The Rainbow Bridge

by Aubrey Flegg

  Louise glanced up but Gaston’s eyes were focused on the past.

  ‘The noise of the city died away behind us. There was a full moon and a full tide. I had never seen the sea before. I was just telling her how strange and exciting it was for me to think that I could board a ship here in Nantes and sail to any port in the world, when a strange crying sound was carried to us from out in the water. I asked her if this could be the sound of whales. She laughed.

  ‘“No, silly, those are the noyades. I thought a soldier would know that! Those are cries from the slave barges. The army has commandeered them for the Vendée prisoners; it was Papa’s idea.”

  “Where do they take them? To the prison hulks?” I asked.

  ‘“Oh no, that’s not necessary. They load the boats quietly, after dark, until they are quite full, and take them out into the estuary. Then they sink them so that the prisoners drown. That’s why they are called the noyades – the drownings. Papa says it’s quite quick really. When the tide goes out they recover the hulks and start all over again.”’

  ‘We stood side by side, and I imagined the water rising … rising.’ Gaston’s voice tightened. ‘Now that I knew what was happening, I understood that those were human voices I was hearing – voices raised in terror. The cries grew fainter and fainter. Then in the last silence a single voice rose clear over the water: “Vive le Roi!”’

  “Les malheureux!” I said, “poor souls.”

  ‘My pretty friend pressed my arm and called me an old softie … Forgive me, Louise, but as we walked, the musky scent she wore turned for me into the stink of death and the soft breast against my arm turned leprous in my mind. I saw the girl home, declined her invitation for a night-cap, and rushed headlong to the nearest tree, where I sicked up my heart.’

  Louise remembered Raoul’s voice: ‘You’ll feel better after that.’ Raoul knew.

  Gaston shook his head as if to clear away the memories of the past. He looked up at Louise, his face still haunted. ‘It was then, kneeling beside that tree, that the prisoners we had passed on the road came alive in my mind as real people who had mothers and wives. I raged at the fanatics who had led them and I squirmed with shame at our own authority’s mindless slaughter of the poor people. I learned later that two thousand people were drowned in the noyades alone. Louise, these were Frenchmen, the very people I had sworn to defend! The soldier in me died by that tree.’

  ‘And what took its place?’ Louise asked.

  Gaston sighed sadly. ‘The clown that you know – the parody of the chivalrous knight.’

  ‘I would not be here if it were not for that chivalry,’ Louise reminded him gently. ‘So, what now?’ she asked.

  ‘I have vowed never again to take up arms against my countrymen. You were there with me when I met Bonaparte; I have found someone else who is dissatisfied with his lot, a general without a command. So he plans to go into the service of the Sultan of Turkey and he needs a few specialist young officers, like me, to go with him. This is my letter of acceptance.’ Gaston made to pick up his pen again.

  ‘But, Gaston, won’t this be just the same as what you are trying to escape? More senseless slaughter, just in a different land?’

  ‘At least they won’t be French.’

  ‘But they’ll still be people! Gaston, you can’t lose your humanity once you have found it. Don’t you see you will find human beings wherever you raise your sword now? The damage has been done. I can almost forgive that wretched girl in Nantes because she has made a human being out of you. Why do you have to be a soldier? Can’t you find yourself an army that doesn’t fight!’ She watched him sadly as he turned his back on her. He picked up his quill and held it over his inkpot, then with a sigh he put the pen down. He took the sheet of paper and held a corner over the candle flame. An orange ribbon of fire crept upward over the page. For a moment it underlined the salutation: Monsieur le Général Bonaparte, then it was gone. Gaston carried the ashes to the grate and turned to Louise with a look that dispelled any feeling of triumph she might have felt.

  ‘You are interfering again, Mademoiselle Eeden. That could be my career in ashes in the grate.’ He returned to his table and reached for a new sheet of paper.

  ‘What are you going to do, Gaston?’ She was anxious.

