Page 87 of Beyond the Lavender Fields
I’ve been writing so many letters my loved ones will never read. Letters to Sylvie, letters to Émile, letters to Guillaume. I have not as yet written to you, though I’ve longed to since receiving your note weeks ago. I don’t know why I picked up the pen tonight. Clearly I do not know what is good for me.
Sometimes when the long, dark nights press in and sleep evades my sincerest efforts, I let you wander into my mind. Your easy grin brings a sense of comfort I cannot find in other sources. To be with you is to feel warmth and light. It is little wonder, then, that you taught me to hope in ways I did not think possible when I first returned to Marseille.
There are nights when I am back in the garden with you, with the hortensia in full bloom and Maman’s buoyant rendition ofSur le Pont d’Avignondrifting through the open window. Your servant does not arrive. No letter is delivered. And when we’ve worn down the grass dancing the Allemande again and again, you take me in your arms and ask me to be your wife. I say yes, of course, because I cannot refuse the thought of waking each morning to the sunlight in your smile.
But wishful thinking and silly dreams only bring more tears when I recall all that has been lost—lives and opportunities and love and happiness.
Other nights I imagine you at the prow of a ship and envy the wind as it plays through your hair. I cannot say why, as I have yet to see you on a ship, but ever since that first day in Papa’s office, I have found it most natural to picture you at sea. You will hate me for saying it, I know, but you seem born for that life. Not sitting in a cramped office doing my father’s bidding. I’d hoped someday to see you there, in so natural an element, but it is one more thing not meant to be.
There are times I wish with all my being that I had not fallen in love with you. I have already seen that a romance could not work between aroyalisteand arévolutionnaire. You hardly gave me a chance to resist, despite your silly games and rakish air when we first met. I think I sensed, even then, that there was more to Gilles Étienne than the mask you wore around Émile and Maxence.
Then I look at this ring you gave me that night on the balcony. I think I would rather have loved you and felt the magic of your love than to never have felt its fire.Jamais en vain.Truly this spark of heaven was not in vain, and wherever our roiling world pushes our paths, I will look back on this as a sweet mercy of God rather than a curse of the revolution.
Someday the memories will not tear at my heart.
I nearly let you kiss me that night on the balcony, as you’ve wanted to do for so many months. I needed it so badly. My reason won over, but now I wonder if I will always regret not taking the chance.
Caroline
Furniture crashed around him. Glass shattered. Shouts and jeering shook the house. But Gilles stood silent and unmoving by the attic window, where faint light from the street illuminated Caroline’s letter. He should have put it away before someone returned, but he let it fall to his side.
What a disaster, all of it. He leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. When this year began, he’d been a new Jacobin, on fire with patriotic passion and eager to follow in his brother’s devoted ideals. Only a year more of work, and he would have enough to pay his way into medical school at Montpellier, finally closing the door on all possibilities of going back to his father’s ship. Times were difficult for France as 1792 dawned, as they had been since the start of the revolution three years previous. Peace hadn’t looked impossible, however.
Then he’d met Marie-Caroline Daubin, and all the world changed. Now that future, so certain a few months ago, was swathed in uncertainty. He’d even allowed himself for a moment to consider returning to sea.
A mirthless grin cracked his face. That alone proved the instability of his current state.
Thundering footsteps rang through the corridor, and Gilles hid the letter in his waistcoat once again.
Martel appeared, murder in his eyes. “He’s gone.” The man let out a string of curses more vulgar than Gilles had heard since stepping offle Rossignol. “Gone, with no hints to his whereabouts.” Martel kicked a trunk, sending it toppling and its contents clanging. He stormed to the window. “Look at them. They’re only here for the loot.”
Indeed, some of the crowd had already dispersed. Bickering carried from below, squabbling over the Daubins’ possessions. Gilles swallowed bile that rose at the mob’s greed. How were these people any different from thearistoswhose avarice kept the peasant class in poverty?
“We head to thesavonnerie. Now.” Martel pushed off the window.
He was going to leave the house to be dismantled by plunderers in the middle of the night to continue his crusade? “I will stay and question the Daubins,” Gilles volunteered. “And be certain the crowd disperses. We don’t want a riot among thesans-culottes.”
“A riot is the least of my worries. The Daubins are coming with us. We will question them on the way.”
Blast. Would Martel recognize Père? Gilles followed him out, Caroline’s letter crinkling softly against his chest. At all costs, he must keep Martel from discovering his true loyalties. Caroline was safe so long as his responses remained neutral. Her parents, on the other hand ... He did not know what the night would bring for them.
Downstairs,sans-culottesscuttled out of Martel’s way as he strode toward the front door. Men and women, some severely inebriated, filled the house. One man stabbed at a family portrait with a dull blade, uttering oaths. A pair of women pulled at the fine curtains over one window until the rod broke and it tumbled down to gleeful exclamations. Still others ran from the house with arms full of bundled clothes and valuables. The heat of torches and candles, which had been lit in every room as though mocking the extravagance, sent sweat running down the back of Gilles’s collar.
When they burst outside, Martel made for the spot where they’d detained Monsieur Daubin. Gilles searched the gathering for Père’s face, but he’d melted into the crowd.
“What is this? Where are they?” Martel snapped, halting.
Gilles crashed into his back and was shaken off. They were gone? Bumps washed over his skin despite his sweat. They couldn’t be gone. Where was Père?
Martel seized a man by the sleeve. “The Daubins. Where are they?”
The man shrugged. “Dragged off. No doubt they’re getting what they deserve.”
“How long ago? What direction did they take?” Gilles cried. Was Père with them? He wouldn’t let them come to harm, but what if he’d been overpowered? Monsieur and Madame Daubin could be dead in the street by now.
Martel cursed again. “I haven’t time for this.” He rested his hands on his hips, surveying the chaos. “Does anyone in this city have a functioning mind?”
A stocky man appeared a few paces away. He was dressed the same as most of the other men in the mob, in simple, worn clothes and a red hat. His unwavering stare caught Gilles’s notice.
