“It is not too late?” I ask.
“Not if we go quickly!”
Father and John follow as Eugenie and I walk side by side under the stars, back to La Grand Maison. It is quite dark, with no moon. She was brave to come—alone!—to our cabin. Can I do any less?
My throat feels swollen, my hands are stiff with cold. How shall I move my fingers over the keys? And when I open my mouth to speak, will any sound at all come out?
But Eugenie takes my arm as we walk together toward the lighted house.
Then, somehow, I am stepping toward the instrument placed in a corner of a fancy room. I am seating myself alongside Eugenie at the keyboard. She glances at me and whispers, “Un, deux, trois.”
And then we are playing.
I try to think only of the notes. I do not even hear the music. Soon ’tis over and we are raising our hands from the keyboard. Eugenie smiles at me and whispers, “Bon, Hannah!” She pushes back her chair and stands, and so do I. My chair does not tumble backward. Both of us curtsy to the nobles.
“Mes amis,” Eugenie begins in French. “Honorable nobles of the French court, Hannah Kimbrell, who has just played so delightfully, wishes to address us tonight and begs your permission to do so. I ask you, please, to grant it and to listen closely to what she has to say. I shall translate where necessary.”
At least this is what she told me earlier, in simple French, that she would say. Now the words shake me to the bones. There are murmurs followed by an awful silence. I am not about to speak to Marie Antoinette’s nobles, am I? I fear they all can see my mouth trembling, and my jaw with it. But the thought of Estelle at the grave steadies me.
“Thank you,” I begin in French. A bit of light appears like a widening circle, and I can see Madame d’Aversille, her wrinkly face snowy with powder. Her eyebrows are raised halfway up her forehead. Her mouth tugs upward. The wrinkles follow like ripples. She is smiling!
“It is good of you . . .” But all the French words I practiced as hard as I had practiced the piece with Eugenie scatter from my mind.
“English, Hannah,” Eugenie whispers.
After drawing a breath, I go on in simple French. I tell how I came upon Estelle at the graves. How thin and weak she is, and sad. How she has lost everything in this world but her brother and her memories of her family. “You all have lost much as well, but yet you hope for a return to your old life. Estelle has no such hope. Could you find a way to free her and her brother and offer them sanctuary here? A sanctuary as you yourselves have? They did nothing to deserve their fate. And they have much to offer the settlement. Estelle is a very good cook. Abbé La Barre can get a book about the cheeses you enjoyed in France. You can have a creamery here, with Estelle and Alain in charge of it. Together, you can purchase goats and milk cows and have cheese for yourselves and to sell.”
I want to say much more but my throat swells shut. “Pardonnez-moi,” I can only whisper. “Merci.”
The room grows murky, and I want to run from it. But someone begins speaking in French I cannot understand except for the words John Kimbrell.
I fear more punishments shall be heaped upon us.
The vicomte steps forward. In his wig he looks like a judge. I lower my eyes as he nears but for Father’s sake do not curtsy again.
The vicomte takes my right hand and says in English, “Hannah Kimbrell, you are a brave girl and your idea is a good one. We regret, however, that we cannot interfere in the matter of Monsieur Rouleau’s slaves. We have decided, however, that because of your father and brother’s great efforts on our behalf, as well as their excellent workmanship, we shall restore all your family’s earnings, even as we respect your right to your beliefs. Merci, mademoiselle, for your excellent performance tonight. We had no idea that, in addition to all your other skills, you possess musical ability. And courage too!”
He bows and steps back. I hear clapping, but it seems a distance away.
I look to Father and John. John smiles a bit, then goes crimson. I look at Eugenie. She is smiling at him.
And I am seeing our farm, right there amid the nobles in the bright parlor. This joy fades, though, when I remember Estelle at the gravesite.
Eugenie takes my arm and leads me back to Father and John. To Father, she curtsies and says, “Merci, Monsieur Kimbrell, pour tout. And to you, John.”
John closes his eyes, and I fear he may topple over.
“What you have done, ladies, was most brave,” Father tells us both.
