Chapter Seventy, Veiled Child, by Mordaunt

Outside the door of Alessandra’s chamber the only sounds are the shuffling of the people coming and going and their careful whispering. It was not the same when Sylvie gave birth. It was not the same when Petite was born. It was never this quiet. Seated next to Athos at the bench outside Alessandra’s room, Petite has latched onto Athos’ arm, her beautiful green eyes raised up at him, wide with expectation, and his daughter’s silent plea makes Athos feel even more powerless. 

“Bia my love, why not come with us to the chapel? Pére Francois, Pére Massey, and Pére Aloysius will sing another mass. The girls will be there and the boys too. It will take time for the baby to arrive and your Maman needs our prayers so that she is strong and the baby is healthy.” Athos is grateful for the delicacy and thoughtfulness of Marie Cessette’s intervention. “Raoul will be with us too,” Marie Cessette adds, signaling to her husband who stands next to her. 

Raoul appears to be taken aback, but only momentarily. He reaches for his sister’s hand. “Come sweetheart, we must do our share to help Maman.” Petite complies immediately. Raoul has a way to persuade Petite without coaxing, that Athos cannot match. Petite follows her brother and sister dutifully, down the hallway, the three passing by Constance, who has been standing further apart from those gathered outside Alessandra’s door. They stop for a moment to speak to Constance, and she follows them, seemingly to the chapel. Athos has no stomach and no time for Constance and her guiltridden self-pity. He turns his head away just as his mother, who sits on the other side of him, presses his hand. 

“Would you not go to the chapel with them, Mother?” 

“I can pray here,” the duchess says gently. 

Athos attempts an affirming smile, for he is unaccustomed to receiving comfort from his mother. The mother who raised him was kind and loving but Athos left his adopted family when he was thirteen, and even then, he thought himself too old for his mother’s attention. Instead, he thought himself responsible for his mother’s protection, for his entire family too. Nothing is the same, Athos thinks. This moment is unlike any other, unlike the birth of his two children that he has witnessed. It is also unnerving. The silence most of all. He is grateful for the repeated tapping sound that echoes in the hallway, not with the mechanical regularity of a clock but peculiar and idiosyncratic, with a rhythm of its own: 

Tap, tap, tap–pause–tap, tap. 
Tap, tap, tap–pause–tap, tap.

Frowning, arms crossed over his chest, Lucien has been tapping his booted foot against the wooden panelling of the wall across from him. Brother, Athos thinks, and is immediately aware that he recognizes Lucien’s sentiment in the rhythm, even though he does not recognize the tune. Give me something to do, or I will go mad, Lucien is signaling and Athos agrees. This is maddening. 

“Lucien!” The duchess fixes her younger son a pleading look, and Lucien rolls his eyes with a deep, exasperated sigh, and stops the tapping, changing positions. 

Porthos bows to the duchess and sits at the other side of Athos. “These things take their time,” he says and slants an apologetic glance toward d’ Artagnan who has walked up to them, raising a vexed brow at Porthos’ cliched observation. “Well…I suppose you know this, of course you do,” Porthos adds, shifting awkwardly in his seat. Brothers, Athos thinks, just as the door of Alessandra’s room opens and Sophia appears at the threshold. 

Athos springs to his feet. Lucien has dashed ahead already. Sophia raises her hand, stopping them from stepping further. She looks exhausted, her sleeves rolled to her elbows, her cap slightly askew, her hair tangled. “No, not yet,” she says, carefully closing the door behind her and stepping into the hallway.  

“Why is it so quiet?” Athos whispers. 

“What the hell is going on in there?” Lucien growls.

Sophia replies to her husband with an exasperated look and turns to Athos, her tone gentle. “She fainted and the doctors have to…” Athos swears under his breath but Sophia presses his hands. “No. Do not despair. She fights. She is weak but she fights. Madame Bourgeois says that…” If the hallway was not so quiet perhaps no one would have heard the infant’s faint cry. There are gasps all around and someone opens the door of the chamber ajar calling Sophia inside. “I will return as soon as I can,” she promises, disappearing into the room again. 

