Legacy: A Novel

by Danielle Steel

  And as she finally led them back to the great hall, she announced almost proudly that the Marquis Tristan de Margerac had joined the forces of the resistance, after the Revolution, les Chouans, and had succeeded in keeping the château from being taken from them or invaded. She said that local history showed that he had kept his family sequestered there, despite a fire set in one part of the château by revolutionaries. But the marquis had prevailed and there were local stories that his wife had fought valiantly at his side. Tears sprang to Brigitte’s eyes as she said it. She could easily imagine Wachiwi fighting to defend her home, her family, and her man, a Sioux to the end. The guide said that the château had remained in the family until the mid-nineteenth century, when they had migrated to America. And at the turn of the century, after other owners sold it and it changed hands several times, the Department of Historic Monuments had taken it over and restored it. She said that much of what they saw there was as it had originally been, although in the time that the last generations of marquises had lived there, it had been far more grand. There had been antiques, many of which had disappeared, many servants, extensive lands, all of which had been sold off when the château changed hands. She said the stables had been filled with Thoroughbred horses, and she mentioned that Marquis Tristan de Margerac’s wife had been an exceptional horsewoman of legendary skill in the county. She made a passing comment that she was remarkable in that she was a Native American, believed to be a Sioux, and had come to France to marry him, although she didn’t know the details. She said that her name was Wachiwi, and both she and her husband were buried in the family cemetery behind the thirteenth-century chapel on the estate, where members of the family had been buried for hundreds of years. She added that no direct members of the Margerac family still existed in France. They had all emigrated to America during the nineteenth century and possibly died out.

  Marc squeezed her hand when the guide said it, and it made Brigitte want to wave her arms and shout, “Here I am! I’m one of them!” She was still looking deeply moved and vibrant and excited when the tour ended and they walked back outside. She had bought several pamphlets and postcards for her mother, and she looked around feeling a deep tie to her ancestors and their château, and most especially to Wachiwi, who was an inspiration to her now.

  She was intrigued to know that Marc had been right. Tristan de Margerac had been a Chouan, and had been able to keep the château, despite the revolutionaries’ attempts to capture it and set it on fire. He had held his ground like others in the region, and Wachiwi had helped him, with all her Sioux fierceness and courage. It must have been a frightening time.

  Hearing about it made Brigitte want to write about it, but she still didn’t know how. Fact or fiction? Historical novel? Anthropology? History? Romance? She didn’t know which avenue to pursue, or if she ever would. Maybe it was enough to just know about it, and realize that she was part of it in some way.

  She and Marc went down to the small cemetery behind the chapel, although the others didn’t. They had no interest in looking at the headstones and vaults of dead Margeracs for centuries of generations. The chapel was empty when they went inside. One side looked as though it had been damaged by fire long ago, but it was still standing. Brigitte couldn’t help wondering if it was part of the damage done by the revolutionaries or if it had happened later on.

  They wandered out into the garden behind it. There were several somber-looking mausoleums, and many headstones, some of which had been worn smooth by time and the names on them lost. Brigitte knew what she was looking for and what she hoped to find, as Marc followed her into the first two mausoleums, and then a third. All were the names of Margeracs of previous generations, and the carvings of their names were well preserved. They were mostly sixteenth and seventeenth century, and some from the mid- and early 1700s. Tristan and Jean’s parents were there. Brigitte was disappointed to find that Tristan and Wachiwi weren’t, as they walked back outside.

  There were two handsome monuments at the back of the cemetery, under a tree, with smaller headstones around them. She had lost hope of finding Tristan and Wachiwi by then, but there was something soothing about reading the names that were her forebears’, and part of the ancestry her mother had been pursuing and chronicling for years.

  Marc saw them before she did. He had walked all the way back to the rear of the cemetery to read the names on the last two monuments, and he waved excitedly to Brigitte. She climbed through some tall weeds to get there. The path that meandered through the cemetery was long since overgrown.

  He was standing there reverently with tears in his eyes as he silently held out a hand to Brigitte. Their names were clearly marked. They had both died in 1817, within less than three months of each other, twenty-eight years after the revolution, three years after Napoleon’s abdication, and two years after the battle of Waterloo. Wachiwi had died thirty-three years after she had come to France, and thirty-two years after she became the marquise. When they searched through the tall grasses, they found many of the others, her children, their spouses, and two of their children who had died in France. Still others had gone to the States. So many of the names she had seen recorded recently in ancient ledgers were there, with Tristan and Wachiwi in their midst. Their monuments sat solemnly in the peaceful garden, side by side just as they had lived. Tristan had died at sixty-seven, which had been a considerable age for those times, and it was hard to know how old Wachiwi had been. If she had been around seventeen when she left her village, and eighteen when she married Tristan in that case, then she must have been fifty when she died, and perhaps had died of grief without him, although it wasn’t unusual to die at that age. He was more unusual for having lived much longer. The dates of his birth and death were recorded on Tristan’s tombstone; on hers only the date of her death was inscribed. Probably no one had ever known her precise age—nor had she, since there was no record of her age when she left her tribe, and later fled with Jean.

