White Horses

by Joan Wolf

  “Jeanne,” she corrected Mm. “We are all on a first- name basis in this circus, aren’t we, Gabrielle?”

  “Yes,” Gabrielle replied.

  “Never seen a circus?” Jeanne’s husband, Pierre, was astonished.

  Leo did his best to look genial. “I will remedy that omission tomorrow. And I’m looking forward to it.”

  Gabrielle said, “You have to fetch our drinks from the bar, Leo. I will have a glass of burgundy.”

  Leo stood up, annoyed to have taken orders from Gabrielle in front of the others, and went off to the bar. When he came back to the table the rest of them were discussing the next day’s program.

  “I am going by the order that Gabrielle gave me, and that’s that,” Gerard said hotly.

  Luc said to Gabrielle, “I don’t think I should come directly after you. That makes too many equestrian acts in a row.”

  “What’s the matter, Luc?” teased Antonio Laurent, one of the band members. “Afraid of the competition?”

  Luc’s blue eyes glittered. “No!” he retorted.

  “Let’s go with what I have for tomorrow, Luc,” Gabrielle said matter-of-factly. “If it needs changes I’ll make them for the next day.”

  Luc did not look happy, but after a moment he nodded agreement.

  The conversation veered to what they had all been doing over the winter, and Leo leaned back and watched the various faces around the table. The atmosphere among the group was comfortable. Everyone seemed to know everyone else and there was easy laughter when Adolphe Laurent told a funny story, which was then topped by his brother, Antonio.

  They were a kind of people who were utterly foreign to Leo, but they seemed a pleasant-enough group. This might not be so bad, he thought. I’ll do what I have to do for four weeks, and then it will be over.

  “What kind of horses did you sell, Leo? Were they racehorses?”

  He brought his attention to Jeanne’s inquisitive face. “Hunters, mainly,” he said. “There’s a big market in England for reliable hunters.”

  “Oh, yes, the English and their hunting,” Gerard commented. “Pierre Robichon used to say that the English passion for hunting has destroyed their horsemanship.”

  “How is that?” Carlotta asked.

  “They have lost their seat. All they do is stand in their stirrups and gallop,” Gerard said.

  “I don’t think it’s quite as bad as that,” Leo said mildly.

  “Well that is what Pierre said.”

  “Papa meant that there is no manege training in England,” Gabrielle explained.

  “There isn’t any in France any longer, either,” Leo shot back.

  “But there was before the Revolution and there will be again after Napoleon. There is a tradition in France of classical riding. There is no such tradition in England.”

  “The Duke of Newcastle was English and he trained in the classical way,” Leo said.

  “True, but Papa said no one in England studied the Duke of Newcastle any longer. The few Englishmen who were interested in learning to ride properly came to Papa when he was the king’s Master of the Horse.”

  Leo was annoyed. It was one thing for him to think his countrymen were not the best riders, but it was quite another to hear the same opinion from foreigners. “It takes a great deal of skill to ride a horse cross country,” he said stiffly.

  Gerard said, “It is easy to gallop a horse cross country. All you need is balance. Watch Gabrielle ride tomorrow, then you will see what real horsemanship is.”

  Gabrielle smiled at Gerard. “Thank you, Gerard,” she said.

  Luc said scornfully, “However did you come to marry such a barbarian? Your father must be turning in his grave.”

  Barbarian? Leo was outraged.

  Gabrielle flushed. “Leo is not a barbarian,” she said.

  Leo did not find her defense overly enthusiastic.

  Jeanne gave him a warm smile. “Don’t pay any attention to Luc, Leo. He is just jealous because you married Gabrielle.”

  “Not jealous, Jeanne—amazed,” Luc said sarcastically.

  Everything in Leo wanted to give this bunch of common people an icy dressing down. But he couldn’t do it; it would alienate them and would make them wary of him. He forced a smile to his face. “Talk to me tomorrow, after I have seen your horses perform.”

  “Good idea,” Gabrielle said briskly. She stood up. “I am ready to go back to the hotel, Leo.”

