Landfalls (13 page)

Lap
é
rouse's gaze wandered from their departed guests, now nearing the shore, to the
Astrolabe
, where several crewmen were emptying water casks over the side. “What are they doing?” he asked, pointing across the way.

“They're draining out the old water to make room for fresh,” Langle explained.

“Didn't you refill your casks in Santa Catarina?”

Langle was silent for a moment. “I refilled
some
of them.
That
there is French water, seven months old, hardly fit to drink.” When Lap
é
rouse said nothing, Langle said, “Sir, you know my convictions on this matter.”

Lap
é
rouse turned away from the rail. He hoped Langle's preoccupation with water would not become a chronic point of contention between them. His friend seemed to think that drinking old barrel water caused scurvy, but Lap
é
rouse had never read or seen anything to support this idea. It was not a matter worth debating, however. Langle would grow heated and scientific. “Thank you for your offer, Monsieur de Langle,” he finally said, “but I think I'll go into town myself.”

Langle nodded so formally that Lap
é
rouse felt compelled to say something to restore their usual amicability. “It's not just our savants,” he said. “I am concerned for our hostess, Se
ñ
ora Sabatero.”

Langle's face was blank for a few seconds. “Se
ñ
ora—you mean that tiny creature married to Sabatero—
Eleonora
?” He looked at Lap
é
rouse with amused surprise, then laughed aloud.

“She is a very young person and not altogether happy,” Lap
é
rouse said, aware of sounding ridiculous, of blushing before his friend. But it worked: Langle was still grinning when he left the ship a few minutes later. Lap
é
rouse made his way back to his stateroom and composed a message to Major Sabatero, requesting the indulgence of another night's stay in his home and the use of his drawing room to conduct some business related to the voyage.

*   *   *

In the morning, Fr
é
d
é
ric was released from his onboard incarceration and ordered to report to duty. He did not apologize when he presented himself, but there was contrition in his washed face and neat dress and in his eagerness to return to duty. Even the strictly polite tone he adopted—“yes, sir,” “of course, sir”—seemed an attempt to compensate for the monstrous overfamiliarity of two days earlier. Lap
é
rouse felt a rush of pity for his brother-in-law: if only that desire to please were balanced by the ability to refuse a wrong thing now and then, he might make something of himself. When Fr
é
d
é
ric left the room with a formal bow and a “thank you, sir,” Lap
é
rouse pulled a page from a letter he had begun to
É
l
é
onore the night before, a page that described in unstinting detail what had happened with Fr
é
d
é
ric in Concepci
ó
n, and tore it into small pieces.

A knock on the door brought Boutin, one of his ensigns, bearing a small package. “Today's reports and messages, sir,” he said.

Routine communications, for the most part—a report from Langle on the progress of repairs on the
Astrolabe
; another from Dagelet, the
Boussole
's astronomer, on the performance of their chronometers; lists from both ships of needed supplies—and then, as expected, a letter from Dufresne requesting permission to leave the expedition. A more self-pitying and lugubrious letter it was hard to imagine: he enjoyed the respect and friendship of no one on board, rued the day he ever consented to join the expedition, would consider himself a prisoner if his request were denied, and had nothing but days and years of unrelenting sadness to anticipate in that event. Lap
é
rouse was hard-pressed to keep from laughing aloud.

“Monsieur de Boutin,” he finally said, looking up from the table. “Please inform Monsieur de Monneron that I am ready to accompany him to town.”

*   *   *

He had sent one of the dragoons ahead on a horse with their luggage, meaning to walk the three leagues to Concepci
ó
n with Monneron. There was the spectacle to discuss, of course, a demonstration that required careful advance planning and allowed of no real rehearsal. But Lap
é
rouse also wanted to get Monneron's assessment of the mood among the savants. By training, temperament, and formal appointment, Monneron straddled the worlds of naval officer and man of science. His views would be helpful to hear before Lap
é
rouse confronted Lamanon.

