by Eric Flint
After he left, Pam cried herself to sleep.
The next morning, she discovered that he'd left a poem in her mailbox.
It was pretty expressive. Descriptive of her charms. Both the ones he had seen and the ones he hadn't. As to the latter, Jean-Louis had a very good imagination. She hoped he wouldn't be disillusioned when confronted with reality.
Sometimes she could almost strangle Jean-Louis. Just when she was maddest at him, he would do something like that.
It was probably just as well that she'd started learning French. And Dutch.
She'd better read through the marriage contract, too. Cory Joe had left it on her desk at the library.
Besancon, the Franche-Comte
Henri de Rohan finished his letter to Francisco Nasi and sealed it. He would have it sent off on the morrow.
Most likely, of course, Nasi would not be the USE's spymaster for much longer. But Rohan was not concerned about whoever the incoming prime minister Wettin might appoint to the post. Even if that person was competent-a chancy proposition, given the way the Crown Loyalists seemed to be handing out posts as a reward for past favors rather than skills-they wouldn't know enough to be a problem.
Nasi was the one to worry about. He and his somewhat frightening master, Stearns. Best to move quickly to deflect suspicion, by being open and honest about almost everything. Hopefully, the old ploy would work again: make a full confession unnecessary by freely offering a partial one.
Needless to say, the duke of Rohan had not seen fit to inform Nasi that Jacques-Pierre Dumais, now known to be employed by Mauger's expanding subsidiary in Leiden, was actually his own agent. There was the unfortunate matter of the riot at the hospital, to which the SoTF authorities might take exception.
He had warned Jacques-Pierre not to become overconfident. "Always prepare for a fall when fortune puffs you up, for it is then that peril comes closest."
Haarlem, the Netherlands
"Ah, Madame Mauger," Jacques-Pierre said, kissing her fingertips. "What an unexpected pleasure to meet you again."
And again, he thought. Very probably, again, and again, and again.
He had thought he was rid of Velma.
Now he held a position in her husband's firm. Quite a responsible position, in fact.
What had the duke warned him? "Do not become overconfident. Always prepare for a fall when fortune puffs you up, for it is then that peril comes closest."
So. Clearly, it was Meant, possibly even foreordained by divine providence, that Jacques-Pierre should endure this woman's conversation, la migraine or not.
"I was desolated when our pleasant conversations in Grantville were necessarily ended by your marriage."
"Me, too, Jacques-Pierre," Velma said. "Have you met Laurent's sisters, yet? Marie and I work on interpreting our horoscopes when she comes to the villa."
Ah, monsieur le duc de Rohan, he mused. The things that a man must endure for the good of the Huguenot cause. Little do you know the travails to which you subject me.
Grantville
"You know," Wes Jenkins said to Clara. "It's really getting harder and harder to define this whole war as a nice, neat conflict of 'us' against 'them.' "
She nodded.
He continued. "There was a comic strip, up-time. 'Pogo,' it was called. 'We have met the enemy and they are us.' Or at the very least, it seems, they're our relatives. Our in-laws."
"Of course," Clara said. "It will come to be more so, the longer that Grantville is here in the Germanies. Perhaps it will help the up-timers understand better how someone like Wilhelm Wettin feels about his brother Bernhard and what is going on in Swabia and Alsace."
PART NINE
April 1635
Farewell! happy fields,
Where joy forever dwells! Hail, horrors! hail
Infernal world!
Chapter 56
Grantville, April 1635
Every guest who lived inside the limits of Grantville proper climbed somewhat inelegantly out of the back of Ray Hudson's flatbed farm truck, which was doing Easter Sunday taxi service today. Vera Hudson was waiting at the front door. "Where is Missy?" she asked, as she surveyed the guests.
Debbie went into the hall and concentrated on putting her coat on the rack, trying not to look at her sister Aura Lee's face. Easter was April 8 this year, not really an early date for it, but the weather was still chilly. "I told you that she was going to dinner at Wes and Clara's, Mother. I told you that last week."
