Bride of the Wilderness

by Charles McCarry

  Philippe, watching from the belfry, remembered what Bear had said to him when they were fourteen: “If you see a girl that you like and she doesn’t ask you, then you must go into her house at night, being sure that nobody sees or hears you, and lie on top of her. If she opens her eyes, that means go ahead. Sometimes they wait a long time, but in the end they always open their eyes. Women are very curious: they want to know who it is that’s lying on top of them.”

  Tonight this would happen in every house in the village.

  Philippe, whispering through the grate, confessed to Father Nicolas. “Father,” he said, “I tell you that I made this girl the reason for everything. If I had not known that she was in Alamoth I would not have urged my brother-in-law to let me attack the village. No one would have died. The truth is, I thought a winter attack was impossible. All I wanted was to rescue her.”

  “But it was not after all impossible,” Father Nicolas said. “The ways of God are deep and mysterious.” “What will I do?”

  “Already you are beginning to purify your heart. Keep on with that.”

  Philippe said, “I cannot stop thinking about her.”

  “Why should you stop if you think the thoughts of a virtuous man? When we all slept together on the march out of enemy country, night after night, pressed together for warmth in the snow, did you feel lust?”

  “No,” Philippe said. “But that is changing.”

  “Do you wish to marry this girl?”

  “Everything separates us,” Philippe replied. “She is not really French, she is not really Catholic, she has no family.”

  “Then what?”

  “I am ravished by her beauty.”

  “Your soul is in great danger, my son,” Father Nicolas said. “You covet this chaste and innocent girl.”

  “But that’s not all that I feel; it is far from being all.” Father Nicolas’ weak voice was even more difficult to hear when he was closed up in the confessional box. Philippe concentrated hard in order to understand what he was saying.

  “Think back to the wilderness,” the Jesuit said. “If you felt no lust when you slept with your arms around this virgin, Who do you think was protecting her, and why? Remember her actions—the birth of the child, her love for the child, the way in which she preserved us from the madwoman, the journey through the blizzard. What will happen to your soul if you ravish such a girl, even in your thoughts?”

  Suddenly Philippe remembered what Thoughtful had told him about Ash. Jealousy and hot anger rushed through his body. What right did this madman have to possess Fanny in his thoughts?

  But in what way am I less mad than he except that I am young? Philippe asked himself.

  And with that question in mind he performed the mild penance that Father Nicolas had prescribed for his sins.

  4

  On Quasimodo, the first Sunday after Easter, a ship arrived from France bearing a letter in which the king commended his cousin, Philippe de Saint-Christophe, on his singular victory at Alamoth.

  “‘Cousin,’ yes, ‘cousin,’ his majesty used the word ‘cousin,’” said Armand de Grestain three days afterward as the family dined alone in the Hôtel de Vallier. “And then he speaks of a ‘singular victory.’ These are very good omens.”

  Easter fell on March 28 that year, but it was still winter in Quebec, with bone-numbing cold and winds that drove snow into the face like darts.

  The Saint Lawrence River, broad and tidal, never froze between Quebec and the sea. Armand de Grestain saw no reason, therefore, why the Pamela should not cross the North Atlantic in March, sail up the river to Quebec, and relieve him of his worry about the expense of keeping Fanny all winter as a houseguest in the Hôtel de Vallier.

  Every day at dinner he raised the subject. When would the Pamela arrive? What cargo would she carry? The Pamela’s exotic cargoes and their probable value were subjects of great interest to Grestain.

  Reopening this subject after a respite during which he had talked of little but the king’s letter, Grestain revealed what he knew about the cargo of lobsters, and Fanny learned for the first time that the Pamela had reached England after sailing from Boston.

  “But how many lobsters did the Pamela carry?” Grestain asked, drinking soup between questions and letting it cool in his open mouth betweentimes. “Five hundred, a thousand, more? How were they kept alive during such a long voyage? Was there an apparatus of some sort?”

