Page 80 of Beyond the Lavender Fields
I hate this revolution. What a world it has forced on us.
Please write soon. Assure me that there is still happiness somewhere in this existence and that I was right to push him away. Tell me my remaining brother is watched over in the arms of our loving family. And also beg him write to his grieving mother. She direly needs some word from Guillaume.
Affectueusement,
Caroline
“So this is your soap factory.”
Gilles glanced to the door, the familiar voice rattling his concentration. It was not a sound he had ever heard at thesavonnerie. Père glanced around, hands in the pockets of his jacket. His loose neckcloth and slouched cap contrasted with the careful attire of Gilles’s fellow clerks, who exchanged looks from their desks. Père was not the usual customer they received here.
“I did not expect you home so soon.” Gilles capped his ink and rose quickly. How had Père entered without them hearing?
“We had good winds, and the sea favored us with none of her surprises.” His wry grin did not rankle the way it usually did. Gilles could not tell if the fog of weariness dulled his usual annoyance or if their last conversation had settled some of the mistrust.
That had been back when there was still some hope with Caroline.
“Do you need something?” he asked.
Père finished his examination of the sparse room. “I have a proposition for Monsieur Daubin. You mentioned he might be interested in my business.”
Most certainly. The other clerks resumed their tasks, and Gilles hurried to the door. The other clerks might suspect the dire situation at thesavonnerie, but Daubin had not yet made them privy to how bad it was. Gilles motioned toward themonsieur’s office down the hall.
Père followed with an easy gait and hummed an old sea tune. Gilles might have joined in once, but he couldn’t find the voice now. Who knew what he would find behind the door of that office? Perhaps a drunk employer, perhaps one fast asleep, or perhaps one who looked like he hadn’t rested in weeks. Gilles had seen all three in the recent days.
Gilles knocked but could not decipher the answer. At least that meant Monsieur Daubin was awake. He opened the door a crack to spy the soap maker pacing in front of his desk, a paper clutched in his hands.
“Monsieur?”
Daubin clapped a hand to the side of his face. “They’re gone.”
Gilles swallowed. His employer’s countenance had gone pale. Even paler than usual since receiving word of Émile. “Monsieur, is everything—”
Daubin whirled. His eyes popped, whites stark in the gloom of the office, as though Gilles had slapped him from his solitude. “They’re gone. They’ve fled.”
Perhaps Père should return another time. Something had gone horribly wrong, in either Monsieur Daubin’s mind or in reality, Gilles couldn’t be sure. “My father has come on a matter of business. Shall I ask him to come again tomorrow?”
Themonsieurdumbly held up the page he’d crumpled in his hands. “The Valois family. They’ve gone. And Guillaume ...”
Valois. That was Madame Daubin’s brother’s family, the one Caroline and her younger brother lived with in Paris. “Gone? But where?” Gilles held up a hand to signal Père to wait, then stepped into the office. “How do you know?”
Monsieur Daubin handed him the letter. “They left just after the attack on the palace. Who knows where they went?” He rubbed his already bloodshot eyes and turned away. “What am I to tell Angelique? Caroline? My wife cannot take another loss.”
Gilles’s eyes fell to the paper. The writer hadn’t tried to write legibly, and the person they’d entrusted to post the letter must have waited some time since it was dated the day after the attack on the Tuileries. Gilles squinted to make out the words saying they had fled the country after it was discovered they were harboring refractory priests. Just like the Daubins.
A shiver crept down his spine as he read the final words declaring that Guillaume was escaping with them. The Valois family had fled just in time. Would Caroline and her parents be so lucky if Martel uncovered their secret? The chill spread through his arms to the tips of his fingers.
“Perhaps they will write when they have reached safety.” He tried to give the letter back, but Monsieur Daubin didn’t take it. Was it too bleak to suspect that very soon Marie-Caroline Daubin would disappear completely? While she yet resided in Marseille, that maddening spark of hope, a guiding star on a midnight sea, kept him believing that someday the chaos would end and he might have a chance to reason with her. But if she fled France, all would be lost.
“They won’t risk it for some time.” Monsieur Daubin moaned. “What if they didn’t make it out? Are we to ever know?Ciel, what am I to tell my wife?”
Gilles had never seen the proud, stern soap maker in such a state. The man rocked back and forth, floor squeaking beneath him. With disheveled clothing and pale countenance, he looked nothing like the employer who had hired Gilles and rejected Martel.
“I think all you can tell her is the truth,monsieur,” Gilles said. They deserved to hear it. Caroline’s wild grief, which she’d bridled behind those dark eyes the night they learned of Émile’s death, haunted his mind. Something in his core knotted tighter than a hangman’s noose. How could Caroline bear this? And alone, since her father would put all his efforts into comforting her mother.
He’d have run from thesavonneriestraight to the house in the Belsunce Quarter that moment, but she did not want him to come to her. His eyes squeezed shut against the throbbing.
Gilles hadn’t felt so helpless sincele Rossignolsailed away from land in pursuit of a prize, while Dr. Savatier lay close to death in the murky darkness below deck. At least then he’d had someone to blame. Now the one organization he could condemn was the very group who could condemn them all for treason.
