The Beaded Moccasins (14 page)

"Mary! This is a rare surprise. So good of you to call."

"Mrs. Stewart?" I exclaim.

"Oh no, don't call me that, honey," she says quickly. She rushes over to us and kisses me on the cheek.

"You smell like ro-roses," I stammer. "Like the soap."

"Call me Mrs. Sequin," she whispers in my ear. "Let me look at you, Mary."

While she looks at me, I gape at her. Her blue eyes sparkle under blond, curly hair caught up in an elegant tortoiseshell comb. The lacy pink dress she's wearing is exactly the same color as the blush in her cheeks. She's smiling and happier than I've ever seen her, even when we knew each other back in Pennsylvania.

"How pretty you are, Mary," she says to me. "You're growing up into a very pretty young woman. Your mother would be so pleased."

Next to her frillery I feel shabby in my deerskin dress, leggings, and moccasins. My hair is coming loose from its braids and my skin is as brown as the deerskin. I feel hot and sticky, and my clothes smell like smoke.

"You look so-so different," I stammer, "in your fancy French frippery." I glance at Grandfather and the other men. They're staring at Mrs. Stewart in amazement, too.

Mrs. Stewart draws herself up tall and looks Grandfather right in the eyes. She pulls me to her and draws her arm around my shoulder.

"Netawatwees," she says stiffly, "my husband is on the porch." She turns her head and shouts, "François!" in a voice so loud we all jump. "Customers!
François!
"

Sequin scurries through the porch door, and now we all stare at him. His bear-fur hair is pulled back, and his beard is gone. Instead of greasy buckskin he's wearing a spotless shirt and breeches. And wonder of wonders, clean hose and shoes!

Mrs. Stewart gives him a sharp look, and he hurries over to the counter. He glances at me, then quickly looks away.

"While the men are at their business, let's go outside, Mary. Have you seen our lake view? It's really quite charming."

Mrs. Stewart lifts a rose-colored parasol from a shelf full of merchandise, and we step onto the porch.

We walk along the beach, and the breeze off the lake feels cool and fresh. The water is a clear and delicate bluish-green that reminds me of the glass candy jars on Sequin's counter.

"Grandfather said I could come with him to see you. I told him I wanted to make sure you were happy."

Mrs. Stewart doesn't say anything. She uses the parasol to shade her face as she picks her way delicately over sand as white as sugar. She dodges the waves in little calfskin boots. I kick off my moccasins and let the waves wash over my feet. The water is cold and refreshing. Seaweed tangles around my ankles. I pick up shells with my toes.

"He said happy or not, I should forget about you," I say.

Mrs. Stewart scowls. "That sounds like old high-and-mighty Netawatwees, doesn't it?"

"He's their king, Mrs. Stewart. I've never met anyone so wise. He even went to a boys' school in Philadelphia."

She sighs and draws me close to her. "Call me Mrs. Sequin, Mary. Or Madame Sequin."

I wipe the sweat from my brow with my sleeve. "Mrs. Sequin. Have you ever gone swimming in the Erie Lake?"

"Swimming!" She studies my face. "You're turning into a little Indian, Mary. Your skin is as brown as a little Indian's."

"I've been working in our garden. You must have had a kitchen garden, back in New Jersey or Pennsylvania."

Mrs. Sequin looks at the waves rolling toward the beach. She has a peculiar look on her face, and now I'm sorry I mentioned her kitchen garden. Surely she doesn't want to remember home anymore.

"I'm happy, Mary, but it's a different kind of happiness. Sometimes I awaken in the morning thinking, I can't believe this is my life. How did I ever acquire the
strength to live this life? But the strength is here, within me. Perhaps it's always been there."

"Maybe the strength we need is the strength we have," I reply.

"What a curious thing to say, Mary. I'll tell you a secret. Not even François knows. I'm going to have a baby next winter. I'm going to name it Samuel or Samantha, in remembrance of little Sammy. He never even had the chance to make his mark in the world. I can't think of anything sadder than that."

"I remember him." I don't tell her that what I remember is endless crying and fussing.

She gives me another kiss. "Of course you do, honey."

"Where did you get all these pretty things?"

