“We’re almost there, you know,” he says at last. He nudges her with his elbow. “Five minutes at most.”
“Almost where?” There is surprise, not consternation, on her face.
“Soho Square. Where we’re going to.”
“No, I don’t think.” Hélène’s face is flushed. The warmth of the day is taking its toll on her.
“But it’s just up ahead. See that carriage? The one painted black with gold trim? With two horses? It’s turning into the circle that runs around the square. That’s it. That’s Soho Square. We’re almost there.”
“No,” says Hélène.
The cast of her eyes and the set of her chin tell Thomas there is no going farther on this day. The visit to Soho Square will have to wait. Which means the conversation they need to have about leaving Gallatin’s address also goes on hold.
“I’m sorry, Thomas. I see you’re disappointed. But my feet are sore. And it’s too warm. We’ll have to get a hell-cart back home.”
—
Inside the hackney coach, Hélène slides off her shoes. One at a time she caresses the soles of her feet.
She notices Thomas has gone silent. It’s how he gets when he’s angry with her. Oh well, he’ll cheer up. “What’s this area called?” she asks, just to get him speaking again.
“Leicester Field.”
“Anything special here?”
“Frederick, the Prince of Wales, lives in that house over there.” Thomas points half-heartedly.
“Are you angry with me?”
“No. Why?” His eyes sweep fleetingly over her face.
“You’re chewing your lower lip and hardly saying a thing. It gives you away.”
Thomas grimaces. It takes a moment, but he brings his eyes to meet hers. “I think you’re wrong,” he says at last.
“About?”
“Anger.”
Hélène leans all the way back in the seat on her side. “Am I now? What about the strain in your voice and on your face?”
Thomas takes a deep breath. Hélène sees that for a while at least, he’ll be keeping to himself. He has turned to the world beyond the window on his side. Hélène swings to the window on her side. Outside she sees a chestnut tree, its white billowy blossoms unfolded to their full extent. A small brown bird, a sparrow, she thinks, lands on the nearest branch. In its beak it has a twig – no, maybe it’s a length of ribbon or a brushed-out tangle from some child’s hair. The little bird must be building a nest.
“Tell me, Thomas,” Hélène says, speaking in a tone that she hopes will tell him she wants their spat over and done, “have you ever thought of having a child?”
Thomas turns to her. “A child? Un bébé?”
“That’s how they come.”
“I—” Thomas puts a hand up in the air. He squints at Hélène to see if he perhaps misunderstood.
“That’s all right. I was simply curious.” Hélène goes back to the window. The hell-cart they’re in has moved on. She can no longer see the chestnut tree or little bird.
—
They descend from the hackney in front of Christ Church. Thomas looks up to admire its most slender spire. So elegant, it seems to rise up almost to the overhanging clouds. It’s only a five-minute walk to where they live. Bah, where they live in another man’s house. Gallatin’s, not theirs. Thomas feels a weight in his chest magnify. He scuffs his shoes on the cobbles as they turn the corner onto Church Street. Why don’t things work out?
He feels Hélène touch his elbow. He looks up. There’s an expression he doesn’t recognize on her face. Clearly there’s something she wants to say. He recalls her question about having a child. Is that it? She wants him to father her a child? If so, Thomas will have to tell her he will go along only if they move into a place of their own.
“Thomas,” Hélène says, soft as wool.
But then she can say no more. A dozen laughing silk weavers are sweeping up the street from Brick Lane. Their chatter is entirely in French. Thomas pretends he is examining the brickwork and shutters of all the buildings on the street, but he is really listening in. The talk is of some newcomer recently come from northern France. What a bumpkin he is.
“Thomas.” Hélène is shaking her head.
“You know, I miss hearing and speaking French,” he says. To which he sees her gently shake her head.
