“I can write my own name,” he said proudly. “I learned from an uncle who came to visit.”
What did I care if he could write his own name? Lots of peasants could do only that. I wrote pages and pages of words every week for my lessons that I did not boast about.
“That’s a start,” I said. “Armande taught me to read and write.”
“How is it she suckles and reads?” he asked. “No wet nurse before her ever needed instruction to care for babies.” He was upsetting my work, making my thoughts scatter like little birds.
He caught me off guard just so he could push me again. This time I fell face-first into the snow with his force. I turned slowly over on my side. Sitting there on my back, knees bent, I hoped he would just go away.
“Her womb will dry up and she’ll have no more children. That’s what happens to women who become instructed like men, the woman in them goes away.”
He reached his hand down to help me up. I hit it with my fist giving him the evil eye. Curse words stuck in my throat and if I let them out I might cry.
“Get back to it then,” he said turning to walk away. He marched into the thick of the forest and was gone.
Once more, I heard him break into song, the words becoming nonsense as they hit the cold air. I brushed snow from my cheeks, hair and the front of my apron, and then picked up the axe. As I aimed for a weak spot on the trunk of the tree, I thought of Pierre standing right in front of me, a stupid grin on his face. He had not even kissed me, though he had the chance. When I lived with my mother and father, they would scold me for even talking to a boy because they said I would become with child.
As I made my way home, I wondered, would Armande judge me harshly if she found out I listened in on her father’s private talk? That I snuck into the library like a crook to go through his private things? Yes, but I had something of his that might just help me protect her. Yet who was R.P.?
Lesson
THAT MORNING, I TENDED TO MY CHORES of keeping the fires lit, churning the cream and butter in the wooden ardoise and sweeping the kitchen and entrance. At times, when I was in the middle of this or that chore, I would see Armande in the kitchen preparing soup, or in the drawing room nursing Nathalie, and think our lives seemed almost the same as before the lettre de cachet, yet not quite. Armande did not tell me to turn mothers wanting her advice away at the door. She was too kindhearted for that, yet I knew anybody coming to call should be treated with suspicion. She had a good sum put away from her grandfather’s inheritance and did not require other people’s money. She need not know that already this week I sent two mothers away. One of them was a stranger to me, with grey, unfriendly eyes. The other saw the wet nurse once already that week and was not supposed to return for another few days. Besides, Armande was tired. Dark circles surrounded her chestnut eyes. She sang less when she nursed Nathalie and her stride was shorter, not as graceful. Part of that was missing her father, and part, I thought was her fear of what lay ahead.
I was preparing to leave for Les Combes to see Sophie the next day. I told Armande it was to bring her some of the soup for nursing mothers to improve the quality of her milk. It was Armande’s special recipe and included boiling the leaves of fennel plants and seeds in barley water. Of course, she thought that was very good of me and did not consider it strange at all because once a week—along with other villagers—I brought soups and breads to those who were either very old or sick. Then, just as I was gathering dry wood for the fires, and thinking at the same time how good my story was, a cheeky woman slipped into the house of her own accord.
“Madame Vivant, Madame Vivant,” she cried out.
I followed her calls until I spotted a stranger with a blue cloak standing in the entrance. Her hair was tucked under a bonnet and she wore black boots that were large and clumsy like a man’s. She looked to be not more than fifteen years old.
“You’ll wake the children,” I scolded. Jacques napped upstairs and was sensitive to strange voices. Nathalie was also sleeping, a rare thing to have both of them in their beds. “Tell me your business?”
She held no baby in her arms nor did she look the sort to be a mother. Her fringe was too perfect, her cloak much too tidy at the neck. From the look of the boots she wore, her husband worked on the fishing docks of Nice or Perpignan before settling in the mountains.
“Name’s Isabelle and I wish to see the wet nurse on a personal matter.”
