My eyes closed. Sam folded my hand in his strong one and brought it against his chest, holding it there as he lowered his head so his jaw rested right at my temple. And for all the rest of that song and the one that came after, I drifted contentedly, letting him lead.
Lydia
She couldn’t remember the last time her father had danced.
“William’s wedding,” was Benjamin’s guess.
“Surely not,” Sarah said. They were standing with Lydia off to the side in the barn, near the table her father had roughly built only that morning, to hold food and drink for the guests that had come. “Surely there’s been occasion to dance since then.”
But they could think of none. Now they had several occasions to celebrate, all come at once.
First, the shearing was over with. That in itself would have been cause enough. And then one sunny morning a boat had arrived full of workers from Joseph’s old shipyard, to say word had reached them the Bellewether was being overhauled and they had come to help where they were able. They’d worked by day, and slept in hammocks below decks at night, and now the ship was masted, rigged, and crewed, and ready to set sail upon the midnight tide.
And that, too, would have been enough cause for this evening’s revelry, the whole crew having brought their wives and children to farewell them.
But earlier today, at dinner, Joseph had announced that he’d been offered—and was taking—a position at the shipyard. He had been advanced the wages to allow him to start work upon a small house on the land he’d purchased years ago, and which had long been waiting for that purpose, between Millbank and Cross Harbor. And when work on that was done, no later than September, he and Sarah would be married.
Sarah radiated happiness tonight, her blond hair twisted into curls and held with silver pins, her blue gown adding to the fanciful array of colour making their swept barn a match for any ballroom in New York. The men who would be sailing on the Bellewether that night were in their ordinary clothes, but Mr. Fisher and her father wore their Sunday best, as did her cousin Henry and his eldest son, who’d ridden up together for the gathering.
The women’s gowns and petticoats, in silks and printed cotton, swirled in ever shifting patterns with the music of each dance. Not having time or fabric for a new gown, Lydia had settled for her yellow one, but she had trimmed the shift she wore beneath it with soft lace that lay around the neckline in a ruffle and cascaded loosely from beneath the sleeves. She’d stitched new ribbon bows onto her slippers and her elbow cuffs, and used a matching ribbon for her hair, which she’d arranged the way she’d worn it since the day Mr. de Sabran had first smiled at her and told her it looked nice.
He wasn’t dancing. He was standing to the side, a dashing figure in his uniform. Remembering the way it had affected her last August when she’d seen his white coat in her kitchen—everything she feared and hated most, wrapped in one garment she could barely stand to touch—it seemed remarkable that yesterday, by her own choice, she’d beaten it and brushed it, using fuller’s earth and vinegar and lemon juice to sponge away the stains remaining from the riot in New York, until the coat was left as white and clean as when it had been made.
The symbolism of the gesture seemed not to be lost on him. He’d thanked her very quietly and she could plainly see that he was moved.
Tonight, it pleased her that his spotless coat made him—Canadian or not—appear more gentlemanly than Mr. de Brassart, though she had the sense he wasn’t much at ease in social settings and would rather have been anywhere than with so many people.
There were moments in the evening when she sympathized with how he felt; when the people and the music and the movement made her feel a little dizzy. But she counted it a fair exchange to see her father dancing.
For a big man, he stepped lightly and with style. His partner this song was French Peter’s wife, Mrs. Boudreau, a pretty woman with a fetching laugh that rang out frequently. Her husband had surprised them all by asking for a fiddle, and then playing it with such skill Mr. Fisher, his own fiddle raised, decided they should play together. Both the fiddles were now chasing one another up and down the tunes in lively harmony.
Returning with more cider for the table, Joseph asked, “Is Father still dancing?”
“It’s your fault,” said Lydia. “You’ve made him happy.”
Benjamin tried hard to look offended. “I thought I was the one who’d made him happy.”
“By leaving?” asked Joseph. “You may have a point.” His dry voice and the teasing light deep in his eyes were both things she had missed and thought lost, and to see them now made her heart swell even more.
