So that night as he sat on the edge of his bed he asked, straight out, “What did you arrange with him?”
All innocence. “What do you mean?”
“With Benjamin.” He didn’t offer details of his own, because to watch de Brassart thinking back to what might have been seen or overheard was more revealing.
He could see the choices being weighed—mislead, deny, or tell the truth. De Brassart’s mouth thinned to a line of resignation. So, the truth.
“His brother has provided him a flag and papers giving him authority to carry a French prisoner to be exchanged.” As wary as a miser being asked to share his wealth, he said, “One prisoner. Not two.”
“I see.”
A man with more discretion might have left the matter there. De Brassart said, “Now that the English soldiers have gone to their camp, and there’s less danger that the ship will be impressed, they will be working hard to get it finished, and his orders are to sail the ship, as soon as it is ready, to the port of Cap-Fran?ois, at Saint-Domingue.”
“I see.”
“My brother lives at Saint-Domingue. I should imagine that’s why they decided I should be the one to go.”
Jean-Philippe privately thought it more likely that William Wilde, after they’d met in New York, would have known well enough what reply he would make to an offer that skirted the bounds of legality. William might be driven by his own self-interest and ambition, but he was intelligent. It came as no surprise to learn his trade was like his nature—neither good nor bad but falling in the grey and shifting space between. Remembering what Captain Wheelock had told the de Joncourt boy about how people here bought flags of truce for their illicit trade with France in the West Indies, Jean-Philippe could not help wondering just how much Lydia knew of her brothers’ business ventures.
From the way she had behaved towards her brother in New York, he guessed she knew as much as he did, maybe more. And she did not approve.
He lay back on his bed and laced his hands behind his head. “Does Captain Wheelock know?”
“I don’t need his permission. By the terms of our parole, to leave this place I only need permission from a governor, and I’m assured a governor has signed my papers. Anyway, I don’t recall your thinking that the captain was owed any information other than what was required.”
There was logic to that reasoning.
De Brassart said, “I promised nothing else except that I would neither serve against the English king nor any of his allies until after I have been exchanged.” He said that with defiance and then waited, as if expecting Jean-Philippe to argue. “Well?”
He shrugged. “I wish you luck.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Exactly that. I’ve met the brother in New York. I’ll lay you odds the papers and the flag of truce were purchased and not given. And I promise you the English are aware of this, so if you think they’ll let the ship sail unmolested into a French port, then you’re delusional.”
That seemed to wound de Brassart’s pride. “At least I’m doing what I can to get back in this war.”
“Yes, you’ll be right on the front lines, in Saint-Domingue.”
Rolling, he turned his back, feeling the daggers that filled the long silence.
De Brassart lay down. “I will be on French soil. Not forgetting my place, or what country I serve.” Seeking to drive the blade home, he went on, “Not pretending that people who hate me could ever accept me as anything else but their enemy.”
Over their heads the old beams of the house sighed and settled and Jean-Philippe tried not to think of how close and how far he was, just at that moment, from all that he might have been.
He heard the creak of a mattress and knew that de Brassart had turned his back also, dismissively. And in the darkness, the cultured French voice held a frozen disdain. “I don’t think I’m the one who’s delusional.”
Charley
“It’s not your fault,” said Sharon, in a tone that meant the opposite. “You’re not from here. But anyone who’s local could have told you it’s impossible.”
She didn’t come right out and call me “idiot,” although it was implied, and from the coughs and shifting looks around the table I could tell this was a hill I wouldn’t want to die on. But I took it one more step and asked her, “Why?”
“Because Millbank’s main business is weddings. Every venue here is booked up months, and sometimes years, ahead of time. There simply isn’t anywhere to hold a dance.”
I looked across the table. “Harvey? What about the Privateer Club?”
“Sorry, but we’re taking bookings now for next November, and if anybody cancels, there’s a waiting list, so I can’t help. I wish I could.” He said that like he meant it, and from Sharon’s tightened mouth I knew she still hadn’t forgiven him for switching sides. She wasn’t a forgiving sort of woman.
Diplomatically, Malaika said, “It’s not a bad idea, but—”
Don interrupted. “What about the barn?”
But Eve reminded him the barn roof leaked. “And we don’t have the budget to replace it. Even if we did, it would just cancel out whatever profit we’d be making in return. So there’s no point.”
There was a momentary silence in our meeting room.
“I’d rather rip my liver out,” Frank told me, “than agree with Sharon, but she’s right. There’s no way we can have a dance this year.”
? ? ?
“It was a good idea, though,” I said to Sam and Willie as I watched them working in my favourite room of the old house—the big upstairs bedchamber I could walk into like Narnia, from my own office.
Willie had been called away last month to do emergency repairs on an old church upstate, but he was back today and picking up where he’d left off. His usual assistant was home sick, so Lara’s eldest son was helping. Just like Sam, the big Scotsman seemed to enjoy teaching others the tricks of his trade. With the boy’s help he had opened up the fireplace and they’d both had their heads up the old flue, inspecting the parged lining. Now he turned and said, “I’d dance with you.”
“Thank you.”
“Mind you, I can’t dance like I used to. Not with my old mason’s back.” When Sam glanced at him sideways, Willie told him, “It’s a true affliction, mason’s back. The price we pay for spending all those hours crouched in people’s cellars. Ruins the lower muscles.”
Lara’s son asked, “So how do you make it better?”
“Drink a lot.” He grinned, and then appearing to remember that the boy was barely in his teens, he said, “And swimming. Swimming’s best.”
“Oh.”
“Well,” I said, “it looks like neither of us will be dancing for a while.”
“A shame. I do a decent tango.”
Lara, coming through the doorway from my office, lightly said, “I’d pay to see that.”
Willie’s smile grew broader as it always did when she was near. “You, my love, could have the show for free.”
She said, “I might just take you up on that. But right now, it’s your big strong arms I need. I have a box of books, a big one, in my trunk. A gift from Dave for Charley.”
Sam tapped one last nail into the piece of trim he’d been refitting on the panelled wall, and set his hammer down. “I’ll go,” he said, to Willie. “Save your back.” And taking Lara’s keys, he headed down the front stairs.
Lara smoothed her son’s hair. “You’re all scruffy.”
“He’s a mason in the making, this lad,” Willie told her. “Watch this. Tell your mum what you’ve just learned, now. How big should a flue be, compared to the fireplace opening?”
“Seven to ten percent.”
“And why is that?”
“Because if it’s too small, then the smoke comes back into the room.”
“Right. And if it’s too big? What then?”
“You get a lazy fire.”
Willie looked proudly at Lara. “See there? I’d hire him.”
“I may take you up on that, too.”
Sam came back up the stairs with the box in his arms. “You weren’t kidding,” he told Lara, handing back her keys. “These things are heavy.”