Milk Fever

by Lissa M. Cowan

  He thought me a mad woman, yet still he was kind to me. Armande would want me to tell the truth, I thought, and so I did.

  “Monsieur Phlipon is not my husband,” I said.

  The doctor was cutting thin strips of cloth to make bandages for my feet. He looked up from where he knelt on the floor.

  “I am in Paris to seek out Madame Vivant, a wet nurse who vanished from our village,” I continued, aware that he might not believe my story. “I ran away from home and she took me in. Her abundant source of milk makes children calmer … more clever. If France is to be saved ... we have to find her.”

  The doctor proceeded to wrap bandages around each of my feet and then he tied them in a little bow at the side.

  “Monsieur Phlipon is mixed up in a scheme to capture Armande’s father,” I added.

  “Not to worry. I shall buy you some new shoes. Pretty ones just like before.”

  My words seemed to have made no impression on him. Did he even hear me? The doctor pulled me up from the chair by my hands, and before I knew it was leading me down a corridor. After passing two doors, he opened a third door, which led to a darkened room. In the bed in front of a blazing fire lay his wife. Her lids were crumpled rose petals, her hair sprayed out around her grey-white face. She looked much older than before and I was reminded of poor Sophie. The girl’s body had been covered in blood that did not come off easily even after water and soap were applied.

  Madame Jolycoeur was slighter than before and I could barely see her shape under the sheets. A little warmth came from her hand as I held it, veins pulsing under the surface. Veins like rivers run through the body just as the doctor had taught me. She said hello to me, I guessed, with the slight pressure of her hand on mine.

  “I hoped that Doctor Poirier could help her. That is why we left our home to come here.” His brow was heavy, his small hands restless in his lap. “Patients have responded well to his treatments and she was doing well at first. Now there’s nothing that can be done to save her.”

  I realized then that he was occupied with his wife’s illness, and that was possibly why my story was not so astonishing to his ears.

  As offered, the doctor gave me the little room and I was happy to have my own bed, and to have told the doctor the truth about the scoundrel and me, even if he did not seem to hear it. The pain in my feet lessened from the ointment and bandages. The doctor gave me a pair of his wife’s shoes, pink with white embroidered flowers, which were a bit big yet stayed on. That night, I dreamed of Monsieur Phlipon dressed in his fitted blue police uniform. Then, turning into a wolf, he came toward me on all fours, his teeth clenched.

  The next morning I tried to get the image of the part man, part wolf out of my head. I could not let him find Armande and his father before I did. I opened the curtain and saw a pretty courtyard with trees in large pots and a trellis of climbing vines. In my mind, the words, marching now, one, two, three, let’s all fight together for our liberty flashed upon a yellowish wall at the far end. Little Jacques had recited that song while playing with the wooden horse on the stairs. I rushed out the door, hardly giving a wink to Doctor Jolycoeur. The man with the crooked back was at the prison gates. I stood very still beside the door, my breath soft, hiding my face with my hood. The door was open as he talked with another man who waved his arms, the two of them shouting curse words. I edged my way towards them, the smell of shit and sweet hay entering my nose as I stepped over the threshold.

  Discovery

  THE PASSAGE WAS DARK AND WET. Water droplets fell from the ceiling and onto my shoulders and hair. The only light came from a chain of small, narrow windows. Close to the wall, I looked over my shoulder to make sure nobody trailed me. After walking through a series of passages that veered sometimes right and sometimes left, I came upon a heavy wooden door that opened easily. The echo of my walking sounded through the passage as I climbed heavy stone steps. The woman I saw outside the prison the other day sang a tune that seesawed this way and that. The passages had that same strange and troubled rhythm, I thought, as I wandered through them.

