Pont-au-Change Volume IV: Honor: Pont-au-Change, #4

PONT-AU-CHANGE

Being the Continuation of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables

Volume IV: Honor

Arlene C. Harris

Smashwords Edition

v 1.0 first half of book only

v 2.0 chapters of the second half are unlinked to the Table of Contents as I'm unable to code them at present, but I chose to post the book rather than delay further for the sake of formatting. When the issue is fixed I will reload the book. Otherwise: COMPLETE!

v 3.0 Table of Contents links restored. Copyright date updated to 2014. Minor typos corrected. This marks complete version.

Copyright 2014 Arlene C. Harris

Front Cover by Mireille Sillander

http://mireillesillander.carbonmade.com/

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Thank you for downloading this ebook. Please do not resell or redistribute this work, either for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you borrowed this ebook from someone else and liked it, please consider purchasing a copy for yourself. They’re cheap, and it’s the right thing to do. Because seriously: would you rather be a Valjean (or a Javert), or a Thénardier?

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Section One: Guernsey, 26 December 1855

Boxing Day

Woman Trouble

Reduced To Begging

Good King Wenceslaus

Black, White, Gray

Section Two: The Ends Of The Earth

Arrival

Scapegoat

End Of The Line

One Who Would Not Be Redeemed

Called To Account

So Close

Historical Record Versus Official Record

With Regard To The Clerk

A Wake For Bosun Hughes

A Rescue Becomes An Excursion

The Road To Parramatta

Père Abélard’s New Garden

No Other Way Out

The Road Back

An Arrest Becomes An Abduction

Viking’s Funeral

Lagel’s Farewell

Two Files Which Are Between Them Nine Tenths Closed

Loosely Tied Threads

Section Three: Galatea

Revolution And Empire

The Price Of Success Is Often Failure

A Dreadful Decision

Bête Noir

In Gratitude

Equivalent Trade

Everyone Has A Price

The Falling-Out

Bride, Wife, And Widow

Section Four: Among Thieves

The Pride Of The Peelers

Late Visitors

A Change In The Scheme Of Things

Conspiracies

Spectator Sport

Two Debts; Two Notes

Crocker For The Defense

A Lady Requires An Escort

Noblesse Oblige

The Terms Of The Agreement

Day Of Departure

Section Five: Oaths And Obligations

The Dissolution Of The Triumvirate

Caught In The Middle

Matrimony Promotes Promotion

Nothing Is Ever Entirely Forgotten

The Bride Shrinks; The Bridegroom Blossoms

Two Views Through A Single Window

How R And S Become O And P

Vengeance Has Its Degrees

The Commencement And Conclusion Of Negotiations

Change Of Plans

Baron Versus Baron

An Old Friend Leads To An Old Enemy

End Of The Road

A Figurative Blade Cuts As Deeply As A Literal One

No More Secrets

Win Some, Lose Some

And The Rest

Section Six: Entr’acte

Regarding The Present

Regarding The Past

Regarding The Future

Section Seven: The Fatal Flower

The Papal Meridian

An Inauspicious Beginning

The Price Of Tea In China

Supply And Demand

The Eastern Triangle

Bad Company

Escalation

Section Eight: Button

From Capricorn To Cancer

Almost Like Home

Kimball & Eggers’ Academy For Girls

A Lesson In Economics

A Lapse Of Memory

The Other Trading House War

Two Successes Do Not Balance One Failure

The Mouse

Reflections

What Saved Jean Valjean In Toulon Saves Another In Macao

France Also Harbored Dreams Of Empire

The Elder And The Youth

The Scourge As Seen Firsthand Through A Ruined Life

Second Chances

Javert Keeps To His End Of The Bargain

Baat Hahng

Choices

Darnet’s Other Legacy

Section Nine: Sacrifices

Widow And Orphan

With An Eye To The Future

Lagel In Paris

In The Cards

Lagel Begs A Favor

The Mirror’s Reflection

Section Ten: The Unwinding Thread

A Brief Recollection Of Events Pertaining To Marius’s Grandfather

The Marquis’s Machinations

Auguste Recalls What Javert Did Not Remember

Death Of The Marquis

What Could Be Done And What Could Not Be Undone

A Walk In The Park

Race Against Time

Chance Encounter

Driven To The Edge

Nowhere Left To Run

Section Eleven: Misery

Hong Kong

Down To Winter

Javert’s Vision

Deceptions

Dragon And Tiger

Just Another Runaway

Jewel In The Rough

Plans And Precautions

The Gunpowder Plot

Battle Won, War Lost

The Breaking

Too Long Delayed, But Not Too Late

A Touching Reunion

The Moments Before

The Moments After

Et Tu, Brute?

Another Apt Shakespearean Quote

Epilogue

Guernsey, 30 December 1855

Notes Particular To The Second Half Of The Volume

About The Author

o~o

nota bene: Despite the fact that some of the characters and institutions and situations described herein are based on actual persons, places, and events, this is a work of fiction; any similarities between them and any persons, places or events other than those intended—living, dead, or otherwise—are entirely coincidental.

o~o

Dedication:

For Mel Trout Hughes, who has been with me the entire time

o~o

SECTION ONE

Guernsey, 26 Dec 1855

I

BOXING DAY

THE CHURCH BELLS pealed on the morning after Christmas, echoing over land and water, augmented by both. The denizens of the little island of Guernsey opened shutters, stoked fires, and emptied chamber pots; a dim, pale yellow sun rose over the distant shores of France that would later set over England. Suspended between these two great nations, the island had two cultures, one born of Britain, the other of Gaul. French and English were both spoken openly in the streets. But no Frenchman could mistake Guernsey for a satellite of France, for the coat of arms on the official documents marked the island as a Commonwealth; the island had an undercurrent flowing through it, one that tasted distinctly British. As such, the island officially celebrated the holidays of England, and, it must be noted, of the Protestant faith. That is not to say that the Catholics did not have their days, or that the French were restricted in their observances. On the calendar of saints, the twenty-sixth day of December was officially dedicated to the Feast of St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr.