Armande was reading at the kitchen table. Dark curls fell over her face and onto the book, and her eyes were bright as though she just received a kiss. Without asking about the stranger, she proceeded to read a poem out loud. “Baise m’encor, rebaise moy et baise….”
As she went on reading, my face grew hot because it was a poem about a woman who asked to be kissed again and again by her love.
“Louise Labé, the femme du people from Lyon,” she announced as though the poetess stood in our kitchen waiting to be introduced.
“Bonjour Madame Vivant, my name is Isabelle.” The woman was a bit clumsy. Not like someone who spent any time in the company of gentlewomen. She did not look at Armande at all and, in fact, seemed frightened by her.
“Sit down, Mademoiselle.” Armande gestured.
I did the same, yet the stranger turned her back to me.
“I wish to speak to Madame alone, s’il vous plaît.” Her voice shook.
After leaving the kitchen, I stayed by the partly closed door as still as a mouse so they would not hear me.
“My parents are both dead. I’ve a brother who works in Nice on a fishing boat. He already provides for three children and a wife who has her sister living with them. I have an aunt in Grenoble who works for a goodly family. I mend breeches and shirts and can even sew petticoats from scraps of material if given half the chance. Yet to work, I need to know how to read and write. I can write my name and my brother’s too. I know enough to read the Bible, the part about the burning bush and Lot’s wife turning to salt I know by heart.”
I watched through the keyhole as she took off her bonnet letting loose a stream of reddish blond hair. Her fine-looking mane took me by surprise and made me feel ugly. The baby started crying so I ran upstairs to calm her. Nathalie was on Armande’s bed in a basket topped with a raccoon skin. Her little heart was beating fast as I brought her to my chest. This was a chance for me to disrupt their exchange. After all, babies needed to suckle, and I might just hear more of what they were saying if I brought her down to Armande without too much fuss.
“Would you teach me to read? I don’t know how I will bear it if you don’t.”
I entered the kitchen just as the stranger said those words. Armande glanced over at her and smiled knowingly. When her father and she lived in the house just the two of them, Armande would tutor boys and girls in French and Latin. She also taught philosophy, rhetoric, poetry and literature. Last spring she tutored a farmer’s wife thirsty for poetry. The woman read one poem at a time and committed it to memory so that she could recite it to herself while milking the goat each morning.
Armande reached out her arms to take the screaming baby from me. She lowered her torso, untying her corsage to give suck.
“It’s a worthwhile pursuit to want to read, don’t you agree Céleste?”
I nodded, ashamed I had not yet done my morning lesson. Armande might ask me why I missed two days already that week.
“To learn how to read is no carefree pastime, not like needlework or playing a cheerful ditty on the harpsichord, isn’t that right Céleste?” She smoothed her buttercup-yellow skirt with one hand, her hips moving side to side as she nursed.
I nodded. By not doing my lessons I showed her how ungrateful I was.
The pretty girl stood up, rubbing her eyes. She opened her mouth to speak yet it was clear a cat had her tongue. Her cheeks were red and she pulled on her own hair as though her head was in the clouds.
“The wet nurse will teach me,” said the girl merrily as we walked through the corridor. She reached out to take my arm, yet I pulled away.
“We need wood for the fire in the library,” I said. “Stay where you are. I’ll be back.”
I returned with a bundle of wood in my arms. “There is no room for you here.” I was worried she might want to live with us while she studied. If strangers were coming and going then I might lose track of Armande and I needed to keep her safe as I had promised Monsieur Vivant.
Isabelle smiled knowingly, as if she could see right through me, and said, “I don’t mind. I am staying with a family friend until I go to Grenoble. That is if my aunt will take me.”
The library was cold and breathed a sigh as we entered. Right away I looked and saw the stranger’s handkerchief was no longer on the table by the taperstick. A sickly feeling planted itself in the pit of my stomach. As far as I knew, Armande did not go into the library, although maybe she went in one day while I was out chopping wood. My heart was beating fast and I could barely catch a breath. Then I noticed that Isabelle did not look well either. She stood in a corner of the library, her hands trembled, her body swayed as though her legs might give out.
