Waiting for the Queen

by Joanna Higgins

  Rouleau takes something else from the girl and heaves it into the center of the rapid river. It immediately sinks. She hands him another object. He throws it and it, too, sinks. The next time something arcs over the river, I shade my eyes and look carefully. A boot! They are throwing boots into the water. Why in heaven’s name are they doing that? Four have gone in. Then another, another, and finally still two others. Then the arm that has been heaving the boots out over the water flies toward the girl, striking her on the head. She falls to one knee on the stones. He raises his arm again.

  “Monsieur Rouleau,” I call, as I move closer.

  He turns and, seeing us, bows. “Ah, my lady! I am merely teaching my servant an important lesson. Allow me to proceed, if you please.”

  “And what lesson might that be, Monsieur Rouleau?”

  “One in obedience. You would agree, would you not, that such lessons are necessary for our servants. Otherwise”—his shoulders lift and fall—“we have anarchy and rebellion and even revolution.”

  “How is this girl rebelling?”

  “By accepting what I ordered her not to accept.”

  “And what might that be?”

  “Gifts—from the Americans. The free-thinking Americans.”

  “What, exactly, have they given her?”

  “Boots, my lady, when I forbade it.”

  “Boots! Can they not use boots? Are boots not useful in their work for you?”

  “Be that as it may, I have forbidden it, and I am their master. Not the Americans. My slaves must not have divided loyalties.”

  “Which Americans in particular have given your slaves boots?”

  “The Kimbrells, mademoiselle.”

  “The ones who attempted to build them a maison?”

  “Indeed, the very ones.”

  “And why do you not wish them to have a house?”

  “Pardon me, but it is not for me to fully explain my reasoning to you, mademoiselle. Perhaps you might ask your father for enlightenment. Or the marquis. Now, if you will excuse me.”

  Roughly, he pulls the girl away from the river. She has nothing at all on her feet!

  In this cold. In the mud.

  “Monsieur Rouleau! You are a cruel man. And as stupid as those peasants who tore up the gardens at Le Petit Trianon out of spite.”

  He glowers but is clever enough not to reply.

  “Also, you have ruined my morning!”

  “Is something wrong, Eugenie?” Maman asks at our dinner.

  There is rye bread and cheese on my plate, and a dish of applesauce on the side. There is even a spice cake at the center of our table. I have been looking at all this food for some time but cannot eat.

  “Eugenie!” Maman says. “The cheese is decent, as is the bread. Our servant has not managed to ruin these, at least. Are you becoming ill, my daughter?”

  “Papa, Maman—I believe I now understand something about freedom.”

  “And what is that?” Papa says.

  “I think . . . it is a state of being in which we can better our situation. We have the right, at least, to do so if we choose. The opposite is . . . slavery. If one is a slave, then one has no such right or power. One cannot better one’s situation at all.”

  “Are there Americans here,” Maman asks, “who speak such good French?”

  “I have talked with no one! It is what I have seen for myself.”

  When I finish telling them about Rouleau and the boots, Papa strikes the table. He has not done so since we left France. “The man is a tyrant! I must speak to Talon.”

  “He will simply call you a republican.”

  “He may call me what he wishes, but we should not tolerate such behavior here, in our settlement. The man is getting his revenge for having been burnt out. He is taking out his anger on his few loyal slaves, slaves who helped put out the fires on his plantation! Rouleau himself tells the story with satisfaction. His behavior violates human decency. I am going to speak with him this night.”

  “Who? Not Rouleau?”

  “Talon.”

  “There was not supposed to be strife here,” Maman says.

  “What is supposed to be and what is seldom conjoin, I am afraid.”

  When he leaves, Maman says, “I wish you would just remain inside, Eugenie. Play the harpsichord. Read. Why must you be out so much?”

  “Sylvette needs her walk, and I, too, or I shall forget how.”

  “Then go with Florentine. He at least can . . . protect you.”

  “Oh, Maman, I would probably be the one to protect him!”

  “Are you perhaps seeing what you tell yourself to see?”

  “I do not think so, Maman.”