  It was deeply moving, standing there. There had been generations of her ancestors that had come later, but it was Wachiwi, the little Sioux girl who had stolen her heart, whose story she loved. The wild girl from the Dakota Sioux had survived being kidnapped, crossed a continent, an ocean, and come to France, found love and stayed, been presented to a king and queen at court, lived through a revolution and defended her home, and had been an important link in a long chain of generations that ultimately connected her to Brigitte, who felt a deep bond to this girl. Standing near Wachiwi’s final resting place, and her husband’s, made Brigitte feel as though she had come full circle in some way, and found her roots at last. She felt a part of this place, and these people, almost as though she knew them, and in many ways, thanks to what she had read about them, she did. She was suddenly deeply grateful to her own mother for leading her on this path, albeit reluctantly at first.

  She and Marc stood holding hands in the cemetery, and then slowly, reluctantly, they walked away, past the chapel and the château. He put an arm around her, and they walked back to where they had left his car. It was an unforgettable afternoon. And she felt sad to leave them, and the château, as they drove away.

  “Thank you for letting me come here with you,” Marc said quietly as they drove back to the little town. It had been moving for him too. The story had been so intricate until now, so mysterious, like a puzzle they had been trying to solve, and now it was laid out before them like a stained-glass window, all the pieces fit and the light was shining through it. He was proud to have been a part of it, and grateful to have shared it with her.

  “I would never have known all I do about her now, if it weren’t for you,” Brigitte said, smiling at him. The court diaries she had found had made a huge difference in her understanding of who Wachiwi was and what had happened to her.

  “I think it was destiny that brought us together,” he said with a sigh. He believed that. Stranger things had happened.

  “Maybe,” she conceded, but she hadn’t done as much for him, and w
ished she had. She liked listening to his stories about his book.

  “Perhaps it’s your destiny to stay in France too, like Wachiwi,” he said cryptically, and she laughed. He was definitely taken with her, enjoyed her company, and didn’t want her to leave. She had finished everything she had come here to do. And after they got back to Paris, she had to go home.

  “I have to look for a job,” she said practically. “In Boston.”

  “You can find one here.” He mentioned the American University of Paris again, and conveniently he had a friend there in the admissions office, whom he offered to call on her behalf.

  “And then what would I do? I have no apartment, no friends. I have a dozen years of history in Boston.” And boredom, she thought to herself, but didn’t say it.

  “You have me,” he said cautiously, but they were both aware that they hardly knew each other. Nothing had happened between them, and maybe never would. She couldn’t move to Paris for a man she liked talking to. That wasn’t enough, and they both knew it. And Brigitte wasn’t an impulsive person. She was sensible, and always had been. “I think you should write the book here, about your Sioux ancestor,” he insisted, but she wasn’t convinced. It was a wonderful story, because it mattered to her, but she wasn’t sure if it would make a book, nor if she could write it. She wasn’t a novelist or a historian, she was an anthropologist. This was different, it was full of the raw emotion she had no experience writing. “It might do you good to spend a year in Paris,” he said, still trying to convince her. “At some point in our lives, we all have to do something crazy that makes no sense but warms our heart.” And he knew that Wachiwi did.

  “I don’t like taking risks,” Brigitte said quietly, and he turned to look at her.

  “I know. I can see that. Maybe you should.” But it wasn’t his decision to make, it was hers. And hers was to go home to Boston. It felt like the right thing to do.

  They had dinner at a different fish restaurant that evening, and spent the night in the little hotel. And on Sunday morning they drove back to Paris. They chatted occasionally on the drive, and part of the way Brigitte fell asleep. Marc looked over at her with a smile. It was nice having her there next to him, dozing peacefully as he drove. He was glad he had gone to Brittany with her. And he was sad thinking that in a few days she’d be gone. He only hoped that the days since he had met her had convinced her to stay.

  Chapter 18

  Wachiwi

  1793

  The months and years after the onset of the Revolution had been frightening for all of them. Fortunately, they had been in Brittany when the first outbursts of violence had erupted in the streets of Paris. The news that came to them from those who fled was impossible to believe. Versailles invaded by armed ruffians and revolutionaries, the entire royal family arrested and imprisoned, the Palais du Louvre thronged with crowds defacing the exquisite rooms. Noble children murdered, adult royals on the guillotine, heads rolling in the streets, blood in the gutters everywhere. And many of Tristan’s friends and relatives were dead.

  They had no idea what had happened to their house in Paris for many months and finally learned that it had been pillaged and looted. Revolutionary soldiers had camped out in it, and then abandoned it again, taking much of value with them. Wachiwi was grateful that they were in Brittany with their children.

  Wachiwi was frightened at first and reminded of when she was kidnapped by the Crow. Tristan understood immediately and assured her that no one would ever take her away again.

