Baker's Woman Page 3

  Sam came in looking cheerful and reported the arrival of the carriage and draymen who were ready to load the bags. Florence waited for him to savor his coffee.

  “Excuse me, Sam, we are to look for Marie, are we not? Please?”

  “That’s first on our itinerary. We’ll do what we can.”

  He seemed preoccupied with other thoughts and did not look into her eyes as he had when he made the promise. She noticed that when Sam spoke to her, Singh paid attention, and now he sat up and appeared to be challenging Sam. She could not follow their rapid exchange in English, but Sam’s frown and clenched teeth worried her.

  * * *

  “Surely this is folly,” Singh said. “You cannot think you have any right to interfere with the Ottomans.”

  “I have every right to make any inquiries I choose,” Sam replied. “They have in their custody an orphan child who was brought here against her will.”

  “But yesterday you participated in their trade. It was a tacit stamp of approval on their handling of refugees.”

  “That may be one way to look at it. However, I have no intention of arguing the point with the Saracens.”

  “You may not be able to avoid it if you stir up more trouble.”

  “Are you quite finished?” Sam moved closer to Singh, and tilting his head toward Florence, asked in a low voice, “Are you not aware of the consternation you may be causing right here in this room?”

  Singh put down his cup and twisted his hands together and didn’t look up as Sam continued.

  “You are not obliged to be part of anything I choose to do. If you decide to stay here, Duleep, you had better retrieve your luggage.”

  “I ask your pardon, Sam, I have overstepped my bounds.”

  “Apology accepted.”

  With luggage secured on the roof and strapped on the back, the coach creaked and groaned over the cobblestones. Sam had settled himself beside Florence and put a fur robe across her knees. She looked ready to sleep, and seated across from them, Adrianna and Singh were already asleep.

  They passed through deserted streets and soon reached the neglected courtyard of the shabby auction palace. On a stone bench an old man held his face up to the sun with closed eyes, his hand working a set of prayer beads. He must have heard the carriage but gave no sign before Sam sprang to the ground and called out.

  “Ahlan wa Sablan.”

  The man rose slowly and shuffled toward Sam with a toothless smile, yet he did not speak until Sam put money in his hand. Then he answered Sam’s questions.

  “The watchman or grounds-keeper says he’s the only one here. They’ve all gone, packed up and left last night. He knows nothing more.”

  “So that is that,” Singh said with a satisfied smile.

  “No, it’s not.” Sam put his hand on Florence’s. “We’ll try the garrison. He said it’s not far from here, told me how to reach it.”

  * * *

  Florence had not held hopes for the auction place and was not discouraged, yet when the carriage halted before the army post, a wave of despair assailed her. The grounds were deserted and buildings looked empty. She wondered how it was possible that in only twenty-four hours everyone could disappear. Beyond the sagging gates were the barracks where she’d slept, and she could see doors were bolted and windows shuttered.

  Sam leapt from the carriage and pushed the metal gate farther open. He pounded his fists on doors of one desolate building after another and shouted from time to time as he walked through the compound, peering into sheds. His head was lowered as he tramped slowly back to the coach.

  “This place is completely abandoned. If it weren’t for the garbage heaps, I would find it hard to believe anyone had been here in years.”

  Florence closed her eyes and swallowed hard to keep from crying. Then she summoned her courage and looked at Sam’s face and, seeing only defeat, tried to think where she could begin to search, how she might find Marie by herself.

  “I can’t go with you, Sam. I can’t go without Marie. Please, just take me back to- to the center of town.”

  “That’s not possible, and not sensible at all. I’m sorry I’ve failed you. I understand what finding Marie means, but I can scarcely imagine how it feels. However, you cannot stay here or you’ll be picked up, and Florence saw he would not say it, but she knew she would have little chance for anything but misery and less chance of finding Marie.”

  “We must at least leave a name with someone so they can find us, so they know she is being sought!”

  “Yes, of course, my dear, that I have already done.”