  ‘Do I have to answer all your questions?’ He sighed and his expression softened. ‘Louise, I am going to do what I should have done long ago; open negotiations with the Count du Bois to buy some land so that I will have something to return to if I have to. As it stands now, if the Count got into trouble with the authorities, our livelihood would be in jeopardy. But on one matter I am firm; I will not remain in the army if it requires me to murder my own countrymen.’ Louise wanted to ask about the Count, and about Gaston’s family, but decided that this wasn’t the moment.

  Gaston had just finished the page and shook fine sand on it to dry the ink, when there was a sharp rap on the door.

  ‘Merde!’ he said as he turned the paper upside down on the desk. It was Marcel, the duty officer that night, looking excited. He saluted smartly and handed Gaston a blue envelope.

  ‘Orders,’ he said. Gaston broke the seal and examined the paper, holding it sideways in the light from the corridor.

  ‘Good news, cadet. We leave for Auxerre tomorrow. We’re going home. I will inspect the men at eight. For once you shouldn’t have any trouble in getting them up.’

  CHAPTER 11

  Family Affairs

  Louise could see that Gaston’s mind was already preoccupied with the practicalities of an early departure. It was a point of honour with him to have as many as possible of his troop ready for the road within hours. There would always be men sick, horses lamed, baggage not ready, but the core of his troop must be there – the men immaculate, the horses groomed. She enjoyed these occasions and Gaston seemed to like having her around; he would talk to her, explaining, and not expecting any answers, but his energy would flow out to her and she would find her mind clear and lucid.

  She had had time to shake off the near hypnotic effects of that interview with General Bonaparte. She was still shocked at the way both men had behaved, like schoolboys planning some fantastical adventure, talking of war and fighting and death as if the people who were to do the fighting were an expendable commodity. Death in war was no longer remote, it was immediate, and its threat made her realise how much Gaston meant to her. She did not share his faith in his own ability to survive in war. The thought of him lying dead or injured on some foreign battlefield was unbearable. Why was he a soldier? Did home mean so little to him that he would leave France and sell his sword to anyone who would give him a horse to ride? Louise could understand the excitement of being on campaign, and she could admire the magnificent uniforms, and wonder at the strange codes of honour that had them strutting about like fighting cocks. But Gaston was no fool. Was there really nothing to draw him back from this present insanity? The posting to Auxerre was only a reprieve. If there was only something – someone – to force Gaston to choose.

  And maybe there was … Louise remembered how she had shared Gaston’s thoughts in the emotion-filled moments after he had told her about the engagement at the Pont de Chasse. In his mind she had seen a country road and a girl sitting beneath a gnarled old tree. Could this girl be someone to draw Gaston back to his home and his responsibilities there? Someone who could be an ally for her, Louise? She must make Gaston take her portrait with him when he went home on leave. Perhaps she could seek out this girl and they could work together to wean Gaston away from war.

  For a moment Louise was filled with enthusiasm. She had never had a sister and had longed for a girl with whom she could share … oh, so many things. But not … not what? Gradually a new realisation crept through her, that there was something that she didn’t want to share; she didn’t want to share Gaston, she wanted him for her own.

  The next day they departed for Auxerre in good order. The men were looking forward to home leave, and Louise was co
ntent for the moment not to dwell too much on the future. It was enough that Gaston was happy and encouraged her to ride with him. She allowed herself to be distracted as day by day their ride took them south up the Seine, and then branched up the Yonne towards Auxerre. As they rode up the precipitous road to the castle, their horses slipped and clattered on the cobbles and the city folk cheered and clapped the returning men of their own regiment of hussars.

  Almost as soon as they arrived, those men whose homes were in the town began to depart on leave. Gaston was preoccupied with his report to his colonel. The cadets got disgracefully drunk, and had to be disciplined and set to mucking out the stables. Eventually the colonel slapped Gaston on the back, said he had done a good job, and told him to go on home.

  ‘Why don’t you take your two cadets,’ he suggested, ‘before they wreck the town. They don’t have any family here, do they? You could put them to work in the vineyards.’