But once again he was thwarted in his plan to have a long walk and talk with a member of his staff. O'Higgins had learned of his intention to return to town and came to meet him in person, riding the same magnificent horse he had the previous day, accompanied this time by a groom and horses for the Frenchmen. Lap
é
rouse stifled a curse. He had last ridden a horse when he was a boy, and it had been a seat-bruising and humiliating experience.

If he embarrassed himself less on this occasion, it was due entirely to the skill and patience of the groom and the docility of the animal. Still, he did not feel at ease for any part of the journey, and barely attended to what O'Higgins was saying. “Ah!” he cried as O'Higgins pointed out the location of the old city on their left. “Indeed!” he said of O'Higgins's description of the Araucanians' equestrian prowess. Monneron, a more able rider, did his part to maintain their side of the conversation: Had Governor O'Higgins been in Concepci
ó
n at the time of the great earthquake? (He had not. He was in Santiago then, or perhaps it was C
á
diz.) Was it true the Araucanians drank horse blood? (The Indians themselves made this claim, but he had never seen it.) Would the governor oblige them with the story of how an Irishman had come to be a brigadier general for the king of Spain? He would and he did. The not uncommon story—an Irish family, its wealth diminished by Cromwell, its status tainted by Catholicism and an old loyalty to the Stuarts, forging a new life in Spain—brought them into town. O'Higgins conveyed them to the door of the Sabateros' house near the central plaza and left with a promise to see them at dinner.

The steward opened the door, his blank face betraying no memory of his last meeting with Lap
é
rouse, when he had helped push a drunk and stinking Fr
é
d
é
ric into the back of the family carriage. Lap
é
rouse hoped his own expression was as mute, not only about the embarrassment with Fr
é
d
é
ric, but also about his knowledge that Jos
é
was Sabatero's natural son—a fact that now, looking at the man again at such close range, seemed entirely obvious.

Of course, most facts had that quality of being obvious once known, Lap
é
rouse reflected as he followed Jos
é
down the corridor. Everything was fraught with this knowledge: the defensive way Eleonora flicked open her fan when Jos
é
entered the room; Jos
é
's voice as he announced the guests, his tone polite but only just; and Sabatero's bland, unseeing benignity, dispensed with equal measure to his lonely Creole wife and the mestizo son poised to dispossess her.

Lap
é
rouse bowed—first to Eleonora, who flushed prettily when she saw him; then to Sabatero, who looked, out of uniform, less florid than he had at the ball; and then to—well, here was a surprise—the discontented Dufresne himself, looking at once shamefaced and defiant in a corner of the room.

“We have had pleasure of Monsieur Dufresne's company from last night,” Sabatero explained in his rough French.

“His host came down with a fever, and we thought it best he stay here,” Eleonora added.

Lap
é
rouse looked from the Sabateros to Dufresne, wondering how free the discontented naturalist had been in discussing his unhappiness with his hosts. “Well, Monsieur Dufresne,” he said. “I'm delighted to see you here. It saves me the trouble of sending for you.” Dufresne sank back into his chair as if the effort might render him invisible.

Eleonora stood up with a rustling of her skirts, drawing all eyes toward her. “Monsieur de Monneron, how nice to see you again,” she said, extending her hand to the engineer. “Allow my husband and me to show you to your room, and then you must tell us about this party. It is all the talk in town today…” She reached her other hand out to her husband, who heaved himself from his chair and joined her.

Lap
é
rouse bowed his thanks as Eleonora led her husband and Monneron out of the room. He was struck once more by her sensitivity, so far beyond her years, the promptness with which she cleared the room so he could confront Dufresne in private. But also—and this too not for the first time—how rehearsed both Eleonora and her husband sounded. Was it simply a function of speaking a language not one's own? Or had these people, with their long lives of relative ease and lack of diversion, steeped in their secrets and secretiveness, come so to excel in the art of the apologia that even simple explanations and exchanges seemed to hide something?

