Jeanne Dugas of Acadia (16 page)

Chapter 32

I
t was a sombre group that made its way into the woods at dusk – more than thirty women and children in the Dugas and Bois families, including the four de la Tour girls. They made their way in silence, as if even the children understood that they had entered into a different world and a new way of being. The family of Amalie Boudreau, one of Anne's oldest friends, was to join them, but at the very last minute Amalie decided that she could not bear to abandon her frail elderly father to die alone at the poste, nor could she let her children go into hiding without her. She and Anne embraced silently, and Amalie led her children back to the fort.

Anne knew they could not go far that evening, but the important thing was to get away from La Petite Rochelle. Having spent almost five years along the North Shore, she knew something about the terrain. There was a Mi'kmaw trail that would take them near Nipisiguit, if they could find the head of it. And there were areas where they might find some kind of shelter in abandoned campsites. They had brought with them the pitifully meagre provisions they had on hand, but it was summer so there would be berries and roots to eat and clear spring water to drink.

Anne knew the strength of her children and of Marguerite and her brood, but she was unsure of Jeanne. She was not unsympathetic toward her sister-in-law, but she had to be realistic. Anne knew that her own mother would have said, “It is in the hands of le bon Dieu.”
Well, Maman
, she thought,
heaven forbid
.

In spite of everything she had been through so far in her life, Jeanne had never had to sleep in the open. She was determined to be as strong as the others and to help as much as possible, but she soon realized that she was more of a hindrance than a help, so she took charge of her own brood and followed the others. She marvelled at how Anne managed and led the group and at how little guidance the children needed.

When they stopped at dusk to camp beside streams, the older children cut branches from pine or spruce trees to make paillasses to sleep on. When they came across berries or edible roots they picked them. The older boys managed to catch some trout in the streams. Anne doled out the rations, bit by bit. The children received more than the adults and Jeanne was not sure that Anne herself ate anything at all.

Anne was worried because she was having difficulty finding the trail that would lead them in the direction of Nipisiguit. Jeanne wondered if they could find their way there without the trail, but said nothing. On their third day walking they came upon it by chance. It was much easier to follow the trail than to walk in the bush and they made better time. That evening they came across an abandoned campsite and slept under rough shelter. The children went scrounging in abandoned kitchen gardens and returned with a few shrivelled vegetables.

The remaining few days were much the same. As they started out on their last day, they met a Mi'kmaw man. He was not from the settlement near La Petite Rochelle, but he greeted them as friends. He did not have any news of the battle in the Baie des Chaleurs, but he told them they were very close to the area of Nipisiguit.

Jeanne asked him if he should see Jean Sauvage or his nephew Martin would he please tell them that he had seen the Dugas and Bois families here.

They arrived at Nipisiguit in the afternoon and were greeted by other Acadians from La Petite Rochelle. There was some semblance of order amid the chaos. Jeanne was amazed at the strength and competence of these Acadian wives and mothers and at how Anne and Marguerite simply became part of their group of leaders.

They had arranged for the various families to camp in different areas. They were using three abandoned campsites nearby and had built rough shelters from branches for several others. They had pooled their food rations and arranged for groups to pick berries and roots and for others to fish. One group had scrounged everything edible from the abandoned campsite gardens. They were managing to cook on a hearth in a partly destroyed house. The campsites were full, but Anne said that rough shelters would be welcome and some of them would sleep in the open.

Marie-Cécile Landry, a small, leathery-skinned woman who seemed to be the head of the refugee mothers, asked them for what rations they had, if any. They had almost nothing left, but Anne handed the food over to her. Marie-Cécile then gave them a meal which in normal times they would have found insufficient, but here was more than they would have managed on their own.

Lethargy seemed to settle over them after they had eaten, perhaps because of their great weariness, perhaps because of the lessening of tension now that they had found refuge. Anne said they should go to their camp and put the children to bed. Marie-Cécile asked the women to come back to see her later.

