Bride of New France (32 page)

T
he dress Laure completed for Madeleine over the winter, blue with fox-fur trim, hangs from the ceiling of the cabin alongside the yellow one that once belonged to Mireille. From the material in her chest, the extra pieces given to her at the Congrégation Notre-Dame, Laure has also made two more dresses. She has sewn into the linen and serge patches of animal skin, a little tree bark, whatever she could find to continue with the patterns in her mind.

It is spring, and despite the four gowns hanging from her ceiling, Laure has on a linen housedress and a grey woollen blanket that once belonged to Mathurin over her shoulders. He must have stolen it from the ship when he crossed over from Old France, or perhaps it had been handed out in the colony to the soldiers of his regiment. Although the sun of early spring has grown stronger and there are hints of green coming through the remaining snow, Laure is still afraid to put out the fire in the cabin. The pig, Mathurin, has long forgotten the meals of deer flesh that ran out almost a month ago. He is once again hungry and listless in his pen. Laure watches the beast from the middle of the room. She has been
ready all winter to try and shoot the pig if he decides to attack, but he does not.

Laure is as thin as the dresses she has hung from the ceiling when Mathurin, fattened up by his stay with the Algonquins, enters the cabin. He gags and covers his nose when he walks through the door. Laure wonders how she could have grown accustomed to the smell in the room if it is really that bad. When Mathurin sees Laure sitting by the fire, he takes a startled step back. She isn’t sure if it is her appearance that frightens him or the gun she is holding on her lap.

Laure glances up at her husband, her eyes trying to focus on his figure. She remembers having many dreams of his return from the cold confines of the
lit-cabane
. The reappearance of this man is Laure’s prize for making it through her first winter in Canada. Her mouth opens and the sound that comes out is a cry and a question.
Where have you been?
Only no words form in her throat.

Laure wonders what Mathurin sees when he looks at her: Has her first winter in Canada turned her into a madwoman, a heretic, worthy of being imprisoned? “You have returned to your wife,” she finally says in a low voice, keeping hold of the gun on her chest. There is no way Mathurin can see in her features that she spent two of the winter nights in the company of Deskaheh. Even Laure can barely remember his visits. They have melted from her mind like the heavy snow around the cabin. She is empty now, a shell welcoming back her husband.

Mathurin notices the dresses hanging from the ceiling and his eyes grow even wider. He walks over to them, touches
the seams where Laure has sewn in the debris of the winter she spent without him. “It’s the Salpêtrière,” he says as if to himself. “The men who married women from there are all complaining.” Laure wonders if perhaps she has become a ghost as transparent as the figures she has imagined wearing the gowns.

The dresses are impressive, varied in cut and style and well stitched. Although to make them Laure has used up in one winter the thread and material in her chest from Paris that were supposed to last her a lifetime in the colony.

Mathurin walks toward Laure and crouches beside her. “City women can’t handle life here.” His voice is gentle now. He releases his hand from over his nose and reaches for her matted hair. Laure strikes his wrist in a quick animal movement. He backs away from her.

Up close, Laure can see that Mathurin has painted his face to look like a Savage. Her pink-pig husband has red stripes on his glowing cheeks. She begins to laugh. Mathurin returned from the forest after being away for 126 days suddenly seems hilarious to her. “This is how I passed the time,” she says, indicating the dresses. Her voice sounds frail and hoarse, as if this one winter has turned her into a very old woman.

“Why didn’t you go stay with the others? There are other women here. The wives of Tardif and Lefebvre …” Laure thinks that Mathurin is seeking some way to alleviate his guilt at the sight of his wife’s winter-starved body and the horrible stench of the cabin. What a coward he seems to her.

