Crossings, A Thomas Pichon Novel Page 9

  As the music dies he and the visibly tight-lipped Hélène drop hands. Evidently she does not want to say another word. Side by side they shuffle silently through a delighted, mumbling crowd to rejoin Élisabeth and Gallatin. Thomas feels a tug on his sleeve.

  “Remember, not a word,” comes through Hélène’s teeth.

  Thomas is tempted to laugh. When has he ever told anything to anyone when he had a chance to keep it to himself?

  ——

  Thomas mutters oaths under his breath. He has barely slept a wink. Afraid he might fall into a deep sleep and miss the early-morning meeting with Hélène, he has done nothing but toss and turn. One shoulder, then the other, then on his back. All night long he has not found a position that felt good. It was only when Élisabeth gave him a hard shove – “What are you doing?” – that he forced himself to lie still. He thought it important that she be asleep when he slips away. He does not want questions he cannot answer.

  Judging by the lightening he is seeing around the edges of the shutters, the break of day is near. Good luck is with him. The Swiss is in a deep sleep.

  Élisabeth tosses back the bedclothes the moment she hears the click of the closing the door. She doesn’t know what it is, but something is up. Thomas was not himself in bed. It was a constant thrashing about. And now he’s up and away, creeping like a thief before the sun is fully up.

  Over top of her chemise she pulls on her travelling dress with its pale blue stripes. It’ll have to do as it is. She has no one to tie it up in the back. But she does throw a dark blue wool cloak round her shoulders and puts on a cap. Into her shoes she steps. She has to hurry if she’s going to see what Thomas is about. If she loses sight of him after he exits the inn, she won’t know which way to turn.

  ——

  Thomas pads the damp cobbles through the lifting gloom. The little city is still asleep. He does not pick up even a hint of coal smoke in the air. The cooing of an unseen dove is the only sound.

  But are those footsteps? Is someone following behind?

  Only a cart halted along the side of the street Thomas has just come down. It’s loaded with barrels and bales. The horse is staring back at him. The master must be somewhere in a nearby yard.

  Back to his descent down the hill, he makes sure to avoid the droppings where they lie. If he ever meets Beau Nash in person, he will suggest that the Master of Ceremonies get the horseshit off the street before people stir each day. That would be a polite way to make Bath differ from every other city in the world.

  Thomas reaches out to touch a street corner as he goes by. If he remembers correctly, it’s not much farther to the Cross Bath.

  ——

  Cloaked in her hooded cape of dark green, Hélène paces in front of the stone arches along the inner wall, the ones closest to the street entrance. Back and forth, nearly on tiptoe. She is thankful the entrance has no door, just a rope braided twice across. Ducking under does no one any harm. On the contrary, it gives her a place to rendezvous with Thomas, so long as he shows up.

  As she strides, Hélène sniffs the air. Though the Cross Bath has not been a working spa for months, you can still smell sulphur. Its sharp scent has apparently permeated the entire place, the very stones as well as the curtains that front the arches. Those arches, according to what the innkeeper said, are for ladies. The curtains are to give privacy while they soak. Gentlemen stay in the centre near the carved stone cross that gives the place its name. A proper protocol, Hélène thinks. Better than the King’s Bath, men and women milling like fish in a barrel.

  Back to the entrance she paces. She can see the sky is adding just a hint of palest yellow to the grey. Will Thomas let her down? True, all he heard from her was a vague appeal, that there was a favour he could do for her. Would she answer such a call? Not likely. But then, he’s not her. She’ll not give up on him for another while yet.

  She hears footsteps out on the street.

  “There you are.”

  She beckons Thomas to come quickly under the rope. His expression is that of a child startled by a wolf who has popped up in a puppet show.

  “Hurry. Come in here.”

  “Listen, I—”

  “Shhh— Don’t talk.”

