by Carola Dunn
Felix was subdued, but he politely requested a French lesson. Miriam obliged, and again time sped past. After an hour or so spent on various subjects, he asked her to explain the French monetary system, with its confusion of deniers, centimes, sous, francs, écus, louis, and napoléons. She did her best.
“Trust the French to make it complicated,” he said in the end.
“It is, but no more so than the English system. Think of farthings, ha’pennies, pennies, shillings, crowns...”
“...Pounds and sovereigns, which are the same thing, and guineas, which are utterly illogical,” he added to the list, grinning. “I never thought of it, but it’s just as bad. Money is the root of all evil.”
“Love of money is the root of all evil,” corrected Miriam, who had, after all, attended a Christian school. “Life would be hard if we had to go back to barter.”
“It would indeed.” He frowned and said brusquely but with a hint of uncertainty, “Since Isaac is already rich, he must have an excessive love of money to want to earn more by running the Rothschilds’ errand.”
“Isaac is not rich. He is earning his living. His father was ruined by defaulting debtors.”
“Serves him right! He ruined my father.”
“Did Mr. Cohen force the earl to accept a loan?”
The question threw Felix off his stride but rallying he ignored it. “If it weren’t for him, I would not have had to work for the Government and I would not be here now.”
“Why, I thought it was patriotism that persuaded you to escort Wellington’s gold,” said Miriam with an innocent air.
He looked sheepish. “Well, of course, it’s important to the struggle against Bonaparte, though I had rather do my part fighting under Wellington than delivering his army’s pay. You surely will not claim that Isaac has any patriotic reason for being here.”
“I cannot speak for Isaac, you must ask him for yourself if he is a patriot. But don’t dare to say that I am not a loyal Englishwoman. It’s the only reason I accompanied you.”
“Rothschild is not paying you?” he asked, surprised.
“He will help us return to England, but we might have managed it without his assistance. In fact, we have friends in Bordeaux who could have arranged to smuggle us across, I daresay. The war cannot stop the wine trade, as I’m sure you are aware. Hannah, we ought to have gone first to Bordeaux, not to Paris.”
“We still could ask Monsieur Ségal, Miss Miriam, ‘stead of going on to Spain.”
“What, after I have been boasting of my patriotism? God forbid.”
Felix was honest enough to admit, “Isaac and I would find it difficult to go on without you.” He fell silent, but it was a thoughtful silence, not sullen. Miriam dared to hope.
Chapter 10
When they stopped for luncheon, Felix asked Miriam to request a private parlour. Suspecting that he wanted to talk to Isaac, as a change from blindly accusing him, she complied, but the inn was too small to afford such a luxury. Disappointed, she failed to appreciate a savoury bowl of cassoulet. By the evening he might have changed his mind again.
The team the ostlers claimed to be their best was bad enough to try anyone’s temper. However, Felix chose to regard driving the four ill-matched, balky horses as a challenge to his skill. Despite his care in nursing them along, their uneven paces caused a trace to break. Knotting a makeshift repair with the aid of a spare whip-thong, he drove on, whereupon one of the horses shed a shoe.
The next village they came to had no horses for hire so they had to stop at the smithy to have the horse reshod. Despite a generous tip, the blacksmith worked with excruciating slowness. Miriam could tell Felix’s patience, never remarkable, was wearing thin about the edges.
By the time Isaac took over the driving at the next post-house, with a comparatively superb team at his service, she had come up with a plan to restore Felix to good humour: she asked him about curricle races he had driven in. He responded with enthusiasm. Describing his victories he relived his triumph, yet he laughed at the ineptness of his losses with an attractive self-deprecation.
Miriam learned far more than she wanted to know about the team of greys he had raced to Brighton. She also learned a great deal about the carefree life he had led before his father’s debts reduced the family to straitened circumstances. The sudden change must have come as a fearful shock.
If Hannah was right about his age, he could not have been more than twenty-one when his splendid future had vanished before his eyes. No wonder he was bitter.
