by Jody Hedlund
A farmer near St. Ignace had discovered the body in the spring. Her father hadn’t been wearing his snowshoes, almost as if he’d given up, sat down, and decided to die.
Angelique had never been able to make up her mind which had killed her father first—his broken heart or the snowstorm. And she’d never been able to make up her mind who she blamed more for all the problems—her father for being a fur trader and leaving them every fall, or her mother for being so beautiful and unable to resist the attention men paid her.
Angelique pressed her hand over her chest to ward off the pain. She wouldn’t let the nightmares of the past trouble her today, not on a day meant for celebration, on a day that brought hope and life to their starving community.
Even though she wanted to stare at the approaching voyageurs, and even though everything within her tightened with the need to look again, to search for Pierre, she forced herself to look away, to find a diversion.
Her attention landed upon the woman standing behind the new captain who’d come ashore. The young lady’s features were too young and fresh to be the man’s wife. Maybe she was his daughter?
Her gown was much too fancy for the island. There were enough bows and ribbons to sew together and hoist into a sail for one of the ships. She wore a hat with enough feathers to attract a kingfisher looking for its mate. And she held an open parasol that threatened to carry her away with one gust of wind.
The young woman scanned the gathered islanders as if she were looking for someone. She skimmed over Angelique, but then just as rapidly her gaze jumped back. Her delicate eyebrows arched, and she studied Angelique, her eyes alight with interest and something else.
Was it pity? Did the woman feel sorry for her?
A whisper of embarrassment wafted over Angelique. She ducked her head and tried to move out of the line of vision of the newcomer.
She knew she was filthy, especially after her work in the hen house. But she didn’t mind. She figured if she kept herself plain and unattractive, that maybe she’d avoid suffering the same fate as her sister Therese.
So far, she’d survived. The townspeople didn’t notice her, except to occasionally acknowledge her as the “fish lass.”
She glanced again at the newly arrived young woman and, to her dismay, found herself still the object of the woman’s scrutiny. In fact, the lady had leaned toward Father Fontaine, the priest of St. Anne’s, and both of them were staring at Angelique. Father Fontaine was nodding in response to whatever the woman was saying.
A trickle of unease wound through Angelique. Just as she was turning to go, the boisterous voices of the voyageurs singing the song of Saint-Malo begged her to stay.
We’re going to glide on the water, water away.
On the isle, on the isle to play.
Did come sailing vessels fleet
Laden with oats and laden with wheat.
She hesitated, but then another glimpse over her shoulder at the young woman’s pitying gaze sent Angelique scurrying along the sandy path toward the tavern. Her heart thumped out a warning—a warning to avoid the pretty lady, that association with her would only lead to trouble.
Besides, she had no reason to linger on the beach to discover if Pierre had returned.
Jean was enough for her. He was all she needed.
Chapter
4
Pierre crossed the open field Papa had cleared many years ago when they’d first settled on Michilimackinac Island. By the full light of afternoon, Pierre was able to assess much more than he had the previous day when he’d rushed past the cabin before dawn.
The mist and darkness of his early morning visit had cloaked the farm, yet now the sun’s rays touched every broken fence post, every weed jutting from the unplowed field, every scraggly fruit tree, every piece of crumbling chinking in the cabin wall.
And it glared particularly bright on one side of the roof where several shingles had fallen away, leaving a gaping hole.
If he hadn’t seen his maman in the cabin yesterday, he would have assumed the farm was deserted.
He stopped, lifted his heavy haversack, and tried to shrug off the uncomfortable weight of guilt that bore down on him.
Beyond the house, the barn was too quiet. The door hung ajar, and darkness was the only thing that filled the stone building Papa had constructed from all the rocks they’d cleared out of the fields.
Where were the hens that normally strutted around the yard and the pigs that Papa had often let roam freely? He strained to hear the whinny of one of the horses or even the soft bellow of their milk cow. But the farm was deathly silent. Only the drums, music, and songs from the feast on the beach drifted in the air.
The knot that had slipped around his stomach cinched tighter. Why hadn’t Maman come down to the shore to see the first ships of spring with everyone else?
He’d helped his men unload the canoes during the past couple of hours. And he’d greeted the Indians when they’d arrived a short while later. Finally he’d worked up enough nerve to begin the mile walk from town.
One of the tall, dry weeds that crowded what had once been Maman’s flourishing vegetable garden waved in the breeze as if to warn him to run back to the beach and avoid the meeting that he’d been mentally planning since God had finally gotten his attention.
But he shook his head and pushed aside the temptation.
The island breeze rippled across his freshly shaven face and brought with it the sweetness of lilacs. At least the lilac bushes Maman had planted when he’d been just a boy were still growing on either side of the front door of the cabin. Surprisingly they were trimmed and bursting with hundreds of tiny purple blooms.
At least one thing hadn’t changed. She still loved her lilacs.
He dragged in a deep breath and forced his feet to move forward again, and he didn’t stop until he stood facing the door.
It was time to ask for her forgiveness. He wouldn’t be able to rest until he did. It was what he’d felt God urging him to do since the night a year ago when in one of his drunken stupors he’d almost killed another voyageur during a stupid argument.
