The piles of mending were small, but she took a chemise from atop Rose Lefebvre’s basket and began rebinding the frayed hem. She’d have the order done two days ahead of schedule, but it was better to gain a reputation for completing her work two days early than two days late. She’d become so adroit with her needle that the hem was the task of a half hour. The rest of the contents of Rose’s basket was already mended, folded, and ready to return.
While it was customary for Gabrielle’s patrons to fetch their own mending, there was so little left to do that she decided that providing the extra service to Rose would be a better use of her time than patching the two pairs of breeches left in her pile. Let’s hope the Lefebvre children of both houses continue to damage their clothing at regular intervals or I will be without a roof over my head.
Basket in arms, Gabrielle crossed back to the fashionable part of town where the Lefebvres and Robichauxes lived. Gabrielle didn’t yearn for the luxuries they had, despite perhaps the absence of worry about where money would come from for the next meal or bolt of cloth, but she did enjoy the sight of their fine things and gracious homes. Manon and Pascal were already preparing their return to their homestead, but Gabrielle hoped the snows would keep them in town for several more weeks at least.
Known from her time as one of Rose’s pupils, the maid escorted her to the parlor without ceremony.
“Oh, how lovely to see you, my dear!” Rose exclaimed at the sight of Gabrielle in the doorway. The maid whisked away the basket of mending and took Gabrielle’s cloak with the same courtesy she would offer a duchess.
Gabrielle saw Rose hastily stow a handkerchief in her apron pocket.
“Claudine?”
“Yes. I’m afraid it’s one of my bad days.”
“Mine as well. I’m sure it’s why I contrived a reason to visit.”
“Well, I’m glad for it, though you know you need never contrive anything, my dearest girl. I was just thinking of my own little Henriette almost a year old, healthy as an ox with two loving parents. It doesn’t seem fair that poor Laurent should have three motherless babies.”
“It isn’t fair. I miss her.”
“We all do. She grew into such a lovely young woman.” Rose gave up her pretense and pulled out her handkerchief again. “For all her wild notions growing up, she became so kind and caring. I always hoped that spark in her would take hold.”
“It did,” Gabrielle said, staring down at the rug beneath her feet. “And once Manon goes back to their homestead—”
“You’ll be alone.”
“No one will befriend me now. The questioning did nearly as much damage as the Savard woman might have hoped for.”
“Almost.” Rose rubbed the skin of her neck. It could have so easily gone much worse than it had.
“I keep thinking of a suggestion that Claudine made before she died.”
“What was that, my darling?”
“She thought I might have a chance, at least a hope, of some happiness if I were to settle in Ville-Marie.”
Rose stared into the fire for a long moment. “That’s so far, my dear. It would all but kill poor Elisabeth.”
“I know. It’s the only thing that keeps me here. Aside from Pascal—and of course Manon and Julien . . . not to mention little Zacharie and Claudine’s girls.”
“They would miss you terribly. Could you bear to be parted from all your dear nieces and nephews—both by blood and otherwise?”
“They’re dear children, but if I stay here, I’ll never have babies of my own.” If such a thing is even possible. She could not voice her worst fear aloud.
Rose wanted to contradict her; Gabrielle could see it in her teacher’s face. But there was too much truth in the words for Rose to speak against her.
“Perhaps it might be worth a visit at least. Henri could take you when he next has commissions in town. Would you like that?”
Gabrielle crossed over to Rose’s settee and took her in her arms. “The thought terrifies me, but I feel like I must try.”
* * *
“Put the chair over by the window, just as before.” Gabrielle surveyed the shop with a careful eye to detail. It was important to get everything in the right places now before she lost her access to the muscled help. Rearranging a chair or an end table was a simple enough matter. If her workbench ended up out of place, there it would remain for months to come.
