The Tale-Teller (3 page)

***

“ALTHOUGH YOUR ELOQUENCE MAY take in more gullible folk, I refuse to play the
Jacques
— that is, the fool — in your
farce
,” said Beauharnois, with a wry laugh which Varin immediately echoed.

The Governor General bared his yellow teeth at the girl, but she did not smile back. While telling her story she had seemed entranced — eyes hooded, watching pictures only she could see, her voice a low and melodious murmur, luring as a cello, comforting as water running over stones. As soon as she reached its conclusion, however, her confidence dissipated and she started chewing on her nails and shifting her weight from one foot to the other. This behaviour really did make her look somewhat ape-like, especially in combination with her tanned skin and thatch of thick dark hair.

“A few weeks in solitary confinement should persuade her to tell the truth, eh Hocquart?” he continued.

Tears filled the girl's eyes at once. She dashed them away with the back of one grubby hand, but soon gave up and let them fall freely. Her demeanour was defeated but nothing about her signalled guilt, only a profound grief she was too tired to hide.

Hocquart demurred; prison would not be necessary. She was only a girl, after all. Besides, the commissary was sure to find out everything they needed to know through his

He had no doubt this was true. Jean-Victor Varin de La Marre was good at deciding who would be permitted to settle in the colony and who would not. He enjoyed the exercise of this power more than he should, and for that reason among others — his obsequiousness, his vanity — Hocquart did not trust him. Like many of the young men who flocked to the colony, Varin was consumed by the tapeworm of ambition. Which was why he would probably become rich one day, as

such men do, and retire to a vast estate in France, surrounded by sycophants as opportunistic as he once was. It was a source of great bitterness to Hocquart that few of the officials surrounding him shared his commitment to New France. Even Beauharnois, vain as he was of his status as Governor General, was prouder of his hereditary title as a marquis — a title that had cost him no effort and signalled no accomplishment. Indeed, his most significant achievement in that role had been to waste his family's fortune.

“It was you who unmasked this minx, Varin?” Beauharnois asked. “I'm not surprised; I've heard that you have quite an eye for the ladies.”

Varin nodded his head, trying to hide the smile on his face. He flattered himself that he was known as a bit of a roué, though no one was more notorious in that regard than the Governor General himself. Beauharnois's wife had not followed him across the ocean; it was common knowledge that they were estranged. Unencumbered by matrimony, he was free to seek the affections of every young — or not-soyoung — woman willing to barter her body for advancement. It was surprising how many of those there were, even in a place as notoriously underpopulated with females as New France.

Beauharnois turned back to the girl and scrutinized her. Usually he undressed women mentally, a process made the more stimulating by its arduous length: unpinning the front of the stomacher from the robe and then pulling off the robe, unlacing the stomacher behind and letting it drop to the floor, pulling the outer petticoat off, removing the ridiculous panniers and the stays, stripping away the modesty skirt, and then at last, blessedly, the chemise …

But today was different; today he entertained the opposite fantasy, picturing the girl in front of him naked and shivering in a corner of the prison, lying on a pile of straw, her wrists tied together with coarse rope, and then dressing her elaborately, layer after layer, the better to undress her again at his pleasure. A futile exercise. Even clothed in the richest gown he could imagine, all gold brocade and pearls, this one would not be attractive enough to tempt him. So he resumed the interrogation impatiently.

“Tell me who you are and what brings you to New France. The colony may need more women, but we do not need more layabouts and liars.”

“My name is Esther, Mon Seigneur,” she replied. “And as for why I came here …” She stopped and glanced up at Beauharnois for a moment in mute appeal. But he looked so disdainful that she turned to Hocquart instead.

“The world has so become much bigger. Explorers keep discovering more and more countries that we did not even know existed. I wanted to visit some of them for myself.”

“You disguised yourself as a boy in order to travel more freely?” Hocquart asked, fascinated.

“Yes, Mon Seigneur.”

“Have you forgotten that under my authority you are a prisoner of the King of France?” Beauharnois broke in. He took a couple of steps towards the girl, who shrank back even further, her body flat against the wall.

