Into the World Read online

  Stephanie Parkyn has always wanted to write, growing up in a book-loving home in Christchurch, New Zealand. A fascination with science, research and the environment led her to a PhD and a career as a freshwater ecologist. In 2010, she moved to Hobart in Tasmania with her husband and embarked on her other passions of art and fiction. Here she learned of the remarkable voyage of Marie-Louise Girardin. The story had all the elements that inspire her: mystery, adventure, natural history and injustice. Stephanie loves travel, learning and sharing stories. She enjoys the challenge of illuminating historical figures who dared to question social rules and conventions. She now lives in Launceston, Tasmania.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are used fictitiously or are products of the author’s imagination.

  First published in 2017

  Copyright © Stephanie Parkyn 2017

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

  Allen & Unwin

  83 Alexander Street

  Crows Nest NSW 2065

  Australia

  Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

  Email: [email protected]

  Web: www.allenandunwin.com

  Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available

  from the National Library of Australia

  www.trove.nla.gov.au

  ISBN 978 1 76029 651 3

  eISBN 978 1 76063 377 6

  Set by Bookhouse, Sydney

  Cover design: Nada Backovic

  Cover images: ‘The Recherche and Esperance’ by Francois Geoffroy Roux (1827), Shutterstock, iStock and © Nina Masic / Trevillion Images

  For Marie-Louise Victoire Girardin

  Contents

  Map

  List of characters

  Part One - Fuire: to flee

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Part Two - Cacher: to hide

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Part Three - Rechercher: to seek

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Part Four - Retrouver: to find something lost

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Epilogue

  Author’s note

  Acknowledgements

  List of characters

  Armand Old sailor aboard the Recherche

  Aubry de Gouges, Pierre Son of Olympe de Gouges

  Beautemps-Beaupré, Charles-François Cartographer and hydrographer, one of the observatory trio

  Besnard, Thomas Cook of the Recherche

  Bruni d’Entrecasteaux, Antoine-Raymond-Joseph (The General) Commander of the expedition, aboard the Recherche

  D’Auribeau, Alexandre d’Hesmivy Captain of the Recherche

  De Gouges, Olympe Playwright and political activist during the revolution

  De Saint-Méry, Mérite Midshipman of the Recherche

  Girardin, Jean Father of Marie-Louise Girardin

  Girardin, Marie-Louise (Louis) Steward of the Recherche

  Hébert, Jacques René Journalist and founder of radical republican newspaper Le Père Duchesne

  Huon de Kermadec, Jean-Michel Captain of the Espérance, sister ship of the d’Entrecasteaux expedition

  Joannet, Denis Surgeon of the Espérance and chief surgeon for the expedition

  Labillardière, Jacques-Julien Naturalist aboard the Recherche, specialising in botany

  Lahaie, Félix Gardener of the Recherche and assistant naturalist

  Le Fournier d’Yauville, Madame Sister of Jean-Michel Huon de Kermadec

  Piron Artist on the Recherche

  Raoul, Ange Pilot of the Recherche

  Renard, Pierre Surgeon of the Recherche

  Riche, Claude-Antoine-Gaspard Naturalist aboard the Espérance, specialising in zoology

  Rossel, Elisabeth-Paul-Édouard Lieutenant of the Recherche, one of the observatory trio

  Saint-Aignan, Alexandre-François Lieutenant of the Recherche, musician, one of the observatory trio

  Sirot, Michel Servant of Claude Riche

  Trobriand, Jean-François-Silvestre Lieutenant of the Espérance

  Ventenat, Louis Chaplain of the Recherche

  Chapter 1

  IN A COACH-HOUSE ROOM ON THE EDGE OF PARIS, MARIE-LOUISE Girardin stood beside a dying fire in clothes that were not her own, holding a baby she could not keep. She wore a royal-blue coat with epaulettes that sloped off her shoulders and white breeches that bagged above her boots. Beneath this loose and ill-fitting costume her breasts were bound with linen bandages, stretched taut and knotted so tight each breath was cut short. She could feel her milk leak into the bandages, feel the brutal waste of it, as she pressed her son to her chest.

  ‘I have no choice,’ she whispered to him, throat closing. Tears dripped from her chin. One splashed on her baby’s cheek and she watched it roll into the whorl of his ear. He did not wake. Milk-drunk, he lay fast asleep in her arms. The hair on his head was pale, like hers, and already it grew in wild directions. She marvelled at his perfect skin, not a freckle or blemish or crimson stain. She stroked his plump pink arm, so full of health and hope. Bending forwards, she kissed his nose, his forehead, and then inhaled, committing him to memory.

  Olympe de Gouges paced in front of the fire, her gown tracing lines in the dust of the floor. With her straight back and her snowy wig of hair piled high on her head, there was something of the proud swan about her. Marie-Louise needed her friend’s spirit now. Olympe’s son, Pierre, an ensign in the French navy, knelt to prod and scatter the embers. It was his cast-off uniform that Marie-Louise wore. The remains of her dress, her old life, burned in the grate.