“Putain d’ enfer!” Lucien swears loudly, realizing only too late, that his mother who stood up too, stands next to him. But the lady only smiles affectionately and wraps her arm around his. Someone–d’ Artagnan–says “we must summon Raoul!” 

“Not Petite! Keep her at the chapel!” Athos interjects tersely. He will not have his daughter here before he knows that she can be here. D’ Artagnan nods and hurries down the hallway followed by Porthos. This waiting is worse than before. Finally, Sophia appears at the door once more. “Only Athos,” she says, and to Lucien who has moved to enter also, she whispers softly, “please be patient.” 

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Alessandra’s room is as dark as it has always been, but the air is different, stifling with the acrid smell of blood, recalling battlefields after a bloody battle, the outcome uncertain. Out of the corner of his eye, Athos notices the maid picking up piled bloodied towels and linens and throwing them into a large basket. He motions to the bed, where he can barely see Alessandra even though its curtains are pulled back. She is surrounded by the nurse, Dr. Guenaud, and Dr. Prujean. Sophia stops him, however. “Not yet,” she whispers. 

He has run out of patience. “What the hell is going on?”

“The baby arrived too soon. A boy,” Madame Bourgeois says. Despite her advanced age, the midwife is not a frail woman, and her authority and knowledge make up for her small stature. She stands before Athos and Sophia, sleeves rolled up, arms to her hips, her hair neatly tucked under a white linen cap. 

“And he lives?” Athos insists. 

“He cried.He can use his lungs. He breathes. It is the first concern for a baby this small. The second is if he can feed.” 

She signals to Sophia with her eyes, and Sophia turns to the maid, who is still gathering the linen. “Finish later, Philipote. Go and fetch the wet nurse. Her name is Madame Closier, and comes to us from Valigny.” Sophia turns to Athos again. “We have selected four new wet-nurses. Not the ones we have for the other babies.”

“Four?” 

“Infants this small, and with a mother who has been so sick throughout, need special care to survive. It is possible that none of the four will do. I will not raise your hopes, Your Grace. The baby is frail,” Madame Bourgeois explains in a businesslike manner. “There is one more thing, not important if you ask me, and under the circumstances trivial, but people are superstitious, and in a crowded house like this, with a mother and child still not out of danger, this kind of distraction is the last thing one wants. The baby was born en caul, veiled, as they say. It is not unusual when an infant is premature, and is of no consequence.” 

“Not so, your Grace! It’s God’s blessing,” the young maid counters as she moves beside them to the door, hauling the basket with the bloodied linens. “My father is a fisherman serving the brothers of St. Hilaire at the l’île de la Dive. Le saint-en-coiffe they call it, the sailors and the fishermen in our parts, and it is a divine gift, for he can never drown and will live a life of health and good fortune.” 

“If he lives,” Athos mutters mournfully.

“Oh he will, Your Grace,” the maid declares with certainty, as she opens the door. “He will live a long life, for the caul dried fast. You should keep it for him… or…sell it. It is a potent talisman!” 

“Thank you, Philipote, now do as I ask,” Sophia urges the girl sternly.  

“This is exactly what I mean, Your Grace, and the word is out I fear,” Madame Bourgeois shakes her head. “You can see him,” she turns and points to her daughter, behind her, who approaches Athos with a small bundle in her arms. “It is best that not too many people touch or breathe on him, Your Grace. This, I know from experience. Dr. Guenaud and Dr. Prujean may think otherwise, but the baby is frail and he must be protected.” Athos nods, as Mademoiselle Bourgeois carefully places the well bundled infant in his arms. 

“He must be kept warm,” Mademoiselle Bourgeois cautions. He is the smallest baby Athos has ever seen, smaller than Petite when she was born. Mademoiselle Bourgeois smiles. “He is a tenacious little fighter, Monsieur.” Can he touch a baby so small, Athos wonders, barely daring to breathe? With the lightest fingers he traces the infant’s head, a soft fuzz of fiery orange. “He will grow to be a fiery red-headed little boy,” Mademoiselle Bourgeois says, her tone encouraging, and the image of Alessandra’s father flashes before Athos’ eyes. Monsieur Andrea, tall, and lean with his ​​bespectacled green eyes, and his fiery red hair, reading from the Aeneid in his resonant, accented voice. “Has she seen him?” Athos insists. “Has his mother seen him?” But what he really wants to know, what he is really asking, is if she can. 