  Sam didn’t look at her and seemed agitated. Singh stared at him through narrowed eyes and turned toward the window. Adrianna reached over, put her hand on Florence’s and said she was sorry.

  “Liebchen, es tu m r leid.”

  Chapter 3

  The carriage rolled away from Widdin on a wide gravel road. Adrianna and Singh fell asleep at once; Florence slumped into the corner and seemed to be sleeping. Only Sam remained alert. When they passed the blackened ruins of a country church and a battered house, its door agape and windows broken, Sam thought it might well be the place Florence described, where she and Marie were captured. He felt guilty for deserting Marie and grieved for all the miserable victims of political upheaval.

  He regretted lying to Florence and hoped some day she would understand why they could not stay in Widdin, dared not leave a name and address. He never doubted all local officials were jealous guardians of authority and likely to take offense at any foreign incursion. But they might retaliate for a loss of property, even though he’d paid them well for Florence. Even worse, the Turks might suspect a British plot to impede their trade. Their immediate departure was the only course.

  As they traveled along the south side of the Danube, Sam watched for a bridge where the guards might not find reason to question or detain foreigners. At noon he saw a small garrison near a bridge with a sentry box beside a striped red and yellow gate that barred the road.

  A sentry in a red coat paced from one side of the road to the other beside the barrier. In his fancy coat, he looked like a character in a comic opera.

  The coach slowed and Florence and Adrianna stirred and opened their eyes. Sam leaned toward them with his forefinger to his lips.

  “Don’t move! Be asleep.”

  He stepped out of the coach, and the driver climbed down, winked at Sam, and went off to relieve himself. The sentry had halted a few feet away, watching Sam take the leather passport case from a pocket inside of his coat and fold some currency into the case. The sentry had bright eyes and the rosy cheeks of a country boy, and Sam smiled warmly at him as he handed over the case and asked in a low voice if it would be necessary to disturb his family.

  “My wife and daughter,” he said, gesturing toward the carriage door. “They haven’t been very well. Long journeys are hard on women. I would rather not disturb them, but if you wish, I’ll wake the young gentleman who is traveling with us.”

  The sentry leaned sideways to peer into the coach. He saw pretty faces of sleeping women, and he shook his head, saying he did not need to disturb them.

  “If you will vouch for the Turk, sir, that will be good enough, too.” He returned Sam’s papers after only a glance and went to the pulley to raise the barrier.

  Across the bridge, the road took them away from the Danube and northeast across the Wallachian Plain. They were all awake now and inclined to talk as they looked to their at the Carpathians’ snowy peaks.

  In answer to Singh’s questions, Sam talked about the shifting allegiances in the region’s history. It was but a decade ago that the British had aided Turkey in defeating Russia, while Russia had helped Austria crush the Hungarian revolt.

  “But, now Austria wants influence in Romania, which is under Russia’s protection.”

  Sam did not point out the ironies in their fleeing to territory protected by his country’s former enemy, and which had also had helped to defeat Floren
ce’s Hungary. His companions didn’t care as deeply for history or political alignments as he did, and he saw they were ready to drift off to sleep again, and he leaned back and closed his eyes.

  He had much on his mind and resumed mulling over his situation and his relentless desire to be in action. Tiresome as this whole trip had become, he wasn’t eager to return to England. And he had never meant to stay on the tea plantation.

  There, as well as in India, he had served his country’s needs as well as his own and would proudly do so again. Now he longed for the truly great adventure, the one he had made some moves to join yet none of them had worked out. He had not been given a part in the explorations now taking place in Africa. Africa!

  The last great mystery, the last grand opportunity for a supreme adventure. He knew must go there, must help open it to commerce and Christianity, and more importantly, he remembered his early dream of finding the source of the Nile.

  It rankled him that his ideas failed to impress the Royal Geographic Society, especially since they again were sponsoring John Hanning Speke, whose first try had ended so disastrously. And then Livingstone wanted only tradesmen, as if he were merely a sportsman! He had tamed a jungle with help only from natives he had trained. He knew chemistry and botany; possessed skills that would help him meet any challenge and survive anywhere.