The music had changed and their father, his face flushed and smiling, came over to fetch them. “Come, stop holding up the wall. We need more couples.”
Joseph obligingly took Sarah’s hand, but Benjamin said, “I’m afraid I can’t. There are a few things I still need to do before we sail.” He looked behind him but there were no men nearby except the two French officers.
Mr. de Brassart, hands raised, said, “I thank you, no. I have a knee that has never been right since Chouaguen, and tonight it is not letting me dance.”
Mr. de Sabran’s gaze slid between Mr. de Brassart and Joseph, then came back to rest on her own face. She could not tell what he was thinking, but clearly he’d understood their conversation because he stepped forward and silently offered his hand.
“There,” her father said. “There is your partner now, Lydia. Well done, sir.”
Bravely done, she amended, for Mr. de Sabran must surely have felt, as she did, all the watching eyes turned on them—some of them curious, some disapproving, some hostile. But as they took up their positions on the floor, the men in a line on one side and the women on the other, Mr. Fisher made the choice of dance and called it out: “In two groups of four couples, if you please. The À la Mode de France.”
French Peter set his fiddle to his shoulder and she saw him smiling broadly at her as Mr. de Sabran took her left hand in his right one, turning her to face the top of the room, and that smile calmed her nervousness, making her realize she cared not what anyone else thought. They weren’t the first couple, which was a good thing because although the dance had a French name it soon became obvious Mr. de Sabran had never encountered it. When he missed a step the first time, falling back into the wrong place, he was frowning. When he missed a second step, she smiled to show him that it didn’t matter, and he shrugged and smiled back at her, the smile that tilted to one side and carved the handsome lines into his cheeks. And by the time he’d missed the third step, all the other couples and a few within the crowd around them started calling out instructions to assist him, and he took it in good humour, and he laughed.
It was a wondrous thing to hear him laugh. It had a strange effect upon her, and when all the partners had come round to their right places and the music stopped and she was standing facing him, she could not think what she should do next.
Holding out his hand to her again he said, “We take the air, yes?”
“Yes,” she said, because air sounded just the thing she needed.
Outside, the night was soft and fresh. There was a half-moon shining brightly in a field of stars, a glowing ring of light surrounding it, and it had made a trail across the bay that showed in places through the darker screen of trees.
They walked in silence, and she breathed the mingled scents of wildflowers sleeping in the shadows, and the salt air of the sea. He had not let go of her hand. She did not want him to. They did not leave the clearing but at length they reached its edge, where rustling branches stretched above them and the light and noise and music of the barn seemed far away. One heart-shaped leaf fell from a nearby tree and landed on his shoulder and unthinkingly she lifted her free hand to brush it off before it marked the white coat she had worked so hard and long to clean.
She felt him looking down at her, and glancing up self-consciously she started to explain. And lost the words.
And then he bent his head and kissed her.
Everything around her seemed to stop, and still, and cease to matter. She could not have said how long it lasted. Not long, probably. It was a gentle kiss but at the same time fierce and sure and full of all the pent-up feelings she herself had fought these past months, and now she knew he had felt them just as she had, and had fought them, too. It was a great release to give up fighting. Give up everything, and float in the sensation.
But of course it had to end.
He drew his head back slowly, and they stood there a long moment in the shadows, saying nothing. Saying everything.
He seemed to be about to speak when suddenly the spell was broken by the sound of running footsteps.
Sarah, bearing down on them. “Oh, Lydia! Come quick!” Her face was pale with worry. “Joseph’s going to kill him!”
• • •
She thought he’d got rid of the gun.
When Mother had first found the pistol in Joseph’s belongings brought down from Oswego, she’d worried. A long gun, for hunting or even protecting the farm, that was one thing, she’d said—but a pistol was made for the purpose of violence.
