Bride of New France

by Suzanne Desrochers

  One night, after Laure has been staying at the congregation for many weeks, she writes another letter to Madeleine.

  Dear Madeleine,

  It is good that they still let me have my own room here. As a Queen should. Remember how you called me the Queen of the New World? The other girls behave worse than they did on the ship, as they are no longer afraid of catching their death at sea. They giggle and scheme all day long about which horrible peasant they will marry. Some of them have been married before and they still dream that this time they will meet their prince. They are learning how to make curtains they will sew on their new shacks and how to darn socks for their future husbands. Their fingers are slow and thick, and Madame du Clos wouldn’t tolerate their clumsiness in her workshop. I refuse to speak to any of them. Luckily they are afraid of me so they leave me in peace.

  The nuns here are gentler with us than the officers of the Salpêtrière. They are desperate to do good work as they have left behind fortunate circumstances in Old France to teach girls in the colony. Like Marie de l’Incarnation in Québec, they prefer teaching catechism to the Savage girls more than they like teaching the girls from France how to knit socks. You would have liked these Savage girls. They are very pious, unlike the Pitié girls who came across with us on the ship.

  At mealtimes there is plenty to eat. The stews are filled with meat from forest beasts. I spend my days in the garden watching the plants grow. I pretend to be working but really I am just sitting in the sun. My mind becomes so empty that I forget the whole day has passed until the light fades and I start to get cold.

  The Savage from the funeral has been coming to the fence. I should tell one of the sisters about him. I have given him half the vegetables of the garden and he still laughs at me. He finds me just as ugly as I find him. When he speaks French, he sounds like a snake hissing inside my ear. Still, listening to him is better than being inside learning how to make socks.

  Soon I will have to get married. Then my life here will really begin. I am dreading the day.

  Your friend,

  Laure Beauséjour

  Laure blows out the candle and rests her head on her arms. Her dreams are strange in Canada. They are filled with the screams of the forest.

  Laure’s hair is long, and she sits in the congregation garden with it spread all around her. She has enough hair to fill the entire garden. The long black strands cover the vegetables. They grow over the pumpkins and the other strange things that emerge from the earth here. Her body is entangled with the garden. The soil is pulling her down by her hair. The fence keeps the forest away for now, but it is encroaching.

  Deskaheh has come to see her. His ugliness makes her ache. She tears whatever she can from the earth to give to him. She hands the vegetables, still heavy with clumps of dirt, over to his waiting arms. But he reaches through the fence and grabs hold of her hair instead. He twists it around his fingers and laughs. She wants to make him stop laughing but doesn’t know how to. He is pulling her, bringing her nearer to the fence. His eyes are full of hate.

  When Laure awakens from this dream, there is only the forest outside and the moonlight on her tingling arms. She knows how to make him stop laughing. She picks up her comb and turns to the window. The Savages believe the dead roam through the trees at night, so they do not wander after dark. It is the safest time to walk through the forest for the French. Still, nobody does it.

  Laure is tired of his mockery. She is wearing the grey dress from the hospital. She was still a child when they gave it to her; a new smock every two years for each resident. It has been almost two years since this dress was given to her. The linen has grown thin and patchy. She won’t need a new hospital dress here. She grasps the material in her hands, digging her nails into it. The old gown tears easily down the front. She waits to hear something from the forest. There are only the voices inside her head reprimanding her.

  Laure wonders what it feels like to run through the woods at night. To trip on stumps and branches, to get cut, bitten by insects, and attacked by animals. What it would be like to get lost in a world of trees. She wonders how far she could get before succumbing to the vast wilderness.

  Deskaheh calls the congregation nuns Manitou women. They give themselves to their God instead of to their husbands. He says that the Savage women only give themselves like that to Manitou when they are very old, after they have had children and grandchildren and have experienced all things in life. Only then can they counsel others on how to live. Laure tells him about the very young Savage girl she saw in Québec and how these girls prayed with more fervour than the French and were more devout. She doesn’t think these girls are preparing themselves for husbands. He shrugs and says maybe such girls exist. It takes Laure and Deskaheh half an hour to convey an idea with gestures and the bit of French he speaks, but Laure says it doesn’t matter about the languages because the spirit of a person can be known before they even utter a single sound. That was true of the Superior, of Madeleine, Madame du Clos, and even some of the sisters Laure has met here in Canada. Of course, she was wrong about Mireille Langlois and isn’t certain about Deskaheh either.

  He shouldn’t watch her in the garden, shouldn’t watch her as she sleeps. Laure isn’t as blind or deaf as he thinks. He must have torn his legs on the bark and the pointed edges of the branches as he climbed the tree to look into her window. Did he see the bright eyes of animals in the woods on his way here? Did he wonder if Laure would be in the same body and hair at night, asleep like a living woman, or did he think she might be out wandering, hungry like the animals and spirits of the dead?

  She had told Deskaheh which window was hers, pointed up at it with her chin from the garden. Her arms were full of corn. She told him she had her own room because she was a Queen. He disagreed and said Laure was alone because she had been bad to the Manitou women. But she hadn’t expected him to remember where she slept at night, to store it in his mind. Tonight Laure will let Deskaheh know that she isn’t as blind or deaf as the other congregation women. That she knows he is there.

