Revenant Eve (19 page)

“My dears, we are to make a journey,” she said with that broad smile. “Now that there is to be peace with France, half of fashionable England is traveling to Paris. Where the Devonshires lead, what is there to do but follow? We would not be thought behindhand.”

As soon as the girls had withdrawn upstairs to the schoolroom, Cassandra exulted, “Lucretia is not going. Or I would have heard.” She turned Aurélie’s way. “Mama hasn’t said, but we must be going to Paris to buy fabrics for our introduction to London. And perhaps silks for your trousseau. The French silks are infinitely superior, so I’ve heard.”

“Shall we be presented to Napoleon Bonaparte?” Diana asked, and turned to Aurélie. “I remember when we were small, and someone, I think it was Papa, said that you were related to his wife.”

“Aurélie, you must send in your name at the Tuileries,” Cassandra declared. “If Madame Bonaparte does remember your family, that would be capital. You could arrange our introduction to the best French society.”

“There is no best French society,” Diana retorted. “They died on the guillotine.”

“There has to be good society. Everyone talks of the beautiful Josephine and her beautiful palaces and clothes. What’s the use of that if there’s no society to see them?” Cassandra said.

“I hope it’s as you say, because that would be one in Lucretia’s eye,” Diana stated. “At all events, I should like to have a look at the great Bonaparte after all we have heard about him.”

“
You
won’t see anything at all,” Cassandra stated, screwing up her face in a mocking squint.

Diana shrugged. “I will if I obtain a pair of spectacles. And so I shall. I care not a whit that ladies don’t wear spectacles. I want to see France in every detail, and no stupid quizzing glass that you have to hold all the time.”

“My mother wears spectacles,” Uncle Kittredge said a couple hours later, when Diana brought it up.

“That happened after she was safely married,” Aunt Kittredge retorted, but she was watching her husband as she said it. There was something going on between them; he seemed to have the advantage, for once, and she submitted. I wondered what had happened, and wished again that I could get away from Aurélie to do some listening on my own.

Then Philomena was back to her usual self as she scowled at Diana. “If you must, then get them. But do not cry out for sympathy to me when no eligible gentleman will offer for you.”

Diana shot back, “Cousin Charles likes me the way I am, and he wears spectacles.”

“Your cousin Charles is a blockhead, throwing away a good career in law when there is no living set aside for him. You watch, he will end his life in some hamlet, preaching to toothless farmers, chickens, and pigs,” her mother said in disgust. “Do not take
him
for a pattern.”

Diana looked down, her expression wooden. Uncle Kittredge said nothing, but the next day he drove her into town to the lens-maker.

The first week in April found the family on a packet ship crossing the Channel. This one left Newhaven bound for Dieppe, for, as Cassandra told the other girls, Mama had stated that she did not intend to rub shoulders with every grocer’s wife who wished to crowd over to Calais. Papa had been to Dieppe before the Revolution, where he’d stayed at a hostelry he particularly liked. He’d been assured when he arranged the crossing that it was still there and still served only the best people.

The packet set out on the running tide. It was late in the day. They would spent the night crossing and arrive in France in time for breakfast.

Aunt Kittredge went straight to the tiny cabin she was to share with Diana, and stayed there, leaving her husband to hang out with the older men in the wardroom. James remained on deck, at a little distance from Aurélie and his sisters, who listened to Aurélie name the parts of the ship. Diana faced into the brisk wind, her eyes slitted behind her new spectacles, her grin wide. Even shivering, with the wind trying to take her bonnet away and tangling her skirts, she clearly relished every moment and pelted Aurélie with questions.

Gradually James drifted closer and closer. I watched him, trying to figure out why he was keeping so aloof. If he and Aurélie had argued, I would have heard it, surely.

But he didn’t talk, and at last, when Aurélie became aware of him, she quite naturally smiled and held out her hand. He flushed to the tips of his ears, his body stiff. He looked down at her with such an expression of mute misery that her smile changed to concern. Diana looked askance at her brother, and I knew something was very wrong.

