Though the stale air of the hold held no enticements for Elisabeth, the chill of the ocean breeze soon chased her below decks. There, girls huddled in various states of illness from the constant rocking of the ship. Those well enough to fight through the nausea nursed those who were not.
A lone girl, Nicole, lay on the edge of her bunk, head over the side and buried in a bucket as she heaved. Nothing remained for her queasy stomach to expel, which Elisabeth knew made the experience even worse. No one attended her, so Elisabeth climbed into the bunk to sit behind Nicole and hold her chestnut mane away from her face.
“Thank you,” the girl muttered between gagging spells.
“Don’t you worry. Just try to relax and breathe.” Elisabeth spoke in soft tones and rubbed the girl’s back. It was the only relief she could offer.
Eventually, Nicole lay back on her bed. The heaves no longer racked her body, but the girl still shivered violently. Elisabeth covered Nicole’s shaking frame with the blanket from her own bed.
Nicole nodded gratefully but did not attempt to speak.
Not knowing what else to do, Elisabeth went to the ship’s kitchens. The crew didn’t appear to appreciate passengers milling about during a squall and did not seem happy about the intrusion. Elisabeth could not walk into a kitchen without making an assessment, and the ship’s galley seemed reasonably well organized. Pierre Martin himself would have found no real fault. The quantity of wine seemed a bit excessive, but sailing was a monotonous career, after all.
“Excuse me, Monsieur Aubin,” Elisabeth said. “May I have some bread and ale for one of the women? She is very ill.”
“They always is, mademoiselle,” said the rough-hewn sailor who ran the galley. His gray beard was patchy and his teeth were black with decay. He did not look up at Elisabeth from the salted meat he chopped for that night’s stew. “It ain’t suppertime yet, so she’ll have to wait.”
“Sir, this young lady has had neither breakfast nor dinner, I can assure you,” Elisabeth said. “You can certainly spare her a portion of bread and a cup of ale to soothe her stomach.”
The man glanced up from his carving board with watery blue eyes, the parts that should have been white gone yellow from too many months at sea along with too much ale and rum.
“Fine, then.” He pointed to a pile of bread he’d baked three days before. “Take what you want, but don’t complain when we starve two weeks off the coast.”
“Thank you,” Elisabeth replied, in a tone laced with syrup.
She saw as soon as she boarded the ship a month before that it was best to pretend the sailors were gallant gentlemen, even though most were as far removed from it as a man could be. The chaperone sent to protect the young women from the sailors had proven a necessary measure, though the chaperone in question spent most of her time moaning on her bunk, even sicker than her wards.
Elisabeth returned to the bunk room and forced Nicole to eat the bread and sip the ale. Elisabeth shook her head as she parceled out the bread. Her father would have closed his doors rather than sell the crumbling mess. It looked as though the sailor used sawdust rather than proper flour—too much like the biscuits Elisabeth hid in her handbag when forced to visit the awful Madame Thibault with her mother. The memory of the spiteful old woman and her fondness for unctuous lectures—long ones—evoked an involuntary yawn Elisabeth didn’t bother to stifle.
When Nicole finished the bread and ale, she remained far from well, but her color had improved.
“Some air,” suggested Elisabeth.
Nicole nodded, though her stance wobbled when she rose from the stale mattress. Supporting Nicole by the arm, Elisabeth led the weakened girl to the main deck of the ship. Though the waves still churned, the girls found a sheltered place to sit away from the spray and biting wind.
“I don’t think I can survive another two months of this,” Nicole said, staring off into the angry black water.
“You can and you will.” Though Elisabeth spoke with conviction, she knew that passengers died regularly during voyages of this length. She wrapped her arm around the shivering girl, tucking a strand of wayward hair behind Nicole’s ear. “It won’t be easy, but we will make it to the New World.”
“I was mad to think this was a good idea.” Nicole rested her head on Elisabeth’s shoulder, weak after hours of torment. “I should have stayed home with Maman and Papa and carried on somehow.”
“Tell me about your home, and your family,” Elisabeth encouraged.
“We had a farm outside Rouen.” Nicole raised her head and looked at the horizon as if seeing the silhouette of her farmhouse against the sunset. “Papa grew wheat. It was a beautiful place. Rolling green hills, fat cows. But the crops stopped growing and Papa had to use my dowry to buy more land.”
