trip wouldn’t take too long.

  “Any preferences?” The post master had asked.

  “Ploegsteert,” I’d answered as he threw me the keys to a beat up lorry. Postal workers started heaving the sacks in place, and after I was all loaded, I drove a few miles out of Hazebrouck, where I stopped to pick up Celeste, Adele, and Bernadette at an old windmill, our designated meeting point. Somehow, they managed to squeeze into the passenger seat. That was just as well, because I would’ve had to clear a space amid the cargo for them.

  “All settled?” I tried sounding cheerful, but it was fake. I’d seen many adults put on that face when things threatened to spiral out of control, like Auntie Lavinia. I decided that wasn’t for me.

  Auntie Lavinia. My throat, constricted, as if stuck on a stone that wouldn’t budge up or down.

  I drove north, directly away from Ploegsteert, blazing down the dirt roads, over crests, and around curves. Every so often, we’d come across a crater, and I’d have to slow down and go around it. The grey folds of farmland sprawled out under the bruised sky—the blotchy lavenders skirting the clouds, the sun now gone away for her long nap.

  I returned my gaze to the road, flipping the headlights on. The girls smiled at the sunset and made occasional comments to each other as we passed cows and sheep grazing peacefully as if there was not a war going on just a few miles away.

  “Do you know how to get to your uncle's house,” I asked Celeste.

  “We haven’t been there in a long time.” Her voice was small and worried.

  “Well,” I said, trying to sound confident, “we’ll find it together.”

  Every once in a while, we’d slow down at a crossroads to shine the headlights on a wooden sign with arrows pointing to the names of villages carved on them. With the map I’d been given, I followed the signs from town to town, clunking along lonely roads and through sleepy village squares. Soon the girls had bowed their heads together in the seat, eyes closed, breathing softly. At one stop, I threw my blanket over them. When my eyelids felt heavy and my head swayed, I sat up straighter and gripped the steering wheel harder. Couple more miles to go. I checked my watch—10:39 PM. Damn. How far was I from Ploegsteert?

  Then I saw it. Estaires, the sign said in the headlights.

  Yes.

  It was now completely dark, and I cruised in to the village, trying to guess where the uncle’s house would be. We passed the local church, glowing from within, and I could hear people caroling in excelsis deo as it echoed off of the brick and out Into the night. It was a warm, liquid sound that filled me up and I swallowed hard and tried not to think of Mum alone on Christmas Eve worrying about Luther. I checked my watch. One hour to midnight.

  An old man walked down the side of the road, and I stopped beside him. “Maison Albert Moreau?” I said. The old man peered into the car at me. He was bundled in a heavy coat, and his face was hidden. He shook his head, mumbled something in a guttural French I couldn’t understand, and pointed down the road and out toward the countryside. “How far? Kilometers?” I asked. The old man held up two fingers and then started in with the incomprehensible French again, so I told him thank you and drove off. I figured if I couldn’t find the uncle’s house first, I’d turn around and we could go into the church and ask someone after the service.

  I started down the road the old man indicated. Two kilometers. So a little over a mile. Not far at all. As I drove out of town, I got the feeling that the war had skipped over this village. Hadn’t seen a single soldier or crater anywhere. It seemed peaceful, and I felt good about leaving the girls with their uncle—if I could actually find him.

  The road was little more than two worn tire tracks straddling a strip of prickly grass, so I had to go slow. It had seen more donkeys than autocars, I’d wager. On each side, the wood fences ran on without end. Where’s the cottage?

  Finally, in the distance. I saw the dark outline of a cottage and barn and turned down a lane that looked like it hadn’t seen traffic since the Romans. I pulled up in front of the dark house, and the girls, hearing the engine shut off and the car stop moving, slowly raised their heads. I stepped outside. The grass crunched under my feet, frozen under a glittering frost. But still, no snow. Checked my watch again—11:20.

  “Here?” Celeste tugged my sleeve.

  There was no movement and no light. Maybe the uncle was at church after all. Beyond fifty meters, the world faded to dark outlines and hulking shapes. To the left was a row of trees, while to the right I assumed was another field. Above, the stars were striking—wide streaks of silver and gold, nebulae still blooming in the firmament. It was silent and sparkling, tender in its vastness.

  I opened the back and pulled my torch out of my pack. “This way,” I motioned to Celeste, who in turn motioned to her sisters.

  My boots crunched on the frozen dirt, and I heard their light feet crunching after me. I shone the light over the cottage as we approached and then stopped. At its heart, the cottage was missing a whole bite out of its roof—shattered with boards sticking out like broken bones. I walked around the side and saw that all the windows had been blown out, walls were missing, and the furnishings were charred splinters. No one had been living there for a while.

