Spirit of Lost Angels (8 page)

I arrived back to Lucie in the winter of 1779. As the public coach approached the snow-peaked Monts du Lyonnais — white bastion guarding the village — my heart beat faster with excitement, and fear, like the rising panic of a hare snagged in a trap.

During the long, cramped journey, the carriage full of people cradling baskets, parcels or dogs, I had convinced myself I would say nothing to my new husband about the sullied scullery maid; I would not mention Rubie. Maybe Monsieur Bruyère would not notice anything on the wedding night.

As I cast my eyes across the Bruyère farm — the familiar vineyards and fields — I thought about seeing Léon again, and the blood pulsed through me, warm and thready.

I forced my gaze down the riverbank slope, to the damp place I’d last seen Maman. They had murdered my mother, and I despised them for that injustice, but I didn’t hate those men personally, only the system under which they’d acted. I also knew, from my time in Paris, such things did not only happen in Lucie, but in every village and city across the country.

I walked on, eyeing the tumble of blackened stones and wood, and the fireplace, rising from new foliage like some dark tombstone. Even as I tried to blot out the memories, the searing heat of the flames scalded me again, and I choked on the smoke. I felt my mother’s tremble as she pressed my face into her skirt so I wouldn’t see the horror, but seeing it anyway, and feeling Maman racked with grief and sobs. I smelt once more the stench I was certain would linger forever at the back of my nostrils — the odour of small, charred skeletons.

I looked hard, past those memories — the remnants of the day that brief, horrifying lapse of Nature had stolen a part of our lives — and I saw Grégoire’s new cottage. It was small and simple, yet held my gaze like some great visual banquet and my heart soared with a special gladness.

My brother appeared from behind the cottage, carrying an axe and a lump of wood. He was nineteen, and taller — a younger version of my father.

The smile spread across my face. ‘Grégoire!’

He looked up, dropped the wood and the axe and waved his arms, both of us laughing as I ran down the slope and into my brother’s arms.

***

At forty-eight, Monsieur Armand Bruyère was elderly, but he still had a healthy smile and a sturdy body. I had known this pleasant, honest farmer since I was a child, but it was different now, and I was afraid of this husband-to-be; terrified he would beat me as I’d heard most husbands did, and force me to do unspeakable things at night. Not to mention the problem of my torn maidenhood.

‘I can read and write,’ I said. ‘And count. I will help you make the wine. I am a good cook and thrifty with money.’ The words poured from me in a gibber, so anxious I was to please him.

‘Welcome back to Lucie,’ Armand said with a smile. He took my quivering hand. ‘I hope you will be happy. Come now, my children await you.’

My eyes flickered along the line of them, from the youngest aged nine to the eldest, Léon, who was twenty-three. But Léon was not at the end of the row. Where was he? My breaths quickened.

Léon came then — strong, sun-bronzed and as darkly handsome as I remembered — and stood beside his siblings. He simply nodded, saying nothing, which seemed worse than any words he might have said.

I felt my cheeks flush and averted my eyes, aware Armand was speaking again.

‘You too, will have many children, Victoire. Just as my son, Léon. He also, is engaged and will shortly marry.’

Engaged, marry
.

Armand’s words hung in the air, as frozen as the icicles hanging from the roof of the farm.

It felt like someone had dealt me a blow with a cold axe-head, and I concentrated hard, to keep my face calm and unperturbed.

***

With the shock of his intended marriage, I avoided Léon, fearful my face would betray my heart. I stayed inside Grégoire’s cottage, only venturing into the village when necessary.

I threw myself into my own wedding preparations, refusing to dwell on what could have been; on what was lost.

‘I did warn you,’ Grégoire said, as if he read my thoughts, ‘that you could never marry him.’ Spoken without a trace of his old scorn and possessiveness, my brother’s words still stung, with their ring of truth.

‘Don’t worry for me, Grégoire. I am fortunate Armand wants me for his wife, and I will devote myself to making him happy.’

