“Not fit for company, more like,” Pascal said. “Pack your things. I won’t leave you here with him.”
“And do what, Pascal? Wait for him to come back to town and drag me back by the hair? I’m his wife now. I have no choice.”
“Are you unhappy?” Manon asked. “Truly, if you are, there must be something that can be done.”
Perhaps your people don’t see marriage as the life sentence that mine do. I’m French. It means I’m stuck until I die or he does. “Forgive me, but I don’t see the relevance of the question. I’m married. I’m doing the best for my husband that I can.”
“But is he doing the same for you, Gabrielle?” Claudine looked at Gabrielle, her expression one of genuine concern. “You know that Alexandre is a powerful man. He can help.”
“I seem to remember the priest saying something about ‘what therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder’ or something along those lines. The last I checked, Alexandre Lefebvre is not God, so I don’t see what he can do.”
“We don’t mean to meddle,” Manon said. “We just care about you.”
Gabrielle could not find the strength to hold back her tears and let them flow freely. Most barely traced her cheeks before they dotted the front of her grimy dress. “Of course you do. I’m sorry.”
Gabrielle felt herself swept into Claudine’s arms. Her friend stroked her red hair like she might for a disconsolate child.
“I’m going to talk to Patenaude. And hope to God I can keep my temper.” Pascal was halfway to the door before Gabrielle raised her head and wiped her face.
“Don’t, Pascal. It will just make things worse. It’s just the way he is. He’s gruff to outsiders. I can make things better. We’ll figure things out.”
Even as the lies came from her mouth, she imagined her mother saying the same things to her loved ones in her early-married days and her stomach turned. There was nothing she could do to make Olivier Patenaude happy, but she had to cling to hope if she was going to endure this marriage.
* * *
October set in, and Patenaude grabbed his tattered rucksack and tracks, making his way out into the depths of the forest to liberate creatures from their hides. For a man who treasures animal hides so much, he hasn’t much respect for mine. The bruises on her legs and thighs were still violently purple; those on her arms and abdomen were finally fading to a yellow that reminded her of pus. She languished in bed as long as she liked these days. Patenaude was not there to demand his breakfast or that she lie still while he grunted over her. The cabin was barely worth tending, nor were her clothes worth mending.
I could just end it all now. The slash of the sharp kitchen knife across her wrists appealed too much for comfort some days. She knew what fate the Church said would befall her if she humored these dark thoughts. She thought of Patenaude’s face if he came home to the sight of a bloodstained mattress and a dead wife. She saw shock, then a roll of the eyes. Annoyance that he had to go into the backfield and take the time to dig a hole for her corpse. He wouldn’t call a priest. He wouldn’t bother to tell her family unless they came to demand her whereabouts. She’d rot in the ground she hated without a word said over her body. I will not give him the satisfaction of doing that to me.
Gabrielle swung her feet over the edge of the bed. She was loath to leave the warmth and relative comfort the lumpy mass of goose feathers offered, but she forced herself up to make some breakfast. She’d thrown together a few small loaves with the generous sack of flour Manon and Claudine had brought, and sliced a portion to eat with her gooseberry jam and milk. The bread was tough, nearing the end of its lifespan, but the jam usually softened and sweetened it into a more than palatable breakfast. That morning, her stomach rolled and she found herself emptying its contents into her waste bucket.
Maybe God is listening to my prayers today, sending an illness to take me away, but he could have found a less painful method. Gabrielle crawled back into the bed and stared at the pattern in the rough logs that comprised the wall of her home. She studied the pattern, trying to make sense of the randomness, but could not and began to wish she’d thought to rinse her mouth with cool water before retreating back to the bed. Now, only the apocalypse itself would raise her from beneath her covers.
She knew not how long she lay there, willing her stomach to cease its churning and cramping. She focused on taking deep breaths for a while, but then let her mind wander. After a time it wandered to the basket of clean rags she kept for her monthly courses. She realized she hadn’t touched them in close to three months.