Gabrielle’s shop in Ville-Marie was perhaps not as large as the premises Alexandre had rented to her in Quebec, but it had one distinct advantage: It belonged to her alone. With the funds she’d squirreled away from her mending, the savings she had from selling Patenaude’s belongings, along with the incredibly low price Henri negotiated for her from the building’s proprietor, she purchased the shop and the upstairs apartment with a little money left over to ensure she’d be well fed while she reestablished business. Alexandre and Henri had secured space on a trading vessel between Quebec and Ville-Marie for the Beaumonts and Gabrielle, also securing a large compartment of the cargo hold for her household goods and the contents of her mending shop. Manon, Pascal, and the children came as well to see her well settled.
“Don’t you like the table there?” Gabrielle asked Elisabeth, who stared off blankly.
“Not particularly, I must confess. I much preferred it back in Quebec and you with it. But I won’t question you, my sweet girl.” It had been four months since Elisabeth raged at Gabrielle’s proposal to move to a new town and start afresh. She’d come to an uneasy understanding that Gabrielle had to be free from the associations to her name and character. To make the decision even more painful, Elisabeth had discovered she was with child again for the first time in over three years.
“Don’t you want to be here? To be a part of the baby’s life?”
“Don’t you want me to have the chance to make a family of my own? Don’t you think I deserve happiness of my own?”
Elisabeth hadn’t come up with a solid argument against that.
Pascal, Manon, and Tawendeh all did their part to ensure Gabrielle’s shop was prepared to open. They followed her instructions without question and Gabrielle could not hide her smile. This was her domain and they let her reign there. From the wink Gilbert offered her, he was just as proud about it as she was.
“You’ll come home as often as you can, won’t you?” Elisabeth began wringing her hands as the wagons, once heaped with her tailoring notions, now stood empty.
“Yes, and a full month before this little one is expected and I won’t come back until she’s happy and drooling in her cradle and you’re back on your feet and baking. I promised.”
Elisabeth wrapped her arms around Gabrielle. “You say ‘she’ as if you’re certain.”
“You’ve got two boys. Pierre and Fabien need a sister to civilize them in a way you’re too gentle to do.”
“You make this poor babe sound to be a relentless shrew and she’s yet to be born.” Pascal shot his sister a wry look.
“And she will be a shrew. No girl born to a house of brothers could be raised up otherwise.”
“She makes a fair point,” Gilbert conceded. “My own sister was the sixth child born into a family with five sons and there wasn’t a boy in our village who hadn’t sported a black eye of her design at some point in his life. Myself included.”
“No doubt you had it coming,” Elisabeth said, laughing through her tears.
“I did at that. I seem to recall loosing a jar of spiders in her bureau drawer.” Gilbert’s eyes shone at the memory.
“A black eye seems like a merciful judgment on her part,” Gabrielle snorted. “Now go off with you and get home before the boat leaves without you.”
“The shrew speaks sense,” Pascal declared. “Let’s get underway.”
The good-byes that Gabrielle had been dreading were just as tearful as she expected. Elisabeth gave her a bolt of the most beautiful green wool Gabrielle had ever seen. No doubt something Laurent had procured. Was it to be for Claudine
? Gabrielle preferred not to think of it. Her dear friend would have no use for it now. She knew Claudine would have wanted her to have a beautiful garment of her own, and Laurent wouldn’t want the reminder in his house besides.
“Make something for yourself with it, or I’ll be furious,” Elisabeth warned with tears streaming down her face.
“I swear it, Maman.” Gabrielle hugged Elisabeth close. “And I’ll wear it home in less than six weeks so you can admire me.” Bless Henri and his generosity. Receipt of payment for three passages home before next winter—more than I’d ever hoped for.
“We’re holding you to it.” Gilbert spoke manfully, but Gabrielle could hear the crack of emotion in his voice.
“It’s going to be a boy, you know,” Elisabeth whispered in her ear.
“How could you possibly know?” Gabrielle asked, her brow arched.
“Because you are my daughter. The little scamp that came to mend my broken heart after my little Adèle died. I can’t imagine having another.”
