Chapter Six

Now twenty-four, Kit DeWaere retained the slender build of his younger self. And now that I was older, I could understand how his face, with those large hazel eyes and short, deer-like chin, bespoke more intellectual than physical substance. The soft profusion of rosewood-colored hair that floated around his face in a fashionable shag added to the ethereal effect. He wore a Directory coat and cuffed boots. His only concession to the trappings of clerical humility lay in his choice of somber color: the cravat was black, and the coat was a deep, charcoal gray. The contrast between the dark fabrics and his hair and fair complexion made a pleasing sight. Had he not been a clergyman, I'd have squeaked with delight at seeing him again and given him a friendly peck on the cheek. But decorum was in order.

I gestured to our surroundings. "This is...indescribable.”

Kit nodded. "As your father said, if you prefer, we could find you a position with a family."

"What do you yourself do here?"

As soon as the words were out of me, I realized that little Jannie had an aptitude for posing questions whose answers were self-evident.

Papa spoke as if I had given him the grandest excuse to proclaim the news, "Kit's our vicar, Jan."

"So this truly is your reward for getting lost in the woods with a wagon full of children," I challenged. I almost said I wondered what his father would think, but considered that it was neither the time nor the place to introduce a subject that could embarrass him.

Thankfully, Kit did not expect me to roll up my sleeves and jump into work at The Refuge, which everybody called the asylum. He asked Papa to give me time to accustom myself to my new hometown, which was ever so much larger and older than Philadelphia. My guide in this endeavor was Kit’s wife, Donatienne. My former governess had grown from a pretty girl into a voluptuous young woman whose beauty could not be contained by her modestly cut dresses. As soon as she saw me, she whirled me around in a crushing hug, squealing, “My little Janet! I don’t believe it! Look at you, you’re a woman!”

To my amazement, her accent was now almost that of an American. Still too innocent of the world to consider reasons for the transformation, I was thrilled that this former daughter of aristocrats had thoroughly embraced life as the American her marriage had made her.

Dona showed me sites every tourist wanted to see and that the Revolution had opened to commoners, including the Louvre and parks that had once been the private haunts of the ruling class. I especially liked the thousand-year-old University sector on the Left Bank. There, the scent of antiquity leached from the crammed, winding cow paths that had developed over the years into streets.

The one place I declined to visit was the architectural wonder once known as the Cathedral of Notre-Dame-de-Paris. The Revolutionary government had turned it into a “temple of wisdom” for the state’s official Cult of Reason, and I had no desire to go there because I thought my presence would suggest I approved of the DeChristianization of the country.
Perhaps the most important thing I had to learn about was French Revolutionary etiquette.

“Under French law, everyone is ‘tu,’ the singular familiar, never the formal ‘vous,’” Dona said as we had coffee in the DeWaeres’ sparsely furnished apartement on the upper floor of The Refuge.

“We don’t call anyone monsieur or madame any more, either. We use the French version of ‘citizen,’ the title used in the ancient Roman Empire. Men are citoyen; women, citoyenne. Oh!--And this is of the gravest importance, ma chere!--We never, ever call Kit by his clerical title. Traditional organized religion and services are outlawed. Call somebody ‘pere’ or ‘cure,’ and you and he will be thrown into jail—and possibly executed--on charges of sedition. Aside from that, we may come and go as we please--so long as we do nothing to attract suspicion.”

In time, I became used to the language, the crowds, the traffic that rattled through the narrow, twisting streets every hour of the day and night. Although Paris was nothing like Philadelphia, every day it became more familiar to me, and that sense of familiarity began to make me feel more at home. I settled down and, without making a conscious decision, became part of The Refuge.

I wondered what my fuss that first day had been about. The place was no repository of defective beings, but a sanctuary that offered protection from life’s harsher realities. Laughter, music and the fragrance of baking filled the air. The rooms were bright and clean, and decorated with trompe l’oeil paintings of lilac and rose gardens. Framed, pen-and-ink drawings of the children adorned the parlor’s plain, white plaster walls. I didn’t need to look twice to realize the portraits were in Kit’s hand.

“Most people’s homes have portraits of their children,” he said. “These are our children. They deserve no less.”

“Were you disappointed when you saw you wouldn’t be teaching normal children?” I asked.

“Ah, but I do teach them.”

“Like Francis of Assisi preaching to the animals?”

I meant no cynicism, but Kit wagged his finger at me. “Oh, ye of little imagination! Watch. And learn.”

He took a handmirror from the nearby table, crouched beside a little idiot girl in a wing chair and shook the mirror in front of her face. After some moments, the child stopped staring at the wall and gazed at the mirror.

“Look, look,” Kit coaxed in a light, high voice, as if cajoling a puppy. “Who’s that? Who’s that?” I couldn’t tell what the child saw in the mirror, but a smile widened her mouth, exposing large, crooked teeth.

“Marianne, Marianne,” Kit said. The girl gurgled, then the smile shrank, and she once again stared at the wall.

Kit stood, radiant with success. “It’s like getting a baby to laugh. And no less rewarding.”

“It didn’t last long.”

“It never does, not unless The Master is here.”

