Bride of New France (24 page)

It seems like years have passed since this spring when Mireille died. So much has changed since then. Laure can hardly remember the times she spent working so hard to write a letter to the King, to adjust Mireille’s gown to the latest fashion in the basement workshop of the hospital. Now she will wear the dress to Madeleine’s funeral.

Laure can still smell the sea journey in her hair. She has not been able to cleanse herself of the long ocean crossing. She brings a strand to her mouth. There is still a taste of salt on it. Laure doesn’t want to see the girls from the ship at the funeral. She barely spoke to them, staying most of the time below deck trying to coax Madeleine to eat, wiping her forehead in hopes that she would grow stronger. Neither did she talk to them much as they journeyed in canoes up the river to Ville-Marie. The ones they have sent to Ville-Marie, the farthest outpost of the colony, are
homely country girls and gaunt Pitié residents. The best-looking and healthiest women were chosen to stay at Québec.

Laure will need to ask one of these girls, sleeping in the dormitory room outside the alcove, to tie the bodice of her gown for the funeral. For now, she climbs into the whalebone corset, lifting the heavy skirt to her hips and sliding her arms through the sleeves of the dress. She lies back down on the cot when this is complete. She can feel the sweat forming on her body from the congested warmth of the tiny attic room. She listens to the country accents of the girls in the dormitory and dozes a little, her arms laid across her chest like a corpse.

Laure enters the adjoining room in the congregation where the other girls have been sleeping. The room is smaller than the dormitory at the Salpêtrière, though each of the girls has her own bed. Laure has entered from the alcove room wearing the jewelled gown of bright yellow and red. Her hair is loose and hangs over her shoulders and down her back like a dark cape. The other girls still have on their thin grey nightshirts for sleeping. A few have already laid out on their beds tattered cotton frocks for the funeral.

The girl that Laure approaches to tie the dress makes a quick movement backward on her bed before agreeing with a nod to the task. With nervous fingers, she does her best to tighten the leather string around Laure’s slight waist. When the dress is properly tied, Laure turns to the others and smiles. “I am here to marry an officer.”

Laure removes from her bodice the small locket she took yesterday from Madeleine’s trousseau. “This is the man I have
come for. He will be my husband.” She holds out the chain to them and they watch it swing back and forth. Laure doesn’t let the three country girls, with their thick, dirty fingers, touch the locket. Instead she holds it open for them at such a distance that they have to strain their eyes, the way Laure once did, to make out Frédéric’s features.

The funeral is held at the Ville-Marie cemetery near the river. The procession includes the Jesuit priest who travelled with them from Québec, a colony administrator several ranks below the Intendant who officiated at yesterday’s ceremony, two soldiers from the Carignan-Salières regiment, including the one who walked Laure to the Hôtel-Dieu, the nurse present at Madeleine’s death, some of the sisters from Marguerite Bourgeoys’ congregation, and a few Algonquin Savages. The two Jesuit priests, including the young one who spent so much time talking with Madeleine, are holding the funeral ceremony. The younger priest keeps his eyes downcast as the rites begin.

The Algonquins have come to bury, alongside Madeleine, an elderly man of their nation who died of smallpox. He was a Savage converted by the Jesuits, which is why he will be buried in the Catholic cemetery. Two holes have been dug in the earth for the bodies. The Hospitalières have sewn Madeleine’s body into a canvas sack, while the corpse of the Savage has been left exposed. His face and shirt have been painted red, which frightens the newly arrived girls. The other Ville-Marie residents seem accustomed to this tradition. An old woman takes the shovel offered to her by a soldier and begins to throw dirt over the body.

One of the younger Savage men looks past the assembly to Laure. He is standing at a distance, away from the priest and the other French settlers. He seems interested in Laure’s bright dress but averts his eyes when she notices him staring.

Laure wonders if the other soldier is the officer Frédéric. She is wearing his locket around her neck. Looking around at the colonists, there doesn’t seem to be anybody above the rank of shoe cobbler here. Laure wears the locket like an amulet to protect her from the brute she will soon be expected to marry.
Madeleine, there should be princes and dukes to honour you
, she thinks, gazing at the stark burlap sack with Madeleine’s body inside.
What a small mark you have left in the world. Not one of these fools mumbling their incantations has ever heard you speak. What a gentle voice you had. And always such good words that came from you. Only the young Jesuit, shaking incense smoke over your body, has some idea what a fine and noble person you were. As pure as a saint
.

Laure wonders what the new priest feels to be uttering prayers over Madeleine’s dead body. The older priest hurries through the incantations, accustomed to death. But perhaps the young one is touched by Madeleine’s passing, heartbroken even. What will become of him, choosing to leave behind a soft childhood and a good education to be here among residents of the kingdom’s poorhouses and merciless Savages? How long will it take before these vast woods swallow him too? A month? A year? Will he emerge like the bent man beside him with mutilated limbs, speaking words in Savage tongues, numb to death?

The priest keeps repeating what a shame it is that Madeleine’s young life was wasted. That this girl, brought over at the King’s expense, will never become a colony wife, will
not live to raise any children.
If only this religious man could know that you preferred to die than to break the vow of chastity you made all by yourself without the support of any orders, without wearing the clothes of a holy woman
.

