New World, New Love (18 page)

In spite of the bitter weather the farmhouse was kept warm and snug with blazing fires. Long icicles hung from the roof and held a diamond glitter whenever the pale winter sun broke through. Those were the days when Louise and Blanche joined in snowball fights with the children and Alexandre built them a snowman taller than himself.

Delphine’s labour pains began on a morning late in January when a heavy fall of snow reduced visibility to a hand in front of the face. It meant that the local midwife could not reach the farmhouse, so Blanche and Louise made ready to deliver the baby themselves. It was about midnight that Delphine began to scream her hatred of Pieter and what he had done to her. Her labour was long and agonizing. It was not until the next evening that her son gushed into the world and let forth a strong cry of protest.

‘You have a lovely boy, Delphine,’ Blanche said joyfully, about to put the baby in her arms, but instantly Delphine turned her face away.

‘I don’t want him! I never will!’ Then she gave a bitter cry. ‘Send him to the Spice Islands!’

Blanche, not noticing Louise’s signal that she should draw back for a few moments, went swiftly to the opposite side of the bed, unable to believe that the sight of the child would not bring forth instant mother love. ‘Just look at him, Delphine.’

Delphine’s lids were tightly shut in distaste, but as Blanche lowered the baby towards the pillow, she sensed the movement and as she raised herself slightly her eyes flew open. For a second or two she looked into the face of her son, her pupils widening in horror.

‘He looks like Pieter!’ she shrieked hysterically. ‘Take him away! I never want to see him again!’

She collapsed back on to the pillows. Her face, already white, took on an almost death-like hue. Louise cried out in alarm, seeing a spreading bloodstain.

‘She’s haemorrhaging!’

Delphine almost died that day. When the flow of blood was finally stemmed, it had still seemed that she had no chance of surviving, but she continued breathing faintly in spite of everything. Louise and Blanche took turns in sitting with her by night and day, spooning nourishing liquids into her whenever there was a chance. Remembering Charles’s firm belief in the helpful properties of pure water, Louise also gave her sips of it as often as possible.

Since it was obvious that Delphine would have no interest in naming her son, Louise decided he should be called Philippe after their father. Maria, whose full breasts had milk to spare, became his wet nurse and he thrived contentedly in spite of all his mother had done to herself to be rid of him. Blanche would have bound him in swaddling bands in the old belief that they helped a baby’s limbs grow straight, but Louise would not allow it. She remembered that Charles, with his enlightened ideas, had been violently opposed to swathing in any form, sometimes telling her on a Sunday afternoon of yet another battle he had had with a midwife over it. So Philippe lay free in his cradle, a handsome infant in every way.

In a chair and propped up by cushions, Delphine passed the time when on her own by watching the comings and goings of the family and visitors from the window of her bedroom, but with little interest. It was taking a long time for her to recover her strength, and as yet she was only sitting out of bed for a short while daily. She never asked about her son and it was as if he did not exist. When the local doctor made a visit, he diagnosed melancholia and advised that she be allowed to take her own time to recover.

‘She’s young and her spirit will return,’ he said sagely as he departed.

When Delphine finally felt well enough to rejoin the family circle, she still had a frail look about her, which gave some cause for concern, and had little appetite. Nothing would induce her to go near her baby. If he were in a room that she was about to enter, she would immediately go elsewhere until he was returned to his cradle in the nursery.

Then, after this had happened a number of times, there came a moment like a spark to gunpowder when Louise’s patience finally ran out completely. She had come from looking in on Philippe, who had been crying most of the evening, when she saw Delphine going heedlessly across the hall to her room. Darting forward after her, Louise seized her by the shoulders and jerked her round.

‘You’ll start caring for your son tomorrow!’ she stated fiercely. ‘No more excuses or evasions. He no longer looks like Pieter, but has your copper tint in his hair, and to my mind has a look of Papa in that painting of him as a boy that hung in the library at home. There is nothing to stop you taking full charge of him.’

Delphine looked panic-stricken. ‘But he’ll always look like Pieter to me.’

