Bennett Sisters Mysteries Volume 5 & 6

by Lise McClendon

  Odette decided to tell Estelle her story. It would get around the village, she was sure, but she had to know. Everyone already knew about the man who had been treated by Madame Daguerre, but not how he had found his way into their kitchen. She whispered to Estelle that she’d found the strange man in their woods with an injury. Was it this same deserter in the Count’s kitchen? Oh, yes, Estelle was certain it was. He was handsome, wasn’t he? He must be the same person. And a very bad man. He’d stolen from the Army, it was said, and was on the run. They would catch him soon and cut off his head.

  Estelle ran off to spread the story. The village would soon be buzzing with the tale, and the added gossip that Odette had found him in the woods. Was it the same man? Could it be that Ghislain was a thief? That would explain why he wouldn’t tell anyone his last name, or how he’d been injured. But he had nothing, no money or other valuables. No papers either, she mused. Wouldn’t a soldier have papers? Had he sold what he’d stolen? And why didn’t someone relieve the Count of the traitor, Odette wondered as she walked back to the farm. Turn him in to the Army as the incorrigible thief that he must be. The Count was on the side of the Republic who ran the Army now.

  The villagers were as afraid of their local noble as they were of the Army. Perhaps that’s why they preferred to just talk about the stranger in the Count’s kitchen. The conjecture was delicious: the stories swirled and formed, were punctured and re-formed, endlessly. Why deny a favorite pleasure with unnecessary action? Who would be so cruel?

  Was the handsome stranger the deserter and thief? Perhaps that made her stranger a very bad man. It didn’t matter much to Odette. He only lived in her fantasies now. That night she indulged in her favorite pleasure, dreaming about Ghislain. He climbed the rose trellis outside her window and tapped on the glass. She let him in and sucked the blood from where the thorns had cut his hands. He was grateful.

  She woke sweaty and breathless. And alone.

  EIGHT

  Ghislain woke in a sweat, confused. Where was he? His clothes were gone, his chest bare. He lay under fine linens, wearing only well-worn trousers cut off at the knee. He glanced at the curtains across the sole window in the room. They were brocade, a rich gold and red. His head dropped back. Now he remembered.

  He shut his eyes, wiping the sweat from his eyebrows. His fever had returned with a vengeance. Wiggling his toes under the bedclothes he was relieved that his feet were still attached. What had they done to his wound? He threw back the sheets and examined the bandage. There were various poultices under it. They smelled. He hoped the Count’s people knew what they were doing.

  Sunshine streamed through the crack in the drapes. What time was it? His body had lost track. He propped himself up on his elbows as a knock came on the door.

  The Count himself stuck his head in. “You are awake. Excellent.”

  He disappeared then the door widened, allowing an elderly gentleman in a tall silk hat to enter. He had a white beard of the old style below small spectacles perched on his nose.

  “Monsieur?” He nodded, removing his hat. “Le Comte has sent for me to examine your injury. Would that be proper?”

  “You are a physic?”

  “Oui, monsieur. I am an old friend of the Count’s father. I have come from Bordeaux, the Sailor’s Hospital.”

  Ghislain had heard of such healers in the cities, at the universities, but had never encountered one himself. He nodded to the old man and sat up in the bed. The man set his hat on a table and took off his jacket, rolling up his sleeves. That made Ghislain anxious, especially when he opened his bag and took out a long tool.

  “What is that?”

  The physic blinked behind his spectacles. “Just to clean.” He clicked the tool which appeared to be long, slender tongs. Ghislain cringed. “It is necessary. I will be gentle, monsieur.”

  The old man’s knobby fingers pulled away the bandage slowly, exposing the wound. It looked angry and red.

  “If I may ask, was an object involved? Something that remains inside?”

  Ghislain had told no one what caused the injury. “Perhaps.”

  The physic nodded. “This may be uncomfortable, monsieur.”

  “Do you have— anything? Wine or—?” He wanted to say gin or rum but it was unlikely this far into the countryside.

