Milk Fever

by Lissa M. Cowan

  I nodded eagerly as I crouched in front of the fire, happy to see Armande back to her old self again. It was a while since the two of us had a bit of fun. Heavy feelings of worry and sadness melted away as the liquid filled me.

  “A group of gentlemen and gentlewomen were visiting us one spring from Paris and this young man, a son of one of my father’s friends, came with them.” She peered into the glass, turning it and watching as the nectar caught the sides.

  Before long, I gulped it down and asked for another.

  Passing me the bottle, she said, “You do it, Céleste. My eyes are tired.”

  I never poured liquid into such delicate glasses. Armande saw my hands shaking when she brought her glass over and placed it in front of me on the side table.

  “Go on now,” she said. “If they break, I promise I won’t be angry.” I did as she asked, yet then she started to laugh. “We don’t need to drink that much all at once.”

  Without meaning to, I had filled the glass to the very top. Bending down, I sipped a little out so I could carry it without spilling. Once again, hot mixed with sweetness filled my mouth and throat. My belly grew hot also, but it was a pleasant feeling, not like when I was angry.

  Armande laid on the dormeuse with glass in hand. Eyes partly closed, the lines in her forehead softened, and she seemed at last to be at peace.

  “I was all of fifteen at the time and I remember being at once transported by the distinguished attire of the women who to my mind resembled queens,” she said. “Purples, yellows and greens filled the drawing room like a thousand jittery butterflies; silk flowers in their perfumed hair, pearls and iridescent trimmings, ribbons decorated wrists and necks. Alongside them were the men. Dressed like kings they wore powdered perruques; their boots and breeches adorned with gold buckles and jewelled tassels.”

  When I closed my eyes, the men and women from Armande’s story appeared in my mind. They drank and carried on in the light of an evening fire in the very room where we sat. Scrubbed of any nasty odor, skin glowing with delicate and costly oils, the women shifted their skirts and eyed the men. My senses were caught up in the beauty of the spectacle Armande described for me.

  “That first evening,” Armande continued, “my father’s friend introduced me to his son as a budding painter. I wore a lace-edged gown and high-heeled shoes, purple, I believe, with silk bows. My father gave them to me for my birthday. While the young man gazed on me intently, I couldn’t help but fix my eyes upon the yellow crescent moons stitched into his stockings. The next day the party, led by my father, went out for a picnic and the two of us stayed back. The young man asked if he might make a portrait of me. I never had a portrait done before and thought what a splendid idea. Then his voice became affected, unnatural. He exclaimed that with his paintbrush he would seize the essence of me—Armande Vivant. To do that he wished to paint me clothed in shimmering silk, taffeta ribbons, embroidered bouquets of roses, lilacs and daffodils, with trailing rich shades of velvet the colour of blood, night, and sunsets.” She shook her head in disbelief, a dark curl brushing her forehead.

  “As you can imagine Céleste, this statement made me giddy with laughter—though I had the good breeding not to show it—for I knew from my father that the fellow was a novice painter and had not executed very many pictures at all in his brief career. I decided to play a little joke on him, teach the would-be painter a lesson in humility. After all, you must admit, he should get some comeuppance for his cheek.”

  The fire was blazing now, heating up my cheeks. Could I ever be as daring as she?

  “When it came time for me to sit for him, I exited from behind the paravent without a stitch on; neither gown, nor chemise nor stockings. Unadorned as God intended. My heart was beating madly as I stood there before him. I was still young and inexperienced in the ways of love, but my desire to provoke him overcame my fear. I told him that his notion of concealing my body in mountains of luxurious fabric to capture my essence was from his own imagining and had nothing whatever to do with me. The man blushed like a maiden.”

  I too blushed as if I was the one naked before a man. She showed him how smart she was. Did he not know whom he was dealing with? My thoughts danced in and out of her words.

  “What did he do?” I pleaded as I could wait no longer.

  She gave me a wide smile. Her eyes lit up even more.

