The Seamstress

by Allison Pittman

  He had turned away, a blush on his cheek, when Laurette walked right up to him.

  “It’s a fine thing,” she said, “to ship everything away and leave nothing for your poor neighbors who are facing a winter with our dresses worn clean through.”

  That very evening we had a new home in Gagnon’s barn. The small one, meant only to house his milk cows and dogs. It smelled of sweet hay and felt warm, with straw-stuffed ticks and feather pillows waiting in the loft. The walls were thick, the roof solid shingles, and while Gagnon said he wouldn’t risk the danger of a stove to heat the room as we slept, we had the promise of hot irons during the coldest of winter nights.

  For six years we have lived here. His sheep, our sheep, and this spring afternoon, Laurette and I lie next to each other, two shepherdesses stretched out on a carpet of green grass as they graze nearby.

  “Your turn, Renée.”

  Laurette’s voice is slow, the words almost slurred to a stop. I look over to see her arm flung across her eyes, blocking out the piercing sun.

  “You’re not even looking.”

  “I trust you.” There’s a hook of a smile at the corner of her mouth.

  “All right.” I turn my attention back to the vast sky above, dotted with clouds. “I see your rabbit.” Pointing, the tip of my finger traces what could be a long, floppy ear. “But I’m afraid he’s done for.” I rise on one elbow and describe the mass of dark-gray clouds newly formed to the east. “Three dogs—or maybe one, like Cerberus.”

  “Cerberus?” Laurette never did pay as much attention to Gagnon’s stories as I did.

  “Cerberus, the three-headed dog that guards the gates of the underworld. Your little rabbit doesn’t have a chance.”

  “Let them have it. They’re probably hungry. I know I am.”

  I am, too, but I don’t say so. Complaining about hunger is like complaining about being alive. It seems ungrateful, knowing we had our fill of bread and butter early this morning, and would find a good, filling bowl of soup upon our return. In between, we’d shared a flask of water and a boiled egg each.

  “If only we could catch it,” I say. “We could eat it ourselves, or most of it, anyway. And give the scraps to the dogs. Everyone, happy happy.”

  She lifts her arm enough to show me one open eye. “Even in fantasy you are practical.”

  I lie back down. “And even when there’s nothing to be done you are lazy.” She laughs, short and hearty, and I grin beside her. “Your turn.”

  “Non.” She hums the word. “Why waste our time finding stories in the sky when we can drift off and find them in a dream?”

  “Because we have to bring the sheep in.”

  “There’s at least an hour before sunset.” She settles in for comfort. “Do what you want with your time; I’ll do what I want with mine.”

  Soft snores come within minutes, and I sit up, then stand up, brushing the dry grass from the back of my skirt. Looking out to the east, the same direction where my doglike pack of rain clouds seems to be gathering strength, I can just make out the white, woolly flock grazing on the horizon. More and more the air smells like rain, and I think it’s best not to wait. Rain makes the sheep sluggish. Given the chance, they would stand still and turn into soggy statues.

  Not far, a massive stone offers a better view, and I climb up, my bare feet gripping the smooth surface. Once standing, I bring two fingers to my mouth and whistle a distinct five-note command. Within seconds there is movement on the horizon. Two small, quick forms. Cossette and Copine, the dogs I helped train since their birth, are running in circles around the herd to gather it.

  The herd is small now, little more than one hundred, and they move at a purposeful trot. The dogs flank them, taking on a pose that makes them look like two wolves stalking prey rather than beloved companions bringing them to safety. Thus, the sheep obey. I feel a certain pity, knowing that they live in a constant state of fear. Always feeling chased, hunted, watched. Ever alert and uneasy, their rest coming only when they are safely stabled in the yard. Or, better, in the barn, where the dogs sit as sentries outside, out of sight.

  “You think they’d learn,” I told Gagnon one afternoon when the sheep, grazing on the new, lush grass, shifted and startled with each movement of the dogs.

  “Learn what?”

  “That the dogs mean no harm. That they are champions, protectors.”

