An Ignorance of Means

by Jennifer Oakley Denslow

  "Do you think that's appropriate?"

  "I know you are thinking you should not appear, but it is still early. No one need know our happy secret. The dinner is only about a week away."

  "Hardly time for a dressmaker to construct something suitable."

  "I've already let him know what I expect. You need a dress that will be more than remarkable. You need a dress that no one who attends the dinner will ever forget."

  "Something too elaborate would be in bad taste. People would comment."

  "Damn it all, what woman is so recalcitrant when her husband offers her a new frock? The dressmaker is on his way. You will entertain him tomorrow. I've generously rewarded him for his agreement that you'll be his only client for the next week."

  Catherine opened her mouth to speak, but Robert turned and left. His insistence on her accepting the dress was as surprising as the news that the dinner was still going to be held. She went to sleep that night unable to resist imagining what fine fabrics and beautiful shapes the dressmaker might bring. After a dreamless night—her mother didn't wish to weigh in on her fashion dilemma perhaps—she woke to a gentle command from Heloise.

  "The dressmaker is here, madame, and you must welcome him." She scurried around the room, readying her charge's wardrobe for the day. "I will help you bathe and dress, and then escort you to the drawing room."

  "The drawing room? Is this a social call?"

  "He demanded a room commensurate with his talents," Heloise chuckled, "and Monsieur Picard turned everyone out of the drawing room to make way for all the accoutrements of his trade."

  Catherine felt like a thoroughbred being prepared for a race with the careful attention Heloise gave to her toilette. She ended up freshly bathed with her hair piled on top of her head like a meringue. The simple muslin dress she wore seemed to be one she could slip in and out of for any fittings. Heloise dabbed color onto her cheeks and lips and led her down the stairs to the drawing room where the dressmaker awaited her. She tried to negotiate the stairs herself, but Heloise seemed determined to stay with her and support her all the way.

  Standing in the wide arch of a doorway that provided entrance to the room, Catherine saw what changes the dressmaker's team had made. Clean white linen drapes tacked up at the molding around the ceiling hid the elaborately decorated walls. At one end of the long rectangular room, a wooden table held bolts of fabric in shades of bronze and brown. More linen covered the tabletop, tiny tacks anchoring the material to the edges. At the other end of the room a platform about 4 by 6 feet stood, draped with more of the ubiquitous material. Dark gray serge that fell from about a foot below the top of the frame to the ground covered the windows. The effect made it impossible to see in the room but still allowed sunlight to pour in. On this clear fall day, there was plenty of light. It illuminated a dress form, remarkably close to her measurements, standing in the center of the room and the small figure of a man that stood, feet apart and braced, arms across his chest, beside it.

  "Madame Picard," he said as he bowed at her entrance, "I am honored to be called into service to dress you for this auspicious event." While he wore a suit of clothes suitable for the most fashionable man, his accent had an odd twangy quality. The words were French, but instead of the common mellifluous gargle she was so familiar with, he spoke with a strangled affect and oddly rounded vowels.

  She curtsied in return, Heloise hovering to catch her if she fell. Although she did not believe she was, in reality, pregnant, the days in bed had left her a little weak and unused to being vertical.

  "I am Harcourt Dauterive. I have a vision for you, madame. I see you as the jewel in the setting that is Lac d'Or. As that jewel, you must shine, shine, shine!" Dauterive clapped his hands with enthusiasm. The lacy jabot at his neck bounced with each reverberation of his palms, and the lace at his wrists bounced along. Catherine smothered a giggle. He was almost a little elf of a man, something out of a fairy tale.

  "I am honored to be your canvas."

  "You have won me! I am your eternal supplicant! My canvas, that is exactly what you will be." Monsieur Dauterive grasped her hand and almost pulled her toward the worktable. "Please let me show you some fabrics."

  Each of the fabrics piled on the table had a unique sheen. The coppery blaze of one made the material look like it was on fire. The smooth, silky russet color of another bolt was shadowed like the dark water of a forest creek. The gold was a tarnished gold, the shine dulled with time. Every fabric would highlight Catherine's coloring, the dark honey of her blond hair and the odd green of her eyes. She gasped at the display.

