Whispering to Aimee, he said “I’m so pleased with you. You’ve done very well this whole time. Tonight you’ll be in your own room at the chateau because I’ve given our home for the love birds to stay in. Alandra and I will stay at the chateau also.”
Louis and Celeste’s vows were spoken first, and then Mustafa and Liridona’s vows were next. Angus pronounced them man and wife and presented them to the guests then after they kissed. The crew gave three cheers for the couple, and the chairs were moved to the foredeck. Angus called out to weigh anchor and unfurl sails. Elsie’s Cloud made her way back into the harbor and to the waiting longboats to be towed back into the twin repair docks. Armando played the violin as all of the couples aboard danced until the ship was ready to let the passengers off. Ian put Aimee on his shoulders while he danced with Alandra, and then with Celeste and with Liri.
Within a half hour of getting to the repair docks, the guests were on their way to the chateau. The crew rowed and towed Elsie back out to her anchorage in the harbor as the carriages made their way toward the chateau. Marie had arranged to hire a violinist, cellist, pianist, and flute player for music. They were waiting in their carriage and departed with all of the guests. It was a long caravan that made its way to the Chateau that afternoon.
The grand dining hall was full of guests. Henri gave thanks to God for the food and for the wedding that day. The meal was served on Marie’s best dinnerware, which was saying something. It was spectacular and every dish delicious. Many commented that they had never experienced finer food in their lives. Everything went smoothly under Marie’s experienced and watchful eye and her staff was superb in their service of the guests. The quartet played Bach, Vivaldi, Handel and other contemporaries as the guests dined. After many toasts were made, the guests finally retired to the spacious parlor while the staff cleared the table and prepared the ballroom. Gifts were presented to the two couples by everyone and it took well over an hour for everyone to see everything.
The guests all filed into the ballroom. Ian came to Louis and Mustafa. “I have one more gift for you two.” he said as he handed Louis a key. “This is to our home. All of us will stay here. You four stay there as long as you like. The pantry is full.”
The two thanked him. Then he said “I’ll make a diversion of some kind so the four of you can slip away, and there will be a carriage ready with no driver. It will be near the front door.” The three then embraced and entered the ballroom.
Soon the two newlyweds were dancing the first dance as the guests stood by. In a bit, Henri and Marie joined in to the minuet followed by Ian and Alandra. Soon the other couples had joined in.
The evening progressed smoothly and Ian got to dance with his mother and his aunt for the first time in a very long time. He noticed that his mother seemed to look narrowly at him from time to time. It puzzled him and he finally made mention of it to Alandra. “Ian, I think that your mother has noticed that you don’t age. Mothers have a really sharp and discerning eye for such things.”
“I don’t know that I can do much about that.”
“No, you can’t. Did I tell you that I heard her mention it when we were in Scotland that last time?” About then the quartet changed tempo for a different, livelier tune. Ian scooped up Aimee and put her on his shoulders as he danced with Alandra. Since the two little girls from the orphanage were at the celebration, Ian also took them one at a time and put them on his shoulders while he danced too. Soon Henri, Li, and Andre were doing the same and the two little girls were included in much of the dancing.
The musicians took a short break to eat a bit and drink, so Marie had stepped out for a moment. One of the little girls came to Aimee and whispered in her ear that she needed to use the necessary room. Aimee knew that there was a chamber pot beyond the pantry at the back of the house. So rather than take the little girl all the way upstairs she took her back through the kitchen.
There was a copper kettle with water boiling on one of the three large wood-burning stoves. Four of the servants were still on duty in there at the time. Aimee pointed to the door that went to where the chamber pot and wash basin were and decided to wait on the little girl who would have to walk past the stove to get there. As fate would have it, a mouse suddenly darted from under a pie safe and passed beneath one of the cooks. She saw it from the corner of her eyes as it darted under her and flinched, lunging back away from it. She struck the copper kettle and it started to tip and spill just as the little girl walked past it.
