Page 30 of The Autumn Wife
“No.”
The word lurched out of her. Of course, Talon would want to see her remarried to whatever bachelor would have her—butno.Theo’s kiss had changed her. Hope had changed her. There was only one man she’d be willing to marry—and he was leaving the settlements forever.
In five weeks and four days.
“I refuse, Sister Martha,” Cecile blurted, rounding the desk to head for the door. “Whatever Talon finds, I will never again marry a stranger.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Even with Sunday Mass bells clanging, the boisterous Moose Tavern of Montreal thrummed with shouting and song.
Theo ducked his head under the lintel and entered a crowded room full of long wooden tables, benches, and fur traders who’d just returned from the wilderness. The clatter of rolled dice mixed with the lively rhythm of rowing songs and the crackle of two blazing fireplaces meant to push back the autumn chill.
He nodded to acquaintances as he passed a card game and dodged the sultry look of a woman coming down the attic stairs. The soles of his boots stuck to the sticky slates as he glimpsed a cold, empty corner near a narrow window. Ordering a tankard with a raise of his hand, he waited until the wine arrived before settling the pewter cup on the window ledge.Shoving a hand into his beaver-skin coat, he pulled out the letter the Reverend Mother had handed him two weeks ago.
He eyed again what he’d memorized on the outside folds. A half-torn corner bore a sketch of a man in a smock carrying a trowel, a mason’s sign. Oil spots and streaks of dirt soiled the simple address:Theo Martin, Montreal, New France.
It had been written by his younger brother Benoit, Theo deduced from the sketch, the shaky letters, and random leanings of letters. Not by a priest transcribing his mother’s own words. Certainly not by his stepfather, who’d never bothered with the stepson he’d once called a magpie in a wren’s nest, stealing food from his own children’s mouths.
The parchment, folded and cracked and worn to thinness, weighed nothing but pressed like a capstone upon his chest. It had been two and a half years since he’d last received any news. In earlier letters, his mother had written of one sister widowed and another running amok, of the roof thatch caving in the corner, of Benoit abandoning his lessons, the minor and unending troubles of a large family.
In the last letter, she’d confessed of a blight on the fields, a flux taking the chickens, and the shame of Theo’s stepfather coming back with empty pockets from Paris again. That part, Theo knew in his bones, washisfault. His conviction had smeared the repute of all the Guéret masons.
Now, another letter in hand, he took a long, deep swig of wine to fortify himself for what was to come. After such a long gap since the last communication, he was sure there’d be no good news inside. But with only three weeks and five days separating him from freedom, he could at least foresee a moment when he would be able to make plans to take care of those he’d left behind.
Amid the tumult of the tavern, he cracked the wax seal, unfolded the parchment, and read.
My dear brother Theo,
I hope this letter finds you in good health. I’m currently with our band of masons building a little chateau near the king’s palace in Versailles, a home for some royal dignitary who wears so much powder on his wig that the whole corps of workers double over in fits of coughing whenever he visits. But our new master mason is Pierre Moreau, do you remember him? He took over after Dad decided he was too old for this, which happened a good eighteen months after you were sent away. Did Mother write to you about that? Anyway, Pierre tells us that our dignitary pays on time, and that’s a rare thing.So, whenever the man comes around, all powdered up, we all cough into our sleeves, try not to laugh, and later wash our throats clear with good wine at a tavern nearby.
Theo stopped reading, blinking as if the paper glowed with light. Theo’s mischievous, skinned-kneed brother had been thirteen—or was it fourteen?—when Theo had last seen him, and now this boy was telling stories and bragging about drinking with his compatriots at a tavern.
I hope this letter finds its way to you, but Versailles is a tiny town, and I have little faith in a postmaster that no one in the chateau uses, preferring their private couriers. But I either write this now, or you’ll have to wait another six months until I’m back in Guéret. I’ll do my best to fill you in, though I don’t know what Mother wrote in her last letter.
Let’s see. Our little sister Leonora married this April past, not long after Easter, and her new husband, Jacques Anouilh, joined us on our trek to Versailles. Lisette is with child again. The good news is that, though Paris still snubs us, our band of masons have found steady work in Lyon two years in a row and now Versailles. Pierre is already talking about trying our lucknext spring in Paris again, hoping for memories to fade. Jean-Luc probably won’t go, though. His leg never healed quite right after his fall off the scaffolding last year. But that’s a blessing in disguise, because he’s taken over the farming and he’s good at it. He even has the back slope planted. How long has that been fallow? Also, he looks after father when we’re all away. Father has gone soft since you left, Theo. You wouldn’t recognize him. He hardly ever yells anymore.
Theo grunted, thinking,He doesn’t yell at you, Benoit.
His ribs squeezed but he pushed down the old resentment and returned his attention to the letter, which carried on for a paragraph or two about the marshy ground around the area of Versailles, and the stench of the place, and the details of the job, reminding him of all he'd lost and all he'd soon fix when he was free.
Now I’ve used up nearly this whole parchment telling you things that you probably don’t care about, considering where you are, suffering a long sentence for a crime that didn’tdeserve punishment. I hope it gives you ease to know that, with every passing year, more architects take us on with ease. I think of you often, Theo. So do our sisters. We all hope you find, as your sentence comes to an end, some of the opportunity we’ve heard spoken of by those who set out for the colonies.
Do you remember Xavier Petit? He was terrible at mixing mortar. But he set off for the colonies last year, and his mother just received a packet of furs. He says in his letter that beaver furs are the currency in Kebec. Is that true? They certainly brought some money here. On selling them to a hatmaker, his mother earned 56 livres—almost twice what would have been his mason’s pay as an apprentice.
Speaking of mothers. I’ve left this news for last because I know you won’t be able to read more after I tell you. Our dear, sweet mother died on the Feast of Saint Nicholas last from a complaint of the lungs.
The ground fell out from under him. He slung an elbow on the sill to keep himself upright.
She was always coughing, remember? It just kept getting worse and worse. We laid her down in the plot up on the mountain, and everyone in the village came. Lisette looks after the plot all the year round. In spring it’s bursting with flowers.
In his mind bloomed a green field filled with bright blue gentians, his mother’s favorite color. He used to pick them and present her with bouquets she would slip into a wooden cup and put in the center of the table, leaving them there long after they wilted.
The rest of the letter blurred.
Though our mother is gone, and Father is aging, I don’t want you to think we’re struggling or hungry. Our sisters are all married, and I’m a master now, making enough to keep the family as well as put away a bit for a marriage of my own someday. While I’m away with the Guéret masons, the house is being taken care of by Jean-Luc. He’s also watching after Father, who keeps the garden. So, see to yourself, Theo, and don’t spend a moment worrying about us.
Your beloved brother by a lot more than half,