Laure recites to him each of these women’s reasons for leaving her alone all winter. “Madame Tardif is a
Canadienne
. Born here.” This was the woman Laure had shown her needlework to, the colony wife who thought that ways from
Paris didn’t belong in Canada. Madame Tardif already has three children and arms the size of the cabin’s pillars. She had offered to house Laure, but with about the same amount of emotion that the Superior of the Salpêtrière felt about providing a bed for another poor girl from the countryside. It was to be Madame Tardif’s third winter alone in Pointe-aux-Trembles and she was proud of her ability to endure it.

Then there was Madame Lefebvre, a nervous rat of a woman much younger than Madame Tardif. She had asked Laure back in November to help her nail a board across the door to her cabin, to keep out the hungry bears. Then she had scurried off through the forest, with a brother who looked just like her, back to her father’s place in Ville-Marie. “How was I to know?” Laure’s words are an accusation, and Mathurin looks at his feet. What a weak man she has married.

Mathurin comes forward and takes the gun from Laure’s hand. She relinquishes it and slumps forward a little. She watches as Mathurin lifts the gun, opening and shutting the chambers, clicking it into working order. She wonders for a brief moment if he is planning to shoot her. Perhaps the winter has left her unworthy of further life, like a horse who has outlived its legs. But Mathurin turns away from Laure and walks over to the pen. Mathurin the pig looks up with tired eyes. By the time Laure realizes what her husband is about to do, it is too late. The cabin resounds with the shot he fires. The pig lets out a disappointed sigh.

“Let me prepare you a feast to celebrate the end of our first winter in Pointe-aux-Trembles,” Mathurin says. Laure watches
the dresses swaying around her husband, feeling as if another ghost has entered her life.

Mathurin has insisted that they eat outside. Although it is still chilly, much of the snow has melted. He has lit a fire between two tree stumps. The damp air quickly fills with smoke. Laure sits on one of the stumps and watches her husband roast the flesh of his pig self. He carries the meat over to her in a bowl, but she refuses to eat any of it. Mathurin devours the contents of his bowl, his fingers and mouth becoming greasy. Laure stands up, her knees wobbly, and returns to the cabin with careful steps. She wonders if it would have been better if Deskaheh had let her starve. She wouldn’t be sinking her weak legs into the muddy holes of her life with Mathurin if only the winter had swallowed her whole.

Shortly after Mathurin’s return from the
pays sauvages
, green buds begin appearing on the dry branches of the aspen trees. The snow around the settlement melts into little streams that gather strength as they flow toward the river. Even after a few weeks, Laure’s body still feels weak, as grey as the mud the melted snow has exposed. But it won’t be long before the long, cold months are behind her. The silence of winter has passed, and she feels herself gaining strength each day. Squirrels and birds dash in and out of the trees searching for supplies to build their nests. Laure sees a robin outside the cabin, its red breast an infusion of life. Despite herself,
she turns her face to the warmth of the sun and waits to come back to life.

Throughout the months of April and May, Laure and Mathurin work, along with the other settlers of Pointe-aux-Trembles, at preparing the settlement for summer. The men cut wood to repair the cabins, patching up the places the women tell them let in the cold. The roof of the Lefebvre cabin collapsed in the winter from the weight of the snow. It is good that the woman abandoned it early to go live with her family in Ville-Marie. Her husband has decided to stay on with the Savages, so the remains of their hut sit like a skeleton, a gloomy memory of winter amidst the optimism of spring.

The settlers also look for open spaces among the trees, for spots to plant gardens from the seeds they have received from the Intendant. In the largest clearing they plant wheat, a little barley and oat. In the smaller patches they plant cabbage, turnips, carrots, peas, and onions. But digging into the hard ground to clear the soil using axes, stones, and whatever else they can find is painful work that nobody can stand to do for very long. Even the women take turns so the men can rest. It is a beastly endeavour to pound and rip at soil that is thick with ancient life. The work of fools is what Laure thinks as she attempts to make some progress despite the weakness of her arms. In the end, the settlers cannot clear enough land to plant all the seeds they have been given and decide to save some for the following year.