My Name is Resolute (22 page)

“I prayed mightily,” he said, as if her having survived to complain were proof that it had had its intended effect. “We were all in mortal danger. Your staying quiet was to save all our lives. As it might be even at this moment.”

“You are no fit husband who will not take up arms and defend his wife. If you had fought them we would not be here, forced to go mile after mile—”

“Wife, I cannot insist with more earnest appeal than I do at this moment that you stop speaking at all, or if you must, keep your voice down so that we are not set upon by other savages. If I had fought them we would not be here; we would both be dead.”

She fumed, making a face so like her mother’s I nearly laughed out loud. Rachael sneered and said, “I am so ashamed to call you husband. You worthless, feeble, wimbly old man. Coward.” Rachael spat.

Reverend Johansen picked up a loose branch lying beside the path, raising it over his head. The Indians leaped forward to hack him down, until he brought it down upon Rachael’s back as she turned from him. He laid her five whacks, the same as Birgitta used to lay upon me. “You will mind your vow of obedience and duty to me and to God,
and
you will bear in mind at this time that you live at the will of these strangers among us. You will behave as a minister’s wife, sober, humble, and quiet. Your villainy could bring the murder of every soul here, and I will not idly have you throw away these lives.”

The Indians looked from one to another. They lowered their hatchets and knives. One of them took the branch from the reverend and swung it again, giving Rachael another stroke of it, as if testing to see that the beating was real. She whimpered and hid her face. The Indian man nodded and handed Reverend Johansen the stick again. He pointed to Rachael, to the reverend, and to the stick. The one who had spoken the English words before raised his hands as he had done. “This land not our land. If Cayuga find on land, many die. You not fight, you not die. Three more suns. Not Cayuga land. Three suns. Understand?”

I was not sure I understood, but it seemed enough that Rachael’s outburst had ended without bloodshed. What choice did we have whether it were three more days or a hundred and three?

For two more days, we traversed dense woods that slowed everyone, even the warriors. The food had grown scarce and many of them carried children and women upon their backs. At the top of the hill we had seen a city by a river. My own heart jumped with hope that here was freedom, at last. I would post a message to Ma. My legs wanted to run toward the beautiful city.

The third day after Rachael’s beating, our walking seemed more treacherous than the many days before it. At least to the Indians, there seemed to be great reason for care and quiet, for we were headed for the city yet trying to stay hidden in the woods, moving in small clusters as if we were sheep. They carried no one, and even my friend who’d carried me or my iron kettle made me walk and carry it again so that my fingers ached. At long last we came to a great stone wall of a regal building, larger than any I had ever seen. I wondered if it might be a governor’s palace. The Indians sent a messenger to the door, but it was not the man who spoke English. That, I found puzzling. These were not Indian buildings, I was sure, yet if he spoke no English he would be useless among these people of royal appointment. He went in. He returned. He spoke to the other Indians.

The door opened and the Indians herded us into the building. The door shut behind the last of us and the Indians filed up against one wall. I looked about but could barely see, for the brightness of the noonday sun had left me blind in the dark hallway. I rejoiced at finding something of civilization. Surely there would be hope for Patey and me at last. Beautiful colored windows lined the top of the wall and the sun shone through them, giving brilliant light and colors to the panes, yet not filtering down to where we stood. At the far end of the room someone opened yet another door and sunlight flooded into the place. The light revealed a massive room, lined with statuary and a few chairs and benches. At the far end stood an altar with a golden
crucifix
above it. Under the figure of Christ, a table full of unlit candles waited.

A gasp came from the captives about me, a sigh so deep and forlorn it pulled my heart. Many of the adults in our group dropped to their knees. Voices rose, then, men and women alike, declaring, “Papists! We are sold into the hands of the devil!”

Reverend Johansen stood, even as we watched a group of men in long black robes approaching from that opened door. “Children, listen to me. No matter what they do, no matter what they tell you, remember always that lies and deceit are under the tongue of the pope of Rome. Sell not your soul for a piece of silver or a crumb of bread—”

One of the black-robed men said, “Sit, all of you. Welcome to
l’église de Montréal
. We will find places for you to rest. To sleep. To eat.”

