"Denis?" Charitй said, amazed herself, smiling and shuddering to be spared, as well. She reached out a hand to her amour. If Denis was now in good spirits, would he not wish to…?
"Non" Major Clary told her with a sad shake of his head, that good humour vanishing as quickly as the gunsmoke. "I now bid you adieu, mademoiselle. Au revoir." With that he turned and began to trudge back to the top of the cliff, summoning Chasseurs to help their injured comrades.
Below on the beach, Matthieu Fourchette lifted his re-loaded musketoon to his shoulder, but gave it up as hopeless after a second of thought. He un-cocked it and handed it to one of the dazed soldiers. There would be Hell to pay when he reported this fiasco to Minister Fouchй. They'd killed a woman yet let the others escape to England, where news of the entire pursuit, Napoleon's involvement, and the murder would enflame British, perhaps world, outrage.
Fourchette heaved a deep sigh, contemplating the utter ruin of his promising career, shrugging and shaking his head sorrowfully, as he turned to face the cliffs, wondering if he should cross over the frontier and lose himself in the Germanies.
"What's that?" he asked a woozy Chasseur, who was aiding one of his mates with a twisted ankle, as he spotted the bundle of clothing.
"That's that hideux fellow, sir," the Chasseur told him, rather cheerfully. "Amazing, that shot. Be a trial… to get what's left of him back to the top of the cliffs."
"Don't bother," Fourchette told the soldier. "Leave him here, and let the crabs and gulls have him." And wondered if he could couch his report to place some of the blame for his failure on Choundas… well, a bit of it!
He went past the corpse, struggling to make his way up through the loose scree slope.
The Chasseurs, more practical and realistic, took a little time to loot Choundas's pockets, though they found little of value; seventy francs, a poor watch, some cigarros, a flint tinder-box, and a decent pistol with all accoutrements. The ogre's cane wasn't even scratched, and it, at least, was of good quality.
Then they walked away from him, too.
BOOK IV
Quid primum deserte querar?
Forlorn, what first shall I lament?
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Though it was after Easter, in the year of Our Lord 1803, there was still need of a fire in the hearth in the office/library with its many large windows and French doors overlooking the side yards and the gardens. It was a bright day, if still a cool one, so no candles or oil lamp was necessary for Alan Lewrie to read the latest letters that had come, or take pen, ink-pot, and stationery and reply to them. The only sound in the comfortably well-furnished room was the ticking of a mantel clock, and the occasional skritch of his steel-nib pen.
The house itself was quiet, far too quiet and yawningly empty to suit him, with the formal parlour and larger dining room furniture under protective sheeting, Sewallis's and Hugh's bed chambers abovestairs un-used now they were back at their school, and Charlotte the only child still residing at home… though of late she had spent the bulk of her time with his brother-in-law Governour Chiswick and his wife, Millicent, and their children at their estate.
Lewrie felt no need to break his fast, dine, or sup in the big dining room, no call to set foot in that wing of the house; there were no visitors calling who could not be received in the smaller breakfast room, or this office. His world had shrunk to the foyer, the landing and stairs, his office, the kitchens and pantry, and his and… their large bed-chamber. In point of fact, Lewrie preferred to pass most of his days outside, or somewhere else; the stables and barns, on a long ride daily over his 160 acres, or to town and the Olde Ploughman.
Lighting himself up to bed each night with a three-candle lamp, with the last bustling sounds from the kitchen and scullery over, he found that the house in which he once took so much pride felt more like a tomb an eldritch and eerie one. All winter and into the spring since he had brought Caroline home, the house at night let out odd wooden groans or ticks. Latched shutters rattled even in light winds, and there seemed an accusatory empty silence.
Reading in bed far into the night and partaking of perhaps a glass or two of brandy beyond his usual custom, he would look over to see her armoire and her vanity, empty of Caroline's clothing and things, and drawers in the vanity stripped to the last hair-curler or hat-pin, yet… they still stood in place, in what seemed to him to be mute condemnation.
The Plumbs' hired schooner had not sailed for Dover, but for Portsmouth, at Lewrie's request, to shorten Caroline's final journey to the Chiswick family plot in mossy old St. George's graveyard, in Angles-green, cutting a week off the time it would take to coach from Dover to Surrey.
In Portsmouth, one could also discover better carpenters who could fashion a finer coffin. There were more fabric shops for lining that coffin, and for a proper shroud, and professionals knowledgeable at the dismal death trade. And there would be perfume shops.
Lewrie had had no experience with shore funerals and the needs of the dead. When a sailor perished at sea, his corpse was washed by his messmates and the loblolly boys, sewn into a scrap-canvas shroud with rusty, pitted old round-shot at his feet to speed him to the ocean floor; a last stitch was taken through his nose to prove that he truly was gone. The sea-burial was done that very day, with the hands mustered, the way off the ship and her yards canted a'cock-bill; a service read from the Book of Common Prayer before the dead man was tipped off the mess table from beneath the flag, in brief honour.
In the heat of battle, sometimes the slain didn't even get that, and were passed out a lee gun-port so the sight of dead shipmates did not un-man or discourage the rest; then, only the names were read for their remembrance and honour.
There was no time for rot to set in.
Dear God, but that had been hard for Lewrie to bear! Despite a brief bustle of aid from the Plumbs, too damned many condolences and too much hand-wringing, "can you ever forgive us?" once too often, and watery, goose-berry-eyed speculations on what had gone wrong for the first time in hundreds of successful escapes, it was up to Lewrie to see her home, on his own. With the liberal use of a whole bottle of eau de cologne and nigh a bushel-basket of fresh-cut flowers in the coffin with her, he had set off with a dray waggon, riding beside the teamster, whilst the Plumbs had set off for London-thank God!-swearing that the news of Caroline's murder would set the nation afire, that they would speak to their friend, the Prince of Wales, etc. and etc., 'til he was heartily sick of the sight of them!
Travelling on the waggon seat, necessity though it was, made him cringe and burn with shame, though, for… how could he wish to bolt from a loved one, how could he do all the proper things if he wished that he had been the swift rider sent on ahead to alert the family and the vicar at St. George's and his sexton, who would dig the grave, instead of making the trip with a scented handkerchief pressed to his nose and fighting the continual urge to gag?
Once he was in Anglesgreen, others thankfully took charge, and Lewrie had been spared any more of the sorrowful details 'til the morning of the church service, and Caroline Chiswisk Lewrie's burial beside her parents, Sewallis Sr. and Charlotte. Even her old, hard-hearted and skin-flint uncle, Phineas Chiswick, had appeared to be moved to tears… or a convincing sham for family and village, for he'd never cared very much to be saddled with his distant North Carolina relatives who had fled at the end of the Revolution and had showed up on his doorstep destitute and with nowhere else to turn.