At present, though, he was cheerful and charming. He went on to tell her about the larks he and his friends had got up to at Cambridge. They were all laughing, even Hannah, when the berline rolled into Angoulême.
Because of the delays en route, they barely reached the town before dark. Nonetheless, Miriam managed to procure three bedchambers and a private parlour. After washing and changing-- how she was coming to despise the green silk!--Miriam went down to the parlour with a feeling of mingled optimism and dread. She was certain the evening was going to bring a confrontation between the men. Whether the result would be positive or negative she couldn’t guess.
Felix was already in the parlour, standing at the window looking out into the night. In the moment before he noticed her arrival she contemplated the gleam of candlelight on his golden hair, his broad shoulders, the powerful muscles outlined by his clinging knit pantaloons. Obviously his duties at the Treasury left considerable leisure for exercise.
Behind her, Hannah coughed. Felix swung round. Perhaps it was wishful thinking but Miriam thought she saw a gleam of admiration in his blue eyes in the brief pause before he grinned and remarked, “It’s a bit Spartan after last night.”
His sweeping gesture took in the plain deal table, the wooden chairs that looked as if they belonged in a kitchen, the whitewashed, unornamented walls and the miserly fire in the iron grate.
“Let us hope the cuisine is less Spartan than the décor,” she said. “It’s amazing how hungry one can get doing nothing but sit in a...”
The arrival of a pair of waiters put a stop to the exchange. While they were spreading a white cloth on the table, Isaac came in. He too commented with a grin on the stark bareness of the room, in Yiddish.
Repeating in that language her desire for a good dinner, Miriam noticed that Felix was watching Isaac and herself with a wary look. She felt a sudden rush of sympathy. Not to understand what one’s companions were saying must be horridly frustrating. Maybe he thought they were talking about him, even laughing at him.
She took Isaac’s arm and tugged him across the room to join Felix by the window. In slow, precise French tailored to his understanding, she said, “Isaac had exactly the same reaction to the room as you did.”
To her relief, the gentlemen smiled at each other.
“Very different from last night,” said Isaac in equally careful French.
Felix nodded. “Oui,” was the only word he could come up with.
The trouble was, a stilted conversation in bad French was bound to make the waiters suspicious. They would expect the travelling companions, all supposedly Swiss and related to each other, to have a language in common. Then Miriam had a stroke of genius.
“While we dine,” she said loud enough to ensure the waiters’ hearing her, “we shall speak only French. It will be good practice for both of you.”
“Bong iday,” agreed Felix happily.
“Bonne idée,” Isaac echoed with better pronunciation if less enthusiasm.
Inevitably their conversation was laborious, but it was the most relaxed meal they had taken together. Their chief topic was the good, plain country fare that was set before them, the pièce de résistance being a roast goose stuffed with nothing more exotic than sage and onions. According to Felix, the expert, the wines were also good but ordinary. Laughing, Miriam and Isaac admitted they couldn’t tell the difference.
The cognac that arrived with dessert was in another class entirely. After one
sip, Felix stared at his glass in awe. “Distilled sunshine,” he said in a hushed voice.
“How fortunate that the waiters have left,” Miriam said. “You could never have translated that into French. It even looks like distilled sunshine.”
“Perfection!” He inhaled the vapours rising from the golden liquid and took another sip.
“I’ll try a drop,” said Isaac, who usually didn’t touch spirits. He reached for the bottle as Felix pushed it across the table towards him. “It must be rare indeed, if you are forced to admit that anything perfect can come out of France.”
“I’ll give the devil his due.” Felix set down his glass, his movements suddenly tensely controlled. “What about you? Do you consider the French enemies? Are you here because you are an Englishman or because Rothschild is paying you?”
Isaac’s long, slender hand halted an inch from the bottle, poised there for an instant, then withdrew, his movements as precise and taut as Felix’s. “I work for Nathan Rothschild. I am here because he sent me. But I am glad of the chance to help England and I had rather lose my job than do anything to harm her. My family arrived in England half a century before the House of Hanover. Do you consider the Prince Regent an Englishman?”