  Now he thought he could set up his own expedition; however, since such an endeavor could last for years, he must find a suitable companion.

  Meanwhile, a suitable home for this poor young woman who had suffered so much must be found first. Though he wanted to end the tour in Bucharest, he saw that Adrianna could help Florence as only a woman could. If she would help him, he could put up with Singh. Sam knew how to compromise, when he had to.

  * * *

  At dawn Florence awoke to the thud of boots striking the floorboards and the rattle of harnesses in the courtyard. She came out of her room and smelled tobacco and lotion, telling her Sam had gone down to breakfast. When she came to the table, he rose part way from the bench to greet her. He directed her to serve herself at the sideboard and looked on with approval when he saw her plate of fresh bread and hot sausages. He indicated that they need not wait for Singh and Adrianna.

  He explained, “They prefer sleep over food at this hour. But you and I shall sensibly stoke up for the journey.”

  The eastern sky grew faintly pink as the coach creaked and lumbered out of the courtyard. Sam pulled a book from the sack at his feet and read, despite dim light and the sway and lurch of the coach. Florence watched Adrianna and Singh fall asleep, and her eyes grew heavy, too, and she drifted off to sleep. In mid-day the coach halted, and they alit, eager to tramp about on the turf. A low stone wall in the meadow served as a table, and the hamper yielded biscuits and bread, hard cheese and apples. The innkeeper included a bottle of local wine, too, and they shared it with their coachman.

  Back on the road, they passed stands of evergreens among meadows and arable fields, and gazed at shadows the clouds made moving across the foothills and mountain crests afloat on s veil of mist. The carriage splashed through streams and rumbled across wooden bridges above black waters carrying chunks of ice toward the Danube. Occasionally they saw farm buildings or flocks of sheep, the only signs of life on the endless plain.

  On nights that followed, their rooms were in similar inns of stone or rough timber built around courtyards. They ate hot suppers and hearty breakfasts and slept in fairly good beds while their horses were stabled and fed. Sam never commented on the food though Adrianna sometimes drew back as a plate of stew was set before her. After their supper, Singh picked up a bottle of wine and led Adrianna up the stairs.

  For Florence, sleeping in a room all by herself was a pleasure. Sam reminded her to bar her door and then went out for a walk.

  On the long afternoons in the coach, Florence heard about Sam’s life in Ceylon, where despite hardship and disasters, he apparently relished it all: The jungle was teeming with tigers, snakes, strange birds. Vines snared them, and underbrush grew as fast as they cut it away. They had to fight stinging insects and pull workers from mire. Many stories made them laugh, and to some Sam appended any lesson it had taught him.

  “It’s no more sensible to be angry with a pair of monkeys for laying waste to your kitchen than to blame a puppy.” Florence could picture him laughing at monkeys and dogs as well as the children occupying his house. If a wild animal came too close to the houses, he and his brother drove them away or killed them. Other times the men went into the jungle just to hunt and kill. Florence asked what he did with a dead tiger or an elephant.

  “Oh, well, I’d throw it over my shoulder and take it home, and then—

  “Enough, Sam!” Adrianna interrupted. “No details of dead creatures! Spare us any more.”

  “All right, but Florence asks a serious question. Their hides are valuable, horns and tusks, too, and often the meat is edible. The bearers took care to dispose of everything wisely.”

  Sam urged Duleep Singh to talk about India, but the prince protested that he’d been just a boy when he left home. When Sam mentioned his own time there, Singh didn’t respond, and Adrianna kept her eyes lowered, hiding whatever their blue depths held. Florence wondered if, for some reason, Adrianna did not want to hear about Singh’s home.

  Hoping to see her smile again, Florence asked how she knew Hungary and spoke Magyar.

  “I lived there for a few years, my dear, well before the rebellion. Can you tell us about that time, about your father and mother?”

  “No. I was young and Father sent us away when he went to war, to make Hungary free.”

  “Ah yes, that is a reason for war, always!” Singh said.

