Waiting for the Queen (6 page)

The rain sounds like applause that goes on and on.

Hannah

Still abed—at seven in the morning? I use the stone knocker again. After a long while, Comte de La Roque unbars the door. His wig is low upon his forehead, his eyes a sore red. He doesn't know who I am, at first.

I don't open my mouth, though. Learnt that lesson yesterday. I show him the porridge, bacon, and coffee. He shakes his head and says something in French. Perhaps he means for me to come later. I raise the pole, with my pots, and turn to leave.

“Non!”
he says.
“Entrez–vous!”
He curves his arms and motions.
“Entrez, entrez!”

Inside is a regular Hurra's nest. Dirty plates and fancy glass upon the fine white cloth that covers the table. Well, 'tis my fault, that. Clothing everywhere about, and some of it still wet. The fire mere ashes.

I step 'round the young lady sleeping on a makeshift bed on the floor near the hearth. Her little dog sits up to watch me. Sweet thing! Ears like mittens. Would that I could touch one.

Thou musn't, Hannah!

Now a bit of tinder to the ashes, and a few bits of kindling, and there it is, the fire cracklin' nicely. I make a tepee of logs, and it's soon full blazes.

Porridge pot gets set on a trivet amid some warm ashes. Coffee pot on another. The plate of bread and bacon goes on the warm hearthstone.

Ah, she's a pretty lass, the young one. Yellow hair all a'fluff. Her face not so sickly white as yesterday. And a lot younger than I thought. More Grace's age, or even my own. And here I was thinking she was a lady. Mayhap the meanness made her look older.

Quiet, I gather up the plates, each thin as a flower petal and blue as a summer's sky rimmed with white cloud. I wish Mother could see them. She'd like the pictures of flowers inside the white, roses and something yellow linked by little leaves. Last night I paid them no heed. 'Tis a wonder I didn't smash one with my ladle, scared as I was.

Well, my hands are still trembly.
Careful, Hannah!
The water has gone cold, so I carry the plates back to our cabin. Don't know but we'd best get the La Roque family some sturdy pewter plates and porrigers. These mightn't last the week.

One thing at a time! Don't let thoughts race on so, for they'll surely outrun you. Now get these nobles their breakfast, and they might cheer, some.

It cheers me, at least, to see them all up and dressed when I return with the washed plates. So that much they can do for themselves, anyway.

No mugs for coffee?

Back I go. The wind has come up now, out of the northwest. Mr. Talon does not understand wind in the least. First he had all the big trees cut and the stumps burnt out. Then he made the wide avenues and had a few cabins built along them. Playthings for the wind is all. And those avenues a place for it to rampage. I lower my chin and push against it.
Our cabin is tucked away in the trees on the north side of the clearing. Other workers built their cabins at the fringe of woods, too. The trees behind us stop the wind from its games, but the sun can still find us when the leaves are down.

From our cupboard I take three mugs from a set made by my uncle Gearson at his pottery in Wilkes-Barre. In shape they are quite simple, with wide bases and narrower tops and pleasantly curved handles. The color is a warm oaken brown. I consider them handsome and hope they will not offend.

The La Roques find naught to complain about while they eat their breakfast. I step back from their table to await further orders and soon find myself staring at two objects I failed to notice last night, in my fear. A golden harp, reaching the ceiling, nearly. And next to it, another instrument I know only from pictures in books—a harpsichord.

Oh, Hannah, to think you may soon hear music from these instruments!

I am fair shivery with the thought.

The Aversille cabin is across the main avenue, but it takes a hundred paces to get there. Imagine—a road one hundred paces wide! The cabin was supposed to be the priest's, but he gave it up to the elderly Aversilles. Father had much to say in praise of this.

Comte d'Aversille opens his door and says a string of French words that scorch my face. I try to read his expression, but he is an old man, and the wrinkles are all settled into a frown. There is a hump to his back. He's wearing a white wig with three rows of curls on each side and a little
tail in back tied with a black ribbon. His frock coat holds a pattern of crimson roses on a black background. He looks like a judge. Madame d'Aversille sits at the table with a fan in her right hand. She has on a fur-trimmed cloak over her gown. She also wears a white wig with curls like piled-up logs.

While I build up their fire, I wonder if the French people know how to smile or whether 'tis not customary. Madame d'Aversille's wrinkles all droop down into a frown, too. Maybe after so much frowning, the skin just hardens in those ridges, like the clay we play with in Uncle's pottery.

But look, Hannah, someone here has washed up their dishes!

These are fetching, too. White with a rose border. The French people must like flowers, so maybe they are not so mean as they act. But pretty or no, these plates are none deep enough.

After serving the Aversilles, I ask in my poor French if there be anything else they need.

More frowning.

I leave, not knowing if there is or isn't. Still, 'tis something that one of them washed those dishes.

