Margot told me that little ones are delicate and need a mother’s constant attention. During the night, I always have one ear and one eye open. When Rose-Marie fusses in her cot, I bolt from bed to make sure she is dry; that she isn’t hungry, and that she’s warm enough. Robert moved temporarily to my father’s room so he could get some rest. I spend hours reading all I can about mothering, and then make my own decisions based on a combination of sound judgment, observation, and motherly intuition. How then could Robert possibly believe that my mind is elsewhere?
Just before dark, I wrapped Rose-Marie in a blanket and covered her head with one of my velvet caps before going outside. The air rubbed against my warm cheeks, and invigorated my blood. Clouds filtered the sun making a funnel of light, which shifted from rose to orange to violet. I am a good mother, I thought, as I watched Rose-Marie’s eyes widen at the play of light upon the apple trees. Nobody can say otherwise.
My head was numb, fingers and toes frozen and aching. I made my way back along the passage thinking two or more hours must have passed and maybe the men had gone. When I finally reached our root cellar I saw that the door into the kitchen was still open, light pouring down. I crawled up the steps and poked my head around the corner into the corridor.
Then I heard someone say, “Céleste, where are you?” It was Pierre.
“What are you doing here?” I couldn’t believe my eyes.
He stood in the corridor. “The door was open. I brought you some soup.”
His shabby scarf was wrapped around his neck. His coat undone and his face blotched from the cold. Then he added, “You need taking care of.”
I was so happy to see him that I burst into tears. After that, I told him about the men, and we began to search the house. In the library were rows of empty bookshelves, their books upended on the floor. Papers were scattered along with objects such as marble statues, wooden boxes containing dead insects, framed pictures and cushions. One of the heavy curtains was torn away from where it was attached over the window. It hung like a flag at half-mast. The sight of Monsieur Vivant’s library in total disorder left me feeling ill. Her father would be grief-stricken to find his precious refuge sullied in this way.
I stoked the embers in the kitchen and raised the pot above the flame to heat the soup. The thick salty liquid soothed and warmed my throat flowing down to satisfy the rest of me.
“You think she was kidnapped by the men who ransacked the house?Or she ran off with a man?”
“Armande would never desert a suckling baby,” I told him. “Besides, if she went willingly she would taken me with her.”
He knelt down at my feet and grabbed my hand, kissing my fingers one by one. This made me smile even though my belly was upset. His hair was messy as always. He stretched his neck up, his lips puckering for a kiss.
On the table, he spun an object like a pinwheel. It was Aretino’s little book of sexual positions; the very one Armande wrote about in her diary that Robert had brought back from Paris for her. Pierre picked up the book and began to flip through it, then stopped suddenly and raised it to his eyes; the look on his face was of shock. Heat came into my cheeks. Would he think me a harlot for having a book like that? It’s true he could not read, yet he had no need, as a dirty picture of a naked man and woman went with each of the poet’s sonnets. It reminded me of Monsieur Vivant’s ivory figures from the Orient, a jumble of buttocks, breasts, limbs and lips.
“It’s not mine,” I blurted out. After I said it, I regretted it.
“I never understood what these things were for.” He tossed the book on the table. “I heard they were the work of the Devil. Now I know for sure.”
A rush of bitter liquid filled my throat. Opening my mouth, the pea soup came out all at once. He ran to my side, cleaned off my mouth and then helped me upstairs to my bedchamber.
I crawled into bed feeling too poorly even to remove my petticoats and stockings. He lit some twigs and then placed a big log on the fire in my bedchamber. Pulling the covers up to my chin, he covered my face with soft kisses.
“You have a fever.” He stroked my forehead and temples. “You must have caught cold in the root cellar.”
The fact I was in a weakened state made him at ease with me. He talked more and was not shy about getting close.
“Don’t leave me,” I said pleading, afraid the men might return.
He pulled back the covers. The bed sagged a little when he climbed in next to me. As he placed his hand on my warm chest, I thought of what Armande wrote about following one’s heart over one’s head. Some possibilities would be gleaned over entirely if your mind was the only one mixed up in the decision. Though sick, I sensed a tingling between my legs that made me press my body into his. Was that how Armande felt when she lay next to Robert that evening under the stars by the chapel? Then I remembered the diary was in my embroidered pocket hidden beneath my petticoats. I turned, afraid he might feel its shape. His smell was a mix of cedar pitch and chicken feathers. His breath on my cheek and his warm body pressed next to mine gave me a sudden rush to the head. Except for some light kissing and hugging nothing much happened. When I could be sure he was asleep, I stuck my hand inside the pocket to touch her diary. The pages were rough against the soft leather cover surrounding them. Not having her diary to read would be bad for me. Yes, I knew what I could do: I would protect the diary and it would protect me.
Grief
GREY WINTER LIGHT EDGED its way into my sleep. Under the bed sheets, Pierre’s body was warm against mine. My belly was better than the night before, though still unsettled as I rose to go downstairs. From the kitchen window I saw Nadine and Bertrand standing by the back door.