Had anyone been about at that early hour, he might have seen a short, stout man dressed in black huddled in the doorway of a house partway up the winding road from St. Peter Port. The man’s face was red, but not from cold or from drink; it was the face of anger. In other times, under other circumstances, one might have called it either the face of genius or of madness, depending on one’s preferences.

Through the veil of his rage he heard golden voices wafting up from the little church nearby, prayerful and joyous; he spoke no English and did not recognize the tune, for it had been penned a mere two years before, but it had already become quite popular as a hymn:

Good King Wenceslaus looked out,

On the Feast of Stephen,

When the snow lay round about,

Deep and crisp and even;

Brightly shone the moon that night,

Though the frost was cruel,

When a poor man came in sight,

Gath’ring winter fuel.

"Hither, page, and stand by me,

If thou know’st, telling,

Yonder peasant, who is he?

Where and what his dwelling?"

"Sire, he lives a good league hence,

Underneath the mountain;

Right against the forest fence,

By Saint Agnes’ fountain."

"Bring me flesh, and bring me wine,

Bring me pine logs hither:

Thou and I will see him dine,

When we bear them thither."

Page and monarch, forth they went,

Forth they went together;

Through the rude wind’s wild lament

And the bitter weather.

"Sire, the night is darker now,

And the wind blows stronger;

Fails my heart, I know not how,

I can go no longer."

Mark my footsteps, good my page;

Tread thou in them boldly:

Thou shalt find the winter’s rage

Freeze thy blood less coldly."

In his master’s steps he trod,

Where the snow lay dinted;

Heat was in the very sod

Which the saint had printed.

Therefore, Christian men, be sure,

Wealth or rank possessing,

Ye who now will bless the poor,

Shall yourselves find blessing.

Customarily, in the British Empire and its possessions, the day after Christmas was set aside for donations to the poor and for remunerations to the working classes, a voluntary year-end bonus, for it was often the case that laborers toiled on Christmas Day, whether they were clerks or household servants, so that their employers might enjoy the day. On the day after Christmas, servants were sent home to their families laden with boxes full of clothing and food and money. Modern day readers of Mr. Dickens’ excellent work, A Christmas Carol, oftentimes fail to realize that, since the story takes place all on a Christmas Eve, when the company clerk Mr. Cratchit asks his employer, Mr. Scrooge, for the following day off, he is asking for Christmas Day, a request that is not met gracefully. He was expected to work on that day like any other. When Mr. Scrooge admonishes his clerk to be here all the earlier the next morning, Mr. Cratchit is being directed to return to work on the day after Christmas, the day now known as Boxing Day. In modern times, Cratchit most likely would have had both days off, with pay.

The custom of distributing gifts and charity to the working poor had sprung from many sources, and none could say which was the original inspiration: some felt this gift-giving was in keeping with the offerings of the three wise men before the infant Jesus, an increasingly common prolepsis of Biblical events; others believed it derived from the ancient tradition of opening the alms boxes at Christmastime for distribution to the poor. Perhaps it is the combination of both. In modern times, Boxing Day has become a day to visit shops for special sales. But its purest roots lie in charity.

The man had been sitting out in the cold since before the sun showed itself; now he felt it ease its tentative rays over him as it vaulted itself into the skies. But it was a light that gave little warmth, and a light that stung the man so that he flinched from it. His hat was perched cockeyed over his brow, and his scarf, wrapped three times about his neck, seemed so tight that one might think it was meant to be a tourniquet. His short coat’s collar was turned up to provide scant protection for his ears; his ungloved hands were wedged under his armpits. His sunken eyes were ringed with red, but he had not been crying. In fact, his eyes were too dry, and they burned in their sockets like coal embers waiting to blaze anew.

The house behind him was his own, rented for the purpose of providing a residence for his mistress. The fact that he was barred from entering it would explain both his presence on the wrong side of the door and his unhappy demeanor. And he, so new to this island, risked derision from every corner with every passing moment he remained on the doorstep–a consideration that only the day before would have forced him to his feet, at least—and yet he did not budge.

The day before he had been a celebrity, a famous writer and poet, a statesman, a freedom fighter, a social champion, an acknowledged literary god, the hero of an age. Now he was merely Victor Hugo, spurned lover and failed husband.

o~o

II

WOMAN TROUBLE

NOT FAR DOWN Rue Hauteville from La Fallue, the cottage Victor Hugo had placed his mistress in, was the house occupied by his legitimate family, also rented; if he so chose, he would find warmth and shelter and food and drink there. But to leave the doorstep was to admit defeat. He could not do that. It was in his nature to conquer, and he had done so in every field he had attempted. He merely needed to wait, and a solution would present itself to him eventually.

In an age when most writers were either starving in garrets or living on their family wealth, Hugo had become independently solvent, able to provide both for himself and his growing family until they were of an age to begin providing for him, meaning that as some men bring their sons into the family trade when that trade is an industry, he had made an industry of his writing and had given his sons work to do within it—answering correspondence, translating his works from French for the innumerable foreign editions, and so on. His own wife was commencing to write his biography; his mistress transcribed his scrawled notes into legible prose. With their assistance he would provide superbly for the lot of them after his death, a death he was sure he would meet early, having already nearly burned out the star of his existence in succumbing to his ambitions and desires and drives.

