Authors: Susan Glickman
The Tale-Teller (7 page)
***
SHE COULD ONLY HOPE that, armed with the few scraps of information he had, Varin would not be able to learn anything about her. No one back home knew where she was. All she had to do was continue to be “no one” herself, and they never would. Moreover, even if her so-called family somehow discovered that she'd managed to sail all the way to New France she doubted they would care. On the contrary, they would probably be happy. They could stop pretending she was one of them and stop looking for someone poor or old or disgraced enough to marry her. They'd done their duty, however unwillingly, and now they were as free of obligation to her as she was of affection for them.
And, despite the danger he represented, she had to admit that she too enjoyed Varin's visits. Sometimes he played the solemn officer of the law, sometimes the dashing young captain wooing the shy lass. And then he was the kindly older brother trying to comfort and protect his baby sister. With his confident masculinity on display, all broad shoulders, long legs, and seductive smiles, he was a welcome change from stout, self-conscious Hocquart and pious, subservient Marie-Thérèse.
Marie-Thérèse herself declared that Varin de La Marre was her favourite of all the young officers in Quebec. He had a gallant way about him that made her dream, sometimes, that one day she might find such a sweetheart for herself. They would marry, and Monsieur Hocquart, grateful for her years of faithful service, would give them a nice piece of land with good soil, and fruit trees, and a neat
allée
of oaks. On this land, they would build a house with a fine stone chimney, and she would hang lace curtains in each window and paint the front door a bright French blue, and they would buy a cow and a calf and a few geese and a flock of plump chickens and have three boys and three girls.
Once she'd confided this fantasy, Esther at first shook her head, then took the older woman's chapped red hands in hers and asked if that was really what would make her happy. When Marie-Thérèse said yes, the girl replied that she would pray that Marie-Thérèse got her wish, although she could think of no fate worse than spending the rest of her life cooking and cleaning and taking care of children. The world was so big, yet women's lives were so confined, declared Esther.
Such audacity astonished the housekeeper. How could any girl believe it possible for her to travel around the world as freely as a man? Esther's apparent conviction that she ought to be allowed to do whatever she wanted and go wherever she pleased inclined both Marie-Thérèse and Hocquart to believe her tales. That, and her horror of consuming animal flesh. (She said that, having been fostered by apes, she could not bring herself to devour any creature that nursed its young and therefore limited her diet to fish and fowl.) Why, she claimed to have visited Africa and Asia, the Americas, the Caribbean, and all sorts of exotic places Marie-Thérèse hadn't heard of, some with heathen names she couldn't hope to remember.
They were islands, mostly. Who would have thought there were so many of them everywhere? Before visiting the Ãle d'Orléans, the only island Marie-Thérèse had ever seen was Mont Saint Michel, which was only an island at high tide. So she had assumed that such clumps of land scattered around the water must be typical of a younger country than France. Those pieces would surely grow larger in time and join up
with the mainland, like biscuits in the oven which grew bigger and bigger when they were heated, and fused together if you didn't leave enough space between them. But the Intendant had explained to her that the land itself was as old as France; it was only the buildings that were new. And now here was Esther declaring that there were islands everywhere, some small enough to walk around in an hour, some so vast it took days, but each one surrounded by water on all sides. Each one becalmed on the ocean, a boat going no place in particular.
***
AT THE BEGINNING OF November, Monsieur Hocquart informed Marie-Thérèse that she must work extra hard on polishing Esther's appearance. The Governor General â who had more or less ignored the girl since first meeting her â had suddenly demanded that she celebrate the feast day of Saint Charles, his namesake, at the Chateau Saint-Louis. The gentry were dying to see an authentic wild child, someone actually raised by beasts, he said; they could not believe their luck in having such a prodigy here, at this distant outpost of the empire. Even His Majesty Louis XV himself had no such phenomenon on display at Versailles; soon they might find the
beau monde
shipping out to Quebec for the privilege of viewing Esther, whom Hocquart, unimaginative paper-pusher that he was, took for granted.
Beauharnois's satirical inflection infuriated Hocquart, already burdened by the responsibility of managing Esther. He still wasn't sure what to do with her, nor what to believe about her. Clearly she was running away from something or someone she was afraid to tell him about, and that in itself made him feel protective of the girl despite his obligation to protect the state from whatever danger she was supposed to represent. At the same time he had no option but to accommodate the Marquis's summons, though he did remind the nobleman that, as Esther's guardian, he would be obliged to attend the festivities with her, to make sure she did not get into mischief â or worse, escape.
“Where could she escape to, I wonder?” Beauharnois retorted. “The wilderness? If we are to believe her tales, she'd be more comfortable with the savages out there than you are, Hocquart.”
