White Horses

by Joan Wolf

  The dog’s ears went up and she lifted her head.

  He brought it over to her so she could smell it, then he took it to the mattress on the floor and laid it down. “Look. For you.”

  Colette’s ears flicked again, then she got her feet out from under her and stood up. She jumped off the bed and went over to the bone and picked it up in her mouth. She headed back toward the bed.

  “No!” Leo said. He put a hand on her collar and guided her back to the mattress. He patted it invitingly. “Here. You can lie down here.”

  She stood for a moment, the bone in her mouth, and then she stepped on the mattress. Gabrielle watched with interest as the dog walked around it. Then, abruptly, she sank down onto her belly, stretched her legs out in front of her to take hold of the bone, and began to chew.

  “See?” Leo said triumphantly. “That wasn’t so hard.”

  “What are you going to do when the bone is gone and she tries to get back on the bed?”

  “Take her back to the mattress,” he said. “She’s a smart dog. She’ll soon get the idea.”

  “Well, this is your idea, so you can be the one to get up with her,” Gabrielle said. “I don’t feel like having my sleep constantly disturbed.”

  “I’ll take care of her,” Leo said. “All that’s needed is some firmness.”

  Gabrielle went over to pet her dog. “Poor little girl,” she said.

  Leo snorted. “It seems to me she is a very lucky little girl. She has a nice warm room to sleep in, and a nice soft mattress.”

  “Greyhounds need to sleep on something soft,” Gabrielle said. “They have so little flesh on their bones.”

  “Are you ready to get undressed?” Leo asked.

  “Yes.”

  They performed their nightly ritual.

  Once she was in bed, Gabrielle had to admit that it was much more comfortable without the dog. But Leo was still too close for comfort.

  In fact, without Colette to distract her, she seemed to be even more aware of Leo than usual.

  He leaned up to blow the candle out. This hotel did not have lamps in the bedrooms. “Ready?” he asked.

  She looked at him. His hair hung loosely over his forehead and a stubble of beard had come back from his morning’s shave. He was so beautiful.

  “Yes,” she said. “You can blow out the candle.”

  The room became dark and Gabrielle felt the mattress heave as Leo settled himself to sleep. “This is wonderful,” he said. “I can stretch my legs out.”

  He sounded as if he was lying on his back.

  She said before she thought, “You were certainly interested in what Jeanne had to say tonight.”

  “She got a hold of my ear and she wouldn’t let go,” he replied.

  “What was she talking about?”

  “A lot of nothing.”

  Gabrielle scowled into the darkness. He wasn’t being very helpful. “I think we might have a problem with Jeanne,” she said. “Henri is concerned that she is flirting with Franz and that Pierre is angry.”

  He moved and it sounded as if he had turned toward her. The sound of Colette attacking her bone came from over by the wall. “She hardly said a word to Franz to-night,” he said.

  “That’s because Henri made sure to sit between Franz and Jeanne, and she was sitting next to you.”

  “I think it’s a lot of fuss over nothing, Gabrielle,” he said impatiently. “If Pierre is annoyed with the way Jeanne is behaving, let him handle it.”

  “I don’t know why he says nothing. He just sits there and looks like murder. Take a look at his face the next time we’re all together and you’ll see.”

  “Are you really worried about this?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then talk to Jeanne.”

  “I tried to. She told me she was a woman for men, not for other women. And she told me to mind my own business.”

  She thought she heard a smile in his voice as he replied, “Maybe she’s right. Don’t borrow trouble, Gabrielle. When Pierre has had enough, he’ll rein her in.”

  “Perhaps…” But Gabrielle was not so sure. For some reason, Pierre seemed to be handcuffed by Jeanne.

  “She tried to flirt with Mathieu,” she said indignantly. “He told me that she said he was handsome and that she bet all the girls loved him. She made him very uncomfortable.”

  “Mathieu is nineteen years old. He’s going to have to get used to dealing with women sometime.”

  The warmth from his body was radiating toward her. It was so cozy in this bed, just the two of them.