Gabrielle sat upright and calculated. She removed all her clothes for the first time in months and felt her abdomen. Though she rarely took the chance to look over her bruised and scraped flesh, she could see and feel that the shape was beginning to change, just slightly. She’d worried about this once before, but it was last spring when the lack of food had caused her body to skip its courses. The summer had been a time of relative plenty, and the hamper from her friends replaced the absent harvest and more. Her body was healthy enough to conceive and nourish a growing child.
When Olivier beat her for her “transgressions” after Pascal and the girls left, the baby was too small to be impacted, or else his blows never hit her womb. She forced herself to look down at her blackened skin, to take inventory of every scratch the man had inflicted upon her. She had stayed because she thought she had no choice. Now she knew she had to find another. I spent a childhood at the mercy of a cruel father and I will not see this baby subjected to more of the same.
Gabrielle found her large case that Gilbert had given her on the occasion of her marriage and loaded it with every jar of preserves, every scrap of salted meat, every stitch of clothing she owned. She would not leave one thing of value behind for Patenaude. She left behind the bare store cupboard, made the bed with the threadbare quilt so filthy that Gabrielle was certain it was stitched together by dirt, and hauled the spare traps and musket to the wagon. She hitched the loaded cart to old Xavier, who grunted and fussed as if Patenaude had left him instructions to continue making her feel unwanted. The horse eyed her with suspicion as she climbed onto the driver’s perch, and refused to move when she prodded him forward.
“Get me to town, you broken-down pile of bones, and I might consider sparing you from the butcher.” She took the crop and slapped him—hard—across his rump. Xavier, surprised by the ferocity of his usually gentle mistress, moved forward. Not with the speed Gabrielle might have liked, but she had to make allowances for his advanced age. She exhaled with relief as they approached the bend in the road. She did not look back at Patenaude’s dank cabin and vowed she would never enter it again.
* * *
“I’m going to kill him.” Pascal punched the wall for emphasis, but ended up shaking his hand in pain at his own folly. Elisabeth, Gilbert, and their adopted Giroux children sat at the dinner table, mulling over Gabrielle’s fate, each with a glass of expensive cider in hand. The Beaumonts usually saved their cider for Sunday dinners or company, but Elisabeth, now standing at her worktable, often said that bad situations could often be chased off by good food and drink. It wasn’t the case that night, but Gabrielle admitted that the fear, the anger, and the loathing she felt for Patenaude were all better endured with a full stomach and good drink than without.
“Sit back down and don’t say anything of the sort like that ever again. Or even think it. If something should happen to that louse and you’ve been shooting off your mouth like that, you’ll be the first one they go to.” Gilbert’s pragmatism was likely the only thing keeping him from a fit of rage to equal Pascal’s.
“I don’t care what happens to him, but I won’t see you hurt, Pascal.” Gabrielle’s voice was stronger than she’d dared to speak in over a year. “He’s not worth it.”
Elisabeth placed a plate of Gabrielle’s favorite apple pastries on the table and embraced her from behind before taking the adjacent seat. “I just don’t know why you decided to sta
y as long as you did.” It wasn’t an accusation. Elisabeth took Gabrielle’s hand, very much looking as though she wished to know what had compelled her beloved daughter to submit to Patenaude’s brutish treatment.
“You sit in church every Sunday. You hear what the priests say. Until death, I am bound to Patenaude. It doesn’t matter if he was cruel to me. I was to bear it. If he sold everything I had that was worth anything, it was his right as my lord and master. But when I realized . . . when I realized there is going to be a baby . . . I couldn’t risk starving. I couldn’t risk him treating the child the same way Father treated us. If it were just me . . .”
“You should have come back the moment the beast laid a hand on you,” Gilbert said, the grinding of his teeth audible from across the table.
“Gilbert, enough.” Gabrielle was surprised to see a flash of temper in Elisabeth’s eyes. “Do you think he would have let her come back? Do you think she could have reasoned with him? Be sensible.”
