Across the Endless River (27 page)

The towering dome of Sainte-Geneviève rose above the surrounding buildings at the brow of the hill, then was lost to sight as he rode through the narrow, crooked streets. Soon he emerged into the clearing that surrounded the enormous church. Its majestic pillars brought to mind an engraving in his childhood Bible that showed the gates of heaven. He craned his neck to follow the dome up toward the windswept clouds that spit rain down upon him. His cape grew wet and heavy, and he longed for an elk hide rubbed with bear grease to draw about his shoulders. He dismissed Paul's maxim and silently cursed the complication and ineffectiveness of European clothes for dealing with something as straightforward as a rainstorm.

He knew that the street he was looking for lay on the south side of Sainte-Geneviève, and he directed his horse back into the warren of narrow lanes. The downpour had emptied the streets. He threaded his way through the latticework of cobbled alleys without finding it, and approached a young man huddled in a doorway and asked directions.

“At the corner of the rue des Postes, Monsieur, another hundred meters farther on!” he shouted over the din of the rain, motioning toward a wider street that began across the way. Baptiste rode off and a few minutes later he peered through the fading light and found the words he had been looking for etched into the stone of the corner building:
rue du Cheval Vert.

Above the first doorway he saw a coat of arms with a harp at its center and the inscription
Collège des Irlandais
in gold lettering. Baptiste dismounted, hitched his horse to the iron ring set into the wall, and pounded the large iron knocker on the massive oak door. When there was no response, he hammered again as loudly as possible to be sure his knocking rose above the storm. A small panel in the door slid to one side and an old man's face, lit from below by a lantern, appeared behind four vertical bars. “Yes? What is your business here?”

Baptiste had expected the door to be opened, but he bent down and peered into a pair of coal black eyes. “I am looking for Mademoiselle Maura Hennesy, Monsieur.”

“There is no one here by that name,” the man responded gruffly, then added, “Monsieur is perhaps not aware that this is a
pensionnat
for young men.”

Baptiste was surprised. “I was told that I might find her here nonetheless.” Baptiste pulled an envelope from under his cloak and held it up to the small aperture. “Would it be possible to give her this letter?”

The man snatched the envelope and drew it through the grate. The old man's eyes glittered as he saw Prince Franz's coat of arms on the seal. He asked with renewed curiosity, “Who is looking for Mademoiselle Hennesy?”

“Her cousin from America would like to see her,” Baptiste replied. He produced a coin from his pocket and passed it through the bars. “Here is something for your trouble, Monsieur.”

The man grabbed the coin and the panel slid shut. Baptiste raised his hand to knock again, hesitated as the rain pounded down, then rode away. Obviously he had made a mistake in assuming that the address Maura had given him for a correspondence was where she would be living.

A courier arrived at Prince Franz's the next morning with an envelope that Schlape delivered to Baptiste in the library. “The messenger insisted it was of the utmost urgency,” he said. Maura's brief note told him, “Under no circumstances must you present yourself again at the Collège,” and she proposed a meeting that afternoon in the Tuileries gardens.

To Paul's inquiries, Baptiste replied that he had personal business to attend to later in the day. After lunch he made his way to the Tuileries on foot. He felt a tremor of anticipation as he remembered Maura's fresh and entrancing features, and her irreverence.
Will she still find
me interesting?
he wondered, and quickened his step.

The air was clement for February, a generous sun in a cloudless sky and only a slight chill. Entering the gardens from the broad square at the bottom of the Champs-Elysées, Baptiste felt a sudden twinge as he recalled how startled he had been only a year ago when he first saw this city of carved buildings and ordered plants. Was it possible these surroundings were already ordinary to him?

The gardens were crowded, with knots of strollers along all of the lanes, taking advantage of the sun. Baptiste found Maura sitting on a bench beneath the rows of bare trees at the corner of the garden nearest the Seine. He saw her in profile, reading a book. As if she sensed his approach, she turned and raised her chin in a graceful gesture. When he arrived at her side, she rose, took both his hands in her own, and said, “Why, cousin, how lovely to see you!”

Baptiste smiled, enchanted by the familiar figure standing before him.

“It
is
good to see you,” she said. “Let's walk, shall we,” and in a lower tone she added, “Then we can talk undisturbed.” She gave him her arm and said, “You cannot imagine how many men assume that an unaccompanied woman on a park bench is an invitation to mischief.”

They walked arm in arm, and her closeness after the long time apart felt both comfortable and strange, as if they had been together the previous day. “I am very happy to see you again, Maura,” Baptiste said.

“I may as well tell you that you complicated things considerably by showing up at the door of the Collège.”

Baptiste's cheeks reddened. He told her of Paul's sudden decision to come to Paris earlier than planned, and that he had had no hope of sending a letter ahead of time.

“A man does not call upon a young lady in the evening,” Maura said firmly. “Fortunately, Monsieur Dubois thought you were the messenger.” She laughed now, a pure, confiding laugh that drew Baptiste in and calmed his fear.

“If you don't live at the Collège, why do you receive my mail there?” Baptiste asked.

“It is a place I can be sure of receiving messages without causing problems for others. Years ago, when my father was young, his family was very generous to the Revolutionary cause through the Collège. Later he was a
pensionnaire
there with Jerome Bonaparte and Eugene de Beauharnais, Napoleon's younger brother and his stepson. He is no friend to the Bourbons and, as you know, his correspondence is closely watched. The Collège allows him to correspond with others by using the names of various teachers and residents who sympathize with his ideas.” She looked around quickly, then continued. “There is one thing I must mention. You wrote that you recalled what my father had to say about the Bourbons. That is the sort of language that could cause trouble if the wrong eyes were to see it. You must be more careful.”

