Tender the Storm (29 page)

"She might have turned the house into an infirmary for the poor. Now
there's
something a woman of means ought to consider."

"Charles! Zoë's not doing this for herself. The house belongs to her brother, Leon. She thinks to restore it and hold it in trust for him."

Lagrange patted his wife's hand pleadingly. "I don't mean to find fault with your little friend. I like Zoë, as you well know. I should have known, I suppose, when she deserted her English husband and came to France with us that beneath that demure exterior is concealed a will of iron."

"Zoë?
Willful?"
The thought seemed to amuse Francoise.

"There's no persuading her once she makes her mind up to do something. I cannot like her living in that house with only her maid as a chaperone."

"Not everyone thinks as you do," pointed out Francoise prosaically. "In point of fact, some would say that you are inclined to be old-fashioned in your notions."

"If I am old-fashioned," rejoined Lagrange, "then so is the majority of my sex. And I tell you now that a lady on her own, whether on the streets or in her own home, is inviting trouble."

Zoë was to learn the truth of this statement when she made her first outing to
Picpus
, in the
Faubourg
, St. Antoine, where her parents were interred. The place was desolate, like a wilderness, with nothing to show that beneath its fresh shroud of snow the bodies of more than a thousand victims of the last days of the Terror had found a common grave. "The Field of Martyrs," some called it, and came to mourn. Others crossed themselves, and hurried by.

It was here, strangely, that the violence of Zoë's
grief slackened till it became something more manageable.
For here was sorrow on a scale that humbled her.
Here was represented every class, every segment of society from common laborer to titled aristocrat. The hopes of some of the
most noble
houses ever to flourish in France no less than those of the most miserable peasant family had come to ruin in this final resting place. And there was no logic to it.

When Zoë returned to her carriage, she was white faced and silent. Salome, equally silent, unobtrusively adjusted the traveling rug around her young mistress's slight form. The silence was preserved until they reached the corner of the Palais Royal and the Rue de Richelieu. Something hit the side of the carriage and Salome cried out. The horses plunged,
then
came to a shuddering standstill.

"What is it?" Zoë called to her coachman, but already her eyes had taken in the swarm of young men who streamed out of the gardens of the Palais Royal. She knew at once what was afoot. A roving band of the
jeunesse doree,
that gilded youth, young fops who were easily identified by their white cockades and long powdered hair, and who invariably carried short sticks weighted with lead, were staging a pitched battle with their bitterest enemies, the
sans-culottes.

"Get us out of here!" Zoë's cry was desperate. But there was nothing her coachman could do. It was enough to keep his terrified team steady as the hordes of yelling combatants hedged them about.

The carriage door was wrenched open and the hostile face of a laborer, a
sans-
cullotes
,
thrust itself at Zoë.
"La-de-
dah
lady.
I thought Madame Guillotine had rid France of all your lot," the voice jeered.

Bloodied hands made a grab for Zoë. There was a scuffle. With a roar of rage, Salome threw herself at Zoë's attacker and bore him backwards out of the carriage. His place was immediately taken by another man. With great presence of mind, Zoë grabbed for one of the bricks which had warmed her toes on the way to
Picpus
. She threw it at the man who threatened her.

He dodged it easily. "Whoa, milady!" he said with a flash of white teeth. "Is that any way to thank your rescuer?" and just as her hand was groping for the second brick, he surprised her by giving her, her name. "No time for explanations," he said, cutting off her spate of questions, and he swept her into his arms.

They would never have made it through the crush of people to the gardens of the Palais Royal if the
jeunesse doree
had not given them aid.

"A
moi
!
A
moi
!
Alphonse! Henri!" shouted the
stranger,
and young fops disengaged from
sans-culottes
and flanked him, their short sticks viciously cutting a path through the press of their attackers. Not until they reached the safety of the gardens did the stranger lower Zoë to her feet in one of the arcades.

"My maid," said Zoë, and subsided when Salome, seated with queenly grace in the saddle of the joined hands of two members of the
jeunesse doree,
was borne into the gardens. They set her down,
then
raced back to the fray.

A sudden roar from the Rue de Richelieu signaled that one side in the confrontation had decided to cut its losses and run.

