“Capturing? Until we find out you should not let your imagination run wild.”
“Juliet, I mean to bring Gerard home with or without your help. If I went to the army they would deport him. I’m just trying to get him to come voluntarily.”
“I will do my best to help you but you are always warning me to take into account that other people have minds of their own. Let me assure you that applies to Gerard as well.”
“How could you know him so well after only a few minutes conversation?”
“I’m not sure but I do understand him in part because we are so much alike.”
Charles frowned at her in puzzlement but she thought he must already be scheming a way to get Gerard out of France.
* * * * *
Paris, September 1815
Gerard awoke to another day of suspense. He both wanted and didn’t want his grandfather to want him. But when he thought about wanting to be wanted the image of a grizzled old man was replaced by Juliet’s smiling countenance. Was it possible she could want him even if his grandfather did not? And if that were the case what could he do about it? He had no expectations or fortune. Not much more than a hundred gold guineas stashed in his drawer and those bequeathed by his father.
And what if the old tartar said to come? Of course his answer should be the same no matter what. He should not go with Charles and Juliet simply because he was attracted to her. The vague future that he imagined or avoided thinking about by turns now pressed on him as a necessity. If he was not to go to England, then he must plan what he meant to do. He was at a fork in the road and he must decide what lay down each path.
He would ask Soutine if he could study medicine in earnest. If he could do that he would stay in Paris with good will. He would never be wealthy but he might be useful if for no other purpose than to ease the old man’s pain.
When he came downstairs a note from Charles lay by his breakfast plate. It had not been opened. Soutine did not inquire about it. In fact he managed not to look at it, quite a trick through the whole meal. Gerard desperately wanted to know what it said but decided to open it on the way to the académie. When he finally tore it open Chandler requested to meet at noon at the same restaurant but did not say why. More suspense.
Gerard barely attended the morning lectures. If the beautiful Juliet accompanied her brother he would at least get to see her one more time even if his grandfather did not want him. Finally he walked out the back door of the school and met them at the café. They had already ordered a meal and the waiter was bringing it as he sat down. Juliet was wearing blue today and the color complemented her golden looks. Her beautiful hair was long and loose under a chip straw hat and the fringe on her shawl drifted in the breeze, adding languor to her smiling invitation.
“He wants you to come to England,” Chandler said abruptly.
Gerard could see Juliet send her brother a speaking look and wondered if this was the truth. “May I see the letter?”
“You don’t believe me?” Chandler seemed affronted and not at all forthcoming with the document.
“Then let me show you a letter. It was in my father’s money belt.” Gerard had been prepared for this and had placed the offending document in his pocket. He handed Chandler the much creased piece of parchment.
He opened it carefully, read and shook his head. “This must have been written in a great fit of anger.”
“May I?” Juliet asked and Gerard nodded.
Chandler shrugged and handed it to her. “My great-uncle wrote that almost twenty years ago and it was to a son who had done his utmost to disobey him.”
“You can’t cut off a branch with losing the fruit as well. He should have thought of that.”
Gerard saw tears in Juliet’s eyes as she slowly folded the letter and handed it back to him. “I’m sure he thinks of it every time he looks at Claude, not a promising fruit on the family tree,” she said in a tremulous voice.
Gerard was sorry she had sampled that venom but she had asked. “I am not surprised he has lived to regret his mistake. Your letter?” Gerard held his hand out palm up.
Chandler reluctantly handed him a page. The writing was so spidery as to be almost indecipherable. He had to read through a lot of business instructions before he came to the bit about him, almost an afterthought.
“I am constrained to settle matters as regards my heir. If there is a chance the boy is Gerard you must bring him back at all costs and immediately. We can’t have him loose in France.” Gerard chuckled. “Très drôle. He doesn’t really believe I am Gerard.”
“But you look so much like your father and even like the general. You will convince him,” Juliet insisted.
“I don’t want to convince him. I don’t care what he thinks.”
“But you cannot turn your back on a fortune even if you don’t want the connection,” Chandler insisted.
“Yes, I can. Are we going to eat?”
As Gerard and Juliet both made a pretense of consuming the roast fowl, Chandler used every argument he could think of to convince Gerard to visit his grandfather. He even promised to bring him back to France if he did not like England.
Juliet’s arguments were more persuasive because he indeed wanted to be with her. But he saw small chance of ever getting to wed her even if he did insinuate himself into the family. She was too fine, too innocent to be interested in a war orphan.
“I am going to be late,” he said as he rose to return to school.
“May we write to you?” Chandler insisted. “I don’t want to lose track of you.”
Gerard saw the pain in Juliet’s eyes and regretted it. “It would be best if you did forget me. It has been a pleasure, Juliet. Keep working on that accent.”
“Wait,” Juliet called and stood as if she would go after him.
He came back and took her hands. “What is it? You seem in so much pain over this and you hardly know me.”
“My distress is selfish. If you do not come forward as a candidate for my hand I will be forced to marry Claude.”