I wish I had been assigned to Abbé La Barre.
Abbé
, I have just learned, is a French word for
priest
. But little Rachel Stalk is to be his servant. He seems a good man, the way he gave up the cabin he won in the lottery and asked for a chapel to be built before any house for himself. There he is now, sprinkling water over wickets and cabins alike. Huffing, he walks as if his legs pain him and there isn't enough breath within the whole of him to get him where he needs go. So he stops often and leans on his stick, his great chest heaving. Black fur lines his black cloak, but his hat is such as rivermen wear—wide-brimmed leather. He is using a sprig of white
pine and dipping it into a bucket he himself carries. All the while he says words in a strange language, not French but something different. Perhaps 'tis a prayer.

It seems so unjust for the cross-grained slave owner to have a cabin but not the priest.

At one of the wickets, the youngest slave comes out and kneels at his feet. She bows her head, and the priest sprinkles her with water, too. She wears neither jacket nor cloak. 'Tis a most troubling sight. I am a few steps beyond them when the slave owner shouts, and the girl gets quickly to her feet. The owner points to the woods, and then returns to his cabin. The slave girl walks toward the woods just as she is, in her cotton gown, while the priest leaves to sprinkle other places. I fear that she will lose her way in the woods, and so I follow. A few paces into the forest, she stops and merely stands there. Then she raises both hands to her eyes and covers them.

“Pardonnez-moi
, mademoiselle,” I say, and she swings around, scared as anything. But I can only say, in French,
How may I help you?
Without relaxing, she leans down and picks up a long dry branch and begins pulling it toward the clearing.

Firewood.

I find another and pull it to the clearing, too. Soon we have a pile. She begins breaking one up, using her feet. But at the branch's thick end, she cannot. Nor can I. She wears no shoes, just wet muddy cloth wrapped around each foot. She gathers an armful of the small pieces, and I gather one, too. But her master appears and shouts in French at both of us. She backs away from him and runs to the forest again.

I hurry to the half-finished cabin where Father and John
are at work and tell them about the girl. They each take up saws, and we rush back to the place. There, the younger of the two dark men is with the girl now—his face is a jumble of lumpy scars, and his right eye is all but closed. He bows and she curtsies, but Father shakes his head. Then he and John carry more tree limbs out and saw them up as if possessed by Furies. The slaves wear neither shoes nor boots, just those mud-clumped rags. Their mouths shake with cold.

As we walk away, Father tells us he learned just that morning that Mr. Rouleau doesn't want them under a proper roof when some of the nobles have to do without. As for the nobles, none of them wished to stay with us. Nor—strangest of all—did they want our cabin because we have been living there.

For this, anyway, I am grateful.

“Why don't the slaves just leave him,” I ask. “They could run into these woods, hide, and—”

“Ah, Hannah, they know not these woods. They speak not our language. A bounty will be posted and whoever does help them . . . well, 'twill go hard.”

Aye. That law. The fine is five hundred dollars. And if 'tis a person of color who tries to help—a free man or woman—that person will be sold into servitude as punishment if the fine cannot be paid.

“Even here in Pennsylvania,” John says, “where there's not supposed to be slaves?”

“That I know not,” Father says. “But 'tis possible.”

“At least we might help them to keep warm,” I say.

“Aye,” Father says quietly.

“But if we do, will it be breaking some law?”

“It may, here.”

I am fairly hobbled by the thought of a law against helping folk.

Madame de La Roque says something harsh in French, I know not what. Heat again stings my face. But then she curtsies before me! I back away from her. She raises her voice and says something more in French. Then curtsies again.

I am nearly at the door. She comes close and places her hands on my shoulders and presses down.

She wants you to curtsy to her, Hannah
.

I take another step backward. Her hands slip off. French words pour around me. The pink of her skin deepens. Her eyes narrow. She points toward her daughter, and then toward Comte de La Roque and finally to herself. Again she drops low before me and looks like a swan, the way her neck curves. Then once more she points to me.

I shake my head.
“S'il vous plaît, pardonnez-moi!”
I want to run, but there are the dishes on the table. If I don't get them now, I'll have to return soon.

Quick, I dash around her, grab up the dishes, dash around her yet again, and then am outside, in the wind.

At our cabin, I'm surprised to find John there, leaning over a length of cherry plank set up on sawhorses. He is smoothing out the plank's roughness with a hand plane. The marquis, he says, has ordered him to make a bed.

“But I thought thou must work on the cabins.” My voice is still shaky, and my hands.

“First, this.”

“Who is it for?”

“He did not say.”

Holding the plates with my other hand, I take up a curl of paper-thin wood spilling from the plane. The curl is nearly white, its scent calming. When the wood is oiled it will turn a golden pink, and then, in time, a deep red. I envy John his skill and often wish that I, too, had been taught to work with wood. Does he envy my ability to make bread?

I needn't even bother to ask!

It takes all the courage I possess to return to the La Roques' cabin with their supper and the clean plates. Marquis Talon is there. He tells me, in English, that I must never speak to a French noble unless one first speaks to me, inviting some response. Also, I must curtsy each time I enter a noble's house and before I leave and anytime I come upon one. He asks where I was yesterday when he gave these instructions to all the serving girls, but he does not pause for me to reply. And because I did not curtsy last night, I must do so three times, now, to each of the La Roques. “Begin!”