Lydia did not consent to return his engaging smile, yet being mindful of her father’s wishes, replied with a curtsey that any observer might think was respectful, and one she considered sufficient to answer both officers, since the blue-waistcoated one had by now also bowed—not as deeply or long as de Brassart had, but with the same sweeping off of his hat that seemed somehow more courtly than when her own countrymen did it.
She felt, in the moment they greeted each other, as if she were standing in water again, only this time more turbulent, pressing her in on all sides. At her back she heard Benjamin restlessly shifting his stance on the floorboards while Joseph stood wrapped in a silence so fierce it was practically audible, and she could tell that her father was waiting for her to say something to lessen the tension.
Her mother, she thought, would have known what to say; would have put everybody at ease.
She attempted her own slightly forced imitation. “It’s no inconvenience. Do give me your coats—Father, you as well—and I will set them to dry by the fire.”
As de Brassart turned round to translate this request to the other French officer, Lydia’s father shrugged off his wet coat and stepped forward, his eyes warm with pride.
He said nothing to thank or to praise her, and yet she knew well he was pleased with her actions and speech as he handed the coat to her, watching her hang it on one of the pegs he had set at the side of the hearth for that purpose.
The hearth, in her childhood, she’d thought had been built by a giant, for only a giant, she’d reasoned, would need one so large. It would stand, said her father, long after the house and its timbers had fallen, and she did not doubt it. While Mother had lived, it had been the great heart of the house, always warm, but these past two years Lydia had come to learn it was not such an easy thing keeping a fire without letting it fall low or flare up too hotly.
It seemed too hot now, but that might have been simply because of the earlier heat of the day and the closeness and damp of the room with the rain beating down at the windows. She took care to see that her father’s coat hung not too close to the logs in the grate, nor the iron pot set on its black hook above, in which rested a large rump of beef, stuffed with forcemeat and stewing with celery and carrots in water made flavourful with pounded cloves and red wine.
Her father leaned nearer and, pretending curiosity in what was in the pot, asked very quietly, “Where’s Violet?”
Lydia replied as quietly, “Her head was aching badly, so after the milking was finished I sent her upstairs to get rest. I had no difficulty managing. Our dinner, as you see, is but a simple one.”
“So simple you can cook it at a distance, I perceive.” His tone was mild and yet reminded her he knew she had been out of doors and nowhere near the house.
“The weather was so hot, I needed air,” she said. “And anyway, I did not leave the fire untended. Benjamin was here.”
“And where was Joseph?”
She would not upset her father nor betray her brothers by revealing they had argued, so she turned her face away and answered simply, “He was also here.”
Which had to satisfy her father, since the two French officers by this time had removed their coats and carried them across, as she had asked. Her father stood aside to give her room. The coats were long, of fine white wool, and now that she was holding them she saw that they were different in that one of them—de Brassart’s—had a collar faced in blue, and was itself lined all in white, while his companion’s coat was collarless and lined in the same rich blue as his long-sleeved waistcoat.
She had heard the French were vain about their clothing and their uniforms, and looking at the coats she could believe it. Both were split below the waist along the side seams to allow for ease of movement, pleated full across the back to make them fashionably drape and swing, with rows of fine gold buttons and deep cuffs that turned back nearly to the elbow. And at each side, where the seams had been divided, there were buttons that allowed the inner corners of each panel of the coat, at front and back, to be turned upward from the hem and fastened so the soldier’s leg was free for movement and the lining of the coat could be displayed.
A pretty thing to wear, she thought, for men who dealt in blood and fighting, musketfire and death.
The man in the blue waistcoat spoke. His voice was deeper than de Brassart’s, less designed to charm, and more direct. It was a short speech but she did not know its meaning till de Brassart added, “Yes, of course, I wish to thank you also.”
Lydia glanced at the other man but he was looking at her and she did not wish to hold his gaze long so she cast hers once more downward. “You are welcome.”
Her father lightly touched her arm as though to show he understood what those few words had cost her. Then he spoke above her head to both his sons. “These officers will find it most convenient to sleep down here in your chamber. Both of you take what you need upstairs. Joseph, you can take the room beneath the eaves, and Benjamin, you’ll share with me.”
They knew that tone as well as she did, and they did not argue. Benjamin, always the first to do what was expedient, moved towards the doorway of the small square chamber at the kitchen’s farther end. It had been his alone at one time, during those dark months three years ago when Joseph had been at Oswego, but when Joseph had returned to them—at least in body—later on that autumn, they had shared it once again.
He might have spent the morning trading angry words with Benjamin, but he said nothing now as he, too, ducked beneath the doorway of the small end chamber, re-emerging moments later with his few belongings in his hands. And then with Benjamin behind him, he passed stone-faced through the nearest door that led into the keeping room, and so to the front entry and the staircase, since to use the back stairs would have meant a walk the full length of the kitchen, past the gauntlet of their father and the officers.
And that was something, Lydia knew well, her brother Joseph would not do if it could be avoided.
It had taken him a full year to be able to be in the same room as their neighbour’s hired hand, French Peter. And French Peter, being one of those French neutrals who’d been sent down by the British from Acadia, had never been a soldier so wore simple working clothes and not a uniform.
She knew if she were finding it this difficult to have them here, for Joseph it must be nigh on unbearable.
And that was why, after she’d waited in respectful silence while her father showed their new “guests” to their chamber, she took him aside in the moment of privacy after and said again, low, “You cannot do this. Joseph—”
“Is not made of glass. He’s yet a man. He will not break.”
And what of me? she almost asked him, but she closed her mouth upon the words because she saw her father’s eyes and knew he was already troubled. Frowning slightly, she observed, “You do not want them, either, do you? Why, then—?”
“Come.” He ushered her ahead of him across the kitchen to its other end, where at the farthest distance from the chamber given to the officers, the small square buttery stood partially closed-in. The narrow back staircase was here, and the barrels of cider and ale and the bottles of spirits and wine, and the freestanding cupboards and dresser her father had built for their spices and foodstuffs and dishes. The buttery had no door in its wide and open doorway, but by standing in the corner by the dresser they could speak discreetly.
“Why?” she asked him, less accusing now.
His mouth compressed. “Your uncle Reuben had them sent to me.”
She understood his problem then. There was no love at all between her father and his older brother, who seemed best amused when all the lives of those around him had been thrown into confusion.