Silence of Stone

by Annamarie Beckel

  Erasmus and his ilk are not great men in New France, Michel teased, their philosophies are like ash, dead and useless, far less important than muskets and gold and jewels. Then Michel, his face sculpted anew by his charming smile, would play his citre, and Marguerite had only to close her eyes to smell rose petals and lilies scenting air that stank of chamber pots and manure.

  After little more than a fortnight, when Michel met them on deck, Damienne found reasons to retire to the cabin, but not before she’d wagged an admonishing finger at Marguerite. I will give you privacy, she warned, but do not forget la chasteté et la virginité. Do not ever think of yourselves as alone. Always there is someone watching.

  Michel manoeuvred then to stand too close, to touch Marguerite’s forearm or hand, to brush his lips against her cheek. She discouraged him, but without conviction.

  Vous êtes belle, he said.

  Tu, she corrected,tu.

  She never intended to love. But she did – perhaps loving the comfort and distraction Michel offered as much as the alluring young man himself. Caught up in each other, Marguerite and Michel were oblivious, unmindful of watching eyes and wagging tongues, and foolish enough to believe that the darkness was deep enough to cover them, that the sly eye of the moon would not reveal them.

  Je t’adore, Michel told her, his breath warm on her neck as his fingers trailed across the tops of her breasts then inched beneath her skirts. I love you above all else, he said. We will marry and make our fortune together in New France.

  Her throat closed. Marry? Did she want to marry? But she could not think upon that just then, not with her spine and thighs softening against him. She nearly cried out with the agonizing desire his caresses provoked. Later, within the confines of the cabin, in the terrible solitude of her narrow bunk, she writhed, entangling herself in the bedclothes. She would have touched herself were it not such a grievous sin.

  Desire battled with piety and chastity. Piety and chastity won. Briefly.

  The spider’s slender thread vibrates, a high-pitched ringing: the blue damselfly caught, twisting. Laughter, like rose silk rustling:La piété et la chasteté. La demoiselle naïve. Le désir.

  Unfastening the black cap from my head, I let my hair fall loose. I slip a hand inside my chemise and touch a breast, close my eyes and remember.

  I do not care about sin.

  The girls are doing sums. I have not yet taught them that their lives will be subtraction, not addition.

  A small hand touches mine. “J’ai fini!” It is Isabelle, always finished before the others. She holds out her slate, her small chin jutting. Isabelle’s skin is like satin, like a baby’s. Her lips are full and pink. Lips like Michel’s. I long to trace them with a finger.

  I pull my hand away from hers and do not bother to check her slate. I know already that her sums are correct.

  “Madame de Roberval,” she says, “can you teach me to write poetry?”

  “You are too young for poetry.”

  “Papa thinks I am ready.”

  Poetry. Marguerite had read hundreds of poems. She could recite lines from dozens: psalms, but also frilly exclamations of love, rapturous stanzas extolling golden tresses and ivory breasts, lyric lines praising the frail beauty of blooms confined in rock-walled gardens, barren refrains proclaiming God’s grace and mercy.

  Marguerite loved poetry. I am contemptuous of it all.

  “Let your papa teach you poetry,” I say.

  “Papa says he is a geographer and an alchemist, not a poet. He says that all well-bred ladies know how to write poetry…that you must know how and that I should learn from you.”

  I consider her open face, the smooth forehead and clear eyes. Isabelle can hide nothing, but I wonder about her father. What is Monsieur Lafrenière hiding? What does he know of Marguerite? What does he know of me?

  “Papa never tells me I am too young. For anything. He lets me stand on a stool by his bench and watch him mix elix…” Isabelle chatters through her missing teeth, lisping the s’s. The smooth forehead creases now as she searches for the word she cannot quite remember.

  She taps an ink-stained finger against her cheek. “Thingth,” she says at last. “He does not let me stir them yet, but he will soon. And Papa lets me look at maps and read whatever I choose, so long as I wash my hands and do not crease the pages.”

  “Your papa is good to you.”