It was a sore point with Hocquart that Beauharnois, who spent four months each year in Montreal negotiating with the Indians, had quickly learned their tongue, while he continued to find it incomprehensible. Of course, the Governor General had been in New France much longer than he had, and the Intendant's office dealt almost exclusively with the civilian life of the colony. But neither the length of Hocquart's tenure nor the scope of his responsibilities was the problem. The simple fact was that His Majesty's loyal servant Gilles Hocquart was afraid of Indians. He feared their swift and silent agility, and their impassive faces observing those who had displaced them. The Indians were a threat to his faith in progress because, despite having encountered French civilization, they still preferred sleeping on the ground in animal skins to lying on soft featherbeds, and gnawing on leathery smoked fish and fried bread to forking up a nice moist salmon filet followed by airy meringues. He didn't understand them at all and what he didn't understand, he feared.
So Hocquart left dealing with them to Beauharnois, who loved asserting power in the name of King and country. Indeed, Hocquart professed to believe that half the money the Governor General requisitioned from the department of the Marine was to cover his extravagant wardrobe, not to pay his soldiers. Beauharnois was openly of the opinion that scarlet cloth and gold braid were essential weapons in subduing the Indians. He claimed that a tall man wearing a plumed hat and mounted on a gallant steed had the best chance of impressing primitive minds.
But when Esther, in a high-cut gown of blue silk damask, her shoulders covered with a mantle of the same stuff and her hair topped by a white lace cap, entered the ballroom of the Chateau Saint-Louis with Hocquart, it was obvious that Beauharnois himself was far from being the most extravagant dresser in New France. All the guests who crowded around him, hanging onto each syllable of his heroic exploits, were dressed in the height of Paris fashion. Despite the autumn chill, which the log fires burning at either end of the capacious ballroom failed to disperse, the women fluttered elaborate fans carved of ivory, mother-of-pearl, horn, wood, and tortoiseshell. Their powdered wigs were fantastically tall. Their bosoms, also heavily powdered, spilled over low-cut bodices covered in lace and pearls. Sleeves were ruched, or ruffled, or beribboned; skirts were hooped, or layered; nothing but the most brilliantly coloured fabric would do. The men too were resplendent in satin topcoats and embroidered waistcoats, lace stocks, silk stockings, and buckled court shoes. The colours were dazzling, and their onslaught on Esther's senses was rivalled only by the layered odours of perfume, hair lacquer, stale perspiration, tobacco, and wine.
Esther immediately pulled on Hocquart's arm and asked if they could leave. She was terrified of crowds, she said, and since she knew no one here, no one would miss her. So couldn't they slip away unobserved?
“No, don't be silly,” he grumbled.
Seeing them hover at the edge of the room, Beauharnois opened his arms in welcome, his gesture taking in the flamboyant group surrounding him.
“Here is the wild child at last, come to entertain us over dinner with some of the fantastic stories I have been hearing â no doubt mangled in the retelling â from good old Hocquart.”
Silence fell in the room as the two men stared at each other. Their rivalry was well known. They had fought over many things in the past; were they now going to fight over this strange runaway girl? The guests, growing more interested by the minute, pressed closer, their voices surging like the tide against a breakwater. Alarmed by the rising tension in the room, Esther overcame her nerves, stepped up to Beauharnois, and curtsied.
“What is it you wish me to tell you, Mon Seigneur?”
“Three simple things. Who you are, where you come from, and why you are here.”
“My name is Esther. I do not know where I come from. And I am here to explore the New World.”
This last comment evoked a huge guffaw from Beauharnois, which was echoed immediately by his followers.
“But you are just a girl!”
“As you are just a man.”
“How dare you!” Beauharnois thundered, his hand going automatically to the silver hilt of his sword. All around him there were gasps of incredulity. Even Hocquart, at Esther's elbow, was muttering, “You must apologize at once,” and she knew how much he hated his rival.
“I am very sorry if I have offended you, Mon Seigneur,” Esther said, curtsying deeply, her face crimson and her eyes brimming with tears. “All I said was that that you are a man, as I am a girl.”
“No. You said that I was âjust' a man. But I am Charles, Marquis Beauharnois de La Boische, le très haut et très puissant seigneur! How can you fail to recognize the power I have over you?”
The background murmur turned to excited clamour and Beauharnois had a sudden image of how foolish he must look, waving his sword over the head of a defenceless girl. A girl who looked as though she were about to collapse into the arms of Hocquart, that fat bastard. Hocquart was really enjoying playing the kind benefactor, wasn't he? Beauharnois would make him pay dearly for exploiting this moment of public awkwardness. The girl would pay, too. He wasn't taken in by her disingenuous facade for one minute; she knew exactly what she was doing. But if she wanted to play games, fine. He was an expert at playing games.
“But I keep forgetting that you grew up with apes,” he declared, sheathing his weapon with an elaborate flourish. “Hocquart, if your protégée is to live among civilized people, she must be taught better manners.”
“We are trying our best, Governor General, I assure you,” replied Hocquart stiffly.
