The winter is agreeable in that it is never rainy nor filled with mists, nor hoar frosts. It is a cold which is always dry and with a bright sun. One never sees a little cloud in the sky. . . . One goes from eight to fifteen days, and even three weeks, without seeing it snow, during which time it is always good weather.
Nicolas Denys, French fur trader and explorer
Will you say a prayer, mon cher frère?” Sylvie eyed Baie Française warily as she clutched the Pandora’s case. “That the canoe will not sink?”
Bleu chuckled then grew serious. “Not on my watch, ma chère sœur.” He seemed to take extra care as he secured Madame’s meticulously wrapped silk for the gown with all its embellishments at the canoe’s bottom. “Your talents are no longer secret.” He studied her intently as if reconciling his sister with that of a mantua-maker. “Soon every madame on both sides of the Missaguash River will be clamoring for your services, no?”
“That would depend on the quality of this gown when I am finished,” she returned, sitting down in the canoe yet still eyeing the water warily as if it might rise up and consume the Pandora.
To her dismay, the wind shifted, creating lacy swells that smacked the canoe’s leeward side as they reached the midpoint of the bay. Always chary of the water even on the best of days, Sylvie held the Pandora as she would a newborn baby. Cold bit her nose and cheeks, her scarf loose about her head. Bleu paddled furiously as if evading some unseen danger, his beaver hat pulled low against the fretful wind.
It seemed odd to return without a stack of government-issued cloth for officers’ shirts. Who would assume the task in her absence? Granted, there were new people moving in and out of the fort every day with a variety of skills. She would not give herself airs and imagine she alone could ply a needle. Still, Madame’s regard warmed her even as the weather worked to turn her to ice.
Once blessedly beached and out of the boat, Sylvie all but ran toward their front door while Bleu stowed the canoe and unloaded cargo. Never had she been so glad to be home. She spied Marie-Madeleine watching from the window as the setting sun stole the last of daylight, ending their eventful day. She was unprepared for the questions certain to pepper her from all sides once she crossed the threshold.
Père and Lucien were still stamping the snow off their boots just inside the door. Pascal, she recalled, had gone to the fort the land route, driving their cattle on the hoof to be butchered and salted there once they were sold.
Marie-Madeleine rushed Sylvie before she’d even removed her wraps, her wide eyes on the Pandora case she’d carefully set on a bench. Sylvie felt a protective qualm yet didn’t want to deny her little sister something so lovely, if only to look at.
“Have you brought me something from the fort?” Swiping at her flour-smudged cheek, Marie-Madeleine stood on tiptoe in anticipation. “So jolie a case!”
Sylvie hung her scarf and cape on a wall peg, realizing she’d forgotten to bring her sister something as was her custom, if only a sweetmeat from the fort’s sutler. “It belongs to Madame Auclair at Beauséjour. You may open the case and take a look if your hands are clean.”
Clearly intrigued, Marie-Madeleine flew away to wash. Père and Lucien chuckled as she rushed past, casting querying looks at Sylvie before following her into the main room.
Mère greeted them with a smile, the mingled aromas of the kitchen and bake oven like her loving embrace. “At last everyone is finally here but Pépère and Mémère,” she said of her parents, who lived farther down the bay.
“The weather is about to take another turn, and they cannot chance it,” Père finished for her, sympathy on his bearded face.
“Perhaps by Noël. I worry so about Mémère, especially with her rheumatism and this snow.”
Père sent her a reassuring look as he added another log to the hearth. “We chopped enough firewood for them to last through an eternal blizzard.”
Chuckling, Bleu and Lucien sat upon a long bench facing the hearth, trading their damp shoepacks for their sabots. Yawning, Sylvie wanted to join them, but her sister showed no such weariness. Eyes adance, the supper she’d helped prepare a memory, Marie-Madeleine watched, transfixed, as Sylvie placed the case on the dining table.
