Into the World Read online

  ‘The crew are housed ashore until we sail,’ the baker said.

  Marie-Louise let her breath escape. She forced herself to be calm as she returned to the galley. Right now she had a barrel of flour to transform into loaves of bread.

  Years ago her husband, Etienne, had taught her to bake. She thought of him as she worked the dough, imagining herself back in his café kitchen. She closed her eyes, remembering his arms wrapped around her, his big hands covering hers, and his soft lips touching her ear as he taught her to knead. He was dead now. Buried more than ten years ago. Beneath the heel of her hand she felt the dough stretch. You can do this. You have to do this.

  Her first batch earned her a clout about her ear. ‘Do you want them buggers brawling over the size of a bun?’ the baker demanded of her. ‘They’re like children that lot, just with bigger fists. Don’t give them an excuse.’

  She quickly learned the knack of rolling out a log of dough and slicing each bun precisely. The baker—she had not yet been told his name and he did not seem inclined to learn hers—tossed them in his floured palms and grunted approval. Her muscles ached. No sooner was one batch left to prove than another was started. All day she worked and the pressure in her bladder grew. She glanced around the empty mess hall, her eyes resting on the dark stairway to the hold below. She crossed her legs.

  Heavy feet pounded on the floorboards above her head. The baker shut the oven door and stood, listening. Marie-Louise looked up to the vibrating boards. Her hands were glued with wet dough. She heard a shout.

  The baker peered up the steps. ‘Stay here,’ he said as he began to climb. ‘Mind the oven.’

  She held her breath. The shouting grew louder. She dunked her hands into a bucket of water and scratched her hands clean. Crouching, she listened to the cries of the men. Angry? Hostile? What was happening?

  The baker did not return. Torn between the desire to hide and the desire to run, she did neither. Her bladder threatened her. She found a pot and searched for privacy, a cupboard or an unused room; there had to be a place. Smoke drifted through the galley and she remembered the loaves. Swearing, she opened the oven door just as an explosion rocked the ship. She was thrown across the galley with hot loaves sliding from the oven. A barrel of flour smashed against the wall. The matter of her bladder was decided for her.

  Squinting through the cloud of dust, she scrambled for the stairs.

  ‘Fire!’ The call rang out as Marie-Louise emerged on deck. She turned to see black smoke billowing against an orange sky. Men rushed past her, but she could not move.

  ‘Come on, lad,’ a voice rumbled in her ear. A rough hand grasped her wrist. ‘There’s mutiny and the fools have set the ship alight!’

  The grey-haired sailor dragged her towards the side of the ship where rickety scaffolding had been erected against the hull. Men tumbled down the stairs, pushing and screaming as they fell into the waves. Longboats were rowed out from the dock to rescue them.

  ‘Jump!’ a man from a longboat called to Marie-Louise.

  ‘I can’t swim!’

  A monkey scampered along the deck and launched itself, arms and legs suspended like it was swinging between trees, and bounced onto the backs of the men in the boat.

  ‘Go, lad!’ The sailor who had pulled her from the burning deck grew impatient. He shoved her over the side of the ship. She screamed and landed hard upon the edge of the longboat, arms and legs splayed like a spider. Winded, she hauled herself over and rolled into the wet swill in the bottom of the boat as, one after the other, more men elbowed and kicked and scrambled on top of her.

  As the rowers pulled the boat away she heard the terrified shouts of men left behind and the splash of bodies hitting the water. She imagined their hands striking the hull of the boat, fingers searching for purchase against the copper bolts.

  At the dockside someone slipped an arm beneath her armpits and heaved her onto the flagstone quay like a sack of grain. Marie-Louise rolled onto her hands and knees, feeling bruises in her ribs and back as though she had received a beating from her father’s cane.

  ‘We’re not safe yet, lad.’

  Carriages clattered towards them as the municipal guards chased the mutineers. The old sailor pulled her up and she stumbled after him for no other reason than she didn’t know what else to do. The sailor ran with a bandy-legged gait. He ducked between the tall warehouses that lined the docks.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Marie-Louise demanded, suddenly fearful in the maze of alleys.

