The Children - cont'd (3)

Marie's first thought was to wake her husband who slept deeply beside her, but almost before that idea had formed in her mind she had dismissed it. Her second husband, Jacques Muis d'Entremont, was a good man, for all he was a year her junior. He was a man of ideas, and could be a man of action when his ideas spurred him to it. And so it had come about that they had all boarded a ship and set sail for Louisiana.

But in many of the simplest ways, Jacques Sr. was not much use at all. He often seemed to be stymied by common sense. And right now, in the situation she found herself in, Marie felt that her husband would not be much help to her.

And so she rose, leaving her husband and their son (who had slept between them to stay warm) to continue sleeping while she and Louis lifted the wrapped bundle that was Angelique's body and Marie-Jeanne opened the door for them as quietly as she could manage. They carried Angelique out onto the deck and over to the rail and set her down again. Then Marie stood and flagged down the first officer whose eye she managed to catch. He was a gray-bearded man, skin like salted meat from years of sailing, but kind enough eyes for all the creases that framed them. He took one look at what lay at Marie's feet and understood.

The sailor lost no time finding the ship's captain, who also was the chaplain, and bringing him to where Marie waited with Louis and Marie-Jeanne. The captain said the words he'd long since memorized, and he and the gray-bearded shipman then lifted the shrouded body and prepared to release it overboard. But Marie made a gesture then with her right hand, gentle and dainty yet commanding, and they paused. Pulling back a corner of the blanket, Marie leaned to kiss her daughter's cold cheek. It was a brief, swift move, done all at once the way a bird swoops to catch a field mouse, and then, after receiving a small nod, the sailors surrendered the body of Angelique to the deep.