Landfalls

by Naomi J. Williams

  “I am sorry our other savants are not on board to join us,” Lapérouse said. “They are still in town, eager to take advantage of their furlough on land.”

  “But I have met them,” O’Higgins said.

  “Indeed?” Lapérouse said.

  O’Higgins dabbed at his lips with a napkin. “A group of them came to see me as I was setting out this morning. A Monsieur—Lamanon, is it?—a man of great intelligence, he was their—how do you say it?—their speaker. They asked permission to explore the interior.” He caught Lapérouse’s eye as if to gauge whether or not this was news to the French commander.

  “I see.” So that was what had made O’Higgins late today—their own science delegation! Acting entirely on their own, ignoring the chain of command, not deigning to consult with their commander. Lapérouse said none of this aloud, but he could tell from the way Langle and the other officers shifted in their seats that he had not succeeded in hiding either his surprise or his annoyance.

  “Unfortunately I had to turn them down,” O’Higgins said.

  “You turned them down?”

  O’Higgins nodded. “I understand their desire to explore, of course.” He took an appreciative bite of dessert, then went on: “A few years ago I myself went with two of our naturalists—Don Hipólito Ruiz and Don José Dombey—you have heard of them perhaps?—on an expedition to the interior. But today I cannot guarantee your men’s safety outside of the area between here and the Bío-Bío River.” His officers nodded in agreement.

  Lapérouse said nothing, torn between grim pleasure that the troublesome savants had been rebuffed and dismay that the scientific mission of the voyage could be so easily dismissed.

  Langle leaned forward. “We understood you had concluded an accord with the Indians.”

  “Indeed we have.”

  “It is still not safe to venture into the frontier?”

  O’Higgins sat forward. “The Araucanians may not distinguish between a group of curious naturalists armed for their protection and settlers invading their territory and violating our agreement.”

  Lapérouse felt certain that, had he been inclined, O’Higgins could avail them of an armed escort for the savants, Indian guides, interpreters, introductions to tribal leaders. But he was apparently not so inclined, and Lapérouse was not sure what would be gained by pressing the point. The colonists had already done so much for them; the French would continue to need their cooperation while the frigates underwent repairs; and for all the secretiveness of the Spanish empire, Chile was already discovered—a land mapped, named, and conquered.

  “We understand,” he said, then looked over at Langle to secure his agreement. Langle nodded just once; it was a maddening way he had of signaling acknowledgment without acquiescence.

  O’Higgins watched the exchange, then addressed himself to Langle. “There is still much to interest your naturalists within our borders,” he said. “I know that the gentlemen of our Basque Society will lend every support to botanizing and other scientific endeavors proposed by your people.”

  Langle thanked him, and the conversation moved on. As if to compensate for his refusal of the savants’ request, O’Higgins spoke very openly about the colony and the town. Lapérouse was left with the impression of a land of enormous bounty that profited almost no one. Isolated from the rest of the world, beset by the long-running and costly conflicts with the Araucanians, restrained by trade policies that favored Peru over Chile, and bloated by a large idle class that filled its convents and monasteries, the colony produced much, consumed much, and wasted much. “Every year we slaughter hundreds of bullocks just for their leather and tallow,” O’Higgins said. “The meat has no buyers, you see.”

  “I fear we’ve taken advantage of your plenty and your lack of trade opportunities,” Lapérouse said, thinking of the embarrassing quantities of food they had been given.

  O’Higgins shook his head in reassurance. “You and your men have more than repaid us already. You may not understand how”—he searched for the right word—“how big, how momentous, your visit is for our people. Most of them live long lives of comfort and boredom. They will speak of this for years to come. They will tell their children and grandchildren that they met the great French explorers Lapérouse and Langle.”

  Lapérouse felt his face warm with pleasure, and a grand notion suddenly formed in his mind. “Then we mean to make our stay truly memorable for all,” he said. “I would like to invite you and all of Concepción society to a fête on the beach. French food, French music, and”—he looked pointedly at Monneron here—“a French spectacle.” Monneron looked puzzled for a moment, but then his eyes widened with sudden understanding. “Say, in eight days’ time?” Lapérouse concluded.

  O’Higgins’s face spread into a broad grin. “I accept with pleasure,” he said.

  * * *

  They watched the small boat pull away from the Boussole, bearing O’Higgins and his party back to Talcahuano.

  “I’m going to put Monneron in charge of the entertainment for the evening,” Lapérouse told Langle.

  “A good choice. He’s a resourceful young man.”

  “Yes, he is,” Lapérouse agreed. “He also happens to possess something that may serve well for the promised ‘spectacle.’”

  “I wondered what you meant by that,” Langle said. “May I ask what it is?”

  “You may not. It’s to be a surprise.” Lapérouse smiled, then let his face grow serious again. “I have to return to Concepción tomorrow,” he said.

  “To put Lamanon in his place?”

  “Well, yes—to remind Lamanon and the others that they are sailing on His Majesty’s frigates and bound by the rules and customs of His Majesty’s Navy.”

