“All the apothecaries in France could not prescribe a medicine to equal your milk,” Emilie said looking warily around her. “I cannot lose another child, Madame.”
Armande let down her bodice and brought the baby to her breast. Emilie cried as she watched her little one drink as if it was taking every drop of the wet nurse’s milk. I passed Emilie a muslin handkerchief to dry her eyes.
“Have faith that you can produce more of your own milk,” said Armande. “Please try to nurse your baby. Céleste will pack you a basket with some nourishing foods. That should make you grow stronger, and will help the flow better.”
“Bless you.” The woman bowed her head, but I thought I saw her dark eyes narrowing.
With quick movements, she took a small clock from a sack tied to her petticoat. Gold painted cherubs danced around a white face with black letters. Full of celebration, the object stood out against her tattered clothes and sullen face. Even I was moved by the kindness she showed in spite of her misery—though how did the poor woman come by such a nice clock?
“Please take this Madame Vivant. It’s the only precious thing I own.” She held the clock in the palm of her hand.
“You keep your treasure,” said Armande moved by the woman’s kindness. “I am happy to help. Remember to come back next week and we shall see how your milk is coming.”
I walked her to the front door and noticed her frown as she looked down at her baby who slept in an apron folded to make a pouch around her middle. Where before the infant had a sickly green pallor, already its cheeks were beginning to redden because of Armande’s milk.
“I don’t want my baby to die. If she lives past the age of two, she has a better chance. The wet nurse will make it stronger, won’t she?”
Her feet were patches of blue and red and two toes of one foot were missing. I ran upstairs and grabbed a pair of winter shoes from my room. Armande had given me four pairs of shoes, two for summer and two for winter.
“Try these,” I handed them to the woman.
She clutched the shoes in her dirty hands and then set them down on the floor. They were robin’s egg blue with two pearl buttons on the outside and a thick heel. Once again, she tried to give away her clock, yet I resisted. The shoes were exactly the right size for her. Yet her feet were so swollen and full of sores it took her a few tries to fit into them. She embraced me and a sickly sour smell entered my nose. It was the same smell that hit me in the kitchen earlier. The woman’s small eyes stared at me as if digging into my thoughts.
I was about to say goodbye to Emilie when I heard Armande’s distressed voice coming from the drawing room.
“Help me, Céleste. I can’t see.”
Lids drooped over her chestnut eyes and she swayed from side to side, gripping her skirt. Before I got to her, she fell to the ground. I helped Armande to her feet and guided her to her well-loved armchair. She was pale as could be; dark curls cascading over her face like strands of precious onyx.
“Can you see me now?” I crouched in front of her, hands resting on her knees.
“No.” Her eyes were open yet her regard was vacant, searching. “Only a faint outline,” she gasped. “I can’t even see your eyes and nose.”
She gripped her stomach and moaned. “The pain,” she cried. “What is happening to me, Céleste?”
“Rest your eyes.” I swallowed my fear.
After giving her a tonic to calm her stomach, I sent for a neighbour to fetch Margot, the midwife. Surely, she would know what to do? By the fire in the kitchen I saw black berries scattered over the floor.
The drawing room was aflutter on that late afternoon. Margot was applying a cold cloth to Armande’s forehead as she lay on the dormeuse like a limp rose. Her eyes looked dead without their usual sparkle. The village doctor paced in front of the fire.
“Keep drinking the tea as it will clear the poison from your body.” Margot had one eye turned in that made people afraid of her. White hair fell down her back. Her breasts were as fruit frozen on a branch during the month of December. She was Armande’s wet nurse after her mother died, and was a midwife to many others.
“Herb of the beautiful lady indeed!” The doctor exclaimed. “Belladonna killed a neighbour’s horse last year.” He stopped pacing to examine the dried black berries in the palm of his hand. “We must rely on the old methods to rid the blood of poison, cut into the heart veins, the breast veins, and head veins, diverting the flow from the inflammations near the eyes and the stomach, thus relieving congestion in these parts.”
Margot looked at him as though a lunatic just spoke.
“Do you remember, Armande, when you had milk fever and I gave you a very small amount of this plant to heal your inflamed nipples?”
Armande nodded, slowly turning her body toward her old midwife.
“You were so very ill. After taking only a small amount of this berry, your fever and your irritation subsided.”
The doctor sat down on the dormeuse by Armande’s feet, his elbows resting on his knees as he crouched forward.
“In his Species Plantarum Linnaeus writes that no fewer than ten of these berries can kill a woman.” He held out his hand showing the dark specimens. “I am surprised you took a chance, Madame, treating her with such a deadly plant.” His skin was cracked and dry like a reptile.
“Come now, doctor,” Margot said in a light tone. “You often prescribe small amounts of poison for different ailments. If one understands what proportions to administer, then one can do much good.”
The doctor stared blankly at Margot, stood up and grabbed his brown leather sack. “Since you seem to be oblivious to sound reasoning I think my work is done here.” As he was leaving he said, “Babies must not drink from her bosom. Otherwise they too will be infected by the poison moving through her milk and into the chambers of her heart.”