  Marie-Dominique looked fixedly at her husband. “Perhaps the captain tied up the ship and the sailors took the lobsters for walks on icebergs to let them graze and relieve themselves,” she said.

  “Not possible, my dear,” Grestain replied, swallowing his soup. “Suppose there were a thousand lobsters. If the tavernkeeper’s profit was half the asking price, that is still five hundred pounds, less expenses, for the shipowners. No doubt there were many more than a thousand. Truly, Philippe, this young lady is an heiress.”

  He winked; Fanny’s fortune, which he imagined to be very large notwithstanding the Spy’s report on her finances, often made him flirtatious on behalf of whoever was going to become her husband. The closing and reopening of Grestain’s eye was barely detectable. Although it was only three in the afternoon, the early perpetual northern twilight had already fallen.

  Except for Grestain’s military orderly, who stood in readiness behind his chair, the family was alone. The servants, working in the dusk, were preparing the house for a reception in honor of Philippe. The governor would read the king’s letter aloud. Grestain had frequently mentioned that it was within the governor’s power as the king’s lieutenant to make Philippe a suitable gift of money or land, or even give him a title.

  “I hope it’s money,” Marie-Dominique said. “Maybe Philippe will buy some lamp oil or a few candles.”

  No lamps or candles burned in the Hôtel de Vallier; Fanny and the others ate by the light of the log fire. It was not necessary to see the food. The menu was the same every day: soup from the big iron pot to which all cooking water and leftover solids were added, heavy bread with a thick crust, like the parings from a horse’s hoof, salt cod boiled in milk, stewed apples, wine diluted by half with water.

  Today was one of Marie-Dominique’s days to eat liver. Twisting her lips in distaste, she ate the last morsel of a cod’s liver and placed her hand on her belly. Her baby, soon to be born, moved about vigorously in the womb, but was always quiet for several hours after its mother consumed liver or fried blood.

  “It’s asleep,” she said. “I wonder if we will have to give it blood after it’s born to keep it quiet.”

  “Enough,” said Grestain in a loud voice.

  Marie-Dominique meekly bowed her head and looked down at her plate. Jokes about the unborn child were forbidden. It seemed to him, Grestain said, addressing himself to Philippe as though Marie-Dominique were unable to understand French, that his wife, the mother of this child on whom the whole future history of the family depended, was laughing at the dead Edwige, laughing at her dead nephew (now also her dead stepson), laughing at him and all the Grestains and the house of Vallier.

  “Yes, laughing at everything,” Grestain said.

  “I hardly think so, Armand,” Philippe replied. “Marie-Dominique is frightened, you know. And so she makes jokes. She doesn’t want to die like Edwige.”

  “There’s no possibility of that as long as she remains in Quebec. The city is invulnerable to the Iroquois, even to the English fleet. I’ve seen to that.”

  “I meant, die in childbirth.”

  “Why should she die in childbirth? It didn’t happen to Edwige. The cod’s liver and the fried blood have a very good effect, you know. Edwige took it too. My mother took it. It’s very dear, but the blood quickens the child and strengthens the woman.”

  Grestain finished the last morsel on his plate and snapped his fingers for his cloak and hat.

  “You must be home at eight for the soiree,” Marie-Dominique said.

  “No soupirants, I hope,”
Grestain said.

  “The entire city will be here. The governor will be reading the king’s letter about Philippe.”

  “All the more reason not to clutter up the place with lawyers and people who sell us fish.”

  “The governor was very kind to let us have the reception here. It’s a royal occasion, after all.”

  “Maybe we can lead the governor into the library, away from the soupirants, and plan your next campaign,” Grestain said to Philippe, leaning across the littered table to grip his forearm.

  Grestain wanted to give the king another victory in America as soon as possible. He and his staff were already choosing objectives, weighing tactics; Philippe would almost certainly lead any new force that might be sent against the English colonies.

  “On dit que les généreaux sont toujours en retard de la guerre,” said Marie-Dominique—they say that the generals are always preparing for the last war.

  Grestain lifted his eyes and drew in his breath through his nose.