  Langle pursed his lips for a moment. “Shall I go instead?”

  Lapérouse frowned, unsure whether he welcomed or resented the suggestion. It was no secret that Langle got along better with the savants than he did. Langle was a man of science in his own right, a mathematician and member of the Royal Marine Academy; he had published papers on the longitude problem. The savants saw him as one of their own. Lapérouse was not jealous of these advantages; indeed, he was usually grateful for them. But today he felt Langle’s suggestion was born of disappointment over Lapérouse’s lukewarm advocacy of the savants over lunch. He was reminded of the rumors he had heard before they left France—that the ministry had been torn between offering him or Langle command of the expedition. Langle must have heard the same rumors. They had never spoken of it.

  Lapérouse’s gaze wandered from their departed guests, now nearing the shore, to the Astrolabe, where several crewmen were emptying water casks over the side. “What are they doing?” he asked, pointing across the way.

  “They’re draining out the old water to make room for fresh,” Langle explained.

  “Didn’t you refill your casks in Santa Catarina?”

  Langle was silent for a moment. “I refilled some of them. That there is French water, seven months old, hardly fit to drink.” When Lapérouse said nothing, Langle said, “Sir, you know my convictions on this matter.”

  Lapérouse turned away from the rail. He hoped Langle’s preoccupation with water would not become a chronic point of contention between them. His friend seemed to think that drinking old barrel water caused scurvy, but Lapérouse had never read or seen anything to support this idea. It was not a matter worth debating, however. Langle would grow heated and scientific. “Thank you for your offer, Monsieur de Langle,” he finally said, “but I think I’ll go into town myself.”

  Langle nodded so formally that Lapérouse felt compelled to say something to restore their usual amicability. “It’s not just our savants,” he said. “I am concerned for our hostess, Señora Sabatero.”

  Langle’s face was blank for a few seconds. “Señora—you mean that tiny creature married to Sabatero—Eleonora?” He looked at Lapérouse with amused surprise, then laughed aloud.

  “She is a very young perso
n and not altogether happy,” Lapérouse said, aware of sounding ridiculous, of blushing before his friend. But it worked: Langle was still grinning when he left the ship a few minutes later. Lapérouse made his way back to his stateroom and composed a message to Major Sabatero, requesting the indulgence of another night’s stay in his home and the use of his drawing room to conduct some business related to the voyage.

  * * *

  In the morning, Frédéric was released from his onboard incarceration and ordered to report to duty. He did not apologize when he presented himself, but there was contrition in his washed face and neat dress and in his eagerness to return to duty. Even the strictly polite tone he adopted—“yes, sir,” “of course, sir”—seemed an attempt to compensate for the monstrous overfamiliarity of two days earlier. Lapérouse felt a rush of pity for his brother-in-law: if only that desire to please were balanced by the ability to refuse a wrong thing now and then, he might make something of himself. When Frédéric left the room with a formal bow and a “thank you, sir,” Lapérouse pulled a page from a letter he had begun to Éléonore the night before, a page that described in unstinting detail what had happened with Frédéric in Concepción, and tore it into small pieces.

  A knock on the door brought Boutin, one of his ensigns, bearing a small package. “Today’s reports and messages, sir,” he said.

  Routine communications, for the most part—a report from Langle on the progress of repairs on the Astrolabe; another from Dagelet, the Boussole’s astronomer, on the performance of their chronometers; lists from both ships of needed supplies—and then, as expected, a letter from Dufresne requesting permission to leave the expedition. A more self-pitying and lugubrious letter it was hard to imagine: he enjoyed the respect and friendship of no one on board, rued the day he ever consented to join the expedition, would consider himself a prisoner if his request were denied, and had nothing but days and years of unrelenting sadness to anticipate in that event. Lapérouse was hard-pressed to keep from laughing aloud.

  “Monsieur de Boutin,” he finally said, looking up from the table. “Please inform Monsieur de Monneron that I am ready to accompany him to town.”

  * * *

  He had sent one of the dragoons ahead on a horse with their luggage, meaning to walk the three leagues to Concepción with Monneron. There was the spectacle to discuss, of course, a demonstration that required careful advance planning and allowed of no real rehearsal. But Lapérouse also wanted to get Monneron’s assessment of the mood among the savants. By training, temperament, and formal appointment, Monneron straddled the worlds of naval officer and man of science. His views would be helpful to hear before Lapérouse confronted Lamanon.

  But once again he was thwarted in his plan to have a long walk and talk with a member of his staff. O’Higgins had learned of his intention to return to town and came to meet him in person, riding the same magnificent horse he had the previous day, accompanied this time by a groom and horses for the Frenchmen. Lapérouse stifled a curse. He had last ridden a horse when he was a boy, and it had been a seat-bruising and humiliating experience.