  “Oui, I believe you are. Now. Ready yourself. The Du Valliers visit us this evening.”

  “Oh, Maman. He is so boring. Besides, he likes only himself.”

  “Eugenie. I beg you. At least give him an opportunity to prove himself.”

  A sad day, after its good start. But that is how it often is, I’m learning. Starting well, ending badly. Or starting badly and ending well. Like weather.

  Hannah

  “Hannah Kimbrell, I require you to make three fine cakes. These may be of the same variety but must be exceptional. I have been told that you are the best baker in this settlement, so, mademoiselle, I am obliged to compromise and bow to your superior abilities even though you refuse to return the courtesy.” Mr. Talon bows, which causes heat to rush to my face. “The fête is in honor of our Queen’s birthday. We celebrate it three weeks late for the simple reason that we were not here on November 2, but now here we are! Rachel Stalk will come for the cakes. You are not to go near the nobles and cause offense. I also require you to make your venison stew. Others will come for it.”

  As he turns away, his cloak creates a breeze.

  In our large storeroom I make an assessment. Apples. Cinnamon. Mace. Pepper. Salt. Cornstarch. Arrowroot. Smyrna raisins. Black walnuts. Chestnuts. Cornmeal. Wheat flour. Maple syrup. Mushrooms. Potatoes. Lard. Dried beans of several sorts. Onions. Carrots and turnips in sand. Smoked fish, smoked venison, and ham. Many of these supplies have come from Mr. Talon, like the wheat and spices, the cornmeal and lard and raisins, so that I can cook for the workers and the Aversilles. The maple syrup is our own, and the potatoes, beans, turnips, and carrots, these coming from the garden we planted here last spring. The dried fish and venison, too, our own. The walnuts and mushrooms as well. We keep an account of all we use for ourselves and for the others. Each month Mr. Talon asks for these accounts so we can settle up. I do like not doing sums, but ’tis at least good practice.

  I pack a basket for a little meal and walk into the woods behind our cabin and up the hill a ways, passing the springhouse Father and John built. It sits atop the bubbling spring that gives us our fresh water. Here we keep our milk and eggs and the butter I make weekly.

  Apple cake, I decide, with black walnuts, cinnamon, and ground chestnut meal. Thick cream poured over the top. Or, whisked into frothy peaks.

  I hurry farther up the hill toward the grove of black walnut trees. There’s been wind enough to blow even the trees themselves down. John will be yodeling in protest when he learns that he is “required” to shell more black walnuts. So many more! They are the hardest nut of all to shell. John has to smash them between flat river stones. The shells we use as kindling, but they are sharp enough, surely, for use as tools of some kind.

  Right off, I see jugfuls and begin to pick. They are everywhere amid the fallen leaves. I am making such a ruckus, I only faintly hear a crackling somewhere nearby. Then I know, even before I look up. My heart knows. It fairly stops beating and then pounds on in my ears.

  A mountain lion. She has dropped down not twenty feet away. Tawny as the leaves, and with the sun and shade playing over her fur, she is almost invisible.

  To run will mean death. Kneeling, I keep very still, the basket before me.

  “Go,” I say quietly.

  Her long tail twi
tches a little and flicks from side to side a bit. Her eyes do not leave me as she steps slowly forward, each large paw crunching leaves. Her whiskers glint in the sun like long silver needles.

  “Go away, Mistress Lion.”

  She takes another step forward and pauses, her tail still flicking, her head quite still. At the tip of each ear fur stands up in tiny points of light.

  Hardly moving myself, I reach into the basket and bring out the dried fish. Even this much movement may cause her to spring forward.

  Father, John, Mother—farewell. I have loved thee much. And Grace, Suzanne, Richard.

  “If thou shall not leave, have this!”

  Her mouth opens as she sniffs the air. Quickly, I toss the fish. It lands near her forelegs, and she lowers her head to it. When she settles on her haunches and begins tearing at it, I grab up my basket and run.

  Down, down past the springhouse. Down past the oaks and into our cabin.

  Inside, I am shaking hard as any forest of leaves. Quite awhile later I notice all the black walnuts, still in the basket.