Thankfully, Red Fox had pried his fingers away from the man’s neck in time. But the incident had scared him, had awakened him to the drunken brute he’d become. He’d realized he hadn’t liked who he was, the kind of man Papa had once been—exactly the kind of man Papa had wanted to prevent him from becoming.
He could understand now why Papa had been so angry with him when he’d told him of his plans to join a brigade. He had indeed fallen into the drinking and debauchery that accompanied the life of the voyageur.
But not anymore. Not since he’d repented before God for the despicable man he’d become.
Of course, he wasn’t perfect. God was still working to change him. But he’d come a long way in a year’s time.
Pierre straightened his shoulders and doffed his cap. He ran his fingers through his hair, combing the wayward curls into submission.
Then slowly he opened the door.
As it swung wide, his attention shifted to Maman, kneeling before the hearth, fumbling with a teakettle and much too close to the small flames scattered among scraps of bark and wood shavings.
At the swish of the door opening, Maman’s back stiffened and her hands stilled. From what he could tell, she hadn’t changed much in the years he’d been gone. Her hair was still tied in the knot she’d always worn at the back of her neck and was the familiar blond, perhaps a little lighter now with silver threads. She was much thinner, but still had the willowy graceful form he remembered.
For a long, tense moment he held his breath and waited for her to turn. His muscles twitched with the urge to flee.
“Angelique?” she said. “Is that you?”
Angelique?
His mind flashed with the picture of the gangly redheaded girl Maman had loved as a daughter, the sweet girl who had followed him and Jean all over the island and had become the little sister he’d never had. She was apparently still very much a par
t of Maman’s life.
Maman turned slightly.
Pierre’s mouth went dry, but he forced himself to speak. “Non, Maman. It’s not Angelique.”
She gasped. The teapot slipped from her fingers and fell with a clank into her pitiful fire. She started to rise but in the process brushed her hand against the steaming spout. She uttered a pained cry and struggled to move away from the fire, dragging her sleeve across one of the flames and causing the threadbare material to ignite.
Pierre dropped his bundle and in three strides was across the room and kneeling next to her. With the edge of his leather shirt he smothered the flame on her sleeve and at the same time captured her hand.
“Let’s get some cold water on that burn,” he said.
But she tugged away and with a cry of joy flung her arms around him and pulled him into a hug. “Oh, Pierre . . .” Her voice wobbled. “My dear, dear son. Is it really you?”
“Oui, Maman. It’s really me.”
Her fingers came up to his hair, and she smoothed her hand over his curls the way she had whenever he’d come running to her needing her reassurance, especially after he’d done something he’d known he shouldn’t, which had been more times than he cared to admit.
His chest tightened and he drew in a breath of the lilac fragrance that surrounded her. He’d hoped and longed for her embrace, but had been afraid he’d never get to experience it again.
“Oh, Pierre,” she said again through a broken sob. She pressed her face against his, wetting his cheek with her tears.
He was about to wrap his arms around her when she leaned back and put him at arm’s length. Tears trickled down her cheeks. She lifted her fingers to his face and grazed his chin, nose, and cheeks, as if she couldn’t get enough of him. A smile lit up her face amidst the tears. “God be praised. It is you.”
“Oui, it’s me,” he said softly.
Her fingers continued to explore his face, almost as if she were seeing him through her sense of touch rather than her eyes.
He looked into her light-blue eyes. They were glassy, like a foggy sky in the early morning. And they didn’t look back into his with the directness she’d always used.
Something was wrong. “How are you?” he asked, grasping her arms, studying her, taking in the stains on her tattered apron, the black singes on her sleeves where she’d obviously had further accidents with the fire, and the red blisters on the back of her hand.
“I think I’m in heaven.”
Beneath his fingers he felt nothing but her bones. She barely had any flesh left. What had happened to her? To the farm?
“I’ve been praying for this moment for so long,” she said, reaching for him again to draw him into another embrace.
This time he held back, trying to catch her gaze, wanting her to look deep inside him and see the new man he was becoming. But she only stared at his face unseeingly, as if she were . . .
“Yes, Pierre,” she said, her smile dimming a little, “I’m almost blind.”
“How . . . ?” He cleared the squeakiness out of his voice. “How long have you been unable to see?” Her blindness would account for much of the neglect and disrepair he’d seen around the farm.
“For a while now.” She laid her smooth palm against his cheek.
He looked around at the interior of the cabin. On one side of the window hung Papa’s paddle, painted in stripes of red and blue. On the other side was Papa’s fishing rod. The same hand-hewn table and chairs filled the space of half the room, while a sagging bed occupied the other half. The ladder leading to the attic room that he’d shared with Jean was covered with cobwebs.
Very little had changed about his childhood home except the barrenness. Always before there had been freshly baked bread, soup or stew simmering above the hearth fire, bundles of dried herbs dangling from the ceiling, and some kind of sweet treat for him and Jean and Angelique to share.
But now, as far as he could tell, there wasn’t a crumb of food anywhere. Had she been living in the cabin alone all winter with nothing to eat? How had she survived?
