The Tale-Teller (11 page)

Joaquin said he was amazed at how well things had turned out for her. He had hardly dared hope to find her, much less find her free and healthy with property of her own. Now he could die in peace. She only stared at him with a sad smile on her face before replying that her life was not as good as he made it sound, because she was all alone in the world.

“What about your son?” he asked. “Is he the Lost Boy after whom you named the inn?”

“No, dear Joaquin,” she replied. “That was you. It has always been you.”

Hearing that, he took her in his arms. I crept from the room, to sleep under the stars and wonder at the mystery of our lives. The next morning I bid farewell to my friend Joaquin forever, and returned to my ship.

***

BECAUSE HER EYES WERE closed, as they always were when she told her tales, Esther did not realize that Monsieur Hocquart had become more and more agitated as the romance of Joaquin and Aissata reached what she intended to be a happy ending. Certainly Marie-Thérèse had always been delighted with its resolution. It was only when the Intendant collapsed in a fit of coughing that she realized he was upset. She opened her eyes, bewildered, to watch as Marie-Thérèse ran to get him a glass of water. What was wrong now?

“You promote this character as a hero, yet he left his wife and children to take up with a criminal,” Hocquart sputtered, when he regained his breath.

“Why is being a slave a crime, Monsieur Hocquart?” Esther asked. Slavery existed in New France; indeed, she'd heard that the Marquis de La Boische had twenty-seven slaves — a fact which seemed to justify her instinctive aversion to him — but the Intendant himself had always seemed both kind and rational. How could someone like him justify one human being claiming ownership of another?

“I am referring to Aissata's profession as a smuggler. Besides which, adultery is a sin.”

“Surely on his part more than hers?” Esther persisted.

Hocquart, about to respond, decided that it was beneath his dignity to engage in discussions on the nature of morality with a young woman who was, nominally at least, his prisoner. “Go to your room at once, Esther. From now on you will stay there and stop wasting my housekeeper's time with this nonsense.”

“But Monsieur Hocquart, please, I need her to help me with the baking. Don't forget Christmas is coming,” Marie-Thérèse said, confronting her employer with uncharacteristic boldness.

When he saw the misery on both women's faces he added, “Fine, you may continue to help out in the kitchen, as needed. But no more storytelling.”

“May I still use the library, Monsieur?” Esther whispered, almost afraid to ask.

“If you behave yourself.”

With that, he turned his back and marched away, satisfied with the firm authority he had conveyed, though as unsure as ever what to do about his unpredictable charge. Young women never sailed unaccompanied to New France unless they had prospective husbands or employers or at least some local family waiting for them, but Esther Brandeau had no one to take her in. Although she claimed to be willing to work for whoever would have her, he did not feel it was prudent. Her identity could not be confirmed; how could he impose such a vagabond on anyone? It was his job to maintain the safety and security of the colony.

It didn't seem right, however, to throw the girl in prison for running away to sea. True, she had broken two laws by hiding her identity and dressing in masculine attire. But since she had hurt no one by doing either, he was not inclined to insist on punishment, no matter how offended Beauharnois might be. In fact, that the Marquis Charles Beauharnois de La Boische was offended made Intendant Gilles Hocquart all the more disposed to leniency.

Whenever he began to think about Esther his head hurt. Whenever she saw him slumped over with his head in his hands, she offered to make him a cup of chocolate. It was absurd how susceptible he was to Esther's chocolate — and to her tales. Both these enticements made him happy, and being happy made him lazy. He found excuses to listen to her like some slack-jawed habitant when he should be administering justice, running his shipbuilding operation, seeing to the countless tasks required to ensure the prosperity of the colony. The girl's presence was a distraction; her tales a constant temptation.

Far worse than the seduction of the stories themselves was how they challenged his convictions. If he accepted what Esther said as true, his beliefs about the world would be put in doubt. In her version of reality slaves deserved freedom, infidels were as good as Christians, and women became the equals of men. Hocquart had read his Bible and he knew that the meek were destined to inherit the earth. But only at the Second Coming, not now! Esther Brandeau's radicalism had no place in this remote outpost of the empire of His Majesty King Louis XV.