Master Newham asked, “And how shall we rest? We are captives and demand to be returned to our homes. To bury our dead. To take up our lives. We are not papists. We worship the true God.”

Another of the robed men said, “We paid a price for you to save your souls from hellfire. The church in its mercy will clothe and care for you, sustain and retain you all the days of your life. We have paid your purchase price.”

Then they went to the door whence we had entered and opened it, letting the Indians file out as if they were soldiers, as if they were in complete agreement with these men of robes. The robed men encircled the room, standing four abreast before each doorway. A man came in with rolled sheets of vellum under one arm and a quill perched over one ear, jar of ink in hand. He sat at one of the benches and pulled a table toward him. As he did so, another man held a candelabra high over his writing table. The two doors swung shut, plunging the room into darkness save for the candles, and the sound of heavy beams sliding into place echoed across the hall.

The first priest to have spoken said, “We will take down your names. You will follow Frère Christophe that way.” He waved his hand.

A priest in the darkness called out,
“Ici.”
No one moved. Then he said, “Come. Come forward.” When my turn came to tell him my name, I hesitated. I was known by Mary. I detested that name, but it was connected to me among the people with whom I was familiar. He asked,
“Nom? Nom?”
and finally, “What is your name?”

“Mary Talbot,” I said.

June the fifth, seventeen hundred and thirty, by the old reckoning, I was sold for the second time under the slave name of Mary Talbot to a black-frocked priest with ink-blackened fingers and a runny nose.

CHAPTER 11

June 6, 1730

The convent of Sainte-Ursule de Montréal seemed more of a great plantation than a religious order. Fields surrounded the walled interior where cosseted vegetable gardens presented an orderly and symmetrical invitation to the main buildings. The chapel, a rectory, a convent, and eight dormitories lay as if they were a head, a neck, a heart, and two rows of ribs. I was put in a room full of girls my size, assigned a bed, a set of chores—in the kitchen—and a companion.
La compagne.

My
compagne
was Donatienne Flavie, a girl from the local town who had come there after her parents had died of typhoid three years before. She was thirteen and spoke French and English. It was her chore to teach me French, as much as possible, as quickly as possible. Our dormitory—housing the smallest girls—was closest to the nuns’ convent, which was washed white but stained around top, bottom, and all the windowsills. Ours was a gray stone building that had once been plastered, even painted. Its level of disrepair seemed a fitting compartment for my spirits. The paint outside had peeled away, giving it the appearance of a spotted horse I had seen once. Patience lived with the older girls in another building. I only knew because I saw her coming or going, marching in a line of other older girls to and from the dining room. It was not permitted to speak to her, and though I stared hard at her, wishing my very eyes to poke her, trying to make her lift her face and see me, she never looked up.

“Do you have questions?” Donatienne asked as she helped me spread two blankets, one with a patch in the middle, across the small cot that was to be my bed.

“When shall I go home?”

She smiled and laid her hand on my arm. “Your
maman
and
papa
have died, little friend, or given you up because of their great poverty, or else you would not be here. This is an orphanage. You will have food to eat and a bed to lie in. You will be educated. Your soul will be saved from hell. It is not a bad place for poor girls
comme nous,
is it?”

“I am not poor. And I am not an orphan. My mother waits for me at our plantation in Jamaica. Meager Bay, Jamaica. I am only here to visit a friend.”

“Who is she?”

“I will not tell you. Once I have found her, I will be leaving. In a gilded coach with eight matched black horses.”

Donatienne’s milky white face and chocolate-colored brows, lashes, and hair gave her an animated appearance. She appeared somewhat shocked at first, then puzzled, finally sympathetic, for all her emotions rushed to her face so that it told an entire story without a word. “I see. Little Marie. Poor one. You will come to understand. And you will weep. That is accepted. For we are all castaway here, and all love each other. If you feel sad, I will be your sister.”