“For now, I have no more sewing of officers’ shirts,” Sylvie said, still uneasy about her new assignment. “I’ve instead been charged with getting up a gown for the wife of one of Fort Beauséjour’s officers.”
“Oh?” Mère never ceased slicing bread. “Someone of note has taken notice of your sewing? I am only surprised it has taken this long.”
Sylvie began undoing the silken ties of the case, anticipating her sister’s grand reaction. As expected, Marie-Madeleine gasped, her hands covering her open mouth as Sylvie took the Pandora out carefully, aware of a few details she’d overlooked. The tiny slippers with diamond-dusted buckles. The miniature fan that lay at the case’s bottom, along with a bergère hat adorned with a finger-sized feather and silk roses no bigger than buttons.
For once, Marie-Madeleine was speechless though Mère was not. “Oh! I have never seen such extravagance!”
“Madame Auclair is quite fond of it. This is but one miniature gown. The Pandora has many.”
“Mademoiselle Pandora . . .” Marie-Madeleine’s gaze left the doll briefly. “Is that her name?”
“It is the name for dolls like her. They wear the most coveted of fashions. See this ball gown? Madame Auclair has given me silk to make one just like it.”
“May I hold her?” Marie-Madeleine asked.
“Are your hands clean, petite sœur?”
She held up freshly washed hands, then gently took the doll, admiring the lace petticoat before lifting it. “Oh la la! She has on clocked stockings with lace garters, even an embroidered shift!”
“She also wears stays. The smallest stays I’ve ever beheld.”
Marie-Madeleine’s inquisitive fingers moved to the coiffure in examination. “Her hair feels real, as real as my own.”
Mère chuckled. “You remind me of a doctor with your probing of Mademoiselle Extravagance.” Her attention swung to Sylvie. “Speaking of surgeons, did you see Boudreau?”
“Not this time. He was at Fort Lawrence consulting with the English surgeon about some matter.”
“So, your spectacles must wait.” Mère sighed, the matter long unresolved.
“It would be nice to have them as I get up this gown,” Sylvie admitted. “Perhaps Père could fetch them next time he is at the fort.”
“’Tis not Père Dr. Boudreau wants to see but you.”
Warmth flooded Sylvie. She stared at the Pandora, but ’twas Bernart Boudreau she saw, with hair the deep russet of an orchard apple and a rather unbecoming cleft chin. Though French, he had come to the fort two years prior from the Royal College of Physicians in Edinburgh, and he had no wife, a malady many unwed women wanted to remedy.
“I shall be too preoccupied with Madame’s gown to return to the fort,” Sylvie said. She dare not devote any time to anything but the elaborate project before her. “First the silk must be carefully washed to make it more amenable to handling.”
“I wish you had your spectacles.” Mère began stuffing the poutine râpée with salt pork to boil, unwilling to let the matter rest. “The winter days are short, and firelight is a far cry from sunlight.”
“I must go to Beauséjour day after tomorrow,” Pascal said from where he sat by the fire. “I will see if Boudreau has returned.”
Sylvie felt stark relief. While she found the doctor amazingly knowledgeable, his attentions were disconcerting. Was he aware that Père had set considerable hectares of land aside for her and her future husband, a generous dowry that had gained her several would-be suitors? But none of them, even though they were Acadian, stirred her, and she was no surer of Bernart.
She watched her sister handle the doll as if fearing it were glass and might break. How could a girl of eight do any harm? Leaving her alone, Sylvie began helping Mère with supper preparations, her own stomach rumbling in anticipation.
“You’d best begin the gown.” Mère’s chiding reminded Sylvie of how much was at stake in so short a time. “You can work in the parlor, where all is clean and quiet.”
“I shall.” Sylvie felt the mounting pressure of her task. “But for now I just want to be simple Sylvie Galant, poutine maker, not seamstress to a fancy fort madame.”
“Once the other ladies see that gown, you will no longer be sewing men’s shirts,” Mère said. “Unless you wed the good doctor and sew his.”