by Beth White
She closed her eyes as if that would shut out the overpowering intimacies of the past hours, but her husband’s scent remained all around her, in the bedding, no doubt in her own hair and skin. He might be a hundred miles away and she would still be able to feel the brush of his beard against her face, the tenderness of his lips on hers, the strength of his back when she flattened her palms against it.
This would never do. He was gone. He had left while she slept, without kissing her, without saying goodbye, as if she were a courtesan that he had bought for the night. There was every possibility he would never return. So she must piece herself back together. She must go on as if her world had not once more turned on its head, as if she had not deliberately removed any chance of marrying a safe young Canadian soldier and producing little Catholic babies to be raised in accordance with the True Church of Louis XIV.
Bienville was going to have her arrested, if she didn’t get out of bed, get dressed, and preempt him.
So she did that. Ten minutes later she picked up the comb that someone—presumably Madame L’Anglois—had left on the corner table and started combing the snarls out of her hair. When she had finally managed to tame it in a braid, she made her way slowly, with wobbly knees, through the cabin’s front room and out onto the gallery.
The sudden glare of sunlight had her squinting and shielding her eyes with her hand, but as her eyes adjusted, she saw that a woman sat on the front steps of the house across the street. Ysabeau Bonnet, she realized, recognizing the faded yellow dress and red-gold curls. She looked a bit dejected, chin in hand, elbow resting on her knee, but at least she didn’t seem to be openly crying.
Geneviève sighed. She had no time to waste. But she should at least stop to speak to the girl. “Ysabeau?” she called as she crossed the street. “Are you all right?”
Ysabeau sat up. “Geneviève? What were you doing in Monsieur Levasseur’s cabin?”
“It’s a long story. I’ll tell you later.” Restraining a wince, Geneviève sat down on the step above Ysabeau and hugged her knees. “Why are you out here alone so early in the morning? Where are the Lemays?”
“Monsieur Lemay has gone to the powderworks. I came out to feed the chickens because the boys are arguing over some stupid toy, and Angela is in bed, claiming she’s having labor pains. She’s been having them every morning for the last week. I think she’s faking, since they always seem to miraculously clear up by lunch.” Ysabeau clenched her small fists as she glanced at Geneviève. “I’ve had all I can stand of this family. I’m going to marry Monsieur Connard today.”
“Ysette, please don’t do anything rash.” The irony of her plea took Geneviève to the bounds of self-control, but with a supreme effort she managed to keep a straight face. “Have you even spoken to Monsieur Connard for more than five minutes?”
“He came to see me as soon as they released him from the guardhouse yesterday. He is—he is quite good-looking, if one squints a bit. And he wagered a hundred livres for me, Geneviève! That’s a lot of money—isn’t it?” She looked uncertain, but before Geneviève could answer, she stood up, smacking her hands together. “Anyway, he is as good as any of these backwoods Canadians, so I should take him before he changes his mind.” She jumped to the ground and marched off in the direction of the fort.
“Ysabeau! Please don’t do this!” Geneviève went after her, but since the girl refused to even look at her again, she gave up and stopped at the corner of the street. She watched Ysabeau disappear behind the house at the end of the next block. There was no one to whom she could go for counsel. Father Mathieu was gone with Tristan—
A singularly unproductive thought. Plans. She must make plans. Tristan had agreed she should support herself with her bread-baking, so perhaps she should talk to Monsieur Burelle about that.
Squaring her shoulders, she set off for the tavern. Tristan was gone, but there was hope for a secure life here, for herself and Aimée. He had himself encouraged her to remember the good times in order to survive the bad times.
She thought about the note Cavalier had placed in her Bible, just before he left her with Father Mathieu. Worried that she might find herself in as precarious a situation as the one she’d escaped, he’d warned her to be very careful to whom she revealed her faith. Cavalier only asked her to make what observations she could, put them in a short letter, and send them through an Indian woman named Nika to the Huguenot pastor in Carolina.