To this Gabrielle could say nothing, but embraced the woman who had been kinder to her than her own mother, until the others insisted on their farewells.
“Good-bye, Manon,” Gabrielle said, kissing her cheeks, trying not to jostle little Julien.
“Good-bye, my sister. I will miss you so terribly much, but I am proud of you. Starting a new life takes courage.”
“And no one of my acquaintance would know that better than you.” Gabrielle kissed Julien’s cheek as well, causing his eyes to flutter open for only a brief moment.
“I’m not sure how true it is. Most everyone you know has started his or her life anew. Elisabeth, Gilbert, Rose . . . all of the others began their lives in France and started over again here. But it’s an exciting journey for you. Be safe and well.”
“And the same to you. Take care of my nephew for me.”
Manon nodded solemnly and took her place in the wagon by Pascal’s side.
Alone in her shop, Gabrielle had thought she would collapse in her bed for a long night’s sleep before opening her doors the following morning. Instead she ran her fingers over the length of green wool. Her mind spinning, she grabbed her scissors, pins, needle, and thread and let her creative impulses run unchecked through the night.
* * *
Two days later, a crowd of a half dozen women stood in front of the shop as Gabrielle sat prominently in her window for all to see as she worked at her mending, wearing her newly fashioned green gown. There was nothing outlandish about the gown, but every line was crisp. Every tuck was artful. The cut of the sleeves that reached just past the elbow, the curve of the fabric over the hips . . . it was all meant to showcase a woman at her most beautiful. Contrasted with the overdress of evergreen was an ivory stomacher from a short length of soft muslin left over from a commission. The customer had given her the fabric in lieu of extra payment for rushed mending, and Gabrielle was now grateful for it.
Three times in the course of a morning, she had to tell customers that the gown she wore was not for sale at any price, but that she would be pleased to fashion one for them from the fabric of their choosing. She had a dozen women enquire about mending, nearly half of whom returned with baskets overflowing with tattered chemises, skirts, bodices, trousers, and jackets all in need of repair. It would keep her in food for a month.
But even if the work didn’t come, she had a roof over her head and a place to call home. It was no small comfort. Though Alexandre was the kindest of landlords and the Beaumonts would never have let her suffer, the security of her home and shop made her feel more at ease than she’d felt in years.
Later in her first afternoon, a man appeared with a rumpled-looking sack.
“May I help you, Monsieur . . . ?”
“Tolbert. Gaspard Tolbert. I-I believe so,” he stammered. “I understand you’re a seamstress?”
Gabrielle nodded and he placed the pouch on her worktable, blushing as if it contained an intimate secret rather than a pair of work trousers in need of hemming.
“I haven’t any skill with a needle, you see. Nor any wife to tend to these things.”
“I’ve salvaged worse, monsieur. Have a seat by the fire and I’ll see them mended in less than a quarter of an hour. Or come back in the morning if you prefer?”
“I’ll wait if it’s all the same to you, madame.”
“Suit yourself, monsieur.”
She coaxed the shy man into conversation as her fingers nimbly rebound the fraying threads of fabric into a neat cuff. His answers were monosyllabic until she asked him of his trade. He was a carpenter and passionate about his work. He cast his eye around the room until it landed on her workbench.
“It’s too tall for you,” he observed. “You’re a petite woman and need something better suited to your height. It must be dreadfully uncomfortable for you.”
“It was a worktable at my—parents’—bakery. My father is a tall man. It was built to suit him.”
“I could adjust it for you. It might take an afternoon, but it wouldn’t be complicated work.”
“I’m afraid I haven’t the means to pay you for your services, monsieur. Not quite yet.” Gabrielle forced herself to not look down. Her lack of funds was no cause for shame. They would come in time.
“I could do it in exchange for the mending.”
“A full afternoon of labor for fifteen minutes of stitching?” Gabrielle’s eyes widened at the overgenerous offer.
“I might have other garments in need of repair. I trust you to be fair.”
“You have a bargain, monsieur.” Because I imagine you won’t accept a refusal.
