He ran a hand through his hair.
“Do you love me?” I asked.
All heads swiveled to Lane. He closed his eyes, so he didn’t have to look at me.
“Do you?”
“No,” he said, voice firm. Then he opened his eyes and his shoulders slumped. “Yes. But I have nothing to offer.”
“What do you want to offer?”
He cocked his head. “What do you want?”
“What do you think I want?”
The heads of the ladies bounced back and forth in unison.
“Home?” he tried.
“I have that. It happens to be the same as yours. Unless you prefer America.”
“Position?”
“No. I don’t want that. Do you?”
“Not really.”
“Good. We both seem to be fresh out, anyway.”
“Family?”
“Mine’s rather dodgy.” But not as much as yours, I thought.
“I’ve got Aunt Bit.”
“She’s practically my aunt, anyway.”
“Money, then?”
“Hmm. I have property, but possibly not much in the way of cash. You could bring that to the table, if you wished.”
A small silence followed this, while Lane considered. After a few moments, he shrugged.
“Then we can proceed on those terms, Mr. Moreau?”
“Yes, I suppose we can.”
“Good. Then I have one more question of importance for you. What is your relationship with Marie LeFevre?”
All the heads swiveled back to Lane. “What do you mean, exactly, Miss Tulman?”
“I mean that she seems extraordinarily fond of you and rather … robust in her constitution.”
A rush of French began from the library doors, from both Joseph and Jean-Baptiste. Henri began translating from behind me.
“The sister of Joseph and Jean-Baptiste seems to have had an … entanglement with a boy who Jean-Michel put on a train to Nice before Joseph could do something … unfortunate to his person, therefore saving the tender feelings of the sister, and Joseph some time in purgatory.” Jean-Baptiste said something else, and Henri said, “And she is so grateful, this sister, that now they meet Jean-Michel on street corners and leave their sister at home, as is best. That is all.”
I looked back to Lane, and so did everyone else. A tiny flush was creeping beneath his tan skin. “That seems satisfactory,” I said.
Lane raised his brows, and we looked at each other across the marble tiles of my grandmother’s foyer.
“So, you’re coming home with me, then?”
“Yes.”
“And that is what you choose?”
“Yes,” he said, “that is what I choose.” The corner of his mouth lifted. “Is that what you choose?”
I took a deep breath. “Yes, it is. We’ll discuss your plans for making money on the train. Now if you don’t mind, I’ll just let you all chat for a few moments while I go upstairs and put on a dress.” And take a bath, and possibly cry, I thought. “I’m certain you will have things to explain to Mrs. Reynolds.” I started to pick up my skirts, remembered I didn’t have any, and instead walked with as much dignity as I could muster toward the stairs. The gray gaze followed me.
“Mr. Moreau,” said Mrs. Reynolds, as if she were trying out the name, “I am so concerned that you would leave Paris. Are you certain you wish to … abandon your art?”
Lane did not answer her. Instead he came across the foyer, and before I could protest he had his hands on my head and his mouth on mine, hard. By the time he let me go I was blushing, as he’d meant for me to be.
“Go on, then,” he said, his grin at me wicked. But I didn’t. I stayed where I was, watching him go gracefully across the foyer to do his penance with Mrs. Reynolds, unable to contain my smile. With Mrs. Hardcastle in the room, Lane Moreau might as well have put an announcement in the Times.
I had not yet started up the stairs when I had another hand on my arm.
“I am taking my leave, Miss Tulman,” said Henri. “Here, you will allow me to be French just this once.”
He kissed me on both my dirty cheeks, a strange feeling, as they were both still flushed from Lane. I glanced once toward the salon, where I saw the gray gaze shooting daggers through the door.
“There! That was not so bad,” said Henri, his brown eyes sparkling, “but I think it was not quite the same, no?” He was teasing me, and he knew full well that Lane was looking. But then he became serious. “You should get out of Paris quickly, yes? I would not bother much with packing. Take Mr. Tulman safely to his home and make your young man behave. That will be more than enough to keep you busy.”
