Waiting for the Queen (23 page)

Amelia and I stand on a small island surrounded by barnyard puddles as Hannah leads Violet into the shed. Our parasols are raised, our skirts are raised, and so are Amelia's arched eyebrows.

“Do you remember,” I say to her, “how Marie Antoinette loved to play at being a shepherdess and how she wore entire pastoral scenes in her hair? Lambs and shepherds with crooks?”

“But this is something else entirely, Eugenie. Sheep muddy to their necks. An odorous cow. To care for animals such as these, one must nearly
be
an animal. Look! A dung pile, right there.”

“Amelia. Hannah understands our language.”

“What matter if she does? It is the truth,
non?
”

“You insult her.”

“I? Insult
her?
All this is an insult to me! I cannot imagine why my parents agreed to this. Or your maman.”

It is indeed extraordinary—and all due to Papa. Amelia's parents are so unnerved by this American wilderness, Papa convinced them, as well as Maman, of the necessity to at least become familiar with a few important skills.

After Hannah milks Violet, she asks in French if we would like to watch her make butter.

“Far more preferable to eat it,” Amelia says.

To her displeasure, I do not laugh. And to my horror, Hannah replies in French, “Soon you shall, mademoiselle.”

Amelia turns to me. “Is this servant in the habit of addressing nobles as her peers, Eugenie?”

My reply lacks grace and wit. “Today . . . well, it is different, today. She is our . . . instructor.”

“Yours, perhaps, but not mine. I am here solely for the amusement, poor though it is.”

Several hens pecking nearby distract Amelia, and as she shakes her gown at them, I catch Hannah's eye and raise a finger to my lips. Of course she is quick to understand that she must not address Amelia directly again.

In a workroom, Hannah shows us a peculiar object and says in English, “Butter churn.”

The apparatus looks like a closed cask with a flat bottom. A pole emerges from its top, and I am thinking of Papa poling the boat here, so long ago, it seems.

“L'anglais,”
Amelia says, “is the language of our enemy! I shall never speak it.”

Why is she being so tiresome and bellicose? It strikes me that she is like Rouleau in a way, taking out on others her own unhappiness.

“Amelia, Amelia, is this not better than endlessly practicing the harpsichord?”

“Non!
I would rather do anything else in the world than this.
C'est ridicule!
”

I very much doubt that she would rather be in France right now, hiding in some cellar. But I hold my tongue. Hannah is showing us something else. A stone trough of some kind. Into it she pours a pail of milk, waits awhile, and then gestures opening a small drain at the bottom of the trough. Cream, she explains, will rise to the top. Watery milk will drain into another pail. We await this scientific experiment for some time, Amelia curious despite herself.

“Voilà!” Hannah finally says, as she pours thick cream into the churn. She demonstrates raising and lowering the pole, and after a few minutes pauses to gesture to me. I blush, again thinking of Papa on the boat.

“Go ahead, Eugenie,” Amelia says. “Follow your heart's deepest desire and become . . . a peasant.”

I cannot stay the anger. “Of course you are aware, Amelia, that the Austrians are known for their ruggedness and strength. Marie Antoinette, being of Austrian blood, may well enjoy learning how to churn butter.” I say the last two words in emphatic English.

Amelia offers her Versailles laugh, a tinkling chandelier of scorn.
“Pardonnez-moi
, Eugenie, but Marie Antoinette, née Maria Antonia, has journeyed too far from the farms and pastures of Austria to enjoy anything here.”

I grip the pole and move it up and down rapidly, as Hannah did. In no time, I am exhausted and must give up. Hannah resumes the work and continues for long minutes.

“This is boring!” Amelia complains. “And I am tired of standing. Imagine! If we did this all day, what time would we have for our amusements?”

These words cause me to view our rank from a new perspective. Before, it meant lands and jewels and court life and privileges. Now I realize it means time itself as well. Because of our servants, we could endlessly dance and visit and amuse ourselves. We had freedom and time, whereas they, in their servitude, had self-sufficiency.

“Amelia, the answer may lie in the golden mean.”

“And that is?”

“You must remember from your tutors—Aristotle's golden mean. Moderation. Avoiding extremes.”

“Do you
mean
to say, Eugenie, a little bread-baking and a little dancing?”

“Something like that, perhaps, yes.”

“It seems a half-baked notion!”

We both laugh at her witticisms, and it feels good to be close again. I so want Amelia to understand, to see what I am beginning to see.

“Amelia, do you not feel unskilled compared to Hannah? And weak?”

“Non!
And why should I want to do what she does? She is born to do it—not I.”

“You miss the point—”

“There is no point!
Écoutez!
Your Papa has become most eccentric, Eugenie. A dangerous development. You must not become like that. Everyone will soon shun you.”

Our raised voices cause Hannah to glance at us in fear while she churns the butter. Finally she stops and opens the cask.

We look inside.

Butter
. Pale and creamy and thick.

I exclaim in praise, but Amelia is mute. Hannah carries a plate of the fresh butter into the
maison
's common room and sets it upon the table, along with two cups of cider. Then she takes a loaf of bread from the hearth's warming oven and slices it. In memory, cries of rioting come, and a vision of a mob shoving at bakery doors, smashing windows, grabbing for the few loaves, fighting one another for them.

Hannah, afraid to speak, I realize, motions us to the table. Amelia takes the armchair that must be Monsieur Kimbrell's. I take a plain one that might be Hannah's—or John's. Hannah places buttered bread before each of us. Amelia eats. I cannot.