With her blindness she wouldn’t have been able to plant a garden or plow a field. She wouldn’t have been able to hunt for wild berries or nuts. She wouldn’t have been able to manage feeding hens or milking a cow—even if she’d had them.
Helplessness poured over him. Someone should have been here to assist her. “Why did Jean leave you here all alone?”
“Jean didn’t have a choice.”
“He should have stayed.”
“He agonized over leaving, Pierre. He really did. He didn’t want to go.”
Then he shouldn’t have, he wanted to say. But he held the words in. He didn’t want his reunion with Maman to become clouded with his anger.
“The British learned he was a loyal American,” Maman rushed to explain. “If he’d faked his allegiance to them, they wouldn’t have trusted him. Eventually they may have accused him of treachery or spying and sent him away anyway.”
Pierre sat back on his heels and tried to ignore the guilt that pricked him and reminded him that he’d left the island too, but his reasons hadn’t been quite as noble as Jean’s.
“Don’t blame Jean.” Maman caressed his cheek again. “He didn’t know I was going blind when he left or I’m sure he wouldn’t have gone. And now if word ever reached him of my condition, I know he’d try to return, even though he’d put his life in danger to do so.”
Why did Jean have to be the good son, the one who was always doing what was noble?
“My dear, dear son.” She pulled him into another hug, wrapping her arms around him and squeezing him with surprising strength.
He slipped his arms around her. He closed his eyes to hold back the urge to weep at her fragile condition.
“I’m so glad you’re here.” She smoothed his hair. “I’ve missed you terribly.”
“I didn’t know if you’d be glad to see me again or not,” he said hesitantly. “Especially after all the horrible things I said before I left.”
“Pierre, my love for you is unconditional, just as the Lord’s is. No matter where you’ve been or what you’ve done, both the Lord and I will always be waiting here with open arms.”
“I don’t deserve your love or forgiveness for the way I treated you and Papa and Jean when I left.” A swell of emotion clogged his throat, making him need to clear it before he could continue. “I’m deeply sorry for not respecting you the way I should have. And I pray you’ll forgive me, although I know I don’t deserve it.”
“Of course I forgive you.”
“Oh, Maman . . .” He hated that his voice wavered.
A squeak in a floorboard near the door made him jump. He let go of Maman and turned, taking a breath to compose himself. He hoped a tear or two of his own hadn’t escaped. His brigade would tease him mercilessly if they ever found out he’d been near to crying in his maman’s arms.
Maman let the tears run freely down her cheeks, rising with a smile at the newcomer. “Look who’s here.”
A young woman stood in the doorway holding a rag-covered bundle. She was frozen in her spot and was staring at him with wide eyes.
Pierre stared back, taking in the mobcap that covered her hair, the pretty face smudged with dirt, the high collar above her bodice, and the ugly gray of her skirt. Where had he seen her?
Accusation flashed through her doe-like brown eyes.
Then he knew. Yesterday. In the woods.
The unspoken words hung between them and propelled him to his feet.
She was the same woman he’d come upon during his spying mission on the island, the woman he’d rescued from the hands of the British soldier. And she apparently recognized him even after his shave and bath.
He narrowed his eyes. She wouldn’t reveal his secret, would she? With a curt shake of his head he warned her from saying anything.
But she looked away from him, clearly ignoring his admonition, and started across the room toward the table.
; Angelique’s heart pounded in her chest like the Indians’ drums thumping out their rhythm back at the camps along the lakeshore.
Pierre had come.
And he was standing only a few feet away from her.
Now that he’d shaven and cleaned himself, he was more handsome than she’d remembered. From his dark wavy hair to the strength in his features to the ability of his dark brown eyes to melt even the coldest of hearts—everything about his appearance was striking. She stopped in front of the table and leaned against it, trying to calm herself before facing him again.
She flattened her hand against her heart, willing it to slow its crazy banging that she was sure both Pierre and Miriam could hear.
“It’s Pierre.” Miriam’s voice held such joy.
“Yes, I see that,” Angelique replied, frustrated at her breathlessness.
She glanced over her shoulder and found him glaring at her. He remembered her from their brief meeting yesterday. And from furrowed brows above his stormy eyes, it was also clear he didn’t want her to say anything about their encounter.
But didn’t he know that she was Angelique MacKenzie and that she wouldn’t purposefully put him in any danger?
She turned away again and placed her bundle on the table. Whatever his trouble, he should have made time to visit Miriam. And even though she’d overheard his plea asking for Miriam’s forgiveness, she couldn’t stop the bitterness of the past five years from surfacing.
Maybe he’d asked for forgiveness, but that didn’t change what had happened, the fact that he’d deserted them and had been gone all these years without sending them a single word. And now that he was back, he didn’t remember who she was.
“I’ve brought you some food from the feast,” she said to Miriam, opening the rag to reveal the breast of roasted pigeon and several wedges of potato she’d managed to set aside. The tantalizing smoky aroma of the fowl caused her stomach to quiver.
Although she’d returned to the beach during the feasting, she hadn’t wanted to draw any attention to herself again, and had only stayed long enough to gather what she could for Miriam.