“Well, of course.” Though he could hardly say anything else, Felix sounded vaguely doubtful.
Miriam was about to intervene when she caught Hannah’s admonitory eye and subsided.
“Do you suspect your Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen of owing allegiance to the new King of Rome?” Isaac went on with increasing passion. “Or of wanting to fight for his father, whom the Pope crowned as Emperor?”
“I know two or three fellows in the army who are Papists,” Felix conceded. “They want to fight Napoleon as badly as I do.”
“You do? Then why are you not a soldier?”
Felix flashed a surprised glance at Miriam--he must have supposed she had passed on all he had told her. She was glad she had not. She returned a look of limpid innocence and took a bite of apricot tart, scarcely tasting it. Hannah was right, they must sort it out between them.
“I have not the wherewithal to purchase a commission.” His voice was icy. “An officer’s pay is less than I can earn as my uncle’s assistant at the Treasury, while an officer has higher expenses. And I must earn my living because your father ruined mine.”
Miriam closed her eyes in chagrin. She thought she had persuaded him that the earl must have brought his ruin on himself.
She opened her eyes again, astonished, as Isaac answered quite cheerfully, “So your father was one of the few who paid his debts? Congratulations. It was noble spendthrifts who refused to pay what they owed who bankrupted my father. So now we both must work for a living. Do you enjoy your work?”
Felix glared at him. “At the Treasury? I hope I have a spirit above squabbling over pounds and pence!” Jumping up, he flung back his chair. Miriam expected him to stalk from the room without another word, but he turned to her and said stiffly, “If you will excuse me, I’d like to go and see whether the landlord will sell me some bottles of this cognac.”
With a smile she gave her permission, trying to read the welter of confused emotions on his face. At least Isaac seemed to have shaken his certitude of his own righteousness.
As the door closed behind him, Isaac remarked, “Somehow the English aristocrat is never too purse-pinched to stock his cellar.”
“I hope he has sufficient funds, and sufficient French. It’s a pity he doesn’t enjoy his work, but your arguments made him think.” Impulsively she reached out her hand to him and he took it in a warm clasp. “Thank you for not losing your temper with him.”
His grip tightened. “You are fond of him, are you not?”
“Yes. Right from the moment I first saw him he reminded me of the brother of one of my school friends.” But it was not as a brother she regarded Felix. An association of ideas sent a tingling rush of sensation up her arm from the hand that lay in Isaac’s. Caught by his dark, burning gaze, she knew for a triumphant instant that he was indeed jealous. The tingling penetrated deep within her.
Panicking, she tried to free her hand. He let go without comment.
She picked up her fork and poked at the piece of tart on her plate. Her voice sounded unnatural to her own ears as she asked, “Do you enjoy working for Nathan Rothschild?”
“As a matter of fact, I do. I didn’t fully realize it until you started questioning my regret at giving up the scholarly life, but I enjoy being out and about in the world. If I had my choice, I should join the struggle for the full emancipation of English Jews, for the right to vote and to stand for election-- and equally for the rights of Catholics and Dissenters.”
“And women?”
He laughed. “And women. I had never considered it before, but then I never before knew a woman like you.”
Feeling the red tide rising in her cheeks, she concentrated on finishing the apricot tart. “This is delicious,” she muttered. She was annoyed with herself for letting him put her out of countenance.
In all her travels, she had never before known a man like Isaac. Nor one like Felix, who returned at that moment, jubilant, with three bottles of cognac gripped by the necks in each hand.
“A real bargain,” he announced. “The town of Cognac is quite nearby and Angoulême is the centre for the brandy trade. At least, I think that’s what he said. Isaac, you haven’t tried it yet? Miriam, you must taste a drop.”
He put down his half-dozen on the table, picked up the opened bottle, and poured the amber nectar. Hannah shook her head when he offered her a glass. She frowned at her mistress, but Miriam was too delighted by Felix’s good humour to refuse.