Louise was unmoved. ‘Tomorrow I’ll be at hand when you bath and change him. After that you’ll manage him on your own, as you will every day after that until we leave here. Then you’ll shoulder all responsibility for him in your new role as a widow.’

Delphine fixed her with a long and dangerous look before answering. ‘You don’t know what you’re asking of me. I’ll give you the truth, but you won’t like hearing it. I don’t go near him, because I can’t trust myself. I’m afraid of doing him some violence!’

She turned on her heel and rushed into her room, slamming the door after her. Louise was left motionless in shock. In the parlour, Blanche and Alexandre, sitting by the fire, had been unable to avoid overhearing Delphine’s high-pitched outburst. Blanche went at once to draw Louise into the room and to a chair with them by the fire.

‘What am I to do?’ Louise asked in despair, shaking her head. ‘Even if I take on the responsibility for Philippe, which I’ll do gladly, I must work, and I’ll be afraid all the time of ever leaving Delphine alone with him. She’s been totally unbalanced in her mind ever since Pieter deserted her. She was never like this before.’ She covered her eyes with her fingers and spoke brokenly. ‘It’s been so long since I heard her laugh.’

Alexandre exchanged a significant glance with Blanche and then took his wife’s hand, linking his fingers with hers before he spoke. ‘I have a solution. If you’ll agree, Louise, we’d like to adopt him.’

Louise let her hands fall to her lap. ‘What are you saying?’ she said incredulously.

‘We want you to know that it would not be out of pity for Philippe or his unfortunate mother,’ Alexandre continued, ‘but because we want him to take the place of the son we can never have. I give you my word that we would love him and do our best for him always, as if he were our own flesh and blood.’

‘Please say yes!’ Blanche implored emotionally. ‘I’ve been dreading the day when he would leave.’

Louise was deeply touched. She had seen for herself how much her friend had come to love Philippe, caring for him in every way, and invariably she was the first to reach his cradle whenever he cried in the night. Louise thought of the many times she and Blanche had shared a night-time drink in the kitchen until they were sure he had settled down again. As for Alexandre, it was natural that as a farmer he would want a son to inherit and to share his love of the land. He was a good man and Philippe could never have a better father.

Louise reached out a hand to him and to Blanche, and the three of them were linked as they had been in the past. ‘For myself, what you are offering is all that I would wish for my little nephew. Loving parents, a good home and the wonderful chance to grow up in the country, as we three did in our childhood. I’m sure when Delphine hears what you’re willing to do for her son, she will always be grateful to you both.’

‘Naturally everything must be done legally,’ Alexandre said firmly. ‘I couldn’t risk Blanche being broken-hearted if sometime in the future Delphine should have a change of heart and want him back. As soon as we’ve spoken to her in the morning, I’ll take the sledge into town and see a lawyer about the necessary adoption papers, which will require her signature too.’

Next morning Delphine did not appear for breakfast. No notice was taken, as she frequently slept late, but Blanche was on tenterhooks, impatient for her to emerge. At midday, Louise knocked on her door, but when there was no reply she tried the handle and found it locked. Neither was there any response when she called her sister’s name.

Feeling angry that her sister should be disrupting the household once again, this time through sheer selfishness, Louise took a cloak from a hook and went out on to the veranda. She intended to upbraid her sister through the glass panel of her veranda door if that should be locked too. But before she reached Delphine’s door, she saw a trail of footsteps leading away from it in the snow.

Dashing into Delphine’s bedroom, she saw that the bed had not been slept in and drawers to a chest stood open, the contents having been scooped up. A petticoat lay where it had been dropped on the floor. Throwing open the closet door, she saw that Delphine’s cloak and a pair of lace-up boots were gone.

The search was started immediately. Horses were harnessed up to two sledges and Alexandre drove off in the direction of Albany and George turned towards Troy. At the farmhouse, the anxious waiting commenced. Louise knew that Delphine had some money to take with her and Blanche reported from the kitchen that she had food too, Maria having discovered that some bread, cheese and dried apple rings were missing.

It was evening before the men returned, the sledge lamps a welcome sight to Louise and Blanche watching from a window. George was first and had found no trace of Delphine, but Alexandre, arriving soon afterwards, had picked up her trail.