Jeanne had felt more like one of the children throughout all of this. Even though she had lived at La Petite Rochelle for a year, she knew she had not experienced what these women had – what had made them so strong. After the children were bedded down, Anne suggested that Jeanne stay to keep on eye on them. Jeanne refused. She knew the older children were quite capable of keeping an eye on the others, and she followed Anne and Marguerite back to the main camp.

Marie-Cécile offered them some herbal tea she had brewed. “Ah,” Marguerite remarked, “this is what my mother used to do when she had to give someone bad news.” Marie-Cécile flinched and they all stared at her.

She did not speak right away. She quietly sipped her tea and the three other women did the same. Finally, she spoke.

“We had a visit from a Mi'kmaw warrior yesterday,” she said in a quiet voice. “He told us that the British have defeated the French at the Baie des Chaleurs. The three French ships are lost. I am sure that is not a surprise to you. But the British have also ravaged and burnt down La Petite Rochelle. They killed all the Acadians, the French and the Mi'kmaq they could find. They did not take prisoners.”

The three Dugas women sat silent and still, focused on Marie-Cécile's words.

“The warrior said that some militia and resistance leaders escaped. They were able to go up the rivière Ristigouche in small boats, where the large British warships couldn't follow. We asked about all the people we could think of, but he did not have many names. I know that my husband and my...” she gave a sob, “my one remaining son were killed. The Mi'kmaw was not sure, but thought that the Dugas brothers might have escaped.

“I also asked about Marie Braud,” she continued after a slight pause. “I knew her. He said that she and her husband Michel Benoist were slain and scalped. I didn't mention that, did I? They scalped their victims.”

Jeanne felt as if she had turned to stone. When Anne and Marguerite stood up to leave, still without uttering a word, she silently followed them as if in a trance.

Jeanne went to her paillasse in one of the shelters and lay down with Marie, Pierrot, Angélique and Nono, but throughout the long night she did not sleep. As the first rays of dawn appeared, she kissed her sleeping children. Then, without being aware of doing so, she grabbed her bundle of treasures and walked into the forest, putting one foot ahead of the other. She did not think. She did not feel. She would stop breathing if she could.

Chapter 33

M
artin Sauvage found Jeanne at dusk, several leagues from where she had left her group to go deep into the forest. She was standing near a brook and looking up at an almost full moon that was just becoming visible over the tree line. Martin quietly walked up behind her and gently put a hand on her shoulder. “Jeanne,” he whispered softly.

She whirled around in the semi-light to see a Mi'kmaw warrior in war paint, armed with a musket and a hatchet. A look of sheer terror appeared on her face.

“Jeanne, it's Martin. I'm sorry if I frightened you,” he said in a soothing voice.

She gasped. She tried to speak but could not utter a word. She flapped a hand as if to dispel an apparition.

“Jeanne, come with me.”

She shook her head. She took a few steps away from the brook and tried to run, but tripped over some roots. She lay on the ground, her body curled and her face turned away from him in stony silence.

He knelt beside her. “Jeanne, everyone is worried and afraid for you. Come with me.” She did not move.

Martin quickly cut some pine branches and laid them on the ground and spread his blanket-robe on top of them. He went to the stream and washed the war paint off his face, then carried Jeanne over to the paillasse of branches and laid her down on it. “Can you speak to me, Jeanne?” he asked.

She tried, but could not utter any words. She was shivering. He knew she was in shock. He lay down and wrapped his arms around her to stop her trembling. She clung to him. Martin held her to him silently for some time, and then started whispering to her.

“Jeanne, you've had a bad shock. Anne told me. How they died. How it happened. And this came on top of a lot of other bad things, didn't it? My poor Jeanne. My poor sweet Jeanne.” She still could not speak. Then her body shook with a spasm and the tears came. She sobbed uncontrollably, Martin holding her tightly to absorb her sobs.