  ‘Will you name the father?’ Olympe asked her. ‘Shame him. He has responsibilities.’

  Marie-Louise shook her head sharply. ‘It will do no good. I ca
nnot name him.’

  Olympe released a heavy breath. ‘Bastard children have no rights. As well I know it.’ Her voice was bitter. ‘Nor their mothers.’

  But Marie-Louise could not admit his name, not even to her one true friend—especially not to her. Shame reddened her face. She had been a fool. Her lover had discarded her, flicked her away as carelessly as if she were a blowfly that might lay a maggot in his plate of pie. She would not entrust her son to his mercy.

  ‘Then there is no other way,’ Olympe said, and the two women shared a look of bald despair. Find a man, Marie-Louise thought, or take this desperate course. Find a man—or become one. She swayed, on the brink of a stagger. The room was warm and the air fusty with mildew and smoke. She had the sudden urge to cut her bindings, run to the window and fill her lungs. This disguise was insanity. How was she to become a man?

  ‘I could take my chances on the streets.’

  ‘You will likely die disfigured and diseased! What sort of life would that be for your son?’ Olympe paced across the floor, her hands in fists. ‘They deny us even the chance to work to feed our babies. They would rather see us die as syphilitic whores than grant an unwed mother the means to feed her own child. Such is our civilised society. It sickens me.’ Olympe was rigid with anger.

  Olympe spoke the truth. It was the way of things. And women who were cast out from their families did not last long on the streets, if they could bear the life at all. Marie-Louise imagined seeing herself on the Pont Neuf, watching herself fall as though looking up from the bank of the Seine at a stranger plummeting from the bridge with the air snatching at her skirt.

  ‘I will fight for you,’ Olympe said, coming to her side. ‘There is still hope we will change this world.’ Marie-Louise felt her friend lay her chin on her shoulder and fold her arms around her waist. Their heads rested against one another. Her son stirred in his swaddling.

  Marie-Louise was grateful for Olympe’s strength, but she no longer believed the revolution would change anything for women. It was 1791, almost two years since the Palace of Versailles had fallen to the people. The revolution was surely over. The National Assembly governed France now and Louis XVI was held prisoner in the Tuileries Palace. The monarchy was no more. She had helped to deliver France to the people and free them from tyranny. Once these thoughts would have fired her blood, but now she felt no such warmth. Only the thudding of a small, quick heart against her own.

  Olympe was still strong, still earnest. Olympe de Gouges would not stop at the rights of all men to be treated equal, she would stand on street corners and preach that women should be treated as citizens, not property. But Marie-Louise felt her own revolutionary flame stutter and smoulder. She doubted whether women would ever truly be free.

  Pierre stood suddenly, dropping the poker to the hearth, startling her from her thoughts. ‘The last coach will leave soon.’

  She turned her face to him, distraught. ‘Already?’

  His voice softened. ‘I’m sorry, but I must return to my ship. I have delayed too long. It must be tonight.’

  Marie-Louise pulled away from Olympe and rocked forwards, cradling her baby. She gazed at her son’s face, memorising the curve of his chin, the splay of his eyelashes. A few days was all she’d had with him, and yet this bond that joined her to him was already as complete as a grafted vine.

  ‘You have the letter?’ Olympe asked her.

  The letter of introduction to Olympe’s friend in the port town of Brest was in the pocket of her coat, flattened against her chest. She nodded.

  ‘Keep it safe.’

  Marie-Louise met her friend’s eyes. The moment had come. Olympe held out her arms. ‘He will be cared for. The nuns…’ Olympe’s voice trailed away.

  The lie was no comfort. Marie-Louise backed into the corner, the dark panelled walls closing in, her heart hammering at her bound chest. Could her baby feel it beating? she wondered. Could he feel her dread and know that she did not want to do this?

  She pictured the stone wall behind the chapel, the tour d’abandon at the corner of the street. How many nights had she spent in the shadows, arms cradling her belly, staring at that wooden door? Some nights she crept closer, laying her hand on the wrought-iron latch, wondering what it would feel like to draw it open. Or, worse, to push it closed. Would it sound as heavy as the door of a crypt? She had listened for the echoes of abandoned voices, torturing herself, convinced she heard the wail of an infant marooned. Once she almost opened the portal, wanting to know what darkness lay inside, but instead she turned and kicked the lurking, scrap-fed dogs away. ‘There is nothing for you here.’ Tonight, the wooden doors would be drawn back and her son would be laid down inside and left behind.

  ‘This is the only way you will be free,’ Olympe said, stepping forwards, arms outstretched.

  Olympe would do it for her. Olympe would take her baby to the church while she, the coward, would seize her chance and run.

