A Desperate Fortune

by Susanna Kearsley

  The photographs, all on their own, shone a light on the things that Luc valued. They crossed generations but focused on parents and large groups of children at picnics and sports days and holidays, everyone gathered in much the same way we were now in Luc’s dining room. It was a cozier room than the one at Claudine’s house. The table was neither as grand nor as long, and the food rather simpler than dishes Denise might have made, but the chicken was nice and the wine tasted good and the warm conversation was easy to follow and I felt included and very content.

  “Don’t you dare,” Luc was telling Denise, though his grin undermined his own warning. “The boy is too young to be hearing these stories.”

  “He already knows you’re not perfect.”

  “Yes, but you don’t need to tell him all the crazy things I did. He might try doing them himself.”

  Claudine said, “Luc, that drawing in the gold frame, just behind you. Is that new? I don’t remember ever seeing it before.”

  He nodded, taking up the wine bottle to refill all our glasses. “Yes, it was my Christmas present from my father’s aunt. She’s moving house and getting rid of many of her things, and she remembered how I always loved this drawing, and the story that went with it. But that,” he said to Noah, “is another story you’re too young to hear.”

  “Why?” Noah asked.

  “It’s very tragic, very sad.”

  Claudine asked, “Who’s the man?”

  Luc told her, “Jean-Philippe de Sabran, the uncle of my great-grandfather’s great-grandfather. He fought in the Seven Years’ War, in America.”

  Noah had leaned forward in his chair, expectant, waiting for the story, but Luc stopped it there.

  “Papa!”

  “There’s no ‘Papa’ about it. That’s all I can tell you till you’re older,” Luc explained. “Except to say there’s a museum in New York that keeps his sword in a display, and this”—he nodded to the portrait—“this was drawn by a young woman, an American, who loved him.”

  Claudine was looking at the drawing. “It’s really well done, for an amateur artist.”

  I followed her gaze and I had to agree. It was beautifully rendered in ink that had faded to sepia tones on the plain ivory paper, and had a partly unfinished look as though the artist had been more intent on capturing the moment than the details.

  Claudine said, “It’s very lifelike. I would know this man, I think, were I to pass him on the street. And I would like him. She is showing us his character, his heart, the girl who drew this, and by doing that she lets us see her heart, as well. I can believe she loved him.”

  When she said that, I lost interest in the portrait and instead began a study of Claudine. She looked, as always, effortlessly elegant in simple black, her dark hair with its strands of tinsel gray caught back and coiled at her nape to hold its more strong-minded waves contained. I found her difficult to read. She never seemed to show the obvious expressions on her face that let me know how she was feeling. When she smiled it was a smaller movement that might have been sad or insincere or truly happy, I was never sure. I wondered now, from what she’d said about the artist showing us her heart, whether Claudine let her own emotions show more clearly through the photographs she took. And that in turn made me reflect upon the portrait I had seen of Alistair in Claudine’s upstairs studio, and what that picture had to say about her private feelings.

  I found it an interesting thought, so absorbing I wasn’t aware I’d withdrawn myself from the whole conversation until it slowly filtered through my consciousness that plates were clinking as Luc cleared them. I blinked hard to free my senses from the fog that always followed hyperfocus. If Jacqui had been with me she would have brought me right out of it when she first saw me beginning to slide, as she always did, saying my name before anyone noticed. I had to admit this was nicer, though, and much less jarring to simply come out of it all on my own.

  “You were daydreaming,” Noah informed me. He turned to his father and asked, “Can we pull out the kings now?”

  I’d never been part of this ritual as an adult. At my neighbors’ house, because I’d been the same age as my friend Ricky, we’d both shared the distinction of being the youngest ones present, and so every year we’d dived under the table the same way that Noah did now, settling in to decide in a random way who got which piece of the cake.

  Claudine, as the eldest, was put into service as cake cutter, setting each piece on its plate and then waiting till Noah called out from below to say who should receive it. Even without Denise’s mark on top, the piece meant for Noah was simple to spot from the gleam of the porcelain fève, clearly visible, stuck at the filling’s cut edge. Claudine deftly maneuvered the plates to make certain that piece went to Noah, but when he scrambled up into his seat again and saw the cake upon his plate, he didn’t look as happy as I’d thought he would. In fact, his eyebrows drew together slightly in a frown.

  It didn’t last. He quickly pointed at the wall behind his father’s head and said to me, “See, there’s a picture of me as a baby.”

  I turned my head to look, and when I did, he switched our plates.

  I was aware of him doing it—he had to lean across the table and there was a fair amount of clinking—but I could also see everyone smiling, and Denise winked and made a great production of directing my attention to another of the photographs, by which I understood I was supposed to make believe I hadn’t seen the switch. I did my best to play along, and when I “found” the fève and feigned surprise, the look of joy on Noah’s face made all of my pretending seem worthwhile.

  The paper crown they brought for me to wear brought memories with it: me at six years old, or seven maybe, sitting at the table at my neighbors’ at Epiphany, the Mickey Mouse fève on my plate, the foil card crown upon my head…

  “You have to choose your king,” Claudine said.