  “Don’t talk?” Thomas leans back. He makes a stern face. Then he notices that Hélène has on only a chemise beneath her dark green cape. “Why—”

  She tugs him away from the entrance, over to where a sun-faded scarlet curtain covers the entrance to a stone arch. She pulls back the curtain and gestures for him to step in. Thomas tries to read her face. He cannot. There is only fierceness.

  “In,” she says.

  Hélène pulls the curtain back across. It is nearly pitch black.

  “What are you …?”

  “Quick,” she says.

  “Quick? What—”

  She takes hold of the waist of his breeches. Her fingers go to his buttons.

  “What? No!”

  “Thomas,” Hélène pulls him toward her and whispers close to his lips, “I need this.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “I am not.”

  Her hands are having trouble with a button.

  “No, Hélène. This is crazy.”

  She says not a word. Her eyes lock on his while her fingers struggle.

  “Think of Jean,” he says.

  “Not right now.”

  Thomas snorts. “I can see that.”

  She nods. “That’s right.” She gives his breeches a tug. They drop to his ankles.

  Thomas reaches down to retrieve his pants but Hélène steps on them. She pins them underfoot.

  He stands erect. “No, Hélène.”

  “Shhh.” She touches her lips lightly on his. “That’s right.” She takes him into her hands. Against his will, he responds. Her grip feels good.

  “But Jean.”

  “Shhh.”

  She burrows her forehead in the warmth of his neck.

  Thomas finds it hard to talk. All he knows is that her hand is persuasive. His thoughts are taking flight. It’s getting close to the point of no turning back.

  “He must not know,” he finally says.

  “He will not know,” she whispers in his ear.

  Thomas sees only her dark eyes. They are huge, so close to his.

  “Our secret then,” he says. His hand goes to her private place.

  “That’s right,” she says, soft as breath.

  There is nothing more to say, only the doing of it.

  ——

  Élisabeth does not need to see what she can hear. Coming down the street she glimpsed Hélène a hundred feet ahead waving Thomas to duck under the rope at the entrance to the Cross Bath. A moment later, having gone in herself, her ears led her to the curtained arch. First whispers and now this, breathing and moans.

  She stiffens her wobbly legs. Much as she is tempted, she knows there is no point in pulling the curtain back. You cannot shame these two. Thomas thinks the truth can be cloaked by words while for Hélène friendship is just a facade, like make-up on a face.

  Élisabeth pushes off from the wall, away from its hateful sounds. Enough. That’s enough. She does not want to be around when they finish, recover their breath and pull the curtain back. It would be too much to see their embarrassed faces and for them to see hers.

  She slides away from the curtained arch, silently lifting her feet. Back out under the rope barrier Élisabeth Cauvin goes, out again to the street. She lifts her dress and begins to run.

  VI

  Obligation

  London – August 1736

  Thomas twists his neck to assess the crick. He cannot move his head back or to the left. It’s something that happens from time to time, which he blames on the bolster where he lays his head each night. There is only one cure he knows. It’s the
same cure he uses for everything that goes wrong with his frame. He gets out and takes a long walk. His legs always put him right.

  As it turns out, he has to stretch his legs in any case. Two birds, as the saying goes. He has an obligation he would prefer to avoid but fears he cannot. He’s expected at the house in Spitalfields where he once lived. It makes him sigh, although he does not scuff his feet. He’s not twelve anymore. He has learned that half of life is disappointment and the other half things that must be done, regardless of whether you want to or not. This is just another of the latter. It is a rare day when he is able to do what he really wants. He has neither the position nor the wealth. Once he had a bit of both, when he was still in France and married to Marguerite. Not anymore, alas. He still does not know if his old kindly wife is alive or dead. Maybe he’ll write to someone who would know, his old patron, the magistrate judge. He will write as Pichon, of course, but he can ask the judge to reply to him care of Thomas Tyrell.

  Sometimes he wonders if he should simply return to the land of his birth. Trade the kingdom of George II for that of Louis XV again. If things do not look up soon, he surely will. Would it not be wonderful if the magistrate judge would take him back? Thomas still has the letter of recommendation the jurist signed, its seal unbroken because in England it is no help. What about returning to Pichon again and giving up Tyrell? What is it gamblers say? It’s best to cut one’s losses? Well, he has lost enough on this London gambit.

