“I understand.”
Francoeur took her hand, a tentative smile spreading across his face. “Élisabeth, let us forget our past sins. Let us imagine we have only just been married, that tonight is our wedding night. Whatever sort of man Marcosi is, I know I can make you forget him. Do not blush! I know I can. I can make you happy. Let us forgive and make each other forget.”
A gnawing began in Élisabeth’s chest. Heartache. An axe blow that bled and bled until there was no life left, only the stiffness of a corpse that could no longer feel. It was time to tell the truth.
“Marcosi is not a man.” She bit her lip and looked across the room. Francoeur’s smile faded.
“I do not understand.”
“Marcosi is a demon,” she whispered.
“What?”
“A wolf with gryphon’s wings. A great marquis of Hell. I was cursed by a hag known as the Winter Witch. She caused me to be barren, and sent a demon to torment me. I am possessed.”
“Possessed?”
“I should never have married you. I’m sorry that I did. I know I have ruined your chance of happiness—”
“Wait, Élisabeth, listen to me. None of this is true. It is as Jeanne Roy said.You are suffering from melancholy. This is only an excess of black bile. There is no demon.” He grasped for answers like a drowning man after a ship’s rope. “It can be cured. It can be cured by bloodletting.”
She recoiled. Closing her eyes, she saw the lancet being dug into her father’s arm. The startling red against the fresh white linen laid out to catch the blood. Then she thought of Jeanne Roy—arrogant, self-satisfied Jeanne Roy—sneering at her,a peasant, and lecturing her about natural philosophy. How could she possibly know what ailed Élisabeth?
“It is not black bile. It is not melancholy. It is a demon, I know it.”
Francoeur let go of her hand. Élisabeth saw his eyes travel across the room as though searching for an escape. “Very well,” he said, pressing his mouth firmly shut. “We shall see.”
Élisabeth blinked back her tears. He did not believe her.
If she could cut open her chest so that he could see the beast sitting there, quietly gnawing on her heart and her bones, she would.
32
Marthe lay on her side on her straw mattress unable to sleep. The ticking was rough to the touch but she did not lift her cheek from the burlap. She could feel the child inside her struggle. She placed her arm around her belly.
“Hush, baby.”
The more the child pressed against her, the more she felt the walls closing in around her. But where could she go? Fifteen paces outside of the village there was nothing but forest all the way to the end of the world, and the cost of a return passage to France was a lifetime of labour, too dear by half. She was trapped. Under the thumb of a shrew who marked her every step and a man too weak to stand up to her.
Her child kicked again. A foot was at once in her groin and in her throat. He must be the most active of all the babies on the island. She felt a surge of pride.
“You shall go far,” she whispered. “I may have travelled across an ocean, but I can go no farther. You, though, will run as far and as fast as you like. You will touch the stars.”
“Marthe?” Her husband’s voice sleepy. “Why are you still abed?”
She thought about not responding, feigning that she had spoken in hersleep. Was this the only place she could hide from her husband and the widow now, in her dreams? But if sleep was her only escape, what was the point of living?
“I’m tired,” she said finally.
“Is the child moving again?” Verger loved to hear about the exploits of his son, as if the child were already grown and sending them letters boasting about his accomplishments from afar. For a moment Marthe thought about relenting, about curling her back into his warm body and murmuring her fears to him. But it had been too long since they had sought comfort in each other’s arms. She would not reward him with tales of his child now.
“I’m getting up. I can hear customers next door.”
“Rest here with me. Maman Poulin can see to them.”
“Don’t call her Maman,” Marthe said through gritted teeth. “She is not your mother.”
She hauled herself out of bed and pulled on her bodice, lacing the ribbons loosely. She did not care how she looked. Modest or slattern, comely or unkempt, she truly did not care what anyone in Ville-Marie thought of her. How ridiculous she had been to primp for the governor of Montréal. How stupid to have thought she could throw herself into the path of wealth and good fortune. Lafredière was right. He would be led from the village in a sleigh and horses, waving like a king to his people, while they were all left behind in Hell.
