The Rainbow Bridge

by Aubrey Flegg

  She woke with a start. In the distance she could hear a cart coming up the hill behind her. She felt refreshed from her sleep but when she tried to move, her whole body protested in pain. She might be able to beg a ride on the cart, but first she was determined to get to the top of the hill. That had been her mission – to capture her first view of home by herself, on her own. She heaved herself to her feet, grabbed her bundle, and set off for the crest. Her feet felt like burning coals.

  Jean Brouchard had been worried that he had seen no sign of the girl; could she really have walked so far? Had he missed her? Perhaps she had got a ride from someone? He had driven hard, his horse was tired, and now there was a clink from a loose shoe on the off side. Better to let it set its own pace. If he remembered rightly, they would see the de Valenod estate from the top of the hill.

  But the next minute Jean was on his feet in the cart, slapping the reins down on the horse’s rump, ‘Giddup!’ he urged. A small figure had detached itself from the roadside verge. Surely that was she? He screwed up his eyes and groaned as he saw her stumble and sway to regain her balance. If only he could reach her before she got to the top of the hill. The cart bounced jerkily as the horse broke into a trot, but soon slowed to a steady plod again. Perhaps he should shout? No, that might just frighten the girl. He watched in despair as she climbed to the crest of the hill.

  She had made it, and she had beaten the cart to the top. This was the moment Colette had been waiting for, a moment to be savoured. She looked down into the valley ahead. She shook her head. Had she made some mistake? She searched the landscape for familiar landmarks. There was the valley, the river; even the home pasture seemed to be right, but where …? At last her eyes took in what her heart was denying. Yes, the chateau was there – one of its turrets still stood – but it, and all else, was no more now than a burnt out blackened hulk. Then darkness closed over her.

  Jean watched the small figure as she approached the skyline; he saw her stop to survey the view, and then he saw her drop where she stood, like a shot bird. ‘Damn them!’ he swore, urging his horse into a reluctant trot again, ‘Why didn’t they tell her?’

  He picked the girl up carefully, so light after the sacks of grain he handled daily, and carried her to where he had drawn the cart up in the shade of some hazel bushes. He had to get her away from that dreadful view of her ruined home. He rested her head on the bundle of clothes and fanned at her with his hat. The air stirred the dark swirl of hair that framed her unconscious face. For all that she had lived a life of privilege, she was a plucky little creature. The blood was returning, flushing her cheeks; she had caught the sun and the extra colour became her. He smiled as he saw her eyelids flicker.

  Colette opened her eyes to a face that smiled down on her. It was vaguely familiar; a countryman’s face, lined by not too many years, fine wrinkles radiating from his eyes. It was the sort of face that in her previous life she would have identified as belonging to ‘them’ rather than ‘us’. But that had all changed, hadn’t it? She had crossed that divide … she tried to remember why. It had something to do with the hill. Her eyes opened wide in shock.

  ‘It’s gone, isn’t it? The chateau … my home?’ Her rescuer looked concerned, though the smile remained about his eyes. His large hand rhythmically swept a battered hat to and fro above her head.

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid it was burned to the ground a month ago.’

  ‘I didn’t know … nobody said. Was anyone hurt?’

  ‘No, it was empty, the servants and the workers had all gone.’

  ‘I’m glad of that at least. I wanted to go back there, you know.’

  ‘We guessed that; that is why I came after you.’

  ‘After me?’

  ‘Yes, I’m Jean Brouchard … from the mill. You were missed, and my mill-hand said he had seen you on the road. I’m sorry about …’ Colette looked up at the sky; the inferno that had been the sun was gone now. She felt curiously relaxed, as if a burden had been lifted from her. ‘Don’t be sorry. I was trying to go back, but it’s not possible, is it? I don’t belong there any more; I don’t belong anywhere now.’ She wanted to close her eyes and go on lying there, suspended between her past and her future. But she’d have to decide what to do. ‘I’m sorry, I’m keeping you, I’ll be all right now.’

  ‘But I’m here to take you …’ he paused, he wanted it to be her choice, ‘to take you wherever you want to go.’

  Colette absorbed this. Until this morning it had always been other people, or circumstances, that had decided her life. Since this morning she had taken her life in her own hands, so her decision was really quite easy:

  ‘I will go home,’ she said.

  ‘And where is home?’

  ‘To Monsieur and Madame Morteau, if they will have me; that is my home now.’ She managed to sit up. It was only when she tried to stand that she realised that her feet could take no more. Jean Brouchard, gentle giant that he was, lifted her up and sat her on the board that spanned the front of the cart, padding her around with empty grain sacks. It would be a slow journey, he explained, his horse had lost a shoe and they would have to stop at a smithy on the way home.

  Colette slept while the smith worked, waking only when they started out again. The clip-clop of shod hooves on the road was hypnotic, and the fading light threw a protective shield about them. The evening scents of crushed thyme and brushed lavender soothed the air. Little by little, Colette found herself talking about her life in the chateau, and then her life since she had come to live with the Morteaus. She found words for things that, till then, had been no more than feelings: how Madame seemed to be preserving her for a life that meant nothing to Colette. How she seemed to have no function and no position in the family. She even told the miller how jealous she was of Margot’s freedom. When Jean Brouchard heard how Margot had detected Lucien’s philandering by seeing his two handprints on Bernadette’s back, the miller roared with laughter.