  Monsieur Dauterive cut his eyes sideways and pursed his lips. "Do you have a favorite?"

  "How could one choose? All of them are lovely." She reached for them, running first one and then another between her fingers, some of them stiffened and tented as she ran her fingers along their grain. Others draped like the tired leaves of day old flowers.

  "I dressed your mother-in-law once. Her palette was much brighter."

  "How did you manage to find such perfect textiles? They look as if they were woven especially for me."

  "Your husband did a beautiful job of describing you. His letters were quite poetic when he tried to catalog your attributes. He got it all right, I think. Now I am here in person and see that I have chosen well. I always do." His arrogance was as inoffensive as the sweet mewings of a kitten, they were so much a part of him and so true. Catherine didn't realize that the man who was going to wrap her in the gorgeous fabrics spread before her had built dresses for royalty, both in France and abroad, and that his talents were much sought after. Neither did she know how much her husband had spent to entice Monsieur Dauterive to their chateau.

  "How may I help you?" Catherine asked as if she were his servant instead of his client.

  "I see you understand what we are doing here," he said, enigmatically nodding his head. "Allow me to get a few measurements and make a few notations, and that is all I will need for the day. Jacques will only be a moment." He snapped the fingers on his right hand, and a man, hitherto unnoticed, stepped forward from a dark corner of the room with a tape measure in one hand and a notebook and pen in the other. Monsieur Dauterive had trained him well, it appeared, because it took only a nod of his head toward Catherine for the man to begin measuring her and noting down what he found.

  "Has someone offered you any refreshments?"

  "Your kitchen girl brought me tea this morning. Marie. Very lovely blond. Not as lovely as you, of course, madame."

  "She is lovely, isn't she," Catherine answered, trying to keep her balance as the assistant swarmed over her with his tape measure. She felt like a mountain under attack from a determined mountaineer.

  "I have very few muses, but she might be one. Will she be at service for the dinner?" He addressed the question to Heloise.

  "No sir, I'm sure she will not. She is only a kitchen girl, as you noted."

  "Pity. Light under a bushel and all that." He tapped his chin thoughtfully, then turned and snapped at his assistant, "I am sure we have inconvenienced Madame Picard quite enough for the day."

  "Is there anything else, Monsieur Dauterive?"

  "No, that is all I require for now," he said, bowing over her hand. Turning back to his worktable and the fabrics there, his sudden attention to the inanimate objects dismissed the two women.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Heloise held Catherine's elbow as they climbed the stairs. Catherine wanted to shake off the overbearing attentions, but she knew she had to submit to keep up the charade she'd unintentionally begun. She was thankful that the dress Heloise had chosen for her was light. Even in the cool of the fall day she felt slightly warm. A flush must have betrayed her, as Heloise leaned close in scrutiny.

  "You look overheated. Was the trip downstairs too much for you?" the nurse asked, her eyebrows knit together.

  "No, I feel wonderful. A little hungry, I think." She wasn't, really, but perhaps the chance to minister to her by pr
oviding a light meal would distract Heloise and give Catherine the room to think. Her only tool to find a way out of her predicament was her brain.

  She suddenly thought of her father, who had always said, "Our Holy Bible says to lay up riches in heaven, but I believe you should pile up treasures in your mind. The booty you accumulate there no man can plunder." The piratical language he affected was left over from his days on the high seas.

  The couch in her boudoir was inviting, with its heavy silk cushions. Once they entered the room, Heloise helped loosen her dress and arranged the pillows to Catherine's satisfaction.

  "Thank you. Do you think Chef might have something cool to offer for our déjeuner?"

  "I'll go investigate. You rest here, and I'll be back soon."

  Catherine watched Heloise's retreating back with a sigh of relief. She longed for a piece of paper and a quill to organize her thoughts, but she knew that stirring from the room would attract attention, and attention was the last thing she wanted.

