But Amelia! I hold her arm, steadying her as we walk, though I am trembling too. Will Hannah curtsy to Aunt Sophie and Uncle Chemin? Will they like her cuisine? And how scornful will Aunt Sophie be about her own petite maison? She is looking with disapproval upon everything as she walks up our avenue. Her tightly closed mouth forms a horseshoe. Upon reaching our petite maison, I step up onto the small porch John Kimbrell has built for us and lean to pull off my boots.
“What are you doing, Eugenie?” Aunt Sophie asks with dreadful censure.
“Eugenie!” Amelia adds. “What are those?”
To Maman’s exceeding discomfort—and my own—both Aunt Sophie and Amelia study me with intense concentration. It reminds me of Versailles, how we all scrutinized one another, looking for flaws. Aunt Sophie is so beautiful, it has always frightened me to look directly at her, especially when she is looking directly at me. She has a Spaniard’s dark hair and brows but fair, luminous skin, and she has always favored brilliant silk gowns to enhance her coloring. Today, her gown is cerise, with matching shoes and a hat with gray feathers. But, really, it is her eyes that unsettle one so. They are gray shading to a hint of blue or silver, depending on the light. With these eyes she regards my boots and then my hot face. I am before a judge never known to pardon anyone.
Attempting a diversion, Maman says, in her brightest tones, “You see what happens in this wilderness? You had best return to Philadelphia at once!”
“One moment, please!” I cry. “You must hear the story of these boots.” I begin to tell how the boots were made by the best joiner at the settlement, and how they helped me save Sylvette from the river.
I may as well not have spoken. “Laid!” Aunt Sophie pronounces. Ugly! As she steps back to get a better look at me—gown, hair, face—her expression says it as well. Très laid!
But at least inside our maison, Hannah curtsies to each of them and says not a word. Her eyes, though, find mine, and I see fear there. Aunt Sophie ignores her. Merci, My Lady. It strikes me that Aunt Sophie is exactly as I was last autumn—incapable of seeing beyond appearances.
By evening my joy at Amelia’s arrival has all but eroded when Papa tells us that Monsieur Rouleau, his wife, daughters, and two slaves will depart when the flotilla returns after taking provisions farther upriver.
In a week, perhaps, then.
Soon after dinner, I leave our maison on the pretext of giving Sylvette her evening walk and make my way to Hannah’s.
Hannah
“Mademoiselle!”
Eugenie puts finger to mouth, hushing me.
Sylvette wishes to get down and sniff at the animals in our shed. I fear a commotion of barking and squawking and who knows what else. I fear John will come in, any moment, and then he does. He stops upon seeing Eugenie standing near Violet’s stall—Eugenie in dark cloak, its hood raised. Her face and Sylvette’s are as white as John’s in the dusk of our shed.
She speaks in short French sentences that John and I do our best to comprehend. Her left hand clutches Sylvette against herself, and her right dances through the air, pantomiming what she is attempting to tell us.
The slaves.
The forest.
The skiff.
The settlement downriver.
On the air she sketches a round shape and then gestures to her own mouth.
Food.
She lifts her cloak and mimics throwing it about herself.
Cloaks.
She points to John and then, with her right hand, makes rowing motions.
John to take them.
She crouches, head lowered.
Hidden. In the skiff.
I look to the door connecting this shed to our cabin and pray that Father will stay inside, near the fire.
Sylvette begins whining.
“Hush, ma petite! Hush!”
“Quand?” I ask. When?
She holds up nine fingers. “On the ninth day,” she continues in French, “we hide them. Rouleau goes with boats.”
I explain to John what I take to be the full meaning of her words. The flotilla arrives in nine days. Early on the day of its arrival, we hide Estelle and Alain until the flotilla must necessarily leave.
“What if the rivermen hold the boats for Rouleau?” John asks. “So he can search?”
“They won’t hold the boats, will they, John?”
Uncomprehending, mademoiselle looks from one to the other of us.
“They might,” he says. “I wonder if the slaves understand the risk? Can you ask her that?”