“You’re probably right.” Gilbert looked into the depths of his mug and seemed to find no answers there.
“All of this comes to nothing.” Pascal banged his fist down on the table like a weary judge calling for order. “The past is the past and we have to figure out how to move forward.”
“Amen,” Elisabeth said. “You’ll stay here, of course.”
“And you can resume your duties in the bakery until you don’t feel well enough,” Gilbert added. “The community will think better of your situation if you’re actively working and making a contribution to our family and the town.”
“And Patenaude may likely stay away. If he was truly only interested in marrying you to reinstate his hunting and trapping rights, he may just as soon prefer you stay in the settlement.” Pascal sat back in his chair, that moment looking very much like Alexandre Lefebvre, as though thinking three moves ahead in a game of chess.
“I appreciate this very much. And I don’t see any choice but to stay here for a while. But when the baby comes—” Gabrielle began.
“We’ll make room,” Gilbert said. He placed his mug smartly on the table to punctuate his words. The thing was done in his mind, Gabrielle could see it.
“I don’t want you to have room made for me. For us.” Gabrielle absentmindedly touched her slightly distended belly. She’d not yet adjusted to the knowledge that a tiny life grew inside her. All she knew was that more than her own future was at risk if she did not plan the next steps of her life meticulously. “I want a life of my own. A home of my own. And I’m no great baker, either. Nothing compared to any of you. You’re gifted at your trade, and I at mine. I’d rather make a living as a seamstress.”
Gilbert, Elisabeth, and Pascal sat silent for several moments. Never before had Gabrielle laid so much before them. She’d always been the first to go along with the plans proposed by the others. She’d always tried to follow the rules. Always tried to be kind, to be gentle, and to think of others before herself. And a great deal of good it did me, too. But now I must think of my child. And what’s best for me is likely best for her . . . or him.
“And how is it you plan to go about all this?” Pascal’s question was the one Gabrielle dreaded.
“I have some of Olivier’s things. I was going to sell them before he could prove they were missing. It’s not wrong. He’s sold most everything you ever gave me. It may not be much, but I thought it might be enough to find me a little place of my own. And I can sew to make my way. Most of the women here don’t need ball gowns, to be sure, but most of the ladies in town don’t want to do all their own sewing, either.”
“True enough,” Elisabeth agreed. “But when Patenaude comes back into town and clears out your coffers? Then what? The deputies wouldn’t stop him even if they wanted to. He’s entitled to anything of yours he wants.”
“I thought about that, too. What if I were to petition for a separation of person and property?”
Gabrielle’s words silenced the room once more.
Few women dared to do it. Fewer still were successful at it. Those who were found themselves on the outskirts of society, never welcomed by the finest members of the elite, and barely acknowledged by the rest. I’ll be alone anyway, but I might as well have the security of knowing that what’s mine truly is mine.
“Such a thing won’t be easy.” Gilbert’s expression betrayed that he knew his words were needless before he spoke them. “And I wouldn’t sell all his belongings. Not yet. The judge won’t look at that as the act of a dutiful wife, no matter what he’s done with your things.”
“Of course it won’t, but if I stay married to him, my life will never be my own. It’s my only chance to provide a real life for my baby.” Gabrielle almost smiled at the trace of confidence in her voice.
“I’m just ashamed I ever let you get into this mess at all,” Gilbert said, sitting back in his chair. “If I could go back and slap myself for walking you down that aisle, I would.”
“Don’t blame yourself. I agreed to the marriage out of fear. I’m leaving it for the same reason, but I’ll never allow it to rule me like that ever again.”
As Gabrielle spoke the words, she hoped with all the goodness inside her that they were true.