  If he embarrassed himself less on this occasion, it was due entirely to the skill and patience of the groom and the docility of the animal. Still, he did not feel at ease for any part of the journey, and barely attended to what O’Higgins was saying. “Ah!” he cried as O’Higgins pointed out the location of the old city on their left. “Indeed!” he said of O’Higgins’s description of the Araucanians’ equestrian prowess. Monneron, a more able rider, did his part to maintain their side of the conversation: Had Governor O’Higgins been in Concepción at the time of the great earthquake? (He had not. He was in Santiago then, or perhaps it was Cádiz.) Was it true the Araucanians drank horse blood? (The Indians themselves made this claim, but he had never seen it.) Would the governor oblige them with the story of how an Irishman had come to be a brigadier general for the king of Spain? He would and he did. The not uncommon story—an Irish family, its wealth diminished by Cromwell, its status tainted by Catholicism and an old loyalty to the Stuarts, forging a new life in Spain—brought them into town. O’Higgins conveyed them to the door of the Sabateros’ house near the central plaza and left with a promise to see them at dinner.

  The steward opened the door, his blank face betraying no memory of his last meeting with Lapérouse, when he had helped push a drunk and stinking Frédéric into the back of the family carriage. Lapérouse hoped his own expression was as mute, not only about the embarrassment with Frédéric, but also about his knowledge that José was Sabatero’s natural son—a fact that now, looking at the man again at such close range, seemed entirely obvious.

  Of course, most facts had that quality of being obvious once known, Lapérouse reflected as he followed José down the corridor. Everything was fraught with this knowledge: the defensive way Eleonora flicked open her fan when José entered the room; José’s voice as he announced the guests, his tone polite but only just; and Sabatero’s bland, unseeing benignity, dispensed with equal measure to his lonely Creole wife and the mestizo son poised to dispossess her.

  Lapérouse bowed—first to Eleonora, who flushed prettily when she saw him; then to Sabatero, who looked, out of uniform, less florid than he had at the ball; and then to—well, here was a surprise—the discontented Dufresne himself, looking at once shamefaced and defiant in a corner of the room.

  “We have had pleasure of Monsieur Dufresne’s company from last night,” Sabatero explained in his rough French.

  “His host came down with a fever, and we thought it best he stay here,” Eleonora added.

  Lapérouse looked from the Sabateros to Dufresne, wondering how free the discontented naturalist had been in discussing his unhappiness with his hosts. “Well, Monsieur Dufresne,” he said. “I’m delighted to see you here. It saves me the trouble of sending for you.” Dufresne sank back into his chair as if the effort might render him invisible.

  Eleonora stood up with a rustling of her skirts, drawing all eyes toward her. “Monsieur de Monneron, how nice to see you again,” she said, extending her hand to the engineer. “Allow my husband and me to show you to your room, and then you must tell us about this party. It is all the talk in town today…” She reached her other hand out to her husband, who heaved himself from his chair and joined her.

  Lapérouse bowed his thanks as Eleonora led her husband and Monneron out of the room. He was struck once more by her sensitivity, so far beyond her years, the promptness with which she cleared the room so he could confront Dufresne in private. But also—and this too not for the first time—how rehearsed both Eleonora and her husband sounded. Was it simply a function of speaking a language not one’s own? Or had these people, with their long lives of relative ease and lack of diversion, steeped in their secrets and secretiveness, come so to excel in the art of the apologia that even simple explanations and exchanges seemed to hide something?

  “You received my letter, then. Sir.”

  Lapérouse turned to find Dufresne, still seated, looking up at him through an unkempt fringe of hair that fell before his eyes. He looked every bit like the pupil who has not prepared his lesson and had absolutely counted on not being called to recite it.

  “I did, this morning.”

  “Have you come all this way simply to refuse me in person?”

  “No, Dufresne. You are only one in a long list of matters I have to attend to today.”

  Dufresne flushed and said nothing, as if unsure whether to proceed angrily or with contrition. “I’m sorry, sir,” he finally said. “I know I have no one to blame but myself, but—please let me go. I should never have come. I plead my youth and inexperience.”

  “You’ll find that youth and inexperience are rarely invoked in the Navy except when you are being refused a promotion.”

  Dufresne looked down, dejected.

  “I could release you…” Lapérouse began, and Dufresne looked up, one lock of his hair stuck in the corner of his mouth. “But I think you would reg
ret it.”

  “I’ve done nothing but regret since we left Brest.” He was struggling not to cry.

  Lapérouse sat down in the chair Eleonora had just vacated. It was still warm. “Monsieur Dufresne,” he said. “This may go down in history as one of the most important voyages of the century. Do you want to be the man who left seven months in, witnessed none of the excitement in store, contributed nothing to its success, and missed out on all of its glory?”

  “I’ll be that man even if I stay on board.”

  “If you don’t feel useful, it’s no doubt because you haven’t made yourself useful,” Lapérouse said. “But that is about to change.” He went out into the corridor and asked a servant to find Monneron.

  “Ah, Monneron,” he said when the engineer appeared in the drawing room. “You know Monsieur Dufresne, of course.” The two men nodded to each other. “I believe you’ll want someone to assist you with preparations for the spectacle next week,” he said, “and Dufresne here is wanting more occupation. Please take him into your confidence and allow him to accompany you on your errands in town.”