White Horses. Joan Wolf

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      Six

      The other wagons fell in behind Gabrielle and drove out of the field and onto the road. They would pass through Lille and then take the road south to Amiens.

      “I wish you would let me drive,” Leo said. “I’m supposed to be helping out as best I can, remember?”

      “You can drive when we get to the main road on the other side of Lille,” she said.

      It sounded to him as if she didn’t trust him to get them through the city and Leo’s mouth set. He refrained from comment, however, and instead tried to make his legs as comfortable as he could.

      “So, Leo, tell me about yourself,” Gabrielle said as they drove through the early-ploughed land on either side of them.

      He looked at her. Her own eyes were on the road and her profile was so delicate and pretty that he was momentarily distracted. She turned her head to catch his eye and gave him an encouraging nod.

      He had no intention of talking about himself to this girl. “There’s nothing much to tell,” he said stiffly. “I grew up, went to school, and when I got out I joined the army. End of story.”

      After a moment she said wryly, “It’s a good thing you didn’t want to become a novelist. You’d have trouble filling up the pages.”

      “What about you?” He tried turning the tables. “You must have led a far more exciting life than I.”

      She shook her head. “Oh, no, don’t think you’re going to get off that easy! Where did you grow up, the country or the city? What school did you go to? Why did you join the army?”

      Those things are none of your business. He thought the words but restrained himself from speaking them. He would have to stay on good terms with this girl; it would look suspicious if they were at odds with each other. He said grudgingly, “I grew up in the country, in the part of England that is called Sussex. It’s very pretty there, with rolling hills we call the Downs. My father had an estate and we had a lot of horses. I lived there until I was eight, then I went away to school.”

      She turned to him and her brown eyes were full of pity. “You English! It is terrible how you push your children off to school when they are so young. You must not like children very much.”

      He had never thought about such a thing. “I am sure English parents love their children quite as much as French parents,” he said defensively.

      “Then why do they send their children away to school so early?”

      They had left the farmland and were now driving along a city roadway, with gray stone residences on either side. A man walking a dog stopped to watch as they went by. Gabrielle waved to him.

      Leo answered, “For the education, of course. It would be impossible to get as good an education at home. Schools have masters who are experts in a variety of fields of study.”

      She clicked to the horses, which had turned their heads to observe a man painting an iron fence close to the road.

      “That may be true for older children, but young children can learn all they need to know from a good tutor at home. Eight! Mon Dieu, that is outrageous.”

      Leo didn’t think this remark merited a reply.

      Gabrielle went on. “It is only the upper class who can afford to do such a thing, yes? Is your father a noble?”

      He hesitated for a moment but could find no reason for not telling the truth. “Yes.”

      “Ah-ha!” She gave him a triumphant grin. “I guessed that you were the younger son of a noble. Wasn’t I clever?”

      “Very clever,” replied the eldest son of an earl.

      “Is that why you went into the army, to make a career for yourself?”

      He frowned. Was this interrogation ever going to end? “Yes,” he said shortly.

      She nodded, as if satisfied.

      He folded his arms. “Now it is your turn to tell me about yourself. Have you always traveled with the circus?”

      “It has been my life for as long as I can remember. Papa had to find something to do when the king fell, and he didn’t want to stay near Paris, where everyone knew he had been the king’s horse master. A traveling equestrian circus seemed to be a good idea, and we have been very successful.”

      “And your father was against Napoléon?”

      “Papa was a royalist, through and through. He himself was the grandson of a noble, you see.”

      “And you are a royalist as well?”

      “Not like Papa was,” she said. “I think too many people were poor under the ancien régime. But Napoléon is as bad. How many men did he lose in Russia? Half a million at least. And now his men are all over the country, conscripting a new army to go on fighting. Even the peasants are resisting this conscription—everyone is sick of war. We are sick of Napoléon, if the truth be known. A return of the monarchy would be better than what we have—if the monarchy was like the English one and responsible to a parliament.”

      A shock of hair had fallen across his forehead in the breeze and he pushed it back. He was impressed by her intelligence and conviction. “If Louis is restored it will be more of a constitutional monarchy—I’m sure of that.”

      “It had better be. To have gone through what France has gone through and to end up as we began—that would be a tragedy.”

      He, who had always thought it would be desirable if France returned to the old ways, thought for a minute about what she had said. Then he surprised himself by saying, “Yes, I suppose it would be.”

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