  “His face turned pasty white, beads of perspiration settling in the wrinkles of his forehead. My naked self put the young man in such a frightful state that all he could do was to say a prayer. Yahweh is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Naturally, by this time I had lost all desire to be caressed and transported to the doors of Heaven by this sometime priest. Therefore, I did what any self-respecting believer would do. I recited my own prayer from the Holy Book. Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, and thy speech is comely: thy temples are like a piece of a pomegranate within thy locks. I couldn’t help myself Céleste.” She snorted and laughed a long time from her belly, which then set me laughing.

  “How can a man know God if he doesn’t even know what he desires?”

  “After that I kissed him on the lips and he leaned into me as though suddenly acquainted with his heart.”

  I pictured what came next, him touching her hips, her breasts. My face grew redder, yet hopefully she thought it was from the fire. I shifted a top log with the iron poker, which caused sparks to erupt as two pieces of wood rubbed together.

  “It turned out he wasn’t only a budding painter,” she laughed and winked at me.

  I joined her laughter, which woke up Nathalie. Her eyes opened and one hand toyed with the fur cover. What a wonderful evening it was, just the two of us drinking, telling stories and enjoying good memories. Armande had a life before sputtering, screaming babies, a life full of handsome gentlemen and pranks she played on them.

  Diary

  THE MORNING AFTER OUR DRINKING and merrymaking, I set out for some bread. Before I left, Armande handed me some coins she pulled from a pouch hanging under a shelf in the kitchen.

  “Make sure you bar the door,” I told her.

  She nodded and gave me a half-hug while holding Nathalie.

  The path was slippery and the dry, cold air stung my ears and nose. Snow buried the stones that, in springtime, made a walking path from the houses in the village to the square. I took the road instead of cutting through the sleeping gardens then crossed the street and entered a shop. Four loaves sat in a basket by the door. The man was not there sweeping or drawing bread out of the oven, just an old cat licking its paws in the corner. With two loaves in hand, I placed some coins in a bowl. There was a silver coin mixed in with the others that shone. It was new, unsoiled. The King’s head was more distinct than I had ever seen. For a few moments I held it in my hand thinking to take it, wondering who might have left it. Then I stuck it back amongst the other coins and closed the door. The sack of bread warmed my hands as I walked.

  I saw Armande standing outside our door, and I quickened my pace along the little path. She wore her winter cloak trimmed with fur and her dark curls were drawn together on top of her head. Her high cheeks, rosy and glowing, from the cold. She looked at me and then brought an arm over her head in a wave. In her other arm she held the baby. All bundled in a cap and blanket, Nathalie caught my eye and grinned.

  “Bread.” I opened my sack to show her the loaves.

  Her eyes shone brightly as she passed the baby to me, then brushing hair from my face and kissing me above my eye, as it happened, right where the woman kicked me several days before.

  “I am going to visit Margot for some medicine to help me sleep. Nathalie just nursed. If she fusses, give her some bread dipped in milk. I shall be gone only a short while, back before dark.”


  “Let me walk with you a stretch,” I said, then set the bread inside the door.

  We walked through the village, my hand clasped in hers. The other hand on the baby’s bottom, as I held her close. When we strolled through the woods I kept looking around to make sure we were alone. Then as we reached the field, I saw the silent landscape with a handful of bushes poking out of the snow and felt at peace. She had not much farther to go before she would be at Margot’s house. We said our good-byes and I headed back home.

  In the afternoon, I played with Nathalie. She held onto my fingers and watched my hands floating in front of her eyes. While she slept, I went to the place in the forest where the wood was cut. I took a barrel with me, filled it and rolled it back home. I was soaping the linens when the blessed little crier started howling. When she saw me, she stopped crying and smiled as if content for making me rush to her side.

  “What is it? I have no milk to give you.” I sat beside her and jostled the basket.

  My heart pounded and my bad leg was giving me trouble from pushing the barrel of wood. I looked outside for a glimpse of Armande. The curved lines of the mountain against the sky looked like a woman with her love. Just as Pierre and I in the snow by the chapel. I closed my eyes, taking deep breaths and then the calming image erupted with the baby crying into my ear. When I picked her up she stopped crying for a few moments as she sucked on a bit of stale bread dipped in goat’s milk I gave her. She liked it at first, yet then cried again.