“You are certain you can go to the ambassador without danger to yourself?”
He made a little poof noise that I assumed meant that I should not worry. “I am … what is the word? Slippery. Have you not noticed, Miss Tulman? I am going as soon as I can change my clothes. If I do not, I shall have to console the women in your salon. I would rather be with the ambassador, I think.”
“Here,” I said, putting a hand on his arm, “now you will allow me to be French.” I kissed his cheek, gratified by an expression of sleek surprise, and then doubly so to glance over my shoulder and find Lane’s face dark with annoyance. I smiled at him, and when I turned back around, Henri was already gone. Joseph slouched in the doorway to the library, and so quick I thought perhaps I had not seen it, he winked. Still smiling, I turned and hurried up the stairs to Marianna’s room, shut the door and leaned on it, breathing hard, as if I’d just won a race.
I dismissed the velvet chair at a glance, and instead went to the bed and sank down beside it, hoping I was not too dirty for the floor. Mary, being the wonder that she was, had a tub of water ready for me before the hearth. I needed to wash the dust from my hair, to take care of the myriad tasks that would get us out of Paris in the morning, especially concerning my uncle. But I was so tired. Everything in me ached, except for the one place that had been aching so long it had become a part of who I was; now that place was unknotted, unloosed, wonderfully and blessedly free. I felt my eyes closing, resting in the feel of it.
I jumped when the door burst open. “Lord!” Mary said, blowing through the room like a hurricane. “Ain’t you done good, Miss! Mr. Tully, he’s gone and made his own toast, brushed his jacket, and put himself to bed, no wrapping up of blankets or nothing.”
She tugged me to my feet.
“It’s a marvel, that is. But, Miss … now I ain’t talking about Mr. Tully no more when I say this, Miss, but …”
She paused in the act of peeling off my dirty clothes, hands on my shoulders, her eyes as large and round as I’d ever seen them.
“But if that weren’t a lesson on handling a man, then I don’t know what was!” She stripped me down and gave me a push toward the tub. “I’m thinking you did real good, Miss! Real good. Now if I was able to be going about saying all that in French, then I’d be taking a page out of your book, if you take my meaning, Miss. I’m certain it would be a favor to me. …”
I held my second foot over the water, the momentary bliss at the thought of being clean taken away by the sudden memory of Robert’s body, lying still and broken on the cavern floor. “Mary, I need to —”
“Talking a man’s head right ’round till he don’t know where he’s at. That’s artful, that is, Miss, and I’m thinking ’tis what a young man needs. Now take that Jean-Baptiste, Miss, he’s a real nice young man, Miss, settled you know, more mature, not so silly and boyish. Do you know what I’m talking about, Miss?” She guided me into the water with a splash.
“Mary, I —”
“And with a real interesting name. Jean-Baptiste! It’s so foreign sounding, ain’t it, and it rolls right off the tongue. Jean-Baptiste,” she demonstrated, shoving a chunk of soap into my hands. “Jean-Baptiste. Jean-Baptiste! He was staying here all night and day, Miss, helping me with the packing up and such. I figured we was going, Miss,
just as soon as we was able, and him being just as gentlemanly as you please, teaching me some real useful French, and you know what he did, Miss?”
I slid farther into the water and vowed to forever hold my peace.
“He was showing me how to pick a lock, Miss! Now that’s real interesting, and real useful …”
“Mary,” I said softly, “I am terribly glad to see you.”
“… and what do you think, Miss, if he didn’t find all your money and a paper or two in the top of Mr. Babcock’s second-best hat! So now we can be paying the dressmaker. And he’s liking hair curls best, Miss. Has a real fondness for … Lord! Or what I mean to be saying is sacré bleu!” Mary plucked something from my pile of discarded clothing, and held it up to the light. “Is this thing a ruby?”
I didn’t remember if I answered or what Mary said next. I fell asleep in the tub.
That evening I stood with Lane in the attic room, looking down at my uncle, lying still across the bottom of my steamer trunk. The gaslights were lit, and Lane looked more his normal self: clean-shaven, tan skin behind a plain shirt with the sleeves rolled up, arms crossed, and with a scowl on his face.
