White Horses

by Joan Wolf

  Henri said too quietly, “Did you damage our safety net?”

  Pierre looked at the dangerous expression on Henri’s face. “No!” he said vehemently.

  No one believed him.

  “I want you away from my circus, Pierre,” Gabrielle said. “You have almost ruined us. I never want to see you again. Do you understand me?”

  “I understand you,” he mumbled. “I never meant to hurt you, Gabrielle.”

  “Well, you have hurt me. What hurts my circus hurts me. Now, go away, please, Pierre, and don’t come back.”

  White-faced, Pierre turned on his heel and headed back toward his wagon.

  Henri said, “I’d feel better if he was in another town from us.”

  “We’re off to Bordeaux the day after tomorrow,” Leo said. “Anyway, I think we’re safe. He’s been found out. He won’t try anything else.”

  Gabrielle said in a small voice, “I wonder how badly Luc is hurt.”

  Leo said, “Come along with me and we’ll find the factor and check on Luc.”

  “All right,” Gabrielle said. She turned to Henri. “Will you tell the Laurents that they are going to have to play without Pierre?”

  “I’ll tell them,” Henri said. “I’m sure they’ll do fine. What luck, though, that Isabel arrived when she did.”

  “Yes,” Gabrielle said. “But if we have lost Luc, I don’t know what I am going to do.”

  “You handled the Courier of St. Petersburg very well,” Henri said encouragingly.

  “Thank you,” Gabrielle said. “But Luc does more than the Courier.”

  Henri said, “Mathieu and Albert will have to step up and do more. Your father always wanted them to be classical riders and he underestimated what they could do as trick riders. They can take over for Luc, Gabrielle, if you them the chance.” Gabrielle looked dubious.

  Leo said, “Henri is right. There is no reason why Mathieu can’t do the Courier. And Albert can do the drunken-man act. They both have wonderful balance on a horse.”

  Gabrielle looked at him anxiously. “Do you really think so?”

  “Yes, I really think so.”

  “I don’t want them to get hurt.”

  “They won’t get hurt, sweetheart. They’re young. If they take a fall, they’ll bounce.”

  “Well…I’ll talk to them and see how they feel.”

  “You do that,” Leo said encouragingly. “Now, come along and let’s see how badly Luc is hurt.”

  Luc had dislocated his shoulder and would not be performing for at least a few weeks. When Gabrielle approached Mathieu and Albert about taking over his acts, the boys responded enthusiastically. They knew Luc’s acts from having watched them so often and both felt that, with a little practice, they would be able to step in and perform.

  So Gabrielle canceled the first show the following day, which gave Mathieu and Albert the whole morning and most of the afternoon to practice. By the time the four o’clock show came around they had their acts memorized. The show went very well; the boys left out a few of Luc’s more daring tricks, but their acts were exciting and well received by the audience. At Leo’s and Mathieu’s insistence, Mathieu did the Courier of St. Petersburg and he did it well.

  Mathieu had another reason for wanting to shine other than helping out the circus. Isabel’s large blue eyes had been full of admiration when he had come out of the ring after each of his acts, and he had given her a nonchalant wave to signify his acknowledgement of her appreciation.

  As they left the ring after their last appearance together, Albert said teasingly, “I think Mathieu is in love.”

  “Be quiet,” Mathieu said furiously.

  “You are! You are!” Albert cried delightedly.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mathieu said.

  Gabrielle came up to them where they were standing outside the tent where Emma was performing with her dogs. “That was wonderful, boys. The skipping-rope trick was a huge success, Mathieu.”

  Albert said, “Mathieu is in love with Isabel.”

  Gabrielle looked at Albert’s elated face. “Don’t tease your brother,” she said.

  “But he is!” Albert said. “He waves to her every time he comes out of the ring.”

  Gabrielle said seriously, “Mathieu’s feelings are none of your business, Albert. Leave him alone.”

  Some of the pleasure left Albert’s face.

  “I mean it,” Gabrielle said.