‘And you’d do well to remember just how fortunate you are,’ he said with a curt nod. ‘Armand Bruyère is a good man. He gave me the carpentry tools to supplement Papa’s meagre supply, and let me stay on his farm while I built the cottage, but you can’t fool me, I know you’ll never forget Léon Bruyère.’

Anxious to shift the conversation away from Léon Bruyère, I pored over the two ells of cloth and the Marquise’s cast-offs Claudine had bundled into my bag. ‘And you, Grégoire, who will you marry? I know you are still too young for marriage but you have a fine home now.’ I waved an arm about the clean, whitewashed walls and the simple, but solid furniture with which Grégoire had furnished his home. ‘Surely you have your eye on a girl?’

I splayed the fabric out on the table, to fashion myself a black wedding gown. Claudine had advised me a gown of black cloth was sturdy and would see me through funerals, weddings and any other formal event.

‘You remember the clog-maker’s daughter, Françoise?’ he said with a grin. ‘Well … perhaps in a few years.’

‘Oh yes, of course I remember Françoise, she’s a pretty girl, and young,’ I said, my voice dropping to a whisper. ‘And … pure. She will make you happy.’

***

All nine of the groom’s surviving offspring were present in Saint Antoine’s Church as Père Joffroy wed Armand and me. As my new husband took me in his arms and kissed me, I vowed he would never discover my impurity.

In Armand’s bed that night, I curled on my side, away from him, wrapping my arms around myself to stop the trembling.

I felt his rough fingers brush the nape of my neck. ‘Don’t be nervous, my dear.’

I reeled from his touch and bolted from the bed, hurtling to the farthest corner of the room, where I crouched, holding my chemise tight over my knees.

‘Sorry, I can’t. Don’t touch me, please.’

Armand strode towards me. My pulse beat faster with his every step. He bent down. I cowered behind my folded arms, sure he was about to strike me. I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the blow.

‘I know you are my husband,’ I said. ‘This is your right, but … please don’t beat me.’

‘Don’t be afraid, Victoire.’ He sat on the floor beside me and stroked the hair from my face. ‘Père Joffroy’s brother, the Parisian priest, told him of this marquis, and of an abandoned child left on the steps of his church. That’s why he did everything in his power to bring you home to Lucie.’

I opened my eyes, and lowered my arms. ‘You know about the Marquis … about Rubie?’

‘That sort of thing is, sadly, a common occurrence with domestics,’ he said. ‘If I had the chance I’d rip his sword from its hilt and slit his ugly throat, and I’d cheer as his blue blood stained his fancy parquetry floor!’ He crossed himself. ‘May God protect the innocent child.’

‘I wanted to tell you, Armand. Forgive me, but I feared you would send me ba — ’

Armand held a coarse finger to my lips. ‘Hush.’ He took my hands and led me back to the marital bed.

Once I was lying down and no longer shaking, he turned and took his knife from the bedside dresser. I slithered away again, to the edge of the mattress. Had I mistaken his understanding, his compassion, for some cruel joke?

Armand held the knife against the hairs of his sun-beaten arm and sliced clean through his skin. He flipped his arm over and smeared the blood across the sheet.

I could not believe my luck in finding such a good man. ‘Thank you, Armand. I will devote my life to making you happy.’

‘You deserve happiness too, Victoire, after the tragedies you have borne.’

‘Isn’t it also tragic to lose four children and a wife?’

‘
C’est la vie
, my dear.
God never meant for our lives to be simple, or easy. We must rejoice with what we have and not waste time sobbing for what is gone.’

He wrapped me in his arms and in that instant I understood what Claudine meant by the affection and comfort of a good marriage.

The next morning we hung the nuptial sheets from the window and the people of Lucie smiled and clapped.

‘The King should never have sacked Turgot,’ the journeyman from the north said. ‘This Necker is turning accounting tricks to hide the country’s enormous debt.’