“Would tomorrow be too soon to start, madame?”
“No, monsieur. I think it would be ideal.”
“I look forward to seeing you again, madame.”
“As do I.”
Gabrielle watched him as he exited the shop and walked back down the narrow lane, mended trousers in hand. She smiled softly at the realization that she meant what she had told him. She returned to her mending, and for the first time in many months, she looked forward to tomorrow.
EPILOGUE
Manon
September 1680
Manon stood on the steps of their farmhouse, taking a few moments to admire the fiery orange sunset streaked with purple as little Julien snored softly against her back, oblivious to the natural beauty before him. He had spent a good part of the day in his pack while Manon worked aside Pascal and Tawendeh to bring in the harvest. The French had yet to invent a device that kept a baby as contented as the cradleboards that the Huron women used to keep their infants safe as they labored. When he was first born, Manon had tried keeping him at her feet in the baskets like French mothers used, but he was not a child to be tucked away to sleep and dream while the world passed him by. Manon crafted the cradleboard out of desperation before he was two months old.
“God bless the Huron women and their ingenuity,” Pascal had said when the baby had gone a full day without hours of plaintive wails or demanding every moment of his mother’s or father’s attention during the long winter days trapped indoors. “That contraption is the single greatest work of genius to come from the human mind; I’m convinced of it.”
When the cradleboard continued to keep him pacified after a few weeks, Manon was convinced of it, too.
At nine months of age, Julien was getting too active for long stints in the device, but he tolerated it well enough while his family culled the spring wheat and harvested their potatoes, carrots, and a very few apples from the small orchard Henri had started during his tenure, which had been neglected in the years since. Apples—be it applesauce, apple butter, apples preserved in jars for use in pies or cakes—would be a welcome touch of sweetness in the midst of the long winter that lay ahead. The next week they would sow the winter wheat that would be harvested in July. It would break up the work of harvest a great deal, and for this, Manon was grateful.
“Have you fallen asleep on me, Wife?” Pascal
asked, wrapping his arm around her and the sleeping babe.
“No, just admiring the view, my love.” Manon stretched up on her toes to place a kiss on his stubbly cheek. The harvest was no time to worry about trifles like shaving, but the bulk of the heaviest work was done, and the preparations for winter wouldn’t begin in earnest for another few days.
But first, there would be rest. Tonight they would bathe and prepare their best clothes. Manon would forsake her beloved braids and wear her hair up as the French women did. Pascal would leave behind the moccasins Manon had fashioned for him, which he wore every moment his labors didn’t require sturdy boots to protect his feet. Tawendeh would be called Théodore, and he would trade his buckskin trousers for woolen breeches while in town.
In the morning they would hitch the faithful horse to Pascal’s wagon and make the trek back into town so they could see Gabrielle Patenaude wed to her carpenter, Gaspard Tolbert. While not numerous, Gabrielle’s letters over the past months in Ville-Marie had been long and encouraging—and increasingly sentimental about this Tolbert. When Gabrielle sent word about the impending marriage including her fervent request that her brother and Manon stand as witnesses in the small ceremony, none in the Giroux house was surprised at the news. Gabrielle knew the timing would be difficult with the harvest, and as a seamstress’s and carpenter’s duties were less affected by the season, they agreed to celebrate their marriage in Quebec, where it would be possible for Manon and her family to attend without losing a week or more for the festivities. Not to mention, it spared them the trouble of spending days traveling by trade ship with little Julien and Elisabeth’s newborn daughter, little Elisabeth, or Lisette for short.
After a simple supper of ham, bread, cheese, and cider, Manon saw the freshly scrubbed children tucked into their clean beds and padded up behind Pascal’s chair, where he sat putting the finishing touches on a dainty wooden box intricately carved with roses that he would present to his sister on the occasion of her marriage. She used her strong hands to knead the knots from his work-weary shoulders and stooped down a few inches to embrace him from the back, enjoying the sensation of his muscled back against her chest.
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