"You're quite safe here," said the stranger, his eyes studying Zoë's set face. "The
jeunesse doree
will make short shrift of that lot."

A tremor passed over Zoë. She looked around wildly. Outside one of the gallery cafes, waiters were setting tables and chairs to rights. Elsewhere, people were going about their business or pleasures as if nothing of any importance had taken place.

"What if they return?" she asked, catching her breath.

"Who?"

"Those young fops — the
jeunesse doree?"
As the words left her lips, two members of that dread society sauntered through one of the arches and came towards them. Zoë inched closer to the stranger.

He laughed softly. "No, no, Mademoiselle Devereux. Don't be afraid. These two outrageous
muscadins,
I'm ashamed to admit, happen to be my friends. It doesn't surprise me that you don't recognize them. I see what it is. You don't wish to, and who could blame you? Such affectation, such exaggeration! It's the new fashion, don't you know, but only for untried whelps." He spoke with such affection that no one could take offense at his words.

Zoë's eyes flicked over the two young dandies who were rapidly approaching. They were, she decided, something approximating her own age. She knew of a certainty that the
jeunesse doree
were of her own class — the scions of wealthy property-owning or professional families. Since Robespierre's overthrow, the
jeunesse doree
had become as frightening a force as the
sansculottes
had once been, but with far different aims. Former Jacobins and their sympathizers
were
their
quarry, and the authorities supported them. Their short sticks weighted with lead had become as fearsome a symbol as the red caps of the preceding years. Zoë could not suppress a shudder. She abhorred violence in any form, and looked forward to the day when the short sticks, like the red caps before them, were also banned.

Yes, there was something familiar about all three gentlemen, she was thinking, and turned her scrutiny to the stranger by her side who was regarding her with a quizzical expression. She judged him to be in his late twenties. He was of medium height, and, in contrast to the young fops who had joined them, was dressed impeccably in the sober elegance of the new mode. His hair was long, a shade darker than
her own
locks, and tied in back in a queue. His features made a pleasing though by no means memorable impression. But it was the laughter at the back of those beautifully fringed brown eyes which jogged her memory.

"Jean Tresier!" she said. "How splendid!" and she offered him her gloved hand. Like her own family, the
Tresiers
had been bankers. At one time, Jean Tresier was considered a good catch. If he was not already wed, Zoë thought that he must still be considered as such, if outward appearances were anything to go by.

"You were at one time, I think, acquainted with these disreputable characters — Alphonse and Henri
Destez
, of the
Destez
banking family?"

Zoë could not think now why she had ever judged that the
jeunesse doree
posed any kind of threat, so bashfully and maladroitly did these two members of that feared sect make their bows to her.

"Alphonse," she murmured, then again, "Henri. You were both away at school last I heard."

They returned something suitable, and lapsed into silence. There followed a slight awkwardness as each groped for a subject which would not cast a shadow on their conversation. It was impossible. Zoë's eyes brushed Tresier's and she knew that he was thinking the same thought.

Her expression grave, she asked, "What of your family?"

"Sadly, I am the remnant," he answered quietly. "And yours?"

Her eyes dropped.
"The same.
Just me."

It was at this precise point that Salome, rather pointedly, chose to clear her throat. Zoë looked a question at her maid,
then
followed the path of her eyes. She saw at once what Salome intended her to see. The ladies who were strolling about under the arcades, arm in am, and calling out brazenly to the patrons of the gaming houses and cafes, were not precisely ladies. Never in her life had Zoë ever thought to find herself in the precincts of the Palais Royal. "A den of iniquity," her father was used to call it.

"I must go," she said hurriedly. "Please accept my thanks for your very timely assistance. I shall never be able to repay you for what you did."

The laughter in Tresier's eyes betrayed that he had divined the cause of her sudden unease. "You may consider the debt cancelled, Mademoiselle Devereux," he said, "by granting me the honor of calling on you."

"The honor shall be mine, sir," answered Zoë, dimpling, and with her eyes she carefully included all three gentlemen.

When she entered her carriage, she thought to take her leave of them. But Tresier would not permit her to travel the streets of Paris without an escort.