The Meeting Place (35 page)

Catherine squirmed back onto the wooden seat, but her thoughts still swirled in fear and anger. Priscilla Stevenage, would she never cease to make trouble? Catherine struggled to gather her thoughts. She had to concentrate on the calamity at hand.

“These raids.” She fought to control her voice. “You say—they are not to continue?” “They are not raids,” her father responded brusquely. “It was a carefully planned military maneuver to expel the Acadians. Not to harm them. I suspect the burning became a necessity for some reason. It was not a part of the plan as I originally—”

“Expel them?” New horror clutched at Catherine. “Expel them where?”

“Here and there,” he answered impatiently. “To several other settlements. Not en masse. That would be too dangerous. A few here, a few there.”

“But that is preposterous! How could they even consider such a thing? This is their
home
.”

“Not anymore.” His eyes were suddenly cold. “Would you have us put them to the sword?”

“Of course not!”

“That is likely what would have happened,” he snapped, “had this course not been taken. A number of our senior officers were arguing for it. But no, we are not so brutal as all that.”

“But what have they done to deserve—”

“What have they done? Don't talk foolish, child. They are French! They are our natural enemy! Do you think I have ever for an instant forgotten it was a French cannonade that cost me the use of my leg, stripped me of my rank and my career, and relegated me to a pen-pot instead of a sword? Do you think I don't have reason, day and night, with the pain throbbing through my muscles, to remember who my enemies are? I know the French. I have known them longer than you have been alive. They have not changed with the passage of time, and they will never change.”

But Catherine remained trapped by his earlier words. The French were to be expelled. All of them. Catherine searched frantically about her. Should she be put down from the wagon? Could she make better time on foot than the tired team? She sank back. No woman could walk through such a mire of red clay. It would suck at her boots and weigh down her woolen skirts until she sank. Especially a woman bearing the burden of a sleeping child.

“This expulsion,” she began, her voice not more than a whisper. “When is it to be?”

He swung toward her. “Haven't you heard a single thing I have said? It is accomplished. The maneuvers are over. The British are now in full command of Acadia. We have secured the land for the Crown.”

She stared at him, no longer able to comprehend his words. “Over?”

“Over.” He seemed enormously pleased. “That is why I so readily agreed to your accompanying me to Halifax. Such a treacherous, miserable journey, but so timely. Under usual circumstances I would have discouraged it. But I wanted you and my grandchild away—just in case things got testy. This request of yours could not have come at a better time. I—”

But Catherine was no longer listening. “Oh, dear God.”

Her frantic thoughts tumbled and twisted, coming always back to Andrew. Even if he had not known, at least at first, surely by now he would have been able to do something. Andrew. Her source of strength through so many past troubles. He was there. He would have done something—anything to save Elspeth, protect Louise. Something. Andrew was an officer. Even if the carnage had reached out, had included others, Andrew would have done something.

It was a small hope, but she clutched to it tightly. Surely, surely things were not as black as they seemed. Surely Andrew … surely her precious baby Elspeth …

Catherine enfolded herself over the sleeping infant, clutching it and her tiny flame of hope deep to her breast. “Oh, God … my baby.”

She buried her face into Antoinette's heavy blanket and let the hot tears wash down her cheeks.

Chapter 31

The storm passed after two hard days of wind and rain and buffeting waves. Henri was the only one of those onboard who did not suffer, trapped as they were upon the ship's open deck. He had fished through worse conditions, he assured Louise when she asked him if they were to die. She was so ill and so heartsick, she felt faintly sorry at his assurance.

Louise awoke on the third day to a gentle rocking motion, one which allowed her to rise unsteadily to her feet and walk to the railing. The sea stretched blue and white-flecked in every direction as far as she could see, joining finally with an equally blue horizon. She felt tears drawn from her eyes. Wherever they were, she knew they were far from home, and growing steadily farther still.

