Marie crossed herself while Jean-Luc sighed. Knowing what he did of Murat, he had to assume the worst. After a long silence, he looked back toward Sophie. “So how did you move without a horse?”
“I knew I had to get off the road. I had no idea how close my uncle and his men were at that point. But since I had no money, I couldn’t stay at an inn. Besides, I didn’t wish for word to spread about a strange, disheveled-looking woman traveling alone, so I spent the entire day making my way slowly through the woods on foot, just hugging the side of the road.
“That evening I came upon a farm. It seemed like a remote enough place and I could tell it was inhabited, so I made my way into the barn. I was so hungry by then. But even more than that, I was tired. I had ridden all night and walked all the following day. I don’t know that I’ve ever felt so weary. I found an empty stall in the back and I lay down there and fell into a deep sleep. That was where I spent the second night.”
Jean-Luc looked at Sophie, amazed. She may have been well bred—genteel even—but she had a strength that he had not expected.
“I awoke the next morning to the confused whispers of an old man. The farmer. He had a pitchfork held aloft, but I sensed from his face that he was not a wicked person. I clasped my hands together, praying for mercy, and he lowered it immediately. He brought me into the farmhouse, where I met his wife and daughter, who gently insisted that I eat breakfast.”
“Thank God they were friendly.” Marie sighed.
“Friendly doesn’t begin to describe them,” Sophie said, her voice with a choking quality even as she forced herself to continue. “Saintly, in fact. That’s where I’ve been, ever since that day I first wrote André. Or, wrote you, I should say.”
“He received your letter the day of the trial,” Jean-Luc said, nodding. He remembered vividly how shaken André had appeared in court. He had presumed it to be the man’s nerves over facing the tribunal and possibly the guillotine, and did not realize until later he was reacting to the contents of Sophie’s letter.
“They weren’t suspicious of you?” Marie asked. “These farmers?”
Sophie shook her head. “They asked where I had come from. I told them I was from Paris, and they didn’t ask more after that. They said that everyone from Paris had a sad story these days, and that they had no need to hear a sad story. They took me in as if I were their own blood. I worked, too, of course, offering whatever assistance I could. Helped in the kitchen and with the children, and sometimes in the kitchen garden. I was so grateful just to be safe, and fed.”
“Until now. What happened?” Jean-Luc asked.
“Until just a week ago,” Sophie answered. “They must have been more nervous than they had let on, because just last week, they sat me down and asked me to leave.”
“What reason did they give?” Marie ran her fingers distractedly through her brown hair, pulling it away from her face.
“I mentioned their eldest daughter. A sweet girl,” Sophie said, a sad smile pulling on her lips. “She had a suitor, a young man from a nearby village who wanted to marry her. But he could not while there was a stranger living in their house. I think they were afraid that I might be noticed and bring suspicion on the whole family.” Sophie paused. “With the new decrees passed, anyone who so much as suspected them could denounce the entire family for harboring ‘traitors,’ and we know what would happen then.” Sophie looked as if she would be sick. For a moment Jean-Luc feared she might be, and he leaned forward as if to support her. But the shadow slowly passed and she composed herself. “I couldn’t blame them, and I told them as much.”
All three of them sat in silence after Sophie had finished, with only the sound of Mathieu’s voice infiltrating their somber circle as he played with his few toys.
Eventually, Sophie looked up. “I had no money. No food. I had nowhere else to go. My parents are dead. Remy is missing. I knew André had been in Paris. Other than him, I have no one.”
“But…” Jean-Luc stammered, “how did you get past the barriers?”
Sophie laughed, a mirthless laugh. “It’s easy enough getting into the city. It’s getting back out that’s the hard part.”
Later that night, after Mathieu had fallen asleep and Sophie had been provided with blankets and a small pillow for sleeping, Jean-Luc and Marie retreated with their sleeping toddler into the bedroom. It hadn’t been quite the celebratory evening of family reconciliation he had been hoping for.
They undressed in silence, putting Mathieu on his tiny pallet in the corner before getting into their own nightclothes. For the first time in a long while, Marie was awake as Jean-Luc climbed into bed. She curled up in a ball and faced him, her face just inches from his on the lumpy pillow. “Is there no other way? Nothing we can do?”