Thomas examines her eyes. She really doesn’t care which language she hears or speaks. It’s just a means to an end for her. Him, he misses the nuances of ideas and expressions that can only be made in French. Her, she—
“Thomas, I—”
“Minute,” he says, pronouncing it in French. He suddenly thinks that maybe a child would not be so bad. He could be a father, a better father than the one he had. He wouldn’t force any son of his into the Church. Of course, it could be a girl. In that case, Thomas would—
Hélène grabs his sleeve. “I have something to say.”
Thomas leans back. Her tone is insisting he not talk.
“Et nous voici,” he says, surprising himself. “Chez notre cher Gallatin.”
They are standing directly in front of number five. Thomas scans the windows on every floor. There is no sign of Gallatin or the servant Polly peeking out. He returns his gaze to Hélène.
For an instant, she looks down at the cobbled street. Slowly she lifts her head. He can see that she’s worried about something. It has to be the motherhood issue she brought up. Yes, Thomas could be the father if he must.
Hélène reaches out. She takes a strand of Thomas’s wayward dark brown hair and tucks it behind his ear.
“Je t’attends, ma chère.” Thomas gestures with his hands for her to hurry up.
“You recall that Jean has a roommate, do you not?”
“Beside us, you mean? Yes. The Scot. The one on the grand tour.”
Hélène’s face shows relief. It comes out as a little laugh. “Yes, Johnson. That’s right.”
“How could I not recall? Touring Italy. Seeing the ruins. Which to Gallatin is a dream come true.”
Hélène grimaces. “Well, he’s coming back, Johnson is. A letter arrived yesterday. From Genoa. Jean passed it to me at the shop. I read it myself.”
A smile slowly comes to Thomas’s lips. Oh, he sees where this is going. “And Gallatin no longer has room for us? The Scot will want his room back?” Finally, a way out.
“Why, yes. And you don’t mind, Thomas? It seems not, by the look on your face.”
“Mind? Oh, Hélène, this is good. I’ve been thinking for a long while about just this.” He grabs hold of her shoulders and presses his lips to hers.
Hélène blinks. She moves him back. “Well, excellent. You still have a fortnight at least. So there really is no rush.”
“The sooner the better.”
Hélène’s eyes go wide. “Vraiment? Well, if you want.”
“I’ve been thinking Soho Square.” Thomas’s whole body feels like it has come alive. “That’s why in fact I wanted to show it to you today on our walk. We’ll find rooms, I promise, that are to your taste.”
“My taste?” Hélène squints at Thomas. Slowly she starts to shake her head.
“Quoi?” Thomas’s eyes and mouth start to mirror what he is seeing in her troubled look. He does not understand why she’s not as pleased as he is. “Yes, I learned that lesson in Paris years ago. You recall? You have to like our rooms. So,” he says, holding out a self-evident hand, “I will not choose them by myself.”
“Oh, Thomas.” Hélène’s eyes go watery.
Both of Thomas’s hands go up, each confused.
“I’m sorry. So sorry.” She appears to be on the verge of tears.
Thomas comes close and kisses Hélène quickly on the cheek, then slowly on each eye. He whispers, “It’ll be all right. You’ll come to prefer o
ur new place.” He leans back. He takes in her bewildered face.
“Thomas, Thomas.” Hélène rubs her eyes. She swells her chest with an intake of air. It comes back out as a rapid exhale of breath.
He summons a smile to reassure her that everything will work out.
“Thomas, it’s not we who are moving out.” She inclines her head and looks at him with sorrowful eyes. “It’s you. Only you.”
—
“I had no idea. You have to believe me.” Jean Gallatin’s earnest face and one outstretched hand implore his friend to understand that he means what he says. The two friends are striding along a rapidly darkening street.
“Of course you didn’t.” Thomas makes sure his expression is indifferent, no matter how he really feels. “Je te crois, Gallatin. I do.”