  I wonder what it would be like to be really married to Leo.

  “You’re no help at all,” she said crossly.

  “You can’t seriously want me to lecture Jeanne?” he asked.

  “Of course not!”

  “Then let it alone, Gabrielle. You’re not the mother of this circus—you’re the owner. All of these people are grown-ups. Let them figure out their own problems.”

  She thought about that. “Perhaps you’re right.”

  She heard him yawn. “Of course I’m right. Now, try to get some sleep. We have a long drive ahead of us tomorrow.”

  She sighed. “All right.”

  She drifted off to sleep to the sound of Colette chewing on her bone.

  At about one in the morning, Colette tried to get on the bed. She landed with a thump on Gabrielle’s feet and Gabrielle said foggily, “Leo?”

  “No, no, Colette,” he said firmly. Gabrielle heard him get out of bed. “Come with me.”

  Evidently, Colette resisted, for Leo repeated more loudly, “Come.”

  After a moment, the dog gave way and jumped off the bed. “Good girl,” said Leo. “Come over here.”

  “Can you see?” Gabrielle asked.

  “I’m going to open this shade,” he said. He did so and a little fight from the street lamp outside illuminated the room. Leo walked Colette to the mattress. “Lie down,” he said. “There’s a good girl.”

  Colette stood there looking at him.

  Leo patted the bed. “Lie down.”

  Slowly she lowered herself to the mattress.

  “Good girl.” He rubbed her in front of her tail. “Now, stay.”

  He went back to the bed and got in next to Gabrielle.

  Colette stayed where she was for a minute and then she got up.

  “No,” Leo said strongly. “Stay.”

  She looked at him, evidently trying to figure this out. Then she lowered herself to the mattress again.

  “Good girl,” Leo told her.

  Gabrielle went back to sleep.

  At two o’clock, Colette tried to get back into bed again and Leo repeated his training session.

  “This would be much easier if we could tie her for a night,” he muttered to Gabrielle as he got back into bed.

  “You’re not tying my dog,” Gabrielle said indignantly.

  “That’s what I thought,” he said.

  At four o’clock, Colette made one last try to get back into the bed. Leo groaned as he got up.

  “This was your idea,” Gabrielle said. “We would have slept much better if we’d left her where she was.”

  “No, we wouldn’t,” he replied. “Once she realizes she has to sleep on the mattress, we’ll be much better off. She’ll be more comfortable, too. She can stretch out better than she could on the bed with us in her way.”

  They slept until six, when Gabrielle woke and saw the daylight coming in under the shade. She slipped out of bed and went to the window to peek out.

  No rain.

  Thank goodness, she thought. It was awful to travel in the rain.

  Colette’s tail thumped as she saw Gabrielle up. She went to pet the dog. “Did you sleep all right, sweetheart?” she whispered. “Did that big bad man push you out of your bed?”

  Colette’s tail thumped harder.

  Leo was still sleeping deeply. Gabrielle wanted to stand there and look at him, but she forced herself to walk away and get h
er clothes from the closet. She dressed quickly and took Colette out for her morning visit to the stable yard. Then she took her to the kitchen for her morning meal.

  Pierre was sitting in the dining room drinking a cup of coffee when she went in with Colette at her heels. Gabrielle went to join him.

  “Good morning, Pierre. Did you sleep well?”

  He just looked at her. Then he grunted an affirmative.

  Gabrielle sought for something to say. Pierre had always been quiet, but he had been pleasant. He didn’t look pleasant this morning. He looked grim.

  “It looks as if it will be a nice day,” Gabrielle said brightly. “Good traveling weather.”

  Pierre grunted again.

  She tried a different tack. “The band is sounding very good this year. Jeanne has replaced Philippe very well.”

  He said nothing.

  “I was a little dismayed when I heard that we were losing Philippe, but you helped us out with that problem. Jeanne is a very good musician.”

  Pierre stood up. “If you’ll excuse me, Gabrielle, I have some things I must do.”