“Doctor, that’s the most sensible thing you’ve said all day.” The corners of Margot’s mouth curled up ever so slightly.
The doctor pretended not to hear her. “I bid you ladies adieu. I will check in on you, Madame Vivant, later in the week.”
While Margot took care of Armande, I was busy with a baby. Not Nathalie, as a neighbour with an infant of her own offered to nurse her until the wet nurse was well again. No, the baby I cared for was the sick one Emilie—if that truly was her name—had left us with when she ran off. After Armande took ill and was blinded, I found the screaming infant on the cold floor in the entrance, the woman nowhere in sight. My baser instincts told me to toss it outside where it would soon freeze to death. Yet in my sad and guilty state, instead of causing it harm, I took pity on the ugly creature.
I did not speak to Armande about the woman who added belladonna to the soup. She only knew someone tried to poison her. She was very tired—one of the effects of the berries—still had stomach pains and I did not wish to upset her further. I spoke to Nadine about it when the two of us were in the kitchen.
“That wicked Emilie came in here and poisoned my soup while I was upstairs changing Nathalie,” I told her. “She was in our very drawing room. I even gave her a pair of my shoes because I felt sorry for her.” The thought made me queasy; so gullible was I to have believed her story and let her in.
The stray infant liked the warm water streaming over her neck and shoulders as I bathed her in a basin on the kitchen table. After, I held a piece of cloth dipped in cow’s milk at her lips for her to suck on. I tried to feed her bread dipped in milk yet she only spit it up. Nadine was boiling dried chamomile flowers on a pot over the fire for a compress to relieve tension and fatigue in Armande’s eyes. She removed the flowers from the pot and folded a piece of muslin several times to make it good and thick. Then she put it in the pot and began stirring it, pushing it down into the fragrant, yellow water.
“You know what she looks like,” she said to me. “She can’t be too far away.” Her wispy
hair was light as dried corn husks and her skin had a rosy hue.
Now that Armande was sick and could not nurse, I had to find a mother to also take in the orphan. By the time I set about going from house to house to look for a family for her, night was fast approaching. I fastened my cloak and tied my bonnet tight to my chin. I then swaddled the baby, and secured her in the crook of my arm. I made it to the square just as night fell. After being rejected at two houses where mothers suckled their own, I went to the priest’s house. The baby was crying for its dear life because it had not nursed all day.
“Please take her and find a home for her as she’s an orphan,” I said handing him the screaming baby.
He held the child away from him. A mother would not say no to our priest. If he took the baby it would soon find a home.
“Very well, I will see what can be done. We will have to find a family straight away.” He was shorter than I was. Between words his top teeth rested on his bottom lip.
I nodded dumbly and was on my way.
The lantern made patterns of light on the ground and a mild wind brushed a sprinkling of snow over my cheeks. Waving the lantern to see better, I caught a glimpse of somebody cowering in the square by the fountain, and then I saw Emilie’s face. I grabbed her by the shoulders, wrestling her to the ground. Wrapped around her neck was a shawl belonging to Armande, which she must have pinched while in our drawing room.
“You almost killed the wet nurse, you murderer.” I pinned her arms over her head then sat on her stomach, turning her wrists until she cried out.
“I was only trying to slow her down so he could catch her more easily,” she said trying to break free. “I didn’t want to kill her.”
“What? Who?” I pressed her hands to the ground.
“The man who gave me bread and some coins to watch her. I can feed my children for a whole week with what he gave me.”
My hands still at her wrists, I tightened my legs on her small, yet solid frame. Then all at once she raised her body up and used all her strength to turn, knocking me off her. As I stood, a shoe that was once mine came straight for me. I felt a piercing blow to the eye and then a punch to the stomach. I lay on the ground shaking, an unbearable pain burning my eye and gut. By the time I crawled to my feet, she had disappeared.
Painter
ISABELLE SAT IN CHURCH, her shining red hair streamed out from her Sunday bonnet.
“I need the handkerchief back,” I whispered and sat down beside her.
“I have kept it with me always, Céleste,” she said, barely turning her head as she took it from her pocket and passed it to me.
Then she added, “Don’t forget you promised me a reading lesson from Armande in exchange for this favour.”
I nodded, clutching the handkerchief in my closed fist. I hoped it would give me a sign as to why her husband came back, yet all I felt on having it was a sense of dread, starting from the hand that held the handkerchief, and flowing to the rest of my body.
The wool spinner sat in front of us talking to the embroiderer. One sat behind the other with her four children and husband. The embroiderer was by herself, turning her thin body around to better hear. The wool spinner leaned forward, her hands clutching the bench in front. I caught the words milk, God’s punishment and the phrase, filling her head with ideas that impress upon the milk. Isabelle shot me a nervous smile. Tears warmed my cheeks as I thought of how my thoughtlessness had led to Armande being poisoned. If I had not let the woman in the house, then the wet nurse would be as before.
