Chapter 16
Charles Town, South Carolina
Da made it clear that Anne was a walking mistake made of blood and bones.
In the five months following Mam’s death, he took offense at the sound of her footsteps, at her gentle probing about his appetite apart from strong drinks, at the way she opened or shut the door to bring him a cup of tea.
The last time she’d brought him a letter, a business request, he’d buried his face in his hands.
The way Da behaved lately, the disarray of notes and ledgers—even after selling off the treasures he’d bought for her and Ma—Anne did not imagine her lessons with Monsieur Perrin would last much longer.
“What’s wrong, Da?” Anne asked, still holding the most recent letter. Her chest tightened. Her sorrow for Da, though oceanic, had become heavy with salt.
“Enough,” he slurred, massaging his temple. “I’ll not be nagged by a witch in my own house.”
“Is this not my house, too?” A house that she ran alone without Mam. Was there no room for her own grief?
She’d make room.
He snapped his head toward her. “Don’t you question—”
“Oh?” She felt her tongue sharpen. “Was it not you who taught me how to question, how to think, in the first place?” Where was that Da from her childhood?
Her first teacher? “You can’t go on like this.
” Anne’s voice rose. She gestured around the filthy bedroom and placed the letter atop a pile of others. “You don’t even look at me anymore.”
His red-rimmed eyes narrowed to slits. “Did it ever cross your womanly mind that you look a bit like her? That you are here and she is not?”
“After France’s victory and the House of Valois seized the throne, what did England lose?” Monsieur Perrin said one day in his nasal English.
Anne copied his words onto her paper, not registering them as a question she was meant to answer until she paused at the end of the line. God have mercy. She couldn’t remember the past five minutes, let alone the past hour of lessons.
Monsieur Perrin did not thwack the desk today, nor had he in the months since Mam’s funeral. Lately, he hadn’t even challenged Anne by using French.
“How about a story instead?” Monsieur Perrin said after a long pause.
Anne’s eyes widened with horror. No. No more frivolous, childish stories.
Not if Mam wasn’t here to tell them. Nothing good lasted.
As if to prove it, the Fulworths had announced their move to the Bahamas.
All eyes trailed Anne whenever she drifted through town to visit Ellen, perhaps due to Da’s strange behavior and absence from society.
“I can finish the lesson you’ve prepared,” Anne answered Monsieur Perrin.
“I think you will like my story,” Monsieur Perrin continued, unfazed by Anne’s response. He removed his spectacles and placed his books aside.
Anne hunched over the desk, then finally returned the quill to the inkwell.
“In my country, during the Hundred Years’ War, there was a remarkable young woman called Jeanne d’Arc.
She was, and remains, a great hero of France.
At the age of seventeen, she led the French Army to victory.
” Monsieur Perrin studied Anne with a paternal quality that made her miss the Da she used to know.
Without noticing, Anne sat up a little straighter. “A girl?”
“Yes.”
“You’re telling me that a girl younger than me led the French?”
“To victory.” Monsieur Perrin continued his story about Joan of Arc, born in 1412 in some forgettable village as a farmer’s daughter.
She believed she heard voices from angels and female Saints, a calling from the Lord, telling her to rally her people—to put a man named Dauphin Charles on the throne and to drive the English from French lands.
When she turned seventeen, she embarked on a great journey.
She cut off her long tresses and dressed like a man to travel, then met in secret with the noble Dauphin Charles.
After a series of tests, she earned his trust. “Joan the Maid,” he called her.
She took up training in arms, like any other soldier—clad in metals and wielding a sword.
She mastered military strategy and led charges, scaled burning ladders, and survived an arrow to the neck.
A pang walloped Anne, the memory of Mam’s bedtime stories of the mighty Grace O’Malley—her strength and command on both land and sea.
“What happened to her?” Anne asked, more alert than she’d felt in months.
Monsieur Perrin peered out the window, as he’d advised Anne against so often. When he turned back and met her gaze, she saw the sadness in his eyes.
“Tell me.”
Mr. Perrin winced, wanting to end there, on the happy note, the marvel. “Enemies traded her to the English. They held a trial and accused Jeanne of heresy. She evaded their arguments. Infuriated, her accusers drew up seventy offenses—including blasphemy, dressing as a man, and witchcraft.”
“They found her guilty?” Anne asked, beating him to the bad news.
Monsieur Perrin cleaned his spectacles. “She rejected their accusations until the end. She had a chance to live out her days in prison, but she refused to relinquish her men’s clothing and sense of the divine. They burned her at the stake, and she was made a saint at the age of nineteen.”
Anne sank back into her chair and clenched her teeth. Her limbs felt heavy. Her heart sore. What a terrible ending. Was Joan of Arc a hero? A bloody fool? “Why did you think I would like this story?” Anne demanded, verging on defense. There was enough death and unfairness in her fraying world.
Monsieur Perrin blinked away his confusion.
“I’m sorry, Miss Cormac. I meant no harm.
And perhaps it is improper to say this.” He put his spectacles back on and cleared his throat.
“But something about you reminds me of Jeanne. La sainte patronne de la France. You ask thoughtful questions and resist simple answers. Standard conventions, such as those found in my lecture methods, do not serve you best. I hope you will remember this lesson and what Jeanne inspired in her people, commanding them to, ‘Allez hardiment!’”
“Go boldly,” Anne repeated.
He began to pack his belongings. “I do not pretend to know the difference between heroes and heresy, as history writes and determines those answers.” He paused to catch her eye. “But I would be a failure of a tutor if I did not tell you, at least once, the rare quality of your mind.”
Anne’s heart thumped with equal parts bafflement and curiosity. Monsieur Perrin had evaluated her difficult situation, the whole of it and her, and offered her this unexpected gift. She had a mind. Listening, Anne recognized that she also had a heart.
And despite everything, it still beat.