  “Marie-Dominique,” Philippe said in a tone of warning.

  “The saying does not refer to my husband, of course,” she said, smiling brilliantly in the half-darkness. “It is well-known that the count is an excellent general. Everybody says so. Sieur explained to me that Armand never attacks until he understands the plan of battle perfectly, and by that time every private in the army has known it by heart for a year, so there are never any mistakes.”

  After a long pause, Grestain chose to speak to Fanny instead of Marie-Dominique. Because he never called either woman by name, and because it took him some time to come to the point, it was difficult in the dim light to know which one of them he was addressing.

  “Perhaps you should write another letter to the man di Gesù or even to your manager in London,” he said. “When did you send the first letter?”

  Fanny had answered this question many times. “On the Friday after Advent Sunday,” she said again.

  “Exactly. And Easter has come and gone. The letter about Philippe’s victory over the English went out on the same ship, and the palace has already replied. When a Genoese seaman is slower to answer than the king of France, something is wrong.”

  He rose from the table. “Write to this fellow again. I will leave Philippe to wait for the letter. A ship sails for France tomorrow and your letter can go with the dispatches; I’ll add a laissez-passer so that your man can have no doubts about his safety. There are excellent fat lobsters up and down the coast of Canada; mention that.”

  “Eight o’clock, no later,” Marie-Dominique said. “The governor doesn’t like it when he’s not the last to arrive. Fanny is going to play.”

  “Charming,” said Grestain. “Make sure the servants know who gets which wine.”

  His orderly helped him into his cloak, fitted his cockaded hat square on his head, and handed him his sword. These accoutrements transformed Grestain from an aging man cooling soup in a toothless mouth into a stern soldier. He waved away the servant who had brought Philippe’s less magnificent cloak, hat, and sword.

  “Wait for the letter,” he said. “Then bring it to me directly, Philippe.”

  “At your orders, Count.”

  “My, how the lobsters have excited him,” Marie-Dominique said. “Maybe the Spy shouldn’t have told him about them.”

  “Maybe not,” said Philippe. “But the damage is done.”

  Fanny had already left them and was sitting in the library writing a letter to Joshua Peters. So as not to waste candle wax, Marie-Dominique sat down on the opposite side of the writing desk and laid out the cards. She sat on her favorite chair, a voyeuse upholstered in yellow silk; this chair, designed for card-playing, had a padded rail built into the top of the backrest. Philippe leaned on the rail and watched Fanny as she filled a page with her rapid clear hand.

  Marie-Dominique turned up the Two of Pentacles (gaiety), the Hermit (silence, prudence, secret advice), and the Three of Swords (tears, a lovers’ quarrel).

  “The cards are cold,” she said, wrapping up the deck in a silk cloth and tucking this parcel into her bodice to warm it up.

  She looked over her shoulder at Philippe. “What gives you the idea that I’m afraid to die in childbirth?” she asked. She never forgot an accusation.

  Philippe said, “Of course you’re afraid; it’s your first child. Anyone would be.”

  “Anyone? Certainly not. I shouldn’t be afraid if I were Fanny. I’d go into the forest, build a lean-to, and come out a bit later with the last of the Grestains in my arms.”

  Fanny wrote on: “The captain-general of New France, the Count of Vallier, is especially interested in shipping lobsters in the Pamela, as he has heard from a spy that you sold the last lot in London for the astonishing price of one pound apiece.”

  Marie-Dominique read Fanny’s letter upside down. “‘From a spy’?” she said. “Oh, dear; I don’t think that will amuse my husband.”

  “He won’t read it.”

  “I shouldn’t count on that,” Marie-Dominique said.

  Fanny blotted the ink with sand, poured the sand back into its box, and handed the letter, unfolded and unsealed, to Philippe.

  “To make matters easier,” she said.

  Philippe averted his eyes. “Do you think the Pamela will come?” he asked.

  “No doubt the Spy will know more about that than I do,” Fanny said.