  I had been wrong earlier—the war had touched every town, every family. Including the Moreau’s.

  Bernadette threw her traitorous dolls at the ground when she saw it. She was cranky, cold, and hungry and up way past her bedtime, without a bed or anyone to tuck her in. Her nose ran, and hot tears fell down her cheeks. It was so cold that I could see fog coming off of her wet, red eyes. Tears are always lonely, so soon, Adele was sniffling as well. Celeste pulled them both close to her, assuring them that Peré Noël would not pass them by this year because they could not find a mantle to set their shoes on.

  My watch now said a quarter to midnight. Was there an inn where I could drop them off? It was too late for that; the inns were all closed. There was the church we’d passed back in town. Midnight Mass would just be ending.

  I pulled the girls in close—the tallest barely reached up to my chest—and hugged them tight. “Come on. Let’s go back to the church in town.”

  AUGUST, 1914

  LEAMINGTON SPA, ENGLAND

  ~ THE VILLAGE ~

  In the morning, the newspaper boy gripped his bicycle handles and pedaled over to the Leamington Courier, a squat, square building that smelled of grease and ink. Next to the rush of the mechanical printers, the publisher, with his first three buttons open and sweat stains darkening his shirt, handed over the daily papers. His frown was deeper than usual. Every day, even in the heat, the newspaperman puffed on his daily cigar and pulled from the half empty bottle of Scotch on his desk. He needed the Scotch, he'd say, after reading the day's headline. After today’s headline, he’d likely finish the bottle.

  The newspaper boy handled the stack, tied with brown string, and dropped them in his basket. When he caught a glimpse of the headline, his dreams of running the Leamington Courier ended forever. He didn’t know it then, but he would never fall in love, never get married, never become a father. He would never get to tell his children about that moment, the moment he became a man—or at least wanted to become one.

  He pedaled down the street faster even than the cars, throwing papers toward marked doorposts as he went. As the news made its way through the village and surrounding countryside, mothers clung to first-bo
rn sons eager to prove themselves, fathers dug out old letters from their brothers, and uncles who died in the Boer War. Flags snaked up their poles; trumpets drowned out the singing of birds; churches assembled—some praying for peace and others for glorious victory. Father Carmichael, while sipping his coffee, read the morning paper and wrote a letter to his brother, wishing him best of luck and a safe return. In the envelope, he enclosed a rosary.

  Mrs. Lavinia Bell went without breakfast that day and met her husband where he was sorting mail at the post office. In hushed tones, they discussed their future, during which Lavinia threw the paper in his face and stormed out in tears.

  On the way home, she stopped by Baker’s Sweets, where the newspaper still lay on the doorstep below a sign that read Closed, Away at Baking Competition. Lavinia unlocked the door, walked through the shop, and put the paper on the kitchen table, where a week’s worth of mail waited for her sister’s return.

  Across town, Mrs. Margie Stoker prepared a hearty English breakfast for her husband. Out of habit, he frowned at his empty plate and rolled his replacement wedding ring. From the kitchen, Margie brought out a plate of toast, tomatoes, blood sausage, and bacon. While he started in on breakfast, Margie went to the door and fetched the daily paper and post in her robe. As she went back inside, she sorted through the stack of letters to find a note from Rodney, now stationed at Shorncliffe Barracks with the Royal Warwickshires. Margie kept the note and handed her husband the paper. His eyes boggled at the headline and then wandered to the war souvenirs he'd mounted on the wall—his grandfather’s rapier from the Napoleonic Wars, his uncle’s cap from British India, an Damascene sword his father snatched during a battle in Egypt, and a silk board pinned with medals. His chest swelled with pride. Although he had missed a chance to serve God and King, his own son would soon march off to battle, sure to return victorious and with treasures of his own to mount on the wall. He wiped his eyes and returned to the table to cut into his tomato. The red juice ran into the orange bubbles of grease, which he mopped up with the toast and washed down with coffee.

  Outside, a parade was stirring. Just like in Leamington, people in the surrounding villages of Blackdown, Offchurch, Clubbington and a thousand others across the land paraded down the streets, walking or riding and waving the Union Jack for all to see. Young boys ran along the parade route and wrestled with each other, while older ones stared up at propaganda posters, confused at what they saw and what it meant for them. Beggars asked around for the locations of recruitment offices. Mothers and daughters huddled together, realizing it could be the last days they would spend with their fathers and brothers. Factories rolled out guns, ammunition, and artillery shells that clinked together like heavy coins. And from the woods and plains of Warwickshire, to the lakes and the bleak highlands up north, and to the chalk cliffs of Dover down south, every part of England echoed the same refrain: England at War with Germany! And across the waters that tossed black and cold with unterseeboots lurking in the deep, hundreds of thousands of the Belgian elderly and the children and the wealthy made their way to hospitals and schools and brothels and other shelters where they could take cover from the German artillery. They left their lives behind, while soldiers bled out in their beds, used their kitchens and toilets, slaughtered their livestock, and dug trenches through their ancestors' graves.

