Wild Geese

by Caroline Pignat

  He raises his arm, taking in the town. “Imagine a world without limits, Kit. Imagine the freedom and the opportunities there for the taking! For any man … or woman!” he adds. “That’s what Bytown is.”

  “It sounds lawless,” I say, leery of a town like that. “Wild.”

  “Exactly!” Billy flashes his smile. “And aren’t wolves made for running in the wild?”

  And right there, on the bridge straddling Upper and Lower Town, in the space between the wealthy and working man’s worlds, that cheeky pup, Billy Farrell, let out a howl.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Stall after stall of fruit, baked goods, fresh meat, and fish, the By Ward Market has it all. Farmers’ carts trundle down the muddy roads to line up along the double-wide street while men and women stop, laden baskets in hand, to catch up on neighbors’ news. ’Tis like a county fair. And Billy says this happens every day.

  I follow him to a busy stall and hide behind another cart. We’ve made our plan. He’s to cause a distraction while I grab and run, but my stomach is in knots from nerves and hunger. Had I any other choice, I’d take it.

  Right on cue, Billy pulls a few apples from the bottom of the mound, causing the whole thing to spill to the ground. Billy bolts, apples in hand, while the farmer’s wife tries to reign in the rolling fruit.

  It’s now or never.

  Bursting from my hiding spot, I snatch two fresh loaves from the other corner of their stall but, just as I’m about to run, something grabs the back of my neck.

  “Steal from me, will you, you Irish brat!” The farmer’s got me. He shakes me by the scruff like a hound with a mewling kitten. His grip is like an iron bite and no matter how I kick and squirm, there’s no breaking free. “I’ve had enough of you lot! Time I made an example of one of you.”

  He drags me into the road. I’ve no idea what punishment he’s got in mind and, from the look in his eye, no desire to find out. Three brown robes catch my eye at a stall across the street. One holds out her basket, nodding her black-bonneted head as a man drops in a few vegetables from his cart.

  “Mother Bruyere!” I cry out, hoping it’s her. “Help me, please!”

  She turns and sees me staggering alongside the angry farmer. Motioning for her sisters to stay, she crosses into the street to join us.

  “Monsieur Desjardins,” her voice is strong and clear. She reaches into her pocket and holds out two coins. “I believe this will pay for the boy’s bread and a little more for your trouble.”

  He hesitates before taking them. Were it not Mother Bruyere offering, I’ve no doubt he would have chosen vengeance and violence over payment, but everyone is watching now. Instead, he throws me to my hands and knees on the muddy road.

  “I better not catch you anywhere near my stall!” He points his thick farmer’s finger at me. “Do you hear me, boy?”

  “Yessir,” I mumble. The loaves lay in a mud puddle beside me, their crusts mangled from my clenched fingers, though my neck be in worse shape. It throbs from where he’d gripped, and I reach up to assure myself that his hand is truly gone. After a few moments, the crowds go back to their early morning shopping, but Mother Bruyere still stands before me.

  “Thank you,” I say, looking up from the muddied hem of her robe. I sit back on my heels and rub my neck. “You—you saved my life.”

  “And you waste it,” she says, her gray eyes like a winter sky, her voice cold. The other two sisters have come to join her. “We beg for donations to feed the immigrants, to feed your people. Do you think Mr. Desjardins is going to be charitable now?”

  “I’m sorry, Mother,” I say, for I truly am, though I can’t ever imagine Mr. Desjardins as charitable, even on a good day.

  “I am not the one that needs to hear your confession,” she continues. “But Father Molloy would.” Her black bonnet nods at the stone church a few streets over, towering behind the houses, overlooking all of Lower Town. Seen from everywhere and seeing everything.

  I stare back at the ground. Apologizing to her is one thing. Apologizing to God himself is another thing entirely. Even though I’m on my knees, I’m not ready for that.

  “Thank you for paying for the bread,” I say, changing the subject. If they are begging for donations, I imagine they don’t have much money.

  “Do not thank me. Those were your coins. I found them in your pockets.”

  My stomach sinks. I need that money for when I find Annie, but I suppose I deserve what I get.