Desire, ambition, and drive had put him on the door stoop. He knew that. He was not ashamed of these things. The same drive that forced him to write for hours on end without eating, that kept him to merely a few hours’ sleep each night, that urged him on to finish work after work as if prodded by innumerable pitchfork-wielding demons, was the same drive that took him away from his writing to indulge in the only thing that competed with his work for supremacy: his conquests. And it was this that had conquered him, for the moment.

It had begun with the drawing, a sketch, of a dark-haired beauty with deep eyes. Hugo drew her as he imagined her, bare-breasted like the figurehead of some great vessel; he was a fair hand with caricature, but this could have been a portrait in ink. He did not mind that his mistress, Mademoiselle Juliette Drouet, had found the picture—better she had found that than the secret diary wherein he detailed all his liaisons and assignations!—but what shocked him was that she had recognized the model. He had laughed off her concern, for he assured her the lady in the drawing was unyielding to anyone, even to him—and how much it had hurt his pride to say so—but by saying so he had all but hung a sign around his neck advertising that he wished to make the attempt. Mademoiselle Drouet knew him too well, for she had been with him for twenty years, through good times and hard ones. But she had never forgotten that once he had betrayed her with a second mistress, Madame Léonie Biard, a woman not much older than his dear, dead daughter, and of a similar name! Nor had Mademoiselle Drouet forgotten that the pair had been caught in flagrante delicto, and while he had escaped prison by virtue of his immunity as a member of the Upper Chamber of the Assembly, Madame Biard had gone to the prison of Saint-Lazare, where prostitutes and adulterous women were incarcerated, and from there to a convent at the insistence of her husband—there to be visited by Hugo’s wife, Adèle, who was much pleased that the old mistress had finally been eclipsed by a rival of her own. And when Madame Biard was released from the convent, she had come to live in her lover’s house, the same house he shared with his wife, and she had practically been adopted into the family even as he continued to enjoy her, with the wife’s tacit approval!

The arrangement was not to last. In 1851, Mademoiselle Drouet had received a packet of letters from her lover—letters addressed to his other mistress. Madame Baird had gleefully handed them over in the hope of sending Mademoiselle Drouet packing; Mademoiselle Drouet had not known that the affair had lasted so long, that it continued to exist at all, and under his wife’s own roof! She confronted Hugo with the letters and he vowed to give up the new mistress for the sake of the twenty years he had enjoyed with the old one. But Mademoiselle Drouet had suggested that he decide for himself, after a trial period, which of them to give up, rather than allowing her to make the decision for him and leaving him the possibility of future regret. This plan proved to be the newcomer’s downfall, for now Madame Biard began to make ultimatums with regard to giving up Mademoiselle Drouet, and Hugo would have none of that; he cast Madame Biard off after a hundred days and reestablished his former relations with the second great love of his life...the one he could not marry.

Hugo’s courtship of Adèle Foucher had been the stuff of romances, of dreams—he had kept himself pure for her, even in the despair of knowing that her parents would never consent to the match, and despite his own brother Eugène’s professed love for her. But his fervor and persistence had paid off, in that Hugo eventually won approval from his future in-laws and took possession of his bride, and poor Eugène went mad on his brother’s wedding night and had to be sequestered for the rest of his short life.

Hugo was a man of passion; he was the first to admit that, both physical and emotional passion. He himself let it be known that his long denial prior to the marriage had allowed him to enjoy Adèle nine times on that first night of matrimony, and he enjoyed her so frequently thereafter that she was with child uncomfortably soon after the ceremony. Their first child—a son who was named Léopold-Victor, after Hugo’s father—died in infancy. The second child, a girl, was named Léopoldine. She was Hugo’s pride and joy, the strongbox of all his future aspirations. Two more sons followed, François-Victor and Charles-Victor, and last came another daughter who was rather plainly called Adèle II. After five children, Mme Hugo let it be known to her husband that she had no intention of having a sixth, or even risking it by continuing to allow him access to her boudoir.

The news crushed Hugo. Adèle had been Hugo’s muse, his inspiration, for so much of his early work, and she had continued to be so for many years afterwards. Divorce was of course out of the question, even when he provided her with an excuse, the adultery he now began to commit because his passions would neither be denied nor contained. And then came the staggering blow, the realization that all the while Adèle had been having an affair with Hugo’s best friend, the critic Saint-Beauve! In fact, for a time it seemed, it was rumored, that little Adèle was not her father’s child. Although this proved not to be the case—Saint-Beauve was, ironically, impotent—the incident had drawn a veil over Hugo’s adoration of the youngest girl, so much so that he now concentrated his paternal affections solely upon Léopoldine.

Then, in 1832, during the rehearsal of one of his plays, Hugo met the woman he would call the wife of his heart, the actress Juliette Drouet. She was already famous and infamous, as most courtesans aspire to become, having posed au naturel for a commemorative statue that still stands in the Place de la Concorde (Mademoiselle Drouet represented the city of Strasbourg, a victory for Napoleon’s army). Mademoiselle Drouet had become his secretary and confidante, and the receptacle of his inspiration as well as its foundation. She had followed him to exile in Belgium, to Jersey, and now to Guernsey. But now, twenty years later, her looks were beginning to fail; she had become, to use the contemporary euphemism, matronly. Worse, her eyesight had begun to fail, from long hours laboring by candlelight rendering Hugo’s illegible scrawls into something readable enough for the typesetters to print from. But Hugo loved her and would not give her up, even while he dallied in the arms of a tavern girl. Mademoiselle Drouet became an inextricable part of his soul, and he could no more let her go than he could rip his still beating heart from his chest and fling it into the hearth at her feet.