EIGHT

“Mas vale cien años en cadena que
un año debaxo de la tierra.”
(Better a hundred years of captivity than one year in the grave.)

BITTER NOVEMBER WINDS CLAWED the few remaining leaves from the trees to be churned into mud by the traffic of men and horses. The mud itself froze and thawed, froze and thawed, as the temperature dropped each night and rose, feebly, by noon. A simple walk to the market became both treacherous and filthy. It grew dark earlier and earlier, and the increasing gloom affected the mood of the town. Marie-Thérèse, deprived of Esther's stories, turned to housekeeping with a vengeance, yelling at the maids to sweep the invasive dirt from the house, wash the windows and beat the carpets. Though she had never been idle, she now found more work than ever to occupy her.

Not wanting to cause trouble for the housekeeper, Esther kept her distance. Draped in a heavy shawl, she passed the time reading in Hocquart's library, empty during the workday, and then retreated to her attic room at night when he wanted to use it himself. Outside the library window she could see people bundled up in thick woollen coats and bright red or blue toques, their horses' breath turning white as it steamed from their nostrils. Only the pine trees remained unchanged, as green and glossy as ever, revealing their true strength as their weaker cousins stood shivering and naked. Standing tall and dark at the edge of the Intendant's compound, they were the true natives of this place; they and the Indians.

Sometimes, in spite of Marie-Thérèse's fears about them, she imagined running away to join the Indians. Among them she could learn to paddle a birchbark canoe and hunt gamebirds with a bow and arrow, then cook what she had killed over an open fire. Wearing comfortable clothes she could explore the wilderness freely. Sleeping in a wooden longhouse with a large noisy group would be as comforting and communal as bedding down on board ship, without the disadvantage of being wakened every four hours by the changing of the watch. The fantasy of becoming a noble savage became more and more appealing as her days of solitude stretched into weeks, and Esther decided to profit from her enforced isolation by learning more about the Indians.

The Intendant's library contained
The Jesuit Relations
in both Latin and French, so first she explored that strange encyclopaedia of bravery and horror, Huron customs and European voyages. She had encountered the works of Samuel de Champlain before but returned to them with new curiosity, more interested now in his accounts of Native life than his seafaring accomplishments. Her greatest discoveries, however, were Joseph Le Caron's dictionary of the Huron language and the phrasebook of Recollect Brother Gabriel Sagard. Having little else with which to occupy her days, and always having been fond of languages and quick to acquire them, she set out to study that of the aboriginals.

Esther's father had been a great believer in education; he had made sure even his daughters could read, write, and do basic arithmetic. These accomplishments behind her, the greatest pleasure of her childhood had been to sit in on her older brothers' tutorials in more advanced subjects such as philosophy, geometry, Latin, and Greek. From those experiences she knew it was best to copy out lists of foreign words in order to memorize them. Paper was hard to come by, but she managed to beg some from Marie-Thérèse, who foraged for scraps from Monsieur Hocquart's study and the courthouse. Day after day Esther worked away in private, waiting for an opportunity to impress the Intendant with her new knowledge. She hoped that given his great responsibility in the colony, Monsieur Hocquart would appreciate her diligence in acquiring the Huron dialect. Surely such commitment on her part would induce him to allow her to stay? But though he would look in on her occasionally, sometimes watching her silently from the doorway with his kind eyes, Hocquart no longer engaged her much in conversation. Once he said ominously, “Varin has news. We shall be seeing him soon. Prepare yourself.” But Varin did not come, though Esther would have welcomed the challenge of his insolent interrogation, so lonely had she become.

She had spent most of her childhood like this: shuttling between the kitchen and the library searching for clues as to how to behave, learning to cook so that she could please people who were suspicious of her. Turning salty tears into sweet desserts as though such alchemy might transform who she was into something acceptable. How could her bold adventure, going to sea in boy's clothes, have led back to the same way of life as the one she had left?