Geneviève had of course eagerly agreed. After all, Cavalier had saved her life, and she owed him everything.
But her perspective was so different since she had come to Louisiane, lived here among its inhabitants, married Tristan Lanier. Her bitterness and fear—the rage she had felt toward the King and all he stood for—all that had blurred into the daily rhythms of making a new home. When Tristan began to explain last night the complicated political inter-workings among French, British, and Indian powers, she had almost stopped him. The less she knew, the less she must be obliged to divulge to Cavalier.
Thoughts aboil, she was almost at the end of the block when an ear-splitting scream issued from an open window behind her. She stopped in her tracks. Ysabeau had said the little boys, aged three and five if she remembered correctly, were at home by themselves except for their mother, who was about to give birth any day now. Should she go directly for help? Surgeon-Major Barraud, even if he weren’t a useless drunk, was already on his way upriver with Father Mathieu and the Lanier brothers. Sister Marie Grissot had been named midwife. She was a sweet woman, but notably slow and easily flustered.
Reluctantly Geneviève turned around and headed up the brick pathway to the Lemays’ two-story house. It was small and rough compared to Continental standards, but it was one of the largest and most luxurious in the settlement. Powdermaker Xavier Lemay possessed a skill critical to both military and civilian life, and he was evidently well compensated.
She mounted the steps to the gallery and hesitated at the front door, which stood open. Two little boys with curly dark hair and big brown eyes perched at the foot of the stairs, the younger one with his thumb in his mouth and the elder glaring at her truculently, both grubby fists clutching a wooden toy trailing a string.
“Good morning,” she said, trying to sound cheerful. “Is that your mama upstairs? She seems to be having some difficulty.”
“Mama’s havin’ the baby,” the little one said around his thumb.
“No she ain’t, stupid,” said the older one. “Ysabeau said it wouldn’t be for another few days.”
Another scream pierced the air, perhaps amplified by the uncarpeted hardwood floor and stairs. Both children looked frightened.
“Let me check on your mama, boys. No, stay here. I’ll be right back.” She hiked her skirt to leap lightly over them and hurried up the stairs. At the landing she stopped to listen and followed the gasps of pain coming from one of the two bedrooms. “Angela? I’m coming. Are you having the—” Unable to finish, she halted in the doorway to suck in a breath, then rushed to the bed, where poor Angela, blown up to whale-like proportions, writhed in pain with her bedgown wadded about her waist. Geneviève took the woman’s hand and winced at the strength of that vise-like grip. “How long have you been like this?”
“The pains have been coming—off and on—all night,” Angela gasped between her teeth. “Ysabeau—so hateful, I can’t stand it anymore. Geneviève, please get Sister Gris. She’ll know what to do—she delivered the Canelles’ baby.”
“Yes, of course. Can I do anything for you before I go?”
“Where are Serge and Émile?”
“Downstairs playing. I’ll watch out for them.”
“Thank you.” Angela’s head twisted back and forth on the bolster. “Could I have some water? I’m so thirsty.”
Geneviève ran back down the stairs, giving the little boys a reassuring pat on the head as she passed, and ducked into the kitchen. Fortunately she found a pitcher of clean water on a table and poured a little into a pewter cup. She took it u
pstairs to the uncomfortable young mother, then dashed back down the stairs.
She stopped long enough to reassure the boys that she would be right back, that they should stay in the salon and play quietly. Then she hurried outside, down the gallery steps, and along the rue de Ruessavel toward the nursing sisters’ little house on the next block. She knocked on the front door, shouting, “Sister Gris!” Without waiting for an answer, she opened it and found Dames Grissot and Linant blinking at her over a breakfast of eggs and hominy. Both were in habits without veils.
“Geneviève!” Sister Linant set down her tea cup with a thump. “What’s the matter, child?”
Geneviève addressed Sister Gris. “It’s Angela—she’s having her baby, and it doesn’t look good. She’s been in pain for more than a day—I told her I’d come for you. Please, Sister—”
“Of course.” Sister Gris rose, pushing away from the table. She looked at her friend. “Forgive me for leaving you with the dishes.”
