By Honor Bound (23 page)

There was no answer to Honneure’s knock, and she pushed the front door open an inch or two. A fire burned in the kitchen hearth, but no one sat at the table. The bed in the corner was neatly made. The room was empty. Honneure pulled the door shut, put down her pail, and went around the side of the house.

“Madame Maurier?” she called softly.

“Honneure?” a familiar voice replied. “Honneure, come this way … quickly. Help me, please!”

The voice seemed to be coming from beyond the perimeter of the stone wall, somewhere farther up the hillside among the trees.

“Madame Maurier, I don’t see you,” Honneure called back. An instant later she saw an arm wave at her from a dense thicket of saplings. Honneure hurried through the back gate and up the hill.

She wasn’t sure what she was going to see. Some injured animal perhaps. Madame Maurier was as kindhearted as Honneure herself and unable to turn away from a creature in distress. The sight that greeted her, however, was totally unexpected. The shock of it hit her like a physical blow, and Honneure fell to her knees.

“Henri!”

“You know this child?”

“Yes … yes, I know him.” Honneure’s hands had already gone to work.

The cut over his eye was superficial but had bled profusely. The other eye was blackening. Honneure’s fingers moved cautiously over the boy’s ribs. None seemed to be broken. His legs were intact. His right arm, however, was twisted at an unnatural angle.

“The pain of the break is probably what made him lose consciousness,” Honneure said, lifting an eyelid to examine Henri’s pupil. “Did you just find him here, like this?”

“No, actually.” Madame Maurier sat back on her heels, cursing the pain in her knees and hips. “You were late and I was a little worried, so I walked down the road a ways. I saw the child, sort of crouched by the side of the road, covered with blood. I called to him, but he ran. He ran all the way up here and then tripped and fell. When I reached him, he was as you see him.”

“Oh, Henri … Henri!” Honneure smoothed the boy’s brow and, with the edge of her apron, tried to wipe the blood from his eyes. They opened. “Henri.”

His expression was one of relief … until he turned his head and saw Madame Maurier. In spite of his injuries, he tried to scramble away.

“Henri, no … wait.” Honneure held the boy gently but firmly. “Madame Maurier is a friend. She’ll help you. She helps
me
. Do you understand?”

The boy kept his suspicious gaze fixed on the old woman for a long moment. Then his expression softened. With his good left arm, he reached for Honneure.

“That’s my boy,” Honneure said soothingly. “Put your arm around my neck. I’m going to carry you into the house.”

The boy immediately tensed.

“It’s all right. I promise you. Haven’t I told you you would always be safe with me?”

He nodded, and she lifted him.

Madame Maurier pushed herself to her feet with a grunt. “You’re safe with me in my house, too, son,” the old woman added, a hard edge to her voice. “That bastard stepfather of yours can’t touch you here.”

Honneure halted and looked sharply at Madame Maurier.

“I thought you said you knew the boy, Honneure.”

“I know
him.
Nothing else.”

“Then come. Come in the house and tend to him, and I’ll tell you what I know.”

Inside, Madame Maurier draped a clean, white cloth over her bed, and Honneure laid Henri down. “I’m going to have to set his arm. He’ll probably pass out again when I do.”

“Good. Then we’ll have our chat.”

Honneure leaned over Henri. “You’ve broken your arm, dear, and I’m going to have to straighten it. It will hurt very much.”

The look in the boy’s eyes broke Honneure’s heart. It told her the pain she was about to inflict was nothing to him.

“You trust me, don’t you, Henri? I’m only trying to help you, to make you better. Is it all right if I do this?”

In response Henri smiled and took her hand. He touched it first to her heart, and then to his. Tears she thought never to shed again rose hot in her eyes.

Honneure gently disengaged her hand, put both on Henri’s arm, her fingers gently probing the break.

“Hold his elbow, madame, please. Tightly,” she said without taking her eyes from the boy’s. “I love you, Henri.” Holding his gaze, smiling into his eyes, she pulled his arm hard.

The child passed out again as Honneure had predicted. She worked quickly, splinted the arm with a stick of kindling, and bound it with linen strips Madame Maurier provided. While Honneure cleaned Henri’s cut, the old woman made tea and began her tale.