  The physic raised a finger, leaned into his bag, and brought out a bottle of cognac. Ghislain took a long gulp and braced himself on the headboard. He closed his eyes.

  The pain was excrutiating. Ghislain put the pillow into his mouth to stifle his screams. The old man held down his leg with one surprisingly strong arm while poking deep inside the injury with the tool. Then, it was done, except for the pain.

  “Ah-ha!” The physic exclaimed.

  Ghislain opened his eyes. In the tongs the old man held a piece of wood, a splinter about two inches long.

  “And so we have it.” The old man looked well pleased. “Nothing else in there?”

  Ghislain couldn’t speak yet. He shook his head. The physic nodded. He poured a little cognac over the wound, causing more screams. Then he slathered on something rank then wrapped up the wound again. By then Ghislain had recovered.

  “Thank you, monsieur. Will it be healing now?”

  “Oh, bien sûr. It is beautiful now. Take care of it. Keep it warm, out of the mud. Le Comte will see that it is wrapped properly, with the poultice.”

  The healer dressed again, set his hat on his head, and left the room. Murmurings came from the hall then went quiet. Ghislain lay back, still breathing hard from the pain but glad at last to have the foreign object extracted. Maybe now it would heal and everything would be all right.

  Sometime later— again he had lost track of time— a woman arrived in his room. She was stern, with a harsh expression and a pursed mouth. She wore a black dress with a white apron and carried a pan of water. She said nothing, catching his eye and willing him to be still with her steely glance. She pushed his shoulder so he rolled onto his good side. She wet a towel in her basin and began to dab it against his back. It was cool to the touch and felt quite wonderful. She continued on his chest, down to his waist, then proceeded to his arms, neck, and lastly, his face.

  Her ministrations were odd but not unwelcome. As she stood again he cleared his throat. “And who are you, mademoiselle?”

  She glared at him without answering, gathering her pan and cloth.

  “Are you in service here?” he continued. “What is your name?”

  “I am the nurse, monsieur. I am a sister.”

  “Sister of Charity?” He’d heard of the nuns who ran the hospitals in Paris, before the Revolution. With the overthrow of the Church the Republic took over the institutions, leaving the nuns on the outside. Whether this was good or not, he didn’t know. There were rumors of chaos.

  She nodded, frowning. He asked, “Do you want to look at my wound? Inspect the physic’s work? I would enjoy another opinion after his bold procedure.”

  She jerked her head back in contempt. “He knows the best, so they say.”

  “And you? What do you say?”

  She was at the door but she turned slowly back toward him, ready, at last, to be engaged on the subject. Her lip curled with disgust.

  “You, monsieur, will be lucky to see next week under the care of that man.”

  NINE

  The letter was torn, dirty, and weeks old by the time it found Odette in the deep countryside of southwestern France. She stared at the postal scribble on the front, near her name. At least three weeks had passed, maybe four. But she had a letter from her brother at last.

  Jérome was much smarter than she was. He had been sent to school where she had not because she was a girl. Odette always wondered if she would have been as clever as Jérome if she’d gone to school, learned about the world, read libraries full of books, taken Latin, and learned to fight with swords and words. But it was a fruitless daydream. Some girls were taught at home by tutors and governesses but not the merch
ant class like her parents. No baker or tradesman could afford a governess for his daughter. She had been working at her father’s knee since she was five.

  She could read however, thanks to her mother’s care, so opened the letter with excitement.

  My dear sister,

  Word has come finally from our parents about your situation and I am glad to hear you escaped unharmed. Paris is ablaze every night with skirmishes and drunken riots, things no girl should see. I hear you are safe and healthy and it makes my heart glad.

  Odette had to pause and hold the letter to her breast for a moment while her eyes cleared. She had done the same with the letter from her parents. It was so hard to think of them miles and miles away, living lives she could barely imagine. Would she see her dear brother ever again? The next part made that clearer.

  My news from Paris is complicated. I have left my college and joined the Army. Before you cry out in protest let me tell you there was little choice in the matter. I was to be drafted within days. This way there is a possibility of a commission and thus staying out of the worst of it.

