Despite the Angels (16 page)

Daniel woke up suddenly, with the room full of steam and an ominous hissing coming from the kettle. As he feared, it was boiling dry, the last bubbles chasing themselves around and a white film forming in their place. He felt guilty, partly because there was now no hot water, although he did wonder what it was needed for, as no-one had come to fetch it; but mostly simply because he had slept while Eloise was suffering. He listened to the mumble of voices above and then he heard her, her voice barely audible. It sounded like she was pleading with someone. He pulled the kettle from the heat, left it on the tiles by the fire and dashed up the stairs, not waiting to light a candle.

“I’m hot,” whimpered Eloise, “I need air. Open the shutters, Maman, please.”

Her mother looked at the midwife. “Is it safe to let in the night air?  My Tante Louise says that night air is dangerous for babies.”

“Never mind the air. All sorts of things could fly in and bite the baby. Leave it closed.”

“It’s for me, Maman, not the baby. I’m hot. There’s no baby. I’m hot!” Eloise’s voice was rising to a shriek. Her mother wrung a cloth out again in cool water and was laying it across Eloise’s forehead, murmuring soothing words that had been familiar to her children when they were tiny. Eloise began to relax, until the next spasm hit her and she cried out again. There was a crash, as the door was flung open. Daniel strode across the room and fumbled with the shutters.

“I do not care if you say this is a women’s place only. Madame de Vrac needs help and you are standing discussing it. Do something.”

The shutters creaked open, several large flakes of paint falling from them as they moved and fluttering down into the courtyard. A cold breeze came into the room, accompanied by a lone and probably confused moth. Daniel went to the bed and knelt beside Eloise, bringing her hand to his lips. He stroked her face and looked into her eyes.

“I’m here, my precious. I’m not leaving, no matter what they tell me.” Eloise tried to smile, but another wave of pain and a huge shuddering urge broke over her body. She cried out and as her body heaved it was as though her movement created a break in the clouds that allowed a stripe of silvery grey to fall across the bed. There was a slither and a tiny body emerged into the moonlight. The little face crumpled and let out a wail. The two older women sighed with relief and grinned at each other.

“A perfect little girl.” The midwife lifted the baby, wrapped her in a cotton cloth and laid her on Eloise’s breast.

Eloise leant back on the pillow and closed her eyes. Her body sagged and her whole face softened as she whispered “it’s over, it’s over. The saints and Our Lady be praised, it’s over.”

“No, my darling. It is just beginning.” Daniel’s face was shining and the corners of his eyes glittered, where the tears were gathering. He had put his finger in the baby’s hand and she was gripping him tightly. “She is beautiful, is she not? Just like her mother!”

“You flatter me, M
onsieur. Maybe she’s beautiful like you. Look at her hair. So soft and dark. I’m sorry, I did not give you your son. Are you angry with me?”

“No, she’s too lovely to want anything else. We can have the son next time.”

His mother-in-law grunted. “Hm. They always say that, men. As soon as you’re through one danger they want to put you in a new one. Now come on, Monsieur, out! You’re in the way, this little lady has to learn how to feed.”

“What will we call her, M
onsieur?” Eloise looked past him out of the window and up to the crescent of the moon, shining sedately down on her and her daughter. “The moonlight helped. As soon as you opened the shutters, and it shone in, she was born. It is so pretty, look!”

“Au clair de la lune,” sang Daniel, “she was born by the light of the moon. Claire is a pretty name.”

“Lot of nonsense,” said the midwife, as she bundled used sheets into a sack. “It was the Blessed Virgin who helped. Did you not hear Madame cry out to Our Lady for help? And it was given. Perfect baby, healthy mother, or she will be if you go away now and let me get on.”

“Marie-Claire” said Eloise, “my little Marie-Claire,” and she looked up at Daniel for his opinion. He nodded and beamed down at her. One of the tears broke free from its mooring and dropped onto the baby’s face as he kissed his little family and was then shooed from the room.

