Miramont's Ghost (9 page)

CHAPTER TWELVE

T
he great hall was lined with trunks and luggage, filled almost to overflowing with the things Marie and Julien were taking back to America with them. One carriage had already been packed, in preparation for their early-morning departure. Eight months had passed since they had returned to France. Julien was stronger, not nearly as pale. He was able to eat again, although in small quantities and mostly only very bland foods.

The family sat in the parlor. A fire blazed in the fireplace, straining to heat the tall room. The castle had been covered in snow for a fortnight, and the chill permeated every inch of the stone structure.

Grand-père was in his wing chair, smoking his pipe and holding Emelie, who snuggled in his lap, her head resting comfortably against his chest. Genevieve sat on the settee, her knitting draped over the mound of the new baby she carried. Marie occupied the wing chair opposite Grand-père, a white linen cloth in her lap, her needle poking in and out in a percussive rhythm. In the corner, slightly away from the family, Lucie knitted.

Julien sat at a chair by the window. “Game of chess, Adrienne? Might be our last chance for quite a while. I’m not sure when I’ll be getting back to France again.” He smiled at her. “You could be all grown up by then.”

Adrienne smiled and joined him in the chair opposite the table. “Tell me again, Julien. I want to hear about the trip—the ship and the trains and the wagons.”

The two kept their eyes on the chessboard. Adrienne made the first move.

“We’ll take the carriage to Brive. Then the train to Clermont. Another train to Paris, and then the coast. From there, we take a steamship to New York.”

At the mention of New York, Adrienne brightened. “Have you seen the Statue of Liberty?”

“Yes, we have. Several times, actually. They haven’t yet held the formal dedication ceremony, but it has been up for a while.” He moved his hand to the board.

“Then we take a train to St. Louis. That’s about halfway across the continent . . . and then another train to Santa Fe. And then a buggy home to Santa Cruz.” He smiled at Adrienne.

“I wish I could ride on a train.”

“I imagine you will, someday. Perhaps you will come to America when you are older.”

The comte gazed at the two of them, his grandchildren, so different, and so far apart in age. Julien would be leaving tomorrow, back to the New World, and it was highly unlikely that he would be back again any time soon. The comte knew that he would probably never see this grandson again, and somehow he sensed that Julien was feeling that same sense of finality. For this one evening, at least, the comte managed to shake off his fatigue. He wanted to enjoy every moment with Julien before he left.

“Your mother tells me that you have been doing some work with the railroads out there in the West.” Grand-père removed his pipe and blew a stream of smoke into the air. “Something about the Chili Line, I believe?”

Julien looked up at him and smiled. “Yes, I have. It’s a narrow-gauge train, smaller in size than a regular train. They are designed to handle the steep curves of mountainous areas, and they are constructing narrow-gauge lines in many of the places where gold or silver has been found. The Chili Line starts at a small town in Colorado and runs down next to the Rio Grande River. Even stops at Santa Cruz, where I live.”

“Have you ridden on it?”

“Only part of the route. It’s not completely finished yet. Maybe this summer they will have it completed. They want to take it all the way into Santa Fe.” Julien’s eyes dropped back to the board. “Money is always an issue, though. And land. The railroad has to buy up all the land before they can get started. And most of the landowners are Mexican or Indian. That’s where I come in,” Julien continued, his eyes on his next chess move. “I do the interpreting for the railroad when they are buying land.”

The comte smiled. “So your training in diplomacy has come in handy, then?” He sensed Marie’s back going stiff in the chair next to him.

Julien threw back his shoulders. “Many times, actually. I believe it has played an important role in my being able to move up so quickly in the church.”

Adrienne looked up at her cousin. “How do they know where to put the tracks?”

“They send out surveyors. Men take instruments, and make measurements. How steep the slope is—how sharp the turns are. They look for places where they might have to go over lots of rocks, or over steep canyons, that kind of thing. The Chili Line has all of those—steep slopes, sharp curves. They’ve been working on a bridge over the Rio Grande Gorge. It should be quite a sight when it’s finished.”

“If I were a younger man, I would do my best to get over there and see it,” the comte continued. For the past few years, he had been vicariously living out life in the Wild West through this grandson and his letters and stories. “Your mother tells me you have been working with some important people in the region. You know General Palmer?”