He stood at his place and raised his glass in a carefully worded toast. “To France, and may Wellington soon drive out the Corsican usurper.”
“L’chayim!” Isaac took a sip of cognac.
“What does that mean?” Felix asked, curious but with a hint of suspicion.
“To Life. L’chayim!” Miriam took a swallow. “Aaargh...gh...gh...” Her throat was on fire. She gasped for breath, choked. Tears started from her eyes and her face flamed.
Isaac put a glass of water into her hand. She gulped from it, spluttering, feeling a fool.
Hannah was at her side, patting and soothing. “Better come upstairs, Miss Miriam. God never meant for females to drink spirits. Distilled sunshine indeed!” She snorted in disgust.
Miriam rose unsteadily to her feet. Blinking the tears away, she saw Isaac and Felix exchange a grin--the wretches were laughing at her! Very much on her dignity, she wished them good night.
As Hannah closed the door behind her, she heard Isaac say, “Like mistress, like maid,” and she remembered Hannah choking over a glass of wine at Blois.
Felix guffawed. Her embarrassment appeared to have sealed the peace between the odious pair.
Chapter 11
Nursing a headache, Isaac squinted against the brightness of the warm southern sunshine. Ahead, the road from Angoulême to Bordeaux wound between endless vineyards. Diagonal rows of stumpy plants cross-hatched every hillside, hazed with the tender green of new shoots and leaves and tendrils. Between the rows flocks of grey and white geese with orange bills honked and cackled, fattening on weeds and snails.
Isaac winced as the sound of Miriam’s gay laughter floated from the open windows of the berline behind him. He wondered how Felix contrived to be so entertaining after the quantity of cognac he had consumed last night.
He had been lively company last night, too, after the women had retired. Once his prejudices were set aside, his pomposity abandoned, he was an agreeable fellow. Isaac was glad the feud between them appeared to be over. It had been an uncomfortable situation, disquieting even--since they were forced to rely on each other in enemy territory, as Miriam had pointed out with her usual good sense.
She laughed again, a bubbling wellspring of mirth. Isaac sternly suppressed a surge of jealousy.
She had rejected hi
m once, when he was a wealthy suitor approved by her parents. Now he was a mere bank employee, while she was still heir to Aaron Jacobson’s vast fortune, despite her present shabbiness. He could not help admiring her compassion for the sick, her friendliness, her independent spirit and enquiring mind. To allow himself to dwell on the beauty that shone through the shabbiness must inevitably lead to heartbreak.
Did she know that her touch, her glance, the very sight of her made him burn with desire? He prayed his self-control had hidden his feelings from her. A second rejection would destroy him.
Again the sound of merriment floated to his ears. Felix was amusing, handsome, titled, and she had admitted to being fond of him. Struggling with waves of jealousy, Isaac reminded himself that Felix was also impoverished, and a Gentile. Though he seemed to be overcoming his distrust, he’d never consider marrying a Jewess--but if he did, would Miriam accept? They had only known each other a few days, yet circumstances had brought greater intimacy than weeks of normal social intercourse, time enough to fall in love as Isaac knew all too well.
His mind occupied with gloomy, and futile, speculation, he was taken by surprise when a flock of geese scurried through a gate onto the road a few feet in front of his leaders. He hauled desperately on the reins.
The berline jerked to a halt as the frothy tide engulfed the team’s hooves, swirling about their legs. Horses snorted and side-stepped, geese hissed and pecked and flapped their wings, feathers flew.
Isaac hadn’t the least idea what to do next. He envisioned the road heaped with squashed poultry, the carriage overturned...
“What the devil?” Felix swung open the door and ran to the horses’ heads, kicking aside gabbling geese as he went. He quickly calmed the restive team, then turned a grinning face to Isaac. “I never taught you how to deal with this particular emergency, did I? I once killed a sheep, but all these foul fowl seem to have survived. Well done.”