“We placed the baby next to her as soon as he was born, it is important for an infant to feel his mother,” Madame Bourgeois says in the same businesslike manner, but Sophia has lowered her eyes, shaking her head, and Athos’ heart sinks. “She knows she had a baby,” Madame Bourgeois continues, “what else she comprehends in her state, is impossible to know.”

“You can see her now, Your Grace,” the nurse invites him and Athos gasps at the sight of Alessandra. She is too pale, her breathing shallow. “She lost a lot of blood, and her heart almost failed her.” Dr. Prujean announces in a solemn tone. “It is likely that she will not survive this night.” Of the two physicians he has always been the less optimistic. “But if she does,” Dr. Gueanaud chimes in, “then we may be hopeful again.” 

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How long can this night last? It is a starless, moonless night and the commotion in the room is unending. The baby does not latch. Wet-nurses come and go with little success. By dawn both mother and child may be lost. “Sleep sweetheart,” Athos had whispered to Sylvie on a night like this as she slipped away in his arms. But this night is different. To let Alessandra go is unthinkable and if that is selfish, Athos feels no remorse. As long as she fights, Athos tells himself that he will not let her down. And he will not have the priests in the room, even though the urgency is clear, shared by all those around them, even by Sophia, who has not left Athos’ side.  Then Alessandra opens her eyes, and in a fleeting lucid moment of recognition, her ashen lips form the word ‘baby’. “He is here,” Athos tells her, signaling for one of the women to bring the baby to Alessandra immediately. The solitary tear that trickles down her pale cheek as he places their son on the pillow next to her, Athos takes as a sign of defiance not of surrender. “He is tenacious. He fights,” Athos tells her. “You must do the same.” 

“You almost killed me this time,” she whispers and in her wry tone, no matter how feeble, Athos recognizes that undaunted defiance which–he knows now–he has always loved about her. Strangely, his mind returns to the flowers he has promised himself to bring her. Such a strange thing, the mind, Athos thinks, wandering without purpose, unlike the heart, which always speaks the truth. 

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Later, when recalling these events, Athos will always remember the light first. Nothing remarkable about it, just the pale light of dawn. But it slips inside despite the closed curtains and banishes the shadows, animating the room. Madame Bourgeois, her daughter, and Sophia are crowded around a young woman, plump and pretty, her radiant, smiling face, the very picture of health and kindness. Even without having met her Athos knows she is Tatie May’s granddaughter. Bonne, they call her. “Bonne, you are a godsend!” Sophia is saying. “Athos… look…look at the baby!” 

“Thank God, Your Grace.” Despite her businesslike tone the midwife sounds relieved. “We were beginning to lose hope.”

“Nothing of the sort!” the young wet-nurse counters. “He is a clever little thing. It was just a matter of figuring out what to do, and now that he has… well, look at him, my hungry hatted hatchling. He is very impatient.” 

“Do you hear this?” Athos whispers to Alessandra. “He did his part. Now it is your turn to prove them wrong.” 

From the other side of Alessandra’s bed, Dr. Prujean raises a displeased brow, but Dr. Gueanaud smiles encouragingly. “The fever has broken, and it should give us hope,” he insists. 

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When Athos walks into the hallway outside Alessandra’s room, he is surprised to find his mother still at the bench where he left her. Marie Cessette is seated next to her now, and Bianca sleeps on their lap, covered with her grandmother’s shawl. Lucien is here too pacing the hallway one way, while Raoul is pacing it the other way. Both stop immediately. 

“Mother and child are out of danger,” Athos says quietly, signaling with his eyes not to disturb his sleeping daughter. But the duchess and Marie Cessette cannot hold back gasps of joy and relief and Athos finds himself in the arms of his son and his brother. 

“Papa?” Petite is rubbing her eyes, still disoriented from sleep. 

“Now comes the tricky part,” Lucien whispers.  

“We have told her nothing,” Raoul whispers also. 

Athos walks up to the bench and picks up his daughter, who wraps her arms around his neck, nestling her sleepy head on his shoulder. He kisses her warm cheek.  “Papa? Can I see Maman?” 

