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Part Three
Taking a deep, cooling breath, Clopin stalked back up to the wagon. "René," he raised his voice as he knocked on the door frame. "René, are you there?"
He could hear the irritating sound of the lovers scrambling apart, and rapped his knuckles against the wagon a few more times just to make himself feel better. René swept aside the curtain and came out.
"Clopin!" he offered his brother a tentative clap on the shoulder. He looked ridiculous, trying to smother that grin on his face, and Clopin noticed that he had to pull his collar back up around his neck.
"Are you alone?" Clopin craned to look past him, and René gently shoved him away from the wagon.
"Well -- Nerine and I were just going over some things for our performance tomorrow," he coughed. "Wait till you see it! I've written a music-play!" he beamed. "Just a small one, no elaborate scenery or anything. But it's funny; you'll like it. Come, sit down." He had walked over to the little porch on the back of the larger wagon, and motioned for Clopin to join him there. "The others went to the Court of Miracles, to look for some things we need. Please, sit down, Clopin," he begged again. "We haven't talked at all." "I know, that's why I came. But, I was hoping you would take a walk with me." "All right," René leapt to his feet. "Whatever you wish. Let me tell Nerine -- " he headed for the smaller wagon again.
"We're not going that far," Clopin protested.
"Oh, but I can't leave without telling her; she might worry."
"Does she keep you on such a short lead as that, then?" Clopin did not bother to hide his disdain.
"No," René tried to calm him, "it's not like that. I just don't like her to worry, that's all. I won't be long."
Clopin paced irritably in front of the wagon. He could imagine the tender goodbyes being whispered behind the curtain, and he shook his head in disgust. René came out of the wagon again; he had put on a warmer jacket over his tunic, and he smiled as he joined his brother. "Let's go."
The young man made a feint at small talk as they walked away, but Clopin abruptly cut him off. "So, René, how did you come to take up with a woman like that?"
"I know what you think of her," the young man began, "but you don't know her the way I do. I've never known anyone like her; she's so warm, and-- and--"
"Answer my question," Clopin did not want to hear what she was like. "How did you meet her?"
"I'll tell you, then maybe you'll understand. We were at the fair in Orleans, Josette and the rest, you know, and I went for a walk between shows, to see who else was there. I came upon a huge crowd of people," René described it with his arms, "gathered around the back of a wagon, and I stopped to see what had brought them there. And then I heard her voice. Clopin, it wasn't like anything I'd ever heard before; it was-- it was magic! I couldn't move, I couldn't breathe, I just stood there and closed my eyes and listened. When I went back to our camp, all I could think of was that voice; I couldn't get it out of my head. I sat up half the night, playing my viol, just trying to hold on to the sound of it. And then I wrote a song for her. I did," the radiance of his face as he said this would have amused Clopin under better circumstances. "I'd never done that for anyone before; always just for myself, and the family. But I wrote a song for her, and in the morning, I went to see her. I was so nervous, I thought I'd be sick, especially since I hadn't eaten anything for most of a day. You won't believe this, but at that moment, I had no idea who she was. I couldn't even remember what she looked like. I just knew she had--"
"The most beautiful voice, yes, René, you've made that point already," Clopin grumbled.
René looked up at him, a little hurt by his tone. "Well, anyway, I found her making breakfast, and I introduced myself, and she said, 'You're from the acrobatic troupe. You're very talented.' I thought she had mistaken me for one of the others, and I said, 'I'm not an acrobat,' and she smiled at me and said, 'I know. You're very talented.' She meant the trumpet, Clopin! She'd heard me play for the act, and she thought I was talented! And then I played the song for her, and she loved it! She sang it, right then and there! And she asked me to stay for breakfast, and she introduced me to the Nicolets -- they were all a troupe together. Elise is really the one in charge," he confided to Clopin. "She likes to pretend that the rest of us are, but she is, don't let her fool you. She's a lot like Josette, actually. It was Elise who invited me to join them. And, well, you know I'd always wanted to have a musical troupe I could compose for, and play for, and so -- "
"What did Josette say to this?" Clopin asked.
"Oh, she cried, of course; we all did. But she knew it was for the best."
"So, you ran off on some wild, romantic adventure, all because you fell in love with a voice," he concluded.
"I didn't run off," René protested. "It was time, it was past time for me to leave. And this hasn't been a wild adventure, we've been very successful. I'm doing something I love, and I'm making a name for myself at it. And," he added, after a brief hesitation, "it wasn't her voice I fell in love with. It was her."
Clopin took a deep, disgusted breath, and let it off in a snort.