  There were only two males at the table, and it really was no contest. Luc might be the one I fancied, but his son was sitting looking at me, leaning slightly forward in his chair the way my cousin did whenever she was waiting with impatience, or with hope.

  So I chose Noah.

  Luc seemed fine with that. He told his son—and he was smiling when he said it, so I knew he wasn’t actually resentful—“I thought I was Sara’s favorite.”

  “I’m sure she likes you, Papa,” Noah reassured his father, using both hands to adjust his own gold paper crown, the handmade match to mine. “But like I told you, I’m the one who helps her best.”

  Chapter 26

  Soon shall my voice be heard no more, and my footsteps cease to be seen.

  —Macpherson, “Fingal,” Book Five

  Lyon

  February 21, 1732

  There was no want of helping hands to meet them on the quayside at Lyon. The diligence d’eau had barely settled in its berth along the river wall when it was all but overrun by men who came aboard with the audacity of pirates and proceeded to behave as though they had already been engaged as porters for the baggage. One, a burly man with a red waistcoat, took the merchant’s luggage in his meaty hands and started off at such a pace the merchant had to scurry to keep up with him, and two younger and more wiry men began to jostle one another for the trunk and bags belonging to the mother with her daughters. But Thomson kept hold of his deal-box and Mr. MacPherson took charge of their two portmanteaus and the case with his long gun inside, and his unsmiling face and unyielding appearance proved more than enough to discourage the would-be assistants from seeking to deal with him.

  With so many cases slung over his shoulders he should have looked heavily laden, but he stood as straight as he always did, moving with ease. In three strides he crossed the broad plank that the boatman had laid from the deck of the diligence onto the quay. Mary, walking behind him, was not so sure-footed and wobbled somewhat at the end, but she quickly recovered and clutching Frisque close to her
chest stepped off onto the quay without needing MacPherson’s help.

  It was a foolish thing, really, to shrink from his touch. And decidedly rude to ignore the hand he held outstretched, but she felt less than civil towards him today, and with cause: he had spoiled her chances this morning of passing her letter as planned to the younger of the frilly sisters. Although the young woman had accepted Mary’s invitation after breakfast to come out and walk with her and Frisque, their freedom had been limited by Thomson’s warning to stay within sight of the inn, and by his assigning MacPherson to go with them for their protection.

  The Scotsman, to Mary’s eyes, hadn’t seemed keen to leave Thomson alone when the Englishman might yet be coming behind them, but there had been no room to argue that morning, not with the younger sister understanding Spanish and MacPherson being kept by his disguise from speaking English, so he’d had to merely frown and rise reluctantly and go along while Thomson had advised them, “There are rogues aplenty in a town like this, and never can young women be too guarded.”

  Mary might have disagreed with that. She’d felt distinctly over-guarded strolling in the younger sister’s company outside the inn along the river, with MacPherson walking just behind them. He had kept two paces back and been discreet, but she’d been ever conscious of his watchful presence, and she’d known there’d be no hope of handing off her letter to the younger woman without him observing it. Still, she knew MacPherson, even if he understood a word or two of French, had not the depth of understanding to be privy to their conversation, so she had made use of that. And as she’d hoped, the younger sister had found Mary’s claim of thwarted love for the Chevalier de Vilbray to be romantic.

  “Oh, you poor thing,” she’d told Mary. “Can your brother not be reasoned with?”

  “My brother,” Mary had replied, “is quite a different man from what he seems, I am afraid.”

  “What will you do?”

  “I have a letter.” She had felt it in her pocket as she’d spoken, though she’d dared not draw it forth. “I have poured my very heart into it, and if I can but find some means to send it from Lyon, at least my gallant chevalier will be assured I’ve not forgotten him.”

  “Why, I can send the letter for you.”

  “Would you? That would be most kind.” She’d tried to sound surprised, as though this had not been her own design from the beginning. “I would give it to you now, but I do fear señor Montero would inform my brother.”

  Glancing back, the younger sister had remarked to Mary, “He is not a man, I’ll warrant, who would know or understand the agonies of love.”

  The devil had pricked mischief into Mary’s heart then, and she’d said, “Oh, you are wrong. He loved a woman once with all his being, but…” She’d paused then, and pretended great reluctance to divulge the tale, but actually she’d used the pause to call to mind the details of Madame d’Aulnoy’s fairy tale about the Russian prince who’d sought the fabled Isle of Happiness, where lived a magic princess and her court. Of course they fell in love and lived in perfect happiness three hundred years, until the prince had ruined things, which seemed the perfect story to reshape to fit a man such as MacPherson.

  “But?” The younger woman’s eagerness to hear the story had shone in her eyes, and Mary had obliged, then added:

  “It ended most unhappily. This woman had a beautiful estate, where they might both have lived in comfort and contentment all their lives, but he was restless there and went to seek his fame upon the battlefield, and so chose honor over love.” She’d paused again, for in the fairy tale the Russian prince was killed, but her invented story obviously could not have that ending. “When he finally did return, he found the gates of her estate forever barred to him.”