  “Not always; as a matter of fact, wars are often about property and trade,” Sam shot back and then turned to Florence. “Your father worked for unity or reform, perhaps?”

  “I don’t know. Men came and talked at night in our library. One evening one came alone when we were in our chapel. Father went away with him. Mother said we must pray. She cried and she and Rina packed bags and we left.”

  “Sam, she’s talking about the attack on the Hungarian capital in Debrecen in ‘49, isn’t that right, Florence?”

  Florence nodded, meaning only that it was the place, and perhaps the time. She could see that Adrianna and Sam knew what had happened in her homeland.

  “And you went to Transylvania, Florence?”

  “Yes. To Rina’s home in the mountains. Then the coach turned over.”

  Adrianna reached across to lay her hand on Florence’s hands, which were knotted in her lap. There was silence in the coach as the shadows of the trees grew long and the sun sank behind them.

  In her bed that night, Florence tossed restlessly. All day as they’d raced across the land, words had filled the coach and strewn the road with endless strings of sounds, most of which meant nothing to her. She could no more decipher them all than she could comprehend her place in the world. Somewhere Marie was alone, and Florence would never see her again, of that she now felt certain. The cold truth left her unable even to cry. Finally she slept.

  In the dark, a coach rocked and clattered over a mountain.

  It threw her first against Mother, then against Rina. A great jolt tumbled them over and over, until the coach cracked open and spilled everyone, everything, on a rock-strewn mountainside. She crawled around, found Mother, and slept. Morning came but Mother did not wake, and men carried her to a wagon. She sat on a horse, her face against a man’s rough back, and she cried and cried and could not stop.

  Florence opened her eyes and saw the window above her bed pale with morning’s light, but she still saw her mother lying on the rocky ground and heard her whispering, “Morning will come.” Florence hoped it would be all right, but morning had come, and it brought no comfort, not then, not now. She closed her eyes and waited to hear footsteps on the stairs and the rattle of harnesses in the inn yard.

  Chapter 4

 
; Bucharest

  On the afternoon of the fifth day, Bucharest rose from the plain, and Florence pressed her face to the window. When they entered the city, she gaped at the sights right and left as the coach rolled along broad streets. At intersections uniformed men blew whistles and gestured at the carriages, and on some streets coaches stopped and handsomely dressed people got out. Women in furs paused at shop windows to look at displays of gloves and bonnets.

  Their carriage stopped at the portal of an ornate stone building, and a doorman in gold braid and a shako reached to take Florence’s hand. It reminded Florence of the servant at the auction, and she drew back. Sam hopped down and reached to hand her down himself and, with a hand at her elbow, escort her through bronze and etched glass doors into the hotel lobby. He kept her at his side as he spoke across a counter to a man with a thin mustache, and in a minute, half a dozen blue-shirted men swooped down, picked up their baggage, and disappeared with it.

  Singh and the Countess were behind them at the desk, and now two attendants led them all up stairs and down a broad, carpeted corridor where mirrors and bouquets alternated with paneled doors.

  One of the men held open a door for Sam and Florence, and inside she beheld a most elegant room. On the pale green walls, gas lights glowed in sconces shaped like bronze lilies. The carpet, also pale green, was soft as a pillow. On opposite sides of the room doors opened on bed chambers, and as she walked into the room she saw needlepoint gardens and ladies in swings on chairs and on cushions that lay on the tapestry sofas. At the far end of the room glass-paned doors opened on a balcony with an iron balustrade. From there she looked out on a tree’s bare branches quivering in the cold twilight and caught her breath.

  Neither she nor Sam had spoken since the doors closed, and as she stared out at the gardens, she wondered if he saw it the ways she did. Although she sensed he was standing near her, it was startling when he rested a hand on her shoulder and sighed.

  “We are in the wrong season, my dear, all is dormant.”

  Florence could imagine the garden in springtime – trees and flowers in bloom, yet its beauty was breathtaking now, and Sam’s tone perplexed her. Turning, she saw that a wry smile pulled at a corner of his mouth.