“I must sit,” she pleaded grabbing a chair at the table. “Never have I seen so many books.” She laid her head on her arms, hiding her face with her reddish blonde hair.
“Do you think Armande expects you to read all these?” I laughed at her. “You can read something simple to start, a nursery rhyme perhaps.”
“I don’t wish to read after all.” Her lower lip quivered.
She made me think of how I was when Armande first rescued me. Scared and uncertain as though words were an ogre waiting to eat me. Two years ago, I couldn’t even write my name. I fumbled with the quill and the letters were messy, looking more like castles and bridges. I would pull my hair out, stamp on the ground and wring my fists. Even so, Armande told me she never saw a person with such a talent for learning. I studied morning and night until it finally came. The splinters of wood burned, and once the fire caught, I grabbed a child’s book from the shelf and bid Isabelle sit by me at a spot closer to the window for light. The chairs in the library were like blocks of ice. I took off my shawl to sit on, wrapping it around my thighs.
I opened the book, still thinking of the missing handkerchief. Isabelle read in a shaky voice. Twice she stopped to comment on the story saying, “If I were an ant I wouldn’t crawl upon the ground,” and “Only I know why rabbits have such long ears.” Was she stopping out of nervousness? Maybe she thought I would forget the reading and engage in empty chitchat instead.
“Keep going.” I was trying to encourage her just as Armande did with me though my mind was elsewhere. Isabelle read a little more. Then she fixed her eyes on the trees outside. Maybe she sensed how I too was distracted.
Armande came to join us. Jacques ran into the library ahead of her. He was playing dress-up and had stuck some feathers in Armande’s hair. One of them fell to the ground. The baby in her arms tried to squirm out of her grip. She sat down in an upholstered chair while Nathalie began to crawl on the carpet over forests, gardens with red flowers, and scenes of men hunting deer. Jacques found a pile of small books, which he had hidden behind one of the mighty legs of the table. Some of them contained engravings that took his attention for a little while. Mostly he liked to pile the books up and build mountains or trees with them. Isabelle read the rest of the page.
“You did plenty for today,” I said to her when she finished. “I’ll give you the book to take home. Read some this evening before bed.”
“But Madame….” She turned her head to Armande. “I only just began.”
“Céleste knows best.” Armande crossed her legs and placed her arm on the back of the chair. “My father taught me to read in this library when I was four years old. In fact, it was at that very table where the two of you are sitting now.”
“How extraordinary!” said the young woman.
“I was always hungry to know what my father was doing,” said Armande. “I thought that if only I could understand what he called reading, then I would be closer to knowing his mind. Every night after dinner, I would sit and read—or at least pretend to read—at his side. I was hungry to journey through the sky with books, to encounter the beasts and oceans of the world and to be dazzled by a poet’s words.” Her eyes lit up as they often did when she spoke of her father.
Armande scrambled behind the chair after Nathalie, and there was laughter and playful sounds. Moments later Armande came back holding the baby. In one of her little hands was a book while the other held a white handkerchief, a little corner of red peeking out. I leapt at Nathalie snatching the object from her before either Armande or Isabelle could see it.
“It’s mine,” I said. “I must have dropped it.” My heart sank to where I swiftly stored the evidence far down in my bodice.
The baby was crying because of me, yet I had no choice in the matter. The handkerchief with the stranger’s initials was now safely tucked away. Armande was spared and her father would be happy. I did not know whose handkerchief it was or why Monsieur Vivant wanted to keep it from her, but I knew that it was important. Armande stared at me, questioning. My breath was becoming normal again, yet I couldn’t meet her gaze.
“Now let’s see what else you found.” She turned away from me to the baby who was now quiet, though still sniffling.