"François is not just a shopkeeper, Mary. He's more like ... an ambassador, the French ambassador to these people. This dress and a dozen more were packed away in trunks, can you imagine? Frocks from Paris! Of course Indian women wouldn't appreciate real French dresses. But I appreciate them."

She's taken over his shop,
I think.
Things he's supposed to be selling she took for herself.

"The cow?" I ask.

"She's been here since early summer. A gift from the Governor of Montreal-Pierre de Rigaud, Marquis de Vaudreuil-Cavagnal."

She rattles the name off her tongue so easily that I know she's been practicing.

"There've been some big changes, Mary. Last September, while we were on the march to the
Cuyahoga, General Marquis de Montcalm surrendered to General Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham near Quebec City. Do you know what that means?"

I shake my head.

"It means the war is over and the French have lost! They surrendered Canada to England. All of Canada is ours now.

"The French are thinking of their lands in the west. The Governor presented us with an exquisite set of china and silver, too, once he learned of Mr. Sequin's marriage."

I almost blurt out, "He got married?" but I catch myself just in time.

"The Governor is hoping this trading post will show that they have a stronger claim in this heathen wilderness than the British."

"But Ohio is British land, isn't it? Someday the king's men will come here and rescue us."

When she looks at the lake again, her parasol ruffles and lifts in the stiff breeze.

Succotash is a mixture of corn and beans, but I've always eaten around the beans, no matter how hungry I am. A rescue would be like a bowl of succotash-the corn and the beans, the good and the bad mixed together.

What would I do, I wonder, if I were to turn around right now and see soldiers standing on the beach behind me? They would say, "We've come to rescue you. At your service, Miss Campbell," and then they would bow at the waist.

I'd go with the soldiers. Of course I would. I don't really belong here.

Then I think of Chickadee's face, lit up with delight when I gave her my doll.

"I don't know whose land this is, Mary. It's all so confusing. When was the last time you had a glass of milk?"

"A long time ago."

"Stay for dinner. All of you. I'll have a dinner party tonight in your honor. But I allow only English to be spoken in my house. No French and none of that awful Indian jabber."

"A dinner party," I exclaim. "Perchance, do you have a tea called Pekoe? My mother used to brew that tea on special occasions."

She smiles at me. "I, too, have Pekoe for special occasions."

"Do you believe Satan lives ... here in Ohio, I mean?" I blurt out. "That we're being tempted here in the wilderness?"

Mrs. Stewart takes my arm. "Do you feel tempted, Mary?"

"I feel befuddled, confused," I reply. "If we were rescued here, today, I'd think fondly on the Turtles for the rest of my life.

"I know they're heathen, they worship strange gods and believe a turtle is holding up the earth, instead of God's grace. I know they're evil, because of what they did to us. And Sammy.

"But I feel closer to them than my own family. How can that be? Confusion
is
temptation, isn't it? A befuddled mind invites temptation.' That's what Pastor Mainwood taught me."

She looks at me for a long time before answering. "Forbidden fruit doesn't always look like an apple, Mary. It can look like an Indian dress or forgetting to say your prayers at night. It can look like deliberately turning away from who you are."

"Mrs. Stewart, do you believe we'll be rescued someday? Really, really believe it?"

She cups her hand around my chin. "I've never stopped believing."

"I don't want to forget who I am. I haven't forgotten my evening prayers." Not that I think God listens anymore.

Mrs. Stewart-I mean Mrs. Sequin-looks at me with her hands folded across her chest and her eyebrows raised. "I'm going to insist that you stay with us. What would your mother think of me, knowing I left you to the heathens?"

I say all at once, "I can't stay here. Sequin wanted me in trade for muskets. Grandfather traded you instead."

Her face drains of color as she stares at me in shock. An eyeblink later she's patting her hair in place and smoothing her silk skirt.

"I didn't want to tell you," I whisper. "I'm sorry."

"Nonsense," she says briskly. "We'll have tea after your bathe and I'll fix your hair right pretty for my dinner party."

"You don't mind if I swim?"

"Bathing, Mary. I'll fetch you some soap. Bathing is another thing altogether."

After Mrs. Sequin goes back inside, I leave all my clothes on the beach. As I'm jumping into the crashing
waves, I notice that I really am as brown all over as a Delaware.

