Grave Consequences (Grand Tour Series #2) Page 19

  I lifted my fingers to my temples and rubbed.

  I could see no way out.

  My father could never, ever believe that there was anything at all between me and Will.

  If I loved him, I had to turn him away.

  William

  Pierre de Richelieu had managed to outdo Art’s connections in the form of a more luxurious yacht the next morning. It was crewed by six men and owned by one of his friends in Paris. Every step of the way to the harbor, Will fought the desire to turn on his heel and walk away, wishing he were anywhere but there.

  The man had swept in again and seemed to dominate their every moment, capitalizing on the hours until he had to formally part ways with Cora. A better boat this morning. A private tour that afternoon of the church so instrumental in Calvin the Reformationist’s life. An irresistible invitation this evening for supper. A more luxurious car on the train in two days to Vienna. If a stolen moment with Cora was hard to come by before Richelieu’s arrival, it would be triply hard to find now. And what was going on in her heart, anyway? All morning long, she’d barely looked his way, seeming to be pulled right back into Richelieu’s enchantments.

  His clients rubbed their hands in delight with each new turn of fortune, thanks to Richelieu, while Will fought the desire to wrap his hands around Richelieu’s slender throat and squeeze.…

  “A fine-looking couple, aren’t they?” Felix said, taking off his yachting cap to mop his brow of sweat, then replacing it. Will reluctantly looked to the stern, where Richelieu’s arms were wrapped around Cora’s at the wheel, as if teaching her how to steer. He bent down to say something in her ear, and she smiled, looking up to the sails. She looked so lovely, Will ached. Look my way, Cora. Just look at me. Tell me it’s all an act.…

  “Will?” Felix asked.

  Will remembered himself and met his friend’s gaze.

  “Uh-oh,” Felix said. He glanced to the stern of the boat and back to his friend. “Are you…are you pining for my sister?” he whispered.

  “What? No. No!” Will let out a scoffing laugh and then dug his toe into the wood of the floorboards, as if trying to dislodge some dirt. “I’m only envious of what she seems to have discovered with Richelieu. You get to our age and you start to have thoughts about finding the right girl and settling down, you know?”

  Felix’s eyebrows arched in surprise. “Not me,” he said, clamping a hand on Will’s shoulder. “And you are far too young to be having such thoughts yourself.” He forcibly turned Will to look out upon the lake. “Imagine,” he said, sweeping a dramatic arm across the water, “all the fish in the sea, that many women, just waiting to meet us. How could we settle on just one before we’ve met them all? How would we know we’d met the best one?”

  “Felix, this is a lake, not a sea.”

  Felix pushed him away. “You know what I mean.”

  Will nodded. He understood what Felix meant, even if he did not agree. What he described was eternal dissatisfaction—perpetually wondering if there might be someone better waiting around the corner. What he’d found with Cora…he’d thought they had found ultimate satisfaction. Peace. Understanding that they belonged together, that they had what it took to be together forever. And yet, now they were clearly not.

  He dared to glance back at the wheel and caught Cora staring his way. Flustered, she immediately looked away to the water. She almost looked frightened. But she’d been looking. She’d been looking.

  Will turned to watch the waves too, fighting a mad urge to grin. Perhaps all was not lost. Perhaps she was only playing the game her family expected her to play. But why the fear?

  All he needed was a moment to catch her alone. Just one moment, Lord, he prayed, to know the truth.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Cora

  The next day, as Will stubbornly insisted, Pierre reluctantly left for Vienna. And the following day, our group was on yet another train, this one on a short-distance, narrow-gauge track up to the famed mountains above—with names like Eiger, Jungfrau, and Mönch. For two hours we wound our way steadily up and into the mountains, each valley and her surrounding peaks becoming progressively more dramatic.

  “It’s like being on the top of the world,” Lillian breathed.

  “Like heaven!” Nell added.

  “I think of the sea as more like heaven than this,” Hugh said, gesturing outward, then rubbing his upper arms as if cold. “Give me sand between my toes and women in bathing costumes, rather than a proper coat and scarf, any day.”

