[The mantua-maker’s] business is to make Night-Gowns, Mantuas, and Petticoats, Rob de Chambres, &c for the Ladies. She is Sister to the Taylor, and like him, must be a perfect Connoisseur in Dress and Fashions; and like the Stay-Maker, she must keep the Secrets she is entrusted with, as much as a woman can.
R. Campbell, The London Tradesman, 1747
Two days later the weather cleared enough to journey to Fort Beauséjour. At first light, Père shoveled a path to shore, where a number of Galant vessels waited. Baie Française glistened, so salty it never froze even when the land was locked in winter’s icy grip. Bleu loaded a caribou-skin canoe with Sylvie’s stack of finished shirts before helping her into the boat, where she sat without taking up an oar. Bleu had no need of help, cutting through the water to the far shore like Sylvie’s scissors sliced silk.
As they drew nearer, Sylvie could not master a flinch. Voyageurs and soldiers stood about the dock, loading and unloading vessels, many of them familiar. She was never comfortable on this side of the bay, never relaxed her wary stance. She leapt to shore, eyes on the snowy trail that would take them up to the fort’s star-shaped walls.
Bleu secured a sled and heaped their goods atop it, including some of his own trade items, intent on the fort. Like an ox he was, his sheer strength a marvel. With leather straps about sinewy shoulders, he started pulling the sled up the hill after exchanging a few greetings with those he knew. Sylvie trailed him in snowshoes, an unwelcome reminder of Blackburn’s Battle on Snowshoes. She was soon out of breath, but Bleu never slowed his easy stride, only looked over his shoulder now and then to ascertain she followed.
When the fort’s parapets appeared, she chafed, a sense of foreboding overtaking her. She could not foretell the future, but lately when she encountered it her emotions grew dark. Here the Troupes de la Marine under their commandant, Jean-Baptiste Mutigny de Vassan, kept watch night and day for any English, who seemed to creep ever closer.
Once through the sally port, Sylvie freed her shoepacks from the leather thongs that tied on her raquettes before going into the quarters reserved for trade. As usual, hot tea was served, chasing the chill from their bones and their garments. Sylvie kept her eyes down, letting Bleu do the talking. It would not do to invite men’s notice with her attention. In a fort full of soldiers and few women, she was as tempting as a freshly baked tart, Mère oft said.
Still, men took her measure. She was known as the seamstress. The blue-eyed daughter of Gabriel Galant, head of a large lowland clan. Sister to the renowned Métis—Bleu—one of Abbé Jean Le Loutre’s most respected associates.
Beneath her lashes, Sylvie eyed the tall, thin priest in the corner with cold loathing. This was no holy man. How could he be when inciting his Mi’kmaq converts to attack the English? And not just soldiers but all Protestant settlers coming into Acadie? The cathedral in progress beyond fort walls was but a front for his devilish schemes, some said.
With a word to her, Bleu left the room with Abbé Le Loutre. Sylvie’s spirits sank as she savored her tea. Before she could ponder the implications of their meeting, a door opened and a humbly clad woman entered. Maidservant to one of the officers’ wives? Sylvie had no wish to leave the hearth’s leaping fire, nor had she finished her tea.
“Mademoiselle Galant?”
Sylvie forced a smile. “Oui.”
“Can you spare a moment to meet with my mistress?”
Sylvie gestured to the stacks of men’s garments Bleu had hauled uphill. “I am awaiting payment for my work.”
“I have already told the quartermaster you are needed elsewhere.” The insistent edge to her tone brought Sylvie to her feet. “This is far more important than officers’ shirts, mademoiselle. You will be well rewarded.”
With a nod, Sylvie traded the fire’s warmth for a cold walk down several wooden corridors to a more comfortable chamber filled with thick rugs and paintings and fine furnishings. Only a few officers’ wives were willing to live at the fort. Sylvie credited whoever this woman was with an intrepid spirit.
Someone speaking rapid French preceded another door opening. The officer’s wife? A tall, slender woman with mouches on her chin and cheek came in with a rustle of lutestring. Sylvie noted all the little details and embellishments of her glossy, rose-colored gown as the maid made introductions.
“Ah, the humble Mademoiselle Galant.” With a gesture to a trunk along one wall, Madame Auclair summoned her maid to fetch the fabric. “I have seen your fine stitching and am in need of a gown for a Noël ball. Surely you must be bored with men’s garments. They seem beneath your skill.”
Sylvie smiled. “I can sew those in my sleep, I sometimes think.”
“Exactly. But can you produce a quality gown like the one I have in mind? In so short a time? I have plenty of thread as well as ribbon and lace for trim.”
“I can get up a dress in a few days’ time usually, but a simple one, not a ball gown. My mother sometimes assists.” Even as she said it, her spirits sank. Her own gown must wait. Besides, where would she wear such sumptuous silk? Her Galant clan—and her fellow Acadians—would say she was proud when in fact it was only that Bleu was generous. “Someone else must be assigned my shirt work.”
Madame Auclair smiled. “My husband is second in command here at Fort Beauséjour. I will arrange for your work to be given to someone else.” She went to another trunk and brought out an abundance of lace and ribbon, the finest Sylvie had ever seen. French-made, no doubt.
Sylvie reached into her pocket and withdrew her ribbon measures while the maid went to retrieve a dress she could use as a template.