  He didn’t pause or reply. She swore and hurried after him. Eventually he stopped, swinging out his arm to push her back into the shadows. Pressed close beside him, he smelled of pipe smoke. She noticed a pointed tooth punctured his earlobe. His face was weathered and lined and his forearms were like tanned leather and heavily tattoed in blue ink.

  The sailor checked the alley was clear of the guards before crossing to a large doorway. He gave four sharp knocks.

  As the door opened she saw a tall man silhouetted against the golden light. Marie-Louise watched him drop coins into the hand of her rescuer.

  ‘Thank you, Armand,’ the man said as the sailor pocketed his coins.

  She frowned. What was happening? Was she being delivered? Before she had time to run, the man stepped out into the pool of light on his doorstep. ‘You had better come in.’

  Chapter 5

  MARIE-LOUISE BEGAN TO SHAKE AS SOON AS SHE SAT IN FRONT of the fire. They were in a study, that much she could tell, but she kept her head bowed and said nothing.

  The man took a seat in a stiff-backed chair and stretched out his long legs towards the fire. She sat hunched like a fist. From the corner of her eye she saw him watching her, taking in her wretched state: wet, ragged clothes, her hair hacked short, her face made ghostly from the blast of flour.

  ‘What am I to do with you?’

  She glanced at him, measuring his intentions. The coins in her purse would not last more than a week.

  ‘Allow me to introduce myself: I am Jean-Michel Huon de Kermadec.’

  She looked up quickly. So this was the brother of Madame d’Yauville. Had he been keeping a watch on her? She thought of the coins he’d paid the sailor at his door. He was younger than she had expected, perhaps forty, and his face was like creamed butter, not leathered by salt and sun like the sailors of the Deux Frères. He wore an ivory-coloured wig in the modern style of Louis XVI, two curls above each ear and tied at the nape of his neck with a long black ribbon. He gave her a reassuring smile.

  She flicked her gaze away. He knew she was desparate. She could not trust him.

  ‘My sister asked me to look out for you.’

  The fire crackled and spat. The tang of warmed urine rose from her clothing. When she closed her eyes she saw the flames of the burning ship, saw herself teetering above the waves. Her eyes snapped open.

  From floor to ceiling, the walls of the room were almost entirely lined with books. Among the leather bindings she saw books on mathematics, geography and the voyages of great navigators. She recognised the comedies of Molière and philosophy of Rousseau. She had been in rooms like this before. It reminded her of the Paris salons and her intellectual friends. It reminded her of revolution.

  ‘The difficulty is knowing what to take and what to leave,’ he said, following her gaze.

  In the corner of his library stood crates half filled with books. Some of the volumes were flipped open on the floor as though he had been rediscovering each one as an old friend, unable to choose between them. Propped up against the crates were oil paintings in ornate gilded frames and perched on top was a silver flute, glinting in the firelight.

  ‘What will you do now?’ Huon de Kermadec asked.

  Marie-Louise stared into the flames. She could not answer. What options did she have? Stay here with the dockyard whores and live a short, ruined life. Or remain in a man’s skin and seek a placement on a naval ship, perhaps even go to war. Above the mantelpiece, two frigates with full sails cre
sted the bow of a turquoise wave.

  ‘That’s the Resolution,’ Huon de Kermadec said, pointing to the oil painting. ‘I sailed in her under Commander Bruni d’Entrecasteaux from the East Indies through to China. The voyage was exceptional; they still talk about it today. Instead of waiting a whole year to avoid the typhoon season, d’Entrecasteaux proposed we sail an untried route virtually without charts! And we had to navigate in darkness through the Makassar Strait when the wind blew only at night. A brilliant man. There is no safer commander in all the French navy.’

  She admired his conviction, but he was talking nonsense. Safety. There was no such thing. Safety could be stripped from you in an instant.

  ‘I am to captain the Espérance on a rescue mission. Perhaps you have heard of this?’