“But we failed,” I say.
“Nay. You tried. Trying is never failure. Only a beginning.”
Then someone announces that it is time for dinner, and to my astonishment—nay, shock!—Eugenie takes John’s arm and leads him into the dining room. Several nobles stare, and among them, Florentine du Vallier. A chill passes over me.
I cannot eat much but try so as not to offend. The nobles seem to have forgotten about us. They talk and laugh, and it begins to sound like our “Musette,” something large made of many small parts in the way an oak has leaves and stems and the leaves, veins, and rippled bark and limbs like separate trees, and branches filling the sky and inside the branches, sap, and under the earth, branches of roots, and everything connecting, even limbs and sky.
That is us, Hannah, I hear Mother saying. Her voice is so clear, she might be right next to me.
All of us together.
1794
Avril / April
Eugenie
Lovely warmth today but the wind—Mon Dieu! It shakes the budding trees as if to break them. Along the clearing, some small yellow flowers are blooming, pipelike things on stems with no leaves to speak of. I did not see them here yesterday. They must have sprouted and bloomed overnight, like mushrooms. I do not quite like them, despite their bright coronas. But all the same, I pick a few.
“Come, Sylvette! Monsieur Deschamps may know what these are called.” As we turn toward La Grande Maison, where the gardener is sure to be working, I hear wolves howling. This is most unusual, to hear them during the day. But at least they are across the river. “Sylvette. Stay close.”
In the lee of La Grande Maison, the air holds a fragrance.
“Bonjour, monsieur.”
“Ah, mademoiselle! Bonjour! I must show you something. Look.”
I do not know what I am looking at except that it is green and emerging from dark, heaped-up soil.
“Lilies!”
“The Queen, monsieur, will be ecstatic.”
“Do you think so?”
“But of course!”
He regards the garden a moment. “So much remains to do. But the soil here is good. I will work wonders.”
“Already you have, monsieur. But can you tell me what this little flower might be?”
He takes one and peers at it, turning it this way and that. Then he smells it. “This, I do not know. A weed of some kind, perhaps. An American wildflower.”
“Look how they already wilt. Strange things.”
“But everything has its place and reason, mademoiselle, in the garden of this world.” He hands the limp flower back to me. There is sadness in his voice.
“Indeed, monsieur,” I say to be polite. “You are most wise in addition to most skilled.”
“Merci, mademoiselle.”
Not wanting to drop the wilted flowers on Monsieur Deschamp’s orderly garden, I carry them away with me.
I wonder if monsieur was thinking of the revolutionists. In America the rebels’ purpose was to bring about a new government, a democracy. So then, in France, also? And if a democracy in France, then I . . . will be nothing.
Non! The Queen will come! There will not be a democracy for us. We shall have our monarchy.
I toss the wilted flowers to the side. “Sylvette, the river! Let us look for a flotilla.”
Passing the settlement, the river flows eastward and then loops to the west before turning southward again. One cannot see down its length for any great distance, and except for the
curling brown current, it seems more like a lake. In the shallows on the other side, a blue heron stands as still as a branch. On both sides of the river, budding trees wear shawls of fine green lace.
Today the water is all sequins, but again the river is empty. “She will come, Sylvette. Perhaps not today, though.” Sylvette and I turn from the river and walk along the eastern edge of the clearing. As we near the overland trail to Philadelphia, Sylvette begins barking.
Amid the greenery, some dark shape is approaching. I step back but Sylvette remains there, barking and growling. “Come, Sylvette.”
“Mademoiselle!” Comte de Sevigny is hurrying toward us. “This way!”
Stooping, I gather up Sylvette. Others, too, have evidently heard Sylvette: the Aversilles, each with a walking stick, and Abbé La Barre, approaching rapidly.
The beast we feared is but a horse and its rider. A post rider—the first since last autumn. Perhaps with word of the Queen!
The rider dismounts and removes his wide-brimmed hat. Then he stands with it over his chest after bowing to us, Sylvette is finally quiet.
“He is showing reverence, that is all,” I whisper. But my hands have gone cold.