  I walk to the window and grip the sill. A geographer, an alchemist who toys with dark secrets. What does Monsieur Lafrenière want to know? Would he take Marguerite’s story and transmute lead into gold?

  Isabelle trails behind and pulls at my skirt. “Will you teach me? Please?” She holds out her slate. She has already rubbed out her sums and written four uneven lines:Mama est au paridis / Elle aime Papa et Isabelle / Elle attend Papa et Isabelle / Mama est au paridis.

  I did not tell Isabelle that no one awaits our arrival in heaven, that love is long dead before the clods of earth rain down upon the coffin, before the stones are rolled into place. Instead I corrected her spelling. “A,” I said, pointing to her slate, “au paradis.” Then I searched and found a volume of poetry for her to study: vacuous verses about love, invoking mountains and sea and sky, as if love and nature were sweetness and beauty and joy, as if love continued beyond the grave.

  I sit in the empty classroom, reluctant to go to the chapel. The slender volume of poetry lies open before me, but I cannot bring myself to read a single word.

  I dreamed last night of walking in the woods, of listening for ebony wings and watching for wolves’ copper eyes, and for bears, white shadows looming in the dark. I dreamed last night of Roberval and of Michel. I followed a trail of grey rock, footprints in snow and ice. This morning my slippers were damp.

  Naively enthusiastic and desperate with desire, Marguerite went to Damienne. She cast her gaze to the floor, then she begged, Can you leave us alone in the cabin?

  Non,non, Damienne answered, shaking her head so vigorously the loose flesh beneath her chin wobbled.La chasteté. La virginité.

  We are to be married, Marguerite answered. When we arrive in Terre Neuve, I will ask my uncle, and he will marry us…on land, not at sea.

  Then you must wait.

  We cannot.

  But you must.

  If we cannot be in the cabin, Marguerite insisted, desire making her bold, we will make love on deck, for all to see.

  But you cannot!

  We will.

  Damienne bit her lip. You are quite certain you and he will be married, that you can trust this man?

  Oui. Marguerite stamped a foot.

  Michel crept into the cabin, a shy nod to Damienne. With a disapproving scowl, she withdrew, and the young lovers hesitated only briefly. They fulfilled their desire with abandon, their coupling less artful than ardent. Stealth and restraint had only added to their passion. For Marguerite, there was pain and blood, but she was desperate to touch and caress, desperate with the longing for a consummation only une demoiselle naïve could imagine.

  Sniffing the back of my wrist, I remember the smell of his skin, salt and berries, the feel of his hands on her breasts and hips. Memory of strong legs entangled with hers, his movement within, filling the hungry longing between her thighs.

  And then the other. A small white scar, mahogany eyes. An ebony feather twisting in the wind, soft rasp against brown cheek.

  I close the book of poetry and force myself to stand and walk to the window. I can see almost nothing through circles of translucent glass the colour of the sea. I consider the swirls, so like waves, and tap at the small bubbles trapped within. I smell salt and hear the hull of a ship creaking. I smell love.

  Marguerite and Michel loved, and imagined their loving to be secret. Reluctantly Damienne agreed to act as their sentinel, patiently holding vigil and frowning her disapproval. Marguerite still met with Roberval to discuss with him his plans for New France, but she now watched him closely for any sign that he knew.

  Le sc
andale. Roberval. Le cœur noir.

  “Oui,” I say, my finger tracing the dark lead between the circles of glass. “A black heart.”

  The three ships arrived in St. John’s on the eighth day of June, slipping past the high cliffs and through the narrow opening to the harbour. Marguerite counted seventeen other vessels, mostly French and Portuguese. Ramshackle sheds huddled near the water, and long wharves reached out like bent and twisted fingers.

  Thick slabs of fish dried beneath the bright sun and brisk wind, which was redolent with the stink of offal. Flies formed humming black clouds above the fish and competed with screeching gulls for refuse. Nonetheless, to the would-be colonists the smells of St. John’s were a welcome relief from the stench of the ships, from the foul miasma created by livestock and the filth of their own bodies. They were glad for the chance to drink sweet water and wine that did not taste like vinegar, grateful for a bite of fresh meat and a mouthful of something crisp and green. They were eager to disembark and walk upon dry land that did not roll and sway beneath their feet.