By the fifth day they had fallen into an accustomed routine. All around her people were either finding inner strength and surviving, or slowly wasting away. To her great surprise, the sea air seemed to be helping her father grow steadily stronger. It was her mother who suffered, like a plant torn from its roots and unable to settle anywhere again. Whenever Louise looked into her mother's eyes, she saw a shattered soul.

It was her mother's anguish and the baby's needs that kept her from the brink of darkness. She could not afford to succumb to the overwhelming sorrow and loss, much as she wanted to. Much as her own wounds felt as though they would never heal.

Baby Elspeth knew nothing and loved everything about the sea. The ship's gentle rocking sent her cooing to sleep, a blanket upon the deck as comfortable a bed as the baby could ever wish. Every sea gull who came flying in searching for tidbits, every sunbeam that flickered down from between the mighty sails, every flap of canvas overhead, every rattle of rope or hardy seaman's footsteps, all were cause for delight. Elspeth showered Louise with her happiness and her need for attention. Louise nursed and bedded and changed and loved the infant, and in this loving she came to know the first fleeting touches of healing.

And from Henri. The man was a rock, steady and gentle and firm when necessary. Through the first two endless days he had been everywhere, moving amidst the worst afflicted, carting them up from the holds on his back so they could benefit from the strong sea air, holding them as they were sick over the sides, rigging canvas strips to keep off the wind and rain from those on deck.

When the weather improved he took charge of rations, doling them out, helping the weakest old men to clean themselves after the meals. Through the worst of it he was there for everyone, giving and helping and offering his strength to one and all. When the sun shone bright and the sea sparkled great and blue, he even offered a few smiles and words of comfort to those suffering the greatest sorrow, though Louise could see how much it cost him.

Onward they sailed, steadily south. On the sixth night the wind tasted of a different land, one unseen beyond the horizon yet leaving its distinctive stamp upon the atmosphere. Louise drifted in and out of sleep as always, one ear constantly tuned to the baby lying alongside her, when another sound drew her to the surface. One she had never heard before. Silently she rolled over and raised herself to a seated position to look upon her man. Henri's massive shoulders shook so hard she could see the movement in the starlight. Sobs wrenched his entire body, for he cried as a man cried, one who had never known the luxury of easy tears. He wept with his entire being, a wrenching, gasping groan of unendurable agony.

Louise was weeping herself within an instant of hearing her husband, sharing not only his pain but hers as well. She flung herself upon him and allowed the wounded heart within to melt and flow together with his.

Henri turned over and took her in his arms, for once not offering strength but rather seeking consolation. Yet she had nothing to give. Nothing but her own deep pain, her own empty soul.

They cried themselves to sleep, locked within each other's arms, never shifting the entire night.

Louise woke first, her eyelids tickled by the first glint of sun. She did not move, did not want to waken her husband. She lay in his arms, surrounded by the strength, the scent of her man. And she saw in the deep new lines creasing his face a wearing down, a giving up. She had to do something. She could not help but see his need there in the remnants of the night's sorrow. She had to help him, or risk losing this strength and this goodness along with everything else.

A part of her wanted to give up herself, to give in to the silent cry of agony and bitter anger. Let it all sweep away. Take us all, she wanted to shout at the God who had let this happen to her. Take it all. I don't care.

The two sides of her mind fought against each other through the morning routine. It was only when she moved over with the baby to greet her parents, and she looked into her mother's empty gaze, that she saw and understood. There were others who needed what she could give, and only if she did not herself give into the temptation of hatred. If she could not do it for herself, perhaps she could do it for them.

She sighed, and in a voice still raw from the previous night's weeping, she said to her mother, “Would you like to come and sit with me for a while? We could read the Bible together.”

She could see her mother struggling to make sense of the words. The front of her gown was littered with the remnants of what little breakfast she had eaten. “What?”

“We need to find strength for whatever is to come ahead.”

She made an effort to focus upon her daughter. “The Bible? You brought the Book with you?”