“How could I ever forget?” she whispered, almost inaudibly.

Beauharnois turned his back on her contemptuously and started looking for his cloak. “More important engagements await me; I will leave your fate to the Intendant here. Hocquart, be scrupulous in your investigation of this person.”

How dare Beauharnois condescend to him in his own house, and in front of that grinning social climber, Varin? It might be true that the palace of the Intendant was in the lower town while Beauharnois's chateau — like the manoir of the chronically absent Bishop — flaunted itself on the heights above. Even in New France society remained stratified, and the landscape echoed that arrangement neatly. Still, Hocquart's real power equalled that of his rival; indeed, one might say it exceeded that of the Governor General, which consisted mostly of representing the King by parading around looking grand.

Or so Hocquart told himself when, as was increasingly the case these days, the man's arrogance became insupportable.

“Marie-Thérèse,” Hocquart called abruptly. His housekeeper, a wiry middle-aged woman with reddish hair pulled back tightly under a starched white cap, had clearly been eavesdropping outside the door, for she almost fell into the room. Recovering her balance she curtsied deeply, hiding the embarrassment Hocquart was too preoccupied to notice.

“Take this young woman to the servants' quarters. You can give her that empty storage closet as a bedchamber.”

“Yes, Monsieur L'Intendant,” she replied, staring curiously at the girl whose eloquence had thrilled her. What a small person she was to have undergone such an extraordinary adventure!

“Keep an eye on her,” Beauharnois interjected. “Living with monkeys may have taught her all kinds of thievery.” With that he pinched Esther's cheek, leaving a red mark that was swiftly absorbed by the flush that spread over her face and down her neck. Swirling his beaver-collared cloak about him, he gave an extravagant bow and swept from the room, Varin following like a well-trained spaniel.

THREE

“Quien no tiene su casa es vecino de todo el mundo.”
(A person who has no home is everybody's neighbour.)

AS SOON AS VARIN closed the door behind him, the Intendant began coughing into his handkerchief. His asthma acted up whenever he was distressed — and he was extremely distressed. This situation was unprecedented. He had no idea what he ought to do with the strange creature who had washed up on his shore.

A lifelong bachelor and a career bureaucrat from the age of twelve, Gilles Hocquart had rarely been alone with a woman who wasn't a servant lighting his fire or serving his silent meal. His mother had died when he was eight years old, giving birth to a younger sister who joined her shortly thereafter — the third in a series of lost infants. In their grief, Gilles and his father continued on quietly together without benefit of feminine companionship. It may have been that very lack of distraction which had made possible his steady progress through His Majesty's Department of the Marine to the powerful position he now held.

Luckily, the housekeeper continued to hover at the edge of his vision, awaiting further instruction, so he would simply leave the problem of how to handle the girl up to her. Marie-Thérèse was indispensable. Foreign dignitaries were expected for dinner? A word in her ear and an elegant dinner appeared. A case of wine was required to thank an army captain who had calmed panicky mobs during the cholera epidemic? It was delivered to the man's home that afternoon. A favourite book appeared to be missing from his library? Marie-Thérèse already knew exactly where he had left it, absent-mindedly, in another room, but had hesitated to replace it on the shelf until instructed to do so. The Intendant could not imagine functioning without her — indeed, could scarcely remember a time when he had.

“Marie-Thérèse, you will also show Esther where the bath is. And get her some women's clothes to wear.”

“Certainly, Monsieur Hocquart.”

He cleared his throat and turned his attention to his reluctant houseguest. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Mademoiselle, showing your legs in public!”

“Why?” she asked, as though it were not perfectly obvious. For a moment Hocquart was taken aback. Why indeed? He looked down at his own spindly shanks, almost invisible beneath the swell of his middle-aged belly. Not for the first time, it occurred to him that silk stockings were not the most flattering attire for a man of his age. The habitants wore loose woollen leggings or trousers, both of which were warmer and more practical as well as less revealing. Maybe he should consider adopting the local fashion.