  Alert, but having difficulty focusing, she closed her eyes. Almost immediately, an image of her mother appeared before her, so real that she could reach out and touch the rough wool of the shawl around her stooped shoulders.

  "Maman," she said aloud. The sound of her voice sounded too loud in the small room. Talking to her mother in her dreams was safe, if a little strange. Talking to her while she was awake was dangerous. Conversing with people who didn't exist might be taken as madness. Shaking her head, she broke her own heart a little in dismissing her mother that way, but she had to concentrate.

  The lie meant she was safe in the short term, but it didn't solve her long-term problem. She had to escape the life she had here with Robert, not just for her physical safety, but for her peace of mind as well. As she continued to convince those around her that she was expecting a child, she must also find a way to make contact with her family back in Nantes. Weighing the choices before her, Catherine decided that waiting to be rescued increased the danger facing her and she had to find a way to leave.

  Her isolation from Marie made the problem before her knottier. Since she knew Marie had suffered a beating at Malcolm's hands in an effort to keep Robert from discovering Catherine's foray into his study, she also knew Marie was someone she could trust implicitly. Making contact would be difficult, though, as it was obvious that Robert had made arrangements to keep the girl far away from Catherine. As she contemplated a way to make contact with Marie again, Heloise reappeared.

  "Chef was quite put out. He was just ready to begin the midday meal for Robert and his guests and didn't want to stop to put something together for you. I had to speak to him quite strongly, quite strongly indeed," she said as she placed a tray covered with an assortment of delectable looking tidbits in Catherine's lap. "He arranged a little fruit for you. Some lovely grapes he begged from the vineyard, and a baked apple he was hiding for his own repast, I think. The cheese is, I think, a little overripe." Heloise wrinkled her nose at the audacity of the chef in offering something less than perfect for Catherine's enjoyment.

  "This looks beautiful," Catherine said. The food was arranged in tasty looking mounds on thin white china rimmed in platinum. In the upper corner of the linen covered tray, a small cup of café au lait steamed. An honest hunger made her mouth water as she suffered Heloise's attention in placing a large napkin across her bodice. She leaned forward, taking the heavy silver fork in her hand and spearing a cold, dewy grape. The smooth orb popped juicily in her mouth, the juices flooding her palate with a winy sweetness. "Delicious."

  Heloise beamed, folding her hands across her stomach. "A good appetite is a good omen. You don't seem to be ill in the mornings, I notice. Also a good sign. I understand that you are worried because your mother encountered difficulties."

  "Yes, I was to have a younger brother, but she miscarried very late. She was never the same. I remember a vibrant, gregarious mother from my early years and a much gentler, quieter one as I got older."

  "Well, age subdues us all." Heloise dismissed Catherine's melancholy comment with a hand that brushed the thought away as though she were brushing away a fly. "You must not worry. It will stir up ill humors and do the child no good. He hasn't quickened yet, but we must be alert to his safety."

  Catherine's mouth twisted a little at the careful pronoun the nurse employed. A boy must certainly be hoped for, she thought. Careful to keep any hint of her annoyance from her voice, she replied in the negative.

  "Soon you'll feel the movement, and it will bring tears of joy, I warrant," Heloise enthused. "There is no more wonderful feeling as the first confirmation of a new life."

  Catherine paid intense attention to the food and let Heloise prattle on. The cheese made its own butter and proved a savory companion to the small toasts Chef had included on the tray. Once the bread was reduced to brittle crumbs that she could only pick up by a tongue-moistened thumb, she cleared them and moved on to the apple. The fruit's wrinkled skin shone with the caramelized sugar, and the center overflowed with raisins and nuts. Soon, the apple had gone the way of the grapes, cheese, and bread.

  "I wonder if Marie is well enough to come see me. I have some business with her I must attend to," Catherine said as Heloise cleared the tray and removed the napkin.

  Heloise moved into the salle de bain to fetch a warm washcloth. Affecting a disinterested tone, she said, "I had not heard that she was unwell. I think her duties have taken her to other parts of the house. She may not have time."