Thank God for Juliette! Without her, he would have lost everything on the crossing from Jersey. When he had arrived on the newest island of his exile, an accident had sent a trunk full of manuscripts to the bottom of the channel. Not only did the trunk contain twenty years’ labor on what he knew would be his definitive masterpiece, the tome he now called Les Misérables, but it had also held twenty years’ worth of unpublished poems. Some had been held back because of timeliness—it would not have done to publish happy poems after Léopoldine’s death, so those he had written he re-dated to an earlier time, while ascribing to a later period more morose ones. Other poems he had not been happy with, and had set aside to cool, until inspiration struck him to polish the rough verse to a smooth bevel, both a gem and a wedge for the soul. And his dear accomplice had been copying out so many of them as of late that she had retained most of what he had feared lost! Only because of this could he now prepare for publication a fresh volume for the palate of his adoring public. And only because of a miracle, a twist of fate, could he rewrite in its entirety the lost Les Misérables...Oh yes, Juliette Drouet was as indispensable to him as another arm. He would not lose her to another jealousy. He would not change his ways for her, but he would not lose her, either. He meant to have things both ways.

Léonie Biard had been both a diversion and a mistake. She had rendered him great joy, but had caused him more difficulties. And she certainly was not worth going to prison over. His wife, who never acknowledged Mademoiselle Drouet, was only happy to keep the wedge of Madame Biard firmly between Hugo and his official mistress, at least until he had at last been forced to make the choice. Hugo would see to it that his wife would have no further say in his arrangements, and neither would Mademoiselle Drouet.

All this had been supposedly left in the past. Hugo had taken no other formal mistresses, but he had had numerous liaisons, with ladies of high station and low, both with the wives of magistrates and their chambermaids. If Mademoiselle Drouet had suspected these incidents, he would have suffered greatly by it. Until she found the sketch, she had believed, somewhat naively, that he was once again hers alone.

It is that Englishwoman! she had screamed at him. I knew it! That’s why you stare out the window as you do, gawking at that ugly house on the hill like a hungry dog at the gate to a slaughterhouse!

I have never met that woman, he replied in all honesty. The image he had drawn was from his own mind, combined with the minuscule image burned into his memory, the image from a daguerreotype he had once seen briefly at the house of a mutual acquaintance.

I will not have it! Mademoiselle Drouet threw the drawing down and sobbed into the cast-off bed linen. I cannot bear it!

I tell you there is nothing, he protested, as it began to gnaw at him that perhaps this time he had gone too far, and for doing nothing but putting pen to paper! And as for what you call gawking, I call it contemplation. It is not the woman that concerns me; it is the house that surrounds her that I am concerned with.

The house? she cried, incredulous.

Yes. I mean to have it. I will have it. You’ll see.

By any means necessary?

Yes, by...What do you mean? He sensed a trap. She was not the wittiest woman in the world, but neither was she the slowest.

You know what I mean. She paced around him, her bare feet tapping on the wood floor of the cottage. Would you sleep with her, if it came to that?

For the house? Of course not. He added to himself, I would sleep with her regardless.

If you tried, you would be humiliated, she continued, as if she had not heard him. That woman is known all over the island. My maid tells me about her, that she is a widow, that she is a charity worker, that she does not go into society but for the purpose of soliciting donations to the poor. Everywhere the story is the same. She is unreachable, unconquerable. So put her out of your head, for you won’t have her, and I won’t have you go mad for the thought of her!

I will— He stopped. He took several deep breaths. I will do what I will do, and that’s that.

Yes, I know, you’ll do what you always do. And you will lose. She turned away from him sadly.

"I will not lose! He picked up the nearest object, a small blue vase in the Chinese style that had become all the rage in Europe, and he dashed it to the floor. Her gaze fixed on the shards of porcelain, unable to look him in the face for fear of what she might read there; he fancied he could hear her tender heart breaking in much the same way as the vase, the sounds identical. Juliette, I..."

You will lose, she repeated. And I will lose, for having lost you. She turned her back on him and slipped behind a screen, drawing a loose peignoir around her shoulders as she did so.

He had stared at her silhouette, speechless, for several moments. The rage did not subside. In fact, it increased. But he did not break anything else. He knew one harsh word would win the argument, and two would raise an impenetrable barrier between them, and he had fifty harsh words ready to unleash in an instant. Rather than say anything and ruin himself, he had retreated from the cottage, but he got no further than the stoop. So there he remained, frozen in time like the island in the sea, awaiting some great cataclysmic change to determine his new direction.

Suddenly a shadow fell across him. He raised his eyes, flinching.