  He has climbed the tree to the perfect height and is close to the window. Laure pulls the remains of her dress down her arms. The cloth belongs to the grave. It is frail as spider web, falls off her like dust. Undressing for Deskaheh is the same as offering him vegetables. She wants to fill his arms with the contents of the garden. So he can taste the wheat, grapes, and pears that won’t take to this land, along with his corn, pumpkins, and berries. She wants to steal for him from the soil until the garden is empty and nothing more will grow.

  Laure takes her comb and begins to run it through her hair. Once she has covered her shoulders and breasts, she puts it down. She picks up her pen and dips it in the little ink pot. She doesn’t know what else to do.

  She writes with a trembling hand: The Savage from the funeral is here. Deskaheh. At night and right up to my window. He must think that I’m blind because he just sits there a few inches from the pane, staring right in. A Savage man is in my dreams now. He climbed a tree to come and see me. There are no vegetables here so I know he has come just for me. I should probably be afraid of him like the other girls are. They run when they see these men on the street. Even the ones who are supposed to be our allies. The Savages, like most things here, are the business of the men. His scarred face is really the only thing that interests me in Canada. Everyone else here thinks I’m odd, and I think even less of them.

  Just as I expected, he enjoys it. He isn’t laughing tonight. Wait, I’ll show him a bit more of what he wants to see. I think he likes this black hair of mine that is a curse because it repels all the men of stature. The look on his face when I part it makes me want to reach out the window and pull him through it.

  But it’s too late.

  The game is over and for now I have won.

  Laure waits until Deskaheh leaves before she gets into bed. She hugs the remains of the old dress against her naked chest and runs her fingers along her stomach. A new ache has entered
her life. It is joyful and sad and shrouds all the others. She was able to make Deskaheh stop laughing. She gave him what he wanted more than vegetables. Laure tightens her legs remembering how serious his eyes were. She can’t help but shudder at the vastness of the new country, wondering how much further her body still has to go. But, just like with all the other tender moments in her life, Laure is already saying goodbye. She knows that this new fire must be extinguished. If her life in Canada is to have any meaning at all, if the Laure who is a seamstress, former Bijou of the largest poorhouse in all of the French empire and even beyond, is to continue, then she must put an end to this unholy friendship.

  16

  Laure finally agrees to marry Mathurin in October. It is the only thing she can possibly do, as all the other filles à marier staying at the congregation have been married and are now living with their new husbands. It is why hundreds of women have been sent to Canada at great expense to the royal coffer. A few of the girls were happy to take the first man who came to Mère Bourgeoys seeking a wife from among her charges. Others, especially those marrying for a second time, were shrewder about their choice, enquiring about the material conditions of their new life. Would there be a cabin for them to go to? What furniture, what fortune, did their future husband already possess?

  Like at Québec, those women who had brought with them some livres of their own did not wish to see these squandered on a man who possessed nothing. Strong women of proper child-bearing age, not too old or young, were able to be more selective about their matches. News of several pregnancies has already reached the congregation. But, like at Québec, two marriages have been annulled here as well. Both of these occurred when the new wife discovered that her husband had lied about the state of his fortune. But many of the women, even from previous years, have not been heard from since they left the congregation with their new husbands and are presumed to be happy.

  Laure put off her inevitable fate for as long as she could. Her attempts to meet with Frédéric, the young officer promised in marriage to Mireille, were thwarted; she learned that he had already married a girl from the 1668 shipload of women from France, one of the filles de bonne naissance sent especially to marry the officers. It is good, thinks Laure, that Mireille did not make it all the way to the colony only to discover that she was one year too late. Mireille, with her good manners and careful words, would have been forced to marry a peasant the way some of the high-born women had done at Québec. Laure thinks that sometimes it is better to die than to live out what life has in store for you.

  As for Deskaheh, how can Laure explain to him her decision to marry Mathurin? Does she need to? What difference does it make to the Savages what the congregation women do so long as they sometimes offer food and other goods at the door? Still, Laure whispered the news of her upcoming marriage to Deskaheh through the garden fence, over the fall wind, with all the vegetable stalks turned brown and withered at her feet. Deskaheh nodded along as Laure spoke, but she wasn’t sure if he understood, since he usually nodded at the things she said to him.

  Deskaheh didn’t return to see her any more at their usual time in the afternoon, but Laure wasn’t sure if it was because the night frost had put an end to the garden or if he understood that she was soon to be married and he should therefore stay away.

  Laure’s wedding will be a quick affair. Like for the other girls, the legal ceremony will be held in the entrance of the Congrégation Notre-Dame. The two witnesses who will sign Laure’s marriage contract are the Superior, Marguerite Bourgeoys, and a lower-ranked sister. Laure has been around for a number of these ceremonies since her arrival in Ville-Marie last summer.