  “Oh, all right,” Albert said reluctantly.

  “Thank you, Gabrielle,” Mathieu said in a stifled voice.

  She patted his arm. “You are doing brilliantly,” she said. “Are you ready for the Courier?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  Albert opened his mouth to say something, met Gabrielle’s stern eyes and closed it again. She said to him, “You should get ready for the drunken-man act. You need to be sitting in the audience before it begins.”

  “I know,” Albert said. “I’m going.”

  Mathieu said, “I’m glad you gave me and Albert this chance to show you what we can do, Gabrielle. I’m happy you didn’t try to do it all yourself.”

  Thanks to Leo, she thought. Gabrielle smiled at him. “I am, too,” she said.

  Gabrielle elected to go out with the rest of the circus members to a cafe that night.

  “I think it’s important that we be together tonight,” she said to Mathieu when he reminded her of her promise to invite Isabel to play cards in the hotel.

  “Gabrielle is right.” Leo was standing behind Mathieu and he stepped in to support Gabrielle. “We’ve been wounded and it’s important that we show some solidarity tonight.”

  So everyone went to the cafe and Mathieu managed to seat himself next to Isabel. Luc was seated next to Gabrielle.

  After the wineglasses had been filled, Gabrielle raised hers. “I want to thank everyone for pulling together today. I especially want to thank Mathieu and Albert for filling in for Luc, which was a difficult task.” She gave Luc a quick smile. “And I thank Antonio, Adolphe and Isabel for the good work they did as a three-piece band. You were superb.”

  Everyone clapped and Gabrielle sat down.

  “What are you going to do until your shoulder heals, Luc?” Sully asked.

  “I am going to Paris,” Luc replied. “When my shoulder heals, I am going to try to get taken on by Astleys.”

  The table went silent as Gabrielle turned to Luc. “I didn’t know that! What about us?”

  “Mathieu and Albert did a wonderful job today.” There was a trace of sulkiness in Luc’s voice. “You don’t need me anymore.”

  “Of course we need you, Luc,” Gabrielle said with distress. “You are our featured equestrian.”

  “No—you are our featured equestrian,” Luc returned. “And now that Mathieu and Albert have become such heroes, there isn’t any room here for me.”

  Gabrielle looked even more upset. “Albert is going to art school next year, Luc,” Mathieu said. “He won’t be here. There will be plenty of room for you.”

  Luc looked surprised, but then he shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. This is something I’ve been thinking about for a while. If there isn’t any room for me at Astleys and I need a job, I’ll come looking for you.”

  “Nice of you,” Mathieu muttered under his breath.

  “ I will pay your salary if you stay with us, Luc, but if you have no commitment to us then I can’t pay you,” Gabrielle said.

  He shrugged. “I know that. That’s why I’m telling you now what I’m going to do. I don’t want to take your money, Gabrielle, and then walk out on you.”

  “But what will you live on?”

  Mathieu said roughly, “That’s Luc’s business, Gabrielle, not yours.”

  “I have family in Paris,” Luc said. “I will be all right.”

  “We wish you luck, Luc,” Leo said firmly.

  “Yes,” Sully said. “Good luck and good fortune.”

  Everyone lifted their winegla
sses and toasted Luc.

  Gabrielle got through the rest of the evening with outward calm, but when she and Leo were back in their hotel -room she turned to him. “Luc wouldn’t have left if he didn’t think I was married to you,” she said accusingly. “He saw that his chance to marry into the circus was gone—that’s the main reason he is leaving!”

  “You may be right,” Leo said mildly.

  Gabrielle threw her jacket onto a chair. “You have caused me to lose one of my most important acts, Leo!”

  “You weren’t going to marry him, so he wouldn’t have stayed forever,” Leo pointed out.

  She sat on the bed and clasped her hands tensely in her lap. “Everything is going wrong this year. Nothing like this ever happened when Papa was in charge.”

  “Stop blaming yourself, sweetheart,” he said. “All of your problems have come from the Jeanne situation, which was not your fault. The same things would have happened no matter who was in charge.”