But life was unfair; if Esther knew anything, she knew that. One of her earliest revelations had been the profound injustice of society, blaming or rewarding people for things over which they had absolutely no control or for which they could take no credit. In her own head she had continually asked questions she could not speak aloud, such as why men were considered superior to women. Now she found herself wondering why the Marquis de La Boische was held to be better than others because of his title. What was a marquis anyway? She didn't know, and suspected that few people did. But they accepted the convention that because he was a member of the aristocracy he ought to be revered, despite the fact that he was a horrible person and no one actually liked him.

And then, one morning, Esther woke to a world of white. Each window was garlanded with fragile flowers of ice. The trees, lately bare, were piled with snow as soft as eiderdown. A mad gaiety invaded Upper Town. All the ladies were clad in wonderful furs, their cheeks rosier from the slap of the cold than they'd ever been under a layer of rouge, as they went from house to house for evenings of cards and chess and music and dancing. Even the industrious habitants shared this festive mood. Winter was a time for revelry; people visited each other more often with the excuse that the weather made it impossible for them to pursue their proper trades. In some cases this was true, but even when it was not, most people got caught up in the prevailing mood of indulgence.

Except for Hocquart. His job had never been seasonal nor his character frivolous, and the burden of managing Esther had become increasingly problematic. She had been more or less under house arrest for the last month, but he was well aware that he should have sent her back to France while that was still possible. Rumours had reached him from Montreal, where Beauharnois was spending the winter, that the Governor General had taken to calling Esther “Hocquart's feral child,” and making jokes at his expense, some of them quite improper.

Something had to change.

Meanwhile the gentry, perpetually on the lookout for a new source of diversion, kept demanding the girl's company to go skating on the sparkling river or to visit the Hurons at the village of Jeune Lorette. Those who had not been to Beauharnois's banquet wanted their turn in the audience; those who had already enjoyed the pleasure of her tale-telling wished for a repeat performance. Hocquart intended to quash all invitations but ultimately gave in to the request of Madame Lévesque, issued at a New Year's celebration at her own home. The stout and jolly chatelaine Esther had met at Beauharnois's dinner party was a member of one of the most powerful families in the colony, as well as a personal friend and ally. Hocquart had few enough of those and no intention of alienating her, so he relented.

Early in January, on a day of dazzling sunlight, Madame Lévesque commandeered Esther for a day of sightseeing. She was accompanied by an elderly woman whose mild eyes peered out from a face deeply latticed with wrinkles. The two ladies, in their winter coats and voluminous shawls, were bundled under thick bearskins; squeezed in beside them, Esther could hardly breathe. The bearskins smelled at once rank and dusty, a blend of wet dog and old carpet. But the jingling of sleigh bells on the horses' collars was so gay, and the ice-covered branches overhead shone so brilliantly against the bright blue sky, and the opportunity to leave the smoky gloom of Hocquart's palace was so very welcome, that she overcame her distaste, and found herself stroking the rough black fur with a curious kind of pleasure.

“Where are we going, Madame Lévesque?” she asked.

“It is a surprise.”

And with that, her hostess laid a gloved finger across her lips to indicate silence, before reaching under her furs to produce a bottle of cognac from which she poured each of her guests a warming sip. Her friend, whom she introduced as Madame Duplessis, demurred at first, but was persuaded that on such a cold day, liquor served a purely medicinal purpose.

“Madame Duplessis is very abstemious. She intended to take orders in her youth,” Madame Lévesque explained.

“Why?” asked Esther, with such wide-eyed simplicity that Madame Duplessis was not offended, as ordinarily she would have been, but instead found herself trying to explain something too close to her heart for the superficiality of casual conversation.

“What other course is there for an intelligent woman?” she asked.

Esther was surprised by the old lady's sincerity. She herself had grown up fearing nuns, crossing the street when she saw them coming in order to avoid the evil eye. It had never occurred to her that a community of religious women might provide sanctuary rather than punishment.

“And yet you left the convent.”

“Papa insisted on my marrying.”

“Couldn't you resist?”

“What power does a sixteen-year-old girl have?”

“The power to run away.”

