A Buss from Lafayette (19 page)

Keeping my eyes pinned to the gentleman’s face, I picked up my pocket and pulled out the fan. Snapping it open, I looked closely at it to compare the portrait printed there with the features I saw before me. “Why, y-y-you are . . .” I stuttered.

The gentleman glanced at the fan in my hand. “
Oui
, I am the one whose picture you hold in your hand.
These pictures! They are everywhere I go! I see almost as many of them as I do roses. And they are always of my poor self as I look today, not the slender and graceful youth I was then.” He shrugged. “Oh, well, one must accept these things.”

It was the Nation’s Guest himself!

After all I had learned about him and what he had done for my country, I was nearly overwhelmed with awe and excitement. Mixed in with these was a fair amount of embarrassment at meeting such a distinguished gentleman, dressed as I was in boy’s breeches and a bedraggled dress pulled up to my waist, both completely soaked. Still, I had enough presence of mind to clamber to my feet to the side of the brook and curtsy, holding my dripping skirts out as well as I could.

He returned my curtsy with an elegant, courtly bow. “But what are you doing here alone, sitting in a stream of water weeping?” he asked. He leaned forward to look closely at my face, a look of earnest concern on his own. “Is it an affair of the heart?”

“Well, it is a lot of things, sir, but mainly it is an affair of the
hair
! I know it is silly, but it is important to me.”

“Whatever can you mean,
ma petite
?”

“This terrible red hair. I have been trying—oh, so very hard—to make it black, but now I am beginning
to think it is impossible to do so. I am so very tired of being a ‘pumpkin head!’”

He frowned as if he found this to be a riddle. “But . . . your hair, it is
tres belle
! You are a most lovely
rousse
! Some of my own children have this color. And I do, myself.”

“Oh, sir, you are just trying to make me feel better. I can see quite clearly that you have beautiful
brown
hair!”

“This?” He pointed to his head. “This hair, it is false! I fear I have succumbed to vanity in my old age.” He gave his hair a tug, and off it came. All that remained on his head were a paltry few strands of white and, yes,
red
hair.

“Red and white—colors almost patriotic. My dear child, I wish I had
more
red hair—there is so little of it left! And this peruke is most uncomfortable to wear in all this heat.” He smiled at me, and I could clearly see why people had called him charming in his youth. He was charming still, no matter his age.

“But you hide your red hair with a
brown
wig,” I observed.

“Only because a red peruke is very, very costly. When I had this made in France, I did not have the money to spend on a red wig. Two revolutions emptied my pockets. Of course, your so very generous Congress might just have made it possible for me to
become a ‘pumpkin head’ once again.” He slapped the wig back on his head and bent down to me. “Can you straighten this for me?”

In a daze, I stretched up and pulled his peruke into place. “But how could a ‘pumpkin head’ have been the great hero of the Revolution?” I asked him.

“My dear young lady, did you not know? Nearly all of the ‘great heroes of the Revolution’ had hair that was red, or at least decidedly
reddish
! My dear friends, Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson; the father of my heart, General Washington; and, of course,
moi!
All had, as you said,
la tête de citrouille
—the ‘pumpkin head.’ Now, let me dry your tears.”

He pulled a white silk handkerchief out of his pocket, with
Lafayett
e embroidered upon it in black thread. “My dear daughters know I lose these all the time, so they embroider them for me by the dozens. I think of them whenever I look at their handiwork. They pattern this upon my scrawl of a signature, you see. Such clever girls!”

As I hiccupped the last of my sobs, Lafayette dried the tears from my face and patted me on the head.

“My,” he said with a chuckle. “You are very wet! It must be cooling on this so very hot day. I do envy you your refreshing dip! I would love to dip, myself, but I must be on my way. Before I leave, however, I shall give you a buss to cheer you up. You must stand on
that tall rock so that I can reach you. My poor old back is very sore from bowing and bussing my way around your enormous, wonderful country.”

Hardly believing what was happening, I climbed up onto the rock, and Lafayette placed a smacking kiss on my cheek.

When I stepped down, he bowed again and handed me the embroidered handkerchief. “You may keep this, if you please, to remember our very
secret
meeting in the woods,” he said.

“I th-thank you, sir,” I stammered and managed another curtsy.

General Lafayette raised his finger as if to scold me, although the impish expression on his face told me he was jesting.

“Now, my dear,” he said softly. “Whenever you look at this writing, please remember that you are not this ‘pumpkin head,’ but a lovely
rousse
. As lovely as this.”

From the flowers littering the ground, he picked out a beautiful white rose and fixed it in my hair. “An exquisite rose for an exquisite young
mademoiselle
. Now, I must be on my way. Can you hear that?”

I listened and heard a growing chorus of voices coming from the direction of the Warner town line. They were chanting, “Hooray for Lafayette! Hooray for the Nation’s Guest!”

“I must return to my journey. Alas, the people are waiting!
Au revoir
,
ma belle rousse
!”

I watched him limp back to the coach and climb inside. Soon the driver whipped up his team and the coach disappeared down the road towards Warner.

When he was gone, I touched the rose in my hair and looked at the handkerchief in my hand. “Well, these prove that I did not imagine this whole thing,” I said aloud. “It must have really happened!
I
met Lafayette. I
met
Lafayette! I met
Lafayette!
”

C
HAPTER 34

Still in a daze, I took Flame’s reins and started walking towards home, pondering how much I had learned in the last week.
Last Monday I barely knew who Lafayette was,
I thought.
Today I not only
met
him, but he gave me a rose, a handkerchief, and a buss on the cheek! Which is far more than Hetty can claim. I can hardly
wait
to tell her!
My mouth quirked into a grin at this thought.

