Auguste found himself looking deep into Aunt Nicole's eyes, full of shared sorrow.
Guichard flicked the reins, and the carriage started off, turning away from the dock, passing the warehouses and rattling down the long dusty-white road that led across the bottomland fields to the bluff. It must have been a good spring out here; though this was only the beginning of July, the corn was already up to a man's waist.
Auguste felt he would look better wearing his beaver hat as they rode along. He put it on his head, pulling the rolled-up brim down with both hands, and set it in place with a pat on the crown.
"So, you are now a finished graduate of St. George's School?" said Elysée with a smile. "Monsieur Charles Winans has sent long letters full of good reports about you."
Aunt Nicole reached over and squeezed his hand. "We're proud of you, Auguste." Her soft, fleshy hand was warm, and her eyes sparkled at him. He sensed a feeling in her that was more than the affection of an aunt for a nephew. She now had eight children, he knew, and every time he had seen her and Frank together, they had seemed very much in love. But Aunt Nicole was a big woman. She had room in her big heart, perhaps, for more than one love.
Embarrassed by what he felt radiating from her, Auguste turned to Elysée.
"If I learned anything at St. George's, I owe it all to the way you prepared me, Grandpapa. Anyone who could take a boy who could barely speak English, and in two years cram enough knowledge into his head for him to go to secondary school in New York City—such a man is no ordinary teacher."
"You were no ordinary pupil, my boy," said Elysée, leaning back in the carriage, his hands resting one on top of the other on his silver-headed cane. "And Père Isaac laid down a solid foundation in that head of yours. Those Jesuits are good for that, at least, black-hearted rogues though they may be in most other respects."
"Papa!" Nicole gave Elysée a reproving frown.
Elysée quickly patted her knee. "Forgive me, my child. Let me not shake the faith that sustains you."