“What is this?” Tommy, the one-armed boy, asked.
“This is a farm called La Haye Sainte.”
“And this here?” the boy pointed to another building.
He felt himself grimace. “This is Chateau Hougoumont.” Even though he hadn’t intended to elaborate on it, he heard himself say, “This is where we were stationed. The light company of the second battalion. Coldstream Guards.”
“Coldstream Guards!” The boys’ mouths dropped open with awe. Hero worship gleamed in their eyes. Gabriel shifted uncomfortably.
“How pretty the houses are,” a little girl with brown locks said and touched a model roof.
“Careful, the colour’s not yet dry,” Gabriel said involuntarily as she pressed down a finger on the model.
“Does it really look like that? If we were to go there now, it would look exactly like this, yes? Yer Grace, sir?”
Gabriel felt a rushing go through his ears and the din of guns in the distance. From a distance, his voice said, “Hougoumont was entirely destroyed.”
He felt Birdie’s eyes on him. “I think we have taken up enough of his Grace’s time,” she said to the little ones. “Come now, children.”
“But miss. The model’s not finished. Yer Grace, sir, do ye need help? We can help paint the little trees,” said Johnny and looked at Gabriel expectantly.
Gabriel felt helpless. How could anyone deny those pleading eyes?
The girl had picked up a pot of paint and a brush and coloured the meadow without much ado. Before he could blink, the other children joined in and busied themselves by painting or modelling figures from the clay lump he’d left on the side.
Birdie threw him an apologetic look.
Only one boy stood in the shadow by the door, hanging his head. Tommy.
“Come here, Tommy. You can help me paint the soldiers of the 95th Rifles,” Gabriel said. The boy came over slowly. Gabriel picked up a brush and green paint and showed him how to paint the figure. “The 95th rifles had green uniforms, not red ones. So, you need to colour them with particular care.”
“Aye sir, they were real special, right?” Gabriel held the figure while Tommy painted it.
When he looked over Tommy’s head, his eyes met Birdie’s.
They were huge, and warm, and luminous. The smile she gave on him was so bright it lit up the entire room.
As unorthodox as it all was, he was doing the right thing.
He felt his heart lighten.
It had been an amazing afternoon.Birdie could hardly believe what had happened. Gabriel had arrived and had talked to the children, even invited them to his abode to show them the model! Then he’d let them paint the remaining figures and landscapes. Even Birdie thought that they’d gone too far, that maybe they’d exhausted his patience. But no. He’d taken little Tommy under his wing and patiently helped him paint a figure. Her heart had melted seeing his dark head bent over the little boy’s bright curly one. The child clearly hero-worshipped him. He’d clung to Gabriel the entire afternoon, painting not one, but three soldiers, which Gabriel allowed him to set in the middle of the scene.
“I want them to guard the gate,” Tommy directed. “They are the bravest soldiers in the entire army. No one will get past them.”
“They will ward off the entire French army single handedly,” Gabriel had replied, and Tommy had beamed at him, and slipped his little hand into his big one.
He would make a wonderful father one day, Birdie thought.
The children, satisfied after such an eventful afternoon, thanked him one by one and left.
After they had gone, Gabriel remained standing by the window. There was a strain about his eyes, and he looked pale.
Birdie hesitated by the door. “I just wanted to say—what you did was wonderful. Thank you. Truly. The children will remember this for a long time.”
He nodded curtly. He wasn’t upset with her, was he?
“I—would like to invite you. For supper. Tonight,” she blurted out. “To celebrate a special day. I can tell cook to prepare Soupe a la Reine, pheasant pie, and an apricot tart. Or would you prefer curried rabbit? Or something more traditionally Scottish?” She was definitely talking too much. And he was being altogether too quiet.