Five days ago Hélène told Thomas that she is now with the bookseller and he, Thomas, has a fortnight to move out. Over the course of those angry and disappointed days and nights Thomas has rationalized that no one has really done anything wrong. No matter how alone and apart Hélène’s betrayal makes him feel, stuck as he is in a foreign city working at a level far below where he should rightfully be, he cannot blame Jean Gallatin. Thomas never told him the truth about him and Hélène. So it’s a rough justice of sorts, where you get hoisted on your own petard. Or in this case, his own canard.
As for Hélène, she did what she’s always done. That is, she went after what’s best for her. Thomas cannot fault her for that, even though he wants to. If only it had been for a duke or an earl instead of Gallatin. That would have been better than this. Gallatin may be a friend, but after all he’s only a bookseller and a minor printer, someone no better than himself. If Thomas had only known how important it was to Hélène, he would have taught her to read himself.
“You’re sure?” asks Gallatin.
“I said so. Don’t ask again, all right?” Thomas pats the bookseller on the back.
It’s simple, really: Thomas will have to find another way to get along. He had a life without Hélène, before and after they met. He can do so again. He has already found a small apartment to move into, one that will suit him well. It’s away from Spitalfields and any chance encounters with Hélène. When he moves his things in a few days he’ll be at the far end of elbow-shaped Falconbridge Court, off Sutton Street. It’s only steps away from Soho Square, where once he thought he and—
Through curled lips Thomas blows out a jet of air.
As a cul-de-sac, Falconbridge Court should be quiet if nothing else. He’ll have ample room for his books and manuscripts. It goes without saying it will be a better place to write. No chill attic, no ex-lover living with his friend on the floor below. Two improvements there, they surely are.
“I did not ask her to say any such thing,” says Gallatin as they continue to hurry along. “You have to believe me, you must. If you want to stay on a while after Johnson returns, we’ll find a way, we will.”
“No, it’s all right.” Thomas tries a smile, but he doubts it looks right.
“I was intending to tell you about Johnson’s return. I was waiting for the right time.”
Thomas glances at his friend. He looks as worried as Thomas feels bitter. “Jean, you could not have known about the relationship we’d had.”
Gallatin slows to a stop. “Who are you talking about? You and Hélène?”
Hélène has not told him everything, obviously. Maybe not even very much. Thomas purses his lips.
“The weather has certainly cooled down.” He rolls up the collar of his greatcoat and tugs on his hat. He has to be careful with every word. “Yes, I’m talking about me and Hélène. We’ve been friends. We shared ... a bit of a history in France.”
Gallatin’s eyes take Thomas’s measure. “A history? What does that mean? Was this while you and I were friends?”
“Let’s get going. We don’t want to be late. I’m hoping Cave will be there tonight. I’m still waiting to learn what he thinks.”
“Of course. It is getting too chilly to stand.”
They pick up the pace toward the Friend at Hand.
“But back to what you just said, about you and Hélène having a history. Right from that first evening you arrived in London I could see the two of you were, well, close. Closer than one normally finds cousins, which she now tells me in fact you’re not.”
“She told you that?”
“Yes, she did. The way you two stood together, it wasn’t the way people stand who are not close. A glance between you two was sometimes communication enough.”
“Maybe sometimes it was.”
“No ‘maybe’ about it. It was. But look at you, trying to make your face a mask. You do that, Thomas, when you are unsettled and have something to hide. Do you know that about yourself, my friend?”
Thomas rolls his eyes. “S’il te plaît. I do not hide and I’m not unsettled.” He feels a surge of anger well up from deep inside. “Look, it’s good that I’m moving out. It’s good for you to be with Hélène. And I am thankful you let me stay in your house as long as you did. Merci.”
Gallatin reaches out to make contact with Thomas’s sleeve. He brings the two of them to a halt beneath a wooden sign that has a painted image of a pair of men’s riding boots. “You sound so fierce. We should talk about this.”
“What this? There is no this.”
