An Ignorance of Means

by Jennifer Oakley Denslow

  "My father had sons to take over his land, and they did. And Gilbert had brothers, older than him, to take over his father's as well. There was nothing there for him, and we heard about all this rich dirt for the taking here, at the mouth of a river and the edge of the sea, and we decided to come here to make a new life just for ourselves."

  "Was it hard to leave your families?"

  Emmalyn nodded.

  "And yet you came anyway."

  "Yes."

  "I think your story is not uncommon. What makes it yours?"

  "Our story is the same as so many others. It is a dishcloth of a life, not an embroidered altar cloth. Gilbert and I came this far so we would have a place of our own, a place where it would be warm all year. And here we are."

  Catherine heard the finality in Emmalyn's voice and didn't prod her for any more. A plain, rough life here in Louisiana was different from their life back home, not because it demanded their sweat, but because it was theirs alone. With no extended family to help, the farm would stay small, a two-person enterprise. She thought of how her father had given up the sea to make a living as a small merchant and how the little world he had made for her mother was one in which she had sometimes felt like an intruder. On the Plessiers' farm, she felt that same shadow at times. Perhaps Emmalyn would share no more because she felt as if she had shared enough already.

  The pounding of horses' hooves made both the women raise themselves up from their work to look toward the road that ran on the other side of the house from the garden.

  "I recognize Gilbert's approach, but who could that be with him?" Emmalyn shouldered the hoe, and both of the women moved to the front yard. There, on the back of the big, black horse he had ridden to the tiny crossroads that the locals considered a town, was Gilbert. Behind him, the saddlebags bulged with his purchases. On the horse next to him, a chestnut with a suspicious tilt to her head, as if she were not quite sure about the stranger astride her, was a figure a bit stockier than the sinewy Gilbert. No age was apparent as his face was shaded by a hat with a generous brim. His hands seemed pale, and his clothes were the simple clothes a traveler might choose if he did not know exactly what kind of route or weather he might encounter.

  "My ladies, I have found someone you will be happy to see," Gilbert called to them as they met the horsemen. Peering at the stranger astride the chestnut, Catherine felt an odd clutch of recognition that she swallowed down in disbelief.

  Finally, after what seemed to be a silence as long as the great river they could hear through the brush on the other side of the yard, the stranger spoke.

  "My Liebling, you do not recognize your father? I have come half a world to find you."

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  "Poppa? How did you ever find me?"

  Catherine's eyes would not leave her father's face. Now that he had doffed the hat that had served as a disguise when he arrived, his blue eyes and ruddy complexion were completely familiar. He held her hands between his, his smooth merchant's fingers stroking her work-roughened digits. Tears pooled but did not fall, so the travel dust on his face remained intact even if his wiry gray curls rioted once they were released from his hat.

  "I can only thank God you are here, that I have finally found you. I had given up hope when I heard the ship sank off the coast and none had survived. But here you are, whole, and healthy!"

  "Gilbert and Emmalyn have made me one of their family, Poppa. I cannot tell you how grateful we must be to them for saving me. If only Maman were here!"

  "Yes, I wish Mathilde could be with us. Losing her so soon after you had gone to your marriage was difficult," Gerhard coughed. As tender as he had been to his wife and daughter, she could tell he was close to losing his composure in front of the two people he thought of as strangers. "She went peacefully, Liebling. She went to sleep saying she knew she would see you soon, and she never woke."

  "Yes, she did see me! I met her in my dreams so many times while I was at Lac d'Or and later at Charenton. But there came a time when she didn't come to me anymore. I knew then she had moved on to something far greater."

  "I am glad you are at peace about her journey. I wish I was as calm about what you have been through. How could I have let you go off with Picard! That scoundrel was not what he seemed." Gerhard stood, his fists tightening in furor at the thought of the man who had married his daughter and then used her so badly.

  "It is done, Poppa."

  "He is done. I had it in for him myself, but once I left Lac d'Or when I found you were no longer there, I heard he met with a bad end. He had turned his attentions to the wrong woman, and when her husband challenged him to a duel, he met the fate he deserved. He will torment you no longer."

  "He tormented me no longer once he deposited me at Charenton. I have learned that baggage is not always made of material stuff, and carrying too much of it weighs one down. If I still harbored any resentment toward him, I would not be able to move, I would be so weighted down with bitterness."

  "You speak wisely for one so young," Gerhard told his daughter.

  "Monsieur Drummond, your daughter is of sterling character, and her education, both moral and academic, has been above reproach." Emmalyn stood with her husband opposite Gerhard.

  "Merci. Her mother was in charge of the moral instruction, and I gave her lessons in the matters more corporeal. I thank you for your hospitality while she's been here."

  "We love her, Monsieur. She has been like a daughter for us." Emmalyn's voice broke a little on the word "daughter."

  "We have to move on, madame." Gerhard turned to Gilbert and addressed him. "While you have been more generous than anyone might expect, we can no longer intrude on your kindness. My daughter and I will repair to la Nouvelle Orléans and make our plans from there."