Then the bell rang for the passengers to assemble for dinner. They crowded into the wardroom, talking and laughing as dishes slid back and forth and lamps swung overhead.

After dinner, the night being fine, the crew strung lanterns along the deck so that passengers could walk about. Aurélie and the younger Kittredges joined other young people on the deck, where they worked through the polite inanities of introductory conversations.

Diana scowled fixedly at the water, then said to Cassandra and Aurélie, “I left my handkerchief in the cabin, and my spectacles are thick with spots of brine.” She slipped away.

Sometime later Aurélie became aware of James and Diana standing at the prow, talking earnestly. She made a move to join them, followed by Cassandra. As soon as the brother and sister saw the two girls approaching, they shut up.

For a few seconds everyone looked at everyone else in the swinging lantern light, and I could feel the discomfort radiating off three of them. Only Cassandra seemed oblivious. Aurélie turned to James, appeal plain in her face, but he gazed out to sea as if rescue lay there.

“I’m chilled,” Cassandra said finally. “Aurélie, we should retire.”

There was only one lantern per cabin, so Aurélie had to go with her. What seemed like a few seconds after they blew out the light Aurélie jerked awake—and so did I. A small hand, just barely discernible in the weak blue moonlight filtering through the open scuttle, slid over her mouth. Aurélie’s eyes opened wide.

Diana’s profile bent over her, moonlight reflecting briefly off the glass in her spectacles. She tugged on Aurélie’s arm.

Aurélie slid noiselessly out of bed and wrestled into her travel gown—like the others, she’d slept in her stays and chemise. She slid her feet into her walking shoes and noiselessly left the cabin. Cassandra slept on undisturbed.

The two girls didn’t speak until they were as far forward as they could get, and both shivered in the bleak pre-dawn chill. Diana then took Aurélie’s hands. “I want you to know first that I loathe such practices as my cousin Lucasta employs. But I believe I am doing right by you, even if Mama would not agree. James thinks so, as well.”

“I don’t understand,” Aurélie said.

Diana bent her head. “I hate this,” she said in a low voice. “But when I thought about it, I knew it would be better if you heard it from me. James thinks so, as well. He—well, I’ll leave him to plead his case once we reach France, though Mama and Papa forbade him to speak to you anymore.”

“Why? Is it the breeches?”

“No. Here it is. When I went downstairs, or down below, or whatever they call it, to fetch my handkerchief, I heard Mama and Papa arguing in the cabin Mama and I share. Because the walls are just canvas, though they were whispering, I could hear very well, and they were arguing about you. And the things they said—well, James, it turns out, knows all about it. I got it out of him last night. See, Aunt Bouldeston helped Mama to direct a letter to Government House in Jamaica—”

“Then she did
not
burn my letters? She wrote to discover why my mother didn’t—”

“Hsst! Listen, for I have much to say, and I don’t know how long we will have. She didn’t write
to
your mother but
about
her. She had in the last year or two been in want of a way to investigate your father, and…and such matters, without anyone knowing what she was about. Not to protect you, but to protect
us
.”

Mimba, you were right
, I thought, sickened.

“Oh, Aurélie, I do so hate this,” Diana whispered, her voice broken. “But, well, it turns out that your father, that is, he was not a marquis, though Alfonso de Mascarenhas really was a descendant of a very illustrious
family. But he was disinherited, and though he did have a letter of marque, he turned pirate against Spain and plundered treasure ships for gold. It seems he used to sail into mainly French ports, but also Spanish and Portuguese, and while officials would entertain him, his pirates would attack in secret. He…well, there is a very long list of crimes, including the murder of your Uncle Thomas Kittredge.”

“But how comes he to—?”

“Listen! Your mother is also a pirate, it seems. Or a privateer, for she took over your uncle’s ship, and his letter of marque from our government, which James explained to me last night. A letter of marque means one can attack ships of an enemy government and not be considered a pirate, at least, by one’s home government.”