“What is it?” Sevigny says in French. “Tell us!”
Abbé La Barre goes to the rider and inclines his head as if listening to the man’s confession. After a moment the abbé makes the sign of the cross and turns to us.
I am trembling so, and my eyesight seems to be dimming. Someone takes my arm, steadying me, as the abbé says, “The Queen is dead. God rest her soul. Long live our new King, Louis-Charles!”
We kneel on the earth and make the sign of the cross. In the dark chamber of me, I hear the rest of the abbé’s words. The plot to free our Queen was uncovered by her captors. The fishing vessel awaiting her off the coast of France had finally sailed without her to England and then back to America. Marie Antoinette went to her death at the guillotine with great dignity and peace and died there on October 16. Her daughter, Marie-Thérèse, has been traded to Austria in exchange for French prisoners of war. Louis-Charles, the titular King of France, remains imprisoned. Word of all this has only recently arrived in America.
We continue kneeling while the abbé leads us in prayers, after which there are cries for further details.
This I cannot bear. I stand and shake my head to clear away the darkness. In the next moment Sylvette and I are running to our maison, where Maman is just waking from her nap.
“Maman, the Queen—”
Is dead. But I cannot utter these words. I cannot accept them. Perhaps she escaped afterward, somehow, and news of that hasn’t yet reached America.
“Eugenie, what has happened?”
Papa throws open the door.
“Papa, is it true?”
“Philippe,” Maman says. “What is it?”
He sits alongside her. I go to his other side. “My dears,” he says. “I fear it is so. The Queen . . . no longer lives.”
Through the open door, I see Florentine passing. He is not walking so much as stumbling forward.
Soon we hear a shot fired, and Papa rushes to learn what it means. When he returns, he is ashen. “Sevigny,” he says. “The man has been wounded. Florentine was waving one of his pistols about, threatening to shoot himself. Sevigny tried to get it from him and was shot. A serious wound. I am going to find Hannah. She may be able to help. Eugenie, take care of your mother.”
I can only hold her, she is weeping so. An image of the dreaded Blade of Eternity comes, that terrible angled blade. And there is our Queen, kneeling beneath it. I take Maman’s hand and hold onto it. Sylvette jumps to my lap and settles herself. We sit here a long while, holding one another. Outside, the spring wind makes its rushing-water sound. Then Maman lies back, and I cover her and rub her forehead. But the pain is not just there, I know. As with me, it is deep, it is everywhere.
I kneel by Maman’s bed, my head upon her pillow, and close my eyes. The ache is a river, carrying me I know not where until I hear Hannah whispering, “Eugenie, Eugenie, the flotilla from upstream. It arrives.”
Awareness comes pouring back into me. Not the Queen’s flotilla. Our Queen is dead.
It seems some terrible knowing. A terrible power wrapping me around.
Hannah
At her canvas-covered window, I softly call Estelle’s name and then walk to a white pine at the edge of the forest. Soon, three figures approach, each in a dark cloak.
Patches of old snow give enough light, with the help of the setting moon. We can see one another well enough. “Come,” I say in French, but Estelle shakes her head. I turn to Eugenie. Did she explain everything? How we will hide them in the forest until well after the flotilla leaves, later this morning, with the Rouleau family? How John will get them to a Mr. Banin, from the settlement to the south of us, and Mr. Banin will take them east in his wagon and then arrange for other transport?
“Please,” I whisper in French. “Fear not.” Estelle and Alain are at least dressed for travel. I give Estelle the bundle I’ve prepared. “For your journey,” I say. I try to place it in her hands. Finally she holds onto it as if it were only more clothing to wash. “Come, Estelle! We must leave now.”
John and I walk toward the forest, but the others do not follow. We go back.
“Estelle fears Rouleau too much,” Eugenie whispers. “His punishments are très severe. Alain is willing but not without Estelle. All night he has tried to convince her.”
My own fear deepens. They might be well hidden by now. “Please,” I say again in French. “Come with me, Estelle.” I tug on her arm, but she pulls back. “Estelle, please. It will be far better for you both. Tell them, mademoiselle.”