  ‘Wait!’ She felt a surge of panic. ‘I haven’t named him!’ Nothing had fitted, nothing had felt right. She had to give him a name; it was all she had to give.

  ‘Rémi,’ she said. The oarsman. She pictured her son grown into a strong young man, expertly navigating his boat in the current of the Seine, staying safe and dry while others might be swept away. ‘His name is Rémi.’ She lifted him and pressed her lips to his forehead for the last time.

  As soon as the weight of her son was lifted from her arms, Marie-Louise wanted him back. She almost snatched him from Olympe. Instead, she gripped the gilt buttons of her coat, crossing her arms over the loss of him. She heard herself release a deep, guttural moan.

  Pierre plucked a heated coin from the embers of the fire.

  ‘I will do it,’ she said to him, her voice choking. He passed her the coin, but her gloves were too large and her fingers unwilling. The coin slipped. She saw the silver écu fall and Louis XVI’s head spin upon the floorboards.

  She bent to retrieve it and felt the white heat of it through her leather glove. God forgive me. Her son was asleep in Olympe’s arms. Marie-Louise lifted his hand and pressed the coin beneath his forearm until it seared his newborn skin.

  Rémi woke, screaming, and she was lanced by guilt. Quickly, she pulled back her sleeve and let the heat of the coin bite into her own skin. She pressed the coin harder, holding it, letting it singe, listening to her baby’s anguish. She bared her wrist for him, showing him the brand, flaming bright red like a beacon.

  In return, the red weal on Rémi’s skin swelled in ugly accusation. ‘It will heal,’ she sobbed to him. He punched his outraged arms and would not let her blow upon the burn. She offered her finger for him to squeeze and felt his hand grip it hard. She prayed he would one day understand what his scar meant—that he would see the round, red mark on his flawless skin and know she would return for him.

  Chapter 2

  AT THE GATES OF PARIS, A GUARD STOPPED THEIR COACH AND inspected the paperwork Pierre had forged for her. Marie-Louise flicked a glance at Pierre. Olympe’s son risked everything to help her and her heart swelled with gratitude. Both their lives would be ruined if they were caught. He was tight-lipped and she saw the youth of him in his thin and carefully groomed moustache. He would not look at her. She held her breath as the guard peered into the carriage window. She kept her collar turned up high. For months, noble men and women had been escaping Paris in disguise. Was that what the guard would think if she was discovered? That here was some pampered aristocrat fleeing the new regime? After what she had done for the revolution, the thought was laughable.

  With a bored flick of his wrist, the guard sent them onwards. As the coach jolted forwards, Marie-Louise stared back at the lamplights of Paris casting their burnt sienna glow up into the dark sky. By now her son would be lying alone and afraid on a slab of cold stone inside the tour d’abandon. The burn on her arm throbbed as the carriage lurched and rocked, carrying her away.

  The route from Paris to Brest took her through Chartres, Le
Mans and Rennes. She had never been so far from home. She had never seen so much black-hearted forest, never heard the howl of wolves after dark. When they finally reached the coastal town of Saint-Brieuc, in Brittany, Marie-Louise caught her first glimpse of the sea. It frightened her. A grey blanket stretched out from the cliffs to a grey sky as the sea mists rolled in, concealing the horizon. Pierre assured her that land lay to the north, but all she saw was emptiness.

  Limping along the cobbled streets of Brest, she felt drained by weariness. The coach had slammed her spine with each stone and rut of the rough road and the wounds from the birth of her son had barely had time to heal. At night she had lain awake staring at the ceiling of each wayside inn, trying to recall the shape of her son’s nose, the feel of his skin. It had been nine days since she abandoned him.

  The marketplace was crowded with the stench of mackerel and oysters. Gulls screeched and swooped overhead. Here children brawled among the fish heads and oyster shells, she saw babies carried in slings around their mothers’ chests, and with each wail of hunger her breasts leaked into the bandages beneath her costume. Two boys pushed past Marie-Louise as they chased turds down the swollen gutters towards the sea.

  Pierre forged ahead into the crowd and women pulled their children out of his way. Marie-Louise followed into the fug of wet armpits. To her relief, men’s eyes slid over her without interest. Her fingers crept into her pocket, checking for the reassuring feel of parchment. Without this letter of introduction, all her hopes were lost.

  A sharp tug of her elbow made her turn. A smile of yellowed teeth and carmine lips leered close. The woman’s face was caked in white lead and daubed with rouge to disguise the pox marks on her cheeks.

  ‘We like the officers, don’t we, girls?’ she said, turning to address three more garish faces staring with predatory appraisal from the step of a tavern.

  The whore was skin and bone. She slipped her bodice down and jiggled a pair of flaccid breasts, like chestnuts swinging in pale pink stockings.

  Marie-Louise stared at the dangling nipples and then back up to the flint eyes of the prostitute. She could be my age, Marie-Louise thought. She could be me.