“Like you?” Madame Duplessis laughed for the first time, showing a mouthful of surprisingly small and even white teeth. “No, my dear; I was never much of a rebel.” And with that, she lapsed into a private meditation, signalling that the conversation was over. Her eyes closed and, without warning, the old lady gave a sigh and fell asleep, her head dropping onto Esther's shoulder as trustingly as that of a child.

“Let her rest, poor thing,” said Madame Levesque. “She has been quite ill, which is why I invited her on this outing.”

Esther tried not to move so that the old lady could sleep peacefully, awkward as it was to sit still as the
cariole
skidded, hitting a patch of ice, or jolted, becoming stuck in a rut so that the driver had to get down and push. She wondered at the trust shown to her by these strange women, and her own instinctive trust of them. Where were they taking her, and why had Hocquart suddenly allowed her to go? It was all very mysterious, but welcome nonetheless. Life had been so dull recently. Everyone else in the Intendant's household had been in a flurry of excitement about the celebration of Christmas and the prospect of time off to see family and friends. Esther had enjoyed more of Marie-Thérèse's companionship in the kitchen, but otherwise her life continued lonely and anxious.

They took the King's Road north from the city, passing many happy travellers on the way and witnessing others galloping their horse-drawn sleds perilously at the edge of the river ice. Madame Lévesque whispered to Esther that this favourite pastime of reckless boys during the long Quebec winter sometimes ended in tragedy. But there was no way of stopping it; even her own son, Joseph, now living in Montreal, refused to listen to reason and raced against his friends.

The road continued beside the river. Clustered along its edges were the whitewashed houses of the habitants, here and there interrupted by the larger stone mansions of the seigneurs whose land they worked. Madame Lévesque seemed to know the history of each estate they passed and gossip about all the families. In this way the ride passed quickly, until suddenly the carriage stopped and she announced, “We're here.”

Esther looked up. Two Huron men stood under a nearby pine tree, regarding them with mild curiosity. They were both tall and dark, wearing deerskin coats decorated with ornate quillwork and hung about with embroidered pouches. Their deerskin trousers were gartered with embroidered bands and tucked into embroidered boots, and their long gleaming black hair was dressed in coiffeurs so fantastic they put the ladies at the Governor General's ball to shame. If these were their everyday clothes, Esther could not imagine how such splendid fellows would dress on festive occasions.

She was excited. This was the closest she'd been to a Native except at the market, where Marie-Thérèse would not allow her to approach even the smiling women and children. Away from the over-protective housekeeper for the first time, Esther was determined to say hello, trying out the vocabulary she had studied alone in Hocquart's library.

“
Kweh
,” she said, raising her palm in greeting. The men stared back at her, though one of them appeared to frown less than before. Seeing how little her enthusiastic welcome impressed them, Esther was mortified. Her dream of living free in the forest like an Indian maiden was suddenly revealed for the daydream it was; the silly fantasy of a silly girl with no power and no resources. Why had she allowed herself to be deluded? There was no escape for her, not in the forest, nor anywhere else. She didn't belong here, where families like Madame Lévesque's already went back three generations and the Natives had lived forever. She didn't belong anywhere, and never would.

She covered both eyes with her hands in an instinctive gesture of grief.

“No, no, you must look over there, Esther,” said Madame Lévesque, puzzled, pointing to something in the distance. It shimmered and tumbled from a vast height in sparkling rivulets that reflected more light than a thousand chandeliers. It resembled glass but was alive; flowed like water yet was more composed. At its base frothed and billowed an apparently different substance, milky and opaque, turbulent and calm at the same time, as though waves had begun tumbling towards shore without arriving there to break on the vast white sands that stretched in all directions. Sands upon which dozens of people gathered in horse-drawn sleds and on foot, while dogs cavorted, barking and yipping, and more Indians stood silently watching, some wrapped in red and black blankets, others in leather garments pulling toboggans of provisions behind them.

What she beheld was a huge cataract, frozen mid-fall from almost a hundred feet high, retaining the memory of motion but suspended as though time itself had paused between breaths to admire it more fully.