  “That’s three times she has denounced the Spy,” Marie-Dominique said. “How unlike Fanny.”

  Fanny’s own eyes were averted, her face flushed.

  Philippe said, “You aren’t obliged to write a letter just because Armand wants you to do so, you know.”

  “The alternative is to be asked again tomorrow, or even tonight, if the Spy has fresh news for your brother-in-law. It’s easier to appease stupidity than to cure it.”

  “What an epigram,” Marie-Dominique said. “How can she be only half French?”

  Fanny went to the narrow Norman window with its tiny glass panes and looked down over the steep jumbled town at the boats lying at anchor along the waterfront. Their stern lanterns were the only lights showing in Quebec. She saw the wavering images of Marie-Dominique and Philippe in the windowpanes and turned around. Her eyes shone with tears.

  “Fanny,” Philippe said, reaching out the hand that held the letter.

  He took a step in her direction, but she turned her back again. This time she looked at her own face in the dimpled glass, something she hardly ever did. She was hardly visible in the feeble light: dark hair, dark eyes, skin pigment. She had been eighteen years old for fifty days. She saw a tear squeezing out of the corner of her eye, caught it on her fingertip, and smeared it on the windowpane. It congealed immediately on the cold surface.

  Marie-Dominique, studying her brother as he watched this tiny action, said, “Perhaps it’s time to hang the Spy.”

  5

  At a quarter after eight the governor arrived at the Hôtel de Vallier with an escort of a dozen infantrymen and a pair of drummers. Fanny stood by herself at the window of the grand salon. Over the chatter of the guests, she heard the drums a long way off, then heard marching feet crunching on the snow and an officer shouting commands. Outside the door the soldiers formed two facing ranks and presented arms.

  Philippe, escorted by the governor, passed between them, saluting, and entered the house, where they were saluted by Grestain and his staff. The soliders tramped inside, still responding to the shouts of their officer, and took up positions along the walls of the big reception room, crashing the butts of their muskets onto the parquet floor.

  “Don’t let these fellows trample on your violin, my dear,” the governor said as he passed by, taking Fanny’s hand briefly in both of his and touching the callused tips of the fingers on her left hand.

  He wore a wig and his full-dress uniform with sword and ribbons and orders. So did Grestain and the other senior officers. Owing to his low military rank, Philippe was less splendidly dressed, but he, too was wigge
d—the first time Fanny had seen him in one.

  The whole company, civilian as well as military, had turned out in their best clothes and jewels, and the grand salon, which was really a gallery that ran along the whole length of the south wall of the house with tall windows on one side and mirrors alternating with tapestry panels on the other, was brilliantly lighted by dozens of candles in chandeliers, torchères, and candelabra. Usually this room was unfurnished, without even a chair to sit on. Tonight all the best furniture in the Hôtel de Vallier had been brought in. A row of gilded chairs and stools upholstered in pink silk damask stood along the interior wall, interspersed with carved and gilded side tables and console tables, slightly chipped, that must have been brought from storage; Fanny had never seen them before.

  The bureau Mazarin from the library, the ebony veneer commode from the hall, the ormolu clock from the petit salon, and statuary from all over the house had been placed between the windows. Even though she had examined them all one by one, Fanny had had no idea that the house contained so many beautiful things. These splendid objects had a good effect on the guests, who could see themselves in the mirrors as they bowed and curtsied to the governor.

  The governor took up a position in front of a tall mirror and waited for a hush to fall. As soon as the silence was complete, the drums rolled, a startling sound in a room that was designed to amplify music.

  “We know with what ferocity the English hate France,” the governor said in a loud voice, “and what a danger to France are their perfidious schemes to draw other nations into the web of their plots against us French and our great and noble king, his majesty King Louis. But France will prevail. French civilization, French arms, will prevail. God must surely wish to destroy a nation that turned against His Son’s true church merely because Henry VIII lusted after a woman whom he could not marry according to holy law. Our brave friend Saint-Christophe has lately given us new proof of the truth of these thoughts.”