Revenant Eve Page 7

  For drink, the women were offered citrus juice while the men downed a lot of wine. Big, scarred sailors were on duty as waiters, their manners rough and ready. They kept the wine aflow, as well as demonstrating deft skills at keeping the dishes on the table, a skill much needed. As the meal progressed, the room tilted more sharply, making me glad I wasn’t sitting with them. I know I would have been majorly seasick. The parson’s mother-in-law put down her silverware, and sat there going pale and green as she kept swallowing.

  The captain did not ask if his guests would like to go lie down. He merely observed that the wind was freshening, and issued orders for the officer on watch to clew up the royals and topgallants if he was of a mind.

  As before, my awareness of what was passing blurred if Aurélie had no interest, and she clearly had no interest in the conversation, which covered gossip in Kingston, ships and captains at various stations, and rumors about the French Revolution. From the hints I’d garnered so far, I figured the time was somewhere in the middle of the 1790s.

  Aurélie brightened when dessert appeared, a suety mass called plum duff, with rum poured over it. Her sailor attendant gave her a hearty helping, with the result her cheeks were quite pink when the captain sat back and decided it was time to pay attention to his guests as individuals.

  He turned to Aurélie first. “Now, young lady, how am I to address a marquis’s daughter? Are you Lady something, or is it Donna?”

  Aurélie said obediently, “I am Doña Aurélie de Mascarenhas. But my mother says, I must be ‘Lady’ when I am in England.”

  “Oho, Donna it is,” the captain replied. His face was red and shining under his wig, his glass attentively filled every time he took a swallow. “So, tell us about your Papa, young donna. Is he related to the Dukes of Aveiro? I remember there was some kind o’ to-do, but that would be in my father’s time. Weren’t most of ’em put to death?”

  “They are the Portuguese connections of the family,” Aurélie said. “I do not know them. My father, he died when I was two. He had a letter of marque against France.”

  “But you speak French, do you not?”

  “That’s because my Grandmère is French. She came to Saint-Domingue from Martinique when she was small. She told me many stories about her cousins, the Taschers, at Les Trois-Îlets. ’Tis very beautiful, she says.”

  “Tascher!” one of the lieutenants exclaimed. “Why, isn’t that the name of the Creole dasher taken up by one of the Directors in Paris?”

  Definitely Josephine—Tascher de la Pagerie was her maiden name.

  The captain raised his glass and said deliberately, “We will toast the lady.” Ah. A reminder that they ought not to take a lady’s name in vain. I knew that wasn’t going to last. Poor Josephine was soon to be almost as vilified as her second husband.

  The men raised their glasses, but before they could drink, the stern windows filled with blue-white glare, and thunder cracked, loud as cannon, directly overhead. Aurélie jumped, causing laughter among the officers. “It is not pirates,” the captain said. “The only battle is betwixt us and the celestial bodies. You will be very glad to live in civilization again, where there are no hurricanes or pirates. For my middies told me that you are quite a fire-eater, young donna. We shall toast our young donna.…”

  EIGHT

  THE ONLY INTERRUPTION to the slow unwinding ribbon of the ship’s wake, stitching together the changing sea and sky, was Aurélie’s single attempt to climb into the tops. No sooner had she scrambled up to the second level, to the big platform joining the lower part of the mainmast, than the parson’s wife let out a faint shriek, pointing.

  Alarm telegraphed from officers to sailors, and a sailor’s huge, hairy arm wound round Aurélie’s skinny waist and plucked her off the masthead. She was indignant and tried exclaiming that she knew very well how to climb aloft, but in her excitement she spoke French, and by the time the sailor holding her had climbed down and set her on the deck, she was surrounded by well-meaning adults who scolded her about danger.

  After that, she was confined in morose boredom to the wardroom, which caused time to blur for me until the morning a band of rain cleared off and a sailor called from the heights that Ushant had been sighted.

  Aurélie jumped up and rushed up on deck with the other passengers, as the ship’s crew began preparing for Portsmouth.

  Aurélie was jubilant and nervous by turns, jiggling and jumping around. Mrs. Cobb made her wear her good dress, though poor Aurélie was shivering, her skin goose-bumpy in the brisk air. It had to be cold to a kid who’d only known tropical weather, which ranged from warm to broiling, even during storms. She definitely didn’t have any jackets or sweaters or a cloak in her trunk—she’d probably never worn such a garment in her life.