  She nodded curtly. Was he boasting? Of course she had heard of the famous navigator who sailed from Brest six years ago and never returned. ‘La Pérouse,’ she murmured. In fact, she had been at the Tuileries Palace when Fleurieu, the Minister of Marine, came to collect the King’s signature for the rescue mission. Old, fat Fleurieu—she knew of him from the servants’ gossip. Everyone talked about his fresh bud of a fiancée, and the fact that he had been intimate with both her mother and her grandmother before engaging himself to her. Marie-Louise had dropped into a curtsey with all the other servants as he strode past, flanked by two naval officers in shining uniforms. Fleurieu carried a scroll of parchment in his hand. Everyone knew this was all for show, that the National Assembly ran the country now, and seeking the King’s signature was a matter of etiquette only. But she could never speak of this. She caught the earnest look in Huon de Kermadec’s eye. Not to this man.

  ‘Exactly. The King sends us on a mission in search of La Pérouse and his two ships, the Astrolabe and the Boussole.’ Huon de Kermadec crossed the room to his desk and began to unroll a massive sheet of yellowed parchment.

  She craned her neck.

  ‘Would you like to see?’

  She rose cautiously. Huon de Kermadec weighted down the corners of the large map, smoothing its surface with his palms. The whole of the known world stretched out before them.

  ‘This is where we shall sail.’ Tapping the map at Brest, he traced a line from France past Spain and down along the coast of Africa. At the pointed tip of the continent his finger tracked across a great expanse of ocean, the Mer des Indes, until it hit the half-formed outline of another large landmass, the uncertain shape of a continent. ‘New Holland. Great lengths of its southern coastline remain unknown.’ The black line along its southern coast stopped abruptly and his finger ran into nothingness.

  Marie-Louise clasped her arms around her. The world was a large and terrifying place. ‘How will you find La Pérouse?’

  ‘He was heading for the Friendly Isles—’ Huon de Kermadec pointed to a group of islands north-east of New Holland ‘—so we will follow him there.’

  She read the name written across the blank paper: Mer Pacifique. The islands were barely dots of ink upon the paper. It was a fool’s errand. Like searching for raindrops in the ocean.

  ‘We shall return as heroes!’ His cheeks were flushed and his eyes shone.

  She snorted. ‘You have the blind faith of a child,’ she said aloud without thinking. She stepped back beyond his reach, horrified. She had let her thoughts run away with her tongue.

  But Kermadec laughed. ‘Oh, you wound me,’ he said, clasping a hand to his chest in mock pain. ‘I am the boy who ran away to sea and never grew up. You sound like my father. He thinks a man of my age should return home to the country and provide our family with heirs.’

  She dropped her eyes to the patterned rug at her feet. Duty to your father above all else.

  Kermadec poured himself a brandy and offered a glass to Marie-Louise. She took it.

  ‘You puzzle me,’ he said.

  She looked away, made uncomfortable by his searching gaze.

  ‘I see your eyes linger on these volumes; I see you scan their spines. You can read.’

  She did not deny the accusation. She thought of Olympe and her friends. If she had never joined their circle she would know nothing of Rousseau or Voltaire.

  ‘Can you write?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Who are you? How have you ended up here, and in this state?’

  Who am I? she thought. Daughter, widow, mother or whore? Which one would she pick?

  ‘My father held a post at the Palace of Versailles when I was young,’ she said. It was true, but he hadn’t worked in the palace. Kermadec did not need to know that she had been a gardener’s daughter. Perhaps if he believed her to be the daughter of a courtier rather than a gardener he would treat her with more respect.

  ‘Will you return to your family?’ he asked.

  The question cut her to the quick. None of them would help her. Not her brothers nor her sisters. Her father would see to that. She was dead to them. ‘My family have disowned me,’ she murmured.

  Huon de Kermadec frowned. ‘The father of your child? Where is he?’

  Her eyes flashed wide. So he knew about her son. About her disgrace. She regarded him from beneath her brows. His question was bold, but he would not meet her gaze. She shook her head.

  ‘An honourable man would know his responsibilities,’ Kermadec said. ‘He would accept the consequences of his actions.’ He emptied his glass in one gulp.