I try out several sentences, and Eugenie finally nods. In the next minute she leaves through the shed’s pasture door. I sit on the milking stool, my legs no match for the weight of me.
Violet gives a moan, and I stand. John takes the stool and begins the milking while I see to the chickens. What about after the settlement? I ask myself, who will take the slaves farther? Can John? How? Or, can he trust someone else to do that? And where should they go? To our farm? Surely someone will search for them there. Nay. Not our farm, then. But where?
“John, we may have to write a letter they can carry to show folks. A letter telling what they have endured and that they wish, now, to be free. No matter, I think, if we give their names.”
“Nay, Hannah. No names. A letter in English, though, ’tis a good idea.”
“But if they are sought, there shall be descriptions. And Alain’s scars . . .”
“Still, best not to give names.”
“Oh, the nobles will suspect us for certain. And what if the flotilla waits and does not leave with Rouleau at once? Waits so that a search . . .”
“Father said ’tis a high wall to scale.”
“I know not what to do, John. Now, I mean. Before, it seemed possible.”
“Aye.” He pauses in the milking. “Maybe I won’t use the skiff, Hannah. Just walk them down. Or, better maybe, upriver.”
“But thy boot prints.”
“Oh. Aye.”
“What if they go by themselves? Alain can row, or even Estelle. Then they can keep going as far as they wish.”
“But they will be seen on the river and accused of stealing the skiff. Also, they need to be hidden by someone. I may have to go to the settlement first and try to arrange it. And, too, the current flows south, yet they should go north. Into New York, then on to Massachusetts. Or even Canada.”
“A terrible hard journey for them. Oh, John, we weave a web to catch ourselves. And maybe them, too.” “But it must be done, aye?”
Before sleep, I go over and over it. And then it is the French Queen I am trying to help escape.
When I open my eyes, I know I have been dreaming.
Eugenie
Amelia and I stand on a small island surrounded by barnyard puddles as Hannah leads Violet into the shed. Our parasols are raised, our skirts are raised, and so are Amelia’s arched eyebrows.
“Do you remember,” I say to her, “how Marie Antoinette loved to play at being a shepherdess and how she wore entire pastoral scenes in her hair? Lambs and shepherds with crooks?”
“But this is something else entirely, Eugenie. Sheep muddy to their necks. An odorous cow. To care for animals such as these, one must nearly be an animal. Look! A dung pile, right there.”
“Amelia. Hannah understands our language.”
“What matter if she does? It is the truth, non?”
“You insult her.”
“I? Insult her? All this is an insult to me! I cannot imagine why my parents agreed to this. Or your maman.”
It is indeed extraordinary—and all due to Papa. Amelia’s parents are so unnerved by this American wilderness, Papa convinced them, as well as Maman, of the necessity to at least become familiar with a few important skills.
After Hannah milks Violet, she asks in French if we would like to watch her make butter.
“Far more preferable to eat it,” Amelia says.
To her displeasure, I do not laugh. And to my horror, Hannah replies in
French, “Soon you shall, mademoiselle.”
Amelia turns to me. “Is this servant in the habit of addressing nobles as her peers, Eugenie?”
My reply lacks grace and wit. “Today . . . well, it is different, today. She is our . . . instructor.”
“Yours, perhaps, but not mine. I am here solely for the amusement, poor though it is.”
Several hens pecking nearby distract Amelia, and as she shakes her gown at them, I catch Hannah’s eye and raise a finger to my lips. Of course she is quick to understand that she must not address Amelia directly again.
In a workroom, Hannah shows us a peculiar object and says in English, “Butter churn.”
The apparatus looks like a closed cask with a flat bottom. A pole emerges from its top, and I am thinking of Papa poling the boat here, so long ago, it seems.
“L’anglais,” Amelia says, “is the language of our enemy! I shall never speak it.”
Why is she being so tiresome and bellicose? It strikes me that she is like Rouleau in a way, taking out on others her own unhappiness.