  “Master Morgan,” Antonio barked, even as Vivian shook her head in disgust. I looked out the window, remembering how he’d once looked upon me in my bathing costume and how I’d endeavored to never wear one near him again.

  “Forgive me,” he said, pretending to be contrite even as he shared a grin with Felix.

  Our entire party was dressed in borrowed trousers and boots, and with coats and gloves stowed in the compartments above, we were ready to meet our ice-trekking guides.

  Will sat up front, looking out, never glancing my way. He was angry. And I didn’t blame him. How would I have felt, watching him cavort and flirt with another woman these past days?

  “So,” our young bear said at last, turning in his seat, not daring to stand, so much did the train sway and lurch. “What thoughts have you had on the Reformation and our ‘Protestant Pope,’ John Calvin, since seeing his church?”

  “It is hard to imagine,” Vivian said. “The change within the church at large. Of death threats, solely for what you believe…”

  “America is unique in her stance of freedom of speech, as well as freedom of expression, in faith matters or otherwise,” returned Will. “The Reformation was but a hundred and fifty years after when the pilgrims set off for the shores of America, craving the ability to make their own choices without threat of censure.”

  “It was poor form for those churchmen, threatening them so,” Andrew said. “What does it matter where a man worships God?”

  “But we’ve seen already in our travels,” Will said, “that it matters a great deal. Right? With faith comes power, and with power, money, and with money…corruption. Not that the Reformationists were blameless. Calvin himself watched at least one heretic burned in Geneva.” He crossed his arms. He looked happy and relaxed in his role as bear, teaching. Natural. Except for the fact that he wouldn’t look my way. Not that I wanted him to…not really. How was I to explain myself? My reasoning? In a way he’d understand?

  “Who’d he see burned in Geneva?” Lillian asked.

  “Severtus. He was a Spanish physician that many claim discovered pulmonary circulation of the blood. He was an astute debater and loved a good oratory discourse, especially if he could challenge the theologians. But when he denied the Trinity, he found he’d tread upon holy ground, and in territory where heresy was a capital offense—even if the definitions of heresy shifted on the sands of the border—he soon found himself destined for the stake.”

  “They burned him for that?” Hugh asked.

  Will nodded. “Calvin pleaded with the authorities to cut off Severtus’s head, considering it more humane, but they refused.”

  “Could he do nothing to change Severtus’s mind?” Vivian asked, hand at her chest.

  Our young bear stroked his chin, as if trying to remember the exact story. “I believe he tried. But Severtus only laughed.”

  “He should’ve stayed in Spain,” Felix called.

  “Ahh, there he would’ve been burned at the stake as a younger man, most likely,” Will said. “The Spanish were behind the Inquisition, remember?”

  “They took heresy a bit too seriously, in my opinion,” Hugh put in. We all ignored him.

  “Did Calvin know Martin Luther?” I asked, before I remembered I didn’t want Will looking my way.

  His eyes met mine, and he paused a moment. “I don’t believe so. Calvin became a Lutheran, of course, when he first turned from his Catholic beginnings. It was the only choice at first�
�you were either Catholic or Lutheran. But I think the closest he came to Luther was in meeting Philip Melancthon, Luther’s compatriot. Calvin signed the Augsburg Confession, as revised by Melancthon.”

  “I thought Calvin was the father of the Presbyterian Church,” Vivian said.

  “His influence was felt primarily in the Swiss Reformation, and his ideas were just a bit different from Luther’s in terms of church government,” Will said. “But his ideas spread across Europe. In the eighteenth century, the Scots really took hold of it. It was there that the Presbyterian Church was truly born.”

  I looked out the window, watching as our train chugged through a tiny village with wide, low buildings, smoke curling out of the chimneys. Even now in the midst of summer, it was chilly this high up. The snow was only a few hundred feet above us. Or were those glaciers? Glaciers made me think of the mountains that cast sunset shadows over our farms back home. Even in the middle of a hot summer day, you could see glittering snow high above.

