Silence stood all across the empty, broken field from Forest Lake to Cabot Plain. Only a starling stirred hopping among the stone fragments of the ruined abbey, whose echoes this place held. In the centre, where the courtyard had once stood, a smashed sun-dial attested to the violent rippings-away this place had seen. Not a wall stood whole, but curved, in skeletal archings against the pure, primeval blue of the sky. Beside the ruins, ever close at hand, the virgin trees towered, curious sentinels; they had witnessed the reverence, and, too, the destruction that these peculiar New People had enacted. Their forms were common enough, but their colors—something more deep, shadowed still, pigment transfused from the shade-upon-shade of blue-green fir, iridescence of gold ferns and mosses, silence in manifold buzzing anticipation. If trees can be said to wait—these waited.
Waited, for the human steps that were to come—shuffling, breath harried, wizened fingers clutching tightly to the treasure between thumb and forefinger: an old man, cap and coat and breeches as they should be, one knotty hand gripped about the carved handle of his cane—the other, fierce in its clasp of a penny. He moved laboriously—his every breath was a skirmish of nature against will—at last, triumphant, he drew in the air with trumping sound; he stood proud of his victory against the grave; he wheezed. Gazing surreptitiously around the listening trees, he searched for faces anew. The wonder of it was that he should distrust the untouched groves around him, for his knobby face was as wrinkled, indeed, as a grand tree root; behind his small brown eyes glimmered a spark of intent.
Now, as the midday trees clustered near, he clasped his round head with one hand—with the other, he held his prize aloft. Grimed with dirt and mortar as it was, it shone dully in the moist sunlight. With exultant clucks and chuckles, the old man admired it a moment longer, then, grinning, tucked it within his breast pocked, and returned limpingly down the path from whence he had come.
A rustling within the forested grove revealed that their lithe forms, though proud, had not revealed all: a girl of around nineteen peered out at the old man’s receding form, and let free a imprisoned sigh of relief. “Ils sont disparues,” she murmured to herself in tuneful French. Thus reassured, she slid the further way from the tree, and it was shown that her person, though fine enough, was far from perfect—for her face bore a disfiguring birthmark. It formed the shape of a scattered storm, a galaxy spiraled vertically up her right cheek, piercing through to her eyebrow—no pink birth-mark this, but an unsightly dark dusky color near to black, as if someone had spilt India ink across her face. Her features were even, her face not fashionably heart-shaped, but broader, more oval; her brows gently uplifted, so that even if her disfiguration had not been evident, she still should have looked uncertain. Her coiled hair was dark, and wavy—though in all other aspects, save the birthmark, she favored her great-grandmother, who, so it was said, had been one of the forest people.
Turning, the girl disentangled a heavy traveling cloak from the deadwood snag nearby, and proceeded carefully through the ruined abbey that had once been her home. She could not shake her head at the damage, done in the wake of the King’s removal to the Empire of New France—it was not a matter for shaking one’s head at, for the horror mingled with the knowledge of her own long absence. She, too, turned her steps toward town, as did the old man. The road of dark soil was wet still from yesterday’s rain, and she placed her boots with care, holding the edges of her skirts aside with both hands, like a schoolgirl in a play, or a modest marionette.
The road did not lead far until it reached the town, for the Sisters of Imperative Mercy, when choosing the spot for their home, half a century ago, when they were encouraged with the rest of the explorers and traders of New France, to spread westward, to halt the British expansion, had been pragmatic. They wished to retire from the world, it was true, and hadn’t they crossed an ocean and near the full of a continent to succeed? But it was not for them to hide themselves away in the forest, away from charitable works, away from help if it was necessary. These woods and hills, these endless bountiful lands were full of natives, and how could the Sisters of Mercy tell which were friendly, and which hostile? They had built up the town of Saint-Pélerin with their own hands. They had taken in whoever was poor and in need—had helped to settle the bewildered Greek refugees in their own part of town, yea, had even fed and tended to Indians, upon occasion. No group had commanded more respect, more authority, more care. And yet: in the wake of Louis XVII’s escape to New France, a furor of anti-papist resentment was inflamed, the indignation of the more militant British and anti-Royalist citizens of the new Bourbon kingdom had been raised to violent levels; this in turn had led to destruction such as this. A “New Reformation,” these riots had been called. “And yet, for all that, we are all strangers in this land,” thought the girl to herself.
The nuns had removed, she had been told, to an old whitestone building near the now-unused Parliamentary building. Knowing that a warm welcome awaited her there, and thinking again of that hunched figure scurrying away from the ruins like a guilty scavenger, her footsteps did not lead her immediately lead her to the town centre, but instead down a series of dingier streets and past barrel-strewn alleyways until she reached the Greek ghetto.