  He turns right off Saint Martin’s Lane onto New Street. It’s not too many steps before he’ll be cutting across the Covent Garden. The prospect lifts his spirits. The market square is always a spectacle, a circus of humanity. He tests his neck again. Yes, it might already be a little better than it was.

  “Save your clothes. Get your props and pins.”

  Thomas takes in the tall, thin fellow crossing his path. The man is selling everything to do with clotheslines. That strikes Thomas as humorous. The fellow would be wise to clip on a few pins to attach the clothes on his back to the very lines he sells. A good wind might blow the hawker himself away. Thomas lightly shakes his head to show the man he is not interested. The hawker nods to show his appreciation to Thomas for not pretending he doesn’t exist.

  His thoughts go back again to what he is walking toward. It will be the first time in twelve months he has made a pilgrimage to the house round the corner from the All Saints Church in Spitalfields. As was the case a year ago, he is responding to an invitation. Invitation? Insistence would be a better term. That first time, three days after the baby was born, Gallatin laid it on the line.

  “Thomas, you’re my oldest friend and we’re listing you as the parrain. The boy will be named after you. We want you to come and sign the register.”

  Now, twelve months later, Gallatin insists again. “Your godson, our little Tommy, he’s turning one.”

  Not to go would be the equivalent of saying adieu to Gallatin and their well-travelled friendship. They have both invested too much in their closeness to let it wither away now.

  Thomas looks up to watch two carpenters putting up a scaffold at the end of King Street. He wonders if they, and all who toil in the building trades, take pride in what they put up, or if it is simply how they put bread on their table. More likely the latter. Back when he was a clerk in a law office, it would be difficult to say he took pride in all the copy work he was obligated to do.

  Obligations. The way of the world, are they not?

  A racket fills his ears. The hundred stalls of Covent Garden are starting to surround him with their roar. Everywhere are hawkers’ cries and buyers’ chatter. Usually an annoyance, right now Thomas thinks it sounds good. It helps distract him from recollections he wants to dim and fade.

  “Oranges sweet,” sings out a girl in tattered clothes.

  Thomas steps back to let her pass. Not far away, a short, round man grins between his shouts about his tray of fresh baked buns. On the next aisle a matron dressed in bright red says her strawberries deserve to be savoured and with cream. Another woman farther back, big as a barge, has both a tray and a backpack of wicker. Sticking out from both are toys to amuse a child.

  “Pinwheels, toy boats and swords!” she cries.

  Of course, Thomas thinks. Gallatin and H. will be expecting him to bring a gift, a gift for this boy child of theirs. H. Yes, it is better, as if she were someone other than the Hélène he used to know. H. Gallatin’s H.

  But where was he? Oh yes, a wooden sword. He had one as a boy back in Vire. His godson may be too small to wield it now, being only one, but he will learn in time. A weapon, even as a toy, comes in handy in this world.

  As he goes round the fruit and vegetable sellers’ stalls with their dark green awnings, en route to reach the seller with the wooden toys, he recalls another woman who was once in his life, now gone. Élisabeth Cauvin was not at The Bell when he went looking for her, and the innkeeper said he’d seen her march out the front door with her things in the early hours. It was only last week that Thomas heard from Cleland, who’d heard from Fanny, that Élisabeth had taken herself to Bristol for a time, before moving back to the continent, to Amsterdam. More than a few times, Thomas has thought of going to the Dutch port to see if he might find her there.

  “What might have been,” he mumbles aloud.

  “Sorry, sir.” It is the large woman with the wooden toys.

  “Might I have a look at the sword?” Thomas holds out his right hand.

  “For a boy, sir?”

  “It is.”

  “The perfect gift, the absolute perfect gift.”

  “He is only one.”

  “No matter, sir, they grow into it. They do. Mark my words.”