  ‘No more than he deserves!’ he chuckled, as he got down to light a lantern which he hung on the side of the cart.

  Lamps lit up the winery too when Jean turned his weary horse into the yard. Madame, hearing hooves, appeared in a rush.

  ‘Shhhh,’ Jean lifted a finger to his lips. Colette was fast asleep, nestling in the crook between his arm and his shoulder.

  In some other part of the house, Madame and Margot were tending a mildly protesting Colette. No questions were being asked. In Paul Morteau’s study, Jean Brouchard held his glass up to the light of the candle and looked appreciatively at the slightly tawny red of the fine old vintage his friend had opened for him. It was time for him to go. He had told nothing that would betray Colette’s confidences to him, but there were things that had to be said on her behalf, and a suggestion or two to be made.

  ‘Try it, Paul,’ he said, ‘and if Madame objects to her helping you in the vineyards on account of her complexion, tell her that it is Colette’s pallor that singles her out as an enemy of the Revolution. Get her out into the fields. Let her mix with the village folk and let her become one of us, for her own safety. I tell you, if anyone in the village speaks out against her, they will have me to contend with. Come on, Paul, I’m worn out; drink her health, and if you don’t want her in the vineyards, send her down to me at the mill and I’ll look after her.’

  CHAPTER 6

  Crossing The Rhine

  Gaston sat on his horse on the high levee looking out over the frozen Rhine. A warm wind blew in from the west. Crossing here was a risk but it would save two days’ march and unknown troubles at the nearest bridge. Cracks and groans from the tired ice warned of its imminent break up. Gaston winced as a report like a cannon came from where the men were filing out onto the ice. Far across the wide expanse he could see the diminishing figures of Pierre and Marcel walking beside their horses at the head of line of hussars, each spaced precisely twenty-five paces apart on the ice.

  ‘You shouldn’t have let them go.’ Louise’s voice echoed exactly
what he had been feeling deep in his mind. Gaston could still be alarmed by her unexpected appearances. There had been several days’ delay in their departure from Maarssen and, while he was waiting for the order to proceed, Gaston had had plenty of time to observe Louise’s portrait on its stand in his room. When he woke after hearing her tragic story she was gone; there was just the painting propped up on his bed. At first he was uneasy and tried to avoid looking at it; then, as a sort of test, he had stood in front of the picture, a self-mocking smile on his face, and made a conscious effort get the girl to appear again, only to end up doubting his sanity when nothing happened. Then, when he least expected it, catching sight of her portrait out of the corner of his eye perhaps, he would feel his energy flow out to her in sudden empathy, and her presence would suffuse the room. He would hear her voice behind him, and when he turned, there she would be, laughing at him, as real and tangible to him as if she were alive.

  ‘Mademoiselle Louise,’ he said after one of her visits. ‘Why is it that your appearances do not frighten me, or have me banging my head against the wall, demanding a straitjacket and a place in a lunatic asylum?’

  ‘I hadn’t thought about it; I suppose they could be frightening. So how do they make you feel?’

  ‘I just feel normal. Although I am still surprised when you appear, at the same time it seems the most natural thing in the world. But no one would believe me if I told them about you, would they? And I sometimes wonder where you are, really – here, or in your picture, or in my head?’

  ‘It is difficult to explain. To begin with it never occurred to me that I could appear to anyone. I was aware of Pieter moving about me and working on my portrait and I just delighted in his presence. The first time I actually appeared was to Master Haitink, when he was sick. I had felt him calling and calling me but I didn’t know that I could go to him. Then one day it just happened, and I was the one who was astonished. All he did was look me up and down and say, “So there you are, and about time too.” I think he wasn’t surprised because he believed in me; after all, he had painted me to live in the minds of others. And now you are recreating me as he saw me: argumentative maybe, a nuisance sometimes, but not frightening.’

  At first they had both been worried that Raoul or one of the boys might see her. Gaston’s quarters were an open house to his men; they came and went for orders all the time. But none of them showed any sign of seeing Louise.

  When at last the order had come to proceed, Gaston was as happy as a sand boy. On the first morning’s ride he had gazed about the frozen landscape and sniffed at the thaw in the air, thinking how much Louise would enjoy being able to see this. She was travelling with them, of course, her portrait securely strapped to one of the remounts. He imagined her riding out here with him, the billowing silk of her green dress causing her all kinds of problems. At that moment Pierre trotted up to ask for permission to ride ahead, so that the baker in the next village could have bread ready for the troop when they arrived. Gaston watched him canter off, a splash of youthful colour, and thought how Louise would look in the boy’s uniform. The first intimation he had that she had joined him was the sudden feeling of companionship that he associated with her. Then he heard her voice.

  ‘What have you done to me, Gaston?’ Then a surprised laugh. ‘But I like it!’