“Maman must rest but she will be well. And you have a brother.” 

She gasps, her eyes no longer sleepy but wide open with excitement. 

“Can I see him?” 

“Not yet. He is very small and he needs to sleep and eat…”

“And sleep again, and then eat, and then fall back to sleep, only to wake up to eat some more all the while having someone change his dirty napkins,” Lucien teases. “It is what babies do.” He winks at his giggling niece, playfully tapping the tip of her small upturned nose with his finger. Athos sets her back onto the ground. “What is he like?” Bianca begins prancing around her father, her brother, and her uncle. “What is he like, Papa? What is my little brother like? Is he like Asim and Kavyah?” 

“Now, Mademoiselle, this is not prudent!” her grandmother admonishes gently but sternly. The lady has stood up and is reaching for Petite’s hand. “Give me your hand and stand still! No more of this raucous. Your Maman and your brother must rest and half the house is still asleep. You will wake up everyone.” 

“What is he like, uncle?” Marie Cessette chimes in, her soft smile and gentle tone easing the momentary tension. 

Athos fixes his eyes on his two children, Raoul in particular. “He will have red hair, like your grandfather, Andrea,” Athos tells his son but is surprised to hear his mother gasping. 

“Mother?”  

Lucien has already wrapped his arm around the lady’s shoulder, but she raises her hand, signaling there is no cause for concern. “I knew Monsieur Morosini, that is all,” she sounds strangely apologetic. “It is another important thing that we must talk about, Alessandra’s parents,” the duchess adds, slanting a meaningful look toward Lucien. He kisses her hand. “Later, Mother. There will be time to reminisce, later.” 

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Athos has persuaded the two physicians to rest for a few hours even though Sister Theophanie will not be persuaded to leave her patient. With Sophia, Athos is more successful. “But I return in the morning,” Sophia tells him on her way out, and it sounds like a promise and a warning combined. 

At the other side of Alessandra’s room, the baby sleeps in his crib, and Bonne is sound asleep on a cot beside him. Since he discovered feeding, Bonne’s ‘hatted hatchling’, has changed his mind about all of his wet-nurses, but he prefers Bonne above the rest, even if she was not Madame Bourgeois’ first choice for wet-nurse. Bonne has never been a wet nurse before, unlike the rest of the women. She is rough around the edges too, which can easily be misunderstood as being unpolished, the same way that Athos thought Bonne’s grandmother, Tatie May, intrusive when he first met her. And Bonne calls the baby ‘hatted’, a superstition that Madame Bourgeois and her daughter, as well as the two physicians, do not approve of.  Athos would not approve of it either–he’d discourage it sternly, in fact–but that would have been in that other life, before this family became his family, before Tatie May and Guillaume and their house at the cove. 

He sits in the room, which feels strangely quiet after the frenzy of the last few days. Next to him, Alessandra is sleeping, still feverish although her breathing is not as labored as in the previous nights, when he kept vigil, counting her every breath. 

Athos sits back in his chair, his mind returning to Lucien’s words to their mother. Lucien’s objection was not about reminiscing, it is about remembering. Perhaps Lucien remembers the past differently. After all, he was younger. Perhaps this is what Lucien is trying to tell their mother. Perhaps, Athos thinks, he should no longer remain a bystander in this familial tag of war. Although he shares their mother’s adherence to the past, he finds himself inclined to stand by Lucien. That past which to him is so invaluable could be what Lucien wants to forget. Just like Alessandra. This is the meaning behind Alessandra’s first words, on the first page of her journal, which Athos should never have read because it was never meant for him. But her words have remained seared in his mind since he first read them. He can hear her voice speaking them: “I write this in haste… I want to remember it because I will forget. I forget my sins. Mother says we girls should not linger on such silly notions. It is a waste of time and it makes your eyes puffy and your skin pale. Gentlemen do not like puffy eyed, tearful, girls.”