Armande examined the cover. “Why it’s Lettres persanes. Exceptional choice little nut.” She handed the book to Isabelle. “Nathalie has taken it upon herself to decide what you shall read. Would you like this one instead? Or, perhaps take both of them.”
Seeming surprised, Isabelle took a quick look at the book. Not far away, Jacques tore a page from another book. I ran over and grabbed it from him.
“None of that,” I scolded.
The sky was cloudy from snow falling. Light started to fade and soon dark would set in, which meant I had to wait until the sun rose the next day to gather more of the wood I chopped.
“Would you like the wet nurse to give you a lesson next week,” I said to her when we were finally alone.
“Why yes, Mademoiselle.”
She drew closer, the brim of her bonnet brushing my forehead. Her breath was warm on my cheek and smelled of mint. The blue cape she wore next to her milky skin made her look saintly. Perhaps she was as an angel sent by God to help me, an angel with clumsy black fisherman’s boots.
“I will certainly do that, yet maybe you can also help me.” Pulling the handkerchief from my bosom, I put it in her hand. “Keep this for me.” My two hands clasped her one. My mind saw no reason to it, yet I felt that giving her the handkerchief would at least keep it safe and out of reach. I could not risk Armande seeing it. “Do not let anybody have it. When I ask for it back you are to bring it to me right away, you hear me.”
Isabelle’s eyes were fiery with excitement. She took a peak at the handkerchief. “Whose is it then?” She saw the initials R.P. “Are you to marry this gentleman? Is he your lover?”
“I can’t tell you right now. Don’t ask me any more questions. Just please go.”
She stood at the entrance, folded the handkerchief and then placed it in her embroidered pocket.
“No one shall see it,” she said. “It will be safe with me.”
Sign
HAIL THE SIZE OF PEAS POUNDED DOWN on us as we entered the village square. I pulled the hood of my cloak over my head. The day I was to meet with Sophie in secret, we had received word she was ill with consumption. At once Armande decided that she must check on her and the baby. Sophie’s village was almost half a day on foot. Before setting out, we had taken Nathalie and Jacques to a neighbour. We did not want them
to get sick from Sophie, and besides, the trip was too hard for small children. As we walked along, my mind was caught up in the new turn of events. Sophie might now be too weak to tell me anything. Even so, while there, I aimed to find out the handkerchief’s owner. I would sneak away while Armande was at Sophie’s sickbed. Monsieur Vivant was gone only a few days, and already the morning he left seemed a lifetime away. The church in the square had a lion outside the door that guarded the village from harmful attacks or evil thoughts. On the other side of the door was a large stone bénitier with Holy Water for blessings. We came to the square, and as I passed the fountain, I noticed something red amidst the white.
Ice stones beat down onto the frozen water. I brushed them away to see a doll clothed in a black coat with gold buttons, caught under the ice. I squatted and placed my arms on the edge of the fountain, slippery and cold to the touch. The doll’s shoes were black and on his head he wore a red hat. His eyes held an air of surprise. A small, round mouth made him look like he was about to ask a question. His eyebrows were half moons. I punched the ice with my fist until it eventually cracked, though not enough to break and set the doll free. My knuckles were stinging, and pain went all the way up my arm. It bothered me that such a perfect looking doll was not within my grasp. I never had a doll or a toy of any kind, as we were far too poor. The little man seemed to say, let me out, let me out. Soon Armande was at my side, her walking stick within my reach. I extended my hand to pull it to me, yet she yanked it away.
“Give it here. Please can’t I have it?” I hoped to break the ice with the sharp edge of her fancy stick to set the doll free.
“Come now Céleste, we’ve no time to waste.” She tugged my arm.
Then she looked into the frozen fountain and her face went pale. It didn’t even look like she was breathing, and a sound came out of her, like a small, hurt child.
“It cannot be.” Her eyes grew wide.
“What is it,” I asked bewildered.
Milk Fever Page 5