  I breathed in the damp. My heart felt cold and heavy while my hand felt the shape of Armande’s diary in my pocket, the thickness and weight of it. To know it was still there, gave me comfort. After walking along the passage to a higher floor, I saw a door with a tiny window. Inside was a room with a chair and a table covered in dust and cobwebs. Past that were other doors. The chambers were dark and empty, and I began to feel that there was nobody in that stink-hole but me. Past a large arched door, I found myself in a courtyard overgrown with ivy. In the middle was a statue of a child, its face blackened with moss. After crossing the courtyard, I reached another arched door, which led to another tower where I heard a faint sound like a woman whimpering. I ran up the stairs after the sound but it faded as quickly as it came.

  A light appeared at the far end of the passage, and then I saw a figure holding a lantern. His footsteps echoed and grew louder as he approached. Quickly, I dashed to a door nearest me. Once inside the chamber, I crouched under the little opening and waited for the man to pass. The room was no bigger than a store cupboard and had a fancy chair in it of red and gold that seemed out of place next to the dust, stench and cobwebs. In the far corner were tapersticks and a row of books. I sat down in the chair and then realized that my feet hurt, the bandages the doctor applied to them, were coming undone, much like my prospects of finding Armande alive.

  I walked along the passage to a different tower. Yet this time, instead of looking in every chamber, I said her name, in a low voice, though high enough so somebody might hear. Perhaps I was going mad just as the doctor suspected when he saw my knotted hair, dirty clothes and feet. “Armande,” I called out again. Another voice joined my own. In one of the rooms, a young man sat on the floor, legs spread out in front of him. He wore a white embroidered waistcoat, silk breeches and a black cloak over his shoulders.

  “I’m looking for a woman whose name is Armande Vivant. She’s a wet nurse,” I said between the bars of the window.

  “Come Henriette, there’s a good girl. Bring me some pheasant and grapes, and, oh yes some of that jasmine-scented chocolate, s’il vous plaît. I do not care one stitch if you have to pawn my carpets from Siam.”

  His head then collapsed into his chest. I repeated what I said yet he did not budge.

  I scurried for hours in the dark corridors like a lowly rat, hearing the echo of my voice saying her name. Tiny stones broke away from the ceiling and landed on my head. My aching feet dragged on the ground and my legs were blocks of wood. The chain of windows along the passageway shook up and down like nighttime fireflies. My legs were not strong enough to walk anymore, especially my bad leg, and so I lay down in the filthy passage. An enormous pang of sorrow cut through me. Then, as I was catching my breath, I heard a woman singing. Dizzy, and still not able to walk, I crawled to the sounds.

  Inside the chamber was a figure, sun from a nearby window lighting her hair. Was I dreaming? Her torso was shadowed, yet I knew straight away it was she. Armande’s hair was fixed atop her head, two curls cascading down her back. I called out to her, yet my voice, which shook with joyous excitement, was too faint for her to hear me. I rapped desperately on the door, and she turned toward me lighting a lantern. The burst of light in the dark chamber made her appear to me. She pushed her hand through the bars to caress my cheek.

  “My darling Céleste,” she said, her eyes filling with tears. “Give this to the man in the black hat at the end of the passage to the right.” She dropped three coins into my hand.

  I grabbed her fingers to make sure what I was experiencing was real, and did not want to let her go.

  Yet then she said, “Go now, Céleste … quickly,” and so I took the coins and ran to the end of the passage where a lantern flickered. Behind it sat a man on a block of wood, a wide-rimmed hat concealing his eyes.

  “What do you want
?” He picked up the lantern and brought it to my face. “I was just tending to an old bugger that by all rights should have died weeks ago. I was told to stop giving him grub, as we’re short. I snuck in a bit of oats anyhow because I don’t want to go to Hell for doing my job.”

  “Armande Vivant.” I trembled as I held the handful of coins out for him.

  Flashes of lantern light waved in front of my eyes and then he took the coins, pulling a bunch of keys from his pocket that were tied together with rope. I followed behind him as he opened her chamber door then locked it just as quickly with an echoing clank. She pressed me to her as I wailed right into her chest, into the place where babies drank her wondrous milk. Where somehow—in a world of both misery and excess—she gave them wisdom. I drank her in not wanting to stray from the precious goodness that might disappear in an instant.