  I do not delude myself; it will be bloody. But keep me in your prayers, chérie. I go to an unknown place, a camp of some sort, tomorrow morning. I will find out my rank, my orders, my uniform, then. I wish I could tell you to write but I don’t know where I’ll be. I will try to write again as soon as I can.

  Until we see each other again,

  Your loving brother,

  Jérome.

  Odette covered her mouth to contain the moan. She sat on a stone wall in the village, by the cemetery, under a bare tree. The sun shone through the dark branches, making patterns on the wet leaves at her feet.

  What a tragedy. Jérome had left his studies. He was looking at a legal career, he had a fine mind and a quick tongue, a heart for all men and women alike, all the abilities to make him a great avocat. And now he would wear the uniform of the French Army and take up weapons against… whoever they told him was the enemy. It was a fuzzy war, with Spain, maybe England, perhaps Prussia and Austria, maybe with rebels inside the country itself. Yes, France was at war with itself. That perceived weakness had brought out all the old rivals, ready to pounce on the troubled state, on the royal disaster, on the chaos of the ruling class.

  Where was Jérome now? Marching to Alsace? Off to vanquish the ‘hors de loi’— outlaws of the uprising in the Vendée? What was happening with the royals, still imprisoned in Paris with their children? How could the King be put on trial by commoners? It had been done already and the vote, the villagers said, even included nobles who voted for death.

  The King’s fate was sealed; he was dead. It was so distant from her own life. There had been rumors that the Queen was also dead, executed by the Louisette, or ‘madame guillotine.’ Versailles and all their fancy trappings hadn’t saved them and Odette struggled to care. She had heard someone had lost their head in Périgueux, the provincial capital, but nobody knew who or what the offense was. Instead she tried to remember the names for the months that had come down from the republicans. The Convention had renamed so many things, from the calendar to the clock. She reckoned it was the time of the mist, Brumaire, what was once late October. The old names for months were ridiculous as well, she decided. Why not rename them? She was in favor of a clean slate.

  Yet, so much had changed these last three years in the republic of France. Kings gone, armies marching, nobles stripped of their riches, priests and monks thrown adrift. Here in the countryside little changed from day to day. The bell had been removed from the local church by the Army to use the metal for weapons. The priest had run off. But what else? Not much unless you counted handsome strangers arriving unannounced.

  Had she run away from all the action, the important business of the capitol? She knew she had and now she wondered if her idyllic but tedious goat-herder life was really what she wanted. She was safe, that was true. Jérome might be in mortal danger but at least he was doing something to save his country. He was a patriot, doing important work. What would he think of the sister who once chanted and marched to Versailles, who shook her fist at royals, who demanded affordable food and better conditions for everyone? Now she could be found with those fists around goat teats, doing the job of a milkmaid.

  Oh, it was honest work. She was proud of the way she’d learned new tasks, how she’d gone from a city girl to a woman unafraid to roll in the mud with goats. But she didn’t delude herself. She wouldn’t stay proud of goat-herding forever. Part of her longed for more, for an engagement with big events. They were happening, now, but so far from here that they were invisible, as cold and ephemeral as the mistral that blew in from unseen mountains in the springtime. She wanted to find the source of the wind, to be part of its force. To help bring the winds of change to France.

  And yet, here she sat, in her tattered gown and broken boots, shivering as the winter came closer. Soon it would be the month, Frimaire, of frost. Grazing the goats on the hillsides would be cold business and she had no coat. The idea of a wool coat, or even a cotton one, filled her mind for a moment, pushing out revolutionary thoughts and high-minded dreams. A nice wool coat, heavy on her shoulders with sleeves long enough to cover her hands. Perhaps a man’s overcoat. But how to find one? How to afford one?

  Odette looked up and down the tiny village street, checking the citizens for warm garments. None to be seen. Perhaps it didn’t get terribly cold here. As she thought those words a breeze blew her hair off her neck. A cold wind that spoke of winter.