“You received my letter, then. Sir.”

Lap
é
rouse turned to find Dufresne, still seated, looking up at him through an unkempt fringe of hair that fell before his eyes. He looked every bit like the pupil who has not prepared his lesson and had absolutely counted on not being called to recite it.

“I did, this morning.”

“Have you come all this way simply to refuse me in person?”

“No, Dufresne. You are only one in a long list of matters I have to attend to today.”

Dufresne flushed and said nothing, as if unsure whether to proceed angrily or with contrition. “I'm sorry, sir,” he finally said. “I know I have no one to blame but myself, but—
please
let me go. I should never have come. I plead my youth and inexperience.”

“You'll find that youth and inexperience are rarely invoked in the Navy except when you are being refused a promotion.”

Dufresne looked down, dejected.

“I
could
release you…” Lap
é
rouse began, and Dufresne looked up, one lock of his hair stuck in the corner of his mouth. “But I think you would regret it.”

“I've done nothing
but
regret since we left Brest.” He was struggling not to cry.

Lap
é
rouse sat down in the chair Eleonora had just vacated. It was still warm. “Monsieur Dufresne,” he said. “This may go down in history as one of the most important voyages of the century. Do you want to be the man who left seven months in, witnessed none of the excitement in store, contributed nothing to its success, and missed out on all of its glory?”

“I'll be that man even if I stay on board.”

“If you don't feel useful, it's no doubt because you haven't
made
yourself useful,” Lap
é
rouse said. “But that is about to change.” He went out into the corridor and asked a servant to find Monneron.

“Ah, Monneron,” he said when the engineer appeared in the drawing room. “You know Monsieur Dufresne, of course.” The two men nodded to each other. “I believe you'll want someone to assist you with preparations for the spectacle next week,” he said, “and Dufresne here is wanting more occupation. Please take him into your confidence and allow him to accompany you on your errands in town.”

“Of course,” Monneron said. His expression was not one of delight, but it also betrayed neither reluctance nor dismay. This even-tempered cooperativeness was one of the things Lap
é
rouse most valued about his engineer. “Major Sabatero and his wife are helping me figure out where in town I might procure a few needed supplies,” Monneron said. “Why don't you join us, Monsieur Dufresne?”

The naturalist perked up at the mention of Eleonora, and dutifully followed Monneron out of the room. His gait had a cheerful, ungainly bounce to it. Had he always walked like that, or was the promise of being let in on a secret and the continued company of a pretty woman enough to turn him around? This, from a man who had all but threatened to harm himself if he were not released from the expedition! Lap
é
rouse watched him go, annoyance mounting. Sometimes the role of captain seemed to resemble nothing more than that of nursemaid.

He turned back toward the drawing room to find Jos
é
standing behind him. The steward had also been watching the two Frenchmen make their way down the corridor. “Se
ñ
or,” Jos
é
said, acknowledging Lap
é
rouse with a perfunctory nod, one side of his mouth curling up slightly. But in the instant before that, when Lap
é
rouse first turned around, he had caught Jos
é
in an unguarded moment, and his expression had worn nothing of his usual forced politesse with its hint of contempt. No, in that second before he remembered himself, before he nodded his head and said “Se
ñ
or,” his face had been soft, collapsed by some distress.

Lap
é
rouse held the man's gaze. Was it just resentment? More guests meant more work for the steward, of course. The presence of guests also meant more supervision and the necessity for a greater show of propriety. Or—here was an odious possibility—perhaps Jos
é
suspected Eleonora's virtue. Or had been instructed to guard it. The very young and quite pretty wife of an old and possibly impotent man, playing hostess to young men,
French
men, men long deprived of female company and scheduled to leave again very soon. Or maybe Jos
é
's vigilance was for his own sake. Perhaps he feared Eleonora might find a way to produce an heir, after all. Or maybe he was himself in love with his father's wife.