Remember if you’ve just found this Free Read, click Archived Free button above to start at the beginning.

La Belle Christiane

By Lyn Cote

All rights reserved.

Chapter Five, Scene 4

He turned and to head back to the drill sergeant. “I mean this is no place for a baby. People sicken every day.”

Christiane followed him closely. ” Jakob, I can’t leave him there. He’s my son. I want him with me.” Christiane was near tears now.

He took both her hands in his. “It is hard. I know.  But I think for the little one it is best he stay away. This is no place for women and children. No.”

“But  Jakob–”

He kissed her forehead gently. “Christiane, how could I bear losing your son too?” His voice broke.

She knew then that he was thinking of Jon and to comfort him, she tightened her hold around his chest and buried her face into his coarse homespun shirt. “How long?” she whispered.

“The fighting here will end soon. Then I take you myself. It frightens me that you come all that way, all alone.”

She couldn’t disagree with him. But the ache inside her for Jean Claude was too harsh to repress. She sobbed soundlessly and shivered despite the warmth of his embrace. Then he left.

Unable to rest over this, Christiane decided to turn to Tildy Main. Maybe she would have some ideas of another way to solve this problem.

“Care for a cup of tea?” Tildy asked, sitting on a camp chair by her fire. Christiane smiled and unfolded the camp chair she had brought to sit on. Silence, a companionable one, held while Tildy performed the simple rite of preparing and serving tea. All around them were the buzz of other voices and the sounds of their communal, outdoor life. “Tildy, don’t you ever get tired of this camp?””Yes, we all do, I suspect.” For just a moment the New Englander scrutinized Christiane. “You were born gentry, weren’t you?”

“Why do you say that?” Christiane sipped her steaming tea, trying to mask her surprise.

“Everything about you. The way you speak, walk, your manners, your looks. I saw you the day you met the General. Would any of us have offered him our hand like a lady? No. When I watch you eat beside a campfire, I picture you more at home at a long table with silver and china around you.”

Christiane studied her cup of tea, not knowing what to say.

“So it must be extra difficult for you,” Tildy continued. “I mean this is a terrible way to live for all of us. But if you were raised to expect better, it must be a bitter draught to swallow.”

“This camp is not what I hate most. I want my son.” Christiane stood up; her agitation over Jean Claude goading her to pace back and forth in front of Tildy. “I know he is safer and much better off with the Richardson’s, but I miss him.” She felt tears come to her eyes.

“Do you think it would help you if we could get a message to the Richardson’s some way?”

“Why didn’t I think of that? But I have nothing to write with or on. And where could I post the letter?” Abruptly she froze. An aide de camp was a secretary and she knew one, John Laurens. He could help her.

She almost turned and started off at once. But one glance down reminded her of her appearance. She fingered her dirty, wrinkled skirt that she had worn day and night. She couldn’t let the gentleman see her like this—if she had a choice Without saying a word to Tildy, she turned away toward her own tent.

“Where are you off to?” Tildy called after her.

Christiane went on without pausing. “I’ll need your help!” Quickly she went into the tent and opened her saddlebags. In one side she still had a blue dress a woman at Rupert’s fort had given her. Because it was too good for travel or camp life, she had not worn it, but it would be appropriate for a call on headquarters of the Continental Army itself. For just a second, Christiane quailed at her own boldness. She had only met Laurens twice fleetingly, but there was no one else to turn to.

She shook out the crushed, wrinkled dress, and spread it on her quilt. She remembered seeing Tildy ironing just the day before. She went back to Tildy and in the matter of an hour Christiane stood, transformed, before her friend.                 Christiane’s hair was coiled neatly in a large braid secured at the base of her neck. Tildy had loaned her one of her white, frilled caps to frame her face. The blue dress was so clean, so fresh, so pretty. Christiane beamed at Tildy. Taken by a sudden whimsy, she held her skirt in both hands and did a sashay as though dancing.

“My, you are a pretty one,” Tildy sighed. “It is a treat just to see you.”