“Go ahead, don’t worry. But, Marie, you need your wimple.”
“Oh, yes.” Distracted, Sister Gris put her hand to her wiry gray locks. “I’ll be right back,” she said to Geneviève and hurried through the doorway into the second room. Within a few minutes she returned, wearing the distinctive gray headgear of her order, albeit slightly askew, and she and Geneviève were on their way back to the Lemay house.
Geneviève could hear Angela’s screaming groans from two blocks away. The two little boys must be terrified. Dear Father in heaven, help us know what to do.
She and Sister Gris looked at one another, then simultaneously started running. The nun, gasping for breath, tried gamely to keep up with Geneviève’s lighter step and reached the Lemays’ front door not far behind. Geneviève grabbed her arm and all but pulled her up the stairs, then left the nun to care for Angela while she hurried back to the ground floor. She looked all over the house, but the two little boys had vanished.
“Oh, no. What now?” she muttered, walking out to the front gallery. Where could they have gone? Anxiously she looked up and down the street. If I were a frightened little boy, where would I go?
Levasseur’s cabin across the street caught her eye. Was she going to blush in shame every time she looked at the place for the rest of her life? There was no shame, she reminded herself, in a bride having marital relations with her lawful wedded husband.
Her eyes widened, and she put her hand to her flat stomach. What if she had become enceinte during that short night with Tristan? Could it happen that fast? What if she were left to bear a child alone and raise it on whatever she could make, baking for Monsieur Burelle?
Geneviève! she scolded herself. Don’t ask for trouble. You must find those children! Pulling in her careening emotions, she tried to think.
The little boys she’d known in France had been fond of climbing, fighting, and hiding. Here in the middle of the settlement, the biggest trees had been cut down for lumber, even had the boys been tall enough to climb them. Frowning, she went back inside. Maybe she had missed something.
She looked at the empty staircase again, wincing in sympathy as another guttural groan found its way down the stairs. She walked over and sat down on the next-to-bottom step where Serge and Émile had been playing with the wooden spinning toy earlier. As Angela’s cries faded to whimpering, she heard something else, possibly a faint giggle . . . from below? She stood up and peeked around the banister, which Xavier had sanded and polished to a buttery smoothness. The space beneath the stairs had been walled in to form a closet with a small door. Smiling, she pulled the latch.
And there they were, huddled side-by-side in the dark like a couple of puppies, Émile with his thumb in his mouth and Serge scowling like a pirate.
Serge scooted backward. “We ain’t coming out.”
But Émile started crying. “I want Mama.”
“Shut up, you little baby.” Serge gave his brother a patronizing look. “Mama don’t want us no more, now that she’s getting a new one. We got to take care of ourself.”
Geneviève’s already bruised heart broke in two. She sat down in the closet doorway and propped her elbows on her knees. “Your mama was very worried when she couldn’t find you. As soon as the baby comes, I’m to bring you in to meet him.” She fixed Serge with a stern look. “You mustn’t frighten your brother. Did your mama stop loving you when he came into the family?”
Serge’s feathery brows came together as he considered her question. “I guess not.” He shrugged.
“Of course she didn’t.” Geneviève leaned forward and touched her nose to his. “Your little brother will need you two big boys to watch out for him. That’s a big responsibility.”
“Mama said it might be a girl.” Oceans of scorn dripped from the word.
She laughed and sat back. “Then she’ll need you even more. Come, let me fix you something to eat.”
The thumb popped out of Émile’s mouth. “Eat?”
“Yes, my little rooster. What would you like for lunch?” She got to her feet, then reached for Émile’s hand.
Within a short space of time, she had settled the little boys in their cubby with bowls of gruel and left them to run up the stairs to check on Angela and Sister Gris.