It was she!

o~o

III

REDUCED TO BEGGING

HUGO GAPED UP at her, unable to speak. Here she was, the widow, the Englishwoman, the seraph in black taffeta that he had been compelled to commit to paper! It was all he could do to look at her, to etch her features into his inner eye, to see with the dispassionate demeanor of one whose lot in life was to describe everything in exacting detail. He saw now that he had been very wrong to mistake her for the Baronne Pontmercy at the party two weeks before; she bore only a slight resemblance in real life, as opposed to the tiny image he had seen in the daguerreotype. They had similar delicate features, but this woman, Madame Nichols, did not have the round face of the baronne, nor the fair skin—madame’s skin had a distinctive olive tinge to it. The baronne’s hair was lighter, more ash than chestnut, and with touches of gray. Where the baronne’s nose tilted up slightly, madame’s did not; in fact, madame’s nose had a slight downturn to it, giving her the trace a hawkish profile. It was not grotesque, nor even truly astonishing; it was the mere addition of the slightest layer of bone across the bridge of her nose. Likewise it seemed to him that madame was a bit shorter than the baronne, and more delicately boned. But Hugo saw now how it was possible that he could have mistaken one woman for another: it was the eyes. They were not the same color, for the baronne had striking blue eyes and madame had green eyes with tiny flecks of copper around the iris. Nor were they shaped the same, as the baronne ’s eyes were large and bright and madame’s were small and bore a slight narrowing at the edges, giving her an almost Asiatic appearance. Rather, it was what lay behind the eyes that made them seem the same: identical histories, painful childhoods that had only been alleviated by an adolescence and maturity founded on grace. In their eyes he saw no difference, only the echo of abject misery overcome that made them sisters.

She said something in English to him, and when he stammered, I do not— in French, she quickly changed languages to match his: Have you eaten, sir? Are you hungry?

Eaten? He stared back at her as if he had never heard of the concept.

Here, she said, and pressed a small bundle in his hand. This is for you. Have you a family? No? Well, take another one anyway. There is a church nearby, and it is warm; they’ve stoked the fires. It would be better for you in there than out in this cold Channel air. She straightened up; in one hand she had a small but serviceable muff; she slipped the other hand, now empty, into it. Good day. She smiled the kind of smile that would have warmed up the nearby church even if it had been bereft of firewood.

Conflict tore at his innards. Should he speak? What should he say? They had not been introduced! Should he follow her? What would she do? What would she think? She thought he was a beggar! And so on.

She walked only a few steps past the cottage, down the hill; as she disappeared from sight Hugo saw a man take her arm, a man in a modest black suit who sported a brilliant white beard. In the man’s other arm he carried a large sack filled with many small bundles, like those she had given Hugo. Together they descended into the village. Like the woman, the man was distinctive, but more so; Hugo could not mistake him in a hundred years. Valjean, he muttered. That was Monsieur Valjean!

The cataclysm had occurred, and it had been a landslide, for it had had the effect of dislodging Hugo from his perch and forcing him downhill in pursuit.

He abandoned the bundles on his mistress’s porch.

o~o

IV

GOOD KING WENCESLAUS

HUGO PACED BEHIND them, but quietly, so as not to make his footsteps heard on the cobbles. This was not ordinarily a simple task, but he had taught himself the technique years ago, in the streets of Paris, during his clandestine assignations, so he was no stranger to the effort here. As he placed himself within earshot of the pair, he heard that mellifluous voice again, the voice of the English widow who spoke impeccable French: ...a tradition which my late husband started. And I am already regarded as peculiar, even by English standards.

Nevertheless, said her escort gently, his voice deep and soothing like the shade of an oak tree, you should not go out on your own in the mornings. I have already told you that both I and Monsieur Lenoir are available to escort you as you wish. Lenoir, Hugo knew, was the name by which Jean Valjean’s companion in exile was known, just as Valjean was known as Leblanc. But where was Lenoir? For Hugo knew also that where one man was, the other was not far off. This made him look over his shoulder more than once as he followed them.

I know, and I do appreciate it, really, but this weather is not good for your health. Mrs. Nichols looked up at Leblanc. Although I do appreciate also your toting that sack for me.

You made it too heavy for yourself, madame. It’s filled too high.

This is not my fault, monsieur. If there were fewer miserable people on this island, the bag would not need to be so heavy. She stopped, and he stopped alongside her. Is there any other work in which the ultimate goal is to put oneself out of work? I mean, really, if you stop to think about it, my ultimate success would result in my own unemployment. She tugged at his arm and they continued walking. But that’s too simplistic an idea, really. Charity is the work of a lifetime, many lifetimes. We will not see the end of it, either of us.

Myself, certainly, said Leblanc grimly.

She gave him a reproving glare. You are not that far along, monsieur. And I will not see its end, either, I am sure of it. Her expression softened. I have the work of a lifetime ahead of me. I will never lack for an outlet for my efforts; for all intents and purposes with regard to myself, the task is eternal. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? On the one hand I am humbled by the thought that I will always be needed, but on the other I am disappointed by that very necessity. Or am I thinking too much? Should I even commit myself to feeling anything at all about it, when my empathy is required by others?

Leblanc drew up short, startling both his companion and the man following them, the man neither had yet seemed to notice. Madame, charity is the man standing on the banks of the Styx watching Tantalus try to drink. It is possible to cup one’s hands and draw up water to him, for he cannot partake of the water himself without it ebbing from his grasp. If once a bystander gives him aid, what then? It will not slake his thirst for long. Is the observer to stand at the bank forever in attendance, knowing that helping him to drink will not solve the larger problem of rescuing him from that fate? Charity is a temporary measure only. It is as it should be. That is not to say ill of the giver, but the one who gives must not be expected to give forever. Eventually Tantalus must free himself, because somewhere along the banks is another man who needs help, and who else is to do this but the man who has benefited from such help himself?

But Tantalus couldn’t get out of his punishment, she protested. That was the point of it, to suffer forever.

So we are told, said Leblanc. But I do not believe it. There are men who will stay in that river forever, dying of thirst, just for knowing that sooner or later someone will come along and give them something they will not willingly strive for themselves.

Like that man, she murmured. Like Thénardier.

Exactly like, said Leblanc.

