Conde gave him an assessing look then shook his head.
Gerard held his breath for a minute before he asked. “Is he dead?”
Conde shrugged and put the tray across his lap.
He tried to eat but nothing seemed to have a taste now. Finally he lay back and let his mind empty of everything.
When next he awoke General Soutine was watching him.
Gerard was afraid to ask about his father. Instead he asked the second question on his mind. “Why did you help me?”
“Did you imagine I would let anyone I know perish on that battlefield?”
“But why were you there looking for Father?”
“Your father owes me a debt.”
“I can pay you if I still have his money.”
“Your life is payment enough.”
“My life? But you saved me.”
“I did not mean you had to die to repay this debt of honor but live.”
Gerard stared at him, thinking that he resembled someone he knew. “I do not understand.”
“Because of your father, my child died. I want you to live in return.”
“But my father will want me back. Besides, he would never harm a child.”
Soutine looked away toward the window. “We do not know where he is. I promise you, if your father lives, we will find him.”
Nothing could have hurt Gerard more. This meant that they did not think his father had survived. “I must go to the battlefield and search. There will be soldiers there who will know him.” Gerard managed to stand up, then there was a roaring in his ears and he pitched back onto the bed.
“The battlefield is far away in Belgium. You cannot possibly go there.”
“Far away? Where are we?”
“Paris, of course. That is where I live most of the time.”
Enemy territory but only if the English had lost. Gerard had the strength for only one more question. “Who won?”
“Wellington and Blucher. But it was in doubt until the very end.”
Gerard sighed. That meant there would be English soldiers in Paris again and he could talk to them.
He was alone when he next woke up. When he could stand he carefully searched the room. He found his father’s store of coins in the bureau still in the money belt. He had well over a hundred pounds to aid him in his search. Soutine was no thief. Neither was Conde. So he did just want Gerard to stay here but why? How could an English soldier’s brat make up for the loss of a French child? He also opened the small packet of documents in the money belt. Perhaps that’s why his father had given him the belt so he would have his identification papers.
When he read his baptismal certificate he was stunned. He was nearly nineteen, a full year older than he’d been told. His father had lied about that to keep Gerard from badgering him about enlisting. In spite of this betrayal he felt himself smiling at the ruthlessness of the subterfuge.
There was also one letter and the contents almost choked him. It was from General Cochran and prohibited his son from ever returning to Old Stand. Finally he understood the scope of his father’s pain.
That night he was able to dine at table with Soutine, passing the critical muster on the forms of a multi-course meal. They ended with coffee and a dessert. Since they dined late it was near dark by the time Conde appeared with the coffee tray. He was a strange servant, saying little and almost communicating more through body language than speech. He was tense tonight and Gerard did not think it was because he was presenting a new sort of trifle.
When everything had been cleared away Soutine poured Gerard two fingers of brandy. Gerard stared at the ruby liquid as though it were blood coating the inside of the glass. He looked across at Soutine and read the regret in the man’s eyes. He knew what he was going to tell him and though he did not want to hear it, he felt some sympathy for the old man. Enough to prevent Gerard chiding him for something that was none of his doing.
He took up the glass and downed half in one swallow. “He’s dead then, isn’t he?”
Soutine stared at him with pain in his eyes. Carefully he unfolded an English newspaper, the Times and laid it before Gerard. His finger ran down one column to arrive like the skeletal digit of the grim reaper at his father’s name. The notice was brief and only one of many still being listed two weeks after the battle. Missing and presumed dead. So Soutine had still been looking for his father in a way.
A weight pressed on Gerard and he felt unable to move from the chair. His purpose had been lost. The only goal in his life was to return to his father and that had been snatched away. His beloved father must have been robbed and stripped of any identification, then thrown into a common grave. The search was over before it had begun. What was he to do with himself now? It hardly mattered. He tried to stand and staggered. He remembered Conde helping him to bed but nothing more.
* * * * *
The next morning was worse because he was sober and remembered his father’s death again. It was like losing him twice and he wondered how many mornings he would awake to the realization like a fresh wound to the heart. He went over in his mind the day of the battle and wondered if he should have disobeyed orders earlier. Could he have made a difference? One thing a soldier should never do is look back.
But he was not a soldier. His name would never appear on the list of missing and he would drop from the sight of the military world. He wondered what had become of Tully but he had no energy to find him. His father’s batman would go back to England with all the others. Gerard did not have to write his grandfather at all. Of course the old man had probably seen or heard about the notice in the Times and that was as much as he deserved.
Gerard had no future to look forward to. For several days he moved like a dead person, replying to Soutine or Conde if he heard them but often not hearing them, just staring out the window of the old hotel into the summer rains.
“I said it is time you went to school,” Soutine almost shouted across the breakfast table.
Gerard looked up at him over the toast he had been crumbling on his plate. “My father gave me the name of an instructor in England. I had almost forgotten. That is what I was supposed to do with the money, go to England and find the school.”