Chapter 92
The Minister of the King’s Gendarmerie sat at the desk in his study at his spacious home. He reflected on his life beginning so many years ago when that older man had approached him. He’d been a young inspector in Versailles then. The man had introduced himself as a Monsieur Lefevre. He had made a proposal that had changed the young inspector’s life by promising that he’d be promoted regularly in exchange for favors now and then. True to his word, Lefevre had never been asked him to do anything seditious, treasonous or fraudulent. It seemed that all that the Lefevre’s wanted was information for the most part, with occasional recommendations to another department of government about some obscure thing or other. He had gladly given them everything that they’d ever wanted and it had been a good and lucrative arrangement.
As promised not only had the promotions been made regularly, but after he achieved a level of assistant deputy to Chief of King’s Gendarmerie, he had received proof of a handsome bank account in his name in the Swiss Confederation at a fairly new bank in those days named Banque de Fellman. It grew over the years since then. He had never touched the funds but had no doubt that they would be there when he retired from public service. It was a handsome addition to his service pension and would enable him and his wife to live comfortably in their old age as well as to help his children and grandchildren. He contemplated retirement and wondered if they should move to Lausanne. That the Lefevre’s still had powerful connections he had no doubt. He had been guided by them in bringing along that young Claude Rousseau. There was little doubt now that Rousseau would succeed him when he retired; being that he was not yet forty years old and was second in command in the King’s Gendarmerie in Paris.
The Lefevre’s had sent a young man to him when he was an assistant deputy. This man had carried a letter with a peculiar symbol on it which the minister recognized very well, and which was duplicated in the wax seal. The letter requested that the man be given the job of being the carriage driver for the newly appointed assistant deputy. He had complied of course, never dreaming of refusing a request from a Lefevre. The man had been a good one and had driven the minister to his job daily for decades. He had been given that job in turn by the minister before him. They’d become friends over the years and now the current Minister had an inkling about the appointment what with the similarity of the appointment he’d been asked to make for Rousseau regarding his new driver. He puzzled about it somewhat, but in the end, he didn’t care.
Little did the Minister know that the man reported regularly on the destination of the Minister and who was with him and anything he might hear. He had no idea that his driver was once an orphan who was raised in an orphanage in Nantes. It was sponsored and supported back in those days by the Lefevre family. The driver had a man who came around once a month and took the reports from the driver and from the drivers of others and took them to what was then called Banque de Lefevre. From there they were to be taken somewhere via bank courier. Later on the bank became owned by the Leveque family and changed its name. Today it was the Banque de Lafayette.
The couriers at Banque de Lafayette were a mixed lot. Some were older and had started when the bank was Lefevre owned and some had come along later when it was owned by the Leveque family. All were from orphanages around France, but each thought that he might be the only such one. All knew that they couldn’t reveal their origin or they would lose their jobs and homes. They had good
jobs and wished to keep them for their families sakes. They lived rent-free on farms owned by either the Lefevre, Leveque, or Lafayette families and were scattered around France. Some lived near Paris. Some lived near Lyon or Dijon while others lived near Nantes, Marseille, Versailles, or Strasbourg. Their wives were domestic staff at various fine homes and were well paid for that level of French society. Their children had all learned to read, write, and to do mathematics courtesy of their employers.
Not a single one of them ever would have guessed that their employers over all of the decades were the same two people who were not even human themselves.
***
Aimee saw that the kettle was tipping over onto the little girl. At vampire speed she lunged and with both arms outstretched, she pushed the little girl to safety just as the boiling water cascaded down onto her own arms, barely missing her face. She screamed so loud that the guests heard it. Ian recognized the sound and was the first one into the kitchen.
Little Aimee ran to him crying. He assessed the situation in less than the blink of an eye and lunged out the back door with Aimee while shouting “Bring me all of the honey you can find and two clean towels!” as he raced at vampire speed for the livestock watering trough. He plunged her arms into the water and held them there as she cried. “Aimee, remember when I cut you and how fast you healed?
“Y…y…yes.”