The scene she walked in on was one of chaos and sweat and blood and noise. Angela sat up against the beautiful carved headboard of her bed, groaning, knees apart, straining to deliver a child who seemed to be as reluctant to enter the room as Geneviève, who gripped the doorframe with both hands, thinking that all she had to do was retrace her steps, walk out the front door, and pretend she’d never heard Angela Lemay’s cries for help.
You are no coward, she reminded herself, embarrassed that she could even think of running away. Straightening her spine, she let go of the doorframe. “Sister Gris, how may I help?”
The nun looked over her shoulder. Wimple askew, her round face nearly as red and wet with perspiration as her patient’s, she leaned over Angela, holding her hand. “Come get her other hand. This baby has been too long in the birth canal. We have to make him come, or she’s going to—”
“Yes of course.” Geneviève darted to the other side of the bed. “Angela, take my hand. I’ll help you.”
But her friend had slumped against the stained bolster behind her back. Tipping her head back, she let out a sobbing moan that seemed to come from her toes. “I can’t. I’m too tired.”
“You have to. You want this baby, don’t you?”
“Of course I do. But he’s—just like Xavier. Stubborn.” A weak giggle told Geneviève that the fight was not yet over.
She gripped Angela’s hand hard and exchanged glances with Sister Gris. “Then you’ve got to push again. Wait till the pain comes again, then—”
“Pain? Why, this is—” She lurched off the backboard and shrieked, “—nothing!”
Geneviève felt the bones of her hand crunch together, and the next few minutes seemed to last for days as Angela pushed and panted and screamed and pushed again, until at last a little dark-crowned head appeared. She and Sister Gris assisted as best they could, though Geneviève felt that it was little enough. The pain of birth—God had said it must be so. The Bible predicted that a woman’s desire would be for her husband, and the product of their union must result in agony as well as ecstasy.
She had seen and experienced that paradoxical truth this very day.
Our God, we are only women. Help us trust you to keep us in what you give us to bear.
12
He was probably going to have to kill her too.
As he waited for Geneviève Gaillain to meet him at the gate, Julien took his stepmother’s letter from the pocket inside his coat and read it again. He had long since memorized it, probably should have burned it, but there was something about the weight of it in his hand, the curl of the words on the page, that steadied and focused the anger that now fueled his every waking thought.
Of course I knew about the other boy, for what man of your father
’s virility has not had one or more indiscretions? But because he—the boy, not your father—went off to live in the Canadian wilderness with his mother, and one never heard another word of him, praise to the Almighty, I deemed it prudent to withhold his existence from dear Gilbert, and I presume he—your father, not the boy—wouldn’t have any reason to mention him—the boy, not your father—to you or your mother.
“The boy,” of course, was Tristan Lanier, and it had taken the countess half a scrawling page to clarify the fact that his father had managed to sire not one, but two, illegitimate sons presently living in the wilds of America. Furthermore, her reason for suddenly divulging this shocking information was due to his father’s inexplicable decision to legitimize his eldest son and confer on him all due rights of inheritance—to the exclusion of the other two. The letter had rambled on for another page or two before coming to the point: Anne Chevalier, Comtess de Leméry, expected Julien to politely murder his half brother, as well as Father Mathieu, the priest who had journeyed to Louisiane to inform him of his good fortune.
Several implications had occurred to him in succession that day, when he had opened and read that fateful letter. First was the bare fact of a third contender for his father’s name and fortune. Having grown up knowing that he was a bastard, Julien had more or less come to terms with the idea that he would never receive the privileges of legitimacy. His father might be negligent and somewhat arrogant toward his younger son, but Julien had never wanted for any physical necessity. He had been educated, groomed for gainful employment, and taught manners appropriate, as the comtess acknowledged, for his station.
Discovering that he was not the comte’s only love child put to death any notion that his father had ever loved his mother. She had been merely a mistress—one of two, probably many. And she hadn’t even been the first.
Tristan Lanier was his brother. Tristan Lanier is your brother.
He said it aloud. “Tristan Lanier is your brother.” The words still tasted metallic on his tongue.