  “I should have dismissed Pierre sooner. You warned me about him.”

  He sat beside her on the bed and put his arm around her. She stiffened against him, refusing comfort. “Don’t fret about what you could or could not have done. You did what you thought was right at the time.”

  “But it wasn’t right,” she said.

  “You wanted to give Pierre another chance and it didn’t work out. That’s all that happened.”

  Her hands tightened even more. He was so big and warm next to her, but she wouldn’t give in and lean against him. “What happened was that I lost my main equestrian act!”

  “Luc was right—you don’t need him. Mathieu and Albert did a wonderful job today.”

  “They are not as good as Luc.”

  “Give them time and they will be.”

  “But Albert is going to be an artist.”

  “Mathieu will grow into Luc’s role by himself.”

  “Don’t you see?” she asked impatiently. “If Mathieu and Albert do Luc’s acts, then who will do Mathieu and Albert’s acts? The circus will be too short!”

  His arm was still around her shoulders, not demandingly, just there, offering comfort if she wanted to take it. “Ask Sully to increase his role. The audience always loves Sully. I’m sure he can come up with some more routines.”

  She thought for a few minutes. “I could do that. Papa always limited Sully because he wanted the circus to be more equestrian than comic.”

  Leo said, “How about teaching one of the horses to count? I saw that trick done once in London when I was a boy. And I remember a horse that played dead, too.”

  She turned to him in excitement. “Shaitan could do that! He loves to perform and he’s very intelligent.”

  “That could be another act.”

  She looked up at him, smiling in relief. “Those are good ideas, Leo. I should have thought of them. I’m the circus person, not you.”

  “You’re too upset to think straight right now.”

  She finally relaxed against him and leaned her head up his shoulder. “I feel better now. You’ve been a help.”

  He rested his cheek against the top of her head. “I’m I hate to see you worried and distressed.”

  They were quiet for a while. Then she said, “I would be feeling fine if it wasn’t for that gold. I wish I knew how the army was going to remove it from my wagons. That sergeant never lets them out of his sight!”

  “I wish I could tell you something,” he said.

  She turned to look at him. “What precisely do you know?”

  “Not much,” he admitted. “I was told to get the gold to Biarritz. What happens when we do that was not discussed with me.”

  Gabrielle said soberly, “I have made many mistakes this last month, but my biggest mistake was agreeing to carry that gold.”

  Leo’s arm tightened around her. “If you hadn’t carried the gold, then you never would have met me.”

  Gabrielle didn’t say anything for a while. Finally she said in a low voice, “Meeting you was the worst mistake of all.”

  She felt him stiffen. “What do you mean by that?” he asked.

  Don’t tell him, Gabrielle, she thought fiercely. Don’t make him feel guilty. It’s not his fault that you have fallen in love with him.

  She managed to make her voice light. “I mean that we will miss you as ringmaster when you leave,” she lied.

  “That’s not what you meant,” he said.

  “I will miss your good advice,” she said. “You have helped me a great deal, Leo.”

  He hesitated, as if he would say something else, then he said merely, “I will miss you, too.”

  Tears stung behind her eyes and she fought them back. Don’t let him see you cry, she told herself. She gritted her teeth and forced the tears back. Don’t you dare let him see you cry.

  She cleared her throat. “This is wonderful,” she said. “We are carrying two wagonloads of gold and neither of us knows how we are going to get rid of it.”

  “That’s about it,” he said.

  They sat in silence, Gabrielle luxuriating in the feel of his arm around her shoulders, the warmth of his shoulder under her cheek.

  “I have been thinking,” she said. “If we do get caught with the gold, will you say that I am the only one who knows about it? I don’t want Mathieu and Albert involved. If you swear that I am the only one involved, then perhaps everyone else will be all right.”

  “You are not going to get caught,” he said roughly.

  “I hope not, but I would be foolish not to plan for that possibility. Promise me, Leo, that you will not involve anyone but me.”