  After we embraced, both of us crying and stroking each other’s hair, she said, “There, there my angel,” her chestnut eyes taking me in. “How did you find me?”

  My heart pounded. I tried to speak, yet could not find my words.

  She wore no jewelry, no necklace, rings or trimmings. Her gown, which was new to me, was a simple cut, chocolate with a white ruffle at the arms and neck. I sat on a sofa with violet satin cushions while she lit candles and another lantern. The chamber was larger than others I saw in the towers, and even reminded me a little of our drawing room at home. There was a carpet on the floor and a picture hanging on a wall, piles of books on a table and clothing draped over a chair.

  She did not press me to tell her how I got to Paris or how by some miracle I found her there. Instead, she told me what became of her since I last saw her on that momentous day. “I was very near home after leaving Margot’s house for medicine to help me sleep when I saw two men on horseback. They smiled at me and waved and then one of them asked where the church was. It seemed an odd question as the church spire could be seen from a great distance. Nevertheless, I began to direct him to the village square when the other one jumped from his horse and tossed a sack over my head, tying ropes around my hands and feet.” As I listened intently to her story, I lowered my head to her lap, and she gently stroked my hair, the ruffle at her wrist brushing my ear.

  “Through one of my kidnappers, I discovered that my husband Robert helped the King’s men find our house in the village. Not only that, he almost killed me paying that peasant woman to feed me belladonna,” she continued, resting her hand on my shoulder as I lay there. “When they came for me, they moved upon me with such swiftness that I was helpless to stop them, poison or not.”

  My stomach sank, my throat partly closing off, which made me gasp for air. Heat took over me, burning my skin, my tears wetting her skirt. I sat up to look at her.

  “After they kidnapped me, I began to suffer the pain of engorgement. It was a condition I experienced once before when hit with a dreadful bout of milk fever. My breasts were hard and swollen, my nipples stopped up from not nursing. By the time we reached Versailles my milk was all but gone.”

  A shiver went through me and I thought, Margot was right when she said, Wisdom in the wrong hands could drain magic from those that possess it. For the future of France the milk’s special qualities had to be protected.

  “You are cold, your hair wet. Poor Céleste, what you must have gone through to find me.”

  She tossed a woollen blanket over my shoulders and began rubbing my legs. She told me how the King’s soldiers brought her to a large mirrored room where she was fed partridge, duck, pig and fancy cheeses. They stuffed her, gave her feathery silks to drape over her body and filled her glass to the brim. Wine flowed long into the night, yet she was alone as she drank. The only person she saw during that time was a servant who served her each course and then stood at the door in silence.

  “I began to see the meat on the table as crawling with vermin,” she said with disgust as she stood up. “The wine suddenly tasted of vinegar as though the Devil himself had invited me to dinner and I just sold him my soul. The mirrored walls and chandeliers gave me the sensation of a bad dream, not a fairy tale. Once they figured out I wouldn’t oblige, I was treated in a heartless manner at court and began to wonder whether there was an ounce of compassion among them.” She stopped pacing and sat down beside me. “That week, still alone, presents began to flow in from so-called court admirers who knew my reputation as a wet nurse: a bit of lace, a peacock feather, a jade broach from the Orient. In other circumstances, another time in history perhaps, I would have been flattered and might even have powdered my face in anticipation of meeting one of them. Locked away in the luxury of that room put a bad taste in my mouth.

  “By the time the King summoned me, my head was all in a whirl, and his face looked like one of those meat courses I picked away at the night before. His eyes were the figs I pulled apart with my fingers and his nose was an apricot I dug into with my teeth.

  “‘It is because of the bad milk of a wet nurse that my son has been ill since he was born,’ said the King. I stood in front of him, averting his gaze, as was custom.

