Page 16 of Beyond the Lavender Fields
The kitchen door creaked open, and Maman entered with a basket. Florence followed close behind. The young woman chattered enthusiastically as she stepped inside. They both stopped short and stared at the mess over the table. Gilles threw his mother a sheepish smile and shrugged.
“Is it wounded?” Maman asked, setting her basket by the door.
“I just wanted to practice. I was studying sutures last night.”
“Ah.” She bent down to retrieve a few bottles from under the cloth covering the basket. “And my kitchen just before dinner was the best place and time to do so.” Her words came out flat and stern, but a laugh twinkled in her eyes as she moved past him to the cellar door.
Florence sighed. “I am supposed to prepare dinner in this? We’ll be eating goat hair with our chicken.”
“I’ll clean it up as soon as I finish cutting this meat.”
She eyed his needle. “You seem to be working in the wrong direction.”
Gilles cut the needle from the ligature and removed the stitches he’d made. “I thought you’d be much longer.”
Maman returned from the cellar, and Florence helped her tie on an apron. “I saw Madame Daubin and her daughter while buying vinegar,” his mother said. “She was happy you came to dinner last week.”
“She is a kind woman, if a bit misled.” He knew very little about his employer’s wife beyond the fact that she came from a lesseraristofamily. Émile had been furious when the Daubins sent his younger brother to live with their uncle, who was third in line for abaronnie. But unlike thearistosthey railed against in Jacobin meetings, Madame Daubin had not acted above her company at the dinner. She’d treated him with as much respect as her friends, even though he was simply her husband’s clerk.
“I invited them to dine with us, but they had previous plans.”
His stomach leaped. Thank goodness for that. He could only imagine being stuck in his own dining room under Mademoiselle Daubin’s disapproving stare.
Florence handed him a bowl for the goat meat. “How strange to have aroyalistefamily with such arévolutionnaireson.”
“The Daubins areroyaliste?” Maman asked him. “I thought you said themonsieurwould not support one side or the other.”
Gilles swept the goat debris to the side to clear room for his butchering. He cursed as the needle rolled off the table and spun to the floor. “He keeps his opinions on the subject mostly to himself, but his daughter is very open that her loyalties lie with the king.” That haunted expression she’d worn on the stairs had stayed with him the last four days. He’d told Maman about the fine food and smaller than expected number of guests, but he’d left out the sparring and Maxence’s cruel comments. After the dinner, Gilles had been relieved—perhaps for the first time—when his brother returned to Montpellier.
“Mademoiselle Daubin seems a charming young lady.”
Charming? He wouldn’t use that word. “She’s a pretty girl.”
Maman’s lips pursed as she collected a head of lettuce from her basket. “She has quite the wit. I can see Maxence getting on well with her, whenever he decides to stop chasing girls he never intends to catch.”
Again with chasing girls. What had put Maman on that subject? “Only if she did not have such strong feelings toward the monarchy. Maxence would never marry aroyaliste.” Gilles slid his knife along the goat leg, separating the rest of the skin from the meat. “Nor would I,” he added in a mutter.
Maxence and Mademoiselle Daubin. A laughable pair. Maman had the best intentions, but she hadn’t seen their arguing. No young lady could be further from a well-suited match for his brother. Gilles sliced off strips of meat and plopped them a little too emphatically into the bowl to be salted and dried.Hewas far better suited in disposition to marry Marie-Caroline Daubin than Max. Look at how his brother had hurt her at the dinner party.
Most women had the tendency to cry over every ailment. Except his mother, of course. And Victor’s wife, and Grandmére. Something about being mariners’ wives seemed to have strengthened them. While Mademoiselle Daubin did not have that distinction, she seemed more likely to shout than cry over things that upset her. And yet, Maxence’s words had stung. Gilles had seen it in her eyes as she sat on the stairs.
He rotated the leg to better pull the remaining flesh off the bone. His brother had said similar, biting things in the past, and Gilles always brushed them off. Maxence wasn’t as cruel as his comments let on. Not really. Nor was Mademoiselle Daubin as ill tempered as Émile let on. Only passionate about her hopeless cause.
Gilles cut the meat in silence, stewing over the matter while his mother tore lettuce for a salad and Florence tended the roasting chicken. Over the last two years, they had worked just this way more evenings than he could count, though usually Florence spoke more. He preferred the quiet companionship of these two women with Père and Max away. Part of him wondered why he hadn’t married Florence so as to keep things just as they were. Not that he had any feelings for her. Just the feelings of warm camaraderie. Her husband had snatched her up the year before, and who knew how long it would be before she left their employ to raise children? It would be quiet with just him and his mother most evenings.
“Where is Père?” he asked. For a moment he had forgotten his father was in port.
“At the docks,” Maman said, not turning around. “He leaves for Naples next week, andle Rossignolneeds repairs.”
A short stay on land, then. Gilles would not complain about that.
Knocking from the front door echoed through the house, and Florence hurried to answer it. She returned just as swiftly. “It’s Jean Sault, Monsieur Gilles. I showed him to the sitting room.”
Jean Sault! Gilles extricated himself from the bench at the table.
“Who is that?” Maman asked.
“The president of my Jacobin club.” How had she forgotten? He rushed to rinse the meat juices from his hands in the basin by the door. Sault had never visited him at home in the months Gilles had been a member.
