Chapter 17

Yvette was dead! She was taken away by the early outbreak in Paris of the Spanish Flu. When Frank told the doctor about her dizzy spell a few weeks before but the doctor replied that he didn't think that her brief seizure had anything to do with this. He said that the flu killed in hours, days at the most, and didn't linger in the body for weeks.

Yvette lay on a gurney looking as if she were only sleeping. She had a peaceful countenance about her. General Maloue could not believe that his wife was gone forever. He would never hear her laugh, endure her anger, feel her body next his whether it was sleeping or make love. His time with his wife was too brief.

Frank was still beside himself with grief when he himself came down with the same affliction. The war was over as millions on both sides had been killed. However the Spanish Flu killed twice as many in the human race than the war itself.

He lingered at the doorway of death as he lay in a coma for weeks. He didn't respond to anything including pricks in his feet with needles. He was put on his stomach because he vomited in his atrophy and the staff were afraid he might choke to death. Being a former general officer, he had a private nurse at his side around the clock.

Yvette's parents claimed her body and buried her at their estate they had visited less than six months ago. They kept up their concern for Frank and called the hospital to see if there was any change in his condition. Eventually when he was physically out of danger, he lived with his in-laws for the rest of the winter.

As the free world celebrated the ending of hostilities, the victorious leaders were prepared to give Germany the most astringent of terms. Nothing could anyone ever envision that these men were laying the foundation of a worse war only twenty-one years into the future.

As they were gathering, a little unimportant corporal in the defeated German army was recovering from a gas attack in the last days of the war. He would seduce Germany, become its leader, build the greatest military machine in history and set a course of death and destruction that would make this past war seem tame in comparison. So-called experts fifty years beyond this war condemned the victors' terms saying that if they were more generous, perhaps that corporal wouldn't have come to power.

Back in America most battlefield heros marched down major streets and avenues to cheering crowds. There was high optimism in this country as they prepared to forge ahead in peace and safety.

One of them was not John Madison. He was the victim of a mugging and died two days later in the hospital leaving his wife Gwen a widow and his son an orphan as far having a father was concerned. She was devastated by her loss. She loved only two men in her life. John and Frank. She felt that John was taken from her because of her sneaking out of her parents' house to meet with a few men for a romp in a haystack when she was a teen in Scotland.

John had left her and John, Jr comfortable as far as finances were concerned. John had taken the ten thousand dollars given to Gwen by Frank and invested it into stocks and bonds. She didn't have to touch it because of the twenty-five thousand dollars left her by her late husband.

"I learned that Frank is recovering from that awful flu," Grace told Madelein as they walked through the quaint park across the street from Grace's mansion. Madelein's son was interested in baseball and was pretending to hit an invisible ball with an invisible bat as he walked in front them.

"His wife did die?" Madelein added.

Grace nodded. "My friends in Paris told me she was a beauty. They also said that he planned to divorce her and return to marry me."

"Do you really believe that?" Madelein sounded skeptical.

"They wrote me saying that Frank married her just in case he was killed in France. He wanted someone to bury his lust into," Grace replied.

"I don't know," Madelein shook her head. "It sounds like he wants his cake and eat it too."

"You were the one who talked me into pursuing him," Grace's cheek turned red with irritation.