Though the main thoroughfares of Saint-Pélerin had been quiet enough, this new arrival could not avoid recognition here; a series of greetings followed her as she passed through these busier streets:
“Salut, Béatrice—"
“Oh, Mlle. Durandel, you have returned already? --Alexios, she has returned!”
“Welcome home, Mlle. The city has been sad without you.”
This chorus, in mixed French and Greek tongues, sprang up from those passing, and Béatrice herself, smiling, ducking her head, a flush of modesty warming her immoveable dusky cheek, shyly answered in kind. She did not stop, though invitations to sit within, to sip a dram of mulled wine (the drink of choice, even in summer here; it transcended barriers of heritage and loyalty, and, when no wine was present, was called mulled whillynilly, or, bon-gré-mal-gré), tumbled all about her; she did not stop, but proceeded to the very end of the street, as the residents of this quarter expected.
The particular house that she sought was tall and yellow, unremarkable in every mote—its tiny walled courtyard was as every other house, so too its rough wooden gate, and hordes of children tumbling in the garden; it nonetheless constituted a large part of the happiness of her childhood. When wearied of the incessant turn of prayers at the abbey (for Mlle. Béatrice was an orphan, under the jurisdiction of stern guardians in faraway Quebec), she had stolen away to this house; she always was received with care. The sisters had judged it well that she have playmates her own age, and for this purpose, there was none so close a playfellow as Bright-Face.
Béatrice drew up to the gate, resting her hand upon the latch, hesitant to open it, marveling a moment at the enduringness of the household, its peace. Even its windows, glassless, with shudders ready to be secured against the harsh winter storms, excited no comment—for this was, after all, New France, and glass was dear.
Nonetheless, it was this distinction, and something interior, that lent its air of mystery. Walk into any quarter in town today, and you will likely find a mirror, a glass-enclosed bookcase, a shining silver platter passed down from generation to generation—in all but the poorest of houses. Not so at the time I speak of, for there were no mirrors—at all. Visitors to this particular Greek quarter wondered at it; a popular writer of travel handbooks even remarked to his European audience at home that “It is a superstition peculiar to the Greeks of Western New France, which forbids possession of any reflective material, such as might by augury look into the future, or by effeteness serve for a dinner party…" Not so; indeed: it was because of Bright-Face.
In the Chrysafe household, mirrors were anathema, as were watches, polished silver spoons, or anything with a gleam of reflection that might attract the glance of a certain eye. The entirety of Saint-Pélerin’s Greek quarter, in sympathy, had donned similar restrictions—if not of forbidding glass entirely, of covering it when the person happened to be near. On the night of Mme. Chrysafe’s eldest son, an old, old woman with gums like a baby’s rattle and a face as wrinkled as a walnut’s shell had appeared on the corner of the Chrysafe residence, clutching an empty copper pot to her chest like an infant. The house was not then as fully constructed as it is at the time of our story—nor, indeed, was the Greek ghetto so firmly established. Nonetheless, it was a night of bitter cold, and Mme. Chrysafe, surrounded by loving friends and kindred, bade the old woman enter, out of the storm, lest her death cast a portent of dearth over her eldest child’s birth.
The old woman was set by the fire, with a cup of hot mulled bon-gré-mal-gré, and quite forgotten as the labor descended. All into the early hours, she watched, unnoticed, and when at last the work was done, and the fine bright boy held up to his first morning, the old woman pronounced the following words: “He will take unto himself the brightness of the sun, but his own face he must never see, for certain doom awaits him.” Then, heedless of the women’s cries to remain, she opened the door, and disappeared into the freezing snow, never to be seen again.
As the boy had grown, his beauty had increased, and so, too, the residents’ determination to keep him safe from whatever doom the old woman had predicted. Pains were taken on all sides that the forbidden thing should not come to pass; all held their breath, for fear that some accident would cause the fatal blow.
But an entire community cannot give the semblance of such a fear, not when there are more urgent worries to attend to at every moment of the day, and now, as always, the Greek quarter appeared serene and homely. Mme. Chrysafe, a buxom woman, now swept the front steps to her house, the brisk pattern of her implement turning her gaze downwards. Thus preoccupied, she did not see the newcomer until she stood before her—then, “Béatrice, my dear,” she cried, and, dropping the broom, swept the girl into a many-kissed embrace. “When did you return?”
“Just now—this instant.”
“And shall you be gone from us again, to that school?”
“I could not help it; my aunt and uncle insisted. But I shall not go—no, never, I think, from here again.”
“Good,” Mme. Chrysafe said decisively, retrieving her broom from the spot where it had fallen, and resuming her chore. “You have been sorely missed, my dear. You’ve come to see Antonin, I suppose? He will be as eager to see you as I, when he hears—Antonin! He is at the chartist’s. He will be glad to see you.”