  As if to make up for its recent harshness, winter had given way to an early spring. Gaston, together with a small troop of eight men and two cadets, none of them natives of the area, was on the road again, heading still further up the Yonne, towards Les Clos du Bois. The air was full of birdsong and the first crickets were trying out their bows. They stopped for lunch by a meadow, where the men were soon stretched out, half-dressed, in the sun. Gaston took a bottle of wine, some bread fresh from a village bakery downstream, and a slab of cheese, and climbed up to a spot under a tree from where he could keep an eye on everything but be private at the same time. Below him the river curved in a wide meander, spreading a sheet of gravel about it like a dancer’s skirt. There the horses stood hock deep, dipping and raising their heads while they drank.

  He would soon be home and he thought back to his homecoming of a year and a half ago. He smiled, remembering Colette and the flirtation they had enjoyed. He could still see her, laughing up at him as on the day he had arrived. He broke open his loaf and set about his meal with enthusiasm.

  ‘I’d forgotten what it was like to feel hungry,’ said Louise. Gaston put down his knife and his cheese with a sigh of mock exasperation.

  ‘I climb all the way up here, just to be on my own, and who appears to disturb my peace but Mademoiselle Eeden. Do you want some?’

  ‘Thank you, but I’ll have to content myself with the idea.’

  ‘Allow me to spread my cloak then!’

  ‘Gaston, I like you, you get more like Don Quixote every day,’ she laughed and sat down where the thin shade from the new leaves dappled the ground. ‘How far have we to go now?’

  ‘Not far, Louise, we’re almost there. I am longing to see my family again, my mother and father, and–’ he broke off. ‘Also, as you know, I need to see my cousin, the Count du Bois. I am going to have to be nice to him, he holds my destiny in his hands.’

  ‘What about General Bonaparte? Will he go to Turkey?’

  ‘If he gets a command here in France, I think he will stay.’

  ‘Would you join him … in France, if he asked you?’

  ‘I might not have much choice, but just now I want to get home. You have made me think that I should keep my options open.’

  ‘Tell me about your home, I know nothing about it or your family, or indeed the Count who seems to be so important in your lives. I’d like to hear, I really would.’

  ‘May I speak between mouthfuls?’ Louise settled herself and Gaston began. ‘For more generations than we can remember, my family have been winemakers to the Count du Bois. Like I told you, it’s not just a business arrangement because there are blood ties too, some of them even legitimate. My mother is a cousin of the Count.’

  There was something romantic to Louise about the idea of a Count, so she asked: ‘The Count. What’s he like?’

  ‘Charming, courtly… well that’s the side he shows the world …’

  ‘Yes?’ Louise queried.

  ‘Oh, nothing … just rumours … but let me say that I’m glad he won’t be able to see you; he has a reputation.’

  ‘But I’ll be able to see him!’ Louise laughed. ‘So, you are aristocracy?’

  ‘No, but close enough to be uncomfortable. It is we who see to the tending of the chateau’s vineyards: harvesting the grapes, and making the wine – some of the best in France, or so we claim. We supply the chateau, but we make our money on the rest of the wine we sell. The Count owns the land, even the house we live in. Up until now this was the perfect arrangement. Even though my mother’s marriage contract gave us the right to buy our house, and a division of the vineyard if we wish, there was no pressing reason to change the existing situation. We had security, and my father had no wish to be a landowner. Where wine is concerned he is an artist, you see.’

  ‘An artist like the Master who painted me?’

  ‘No Louise, my father uses a different sort of palette, the palate of his mouth.’ Gaston chuckled. ‘For him his wines are living things. Now, with the Revolution, our security and our livelihood are threatened. The Count is a loose cannon, and I am afraid he might do something foolish. If he was forced to flee the country or lost his head on the guillotine, we would have nothing. I have written to the Count saying that I will be advising my parents to take up my mother’s option and buy the land. If he has prepared the terms then it should be possible for us to come to an agreement while I am at home. I expect there will be a letter waiting for me.’

  ‘Tell me about your father, he sounds interesting.’

  ‘You will like him. Winemaking is his life and love. His vines and barrels are like his children; he talks to them. He says that each barrel is a child with some special talent to be tamed or nurtured and that he, like a teacher, has just a few years to find what that talent is, and bring it out into the open.’ Louise smiled at the warmth in Gaston’s voice; it was as if he was already picking up the comforting vibrations from his home soil.

  ‘And you, are you an artist too?’

