Glamour in Glass (24 page)

Mme Chastain led Jane down the hall to M. Chastain’s study. He stood by his desk, sorting the pile of papers upon it. Over half of them he cast upon the fire burning in his grate. The rest he tucked into a wooden crate which already had books piled within. As they entered, he dropped those papers he still held into the box, heedless of their order.

Coming around the desk, he took Jane by the shoulders and kissed her on both cheeks. “Jane, I am deeply ashamed. I value David as my own brother and would have done anything to stop them if I could.”

“Of course.” Jane, distracted by the bustle around them, gestured to the box on the desk. “Are you going somewhere?”

“Brussels. It seems that Napoleon has discovered a late interest in the military potential of glamour. My relation to him, much though I despise it, was enough to keep his underlings from touching me, but he will not be so nice when he arrives.” M. Chastain tucked his hands behind his back and began to pace. “I had thought that by denying my ability to work the
Sphère Obscurcie
and claiming it was too difficult, I would be able to convince them to leave us alone, but all I seem to have done is to make them take David in my stead. I cannot ask you to forgive me for that.”

“But it is not your fault.” They had thought that the danger would come from Vincent’s spying, but Lieutenant Segal seemed unaware of that. She had not thought—neither of them had—that Vincent’s glamour would place them in danger, but now, on the other side of his capture, she could see the intrinsic military potential of invisibility.

M. Chastain shook his head and frowned. “The fault must be mine. How else would they know about his abilities?”

Jane almost told him of Anne-Marie, but the caution which she had learned over the course of the last month stopped her tongue. It occurred to her that the Bonapartists
had
left M. Chastain alone. The possibility existed that he was a Bonapartist himself, but masked this fact with protestations of disdain for the man. Before she could rid herself of this foolish conjecture, M. Chastain had moved on to the next subject.

“We will head to Brussels tonight. Have one of the servants help you with your possessions—one small trunk only, I am afraid—and we will make arrangements for you to take ship back to England.”

“I appreciate your concern, but if you have no objection to my continuing residence, I will remain here as long as Vincent is close by.”

M. Chastain pulled up short at this. “You cannot. I mean, to the house, you are welcome, but it is by no measure safe, and David would never forgive me if I allowed you to stay.”

“My husband knows me well enough to understand that should I choose to stay, the choice is mine.”

“But it is not safe.”

“Thank you. I have had ample proof of this, but I am firm in my determination on this point.” Jane gestured to his packing. “I do not wish to detain you, but must ask if you know where they have taken him.”

M. Chastain shook his head. “I only know that they were advance scouts. Napoleon himself will not be here for another week, perhaps two. Whether they have returned to the main body of the army or have remained here in town, I cannot tell you.”

“Then I will have to learn it for myself.” Though she had at first planned to go to Brussels and apply to Mr. Gilman in person, Jane decided to take advantage of the Chastains’ departure. “Might I send a letter with you to one of Vincent’s clients?”

“You cannot believe that anyone is worried about business now.”

“No. But I can rely on him to get word back to my parents.” This was close enough to the truth that Jane felt few qualms about dissembling. Even had she not felt so untrusting of everyone and everything at this moment, Mr. Gilman’s secret was not hers to divulge.

M. Chastain acceded to this plan, though unwillingly. Mme Chastain protested vehemently that Jane could not be allowed to stay, questioning whether her reason was intact. But the steadiness of manner which Jane had perfected to mask her feelings served well to make these arguments seem invalid. Her purpose, she explained, was to discover Vincent’s whereabouts, then arrange to have him ransomed. She could not explain that he was a spy for the British Crown, but that fact gave her comfort that he would be ransomed, if she could but discover his location.

As soon as she could, Jane absented herself, returning to her rooms.

Her first order of business was to fulfil Vincent’s last wish. No. She would not think of it as his
last
wish, for that implied that he could have no others in the future. Rather, this was a request he had made of her before departing for a time. His absence, though deeply troubling, was but temporary.