The sun was settling onto the treetops as Daniel came out onto the terrace of the little château of Merillac. The long shadows crept across the grass towards the house and birds were beginning to congregate on the ridges of the barns, chirping and cawing and nudging each other. As the air cooled, the cicadas set up their strumming in the trees, seeming to call that work was not over while nature was still busy. The leaves of the trees barely moved in the heavy air and Daniel could see a shifting patch of greyness in the air a few feet away, rising and falling a little as the tiny insects that it was went about their miniscule business. Between the trees he could see the neat green lines indicating the gentle undulations of his vineyards and two fields full of golden wheat. Further off, he could see the last of the sun reflecting off the shallow water covering the salt marshes, and imagined that he could see as far as the estuary beyond, where ships sailed with precious cargoes of wine. He stood, his hands on the smooth wood of the balustrade and looked out over his land, his mind running idly over the tasks achieved today on the farm. The wood was warm under his fingers and he stroked it, pleased by the silky texture and momentarily aware of the three generations of related hands that had done the same thing on hundreds of other satisfactory evenings. He turned towards Eloise’s favourite chair and only then became aware of her, curled up tight, her eyes closed. The baby was quiet, dozing in her crib at Eloise’s feet.

“What is it, Eloise? Are you ill?” he crossed over to her and touched her back, alarmed at how stiff it was. Eloise stiffened more at his touch and mumbled something. He had to bend close to hear.

“No, Sir. The baby is beautiful and healthy. And I am well and healthy and blessed to be safely delivered. They tell me often how lucky I am and how happy I must be.” Eloise tucked her head further down into her chest and sighed.

“But I am not happy to see you like this, ma chérie. Where is your smile and the flashing eyes I love? Stolen away by this beautiful evening?” He was stroking her back as he talked and gradually she began to uncurl and smiled wanly at him.

“The baby is beautiful, they are all correct. And I love her. But I am not me anymore, not Eloise. I am just Madame.”

“You are always Eloise to me, always. Even if we have a dozen children, you will always be the reason for me.”

“The reason, Sir? I do not understand.” Eloise was pulling herself up more now.

“My reason for bothering, for running the farm, for caring about the crops. Because I know my Eloise is here, looking beautiful, and ready to smile at me.”

“I will try, to please you, but it is difficult to smile, I am so tired.” Eloise sagged back in her chair and looked out past Daniel, towards the sunlight, setting amongst the branches of the trees. The rosy light seemed to warm her and she smiled down at little Marie-Claire, whose little mouth was working as she dreamt of feeding.

“She’ll cry soon, again, look. She is always hungry. I will have to go in.”

“She is making you tired, my love. Why do you not let me find her a wet nurse from the village? Then you could rest more.”

“I am from the village. I will feed my own child. I have seen what can happen to a child when its mother must give her milk away to another. I will not cause a child to starve.” Her eyes flashed defiance and Daniel looked at her with surprise, mixed with delight that his wife seemed to be recovering her energy. He decided to fight back.

“But a woman can feed two babies. Why else would God give her two breasts?” He leant back and grinned, his argument complete.

“If both of the children are with her, yes. But if a woman goes to the big house to feed the little Duc, do you think her own baby may go too? No, her own child must stay in the village, fed on whatever can be found. Such children do not thrive. My cousin’s baby died of a fever, which he could not fight because he was so weak, after she went as wet nurse to the château. She needed the money for her other children. It was a big price to pay, I will not ask it of anyone. I am sorry to speak thus to you.”

“I did not know.” Daniel was silent now, his eyes troubled. He knew he had been fed by a nurse, in fact he remembered her with affection, as she had also fed his younger sisters. Now he wondered how her own babies had fared.

As the last rays of sun slid away from the house there was a little wail from the crib and Eloise struggled to her feet. She lifted the baby and carried her indoors, to feed and clean her.  Daniel called one of the servants and asked for a glass of wine. When it came, he sipped it slowly, wondering what he could do for Eloise to lift her spirits. Half way down the glass he had an idea. As his mind worked on it he began to sing softly under his breath. By the time dinner was announced the plan was formed and he explained it with great excitement.

