The Nightingale

“Will people make fun of me?” Sarah asked, her eyes widening.

“I will wear one, too,” Sophie said.

Sarah looked pathetically hopeful at that.

Rachel reached out for her daughter’s hand and held it. “No, baby. This is one thing you and your best friend can’t do together.”

Vianne saw Sarah’s fear and embarrassment and confusion. She was trying her best to be a good girl, to smile and be strong even as tears glazed her eyes. “Oui,” she said at last.

It was the saddest sound Vianne had heard in nearly three years of sorrow.





TWENTY-ONE

When summer came to the Loire Valley, it was as hot as the winter had been cold. Vianne longed to open her bedroom window to let air in, but not a breeze stirred on this hot late June night. She pushed the damp hair from her face and slumped in her chair by the bed.

Sophie made a whimpering sound. In it, Vianne heard a muddled, drawn-out “Maman,” and she dipped her rag into the bowl of water she’d placed on the only remaining nightstand. The water was as warm as everything else in this upstairs room. She twisted the rag over the bowl, watched the excess water fall back into the bowl. Then she placed the wet rag on her daughter’s forehead.

Sophie muttered something incomprehensible and started to thrash.

Vianne held her down, whispering love words in her ear, feeling heat against her lips. “Sophie,” she said, the name a prayer with no beginning, no end. “I’m here.” She said it over and over until Sophie calmed again.

The fever was getting worse. For days now Sophie had been ailing, feeling achy and out of sorts. At first Vianne had thought it was an excuse to avoid the responsibilities they shared. Gardening, laundry, canning, sewing. Vianne was constantly trying to do more, get more done. Even now, in the middle of the summer, she worried about the coming winter.

This morning had shown Vianne the truth, however (and made her feel like a terrible mother for not seeing it from the start): Sophie was sick, very sick. She had been plagued by fever all day, and her temperature was rising. She hadn’t been able to keep anything down, not even the water her body needed so desperately.

“How about some lemonade?” she said.

No answer.

Vianne leaned over and kissed Sophie’s hot cheek.

Dropping the rag back into the bowl full of water, she went downstairs. On the dining room table, a box waited to be filled—her most recent care package to Antoine. She’d started it yesterday and would have finished and mailed it off if not for Sophie’s turn for the worse.

She was almost at the kitchen when she heard her daughter’s scream.

Vianne ran back up the stairs.

“Maman,” Sophie croaked, coughing. It was a terrible, rattling sound. She thrashed in the bed, yanking at the blankets, trying to shove them away. Vianne tried to calm her daughter, but Sophie was a wildcat, twisting and screaming and coughing.

If only she had some of Dr. Collis Browne’s Chlorodyne. It worked magic on a cough, but of course there was none left.

“It’s all right, Soph. Maman is here,” Vianne said soothingly, but her words had no effect.

Beck appeared beside her. She knew she should have been angry that he was here—here, in her bedroom—but she was too tired and scared to lie to herself. “I don’t know how to help her. There are no aspirin or antibiotics to be had at any price in town.”

“Not even for pearls?”

She looked at him in surprise. “You know I sold my maman’s pearls?”

“I live with you.” He paused. “I make it my business to know what you are doing.”

She didn’t know what to say to that.

He looked down at Sophie. “She coughed all night. I could hear it.”

Sophie had gone still, frighteningly so. “She’ll get better.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small bottle of antibiotics. “Here.”

She looked up at him. Was she overstating it to think that he was saving her daughter’s life? Or did he want her to think that? She could rationalize what it meant to take food from him—after all, he needed to eat and it was her job to cook for him.

This was a favor, pure and simple, and there would be a price for it.

“Take it,” he said gently.

She took the bottle from him. For a second, they were both holding it. She felt his fingers against hers.

Their gazes locked, and something passed between them, a question was asked and answered.

“Thank you,” she said.

“You are most welcome.”

*

“Sir, the Nightingale is here.”

The British consul nodded. “Send her in.”