Page 72 of Beyond the Lavender Fields
Gilles tensed. He thought Dr. Savatier had distanced himself from the Étienne family forever.
“He asked after you. He mentioned he was looking for an apprentice.”
As much as he admired the surgeon, studying at Montpellier would open more doors for Gilles. Still, the offer stirred up an urge to leave Marseille and all its frustrations behind. Saint-Malo in the north, where Dr. Savatier resided, as everywhere, had been hit with the plague of unrest, but it was a place that did not mind so much if a person’s fortune was made legally or not and was largely free of the stifling expectations of the Jacobins. For now.
“Did he say anything of the last voyage?” Gilles couldn’t help the question.
Père ran a finger over the folded edges of the letter. “He wished to put past offenses behind us. Though we did not see things in the same light, and though one of us made a terrible mistake, he said the friendship held more importance.”
Gilles studied the man he’d scorned, avoided, practically hated for so long, remembering the betrayal in the doctor’s pale, damp face when he’d learned Père had put prizes ahead of the life of a dear friend. The rift between the doctor and his father had seemed irreparable. Years of justified anger, and then Savatier just forgave him? The iron fist around Gilles’s heart slackened ever so slightly. Père had admitted to being wrong, after years of denial.
“I’m glad of it.” Gilles mimicked his father, nestling into the warmth of the sofa. He still had to decide what he would do with this new revelation about Caroline and Père Franchicourt’s whereabouts. Martel loomed in the background of his thoughts. But as he sat in the first comfortable silence he’d enjoyed with his father in years, watching the sunlight from the window dim, a solution to this latest issue with the woman he couldn’t hope to forget did not seem so far away.
Martel occupied the same couch where Père had sat Friday evening, but instead of Père’s thoughtful conversation, excited chatter rattled the windowpanes. A few other acquaintances lounged about the sitting room with copies of newspapers clutched in their hands. The pages circled through the room retelling the daring fortitude of thefédérésin Paris.
“Thank you for letting us meet here,” Martel said, slapping Gilles’s shoulder. “The noise makes my mother nervous.”
“C’est mon plaisir.” Gilles hadn’t anticipated Martel’s meeting to be so rambunctious when he’d agreed to it. He’d reluctantly allowed his friend to gather those helping him with the search for Franchicourt, only to keep up the appearance that Gilles had no connection to the refractory priest. But when news arrived from Paris, the meeting had turned into chaos.
“Here, have you read this from theJournal?” Martel pushed a news sheet into Gilles’s hands.
Yes, he’d read it. To read one article was to read all of them, but he obediently scanned the type. Twenty thousand of the national guard andMarseillaisfédéréshad stormed the Tuileries Palace on August 10, carrying off the king and his family to prison. Four days ago France had been a constitutional monarchy. Now she marched toward becoming a true republic. While Gilles found the prospect thrilling, the casualty numbers jumped off the page with such force he could not ignore them. At least two hundredrévolutionnaireshad died. More than five hundred of the king’s Swiss Guard. And in the mix, somewhere between sixty and eighty men from Marseille.
He wasn’t having to lie about Franchicourt at the moment, but the sinking in his gut dampened his ability to celebrate with the others. How many of those men did he know? What was Maxence and Émile’s role? Had they ...
Gilles returned the sheet. “An exciting moment for France.”
“To be certain.” Martel hungrily read the article again. “To think we are finally rid of that despot and his greedy household.”
“This calls for wine,” one young man shouted.
“Indeed!” Martel nudged Gilles. “Let us raid the cellar. Surely your father has some prime offerings from his voyages.”
None that Gilles would give this crowd. He leaned toward his friend, lowering his voice. “If we are in the business of humoring our mothers, I do not wish to upset my own with a riot. Would it not be better to seek out a café or an alehouse?”
Martel glowered, his first unhappy gesture of the evening. “We all must sacrifice for the cause of liberty.”
Celebrating a slaughter was hardly worthy of that sort of sacrifice. Gilles swallowed. When had Caroline’s sentiments seeped into his thoughts?
A knock on the door brought Gilles around but did little to disrupt the revelry in the parlor. He excused himself. Another friend of Martel’s, no doubt, to add to the clamor. He took a deep breath before pulling the handle.
“Étienne, come quickly.”
He stepped back at the sight of the well-made, if wrinkled, coat and breeches. The man before him was the last person he expected to see at such a party. “Monsieur Daubin?” Gilles darted through the door and shut it behind him. “What is this? Has something happened with the new batch of soap?”
“No, not that. It’s about the ...” Monsieur Daubin glanced toward the window. The drawn-back curtains revealed Martel and his friends in their excitement.
“Abouthim? The ...” Had Martel followed him to the door? The young man seemed distracted by the August-tenth business.
“Yes, about him. Caroline insisted we send for you.”
Confound this onset of fluttering in his chest. Knowing she wanted him despite it all nearly erased what had happened the last time he’d seen her.
“In truth, she meant to come herself. I somehow convinced her to allow me.” Themonsieurshifted. “We need a doctor.”
Gilles straightened, a sudden cold stilling the fluttering inside. “Monsieur, I have only had a little training in surgery on board a ship. I am not qualified—”
“We cannot go to our normal physician. It is for him.” Monsieur Daubin’s eyes flicked about, checking their privacy. “He has been ill for several days now. We thought it due to remorse about your encounter Friday evening, but he has not been able to eat since. Even when he tries, he can keep nothing in his stomach. He needs help.”