Our priest came to see me after. “My child.” He gently pinched my elbow, and brought me to a small-pane window at the back of the church. The gold cross delicately embroidered in brocade on the back of his priest’s apron brushed against me. He told me that he found a goodly family for the orphan. Then he asked me, “How is Madame Vivant?”
“She is now able to nurse again as has regained her sight,” I answered, “yet still complains of cloudy images passing before her eyes. Hopefully the tea Margot gave her will soon make her well as she takes some every morning. And I prepare nourishing foods for her such as stew made of salt pork, squash and beans.” I did not tell him about the chocolates I was also feeding her that Madame Lefèvre gave me, as I did not think he’d approve. Armande ate one every evening until the box was empty, and I’m certain that it helped to raise her spirits and improve her condition.
“Tell Madame Vivant to come and see me tomorrow. I will say a prayer to help rid her body of poison and make her well again.”
I nodded wearily and quit the church. The melting snow in the square was like applesauce from all the feet trudging through it. A heavy grey sky added to my dark thoughts. Walking home, a song entered my head, Black ink blood, white milk blood, what kind of blood does a bad woman have? Armande was not a bad woman, it was that people talked for nothing. Some said blood was the seat of the soul. Well if it was, then Armande had airy blood running through her body. She was gentle as a summer wind, straight as the road to Heaven.
In the evening, Armande’s fingers moved slowly across the keys of the harpsichord in the drawing room. Her gigue sounded to my ears more like a funeral march than a lively country dance. Armande told me she was still tired and that was why her playing was off. It had been two weeks since she was poisoned and she was still not herself. She seemed restless, yet her beauty shone through. The gown she wore brought out her eyes. It was green and shimmering like the leaves of the old oak in the garden after a summer rain.
Later, as she gave suck to Nathalie, I told her how Emilie had poisoned her, and what the vile woman said to me about being asked by a man to watch her. At first she was silent, and then her face turned sour. “It has been a while since receiving the King’s lettre de cachet and he will be soon wonder why I have not presented myself at Versailles.” Dark curls streamed down the sides of her face and onto her delicate shoulders. It was only when a log caught fire and a burst of light filled the room that I saw she was crying. I passed her a muslin handkerchief.
“I miss father and hope he arrived safely in Paris,” she said dabbing her eyes. “He always knows just what to do, but it’s now up to us Céleste.”
I nodded and kept my worries to myself as I needed to be brave for her.
After the baby fell to sleep, she placed her in a basket by the fire, and covered her up. She sat in her oak chair, crossing one leg over the other and bringing one side of her petticoat on top of her knee where she placed her hand. The night wind howled over the rooftop, banging against the doors and windows.
I sat by the fire for more light and set about patching the chemise for a woman who lived nearby. As I tossed some branches and dried peels in the fire an aroma of cedar and apple filled the room.The fire changed from blue then to yellow and back to blue again. I drew the scent into my lungs and a calmness took over me. The next bit of mending that needed doing was a pair of wool stockings with a hole where both big toes would go. I squeezed together the two pieces of cloth to sew up one of the holes.
Armande lit another taper and fixed her hair atop her head with a piece of red ribbon. This spot of colour on a wintry night made me think of when, in the summer, she would pick a rose from the garden and place it behind her ear. Wild pink roses climbed the trellis in the garden. They grew in small clusters, and were the first roses to blossom each year. With the smaller ones, she arranged them through her soft curls, which made her look a queen. Rosebushes grew by the kitchen and drawing room windows. The scent of the flower was so strong that I always knew where she was in the house, by the terrace door, at her desk, in the kitchen.
She rested her elbows on the desk in front of her, her shoulders bending over something in her hands.
“Look at the lovely gift Madame Lefèvre gave to me.” She pulled the letter she received from the envelope and out fell a comb carved from redwood and a shiny Louis d’or. She had not smiled like
that for weeks.
“She writes that Jacques’ favourite words are cart, goose and rocking horse.” She laughed softly, waving the letter over her face like a fan. Her skirt covered the chair where she sat, which made her resemble a flower bending over, its petals touching the ground. “He is curious about books and shrieks with delight each time Madame walks into the room.” She returned the letter to the envelope. Although she had a pleasing look on her face as she inspected the new comb, her eyes were heavy with circles around them.
She strolled over to the green and light blue buffet edged in gold, and then opened the glass door, pulling out a bottle and two tall glasses. The label on the bottle showed a woman holding a lush plant that partly covered her face. Armande handed me a glass of gooseberry wine.
“Let’s have a drink and raise our glasses to our beloved Jacques.”
At first, my stomach turned with the fiery liquid, yet taking another couple of sips, I found it tasted better and warmed my insides. Armande’s skirt clung to her thighs as she arranged herself, with glass in hand, on the dormeuse. She wore plain white stockings, the skin of her thigh barely visible past a blue ribbon tied below the knee. We had not celebrated in this fashion since Monsieur Vivant was with us and he had one of his pamphlets published.
Her eyes lit up and she clapped her hands together lifting her body off her seat. “I know…. Shall I tell you about the first time I snared a man?” She licked her lips after taking a sip of wine, smiling like a cat that just ate a fish.
Milk Fever Page 8