He’d argued he needed it by him at night to feel safe, and they’d all understood, but at length Mother’s quiet persuasion had settled the matter. Or so they had thought.
Because here he was holding that same pistol levelled on Mr. de Brassart.
His hand was not shaking as it often did when he grew agitated, and Lydia didn’t know if that was good or bad. He didn’t turn his head as she came into the kitchen, but she could tell he was aware.
He said, “Tell them to go.”
He meant Mr. Ramírez and Violet, who stood at the room’s farther end, by the buttery. Mr. Ramírez had Violet behind him, and stood in watchful readiness, as though prepared to intervene yet trying not to make things worse.
Like Mr. de Sabran, who’d wanted to come in the house but had agreed instead to stay outside the kitchen doorway in the shadows at her back. She felt the tension of his silent presence, and could only hope that Joseph didn’t.
Joseph said, “I don’t want them to see.”
Mr. de Brassart looked to Lydia. He seemed to have been trying to come out of his own bedchamber before the pistol had been drawn to stop him where he stood. His face showed fear, and arrogance. “He’s crazy. I did nothing.”
In the hearth a log gave way and splintered, falling with a sudden crash of sparks, and Joseph flinched.
She said, “Mr. Ramírez, will you please take Violet upstairs? Thank you.” Gently, she told Joseph, “Let me have the gun.”
“Where’s Sarah?”
“I don’t know.” Which wasn’t entirely true. She’d sent Sarah for Father. “She’s not here, though. Give me the gun, Joseph.”
Mr. de Brassart said, “Listen to her. You don’t like me? Fine, I am leaving, I told you. See here, all my things. I am ready to leave.”
The pistol didn’t waver.
The French officer repeated, “I did nothing.”
“You were there.”
She’d seen him lose his hold on what was real before—slip backwards into some remembered moment that consumed him in its pain. She knew the danger. “Joseph.”
“He injured his leg at Chouaguen. That’s what he said tonight. You heard.”
“Yes, but I—”
“Chouaguen,” Joseph said, “is what the French call Oswego.” His eyes on de Brassart’s, he said in a low, anguished tone, “You were there.”
She heard voices and movement outside, but they’d be too late. His grip on the pistol was tightening. So without thinking, she moved.
The helplessness of that one moment lived with her long afterwards—her senses flooded painfully at every side, the sudden stench of gunsmoke and the blast of sound, the stinging in her shoulder where it had struck Joseph’s arm away, the panic of not knowing if she’d managed it in time.
She had.
Mr. de Brassart straightened slowly from where he had crouched within the doorway of his chamber. Looked at Joseph, who’d regained his balance after Lydia had lunged and was now standing close beside the hearth. And then looked past them.
Lydia turned, too.
Her father leaned against the open kitchen door, his breathing heavy as though he’d been running. Benjamin stood next to him, with others scattered in the dark behind. She looked for Mr. de Sabran and was concerned she did not see him, until realizing that he’d reacted faster than them all and was now standing close behind her, like a guard.
“It’s all right,” she assured them. “No one’s harmed.”
Mr. de Brassart said, once again, “Crazy.” Then added, to Benjamin, “I tried to tell him, if he kills me, then you can’t sail where you need to, but—”
“Quiet,” said Benjamin.
Lydia felt a new pain in that silence—the small, certain twist of the knife of betrayal. A pain she was learning to recognize, lately. And learning to bear.
But she thought of the people now watching and listening. Thought about Joseph, and what would be best for him. Thought of her family, and its reputation. And clearing her throat, said to Benjamin, “Would you take Mr. de Brassart’s things down to the Bellewether for him, please? I trust you have his papers safe on board already.”
Benjamin said, “Yes.” He tried to meet her eyes, and she allowed him to, but only briefly.
Then she laid her hand on Joseph’s and said, “Let me have this, now.”
This time he handed her the pistol, without protest, and she thanked him for it, stepping to the side as Sarah, pushing forward from the gathered crowd outside the doorway, crossed to stand next to Joseph.
