Naomi Dawn Musch

Excerpt from chapter one of

"The Casket Girl"

by Naomi Dawn Musch

Chapter One

(Autumn 1751)

In all the many weeks that comprised the voyage over, it seemed to the young woman that, for the first time, she was almost able to ignore the heavy smell of sour bodies and sea salt and human waste that clung to everyone aboard the ship. Now, as the shipload of passengers at last lay in this New Orleans harbor waiting with withering patience to disembark, she could feel a thrill passing over her like a shiver.

"And now you will finally get to meet your young fellow, eh, casket girl?"

It was a short, broad-faced seaman addressing her. She had not been encouraged to speak to them, or rather, they to the passengers, but this man had disregarded the policy often as they crossed the Atlantic. He’d made himself almost annoyingly familiar, and she d that he kept on calling her that, never bothering to find out her true name. She nodded.

"Well then," he smiled, "let us hope that we will get you to him soon. I am almost certain that he is equally anxious to have you!" He laughed with a wide, tooth-stained mouth, then he turned away, chuckling as he sauntered through the huddle of humanity crowding the deck to ogle the port.

The young french woman pushed an oily strand of short, coffee colored hair out of her eyes and resumed her own study of the New World that lay before her. New Orleans, Louisiana Territory. New France. Home. If that had been all, she would have felt a sad cry for reassurance inside herself, for all was so unfamiliar.

Before her was a wide open space, a colorful spectacle alive with life and activity. Wagons and horses nearly bumped into one another as they bustled by the rabble that began to gather on the docks. Negro slaves outnumbered Frenchmen three or four to one, and Indians did, too. Some of them wore civil dress, but others were nearly . They were tall and brown with black eyes that appeared to miss nothing.

Tall buildings and stout warehouses rose away from the wharf, and the docks were lined with both the towering white masts of ships as well as simple canoes rocking on the waves.

The thrill passed through her again as her thoughts sped hastily toward André, and she tried to spy him on the wharf. Would they recognize one another? She had not changed much, though of course she had filled out in a more womanly way than he would remember. In her village back in Brittany her friends told her that André would be surprised to see what a pretty young woman he had won. She was only fourteen when they met, while he was three years older. Then he left for New France to escape the rampant poverty of the common classes under Louis XV. He wished to become a farmer. That was four years ago. Their courtship had been conducted purely by letter since. In fact, the wait would have been longer still, for André had only been able to secure half of her passage to New France. So it was that she ended up enlisting her services as filles du roi, or what the sailor had called her, a casket , for there was always need for wives here in this land, and France, for so doing, would provide her with the remainder of her fare and a small dowry in a casket.

Ah, André. He would have a beard, no doubt, but she would recognize his eyes!

"All right now! Come! Let's move it!"

She was again conscious of the pressing figures around her and the smell as the crowd became animated. Everyone looked sick and bedraggled. There was a haunting combination of joy and sadness etched in many of the faces; happy that they had finally reached the shores of Louisiana, and yet for many, sorrowful because they had lost a wife or child along the way.

"Your passage must be paid up over here before you can get off, so let us get started!" a voice barked.

She thought at once to drag her small, precious casket and bag, and hurry to the front of the line, but there were so many before her with children that she buried her urge and waited for the long slow process to continue. She was not in any way prepared to witness the sights that then occurred. It had become the lot of many who had used their money to buy more food on the journey, or had been cheated out of it by sailors one way or another, to stay on board the ship until a way of paying up was found, or still worse, indenturing themselves or a family member to strangers as bond servants until restitution was made. It was a miserable scene that made her young heart sigh deeply with relief to know that André had prepared for the second half of her own passage.

"Let's keep it moving, Madamoiselle," another man said as he took her arm in his rough hand.

She pulled away. "Here are my papers, Monsieur. My fiancé will have paid the second half of my fare."

"Let us just see," he said. He hrumphed and growled as he whisked through the papers. Then he spit loudly before asking André’s whereabouts.

Again she searched the crowd for André’s warm brown eyes. "I am sure he is here—somewhere," she said.

"Yes, well..." he finished and handed her things back. "Wait over there."

She nodded and excused herself through the others crowding along the rail, keeping a watchful eye peeled on the wharf.

"Eunice Bellamy and son!" a voice boomed out. "Anyone for Eunice Bellamy?"

A man in his middle thirties, eyes glowing, rushed along the wharf waving his hand and calling "Ici! Ici!" In short order, he and his wife and son were swallowed in one another's arms, their passage paid.

Oh, André, the young woman wondered, where are you? Several more names were called to have their relations claim them while others paid their own fare and disembarked, but the sad majority were pushed aside into the group who would become indentured as strangers and servants before seeing their new homes. She looked down at herself again. It would be a poor way to greet her husband-to-be. She needed a bath. Even though she had managed to save away one clean dress, it, too, had taken on the smells of the ship, the bodies, the waste, the salt spray. Her hair was limp and straight too, with much of its dark er gone for lack of proper nourishment. She had lost weight, but because André had already made this trip, she knew that he would understand her state. None of this really mattered anyway, because before long she would be with him on his farm as his wife.

When she looked up from her self inspection, the captain of the vessel was standing before her. He held out his hand and without speaking a word she handed him her papers.

"Catrine Lefonte!" The captain's voice was deep and throaty, used to commands. "Anyone for Catrine Lefonte!"

There was a long, dull wait in which the myriad of noises on the wharf seemed to dim in her ears. Catrine felt a rising in her throat as her excitement began to sweep away, and she clenched her fists tight in order to keep her hands from shaking.