  He stood up also. He was really getting tired of her habit of issuing orders to him. It was a good thing she was so pretty, he thought, otherwise this assignment would be miserable.

  They walked back to the hotel in silence. The only ones left in the lounge were the Maroni brothers, who were still playing cards. Gabrielle bade them good-night and started toward the stairs.

  “I am just going to step out to the stable yard to check the wagons,” Leo told her quietly.

  She nodded. “I’ll wait for you.”

  The stable yard was quiet. The moonlight illuminated the two wagons with the white horses painted on their sides. Leo pulled on the wagon doors, content that they were securely locked.

  Christ, but I wish this journey was over, Leo thought. It stretched out before him like an eon of time. But it was only four weeks. Four weeks wasn’t that long, Leo thought. Then the gold would be delivered and he would be free to rejoin his regiment. He looked up to the sky at the full moon. The same moon was shining on his compatriots in winter quarters in Portugal, he thought.

  Four weeks, and he would be able to return to them.

  He went back inside to rejoin Gabrielle, who was waiting in the lounge. Together they mounted the stairs to their bedroom.

  Another plain, serviceable room, Leo thought as he walked in through the door after Gabrielle. It was furnished with one bed, one wardrobe, a bedside table with a lamp and another table with a basin of water. The floor was wide wooden planks with a small, thin rug just inside the door. Colette immediately jumped on the bed and established herself at the foot.

  The floor looked very hard, Leo thought with discouragement.

  “We will do the same as we did last night,” Gabrielle said. “I will tell you when you can turn around.”

  Leo turned away and fished his nightshirt out of his bag, which lay on the floor, and proceeded to take off his boots. Behind him he could hear the sounds Gabrielle made as she took off her own clothes, and he tried heroically not to envision how she would look naked. Her waist had been so slim and supple when he grasped it this evening…

  Stop, he thought.

  But it had been a long time since he had had a woman. Too long, he thought. That’s why he was reacting to this circus girl, he reasoned.

  “All right,” Gabrielle said, and he turned around. She was wearing the same long nightgown as the night before, and her hair was loose around her shoulders and down her back. She had a brush in her hand, and as he watched she went over to the bed, sat on the edge of it and began to brush her hair.

  He watched, fascinated, as the silken strands slid through the brush. “You have beautiful hair.” The words were out before he could stop them.

  “Thank you,” she said, clearly surprised.

  He cleared his throat. “Well, if you will lend me a blanket, I will bunk down on this rag.”

  She stopped brushing and looked at him. “You don’t have to do that. You can share the bed with me—as long as you keep to your side.”

  He stared at her in astonishment. “Are you sure?”

  “I am sure, but you must understand, Leo, that I am not inviting you to take liberties with me. I am simply allowing you to have a comfortable place to sleep.” She looked at the rag. “That rag doesn’t look too clean.”

  He looked at the bed. It was an ordinary double bed, the kind that a married couple would share comfortably. But they were not a married couple. He thought about what it would mean to lie so close beside her. I might get more sleep on the floor. But the rug definitely did look dirt
y. And the floor looked hard.

  “All right,” he said. “Thank you.”

  She nodded. “Is there a side that you particularly like? Andre always had to sleep on the left side of the bed.”

  “No,” he said. “Either side is fine with me.”

  “Bon. You can have the left side, then. I am used to having the right.”

  He walked barefoot to the bed, feeling huge in his white nightshirt. She looked so delicate and so beautiful as she sat there brushing her hair.

  He got in under the covers and watched her as she finished brushing and took a ribbon and tied her hair at the nape of her neck. She stood up, folded back the covers and slipped into bed beside him.

  “This is awkward, no?” she asked.

  “Very awkward,” he replied. He had to curl his legs because the dog took up the bottom of the bed.

  “I am sorry that we seemed to denigrate your countrymen tonight,” she said. “We of the Robichon circus tend to be very proud of the quality of our riding.”

  “So I gathered,” he said.

  “This disguise of you being my husband is very difficult,” she said. “You saw tonight how astonished everyone was that I would marry a man who is not a good rider.”