  “They’re safer to keep their guard up,” Gagnon said. “The dogs feel nothing for the sheep. They act in obedience to us. They run circles because it’s a game, because we feed them. Their loyalty is to their own survival. If we ever stopped feeding them, left them to their own instincts, be certain they’d feed themselves somehow. The sheep are the smart ones. Better to live by the instinct God gave you than to be fooled by tricks and manners.”

  Now my instincts tell me to get ourselves home quickly, where we can have our hunger sated by whatever waits in the pot before tucking ourselves safely up in our room. I blow another signal, and the dogs break, double back, and begin to run. The sheep run with them, their woolly heads filled with fear at the chase. When they are close enough, I whistle again. Cossette and Copine drop to the ground, and the sheep come to a dead stop, their hooves rooted in place.

  There’s a rumble of thunder in the distance, and by the time I return to Laurette, she is sitting up and waiting.

  “We’ll have to hurry,” I say. “To beat the rain.”

  She waves me off. “Afraid you’ll melt? Like you’re made of sugar?”

  I want to say something back, but hold my tongue. This has been characteristic of my cousin of late—short, barbed remarks that make me feel my status with her has changed. Not really an enemy, but a rival of sorts. For all of our lives we have occupied the same space in the world, but there are moments like this one where I feel her nudging me away.

  And so we walk. A brisk pace, but comfortable, the sheep behind and then beside us, responding to the pace set by the dogs, who seem much more eager to reach shelter than we do. The drops begin when we are in sight of the farm. It’s nestled in a valley, bordered by a stream. There’s a large, fenced corral for the sheep, as well as a long, flat building to house them in the winter and on nights like tonight. Gagnon’s own house is a simple stone structure, and I can see smoke coming from the chimney promising a good fire and supper. By the time we arrive at the gate, the storm has broken out in earnest and Gagnon, wearing a waxed wool coat and broad-brimmed hat, meets us on the path.

  “Go in!” he shouts above the storm. “I’ll get them settled.”

  We obey, breaking into a run, new, soft mud beneath our toes. Every hour of a day spent beneath the sun washes away, our sweat replaced by sweet, fresh rivulets, our skin cooled. We take off our sodden caps and unfasten our hair, raking our fingers through to distribute the wet. How disheveled we must look when we finally burst through Gagnon’s door, thoroughly soaked, teeth chattering.

  “W-we have to ch-change,” Laurette says. “Or we’ll catch our death.”

  “Change into what?” I have one other dress—same as she—and it is across the yard hanging on a hook next to my bed.

  “Here.”

  I follow her into the great room, where a long trunk sits beneath a window, its lid a cushioned seat. Inside, Gagnon keeps blankets and linens. With the authority of a mistress, Laurette opens it, rummages through, and takes out an old, yellowed shirt and two blankets.

  “Strip down and put this on.” I obey, comforted by her maternal tone, but feel a new onslaught of cold when my skin is bare. She strips, too, and I’m struck—not for the first time—how much more of a woman she is than I. True, she’s almost three years older, but she’d already developed the soft curves of her body when she was my age. While I’m rolling up the shirtsleeves, I’m aware of the thinness of the material that falls past my knees. Such a garment would not suit Laurette. She might as well wear nothing.

  In fact, she seems prepared to do just that, wrapping the thin blanket
around her shoulders, holding the ends tight against her as she shivers by the fire. With her back to me, I notice a small hole right in the middle of the fabric, just atop her backside. Moths, I suspect, eating right where the blanket had been folded in the trunk.

  “Let me see that,” I say. “Take it off. I have an idea. Bend down.” This, because I barely reach her chin, and I slip the blanket over her head.

  While rifling through the contents of the trunk, Laurette had tossed a long strip of linen to the side. Picking it up now, I place it across her stomach, thread it through a smaller moth-hole near the small of her back, and wrap it back around, securing the loose blanket with a knot at her waist. The result is a dress, its hem long past her knees, the sleeves wide like tulips at her elbows. There’s a clean line of color across her chest, outlining the bodice of her daily dress. Here, the fabric takes a sharp plunge beneath it, creating a soft V shape and an unprecedented view of the figure beneath.

  “Aren’t you the clever one, Cousine?” She puts her hands on her hips and parades around the room.

  “It’ll do to keep you warm, at least.”

