Read Online Under the Wide and Starry Sky by Nancy Horan - Free Book Online Page B

like sprung coils, at each temple. “I felt free, truly free. Just to be out in the open air …”
    â€œDo you know that Whitman poem ‘Song of the Open Road’?” Fanny asked. “‘I think heroic deeds were all conceived in the open air … ‘“
    â€œâ€¦Â I think whatever I shall meet on the road I shall like,’” Louis responded, picking up the verse, “… and whoever beholds me shall like me.’”
    He saw the faintest smile flicker across her somber mouth as she took his measure.
    â€œSo, you’re a travel essayist now, are you?” Bob injected into the quiet moment that followed. He sucked hard on his pipe and released a cloud above their heads. The sardonic grin he had developed at Cambridge was in full display. “Your father will be thrilled to hear that.” He turned to Fanny. “Our friend here just completed his legal studies.”
    â€œI am not suited to be an advocate,” Louis said, suddenly cross.
    â€œYou’re not much of a vagabond, either,” Bob observed. “Look at you with a knapsack. No self-respecting gypsy carries a freshly pressed shirt.”
    â€œWhen we were younger, perhaps sixteen,” Louis explained to Fanny, “we would go adventuring for a couple of days without anything but a toothbrush. Not even a comb. Considered it bad form to be encumbered.”
    â€œWe couldn’t stand ourselves after a while,” Bob added, “so we’d have to go buy shirts and underwear and visit a barber rather often, just to get the hair combed. It got expensive.”
    â€œOur fathers were underwriting our adventures in those days,” Louis said.
    â€œLet’s be honest, they still are.” Bob swilled back a whisky.
    â€œSo you were close as little boys,” Fanny said.
    â€œLike brothers,” Bob said.
    â€œBut I want to know about
you,
Fanny Osbourne. How did you decide to come to Grez?”
    She flicked her wrist, and the vivacious face went slack. “There’s plenty of time for that. How long are you staying?”
    â€œI have to go back to Edinburgh in a few days.”
    â€œWe can talk tomorrow,” she said. “I must put my boy to bed. He’s looking weary down there.” Louis watched her collect the limp child from his seat and depart the room.
    â€œShe’s quite something, isn’t she?” Bob said when she was gone. “The locals call her
la belle Americaine
.”
    â€œIndeed. What is she doing in Grez?”
    â€œOrdered here by a doctor.”
    â€œLungs?”
    â€œNo, it’s not that. She came over to the continent to study painting, along with her daughter and sons. While they were in Paris, the youngest boy died of consumption—the kind Henley had.”
    â€œAh,” Louis said. “What a pity.”
    â€œShe broke down, and they sent her here to rest.”
    â€œWhere is the husband?”
    â€œBack in California.”
    â€œAnd …?”
    â€œRather raw, from what I can gather. Fanny doesn’t say much about him. I get the feeling it went cold a long time ago.”
    â€œDid you tell her we all dreaded her presence here?”
    â€œI did just recently. She found it quite funny.”
    So they are confidants,
Louis thought,
probably lovers
.
And once again, here am I, floating around in Bob’s wake.
    He poured himself a glass of whisky, drank it down, and then threw back a second. “A guid dram, laddie,” Louis growled playfully. But his heart stung. He waited for the burning to pass before pulling himself up to go talk to the others.

CHAPTER 12
    Morning at the hotel was nothing like the night before. Louis remembered this fact from last summer, when he found the previous night’s comedians and revelers creeping around the dining table at ten, drinking coffee, surveying the tartines and croissants, assiduously avoiding intercourse with any