Despite our contentment, our easy companionship, Armand and I could not ignore the chatter passing travellers brought to Lucie.

The journeyman went on about the many enemies this new finance minister — Necker — had made at court. ‘The Queen being his most formidable,’ he said. ‘Of course, the King will sack him. That man does everything his foreigner wife commands him.’

‘I have been thinking, my dear,’ Armand said. ‘It seems the finances of our country have declined to a pitiful state, but I have an idea to help our village, at least.’ He caressed my arm in long gentle strokes. ‘As you know, the nearest fair is six leagues far from Lucie. A fair in our village would benefit us all. I propose we make a request to hold our own fair, which Père Joffroy will send to the King.’

‘What a grand idea, Armand. Of course, a fair in Lucie would help us too,’ I said, patting my swelling stomach. ‘We may be thankful for extra income soon.’

We drew up a letter, Armand dictating as I wrote.

The people of Lucie, the peasants, merchants and artisans, have all kinds of animals, vegetables, cheese and eggs to sell, as well as grain and cloth. As there is no fair close enough to conduct business, we thus request five annual fair days in the village of Lucie-sur-Vionne.

***

The heat hit me like a blast from Claudine’s oven as I left the blacksmith’s that summer afternoon.

In a bid to remove heat — that humoral excess ascribed to pregnancy — I’d lain on the blacksmith’s vibrating anvil as he swung his hammer and sparks flew about. People had advised me this would make the birth of my child less painful.

A hot breeze gusted and the beginnings of dark cloud scudded across from the Massif Central. Something — an untouchable magnetism, or simply the promise of coolness — lured me away from the direction of the farm and down the slope to the Vionne River.

I’d not been back since they drowned Maman, but the clear water, the gushing cascade, beckoned me as if the river had missed me as much as I had longed for it.

I wove through the willow trees lining the riverbank like languid courtesans, and beyond the beggars’ hut. I no longer feared the woman as a mad witch, but was simply sorry for her wretchedness — too poor even to dwell in the village with the others.

I sat on a boulder and removed my shoes — the Marquise’s cast-offs that cut into my hot, swollen feet.

As the fat grey clouds gathered over the foothills, I felt a prickle, like a cluster of spiders scrambling down my backbone. I jumped and twisted around.

‘Are you going to take off all your clothes again, Mademoiselle
aux yeux de la rivière
? I suppose it should be Mrs River Eyes, now?’

‘Léon! What are you doing here? Why aren’t you with your new wife?’

‘My new wife.’ I reeled from the arc of his spittle; from the anger that ploughed his lovely face.

‘You should have been my wife. How could you marry my father, then face me again? Why?’

‘Don’t make it harder than it already is, please.’

‘Why did you have to come back to Lucie and torture me with your presence?’

‘I had no choice, Léon.’

He took a step forward, standing over me and I felt I would choke on his familiar heavenly scent of horses, hay and sun-baked soil. ‘What do you mean, Victoire, no choice?’

I moved aside and stepped into the shallows, and as the sharp coolness of the water jolted each nerve in me, I told Léon about the Marquis, and Rubie. ‘You would not have wanted me, a woman with a bastard child. You deserved a fresh young girl of your own.’

Léon edged into the water beside me, and bent his face close to mine, though not a hair of his touched me. ‘I wouldn’t have cared,’ he hissed. ‘I loved — love — you!’

‘I had no dowry, nothing to offer you, and when your father proposed, I had to accept, and put you out of my mind.’

‘Put me out of your mind? How could you?’

‘Please try and understand. I must devote myself to your fath — ’

‘No, Victoire, I will never understand. Surely there must be some way … divorce, I don’t know.’

‘You know divorce isn’t allowed. There is nothing, Léon,
nothing
to be done.’

He clamped his lips over mine, so tightly I could not budge, his warm breath rushing into me, stealing my air. I saw the red sunburst behind my closed eyelids, then the shadow as the clouds covered the sun.