  Thoughts of it sent pangs of homesickness through me, and I wished I could go home—even for a day—to go to the barn to stroke Sugarbeet’s velvety nose and sneak her a carrot. To sit at the dinner table with Mama and Papa. To go to church and see all the faces—old and young—I’d known all my life. I was weary. So weary. Of all the newness. Of all the change. I closed my eyes. Oh, for a bit of familiarity… And yet even the thought of home seemed removed, dreamlike. Was what Anna said true? Was I already irrevocably changed? Could I never go home? Feel settled in such a place again?

  We passed a tiny white church with a bell tower, and I wondered if it was Catholic or Lutheran or Presbyterian or something else entirely now. Back home, in the cities, there were Baptist and Methodist and Congregationalist options, too. And as my eyes searched the startling, picturesque mountain ridges, I thought how sad it all must make God, that His people were so divided, so separated when it came to matters of faith. As with so much else that was right and true in life, we got stuck in the particulars and lost sight of what was right and true in the first place—we concentrated on the things that divided us rather than the things that unified us. Love. Grace. Peace.

  I remembered being in that massive cathedral in Paris with Will, and my eyes shifted to his back. We’d both felt such a kinship with the Holy in that place…I was sure of it. Will was turned forward again in the front seat, leaning with his elbows on his knees, swaying with the motion of the train. I knew he was a man of faith, a man who sought God. I wondered then what Pierre believed. I had no idea where he stood on matters of faith. I shook my head and turned back to the window. It startled me that I did not know, nor had bothered to find out. Back home, most everyone went to church. But I knew here, in Europe, it wasn’t always the case. Did Pierre even believe in God at all? And might that be enough to dissuade my father from insisting I accept his pursuit?

  After a hearty lunch of beef stew and crusty bread in a cozy alpine inn, we met up with our guides. We rode in the back of a wagon pulled by oxen up a long, steep hill. We women had been given the option of staying behind with Yves and Claude—waiting in the warm inn, sitting by the fire while the men hiked the glacier—an option none of us took, since we all were excited about this adventurous excursion. From the top of the hill, we would begin our hike up and onto the nearby glacier, a force that had been shaping these mountains and valleys for thousands of years and was slowly receding.

  Our guides slipped hobbled nail straps around our boots, tied us together with ropes, from waist to waist, and handed us poles for balance. We climbed a series of rickety makeshift ladders to the top of the glacier’s edge, a hundred feet above us. Despite the exercise, I was glad for my split skirt and the warm woolen leggings Anna had insisted I wear, as well as for my gloves, scarf, and coat. It was frigid, challenging work, and I wondered how my sisters and Nell were doing behind me. We were arranged from the biggest to the smallest of us. One big guide of about fifty years of age, his face wrinkled and weather-beaten, led the way, just ahead of Will and Andrew. Just ahead of me was Hugh. Behind me were Vivian and the girls. Two younger men—the leader’s sons?—brought up the very end, perhaps staged there to help the women.

  I resolved I would need no assistance. It was exhilarating, being here, so near the top of the mountains, on top of this ice set in place by the hand of God thousands of years ago.… Along the two miles we walked, we saw cirques—rounded carvings in stone and ice, like massive, natural amphitheaters. We saw ridges hewn into razor-sharp tips, and valleys in sweeping, rounded rivers still filled with the last vestiges of glacial meltings.

  The sun, high and bright, warmed our heads, even as a cold wind chapped our cheeks and noses. Behind me, Vivian grumbled about what it might do to our complexions, but she kept up with the slow, sure pace our lead guide set. At one point, we paused in an ice cave with a wide, curved roof of blue and a rivulet running along the bottom. The farther back we went, the darker blue it was. We turned to look back out. I didn’t think I’d ever forget that perspective—of the smooth, Mediterranean-blue ice framing the most picturesque alpine view I’d ever seen…a green valley, a swath of red wildflowers on one hillside, far below, and mountain upon mountain above her.

  “Smell that?” Will said, and we all inhaled.