  Though Armande promised she would soon be home, the dark arrived before she did. It came as I tried to make the baby take some milk from a cloth wound up tight at the end like a nipple. Nathalie sucked the cloth a while, yet then scratched my cheek with her nails and kicked my stomach. I rocked her back and forth, talking to her, as Armande would do.

  “There you go, little nut. There, there.”

  That calmed her for a bit then she cried like the Devil. How in Heaven’s name or in the name of the Devil could I make her stop? The fire went out earlier and cold wind was streaming in. I grabbed another woollen shawl from Armande’s oak cupboard. The baby was wrapped up with all but her little nose and cheeks peeking out. I searched my head to think of something to sing that would make her stop crying. Unlike Armande, I was very bad at singing sweet songs, yet walking to and fro in the drawing room with her made her cry all the more.

  She searched me with her mouth in hopes of finding milk. I tore off a chunk of fresh bread and wet it with milk again. The baby took every bit, eyes slowly closing. She pounded her fists to fight off sleep, yet lost in the end. After laying her down in her basket upstairs, I opened the front door, peering into the darkness. I thought of going to Margot’s house and a strong wind shook the door as I held onto it.

  The trip to Margot’s house was difficult at night with no moon. One had to pass through dense forest then walk along a river before crossing to the other side. Snow was high and a person could easily become stuck or worse, drown. Though my mind imagined the worst that could happen to her, I calmed myself by thinking she must have stayed the night. She was tired after all, said she had not slept in days. Perhaps she became ill and Margot advised her to stay and be treated with her special medicines.

  That evening, supper lay face down on the chopping block in the kitchen. Its reddish beak was bent as if burrowing a hole in the wood. Feathers came out of the bird’s dimply skin with no trouble. Without its plumage and with dazed eyes, it looked like a weary old woman. Slicing the feet off I made a cut at the back of the neck to remove the skin. Next, the head came off, tossed outside for the village cats to fight over. The little heart was cold and soft between my fingers, the colour, like sweet plums. Lastly, I bathed the bird, picking off the smaller feathers. When the bird was cooked I was unable to eat any of it. Instead I sat there in the part-darkness watching the fire sputter and burn. If Armande came in just then, she would be happy to feast on the cooked bird. The wind tore over the rooftop making a sucking sound inside the kitchen chimney. I tossed a log into the flames, and the wood whistled and coughed. Sap spilled out of a hole, then bubbled and burned away.

  I went back to the drawing room and prepared a big fire in case Armande returned before morning. It was good to leave the fire burning overnight in winter for the dead to warm themselves by. On her desk, I noticed the familiar red seal on the King’s envelope. I knew the words in the letter by heart. She disobeyed the highest court in the land. How long would it take his men to come for her? My palms grew wet and my head pounded as if a body was taking a hammer to it. The back of her chair was hard, yet the seat had an old cushion on it, which my bottom sunk into with ease. Table legs curled, gold leaves climbing to the top. Flowers carved from the lightwood of fruit trees decorated the surface. A woody ribbon turned like a serpent around a garden. Armande wrote all her letters in that very spot, head down, strands of hair falling over her face. From time to time, she gazed outside. If the terrace were high with snow, she would observe how light made the ground glisten, before getting back to her words. In summer, she watched flowers and rosemary bobbing about or birds flying past. I picked up some quills on her desk, watching as they fell between my fingers. The smell of ink before it dried made me think of the first time I read a book aloud. Bodies gliding on morning’s cloak of dew, lit up as iridescent insect wings they flew. She was so proud of me when I said these and other words. She pushed me to be brave and speak them even though my voice trembled, my hands damp from worry.