A cloud passed over the girl’s face and Elisabeth squeezed Nicole close. “The dowry had been spoken for, hadn’t it?”
Nicole nodded. “His name was Jean. Jean Galet. He was a farmer like Papa. A good man. We would have been happy.”
“I’m very sorry. And I’m sure he is, too.” Elisabeth rubbed Nicole’s back, knowing her heart has to be broken at the boy’s callous behavior.
Nicole straightened her spine and stared forward. “He’ll manage as we all must. But there you are. Once our engagement was broken, our priest told me of the King’s need for young ladies—”
“So you decided to try your chances in New France,” Elisabeth summarized.
Nicole nodded.
A common tale among the ship-bound women: a father deceased, land gone bad, a dowry misspent, and a girl with few options. Outside of marriage, a woman had few ways to survive in the world, as Elisabeth was learning.
Elisabeth volunteered information about her father’s death. Each time she mentioned it, the words tasted like ash in her mouth.
“So your mother encouraged you to go?” Nicole asked. The cold air forced color back into her cheeks, and her eyes seemed far less glossy than before.
“Hardly.” Elisabeth laughed. “My mother arranged a marriage for me. My dear friend helped me find a way out.”
“You weren’t pleased with your mother’s choice?” Nicole’s tanned face and large brown eyes looked up at Elisabeth.
“Not at all. He was the most shiftless man in all of Paris.” Elisabeth felt like spitting to punctuate her words. She remembered the scene, only hours after her father’s funeral, when her mother announced Elisabeth’s betrothal to Denis Moraud over a cup of coffee, as though relating some piece of idle gossip. The resultant argument was unpleasant, but had doubtless entertained the neighbors. During the exchange, Elisabeth learned that her mother planned to marry Denis’s father, Jacques. Elisabeth had inherited her father’s even temper, but when she learned that her mother plotted a second marriage before her husband was even dead, Elisabeth raged. Connections, ambition, scheming: This was Anne Martin’s world.
As her thoughts returned to Nicole and the ship, Elisabeth felt glad that she had severed ties with her mother, and that world, for the rest of her days.
“But your mother eventually agreed to let you go?” Nicole asked.
“No,” Elisabeth said. “I’m twenty-five years old. I didn’t need her consent. I obtained an affidavit of good comportment from my priest, and needed no more.”
“I’m just nineteen,” Nicole said. “Papa wasn’t going to let me go. He kept changing his mind. Maman and I had to reason with him for weeks. I think he finally realized I’m better off going away. He didn’t want to see me as a maid in some great house with no life of my own.”
For a solid hour, the women recounted all the details of life in a Parisian bakery and on a Norman farm. As a city girl who rarely had the opportunity to venture outside of Paris, Elisabeth thought Nicole’s youth was idyllic and peaceful. Nicole seemed equally enraptured with her new friend’s tales of life in the capital.
At the center of the ship, a bell rang, indicating supper. The ladies were allowed the modesty of dining al
one, in the ship’s main dining room. The crew ate when the guests had finished. Of the nineteen young ladies and two chaperones, only five felt well enough to leave the bunk room and brave the burnt stew and stale bread.
I will be grateful for this meal, Elisabeth willed. For though this food may not be to my liking, there are many who have none. The words had come from her father, who repeated them to Elisabeth, time and time again, when they visited the shop of a less-skilled baker, or when, heaven forbid, Elisabeth’s mother attempted to cook a meal. That had not happened since Elisabeth turned twelve and took over the family kitchen, to the benefit of all.
“How is Vivienne?” Nicole asked a black-haired girl of about eighteen years.
Elisabeth knew the girl’s name was Rose, but they had not spoken much. Rose kept close to her young companions and nursed them faithfully through their seasickness.
“Not well,” Rose said. “I see you are better, though.”
Nicole nodded. “Thanks to Elisabeth. She’s looked after me all afternoon.”
“My thanks,” Rose said, nodding to Elisabeth. “Vivienne is quite ill. I couldn’t attend to them both. I would not be here now if Geneviève didn’t finally feel well enough to look after Vivienne for a while.”
