“Inform Madame that I have brought my mistress for a visit,” Cree announced.
When the tall servant made no reply, only nodded and closed the door, Cree leaned close and whispered to Alice, “That is Nowando. He thinks he better than I because he serves the baron.”
“He?” Alice turned a confused look on Cree, but before she had any explanation, the door opened again and a beautiful lady stood before her, smiling in welcome.
The dark-haired woman, dressed curiously enough in European fashion, extended her hand to her guest. “Alice Gunn, it is so much my pleasure to be your acquaintance. You are my sister now that you marry the blood brother of my husband. Alice and Mathilde be good sisters together. No?”
Alice tried not to smile at the woman’s broken English. She would have her work cut out for her, teaching the baron’s bride to speak properly. Still, Alice reminded herself, Mathilde’s English was far better than her own Abenaki. Perhaps they could learn from each other. Wouldn’t Chris be surprised when she went home speaking their native tongue?
Alice frowned. Try as she would, she could not keep Chris from creeping into her thoughts. She missed him terribly, but she was determined not to go back to him just yet. She had to find out for sure what had happened between him and Ishani while he was in camp. Also, she needed to search her own mind and heart without Gunn’s mesmerizing physical presence distracting her. When and if she returned to him, she meant to go with total love and trust.
Mathilde showed Alice into a strange but charming room, decorated with an odd blend of Indian mats, furs, and baskets alongside the Frenchman’s baronial treasures. A silver tea service and china cups sat unused on the floor in one corner while the two women drank some strong herb concoction from wooden cups. Alice’s mind was busy, thinking all that she could do to help Mathilde improve upon her native habits.
While they talked, Cree and Nowando vied with each other to serve their mistresses. Finally a real argument erupted between the pair when they both reached, at the same instant, for the pottery jug to serve more bitter tea to their ladies. Mathilde’s soft voice took on a firm edge as she scolded the servants. Their heads hung in shame, the pair left the room as Mathilde ordered.
“I beg your humblest pardon, Alice,” Mathilde apologized. Then she sighed deeply and shook her head. “Even good servants can be no better than naughty children at times. Those two never got along, not even when they were—how you say in English—lovers?”
Alice choked on her tea. Mathilde frowned at her reaction.
“I should not have said that. No? My husband has warned me that you Brits are what he calls a ‘stuffy lot,’ at times. You see, we put no restrictions where love is concerned. I am again asking your pardon, Alice. I should pinch my tongue.”
“I think you mean ‘hold your tongue,’ Mathilde, but never mind that. It’s simply hard for me to think of two women being lovers.”
Mathilde giggled. “No, no, no, Alice! You do not understand me. They are not women those two. Every tribe has its cross dressers. We call them berdache.”
The baron, anxious to see how his wife was making out with her new friend and her new language, had been standing near the door, listening. When Mathilde got on this subject, he groaned, “Mon Dieu!”
Hearing his exclamation, his wife looked up, stricken. “I say it wrong, darling?”
He could tell by the total shock registering on Alice’s face that she knew French, at least enough to translate berdache to sodomite, and from that she had obviously drawn the proper conclusions about Cree and Nowando.
“I am sorry,” he said with a shrug. “Mathilde does sometimes speak before she thinks things through. But there is no stigma among the Indians in being berdache. Their lot is chosen at birth. Cree and Nowando have lived as women all their lives. And, of course, they stay to their own kind. You understand?”
Alice rose unsteadily to her feet, recalling with great embarrassment how Cree had helped her undress earlier. “You can’t be telling me that the old woman you sent to serve me is really a man?”
“Oui” Mathilde answered. “But never say that to Cree. Her whole life, she has been a woman. She has chosen to live as such and to take her lovers from among the other berdache of our tribe.”
Alice looked to the baron for confirmation of this shocking fact. He grimaced, then nodded.
“I’m afraid she’s telling you the truth of the matter. Her people are most lenient when it comes to matters concerning personal intimacy. There are many cross dressers. They are accepted and live useful lives.”
Alice shook her head. “Not as my servant!”
“Oh, come now, Alice, surely you’ve heard of the eunuchs of ancient times. Why, they were the only servants allowed inside harems. They served empresses and queens. Would I have Nowando serving my own wife if I didn’t trust him implicitly?”
“Is Cree a eunuch, Baron?”
“Well, of course not. What a barbaric suggestion! The Indians don’t allow castration.”
“Then I won’t have him serve me,” Alice replied flatly.
Castin had been mortified when his wife brought up this subject, but now it seemed to be turning to his advantage. He wanted nothing more than to see Alice back with her husband. Demanding that she accept Cree’s services might hasten Alice’s departure.
“I’m sorry you object, but Cree remains. As I told you last night, my word is law here.”
“You can’t mean—”
“I do mean that you will obey my commands. Cree is your servant.”
Alice sank back into her chair, crestfallen.
Mathilde reached over and patted her limp hand. “You will become accustomed to Cree. You will forget she is not a woman. Be thankful you have her, Alice. She will do the duties that you would otherwise be required to perform.”
“What duties?” Alice asked dully.