“Life is as bad as it gets for this boy,” the old woman said as she measured loose tea into a pot. “His mother, Claudia, had a certain … reputation … and probably doesn’t even know who the boy’s father is. After he was born they lived pretty much hand-to-mouth, begging and such. Then Adrien Ducis showed up. There’s not a meaner snake slithering on earth than that man. We all thought, hoped, he’d been lost at sea on a fishing boat. But it seems he’d only taken a wrong turn for a while. So he comes back to Honfleur and takes up right away with Claudia. Says he’ll give her a roof over her head, decent food.
Respectability
. But on one condition.”

The old woman poured boiling water from a kettle into the teapot. “I suppose you can guess what the condition was.”

Honneure straightened from the bed and turned to Madame Maurier. She felt cold all over. “No children.”

The widow nodded. “Especially not a
defective
one.”

“So how does he live?”

“He does chores here and there, earns a little money or a bit of bread. To answer your next question, he sleeps where he can, or in that shack his mother calls a house when Adrien is away fishing. She even feeds him from time to time.”

“Then how … ?”

The old woman shrugged. “From what I’ve heard, Adrien catches up with the boy every now and then. He knows the boy sneaks around home when he’s away. My thought is he’d like to kill him and be done with it.”

Honneure abruptly sat at the widow’s table. Her knees felt weak. She wrapped her hands around the cup of steaming tea placed in front of her.

“I can see how fond you are of him,” the widow said in a kindly voice. “And I know now he was waiting for you when I saw him alongside the road.” Honneure’s look was all the reply she needed. “Don’t feel guilty,” she said, covering Honneure’s hand with her own. “None of this is your fault. He wasn’t beaten because of you. This has been going on since long before you came. If you’ve befriended him, as I believe you have, then God will bless you for it.”

Honneure looked up at Madame Maurier, but she couldn’t speak. Once again scalding tears had risen to her eyes and choked her throat. She thought her heart had hardened and could never be broken again. She had prayed it was so. Yet now … “Oh … oh no!”

“What is it, Honneure?”

“The time … I forgot all about the time.” She pushed back from the table and rose. “I’ve been here far too long. Will you … I mean …”

“Of course I’ll take care of the boy. Don’t worry.” Madame Maurier followed Honneure to the door. “Tell Armand I asked you to stay and help me.”

Honneure turned in the doorway. “How can I ever …”

“Thank me? Just come back. Soon and often. And don’t forget your eggs.”

Anne Marie Maurier smoothed back wisps of her snow-white hair and watched Honneure hurry down the path. She had lived a long life. She had had a long and happy marriage. She had never had children, but it seemed God was going to make up for that now. Anne Marie glanced at the sleeping child on the bed.

He would be the easy one. His story was straightforward. He was badly damaged, but he was young and would heal, God willing. But this other.

Honneure had disappeared already. Madame Maurier closed the door and returned to her cup of tea.

The girl’s path to Normandy had not been a straight one. That much was clear. She wondered if Honneure would ever share the story of its twists and turns with her.

And she wondered when Honneure was going to tell her she was pregnant.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Honneure had fed the old gray gelding early so he could finish his breakfast before she had to hook him to the wagon. It was Armand’s day to drive to Honfleur for supplies. He hobbled into the yard just as she straightened the long reins over the horse’s broad back.

Armand stopped next to the wagon and held up a slip of paper. “You sure you need all this?”

“If you want me to bake you fresh bread,” Honneure replied evenly. She was learning to deal with the irascible old man, hopefully for not much longer. “Otherwise buy three loaves.”

“They’ll be stale by week’s end.”

Honneure shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

The old man climbed into the wagon without another word. Honneure knew she would have everything she had asked for. He treated her like a slave, not a wife, it was true, but the arrangement suited her. He asked no more from her than her labor, and she slept alone in her little room. He did not seem to mind her company but did not solicit her conversation. The circumstances were bearable.

Honneure waited until Armand had rattled out of sight in the direction of Honfleur. Then she hurried along the road to the widow’s house. She did not bring milk because they did not need eggs, but Armand’s absence gave her the opportunity to visit. She had not seen Madame Maurier or the boy since she had set his arm three days earlier. She was anxious to know how he fared.

Anne Marie was bent over, one hand on the small of her back, picking dead petals from the flowers along the front walk. She straightened, smiling, when she saw Honneure.

“The boy’s fine,” she said by way of greeting. “His arm will mend with no ill effect, I think. You did a good job setting the bone.”

Honneure took a deep breath. “I was worried. I’ve only tended to animals before.”

“Well, you acquitted yourself ably. There’s just one thing,” the widow said as she headed toward her front door. “The boy’s agitated about something. I can’t understand what’s upsetting him, but maybe you will.”

