Bellefleur by Joyce Carol Oates Page A

newspaper exposure of La Compagnie de New York, a shareholding organization for founding a New France in the mountains for titled French families dispossessed of their property by the Revolution, at three dollars an acre (Jean-Pierre and his partners had, of course, paid the state far less after this revolution, when great masses of wilderness land originally owned by the British or by British sympathizers reverted back to the government, and state land commissioners were authorized to sell as much of it as possible, in order to populate the north country, and to establish a buffer between the new states and British Canada)—after weeks of secret meetings—the presence of strangers in the Bellefleur household—Jean-Pierre’s alternating panic and crude blustering euphoria—somehow it came about that no formal indictments were made. None. Jean-Pierre and his partners and La Compagnie were not even fined. But by then Jean-Pierre’s marriage was over: though it could not be said that he missed his wife. And then, years later, Harlan had fled, taking with him a matched team of Andalusian horses, and wearing around his lean middle a money belt stuffed with cash and all that remained of their mother’s jewelry.)
    And now Jedediah. Young Jedediah, who had always seemed so fearful of life.
    “One year!” Louis laughed. “You really think you’ll stay up in the mountains one year! My friend, you’ll be back home by the end of November.”
    Jedediah did not defend himself. His manner was both humble and arrogant.
    “Suppose you stay too long, and the passes fill up with snow?” Louis said. “It will go to fifty-seven degrees below zero up there. You know that, don’t you?”
    Jedediah made an indeterminate gesture. “But I must withdraw from this world,” he said softly.
    “Must withdraw from this world!” Louis crowed. “Listen to him talk—sounds like a preacher! Be sure you don’t withdraw altogether,” he said.
    Jedediah tried to explain himself more systematically to Germaine. But the girl’s staring tear-filled eyes distracted him.
    “I must—I want—You see, my father and his friends—Their plans for cutting down timber—Their plans for building roads and bringing in tenants—”
    Germaine stared at him. “Oh, but, Jedediah,” she whispered, “what if something happens to you? Up there in the mountains all alone . . .”
    “Nothing will happen to me,” Jedediah said.
    “When the first snowfall comes, what if you can’t get out? As Louis said—”
    Jedediah had begun to tremble. It alarmed him that he would remember —he would see —this young girl’s face even after he had fled her. “I want to—I want to withdraw from the world and see if I am worthy of—of—God’s love,” he said, blushing. His voice shook with a fanatic’s frightened audacity.
    The girl made a sudden helpless gesture, as if she wished to touch his arm. And Jedediah drew back.
    “Nothing will happen to me,” he said curtly.
    “But if you leave now—if you leave now—you won’t be here when the baby comes,” Germaine said. “And we thought—Louis and I thought—We want you to be the godfather—”
    But Jedediah withdrew, and escaped her.
     
    IN HER YOUNG husband’s arms she lay sleepless and dazed, and surprisingly bitter, for the first time since their marriage. “He doesn’t love us,” she whispered. He was running off and leaving them, he was going to risk his life in the mountains, maybe turn into one of those deranged hermits you sometimes hear about: men gone mad from too much solitude. “He doesn’t want to be our baby’s godfather,” Germaine whispered. “He doesn’t love us.”
    Only half-hearing, Louis nuzzled her neck and murmured Now, now, Puss.
    “Just when our first baby is coming,” Germaine said.
    Louis laughed, and tickled her, and buried his warm bearded mouth in her neck. “But he’ll be back for the second, and the third, and the fourth,” he said.
    Germaine did