  Pulling some clothes from her basket, Mother Bruyere drops them in front of me. I barely recognize them as my own, for they’re washed, the holes patched, the tattered hems re-stitched.

  “You fixed them—but why?” I ask, knowing she must have sewn by candlelight well into the night. “They were just rags.”

  “A little washing, a little mending, and now they are new again,” the youngest sister answers, and I see her basket is full of clothing. “Just like our souls.”

  Mother Bruyere holds out Father Robson’s black rosary.

  “It isn’t mine,” I say. “I was holding it for Father Robson at Grosse Isle,” I quickly add, for fear she’d think I’d stolen it. But she keeps her hand out. The silver cross dangles from the end of the black beads. It reminds me of Mam, of all the times we knelt by our hearth, the five of us, praying the rosary together. As much as I disliked it at the time, I’d give anything to be a bored daughter at family prayer and not an orphaned thief kneeling in the muddy streets of Bytown.

  “I don’t use it,” I admit, ashamed. I won’t take it from her. “You should give it to someone who needs it.”

  “I am,” she says, laying it on top of the clothes pile.

  I wait for her to leave me, to wash her hands of me, but she doesn’t move.

  “This is not who I am,” I mumble. Mam would have been so disappointed to see me like this, a faithless soul caught stealing. I take a deep breath and look up at the three sisters. “This isn’t me.”

  Mother Bruyere’s eyes soften.

  “I just want to find my little sister, Annie,” I say. “I just want to save my family. What’s left of it.” Though even that sounds hopeless, for I can’t even feed myself.

  “Sister Thibodeau,” Mother Bruyere asks, “what does St. Benedict tell us?”

  “Begin again,” the nun with the small round glasses answers.

  “And so we shall.” Mother Bruyere gives me her hand and helps me stand. “Let’s start with your name.”

  I look into her eyes and hesitate for a moment. But then I know deep in my heart, if I can trust anyone, ’tis her.

  “I’m Kathleen,” I say. “Kathleen Byrne.”

  “Une fille?” the youngest sister whispers, taking in the state of me, a short-haired, muddied thief in pants. Not quite what you’d expect from a young lady, but Mother Bruyere smiles. As though she knows. As though she sees some worth in the rag of a soul before her.

  “Viens, Kathleen,” Mother Bruyere says. “If your Annie is in Bytown, I know just how to find her.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Mother Bruyere knocks on doors in Upper and Lower Town all morning. I half hope she will ask about Annie’s whereabouts at the next door, but she doesn’t. All she asks for are food donations, just as her companions do in other parts of town. Most folk add something to her baskets: bread, cheese, some vegetables. One woman has a hot bucket of broth waiting for us. By the time the summer sun sits high overhead, my arms are aching with the weight of bucket and basket. I feel as laden as Squib, our poor oul’ donkey back home.

  How much food do nuns eat?

  I lug my burdens back over the bridge into Lower Town, following Mother Bruyere down an alleyway and into a ramshackle boarding house. The place stinks like a workhouse. We climb to the top floor, stopping outside a dilapidated door. Surely she doesn’t think anyone here would have donations. Knocking, she lets herself in.

  The place is near empty, save for a worn stool, a cold pot in a fireless hearth, and a family
huddled in the dark corner. ’Tis a mother and two children resting on a thin, straw mattress. The mother smiles as we enter and tries to rise, but hasn’t the strength.

  “Easy, Agnes.” Mother Bruyere is at her side, cupping the woman’s head, gently lowering it. “Save your energy.”

  “I haven’t even the strength to put on the kettle and offer my visitors a cup of tea,” Agnes says, her Irish accent steeped in regret.

  “Hush, now.” Mother Bruyere wipes the hair from Agnes’s sweaty face and takes her hand. “Don’t worry about that. Besides, we aren’t visitors. We are family.”

  Relieved to finally set down the bucket and basket, I roll my aching shoulders. The older of the two children, a girl of about eight, leaves her mother and comes to stand before me. Her younger brother follows close behind, curious about this new visitor.

  “Are you my family, too?” the girl says shyly.

