The Children - cont'd

By mid-October, Marie-Jeanne had gone from worried to outright terrified, and she could see that Louis, too, was deeply concerned. Angelique had ceased to be able to eat at all; her fair skin had become translucent and faintly yellow-green, and her shining hair was beginning to fall out.

Other passengers did not worry. In fact, they counted Angelique's condition as so much fortune, for what she wouldn't eat they could have. Food aboard La Ville d'Archangel had become as precious as gold. Everyone was thin, many were sick.

Little Jacques, Louis noted, seemed to thrive well enough. Their mother had continued to suckle him, and both she and their step-father made sure to give as much of their portions of food to Jacques as they could manage to go without themselves. But Louis had overheard his mother worrying aloud to her second husband that she would soon dry up and have nothing more for Jacques, for without sustenence for herself, she could not continue to produce milk. . . And there were complaints all around the ship that they should have arrived in Louisiana by now, should have come to New Orleans already, that they were off course, lost at sea. And it was clear that the food was running out.

Marie-Jeanne saw, too, that their mother was not well, those she strove to hide it. All her fear was for her young son. She considered her older children to be old enough to manage themselves; they had, all of them, always been somewhat self-sufficient. It occured to Marie-Jeanne that their mother might not understand about Angelique, about that girl's frail nature, because Marie-Jeanne and Louis had always been the ones to care for her. Oh, and the nurse. Who had not come with them, and had not been so much use to them even when she had been present.

That thought caused Marie-Jeanne to check herself. It was uncharitable, which Marie-Jeanne seldom was. Louis was the type to make such comments, not his nearest sister. Nurse had been very sweet, Marie-Jeanne amended mentally, for she had been there with pats and hugs and smiles, and she'd had a lovely singing voice. There, now Marie-Jeanne felt better.

And now she didn't again, because she remembered that they were no longer in St.-Malo and that Nurse was gone from them forever.

And Angelique was oh so ill. But not for long because near the end of October her struggles ceased.

Marie-Jeanne awoke in their dark, cramped cabin, her skin itchy from the dirty woolen blanket she'd been sharing with Angelique. It was quiet, aside from the snores of her step-father's mother, who gurgled in her sleep in a most digusting fashion. Early on in their journey, the sound had kept Marie-Jeanne awake, but fatigue had made short work of that. With all the money their family had had in France, though, it seemed to Marie-Jeanne that they could've had more than one cabin for the trip. How much could it cost, then, to cross the ocean in such a rickety vessel?

It was Marie-Jeanne's habit to awaken early; it had been from the time she was a babe. She knew, instinctively, that although it was dark in the cabin, the sky outside would have begun to turn a pearl gray in color. She knew that soon there would be a few footsteps out on the deck as other early risers went out to stretch and breathe fresh air.

But this morning something was different, something was wrong in a way that Marie-Jeanne could not immediately identify. She lay still, listening, trying to hear the difference. And then she realized it was not something that was there, so much as something that was not there. The soft breathing of her sister, the usual warmth of Angelique's body, these things were gone.

Marie-Jeanne rolled over quickly to face her sister, to prove to herself that it wasn't true, that she'd been half asleep still and hazy. But no, she was awake now, and even in the dark she knew Angelique wasn't breathing, wasn't moving, wasn't sleeping.

Oh, Angelique! Who had always been sweet and quiet and had striven to be no trouble to anyone, she'd died in the way she'd lived--quietly and without complaint.

But no, that wasn't exactly true. Even in that moment, Marie-Jeanne's mind insisted upon truth. Angelique had complained often enough. But only to Marie-Jeanne. It was with everyone else that Angelique had been, well, such an angel.

Marie-Jeanne remembered now all the times her sister had pouted, had fussed, had thrust her pretty lower lip out in petulance, or twisted those lips into a pursed sort of scowl. Hadn't it been so just the other day? When Angelique had first begun to be seasick? And Marie-Jeanne had, as ever, petted her and soothed her and tried to make everything better.

If she was supposed to feel as if a weight had been lifted from her, she was failing in that task. Despite all Angelique's shortcomings, all Marie-Jeanne felt was sorrow that she had not been there--awake and there--to ease her sister's passing.

And now what? Marie-Jeanne forced herself to rise and take the two steps over to where her brother slept in the corner of the room. He was a bear to wake up, but he was also the only person in that room that Marie-Jeanne felt she could count on in such a situation. She shook his shoulder gently, but Louis did not respond, so she tried again more forcefully. Too forcefully, perhaps, given the way he jumped awake and flung his arm, nearly hitting her square in the jaw. But she drew back quickly enough.