Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [58]
A woman came in with a tray of coffee, Pascal following. There was a brief bustle of pouring, stirring in of sugar. The woman went out, leaving the tray; Pascal remained. The rattle of the rain on the window grew and subsided with the shifting wind.
“The coffee is excellent,” Lebrun said stiffly.
“You are kind to say so,” Christophe told him. “If you do not give me those papers directed to the Governor-General, it will be impossible for me to hear you any further.”
Lebrun glanced at the doctor, then at Pascal, but found no help in either of their faces.
“Very well,” he said, half rising to offer the documents. “As you are so extremely insistent . . .”
“Thank you,” Christophe said as he accepted the papers.
He went into the adjacent cabinet and shut the door. At this, Lebrun raised his eyebrows, but both the doctor and Pascal avoided his glance; the former looking out the window into the pounding rain, while the latter gazed up into a high corner of the ceiling. After a few awkward minutes, Pascal tried a couple of conversational sallies—the weather during Lebrun’s crossing, the state of the theater in France—but none of these tendrils took any root, and soon the silence resumed. Minutes crawled by with a terrible lethargy, approaching the sum of an hour. The rain abated, and the last glimmer of daylight shone beyond the windows when Christophe emerged from the cabinet. This time he left the door half open, though at such an angle that the interior was completely obscured from view.
“The Governor is on the Spanish side of the island,” he announced. “Without his order, I cannot permit myself to receive the fleet or the troops it carries.” When he began, his voice seemed loud enough to be heard in the street outside, and he raised it still higher as he went on. “The proclamations which you bring exhale despotism and tyranny—I will have my soldiers swear the oath to uphold liberty, be it at the cost of their lives.”
Christophe slammed his hands down on the table. An orderly appeared at the outer door, as if it were a signal.
“As the fleet has raised anchor and is no longer in sight,” Christophe said, lowering his voice just slightly from before, “you will remain with us tonight and rejoin your countrymen tomorrow. Your meal has been ordered, you may go with this man.”
Christophe nodded in the direction of the orderly. Lebrun opened his mouth, then closed it again. With a slight inclination of his head, he stood and followed the orderly out of the room.
“And you, Doctor Hébert,” Christophe said. “Thank you for your presence here today.”
“It is nothing,” said the doctor, feeling that in truth he had not done anything at all.
But Christophe had already turned to Pascal. “Stay a moment, will . . .”
Understanding himself to be dismissed, the doctor bowed out and walked down the corridor. A fragrance of highly seasoned goat stew caused him to glance into the formal dining room as he passed its open door. Ensign Lebrun sat at the head of an otherwise empty table, a service of gold plate laid out before him. A servant stood behind his chair, and half a dozen others manned the sideboard, each assigned to a covered dish or carafe of wine. The candles were lit from one end of the long table to the other. Unnerved by this spectacle of solitary splendor (as Lebrun’s expression showed him to be also), the doctor hurried past.
People were coming out onto the rain-washed streets again, voices ringing through the damp air as they called to one another. Someone hailed the doctor from behind, but he only returned the greeting over his shoulder, without slackening his pace as he went toward his sister’s house.
“A glass of rum,” he said to Zabeth in the foyer. “A large one, if you please.”
“Yes, Doctor,” she told him. “With lime? or water?”
“Just bring the bottle,” the doctor said.
Elise was already calling him from the upper story, an