Beauharnois, consummate politician that he was, had managed to pull rank yet again. How did he get away with it? Though descended from old nobility he had no estate to speak of, so he had stolen his stepchildren's inheritance after abandoning their mother. This was public knowledge but nobody seemed to care. On the contrary; they admired the thief for his lavish parties and fancy clothes, and looked down on Hocquart, who had earned every sou himself. Well, fine then; if that is how shallow they were, let them look down on him. He did not intend to squander his hard-won wealth to impress people who persisted in living an idle life of balls and outings, an indoor life of flirtations and music and chess, as though they weren't a thousand leagues from France.
“And now, let us go in to supper. All this standing around in drafts is as bad for the ladies' complexions as it is for the men's digestions,” Beauharnois declared.
His guests laughed on cue, relieved that the crisis had been solved, and the ladies sought the arms of their escorts to be helped into the dining room. Managing the trains of their gowns while balancing on high heels required some extra assistance. Esther watched them tottering off, fanning themselves and giggling coquettishly, with a sad expression on her face.
“I am not pretty, am I?” she said.
Hocquart was startled out of his thoughts. It hadn't occurred to him that the girl was conscious of her appearance, since she took so little care of it.
“Pretty is as pretty does, Esther. Do not compare yourself to these vain people; you have twice their brains, believe me. Now let us go eat.”
SIX
“Las manos hacen, el Dios ayuda.”
(Where hands work, God assists.)
LIVERIED FOOTMEN SHOWED THE guests to their places, where they stood politely until Beauharnois gave the signal to sit. Esther was placed on his right with an anxiously perspiring Hocquart next to her; across the table sat a vivacious woman named Madame Lévesque, whom the Governor General introduced as a descendent of one of the oldest families in the colony. Her ancestors had come over with Champlain and the Compagnie des Cent-Associés back in 1633 and settled one of the original seigneuries in the region. She was very wealthy and well-connected, Hocquart whispered; a good person to have on one's side, and he himself was very fond of her. It was easy to see why â despite her impressive lineage, the lady was no snob; on the contrary, she was very friendly, saying to Esther at once how much she was looking forward to hearing something of her extraordinary adventures, having lived a very dull life herself here in New France.
Madame Lévesque was accompanied by her husband, a doctor who was praised extravagantly by Beauharnois for his profound knowledge of human anatomy and physiology. Unlike most quacks, his repertoire of treatments extended beyond mere bleeding and purging, so he was the only person the Governor General trusted when he was ill. A dark and taciturn man, Doctor Lévesque spoke and ate little, in distinction to most of the guests, who clamoured with excitement as dish after dish was carried out by a series of pretty serving girls in sparkling white aprons and matching caps. The banquet commenced with a creamy soup of leeks and potatoes which was succeeded by trout poached in wine, a salad of dandelions and spinach, and suckling pig cooked in galantine. While Esther was still pondering this extraordinary concoction â a cold pâté consisting of ground pork wrapped in bacon, veal, nuts, and mushrooms, which Madame Lévesque explained had been sewn up in the piglet's skin before being baked slowly for twelve hours â a whole roast lamb was carried out on a spit by two boys, who paraded it around the room before carrying it to a sideboard to be carved. Clearly there was no shortage of food in the New World; equally clearly, no expense had been spared to make this meal as impressive as any to be found among the aristocracy in France.
When Beauharnois chided Esther for her rudeness in eating nothing but soup and fish, she explained that she was unaccustomed to such rich food, and in such quantities. She already felt unwell and could not possibly eat any more. Doctor Lévesque said that, like her, he was unable to digest anything too rich and suggested that she take a piece of bread to settle her stomach and make sure her wine was well diluted with water so that she did not get a headache. His wife remarked that Esther must have eaten much stranger things than this in her travels around the world. Did she still feel well enough to recount an adventure? Perhaps telling the other dinner guests a story might take her mind off her discomfort.
Esther hoped she was up to the challenge because she felt dizzy from the wine and was unnerved at being with so many strangers. Strangers who kept studying her as though she were an exhibit at a zoo, and talking about her as though they imagined she could not understand a word they said. When she'd entered the dining room she'd overheard one lady in an extravagantly beaded gown of yellow satin screech, in a voice as loud as any fishmonger's, that Esther was shockingly plain. Her companion, wearing several velvet patches on his face that failed to cover the ravages of smallpox, had replied that it was not surprising that the girl looked like a monkey since she had apparently been brought up by the beasts.
Their cruel laughter still echoed in her ears.
But Hocquart's eyes flickered back and forth between her and Beauharnois, reminding her that continued tenure in New France required the Governor General's co-operation, so she determined to please him in spite of their mutual mistrust.
She began hesitantly, “Once I made a soup from salt water and seaweed. That was quite disgusting.”
“Where were you then, Mademoiselle?” asked a severe-looking fellow with a huge bony nose like an eagle's beak, and a monocle screwed into his left eye.
“On a rock somewhere in the middle of the Indian Ocean.”
“Tell us the story at once, Esther. Obviously, you have a most attentive audience,” Beauharnois said.
So Esther put down her fork, took a sip of water to clear her palate, closed her eyes as though to focus her memory, and told the following tale.