  "It is too late in the day to start back. While it is full light now, even with the late sunset, you will find yourself in less than healthy surroundings if you work your way back now. Please enjoy our table and rest here tonight. An early start tomorrow will get you back to town if you insist on leaving us," Emmalyn said. "I insist. Besides, we have not heard how you found your way here to us, and all of us, not just Catherine, want to know."

  "Family, Poppa. Emmalyn and Gilbert are my family now." Catherine hoped her words would make it easier for her father to share what he was feeling.

  Seeing the truth of her statement on her face, Gerhard nodded and said, "Yes, we will join you."

  At his words, Emmalyn moved to the stove where a pan of bread was covered with a linen cloth and a pot of rice stayed warm under its thick iron lid. In another pot, a mass of red beans in their thick sauce simmered. Catherine collected the plates and utensils as Emmalyn filled the board with the simple food she'd prepared as the men settled at the table. Finally, the older woman sat down with the others to spoon out the rice, beans, and bread onto the primitive plates.

  "I still don't understand how you found me, Poppa," Catherine reminded him.

  "It has been a long journey, one I hope I will never have to repeat. You must stay close to me, daughter. I am getting too old to travel so far to find you again."

  "I will not be very far."

  "When we did not hear from you for so long, we began to worry. Your mother more than I, I am sorry to report. I tried to calm her and tell her that your new marriage needed time to fully develop and we should not be concerned." Gerhard did not evidence any semblance of interest in the food before him as he began his story. The food sat on his plate, slowly cooling as he talked. "I'm ashamed that I did not act sooner. Your mother told me you were struggling, but I discounted her concerns. I thought she was losing some of her faculties, imagining conversations with you she could never have had."

  "How could you know, Poppa? I venture you will not discount the bond between parent and child again, though, after you found the truth in Maman's stories."

  "There are strange things in our world, my dear, and as an old sailor who has seen some of the strangest, I should h
ave been more open to what she said. It might have meant the two of you could have been reunited for a time before we lost her."

  "No, Poppa, don't travel backwards. We will all meet again, even Maman. For now, tell me how you made your way here."

  "I was so angry when your mother died. I was angry with her for leaving me alone, and angry with you for abandoning us. It makes no sense, neither of those grievances are truth, but one day soon after the funeral, I left for Lac d'Or on my fastest horse determined to find you and tell you of your mother's death and berate you for being such a bad daughter. We'd had no letters from you, not one response in all the time you'd been away, and I was convinced the lavish world Picard had introduced you to had clouded your judgment and made you discard our love."

  "How could you have imagined that of Catherine? She is the dearest soul—" Emmalyn tried to defend her, but Catherine interrupted.

  "Please. This is no time for recriminations. My father's heart was twice broken, losing both me and my maman. He was not really responsible for his anger. What did you find at Lac d'Or? I must not have been gone very long when you arrived."

  "I found your husband—" Gerhard corrected himself. "I found that man, Picard, had installed another woman in your place. You can imagine I was surprised! When I asked after you, he was none too gentle in telling me where you were and laughed at my disgust."

  Catherine tried to imagine Picard's insouciant account of her whereabouts. Had he said, "Your daughter is a hopeless lunatic, and I have sent her to Charenton where they can deal with her"? Had he told her father of her subterfuge? "She lied to me about being ready to present me with an heir, and I have banished her." Or had he refused to offer her father anything at all about his daughter's whereabouts?

  "I won't repeat what he said, I know now it was all lies, and I couldn't really believe anything he told me at the time, but I knew I had to set course for Charenton, and so I did. I wanted to break him, but I wanted to find you more, so I left him unharmed and hurried to the asylum where I thought I would find you, but I was still a step behind."

  "The men had already taken us?"

  "Yes, but only a day or so before. I made inquiries at the docks and found Captain de Canvillier."

  "I remember that name! He and his men collected us from the asylum and delivered us to the ship." Catherine shook her head at the memory of calling to the man as the women were loaded onto the ship. "I knew him. He was a friend of Robert's."

  "Yes, and he remembered you," Gerhard said. "Once he realized you were no hoyden but a respectable daughter of a merchant, he was entirely apologetic."

  "But our ship had already sailed."

  "I was able to find a boat headed in the same direction and follow. On the open sea you can trail another vessel for days and never catch sight of it. I suspect we were on almost exactly the same route, but weather and other realities of the sea kept us apart."

  "We were so close, maybe closer than we'd been when I was still at Lac d'Or and you and Maman were home, but we didn't know," Catherine said in wonder.

  "When we finally made landfall at la Nouvelle Orléans, I searched the town for you, asking after the man I knew had taken you and the others, asking after the ship and its captain, looking in every place I thought you might be. The nuns at the Ursuline convent did not know of you and hadn't had any women come to them for weeks."

  "The convent has been very kind to the women who have been brought here in the proper way," Emmalyn commented. Gilbert nodded, but squinted at her to keep quiet so he could hear the rest of Gerhard's search.

