Lapérouse groaned.
Eleonora turned to the steward. They exchanged some words, her face troubled and stern, his wearing a wry smile. She turned back to her guests. “I am sure we can find him,” she said. “Our steward knows the town very well. If Monsieur de La Borde does not mind having José for a guide…” Not at all, they assured her. They would be most grateful for the assistance. José bowed and left the room, then Eleonora excused herself to oversee preparations for the search party.
Lapérouse stood fuming. It was not the first time he had wondered how his gentle and scrupulous wife could have such a brother, but it was the first time he regretted bringing Frédéric on the voyage.
“Thank you, Monsieur de La Borde,” he finally said, aware that the young officer was standing beside him in embarrassed silence. La Borde shook his head as if to say it was no bother at all, though they both knew it was nothing but bother. Lapérouse changed the subject: “You and your brother and Monsieur de Lesseps acquitted yourselves very handsomely last night.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Do you and your brother share a cabin on the Astrolabe?”
“No, sir,” La Borde replied. “My brother shares the council room with Monsieur de Lesseps and two other officers. I’m in a cabin with Monsieur de Vaujuas.”
“I didn’t see Vaujuas last night,” Lapérouse observed.
“No, sir. The captain invited him, but he stayed behind. His servant has been quite ill.”
“Ill?” Lapérouse felt a small shock. He thought no one was sick. The man was only a servant, but still— “What’s wrong with him?”
La Borde seemed to realize he had said too much. “It’s just a chest complaint. Vaujuas believes the sea voyage will improve him.”
“Just a chest complaint?” Lapérouse cried. “Chest complaints kill people every day, Monsieur de La Borde.”
“Of course, sir.”
Eleonora returned to announce the readiness of three horses—one each for José and La Borde, and one for Frédéric when they found him. La Borde bowed and followed José out of the room, looking relieved to be on his way. Eleonora turned to Lapérouse: “Do not worry, sir.”
“We’ve put you to a great deal of trouble.”
“Not at all.” She smiled and sat down. “It may be only a misunderstanding. He may have ended up with another family last night.”
Lapérouse shook his head. “I know him too well to hope for that.”
“Are you worried he may try to leave the expedition?”
“Desert?” Lapérouse laughed. “No. That would require some resolve. No, no, he’s probably just found some—” He stopped, not wanting to subject Eleonora to a description of Frédéric’s likely diversions.
She met his eyes with no hint of embarrassment. “You were eager to return to your ship. I have asked the groom to prepare a carriage to take you back, but would you prefer to wait awhile?”
“I hardly know,” he admitted. “I’m afraid we’ll leave your household with no means of transport.”
She shook her head. “We have nowhere to go today. And it is only a humble cart. Nothing like your elegant French carriages.”
He smiled. He could tell her that his life had not involved many elegant carriages; that his family owned only the meanest-looking phaeton and a cramped portable chair that still smelled of his grandmother; that he was not really so distinguished—not like Langle or the La Bordes or any number of the officers who served under him; that he was not a count, not officially, not yet; that he had not been born a Lapérouse, the name purchased to make him sound more noble when he decided to apply to the naval school in Brest. But she stood before him, the perfect, aristocratic girl-hostess, expecting him to play his part as the distinguished French guest, and he could not break the spell.
“You speak French better than anyone in Concepción,” he said.
“Oh, the bishop’s French is much better than mine,” she said, but she was smiling, pleased by the compliment.
“Did you learn it at home?”
She shook her head. “I was raised in a convent school here. Two of the sisters were French.”
“Ah.” Could it be through such individuals, he wondered, that the colonists knew so much about France? “Doña Eleonora,” he said, “we were surprised to hear the music of Leclair last night.”
“Were you?” Her girlish mouth turned down into a concerned frown. “Is he not well regarded in France?”
“No, that’s not it at all,” Lapérouse hastened to assure her. “It’s only that he was alive till quite recently, and here you are so far from Europe—”
She smiled archly. “Ships come from Cádiz at least once a year filled with news and books.” She leaned a little toward him and whispered: “I have even read Manon Lescaut.”
“Have you?” He could not help laughing and hoped she did not think he was laughing at her, although he was. “Did the nuns assign such texts at school?”