“Nonsense, there are many excellent schools right here in Paris, better than any English school.”
Gerard did not argue with him and followed Conde when he led him to the Académie de Paris that day. Soutine went as well but in a sedan chair. There was a lengthy interview with the director, a course of study chosen, which at Gerard’s insistence included medicine, then some inquiry as to Gerard’s skill in French. A few minutes of speech convinced the man he could hold his own. They left Gerard there and he developed a mild interest in the classes that met that day. He also encountered several young Frenchmen who might be a problem.
“Anglais, you want to learn how to be a Frenchman?” one of them asked in heavily accented English.
“I already know that. I want to learn how to be a better Frenchman,” he said in French. Too late, as they held him against a wall and pummeled him, he realized he had said “better than a Frenchman.” Perhaps his language skills left something to be desired after all. He vowed to stay out of fights in future. Though his father had always been tolerant of brawling Gerard sensed that split lips and bruised ribs would disturb the general more.
Besides, he felt different as though there was no fight left in him. Yes, the English had won but Gerard personally felt defeated and like a prisoner of war, the only English prisoner still held by the French. And he no longer had the will to get away.
When he left the building Conde was waiting for him. It did occur to Gerard that the building had more than one door and gate but Conde had trusted him and he saw no reason to violate that.
That night Soutine asked about his classmates at the dinner table and Gerard shrugged. “I have not much in common with them.”
“Even less if you plan to pursue medicine as a career but you will soon grow
tired of that. Two things are missing. You need to learn some proper horsemanship and fencing. Saturday you will ride in a park where I know a horse master who teaches dressage and in the afternoon have fencing lessons at the Salon du Burgh. I know the fencing master personally.”
Gerard realized he could not keep a gleam of interest out of his face. He’d learned how to ride as a child but dressage was much more demanding and fencing was an art that had always intrigued him.
“Does that please you?”
“Very much. I like horses.”
“And tonight we go to a play by Racine. You will like that as well. Next week we attend the ballet. But first you need better clothes, evening wear. My tailor will be here early tomorrow to measure you.”
Gerard opened his mouth but did not object. He had been wearing clothes Conde must have bought in a street stall and he had been expecting to live in seclusion with Soutine, playing chess with him to amuse him or reading to him, which helped with his own grammar and accent. He had not expected a life of his own so he finally said, “I thank you for all your care of me and all you have spent already. But what will people think of you if they find out you are supporting an Englishman and one with no claim on you?”
“They have no right to speculate on why you live with me or how that came to be. You have my leave to tell them it is none of their business.”
“You are right. It matters not what anyone in Paris thinks of me.” Was this what it would always be like, thanking your jailer? He shrugged off the notion. He could walk out of Soutine’s life if he wished but he owed the man something and he wasn’t even sure what it was. That debt of honor. How could he make up for the loss of a child? There was something else, some puzzle he had not worked out yet that made him reluctant to leave. Besides, he had no place he wanted to go.
He remembered an estate where he had stayed with his mother for a short while when he was very young. It had a huge house, a hedge maze and sheep. But where it was or who it belonged to he had no idea. When English troops bivouacked the officers rated the best lodgings available though often that was a hovel. The estate had not seemed like campaign lodgings because his father had been missing.
Chapter Three
Paris, August, 1815
He had come alone to the theater tonight since Soutine’s leg was bothering him. Alone except for Conde dozing in the back of the box. Gerard had become accustomed to life with Soutine and drifted with the flow of school, chess playing, the theater and other social engagements. His clothes marked him now as a prosperous though perhaps foppish young gentleman and since he perceived Soutine was training him to act that part, he applied himself. Gerard suspected that he was destined to embarrass his English relatives someday. If that was Soutine’s purpose he was not ready to reveal it. But why would he expect Gerard to cooperate? He was tired of being a pawn but there was no purpose to his life that Gerard could see. Besides it gratified him to amuse the old man. It was very much like being on stage.
This was a new play by a little-known playwright and he was making notes with a small pencil of all the good lines so he could relate them to Soutine when they got home. He would be waiting up and would ask. There were many amusing jokes which he recorded faithfully, picturing the general chuckling in his rich, deep voice when Gerard recited them.
As the first act drew to a close he noticed a man in the box across the way staring at him in a most insistent manner. Gerard tried to ignore his speaking looks but the other occupant of the box was a lovely girl with long golden hair and her gaze was full of concern. What could she possibly be worried about? There was something about them, the cut of their clothes. Suddenly it hit Gerard that they were English. Perhaps he was a soldier in civilian dress and the girl his wife come to join him. Yet, they looked so alike Gerard rather suspected they were sister and brother. He decided to speak to him. There was always a chance the man had known his father or knew more about his death. He had met at least half a dozen English officers since the Waterloo campaign but none he knew well and after a while he’d decided to stop asking about his father. He was dead, that much was certain. Where he lay, no one knew but that could be said of hundreds of men.
