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
Martin 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 rule
d 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.
Chapter 34
It was almost the end of August before the men arrived. They made up a defiant if small Acadian refugee armada. The Marie-Josèphe, the Saint-Charles and the Angélique were among them. Ti-Jos spotted them when they were just specks on the horizon. He waited until he was sure they were not British warships before he ran to tell the others. “I know, I just know one of them is Papa’s ship, the Marie-Josèphe,” he told his Aunt Jeanne.
There was a flurry of tense excitement at the news. The women and children gathered quietly, in small groups, speaking in whispers as if they might be heard from out at sea. They did not dare go directly to the landing spot a short distance away or show themselves on the shore in case Ti-Jos was wrong. There were surely British warships around and privateers and ordinary thieves. Besides, Anne had told them she thought the men would have lost their ships and would arrive overland.
Jeanne thought her heart would break if the ships suddenly changed direction and sailed by. But no, they were headed directly for the landing near them. Suddenly, Ti-Jos gave a cry and started to run. “It’s them. It’s them.”
Jeanne shouted to Ti-Jos to wait, but he was already halfway to the landing, with Pierrot and Nono and the other children and the mothers following.
It took some time for the men to disembark because there was only space for one ship at a time at the little landing space. The Marie-Josèphe was the first ship to reach land. Joseph almost stepped on Ti-Jos, who was dancing around him in excitement. He gave his son a rough hug. “Ti-Jos, my man, can you go and keep a lookout for ships, the way I taught you?”
Ti-Jos was off like a bolt of lightning for his lookout spot.
Jeanne could see that Joseph was tense. He looked at the assembled families.
“Mesdames, I know you are very anxious to know who is with us, but I must ask you to be patient. We have supplies and we have to unload them as quickly as possible and then find a place to hide our ships.” Some men were beginning to unload the Marie-Josèphe as he spoke. He noticed two young boys struggling to pull a small canoe to the shore to help. “Oui, les gars,”
Joseph said and told one of his men to help the boys. “We can use that boat.”
As soon as his ship was unloaded, Joseph sailed it away and the next ship came in. In the meantime, the canoes went back and forth. As each ship was unloaded it followed Joseph’s ship up the rivière Nipisiguit to find a secluded corner in which to hide.
Anne and Marie-Cécile Landry took charge on shore. They decided what the women and older children could carry and had them take as much as possible to the nearest campsite.
Finally, the ships were empty and secured on the river. The men were back and had carried the heavier provisions up to the camp. Everyone had worked quickly, efficiently and almost silently.
It was a bittersweet reunion. Abraham’s ship had been lost and his wife Marguerite was despondent that it was not among the others when they returned. Fortunately he had only lost his ship and returned with his brother Charles. A number of the returning men had lost their ships too. Marie-Cécile Landry, who had heard that her husband and son were lost, wept with joy when her son found her. Many others’ hopes were dashed. Young Anne-Marie Gautier, expecting her first child in a few months, was informed by her brother-in-law that her husband had died in battle. Almost all of the men who arrived found family, but not all the waiting families found their men. Among the men who arrived were some of the most experienced resistance leaders, such as Joseph Leblanc dit Le Maigre, the brothers Pierre and Jean Gautier, Paul Landry, Joseph Richard and Abraham Boudreau.
Pierre Bois had been wounded. He limped off the Angélique and tried to run to his family. “Stay, Pierre,” Jeanne called, “we’re coming!” He scooped up the children in his arms and Jeanne wrapped her arms around him. He wanted to help unload his ship, but Jeanne stopped him. She would take good care of him.
Finally, a hush descended on all of them. Joseph asked his brother Charles to speak.
Charles laughed. “My brother is a man of action. I only get to speak when things are quiet. You women have done un beau travail here. Wherever you are, you women of Acadia, we men know it’s our home and our land.
Jeanne Dugas of Acadia Page 16
