Going Home

Chapter 4: Les Confidentes

"Caoimhe, did you hear about the railroad?" 

Ever since the incident at Le Fourcy, Caoimhe had been banned from walking without an escort, effective immediately. She didn't argue with them; the trauma from it had made the presence of an escort welcome. Who the escort was changed almost daily. Usually, she walked with Feuilly, Bahorel, Jehan, sometimes even Lesgle. The four men were completely different and each had their own quirks. She appreciated Lesgle's company most due to his humor; Bossuet, as they nicknamed him, seemed to always know how to get her to double over in laughter. She often teased him and called him "Aigle chauve" which was a play on Bald Eagle due to his lack of hair to which he would call her Mademoiselle Tomate. Jean Prouvaire, or as everyone called him, Jehan, was good company as well. He always listened to her with patience and she actually enjoyed his poetry. In most instances, she would enjoy Bossuet's company the most since the mood was always light, but Jehan and Caoimhe both spoke Italian; it was easier for the two to converse without worrying too much about the National Guard or the police. That didn't go to say that she didn't enjoy Feuilly's or Bahorel's company. In fact, she enjoyed talking about history with Feuilly and discovered that he was decently versed in international politics. They often debated Thucydides and his "History of the Peloppenisian War"; Feuilly was purely an idealist while Caoimhe was somewhere in between and often played the devil's advocate for him. However, she was uninterested in his interest in Poland and could not for the life of her understand it; he had never even been to Poland before. As for Bahorel, he was funny like Lesgle, but his jokes sometimes rubbed her the wrong way. Caoimhe knew he meant no harm, but his lack of a filter annoyed her. Plus, he dressed like a peacock; she preferred going through the crowds unnoticed, but the dandy was always the center of attention.

On this particular day, Jehan was her escort. The two walked down the Rue Saint-Denis side by side on their way back to the Musain. Caoimhe had to remind herself that the ability to travel by rail was brand new technology before she answered. With a tilt of the head, she humored his news, "A railroad? Aren't they scared it might slip off the rails? What if it explodes?"

Jehan gave her a reassuring smile, "Don't worry. I'm sure they wouldn't have allowed it to run if it weren't safe," To that, Caoimhe couldn't help but give him a look that said Really? 

He couldn't help but grin at that look. Jehan had always found her to be enchanting, but in the sense that she was so different and so interesting, one couldn't help but be taken in by her. Most men would have probably thought her crazy for her progressivism and her predictions of the future, but he found the progressiveness and her imagination to be refreshing. The ideas she came up with didn't lack reason and given the ingenuity they were currently witnessing, he found that the different inventions she mentioned like electricity, automobiles, and indoor plumbing were not completely out of the question. At first, he had questioned her sanity when she mentioned airplanes, but she reminded him that Leonardo DaVinci had drawn and built early flying machines and that humans had been harvesting the energy of wind as well as combustion for quite sometime. The fact that she was so well-read would probably turn men away, but Jehan found himself drawn in.

"I miss Massachusetts," she said suddenly. Jehan looked at her incredulously. It wasn't often that Caoimhe spoke about her home and she had never said that she was homesick. When he looked upon her face, he realized her sadness. 

"This is sudden. Did something remind you of home?"

She shook her head and sighed, "I've just been thinking about it... I miss Ashburnham the most. The fresh air, the foliage in the fall, my mother's cooking... What's funny is that I was always tired of her making clam boil and baked beans... Especially baked beans, but I could really go for both."