Hugo held himself in the shadowed doorway of a shop as the pair continued forth; he stayed back and watched them as they gave out small bundles to the road sweeper and the driver of the milk cart and the children picking out odds and ends from between the cobbled stones. The old man and the young woman, dressed equally in mourning crepe, chatted with their charges freely in both English and French, and soon others were flocking around the pair like seagulls swooping onto an incoming fishing boat. Not one bundle was refused. Eventually, they even gave away the empty sack to an old woman whom Hugo had no doubt would find some good use for it.

The children ringed Leblanc, hand in hand, and they sang that song again, the one Hugo had heard from the church earlier. He wished he could get someone to tell him what the words meant. After two or three verses, the chain broke apart and the children ran down the street, laughing and singing.

When they were abandoned, having nothing left to give, Leblanc turned away and slowly made for a stone bench beside a low wall. Mrs. Nichols followed. Are you well? What is it?

I think, said Leblanc, that I should rest a bit.

You are out here breathing this cold air. I told you it wouldn’t be good for you.

Madame, cold air or warm, it makes no difference....

Hugo frowned. What did that mean? Was Monsieur Leblanc, the man whom the world would soon know as Jean Valjean, the hero of Hugo’s masterwork Les Misérables, finally feeling his advanced age? For a moment fear gripped Hugo, in the thought that Leblanc’s health might keep him from finishing his narrative, leaving Hugo once again with a novel only partly finished.

You should not be here, said Mrs. Nichols. Monsieur Lenoir should never have brought you back to Guernsey. You need drier air, you need....

I am needed, he corrected her. So I am here.

Not for my sake. Please, not for me.

Madame, you are alone in the world right now.

I am aware of that. She picked at the ends of the ribbon that secured her bonnet. You think I should have gone back to California after all this...after all that has happened. No, don’t act surprised. I know you think so. You all think so. You think I’m being foolish for remaining here.

Foolish? No.

You think I should abandon Hauteville House and return to America.

Hauteville House? Hugo didn’t know the house had a name already! He had decided to call it Liberty House when it came into his possession; the naming of houses was a peculiarity of English custom, but he liked it, so he decided to employ it himself. But the phrase Hauteville House stuck in his head. Hardly descriptive at all, it had the charm of being singularly effective and minimalist in the same sweep. It was a house and it was in the Hauteville part of Guernsey. What more needed to be said about it?

After a long pause, Leblanc said quietly, I will not lie to you. It may be best for you to give up the house. It cannot hold any joy for you. Living there is like rubbing at an already raw wound. You deserve better than that.

You... She gaped at him, with the shock of one who thought exactly the same thing, but did not think anyone else did. No, she said finally. I don’t love the house. I did once, when I first came here, oh, the hopes I had for this house, and for my life! But that’s over now. She raised her hand to her eye, lifting a tear onto a black glove. How can that house hold any joy? I think sometimes that Dr. Devereaux believes the locals, who say that the house is haunted—especially after what happened to his poor wife. I think he blames me for that, after a fashion.

He has no cause to, said Leblanc. What happened was none of your doing.

But I am, in a way, responsible. Perhaps not through action, but through inaction, certainly. The foolish decision of my earlier years came back to claim me, and his wife paid the price for it.

All the more reason, then, that you should perhaps leave. Until that is resolved, there is no happiness possible for you, either.

But how can I return to San Francisco when every street, every point, every feature will remind me of what has ended, when I will see him in every shadow? I can stay here because there is less happiness in my memory for this place than for San Francisco. I’m not strong enough to face what I left behind there...

You underestimate yourself, said Leblanc. You suffered so much, for so long, and bore it. You can bear this, too.

Mrs. Nichols withdrew a small chain from around her neck; attached was a small gold medallion. Strong as he was, St. Christopher could not carry a child across the river, for the child bore the weight of the world upon him. That’s how I feel. So many other things I have faced, but this one, I think, would be the breaking of me. She sighed. Although there is one other memory from Hauteville House I wish I could erase. How horrible it is to know that one’s last words to a loved one were spoken in anger! How I wish I could take them back, if I had known that those would be the last he heard...

If only, said Leblanc. I, too, regret some words I have spoken to people I never saw again. They were not angry words, but they were...inadequate.

I know, she breathed. I remember some of them. And we are not alone in that. I know Monsieur Lenoir has some regrets, too, long after he has apologized for them...

Hugo reeled at the information he began to understand. She didn’t love the house! She was using it to inflict pain on herself, for regrets, for shattered dreams. And did he understand rightly when he heard that Madame Devereaux had died there? Hugo would never have guessed it. But how? And why did Madame Nichols take responsibility for it? And who was the mysterious he whom Madame Nichols vowed she would see on every street if she returned to America? Her late husband, or another man? Did the pious widow who spurned all attentions have some secret of her own? And was that the chink in her armor that would allow Hugo admittance to her?

But it was what she said about regret that stabbed him in the gut and made him put the other thoughts aside. How often he had wished he could have one more word with his beloved Léopoldine, that he could have one more hour in her company! How much more he could have said to her, how much could he have let her know what she meant to him! Perhaps he could have persuaded her against the marriage, for that would have saved her; if she had not been on her honeymoon she never would have been on that boat, and then...

It was for this that Hugo had devoted energy to the study of the supernatural. He had conducted séances and spirit readings in the past, and the more he heard about how Hauteville House (as he now began to think of it, for himself) was haunted, the more it intrigued him.

Hugo’s fists tightened as his bit back a glimmer of hope. Now he wanted to possess the woman even more than he wanted the house, and quickly, before his mistress forgave him for it! After all, if he was to be upbraided for a mere drawing, he might as well do something to merit such a punishment.