“Soon the bud of the white ash will grow to be the size of a mouse’s ear,” her hostess answered cryptically.
Alice stared hard at Mathilde, wondering if she’d sipped too long at her herbal brew.
The baron himself explained. “It’s at that point in the spring that the Indian women put in their gardens, Alice. Nowando will plant for Mathilde, of course, and Cree for you. Not a big garden, of course, only a few acres of maize, hoed with a quahog shell.”
“Cree, too, will chew your rawhide,” Mathilde added, “haul your share of the wood, catch your fish and gut them, and—”
Alice held up her hands. “No more! I surrender. I accept your generosity.”
Before Alice had spent many days at the river village, she had forgotten, like Cree herself, that he had ever been a man. This was only one of the strange Indian customs Alice came to take for granted.
But soon a time would come when her acceptance of native ways would be tested to the limit.
Chapter 16
Throughout the spring of 1692, Alice remained at the Abenaki river village while her husband stormed and fumed, waiting for her to make up her mind when she would come back to him.
Messengers arrived frequently from the fort bringing urgent notes from Gunn to the Frenchman. The tone of these missives was always the same—desperate, confused, demanding. Time and again the baron sent his runner back, urging Gunn to bide his time and hold his temper. Then on the Gunns’ first wedding anniversary, a message of a different flavor arrived from the exasperated Frenchman.
Your Alice is a stubborn woman, my friend. I have done all in my power to convince her that this wilderness life is not suited to such a gently bred lady, but she continues to refuse my offers to return her to her people. Are you sure that you want her back? Besides being as bullheaded a female as I have ever encountered, she is also a meddler, a schemer, and, some of my people tell me, a witch! I would gladly be done with her this minute, if I could figure a way to get rid of her. She is teaching my wife her own stubborn ways. Should you decide that you are be
tter off without her, I will gladly send her up the river to Quebec. A certain gentleman I know there would pay dearly for her services.
Incensed by the baron’s criticism of his wife and his suggestion to sell her into questionable servitude, Gunn sent the Indian runner right back with his own angry reply.
How dare you say such things about my Alice? She is the only woman I have ever loved or ever will. Have no fear, sir, that I shall take her off your hands immediately. If I have to bind and gag her, I will bring her back that way. Tell my wife I will be there soon to collect her. If she is not there when I arrive, prepare to do battle!
One dark brow arched upward and the Frenchman chuckled at his friend’s apparent outrage. How he wished he could simply sit by and allow Gunn to charge in and take his woman. But, at present, relations were still strained between the French and their Indian allies and the British. Under the circumstances, it would look bad for all concerned if he allowed Gunn simply to stroll into the village on no more important business than regaining his misplaced wife.
Quickly Castin sat down and scrawled another message to Gunn, urging him not to come just yet. The baron would first set the stage for their meeting, which would be labeled “peace talks,” so as not to arouse undue curiosity or animosity from any quarter. He ended his message, “Be assured, my friend, that you are no more anxious to be reunited with your wife than I am to be rid of her. However, we must do this my way. Trust me. You will hear from me soon again.”
Gunn sank to the bed in his cabin, still holding the baron’s latest note in his hands.
“Damn,” he muttered.
He’d been ready to ride for the village when the Indian messenger arrived. Now he must wait until Castin sent him notice to come. If only he’d left earlier, before the runner reached him. Still, he understood the problems involved. Ever since the attack on Scarappi and his men the night before Alice was kidnapped, relations had been strained all around. His riding into the village unexpectedly could trigger a full-fledged war.
Too depressed and disappointed to stay alone at his cabin, Gunn rode to the fort. William Phips, recently appointed captain-general and governor-in-chief of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, was up from Boston inspecting the Maine defenses. Perhaps his company would prove consoling.
Gunn found his friend in the common room, having a tankard of ale after his busy day with the fort commandant. Silently Gunn took the chair beside him.
“Lord help us, you look like you’ve lost your last friend, Chris. What’s happened?”
“It’s Alice, as usual,” Gunn confided.
“I thought you meant to set out this very day to bring her back.”
“The baron stopped me. I’m to await his permission to go to the village. He’s anxious to send Alice back, but she’s still balking, so he’s between a rock and a hard place. Still, he promised it would be soon.”
“By damn, I never heard of such,” Phips exploded. “Why, if it were my Mary with those savages, I’d take the whole garrison from the fort and tear their place apart to get her back. And she’d come, more than willingly, mind you.”
Gunn sighed and sipped his ale. “It’s not that simple, Will. I thought of attacking the village, but Alice might be injured if I did that. As for her returning to me willingly, I’ve given her ample reason not to want me.”
“Name one,” Phips insisted.
“Ishani.”
Phips waved a hand as if to dismiss the other woman. “But you swore to me that there was never anything between the two of you.”
Gunn nodded. “Telling Alice the truth is one thing. Making her believe it is quite another.”
“She’s being unreasonable,” Phips said. “Our wives should realize that we’re all entitled to a bit of harmless wenching now and again. You don’t think I lived like a monk those five years I was away from my Mary, do you? The native girls down in the islands looked mighty tempting after a time.”
“What did Mary say about that?”