“What is the matter?” Amelia says.

I shake my head, and then, for Hannah's sake, eat the bread.

It is perfect.

Later, while Hannah shows us how to make bread, Amelia amuses herself by scattering flour everywhere. She even tosses some at me and throws a handful into my hair.

“Amelia, stop!”

“Why?”

She throws some into the air. “Snow, Eugenie!”

The vision of the rioting mob comes again. “You are . . . wasting it.”

“Yes—and?”

The flour is silken in my hands. I was enjoying mounding it, kneading it, and told Amelia so. Is this her retaliation?

Flour is everywhere on the floorboards. “I am sorry, Hannah,” I say. Kneeling, she is gathering it into a bowl and saying something in French, something about the animals.

“You apologize to a peasant, Eugenie?”

“I”—my voice quakes—
“Oui.”

“How . . . interesting.”

Leaving, Amelia sweeps one hand casually over the table, scattering yet more flour. She allows the
maison
's door to shut with a great thud and clatter.

“Pardonnez-moi,”
Hannah says.

“Moi, aussi.”
The words just there, between us. They seem a gift we give to each other.

Exhausted, I rest while Hannah finishes shaping the dough into loaves. How long it all takes. Then while the loaves rise in a small oven built into the hearth, she begins yet another task—spinning wool into thread.

Watching her, I imagine Papa asking, What do you think is better? Knowing how to make bread or how to play piquet?

The fragrance, now, from Hannah's oven settles the matter.

And yet an idea comes, a wild thought I impulsively voice. “Hannah, would you like to learn to play the harpsichord?” I mime playing a keyboard.

When she fully understands my question, joy brightens her face, but then she shakes her head. “It will not be permitted, mademoiselle.”

To my shame, I am relieved. “Ah, well, then.” But when she gives me a basket holding three warm loaves, I say something that surprises me as much as it does her.

“Ask your father, Hannah, please.”

Returning to our
maison
, I worry that I in fact have become eccentric and that the Queen herself will censure me. Seeing Monsieur Deschamps at work on the Queen's garden, I call good afternoon, more to divert myself. After bowing he asks if I wish to observe how well the lilacs prosper.

Monsieur Deschamps may certainly be described as an eccentric. Upon fleeing France, he brought a barrel containing roots and bulbs and seeds but little else. So now, he must wear the same poor frock coat day after day. Yet his transplanted lilacs are beautifully budding out in chartreuse points that resemble tiny crowns. This makes monsieur all but dance. The canes of his roses, however, have not fared so well. Many appear black and lifeless.

“I shall cut them back but not uproot.
Non
. They may simply need more time to adapt to their new home.”

“Monsieur, tell me. Is some of that soil there French soil?”

“Ah, it is! I wanted them to feel at home here.”

I kneel and touch the soil of France mingling with American earth, and of course tears come.

“Do not be sad, mademoiselle. All will be well. The Queen will come, and there will be fleur-de-lis and lilacs and roses and herbs for her. You will see!”

“And wonderful
pain
, monsieur. Hannah Kimbrell performs miracles with flour just as you perform miracles here.”

“Monsieur Kimbrell does the same with wood. A pity they will not be paid a
sou
for all their work.”

“What do you mean? I thought that my father—”

“Pardon me, mademoiselle, but if you do not know.”

“Tell me, monsieur!”

“Well. I have heard that the family must give up its wages because the father and the son have not been bowing to the nobles. It is a matter of etiquette, not ability.”

“Of course.”

The gardener gravely nods. And, as I seem to be controlled by impulses today, I impulsively take one of the loaves from my basket and offer it to him.
“Pour vous
, monsieur! From Hannah Kimbrell.”

“Maman, Maman, do you know what I have just heard today, from Monsieur Deschamp?”

“Eugenie, wait. I have something to tell you.”

Her expression is so joyful, it can only mean one thing. “The Queen, Maman? She is coming soon?”

“Non
. Not that, forgive me. It is . . . You shall have a sister or a brother in September. I wished to be certain before saying anything.”

“How wonderful! I hope for a sister! Ah, what a day this
has been, and now we shall celebrate with this wondrous bread your daughter has helped make.”

Maman's brightness fades. I deploy an army of words at this sadness. “Should we need bread, Maman, I know how to make it! Is that not all to the good? It is much work but not impossible. We can do it together. The flour, it is so soft!”

“Eugenie, calm yourself.
Mon Dieu.”

“But you see, Maman, we need not starve. All we need is flour, water, yeast, a bit of salt, an oven, and—voilá! Papa was right. It is good to feel that one can . . . do something that matters.”

“Yes, knowledge . . . I suppose, but—”

“And now these Kimbrells, who can do everything—Did you know, Maman, that they will not be paid at all for their work?”

“Oui
. I knew.”

“It is not right. And today Amelia scattered flour all over, to be mean, and Hannah said nothing. She—oh, Maman, are we nobles going to be the same way here in America? Mean to those below us?”

“Eugenie, stop, please. You are talking nonsense.”

“But I am not, Maman!”

“Oui
. You are tired, after your day, and I am, too.”

“Oh, Maman. I am sorry. Rest, please. You must. And do not be sad. We have so much, do we not?”

Words startling us both.

“And now, Maman, I have something to beg of you.”

Hannah