Read Waiting for the Queen Online
Authors: Joanna Higgins
Waiting for the Queen (2 page)
Epilogue
: 1794:
Septembre
/ September
A cold wind gusts through these American mountains, ruffling the churning river and further impeding the progress of our boats. On a map Papa showed us in Philadelphia, the river bears the Indian name Susquehanna as it meanders down through eastern Pennsylvania like gathered blue stitching on green fabric. The looping is most definitely accurate. But today the river is not blue; rather, nearly black. And the mountains are not green but in their sheer drapery of fog and mist, a dismal gray. Often a cask slides by, carried swiftly by the current. Or there might be great tree limbs with a few tufts of leaves that seem torn bits of flag. Our flag, I imagine in my fatigue. The flag of our beloved
la France
.
Cold penetrates wool and velvet and settles upon my shoulders like stones. Ah, the marquis's perfidy! Talon promised fine dwellings, but where are they? We have been traveling now for a week upon this wilderness river. He promised a French town, but where is it? I lean to my trembling pet and wrap my cloak more securely about her. “
Courage
, Sylvette. Soon we shall learn if the marquis is a man of honor or not.”
Sylvette curls herself tightly against me, shivering in spasms. I try to comfort her, but a settlement appears along the bank that causes me to tremble as wellâforest scraped clear for a few meters, and six rude log dwellings there, earthen colored. Smoke rises from chimneys,
mingling with low cloud. Someone on a landing gestures toward our boats.
Mon Dieu!
Can this be our promised town?
I close my eyes and hold onto Sylvette. When I open my eyes again, the settlement is behind us.
Merci, my Lady
.
Fear eases its hold. I scratch behind Sylvette's ears, feel the warmth of her. She hides under her paw and dozes. By now it must be midafternoon. Early this morning we embarked from the usual sort of camp we've been seeing along this river, merely a few board houses surrounded by a cluster of squat log huts more like caves. Last evening and again early this morning, several ill-clothed women and children emerged from these dark dwellings to stare at us. Maman ignores the uncouth gaping Americans. I do as well. But when a child ran up to Papa, wanting to touch his fur-trimmed cloak, Papa leaned down and lifted the boy high into the air and swung him down again. The child ran off, but not far. “
Au revoir!
” Papa called. The urchin smiled and threw himself at Papa again, and again Papa swung him upward. This time the child reached for the feathers on Papa's high-crowned hat, but Papa set him down before he could tear them off. Then Papa took a coin from his waistcoat and gave it to him. Maman pretended to see nothing of this.
How these people bring to mind our peasants, the way they watch us. The boy's mother finally pulled him away as if we were evil.
For such reasons and many others, the journey north from the port of Philadelphia has been distressingâthe first hundred or so miles in a bumping coach to the river
town of Harrisburg, and now these low boats and rainswollen river. And along the way, poor inns, poor food, and poor sleep, I tossing about on thin mattresses stuffed with crackling straw, tormented by dreams that always leave me exhausted. And then the dreams' poisonous residue taints my days as well.
But the dipping boats lull, and it is difficult to keep my eyes open. I give in to temptation and am, at once, back at our château in the Rhône-et-Loire. The fields an orange sea, flames rising upon it like waves. I run down stone steps into a cellar.
Maman!
I call.
Papa!
But no sound issues from my throat. The cellar becomes a charred field, and I see a farm cart surrounded by peasants on the road bordering the field. In the cart, my beloved maid and companion, Annette. Then smoke rises from the cart. Spikes of flame. Peasants move back. The air around the cart brightens with fire.
I force my eyes open and the scene shrivels as if it, too, has burned.
“Ah, Sylvette.” Her white fur warms my cheek, catches my tears.
Why, Papa
, I remember asking,
did they do that to my Annette?
Because of her royal blood
.
Do they hate us so, then?
I thinkâyes
.
But what have we done to them, Papa?
Perhaps it may not be what we have done, so much, but what we have failed to do
.
And that is, Papa?
Treat them as we treat each other
.
But, Papa, they are not like us, so how can we treat them that way?
Papa had no answer for me. He said only that the times are most confusing, and one is certain of little now.
My heart is beating so as I hold Sylvette. “Maman,” I whisper, waking her. “How can there be fine dwellings in such a place? Perhaps they are taking us to some prison, just as they took the Queen to la Conciergerie!”
Maman shakes her head a little and stares at the river. Finally she whispers, “No, Eugenie. This is America. We have been promised refuge, remember?”
“But in such a wilderness? Why could we not have remained in Philadelphia? Philadelphia is America, too, is it not?”
“Eugenie, you well know why. Yellow fever has swept through there these past months, and now it is a city struggling against lawlessness and near anarchy. Did we flee the chaos and anarchy and terrible dangers in France only to endanger ourselves here? Of course not. Also, there are many Americans who favor the French rebels and would happily see us imprisoned or, worse, sent back to Franceâa death sentence for us! I wish to hear no more talk of returning to Philadelphia.”
“But the Vicomte de Noailles was there, Maman.”
“
Oui
, to arrange our passage and, earlier, to negotiate on our behalf. But you can be certain he will not remain. Even President George Washington has left for his home in Virginia. Far better for all of us to be some distance away, in a protected area, as Talon promises.”
“Promises,”
I cannot refrain from saying.
“And as for the yellow fever, I am thus reminded.” She
takes two cloves of roasted garlic from her reticule, one for each of us.
“But Maman, the taste lingers, and my breath becomes foul. Besides, has there not been a frost? It is said that when the frosts come, the danger of fever is noâ”
“Frost or not, eat it, Eugenie. The garlic cannot hurt, and it may help, still. Or would you rather douse your redingote and gown with vinegar as the slaves have been doing this week past?”
“And so have the slaves' master and his family. Well, what can it matter, those daughters being so long of face and foot. Gowns soused in vinegar will hardly make any difference for
them
.”
Maman watches as I put the clove on my tongue. “You must swallow it now, Eugenie.”
Reluctantly, I obey. “Those slaves, Maman. They endanger us as much as Philadelphia might. Are they not from the Caribbean, supposedly the source of the yellow fever? Why must they travel with us? It is beyond insulting. And remember how we heard they are from a rebellious area? What if their loyalty to Rouleau isn't so assured? How safe shall we be then? By allowing Rouleau and his slaves, the marquis has doubly betrayed us.”
“Eugenie. We know not whether the marquis has betrayed us at all. And why should he not offer sanctuary to Rouleau? We cannot begrudge the man. He, too, has suffered. Besides, there are but four slaves and those, by all accounts, loyal. You have seen the scars on that one. It is said he tried to put out the fire in Rouleau's
maison
, a fire set by other slaves.”
“Well, but Rouleau is not nobility, though he pretends
to be. A pompous little tyrant, ingratiating to us, but quite mean to his supposedly loyal slaves. No wonder the others rebelled, and perhaps these shall too. Maman, the Rouleau family cannot stay with us. Either they must go elsewhere or we must.”
“Eugenie, we have no choice in this matter.”
“But the stink of them! Dousing themselves in vinegar!”
“Lower your voice, please.”
“Well, but we agree, do we not?”
“Your speech is too direct. It is not seemly.”
“Yet it is the truth.”
“The truth must be better clothed.”
“Well, how can one better say that they are a threat to our lives? How can we best clothe that truth, Maman?”
“We could tell the marquis that we prefer not to have Caribbean slaves and commoners at the settlement. Better that they find more suitable accommodation elsewhere.”
“But that hardly makes the point.”