  We gather our wet clothes and spread them out on the floor in front of the fire. Laurette steps carefully between our garments and ladles out a bowl of soup for herself, then one for me.

  “Shouldn’t we wait for Gagnon?”

  “He’d want us to be warm on the inside and out. He’s good that way, non?”

  “He is.” I accept the bowl, my hands gradually growing warm through the wood, and blow on its contents. There are large chunks of vegetables—carrots and turnips and onion—but no traces of meat. Still, the soup is flavorful and filling, and in my hunger I slurp it from the wooden spoon so quickly it burns the roof of my mouth. It’s not long before I am full. Or, at least, full enough. Before either of us can be tempted to ladle a second portion, I take my bowl—and Laurette’s—and dunk them in the bucket of wash water before returning them to the cupboard.

  Outside, the storm rages so loudly it takes a while to distinguish a pounding on the door from the sound of thunder.

  “You locked the door?” I cross the room to open it, as Laurette shows no sign of getting up from her comfortable slouch by the fire.

  “Couldn’t very well have him coming in while we were changing, could we?”

  Scowling over my shoulder, I lift the heavy latch and let the wind push the door. Gagnon enters, rain pouring off his cloak creating a puddle on the floor. He hangs it on a spike and I fetch a bowl to place underneath it, all while he feigns irritation, saying, “That’s a fine thing, to lock a man out of his own home on such a night.”

  “Come, sit,” I invite, “and warm up. I’ll fetch you a bowl.”

  He waves me off, but comes to his high-backed chair by the hearth, staring not into the flames, but at the empty dresses stretched across the floor. His is a handsome face, with broad features that give him an appeal much younger than his years. Though Laurette and I are nothing like the girls we were when we first arrived, he remains unchanged. True, he is our patron, but the years between us seem compressed. On evenings like this, I can easily make the mistake of thinking we are peers.

  He wears his hair cropped close, joking that it gives him a sense of camaraderie with his sheep during shearing season, and a thin beard stretches across his cheeks and chin. He rubs it now, absently, and I know in this very moment he is lost in the memory of the woman who wore one of those dresses before. My own means nothing, as it was handed down to me two years ago when Laurette could no longer fit into it. But the other, the blue, once belonged to Gagnon’s wife, dead since the year before Laurette and I came to live here. The dress looks like an empty life rumpled on the floor, and I don’t doubt Gagnon is remembering the sight of his wife within it.

  A clap of thunder startles all of us, and the room is lit white by lightning. We all laugh nervously.

  “Doesn’t seem to be letting up anytime soon,” Gagnon says. “Short walk to the barn will soak you to the bone. Best plan to stay in the house tonight.”

  “If you think so,” Laurette says, stretching her arms and legs, arching her back like a cat on a cushion. “I could curl up right here and go to sleep. I already have my blanket.”

  “I see that.” Gagnon squints and takes on a teasing tone. “You look like a monk.”

  I am quick to defend my work. “She doesn’t, either!”

  But lazy Laurette finds the energy to join the joke. She gets up from the chair and adopts a posture of piety, folding her hands on an imaginary belly, and chanting nonsense syllables meant to sound like Latin in the deepest voice she can muster.

  “There’s no hood,” I protest, though the two ignore me. “And it’s the wrong color. Since when have you ever seen a monk in anything other than black? Except maybe brown. But never anything quite so—”

  “Fashionable?” In an instant, Laurette changes everything, becoming a woman of the queen’s court, one hand held aloft, the other fitted nicely at her waist.

  I am not at all amused by the spectacle. “What do you know about fashion?” It’s a mean comment, and I’m instantly sorry for the awkward way Gagnon leans back into his chair, avoiding the inevitable conflict.

  “As much as you, I imagine.”

  “Girls.” With a single, soft word, Gagnon has choked our argument, and Laurette falls back into her chair, sullen. I take up a spot on the trunk bench under the window, my elbows propped on the sill, and watch the rain. It is thick, pouring down the glass in rivulets, distorting the reflected image of Gagnon behind me.