  Mrs. Cobb kept Aurélie tightly by her during the chaos of the landing, scanning the crowds that had gathered along the quay. Of course no one was there to meet them. No message could have reached England faster than Aurélie had. Mrs. Cobb took Aurélie to an inn called the Fountain, which was full of naval people, hired a room for both of them, and arranged for a letter to be dispatched.

  She would not permit Aurélie to go out exploring but kept her inside and scolded sharply if Aurélie as much as moved. It might have been two or three days later when a tall man arrived, whose riding clothes proclaimed him a gentleman of means. He wore his own ash-brown hair neatly clubbed.

  Mrs. Cobb presented the shrinking child to her Uncle Kittredge, dropping a great many hints about the extra care she had taken. She didn’t mention the money Anne had paid her but hinted that the care had been entirely Christian charity, with the result that she departed in triumph, clutching several guineas.

  Aurélie never looked back, because her entire interest was taken up by the two kids Uncle Kittredge had brought along, who were introduced as Cousin James and Cousin Cassandra.

  While their father ordered a repast to refresh them for the return trip, and directed the inn servants to load Aurélie’s trunk, James, Cassandra, and Aurélie eyed one another. They reminded me of young puppies as they began cautious questions.

  “How old are you?” Cassandra asked.

  “I have—non. I am twelve,” Aurélie said. “How many years have you?”

  “I will be twelve come Candlemas,” Cassandra said.

  “Candle-muss? I do not know this,” Aurélie said.

  Cassandra’s blue-gray eyes rounded. “Are you really a heathen? Mama was afraid you would be a heathen. Fancy not knowing Candlemas. It falls on February second.”

  “Oh, la Chandeleur!”

  Cassandra wasn’t listening. She indicated her brother. “James is fifteen. Our eldest brother, William, is away at school.”

  “Is this the whole of you?” Aurélie asked.

  “Oh, no.” Cassandra tossed her head with a self-conscious twitch. She was evidently quite proud of her long curls of a soft shade of light brown. “Diana is the last of us, but she’s just a baby of eight. Have you any sisters or brothers?”

  “They are dead. I have my maman and Tante Mimba, and a prodigious number of cousins—”

  “Prodigious!” Cassandra giggled. “Only my grandmother says that. It is odd to hear it from a girl. Is that the way everyone talks in Jamaica?”

  James, a typical gawky teen, said rather loftily, “She has been taught the English of our grandparents’ day. Papa warned me it might be so; it is entirely to be expected.”

  They turned to Aurélie, who said, “I lived in Saint-Domingue before coming to Jamaica,” Aurélie enunciated carefully.

  “So you speak French?” Cassandra began in a self-important voice. “Our governess gives us French lessons, and I am on the fifth lesson in Adèle et Théodore.”

  I knew that reference! Madame de Genlis’s schoolbooks for kids were brand-new at the time.

  Cassandra’s speech halted when Aurélie clasped her hands in pleasure and spoke in a stream of French, “I have read them. All three volumes, through three
times! And Les Annales, which I do not like as much.”

  At the clear incomprehension in Cassandra’s and James’s faces, she faltered to a stop.

  “It sounds…different, when you speak it,” Cassandra said. “And so very quick.”

  “You speak quick, too,” Aurélie said. “People around me, it is very difficult to understand.”

  “Well, of course,” Cassandra said. “We speak excellent English. Miss Oliver is very careful about our elocution.”

  James cut in with helpful warning, “What you’re hearing from the seamen is the accents of Wapping. I trust you did not learn that, or Miss Oliver will rap it out of you.” He smacked one hand down hard on his palm, making Aurélie jump.

  Their father reappeared, and both kids resumed company manners. They sat down to a substantial meal, then it was time to leave. James ran ahead to claim a seat on the box, followed by his sister.

  Left with her uncle, whose manner had been distant and somber, Aurélie seemed uneasy. But she had made a promise. Turning quickly, she wrestled from beneath her gown the much-battered, grubby oilcloth. “Maman said I am to put this into your hands.”