  Roberval was careful at first about whom he allowed to go ashore, but he soon realized there was no place for his felons to hide, nowhere he could not track them down again. They could escape into the hills and woods away from the small settlement, but that would be a fate worse than the colony in New France. Roberval was also satisfied that he’d succeeded in instilling fear and loathing within the colonists. His punishments had been harsh: flogging just for stealing an extra bit of hard bread, hanging for disobeying an order, any order. Harsh, but necessary. None of his men would dare to try to escape.

  Roberval. Le cœur noir.

  I blink and shake my head, but cannot stop the visions of bloodied backs, of a body swinging with the waves until the flesh turned black. I grip the windowsill and stare into the swirls of green glass until I can replace those images with grasses and white daisies bending with the wind.

  While in St. John’s, Roberval took on supplies of fresh water, salt fish, and whatever fresh meat and vegetables he could confiscate, taking whatever he wanted by force. Recognized by the French as viceroy, and relishing that authority, he spent his days settling disputes between sailing captains and fishermen, between French and Portuguese, the latter protesting loudly that Roberval had no command over them.

  Eventually Roberval permitted nearly everyone to go ashore, even Michel and Marguerite, who had lived in terrible fear that Roberval had found them out, that he would now put them on separate ships. He seemed not to know, however, and Marguerite felt encouraged by his lack of attention. Nevertheless, Marguerite and Michel were careful to leave the Vallentyne separately.

  Later, in their wanderings together, they discovered a small meadow where they could lie beneath the sun’s golden eye, the tall grasses blowing in slow waves around them, the sound like rustling satin. White daisies bloomed in abundance, and Marguerite inhaled deeply, the clean fragrance of grasses and daisies a welcome relief from the fetid odours aboard the Vallentyne. Even the salt air smelled sweeter here.

  Marguerite and Michel bathed in an icy stream, then made love slowly, their bodies still wet and glistening.

  This is what it will be like in New France, Michel said, we will love under the blue, blue sky on a bed of grasses and flowers. His eyes became soft and dreamy. And we will order books from France, and you will teach our children to read and to write. You will teach them to cipher.

  He stroked her smooth belly then kissed it. The touch of his beard tickled, and Marguerite laughed. Our many, many children, he whispered into her belly, his breath warm.

  Michel urged caution in approaching Roberval about the question of marriage, perhaps understanding his nature far better than Marguerite did. With prodding from an insistent Damienne, however, Marguerite finally gathered her courage and went to her uncle. She carefully listed Michel’s merits and her own dowry, and then told Roberval that she and Michel wanted to marry.

  Would you, as viceroy, perform the ceremony?

  Non, he said. I will not.

  Marguerite was stunned. But we are well-suited, she said, and I love him. And he loves me.

  Roberval’s lips curved into a tight smile. Love has nothing to do with marriage, he said.

  But who else is there? Who?

  You will not marry him.

  I will, Uncle. I will!

  Roberval drew back his arm and slapped her, so hard that she fell to her knees. Foolish girl, he said. Without my permission your union cannot be legal. You will marry no one.

  I put a hand to my cheek and feel the stinging burn, the humiliation purple like a bruise, streaked with yellow confusion and black anger.

  Marguerite scrambled to her feet. Before she could unlatch the door and flee, he said, You have already lain with him, haven’t you?La putain! Whore!

  Lain with Michel. La putain! Whore! Le scandale.

  The voices are like cobwebs covering my hair and face. I wave my hands to brush them away.

  Michel saw her running and followed her to the cabin. When Marguerite told him what had happened, he put a trembling palm to either side of her face, careful not to touch her swelling cheek. I will kill him, he said.

  Non,non ! Then you will be killed, hanged as a traitor.

  But this…this. How could he do this to you?

  He is viceroy.