Only that ugly Savage sees that I have on my finest gown for you, Madeleine. You would probably tell me not to call him ugly. But even from a distance I can see that his face is scarred. Madeleine, you are the saint of nowhere now. How can you be laid to rest here, in this brutal forest? How will you know where you are? He is looking at me again, and I think it’s sympathy in his black eyes, but I can’t read the faces of Savage strangers
.

Laure’s shoulders begin to tremble and she sways on her feet. The young Algonquin notices and rushes over to her. “
Malade?
” he asks.

Laure shakes her head. His face is marked by the same disease that killed the old man. Laure has heard much about this disease that has claimed so many of the Savages living near the French, has even made some of them think that the Jesuit priests carry with them the curse of this disease. Unlike so many of his kind, though, he has survived. Mireille and Madeleine succumbed to their diseases. Now that he is beside her, Laure can smell the animal grease and hides that cover his body. It is already an odour she associates with Canada. She became familiar with it on the canoe journey, on the long, silent days spent cutting into the river with wooden oars and sleeping in the forest at night. The men laughed at Laure when she complained that they smelled of rotten flesh like butchers. That is the smell of Canada’s silver, they said.

The Savage speaks in his strange language with some French words mixed in. He indicates the ceremony going on in front of them and begins counting something out on his fingers. Laure
thinks he is lamenting how many people from his nation have died. He nods his chin toward the women from the Notre-Dame congregation, as if to suggest that Laure belongs with them and should be standing closer to them. She shakes her head. She wants him to go away, to leave her alone with her grief.

He tells her that his name is Deskaheh. He says that it is an Iroquois name but that he is an Algonquin. He waits for her to introduce herself. Instead, Laure points at the body and says, “Madeleine.” Deskaheh does the same for the man painted in red. Laure doesn’t understand what he utters as the old man’s name.

She wants to tell this Savage that there was also Mireille, a girl in France who had died, that although she hadn’t really liked her, she hadn’t wanted her to die. Laure also feels like saying that she is still grieving for an old wealthy Madame who had been kind and taught her many things. And if she were to look even further down into her well of grief, she could tell him about her father and mother, who might both be dead by now as well. She could say that she still hears her father singing a song meant for a little girl and that it is a cruel trick of the mind to remember this melody after all this time. But she imagines this Savage could keep going with this game too. Laure doubts that this is his first funeral. She imagines that the scars on his face are just the beginning of his story.

Mathurin notices the Savage talking to Laure. He makes his way over to them, swaggering as he walks. Laure doesn’t know which of these men disgusts her more. They both smell terrible, in different ways, and speak to her when they have no business doing so.

“She wasn’t sent all the way here to spend her time talking with Savages,” Mathurin says when he reaches them.

Judging by the puzzled look on Deskaheh’s face, he doesn’t understand all of Mathurin’s words, but the tone is clear enough.

“
Malade!
” he exclaims, justifying why he has come over to Laure’s side.

But Mathurin takes Deskaheh’s word as an insult. His full cheeks fill with blood and he raises his shoulders, taking a step toward Deskaheh, who backs up.

Laure moves between the two. She doesn’t want to attract the attention of the others at the funeral. But Mathurin has already raised his fist and is swinging it at Deskaheh in the direction of Laure’s head.

Deskaheh pushes Laure hard to the side, and she falls onto her hands in the dirt, her dress spreading around her like a wave. The cry she makes on hitting the ground interrupts the funeral. She sees that the Algonquins look surprised to see that Deskaheh has thrown a French woman to the ground. Mathurin takes the opportunity to once again swing his fist at Deskaheh. This time his knuckles connect with Deskaheh’s nose. Blood spurts from it. Laure scrambles back, away from the fighting men, but not before several bright spatters of Deskaheh’s blood land on her skirt.

The nurse from the Hôtel-Dieu rushes away from the quieted priest and his followers. Laure wants to say something as the soldiers yank the two men to their feet, to explain what really happened. But before she can open her mouth, the nurse has given her a new dose of laudanum.

That evening, when Laure awakens back in the alcove of the Congrégation Notre-Dame, she asks for a candle and a paper and ink. It seems there is nothing these women won’t do to protect her, with their kind words, the medicine and arms they
extend to her. One of the sisters brings the requested items to Laure. The same woman also returns Laure’s dress, saying they got most of the bloodstains out. Laure holds the skirt over the candlelight. The spatters are faded and brown.

“It’s a lovely dress,” the nun says. “You can hardly see that the stains are there. Nobody will look that closely.”

That is a lie. Laure can see nothing but the traces of blood when she looks at the skirt. She runs her fingers over them.

There is a small desk in the room. The young sister who brought Laure the ink and paper says she cannot write herself. She asks if she can stay and watch while Laure composes the letter. Laure is at least glad that she has permission to write here. She doesn’t have to hide, like she did at the Salpêtrière, waiting for a few minutes at the end of the sewing day to copy down the sentence she had been rehearsing for hours in her mind.

From what Laure has seen so far, Ville-Marie is a desperate enterprise of constant war against the Iroquois Savages, of soldiers being allocated pieces of the forest, of trading animal pelts for survival. The men’s greedy fantasies of becoming wealthy are quickly replaced by an endless routine of chopping wood and fighting off insects. Most of the men give up and return to France. Only the crazed or truly desperate stay on. Laure hates it already and wants to leave. But for now she is glad that although she is only an orphan from the Hôpital Général de Paris, she has been given a candle and space on a desk to write.