  We’ve slept on the floor, trading the comfort of our straw ticking and feather pillows for that of a fire, and my bones—young as they are—pay the price in the morning. Sharp pain between my narrow shoulders, a hard chestnut at the base of my spine. There’s little light in the room, and I’ve been awakened by the silent crow of my own mind telling me to rise and begin the day, though the sounds of sleep all around me make me wonder what type of beginning this day may have. The only movement I perceive in Laurette is the steady rise and fall of her breast, and the door to Gagnon’s room is closed without the thinnest ribbon of light showing through its seams.

  Outside, the rain still falls, but without the drama of the night before. Just a steady pour, a single sound, impossible to imagine it is made of so many millions of singular drops.

  Creaking like an old woman, I stand and patter my bare feet to the door, opening it to find the gray outside only a few shades lighter than that within. The yard is a great, brown sea, and somewhere across it waits a cow and five goats to be milked, along with dogs to be let loose after a night’s confinement.

  My dress is on the drier side of damp, so I put it on over Gagnon’s old shirt and, taking a liberty I know he would have granted, put his coat on over that. Holding the coat to keep the hem out of the mud, I slosh across the yard—quick enough to keep my toes from getting mired, but not so quick as to risk slipping. Once at the barn, I reach for the latch, high up so the dogs won’t open it for the cow’s escape, and find it has already been dislodged. That’s when I peer through and notice the interior is warm with lamplight, and when I press my ear to a tiny crack in the door, I hear the steady vsh, vsh, vsh of the cow’s milk above the steady hum of rain.

  “Qui est-ce?” I know it might be Gagnon. He would not bother with his coat for such a short trek across the yard, but I’d heard nothing of his leaving the house. Heart clenched with the fear that it might be some vagabond escaping the rain, I inch the door open, prepared to bolt back to the house for safety.

  “Tiens, Renée.” The voice is familiar, masculine. Comforting. “C’est moi.”

  Marcel.

  Immediately, my fear is alleviated. Marcel Moreau is anything but a stranger. Not to us, not to anyone in Mouton Blanc. As far as we know, he has no family, and can claim no roof as his own, yet he has no problems finding shelter. Our little barn is a favorite of his, and I regularly climb down from our loft to find him sleeping on a
bed of straw. This morning my only surprise is to find him industrious as he works the cow’s udder, extracting streams of sweet, warm milk.

  “It’s you,” I say, thankful to have the cow’s flank between us so he will not know what a pleasant surprise he really is.

  A few more squirts and the rough horse blanket falls from his shoulders, leaving him naked to his breeches. His shirt, like our dresses, lies flat on a hay bale, drying. After a moment, I avert my eyes.

  “Has Gagnon finally put you to work, then?” I slip out of the greatcoat and hang it next to the rake.

  “You’re a fine one to talk. All of you lazing abed in the castle there, while this poor old girl is about to burst. I couldn’t sleep with her groaning.”

  “Well, for that I thank you. On her behalf as well.”

  My thought had been to change into my second dress, but not with Marcel within eyesight below. To me he is a man, though I know him to be nineteen—just a year older than Laurette, but in possession of a mysterious charm that keeps him often at the edge of my thoughts, and my person nearly frays with nerves. He is, simply, more handsome than anything I could conjure from my imagination. Gagnon likes to tease and say he is “pretty,” with delicate features, perfect teeth, and hair that springs in an explosion of curls reaching to his shoulders. Usually he corrals them into a tail at the nape of his neck, tied with whatever ribbon has lately been given to him by a village girl. But now—like mine—his locks have been left free to dry.

  “So, you were caught in the rain?”

  “Yes.” He continues to milk with perfect rhythm. “Rather, thrust out into it. The accommodations I’d secured for myself became, shall we say, stormy? But I knew here I would find a welcome spot on the floor and a good solid roof, if nothing else.”

  I’ve only the faintest notion of what nothing else implies, but enough to make my cheeks burn despite the chill, and my legs feel like they’ve turned to mud beneath my skirt. Gagnon always speaks about Marcel in a cautionary tone, saying any man who loves that many women can only truly love himself. Always, Marcel is welcome at our table, welcome to a spot by Gagnon’s hearth, even welcome to shelter in our barn, but Laurette and I have been warned, with absolute clarity of intent, that we are to be on guard in his presence, lest we fall as so many other girls before us.