He crooned softly to her in his own language as he had done with Nono when bringing him to Jeanne.

Finally, her tears subsided and her voice returned. “I'm sorry, Martin,” she gasped.

“No, don't be sorry. Can you talk to me now?” She choked back a sob.

“It's because Marie and Michel were killed and then ... mon Dieu! ... then they scalped them!” She was speaking in a hoarse, low voice, as if she was afraid the forest or maybe God might hear her.

“Marie never had a life of her own. And finally she met Michel and she was so happy ... Michel loved her, he really loved her.” Jeanne babbled on between sobs. “I wanted to stay with her at the poste and Anne wouldn't let me.... And they were scalped! Marie, who never hurt anyone in her life! She was scalped! If we didn't live in this terrible world it would not have happened....” She gasped for breath.

“It is a terrible thing to scalp someone, Jeanne.” Martin hesitated. “But my people do it, the French, the Acadians and the English do it too.”

“But why Marie, who was so good and so innocent? Why should she be destroyed at her moment of happiness?” She sobbed again and shook her head. She felt an overpowering anger. After a long pause, she drew a ragged breath.

“Tell me, Martin,” she said in a calmer but still angry voice, “if our children and grandchildren survive and tell our stories, will the women and children be remembered? Or will they only talk about the kings, the governors, the militiamen and the warriors? Will anyone remember that innocent women and children were scalped too? Tell me. Tell me, Martin,” she demanded angrily.

He was glad to see her angry. It would serve her better than despair.

“I don't know, Jeanne. But I do know that those who survive must go on. You are grieving for Marie Braud and Michel and that is proper. Now you must think of Marie and Pierrot and Angélique and the little orphan. Pierre. All your family.”

Her eyes filled with tears again. “No, I don't think it matters. They don't need me.”

“Don't say that. It's not true.”

“It is true. Anne is the strong woman in the family. She has been wonderful to all of us. My children and Nono adore her. Did you know that Pierrot has named your orphan ‘Nono'? Anne would be very good to them. She has been a wonderful mother to the de la Tour girls and the twins. I could not have found my way here as she did. I'm useless.”

“Jeanne, you have been through many bad things and your spirit is very sad. Ask your god to help you.”

“No, Martin. Go away. Leave me.” The tears started again, as she pushed him away and got up from the paillasse. He grabbed her arm.

“Jeanne, you can't walk away in the dead of night. Stay with me and talk to me. We don't have to talk about God.”

“No? Well why not? Where is le bon Dieu when we need Him? Why did He let us Acadians build a nation and then let it be taken away from us? Why can't He arrange for us to have just a small corner of this very big land to live on peacefully? Why did He send us missionaries who only care about France, not about Acadia? Why did these missionaries talk to us only about a reward after we die? Why don't they want us to find at least a little contentment on this earth? And why, why, why have the Mi'kmaq accepted to be ruled by such a God?”

She stopped – horrified at having let herself be carried away by her anger. “I'm sorry, Martin. I'm so sorry,” she gulped. She looked into the darkening forest again, as though someone or something might have heard her.

“Jeanne, let me tell you the story of how my people accepted your god, as I have heard it from our elders.” Jeanne hesitated, then lay wearily in his gentle arms.

“Many moons ago,” he began, “soon after your people came here, our Grand Chief Membertou entered into a concordat with your god and the French. The concordat recognized us as a Christian nation and this meant that we could sell our furs to the French. But we did not sell our spirit to your god.

“We have tried to keep the best of our traditions and those of your religion. For example, Sainte-Anne is our patron; as the grandmother of Jesus, she is an elder and this is important to us.

“Our faith in the Great Spirit is deeply connected with the land. We believe that all living things – plants, animals, people and Mother Earth herself – have God within them and must be respected.”

Martin paused briefly, and then said quietly, “We must not lose our land.”

“What are you thinking about, Jeanne?” he asked.