“Winter is hard and you’ll need this for the long nights,” she said, holding up a bottle of blackberry wine. Her infant peeked out from the top of her coat. Still in my bedgown and with nothing on my feet, I trembled from the cold. Bertrand handed me a sack that jumped and screeched. Sure enough, the orangey head of a rooster was visible when I peered inside.
“Thanks.” I blushed at their generosity.
It stopped snowing and a sliver of sunlight broke through low clouds. The two sat down at the kitchen table. “Only a few months back my girl was delicate and wanting in the noises infants make,” she said, arranging the child in her arms. “Armande gave her suck and soon made her quick of body and mind.”
“Here,” she said passing the child to me. “I remember she likes you.” She had a wide mouth and small nose, and it was hard to see where it got its looks, from the mother or father.
I told them I heard two men in the house the day before, and that they had pulled apart Monsieur Vivant’s library as though looking for something. Their faces showed fear and worry.
“People talk about Armande being seen with a man on a horse,” said Nadine.
Bertrand cut in. “The day she went missing I saw a figure on his horse just outside the village. He was dressed in black, and I didn’t recognize the horse. I was loading our horse with blankets for a family whose son froze while fetching water at the river. So he would live the father cut off four of his toes that were dark as stewed plums.”
My mind was troubled by news of the stranger, yet then I remembered that Pierre lay sleeping upstairs. I did not wish to explain his presence in the house, even to my goodly neighbours. I excused myself to see if he still slept, telling them I needed to fetch a warmer shawl. The baby was content in my arms so I carried her upstairs with me. I found Pierre sprawled out in my bed, his mouth partly open. Happy he still slept and would not come downstairs while they were there, I picked up the shawl and quit my bedchamber.
I was walking down the hallway to the stairs when the little one made a sound as if something was caught in her throat. Her eyes moved from side to side, her bottom lip quivering. Then she said, “If I were a gentlewoman with stockings of silk, I would ask the servant to bathe me in milk. B
ut as I’m just a washerwoman, plain as dirty water, I’ll dream up a way to help me go farther.” I stood there unable to move, watching the baby’s face and hoping with every morsel of my being that more words would follow.
When Bertrand and Nadine saw me come back into the kitchen, they thought I’d seen a ghost.
“You’re very pale,” said Nadine. “Whatever is the matter?”
“I’m cold that’s all.” I handed her the baby, my mind consumed by the strange poem the little one had just recited. My hands shook and I hid them behind my back. I was trying to make sense of it on my own and did not want them to find out.
The three of us spoke about the stranger on the horse, and Bertrand vowed to find him. “He must have had a hand in Armande’s disappearance.” His eyes were weary and his shoulders sunken.
Shortly after they left, Pierre woke up and I told him about the sighting. He said he would look out for the stranger and visit me to make sure I was safe. While it warmed my heart that he wished to protect me, somehow I knew that her leaving had set off a chain of events that the villagers, and perhaps even myself, would be powerless to stop.
A couple days later, the doctor came to call. “I found this where the dead crow hangs,” he said, a shiny, speckled box resting in the palm of his hand. “I passed by the maple on the hill the same morning you set out to find the wet nurse. I was on the way to visit a woman whose husband was doing very poorly. When I heard you were digging at that very place, I found it curious as I happened on this by chance before anybody even looked there.” He raised his brows and scratched his forehead in a nervous way causing specks of his skin to fall to the floor.
“What is it?” I never saw anything like it before.
“What a peasant you are, my child! It is a snuffbox of course! It is made of tortoise shell, obviously belonging to some very distinguished gentleman by the looks of it.”
How funny, I thought, that a tortoise man should bring me an object made from his own skin. The doctor saw me grinning at him.
“Did I say something to amuse you? I’m attempting to guide you to the dark truth about Armande and all you can do is poke fun!”
My eyes lowered and I fixed my mouth to a frown instead of an almost-smile. The word snuffbox was familiar to me though I had no idea what it was used for. I must have looked confused for he opened the box, took a pinch of the yellowish brown powder inside and drew it to his nose. Then as if on cue, he sneezed.
“There you see it’s very refreshing at any hour of the day, especially before a fire in the evening.”
The man smiled, his thin lips like two earthworms stretching across his face. Taller than him, I stared at the bald patch on the top of his head. Like other parts of his body, it was flaking off, yet in smaller bits. Looking more closely at the snuffbox I then saw the initials R.P. carved into it.
“Monsieur, these letters say nothing to me,” I lied tightening my jaw.
He shot me a strange look and then proceeded to scold me. “Well, think again. For why would a woman keep a man’s snuffbox except to one day relive a bawdy affair, the likes of which she most certainly kept from the likes of you?”
The rooster was screeching in the pantry, and so I threw a few breadcrumbs into the cold, dark room and shut the door.
“I haven’t laid eyes on this object before.” I went back to the drawing room. The doctor reached over and grabbed me by the chin.
“No surprise to me, Mademoiselle. Women such as the wet nurse often keep secrets from those most close to them.” He circled the room. “There must be some trace of this gentleman in the house.” His nostrils opened wide, cheeks puffed up and turned a light shade of pink.
“What is it you’re looking for?” I followed along behind as he pulled himself up the stairs with the slowness of a tortoise.