“My pleasure.” Elisabeth smiled at Rose. Though young, Rose seemed quite capable of assuming authority. She nursed the sick with patience and recruited those who were well enough to help in various tasks that made her makeshift hospital a little less hellish. Sick buckets had to be emptied and rats chased from the mattresses. Pleasant or not, it had to be done.
As they talked, Elisabeth and Rose discovered they both came from Paris, and they luxuriated in reminiscing about their favorite spots in the city. Though they had not lived in the same neighborhoods, they knew a few of the same restaurants and theaters.
Night closed in over the Atlantic Ocean, and a merciful calm swept over the sea. The restless pitch of the waves slowed to a gentle rocking. Sleep became possible, even for the sickest among them. Elisabeth woke several times to check on Nicole, but every time the girl breathed evenly, deep in restful sleep despite the stench of the livestock and the unseasonable cold that kept Elisabeth from her rest.
A determined girl, Elisabeth mused. She may be shy and scared, but she’s made of stronger stuff than she realizes.
Several bunks over, Rose held a vigil over small Vivienne. The child claimed to be fifteen but looked no older than twelve. Elisabeth remembered Vivienne’s frightened face when Madame LeMaire, one of the chaperones, lectured them about the proper comportment of the King’s wards. The old woman, whose crisp white hair and lined face gave her the look of a head of garlic, waxed on about the virtuous women needed to found this great new territory, beloved of His Majesty. The women cared more about the realities of the voyage—three months of stale and moldy food, days trapped in a bunk room that smelled increasingly of vomit and shit as the sea flung the ship about like a toy—than founding a country. They worried more about avoiding frostbite and being scalped by the rumored savages during their first winter in Canada than preserving the honor of the Crown and the Church. Elisabeth knew poor Vivienne had felt the same, perhaps felt it even more keenly than the rest. The small girl shook in her sleep, and Rose wrapped an arm around her.
“Is she any better?” Elisabeth asked, joining Rose at Vivienne’s bedside.
“Hard to say,” Rose said. “She moans. She hasn’t eaten all day.”
“Let me see if I can coax her,” Elisabeth offered. “She must eat something.”
Elisabeth wrapped her shawl tightly around her shoulders and found the stairwell by the light of one dim candle. Though most of the crew slept, the ship maintained a skeleton watch even in the dead of night. What they kept watch over, Elisabeth knew not, and preferred not to think of it.
The galley was empty, and Elisabeth offered silent thanks that she need not banter with the crotchety cook to secure rations for Vivienne. She tore a portion of bread from the nearest loaf and tucked it away. She could not open the ale barrel, so she grabbed a mug from the pile of clean dishes and made to return belowdecks where she would seek out a few precious ounces from her personal barrel of fresh drinking water.
“Where are you going, you little thief?” a voice behind Elisabeth asked.
“Excuse me, Monsieur Aubin.” Elisabeth put on her sweetest tone as she turned to face the revolting cook. “Another of the girls is quite ill. The bread will settle her stomach.”
“Settle yours, more like.” The cook growled, his foul breath spoiling the air between them. “Fat cow that you are, you’re taking it for yourself.”
At some cost, Elisabeth restrained her tongue. She was tall, built like her father, and did not take her mother’s pains to keep her frame slender. She was used to a full day’s work and to eating rations that gave the energy she needed. Despite the years of reprimands and her mother bemoaning her daughter’s masculine frame, jibes still hurt Elisabeth more than she cared to admit.
“I assure you, sir, I find your bread no more palatable than wood shavings. It does, however, settle the stomach reasonably well. If you doubt me, come below and see the girl yourself. I suggest you bring a bucket and mop, and help with the vomit while you’re there.”
The cook grabbed Elisabeth’s arm and pinned her against the galley door frame.
“Don’t talk to me like that, you little tramp,” he hissed. “I know what all you ‘ladies’ are. You’re good ol’ Louis’s way of emptying France of whores. Why not save that lip and offer to earn that bread like a good little slut?”
He pushed his reeking body close to hers. Elisabeth felt the bite of acid in her throat. Rather than stepping away, and letting him pin her more firmly to the door, she pushed him, slamming his back against the opposite side of the door frame.