“I know that,” Aurélie said. “So my mother should be within the laws of Jamaica.”

“Except that your mother wears breeches and captains a ship. It’s considered scandalous, though it’s not
illegal
, James said. That is, there was some question about her owning a ship, but I haven’t time for that. She attacked and defeated this pirate Mascarenhas and took his treasure, which was vast. Using that, she came back to reclaim the Kittredge plantation, only she came in company with a lot of runaway slaves, and something called Maroons, or quadroons, or—”

“They are two very different things,” Aurélie began.

“Not yet.” Diana squeezed her hands. “I will want to know that, and more, but anon. I have to get this out, because you do not yet know the worst of it.”

“But if the worst is that this evil marquis is not really my father, well, I am
very
happy.”

“He isn’t. Your mother took his name along with his treasure, because her real husband—or, that is, they don’t know if they were married, or maybe they were married in a Papist ceremony, or some kind of ceremony with the Jamaican witch doctors—”

“
Witch
doctors?” Aurélie began with disgust.

“Oh,
do
be quiet,” Diana hissed in an agony. “It’s what James said. But yes, that’s part of what I’m to tell you—”

“It’s good news, because my papa was a wonderful man, that much I know,” Aurélie said fiercely.

“It may be, but he was not Spanish any more than he was a marquis, and he was not married to your mother in any English church. In fact, we don’t know if it’s legal for such a marriage, an African and an Englishwoman. He was a runaway slave named Baptiste Kofi Beauveau, that is, slaves were given the last name of their owner or his estate, but maybe Kofi was his chosen name? He belonged to an estate called Beauveau. No,
don’t
interrupt, I don’t know if we can talk again. This name was written on the wanted list, which someone brought from Saint-Domingue to Jamaica. Your father hired on with your Uncle Thomas, the privateer captain. It seems your uncle didn’t care where his crew came from, only that they were good at their work, and your father was very smart, and he became the first mate, and then had his own ship in your uncle’s fleet. But your father was killed by this marquis in an act of treachery after Mascarenhas lost to him in a sea battle. Your Uncle Thomas was killed, too. Then your mother took over as captain, and they destroyed the marquis and his fleet.”

“
Bon
,” Aurélie whispered.

“Aurélie, the worst is this. We are come to France not to go to Paris. That is,
we
may be going to Paris, but
you
are not.”

“I’m not?” Aurélie repeated. “Where am I to go?”

“That’s just it. We don’t know. Mama intends to fling all these things at you tomorrow, when Papa is to take James and Cassie and me on a tour. She will then send you into the streets.”

Aurélie stared at Diana in sick horror.

Diana looked down at her tightly clasped hands. “Then, see, when we return to England, Mama can say you ran off. It’s our reputation she is thinking of, not yours. She’ll not want anyone to know that we had living with us a daughter of a runaway slave, even if her mother was English. Somehow—I don’t quite understand how—that makes it worse, for Mama. Though I want you to know that I think it all nonsense, and I will always love you like a sister, Aurélie.” Diana’s voice wobbled at the end.

Aurélie stared blindly back at her.

Diana gulped and said in a low, fierce voice, “I will
never
forgive Mama for this. James says she claims the privilege, the pleasure, of turning you out into the street because Papa would not do it. It makes me
sick
. I told James that he should marry you anyway, for at least you have your fortune.
Surely
Papa must give it to you, for that was intended once you and James married, was it not? Then you and James can live anywhere you like.”

Aurélie was breathing quickly. “Thank you, Diana. Thank you. I will never forget what you have done for me.” She was shivering, hands gripping her elbows. “I have to talk to James.”

“He was forbidden to talk to you. I will do it. I’ll find a way for the two of you to meet tomorrow. How is that?”

Ting-ting!
The bell brought sailors swarming up on deck. The darkness was already beginning to gray toward a cloudy dawn.

The girls slipped down below, where Aurélie crept back into her bunk and lay stiff, hands clenched at her sides, silent tears dripping down the sides of her face.