  Gabrielle watched as his sturdy body disappeared out the door. She looked over at his coffee cup. It was still half full.

  Colette stood up as the maid came into the room with Gabrielle’s croissants. The dog was so tall that her head topped the table and she looked with eagerness at the bread in Gabrielle’s hand. Gabrielle gave her a bit and broke off a piece for herself as she sipped her coffee.

  Mathieu came into the room and joined his sister at the table.

  “You look tired,” he said to her.

  She started to tell him about Leo’s pushing Colette out of the bed, then stopped. The less she said to Mathieu about her sleeping arrangements with Leo, the better, she thought.

  “I’m all right,” she said instead.

  “Do you think Leo meant what he said last night about teaching me algebra?” Mathieu asked anxiously.

  “I’m sure he did. I don’t think Leo says things he doesn’t mean.”

  “I’ve always thought it would be wonderful to go to university and learn real mathematics,” Mathieu said. “Perhaps Leo can even recommend some books for me.”

  Gabrielle looked at her brother. “You wouldn’t want to leave the circus, would you, Mathieu?”

  “For a chance to go to university, I would,” Mathieu replied. “But I know that’s impossible. It will be great just to work with Leo.”

  Gabrielle felt terrible. She had been scheming for Albert; it had never occurred to her that Mathieu might have needs of his own. He had always seemed content with circus life.

  I can’t lose the both of them, she thought a little wildly. It would be awful to try to run the circus all by myself.

  She forced a smile. “I’m sure that Leo will be able to recommend some books.”

  At that moment, Leo himself came in the door.

  “I didn’t even hear you get up,” he said to Gabrielle as he joined them at their table.

  Colette’s tail started to wag as Leo came up to them. He petted her and told her she was a good girl.

  Gabrielle gave the dog some more of her croissant.

  “I was talking to Pierre this morning—or I was trying to,” she said to Leo and her brother. “That is a man with a lot on his mind.”

  “Remember what I said last night, and let him work his own problems out,” Leo said.

  “Good advice,” Mathieu said. “Gabrielle tries to help people too much.”

  “Is that a bad thing?” she asked indignantly.

  “Sometimes it can be,” Leo said.

  She could feel spots of color in her cheeks. “I think it’s better to care about people too much than not enough.”

  “It may be good for the people you care about, but it isn’t necessarily good for you,” Leo said.

  “That is the most cynical thing I’ve ever heard,” Gabrielle said indignantly. “I think what God wants most from us is that we have a kind heart. If you’re always thinking about yourself and your own feelings, you become a very selfish person.”

  Leo was looking at her. “Sometimes people can do things that are unforgivable,” he said flatly.

  She shook her head. “I don’t believe that. The whole idea of Christianity is that everyone can be forgiven.”

  “By God, maybe,” Leo said. “People are not always so large-hearted.”

  “That’s true, but if we are Christians we are supposed to try.”

  Leo stood up. “Well, this is a very interesting conversation, but I have some things I must do. I’ll see you at the wagon.”

  Gabrielle looked at his half-finished cup of coffee.

  “That’s the second man who’s walked away from me this morning,” she said to Mathieu. “Is my conversation that bad?”

  He said seriously, “I think something you said may have touched Leo on a sore spot.”

  She thought about what Leo had said. Sometimes people can do things that are unforgivable. What did that mean?

  Nineteen

  Their trip to Alencon took them along the main north- south road in Normandy. The sun was shining brightly and the plowed fields stretched, rich and brown, on either side of the road. Traffic consisted mainly of farm wagons, with an occasional trap taking a husband and wife into a local town to shop. There was no sign of the French army.

  The circus stopped for lunch at Bernay, at a cafe set next to a pond. The sun had warmed the day up considerably, and they took their lunch outside, where they could watch the ducks swimming around the pond.

  Franz threw some bread to one of the ducks and they all rushed to cluster around the diners.

  “Not a good idea, Franz,” Henri said. “We are being attacked.”