  Thomas inclines his head. Isn’t that exactly what he was saying to himself, only a moment ago?

  ——

  Accompanied by Monique de Vins, her dearest London confidante, Jeanne-Marie Barbe Le Prince, the happily annulled and then widowed Madame de Beaumont, is on her way to visit an aged friend in his confinement. A welcome ritual it is. For Jeanne-Marie believes with all her heart that the world depends on such kindnesses. The poor man, a fellow Norman and an écuyer no less, is approaching eighty and finds himself in the Fleet Street prison, near St. Paul’s. His crime was that of being weak, in his case for making promises at gambling tables he could not keep. Jeanne-Marie insists on helping him, by depositing a few coins in the man’s outstretched hand through the window grille on the Farringdon Street side every Sunday. Her reward is the man’s nobly expressed gratitude, nothing more than that. Thankfully, Monique no longer quibbles about her charity. Her good friend has slowly but surely come to share Jeanne-Marie’s point of view. All it took, it proves yet again, was an example worthy of emulation.

  Coming into the Covent Garden market Jeanne-Marie is struck by the thick bank of billowing clouds looming above the buildings on the other side of the square. Perfectly flat on the bottom and inky dark most of the way up. Only the puffy tips are shining white. How far up the great bank reaches. A veritable mountain in the sky. She doubts any painter could capture the sky exactly as it has painted itself. It is majestic.

  “Oh, look at those clouds,” says Monique de Vins. “We are going to get caught. We should turn round, Jeanne-Marie.”

  “No, no,” Madame reassures. “They will blow over. Or at least wait until after we have made our visit. You’ll see.”

  “I … I’m not so sure. They are very dark.”

  Madame does not reply too quickly. She wants to show she is taking into account what her friend has said. So she pauses to look around the bustling market square. It is, as usual, as noisy as a barnyard at feeding time. She nods at a short, wide man who is yelling about his fresh baked buns. And Jeanne-Marie sends a smile to a tall, thin woman with a display of bright-coloured auriculas. The stand with three levels of the happy flowers in clay pots makes a gay theatre. Fa
rther still Jeanne-Marie pretends to consider the hawker’s claim that her strawberries are the best in England, deserving of the best cream.

  At length Madame de Beaumont turns back to Monique. “No, I think Monsieur would be very sad if we did not come. It is Sunday, and he is expecting us.”

  “He will understand when he sees the rain. Besides, no one always gets what they want, do they?”

  Madame de Beaumont gives her friend an understanding smile. It is the same she presents to any of her students who do not grasp an explanation the first time. “Monique, the poor fellow has no one else who visits him. If there’s a shower, we do have our parasols.”

  Madame de Beaumont sees her friend turn a suspicious eye to the sky above.

  “If that opens up,” Monique says with a grim expression, “our parasols will not shelter us. They are for shade.”

  Jeanne-Marie clasps Monqiue by the hand. “A little faith, de grâce.”

  “Faith will not keep us dry.”

  “We’ll see.”

  Madame de Beaumont hears a rolling rumble of thunder, and has no choice but to look up. The clouds are even thicker and darker than they were a few moments ago. Monique might be right. It does look like it will rain.

  “Hear that?” taunts her friend.

  “Let’s hurry. It’s only another quarter hour to the prison. Shorter if we hurry. We need not stay long.” Her gaze is straight ahead to the narrow lane that leads to Tavistock Street.

  “Jeanne-Marie?”

  “Yes, Monique.” She does not let her impatience show. “What is it?”

  “That man,” Monique says, voice down. She makes Jeanne-Marie come close to hear what she has to say.

  “What man is that?” Jeanne-Marie indulges her friend.

  “Dark brown coat. Child’s wooden sword in hand.”

  Jeanne-Marie takes in the man as Monique suggests. It is amusing to see a grown man with a child’s toy dangling in his hand. “A father, I suppose. What of him?”

  “He is familiar. Remember the handsome man we met on the hill paths of Bath. Do you recall? He spoke to us in French.”