  The desk drawer opened easily. It was her special spot for keepsakes. A stack of letters, tightly wound with a blue ribbon, her red quill that she used only to write about important matters, and a gleaming, white broach in the shape of a crescent moon. My knees shook together, the hair on the back of my neck standing to attention, the tips of my fingers damp. When Armande came home, she would find my dirty paw marks all over her possessions. Wiping my hands vigorously on my apron, I then tried to slow my breath and peered inside once more, not touching, just looking for something of hers to comfort me.

  My eyes caught the corner of a book peeking out from under the stack of letters. Its red cover was made of the softest leather. Gently nudging the letters to the side, I picked up the object using only my thumb and index finger. Never did I see such a beautiful book. There were designs over it that I could feel with my fingers and see without using my eyes. It looked like a notebook for writing, not the sort bought from a bookseller. Yet it wasn’t the one she usually wrote in.

  Once opened, I saw her familiar hand. Letters were drawn out with spaces between them. Tall and shapely, they stood proud and pretty just like her. Each one planted on the page like flowers in a garden. At first, I turned the pages slowly, ashamed that I was reading her most private thoughts. Then I began to turn more quickly to reach the end. The dates at the top told me she wrote most of it before I knew her. When I looked through it, I saw places where she rested her hand. Letters were hard to read in these spots and there were many words I did not understand, yet heard her use before. Words like intolerable, illustrious, primping. The wind outside hummed like a monk tired from prayer. I turned to the very first page, cradling the diary and rocking it to and fro as I read.

  March 2, 1784

  For anyone who chances upon this faithful diary of mine, I have a secret. Not the foolish kind a woman tells another over English tea and profiteroles. My secret is about a little nut inside me who I can almost hear speaking my thoughts will only settle down. I am not quite myself. Grow is all I do. Swell her belly, yes, warm and watery inside her.

  My husband is gone six months now and I am with child. The young rogue doesn’t even know that he caused a seed to grow inside me, must have skipped over that lesson. Though after all, as a Man of Science he should know these things are possible. Furthermore, being at the same time a Man of Plants, he should be doubly aware that little nuts grow in human places. That is, when amorous alliances are formed, or shall
we say entwined.

  “How can I leave such bliss?” he said before going off to Paris to research plant specimens. It was a rhetorical question clearly.

  I uttered a gushy reply as though following an operatic script. “I don’t want you to go.” Of course, I didn’t want him to, but life is cruel and separates us from those we love. Robert will come back to me, yet what good is longing when my bed grows cold and I have no inkling of when his body will again warm mine?

  Perhaps I should give some background about him, as my diary writing appears to have skipped over our entire courtship. First love encounters are rarely as piquant as the imagination makes them out to be. Ours went pretty much like this. I was giving him a lesson by the river when I asked if he could read me some Petrarch—Love sends me messenger of gentle thought. Earlier attempts to seduce him with my wit proved fruitless. The Italian love poet was a deliberate choice on my part. I believed that this poetry would gradually steer us toward our first heart-led encounter—and it did. After I read the sonnet aloud, Robert said out of the blue, “I’ve never seen a woman’s body before as I had only brothers in my house and my mother died when I was very small.”

  “We women aren’t that different from men,” I said. “One of the principal elements that separate us is that we have less hair on our bodies, which is why we feel things more.” I teased him while my heart madly raced beneath my ribcage.

  “I am being honest with you, Armande, and all you can do is mock me.”

  Since he was such a serious man, I decided to treat our encounter as a lesson, as though I were his teacher, and he, my pupil. Perhaps then, he would be at ease with me and entertain the thought of us being as one. I sat very close to him, our bodies touching. I then instructed him to move his hand gently along my arm, my neck. A cool wind caressed my shoulder and my body came alive. The sun played peek-a-boo behind a tree that swayed its leaves back and forth like a lively stallion. I reached for his other hand and planted it on my shoulder. He looked at me with the impishness of a child and began to kiss my back. I turned toward him and his lips met mine, hands swimming over my body until they dove beneath my skirts at which point a sprinkling of red rose petals fell out. I place the petals amongst my skirts and stockings in my drawer to keep them smelling fresh and sweet.