“I have,” Eugenie whispers.
“There!” someone shouts. “There they are!”
A torch suddenly flares orange. I again pull at Estelle’s arm, but she drops to her knees and hides her face. Alain crouches alongside her. They look like two stones. Eugenie, John, and I step forward as Mr. Rouleau and Florentine du Vallier appear. The younger man has a coil of rope over his shoulder, and Mr. Rouleau, a drawn pistol. I dare not look toward Estelle and Alain in hope that they will not be seen, there in the shadow at the rim of torchlight.
Foolish hope.
Eugenie says something sharp that causes the young Frenchman to smile meanly. Mr. Rouleau gives him the pistol and strides over to the two dark shapes. Before John can stop him, he kicks one. Alain utters a cry and falls forward. Mr. Rouleau shoves John down as well. John will not fight back though he does try to rise. But Mr. Rouleau has the rope about him and binds his wrists, then Alain’s, and finally Estelle’s. They are all attached by the same rope. Eugenie’s words are a storm I fear will only worsen all this.
Slowly I back away.
“Halt!” Mr. Rouleau shouts in French. “You, too, must pay for this, Mademoiselle Kimbrell.” When he turns to Florentine and asks for something to bind me—the rope is all used—I pick up a stone and hurl it into the forest. It clatters against a tree.
“Halt!” Mr. Rouleau shouts again, looking in that direction. “Come here at once or I fire!”
I ease myself backward, a step at a time and soon am moving swiftly away through thick forest. But then shot strikes trees all around serving to make me run faster. Branches slap my face. I slip on stones and fallen trees.
Father is outside our cabin. “Hannah! Where hast thou been? What is this shooting?”
“Oh, Father, thou weren’t to know, but it has gone wrong.” My throat tightens shut.
“Hannah, quickly—tell me.”
I am shaking so, my teeth clatter. “The slaves . . . we tried to help . . . And John . . . he’s . . . Mr. Rouleau has them all tied.”
“Go inside and bar the door.”
Father begins running straight across the clearing. I am running again, too, following him.
Eugenie
“So you have been spying,” I cry. “Villain! Rouleau, gross; you, petit,
his shadow, his puppet. Is this how you find your entertainment? Then I am sorry for you, Florentine. You may have noble blood, but it means nothing at all. You may as well be the most ruthless of peasants. Unbind those three at once and redeem yourself.”
“Spying, mademoiselle?” Rouleau says. “We had no need of spying. We suspected from the start that you and your Americans would try something like this. As for noble blood, you yourself are the criminal here. The young man is on the side of right. You should be begging his pardon—and mine—for such insults. I shall see that you are made to pay for your villainy, mademoiselle. Aiding runaway slaves is no small offense.”
“We were urging them to do so. They, however, did not wish to leave you.”
“Ha! A fancy story! Why are they in cloaks, with food in a bundle? And a letter in English! Why are they here, outside their cabin, if they did not intend to leave? They have left already, as you can see for yourself. You were urging them? Well, that adds to the charge. You, too, must be punished, but I suppose they will not because of your so-called noble blood. Still, you shall pay. I demand my rights. I shall demand this of the vicomte.”
“And I shall tell the vicomte of your ruthlessness.”
“Of course. And he shall listen to one who disdains the law. Allow us to pass or I shall be compelled to fire my weapon again. The boats await us.”
I cannot bear to look at Estelle and Alain and John.
Rouleau leads the three toward his maison, while Florentine walks ahead with the torch. Then Monsieur Kimbrell and Hannah appear. In the near distance are Maman and Papa, Sylvette racing alongside.
“Eugenie!” Papa cries. “Why are you here? What has happened? We heard shooting.” Maman and Papa have thrown cloaks over their dressing gowns and hurry toward me.
“Monsieur Rouleau is going to whip his slaves—or worse. Summon Noailles, Papa. Sylvette, come!” I lift her up and run past Maman and Papa.
Glancing back, I see them turn to follow me.
“The vicomte, Papa!”
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