He leaned out of the doorway, straightening himself out so that, hopefully, she might not recognize him as one of the recipients of her charity earlier on. He rehearsed himself in his head, that he happened to be walking through, he was often to be seen on the street taking his exercise, and what a surprise it was to find Monsieur Leblanc, and who might his charming companion be? Oh, but of course, it is a pleasure, Madame—

A hand gripped his shoulder like the claw of a gigantic hawk; startled, the mouse was pushed back into the doorway. It was a tall man in a black hat and a black coat who sported huge gray whiskers on the sides of his face. It was the figure of Lenoir, Leblanc’s constant shadow, the man an earlier age had known as Javert.

You should leave, said Lenoir, as Hugo tried to remember what excuses he had just decided to use with Leblanc, in the hopes that Lenoir might be receptive to them as well, but Hugo still could not force himself to speak. Instead, he tore Lenoir’s hand from his shoulder and, with silent contempt, he sulked back along the street without even a glance backward. He dared not risk it. But at least, at last, Hugo had an idea of where to begin to solve not only the problem of securing the house for himself, but of securing the favors of its current occupant—and, perhaps, if he was careful, he might win forgiveness from his mistress as well.

o~o

V

BLACK, WHITE, GRAY

I THINK YOU should know, said Lenoir as he approached the bench, that you had an eavesdropper."

Yes, said Leblanc, I know.

What? said Mrs. Nichols. She glanced about. What eavesdropper?

It’s a long story, said Leblanc.

Lenoir, who declined to sit, leaned on his dark cane and pursed his lips in thought. I think we should tell her.

Tell me what? said the woman. Really, you two are being far too mysterious. If I did not know you both so well I would be furious with you. As it is I’m merely piqued.

The eavesdropper, said Leblanc softly, is someone who is interested in acquiring Hauteville House.

It took a moment for her to understand. Oh! That man, the writer, Hugo, wasn’t it? The one you wanted me to meet at the party. That was him? What a shame. I did want to meet him, but...

You did meet him, said Leblanc. Lenoir raised his eyebrows, as did she. Yes, madame. You met him today. You gave him one of your bundles as you came down the street. The man sitting on the stoop of that little cottage, that was him.

Really? How bizarre. Mrs. Nichols put her hand to her throat, visibly flustered. I gave him two bundles, as a matter of fact. Surely he didn’t need it! Why didn’t he say anything?

That, said Lenoir, is a longer story. He extended his arm to the woman and she took it, rising from the bench; Leblanc, stiffly, stood beside them. This is a point of contention between Leblanc and myself. We are agreed that you should give up the house to him, but that is all.

Monsieur Lenoir does not like Monsieur Hugo, Leblanc explained.

That hardly makes him unique, said Mrs. Nichols, turning to Lenoir. "You’ll forgive me for saying so, but really, there are so few you do like…."

"Monsieur Lenoir does not like him at all," he stressed.

Lenoir snorted. I’ll remind you that your own son-in-law does not approve of him either.

Monsieur le Baron may think as he likes; he has some cause, at least. But for you... Leblanc leaned in and whispered, Madame, Lenoir thinks Monsieur Hugo has untoward designs on you.

What? Mrs. Nichols blinked. Then she laughed, a full, resonating laugh like a tenor bell in a church tower. This shocked the two men profoundly; they did not know what to make of it. They had not heard her sparkling laughter in over a year.

Oh, dear, she said as she caught her breath, "that man! That man? Are you certain?"

Be careful, said Lenoir in all seriousness. You are in a vulnerable position, and he is well capable of exploiting it.

Vulnerable in what way? She let a small smile tilt her face. Besides being a woman, that is.

Lenoir straightened up; his cheeks, hidden by his side-whiskers, seemed to glow red. Leblanc cleared his throat politely.

Mrs. Nichols took each man’s arm, arranging herself between the pair as if using them as shields. She stepped into the street and they followed her lead, for when a lady wishes to walk, her escorts must accommodate her. Gentlemen, she said, tsking, you both know full well I am able to defend myself against any untoward advances. I have done so for longer than I have known you, and I have known you two longer than anyone else. But if it pleases you, I’ll tell you what: if I do find myself in need of assistance, I will be only too happy to call upon you. Is that satisfactory?

Yes, said Leblanc.

No, said Lenoir.

Mrs. Nichols sighed and urged them onward. That’s settled, then! Come, let’s retire to the house. Cook will be waiting with tea and cakes. I told her to expect you both for elevenses, and I’m so very glad you didn’t disappoint us....

o~o

SECTION TWO

The Ends of the Earth

I

ARRIVAL

THE TRANSPORT SHIP Ouroborous arrived at Port Jackson in the colony of New South Wales on August 8, 1840, ninety-nine days after she had departed from Deptford with her cargo of two hundred convicts. The trip had not been an uneventful one. Twelve of those who had sailed from England had died en route, half of them convicts, half of them crew; some had died by accident and some by willful murder, but none, it must be pointed out, by natural causes. Yet none who endured the voyage believed otherwise than that the toll could have been much, much higher, since the casualties had resulted both from an abortive mutiny and at the hands of a ruthless killer. Despite these losses, the ship had also acquired a pair of additions en route, purely by happenstance, and their timely appearance, in the crew’s general opinion, had occurred solely at the will of the Almighty.