  Ignoring the waiter who had been attempting to clear the dishes, Uncle Kittredge pulled a pocket knife from his waistcoat and slit the stitching. When he’d read through the paper, the look he turned on Aurélie was speculative, and his voice was two or three notes more friendly as he said, “Thank you. You’re a very good girl. We will write to your mother at once to let her know all’s been done as she wished, shall we not, niece? But first, let us take you home.”

  They got into the carriage. His son climbed up to sit beside him, across from the girls, so I heard Uncle Kittredge say in an undertone, “You will be able to tell your mother that you saw many men unpowdered, eh? There are more than I who refused to pay that unconscionable tax.”

  I didn’t understand until later that that comment, mild and minor as it was, was a pretty good indicator of who ruled the roost at Undertree, the Kittredge estate.

  The carriage made its way out of the jumble of buildings. England looked to me like movies set in the past, complete to picturesquely rutted roads. I was glad I didn’t have to feel the jolts and bumps that the others didn’t seem to notice.

  Kittredge was anxious to make it into Hampshire before nightfall. Twilight this far north was a long, slow dimming of light in spectacularly beautiful countryside. I know I enjoyed it more than Aurélie did, for as the day waned, she hunched her shoulders up, her hands tight on her arms until her uncle said, “Are you chilled, Niece? Why, it is as balmy as summer!”

  Telling her it was balmy didn’t make her warmer. She looked back miserably, until he said authoritatively, “Cassandra, give her the carriage rug.”

  The girl made a noise of protest, reached under the seat, and pulled out a thick furry thing, which Aurélie burrowed into gratefully.

  She was asleep when the carriage at last jounced its way up a graveled approach to a sizable square house built in the Palladian style, complete to Augustan gardens at either side, and the farm houses quite banished beyond the wild garden at the back.

  Aurélie paid no attention to any of this. She woke, heavy-eyed, when Cassandra shook her. “We’re home!”

  “Welcome to Undertree,” Kittredge said genially.

  “We’ve settled it that you shall have the guest bedchamber near me,” Cassandra exclaimed. “Mama said before we came to fetch you that Diana is still to sleep in the nursery, and good riddance. I did not get my own bedchamber until I was ten. Did you have your own in Jamaica? Of course you did. A marquis’s daughter, you must have had fifty rooms all of your very own, and a dozen maidservants, too…”

  Chattering on, Cassandra led Aurélie, while William Kittredge smiled benignly, and James raced off. Aurélie glanced back doubtfully, to see the carriage vanishing. “My trunk?” she asked.

  “The servants will fetch it in,” Cassandra said, and turned. “Mama! Cousin Aurelia is here!”

  “Aurélie,” Aurélie whispered.

  Cassandra tossed her hair again as her Papa said, “This is a fine opportunity for you to practice your French,” in a meaningful voice, as a woman joined him.

  “Awurrr-ray-lee,” Cassandra said obediently, in the penetrating voice used by girls who are used to being the center of attention and want to make certain they stay there. “Have I said it properly, Cousin? Mama, she talks English like Grandmama, with many French words. It is so very droll!”

  “Cassandra, keep your peace.”

  Aurélie gazed up at her aunt as the woman surveyed her. Philomena Bouldeston Kittredge could have been any age from thirty to fifty, for the lines of habitually suppressed emotion bracketed her mouth and eyes, and lined her forehead. Of medium height and build, she was rigidly corseted under that softly draped gown of heavy rose silk. She had a quantity of light brown hair, pale skin, and pale eyes, as did the small girl clinging to her skirt and squinting at Aurélie.

  Aunt Kittredge’s mouth tightened, and I thought uh-oh.

  “Show your cousin the house, Cassandra,” Kittredge said.

  Cassandra twitched her shoulders importantly and took Aurélie’s unresisting hand. They started away, Cassandra beginning in a penetrating voice, “Undertree is actually the old house, built anew at the time of the First George, but then the family wanted a bigger, so they moved into Kent, and Undertree came to my grandfather…”

  Before I was inexorably pulled after the girls, I saw William Kittredge beckon to his wife and silently show her the rumpled paper that Aurélie had brought all that way. His wife’s brows lifted, and her face cleared. “Well,” she said on an exhaled breath.