  Leo sat up. “Wait a minute. Who said I wasn’t a good rider?”

  She looked up at him. “I don’t mean to insult you, Leo…”

  “Well you do insult me,” he said hotly. “I’ll have you know that I am a bloody good rider. You and your friends may know some circus tricks that I don’t know, but…”

  She also sat bolt upright. “Circus tricks! I am not talking about circus tricks! I’ll bet you can’t even ride a horse in shoulder-in.”

  “What the hell is shoulder-in?”

  “Hah!” she cried. “Shoulder-in is the most basic training tool of all classical riding. And you haven’t even heard of it!”

  Why am I even arguing with this girl? He forced himself to calm down. “This is pointless,” he said. “We should get some sleep.”

  “Certainly,” she said. “There is no point in arguing with you. You are too ignorant.”

  It took all his discipline not to reply.

  “Turn out the light,” she said, then turned her back on him, pulled the covers up over her shoulders and shut her eyes.

  She was giving him orders again. He set his jaw, leaned over to the lamp and turned it off. Her voice came through the darkness.

  “Good night.”

  “Good night,” he replied.

  Silence fell on the room. He was acutely aware of her sleeping but two feet away from him. Under the same blankets. She breathed so lightly he could scarcely hear her. His pulse was racing from the argument, he told himself. This is going to be a long night.

  Nine

  When Gabrielle awoke the following morning Leo was still asleep. She watched him for a minute without moving.

  His hair was tangled on the pillow, his lashes lay still on his cheeks. He looked like a god strayed from the shores of ancient Greece, she thought. She had a sudden impulse to bend over him and kiss him awake, an impulse that immediately horrified her.

  Mon Dieu! What am I thinking? I cannot become attracted to this man. That would put us in a horribly awkward position. As if he had heard her thought, his eyes opened. She looked into their aquamarine depths and said briskly, “Wake up, sleepyhead. It’s time to go to work.”

  He blinked, as if trying to place her.

  “It’s Gabrielle,” she said. “You’re with the circus.”

  He looked annoyed and his serene godlike aspect faded. “I know who you are,” he said.

  “For a moment there you looked unsure.”

  His eyes glittered but he didn’t reply. After a moment’s silence he said, “Are you going to get up?”

  “Yes. And I am going to get dressed. Gather your clothes together and turn your back.”

  She pushed the covers back and got out of bed, carefully pulling her nightgown down over her legs.

  “Do you know, Gabrielle, I am getting rather tired of you issuing orders to me.” His tone was pleasant, but she detected anger behind the words.

  She turned to look at him in surprise. “How will you know what to do if I don’t tell you?” she asked innocently.

  He was sitting up in bed, the covers pulled to his waist. The open neck of his nightshirt showed his strong throat and chest. She looked at them, then quickly pulled her eyes away.

  He said, “I am perfectly capable of figuring things out for myself.”

  “If I had joined you in the army, I would expect you to tell me what to do,” she said reasonably. “You don’t know anything about the circus. I am only trying to keep you from making a mistake. The last thing we need is someone suspecting that you are an English officer.”

  He folded his lips into a frown but didn’t reply.

  “Bon,” she said, pleased that she had put him in his place. “Now can we get dressed?”

  People started arriving for the circus at eleven o’clock the following morning. Gabrielle had put Leo in charge of selling tickets, and he stood beside the wagon emblazoned with the circus name and collected money and handed out tickets.

  The circus-goers were mainly families: mother, father and children. They looked like shopkeepers from the city and local farmers—solid, middle-class folk, the sort that Leo scarcely ever noticed so far were they below his own high head.

  It was almost show time when Leo sold a ticket to an army lieutenant. He got a little shock when he saw the uniform but kept his face expressionless. “Come to enjoy some fun, Lieutenant?”

  “I have come to see your circus,” the lieutenant said. He looked closely at Leo. “You have an accent, monsieur. Are you English?”

  Damn, Leo thought. I should have kept my mouth shut. “My wife’s family owns this circus,” he said, as genially as he could.