  I look up at the Kentucky rifle above our mantle.

  But she has spared my life, and so I shall spare hers—by saying nothing.

  “Take much care with this, Rachel. Thou knowest not what all has gone into the making of it. And there be two others to carry over as well.”

  With small unsteady hands, Rachel takes the large platter. I watch that she doesn’t stumble and fall with it. Her doing so would hurt me more than the nobles’ not knowing who made it.

  ’Tis true, how much does go into the making of a thing. Thought and feeling and effort and sometimes danger, too. And so the thing finally becomes all of that, and is good.

  After feeding our animals, John and I stand outside awhile, listening to music coming from the marquis’s cabin near the center of the clearing. ’Tis wondrous, truly! Like rushing water. Or the swirl of stars at night.

  “Dost thou think they be dancing?” John asks.

  “There may not be enough room for dancing.”

  “Dost thou think it be a hard thing to learn?”

  “Dancing? I think thou, John, do harder things every day.”

  “I believe not.”

  “John, ’tis mere amusement.”

  “Aye.”

  “Dost thou wish to dance?”

  “Nay.”

  “It is for those who, unlike us, have little else to occupy them.”

  “Aye.”

  “Imagine, though, being able to make such music! That must take much time to learn.”

  His arms hang at his sides. He stares in the direction of the cabin. “Dost thou think she is there, Hannah?”

  “Who, John?”

  “Mademoiselle de La Roque.”

  “She may well be.”

  “You say she talks to thee now, sometimes?”

  I begin to understand. “Ah, John,” I say finally. “Thou art a foolish boy if thou thinks—”

  “I think nothing!” Quick, he turns and enters our cabin. I follow him and offer apology for calling him foolish.

  “Nay,” he says, “thou art right, Hannah.”

  I say nothing further, for John’s eyes shy from mine.

  Father tells us how the marquis devised a clever plan—the French families again drew lots to see when their time of calling upon Mr. Talon might be. They liked this idea, Father says. They are used to games of chance. “For them ’tis like the spices in your cake, Hannah.”

  It is near eleven when Rachel returns with our platter, plates, and stewpot, everything clean. “I thank thee, Rachel.”

  “Oh, your cakes, Hannah, they be greatly received. The French want to know who made them! Talon tells them you, Hannah! At least he be honest, no? He says to tell you if only you might curtsy half so well, you could name your price with any of the French families. Imagine! Ye’d be rich, Hannah, an’ I wouldn’t need t’work so hard. They want so much all the time, I can noways keep up. An’ they always complain no matter how good I go an’ do a thing.”

  “Rachel, ’tis a foolish custom. To curtsy. But more, ’tis wrong.”

  “Do you set yourself above them, then?”

  “Nay. They set themselves above us.”

  “My father says that you Quakers be too big for yer britches, Hannah Kimbrell, and goin’ for a fall. All you Kimbrells.”

  Surely we do not set ourselves above them, I want to say. We only believe in equality. But to say so now would not be seemly, would take us too near argument. So I say naught. Still, ’tis something to ponder, the question of pride.

  “Ah, but Hannah, ye shoulda seen ’em in their finery. Never such a sight will I pro’ly see ever again. Earrings, Hannah, that match the necklaces, bracelets, and brooches. And gowns so fanciful and shinylike you’d think angels were a’wearin’ ’em.”

  While Rachel yarns on, I am wondering about pride. Do we think we’re better? Or do we feel lower and yet think we’re better because we have courage and are proud of it?

  “Ye shoulda seen the La Roque girl, Hannah. She wore a necklace that fair blinded me. Icy stones and blue ones, the blue ones so blue. What might they be, Hannah, do ye know?”

  “I know not, surely. Bits of colored glass perhaps. Or stone.”

  “Well, I never saw the like. And the young gentleman with her, he never left her side!”

  “The one who frowns so much?”

  “Aye. The very one. Only he weren’t, tonight.”

  Poor John, I think.