  He didn’t answer.

  She closed her eyes and snuggled her cheek more deeply into his shoulder.

  “I’ll get you out of this mess, Gabrielle,” he said. “I promise you that also. Neither you nor your circus will be hurt by this bloody gold.”

  “Bloody,” she repeated thoughtfully. “Isn’t that a swear word in English?”

  He laughed a little painfully. “Yes, it is. Don’t ever say it yourself. It’s not a word that ladies use.”

  “I am not a lady,” she pointed out.

  He turned her so that she was facing him, then he looked down into her eyes and said very seriously, “You are the greatest lady I have ever met.”

  Her smile trembled. “You sound as if you mean that.”

  “I do,” he said. And bent his head and kissed her.

  Thirty-Three

  The circus was stopped when they were ten miles outside of Bordeaux.

  “Damn,” Leo said to Gabrielle when they saw the line of soldiers blocking the road. “I was afraid this was going to happen.”

  One of the soldiers approached the wagon. “We are searching all vehicles passing along this road, monsieur.” he said to Leo. “I am going to have to ask you to pull your wagons to the side so we can go through them.”

  “We have already been searched,” Gabrielle said coldly. “And the soldiers made a mess of our wagons. I fail to see why we should be subjected to this ordeal again.”

  At this point they were joined by Sergeant Jordan, who had jumped down from his wagon at the sight of the roadblock. He introduced himself to the other sergeant “I have been assigned to keep an eye on this circus. The government is suspicious that they might be carrying the gold we are looking for. I have been waiting to meet just such a roadblock. I think a thorough search of these wagons is definitely called for.”

  “Well that’s what we’re here for,” the sergeant said. “I’ll have my men get started.”

  “You want to concentrate on the wagons that belong to the Robichons,” Jordan said. “These two wagons with the circus name on them, the wagons with the tents and the poles and the wagon with the hay and grain. Look carefully at the sacks of grain. I have thought that they easily be hiding gold in those.”

  “Very well,” the sergeant said. “What about the other wagons?”

  “Look in them, by all means, but concentrate on the
Robichon wagons.”

  “Very good. Do you want to help us?”

  “By all means.” Jordan looked positively enthusiastic at the thought of going through the wagons.

  It was mid afternoon when the soldiers started the search and it was almost dark by the time they had finished. Gabrielle was livid. They had looked into every trunk and wantonly scattered the contents around the wagons. They had ripped open her sacks of grain so that it was spilled all over the place, and they had removed bales of hay from the wagon and left them lying on road. The rest of the circus members had not fared much better. They all stood in a group, cursing the soldiers as the search of the wagons was completed.

  “This is outrageous,” Henri steamed to Sergeant Jordan who was standing with them as the soldiers regrouped. “Our costumes have been pulled out of our trunks and not put back. The same is true of my personal belongings. As a French citizen, I am outraged. We have done nothing to deserve such treatment.”

  “Someone is carrying gold to the English,” Sergeant Jordan said. “It is my responsibility as a French soldier to recover it before it can reach its destination.”

  Gabrielle said, “This is the second time we have been searched. How many more times do you have to do it before you are convinced that we are not carrying the wretched gold?”

  The sergeant’s black eyes went over the faces that were gathered in front of him. “It is true that we have not uncovered the gold, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t concealing it somewhere we haven’t looked. And let me be clear about one thing. These wagons will not be out of my sight while you are moving south. I don’t care how often your belongings are disturbed. Our actions are necessary for the safety of France!” And on this grandiose statement he strode away to talk to his fellow sergeant.

  “What an idiot,” Henri fumed.

  Gabrielle, whose heart had been pounding all during the search, pulled herself together enough to say, “Don’t worry about putting your wagons to rights until tomorrow. We are hours late to meet Vincent. He will be wondering what happened to us.”

  “All right,” Henri grumbled and the others agreed. Within ten minutes of the conclusion of the search they were back in their wagons and headed toward Bordeaux.