Keep this safe.
Resolutely, she rewrapped the glass
Sphère
in velvet. Then, rather than returning it to its place on the table under the window, she opened her wardrobe and buried the ball in one of her bandboxes, beneath a hat. If the need arose, she could gather the bandbox and flee. For the moment, though, she must acquaint Mr. Gilman with the circumstances of the last day.

Jane pulled paper from the drawer and sharpened her pen, considering. While she could make an attempt at the code which Mr. Gilman and Vincent employed, she did not know it well, and to write that Anne-Marie was an inferior Cotswold ewe sired to a Scottish Blackface failed to capture the nuances of the situation. To get them across she must write in plain text, and while Jane might trust M. Chastain to deliver the letter directly to Mr. Gilman, she had no such discreet route to receive a reply.

Leaning back in her chair, Jane stared at the ceiling and chewed on her lower lip in thought. Even if she were to remain and find Vincent, she did not have sufficient funds to ransom him. For that, she must have the aid of a patron. Given his work for the Crown, she felt justified in asking for that very thing, though she knew Mr. Gilman hardly at all. Her fear, though, was that if she left Binché without discovering where Vincent had been taken, she would be unable to find him later. With no way to know when and where they might move him next, Jane was loath to venture too far from the town.

And yet, she absolutely must speak with Mr. Gilman.

Jane set down her pen and rose from the table. She would need help of a local sort and considered where she might turn for assistance. Mme Meynard was absolutely out of the question, given her relations with Lieutenant Segal. Even if she were not a Bonapartist, her discretion had proved notably lacking. Most of Jane’s acquaintances were equally ill-suited for the task, but she thought of a few who might prove amenable.

Jane went first in search of M. Chastain, and acquainted him with her wish to accompany them so far as Brussels and then return to Binché. Though he was notably displeased by the latter part of her decision, he could offer little argument, save that he would be unable to send the carriage to carry her back to Binché. Jane rather suspected that he hoped she would remain in Brussels with no easy means of return, but she had no such intention.

She went next to find Yves Chastain. Though she was well aware that the boy would be accompanying his family to Brussels, she had hopes that his friends would remain behind. She had further hopes that these friends would be sympathetic to her plight, having seen the will with which they joined in throwing shoes at the glamourist the previous night.… Had it truly been only the night prior? Jane felt the weight of a lifetime between the two events, and yet not even a full day had passed.

When she explained what she wanted, Yves quickly supplied her with the direction of his friends. Jane began her visits with M. Giroux, the young bookish fellow who had accompanied them the previous night. She thought him the likeliest of the group to have some measure of discretion. Yves offered to run round to M. Giroux for her, but Jane declined on the grounds that his mother wanted him close at hand.

Instead, she called on M. Giroux in a modest house not many blocks from the Chastains’ establishment. She was let into a bright parlour, well-appointed with furniture from fifty years ago, and waited there for M. Giroux. The worries that had been suppressed first by shock and then by a flurry of activity came upon her in a sudden rush as she waited. Dread knotted in her stomach, and she had to fight to breathe.

When the parlour door opened, Jane jumped in her seat and then flushed quite red. A woman, likely M. Giroux’s mother, entered the room with her chin held high. “You are the British woman?”

The coldness of her reception came as a shock. Jane could only nod.

“I do not know what business you think you have with my son, but I assure you, we have no interest in it.” She inclined her head once. “Good day, madame.”

“Please!” Jane gasped and held out her hand in supplication. “My husband has been taken by Napoleon’s men. I only need help in finding him. I thought your son might know where they are encamped, boys being boys.”

“You want my son to spy for you?” Mme Giroux’s countenance darkened with anger.

“No. Certainly not. I only wanted to ask if he had heard any word of their whereabouts.”

“I fail to see how that is in any way different from spying. We do not spy, and certainly not for the British.” She pulled the door to the parlour open. “Good day, madame.”

Jane searched her face for some hint of compassion, but was met only with cold disdain. Trembling, she left the parlour and went out to the street. She stood in the inexcusably beautiful day and stared at the cobblestones. Could she expect a different reception at the homes of Yves’s other friends? Perhaps she should have asked him to run the errand for her, after all.