His tongue darted in and out of my mouth, licking, caressing my own, and the heat rushed to the top of my thighs until the place between them burned.

Léon pulled me from the shallows and down onto the sun-bleached riverbank. Blades of dried grass dug into my back and I felt the first smattering of raindrops.

I did not move, and as the clouds opened, emptying their load on my bared legs, Léon eased himself on top of me, gently, so as not to hurt the tiny person inside me — the life I had begun with his father.

Thunder blasted, louder, closer, but I didn’t care that we were getting drenched. I knew I should scream at Léon to stop; push him off me and scamper from the storm, back to Armand with my head bowed low.

Raindrops snaked between his lips and mine, as his hand cupped my breast, his fingertips kneading my nipple.

Lightning painted luminous veins in the sky and thunderbolts Nature only utters in her wildest mood cleaved through the valley as I arched myself towards him, his hardness pressing against me.

Léon’s fingers fumbled as he tore his breeches off. I felt I would burst if I could not have him, right then.

In a single jerk, I felt Léon’s weight lift off me, and I looked up into the glowering face of my brother.

‘
Mon Dieu
!’ Grégoire stared from Léon to me. He jabbed a fist at the bleak sky. ‘Someone up there, besides me, is angry.’

He swung his other fist into Léon’s face. ‘Get away from my sister! And don’t go near her again. You know she’ll never be yours.’

My brother turned to me, still lying, half-naked, on the soaked earth. ‘And you, get up now before I hit you too. I’ve a mind to go and tell your husband what you do down at the riverbank with his son.’

Angular sheets of sleet pummelling the trees like tap-dancing horses, I scrambled to my feet, my belly like some guilt-laden weight throwing me off balance. ‘I’m s-sorry, Grégoire.’

I felt the tremor in my voice, faltering and tinged with premonition, and I found my fingers feeling about my neck for the smooth, comforting bone of the angel pendant.

My tears came fast. ‘S-so sorry. It w-will never happen again. Please say nothing to Armand.’

Grégoire was no longer looking at me, or listening to my pleas. Sodden and scowling, he faced Léon, as if preparing for a duel on the banks of the Vionne River.

***

The rain fell incessantly for weeks. It destroyed the harvest.

‘Nature’s punishment,
n’est-ce pas
, Victoire?’
Grégoire said one day, casting a grim look at the storm pelting the fields and flattening the crops.

My brother kept punishing me with his words, but thankfully he’d not said anything to Armand. My belly swelled more. I didn’t speak to Léon, and avoided his eyes and those of his wife, as we sat around the hearth in the evenings.

‘This autumn cold has destroyed almost all my wheat and vines,’ Armand said. ‘I fear too, the price of wood, chickens, beef, eggs and butter is rising beyond our means.’ He sighed. ‘And nobody can afford to buy my barrels of wine.’

I patted his arm. ‘Don’t worry, Armand, together we will think of something.’

In November of 1780, as my husband continued to knit his brow over our financial plight, I gave birth to our daughter, Madeleine, just fourteen months after Rubie had been born.

Where are you now, my child — that little girl I can only speak to in my dreams? Are you walking yet? Who are you smiling for? I pray she’s nice, your new mother, and that she might read to you from
Les Fables de Jean de la Fontaine
, as I will, to Madeleine. I hope she’ll teach you to read and write, because Maman always said it is one of the best gifts a parent can bestow a child.

Despite his happiness over the birth of our daughter, graced with the dark Bruyère beauty, Armand grew steadily more concerned about our finances.

‘What with the Church tithe, the royal and seigneurial taxes, saving seed to plant next year and having enough to fill our bellies, I don’t know what we are to do, Victoire,’ he said. ‘The harvest was so poor we have barely any flour to make the bread.’

Perhaps it was my guilt over Léon, or maybe Rubie, that decided me to try and help our dire finances.

