Page 55 of Beyond the Lavender Fields
It will never end, will it, Sylvie? Just when I think that France cannot accept another ounce of lunacy, the people of this land push her one step closer to irreversible chaos.
Père Franchicourt has of course offered to leave. Not for himself, as he will certainly be caught if he attempts to leave the city, but for the safety of our family. I do not know what Papa will say when he returns from thesavonnerie, but I insisted Père Franchicourt remain. If only until the riots over the conspiracy die down and we can secure him a safe passage to Spain.
The thought to beg Gilles for help crossed my mind, but I cannot turn to him. Just as Émile would have been, he was horrified at my participating in mass. He knew me to be religious, and yet he assumed I would not practice. If he knew about Père Franchicourt, he would have no choice but to report me.
Why then do I want nothing more than to go to him right now? Is it because the last time something so unnerved me, the strong arms I had come to rely on were the ones lying lifeless in the streets? The anniversary of the massacre on the Champ de Mars last week has no doubt made me more sensitive to this news about the clergymen, but I should not be so weak as to want the comfort of arévolutionnairewho cannot disentangle himself from the grasp of the Jacobins. Did I not learn my lesson with Nicolas? Loving a Jacobin only leads to heartache, whether he is left for dead or he leaves you for dead.
I hope you can read these words; I’ve written them so poorly. I pray for you, your family, and those you shelter every hour. Only a miracle can see all of us through this wretchedness alive, and we will not come out unscathed.
M. C.
How many pieces of soap did Monsieur Daubin have sitting in his storehouse? Gilles ran his fingers over the smooth, green blocks that sat in the back of the shop in the Noailles district. The sharp scent of freshly cut and stamped soap covered the scent of perfumes and colognes on the opposite side of the room. Only a little light reached into the storage room through the open door. Motes of dust drifted in the faint beam, but nothing else moved. Even the commotion of the streets outside was muted by the walls of silent goods.
Gilles should have been working. But the image of the limp form in the gutter he’d passed on his way to the shop filled his mind’s eye, making it difficult to focus on numbers. He’d regularly seen death at sea, and as a physician he would see plenty more of it throughout his life. But that lonely corpse in the road, getting spit on by passing workers ...
He swiped curls from his eyes and returned to pulling blocks of soap from the crate at his feet. He’d volunteered to stock inventory at the shop today. No one wanted to go out in the streets, especially in the well-to-do districts of Marseille, where many of the recent murders had occurred or been displayed.
The crate grated on the floor as he pulled it toward the next shelf. Gilles stiffened at a click. Was that a door opening? When no sound repeated, he went back to his task. The front door was locked since Daubin had decided not to open the shop given the events of the last three days. And Gilles had made sure the back door was secure after he let himself in. The only person coming in through the door would be his employer, or perhaps another clerk. But they would have announced themselves.
Gilles rolled a block of soap around in his hand, examining theSavonnerie Daubinmark with its outlines of lavender encircling the words. Soap residue created a fragrant film across his skin. Would he miss this, when the soap factory was gone? For all Daubin’s hopes and plans, Gilles could not shake the nagging thought that attempts to salvage the business were futile in the current society.
“Gilles?”
He startled at the muffled voice coming from down the hall. Soft footsteps pattered across the wood floor. Gilles set the block of soap on the shelf and waited for Caroline’s shadow to fall across the beam of light.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
The greyness of the empty shop veiled her face. She clutched both arms, looking smaller than she ever had since they met. “Someday this will end.”
“What will?”
She motioned in the direction of the streets. “The deaths. The fear.”
Would it? Evenrévolutionnaireleaders hadn’t been able to dissuade the crowds from breaking into the prisons and exacting their own justice onroyalistes. If the leaders of the Jacobins had no control, would the mobs ever be restrained in the wake of threat, perceived or real? “Yes,” he simply said. But it did not sound convincing.
“Each time this happens, I think it must be the last. Surely in the face of so much death and destruction, hearts will be softened to the horror of it all.” She huddled in the doorway like a beggar in the depths of a fierce winter without a coat.
“The people of this country have endured a great deal. They have had enough.” He picked up a few more blocks of soap and set them on the shelf.
“And that is a reasonable excuse?”
Gilles paused, then slowly swung his head back and forth. Angry crowds all over the nation were taking the law into their own hands, but none so frequently or violently as the people of Paris and Marseille. If all the mobs rose up and banded together, would it hasten a new France, or sendla patrieup in flames?
“You should not be here,mademoiselle.” He pushed more blocks into place, then reached for the quill and ledger on a lower shelf to take note. “It is not safe.”
Her hands dropped to her sides, the defiant stance he knew so well returning. “We came through the back streets.”
His heart quivered with each tap of her heel against the floor as she traveled closer. It was fortunate he could not smell her perfume over the scent of the soap. Here they were, alone in the shop. No father or fellow clerk to barge in. If he wanted to, he could turn around and kiss those lips he’d been craving since May. Finally taste their sweetness. Would she let him? He drew in a breath. These thoughts would undo them both. “Your mother would be worried if she knew you had risked it.” He straightened, setting the pen back in the inkwell. “But I’m not only speaking of braving the streets. It is dangerous for us to talk anymore, Caroline. You know that.”
“As I recall, you insisted on our friendship.” That edge in her voice had returned.
“That was before I knew.” He turned one of the blocks of soap around so the whole line displayedSavonnerie Daubinon the front. Not that it mattered, as these would be transferred to the front of the shop when needed.
“Knew I practiced my religion? That I was a wicked Catholic who defied the truth of Jacobinism?”
“You know that isn’t how I think,” he said through a cringe.
“No, Gilles. I don’t. You have never told me.”