“General Palmer lives in Colorado. He fell in love with the West as soon as he first saw it. You would love it, too, Grand-père. The mountains and pine trees. General Palmer started the town of Colorado Springs. People are flocking to it—beautiful mountains, clean water, dry climate. They’re calling it Little London.” Julien glanced at his mother across the room. “I’d love to be transferred there, actually. It’s a beautiful area.

“General Palmer is the one who started the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad—that’s how he first saw southern Colorado and the New Mexico Territory. And that’s the company that is putting in the Chili Line. And since I speak Spanish and French and English, even a few of the Indian dialects, they contacted me to help with the interpreting when they need to buy land from the Mexicans or the Indians.”

“It’s hard to imagine, Julien, you having direct contact with the Indian people. Living amongst them, working with them. I’ve been fascinated with those stories since I was a boy.” The comte puffed his pipe.

Julien sighed heavily. He stared at the chessboard for a moment. “It is hard to imagine how different they really are. I guess when I first set out to join Archbishop Lamy in the New World, I was very naïve about it all.

“I thought they would be happy to have us . . . happy to have someone bring them the way to salvation.” Julien looked up at the comte. “But that is not the case at all. They resent us—all of us, I think. Even the archbishop, and he has done nothing but good for them. They cling to their old ways, their old ceremonies. Their faces stay calm, they nod their heads at my suggestions, and then they go off and do what they want to do. As if nothing I say or do really matters to them.

“And those dark eyes . . . those dark faces . . .” Julien stopped for a moment, and his gaze seemed to drift into the distance. “It is so hard to know what they are thinking. All of their secrets are hidden behind the depth in their eyes, as if that darkness is a curtain that hides everything they feel.” He brought his gaze back to the chessboard. “With Europeans, I feel like I can look in a man’s eyes and get a good feeling for what kind of man I’m dealing with. But not there. I look in those dark eyes, and I cannot see anything.”

“Perhaps it is just a matter of time. Maybe they will come to trust you after you have worked with them longer.” Grand-père wanted to believe his own words, but even as they left his mouth, he doubted what he said.

Julien shook his head. “I thought so, too, at first. That we could find a way to connect. That when they saw the benefits of the school, of having their children educated, they would come around. But they don’t trust anyone from outside. I have begun to doubt that we will ever make a difference in their lives.”

Julien looked up at Grand-père. “They resent the Americans. I can understand that, at least partially. I mean, many of the people who live in New Mexico Territory have been in that area for generations. The Americans are newcomers, really. And some of them—the Americans, I mean—are quite uncivilized.” Julien paused for a moment. “Certainly nothing like the French priests that the archbishop has brought in. And yet the people there treat us as if we are just as bad as the Americans, as if we had designs on their land.”

Adrienne stared at her cousin. Her head tipped to one side. Her eyes were glazed, lost. “Julien? Do you . . . do you make money . . . when you help the railroad?”

Even with his frailty and age, the comte could feel the effect of those words on the rest of the room. The whole room had gone quiet; the comte noticed how Julien’s back stiffened, how his brows knit together when he looked at the little girl.

“Of course, Adrienne. Very few people can interpret the languages. The railroad pays for that service. I never keep the money, though. I put it right back into the church coffers. For the school. Everything I do is working for their benefit. In the end, selling that land to the railroad helps every one of us.”

The comte watched the two of them. He could see that Julien was defensive; it was written clearly in the set of his shoulders and the spark in his eyes. The comte sighed heavily. He’d spent too many years negotiating the minefields of tension between rich and poor. It made sense to him, suddenly, why Julien might have been poisoned. The comte let his gaze brush over the others in the room. Adrienne was looking at the chessboard. Julien was staring at the little girl.

Grand-père examined the two grandchildren for a moment longer. “As much as I hate for this fine evening to end, it’s getting late, and you and Marie have a long day ahead of you tomorrow.” He handed Emelie to her nurse and stood. “I think it’s time for prayers. Julien, if you would . . .” Grand-père held his arm out.

The family shifted and moved, placed knitting and stitching into baskets, and knelt on the thick rug, scattered about close to where they had been sitting. Julien knelt, near the center of the room, and began the words of the rosary. His voice rose and fell, lilting, almost as if the rosary were a work of musical genius. His eyes were closed. He swayed back and forth with the rhythm of the words. All the tension of a few moments before seemed to have passed.