"She should have come with you."
Debbie concentrated on taking deep, regular, breaths. "I also told you why. That since you preferred not to include Ron and Gerry Stone in your Easter, she has chosen to have dinner at a house to which they had also been invited."
"I had no obligation to invite those boys."
"Nani," Bill Hudson said, turning around from his immediate preoccupation with Jessica Booth, who was simultaneously Vera's apprentice as a master gardener and his own fiancee. "If you don't want to acknowledge that there's something between Ron and Missy, that's your business. But Ron is, in fact, my partner. I am living in his house right now."
"Mother," Aura Lee said.
Her brother Ray, Bill's father, touched her shoulder. At the kitchen door, his wife Marty was making "keep the lid on" gestures behind Vera's back. She and Ray did, after all, have to live with Vera on a day-to-day basis. The rest of the family-with the exception of Willie Ray, of course-could pick and choose how often they came out to the farm.
"For that matter, where's Joe?" Vera was momentarily distracted.
"At the fire department, of course. I told you last week that he had pulled volunteer duty shift this afternoon. Most of his VFD shifts fall on holidays now that he holds the exalted title of Secretary of Transportation of the State of Thuringia-Franconia." Aura Lee seemed to find it very interesting that she was wearing gloves, which she would need to pull off one finger at a time. "And that Billy Lee would be going with him. He's a cadet there now that he's sixteen. With Eric in Erfurt, it's just Juliann and Dana of the kids today. Besides Bill, of course."
She didn't add that her thirteen-year-old Juliann hadn't really wanted to come. Or that Ray and Marty's Dana hadn't really wanted to come, either, if Missy wasn't going to be there. Those two cousins were the same age. "Juliann and I need to leave early. We're meeting Joe and Billy Lee at Eden's for supper."
"Making an extra trip for Ray, I suppose." Vera went back to her original grievance. "You should have put your foot down and told Missy to come, Debbie."
Chad Jenkins cleared his throat. "Mom went to Wes and Clara's too. So she's having dinner with one of her grandmothers."
That earned him a withering glare.
Debbie clenched her jaws and with her right thumb and middle finger, twisted her wedding and first anniversary rings back and forth on her ring finger, knowing her mother would notice it.
Chad put his arm around her. She looked perfectly calm, but he could feel the tension in her shoulders. "Vera," he said. "We could go to Wes and Clara's too. It's not too late. They aren't eating until two o'clock. Ray could drive us back into town."
"Vera," said her husband Willie Ray. "Let it be. This time, let it be."
"It's too bad that Bryant had to work today," Eleanor Jenkins said. "It seems that he hardly ever comes to family occasions."
Lenore, Chandra, and Clara all looked at one another.
"Perhaps some other time," Lenore said.
Missy had an uneasy feeling that this was not the best thing to be talking about. She knew that Bryant was under observation in connection with the demonstration at the hospital, but she hadn't learned it from them. Ron had it from Cory Joe, and that was so she would know what to say in case anything about Bryant came up during her and Pam's conversations with Veda Mae and Dumais.
Distraction, distraction, my kingdom for a good distraction.
"Gran," she said. "I was looking at your picture wall the other day. Why isn't Mom and Dad's wed
ding photo there?"
"Because they didn't have one," Eleanor Jenkins said rather shortly.
Uncle Wes winked from across the table. "Actually," he said, "they did. I'm sure that Debbie still has it somewhere. But it was a polaroid. If it had been up on the wall all these years, exposed to daylight, it would long since have faded away. Maybe you could have her get it out and make a sketch from it, Lenore. That would last a lot longer."
Missy looked at him. "There has to be a story in this somewhere. One that nobody ever bothered to tell Chip and me."