‘I can do something, Armand,’ I said on impulse. ‘I could sell my milk to the rich people.’

So, like many commoners, I became a wet-nurse.

***

‘Hush, my child,’ I soothed, when Madeleine shrieked with the hunger, as the babies of the wealthy suckled all my milk.

She began to cry less and less. Her little limbs shed their womb fat and the roses in her cheeks paled.

Armand flung an arm in the air. ‘Our daughter is wasting away! You must feed her, Victoire.’

‘What if the agent comes?’ I said, thinking of the people who came to check the wet-nurses were not giving the babies animal milk, or water thickened with mouldy bread. ‘You know if they find my own child at my breast we’ll lose the money, and you will be fined by the courts as much as you could earn in twenty days at harvest time.’

The next day I found Madeleine listless, and whimpering.

‘Perhaps it is this cold weather?’ Armand said. ‘Or some other infant sickness. God only knows there are many. We must pray for her health, Victoire.’

By evening Madeleine’s forehead burned, as I pressed it against my cheek. As I’d seen Maman do, I laid cool cloths over her hot, limp body. I crooned and whispered into her ear, and smoothed the dark hair from her flushed face, willing the fever to break. Her heat persisted though, and Madeleine made no sounds, apart from her raspy breathing.

‘The child is very ill,’ Armand said. ‘We must call Père Joffroy.’

‘No, Armand! She will recover … she cannot die.’

But the priest came with his white cloth and candles, and solemnly performed the Last Rites.

‘Thank the Lord she is baptised,’ Armand said. ‘Madeleine’s soul will pray for our family, from heaven. Don’t be sad, Victoire. You are young, not yet nineteen. God will bless us with many more babies.’

Sad? I could barely speak, could hardly breathe, the grief — the guilt — drowning me like an overflowed well. I could not understand this resignation my husband seemed to have acquired, over dying babies. Was it because he’d already buried four infants, or simply that, unlike a father, a mother remains forever bound to the child she has carried; as if the umbilical cord had never been severed?

‘If we were wealthy she would not be ill,’ I said, ‘and Rubie would not be gone from me. Isn’t it so unjust the babies of the rich live and the poor children perish? How can you simply accept that? Don’t you see it is all wrong, Armand?’

‘That may be the case, but I don’t know what we can do about these things, except to rejoice in what we have; in the living,’ he said. ‘Don’t feed your sadness on ghosts, Victoire, they will only haunt you until
la mélancolie
strikes you down.’

I sat by Madeleine’s crib through the night, listening to her quick, shallow breaths. I kept reaching across and touching her all over to gauge the extent of the heat in her body. I patted her with the cool cloth, and, my eyelids, heavy, I sank into the chair beside her crib and fell into a restless sleep.

In my dream, I saw Armand’s farm, but it was more than a simple farm. It was a grand inn, nestled just off the main road, above the woods. I watched bedraggled travellers approach its charmingly crooked thatched roof and moss-coated stone walls. As dusk fell upon their coaches and their horses slackened with thirst, I saw them smile at the golden glow of lamps from the many tiny windows, thinking they’d come upon an enchanted paradise.

The church bell striking five startled me from sleep. I felt an odd sickness rising from my belly, and I lurched from the chair. I steadied myself with a hand on Madeleine’s crib and leaned over my sleeping daughter. Madeleine was white and quite still.

No, no! A foul-tasting liquid shot into my throat, and my head spun so much I thought I would pass out.

‘Madeleine!’ I touched the ivory-pale cheek, dreading the cold touch of marble.

Nothing. Then she blinked, her eyes flickering open. I picked her up. She was cooler to touch. The fever had broken. I wept into her soft skin, and latched her onto my breast.

‘
Dieu merci
. Thank you for this miracle.’

Madeleine was still drinking thirstily when Armand came into the room.

‘Victoire, wha — ’

‘Armand, it’s all right, we’ll no longer need those wet-nurse sous
,
the health of our child is far more important.’