"You don't understand at all, do you?" René lamented. "Well, how could you? You weren't there. It wasn't her voice, it wasn't any one thing, it was just being around her all the time. I mean it, Clopin, if you only knew her..."
"René, come sit down." They paused for a moment, on a bench outside a shop, and Clopin put his arm around his brother's shoulders. "I know you're not a child, but you're still young, and you've always been so trusting. I'm much older than you, and I've been around more. Believe me, the world is full of Nerine L'Oiseaus, and they like nothing better than to work their charms on innocent young men like you."
"Clopin, how old do you think I am?"
"I know how old you are," he grumbled.
René sighed with frustration. "You haven't seen me since I was seventeen, and that was a long time ago. For all you know, I might have left a trail of women from here to Bordeaux, I could be the biggest heartbreaker in France -- I'm not," he admitted hastily, "but you don't know that. Why do you have to assume I'm so naive? It's not as if I met Nerine only yesterday -- If I told you how long this has been going on, you'd never believe me."
"All I know is that when Nerine left Paris, she had nothing, and now here she is with her own personal composer, promoting her career and kissing her feet." He felt René squirm awkwardly at the mention of kissing feet, and Clopin shuddered at the implications. "What I'm trying to say is-- "
"I know what you're trying to say," René shrugged off his brother's arm and got up. "You don't like her, and you don't think she's good enough to be a Trouillefou." Drawing a deep breath, he raised his head and looked Clopin in the eye. "Well, I think she is good enough."
Clopin stared at him, aghast. "You had better not mean what I think you just meant."
"I want her to marry me," René blurted. "But she won't say yes without your blessing."
"Which she knows she can't get," Clopin retorted. "A clever trick on her part; she never has to say yes, but she never quite says no..."
"Her father disowned her when she left the tribe, and she never had a chance to put things right with him. She's so afraid of coming between us--" René swallowed. "I told her you would never make me choose between her and my family. Please tell me I'm not wrong."
"What does she want with you, René? What do you honestly think she wants with you? She was the mistress of one of the wealthiest men in Paris; do you really think she'll be happy living out of the back of a wagon with you?"
René was pacing back and forth in front of the bench, and now he glared at his brother and indignantly said, "She was not his mistress."
"Lover, plaything, pet, call her whatever you like. She's been all over Paris, and I'll wager her 'patron' was not the only man who had a private concert from her..."
"Clopin, stop it!" René barked, and the strength of his voice startled them both. "Don't speak of her that way," he said, more quietly, but with no less anger. "I won't have it, not even from you."
In twenty-two years, René had never spoken this harshly to him before, and Clopin looked at him through narrowed eyes. The young man didn't flinch.
"Do you think she seduced me?" he asked, and shook his head. "She was only a friend to me, almost a sister at first. Once I knew I was in love with her, it took me weeks to get up the nerve to tell her, and then it happened almost by accident. Don't worry," he answered Clopin's grimace, "I won't subject you to the details. But, once she knew what I was trying to tell her, she stopped me right there and said, 'before you say something you'll regret, you need to know the truth about me.'"
The truth! Clopin wanted to snort, but he thought better of it and restrained himself.
"I knew some of the gossip; even roaming the countryside with Josette and her troupe, I had heard of Nerine L'Oiseau. She told me everything, as if she thought it would change my mind, and I told her it didn't matter. The Comte was the only one, Clopin, and that didn't last as long as everyone thought. She was so young when it happened; she thought they were in love, and by the time she knew she had made a mistake, there was nowhere else for her to go. She wasn't proud of what she did. She thought I was too good for her!" he laughed out loud at this. "Can you believe that? If you'd been there, if you'd seen it, you'd know-- " René fell silent for a moment, then he said, "I don't know why I'm even telling you this. I can see you don't believe it."
Clopin regarded his little brother with a pitiful look. "I always knew you were naive, René, but I never thought you were a fool."
The young man exploded at this. "You know what, Clopin? I don't think this is about Nerine, or me. This is about you. You and your messy love life, and all the women who hurt you, and all your romances that ended in tears. Some pretty girl in the street gives you the eye and it's 'Oh, she's in love with me!' But I find someone sweet and wonderful, someone I care about in ways you can't even understand, and all you can say is, 'oh, she doesn't love you, she's only using you, and you're too stupid to know it.'" René had worked himself into such a state that Clopin felt almost guilty. His brother was looking at him with glistening eyes, his lips tightly compressed, and his chin jutting out defiantly. Wearily, Clopin got to his feet.
"René..." he opened his arms and tried to embrace him, but René shoved him away.
"Forget it, Clopin. Just forget it."
And Clopin watched him stride off, back toward the caravan.
This was worse than he thought. Much worse.