‘She seems to have slept part of the night in a barn,’ he said as he shed his warm jacket, the cold night air hanging about him. ‘A tavern keeper told me that when she turned up at his door at five o’clock this morning she had some pieces of straw clinging to her clothes and brushed them off as soon as she saw them in his bar-room’s candlelight. He had been getting breakfast for a traveller wanting an early start, but she said she’d eaten, so he gave her a hot punch. She sat at the traveller’s table while she drank it and then they went off together.’

‘Did he know where the man was going?’ Louise asked quickly, trying not to think of the dangers that could entrap any woman travelling with a total stranger.

‘No. The traveller had said he was on his way home, but when he and Delphine were talking, the tavern keeper heard West Point mentioned.’

‘We put in there when we came upriver,’ Louise exclaimed. ‘That’s a long way.’

‘Longer still with the river ice no longer safe. But the tavern keeper gave me the traveller’s name. It’s James Harrison, someone unknown to me.’ Alexandre crossed to the fire and held out his hands to the blaze. ‘Even if Delphine only went with him for a short way, we know the route she’s taking and it shouldn’t be hard to find her.’ He smiled over his shoulder at Louise, firelight dancing up his face. ‘Remember that my need in wanting her safely back here is as great as yours, because there’s those adoption papers I want her to sign. Tomorrow I’ll go prepared for a lengthy journey and I’ll not return until I’ve found her.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ Louise said determinedly.

‘No, Louise.’ He was adamant. ‘I shall go on horseback and I’ll do better on my own. You stay here with Blanche and trust me to bring your sister back to you.’

He was gone for four weeks. By then a thaw had set in, the snow had gone and the river was flowing again. Already the land was showing green. When he returned, he was alone.

‘I’m so sorry, Louise,’ he said heavily. ‘The trail simply came to an end between Albany and West Point at a small town where I found James Harrison, a pleasant little man who runs a general goods shop with his son. He’d been visiting his sick brother on a farm that lies almost a day’s journey from here, which was why he had put up at the tavern. Delphine gave him some story about being a maidservant leaving one place of employment in search of another. He took her home with him, where his daughter-in-law included her in a family meal and then she left.’

‘Had she given him any idea where she was going?’

‘No, except that as an émigré she knew of a French lady whom she was sure would take her in. I searched around, but nobody remembered seeing Delphine. It’s likely that she managed to get a lift with some other traveller. I decided to continue on to West Point, but drew a blank there and everywhere else I tried.’

‘Where can she be?’ Blanche questioned in bewilderment.

‘I can only conclude that somehow she has made her way back to New York,’ Alexandre answered. Then he turned to Louise. ‘Now that the ice has gone from the river you and I will take a sloop down to New York and look for her together. You’ll know better than I where she’s likely to have sought refuge.’

Louise sank down in a chair. ‘I don’t think she’s gone to New York. I believe she’ll have made her way to Boston.’

‘Where your cousin lives!’ Blanche almost breathed the words.

‘By road that’s a great many miles from here,’ Alexandre put in doubtfully. ‘I can’t be certain, but it would take at least two weeks by coach in good weather over the log roads and I couldn’t estimate it at this time of year, with the snow still melting in some places and the likelihood of flooding.’ He frowned. ‘Do you think Delphine would have attempted such a journey with no knowledge of what she might encounter?’

Louise nodded. ‘It’s been her ambition to get to Boston ever since we heard that our cousins had moved there. At least I can be sure of her being welcomed by Madeleine, providing she arrives there safely.’ Although she spoke hopefully, her last words seemed to hang in the air. All three of them knew that anything could have happened to Delphine on the way.

Two days later Louise was ready to start her journey to Boston. It had been decided that she should go by road, following the route that Delphine was believed to have taken. She was leaving behind the trunks in which she had packed most of Delphine’s clothes and her own, together with other possessions, which would be sent on to her when she had a settled address. She was taking only a large valise with all that she needed to tide her over for the time being. She sewed some of her jewellery, together with Delphine’s sapphire necklace, into a hidden pocket in the short jacket that she would be wearing under her cloak, and the rest went into a false waistband.