  She turned her head from him, staring down at the map of the known world, letting her eyes trace the meridian line through the centre of Paris. She sipped the brandy in her glass, feeling it burn above her heart.

  He tapped the map with his finger. ‘You should join us.’

  She cocked her ear towards him, unsure if she had heard him correctly. He was staring at her intently. ‘Our expedition has two ships, and the Recherche, our sister ship, is in desperate need of a steward.’

  Think of the adventure, Olympe said in her ear. All the wonders of the world you will see.

  Think of the danger, Marie-Louise thought, looking towards the door.

  He saw her indecision. ‘You were prepared to risk this subterfuge on the Deux Frères.’ He gestured to her clothing. ‘What is the difference?’

  ‘How long will you be gone?’

  ‘Two years at most.’

  Two years was too long. How would she ever find her son again? She saw the heated coin pressed onto her baby’s skin, heard him cry out. Her hands shook and she set her glass down onto a lacquered side table with a rattle.

  ‘I cannot turn you out on the street.’

  She narrowed her eyes. Why did he care?

  He rocked slightly from his heel to his toe. His eyebrows flicked upwards in challenge, like a boy enticing her to mischief. ‘I made a promise to my sister to watch out for you,’ he said.

  How could she trust him, this man she barely knew?

  He spread his hands lovingly across the map as though it were the skin of a beautiful woman. She saw the tiny dots of the islands, the looping letters of the Grand Océan Austral marking the vast southern seas, and the faint, hair’s-breadth lines of unfinished coasts, drawn with all the surety of a suggestion. She recalled her first sight of the sea and the white haze obscuring the horizon, blocking all sight of the way ahead.

  And yet. She felt a strange sensation; a throb of possibility. For the first time in her life she felt opportunity opening before her. She could do this. She could be this woman that would sail across the world and back again. Until a familiar mocking voice spoke in her ear: You are not brave enough, you silly slut. This is not for the likes of you.

  She turned for the door. She would leave. Crossing the worm-eaten floorboards, her heel caught on a hole in the floor. Looking down, she was suddenly reminded of the fairy she once found trapped in the floor. All her brothers and sisters had crowded around the creature, staring in wonder at its squashed and hairy face wedged in the crumbled floorboards. The more it struggled and flapped, the more it tore its wings. She had knelt and tried to pri
se it free. Her father’s cane had cracked over her knuckles. ‘It’s a bat,’ he told them. And stomped his heel to its head.

  She swung around to face Kermadec. ‘How much does it pay?’

  Huon de Kermadec raised his eyebrows. She saw at once that he had never had to feed a family with soup made from onion skins. ‘Thirty-three livres per month.’

  Thirty-three livres! That was three times more than she could earn as a domestic servant. Her heart beat faster. That would be enough to claim back her son. She could start again.

  ‘Two years?’ she asked.

  ‘More or less,’ he answered.

  Chapter 6

  ‘YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE DECEIVED ME IN THIS WAY!’ BRUNI d’Entrecasteaux growled at Huon de Kermadec, who stood with head bent beside Marie-Louise in the commander’s cabin. ‘We sail on the tide!’

  ‘But, sir, we have need of a steward. Where are we to find another at this late hour?’

  ‘This ship is no place for a woman, Huon. I expected better of you.’

  Marie-Louise saw herself reflected in the commander’s expression—a mangy, shipyard rat; for all he knew, a whore who had come aboard to ply her trade.

  The commander turned to her. ‘Tell me why I should not have you put off this frigate along with the other stowaways we cannot afford to feed?’

  Huon de Kermadec looked shocked. ‘Sir, she would have no chaperone, no protector!’

  ‘If she is prepared to sail around the world, surely she is resourceful enough to find her way home from a European port.’

  ‘I can cook,’ Marie-Louise blurted.

  ‘You will need to do more than that! The steward is responsible for our stores. You must decide how we can feed one hundred and ten men over many months. When there is no fresh food, you must ration the rice and beans and salted meat. Calculate how much flour we have left for bread. Do you understand how important this role is?’

  Marie-Louise nodded, glancing at Huon de Kermadec for reassurance. His face remained grim.