CHAPTER 16
Manon
October 1678
Tuesday afternoons, Manon abandoned her studies to retreat with Pascal to the Lefebvre fields. Sometimes Pascal made deliveries for the Beaumonts or called on a tenant for Alexandre, but most often they escaped to be alone. After the noon meal, Manon began to feel a sensation of anticipation tinged with guilt. She loved being away from the activity of the Lefebvre house for a few hours. She enjoyed Pascal’s company. She’d tutored him in the art of lovemaking and his fumbling was not so inexpert as it had been a few months prior. But she did not love him as deeply as he wanted. She wouldn’t allow herself to. She knew she risked breaking his heart. She’d tried to let him go, but she’d left so many people behind that his affection filled a void she hadn’t known was there.
Were he from her clan, she could enjoy his intimacy without any pretense that they must agree to spend the rest of their natural lives together. You French tend to take things to extremes. Marriage until death. Monarchies that stay in families for centuries. Change is not evil if you learn how to embrace it. Manon knew that in this settlement, where tradition ruled as absolute as the Church and its monarch, her ideas were an anathema—even blasphemy—so she kept her mouth closed.
That particular afternoon, Pascal had no task but to devote his time to Manon, which suited her mood well that day. He’d held her hand the entire drive once they left the settlement, trusting the dutiful horse not to take advantage of a slack rein. He pulled the wagon to their favorite clearing, a secluded spot by the edge of the woods that allowed for spectacular views of the mountains and a dazzling array of wildflowers in the spring. In October, the crimson, orange, and gold leaves painted the hills against the backdrop of the stately evergreens.
“Manon, I wanted to—” Pascal began. She silenced his words with a long kiss. He tried to pull away for a moment, but then melted into her caresses.
“My sweet . . .” He breathed in between her kisses as she took some air.
“Let’s talk later, please,” Manon begged, her fingers busy unbuttoning his shirt.
“As my lady commands,” Pascal said, nimbly unfastening her dress.
He met each kiss, each caress with fervor until he could wait no longer. He loved her slowly, deftly, as she had taught him. Slower, deeper movements caused delayed and heightened pleasure until her sighs let him know he could release his seed on her abdomen, a safe distance from her sex, as she’d commanded Heno to do as well.
He cleaned her skin gently with the soft cloth he’d brought for that purpose, and then reclaimed his position at her side, cradling her in his arms. The cool October air nipped at her skin, but Manon was too busy breathing in Pascal’s honest scent to bother with trivial things like physical comfort.
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��You make me so happy,” he whispered into her jet-black hair while caressing the soft skin between her shoulder blades. He kissed her again, this time without the urgency of his need to rush him.
“I love you.” He pressed his lips to her forehead, then to each of her eyelids, as delicate as a butterfly landing on a budding leaf.
She gripped him tighter, kissing the scruffy hollow of his neck where his beard was beginning to fill in. She longed to repeat the words he’d uttered a dozen times before. The words he meant more and more with each moment they shared, but she would not lie to this man whom she respected to the core of her being.
“You make me very happy, too, Pascal.” It was as close as she dared come to making the declaration herself. And it was the truth. Aside from Tawendeh, no one else in the settlement lifted her spirits like Pascal could. I did not think to miss my people as I do. I was never welcomed—not really—but in truth I was more a part of my tribe than I will ever be a part of the French society. Nicole can put me in satins and silks and lace, but she cannot whitewash my brown skin.
“Then marry me, my love.” Pascal’s words floated soft on the brisk October wind, so faint Manon almost imagined she’d heard them. She’d dreaded this moment, but knew they had been approaching it for weeks. Months. He was a man of honor, and would only be comfortable with a dalliance for so long.
Sit up right now. Put your clothes back on and tell him, as kindly as you can, that this all must stop before both your hearts are broken. Before a mistake happens and you are with child. Before you ruin him and he ruins you. Manon tried to listen to the sensible if coldhearted words from her conscience, but the idea of removing herself from Pascal’s embrace caused her chest to tighten and her stomach to constrict.
“Can’t everything just stay as it is?” Manon asked the question to no one in particular.
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