  ~ CONSTANCE BAKER ~

  Watching Luther roll truffles was like, I don’t know, maybe like watching a monk pray. Yes. Like that. Luther was a monk, chocolate was his religion, and the truffles he created were his prayer beads.

  Before he started, he was no different than the other chefs. He melted the chocolate over boiling water, lightly mixed in the crème, and stirred until his eyes narrowed. But then everything changed. Once he reached into that bowl to start rolling the chocolate globes between his palms, his eyes emptied and his body acted on its own accord. He rocked back and forth on his heels as he worked, lips slightly parted. He was a force of nature, a river flowing unrelentingly to the sea. A breeze ruffled his hair, a bee buzzed by and landed on his arm, a rival baker dropped a pan and let out a string of hushed curses, but Luther did not waver. I’d look away and he’d already have ten truffles done.

  Other chefs stared at us from their tents, red-faced, running hands through their hair, shouting orders to their various apprentices. Luther, by himself, had already covered his table in truffles.

  In front of the individual contestant’s tents, spectators and judges watched from rows of white garden chairs. They whispered to one another and nodded at Luther, ignoring the other chefs. One of the judges glanced down and flipped open his great, silver pocket watch.

  “Chefs be warned, five minutes remain on the clock,” he announced.

  Luther didn’t look up from his work. He had covered two tables with truffles.

  The other chefs panicked.

  “Forget the ganache, Matthew, there’s no time! Help me plate the truffles!”

  Just before the judge called time, Luther selected a set of perfect truffles and with lightning-fast fingers, arranged them on his favorite display plate. It was a work of art. And by the time the judge called time, Luther had three tables of truffles. He took a step back, smiled at the audience, and held up his arms. That was his trademark, and the audience responded with their polite little finger-claps.

  The judge held up his bullhorn and called out, “Please observe a one-hour judging period.”

  Slowly, the audience stood and conversation rose, like an intermission.

  “Great job, love.” I kissed Luther on the cheek and rubbed his back.

  He smiled his wide-dimpled smile and flapped his hands. Suddenly, he realized what he was doing and stuck his hands in his pockets. I didn’t even have to tell him anymore.

  “Did you see how many I made?”

  “Yeah, but don’t start bragging. Nobody likes a bragger, remember that.”

  “Why don’t people like braggers?”

  “They talk about how they’re better than everyone else.”

  “Yeah, but why do they talk about how they’re better than everyone else?”

  “I don’t know. It’s because they don’t believe in themselves, I guess.”

  “Yeah, but why don’t they believe in themselves?”

  “I’ll tell you later,” I said, knowing we’d both forget in ten minutes.

  From afar, I noticed three women from the audience walking up toward our tent. All dressed up in lovely floral dresses and fancy hats, they were probably related to some earl or minor royalty. They carried umbrellas. Umbrellas. On a warm sunny day in the middle of summer. As they drew closer, I could tell they were in their twenties—probably close to Luther’s age. The smile dropped from my face, and I put my guard up.

  “Are you Luther?” one of them asked, “The No-trifle Truffler? The Mozart of Marzipan?”

  He nodded, face red. They giggled to each other.

  “What do you want?” I asked. They frowned at my bluntness, but I would not allow Luther to be toyed with.

  They exchanged glances and, then one of the girls said, “We only wanted to ask Luther about his baking. We go to your sweet shop all the time. We love it.”

  Paying customers. Posh customers. But I didn't recognize them and said so. “Well, that’s lovely to hear, but I afraid to say I don’t recognize you. Luther and I work very hard to make sure everyone enjoys our sweets, and we always try to remember our frequent customers.”

  One of the girls, the one who looked to be the leader of their little pack, spoke up. “Oh, well, we do love your sweets, but it’s usually one of the kitchen staff that actually goes to the shop. You see, I am a ward of Lord Brooke, the Earl of Warwick, and I’ve been staying at the castle. Cook tells me that our dessert chef is nearing retirement age, and we”—she looked at Luther—”she is looking for a new one. And we thought, well, isn’t there a famous baker right in our back yard?”

  I gasped. I couldn’t help it. A job? A job for Luther? If
I could get him to be self-sustaining, to take care of himself so I wouldn’t have to worry about him when I’m gone…

  She turned to Luther. “Of course, Chef would have to give you a proper interview, but we’ve all tasted your work. Even Chef says its very good and she does love her sweets.” The other girls laughed and commented on Chef's sweet tooth.