"I was down in Charleston, then," Wes said. "I'd been working there ever since I graduated from WVU. Chad called me and asked whether, if they came, Lena and I would put them up while they waited out getting the license and all. I told him that I could do better than that. I knew people around the courthouse by then. If they gave me a date, I'd have the judge prepped to waive the waiting period for good cause, so they could get it all done in one day. That's what they did. Drove down Friday, starting the first thing in the morning, the day after Christmas. Got the license. Married in the judge's chambers with Lena and me as attendants. The judge's secretary took the polaroid of the five of us. That was always his present to couples he married."
"They didn't even have the courtesy to call and tell us that they had done it," Gran said. Missy thought that her voice was the embodiment of "miffed."
" I called and told you," Wes pointed out.
"That's not quite the same thing."
"I called and told Willie Ray and Vera. I even called and told Bruce and Lily Jefferson. For that, I should have received a decoration for 'heroism above and beyond the call of duty.' "
Missy had a suspicion that there was more to this story than Uncle Wes was sharing with her.
From the expressions on Lenore and Chandra's faces, they had the same thought.
All three of them looked at their grandmother.
"I'm not going to tell you," she said. "If Wes wants to, he can, as far as I'm concerned. Keeping in mind that it will be from his perspective, of course."
Clara nodded, encouraging him to go on.
"Bruce and Lily, Don Jefferson's parents," Wes said. "Ever since he was killed, they had been trying to suck the life out of Debbie. Acting like vampires, trying to turn her into a white marble statue on his tombstone, labeled 'The Tragic Young Widow.' A perpetual monument to a dead boy. Willie Ray fought them; got her back into school. Backed her on going for a teaching certificate. But they weren't giving up." He frowned. "Vera and Lily were best friends. Vera sort of agreed with her. I'm pretty sure that for eight years, Debbie never went out on a date. It wouldn't have been worth the grief they would have given her."
Wes' frown was suddenly replaced by a wicked grin. "I don't know exactly what Chad did to persuade her that he was worth the grief they were undoubtedly going to give her. He wasn't quite that confiding in his big brother. But I beg leave to doubt the official explanation he made at the time, which was that the big bad spider enticed the dainty little fly into his web by offering to let her look at exploded diagrams of the brand new 1981 model year engines in place of the traditional etchings. They did not have the hypnotic effect of the up-to-date WVU Economics Department bibliography of readings on international trade policy I would have used in the same situation. But…"
"Dad!" Lenore said.
Her father wrinkled his nose at her. "Whatever it was, it worked and you now have an Aunt Debbie."
"In any case," Wes went on, "Let me figure. He graduated from WVU in December 1979, a semester early, and came back to Grantville to manage the garage after Dad's stroke. It was just before Labor Day in 1980 that he called to say that Debbie had agreed to marry him. That's the way he put it. Not that they were engaged. You've probably noticed that she doesn't have a traditional engagement ring. Don's parents made it very plain that she would offend them grievously by wearing one and Vera didn't think it would be 'appropriate' when Debbie had removed Don's rings so very recently."
"Look," Missy said. "I've always known that Nani didn't like Dad, but this is simply off the wall. Where did Mom get the ring she wears?"
"Chad got it for their first anniversary," Eleanor said. "Amethyst for her birth stone surrounded with opals for his. A wraparound for the wedding ring. Considering that he was salting away most of his money to be ready to buy the dealership when Lou Prickett got to the point he had to give it up, it was providential that both of them had stones that were reasonably affordable. Chad didn't have a lot of spare cash at the time."
Wes nodded. "The way Bruce and Lily, and Vera for that matter, reacted was more than a little 'off the wall,' to use your phrase. Sure, he was younger than Debbie, but not all that much. Three and a half years. Three years and eight months, to be exact. They went on about it as if it was a lot more. Debbie was a kid the first time she got married.
"They were intending to get married over Christmas, so as to have at least a few days of honeymoon, given that she was teaching. So they started trying to schedule a wedding at First Methodist in Grantville. Nothing before Christmas would work, according to your Nani. There was Anne's school program. There was Anne's Sunday school program. There was Anne's holiday piano recital. Debbie couldn't possibly miss a one of those, of course. At least not according to Vera."
Missy thought, Anne again.