  “Is that why he has come away from Spain and into France?”

  Mary had nodded and had neatly turned the tale back to her purpose. “And I fear the same might happen if I cannot reassure my dear chevalier that he has not lost my love. If I can pass the letter to you while I’m traveling, I will. If not, perhaps we could contrive to meet tomorrow, at the great cathedral in Lyon. The one that was described to us.”

  “The one with the celestial clock? Of course. Maman is keen to see it anyway, it will be no great trouble to persuade her we should go there. But your brother…”

  “My brother will surely permit me to hear the Mass.”

  Frisque had concluded his business and lifting his nose from the ground sniffed the wind with a wag of his tail before turning to lead them all back by the way they had come, trotting cheerfully past the tall Scotsman who’d stopped for the moment to let them pass by him, and then had turned with them and fallen in step at their backs as before.

  The younger sister had frowned faintly. “I suppose it is as Maman says: we cannot know what people truly are by their appearance. I would not have guessed your brother was a tyrant. Nor would I have guessed señor Montero had endured a tragic love affair.” She’d chanced another backward glance towards MacPherson, walking with his long coat swinging and his hat pulled low. “Perhaps,” she’d said to Mary, “that is why he writes such sentimental poetry.”

  The younger woman had in truth appeared to gaze with different eyes upon MacPherson during the remainder of their journey.

  Now, as she stepped off the diligence d’eau and followed Mary’s path across the plank, she slipped her hand most willingly into the Scotsman’s, sending him a smile before she turned to shield her eyes against the lowered angle of the sun. Across the river Saône, a line of buildings stretched along the low stone wall that met the water’s edge, and in the midst of them the two square towers of a large cathedral rose with prominence. “Why, look, Maman, that must be the cathedral with the famous clock, do you not think?”

  Her mother paused in mid-negotiation with one of the would-be porters to look also, and inquiring of the boatman she received the answer that indeed it was the same cathedral.

  “Then we ought to go tomorrow,” said her daughter, adding charmingly to Mary, “Mademoiselle, will you come with us? We could meet you there at morning Mass. It would be most diverting.”

  Mary thought the invitation well delivered with a passably convincing spontaneity. She played her part and said, “It’s very kind of you to offer, but my brother may have other plans…”

  “Oh, do please let her come.” The younger woman turned a most appealing face to Thomson. “We’ll take very good care of her.”

  Thomson would make her no promise, but said, “If our schedule allows it.”

  He glanced once at Mary but she looked away. The bright River Saône, in its winding approach to the city, had given them such a romantic series of views that when they’d reached the rocky promontories standing as twin sentries to Lyon she had been sure there would be nothing else to rival that magnificence. But this came close. A bridge of several arches linked the two banks of the river like a graceful bow of stone, its reflection cast perfectly down by the glittering light of the sun that had just started slipping behind the high hill that created a picturesque backdrop for the great cathedral.

  As her means of escape, the cathedral looked promising and reassuringly near. Something she could attain.

  Mary held that thought close while they said their good-byes to the others and turned in the other direction, away from the river. The Scotsman appeared to know where he was going. The streets became a labyrinth but he took every turning in a certain and decided manner, never breaking stride but one time, when a passing horse and chaise went trotting by at speed and pressed them all into what small space they could find against the nearest wall. Frisque barked at the indignity and Mary soothed him with a soft word and a rumple of his ears, then raised her chin and squarely met MacPherson’s eyes as he glanced back. He gave them no encouragement. She merely felt his gaze rest narrowly upon her as though somehow he suspected her of insubordination. Then he turned again and led them
on, around a sharp corner and into a street where the houses seemed ancient, all crowded together like gossips, with crooked bare timbers and old mullioned windows.

  The roofs hid the sun and the street lay in shadow, and Mary prepared for the worst.

  But the middle-aged woman who opened the door to MacPherson, when he finally stopped at a threshold and knocked, had a pleasant and cheerful appearance. She welcomed them in as if they had been family. She had the complexion and hands of a woman who’d never done labor, although from her house she was clearly not noble. More likely, thought Mary, her family belonged to the merchant class.

  Inside, the house seemed much larger. The drawing room into which she promptly ushered them had been designed for the comfort of guests. There were several chairs set round the room, two with footstools, a square plush-topped table for playing at cards and a table for writing, set close by the window that faced to the street. A mirror set over the fireplace mantel was flanked by a pair of gilt sconces, each set with three candles, and to either side of the fireplace itself, recessed shelves held small porcelain trinkets. And books.

  Mary tried not to stare at the books while the woman moved past them to shutter the window.

  MacPherson had not yet stepped into the room, but had planted himself in the doorway, immovable.

  Taking no notice, the woman twitched the curtains shut as well, and said in the beautiful English of one who’d been born in that country, “I feared you might have met some misadventure, for we did expect you yesterday.”