They walked up and down the
allées,
talking about the months since they had met. Maura told him she had been trying to enroll in the university's medical school. “A few of the professors have allowed me to be present as an auditor, but there is no question of being allowed to sit examinations. One of them suggested I train as a midwife!”

Baptiste could hear the anger in her words; he found her candor stimulating. “What do you do when you are not studying medicine?” he asked.

“I work with my father in the wine business,” Maura said. “He has many clients in Paris.”

Baptiste was delighted to be hearing English again, especially Maura's, with its engaging lilt. “And are your parents well?”

“They are. My father is busier than ever with his vineyard, and my mother is in Ireland for a visit. When she returns, I'll become her special project again.” Maura shook her head slightly.

“What project is that?” he asked.

“She wants to see me married, Baptiste,” Maura said with an exasperated look. “Like any mother, she fears the worst. Fortunately, she is not a very persistent matchmaker.”

“And your father?”

“It is different with my father,” she explained. “I am the one child he has, and in many ways he raised me as he would have raised a son. He trusts me with confidences, he introduces me to clients and political allies, and he teaches me his business. He knows that will end when I marry, and so he is of two minds.”

“What does he think of your attempts to study medicine?”

“He sees no reason why I should not become a doctor,” Maura responded in a matter-of-fact tone. “But he can do very little to open those doors for me or any other woman.”

She held his arm more tightly and Baptiste felt his heart race. For an instant he thought of Theresa, of how they had grown comfortable with each other over time. He felt different now, elated by Maura's enthusiasm and directness.

“Tell me about yourself,” she said. “What is the purpose of all these travels?”

“I sometimes wonder!” Baptiste exclaimed. “Paul has relatives and friends everywhere, many of them other specialists in natural history.” He mentioned all the places they had visited since August.

“It must sometimes be very tiring,” Maura said.

“It is,” he agreed. “There are days when I think I would as soon die as sit in a coach.” He winced, then continued. “But I've never seen any of it before, and I may never again, so I keep my eyes and ears open and learn what I can.”

Maura nodded. “Did you meet anyone of interest?”

“Two or three people,” Baptiste told her. “The rest treated me like an unusual new animal.”

“That's how I feel in Professor Langlois's anatomy class! I might as well have two heads, for the way they look at me.”

They both laughed.

“Did you have any adventures on all your travels across Europe?”

Maura asked.

“I almost got myself shot at Paul's brother's castle in Silesia,” Baptiste said laconically. He saw Maura's eyes widen expectantly, and he continued. “I took his nephew and two nieces out to play. They had asked me to show them how Indians hunt. We found a wolf 's pelt still attached to the head in one of the hunting lodges, and I strapped it to my back and limbs. Then, in the tall grass of a nearby meadow, the children played grazing buffalo and I was the stalking wolf.”

“What happened?”

Baptiste shook his head at the memory. “One of the gamekeepers came upon us and mistook me for a real wolf. When I stood up to reassure him, he took a wild shot, then turned and ran. He thought I was what they call a ‘werewolf,' some kind of human wolf the peasants in Silesia believe stalks people.”

Maura squeezed his hand. “I'm glad the gamekeeper was a bad shot.”

Baptiste reddened as he saw that there was more than playfulness in Maura's eyes. Suddenly he mimed the gamekeeper's frantic flight for three or four steps, hands high above his head and face contorted in fear. Together he and Maura exploded in laughter, and only after they sat together on a bench were they able to regain their composure. Looking toward the far side of the gardens, Baptiste could see the river's glint through the gold-tipped iron pickets that enclosed the park. Then the light looked particularly soft, and the trees and footpaths and the distant fountains seemed to glow.

In the days ahead Baptiste could think of nothing but Maura. Beyond her beauty, he was attracted to her practical attitude. Though she was young, like him, she had learned something essential about people in her travels with her father. Her discernment and curiosity pleased him, and her way of thinking for herself reminded him of some of the free spirits he had encountered on the frontier. She was more selfreliant than any of the young women he had met in Europe. Were the Irish all so full of independence? In Maura's company he had experienced a quickening of all his senses, and a near giddiness that he had not known before. She even walked forcefully, with a stride that knew where it wanted to go.

Baptiste considered what Maura had said about her mother's concerns, and he remembered Theresa's thoughts on the importance of a respectable marriage. He understood that for him a marriage in Europe was unimaginable: he was landless, he had no fortune, he was of mixed race, and he was from a far-distant country. No European family would consider him a worthy match for their daughter.
I'm not looking
for a wife anyway,
he told himself. That Theresa should take him as a lover and teach him about European ways made sense when he looked at it from a distance. She was nearly twice his age and had no intention of making a life with anyone else. Her wealth and position allowed her to remain entirely independent; she was the only woman he knew who could say that. Their paths clearly would part.

But Maura was genuinely interested in seeing him and knowing him better, and he wondered if there could be any future for them together. He dismissed the thought as he imagined all the reputable young men who would want to propose marriage, and their distinguished mothers hovering nearby, waiting to inspect the merchandise.

Paul and Baptiste stayed in Paris for a week, so Baptiste and Maura were able to see each other once more before he returned to Württemberg. They met in the early afternoon at Maura's godmother's apartment overlooking the Tuileries. After a cup of coffee and some light conversation, Madame Lemonnier excused herself, pleading correspondence that needed her attention.

“I would like to say my goodbyes when Monsieur Charbonneau is preparing to leave,” she said, and closed the door on the two of them.