  Nice call, Anne, I thought, wishing I could stay with the adults long enough to hear their talk, but I’d learned by now that where Aurélie went, I went.

  As the girls walked through the house, Cassandra going on loudly about each piece of furniture and decoration as if Aurélie were blind and deaf, I blurred out—then jolted to awareness at the sound of Aurélie’s voice.

  “Duppy? Are you here?”

  Aurélie gazed into a standing mirror framed by fine wood with grape bunches worked into it. Behind her was a sizable room with a curtained bed against the back wall. Under the window sat an elegant little escritoire, gilt and spindle-legged, with tiny drawers worked in. The wallpaper, or what they called “hangings,” was stripes of blue ribbon between florets of yellow and pink, barely visible in the light of a branch of candles.

  She dodged this way and that, then her eyes widened, and suddenly I was looking out at her face from inside the mirror. “You are here,” she breathed. “You didn’t get lost. There was no looking glass on the ship, and oh, my dreams are so very strange. I have my own looking-glass now, you see. Can you speak?”

  “I’m here,” I said, ready to launch into my carefully planned explanation about myself and my history.

  “I can see your mouth move, I think. Oh, if I had more light!”

  “AWR-ray-LEE,” came Cassandra’s voice from the hallway outside the bedroom. “I’m to summon you to dinner.” She flung open the door and walked in. “You do not need to shift your clothes, it is just the family, Mama said. We’re to have syllabub with the dressed meat and potatoes.”

  Aurélie gave me a tiny smile, then turned away, saying to Cassandra, “Pray, Cousin, what is seel-a-boob?”

  “Fancy not knowing syllabub! What horrid foods did you eat in Jamaica?” Cassandra went off into gales of shrill giggles as they walked downstairs.

  NINE

  AURÉLIE SURVIVED HER FIRST DINNER. Everybody was extra polite. That meant the conversation was extra inane, all about the ship and the weather and the captain’s dinners to which she, as the highest ranking female, had always been invited.

  Afterward, she ran up to her room, where she found the servants in the middle of going through her trunk with the laudable intention of airing and laundering everything, commenting the while. But when the maid saw the pist
ol, she let out a shriek, and when Aurélie said innocently, “That is only my pistol. There is no ball in it, and no powder—” the maid fled as if it was fully automatic, locked and loaded, and Aurélie was pointing it at her head.

  The entire family crowded into Aurélie’s room, everyone staring at the pistol. “I need it to fight pirates,” Aurélie explained.

  Aunt Kittredge said in a determinedly sugary voice, “There are no pirates anywhere in England. Mr. Kittredge, that is, your Uncle Kittredge, will keep it safe.”

  She gestured for the maid to put the pistol on a tray, which the woman did with great care, as if it would go off if she touched it. The pistol was borne away.

  While that went on, another servant prepared a bath. The maids turned to Aurélie expectantly once the steaming hot water was poured. Aurélie’s fingers rose to her chest, where the necklace lay beneath her clothes, and she insisted she could bathe alone.

  Aunt Kittredge expressed immediate approval. “Modesty is an excellent quality in a young lady. I will be in to hear your prayers when you are ready for bed. Send Betty to fetch me when you are finished.”

  “Prayers? Le rosaire?” Aurélie asked.

  Aunt Kittredge’s brows twitched together. “You do know your prayers, do you not? You have not got into any filthy Popish habits, idol worship and the like?”

  “I do not know what that is,” Aurélie said doubtfully. “I am to say I was baptized when I lived for a time with my Grandmère Marie-Claude—”

  “A French Papist, I make no doubt.” Aunt Kittredge caught herself up, then said in a determinedly kindly voice, with a false smile, “I am certain she is a very good woman of her sort. But you are in England now, your grandfather’s family. The sooner you learn proper ways, the better.”

  “My mother said I would have a better life,” Aurélie repeated, her eyes filling with tears.

  Aunt Kittredge reached out as if to pat Aurélie on the head, then snatched her hand back. “I will leave you to bathe.” On her way out, she said to the maid at the door, “That hair of hers is positively wooly. When she is done, check her for lice. Then fetch me.”