Christiane started off without a backward glance. She recalled where the main headquarters were, but she had quite a long walk to reach it. The balminess of the day matched the lifting of her spirits. She hummed softly an old French tune that her mother had often sung to her.

Finally she could see the house the headquarters occupied and a cluster of tents around it. She thought she would first try at the tents and hope that Lt. Colonel Laurens was about his business there.

Not too far from the first tent she was halted by a sentry, “Your business, Ma’am?”

“I’m looking for Lt. Colonel Laurens please,” she answered.

“Private,” he called. A man nearby, dressed in frontier buckskin, sauntered over.

“What your name, Ma’am?”

“Mrs.  Jakob Kruger.”

“Private, go tell Mr. Laurens that Mrs. Kruger is here to see him.”             The man nodded and then ambled away. The first man said, “He will be right back, Ma’am. Mr. Laurens was just over there.” So she and the sentry stood in silence, each looking at distant objects.

Suddenly a glimpse of a red-and-white, not blue-and- white, uniform caught her attention. Two officers: one in a blue-and-white uniform and one in a red-and-white, stood facing two identically dressed officers. Next to them stood a British drummer.

Christiane realized that two must be British officers. What were they doing at the Continental headquarters? While she pondered this, one of the British officers and one of the American officers changed places very formally with much saluting and drums. A brief exchange of words continued outside of her earshot. Once, while the formalities lagged, the English officer who was not speaking glanced idly in her direction. Her heart lurched. Captain Eastham!

Unconsciously she took two steps forward, but then he turned his head back to the proceedings. She caught herself just before she called out. Was it really the captain who’d helped at that fort in Canada? She was sure it was, but, what would she say to him? They were separated now not only by distance, but by a war. He was the English  Jakob was at war with. Besides he probably wouldn’t remember her. A sense of loss, she couldn’t comprehend clutched her. The four officers marched away.

“Why were those English officers here?” she could not stop herself from asking the sentry.

He glanced in the direction she had nodded. “Oh, prisoner exchange, ma’am.”

“I see.” Her heart still pounded erratically, but she forced herself to nod politely.

“Mrs. Kruger, how good to see you again!” Laurens exclaimed beside her. Christiane trembled slightly. She held out her hand to him and he bent over it momentarily as she curtseyed.

“Please allow me to make you comfortable.” He motioned toward the awning over the entrance of a nearby tent where there was a table and two chairs. He seated her and then sat across from her. “Now what may I do for you?”

His politeness had put her at ease and, in spite of her inward commotion caused by seeing the British officer, her words came out smoothly. “Lt. Colonel Laurens, I have a favor to ask of you.”

“Anything at all if it is in my power.” He looked up expectantly.

Christiane traced one of the folds of her skirt pensively. Looking up, she began, “I have an infant son who I have been forced–by circumstances–to leave in the custody of friends.  I hoped to return soon and take charge of him, but I find that I am unable to go to him right now. I would like to get word to them that I am well, but that I will be delayed in returning.”

“Yes?” he coaxed when she paused.

“That is the favor. I have no way of writing a letter.” She blushed, ashamed of admitting her poverty.

“Why I would be happy to write it for you,” Laurens said quickly.

She blushed again at his misunderstanding. “I am afraid I did not make myself clear. I am quite able to write a letter, sir, but I need paper, ink, and a quill. And I have never posted a letter except in France….”

This revelation obviously startled him. He looked at her more closely as though trying to analyze her. “Of course, how foolish of me. And, certainly, I have everything you need.” Evidently upset at having caused her embarrassment, he quickly went to the table and cleared it for her.

Just as he finished laying out all the materials, the private came over, “Lt. Colonel Laurens, you’re wanted.”

Laurens nodded. “Madame, here is all you need. I will be back as soon as possible,” he said as he moved her chair up to the table.

When he was gone, Christiane sat at the desk, staring down at the paper. It had been so long since she had held a pen in her hand, not since that day at the little fort when she had written down the names of eight men who had wanted to marry her. Fleetingly the face of Captain Eastham came up before her again. She was sorry he had come south to join in these hostilities. Consciously she turned her thoughts back to the present. What should she tell the Richardsons?