Eric Flint - Grantville Gazette.Volume XVI

"Everything alright in there? "Joe called.

"Yeah, Joe, I'm fine."

The biscuits weren't burned too badly. They could still be eaten. Jimmy smiled. Life was good.

Grantville, August 1634

Velma Hardesty took a good look at herself in the mirror.

Jacques-Pierre Dumais came to the trailer and talked to her for an hour or two at least three or four times a week and gave her ideas on which she was to Meditate. She smiled at her reflection, a little sourly. She bet there wasn't a single soul in Grantville who would believe that he only offered her Spiritual Comfort. She scarcely believed it herself.

She used to read a lot about Spiritual Enlightenment. After all, the astrology magazines at the grocery stores, up-time, before the Ring of Fire, were really into it. She hadn't really believed that it worked, though. But three months of receiving regular Spiritual Comfort from Jacques-Pierre had done wonders. She had to admit it. Having someone who listened to her-really listened-had made so much difference.

Although she didn't like to admit it, even to herself, his stern admonitions that slurping down your wine like it was water did not give you an opportunity to appreciate the bouquet properly had done wonders, too. Jacques-Pierre's father owned a vineyard in Languedoc. He absolutely forbade her to drink anything stronger than wine. It interfered with Spiritual Enlightenment, he said, not to mention having a destructive impact on the palate. So she sipped rather than slurped (well, most of the time).

And tried to Meditate, just as he said. For each of the Themes he gave her, she was to walk around town every day until she had spoken to at least four people with whom she could share Words of Enlightened Wisdom. She was supposed to share each Theme with four different people. She didn't bother with that, though. Whenever she had a new one, she shared it with the receptionist at the Probate Court and the receptionist in Judge Maurice Tito's office, since she would be talking to them about money and custody of Susan anyway, dropping off papers and things like that.

She sort of wished that Jacques-Pierre would get on the stick about helping her with Susan and the money. She'd have to remind him. Though, to be honest, now that she wasn't thinking as woozily as she had been last month, there might not be much that he could do. Garbage collector just wasn't the most influential job in town. It was nice of him to have offered, though.

But she had to do extra walking to find enough people to share the rest of the Themes. By now, she knew almost every place in town where she could be sure of finding a captive audience. Checkout line at the grocery store. Circulation desk at the public library. She figured that even if she just said it to the person behind the counter, she had shared it with everyone in line. That saved a lot of walking, but even so, she'd lost eight pounds.

She looked back at the mirror. None of it from the boobs, she noted with satisfaction. Those had been a worthwhile investment.

A couple of weeks later, their Spiritual Comfort session was accompanied by a good-sized glass of the best French wine, newly delivered from a friend of Jacques-Pierre's, a guy named Laurent Mauger. Jacques-Pierre told her that the man went as a Dutch merchant from Haarlem, which he was. But his grandparents had been Huguenots from Dieppe.

Jacques-Pierre told her that Mauger's wife had died three years before, and that his family-the sons, the unmarried older sisters and half-sisters, the widowed sister and half-sister, the nephews and half-nephews-had taken advantage of his grief to get him to sign a pledge that he would not remarry and beget another family. The marriage had not been a great romance, no. But it had endured for two decades and they had reared children together. Mauger had mourned his wife when she died. Such a thing was a quite legally binding document in private law-signed, notarized, and duly filed with the family's attorney, beyond a doubt. Mauger was too strict a Calvinist to go whoring. And, though fat, he was quite healthy, as evidenced by the energy with which he pursued the business affairs that took him around Europe on these frequent trips.

The guy had to be lonely, Velma thought.

The next evening, Mauger joined them for their glasses of wine. He sat there, fat and fiftyish, saying little, toying with his goblet and contemplating Velma's cleavage. But that was all. A couple of days later, he left again. Jacques-Pierre promised to let her know just as soon as he got back in town.

October 1634

Velma started looking through her closet. Jacques-Pierre never would be interested her, personally speaking, except for providing Spiritual Comfort. Mauger was fat, but… she'd been really short on other forms of comfort lately. He wasn't that fat. Jacques-Pierre said that sleeping around interfered with her Spiritual Enlightenment. Mauger was one of Jacques-Pierre's friends. Maybe he'd make an exception for a friend.

Or maybe she'd just interfere with her Spiritual Enlightenment and get back on track after Mauger left on his next business trip.

She pulled out a lovely dress of mauve faux leather with slits in interesting spots. It had matching boots. Sighed. Not yet. Five more pounds, at least, if she didn't want to strip the teeth out of the zipper. Closer to ten. Back to the closet. She didn't think that Mauger was the type to go for a fire-engine red jumpsuit. Anyway, not with the henna on her hair. That suit had been for a blond. She dug deeper. Ah.

She'd been right. There was nothing quite like a halter top with sequins to focus a man's attention where she wanted it. Laurent Mauger had returned precisely when he had promised. He focused. He practically panted. But he rose courteously when she announced that it was time for her to go home. He didn't offer to accompany her. Damn.

She would have found it less damnable if she could have heard his subsequent conversation with Jacques-Pierre, who was putting the most favorable spin on things. Truth, if Jacques-Pierre didn't manage to get this woman out of his way, he thought that he would go quite insane. Madame Haggerty was one thing. A useful source of data. Not especially time consuming. Madame Hardesty, on the other hand… if only her son was not Frank Jackson's liaison to Don Francisco Nasi. The things that a man had to endure for the sake of his country.

"Ah, Laurent. Yes, twice widowed. Most unfortunate." He saw no need to bring up that until the Ring of Fire, both of her former husbands had been quite alive. They were now legally dead. The courts had ruled on that. "A first cousin of Prime Minister Stearns, I understand." There was the tragic recent death of one of her daughters. Jacques-Pierre racked his brain. There was the fact that the youngest girl did not live with Velma-he could say that it was for the purposes of attending school-and thus would not have to be taken into Laurent's household. And there was, of course, the lovely, casuistic, thought that Laurent had only pledged not to take a second wife who would complicate the inheritance by bearing him more children.

Another idea came to Jacques-Pierre. And, of course, she understood the importance of clothing. Laurent's sisters, fine women, all of them, had not adapted to the new villa and the country estate. They still dressed as if they were of the bourgeoisie, with their respectable black dresses, white collars, and caps. But that was no requirement of the Calvinist faith. Certainement, the Huguenot nobles of France, such as the wife of Duke Henri de Rohan, did not dress so. Nor did the court of Frederik Hendrick of Orange. Such a wife as Madame Hardesty would display to the full the dimensions of Laurent's wealth. And it was that wealth which would enable him to obtain daughters of the lesser nobility as brides for his sons and nephews.