“I don’t like it, Katharine,” he said.
I didn’t like it either. The soiled lining had been ripped out and the trunk was clean, ready enough for use, but all my trepidation from the first time we’d done this had come back to me triple force. This plan was madness, once again, with everything to go wrong and everything to lose.
“Uncle Tully,” I whispered, “are you truly certain?”
The blue eyes popped open. “Oh, yes, little niece, yes! It is just so. Just so! It is tight, like blankets, and there are holes. Holes to see through, Simon’s baby! Lane! Tell my niece there are holes to see through.”
The gray gaze turned to me in all seriousness. “Miss Tulman, there are holes in the trunk that Mr. Tully can see through.”
“Thank you so much, Mr. Moreau.”
“My pleasure.”
“Likewise.”
“Little niece!” said Uncle Tully, petulant. I tore my attention away from Lane. “If there are holes, then I can see out, but when they are little holes, then no one can see in! Is that not splendid? And this place is better than the other place, and the next place is better than this one, isn’t that right, little niece? And you are coming?” This was to Lane. “And you are coming, and the girl is coming?”
“Yes, that’s right, Uncle.”
His shoulders slumped with relief, then they stiffened again. “And the clocks?”
“Yes, Uncle.” I knelt down beside the trunk. “Uncle Tully, do you understand that if you ride in the trunk, you are going to see new places, and new people, and some of them might not be splendid? And if you are frightened, or uncomfortable, or if you want something, or to play, then you will have to wait, and you will have to be silent. That is very important, Uncle.”
Uncle Tully sat up in his trunk, his white hair a little wild. “Lane! Would I have to be silent in the trunk?”
“Yes, Mr. Tully. That’s so.”
“I do not like silence, Simon’s baby.”
“I know it, Uncle.”
Uncle Tully thought hard, muttering to himself. Then he said, “If I count, then the silence is only on the outside. Not inside my head. Not in my head. Only on the outside. I do not mind the outside kind. I can make it go away on the inside.”
Lane squatted down beside me, elbows on his knees, and we looked at each other. My uncle looked to us both.
“He is quite good at closing his eyes and waiting now,” I said. “Remarkably so.”
“Mr. Tully, can you stay quiet, no matter what? Can you do it?
Uncle Tully was solemn. “Sometimes big things can be little,” he said.
Lane sighed.
“All right, Uncle,” I said. “You may ride in the trunk.”
Uncle Tully smiled, as if day had appeared among the gaslights. “Little niece,” he whispered.
“Yes, Uncle?”
“Can I tell you a secret? Should I?”
“I think you should.”
Uncle Tully whispered, very loud, “I would like to shut the lid again! Now!”
We got out of my grandmother’s house in Paris early, hoping to catch the first train and the earliest possible steamer from Calais. We’d had to hire a wagon for my trunk, but not having the extraordinary skill of Mr. Babcock, there had been no time to find transportation for all that was left in the workshop. We left the boxes on the landing, and I went to Mrs. DuPont’s room to give instructions on how to send them on to us, and also to place a ruby ring in her hand. Pink suffused her white skin as she stared down at the ring.
I said, “This house will not be the best place for you, Mrs. DuPont, or for Mr. DuPont.”
“Napoléon est mort!” he said in response to his name.
“Hello, Mr. DuPont,” I replied. Marguerite patted his hand. “Use it to find somewhere that is private and quiet, and for Marguerite, to send her to school. A good school, mind you, not severe. Will it be enough?”
Mrs. DuPont closed her bony fingers around the ring. “Yes, it will be enough,” she said.
“And no more selling?”
She thought for a moment, then shook her head.
“Keep your agreement with my estate, if you wish. I plan to maintain the house for a time, in case …” I didn’t finish. “Or if you wish to work elsewhere, write and I will send a reference.”
She nodded, and I’d turned to leave when I heard a small voice say, “Merci, Mademoiselle.” I looked down to see Marguerite smiling in the exact way every master painter seemed to think a beautiful child ought to smile, and then Mrs. DuPont curtsied.