“That’s what is happening right now. The worst is already over. I came out here to keep the humans from seeing that. Quickly now, before the others get here, let me help you out of that dress.” At vampire speed he assisted her out of it without damaging it at all and laid it aside. She now was clad only in her undergarments, shoes and white hosiery. He put her arms back into the water. Marie and Henri were first to arrive and had towels and honey. Ian pulled her away from the water and even though it was dark their vampire vision confirmed that the blistered skin was already healed. Ian felt her arms and then said “See, little one. You’re healed. We only have to fool the humans now.” He smeared some honey on each of her arms and quickly ripped the towels into long strips to bandage both of them. Marie handed him some seamstress pins and he secured the bandages.
“You’ll have to act as if your arms hurt now for a short time, Aimee. We’ll have to keep them covered until then. No swimming either. You’ll stay close to Marie or me tomorrow.”
By then some of the guests carrying oil lamps had found their way to the watering trough, including Angus, Elsie, Alandra, and Mary. Marie explained what happened as Ian carried her to the chateau then and up to her room. Alandra, Sophia, and Marie followed. After they were in Aimee’s room Ian said “You’ll have to remember now to act as if you hurt. What happened in there?”
She related the incident and they all praised her quick thinking and quick action then.
“So you’re not angry with me?”
“No sweetheart. Tonight you showed us that you’ve learned one of the most important things about being a member of our family.”
“What’s that?”
“You put the safety of that girl above your own. We’re very pleased with you.”
Alandra and Marie echoed that so Aimee smiled sweetly then and held her bandaged arms out so as to be hugged and kissed by everyone there.
Marie went down to the guests then and explained it all and everyone agreed that Aimee had been a heroine that evening. She said that what Ian had done had saved Aimee from a bad injury, and that she was sure there would be no scars. She signed to the musicians to resume their music and she and Henri began to dance. Soon the other guests joined her too and the party resumed its pace.
Ian came down a short time later and explained to some of the guests including his mother and aunt that Aimee was asleep now with Alandra. He rejoined the party before he could be asked any questions, winking once at Angus and Armando when no one was looking. The newlyweds were nowhere to be seen. “Is there anyone here who has seen the Cossack dance called the Hopak? If not, we’ll demonstrate it for you. If so, you’re going to see it again.”
The celebration went on then until near midnight with dancing and music. The guests finally retired from sheer exhaustion then. Marie excused the staff then and told them to do the cleanup of the ball room the next morning.
Ian was thinking of how best to present the situation of Aimee’s healing and the onerous chore of keeping her bandaged so long when he had an idea. He slipped out and went to the garden. There he pulled up six beets by the light of the moon. At vampire speed he washed and minced them and then in the barn he put them between two boards and pressed/hammered until he had drained all of the red juice out and caught it in his copper bowl.
He got Aimee to rub the juice on her arms and wash her hands and then covered them with honey and fresh bandages again. Later the next afternoon they made a production of taking off the bandages and washing and re-wrapping her arms. Everyone seemed to be deceived by her arms being only pink-red and not scarred or blistered.
The following evenings’ activities were normal and the guests retired before midnight. Ian thought that Aimee needed some away time to let off some steam what with her working so hard to deceive everyone.
He went to her room before dawn and awoke her, asking if she would like to sneak away for some wild time. Soon they were on their way, each on a mount heading for the waterfall. They didn’t notice that a horse and saddle were missing.
At the waterfall Aimee bounded away from one rock to the next and leaped up to stand atop the falls. She launched herself into space and did a somersault before knifing into the water cleanly. Swimming like a little porpoise she flew out of the water to land on the big sycamore tree that grew out of the bank horizontally. Ian dove off doing a triple somersault and shot like lighting across the pool to fly out of the water and land next to Aimee. Laughing, he scooped her up and leaped straight up some fifty feet to plunge back down into the water with her screaming. They cavorted and played then, he chasing her all around the waterfall and pool area, each of them bounding from rocks to trees to the top of the falls for yet more spectacular dives.