  “That necklace—’tis but pieces of earth, Rachel. Nothing more. Why, we could make necklaces of river stones if we had a mind to. Polish those to glittering, but to what good, such vanity?”

  “What did ye say, Hannah?”

  “It be simple vanity.”

  Rachel Stalk sighs. “Aye. But a pretty vanity all the same. Oh! I be remembering. She said to give you this.”

  A pink satin ribbon! Long as one of Sylvette’s leashes.

  “She musta liked yer cake.”

  Thoughts spin me over head and ears. A gift? From her?

  “Ye ain’t gonna wear it, are ye?”

  “No, Rachel.” I see it against my dark braid, a flower there.

  “Then might I have it? I’d like wearin’ it, an’ no rule ’gainst it for me.”

  Inside, I find my scissors and snip it in half, though it pains me to do so.

  “I thank ye, Hannah! Ye be a good person though I don’t see why ye couldna give it all, fer all yer talk about vanities.”

  I give her the other half. “For your braids, Rachel.” Then I turn away before she can see my eyes filling. “Good night!”

  1793

  Decembre / December

  Eugenie

  With feverish intensity, Maman says, “I must live to see my Queen.”

  “Oh, you shall, Maman! But if so, you must eat something.” I offer, once again, the porridge. “Our new servant made this, Maman. Not Rachel Stalk. Have some, s’il te plaît!”

  “Non! Its smell makes me ill.” As if to prove her words, poor Maman heaves into the basin Papa holds for her.

  “That you should see me this way! Mon Dieu.”

  The stench of the basin and the chamber pots is so thick and terrible, I grow light-headed. In my room, I lie down while everything whirls about and the room darkens. Closing my eyes does not help. There is still the smell, and the sensation of falling headlong down some chute.

  “Call Annette,” Maman is saying. “Call Annette, I say!”

  “Charlotte,” Papa says to Maman. “Charlotte, my dear.”

  “Isabel, then! Call them both, and summon Monsieur Robarge. Tell him that I have been poisoned. Does Sevigny want my position so badly?”

  Maman is delirious. I fear she will die now, as delirious people often do.

  “Eugenie,” Papa says. “You must stop crying. It helps nothing. In fact, the opposite!”

  His tone scares me into silence. Never before has he been this sharp with me. Then h
e says to Maman, “Ah! Monsieur Robarge has just now arrived. We summoned him, and now he will care for you himself.”

  I hold Sylvette while Papa does his best to bathe Maman and change the linens. Icy air blows into our maison from our one window. Papa has hooked up the flap and the piece of tapestry so fresh air might enter and clear away the stench of sickness. Yet it is still so strong. And it, too, tells me that Maman will die. The river is frozen, and no boats shall come. No post riders can get through the high snow in the forest, and surely no physician. Why has not Talon foreseen such a thing? Because he is a proud, ignorant man.

  Has Mary’s cooking poisoned Maman? There is no jaundice, just the fever’s flush. Surely even I could cook better than Mary Worthington and Rachel Stalk! Oh, what value to be good at cards or boules or the quadrille and polonaise and allemande but not know how to properly prepare food? How foolish to assume that there will always and forever be someone to do this for us, and do it well. I do not even know how to roast garlic.

  Yet could I not learn?

  Oui! Somehow I shall—for Maman, Papa, Sylvette, and myself. Living one’s life as a helpless child is absurde.

  A knock at our door!

  No one has come to visit of late, everyone having heard of Maman’s illness. Not even Florentine’s mother so that she might gossip about us. I imagine a physician, summoned by Talon. But it is only our abbé. “Enter, please,” Papa says, holding open the door to the cold. I know he wants to quickly shut it.

  “Oh, no, thank you. I shall bless your dear wife from here.” He sprinkles the room with his pine branch and departs, quite nimbly. He has lost nearly half his bulk, thanks to Rachel Stalk’s fine cooking.

  “So much for le courage,” Papa says, shutting the door and barring it.

  It is true. Our countrymen and women have been shunning us. Yesterday when I went out with Sylvette, Florentine’s mother called from her maison window, “It is too cold to be out, mademoiselle! Go back inside!”