Chapter 10: Brussels

I still had a residue of anger in me when I appeared at breakfast next morning. Mimi, Matilde, Violette and Rob were seated around the table in the dining room and looked up as I stalked in. Thanks to my restless night I had overslept, something I hardly ever do, which had added extra fuel to my ire. "Good Morning, Jacques. Did you sleep well?" Mimi's voice was bright, and her smile equally so.
"Well enough; how did you sleep last night? " I heard the gruffness in my voice and Mimi stared at me, puzzled by my surly response. "I slept well, Jacques."
"What about you, Robert Crawshay? Did you sleep well last night, as well as Mam'selle Mimi perhaps?"
"Yes sir. I enjoyed an uneventful and unbroken sleep." He had a steely edge to his voice, and I glanced from him to Mimi to observe if she blushed, or gave any other hint of her night with him.
"It sounds from your tone of voice as if you slept badly, Jacques. I'm the same when not in my own bed." Chloe had come in from the kitchen with fresh baked croissants. "Eat these, and after we will take a walk around the estate, there are many things I want to show you."

With freshly brewed coffee and newly baked croissants inside me my temper improved, and I apologised for my ill humour on account of spending much of the night awake. I saw the relief on Mimi's face at my change of mood. "Perhaps the pillows were too hard ... or too soft, Jacques? They will be changed tonight. You will be staying for a day or two?"
"We need to travel on to Brussels, but can leave tomorrow morning. I expect the horses have recovered by now, Rob?"
He nodded. "Aye, they should be well rested. Shall you travel by carriage sir, or would you prefer to ride?"
"I think a better impression is created when arriving by carriage."
"You will require me as coachman?"
"Yes, and as my strong right hand."
He perceived my bad temper had abated, and made a droll reply. "As long as you don't expect me to use my strong right hand to grasp a sword."
I followed up his quip with one of my own. "Then you shall be my strong left hand." We both laughed, while the girls regarded us in bewilderment.

Chloe acted as guide on the tour of the estate, where I noticed most of the buildings had been repaired, but saw that a new, larger, blacksmith workshop had been built. The original building, with the furnace still intact, now performed the task of drying grain, with heat produced from the furnace directed up to a recently constructed loft. The estate's rye crop had already been harvested, and the grain was spread over the wooden floor, dried by the heated air from below. The small boy putting logs on the fire and pumping the bellows, resembled one of the ragamuffins who had helped in sowing the seed of the rye crop after I had ploughed the West field the previous year.
"The furnace is kept alight morning noon and night." Chloe said. "Sometimes the furnace tenders fall asleep during the long nights and the fire goes out. Francois must make frequent inspections to ensure the furnace is lit and the bellows are being pumped." She gave a wicked grin. "Madame Truffaut complains Francois is not always able to do his duty as a husband because he is too tired from doing his duty as steward."
After my brief inspection I congratulated Chloe on her excellent work in administrating the estate, for I knew she was the architect of Chateau Blanchard's success in agriculture.
"None of this would have been possible if you had not recovered the Cleopatra Diamonds. It is you who are responsible for our success, and Mimi, Matilde and I know that, and love you for it." She dug me in the ribs. "I could take you into the carpenter's shop and demonstrate how grateful I am; you recall our last meeting in there?"
Indeed I did. The love bites she left all over my body took months to fade. I shook my head in real regret. "I am engaged to be married Chloe, and although the invitation is tempting neither of us would feel right about it."
Chloe hooked her arm in mine. "I am pulling the legs, Jacques, as the English do, n'est-ce pas? Anyway Matilde tells me your Caroline reminds her of our dear departed Annette. For her sake I will not tempt you further, although I would much prefer to pull your zob rather than your leg." We guffawed, and then returned to the chateau.

Later in the morning Mimi brought her son Jean-Woodrow, my Godson, down from the nursery. He had been born the previous November so was several months younger than my own John-Jarvis. She cradled him in the crook of her arm and asked. "Do you think he resembles his father?"
"Oh yes, definitely ... he is the spit and image of Woody as a child." Although to my male eyes her son looked much the same as any baby of his age.
Mimi smiled, pleased by my white lie. "Do Woody's parents know they have a grandson?"
"When I wrote informing them of their son's murder I did not know you were carrying Woody's child." Neither did I tell the Allens of Woody's marriage to my housemaid Abigail, who also had been murdered – and in fact Mimi didn't know of Woodrow Allen's marriage either.
Her voice quavered. "I should like them to know of the existence of Jean-Woodrow. It might ease some of their pain at the death of their son". "Directly after Caroline and I are married we will travel to Grantham to introduce her to my friends and family. While there I shall inform the Allens they have a grandson of whom they can be proud ... and of the mother who bore him."
Mimi handed her son to the nursemaid then threw her arms around my neck and hugged me. "Thank you, dear Jacques ... you know how much I admire and respect you." I felt her heart beating against my chest, and her breasts rising and falling with her emotion. I almost surrendered to the temptation to plant a fulsome, but tender, kiss on her invitingly parted, moistened lips. However, the memory of the previous night, and the mental picture of Rob Crawshay thrusting with gusto between the invitingly parted, moistened lips of her madge, stopped me. I simply patted her shoulder and said. "Your sentiments are reciprocated ... I know I owe you my life."