She leaned away, her lips pursed as if to protect her secrets, but her eyes were still smiling. “They were wonderful teachers. I was there until last year, when—” She stopped. “This house was my father’s,” she said at last, looking around the room with her hands held out, as if the fact surprised her. “When he died, I came here. My husband was a friend of his.”
Lapérouse nodded. The revelation explained both too much and too little. Perhaps Sabatero had married her out of consideration for his friend, saving a young orphan from social isolation, from life in the convent, from rapacious suitors. Although it occurred to Lapérouse that a more conscientious friend of the family might have found a younger, healthier husband for her. Perhaps Sabatero had taken advantage of his position with the family to assume control of his friend’s estate when he died. But no more conjectures, he told himself. There was unhappiness under Eleonora’s studied composure, and he did not wish to discover it.
Eleonora turned abruptly toward the corridor, and then Lapérouse heard it too, a commotion at the back of the house. “Are they already back?” she cried. They followed the sound past the dining room and through a large kitchen, then out into a warm breeze, hanging linens, chickens underfoot, the smell of hay. A group of servants had stopped working to watch while José and La Borde hauled an inert body down from a horse.
“Oh, God,” Lapérouse cried, running toward them.
La Borde turned: “It’s all right, Commander. We found him right nearby. He’s a mess, but he’s fine. We’ll clean him up—don’t come any closer, sir.”
Lapérouse did as he was bid. He had already caught a whiff of Frédéric’s night on the town—a disgusting mix of cheap smoke, cheap drink, sex, piss, vomit. He took Eleonora’s elbow and pulled her back into the house.
* * *
“I suppose that’s the last time I’ll ever leave the Boussole,” Frédéric muttered from his side of the carriage.
“Most likely,” Lapérouse said.
Frédéric was still drunk, but on the downhill side of it, belligerence and self-pity vying with each other for preeminence. “That’s what I suspected from the start,” he said, “so I made the most of it, you see.”
“Don’t be an ass, Frédéric.”
The taunt rallied him. “Guess who showed me the sights last night, Jean-François—guess.” When Lapérouse said nothing, he sidled over and whispered, “A priest.”
Lapérouse looked away, repelled by the younger man’s fetid breath, but also remembering his last sight of Frédéric the night before, talking to a priest at the ball, and how that sight had reassured him, allowing him to let Frédéric lodge elsewhere.
“Brother Marco, my guide,” Frédéric declared. He tried to sit forward, but his inebriation was no match for the jostling of the carriage as it wound its way through the hills between Concepción and the bay. “He has a properly monastic cell with the Dominicans, but on the edge of town he keeps house with a fiery little mestiza called Clara. Cla-ra,” he repeated, exaggerating the r. He laughe
d at Lapérouse’s expression of disapproval. “They all do it, Jean-François.”
“Do what?”
“Even this man O’Higgins, the governor, he keeps a woman in Chillán, he has a bastard son there.”
“O’Higgins is not a man of the cloth.”
“And Sabatero.”
“What about Sabatero?”
“He has his own house in town with his Indian ‘housekeeper.’ She’s borne him four or five children. He’s installed the eldest in his home as steward.”
“José?”
“I don’t know what he’s called, but he stands to inherit that big house and a great deal more if little Eleonora doesn’t produce an heir.”
Lapérouse called up José’s face, the resemblance to Sabatero, his odd manner toward Eleonora, hers toward him, her strange eagerness when she learned about Éléonore’s possible pregnancy, and he did not doubt the truth of Frédéric’s information. He shook his head in dismay, wishing he had remained ignorant.
The younger man laughed sloppily. “Poor girl. Probably still a virgin. Marco says old Sabatero isn’t up to the task anymore. Something about a well-aimed Indian arrow.” He used his left hand to mime an arrow hitting him between the legs, then doubled over in mock agony. He sidled over again. “I saw you dancing with her last night, brother. Maybe you can help her. I won’t tell Éléonore.”
Lapérouse shoved him away. “I’m confining you to your quarters.”
Frédéric laughed again, but with less conviction. “It’s just like home here, Commander—or should I say ‘Count’?” he said. “Just like Port Louis.”