“Yes. Thank you, Miss Tulman.”
I was halfway down the corridor before it occurred to me that Mrs. DuPont had used my name.
In the foyer, Lane and the wagon driver were setting my steamer trunk down on the tiles, Mary assisting by carrying a hatbox and giving an endless stream of instructions on the correct way to get a trunk down the stairs. I was nervous and ready to be gone, half thinking to see imperial soldiers come marching down Rue Trudon, though I knew Joseph and Jean-Baptiste were watching. They had already said their good-byes, Jean-Baptiste causing Mary a few tears, but Joseph was coming with us to Stranwyne, as soon as his sister was settled and his passport approved. I was grateful for this. I wanted another set of eyes on Lane when I couldn’t be there.
Lane went back up the stairs for my bags, his long legs taking them two at a time in his hurry, the driver made for the door, and then Mrs. Hardcastle was saying, “Hello! Hello! Good morning, Miss Tulman!” from the open doorway.
I turned in time to see Mary run pell-mell across the foyer, this time holding her hatbox, and sit herself abruptly on my steamer trunk. Mrs. Hardcastle raised the pince-nez, looked at Mary briefly, shook her head, then came bouncing across the foyer, opening her reticule.
“Well, I am so glad I caught you, my dear. I waited to speak to you yesterday, but you never came downstairs after whatever you had been up to. …” She paused, hoping I might fill that gap. When I did not, she said, “And as fascinating as that little scene was — and I am not being facetious in the slightest when I say that it was fascinating, my dear — I did have a purpose for inviting myself to several cups of tea, overstaying my welcome, and now barging in on you this morning.” She handed me a letter, beaming. “I’ve not forgotten our agreement, you see. I wrote Alice Tulman the very afternoon of our chat, and heard back at the morning post yesterday.”
I glanced once at Mary, but all seemed to be well in the steamer trunk. “I take it this is not good news, Mrs. Hardcastle?”
“Not good news at all, my dear!” Mrs. Hardcastle could not actually stand still for excitement. “Alice has heard all about Mr. Babcock. I’m certain something was in the papers, and … Now wait, child! You have not let me finish. You see, I know a solicitor …” She lowered her voice even further. “… a hopeles
s solicitor. An imbecile and a drunkard, if you can credit it, with …” she whispered the next words, “a history. A history that I just happen to be acquainted with. So let’s just say that Alice Tulman is about to be very badly advised in her legal affairs! Is that not delicious?”
My mouth had opened in utter astonishment, so I closed it, wondering if perhaps Mrs. Hardcastle had ever had conversations with Mrs. DuPont that did not concern my wardrobe. Mrs. Hardcastle was smiling at me expectantly.
“Why, thank you, indeed, Mrs. Hardcastle. You will keep me informed?”
“I am a spy in the enemy camp!” She giggled like a girl. “But take heart and enjoy your trip, my dear, the weather has just been divine.” She leaned close, whispering dramatically, “And you’ve made the Miss Mortimers so abominably jealous that I shall have fun for days!”
Mrs. Hardcastle bustled happily out the door, and Mary slumped off the steamer trunk in relief.
We made our train, miraculously, without noise or incident, paying for a private compartment just in case, and even more remarkably, we managed to catch our steamer in Calais. I wondered if Uncle Tully had his eyes closed, counting out his waiting, or if he was actually watching, and if so, what he thought of real life from the view of a peephole.
The steamer was extraordinarily empty, only a few French officers, perhaps on business to London for the war, and the lack of loading and unloading quickened our departure. This also meant a first-class cabin was available, so Uncle Tully could come out of his trunk. Mary had pulled strips of pink cloth from the workshop, bringing them to hang and create a set of walls my uncle could sit inside, along with a broken clock to repair. I stayed on deck while Lane and Mary got him settled, the steam engines chugging, watching the waves and the wake the boat created as it slowly pulled away from France. Hopefully the fresh air and wind would keep me from repeating my lamentable state of health during my last Channel crossing.
A Spark Unseen Page 27