“I told you I will leave here in a coach and go home. Besides, I have a sister.”

“You do not want me to be your sister?” Her eyes filled with tears.

I had not meant to hurt her. This girl was trying to be kind, but I had known so little of that recently that I felt puzzled at her and myself. What was it about saying I had a mother and a home and that I wished to return to them that made me seem some type of fool? “I have a brother and a sister and a mother. I need only send a letter and my mother will come for me right away. She may drive the coach herself if she chooses. You knew that not, did you? That women may drive?”

Donatienne brushed her tears away with both hands. “It will not make you feel better to pretend that,” she said, “as I once did. It keeps your heart full of sadness.”

I stilled my face as my mind worked on this. If she would not believe me I would keep my secrets to myself. Now that we were in a village, I would find a way to write a letter to Ma. I searched every corner of my mind seeking something to say to this girl. I said, “Then I will try not to, if you will not cry. There, now. Please let us talk of something else.”

Donatienne smiled, her white face blotched with red flushes. “If you grow out of your clothes, you may have mine.”

“I will not be here long enough to need them. But, thank you. Thank you.”

“Say
merci.
”

“
Merci.
I have another question. Are there any bears about?”

“
Non.
I have never seen a bear. Have you?”

“Oh, I am acquainted with bears.” My lip trembled.

Every morning Donatienne and I followed a line of girls to the chapel. They said prayers I did not understand. They sang songs I did not know. They spoke in a mash of consonants and vowels that in my ears had not as much meaning to them as had the words of the Indians in the woods.
“Owasso, owasso,”
I chanted as I walked. After chapel, they served breakfast and there were two hours of education, during which Donatienne went over and over words and pronunciations, holding up one thing after another, pointing and gesturing. She was quite pleasant a person, and after such as I had been used to at the Hasken household, I fell quite into her routine and instructions. In the first weeks there, I was to do little but learn French and clear tables, unless now and then they had me bring in herbs from the garden.

I was glad to be in a house without goats, bats, or Haskens, and with a bed of my own that was off the floor. I was also glad to have so much less work to do, glad to have school even though it was in French, glad to bathe and wash my clothes, glad the only night pot I had to empty was my own. I was glad to know Donatienne, too.

They allowed me to patch my gown and petticoat. I did not want to lose my casket again, and so I laid lumps of tow around it, sewing over it until it looked as if the pocket were yet another patch on the old and outgrown garment. Donatienne showed me she also wore a quilted heavy petticoat similar to mine. I stared long at hers, not in great wonder over it but in thinking about Ma. What had she known? What land had she come from? I knew the name of it but not the place of it, not the being there. Scotland must have been cold, like Montréal, I decided.

I asked Donatienne for paper to write upon, but we were allowed only to scratch chalk onto slates. I could not send a letter on a slate. I looked for paper everywhere. Distracted one day by our lessons, perhaps because I tried to ask in French, Donatienne admitted to me the only place where she knew of paper was the rectory where the monks kept our records. I vowed I would find a way to get into that building.

At noon we had soup or stew, sometimes with meat, and bread rolls, which were often dry and had to be soaked in the soup to be eaten. Yet, having made many a meal of uncooked rice or hardtack soaked in my own spittle, dry bread and soup were still wonderful. Every evening ended with another piece of bread, often a fruited loaf of the type with which Patey had been rewarded on the Saracen ship, butter, a cup of tea, and another visit to the chapel for prayers. For many days I did not see Patience or anyone I knew. They were in the older girls’ houses, I supposed.

Afternoons were filled with lessons and prayers. After a while, I could recite the prayers and sing the songs. I had no idea what the words meant, but I copied the sounds and joined in. I said my French prayers quite convincingly. I learned the names of some saints and surprised Donatienne with the few on which Ma had instructed us. Her favorite was Saint Agnes, who watched over children. I did not tell Donatienne that I thought Agnes had fallen asleep on her watch where Patey and I were concerned. I excelled in my lessons, determined that the nuns might question my spiritual devotion, but not my knowledge.