“I don’t see the resemblance,” Lapérouse said, although he did. Like Concepción, Port Louis in Île de France was a remote colonial outpost, a victualing station for ships headed elsewhere, a place ignored and looked down on by most Europeans. It was also where, more than ten years earlier, Lapérouse had first met Éléonore and Frédéric and the rest of the Broudou family.
“In both places,” Frédéric began, “you have natives who hate you and Europeans with guns.” He paused, as if recollecting his next point. “And then you have the children of the Europeans, who’ve ruined their morals and intelligence in the hot sun.” He tapped his head as if offering his own case as evidence. “Or taken up with natives and bred mongrels. In any case they don’t measure up, and have to watch while newly arrived Europeans”—he wagged a finger at Lapérouse—“drop in and take the best of everything—the best posts, the best land, the best women—like my sister.”
Lapérouse rounded on him. “Mention Éléonore again and I’ll have you flogged.”
The watery smile on Frédéric’s face wavered, and he slumped down in the carriage seat. He began to murmur about the unfairness of everything, about officers on the Boussole who had slighted him, then other men who had wronged him—in Port Louis, in Paris, in Brest; about his family, how they craved advancement for their daughters but cared not a whit for him; how things could not, would not, go on like this—society poisoned, festering, set to erupt.
Lapérouse looked out the side, waiting for the hills to give way to a view of Concepción Bay. He had had nothing to eat yet that day, and the bumps and twists of the road were making him ill. Frédéric’s stink and talk were not helping. It was all nonsense, of course, every complaining word. Frédéric had never shown the slightest ambition for anything. The voyage was his best chance to improve himself—and more than he deserved. Indeed, had he not joined the Boussole, he would have been in prison. For years the Broudous had overlooked their only son’s dissipation, debts, tavern brawls, even a duel. But when Frédéric waved a loaded pistol at his youngest sister, Elzire, their mother obtained a lettre de cachet for his incarceration at Mont Saint-Michel. It was to spare Éléonore, and not out of any regard for Frédéric, that Lapérouse had offered him a place on the voyage.
Surprisingly, his brother-in-law had done well on board until now, very well, quite beyond anyone’s expectations, proving himself a quick study and a cheerful crew member. Lapérouse had been considering an official appointment for him. Maybe Frédéric was one of those men who withered in the wide open spaces of terra firma but thrived under the limitations of life on board. He had met such men before: men who craved discipline even when they raged against it. That revolutionary talk—where had that come from? Frédéric was not given to reading, and as far as Lapérouse knew, had never had radical friends, nor any inkling of philosophy or politics. Could it be Lamanon? Notwithstanding his much-vaunted democratic ideals, the fussy savant was not a likely companion for the likes of Frédéric.
In Talcahuano, the road smoothed out and the air grew cooler, with a hint of brine. Lapérouse could see the Boussole and the Astrolabe, almost elegant in their anchorages, and after another turn in the road could see crewmen he recognized, busy onshore, and several small boats at the water’s edge, ready to ferry men back to the ships. He signaled for the carriage to stop and hailed the first officer he saw to take his brother-in-law back to the Boussole and place him under arrest for forty-eight hours.
* * *
“Do you want to transfer him to the Astrolabe?” Langle asked. “He won’t have family to take advantage of.”
Lapérouse shook his head. “He’s my responsibility. You have your own troubles to deal with, no doubt.”
“Yes, perhaps I have.”
Lapérouse looked over at him. “Anything in particular?”
Langle nodded. “There is one matter.”
“Vaujuas’s servant?”
Langle’s long, urbane face tilted in surprise. “You know about that?” Lapérouse nodded, and Langle sighed. “That’s not what I was thinking of, but yes—Vaujuas’s servant is sick. Consumptive,” he admitted. “I doubt he’ll make it many more months. I don’t know how he passed Lavaux’s physical exam in Brest.”
“Vaujuas should never have brought him.”
“Apparently he thought the sea voyage would improve the man’s health. He’s been with the family for many years. There’s an attachment there.”
Lapérouse shook his head. “Let’s hope it’s our first and only death.” He watched Langle’s eyebrows contract with a kind of anticipatory distress. “What’s this other matter?”