“A letter, kerchief, lock of hair, anything that will confirm for me that she’s fled with this R.P.”
Nobody, not even a physick could convince me Armande would voluntarily go anywhere with her estranged husband Robert Phlipon, the source of much of her melancholy. Must not let him see her diary, scratch his tortoise claws over it as if it was a piece of skin to be flicked away. No, he could not do that, as it was safe inside my pocket. I ran ahead of him up the stairs to block Armande’s door, yet he overtook me and marched right into her bedroom. He slid his hand along the bed covers then lifted the pillow and brought it to his nose. He sniffed the corners, diving headfirst into the cloth, both back and front. To my disgust, he left flakes of his skin where, only a few days ago, Armande laid her sweet head. He ran his hand over the clothes in her wardrobe then he stopped, bending down to pick up a silk stocking folded in a basket. He waved it in the air as if this act would start the object speaking to him about the naughty habits of its owner. Then with a flick of his wrist, he tossed it under the clothes and slammed shut the wardrobe. I wanted to slap him across the face, yet the thought of touching his scaly skin stopped me.
Next, he was rummaging through the porcelain box on her dresser. Finely painted gold lines and flowers adorned the lid. His small fingers picked up a string of Italian glass beads. He stared at them with passing fondness just as he stared at the piece of skin he took from his forehead moments earlier. He picked up a small dried rose that was from Armande’s garden, and then threw it back in the box. How could he fondle her precious things as though they were bits of his own skin falling away?
“When you find your dear wet nurse I’m sure you’ll catch her in flagrante delicti. It is her heated condition causing her to flee. She has gone to the man whose initials are scratched into the box. That’s what women do who are driven by desire.”
What was the doctor talking about? He found nothing and yet he invented an ending to fit his idea of her. I grabbed the object from him. It was cold and fit perfectly into the palm of my hand. My heart leapt as if I too thought this object would lead me closer to where she was.
“Give it back to me,” he shouted, his hands groping the air.
“Sir, if this object belongs to her lover, then shouldn’t he have it back?”
I was tired of his lies and just wanted him to go away and stop taunting me with the snuffbox.
“Keep it then,” he said out of breath. “I have no use for it. I won’t be at all surprised if you find a love letter confirming what I’ve told you.”
After seeing the doctor out, I sat at the fire rubbing the box as though it were an amulet and could show me hidden truths. With my thumb, I traced the initials R.P. The tortoise doctor tried to plant in my head a thought of Armande going away with the snuffbox’s owner. Her husband. It was a ridiculous notion because I knew that, if the two were in fact together, it was only because he had captured her. The child and baby speaking to me was a sign. No matter what danger came my way, I had to see she was safe. Yet how could I do that if I did not even know where she was?
The last bit of day went to the edge of the forest and vanished. Wind brushed snow from nearby hills, tossing it at the windows of the drawing room. Upstairs, the lantern sat crooked on a chair beside my bed. Once under the covers, I thought of what the doctor said about women like her keeping secrets from those most close to them. It’s true she did not talk to me about her past, yet that was because it was too painful for her. Margot said there were things she didn’t speak of, yet surely if she were planning to go away I would be the first to hear of it? I opened the diary to where I left off, words, Armande’s, spilled into my head and I could not read them fast enough. I sensed her through them as if she was right there with me. I wanted the new feeling to come back, the one where I was safe, unbroken. I never knew such a thing before meeting Armande and coming here. Several pages on, I read softly to myself while other times mouthing certain words aloud.
March 1, 1785
My child is dead and my heart pains as if begging to be torn from my body. She was asleep in a basket
in the kitchen and Robert was outside chopping wood. Yes, I am sure that he was outside. I looked in on my baby, kissed her sweet cheek, nudging the blanket up to her chin. I was fifteen minutes—no more than that—in the drawing room at my escritoire writing in my diary when an awful clamour erupted from the kitchen.
A pig had come in through the open door and was thrashing around the room. It flung its head from side to side knocking over the table, chairs, kicking cupboards, and walls with its hind legs. Blood covered the floor and was slippery and wet on my feet. The basket where Rose-Marie slept was empty, then I found her crumpled beside an upended chair. She was not the same as before. Robert came in and struck the beast with his axe, blood from the pig raining down upon us, entrails stretching over the ground and organ still pounding. Scooping up my little nut, I collapsed on the floor.
I awoke hours or maybe days later to a baby’s cries. For a moment, I thought it was my own Rose-Marie and that the previous horror was just a nightmare. I felt a tingling in my nipples from the crying that came from the other room and half-convinced myself it was my own child. I turned my body to rise from bed and follow the sound.
“Where was my Rose-Marie?”
My mind abruptly dredged up the image of the pig, my dead child, and the blood. The sorrow I felt was unbearable. The child’s cries came not from her, but from another who I cared for.
While I was sleeping, Robert fed the child soggy bread dipped in bouillon and butter after Margot’s advice. Then he tried to feed her some applesauce and mashed up carrot. At first, the little one took the food, but then she choked and refused to eat. A few nights ago, Robert woke me.
Milk Fever Page 14