Phips laughed. “I’m not fool enough to discuss my debauches with my own wife, man.”
“So there you are,” Gunn answered. “If Mary knew, she’d probably throw you out bag and baggage. Fool that I am, I told Alice everything, thinking she’d take my word for it. But she remembers all too well my past reputation. The first time she ever saw me, years ago back in England, I was kissing Lady Cynthia. She knows me for my tainted past, so why should she trust me in the future? Undoubtedly, she’s heard by now that Ishani and I shared a tent the night of the baron’s wedding.”
Phips drew in his breath, looking surprised, but interested, too. “Did you really?”
“No, dammit! What do you take me for?” Gunn stared glumly down at his tankard. “But we went into the tent together and everyone in the village saw and they all think I slept with her.”
“You do have a problem, don’t you, Chris?”
“Aye, that I do. Any suggestions?”
Phips thought for a moment, then smiled brightly. “What’s the one thing in the world that would make your Alice a happy woman?”
Gunn laughed humorlessly. “Finding her dream world, Norumbega, and living happily ever after in a crystal palace with golden floors.”
Phips nodded his agreement. “We both know that place is only a myth, but you’re on the right track. What about a fine house in Boston where she could live life as she’s used to? Servants, pretty clothes, comfortable quarters, and a cultured society to share with her loving husband.”
Gunn drew back, staring at his friend. “Me? Live in Boston?”
“Is your life so wonderful here in Maine with your wife refusing even to see you?”
Gunn thought for a long time, then replied, “You have a point, Will. I’ll think about it. I said I’d go to any lengths to have Alice back, but I hadn’t thought I’d have to go quite that far.”
“You love her, don’t you?”
Gunn clenched his fists on the table before him. “So much I could die from it.”
“Well, then, I’d say you don’t have much choice.”
Alice, who had grown quite fond of Cree and Nowando, felt pleased with herself as she gazed at the pair.
“My husband will not like this,” Mathilde repeated for the third time, her voice ominous with dread. “Alice, you go too far.”
“Nonsense. They look so handsome, don’t you think?” Alice replied, showing the two servants the proper way to don their tricorn hats. They were dressed in the new clothes Alice had made for them, complete with men’s britches, hose, vests, and jackets. “Here, look at yourselves. You’re as elegant a pair of gentlemen as I ever saw.”
Alice offered the servants a looking glass she’d found in one of the baron’s trunks. The two men stared at the shiny thing in Alice’s hand and both screamed with fright, then covered their eyes.
“What’s wrong with them?” Alice asked Mathilde in a disgruntled voice.
The other woman was shaking her head and her face was deathly pale. “It is evil, that glass. It steals the soul.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“You are wrong, Alice. If one believes it, it is so, and my people do believe.”
“Very well,” Alice said, “we’ll put the mirror away. Come along, now. Let’s show everyone your new clothes.”
Mathilde caught Alice’s hand, but the determined woman shook off her grasp. “What’s wrong with you, Mathilde? Cree, Nowando, you want to show off your new clothes, don’t you?”
The two men nodded. Anxious to please Alice, and feeling every bit as handsome as she’d told them they were, they followed her outside. But their good spirits soon vanished as a mob gathered—jeering, laughing, finally throwing stones at the two berdache in men’s clothing. Alice got caught up in the mob, her dress torn and her hair mussed. When the baron appeared on the scene, the crowd grew silent.
“Go back to work, all of you,” he told them.
Cree and
Nowando, clinging to each other for protection and sobbing loudly, made no move to leave.
The Frenchman glared at them. He was used to seeing the Abenaki in strange garb, thanks to Alice, who had taken his orders to Europeanize these people to the extreme, but this time she had gone too far. “What’s wrong with you two? Get back to work, I said.”
“Oh, please, sir,” Nowando wept, “let us go home. Let us have our clothes and our souls back.”
Mathilde joined them and quickly explained to her husband about Alice’s generosity in making men’s clothing for them. She tried her best to protect her friend, but her mention of the mirror finally caused the baron’s explosion.
“How dare you, Alice Gunn? Why do you think that looking glass was packed away? What are you trying to do to these people?”
Alice cringed away from the man. Never had she witnessed such anger, much less directed at her. She had only tried to help by suggesting healthier eating habits, teaching them to take tea, putting nappies on their naked babies. As for Cree and Nowando, she’d thought the baron would be pleased by the transformation she’d wrought.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured to the furious man towering over her. “I didn’t realize—”
“I’ll accept no excuses. This is the end of it. You now have to make a choice. You will return to your husband immediately or I will send you to my friend in Quebec.”
Such a threat stopped Alice in her tracks. All her cringing ceased and she stood up to the baron. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Wouldn’t I?” he replied, his black eyes glittering.
The next days seemed a stalemate to Alice. The baron ordered her confined to her tent while she made her decision. She was not to see or talk with anyone. A servant—not the terrified Cree, who was sure Alice had stolen her soul—left food and water outside the tent. However, the woman waited until Alice was sleeping so that there was no contact between them. The baron had ordered that Alice be ostracized by the entire tribe.
Silver Tears Page 25