“Amelia, Amelia, is this not better than endlessly practicing the harpsichord?”
“Non! I would rather do anything else in the world than this. C’est ridicule!”
I very much doubt that she would rather be in France right now, hiding in some cellar. But I hold my tongue. Hannah is showing us something else. A stone trough of some kind. Into it she pours a pail of milk, waits awhile, and then gestures opening a small drain at the bottom of the trough. Cream, she explains, will rise to the top. Watery milk will drain into another pail. We await this scientific experiment for some time, Amelia curious despite herself.
“Voilà!” Hannah finally says, as she pours thick cream into the churn. She demonstrates raising and lowering the pole, and after a few minutes pauses to gesture to me. I blush, again thinking of Papa on the boat.
“Go ahead, Eugenie,” Amelia says. “Follow your heart’s deepest desire and become . . . a peasant.”
I cannot stay the anger. “Of course you are aware, Amelia, that the Austrians are known for their ruggedness and strength. Marie Antoinette, being of Austrian blood, may well enjoy learning how to churn butter.” I say the last two words in emphatic English.
Amelia offers her Versailles laugh, a tinkling chandelier of scorn. “Pardonnez-moi, Eugenie, but Marie Antoinette, née Maria Antonia, has journeyed too far from the farms and pastures of Austria to enjoy anything here.”
I grip the pole and move it up and down rapidly, as Hannah did. In no time, I am exhausted and must give up. Hannah resumes the work and continues for long minutes.
“This is boring!” Amelia complains. “And I am tired of standing. Imagine! If we did this all day, what time would we have for our amusements?”
These words cause me to view our rank from a new perspective. Before, it meant lands and jewels and court life and privileges. Now I realize it means time itself as well. Because of our servants, we could endlessly dance and visit and amuse ourselves. We had freedom and time, whereas they, in their servitude, had self-sufficiency.
“Amelia, the answer may lie in the golden mean.”
“And that is?”
“You must remember from your tutors—Aristotle’s golden mean. Moderation. Avoiding extremes.”
“Do you mean to say, Eugenie, a little bread-baking and a little dancing?”
“Something like that, perhaps, yes.”
“It seems a half-baked notion!”
We both laugh at her witticisms, and it feels good to be close again. I so want Amelia to understand, to see what I am beginning to see.
“Amelia, do you not feel unskilled compared to Hannah? And weak?”
“Non! And why should I want to do what she does? She is born to do it—not I.”
“You miss the point—”
“There is no point! Écoutez! Your Papa has become most eccentric, Eugenie. A dangerous development. You must not become like that. Everyone will soon shun you.”
Our raised voices cause Hannah to glance at us in fear while she churns the butter. Finally she stops and opens the cask.
We look inside.
Butter. Pale and creamy and thick.
I exclaim in praise, but Amelia is mute. Hannah carries a plate of the fresh butter into the maison’s common room and sets it upon the table, along with two cups of cider. Then she takes a loaf of bread from the hearth’s warming oven and slices it. In memory, cries of rioting come, and a vision of a mob shoving at bakery doors, smashing windows, grabbing for the few loaves, fighting one another for them.
Hannah, afraid to speak, I realize, motions us to the table. Amelia takes the armchair that must be Monsieur Kimbrell’s. I take a plain one that might be Hannah’s—or John’s. Hannah places buttered bread before each of us. Amelia eats. I cannot.
“What is the matter?” Amelia says.
I shake my head, and then, for Hannah’s sake, eat the bread.
It is perfect.
Later, while Hannah shows us how to make bread, Amelia amuses herself by scattering flour everywhere. She even tosses some at me and throws a handful into my hair.
“Amelia, stop!”
“Why?”
She throws some into the air. “Snow, Eugenie!”
The vision of the rioting mob comes again. “You are . . . wasting it.”
“Yes—and?”
The flour is silken in my hands. I was enjoying mounding it, kneading it, and told Amelia so. Is this her retaliation?