  The lieutenant nodded, took his ticket and moved toward the tent.

  There’s nothing to worry about, Leo told himself. The man has just come to see a circus.

  He waited at the wagon until he heard the band strike up and then he locked the ticket money in the wagon and moved toward the tent. He went around to the performer’s entrance and outside he found Gabrielle with her five white Arabians. Their flowing manes were brushed and they wore a golden plume on their heads. They wore no other equipment and each was being held by a rope looped loosely around his neck. Gabrielle herself was dressed in male hunting attire: red coat, breeches and high boots. Her hair was pulled high on die back of her head and swung between her shoulders in a shining fall. She was not carrying a whip.

  “Go and sit with the band,” she said to him. He hesitated a moment, decided to wait until after the show to tell her about the lieutenant, and went into the tent. As he entered, Gerard, who was also dressed in hunting attire, announced to the audience, “Mademoiselle Gabrielle Robichon and her Liberty Horses!”

  The band started a gay tune and the horses trotted through the door, followed by Gabrielle, who went immediately to the middle of the ring. The horses began to trot energetically around the ring, their tails flying high in true Arabian fashion.

  The demonstration that followed had Leo as fascinated as the rest of the audience. Without a hand touching them, without a voice telling them, without even a noticeable signal from Gabrielle, the horses went around the ring, wheeling, turning, reversing and circling in perfect unison. They reared in unison, and went down on their knees at exactly the same time. At one point, Gabrielle put numbers on their backs, mixed them up in the ring, and they all found their exact places in order as they went back to circling the ring.

  Toward the end of the performance, Leo began to watch Gabrielle closely. She was cueing them, he realized, but the motions were so minuscule as to be scarcely noticeable: a slight step forward, a step backward or sideways, the slight lift of a hand—all scarcely visible to the audience but obviously visible to the horses.

  Leo was deeply impressed. He
thought of some of the horses he had known, and their lack of obedience, and was even more impressed. And these were hot-blooded Arabian horses, not slugs.

  As the horses trotted out of the arena, the audience applauded enthusiastically. Gabrielle bowed once to her left, once in front and once to her right, then exited after her horses. She passed Leo with a serious face and didn’t acknowledge his presence.

  Leo studied the faces in the crowd, looking for the lieutenant. Benches had been set up on three sides of the circus ring by laying planks over wooden trestles, and behind the benches people were standing. While Paul Gronow gave a dazzling display of juggling with plates and knives, Leo searched the audience. The juggling act was almost over when he finally located the lieutenant standing on the right side of the ring. He appeared to be watching Paul with interest.

  The next act was the Maroni brothers’ tumbling. They started off by somersaulting off a springboard and landing on a big mattress in the middle of the ring. Following this act, Coco was brought in and they somersaulted over his back. Then three of the Arabians were brought in and they somersaulted over the three horses’ backs. After that, the last two Arabians were brought in and Gianni somersaulted over the six horses’ backs. Then the horses were led out, the mattress brought closer, and each of the brothers followed each other in rapid succession from the springboard, throwing special twists and variations to a lively galloping tune from the band.

  Next, a very tall man with an impassive face walked into the ring. He was wearing evening clothes with an elegant high hat. Sully, dressed as a rustic booby with a red wig and a ruddy face, came in also and spoke to the tall man, but the man didn’t answer. After a few minutes of this, Sully, in irritation, knocked his hat off. To the delight of the audience, his head came off, too. The ringmaster brought out a coffin and Sully tried to stuff the headless corpse into it. After a few minutes of Sully’s comical endeavors, the headless corpse got up and ran out of the ring.

  The crowd roared.

  Leo kept a careful eye on the lieutenant. He was not laughing.

  At this point, Coco came into the ring wearing only a leather halter and a red plume. Gerard, as ringmaster, picked up a lunge whip and started him cantering around the ring. The old horse knew his business and immediately picked up a steady rhythmic gate. Then Mathieu and Albert came running into the ring to join Gerard and the horse.