  I look at Mother Bruyere and then back at the shadowed eyes in the wan face before me. I don’t even know her name, but I know her life. I know she’s carried the burden of care on her bony shoulders—a burden she can neither carry nor lay down. I wish I could help her, but I can’t. Aren’t I yoked enough by my own troubles? I look away.

  “I always wanted an older brother,” the boy says, stepping forward, eyes pleading. “Can you be him?”

  “I’m a girl,” I say, avoiding his question.

  Their look of surprise makes me laugh. “Things aren’t always what they seem.”

  “That’s what Theresa always says, don’t you?” The brother looks up at her. Theresa nods.

  “You can’t tell by looking at us,” he continues, his tongue lisping in his gap-toothed grin, “but we’re descendants of the King himself.”

  “My Da used to tell me that, too,” I murmur. The memory of it stings.

  “So we are family … we’re all the king’s descendants, right, Theresa?”

  She nods but her somber eyes tell me she no longer believes, either.

  Mother Bruyere pulls a blanket from the basket by my feet and nods at the bucket. “The children are hungry.”

  Finding a few tin cups by the cold fireplace, I kneel and scoop from the bucket. The least I can do is give them broth. Lukewarm it is, but by the way they guzzle it, I suppose that’s best. I refill their cups and hand them a bit of bread.

  “A carrot and three potatoes!” the boy cries out, as though he’s found buried treasure at the bottom of his cup. Though my shoulder still aches, I wish there were more vegetables in the bucket for him.

  “Do you know any stories?” he asks.

  I know hundreds, but truth be told, I don’t want to tell any. They remind me of Da, of sitting ’round our hearth, of us all being together. Just thinking about it makes my chest ache.

  “Hush, Frankie!” Theresa scolds like a wee mam, reading the expression on my face. “She brought you soup, didn’t she? Just be thankful for that.”

  Frankie slumps and fiddles with his bread. So like Jack. I know he’s as starving for a good yarn.

  “I know a few,” I admit. And so I begin. “Let me tell you of a tale, not your time, nor mine ...” Da’s voice echoes in my head and words. I take a deep breath, then another as the ache comes. But this time when I close my eyes, I see neither the wagon that brought him home that rainy night nor the grave where his body rests. I see him. I see Da. He’s sitting in his chair, his face half lit by the firelight. I weave his words, mimicking everything from the lilt of his voice to the wave of his hands, for I know it all by heart. It seems so real, I can almost feel our fire’s heat on my face, almost hear the logs snap and shift when he pauses. I take a breath and feel no ache as my nose is filled with the scent of fresh-cut hay, lye soap, and pipe tobacco. The smell of Da.

  “And there she lies to this very day. Or so the story goes,” I end, slowly opening my eyes, almost surprised to find I’m in a small, dark room and not back home. The two children gathered around me lean in, hearts warmed, faces flushed, and eyes sparkling as though I were a fire myself.

  Frankie claps. “That was brilliant! Do you know any Wild Geese stories?”

  “Wild Geese?” I snap, for I know the stories well enough; weren’t they Jack’s favorites? The Wild Geese were Irishmen who fought in European armies over hundreds of years ago. With a head full of that foolishness, is it any wonder he’s chasing some silly dream of adventure instead of staying with his family? I glare at Frankie.“Why in God’s name would you want to be hearing about that?”

  Frankie shrugs. “Battles, great adventures, and glory.”

  My lips tighten. “What glory is there in leaving your homeland? What glory is there in battles fought on foreign soil, I ask you?”

  Frankie looks down at his cold broth.

  “Don’t be filling your head with such nonsense,” I scold. But he has to know. Someone has to set him straight. “They’ll give you nothing but foolish ideas, Jack.”

  “Jack?” Frankie asks, looking up at me. “Who’s Jack?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  When we say our goodbyes, the children ask me to come back and tell more stories. I promise to, though I doubt I will. What good are stories anyway? Look what they did for Jack. Stories don’t fill bellies, and that’s the sorry truth of it.

  We travel the dirty roads further into Lower Town, carefully navigating the wagon ruts baked hard by the hot sun. I’d already tripped over them a few times, nearly spilling the rest of the soup. Soup that had to feed many more families like Agnes’s.