After several more embraces, and after promising to come to supper the following evening, Béatrice at last pulled herself free, and with heartfelt thanks returned to the more central streets, where through a dusty window she beheld her beloved friend. She watched him, a moment, before entering the shop—he was as she recalled, slender, and of handsome form and figure. His eyes were a greeny-hazel color, his hair a ruddy auburn, his mouth long and curved in a perpetual grimace or smile. His features—were of such symmetry, such molded beauty; there is no parallel in nature, save perhaps the languid elegance of a tiger. His lashes were longer than a girl’s, his dusk-rose lips like any garden-flower in bloom. As a child, he had been dazzling—as a young man, he was youth’s summer glorified. There was not a girl who did not envy him, adore him, revere him.
And yet, I believe, there was something terrifying in that beauty that was his—a perfection that, if stilled, might as easily turn to a mask as a god.
It was fortunate, then, that stillness was not his way. Even now, as he labored with his inks and brushes, painting the contour of the etched land before him, his right fingers, unengaged, drummed on his desk. Surveying his careful work, each moment his countenance twitched into a new expression, his feet, restless, shifted to and fro as he worked.
Béatrice allowed herself one moment more to gaze, affectionately, on the golden face lowered over the map—then, she climbed the step, and entered. As the plain slate blue door opened, a bell pealed out in the shop. Antonin, thus distracted, glanced up with brief irritation—it slid away once he had seen his visitor. “Béatrice—“ he exclaimed, “You did not say that you were returning, so soon.”
“I believe I sent a letter, as I ought. And—so soon—It has been five years. Did you miss me so little?”
“Nay—not so soon. So long,” amended Antonin. They regarded one another for a moment, as old friends reunited must do. Béatrice, with the peculiar consciousness of their time apart, noted again the difference between them—Bright-Face, and Dark-Stain. The defect of her birth seemed, though she could not see it as he could, incandescent, insurmountable, in face of his beauty.
“You have been busy,” she remarked, forestalling any requisite observation on the state of how they had changed. She turned away, that he might not see her change of countenance, focusing closely on the half-finished maps upon his desk.
“Coloring is very dull work, but it shall not last for long,” he told her, with an unconscious arrogance that caused her to bite her lip to suppress her tender smile. “Maître Hébert is going on an expedition to map the coast, even to the far edges of the continent, and I am determined to accompany him. To mark down for all the world the secrets of the untraversed frontier—the secrets that are now hidden, in superstition and fear. We will map the coast, Béatrice, even to Indian territory.”
“When does this expedition take place?”
Antonin looked down, as if reminded of a bitter fact. “Master Hebert is still in search of funds, and a patron. We need a lord’s seal at least upon a ship—the king’s charter, even—before we can set off.”
Secretly relieved, the girl Béatrice wandered through the offices, regarding the finished maps, and the sketches with equal interest. Antonin followed her with his eyes a moment, torn between his desire to show her about, and the necessity of returning to his work. They had been apart for so long, it seemed, yet immediately he yielded to the old impulses of confidence –he wished to tell her everything; a particular communication hovered at the edges of his lips, then faded. After a moment, he yielded to his first impulse, and went to join her in her examination of the maps, explaining how they were drawn up, where, and by whose commission, even if it had been before his apprenticeship with the cartographer began. Béatrice followed his every word with interest, and when he had finished, she commended his master’s efforts. But, “I saw old M. de la Tombe at the ruined abbey today,” was what she had wished to say—though her young heart may have harbored other intentions, it was by this excuse that she had come. “Engaging in his habitual pursuit.”
Antonin let out a sharp laugh, with a childlike neutrality and a child’s unconscious cruelty: “Yes, that crazy old man, still collecting pennies, after all these years. When the King goes to war, he shall have to give them up, though—for copper, they say, is valuable to the government.”
“Do you think war likely?”
He shrugged, one shoulder up, the other steady. “You may tell better—after all, it was you who were just in the East.”
“If that is so, I wonder what he intends to do with what he has found.”
“Drown in them, like as not.”
A cloud covered, suddenly, the sun—a first startled glance outside proved that it was later than Béatrice should have liked. “I must return to the Sisters.” Antonin accepted this with a nod, and held open the door for her to descend. “Until tomorrow, then.”
“Until tomorrow.”
As she walked through Saint-Pélerin, seeing its steepled silhouette flame against the brush-strokes of a fine sunset, Béatrice failed to notice that a small toad, sitting by the empty Parliament steps, watched her recede with beady, impassive eyes. When she had passed, it emitted a call of startling force—“Crraak,” it said, as if to herald in the wild, troubling sounds of the night.
© 2009, I.M.S.
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