  Her lie had slipped. Heloise's excuse for attending to Catherine was that Marie was unwell.

  "If she passes this way, perhaps I can speak to her." Catherine had to negotiate this path carefully. If Heloise suspected that Catherine had any but the most innocent motives to see Marie, she would never facilitate a meeting.

  Returning with the washcloth, Heloise took Catherine's face in her hand as though she was a recalcitrant toddler, wiping vigorously to remove the last traces of the apple's sugary remains. Catherine endured without complaint, hoping to convince the woman it mattered little to her if Marie appeared or not.

  "There," Heloise punctuated her ablutions with a last firm swish of the cloth, "bright as a silver kettle. You must rest a bit. I believe Monsieur Picard wishes to have a word with you this afternoon."

  "Yes, a little sleep sounds wonderful." Catherine allowed Heloise to draw the couch's thin coverlet over her as she pressed the pillows down and laid her head there.

  Before Heloise had closed the door, Catherine was asleep, the frugal but succulent meal weighing her down like ballast on a tipsy ship. Soon, she found herself in a dream library. This time, it was not her mother she encountered, but her Poppa.

  "Liebling, give your Poppa an embrace," he said to her, rising from the table littered with books of all descriptions, some open and face-down, some held open with quills, some only stacked to one side as if they had been considered and then rejected.

  Wrapping her arms around him, she could smell the sharp smell of tobacco mixed with the more intense smoky scent of the stove he kept stoked with hardwood. The library was his library, from the small mullioned windows, one on each of the two outside walls, to the shelves stuffed with books ill-organized but obviously well loved. The room was her favorite refuge as a child. She had spent long hours there, first with her father's finger moving along lines of print, his voice enunciating each syllable as her eyes eagerly followed, and then later, curled up in the fan-backed chair at one end of the table, tilting a book toward the window for the best light.

  "I am so glad to see you! I have something to confess to you, though." She kept her face buried in his shoulder, muffling her shame at the terrible truth she must share.

  "You can tell me anything with no fear." He grabbed her shoulders and held her at arm's length, looking into her eyes and speaking quietly.

  "I have made a bad marriage," Catherine said. "There is no excuse, but I have found a husband that wants me not for myself, but for his dynasty."

>   Her father's eyes flashed, but he still looked directly at her, his response quick and reassuring. "You are not at fault. Your mother and I gave our permission for this marriage, so we are the culpable ones."

  "I do not think we have time to decide who is to blame. I have to escape from this prison, but I fear I will suffer worse consequences in my efforts to throw the trap and find my way back to you and Maman."

  "I will come to you," her father said.

  His determination made her chuckle. "Those are the words I most wanted to hear, but we are in a dream. In life, I must save myself and then find you."

  "My daughter, I am only here to let you know that I tried to provide you with all the tools you would need to overcome any obstacle you encounter. You have a fine mind and great resources in there," he said, reaching out to tap her forehead. She bowed her head, blushing at his praise. "I caution you, though, be circumspect about what you share with others."

  Catherine nodded.

  The dream library shimmered, and she felt herself swimming up to reality. A light tapping intruded on her consciousness, and she opened her eyes to see Robert standing in front of her, toe tapping impatiently.

  "I hesitated to wake you," he said. "You look so peaceful. What brought that beatific smile to your face?"

  "I was dreaming of our growing family," she lied easily, rising and stretching, throwing the coverlet over the back of the couch. As she began to rise, Robert sat beside her, putting his arm around her shoulder and restraining her gently.

  "No need to get up. I only came to tell you about the plans for the party. I hope you are strong enough to think of entertaining our guests."

  Catherine nodded.

  "A scant seven days will find us welcoming them here to Lac d'Or. I am pleased to tell you I have secured a lovely soprano and a quartet of actors to amuse our visitors. The guest list has been brightened as well. One of our King's advisors will be joining us. A word from him to His Majesty, and he will know how well the fruits of Lac d'Or will serve his interests in New France." His voice deepened with pride in the preparations undertaken. "We've hired more servants for the evening, enough that each guest will have an attendant."