“A picnic!” exclaimed his mother, looking for a moment just like a little girl. “Where to?”

“The beach at Soulac. It is very lovely.” He smiled at Eloise and she smiled back. It was very lovely to the two of them, as it was where Daniel had taken her, very daringly, on horseback to ask her to become his wife and where, an hour later, she had agreed. It had taken an hour for her to recover from the surprise of being asked to marry into the château, even a château as small as Merillac.

“I would like to see the beach,” said Catherine, Daniel’s youngest sister. “The sea must be bigger than the Garonne, is it?”

“Of course it is, silly. You have been to the beach, we all have,” Charlotte said, as she helped herself to more bread and began pulling it into tiny pieces, “you just do not remember as you are far too young. Maybe your brain is not fully grown yet.”

Catherine stuck out her tongue at her sister. “I’m ten, not a baby. Stop pretending I’m a baby.”

“You were a baby when you were born. I remember it very well.”

“And I remember you as a baby very well too, Charlotte,” Daniel said, “It is a condition most of us recover from. Stop teasing Catherine and tell her what you remember about the beach.”

“The beach is very inconvenient,” Madame deVrac was grumbling again. “All that sand. And it can be windy.”

“I agree,” said Jotin. “Think of somewhere other than the beach. I do not think you will like it as much as you think, now that the baby is with you.”

“The beach is special to us, Mother. I think we will like the beach. And on the way we can stop at the Church of Notre-Dame. They say that this year a priest has set up a shrine beside it and is saying Mass for the pilgrims who pass. Like in the old days, before the sand swallowed the church.”

“Like I said, too much sand. My mother always talked of the people who came looking for work when their town was overcome by the sand. I was only a child at the time, but I well remember the stories. The houses filled with it.” Madame deVrac shuddered, but then brightened. “But a priest, you say? Saying pilgrim Masses? That would be something to see. Are there many pilgrims still?”

“I am not sure, Madame. There should be, it is still on the route to Compostela. We will have to go and see. We will bring two carts, and rugs and musicians. Then we can dance!”

Eloise’s eyes shone. A dance on the beach. She loved to dance and with Daniel it was so special, they had first noticed each other at the dance in the village. Of course, they should have paid no attention to each other, she should have looked at the ordinary boys, not at a landowner; she took big risk, smiling at Mon Seigneur. Many aristocrats would have used her and cast her aside.  But she had taken the risk and he had offered her marriage. She grinned at Daniel and he was happy, her spirits seemed to be lifted.

The picnic was arranged for three days later. The cook had worked hard, producing baskets full of terrines and patés, cold meats and ripe cheeses, their aromas escaping out of their straw wrappings and making everyone’s mouths water. There was bread, soft and crusty, and pastries and bottles of fruit juices, and of course, wine. Two carriages rattled up the drive shortly after breakfast and their neighbours from the next châteaux jumped down, full of excitement at being invited to join in. Madame deVrac rushed to greet them and there was a wonderful chaos as everyone milled around, getting in the way of the three musicians who had been hired from the village and who were packing their instruments onto one of the carts. Daniel put his own violin in too, though as he said to Eloise, if he wanted to dance he could not play – ‘or at least not very well!’ Eloise was installed on the other cart, on cushions, with the baby on her lap. Her spirits were still a bit low, but she expected they would improve soon. Rosemarie the midwife had visited and told her that many new mothers felt as she did, that it was maybe God’s way of making them rest instead of trying to work too hard, ‘and have no time to make milk for the baby’. So she was content to be tucked up in a rug on the cart and to watch idly as the countryside passed by. As they passed through the village she called out to many old friends, who ran over to kiss her and congratulate her on the arrival of ‘la petite’. Etienne the blacksmith came across and clasped her hand in his huge fist.