  “Has Agnes the fever?” I ask, though I know well enough.

  Mother Bruyere nods. “Typhus. It is spreading in Bytown. The sheds we are building will be ready in a day or two, but even those cannot hold the numbers I foresee. Already our hospital is full and more steamers are heading this way.”

  We walk in silence. I wonder if Agnes will live. I wonder what will happen to Theresa and Frankie then.

  We visit family after family that afternoon, giving out our collected food. They are so grateful to get it that I feel bad for complaining about the weight. When we reach the bottom of the basket, my only wish is that there had been more to give, for it seems there are needy, hungry, and sick families all over Lower Town.

  As we travel, I begin to learn the names of the Lower Town streets: Rideau, George, York, where the market is, Sussex, and, of course, Sappers Bridge, linking Upper and Lower Town. Down Clarence Street, a small crowd has gathered around a fight outside a hotel. I can scarce believe my eyes when I see ’tis two women brawling, pulling each other’s hair and ripping at their already scanty clothes. A few rough-looking men lean on posts, sharing swigs from a bottle, laughing at the women’s display. A drunken man staggers into the fray.

  “Girls, girls,” he drawls. “There’s enough of me for both of you.” But a punch from the dark-haired one lands him flat on his back.

  Billy is right about one thing, I think as we hurry past. This place is wild.

  “Someone should call the police,” I whisper to Mother Bruyere, for, in truth, the dark-haired woman, a girl, really, could only be a year older than me.

  “There are no police,” she answers, picking up her pace.

  “But what about the soldiers?” I ask, for I’ve seen some up on Barrack Hill; they were posted on the Upper Town bluff by the canal locks.

  “They came to build the Rideau Canal and stayed in case the Americans attack.”

  “So they’re protecting the canal?” I ask in disbelief. “Good Lord! Then who’s protecting us?”

  She looks back at me and smiles. “The good Lord.”

  As we walk up Sussex Street, I see Sister Thibodeau returning from her day’s work. She looks as tired as I feel, but she smiles and greets us as we round the corner at the huge stone church and stop outside three white, two-storey wooden houses tucked in just behind it. Mother Bruyere tells me they are a convent where the sisters live, a boarding house, and a hospital.

  “Mother Bruyere,” Sister Thibode
au says, pushing up her glasses. “I will check on the patients here before stopping by the hospital.” I notice then that she is carrying a small black doctor’s bag.

  “Are you a healer?” I ask.

  “Sister Thibodeau knows much about medicine,” Mother Bruyere says, proud of her sister’s talent. “I don’t know where we’d be without her.”

  But not basking in the praise, Sister Thibodeau is already at the hospital door.

  “Now, Kathleen,” Mother Bruyere says, stopping outside the boarding house. “We have one more task before our day is done.”

  I just want to sit and rest; my arms ache; my feet are throbbing. I’ve done penance and a half for the bit of bread I stole, but I nod at her request.

  She smiles. “Follow me, ma chère.”

  Opening the door to the boarding house, she calls to the young lady inside. It is the girl from the canal, the one wearing a long, plain, purple dress.

  “Martha, on cherche sa petite soeur. Où sont les filles?”

  “Oui, Mère,” Martha answers, coming from the back room. She waves us in. “Elles lavent la vaisselle.”

  I’ve no idea what they are saying, but Martha smiles at me and points to the back room.

  Mother Bruyere leads me to a small kitchen where a dozen girls of all ages clean up. One sweeps with a broom, another wipes the long table and benches where they must have just eaten, and the rest dry the dishes being washed by a little blonde girl with ringlets just like—

  “Annie?” I whisper, afraid to believe it. It looks like her, a shadow of her, really, for she’d lost even more weight over these long weeks. She pulls her soapy hands from the basin as she turns, her arms and legs like thin spindles. She peers at me from above dark smudges in her pale face. Annie, but not all of her. She’s lost a bit of herself on the journey. I suppose we all have. “Annie?” I kneel and reach out to touch her. “Is it you? Is it really you?”

  Her eyes hold no recognition, as though they’ve seen enough these long months.

  “Annie, it’s me, love. Kit.”