“Saint-Anne. The beautiful statuette you gave me. She is one of my treasures.”

“Then pray to her, Jeanne, when your spirit is weak or sick.”

“Yes....” Then she exclaimed, “My bundle! I brought my bundle of special things with me and now I have lost it. Mon Dieu, I did it without thinking. I am so selfish. I left my children behind, but I brought my bundle with me....”

“Your spirit was sick. It's not your fault.”

Her eyes filled with tears again. “I think ... I think maybe these things in my bundle remind me of who I am.” She sniffled. “Well, I guess I am no one now.” She tried to laugh, but gave a strangled sob instead.

“Jeanne, I found your bundle. That's how I found you.”

“You have it, Martin?”

“Yes.” He reached into the darkness at the edge of the paillasse and gave her the bundle.

She sat on her heels, with the bundle on her knees, and covered her face with her hands for a few moments. Then, almost as if to prove to him how childish she was, she showed him the things inside it. The shawl, her portrait, the books and the statuette of Sainte-Anne.

“Jeanne, would you give me something?”

She hesitated then shyly offered him the small portrait of her young self in the blue silk gown.

“Thank you.” He smiled. “We will go back in the morning. Now you must sleep.”

He started to say something else, but she put her hand gently on his lips. “Shush.” Then she lay down in his embrace.

—

It was only when they were walking back to camp the following morning that Jeanne thought to ask Martin why he had been the one to look for her.

“A Mikmaw friend saw you two days ago. He told me where you were. When I arrived at the camp yesterday, Anne told me you were missing. She was very worried and didn't know what to do. She did not want to upset your children, but your little Marie knew your special bundle was gone and she too was worried.”

“Ah, mon Dieu....”

“Jeanne, you are here, you are going back to your children. That is the important thing. I am very happy that I found you. I was coming here to tell you and the others that the Dugas brothers and your husband were not captured in the battle. I have not seen them myself but it was reported. I'm not sure where they are now, but Anne expects them to make their way here when they can.”

“Dieu merci! I—”

“Jeanne, please don't say you're sorry.”

—

They arrived at the camp at midday. As they came out of the woods, Jeanne could see a group of people watching for her. She waved and ran towards her children. They all threw themselves at her, except for Marie.

“Maman, where did you go?” asked Pierrot. Nono parroted, “Maman, where did you go?” Angélique clung to her. Marie watched her quietly.

“Well, Maman went into the woods to pick some berries, and she got lost. Luckily, Uncle Martin came along and found me. I didn't find any berries,” she said as she tried to smile.

“Well, Jeanne,” said Anne, “you are back safe and sound that that is all that matters. Come, you must be hungry.”

Marie went to Martin. “Uncle Martin, is Maman all right?”

“Yes, of course, she is. But sometimes Maman needs help too, so now you're getting big enough to help her aren't you, Marie?”

“Yes. Thank you for finding her for us.”

Anne asked Martin to eat with them but he said he had to go. “I will pass the word along that the Dugas and Bois families are here,” he said, “and the others who have given me their names.”

Jeanne watched him slip quietly away, then turned to Anne. Her sister-in-law put a strong arm around her and said, “Come, Jeanne, we don't need to talk about this, now or ever, if you don't want to. We have all been through terrible events, but we have to keep going, no matter what happens. The women who give in to total despair are the ones who have no one who needs them. Your children need you. We all of us need you.”

“But Anne,” Jeanne insisted, “it's so dreadful ... have you thought of your friend Amalie ... what about her?”

An expression of pain and sorrow surfaced on Anne's face, but was quickly erased. “I know, Jeanne,” she said. “But I can't let myself dwell on it, not now. I have to keep moving. We all have to. Perhaps we will find time to grieve in the future. Not now.”

Abashed, but grateful that her actions were not to be questioned, Jeanne walked away with Anne, her children hanging on to her skirt.