  "I heard that a ship had gone down, and knew that it had to be the one you were on. No one seemed to know if there were any survivors. Finally, two of the men from the ship showed up in town, and I learned what had happened from them."

  "But that was months ago! How is it we are only now reunited, Poppa?"

  "My own inability to make a decision. The men from the ship didn't think there was anyone else. I knew though, I knew that you were safe somewhere. Not knowing where that might be, I couldn't strike out and look for you. Instead of giving up and returning home, I stayed and tried to come up with a way to find you, or find news of you."

  "I think the men deceived you. We had word early on that they believed some of the women had survived. Our isolation here has kept Catherine safe from them." Gilbert offered.

  "I think that is true, mon ami. I would see them occasionally in town, but they would sometimes disappear from their usual haunts and then return, more flush with money than before. I came to believe they were trading something. Perhaps they did find other survivors and had met up with their original customers." Gerhard saw Catherine's stricken face and apologized. "You did not need to hear that. You are safe, my dear. Don't doubt for a moment that you are safe now."

  "I know, Poppa. I am only concerned about Genevieve. What if she did survive and is now married off to some crass but flush farmer who had the money to buy her? What must she be going through?"

  "We cannot answer that. Let your father tell us how he came to be sitting here with us." Emmalyn patted Catherine's hand.

  "Gilbert knows the rest of the story."

  The settler nodded, but did not offer to continue the tale.

  "I spent a lot of time at the docks, trying to find information. Yesterday, I found myself there, and again, I found those two sailors. They were tired of my questions and tried to rout me," Gerhard's said, his face flushing. "As a young man, I could have taken them both and walked away. Age may temper steel, but it softens an old man."

  Gilbert shrugged in a familiar Gallic gesture familiar to Catherine. She took it to mean he agreed with her father.

  Gerhard continued, "Gilbert intervened."

  Raising his eyebrows and tilting his head toward the older man, Gilbert again contributed to the story silently.

  "Several men intervened. On both sides. Gilbert helped me escape the melee. He dislikes a contretemps as much as he dislikes conversation."

  "Are you injured, my love?" Emmalyn asked, turning to her husband.

  "I'm fine. Almost the end of the story." Gilbert deflected her concern.

  "When I told him how I came to be there and who I was searching for, he insisted we make our way here. Please forgive your Poppa for not finding you sooner. If I had listened to your mother with an open heart, you might well have come home to us before Picard had the chance to consign you to Charenton, and none of this would have happened."

  "It is well with me," Catherine mused after a moment of silence. "I am no great lady as I might have been at Lac d'Or. I am not the pitiful wretch I might have become at Charenton. I have found a new part of our family, two people we never would have known if we had remained on the other side of the world, and a bit of my heart will stay here with them when we leave tomorrow. Here, today, with you and Maman's spirit in attendance, I can say that I am happier than I ever thought I might be."

  Acknowledgements

  My parents were both great storytellers, and I thank them for their example. While they never wrote their stories down, listening to them over the years and absorbing their love of books led me to where I am now, a reader and a writer.

  I have found that writing a book is a far from solitary pursuit if one wants anyone to read the final product. Many people helped me along the way from the preliminary draft of this book, cranked out during the hot rush of National Novel Writing Month 2009, to the novel that you now hold in your hands.

  First, thank you to Cate Hogan, the editor who led me through the revisions that helped Catherine become a stronger woman and made the story more compelling.

  Next, thanks to the Ada, Collinsville, Claremore, Owasso, Hardesty, Central, and Martin Public Libraries for their welcoming vibes and providing a place for writers to write among their shelves of inspiration.

  I also have to thank Terri Kruse, my friend and fellow reader, for plowing through an early draft of this novel. She proved to be both a great cheerleader and a wonder
ful editor and I can’t express how much I appreciate her feedback and friendship.

  And most importantly, thank you to my husband, Keith, who has always believed I am a writer. Our adventures together give me great ideas and his support helps me follow through.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Like so many writers, Jennifer Oakley Denslow began her journey as a passionate reader. Compelled to tell the stories she wanted to read, as a pre-teen she penned a series of tales for her middle school creative writing class. In high school, she went to school an hour early every day to work with other young writers to create an anthology showcasing their work.

  And that was just the start.

  Florid poems in the local paper, impassioned letters to the editor, and later a BA in English followed by a Master’s degree in Composition and Rhetoric, firmly sealed her fate as a writer. Her love of complex characters led to a twenty-six-year career as a theater educator and a series of award-winning essays. But it wasn’t until Denslow learned about the fille de cassette, or ‘casket girls’ sent to wed men in French colonies, that she was compelled to write a novel about the plight of women in historical times, and An Ignorance of Means was born.

  Denslow is drawn to strong female protagonists with sharp intellects, and stories that delve into experiences far beyond the scope of our daily lives. When she isn’t using every spare second to pen her latest novel, she can be found coaching her debate team and working with young actors to create the emotional experiences for which theater was created.