As I led Flame through Contoocookville, I saw that there were still many people milling around, chattering about having seen Lafayette. It was, I realized, a large
flock
of people. These must have been the “sheep” I had heard earlier.

Realizing this, I
baa
-ed. In the din of excited conversation, no one seemed to hear me.

Except Dickon Weeks, who walked up to me, with Lancelot in tow.

“Well, well. Miss Clara Hargraves! Yet again, here you are with dripping hair, even though you are not splashing around in a pond, nor is there a drop of water coming from the sky!”

“Hello, Dickon. What an amazing thing just happened!”

“I know, I know! It was so exciting to watch Lafayette drive by. But I did not see you here. Did you miss it, Clara?”

“Ah, well, in a way, I guess . . .”

“What a shame! He actually looked right at me and nodded! The great Lafayette looked straight at me! I shall tell you all about it on the way home. Shall I help you up? Although, from what folks in the village were saying, you are perfectly capable of vaulting onto a horse like a boy. An extremely
fit
boy at that!”

“No, please do lift me up, Dickon,” I replied. “I think Flame has rested enough to carry me home.”

Dickon put his hands on my waist and easily lifted me onto Flame’s back. When he did this, I felt a strange kind of shiver pass through me, despite the heat of the day. It suddenly occurred to me that if such, well,
thrilling
assistance was required for riding sidesaddle, I might not mind it too much. If at all.

Dickon did not seem to notice my reaction. “Clever of you to wear Joss’s old breeches under your skirts. They were talking about
that
in the village, too,” he said with a grin as he mounted Lancelot.

After we started towards home, I began to explain. “It was an emergency, Dickon. I had to fetch the doctor.
The baby was coming.
Oh!
The baby!” I exclaimed. “I forgot all about it, so much has happened to me since!”

I was bursting to tell Dickon of my meeting with Lafayette, but he interrupted me. Apparently he was bursting with news, too.

“You should have seen Lafayette’s coach! It was so full of roses that he and the other men inside looked to be drowning in them and . . .” He stopped for a much needed breath.

“Roses like this?” I put my hand to the white rose the general had given to me.

“Why yes, exactly like that. And . . . and how pretty it looks in your hair. Where did you find that? Did it fall out of his carriage somehow?”

I grinned. “In a manner of speaking, yes, it did. I shall tell you all about it on the way, Dickon. But we must hurry! I must get home right away to see if Mama is safely delivered of her child.”

Dickon looked at me. “You know, that is the first time I have ever heard you call her that without sounding as if you put quotes around it in your head.”

“You know, Dickon, I am beginning to think I was dead wrong about her. I think Aunt Priscilla only married Father because my mother
begged
her to do so. I did not know that. I have always felt as if she and
Father betrayed Mother’s memory. That was not true at all.”

“Well, well, well. First the famous Lafayette comes through our town, and now you admit you are wrong about something. Quite a red-letter day!”

“A red-letter day, indeed, Dickon. And you have not even heard the half of it. If you will just give me a chance to talk, I shall tell you all about what just happened to me.”

As we rode along, I recounted my adventure to Dickon. In doing so, I did manage to keep my promise to Lafayette: I did not reveal how so many roses had come to be on the ground under the trees surrounding Brown’s Brook.

When I finished telling my story, I looked over at Dickon to see whether he believed what I had told him. He had an odd expression on his face. For a while the only sound was the muffled clip-clopping of our horses’ hooves on the road.

Finally, Dickon cleared his throat and looked back at me.

“So let me get this straight. You actually met General Lafayette, all on your own, in the woods at Brown’s Brook.”

“Yes, I did.”

“And he showed you his real hair, red and white, underneath a brown wig.”

“Yes, he did.”

“Then he gave you his handkerchief with his signature embroidered on it.”

“Just as I showed you.”

“And he put this rose in your hair?”

“Yes. I had actually been hoping to give
him
some flowers, and he gave one to me, instead.”

“And then he
bussed
you? Truly?”

“I have no evidence to show you, but yes, he did buss me. Right here.” I pointed to my cheek.

Dickon peered intently at my face. “So if sometime, in the future, of course, I mean,
sometime
you were to give someone a buss, then that person, whoever she . . . or he . . . might be, could say she. . . or he . . . had been bussed by someone who had been bussed by Lafayette.”

“Yes, I suppose that’s true enough, but I hardly think there will be people lining up for me to kiss.”

“You might be surprised, Clara. You might well be very surprised.” Dickon flushed bright red.

I was actually very surprised already. Did Dickon Weeks really think people would be lining up in hopes I would kiss them?

I had little time to ponder Dickon’s odd statement, however, before he urged his horse into a trot. I followed suit and soon we made the turn, passed the Putney Tavern, and started up Gould Hill.

As we approached home, I felt a sudden stab of worry. What if the baby had been stillborn? Mother had lost several babes in between Joss and me. Or what if my stepmother had died? Such things could and did happen far too often. With a jolt of emotion, I realized that I did not want to lose her just as I was truly accepting her in my life.

By the time we got to my house, my hands were shaking as I slipped off Flame’s back.

“I will get her into the barn, Clara,” said Dickon. “You go to your stepmother.”

“Thank you, Dickon. Do give her plenty of water and hay. Flame Hargraves has helped me so very much today,” I said. “And so have you, my friend.”

I stepped onto the mounting block. Then I reached out, pulled Dickon to face me, and kissed him, right on his astonished-looking mouth. Before he could react, I quickly jumped down again and ran as fast as I could towards the house.

When I got to the door, I could not resist glancing back at Dickon. He was looking a little stunned and maybe a bit overwhelmed, by the
historical
significance, not to mention the
personal
significance, of what I had just done.