The comte gazed at Adrienne. Her eyes were open, her brow knit together like she was trying to make sense of something. She kept raising her head to look at Julien, kneeling on the carpet in front of her. Without moving his head, the comte let his attention shift to Marie. She, too, had her eyes open. She, too, was focused on Adrienne, and the anger that radiated from her posture and eyes was lethal. The comte shivered.
Oh, Marie,
he thought.
Let it go. Just let it go.

Julien’s voice led them. “Oh, my Jesus.”

All their voices rose in the words of the prayer. “Forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell and lead all souls to heaven, especially those in most need of thy mercy. Amen.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

L
ucie?” Adrienne’s voice was faint, trembling.

Lucie sat at her desk, her journal open before her. A candle at the edge of the desk flickered golden shadows across the paper. Her journal had been growing thicker. She still recorded Adrienne’s visions, but ever since the poisoning, she had begun to record her own observations about Marie and Julien, to give voice to her own uneasiness. She thought that perhaps by writing it all down, she might be able to find the thread that led to the truth.

Lucie had been waiting for hours for this moment, for this chance to write it all down before time had made it less acute. Just this morning, she had gone downstairs alone. She used the servants’ steps, something she rarely did, since she almost always had one of the children with her. She hadn’t been deliberately deceptive. But she moved quietly, and the two servants who were whispering together in the pantry were not aware that Lucie was standing steps away, just inside the doorway leading to those back steps. Lucie could see the two of them through the slim space between the door and the wall.

“She’s just like her grand-mère, you know,” Henriette whispered to the other girl. Henriette was nowhere near old enough to know anything about the comtesse, but she was an expert at picking up every tidbit of gossip. “They say it skips a generation.”

“What does?” Noelle was the young girl who helped with the laundry.

“Clairvoyance. The sight,” Henriette whispered, as if she had become an expert. “That’s why Marie and Genevieve cannot see things.”

Henriette glanced around nervously. “They locked her up, you know. The grandmother. The comtesse.” She leaned in close as she shared this latest bit of information. “Kept her in her room. They didn’t want everyone to talk about her.”

Lucie had held her breath, and stood without moving. Every fiber of her being strained toward the whispers coming from the butler’s pantry on the other side of the door.

Noelle whispered in confidence, “I heard she died in childbirth. With Genevieve.”

Henriette looked over her shoulder, but seeing no one, she continued. “That’s the story they told.”

“Story? You mean it’s not true?”

Henriette’s voice was louder in her excitement. “All that blood, a week after the baby was born? Who ever heard of dying in childbirth a week later?”

Noelle was quiet for a minute. “I had a cousin who got some kind of infection when her baby was born. She died four days later. It’s possible.”

Henriette dropped her voice to a whisper. “Yes, it’s possible. But doesn’t it seem rather odd? Here they were, keeping her locked up, away from people, because of how embarrassing her stories could be.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Maybe it just
looked
like she died in childbirth.”

Lucie bit her fist to stifle any sounds from escaping her mouth.

“What are you saying? Do you think she was . . .
murdere
d
?” Noelle’s whisper was so soft that Lucie found herself leaning forward, straining to hear every syllable.

“All I’m saying is, this family has secrets. And the comtesse knew them all. There had to be people who wanted to make sure she stayed quiet.” Henriette drew her pause out dramatically. “Just like Adrienne. That little girl would be wise to keep her mouth closed.”

Lucie sat at her desk, and turned to stare out the window on her left, her thoughts turbulent. Everyone knew Henriette loved to talk, that she loved gossip and stories, that she loved being the one with all the inside information. Lucie knew that the information she had overheard could not be trusted, but the story still left her with a shiver. And there were probably very few people alive who knew the truth. The comte, of course, and perhaps Marie. She was thirteen when her mother died. If there was anyone who knew the real story, it was probably she. Lucie was lost in the tangled web of her thoughts, and when she turned her head, Adrienne stood in the doorway between the two bedrooms.

“Lucie?” she whispered again.

“Adrienne? What’s wrong?” Lucie laid her pen on the paper, and stood. Adrienne ran to her and threw her arms around Lucie’s flannel-clad legs.