The moment of danger had passed now, and everyone knew it.
She wanted to move, but she couldn’t stop trembling. She wanted to turn to the strong man behind her for comfort, but she couldn’t do that with everyone here. Not with what had just happened.
His hand touched her back, very gently—a gesture that nobody else in the room could see. Then he moved past her and stood near the door, near her father, and then other people came into the room and in all the confusion she looked once again for him. But he was gone.
Jean-Philippe
He found her father in the barn.
The ship had sailed. De Brassart and Ramírez had been on it, and the guests who’d come to see them off had piled into their small boats and their waggons and departed, leaving Monsieur Wilde, his nephew Henry, and his nephew’s son to clean up afterwards. Pierre was there as well, although he’d sent his wife and children home to bed.
“Well now, Marine,” he said when he caught sight of Jean-Philippe. “How goes your night?” He asked the question dryly, as though trying to make light of what had happened.
Jean-Philippe took slow steps forward, stopping where he’d danced with her. He pushed the hollow echoes of the music from his mind. “I need to speak with him.”
“With Monsieur Wilde?” Pierre looked, too, towards the big man trying now to stack the pieces of a disassembled table into some shape that was orderly, as though that work, that order was of great importance. “I think maybe now is not the time.”
“There is no other time,” said Jean-Philippe. “Will you translate for me?”
Pierre frowned and assessed him as though searching for a sense of what was coming. “You don’t need my English. Yours is good enough.”
“It’s late. I’m tired. And it’s important.”
The Acadian considered this, then with a nod agreed.
Monsieur Wilde turned at their approach.
Jean-Philippe motioned for Pierre to step between them. “Tell him he’s been very kind to me. I never will forget this.”
Pierre looked at him in silence.
“Tell him.”
When Pierre was finished speaking, Monsieur Wilde frowned also. “It has been my pleasure.”
Jean-Philippe said, “His nephew brought a letter for me when he came t
oday. I have been ordered to join Captain Wheelock in New York, but I must have an escort for my travel. I would like to pay his nephew to accompany me.”
This was duly translated, and Henry Ryder glanced up apprehensively. “I do not think I could.”
“I will.” The nephew’s son stood not far off, a boy of fifteen or sixteen. “I will take him.”
Jean-Philippe did not catch the exchange between Monsieur Wilde and his nephew that came afterwards, it was too swift and spoken low, but he heard Monsieur Wilde say, “a gentleman.”
And that appeared to settle things.
But Monsieur Wilde had seemed to bear this news like one more burden. He’d seemed sad, and it took all of Jean-Philippe’s resolve to thank him, bow respectfully, and walk away.
He never should have kissed her. It had complicated things beyond all measure. It had been the hand of Providence that brought the interruption, or he might have gone a step too far and told her how he felt. And there would never have been any coming back from that.
Outside the barn, Pierre caught up with him. “What are you doing?”
“What I must.”
Pierre reached out and took his arm to stop him walking. Pulled him round until they faced each other and could talk. “What does it really say, your letter?”
He stayed silent. Did not tell Pierre the letter, from Madame de Joncourt in New York, said only that his sergeant had improved a very little, and was resting well.
“You cannot leave her,” said Pierre.
That broke the wall. “It is because of her I cannot stay.”
“That makes no sense.”
He exhaled, hard. “What future can I give her? None. I’m not the kind of man she needs. And this is not the time,” he said. “When I’m exchanged, I have to go. So better I go now, than make it worse. I can wait in New York.”
“New York is not where you belong.” Pierre seemed sure of that. “You think this war will last forever? I can tell you it will not. You think the king in France, who sits in comfort, cares enough to save Quebec? I tell you, from experience, my friend, no help will come. If life has taught me one thing only, it is never to look back. Be happy where you are. Grow roots where you are standing. If you have the ones you love, then you have everything.” His eyes were sure. “You love her.”