Call of the Trumpet Read Free Page A

undergarments followed. Then she put on the clothes that had become her uniform over the years: loose cotton trousers, muslin shirt, and sash that wound several times about her slender waist; tall black riding boots. She pulled the pins from her hair, and it tumbled past her waist. She turned to the ornate cheval mirror.
    Huge dark eyes peered back at her from beneath the thick, straight fringe of bangs. Eyes that had not yet shed a single tear. Why? What was the matter with her? Her father had been the most important, beloved person in her life. And what was the cold, hard lump in her breast that had replaced the
joie de vivre
with which she had once faced each new day? Abruptly Cecile wheeled from the mirror and stalked from the room.
    The door to her father’s study was ajar. Cecile hesitated, then cautiously pushed it open. Everything remained the same, exactly as it had been the day he died. She glanced at the desk chair where she had found him, where he had spent his final moments before the weakness in his heart had swiftly killed him. There were no ghosts. Cecile entered the room.
    Someone had opened the drapes and dusted the furniture. The afternoon sun had not yet managed to pierce the low-hanging clouds, and the dim light lay softly on the highly polished antique pieces: the huge old desk, the two leather chairs facing it, the globe in the corner, the hundreds of books that lined the shelves. Cecile idly ran her fingers over the marble mantel above the fireplace, then turned toward the desk. And froze.
    It was still there, just as he had left it, as if he had somehow known the end was near … the innocent-looking, plain brown envelope. It contained both her past and her future … and the dilemma she was not yet ready to face. Cecile turned on her heel and fled into the cool, dim corridor. There was only one thing she wanted to do now.

    It had been several days since Cecile had ridden her mare, and she started out slowly. With light pressure on the reins, she held her to a walk until they had passed the low stone stables, then eased the horse into a jog. When the château had receded into the distance, she urged the mare to a gentle lope. The miles fell away.
    The scenery, the rocking motion, the scent of the good, clean earth, all were familiar, so familiar. Years and years she had done this very same thing, good days and bad. On the good days she had ridden for the joy of it, racing through the countryside with happy abandon. On the bad days she had ridden to soothe her heart and sort her thoughts.
    Cecile rode on until the already gloomy sky rapidly darkened with the oncoming night. She turned her mare back toward the château then, reined her to a halt, and surveyed the green, tree-studded acres that had been her home for so long.
Home
…
    Never before had Cecile thought about that word. Now it seemed to have taken on a tremendous significance. Home was where she had been raised and had lived with the people she loved. With the exception of Jali, however, they were gone now. The nurse who had accompanied them from the desert had died before Cecile had even been old enough to remember her. Most of the old servants had retired, familiar and beloved faces. What was left for her?
    Loneliness. The answer came without thought or hesitation. Greater loneliness than she had ever known before, had ever imagined. As much as she loved France, it was not the land of her birth. The people around her were not her people. She was all alone. Truly alone.
    Something in Cecile’s breast moved then. The great weight shifted and became a painful lump in her throat and a hot dampness at the corners of her eyes. “Oh, Papa!” she cried aloud to the gathering gloom. “I miss you so!”
    Cecile could not remember a time when she had cried, and the broken, ragged sobs sounded alien to her ears. But she could not stop. She cried until she was exhausted and limp, her face buried in her hands. Yet when she was done, the leaden