Aimee had just done another perfect somersault off of the falls and Ian was poised to follow when he spied a person on a horse staring at him in disbelief. It was his mother, Elsie. She sat on the horse, mouth agape and held up Angus’s spyglass and said “I didn’t believe what I saw through this thing and I don’t believe it now. Ian, what…what is the meaning of…of this?”
“Mother, I’m sorry that you had to see this.” He dove and shot across the pool like a porpoise but slowed and just walked out of the water so as not to spook her horse. He walked to her then and assisted her down. She just stared at him wordlessly as Aimee skipped from rock to rock and came across to stand there too.
“It’s my fault, Mrs. McCloud. Ian thought he needed to take me out for some wild time because of the accident. We didn’t mean to scare you, ma’am.”
“Wild time?”
“Nonsense, Aimee. It’s all my doing. I saw the suspicion in your eyes from the day you arrived, Mother.”
“Ian, I noticed that you never aged at all. A mother sees things that others overlook, and my goodness, you look about the same age as Stuart! What is the meaning of all of this, son? Are all of these…people here like…this? And Aimee here…her arms.” Here she left off speaking and pulled the two beet-stained boards from her saddlebags, presenting them to Ian with her eyebrows raised. “I talked to the people who were in the kitchen. They thought that Aimee was way over in the doorway and yet when that kettle spilled she was suddenly beside that little girl pushing her away. And look at her arms now, only two days since then!”
“Let’s ride back to the Chateau Mother. I’ll tell you what has happened.” He stepped to her and took her in his arms and then kissed her forehead. “What I tell you will change your life forever. Uncle Angus and Armando have had to bear the burden of my secret themselves al
l of these years. It’s deadly and dangerous to know that we even exist, Mother.”
“We?”
“We. Aimee and I are no longer human, Mother. I haven’t been human since shortly after I first came to Marseille. I’ll tell you along the way. You have to decide whether to tell Aunt Mary or not.” He bandaged Aimee’s arms and they mounted up and departed, talking along the way.
As they arrived at the barn behind the chateau, Ian had concluded a fairly accurate account of his life since becoming a vampire, minus details of the Council, some battles, and his love life. Included in that was an account of Aimee’s history and of how she came to be living with them. Elsie looked at Ian and said “Grandmother and grandfather, do they know?”
“No. I saw no need to tell them. I would have told you before telling them.” He vaulted off of his horse to assist his mother down, and then Aimee. She looked questioningly at him after he had helped Aimee. “Mother; remember that we must keep up appearances for the humans who don’t know about us. We never know if one of the staff or a guest is looking out of a window.”
“Yes. Yes, of course. This all explains why you never returned to live in Scotland after Cosette died. I had often wondered about that.” Looking at Aimee she appreciated the perfect training of the child saying “You are a remarkable child, to have learned about this…this play-acting. You do it so very well too! It must have been so hard for you to learn.
“Mrs. McCloud, I had a lot of teachers, and they all love me.”
“So do I dear. So do I. But this is all…so…new. Now that I’ve seen and heard it, I need time to accept it.” She turned to him, smiling broadly and held her arms wide. He gratefully stepped to her and hugged her wordlessly. She then turned to Aimee and opening her arms said “You too, Aimee. Come give your grandmother a hug now.” Little Aimee smiled radiantly, her eyes were a little teary as they hugged wordlessly. Then she said “My family is the best family in the whole world, grandmother.” She turned to Ian and stretched out her arms to be picked up. As he gathered her to his bosom and they turned to walk to the chateau she said “My father is the best father in the whole world.” as she clung to Ian’s neck and kissed his cheek, and then pillowed her head on his shoulder as they made their way to the kitchen door. Ian felt a lump in his throat then. Never had Aimee called him a father before. “You’re the very best daughter any man could ever have, Aimee. I’m blessed and honored to have you.” He put one arm around his mother as they approached the back porch.
Forever Young The Beginning Page 52