“What?” Gerard staggered and nearly upset a chair.
“You owe us nothing,” Chandler said, “but if you should ever reconsider please come to Old Stand. I can give you the direction.”
“I know it well enough. My father wrote it down for me.”
“So you see,” Chandler reasoned. “If he wanted you to forever shun the place he would never have told you where it was. Is there no chance you might make peace with your grandfather even though your father never could?”
“My father would be alive if he had not been cast out.”
“Would he?” Juliet asked with tears illuminating the brilliance of her blue eyes.
“What are you saying?” He realized he had been clutching her hands and let go of them.
“Would he indeed be alive?” she insisted. “They fought over his desire to join the army.”
Charles stood and looked at Gerard. “I corresponded with your father. I was to meet with him in March but we left it too late.”
“Are you saying it was my father’s wish for me to return?”
“Think, Gerard,” Juliet pleaded. “Even if your father had come to England and reconciled, would he have stayed out of that battle? Or would he have donned his uniform again to fight the old foe?”
He stared at her as though she was a gypsy telling him his fortune and he was listening to the truth. How could she know his father so well? “You have given me much to think about,” he mumbled.
“We must leave for England in a few days,” Charles said. “Here is the direction of our hotel. Please come with us just for a visit. You can return if you dislike it.”
“I thank you again for your concern but do not look for me.” Gerard kissed Juliet’s hand one last time, then turned and left them. It would be easy to go with them, to let himself be enchanted by Juliet’s beauty and Chandler’s friendship. He felt himself to be at a crossroads. He could choose obligation to Soutine and duty though his notio
n to become a doctor was self-imposed. Or he could follow the path of the English landed gentry. Perhaps an easier life. But what should make Juliet admire him, if she did admire him, was the path that would carry him away from her. Somehow he could not appreciate the irony of it.
Chapter Four
That might have ended it had not Soutine decided to attend the theater himself the next night. Now why would he take that notion into his head when he knew the English cousins were still in Paris? Gerard had half expected Chandler to approach Soutine who stared at Charles and Juliet with an odd light in his eyes. Gerard could never read him. Was he looking victorious? Though Juliet sent them sympathetic looks Chandler merely glared at them throughout the performance. Gerard almost toyed with the notion of introducing them during the intermission but Soutine had no plans to leave the box and Chandler did not come to them.
When they returned to the house Soutine called Gerard to his chamber on the ground floor. “That fellow in the box across the theater, was that him, your cousin?”
Gerard sat on the windowsill. “Yes, I won’t go with him, hence the looks of disapproval.”
“Oh, I think those were directed against me.”
“No matter.”
“So you have decided to take up the task of punishing your grandfather where your father left off?”
Gerard could scarcely believe his ears. “It was my father who was wronged.”
“Perhaps. Many people are wronged in life. It is seldom clear cut or one-sided. Come to think of it, that is how wars start.”
“Did you really know my father well enough to know this?”
“I did not know what was in his heart. I do not know what is in yours, for that matter but I do not think it harbors revenge.”
“What are you saying, that you want me to go?”
Soutine looked at him with his eyes wide open, not the shuttered look that was his trademark. Gerard thought that he should be able to read the man’s soul but there was only regret writ on his old face.
“No,” he said finally, closing his eyes. “I do not want you to leave.”
“Then I will not,” he said and walked toward the door.
“But I think you should go.”
Gerard halted and turned to regard Soutine in profile this time. He was more inscrutable than ever. “What do you mean? Go and return?”
“If you wish.”
“And what of Juliet? They have some notion I can save her from a bad marriage if I am the heir.”
The old man tilted his head to look at him. “Do you love her?”
“I think I could love her if I let myself love anyone.”
Soutine’s voice cracked on a laugh. “You talk in riddles, Gerard. We will discuss it further in the morning.”
* * * * *
Try as he might Gerard could not get to sleep. What could they possibly discuss about this in the morning? Soutine was old and injured, like a wounded bear. With only Conde to take care of him he might not survive until Gerard visited his family and returned. But the temptation was there to actually see England and to confront the old villain who had cast his father out.
He had been born there in Portsmouth harbor at an inn. Then they had taken ship with his mother and him following the drum from battlefield to battlefield sometimes with mercenary armies. And he had never set foot in England. Because his mother was French that language came as easily to his tongue as the gutter English spoken in the army camps, and he could manage French, Spanish and Portuguese better than proper English. Was Juliet right? Had his father wanted him to return? But to what point? He thought again of his father’s traveling chess set. No matter how he tried to play this game he was always the pawn. First of his father, then Soutine, now Chandler and Juliet. What if he met this grandfather and discovered Cochran wanted to use him as well?
