Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [378]
The donkeys delivered, he and Paul returned on foot toward the Cigny house. At this late hour of the afternoon, clouds had gathered again over Morne du Cap and were thickening over the south end of the harbor. The wind was swirling and stirring the dust, and people were emptying off of the streets, though in the end it probably would not rain. As they turned into the last block, the quartet of young captains was approaching from the opposite direction. At that, the doctor’s hackles rose.
Michau had opened the door for them. The doctor gave Paul a little nudge.
“Get inside.”
“But where are you going?” Paul turned on the threshold, raising his ivory face.
“Nowhere,” said the doctor. “Go in now. Your mother is waiting.” That last was an invention, but Paul did go in. The doctor thumbed the string of his medical macoute off of his shoulder and passed it to Michau as he shut the door. Then he stepped into the middle of the street, running his hand around his belt to assure the readiness of his pistols.
“Wait!” called Guizot. “We only want to talk to you.”
“I’m no assassin,” the doctor said. “Speak your mind. I did not expect you before tomorrow morning, that is all.”
Guizot’s heart shrank at that declaration. He had doubted the hope of his peacemaking project all day. The doctor had given him no encouragement during the coach ride to the hospital, and Guizot had not learned anything at all from Maillart. Though once he’d seen him, from a distance, walking across the Place d’Armes, it seemed the major did not hear his call, or had even intentionally ignored it. At last he and Cyprien and Daspir had prevailed upon Paltre to make this visit, though without assurance of how he would be received. Unfavorably, as it looked now. But it was a little late to withdraw. Guizot exchanged a quick glance with Cyprien and together they urged Paltre a pace or two ahead.
“Doctor Hébert,” Paltre began stiffly. If there were more words, they had caught in his throat. The doctor studied him in silence. Severe hangover would have been his first diagnosis. The scab where the stove wood had scraped his cheekbone was very dark against his greenish pale skin, his eyes were hollow, and he was sweating a nauseous aroma of stale rum.
“Doctor Hébert,” Paltre repeated. “Allow me to present my most—”
“My most humble,” Cyprien prompted from a pace behind.
“—my most humble apologies for my heedless speech of yesterday afternoon. Allow me, I—I—”
“I beg you,” muttered Cyprien, looking uneasily up at the Cigny house.
“—I beg you, allow me to recall those words, to swallow them as if they had never been spoken.”
The doctor sustained his passionless stare. He could not find the tight coil of his anger. In its place was only a draining fatigue, a deep weariness of the whole situation.
“As my excuse, I must plead mal de mer, the seasickness from which I often suffer, and which did plague me on the sail from La Tortue, along with the exhaustion of a long campaign—all that must have confused my senses, so that I mistook your lady wife for someone altogether different, who wholly lacks her modesty, her chastity, her grace. Far it would have been from me to injure your wife’s reputation, whether in word or thought or action—”
“I accept your apology.”
The voice came from above. Both the doctor and Paltre looked up sharply. Nanon stood on the balcony, with Isabelle and Elise on either side, each woman framed by a narrow arched doorway behind her. The spiral of the evening breeze loosened strands of their hair and fluttered the hems and sleeves of their garments.
“Madame Hébert,” Paltre said. His eyes darted anxiously among the three women. A blend of hatred and fear fumed out of his pores, with the stale