  Gaston turned and nearly unseated himself in surprise. There she was, riding, just as he had imagined her, looking delighted with herself as she examined the hussar outfit he had thought up for her. Gaston stammered.

  ‘I … I wanted to share this with you.’

  ‘Oh, Gaston, thank you. Thank you for the uniform, and thank you for calling me.’ Her eyes were dancing. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘We are going south. We are to escort General Daendels’s courier to Paris. But the thaw is coming and I want to get across the Rhine while it is still frozen. It’s touch and go.’

  ‘Do let me ride with you, Gaston, please. I promise I will keep out of your way. Oh, if only the Master could see me now; when I think of the trouble he took with my green dress!’ A buffet of warm wind plucked at her shako. She put up her hand to steady it and looked around, drinking in the familiar Dutch landscape.

  ‘Forgive me, Louise, but we must press on. I want to be at the Rhine by first light tomorrow before the sun gets to work.’ Gaston turned and roared: ‘Marcel, dépêchez-vous!’

  Now, in the early morning light, Gaston watched as the line of men leading their horses filed out on to the ice.

  ‘Look, they’ve stopped,’ Louise said. The line had halted as one. That was good discipline. It could be a disaster if they all crowded forward, overloading the ice at any one point. Gaston could see the boys casting left and right. Then the whole column started moving again, this time snaking upstream away from where one of the boys – Pierre, he thought – stood guard.

  ‘There must be a crack there.’ said Gaston, ‘He’s seeing that it isn’t spreading as they pass. Good thinking.’ The head of the line was now approaching the opposite bank. ‘I’m going down to see the carriage safely on to the ice.’ He urged his horse forward, leaning back in the saddle as the path plunged down through the broken trees lining the levee. The freeze had come while the river was in flood. When the level of the water under the ice had dropped, the ice that was still clinging to the trees had torn at the branches, stripping them off at the trunks. They had chosen to cross at a point where a sloping slab of solid ice led out onto the frozen river surface, and had covered this with branches and straw to give the wheels a better purchase. The soldiers were just easing the adjutant’s carriage down the slope, holding it back with ropes. The officer whose privilege it was to bring the official news of the campaign’s success to Paris was watching the proceedings with interest. Gaston saluted. The courier, Captain Sorel, was a handsome man, dressed in black knee-length boots, white trousers, a cutaway coat of French blue and a red waistcoat.

  ‘Isn’t he beautiful?’ whispered Louise. Gaston ignored her.

  ‘Will you walk, sir?’

  ‘Should I? Perhaps as captain I should go down with my ship.’ The man laughed. ‘All the same, I think I will go on foot. If I walk ahead of the carriage, I can at least run in the right direction if it breaks through. Well done, Lieutenant, it looks to have been a neat operation.’

  The carriage rolled off on to the ice. There were just some remounts and pack animals to follow. Gaston congratulated the dispatchers. He could see the glitter from the men and harness as they moved up the far levee, so he rode out onto the river with a lighter heart. If the ice could take the weight of the carriage, it could take him on his horse. The warm wind blowing over the cold ice was strangely exhilarating. He stood in his stirrups, gazing in awe up and down the sweep of the mighty river. It seemed mysterious and wonderful that this water, that had begun its journey in the Alps, was even now flowing under his horse’s hooves. Where was Louise? He wanted to share the moment with her. He looked downstream; there she was, riding her horse as only a girl fortified by his own imagination could ride. She looked back at him and laughed, then she pulled off the shako and shook out her hair.

  ‘So this is the Rhine?’ she called, her face lit up with excitement. ‘And I’m to cross it!’

  After her sheltered life in the walled town of Delft, Louise found the world of straining horses and swearing men both exhilarating and exhausting. They had been on the road for several days now, fighting their way at first through melting snow and then through mud so thick that it frequently reached to the rider’s stirrups. Without the carriage they could have made twenty miles in a day, but protocol demanded that the news be brought to Paris in proper style. Most of the time Gaston was too preoccupied or exhausted to give Louise much thought. She, on the other hand, wanted to see everything and got him to promise that he would think of her when there was anything interesting for her to see. Then she could ride beside him until some distraction would pluck his thoughts away from her and she would be obliged to fad
e back into the picture until the crisis was over. Louise was delighted with Gaston’s company. Since that one time after his fever when he had shouted at her, he had never raised his voice again. He was courteous and kind, and seemed genuinely to like having her to talk to. Then there came an incident that made her realise that there was another side to Gaston.

  The pattern of their advance was always the same. Five men from the troop would ride ahead, reconnoitring the road and clearing it of all traffic. Usually it was enough for oncoming carts and carriages to pull off to one side, but if the road was narrow, or the carters uncooperative, the soldiers had little compunction about forcing obstructing vehicles off the road. One day, Gaston and Louise were riding at the rear of the column, avoiding the mud by walking their horses through the open fields beside the road. A cart, piled high with firewood, sagged over to one side, its wheels mired to the hubs in the ditch. Suddenly, as if out of the earth, the driver materialised, saw Gaston, and let out a stream of invective.