  She stood up and tucked Jérome’s letter into her bodice, next to her heart. It wouldn’t be enough to keep her warm this winter but in its own way it might help her survive.

  TEN

  Four days had passed since the physic had extracted the splinter, and the nurse made her dire prediction. Ghislain’s leg was still angry and tender but his fevers had passed. He ate beef broth and bread four times a day and felt stronger. He was grateful to the Count and so, after another set of gentle ministrations by the nurse to keep him and his wound clean, he asked her if the Count might be free to see him. She frowned— she was never a happy caregiver— but promised to ask.

  It was late in the afternoon the next day before le Comte made his appearance. Ghislain had only spoken to him twice, once when the physic arrived and once sometime in his fevered memory. So when he arrived with the afternoon sunshine streaming through the window, highlighting the scar that disfigured him, Ghislain had to blink several times to keep his countenance. The Count’s face was painful to look at it. The injury, whatever it was, had been deep. The remaining gulley down his face was as red as Ghislain’s wound, even after healing. Perhaps he was just grateful to have salvaged his eye.

  “Monsieur le Comte,” Ghislain said when he recovered his composure. He pushed himself upright in the bed. The Count stood by the window, his good side toward his patient. “I wanted to thank you for all you’ve done. You’ve saved my life, I am certain.”

  “I know what it’s like,” the count said softly, “to be gravely injured and dependent on the kindness of strangers.”

  Ghislain waited for him to explain his injury, but he did not. He didn’t blame him; he, Ghislain, was not forthcoming with his own details either. “I hope, monsieur, we will not be strangers then.”

  The Count turned, nodding to him formally. “You are not from here.”

  “No, sir. From the north coast. Bretagne. Brittany.”

  “That is far. You have no horse?”

  “At this time, no.” He hesitated then plunged on. “You would like some information about my circumstances, monsieur?”

  “Not necessarily. No. I will not pry.” He glanced again. “What is your age, monsieur?”

  “Twenty-four years, sir.”

  “Ah. As is mine. I thought it would be so. It seems we live parallel lives, you and I. You are on your own, out fighting or whatever, doing good for the paysans and the republic, I am sure, and here I sit. In this prison of my own making.”
>
  Ghislain stirred in his bed. What was this then? “It is a very pleasant prison, monsieur le comte.”

  “Is it?” he said bitterly. His shoulders hitched as if throwing off the feeling. “You must call me Laurent if we are to be friends.”

  Ghislain’s eyebrows raised. “As you wish. Laurent.”

  “You are married, Ghislain?”

  “No, monsieur. I mean, no, Laurent.” This was going to be difficult.

  “A special person left behind in your village, I assume?”

  “No one. Well, I met someone here. A pretty girl. A goat herder.”

  A strange look fell across the Count’s countenance. Was he so high and mighty that he looked down on the paysans? If so, Ghislain was sorry for him.

  The Count shook off his odd reaction. “You are young still. And have the world ahead of you. I must marry someone wealthy. A duchess or a princess even. To save the estate, my prison.”

  “And you, um, have someone in mind?”

  “I’ve received a letter from the Count of Toulouse. He is a reasonable man.”

  “With a daughter?”

  The Count reached into his breast pocket and drew out a letter. He fingered it briefly then carried it over to the bedside. “Read it and see what you think. I would value another opinion.”

  Ghislain took the packet carefully and untied the ribbon. There was more than one letter, plus a sketch of the lady in question, done in charcoal and smudged badly. It was difficult to tell anything about her looks. He set the sketch on the bedclothes and took up the letters.

  “This one,” the count said, pointing to a long missive dated in mid-August.

  “My dear Count,” it began. “It is with pleasure that I hear you are taking control of your estates since the untimely deaths of your father and brother. Your steward and mine have long relationships in the region and I have been kept abreast of your affairs. Please do not be alarmed by this. It is common during times of turmoil that men of our class remain vigilant to the affairs of each other. Consider my advice as that of a father or uncle, as in birth we are distantly related.”