“I’ll try.”

Henri had been sitting, knees drawn up, on a pallet the widow had prepared for him in a corner of the room. He jumped up when he saw Honneure and ran to her. He held out his splinted arm, smiled, and caressed her cheek.

“You’re welcome,” Honneure whispered and briefly, carefully, hugged the boy. She held him at arm’s length to inspect the laceration and blackened eye, but his smile slipped away suddenly, and he shook his head.

“What is it, Henri?”

“You see?” the old woman said over her shoulder.

Something was clearly wrong.

“Take your time, Henri,” Honneure said. “Try to explain to me what’s wrong.”

The boy jabbed a finger at his chest and then pointed at the door.

“You want to leave?”

Henri did something totally baffling. He shook his head soberly and then nodded vigorously. “That’s what I don’t understand,” the widow said. “He doesn’t want to leave, but he does.”

“I think I understand,” Honneure responded. “Henri, you don’t want to leave Madame Maurier’s house, do you, not for good? But you do want to go somewhere.”

The boy nodded.

“Where, Henri? Where do you want to go?”

The boy abruptly sobered again. His gaze dropped from Honneure’s face to her skirt pocket. He held out his hand tentatively, brows arched.

“Go ahead, Henri.”

The child touched her pocket. His fingers slipped inside. He withdrew the letter she always carried with her. He pointed at it and then down the road. His eyes widened with fear.

Henri’s message was instantly clear to her, and Honneure’s stomach plummeted to her feet. She wondered that she hadn’t thought of it before, especially with Armand driving to Honfleur today.

“Pull that chair over here quickly,” the old woman said to the child. “Honneure, sit. You’re as pale as a ghost.”

Honneure sank onto the wooden chair. Her heart thumped painfully in her chest.

Widow Maurier planted both hands firmly on her hips. “Since the child can’t speak, Honneure Tremblay, I expect you’re going to be the one to tell me what’s going on, aren’t you?”

Honneure looked up at the old woman slowly. What was she going to say? How could she begin, and more importantly how was she going to end?

“Let me make it a little easier for you. Tell me why the boy is concerned about a letter.”

Honneure swallowed. She was going to have to tell the old woman something. And the only thing she had to tell was the truth.

“I … Henri, I mean … he … he mailed a letter for me.”

“So your husband wouldn’t know.”

Honneure nodded.

“Are you expecting a reply?”

Honneure repeated the motion. Her mouth was too dry to speak.

“Was Henri to meet the mail rider for you and bring you the letter when it arrived?” This time Anne Marie didn’t need to wait for a response. She knew exactly what was going on. “But the boy is unable to go to Honfleur now, which means Armand might intercept this letter. And when he reads it, as we both know he will, he’s going to be very upset indeed, isn’t he?”

Honneure could no longer even move her head. She seemed frozen in her chair.

Madame Maurier’s hands fell from her hips, and her expression softened. She took a deep breath. “I don’t know who is more injured, you or the boy. At least I can see what his wounds are, so I can help to heal them. But what am I going to do with yours, Honneure, eh? How can I help you if I don’t know what’s wrong?”

Honneure felt the story, the truth, rising up in her like a sickness. There would be no cure until she had vomited it out of her. She needed Madame Maurier, a friend, more than anything she had ever needed in her life besides Philippe.

But she was choking on it, strangling on the enormity of it. Tears poured down her cheeks, and her throat worked uselessly.

Madame Maurier turned to Henri. “I can’t remember if I fed the rabbits this morning, child. Will you see whether I have or not? And even if I did, I think they could use a little extra, don’t you?”

The boy nodded uncertainly, his gaze on Honneure. Reluctantly, he inched his way out the door. He had hardly closed it behind him when the floodgates were opened.

The old woman held Honneure as she wept.

The silence stretched when Honneure had finished her tale. Madame Maurier patted the slender hand she had been holding and stood slowly. She crossed to the open window and stood listening to the birdsong for a while. How beautiful the world was. And how unfair. She turned back to Honneure, who had remained seated. Her trembling had eased, but she was still as white as a corpse.

“Would you like another cup of tea, dear?”

Honneure shook her head. “No … no, thank you.”

The old woman sighed. The Dauphine of France, the king … Forgive me, Honneure, but it’s rather like hearing a fairy story, you must admit.”

“I’m telling the truth.”

“Oh, I know you are. I do not doubt you for a moment. It’s just difficult for an old woman like me to take in all at once.”