  ‘Oh no, I am just a pupil. I can spot talent all right, but it will be years before I can make a good wine great. I was too impatient to apply myself as I should have. I wanted to see the world.’ He laughed ruefully. ‘Like poor Pierre I fell in love with the uniform. And also it seemed that the moment had arrived when we were about to make the New France, a more noble calling than making new wine, I thought. And now my first fermentation seems to have turned to vinegar.’ Gaston picked up a twig and began to peel the bark off it with his nail. Could he really be thinking about coming home for good? Louise wondered. Gaston looked up at her with a disarming smile.

  ‘Remember you told me to find myself an army that doesn’t fight! Well, I started thinking about that, and I realised that there is another army – the army that descends on our valley each year. They sweep in from the village, both regular workers and casuals, women too; everyone has a task. Then come the migrant workers, as wild as Tartars and as difficult to manage. For the duration of the grape harvest they swarm, and they carry; they tip tall baskets of purple grapes into the presses, they sing, and then they tread the grapes. They get drunk and bloody each other’s noses; the occasional knife is drawn, but that’s all. There is your army, Louise, my army, and my heritage. We have the money to make the purchase, but we must secure the land now. It would be folly to resign my commission – if I could – and then find that I had nothing to return to.’

  ‘You really mean it: you could leave the army?’ asked Louise.

  ‘It will be difficult, but surely the fighting will stop; then I might return. The vineyards are extensive and Father has no one to help with the management. You have made me dream again, Louise. Perhaps I will bring Pierre with me and show him that grapes are superior to apples.’ Gaston chuckled. ‘Come, let me take you to where the vines line the slopes like regiments ready for battle, and where my ancestors have crushed grapes since the Romans taught them how. Then you’ll see the grapes coming in, each bloomed like a plum, and listen to the songs of the workers as they tread them to pulp. And there is someone th
ere I would like you to meet.’

  He stood up and brushed the crumbs off his knees. ‘Look …’ he said. ‘The cadets are getting the men ready. Come on, we will be there in a couple of hours.’

  They both rose in their stirrups as they topped the rise and looked down into the vineyards below, nestling in a semicircular valley scooped in the valley side. Louise gasped at the beauty of this tiny contained landscape. Here, laid out in a variety of geometric sections, were fields of ordered vines, each field with its own direction of planting as if drawn with a comb on the brown soil. The neatness and order spoke to her Dutch heart. The sweep of the vineyards drew her eye down to the terracotta roofs and the slender spire of the village church below. She heard Gaston murmur ‘home!’ and she smiled across at him. She looked for the chateau, but Gaston said that, true to its name, the Chateau du Bois, formerly a hunting lodge, was situated in the forest some miles away. He pointed to the blue haze of trees in the distance, but she couldn’t see any sign of a building. There was something fascinating, mysterious even, about the idea of a chateau, hiding there in the heart of the forest. She hoped she would get to see it.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘I know a short cut.’ With that he wheeled right, plunging down a path between the vines. As they rode, he explained over his shoulder how each plot varied according to its altitude and how it caught the sun. Louise had questions about the stony soil and the trellises on which the vines were trained, but Gaston had stopped answering her; something was troubling him. Suddenly he pulled up in a fury. ‘My God, Louise, look at them. Look at the state of these vines. Something dreadful has happened. Is Father sick?’

  Louise could only look at him in puzzlement; to her these vines appeared particularly healthy and lush. ‘Look, woman,’ he said impatiently, ‘that’s second year growth; these vines have not been pruned! Mon Dieu, is it all like this?’ Now he was urging his horse on down, slipping on the gravelly soil. Louise looked ahead to where even worse disaster seemed to have struck, with the vines having been cut to the ground, but Gaston turned, relieved. ‘Thank God, at least a part of the vineyard has been saved.’ She gazed in wonder at the close-cropped stubs while Gaston absently pointed out the green shoots bursting from knobbly bases. ‘This is how they should look. This is the home vineyard, so, whatever else, Father was alive at pruning time… I know his work. Excuse me Louise, I must go.’ Without further explanation he spurred his mare down the slope, leaving Louise in a scatter of fine stones.