  The odor made my nose twitch. It was a particular, earthy, mineral-rich scent.

  “That is what a few on the Titanic said they could smell before they hit the iceberg. It’s unique, is it not?”

  “I don’t believe it,” Hugh said with a scoff. “How could they smell it above the scent of the sea?”

  Will shrugged. “Believe what you wish. I, for one, think it possible.”

  And I agreed. It was a smell that made an imprint on the mind—like the loamy mud on a riverbank, or soil just turned on the farm come spring, or the grassy smell of manure. As we exited the ice cave, thoughts of the smells of home made me wonder over just how far I was from Montana. Never in my life had I thought to come this far, experience this sort of adventure. What joy it would be to relate to my students, my stories! To plant a seed within them that might grow into a desire to explore, experience such things themselves. So many never left their hometowns in Montana. So few even went to Butte or Billings or Helena. I myself had never left the state before Wallace Kensington came to call.

  As we hiked on, heading toward another viewpoint, I got lost in thoughts of my biological father. Was it true? Would he truly keep me from returning to Normal School, from teaching? When we had agreed on it? When it was my heart’s desire? I understood that he might attempt to keep me involved with the family. In truth, I continued to warm to that idea. But to keep me from meaningful work? The means to provide for myself? Or, worse, force me into a union I didn’t want? I didn’t want to—

  A scream behind me made me look up, right before I felt the ice give way beneath me. I saw the guide ram his ice pick into the glacier and whip more rope around it, even as I heard his younger compatriots do the same behind us. They were shouting, in German, words we didn’t understand. Not that we could do anything. We all slid to the end of our ropes, wincing as we came to an abrupt jolting stop, like a giant’s necklace of human bodies, separated by a length of rope. I gasped for air, hanging over a ledge, a deep crevasse beneath me. My heart pounded as I craned my neck, looking for the bottom. I couldn’t see it. If these ropes give way, we’ll—

  “Cora…are you all right?” Hugh asked over his shoulder to me.

  “I…I think so,” I said. The girls were crying behind me. The men were all shouting at once. Vivian was quiet.

  “Viv? You all right?” I asked. I tried to turn to see her, but I could not. And I was struggling to breathe, the rope was so tight around my abdomen.

  “Lil!” I cried when Vivian didn’t respond. “Is Vivian all right?”

  “Her head…” the girl said, tears thick in her voice. “I think she must’ve hit a rock.”

  I closed my eyes and grimaced, then felt the tug of rope. Th
ey were already hauling us up, I thought with relief as I moved a few inches. There was more shouting above, the men below quieting, perhaps all trying as hard as I was to take the next breath.

  “We can’t haul you up this way!” Will shouted, from somewhere above us. “It’s too much weight! Hugh, do you have your knife on you?” I remembered that the men had all purchased Swiss Army knives while we perused a glove shop, and then we had all gathered in a watch shop.

  “Yes! I think I can reach it!”

  Will’s face appeared fifteen feet above us. “I know this will be frightening, but Hugh, I need you to cut the rope between you and Felix. We need the group divided in order to be able to pull you up.”

  Hugh groaned and lifted his head, fear radiating from him. “Hold on, girls,” he called. Lillian whimpered above me. I swallowed hard. I knew what was to come when he cut the rope. We’d go swinging deeper into the crevasse.…

  Despite myself, I cried out as he finally sawed the rope apart and we slid again, sweeping into a vertical line down and into the crevasse, as the others swept away from us.

  I heard Hugh gasp as he hit the crevasse wall, and then I hit it too and slid downward, my hip and then leg catching just as we came to a stop. I screamed as my calf lodged between two planes of ice. Hugh dangled beneath me, pulling my leg deeper with his weight.

  I turned my head and looked down at him. We still couldn’t see to the bottom of the crevasse. I fought to study his face instead of the horrific drop beneath him. “My leg…I’m caught, Hugh.”

  Above us, the guides began to haul us up, and I cried out as I felt my body twist and the movement wrenched at my leg.