Flour is everywhere on the floorboards. “I am sorry, Hannah,” I say. Kneeling, she is gathering it into a bowl and saying something in French, something about the animals.
“You apologize to a peasant, Eugenie?”
“I”—my voice quakes—“Oui.”
“How . . . interesting.”
Leaving, Amelia sweeps one hand casually over the table, scattering yet more flour. She allows the maison’s door to shut with a great thud and clatter.
“Pardonnez-moi,” Hannah says.
“Moi, aussi.” The words just there, between us. They seem a gift we give to each other.
Exhausted, I rest while Hannah finishes shaping the dough into loaves. How long it all takes. Then while the loaves rise in a small oven built into the hearth, she begins yet another task—spinning wool into thread.
Watching her, I imagine Papa asking, What do you think is better? Knowing how to make bread or how to play piquet?
The fragrance, now, from Hannah’s oven settles the matter.
And yet an idea comes, a wild thought I impulsively voice. “Hannah, would you like to learn to play the harpsichord?” I mime playing a keyboard.
When she fully understands my question, joy brightens her face, but then she shakes her head. “It will not be permitted, mademoiselle.”
To my shame, I am relieved. “Ah, well, then.” But when she gives me a basket holding three warm loaves, I say something that surprises me as much as it does her.
“Ask your father, Hannah, please.”
Returning to our maison, I worry that I in fact have become eccentric and that the Queen herself will censure me. Seeing Monsieur Deschamps at work on the Queen’s garden, I call good afternoon, more to divert myself. After bowing he asks if I wish to observe how well the lilacs prosper.
Monsieur Deschamps may certainly be described as an eccentric. Upon fleeing France, he brought a barrel containing roots and bulbs and seeds but little else. So now, he must wear the same poor frock coat day after day. Yet his transplanted lilacs are beautifully budding out in chartreuse points that resemble tiny crowns. This makes monsieur all but dance. The canes of his roses, however, have not fared so well. Many appear black and lifeless.
“I shall cut them back but not uproot. Non. They may simply need more time to adapt to their new home.”
“Monsieur, tell me. Is some of that soil there French soil?”
“Ah, it is! I wanted them to feel at home here.”
I kneel and
touch the soil of France mingling with American earth, and of course tears come.
“Do not be sad, mademoiselle. All will be well. The Queen will come, and there will be fleur-de-lis and lilacs and roses and herbs for her. You will see!”
“And wonderful pain, monsieur. Hannah Kimbrell performs miracles with flour just as you perform miracles here.”
“Monsieur Kimbrell does the same with wood. A pity they will not be paid a sou for all their work.”
“What do you mean? I thought that my father—”
“Pardon me, mademoiselle, but if you do not know.”
“Tell me, monsieur!”
“Well. I have heard that the family must give up its wages because the father and the son have not been bowing to the nobles. It is a matter of etiquette, not ability.”
“Of course.”
The gardener gravely nods. And, as I seem to be controlled by impulses today, I impulsively take one of the loaves from my basket and offer it to him. “Pour vous, monsieur! From Hannah Kimbrell.”
“Maman, Maman, do you know what I have just heard today, from Monsieur Deschamp?”
“Eugenie, wait. I have something to tell you.”
Her expression is so joyful, it can only mean one thing. “The Queen, Maman? She is coming soon?”
“Non. Not that, forgive me. It is . . . You shall have a sister or a brother in September. I wished to be certain before saying anything.”
“How wonderful! I hope for a sister! Ah, what a day this has been, and now we shall celebrate with this wondrous bread your daughter has helped make.”
Maman’s brightness fades. I deploy an army of words at this sadness. “Should we need bread, Maman, I know how to make it! Is that not all to the good? It is much work but not impossible. We can do it together. The flour, it is so soft!”
“Eugenie, calm yourself. Mon Dieu.”
“But you see, Maman, we need not starve. All we need is flour, water, yeast, a bit of salt, an oven, and—voilá! Papa was right. It is good to feel that one can . . . do something that matters.”
Waiting for the Queen Page 13