  Why would he forbid you to marry? I do not know, she said. She considered, then discarded the other noblemen on the expedition. Surely Roberval did not intend for her to marry one of them.You will marry no one, he had said.

  What will we do?

  Silence. Waves slapping indifferently against the hull.

  Her words then were deliberate and carefully chosen. In the new religion, she said, hand-fast marriages are permitted when there is no one to perform the ceremony.

  But the marriage will not be legal, Michel protested, looking away. His perfect teeth worked at his lower lip. What will he do to me? Now that he knows.

  Marguerite persisted. If we place our hands on the New Testament and swear, in God’s eyes, we will be married.

  Humiliation made her brazen. And once I am carrying your child, none of the other noblemen will want me. Uncle will have no choice. He will have to accept it, then marry us publicly and welcome the addition of a wedded couple and their child to his colony. We must do it soon, Michel. Tonight.

  Their marriage was like un divertissement performed at court: Marguerite in her rose silk gown, Michel in his soldier’s doublet, yellow beeswax candles, Marguerite’s New Testament, a bit of bread and wine, all within the cabin, and a fretful Damienne as both lookout and witness, their only guest.

  Marguerite pronounced the words: Wilt thee take…honour and cherish…this is my body…this is my blood.

  Then Damienne withdrew and they lay together, their loving both sweet and desperate, infused with the thrill of the forbidden.

  The next day Marguerite kept her hand to her cheek and carefully avoided her uncle, although she was now more fearful for Michel than for herself. If Roberval hanged him, there would be no marriage. But surely, she told herself, the viceroy would not dare to hang a nobleman.

  That evening Jacques Cartier’s ships sailed through the narrows and into the harbour, diverting Roberval’s attention from his ward and her lover. The colonists were jubilant, but Marguerite could see the hard questions in the set of her uncle’s jaw.

  When Cartier boarded the Vallentyne, Roberval greeted him coldly. Why are you not at Charlesbourg Royal? he asked.

  Cartier struggled to be deferential, a muscle twitching at the corner of his mouth. Perhaps we should speak privately, he said, glancing at the expectant faces of those who had gathered around him.

  Why are you not at Charlesbourg Royal? Roberval repeated.

  Marguerite stepped closer.

  Cartier spread his hands, palms empty. Because we are returning to France, he said. There is not enough food for another winter. I have already lost too many men to hunger and sic
kness.

  He leaned closer to Roberval. And to Indians, Cartier said quietly.

  Indians. Even the word made Marguerite’s belly churn.

  You will return with us to Charlesbourg Royal, said Roberval.

  Cartier shook his head.Non, we will not. It is far too late in the summer to plant. And the Indians will not help us. They will kill us all if they can. We should all return to France.

  The low murmuring ceased; ruddy cheeks paled. Trembling fingers pulled at ragged beards, then trailed across mouths that were drawn and pinched.

  Marguerite saw fear to match her own.

  Roberval’s pilot, Jean Alphonse de Saintogne, stepped forward. He opened his mouth, but a venomous look from Roberval stopped the words on his tongue. The assembled noblemen put their hands behind their backs and shifted from one foot to the other. Marguerite heard a sheep’s plaintive baa.

  I order you to return to Charlesbourg Royal, said Roberval, his voice as sharp and abrasive as ice.

  You are mad, Cartier whispered.

  As Viceroy of New France, I order you.

  Cartier nodded once to acknowledge the pilot, then turned on his heel and disembarked. One of his own men rowed him back to his ship.

  By dawn Cartier and his ships were gone, vanished into darkness and grey fog.

  Marguerite was now even more heartsick and terrified, worried not only about her and Michel, but about the fate of the entire colony. If the great adventurer Jacques Cartier had abandoned the expedition, what hope was there for them?

  Michel tried to reassure her. Roberval is a cruel man, he acknowledged, but King François must have had sound reasons for making your uncle Viceroy of New France. He is a hard leader, but he must know what he is doing.

  Did he know what he was doing when he slapped me? she retorted. What does my uncle know of growing grain and raising sheep? Of Indians? And what about us, Michel? What will he do to us?