Waiting for the Queen (26 page)

“What you have done, ladies, was most brave,” Father tells us both.

“But we failed,” I say.

“Nay. You tried. Trying is never failure. Only a beginning.”

Then someone announces that it is time for dinner, and
to my astonishment—nay, shock!—Eugenie takes John's arm and leads him into the dining room. Several nobles stare, and among them, Florentine du Vallier. A chill passes over me.

I cannot eat much but try so as not to offend. The nobles seem to have forgotten about us. They talk and laugh, and it begins to sound like our “Musette,” something large made of many small parts in the way an oak has leaves and stems and the leaves, veins, and rippled bark and limbs like separate trees, and branches filling the sky and inside the branches, sap, and under the earth, branches of roots, and everything connecting, even limbs and sky.

That is us, Hannah
, I hear Mother saying. Her voice is so clear, she might be right next to me.

All of us together
.

1794

Avril /
April

Eugenie

Lovely warmth today but the wind—
Mon Dieu!
It shakes the budding trees as if to break them. Along the clearing, some small yellow flowers are blooming, pipelike things on stems with no leaves to speak of. I did not see them here yesterday. They must have sprouted and bloomed overnight, like mushrooms. I do not quite like them, despite their bright coronas. But all the same, I pick a few.

“Come, Sylvette! Monsieur Deschamps may know what these are called.” As we turn toward
La Grande Maison
, where the gardener is sure to be working, I hear wolves howling. This is most unusual, to hear them during the day. But at least they are across the river. “Sylvette. Stay close.”

In the lee of
La Grande Maison
, the air holds a fragrance.

“Bonjour
, monsieur.”

“Ah, mademoiselle!
Bonjour!
I must show you something. Look.”

I do not know what I am looking at except that it is green and emerging from dark, heaped-up soil.

“Lilies!”

“The Queen, monsieur, will be ecstatic.”

“Do you think so?”

“But of course!”

He regards the garden a moment. “So much remains to do. But the soil here is good. I will work wonders.”

“Already you have, monsieur. But can you tell me what this little flower might be?”

He takes one and peers at it, turning it this way and that. Then he smells it. “This, I do not know. A weed of some kind, perhaps. An American wildflower.”

“Look how they already wilt. Strange things.”

“But everything has its place and reason, mademoiselle, in the garden of this world.” He hands the limp flower back to me. There is sadness in his voice.

“Indeed, monsieur,” I say to be polite. “You are most wise in addition to most skilled.”

“Merci
, mademoiselle.”

Not wanting to drop the wilted flowers on Monsieur Deschamp's orderly garden, I carry them away with me.

I wonder if monsieur was thinking of the revolutionists. In America the rebels' purpose was to bring about a new government, a democracy. So then, in France, also? And if a democracy in France, then I . . . will be nothing.

Non!
The Queen will come! There will
not
be a democracy for us. We
shall
have our monarchy.

I toss the wilted flowers to the side. “Sylvette, the river! Let us look for a flotilla.”

Passing the settlement, the river flows eastward and then loops to the west before turning southward again. One cannot see down its length for any great distance, and except for the curling brown current, it seems more like a lake. In the shallows on the other side, a blue heron stands as still as a branch. On both sides of the river, budding trees wear shawls of fine green lace.

Today the water is all sequins, but again the river is empty. “She will come, Sylvette. Perhaps not today, though.”
Sylvette and I turn from the river and walk along the eastern edge of the clearing. As we near the overland trail to Philadelphia, Sylvette begins barking.

Amid the greenery, some dark shape is approaching. I step back but Sylvette remains there, barking and growling. “Come, Sylvette.”

“Mademoiselle!” Comte de Sevigny is hurrying toward us. “This way!”

Stooping, I gather up Sylvette. Others, too, have evidently heard Sylvette: the Aversilles, each with a walking stick, and Abbé La Barre, approaching rapidly.

The beast we feared is but a horse and its rider. A post rider—the first since last autumn. Perhaps with word of the Queen!

The rider dismounts and removes his wide-brimmed hat. Then he stands with it over his chest after bowing to us, Sylvette is finally quiet.

“He is showing reverence, that is all,” I whisper. But my hands have gone cold.

“What is it?” Sevigny says in French. “Tell us!”

Abbé La Barre goes to the rider and inclines his head as if listening to the man's confession. After a moment the abbé makes the sign of the cross and turns to us.

I am trembling so, and my eyesight seems to be dimming. Someone takes my arm, steadying me, as the abbé says, “The Queen is dead. God rest her soul. Long live our new King, Louis-Charles!”

We kneel on the earth and make the sign of the cross. In the dark chamber of me, I hear the rest of the abbé's words. The plot to free our Queen was uncovered by her captors. The fishing vessel awaiting her off the coast of France had finally
sailed without her to England and then back to America. Marie Antoinette went to her death at the guillotine with great dignity and peace and died there on October 16. Her daughter, Marie-Thérèse, has been traded to Austria in exchange for French prisoners of war. Louis-Charles, the titular King of France, remains imprisoned. Word of all this has only recently arrived in America.

We continue kneeling while the abbé leads us in prayers, after which there are cries for further details.

This I cannot bear. I stand and shake my head to clear away the darkness. In the next moment Sylvette and I are running to our
maison
, where Maman is just waking from her nap.

“Maman, the Queen—”

Is dead
. But I cannot utter these words. I cannot accept them. Perhaps she escaped afterward, somehow, and news of
that
hasn't yet reached America.

“Eugenie, what has happened?”

Papa throws open the door.

“Papa, is it true?”

“Philippe,” Maman says. “What is it?”

He sits alongside her. I go to his other side. “My dears,” he says. “I fear it is so. The Queen . . . no longer lives.”

Through the open door, I see Florentine passing. He is not walking so much as stumbling forward.

Soon we hear a shot fired, and Papa rushes to learn what it means. When he returns, he is ashen. “Sevigny,” he says. “The man has been wounded. Florentine was waving one of his pistols about, threatening to shoot himself. Sevigny tried to get it from him and was shot. A serious wound. I
am going to find Hannah. She may be able to help. Eugenie, take care of your mother.”

I can only hold her, she is weeping so. An image of the dreaded Blade of Eternity comes, that terrible angled blade. And there is our Queen, kneeling beneath it. I take Maman's hand and hold onto it. Sylvette jumps to my lap and settles herself. We sit here a long while, holding one another. Outside, the spring wind makes its rushing-water sound. Then Maman lies back, and I cover her and rub her forehead. But the pain is not just there, I know. As with me, it is deep, it is everywhere.

I kneel by Maman's bed, my head upon her pillow, and close my eyes. The ache is a river, carrying me I know not where until I hear Hannah whispering, “Eugenie, Eugenie, the flotilla from upstream. It arrives.”

Awareness comes pouring back into me.
Not the Queen's flotilla. Our Queen is dead
.

It seems some terrible
knowing
. A terrible power wrapping me around.

Hannah

At her canvas-covered window, I softly call Estelle's name and then walk to a white pine at the edge of the forest. Soon, three figures approach, each in a dark cloak.

Patches of old snow give enough light, with the help of the setting moon. We can see one another well enough. “Come,” I say in French, but Estelle shakes her head. I turn to Eugenie. Did she explain everything? How we will hide them in the forest until well after the flotilla leaves, later this morning, with the Rouleau family? How John will get them to a Mr. Banin, from the settlement to the south of us, and Mr. Banin will take them east in his wagon and then arrange for other transport?