Lucie maneuvered them both into the rocking chair in front of the big window. She pulled Adrienne onto her lap. The moon was full. Moonlight bathed both girls, in their white nightgowns, turning them into luminous pearls.

Adrienne buried her head in Lucie’s shoulder. “I h-h-had a bad . . . dream.”

Lucie rubbed the girl’s arms and hugged her closer. “There, there. It’s only a dream.”

The girl continued to shake, and Lucie pulled the shawl from her own shoulders and wrapped it around Adrienne.

“I was . . . I was in this little room. It was small and cold and dark. Very high up. I could look out this window, and see the ground a long, long way below.” Adrienne kept her head against Lucie’s chest. “The trees looked tiny from up there. I was cold.” Adrienne shivered.

“And I walked over to the door. I tried to open it, but I couldn’t. It was locked. I couldn’t get out. It was so dark, and so cold. And I got scared. I started to call for someone to let me out. I banged on the door with my fists. I called for Grand-père. And Maman. And you, Lucie!” Adrienne sat up for a moment and looked into Lucie’s dark eyes. Then she leaned back into Lucie’s warmth again.

“But no one came. And after a while, I gave up. And I went and sat down on the bed. And while I was sitting there, the stones . . . the stones that were part of the wall? They started to bleed. There were little drops of blood, coming out of all of them. The blood was getting on my hands, and on my clothes, and on the bed where I was sitting. I screamed! And then I woke up.”

Lucie continued to rock slowly back and forth. The chair creaked against the floor. Her slippers brushed against the wood. “It’s only a dream, Adrienne. It’s not real.” Even as the words left her mouth, Lucie was struck by the similarity of Adrienne’s dream to what she had overheard about the comtesse that very morning. Locked up in her room. Blood everywhere.

Lucie forced herself to swallow.

“You’re right here with me, aren’t you?” Adrienne nodded against Lucie’s chest. “And we’re not so high up. And the door is not locked. And the walls are not bleeding.”

Lucie’s slippers made a
sh
-
sh
sound on the floor. Adrienne relaxed into the sounds and her breath slowed.

“It was only a dream,” Lucie whispered once again. She had to force herself to say it, had to convince herself it was true. “Only a dream.”

They rocked in silence for a few moments. Adrienne raised her eyes, caught the flicker of the candlelight on Lucie’s desk. “Lucie? Do you miss your daddy?”

Lucie’s breath stopped. She nodded. “I miss him very much.”

“How old were you when he died?” The two girls held tightly to one another.

“I was seventeen. That’s when I came here. Not long after he died.” Lucie put her chin on the top of Adrienne’s head. She remembered that time, the months after her father had died. She was scared. Alone. Penniless. She was lucky to have found this position, luckier still that she had found Adrienne. Sometimes, like now, when Adrienne was curled against her and breathing softly, Lucie could almost pretend that Adrienne was her own daughter. It was certainly hard to believe that Genevieve would ever care as much about this little girl as Lucie did.

“He was coughing?”

“Yes, Adrienne. He was coughing. He was very sick, at the end.”

“Why do I see so many yellow roses?”

Lucie smiled into the moonlight. “Hmmm. My maman loved yellow roses. She had all kinds of them in the garden. Yellow with orange on the edges. Yellow with pink in the middle. Yellow roses that climbed the porch. She loved yellow roses.” Lucie’s voice smiled with the memory. She could almost smell her mother, the rosewater she sprinkled on her wrists every morning. She could see her, moving about the kitchen, singing, her hands covered in flour as she kneaded bread.

“She died when I was seven.” Lucie’s voice lost its smile. “After she died, my father took care of those roses. Loved them as if . . . as if she were a part of them. As if my mother came back every spring in those roses.”

Adrienne sat up and looked into Lucie’s eyes. She laid one hand on Lucie’s cheek. “Lucie?”

Lucie felt tears pooling in her eyes. She looked down at Adrienne. “Yes?”

“I wish you could be my mother.” Adrienne leaned back into Lucie’s arms again.

“So do I, Adrienne. So do I.”

They rocked back and forth. Outside the window, an owl called out to them in a low, sad voice.

“Lucie?” Adrienne’s voice was soft. “You won’t let them lock me up, will you?”