When she’d returned, holding a small, elaborate case, Madame said, “This is newly arrived from France in the style of gown I have in mind.”
The maid lifted something from the case as if it was an objet d’art and presented it to Sylvie. A fashion doll? She’d heard of these exquisite creations, often replicas of their owners. Green glass eyes stared back at her, the painted features so like Madame Auclair it was almost eerie. Touching the curled hair, Sylvie found it as soft as her own.
“Guard it.” Madame looked at her intently. “The Pandora has come all the way from Paris despite . . . um, international difficulties.”
Staring at the wax doll that was sure to make Marie-Madeleine forsake her homespun ones, Sylvie wondered how such a luxury would survive a downhill march in the snow and a water crossing, not to mention her sister’s inquisitive nature. Carefully she returned the treasure to the maid and began applying the measuring ribbons, memorizing the numbers as she did so. All the while she remembered the words she’d just read about mantua-makers in the Halifax Gazette.
She must learn to flatter all Complexions, praise all Shapes, and, in a word, ought to be compleat Mistress of the Art of Dissimulation. It requires a vast Stock of Patience to bear the Tempers of most of their Customers, and no small Share of Ingenuity to execute their innumerable Whims.
Doubts assailed her. Could she get up such a fine gown in so short a time?
Finally all the measurements were double-checked, though Madame Auclair seemed somewhat dubious that Sylvie could keep all the numbers in mind. She also seemed bereft to be parting with the Pandora, clearly a coveted possession.
“I’d like you to apprise me of your progress. Either send word to me here or come in person,” she told Sylvie before asking her maid to serve tea. “For now, you must sit and tell me of yourself—your sewing history and habits.”
Madame gestured to a linen-clad tea table by a window that overlooked the fort’s parade ground. The curtains were partially drawn, but Sylvie could still see soldiers milling about, some shoveling snow, others managing artillery, and a few managing livestock running amok.
Tamping down her unease, Sylvie tried to remember her manners, surprised Madame wanted her company. But in a fort overfull of men, why wouldn’t she? Sylvie stifled a smile at something Bleu had said. Some of the fairest belles have the emptiest heads. But Madame did not seem cut of the same cloth.
The maid brought scones, butter, even jam. Sylvie’s mouth watered. She had not thought to pack victuals. Bleu always carried jerked meat anyway, something she had had so much of she could do without. A scone was a wondrous thing, surprisingly more English than French.
Watching her discreetly, Sylvie followed Madame’s every move. Serviette in lap. Teacup near the table’s edge. Her hostess poured from the porcelain pot effortlessly, nary a drop spilled. As Sylvie took the first sip of a delicate tea she’d never tasted, Madame seemed to read her mind.
“Pekoe.” She smiled rather wistfully. “While scones are decidedly an English invention, tea is most certainly not. We French have been drinking it for ages.”
Madame was gentry French, then, enjoying such delicacies. Pushing past her shyness, Sylvie took a scone and attempted conversation. “I’ve mostly had green tea, not black.”
“Ah, known for its medicinal benefits. Though you hardly need it, for you seem bonne santé to me.” Adding a generous splash of cream, she stirred her tea with a silver spoon. “Now, tell me about your sewing.”
Nearly squirming beneath Madame’s keen eye, Sylvie searched for a beginning. “My mother taught me my stitches when I was very small. Alphabet samplers and hemming garments and sewing on buttons. Then, when I was ten, I went to live with an aunt in Louisbourg on Ile Royale and attended the convent school founded by Sœur de la Conception.”
“Ah, of course, the school for proper young ladies. But I thought they only accepted daughters of officers from the garrison there.”
“My aunt was wife to the etat-major. Since they had no children, she enrolled me as her niece.” Could Madame hear the sadness in her voice? Aunt Lisette—her father’s sister—had been one of Louisbourg’s brightest lights. Beautiful and accomplished, she’d succumbed to a fever when Sylvie was thirteen. “After her passing, I returned home.”
“A sad circumstance. But you learned embroidery and other sewing techniques while in Louisbourg, no?”
“A great many, oui. I’ve since been charged with making all the garments for my family. We have a herd of sheep and also grow linen from flax we spin.”
“’Tis a wonder you have time for such tasks. Your stitching on my husband’s shirts is what caught my eye, especially your monogrammed embroidery on the officers’ garments. You don’t just sew, you go beyond and create beauty amid simplicity.”
Flushing, Sylvie thanked her. “I can always see how a garment can be made better, even smallclothes.”
“I think your talents are wasted on men. Leave them to the tailors. You were made to create finer things for those who can truly appreciate them.”
“You mentioned a ball . . . here at Fort Beauséjour?”
Madame’s green eyes glittered. “A Noël ball at Pont-a-Buot. We have extended an invitation to the officers and their wives at Fort Lawrence to join us. Since our men fraternize at the tavern dividing our territories, perhaps it is time for the ladies to meet there also.”
Sylvie could not imagine it with tensions so high. “Have they accepted this gracious invitation?”
“Not yet.” She lifted slight shoulders in a shrug. “But one can hope.”
Hope? Abbé Le Loutre, Bleu, and the Resistance would think that more laughable than laudable. The English, Bleu said, would not make peace till they’d taken every arpent of Canadian land.
“It’s a goodwill gesture to show that we have much in common and might live in harmony.” Madame took another sip from her exquisite cup and began to talk about the coming ball as excitedly as if the French king himself might be in attendance.