But at that moment the man on watch called down to say some men on horseback had just arrived in Talcahuano. The two captains turned toward the rail. They were on the deck of the Boussole, waiting for O’Higgins. A message from town that morning had told them to expect the governor around noon, and it was now nearly one, but Lapérouse did not mind. In general he preferred guests who arrived late to guests who arrived early. It had given everyone—especially Bisalion, who had worked himself into a state of shrill panic—more time to prepare for the visit. Lapérouse peered shoreward through his glass and watched as a contingent of mounted, uniformed men made their way to the water’s edge. They were led by a large, impressive man on the largest of the horses, and followed by several pack animals bearing what were no doubt yet more gifts of food. He watched until they began to load themselves into the small boats. “Well. They’re on their way.”
“Good,” Langle said. “It’s been two days since I heard an account of the great earthquake of 1751. I am mad to hear it again.”
Lapérouse grinned. He had felt gloomy ever since the ride back with Frédéric the day before, but standing on his deck with Langle, a light southwest breeze keeping them comfortable even in their dress uniforms, the deck newly swabbed, the crew washed and at the ready, his dark mood proved difficult to sustain, even while they traded complaints about their men.
“You were about to tell me something,” Lapérouse said. “Not another illness?”
“No. It’s Dufresne. He says he’s bored to death and wants to disembark here, find his own way home.”
“Oh, for God’s sake. I didn’t want to bring him in the first place!”
“I know.”
“It was clear from our first meeting that the man had no idea w
hat the voyage entailed.”
“None whatsoever.”
“His credentials as a naturalist were hardly impressive!”
“Hardly.”
Lapérouse could not help but laugh. He wished he could soothe his friend’s worries in the same easy way, but there was something entrenched about Langle’s anxieties—they were more a state of mind than reactions to particular events, hard to read and even harder to address, hidden under his aristocratic polish.
“What did you tell him?” Lapérouse asked.
“I told him to write an official request to you and expect ‘no’ for an answer.”
Lapérouse puffed out his cheeks. “God knows the other savants can be demanding and uncooperative. But at least they have some appreciation for the importance of the voyage. What is the matter with Dufresne?”
Langle shrugged. “He’s been unhappy from the beginning. The others suspect him of being a spy from the Ministry of Finance.”
Lapérouse snorted. “He’d be treated better if he were an English agent for the Royal Society.”
Everyone on deck now came to attention as the bosun’s chair rose into view, revealing a large man, his hat askew, clinging whitely to the ropes on either side of him. O’Higgins had looked imposing seen from a distance on horseback. But no one looked dignified hauled up the side in a chair. Lapérouse stood perfectly still and straight and straight-faced, and his men did the same, suppressing any impulse to laugh. O’Higgins was helped out of the chair and, finding his balance, stepped forward, every bit the impressive brigadier general he had seemed from afar—tall, with a large head and huge hands, his features Irish except for a Mediterranean arrangement of his mouth, no doubt the result of so many years speaking Spanish. He made straight for the two captains.
“Count de Lapérouse, Viscount de Langle,” he said in French. His accent was thick and unplaceable. “Please forgive my tardiness. I welcome you—belatedly—to Concepción.”
* * *
After introductions, after the obligatory retelling of the earthquake story, after the Frenchmen expressed again their gratitude for the colonists’ generosity, after a tour of the frigate, after the Spaniards expressed their profound admiration for everything they saw—a windmill on deck! a cucurbit attached to the galley stove! how justly the French were praised for their ingenuity!—after all of that, O’Higgins and his officers and their hosts repaired to Lapérouse’s stateroom for lunch. Bisalion looked as though he had had most of his blood drawn, but the meal was a success, featuring salt cod brandade with toasted triangles of bread, a pigeon tart, a dish of peas and mushrooms in a wine sauce, and fried cream sprinkled with sugar. O’Higgins’s entourage included three officers who had been with him at the front. On the French side, Lapérouse and Langle were joined by the expedition’s senior officers and by Lapérouse’s chief engineer, Paul de Monneron, who was invited when they learned that O’Higgins himself had first come to Chile as an engineer.
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