I don’t regret my “mannish size” and “unladylike figure” at the moment, Maman. Not for all your lamentations.
“Don’t you ever touch me again, you piece of filth. If I need to feed an ill woman, I’ll do it without your say-so. If you so much as speak in my presence again, I’ll fling you overboard to feed the fishes. Do I make myself plain?”
The old man released Elisabeth’s arm, or, rather, dropped it in abhorrence and left the galley. Perhaps he wasn’t used to being refused. Elisabeth wondered how many sea voyages with scarce rations had made young women desperate enough to allow his advances.
Back belowdecks, Rose sat at Vivienne’s side, worry etched on her delicate features. Elisabeth handed the bread and water to Rose and took a seat on the nearest bunk.
“Please eat, darling.” Rose broke off a corner of bread and tried to tempt Vivienne. The girl made no response, just stared at the bunkroom ceiling.
“Water, then.” Elisabeth helped to sit Vivienne up on her pillows to take the cool liquid. Rose lifted the cup to Vivienne’s mouth and tilted it, but the water came back as soon as it reached the lips.
“She’s burning with fever,” Elisabeth said, her tone no louder than she would dare to use during Mass.
Rose and Elisabeth exchanged a worried look. Real illness could spread through a ship in days and cause unspeakable devastation. Rose took a scrap of fabric and wetted it with the precious clean water. She pressed it to Vivienne’s forehead.
“We need a doctor,” Rose snapped to no one in particular.
“We haven’t got one.” Elisabeth took the cloth from Rose’s hand. “You need rest. I haven’t seen you as much as nap in two days. If she’s contagious, you need your rest and your strength. Sleep. Now.”
If Rose thought to countermand Elisabeth’s orders, she did not say so. Her shoulders sagged in defeat and she climbed under the thin covers on the sour-smelling mattress.
“Wake me if she needs me, please,” Rose mumbled, almost incomprehensible.
“Of course,” Elisabeth promised.
For the next six hours, Elisabeth doused the rag with water and applied the compress to the girl’s forehead and
face, repeating the process whenever the rag grew warm. Vivienne’s small body shook against the fever, the shivering broken only by periods of unintelligible babbling. Vivienne’s breathing grew shallow, and Elisabeth recognized the signs she had seen as she nursed her father through the hours before his death. The glassy eyes, the sallow skin . . . it was all the same. She had coaxed her father with broth and bread, but he would not eat. Elisabeth had sat, alone, by Pierre’s side as he left this world. As the hours passed, she grew certain that Vivienne would soon join him.
“Rose.” Elisabeth shook Rose from her slumber. “You need to come. Vivienne . . . Vivienne needs you.”
Rose looked up at Elisabeth and wiped the sleep from her eyes. It took just a moment longer for comprehension to cross her face. Rose leaped from her bed to Vivienne’s bunk and took her right hand, Elisabeth the other. Rose brushed the hair from Vivienne’s forehead and whispered sweet words that Elisabeth could barely make out when she strained. They aren’t meant for my ears, anyway.
Elisabeth watched Vivienne’s chest rise and fall, until the moment came that it rose no more. Elisabeth wiped the tears from her cheeks, but Rose remained impassive, kissing Vivienne’s forehead and closing the dead girl’s eyes for the last time.
“I’m so sorry I failed you.” Rose buried her head in her hands for a moment, then stood, smoothing the front of her dress.
Elisabeth, over a head taller, wrapped her arms around petite Rose.
“I’m so sorry, Rose. You didn’t fail her. You were so brave.”
“I was brave for her sake,” Rose said, pulling away from the embrace, but squeezing Elisabeth’s shoulder as she released her. “I couldn’t break down in front of her. She didn’t need to spend her last moments comforting me.”
That afternoon, Elisabeth organized a small memorial as Vivienne’s body was buried at sea. There was no priest to bless the body, but Elisabeth could not see the frail child laid to rest without a proper farewell. Were it me, I would want at least a few words, though there is no one left on earth who would care if I slipped away. Elisabeth banished the morbid thoughts with no small measure of self-castigation. This was an occasion to mourn for poor Vivienne, not to indulge in pity over her lonely state.
Promised to the Crown Page 3