“I’m sorry,” Honneure said softly.

Madame Maurier folded her arms over her bosom. “No, I’m sorry,” she replied slowly. “I’m sorry for everything you’ve had to suffer. If it hadn’t been for the spiteful act of a jealous woman, you’d be married to your Philippe now. Together you would be joyfully anticipating the birth of your child. Instead …”

The sentence did not need to be finished. To speak it aloud again was to give it more life and weight than it already had. Honneure forced a smile to her lips.

“Instead,” she said, picking up the thread to weave a different cloth, “I will await word from the dauphine. She will do whatever she can to help me, I know. She is one of the kindest human beings I have ever known.”

“So it seems,” the old woman replied. Royals were more often a bane than a benefit to common folk. Honneure’s story, however, had been entirely believable.

“Since you believe so strongly that the princess will help you, I myself will go to Honfleur tomorrow. I have a friend there I’ll talk to. She can watch for the mail rider, ask for any letters for you. Later, when the boy is better, he can go into town and fetch any mail that’s come for you.”

Honneure clasped her hands together and held them tightly. “I wish I knew how to thank you.”

“Thank me when the letter is safely in your hands. It will be all the thanks I need.”

The sun was a little past directly overhead when Honneure finally started on her way back to the farm. Though she was warm and feeling unwell, she walked quickly. She did not like to provoke Armand any more than she had to. She did not want him to become suspicious. She was too close to her goal.

A flood of inner warmth coursed through Honneure’s limbs as she thought of Madame Maurier’s many kindnesses. She had found a true friend in the widow. Mingled with the happy anticipation of her escape from Normandy and Armand, however, was sorrow at the thought of leaving the widow and Henri behind. At least they would have each other.

Honneure smiled to herself as she approached the gate. God really did work in mysterious ways. Even if she had suffered all she had and come all this way simply to be fate’s agent in bringing Anne Marie and Henri together, it would all have been worthwhile. Just as long as she ended up with Philippe, everything would be worthwhile.

The gate was open, which did not surprise Honneure. She had left it that way. She did not feel the first icicles of fear until she saw the gelding, still hitched, standing in the yard. Honneure halted.

The goods Armand had purchased were still piled in the wagon. The front door stood open. He was waiting for her. She knew it. And she knew why.

Years later Honneure would wonder how she had walked from the yard to the house, how she had actually forced her legs to propel her forward. She would remember everything that happened once she walked through the front door but not how she got there.

He was sitting in his usual place, in the straight-back chair at the kitchen table, near the hearth. The fire had burned down. Wildflowers she had placed in a ceramic jug were wilting, heads drooping low. Armand smoothed the letter out on the table’s surface.

“I’ve been waiting for you.”

Honneure did not speak.

“I’ve been waiting because I have some news to impart to you. It’s from, let me see …” Armand glanced at the paper. “It’s from a Madame Campan. You know her, I trust?”

Honneure wasn’t sure if she had managed to nod or not.

The old man continued. “She says she is writing on behalf of the dauphine and that she is very sorry, but she has some terrible news. It concerns Philippe. He’s the one who was here, isn’t he?”

The vessels in her neck seemed to be constricting, cutting off the blood supply to her brain. Honneure knew she was going to faint, but she struggled against it. She had to hang on, had to know …

“Maybe it would be best if I read this part,” Armand went on. He picked up the letter. “Where is it … oh, yes. Madame Campan writes, ‘Upon Philippe’s return from Normandy, there was a tragic accident. He was apparently on his way to the dauphine’s apartments to tell us what had transpired between you. Whether it was by her design or not, he ran into Olivia at the head of the Queen’s Staircase. According to witnesses, they argued. I talked to someone who said Philippe told Olivia he held her personally responsible for all the misfortunes that have befallen the two of you. In response, Olivia raised her arm to strike Philippe and he, quite naturally, attempted to defend himself. In the ensuing struggle, Olivia lost her balance and fell down the stairs. She did not survive the fall.’”

Honneure saw Armand look up at her. He smiled tightly. Her stomach churned, and her vision seemed to dim.

“I don’t know who these people are, but it makes a good story. Would you like to read this next part for yourself?” Armand held up the letter as he might a dead fish. “No? I thought not. So I’ll continue. This is where it gets particularly interesting. Even I, old man that I am, buried up here in the north country, have heard of Madame du Barry. She’s the king’s mistress, is she not?”

His voice seemed to be coming from farther and farther away. Honneure could no longer even focus on his face.