Two women approach, each dressed in washed-out greyish fabric and each with a white cap on her head. There are no holes in their clothes, but their skirts and jackets are threadbare. Thomas concludes they are servants not whores. They’d be dolled up in one garish way or another if their affections and bodies were for sale. For amusement Thomas tips his tricorne at them as they go by. The younger servant, with as plain a face as a face can be, gives him back an embarrassed smile. The older woman tugs her by the hand and drags her on.
Gallatin waits until the women have passed. Then he turns to Thomas and grabs him by the shoulders. “Come clean. No subterfuge.”
Thomas finds a smile coming to his face. “As you wish. I’ll tell you all you want. But can we at least keep walking? Il se fait tard, mon ami.”
“All right.” Gallatin sets his chin as he begins to walk. “Go on.”
“No, you tell me what Hélène told you. I’ll add or take away as I must.”
“Well, I learned she is no cousin of yours. It was a pretence to protect her honour as you travelled into this land.”
“Correct.”
“And she was orphaned as a young girl and grew up with her uncle and aunt in Évreux.”
“So I understand.”
“And you two met in Paris.”
Thomas mumbles his accord, though with a tentative tilt of his head.
“She married a Russian tailor, who was your tailor as it happened. You were often in the shop. And when he died— what? Is there something wrong with that?”
Thomas has rolled and bitten his lips, no more than that. So, Hélène’s given Gallatin a much abridged version of her life, leaving out all the bits with Thomas as her lover over the years. And no mention of her time as a prostitute then a servant-cum-pretend-aristocrat in the service of Marguerite. Well, Thomas cannot blame her for that. He’d do the same. A life story needs to be tailored to its audience. Gallatin has accepted the story for what it is. Thomas is not about to dash her tale. Nothing to be gained in that. Who knows, someday maybe she’ll do the same for him.
“No, no, Jean. I was merely interested to hear a few details I did not know.”
“But you made a face.” Gallatin bites his lips, only much more exaggeratedly than Thomas had done.
“The sausages I had at noon, perhaps?”
“Well, Hélène says you came to the Russian’s funeral and offered your condolences. Then a few weeks later you were back in the shop. That was when you suggested the two of you might travel
together to London. For the added safety and convenience that would bring.”
Thomas does admire Hélène’s ability to shape a simple tale. She understands that the trick is less what you put in than what you leave out. Let the listener fill in the gaps. “There is a little something I could add. One day in the tailor shop – Hélène used to help out the Russian – she was looking especially triste. I asked her what was wrong. Everyone knew Pierre was ill by then. She didn’t want to tell me at first, but I insisted. At last she said she was mulling over what she would do if her husband’s illness took him away. I happened to mention that I had a friend, a bookseller, in London who wrote of his satisfaction with England. C’était toi, Gallatin.”
Thomas sees that Jean Gallatin is delighted to have been part of Hélène’s story so early on.
Thomas continues. “I was bold. I asked her if she had ever thought of changing lands. Like Pierre, her husband, had once done. And like my friend, the bookseller. She replied that she had, back before she was wed. She said she’d once met some English travellers in an inn. Those various influences gave her a notion that someday she too would like to cross the Manche. To see what the other side was like.”
“She did not mention that.”
“Non?” queries Thomas. He hunches his shoulders. It would have been something if Hélène had told Gallatin a story Thomas has just made up.
“But tell me one thing, Thomas. Were you not married at that time? To Marguerite Salles? How could you speak to Hélène about leaving France when you had a wife?”
Thomas feels his eyes flicker. His mouth loses its easy rest. “Ah oui. Marguerite. Oui, oui, Marguerite. Yes, she had just died. It was around the same time as Hélène’s tailor husband’s death. So I too was un veuf, a widower, by then. Hard to recall. But yes, I recall. I came to the tailor shop to pick up a new funeral coat and Hélène reminded me of our earlier conversation. Or maybe I reminded her. So long ago. It does not matter, I think. We were each widowed and eager to start over somewhere else. Oh, look, our coffee house is just ahead. Notre ami is at hand.” Thomas arches his eyebrows at his little joke.
The Maze Page 24