  “‘What I require is the good milk of another wet nurse to put it right.’”

  Armande then raised her head, looked at the King square in the eyes and told him she had no milk whatever, and so did not see how she could possibly nurse the ailing Dauphin.

  “Can you imagine what a stir that caused?” she said. “Nobody tells the King news he doesn’t wish to hear. Though it wasn’t within my control to change the hand Nature dealt me. He then asked me in a lighter tone if I would care for a tour of the locksmith’s quarters.”

  She laughed. “He thought I was being stubborn by refusing to nurse his son as though through sheer will I was able to stop and start my milk like a tap. Perhaps I would change my mind after being shown some Royal hospitality, he must have thought. After refusing to nurse the Dauphin a second time, I was sent back to the large mirrored room. A woman with a stern, unfeeling face came in and she shouted at me to pull down my bodice. When I refused, she promptly called out to a man wearing a mask who then tied my hands behind my back. When I struggled, he hit me over the face with a leather strap doubled and wound around his wrist.”

  She pointed to a scar, across her right cheek that was shiny and red, and I could feel myself breaking apart inside.

  “The sour-faced woman had a basin in her hands, which she placed under my left breast. With her thumb and forefinger, she squeezed my nipple. When no milk came, she went to the other one. A doctor who was hunched over and seemed a kindlier soul entered the room. He told the woman to step aside and then massaged both nipples in a gentler fashion, asked me a few questions about the milk stoppage, and then said that he could see I had no milk. He also said that, although he couldn’t tell this to the King, he would do what he could to see I wasn’t hurt. The next day, I was accompanied back to Paris as befits the most noble in our midst and was led to believe that I would be set free once we arrived in the city. Yet this never happened, as they then brought me to the Bastille Saint-Antoine where I have been ever since. They told me that I am in prison because I have lost my senses and am a danger to public decency.”

  The chamber door flung open and in walked the man with the black hat who said, “She must go now, Madame Vivant.”

  She handed the man a handful of coins wrapped in red silk, which he took and then left the chamber.

  “I am a favoured one here,” she told me. “People, mostly strangers, bring me desserts and other gifts.” She offered me some cake.

  Once my belly was full words rushed from my mouth as bees from an upset hive. I told her about coming to Paris with Robert Phlipon and the conversation I overheard between the two men relating to her father.

  “That ungrateful man,” she said, her face turning plum red, the veins in her neck pulsing. “My father taught him astronomy and botany and this is how he repays him? We must find my father … warn him o
f the danger.”

  “But how?” All I knew of his whereabouts was that friends of Madame Rousset saw him leaving a house of ill repute.

  “Monsieur Taranne is my father’s old friend and business associate. If you go to him he will tell us where my father is hiding.”

  “I know where he lives,” I said, relieved to be useful in some way. “One day I followed Monsieur Phlipon to the man’s lodgings that are close to the river and market.”

  “You always were the very best at spying. I recall you watching me from afar at that man’s estate.” Then she paused, and said, “What did you secretly call him?”

  “Master Dogface.”

  “Yes, that was the name,” she laughed and then proceeded to tell me about a book she was working on.

  “While in prison I have been taking notes for a book dedicated to women,” she said. “Margot taught me so many things such as how to boil the leaves and seeds in barley water to improve the quality of my milk, making it wholesome for the child. Increasingly, these lessons are no longer valued, yet if I put them in a book then perhaps they will be.”

  Two of the tapers burned out, and, in the half-light, the intensity of her beauty caught me off guard. I told her about the woman at the café who suggested I go to the Bastille, and about Armande’s redwood comb that another woman gave me at the meeting of the Cercle des femmes.

  “Do you mean like this one?” She picked up the very same object the woman showed me.

  I nodded my head in disbelief as I saw Armande had her very own comb with her all along. She was curious to know more about the women, and looked surprised when I told her two of them saw her marching in the streets.

  “It wasn’t me, Céleste. I’ve been here for two weeks now.”