  “I will kill them first,” he promised her with an unfamiliarly murderous look in his eyes. “I will protect you.” And she knew he would. She felt safe with him. He turned the château into a fortress, raised the drawbridge, and transformed their home into an armed camp, with other nobles staying with them. They formed a band of more than fifty resistants staying there. He taught Wachiwi to fire a musket and load a cannon, and she fought at his side on many nights. She was never afraid when she was with him.

  It was Wachiwi who saw the flames first the night the revolutionaries set fire to the north wing of the château. Her babies were inside, with Agathe and Matthieu, and the man she loved, as flaming arrows flew over their walls and set fire to the trees, which spread almost instantly to the château, fanned by a fierce wind. And then suddenly the Sioux in her rose up and took control. She took a powerful bow from one of Tristan’s archers and began firing arrows back at them and injured many men, and killed more than a few. She was a Catholic since her marriage, but had no pangs of conscience about what she was doing. She was fighting for their home, and as he watched her, Tristan was proud of her and had never loved her more. She was the only woman fighting beside the men, and she was tireless as she fired muskets, and shot arrows at their attackers.

  She was wounded once in the same shoulder that had been injured when she tried to flee from the Crow, but it was only a graze this time too. After that Tristan insisted she stay with her children, but within hours she was back in the fray, alongside him and the other men.

  It was an infamous time in France with their countrymen turning on each other and killing their own. The damage to the north wing was considerable, but in time the attacks diminished and the revolutionaries left. The other Chouans went home, the countryside was peaceful again, and Tristan put his efforts into rebuilding the château, grateful that they had lost neither their heads nor their home. He hadn’t been to Paris to observe the damage there. The house was closed, and he had no desire to leave Wachiwi, their three small boys, and his two children. He wondered if they’d ever feel safe again. And he loved her more than ever. He had discovered a fierceness in her as she fought beside him that made him realize again what an extraordinary woman she was, and how much she meant to him, more even than his country or his home. He had been fighting to protect her and their children, more than anything else. And she felt the same way about him. She lived for Tristan and their three sons and her stepchildren, and would have killed anyone who was a threat to them.

  “So, Madame la Marquise,” Tristan said as they walked in the sunlight of the gardens that were still partially burned. The stables had been damaged too, and they had lost some horses in the fire. But the revolutionaries had retreated, when they couldn’t take the château. The Chouans in it were too fierce, so they moved on to other locations that were less well defended. Tristan and Wachiwi had saved their home. He looked proud of her as he smiled and sat down on the bench where he had proposed to her, and it showed scars from the fire too. The maze had been destroyed. “It can all be rebuilt,” he said quietly, and Wachiwi knew he would. He loved his home, and hated the revolutionaries and what they did. She had never realized what a brave warrior he was until then. He was a peaceful man, but no one was going to take his home or hurt them. It reminded her of her brothers who were so far away. She still missed them, but her life was here with Tristan and her children. She felt as much French as Sioux now, although the Sioux in her had come out during their battle to defend their home.

  “How is your shoulder?” he asked gently, and she smiled back at him.

  “It’s fine. You would make a good Sioux warrior,” she said, and he laughed as he put an arm around her as they sat on the bench. “I don’t ride as well as you do.”

  “Neither did my brothers,” she teased.

  “You’d make a good archer for the king, if we still had one,” he said sadly. Everything had changed. The world was upside down. Too many people he knew were dead. He didn’t want to leave Brittany again. They were better off here, in peace, far from Paris. He feared it would be years before the country settled down. “Are you sorry you came here?” he asked her, meaning France and looking worried. It was such a terrible time.

  “Of course not,” she said softly as her eyes looked deep into his. He could see her strength and her love, and was reassured. He hated what they’d been through. “This is my life. You are my life,” she said firmly, “and our children. I was born to be with you.” She was ce
rtain of it. He was her tribe now, and the only one she needed or wanted. She was not Sioux, she was his, and had been since she got here. “I want to die with you one day,” she said solemnly, “a long time from now. When you go, I will come with you.” He looked at her as she said it, and knew she meant it, as he leaned over and kissed her. It was a gentle kiss from a gentle man who loved her with the same fierceness with which she loved him.

  “I want to live a long life with you, Wachiwi,” he said quietly, and then looked out to sea. She leaned against him, and smiled up at him peacefully. The war to save their home was over, and they had much to do, and look forward to.

  “We will,” she said softly, as they sat looking at the sea together, and then, hand in hand, they wandered back to the château they would repair in the coming months. They walked upstairs to the nursery together to see their children. Agathe and Matthieu were there playing with their younger siblings. They were still shaken by the battles they’d been through and all they’d seen. Tristan looked over their heads at Wachiwi and smiled at her happily. And she smiled back at him. There was nothing to fear as long as she was with him.

  When they left the children, they walked downstairs to their bedroom and closed the door softly. She put her arms around him, and this time he kissed her with the same passion he had felt for her since the beginning.

  She followed him to the bed where their babies had been conceived and born, and as he held her and she kissed him, he knew he was the luckiest man alive that the chief’s daughter named Wachiwi was his, and would be until the end of his days. She was the dancer of his heart and soul and dreams.