Gerard knew better than to announce to the dozing Conde that he was going to speak to an Englishman. When the audience stood for the intermission he turned to his guard-companion and asked if he wanted him to get wine for them. Conde nodded and settled himself more firmly in the corner not at all shy about letting his charge run this errand. Gerard could see the other man leaving his box as well and stayed long enough to watch which way he went. Then he made his way through the crowd to intercept him. When he feared he had lost the fellow someone grabbed him by the shoulder and said, “Gerard? Gerard Cochran?”
Gerard turned to face him. “How do you know me? Are you with the army?”
“No, I am Charles Chandler. Major Cochran was my cousin, well, second cousin.”
Gerard could not help smiling. “He spoke of you.” In the busy bustle of the hallway with French jibes and laughter flying around them Gerard felt his English lying heavy on his tongue as though it were the foreign language.
“Then you are Gerard Cochran. What are you doing in Paris? When we got no word about you in Brussels and Ostend we assumed you were dead. I spent a deal of time asking after you.”
“I was rescued by a friend, a friend of my father’s. I live with him now.”
“I have been talking to every officer I have run across and no one knew what had happened to you. Your father would want you to come back to England.”
“England? But why?”
“How can you ask that? England is your home or should be.”
“I was born there but have never lived there.”
“Your grandfather wants you to come.”
Gerard recalled the bitter letter. “Forgive me if I find that hard to believe. We cannot talk here. The intermission will soon be over and I still have to purchase wine. Can we meet somewhere?”
“I will be in Paris another three weeks on business. Name a place.”
“I attend the Académie de Paris. Can you be there at noon tomorrow?”
“Yes, I will manage it.”
He turned to go, then spun again. “Chandler. The lady in the box? Your wife?”
He smiled. “No, my sister. I’ll bring her with me tomorrow. You may meet her then.”
Gerard was late getting back to the box but all Conde cared about was the wine. He did not notice Gerard‘s guarded glances toward the beauty in the box across the way. Though she did her share of looking, her gaze was sympathetic rather than admiring or sexually alluring. In that respect she was nothing like the women he had met in Spain or in France. They had all wanted something from him. And this girl seemed different as though she could care about him for his own sake. Of course she was very young. That was probably why she looked so sweet. Finally Gerard decided he must turn his attention back to the stage if he was to give an accounting of the play to the general.
Soutine was waiting up when they got home and while Conde made coffee Gerard read all the lines that he had recorded. Soutine laughed at all the humorous bits but over coffee, cheese and fruit asked, “What is wrong, Gerard?”
If ever there was a time to tell him it was now. He owed him too much to deceive him even though he had no qualms about hiding things from Conde. “There was an Englishman at the theater tonight.” Gerard took a long drink of the hot brew laced with milk. He was used to coffee now rather than tea.
The general leaned back in the great padded chair. “Did he speak to you?”
“Yes, he is Father’s cousin, Charles Chandler, here on business.” Gerard chose an apple and bit into it.
“Did he ask you to return to England with him?”
“Yes.” Gerard stared at Soutine, trying to judge his reaction to this news but the old man remained as inscrutable as ever, his heavy eyelids half closed over his glittering eyes just as he looked when they were playing chess.
Soutine’s right hand gripped his cane. “And what did you say?”
“That I was fixed here. I see no point in going.”
Conde handed Soutine a medicine glass. The old man looked at it with disfavor, drained it, then shuddered. “Did your father ever tell you why he did not return to his family estate?”
Gerard thought of the letter but did not want to confess that horrid banishment to Soutine. “Yes, my grandfather was a bit of a tyrant.”
Soutine clenched his teeth then sighed. “It was more than that. His father, General Cochran, disowned him for marrying a Frenchwoman.”
“So he condemned Mother, never having met her?”
“And condemned her and you to follow the drum. Your father was too proud to allow her to stay with her French relatives, more’s the pity. She might still be alive if that were the case.”
Gerard stared at him, expecting the names of the relatives but Soutine’s face was so sad he had not the heart to probe him. “Father said you were an enemy of Grandfather’s which immediately made me think you could not be such a bad fellow.”
The general laughed. “So you have developed a disdain for your grandfather without ever having met him.”
“I suppose. But that was his doing. It confirms my decision never to go there.”
“Hmm,” Soutine groaned, the sound like the rumbling of an old bear. “This cousin may not give up so easily. He will try to get you back.” Soutine looked up at him with that sad smile.
“I doubt that he is sincere. If my grandfather disliked my father so much I’m sure he will not like me either.”
“Not liking you may not be the issue. He may still want to control you.”
“But why?” Gerard put down his cup. This was the most he had learned about his family in his whole life.
“Your father’s older brother died. John was the second son. By English law now you are the heir.”
Reluctant Heir Page 3