Athos gasps, jolted out of the reverie. He must have fallen asleep and for how long he cannot tell. Something feels different in the room, and he knows what it is immediately. Alessandra is not lying in the bed, and as his eyes adjust to the darkness he distinguishes her shape, her back turned to him, curled against the bedpost at the foot of the bed. Quietly he stands and walks to that side of the bed, signaling to the nurse to stay put, and sits on the bedside next to his wife. He cannot see her face, she keeps it away from him, but he can see her back heaving and he can hear her labored breath as she weeps. He reaches for her and she moves away. “Alessandra, is it a dream?” 

She shakes her head, her voice muffled and hoarse. “I don’t dream! I never dream!” 

“Of course not. But sometimes, when one is ill, it happens,” he plays along gently, and carefully slides closer. He is worried that the room is cold and her shift is too thin. That this is more than a nightmare, that it is some febrile delirium. 

“Not to me!” She counters peevishly even as she gasps for air and her voice is stifled by tears. 

Athos is relieved that she understands him, but alarmed nevertheless by her distress, so rare for her, so he attempts to reach her a second time, carefully placing his hand on her back. She feels warm to his touch, so this must be fever playing tricks with her mind. “Alessandra, come now,” he demands sternly but softly. “It is cold. Come now, turn to look at me.” She shakes her head obstinately, and it occurs to Athos, finally, that he knows why. “No one will see you weeping, no one will know except me.”

“I do not weep! I am not that sort of woman.”  

“Of course you are not. You are ill that is all.” 

“No one likes foolish, swollen-eyed, weeping girls.” 

The words strike Athos strangely, like an insult, an old indictment he never had a chance to defend himself against, and written in her own hand, on the first page of that journal which he should not have read. “Who says this?” 

“Mother…” she gasps. “Solange. She says…”

“Solange!” He tries to quell the rage at the sound of the woman’s name, to keep his voice down, to remind himself that there is a sleeping frail infant and a wet nurse in the room. “Solange? What does she know? She sold girls! What does she know about any man? Any honorable, decent man?” 

Alessandra turns her head, her face tearstricken and pale, gaping, stunned and dumbfounded and he pulls her into his arms. “That disgusting, vile fiend, she knows nothing, nothing about anyone, man or woman,” Athos growls and Alessandra breaks into tears. Now he is truly alarmed. The nurse is alarmed too, because she has rushed to their side of bed, with a glass of one of Sophia’s infusions that help Alessandra sleep. Athos signals her to wait. “Let us go back,” he coaxes Alessandra, “best to be under the covers where it is warm.” He motions to stand but Alessandra seizes his hand and finally, he understands everything. “I will not leave you,” he whispers, lifting her in his arms. “I will not leave you,” he repeats, kissing her, and in his heart, that is a vow. He tucks her well under the covers, signaling the nurse for only some water, which Alessandra drinks thirstily, keeping her eyes shut. He nestles her in his arms, smoothing her hair, whispering to her that it is all over, but it takes hours for her to be calm again, and it is only before dawn, when Sophia returns with the maid, that Alessandra finally falls asleep. “It was a bad night,” Athos confesses. 

“Then let her sleep,” Sophia says. “I will return, after the baby is fed and cleaned.” 

When Alessandra opens her eyes, it is dawn, and Sophia has not yet returned. She looks surprised to find herself in his arms. Surprised to see him at all. “Do you see me? Do you recognize me?” he insists. 

She nods, narrowing her eyes, perplexed. “What are you doing here? Where is here?” 

“Glenay,” he replies, realizing that he never thought how to explain all this to her. 

“Have I asked about this before?”

“Many times.” 

“I don’t remember.” A small chuckle escapes her lips. “This is a very strange dream.” 

“You think it is a dream?” She has closed her eyes again but she nods. “I thought you didn’t dream.” She shrugs. It concerns him that she is confused. It concerns him because of Dr. Prujean’s bleak prediction that abuse and fever may have affected her mind just as they affected her eyes. “What if it is not a dream?” Athos insists. 

Alessandra opens her eyes again and fixes her gaze on him, as if trying to make sense of him. “What else can it be?” 

“How many dreams do you know that argue as we do now?” he pushes.

She shrugs again and closes her eyes. “I don’t know, I never dream.”  

“We are at Glenay with Bianca, and the baby is safe, and Raoul has returned,” Athos says.  

Alessandra smiles feebly. “Then I don’t mind this dream,” she whispers, and drifts off to sleep again.