I slept better that night; in fact I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow and woke when the dawning sun brightened the room. I don't know if Mimi had replaced my pillows, or if she had joined Rob in the stables during the night, but my jealous envy of Rob had vanished. I reminded myself I was to marry Caroline Ashford. And Mimi Renoir had saved my life by suckling me as she now did her baby. For me to gallop Mimi would be tantamount to incest, besides being a despicable act of betrayal of Caroline's love, bordering on adultery.

Rob and I left Chateau Blanchard at daybreak, taking our leave of the ladies while they were still half asleep, and snatching a few victuals from the kitchen to eat on the way.
The last time I had driven a wagon into Belgium I carried an empty coffin, and returned with a full one. A coffin, empty or full, being transported across a border would excite interest at any custom post, therefore I had made a circuitous journey which involved driving on forest tracks and seldom used byways.
This time Rob drove us boldly along the High Road from Valenciennes to Charleroi, drawn by the two horses hired at Calais along with the carriage. Stables which hire out horses both for riding and pulling carriages tend to use breeds suitable for both tasks. Consequently the horses are jacks of both trades but not necessarily full master of either. The pair pulling our carriage may not have been as experienced in carriage harness as horses used exclusively for coaches but they certainly moved faster than the Blanchard estate's pair of Percherons which had drawn the farm cart used the last time I travelled these Flanders roads.
Rob was an experienced driver, and we made excellent time, reaching Charleroi not long after midday. We had a hearty lunch, after feeding and watering the horses, and then rested an hour before setting off along the Chaussée de Bruxelles towards Brussels, via Waterloo.

It was late afternoon as we approached the well-remembered landmarks of Hougoumont, and then the ridge of Mont St Jean. Rob pulled off the road, and brought the coach to a stop on the ridge. We sat and let the horses catch their breath while our gaze wandered over the area. I indicated where the 69th had been posted at the start of the battle.
He in turn pointed to a small copse on our right. "It was there Sergeant Major Cotton of our regiment saved the life a fellow Hussar. We had skirmished with some cuirassiers, causing them to retire to await reinforcements. One of our men had become trapped under his wounded horse in front of the main battle line. The Sergeant Major, seeing the reinforced cuirassiers returning, sprang from his saddle and rushed to extricate the fallen man, bringing him to safety only minutes before the Froggies reached our line. Ted Cotton was a good sergeant major, and good man. The hussar he saved, Jed Gilmore, was a particular friend of mine."
We stayed for a few more minutes on the ridge, each occupied by our memories of that day and the comrades in arms we had lost.

We entered Brussels through the South Gate about three hours later. The Woolpack, a large hostelry and livery stable, was situated less than a hundred yards away from the gate on the Rue Haute, the High Street as it would be known in an English town. Rob unharnessed the horses and attended to their stabling while I booked a room for the night, and ordered dinner for us both.
I have commented before on the high standard of the food and accommodation of French hostelries, and I can give the same recommendation for The Woolpack. After an excellent dinner I made ready for bed. Although I did no physical work on the journey a day travelling is tiring in itself.
I had taken the reins of the coach for a spell after leaving Charleroi, but my short time as coachman came to an end when the horses realised their new driver was not an experienced one. The pair began to relax, and their gait became ragged. Rob soon had them attending to their duties in a proper manner, and he tactfully suggested that I leave any further driving to him – to which I readily, and apologetically, agreed.
"Don't fret yourself, sir..." He had said, consoling me in my embarrassment, " ... it takes years of practice to handle a pair of carriage horses, and I've no doubt I would struggle to plough a straight furrow until being as well practised."
Although I had booked a room with two beds Rob decided to sleep in the coach in the stable during the night. "Our baggage is stowed in the carriage, and besides I like to keep an eye on the ostlers when they feed and water any horse in my keeping."
Before retiring for the night I sent a post boy to Timothy Whyte-Taylor's residence with my card, and a note asking when I could call on him regarding the letter he wrote to Henry Addington. The boy returned in less than hour with the reply 'Professor Pompidou will be At Home all day on the morrow'.