As the lines were secured at the dock in Sydney Cove, the crew stood mustered along her rails of the mighty frigate one final time together; the convicts lined up amidships in chains of ten, men and women separated from one another, and the red-coated marines stood at attention between the convicts and the crew. On the quarterdeck the ship’s officers and masters surveyed the assembly before them; not one person remained below decks.

The captain, George Lagel, had put on his best coat and breeches for the occasion, and his sandy hair was tied back with a bit of silk; he looked more like a career naval man than the merchant sailor he was. At his right hand stood his confidant and adviser, the ship’s surgeon-superintendent, Dr. Duncan Ross; to his left, in descending order of rank, stood the mates. Also present on the quarterdeck were the master-at-arms, Andrew Lilly, and the bosun, Ian McMurdock; behind them in line, the surgeon’s mate and the purser stood quietly, in attendance if not at strict attention. This was a solemn and important moment for the ship and her master, and none were willing to cause any disruption in the proceedings.

Activity aboard the ship had not been quite so reserved half an hour beforehand, as the ship rounded the last land spit and swung wide, decelerating as one by one her mighty canvases were secured until nothing flew in the naked masts but for the signal flags of the company, the Union Jack, and the red and white whip that marked the ship for a convict transport. Word came down quickly from the rigging: "It’s her! It’s the Indy! The Indy’s in port!" Only half the crew knew what was meant by that remark, the half of the crew that had sailed before on another company ship, the captain’s former command, the Indigo Breeze. Indeed the merchanter had been transferred from the West Indies to the East, and now plied the trades between Australia and India as far wide as the Sandwich Isles and as far north as Canton and Macao. All who had sailed on the swift, sweet-lined two-master loved her for the grand mistress she was, and none more so than her previous master—Lagel leaned forward over the rail to catch a glimpse of her, and a smile came naturally to his lips as he recognized her, though he was half disappointed he had not had the opportunity to discover her presence first. As the Ouroborous approached the Indigo Breeze, which lay at anchor a ways into the bay—to prevent prisoners from trying to stow away aboard her, only transports were allowed the right to berth—Lagel spied his former first mate, now captain of the merchanter, Topher Lockhart, standing tall on the foredeck. As per custom and tradition, the Breeze saluted the new arrival by firing their small two-pounder from the bow; Lagel ordered the salute returned. Captain Lockhart was joined on the deck by others Lagel knew deeply respected, and their names came to him as quickly as if had not been more than a year since he had last seen them: sanguine Dr. Gainsborough, robust Mr. Wallace, wily Mr. Reeve, and unflinching Mr. Valentine. When he caught sight of the last of them, Lagel paused and turned to his own master-at-arms, Mr. Lilly, and wondered what it was that seemed to drive men with flowery names to seek the most feared and despised position aboard a ship, that of its chief policeman? He no sooner thought the thought than he saw Mr. Valentine gesture forward to the pennants flying from the Breeze’s jib: none but a representative of Lachlans & Co., which owned both ships, would understand that the three particular squares of cloth signaled an invitation to come aboard for some good natured drinking. Lagel responded in kind, but not without a caveat: he ordered raised the signal for bad news, followed by the cipher for the letter H. Within moments of the signal going up, the hats of the Breeze’s officers came off, and as the Ouroborous slipped by the Breeze Lagel saw a gesture from Lockhart that Lagel could only interpret as: now you really must come and drink with us. All this happened in as little time as it took from the moment the two ships sighted one another to the moment the Ouroborous made its berth alongside the pier where new transportees were to be processed.

The representatives of the colonial government, along with the representative for the company, were piped aboard with due ceremony and Dr. Ross stepped forward to relinquish both copies of the surgeon’s log, the meticulous account of all that had transpired on the voyage. Both books burst at the bindings with the description of the mutiny and its complement and the actions of the crew in its wake, also with the injuries sustained by prisoners and crewmen alike. Conditions of the prisoners’ treatment were documented in full. The log would serve as the official government record, since the surgeon-superintendent was neither an employee of the company or a member of the crew, but a duly appointed representative of Her Majesty’s Government. Two copies of the surgeon’s log had been prepared, as the government required duplication in all things. It was almost entirely due to the exertions of the surgeon’s mate that both copies of the log had been completed on time and in full, a feat for which the doctor remained eternally grateful.

When the company’s representative, a young man with fair hair and a small nose and a face not yet reduced to leather by the southern sun, boarded the ship, he took possession of the surgeon’s logs; he noted the size and quantity of the entries, casting a disapproving glance in Dr. Ross’s direction. The shorter a log, the less eventful the voyage had been, and the less trouble for the prisoners—and for the clerk as well. The young man looked at the complement standing in rows between the mainmast and the mizzen and intoned the traditional query: Is there any complaint against the surgeon?

No! the prisoners chorused at once. Never! added some, while some of the women trumped the cry with a Lor’ bless ’im! The clerk, somewhat skeptical, regarded them a moment longer than usual and then turned to address the captain. He had turned but halfway around when another cry rose up from the prisoners. And God bless his mate! followed by a universal Aye!

The clerk raised his head a little, staring at the prisoners with suspicion. Then he returned his attention to the surgeon, raising his eyebrows in an unspoken inquiry. Ross nodded his head but a little to one side, and the clerk gaze followed in that direction.

The surgeon’s mate was an elderly man, older still than the doctor, with a sunburned complexion and a half-grown beard. He was dressed like a common sailor, with an indigo coat and woolen breeches; his cap was in his hand. The only truly remarkable feature about him was that his hair, short and raggedly cut, was brilliantly white. He bowed his head a little, hunching his shoulders; obviously the attention was embarrassing to him. But the more he tried to appear humble, the more