Wes went on. "Then they started trying to find a day between Christmas and New Year's. Nothing suited Vera. So nothing was set. My personal opinion is that Vera and the Jeffersons were hoping to drag things out until Chad gave up. Which led to the Charleston expedition. Lena and I had been intending to take them out to dinner, so they would have a little celebration, but the truth is that by the time the ceremony was over, the two of them were so tense that they practically twanged each time they touched. So instead, we took a phone number where we could reach them in case of dire emergency, told them to come back on New Year's Eve and we would take them out to dinner then, and I wished them good night. Even though it was three o'clock in the afternoon."
Wes' grin took on an even more wicked slant. "I have to say that by the time they reemerged into public view five days later, they were a lot more relaxed."
His mother frowned at him disapprovingly.
"Be calm, Mom," Wes said. "Clara doesn't shock as easily as Lena did."
Chandra giggled.
Missy blushed. This was a new way of thinking about her parents. Very new.
Wes' expression changed to regret. "Unfortunately, I didn't put in a separate call to tell Anne. I wished that I had, later, even though she was only nine. Vera and Lily had a week to work on her before Chad and Debbie got home. And they were both absolutely convinced that the marriage was a mistake. That there was no way it would last."
Saluting his mother, he added, his voice a little ironic, "I know you didn't think that it would any more than they did, but at least you never tried to revoke a signed treaty."
Missy glanced quickly at Ron and Gerry, wondering how they would take a conversation that had turned serious about family business.
"I thought that Debbie was bringing him more… complications. .. than any twenty-three year old man really needed," Eleanor grumped.
Missy nodded. "Thanks."
She had a lot of new information to process. As family dinners went, this one had been a doozy.
Chandra dropped the kids off. With about six cubic feet of equipment, she thought.
"You know, Aunt Debbie, this is really nice of you. Back when I asked you, of course, I didn't know that Clara was expecting yet. But now, I sure wouldn't feel right about asking Dad and her to keep them when she's so far along."
"I've had it on my calendar since Thanksgiving, honey bun. Between Gertrude and Missy and me, it's no problem to manage four of them for a few days. I know this situation with Nathan has been eating at your mind."
Chandra didn't quite smile. "I guess that's what you can call it. At any rate, it's been going on long enough. I can't put it
off any longer."
"How are you getting to Frankfurt?"
"I bought a passage on the regular freight wagon as far as Erfurt. It's slow, but it's reliable. Those oiled canvas covers keep rain off a lot better than anything a person riding a horse can wear. And Heinz has put cushions on the passenger seats. He got the idea from the pews at church. From there, I'm riding with Martin Wackernagel. The courier, you know. He comes down to Grantville regularly."
Debbie laughed.
Chandra caught her ride.
Debbie hadn't exactly forgotten what it was like to have four small children in her house. Except for brief occasions when they came as guests and then went home again, she had never before had four small children in her house at one time. Plus the dishwasher broke and the repairman said he was going to have to have a part fabricated by the one-off shop behind the hardware store.
Gertrude would have to get up for school in the morning, so Debbie had sent her to bed.
Which was why she and Missy were washing dishes at eleven-thirty p.m.
"Why don't you have a wedding photo, Mom?" Missy asked. She had finally gotten up enough nerve to tackle research in the primary sources. She wanted her mother's version as well as Uncle Wes' version. "It's about the only thing missing from Gran's wall."
Her mother almost laughed. Or almost sobbed. It was hard to tell.
"We wanted to get married at Christmas so we could have a sort of honeymoon, even a few days. It was that or wait until school was out. We were scheduling a wedding, or trying to, around Anne's school play, Anne's Sunday school program. With your Nani, to tell the truth, really wishing we weren't scheduling a wedding at all. Your Gran too, I think. I'm sure, even though she kept her mouth shut. To me, at least. I have no idea what she said to Chad. I think, even now, that I'd rather not know. Just in the interest of amicable relations. Anyway, it couldn't be before Christmas; it would have to be after, everyone insisted.