  “They’re cute,” Jeanne said. She threw a piece of bread to the duck that was nearest to her.

  “It looks like they’re used to being fed by diners here,” Gabrielle said.

  Colette had been investigating another corner of the patio and now she came cantering up to the table. The ducks scattered when they saw the big dog.

  “Good girl, Colette,” Leo said.

  “Surely you’re not scared of a few ducks, Leo?” Carlotta said with amusement.

  “I just want to eat my meal in peace,” Leo returned. “Those ducks looked ready to pick the food right out of my mouth.”

  “I wonder if we’ll be stopped by the army again?” Luc said.

  Gabrielle stared at him. He was looking at Leo.

  “I certainly hope we’re not,” she said. “Being searched is very time-consuming.”

  Luc seemed to ignore her. “They’re searching for English gold. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you, Leo?”

  Gabrielle’s heart began to thump. Mon Dieu, she thought. Luc suspects Leo!

  Leo met Luc’s gaze steadily. “No,” he said. “I wouldn’t.”

  Luc looked skeptical.

  “I hope Vincent gets us a different hotel from the one we had last year,” Antonio said. “I didn’t like that one at all. It was dirty.”

  Gratefully, Gabrielle turned to Antonio. “I told him to get us something different even if he had to book us into more than one place. I agree with you about last year’s hotel.”

  “You played Alencon last year also?” Leo asked.

  Henri nodded. “But we’ll be taking a new route after Le Mans. Last year we went to Angers. This year we’re going to Tours.”

  “We haven’t been to Tours in a couple of years,” Carlotta said.

  Luc said, “Tours is directly on the route south, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Gabrielle said briefly. “We decided to do the southern route this year.”

  Luc didn’t reply but once more he looked at Leo with a knowing look in his eyes.

  Gabrielle felt her heart sink.

  They were ten miles outside Alengon when two soldiers pulled in front of the wagons on the road and raised their hands to stop them. Leo obediently pulled up. The wagons behind t
hem rolled to a stop as well.

  The two soldiers were young and Gabrielle gave them her best smile. “Is there something wrong?” she asked.

  “We have orders to search all suspicious wagons on this road, madame,” the soldier closest to the wagon said.

  “Suspicious? Mon Dieu, what is suspicious about us? We are a circus!” Gabrielle said.

  Leo looked on and said nothing.

  “You have a great many wagons, madame.” the soldier said. “It would be easy for you to conceal something.”

  “Don’t tell me this is about that gold?” Gabrielle said. “Let me tell you, we have already been stopped and thoroughly searched, Sergeant. It happened before we got to Rouen. They made a mess of our wagons. I hope that is not going to happen again.”

  “I am sorry, madame. My orders are to search—”

  Gabrielle cut in, “Yes, yes, I hear you. But we have already been searched, Sergeant. By a lieutenant with a great hook of a nose.”

  Both soldiers faces lit with recognition. “That must have been Avelard,” one of them said. They nodded at each other in agreement.

  “All right,” the sergeant said. “If Avelard searched you, then you must be all right. You may proceed.”

  Gabrielle had her hands folded in her lap to keep them from shaking. Once more she bestowed upon the two soldiers the glory of her smile. “Thank you,” she said. “We are running a little late and another search would have been a great inconvenience.”

  “Perhaps we will come to your show,” the sergeant said.

  “Just tell the ticket taker that you are my guests,” Gabrielle said generously. “I am Gabrielle Robichon, the owner.”

  “Thank you, madame.” Both young soldiers smiled happily.

  “Bonjour.” Gabrielle said, and Leo put the horses into motion.

  When they were out of earshot, Leo said, “Thank God for your smile.”

  “It wasn’t my smile, it was the mention of Avelard that did it,” she returned.

  “Your smile didn’t hurt, believe me.”

  Her hands were still shaking. “How many more times do you think we’ll be stopped?”

  “We’re on the main road,” he said. “I think we’ll be stopped again. At least this time they didn’t tumble to the fact that I’m English.”