The Rainbow Bridge Read Online Free PDF Page B

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    ‘Aux armes, Citoyens! Formez vos bataillons!
    Marchons, marchons!…’
    Gaston had won their hearts. Grown men mopped theireyes as the boy soldier sang the song through again; they were already mouthing the words, groping to follow the tune. ‘Let us march, let’s march …’ they wanted it yet again, but Gaston knew when to stop. There was a hesitation, and then a cheer rang out.
    ‘Vive la France… Vive la République… Vive notre petit Hussar!’ roared Jean Brouchard, and the whole crowd joined in. Gaston, laughing and blushing, saluted them and, turning to go back into the house, came face to face with Colette. For one long moment their eyes were locked in pure shared happiness, a look that struck deep into both of them. Colette would remember it and treasure it. Gaston would not. In a few hours he would set out into the world to prove himself as a man and as a hussar. He would put away childish things; his romance now was with France. But unknown to him, a tiny shard of that shared moment would remain, lodged deep inside him, where it would act like the grain of sand that provokes an oyster to make a pearl.

    Not surprisingly, both the celebratory dinner and Gaston’s departure had been delayed. But Gaston was in no hurry, as he planned to spend the night with a friend and had only a few miles to travel. The Count left as soon as dinner was over, saying that he had to see Jean Brouchard. After his departure Colette began to feel more and more of an outsider. This was a time when the family would want to be on their own. So she took a basket, bid Gaston a formal farewell and announced that she was going up to see if the mulberries were ripe. Gaston, who knew the tree, looked up from the saddlebag he was buckling and said that he would wave to her as he passed.
    The August sun shed its heat and sank slowly into the western haze, growing huge as it did so. At the edge of the vineyard, under the gnarled and ancient mulberry tree that looked down on the road that Gaston would take, Colette sat waiting.
    In the winery the moment of departure came; Gaston kissed his parents an emotional goodbye and swung himself unsteadily into his saddle. Father had opened his 1789 vintage and Gaston was in a pleasant daze. ‘Allons, enfants de la Patrie!’ he sang as he rode north.
    He never looked up.

    The Count called at the mill, ostensibly to thank M. Brouchard for the note he had sent, but really to find out what direction the Jacobin had taken once the riot had broken up. Having established that the man had left, on foot, and was heading south, he laughed and said he was going that way himself and would give him a piece of his mind if he saw him. Working on a hunch, he sat up on the box beside his coachman, looking left and right for anywhere that a coach might have been driven off the road. He guessed that the man was not used to walking in sabots, and was soon proved correct. Tracks showed where a coach and horses had drawn off into the shade of a large oak tree. Leaving his carriage on the road, the Count walked over and found his recent adversary sitting on the coach step, massaging his feet.
    ‘Don’t get up,’ said the Count pleasantly. ‘I know, those sabots are damned uncomfortable.’ He bowed. ‘Count du Bois at your service, Citoyen. Or is it “Comte” perhaps? Or “Duc”?’ He held up a hand. ‘No, don’t apologise. It is just that I have a feeling that we have certain things in common.Perhaps I can learn from you. Perhaps you also can learn a little from me. Would we be more comfortable, do you think, if we sat in the privacy of your coach?’

    At the precise moment when the Count was greeting his adversary, Gaston, now a mile or more from Les Clos du Bois, reined in with an oath; he had forgotten to look up towards the mulberry tree. Colette would have been waiting, and he had never waved. He turned to go back, but realised that she would be gone by now. The sun was sinking behind a