“The Master?”

“You’ll see. I don’t know when, and I don’t know how, but you will see. That’s all I’ll say. I don’t want to spoil the surprise.”

There was much to do at The Refuge. The children were not placed in chairs and left unattended. As I had seen for myself that first day, Candace Reynolds would sing for them. And as I later saw, her husband, Jerome, a free Negro who had owned a bookstore in Philadelphia, would read to them from some of the books in The Refuge’s library. It didn’t matter what language the children were sung or read to. Candace and Jerry believed that it was the sound of the voice that mattered--that sound, more than meaning, connected the children to ordinary life. The songs and readings also reminded us, the staff, that life must continue, even when we ourselves could not understand what was going on around us.

Kit worked at The Refuge whenever he wasn’t holding services at somebody’s home or seeing to all the other, ordinary duties of a vicar. Like each and every one of us, he did whatever had to be done, including daunting, less tasteful tasks like changing diapers or cleaning chamber pots. But unlike the members of the Refuge staff, Kit was inclined to take the most offensive tasks upon himself in order to spare somebody else. I was there the morning he came in from sitting up all night with the parents of a stillborn. Though he hadn’t slept in more than twenty-four hours and must have been spent emotionally as well as physically, he took off his coat, rolled up his sleeves, and commenced to gather the chamber pots so Candace wouldn’t have to do it that day.

He never lost hope for The Refuge’s little charges and believed that the more we did to interest them in their surroundings, the better.

“Are you ready?” he asked me one morning. He seemed anxious for my answer, but he grinned and went about his business when I replied, “Ready for what?”

I was helping Candace change the children’s bedding when it sounded like a parade coming up the staircase. It was only Kit and a slim, sloe-eyed boy carrying an open wooden box in his arms.

As they neared the top of the stairs, Kit attempted to introduce me to the visitor. But the boy, a black-haired beauty who I assumed to be around 15, edged past Kit and inclined his head toward me, saying, “My hat, s’il te plait, citoyenne, thank you. And toi—“ Freed of his headwear, he thrust the box into Kit’s middle, so Kit had no choice but to take the thing. The boy pushed back his coat sleeves, reached into the box, and brought out a mound the size of a small loaf of bread. Swathes of long, black and white hair draped the mound like a towel thrown over dough that is left to rise.

All I could see was the tip of the nose and the small, upside-down-V shape of the upper lip. The lower lip drooped, so a small “o” was formed in that part of the mouth seen between the upper and lower lips. Though the hair veiled the eyes, I knew the guinea pig would be regarding me with the species’ typical blank, round-eyed stare. The way the boy held it at me implied an invitation to pet it. I gently stroked the tip of the nose and was immediately rewarded with that distinctive, low-throated purr I had known so well in Margaret.

“Voici Le Maitre,” the boy was saying. “Le Maitre, je te presente—I’m sorry, what’s your name?”

“Janet?” Kit said, as if to remind the boy that he should have been listening instead of talking.

“Je te presente Jeannette. Janet, this is Le Maitre.”

I scratched the top of the guinea’s head. “Is he the boar of your herd? Is that why you call him Le Maitre, The Master?

“Supposedly. Except the big oaf hasn’t a clue what to do with the sows—-Do you, Maitre?”

“Maybe he wants you to teach him,” said Dona, who appeared at that moment to give Kit a pile of neatly folded towels.

The boy guffawed and noticed Kit turning deep claret. “What are you blushing for? I’m the child. I’m the one that’s supposed to go puce the instant anybody mentions a perfectly natural form of--“

Kit was halfway down the hall. “Come along, Mal, the ladies are waiting--“

“Do I look scandalized?” the boy called over his shoulder, rushing after Kit, still holding Le Maitre out in front of him.

Giggling, Dona signaled we should follow.

We all gathered in the upstairs parlor. As usual, the girls were propped in their wing chairs, staring toward the walls, grunting among themselves. Mal touched Le Maitre’s nose to Marianne’s until the girl smiled. He then placed Le Maitre in her lap, which was now wisely protected by one of the towels Dona had given Kit, and carefully moved the girl’s hand so she was stroking the guinea from head to rump. Le Maitre was still. Because of all the hair, it was hard to see whether he was contented or if he had frozen in fear, as guineas are wont to do. But as the petting continued, Le Maitre flattened, stretched his little hind feet out behind him, lay his head on Marianne’s lap, and purred. Marianne rocked back and forth, grinning with the kind of glee that only she could understand.

“Looks like she’s davening,” Mal muttered.

Grinning, Kit quietly stepped over to Dona and me.

“Do you believe that?” he whispered, as if not daring to do anything that would break the spell.

I had to agree I could, though I never would have thought it possible.

Kit studied the scene with the quiet rapture of someone witnessing a miracle. His wife, on the other hand, was not so enchanted. Though she smiled, her eye was cold and distant. Why? Did the children repulse her? If I were she, I should have adored what was going on if only for the effect it had on Kit.

Abruptly, Dona turned and left the room. I thought she murmured something about the kettle whistling, but I could have been mistaken. The only sounds were her footfall and the child joyously snuffling over the guinea pig.