He was sitting at his chamber window in his shirtsleeves watching the river when a carriage pulled up in front of the house and Chandler stepped out. Three menservants accompanied Chandler to the door which made Gerard feel wary. Now what could he want at this hour except to cause trouble? He would not be admitted, of course. But when Gerard heard pounding on the door and Conde’s heavy feet padding down the hall to answer it he felt once again his life was going to be taken out of his control. He threw on the fancy dress coat he had worn to the theater, went downstairs to Soutine’s room with some notion of protecting him from the persistent man and was surprised to find him still up and in his wheeled chair.
The old man breathed a heavy sigh. “Who is it?”
“My cousin, Charles Chandler.”
Soutine thought a moment, then nodded. “I will see him.”
“Do you think that wise?”
“No but I will see him anyway. Are you going to stand there like an oaf or push me out to the salon? I don’t want to treat with him in this sickroom.”
Gerard obeyed the command reluctantly. There was nothing like running on your fate when you didn’t know what it was to be.
Conde and Chandler were arguing at the door and Soutine spat out a phrase in gutter French that made Conde fall back and admit the Englishman.
“Rather late for a call,” Soutine taunted in English better than his own. Gerard turned the chair at the fireplace so Soutine could face the man.
“I want my cousin.”
“Open your eyes then. He is here.”
“But what is he doing here?”
“They rescued me after Waterloo. I was knocked senseless.” This sounded lame since he could have gone to England any time these two months. Gerard realized Chandler had been drinking. No matter how much he liked his cousin he would never let him hurt Soutine. He was glad Conde had remained and wondered what he was fumbling with at the corner cabinet? Surely not brandy.
“But why?” Chandler demanded as he took a seat facing Soutine.
It was a question Gerard had asked himself often enough and had never been able to get a plausible answer out of the general.
Soutine breathed a heavy sigh. “Had you seen the charnel house that was laid out on that Belgium field you would be glad we had pulled anyone alive from it. Surely your own soldiers and doctors did nothing for the wounded until the next day. Many died that night who might have been saved. From this springs Gerard’s wish to become a surgeon, no doubt.”
Gerard knew this for a truth as soon as Soutine spoke it. Why had he not realized it until now? He’d been leaning in that direction but Waterloo had settled his ambition on him.
“I was not there,” Chandler agreed and brushed his hair off his forehead. “Though under other circumstances I might have been.”
“So you can have no notion why I did what I did. Suffice it to say that I owe—owed—a debt of honor to Major Cochran and the only way I could repay him was to save his son.”
“Debt of honor?” Gerard asked. He was about to say that Soutine had always insisted he was owed the debt of honor but perhaps the old man was just forgetful. Or was the debt just a fiction to hold him?
“Very well. I accept your reason but the boy must come with me now. He is a British subject. I am here to return him to his rightful home.”
“By what authority?”
“He is a minor under the guardianship of his grandfather. I am General Cochran’s representative.”
Soutine gave a saggy old laugh that ended in a cough. “I don’t know that Major Cochran made a will but if he did I’m pretty sure he would never consign his son to that old tartar.”
“No, actually he left the boy’s guardianship to Captain Scott, who unfortunately also perished in the conflict.”
“So there you are,” Soutine said.
“Where?” Gerard asked, never having considered that he might be legally compelled to return with Chandler.
“In Paris,” Soutine said, “from which Gerard cannot be moved against his will.”
“Does Gerard choose to stay or is he your prisoner?”
Soutine looked toward him and Gerard said
,” I choose to remain.”
“I don’t believe you. We can go to court over this,” Chandler threatened.
Soutine wheezed again. “Have you any idea how long it would take a French court to adjudicate the matter? Besides, Gerard is not a minor. He is nearly nineteen.”
Gerard glanced at the old man with the veiled expression. So he had read the documents in the money belt.
“But the military occupation force, if they knew of Gerard’s existence, would insist he be returned to be cashiered out. Since he survived they might even regard him as absent without leave.”
Soutine smiled, leaving Chandler in suspense as to why. “Gerard was never a soldier.”
“Come now. The son of a major, traveling with the army. He must have enlisted at his age. I talked to someone who saw him drumming during the battle. He was wounded on the field of battle. How can he not be a soldier?”
Now all their gazes turned to Gerard. “There was a time when I would have joined up even if only to drum for the unit but Father would never hear of it. He deceived me about my age. Otherwise I might be dead now.”
“That seems a strange start,” Chandler said.
“So it always seemed to me but I think he liked the army life less near the end than he had in the beginning. I had always thought him in control but I see now that he was swept along by a decision he made very early in life.”
“Yes, to defy his father,” Chandler agreed. “Soutine, why not make it easy on the boy? Release him from your power?”
The old man turned his head sideways to regard him. “And what power do I have over you, Gerard?”
He came around the chair to face the old man. “I have never been sure until now but finally I think it must be love.”
“What?” both Soutine and Chandler said in unison.
“You cared enough about my father and me to come for us. I heard Conde calling for Major Cochran on the battlefield.” He glanced toward the servant who still had his back to them. “You have shown me only kindness. Is it so strange that I would repay you with my regard, my care of you?”
Reluctant Heir Page 5