Mrs. Sequin watches me from the back door. I wave to her and she waves back, but her face is angry and sad, as though she's lost something precious and doesn't know where to find it.

***

Sequin sits at the head of the table and Mrs. Sequin sits at the foot. We dine on mushroom, scallion, and cream soup; fresh roasted trout; and warm bread with real butter and blueberry jam. We eat venison steaks, potatoes, and carrots glazed in molasses. There's black-walnut apple cake and cream for dessert, with Pekoe tea.

Everything's so delicious, I can't stop eating.

I can't stop staring at the china plates, either, painted with pretty ladies wearing pink dresses and holding blue flowers. The silverware is heavy in my hands. A silver tea service gleams on the sideboard. White linen napkins grace each place setting. Delicate crystal goblets, two for each guest, hold real French wine (I'm having milk) and water.

A silver candelabrum lit with snow-white candles is the centerpiece. I doubt if our late Queen Caroline herself would have dined this elegantly.

Mrs. Sequin is glowing, she's so happy.

The Governor of Montreal is a smart man, I realize suddenly. Sequin has a face that could freeze July, but if his wife wants to think she's the wife of an ambassador (and have all the riches that come with it), she won't
make him leave the wilderness and go back home. And that does give the French a keen advantage over the British here.

I try to remember my best dinner-party manners: elbows in, back straight and not touching the chair back, left hand in my lap. I dab a smooth-as-cream linen napkin against my lips. I remember to speak only when spoken to.

That part's easy, because I'm so embarrassed about my clothes. I didn't think to pack my new cloth dress. My deerskin dress is itchy from the beach sand, and it pinches around my shoulders and hips. My leggings have holes in the knees.

I'm also struck dumb by all the finery, absolutely tongue-tied. Every time I drink from one of my goblets, I'm afraid I'll break off a piece with my teeth. They look as fragile as eggshells. I'm afraid to reach for the saltcellar, for fear I'll knock over a candlestick and set fire to the French-linen tablecloth.

Mrs. Stewart tries to engage me in dinner-table talk about the weather, but all I can do is eat and stare. She's piled up my hair with lots of loops and curls, and my head feels heavy and stiff. The hairpins jab into my scalp. I had forgotten how much work it is to be beautiful.

I have nothing to say to her-nothing I can say in front of Grandfather, anyway. There are so many forbidden topics: Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Sammy, the new baby, Mr. Sequin, me with the Turtle clan and not with her and why.

All of a sudden her easy happiness makes me angry. It's an insult to Grandfather's long months of protection. It wasn't his fault we had to come to Ohio and spend the winter in a cave. It wasn't his fault there was never enough food. He did the best he could.

She hasn't even looked at Sequin all night, much less talked to him. All she wants is the comfort and luxury he can provide.

Sequin eats slowly and silently. Head bowed, he seems to have shrunk within himself, and he drinks glass after glass of wine.

I have always thought Mrs. Stewart and I were the same, that we were miserable in the wilderness for the same reasons. We're not the same at all. Now that she has replaced the things she left behind with new things, she's happy again.

Of course I miss things-our neighbor's sleigh, toasty hearthstones on winter nights, good food, my soft Connecticut bed.

But I miss the people far more than any of the things. I miss the way my grandfather Campbell called me "Marrah," as though he had a burr stuck in his throat. I miss Friday bake days with my aunt Orpah. In the depths of winter Constance and I would skate on Long Island Sound, sometimes as far as Fayerweather Island and back. And of course I miss my parents and my brother.

Things are replaceable, people are not.

So what are you doing here, Mary? You were taken captive a year ago to replace a daughter who'd died. They've
accepted you as her. You're wrong. People are replaceable.

Replaceable maybe, but not forgotten, never forgotten.

***

I sleep by the fire on a red-satin couch in wondrous comfort. Mrs. Stewart's sharp whisper wakes me up.

"How could you even think such a thing? She's a child, she's a baby."

"Madame." Sequin says something so quick and throaty that I'm not sure whether it's French or English.

"You're a filthy, filthy people—"

"Madame—"

"Worse than the savages, worse."

"Madame, this baby as you say, you will awaken her."

The blankets rustle as Mrs. Sequin turns over and punches her pillow. "Filthy."