“It is a question of modesty, child. You are not among apes anymore.”

“As you wish, Monsieur L'Intendant,” she said.

Somehow this polite phrase sounded impertinent coming from her. Or perhaps he was being oversensitive, the encounter with Beauharnois having unsettled him as usual. Hocquart sighed, then dismissed the two women and settled down with relief behind his enormous desk, buried under papers, bills, legal suits, and royal proclamations. This desk was his native land, and the one where he felt most at home.

***

MARIE-THÉRÈSE LED THE GIRL to a bathroom at the rear of the long, two-storey building, clumping along in wooden sabots while the other trod silently behind her in men's boots of supple leather. A deep iron tub stood ready next to a bucket of rainwater, and a blackened kettle steamed away over a fire of enormous split logs. She turned her back on her charge as she filled the tub, motioning to the girl to strip off her filthy garments and throw them in a basket to be washed.

The girl undressed obediently, and Marie-Thérèse busied herself with the discarded garments. None were worth saving except for the leather boots. She decided at once that she would give them to Hocquart's stable boy, whose own worn-out shoes were held together with twine. The child would be thrilled to have a new pair and such a fine pair at that, though they might be too large for him. It was hard to say — he was perhaps twelve years old and this girl, though small and slight, was certainly much older.

“How old are you, Mademoiselle?” she asked over her shoulder.

“Nineteen.”

“And is your name really Esther?”

“When you don't have a mother, how can you know your true name?”

“My poor child!” Marie-Thérèse said, turning around inadvertently at the profound note of grief in the girl's voice. She found herself gaping at the figure standing in the tub. Esther was thin and small-breasted, with bruised, sinewy limbs and bony hips. Her black hair was cropped and ragged and her thick eyebrows almost met above her nose. Indeed, there was little conventionally feminine about her, since most women her age plucked their brows and curled their tresses. If they were as slender as she was they disguised it deliberately, wearing garments that padded their bottoms and pushed up their breasts to redress the deficiencies of nature. Deprived of such assistance, Esther was a rough specimen indeed.

“I am ugly, aren't I?” she said sadly.

“Oh, forgive me; I didn't mean to stare!” Marie-Thérèse hastily replied. “I was thinking about your tale of life among the apes.”

“So you heard it?”

“Monsieur Hocquart asked me to wait outside …” Marie-Thérèse was so mortified that she couldn't complete the sentence.

But it seemed Esther did not mean to embarrass her; on the contrary, she asked, “Did you like it?”

“Yes, very much. You are a wonderful storyteller.”

“Thank you.” A radiant smile lit up the girl's face and in fact, at that moment, she looked quite pretty. “Now here is the important question: did you believe me?”

“If Monsieur Hocquart believes you, then I should too.”

“Why?” The girl sat down in the water with a thud, spraying the housekeeper, who shrieked involuntarily. Marie-Thérèse mopped her face with her apron, while Esther scrubbed her own skin so roughly it seemed she meant to rub it right off.

“Because I am nothing but a servant.”

“You are more than that, surely. Being a servant is what you do; it is not who you are. Nobody is just what other people say they are.”

These words hit Marie-Thérèse with the force of a revelation. She thought at once of her father who, despite her tears and supplications, had sent her alone to this cold country because he had no dowry for her. She thought of the village boys jeering at the teeth that staggered through her mouth like broken fence posts. She remembered the priest who scolded her for being proud of her new bonnet and then put a sly hand on her bottom when she was weeping with shame. Nobody else had ever suggested that she might be more than a homely girl with no prospects. That a complete stranger might suspect she was — or could be — different than what she appeared to be was profoundly unsettling. That the person who thought this was completely naked made it all the more portentous. Clearly this girl's spirit was much larger than her body, so couldn't the same be true of anyone?

Having no idea how to reply, Marie-Thérèse reverted to servant mode, despite herself. “Well, you may be right,” she conceded. “Now finish your bath while I find you some clean clothes.”