Grimacing, Jane trudged on to the next name on the list, passing through the town square on her way. The signs of the festivities from the night before had vanished, save for a few scattered shoes lying abandoned in odd corners. Under the balcony where the glamourist had been, a glazier worked to repair the window which had broken in the shoe-tossing fervour.

As he reached for a new pane of glass, Jane could not hold back a cry of surprise. The glazier was Mathieu La Pierre, the glassblower’s son. Mind working quickly, Jane hurried over to him. “M. La Pierre! Might I trouble you for a moment?”

Raising his eyebrows, he set down the pane of glass he had been lifting. “Mme Vincent. Are you well?”

“I confess, I am not.” Jane clenched her hands as she spoke and quickly acquainted him with the situation in which she found herself. “My hope is that on one of your deliveries you might have come across some information about where they are holding my husband. If you have, I do not ask you to do anything except to let me know.”

When she had finished, he whistled, then resettled his cap. “If I do hear anything, you may be certain that I will tell you.”

“Thank you. I go to Brussels tonight, but I hope to be back tomorrow.”

He promised to meet her whether he had news or not. It was not much, but Jane forced herself to be content with this small bit of progress.

Twenty

To Brussels and Back Again

The journey to Brussels passed in tense and uncomfortable silence. Along the road on either side stretched encampments of British and Prussian soldiers, a grim reminder of the coming war. At first glance, the ranks of redcoats inspired a sense of confidence, but closer inspection revealed the soldiers as the motley crew they were. Alternately, the tall rye fields and the rows of stately orchards lent a sense of pastoral tranquillity which did not quite negate the military presence. Each rise in the road showed some new evidence to make them fret.

Having attempted to dissuade Jane from her course of action, the Chastains seemed bent on giving her no signs of approval. They did prevail upon her to at least stay over with them rather than applying to Mr. Gilman’s residence so late at night. Road weary and dusty as she was, Jane had to acknowledge that it was the wisest course. There was nothing which Mr. Gilman might do that night, and, though she chafed at waiting even that long, the morning would come soon enough.

At the earliest practical hour, Jane made her way to the Gilman home carrying a small travelling case which contained a change of clothes and the glass
Sphère Obscurcie
. She was let in without delay and received by Mr. Gilman in his breakfast room. He set aside his serviette and rose as she entered. “My dear Mrs. Vincent!” Drawing out a chair, he beckoned her to sit. “Please, you are quite pale. What is the matter?”

His tone, so thoroughly alarmed on her behalf, undid half of Jane’s resolve. Her hands trembled, and she had to clench them in her lap to keep the tremors from showing. With her eyes low to hide the incipient tears—Jane would not give way to them when there was so much to be done—she said, “My husband has been taken by the French army.”

“Good God.” He sat heavily in the chair next to hers. “When. How?”

Again, Jane relived those painful moments, relating them with as disinterested an account as she could. When she had finished, she added a piece of information she had told no other save Vincent. “We believe that my maid, Anne-Marie, has been acting as a spy and sharing information with a Lieutenant Segal. She certainly has an attachment to him, and has had ample opportunity to have access to Vincent’s papers.”

“That is bad news.” Mr. Gilman slid his fork across his plate, as if compelled to some form of action, even a purposeless one.

“Vincent did say that none of his correspondence with you should be suspect, as it all pertains to lambs. He believed that Napoleon was more interested in his technique for quickly rendering things invisible.”

“Possible.” He let go of the fork and grimaced. “I am sorry to hear this, and I thank you for letting me know. We will arrange passage back to England for you, of course.”

How could all these people assume that she would leave while her husband was in danger? “Thank you, but I will not return to England until Vincent is safe.”

Mr. Gilman became quite still. “You do understand that there is a war coming? Napoleon is on the march and could cross into Belgium as early as next week. Mr. Vincent will not be safe until after he passes, and, forgive me, but a woman in your situation should not be here.”