“God can be our strength now,” Louise said, nodding. “We need Him now more than ever.”

Henri chose that moment to join them. “I have just spoken with the ship's second-in-command. He tells me we are destined for the French colony of Louisiana.”

Jacques Belleveau brushed the crumbs from his front, took a deep draught of water, and said, “There are Belleveaux in Louisiana. My father's brother and his children. Their children as well by now, I warrant.”

“I have heard of this also,” Henri said. His dark eyes remained ravaged by the night's struggle, but there was something else to his voice. A first faint hint of something new. “When I was young, my father used to speak of that colony. He said it was a place without winter. My mother never liked winter.”

“You never told me that,” Louise said.

“I haven't thought of it in years. Not until I heard the lieutenant speak the name. Louisiana. There is a great French city there. Orleans, I think it is called.”

Her mother stirred and waved an impatient hand, as though brushing aside all the talk but the one point. “The
Bible
,” she said again to her daughter, her voice sharp. “How can you come to me, you of all people, and speak to me about God?”

“Do you know,” Henri said quietly, “I woke up this very morning wishing we could pray together.”

“
Pray?
” Marie's eyes flashed as she turned to her son-in-law. “How can you even speak the word now, after all that God has done to us?”

“God did not do this to us at all,” Henri replied, settling down beside his wife. “It was man's actions, and man will be called to account.

I have read the pages, seated there alongside my wife. This I know in my heart, Mama Marie. God did not do this to us.”

“We need His strength,” Louise murmured, cradling the baby in one arm, freeing her other so that she could reach over and take her husband's hand. “Now more than ever.”

“And your child?” But Marie's question lacked fire. “What of little Antoinette?”

Louise felt her heart's wound reopen and threaten to engulf her. But as the shadows loomed, it was Henri who gripped her hand and said in a voice cracked by the same pain she felt, yet a voice that held to a firm calm, “Perhaps it is God's hand here after all. Perhaps God knew our little one would not survive this voyage.”

Louise turned to him, amazed by this. It seemed as though Henri had given voice to the gentle whispers of her own heart, voices she had not wanted to acknowledge through these tragic days and nights.

“I think,” Henri said, and stopped to take a shaky breath, “I think God is waiting to strengthen and nourish us. Even here, surrounded by strangeness and loss.”

“If it is God's will,” Louise said, the words for her mother, but the look for her husband alone, “we have a responsibility to this little one.”

Henri turned fully to her. Her strong and jesting husband, who always before preferred to meet everything with a smile and a warmhearted turn, now looked at her with such gentle wisdom she felt as though she was seeing him anew. He said, “And a responsibility to each other.”

As soon as Louise awoke the next morning, she knew what she was to do. Even before she opened her eyes to the sun and the clouds and the sea and the day, she knew.

She cleaned and nursed the baby, performing exactly the same activities as she had every morning since the tragic voyage began. Only today, everything was different. She could scarcely explain it to herself, how important this difference was. But the mystery mattered little. That the difference, this divine gift, had come was enough.

With a certainty that was not her own, she knew it was divine. Louise had received this gift in the night because of her willingness to open her heart to God and to her family the day before. In turning
away
from bitterness and hatred and despair, she had turned
toward
God's outstretched arms.

There was no great change in her surroundings, in the faces that stared back at her from blank eyes. And yet this gift proved so great that the entire day seemed new. Though her aching, yearning heart remained torn with each mile farther away from her beloved Antoinette, yet there was a message within this tiny gift. A promise of hope. And it was this as much as the gift itself that left her knowing that God was with her. Even here. Even now.

So it was that when Henri came upon her, seated as she was in the forecastle nursing the baby, she was humming a little tune. Quietly, so softly that the wind lifted the notes and tossed them up with the spray and the cawing gulls. But Henri must have heard them, because when he sank down beside her, the look he gave her was filled with wonder.