  Throughout the early fall, Laure met several times with Mathurin before agreeing to the match. These meetings in the congregation’s parlour weren’t really necessary, since Laure knew all there was to know about her future husband on the day she first met him, at the welcome ceremony on the hill. Mathurin is more than eager to please her. He has an inflated sense of his accomplishments in Ville-Marie, which should at least give him the enthusiasm needed to survive here. Laure doesn’t expect any pleasant surprises from her marriage to Mathurin and hopefully no unpleasant ones either.

  Mathurin had been a poor man in France. Although Laure’s future husband had been better off than those languishing in the men’s division of the General Hospital in Paris, he was only one misfortune away from joining them. Mathurin had come to Canada, been a soldier for three years, and was now a free man with a wooded plot of land and a bride with a chest of supplies from Paris and a promise from the King of a fifty-livres dowry. He claimed that the hundreds of soldiers who returned to France, refusing the royal offer of free land, had been fools. That it is better to look toward the future than back at the past.

  Mathurin’s arms are as thick as his cheeks and neck. He is thirty-two and says that it is his first marriage. This was not the case for some of the other suitors who had shown an interest in Laure, including a fifty-three-year-old widower, a criminal from the King’s galleys, proud that he had been released from his prison sentence in France because he had agreed to come to the colony. Mère Bourgeoys had scolded Marie Raisin for setting up that particular meeting. Another of Laure’s suitors had been a sixteen-year-old Canadien accompanied by his father.

  Each time Laure descended the congregation stairs to meet with Mathurin, he had been polite enough, perhaps overly so. He tells her that his cabin is fully constructed and is larger and sturdier than the houses of most settlers. A completed cabin is the most important thing the women look for in a husband. The two girls who had returned to the congregation seeking annulments had discovered that they would be sleeping in tents in the woods because their new husbands had not yet constructed their cabins. Given Laure’s options, marrying Mathurin made the most sense. Once they have a few children, there is a chance that he will leave Laure to her own devices. She might still have the opportunity to become a seamstress.

  Laure wears Mireille’s gown on her wedding day. It is still stained with Deskaheh’s blood, although she has since fixed the seam of the bodice where it tore when he pushed her to the ground. Laure is happy to see that after several months of eating the congregation’s more ample food, the dress now fits her better. She even had to let out a few inches to accommodate her new shape. Since it is her wedding day, Laure decides to pin her hair loosely on her head. She leaves the alcove and the now empty dormitory and walks down to the parlour. The sisters who helped her change follow Laure downstairs.

  It looks like Mathurin has also tried to dress impressively for the occasion. He has traded his forest breeches for a cleaner pair and has on a coat trimmed with rabbit fur, although it looks tatty and a little rotted. His hair has been greased back with animal fat, giving prominence to his bright cheeks. He appears to be sweating despite the cold.

  Ville-Marie is already colder in October than Paris in January. The sisters are concerned that Laure won’t have enough time to adjust to her new household tasks before the hardest months of winter hit the colony. Mathurin has brought with him a list of his belongings, written up by the notary. Laure’s coffer contains all that she owns. One of the hired boys of the congregation carries it down for the ceremony.

  Mathurin is grinning at her. Seeing her bridegroom, Laure remembers the words from the Intendant’s speech on her first day in the colony. He had said that the newly arrived women would be like biblical helpmates to the colony’s men. The work ahead of them here was far more than was expected of wives in Old France. Laure had only half listened at the time, concerned as she had been about Madeleine and exhausted from the months-long journey, but now the words return to her. Laure managed to ward off men on the ship and suitors who came to the house only to finally settle for Mathurin. She thinks of the girls who requested annulments after their first marriages, trying a second time in hopes of a better match. But Laure has heard that some of these second attempts end up worse than the first. She is resigned to a life with Mathurin
. After all, what other hope is there for her now that she has left Paris and her companion and best friend has died?

  The notary arrives with the legal documents and to list the couple’s goods. Along with the witnesses, the newly married pair signs the marriage contract. Mathurin makes his mark, a jagged cross, on the document that contains the date and place of their union as well as the places of their birth and the names of his parents. Laure is understood to be an orphan. She doesn’t bother to correct them. The ceremony takes only a few minutes, and then they move on to the chapel of the Hôtel-Dieu on rue Saint-Paul for the Mass.

  Afterwards, they return to the congregation house. Mathurin tells her that he has brought a cart in which to carry her to his cabin. He has in mind that he will pull her through the branches and fallen leaves of the forest path all the way to Pointe-aux-Trembles, the settlement where he has built his cabin on the land given to him by the King.

  Laure sees that Deskaheh is standing by the entrance to the congregation. Does he know she has been married today? Word must travel quickly throughout the settlement. Deskaheh is wearing a fur jacket and the pants of a French man. He looks first at Laure, then at Mathurin. Laure can detect a hint of mockery in the tilt of Deskaheh’s head.

  Mathurin frowns at the way this Savage is looking at his new wife. Laure wonders if Mathurin recognizes Deskaheh from Madeleine’s funeral. And if Deskaheh remembers being punched by Mathurin, what must he think to see them together now? Although Deskaheh is ugly, he is less so than the man she has just married. Perhaps somewhere deep in the forest he has a home that is more comfortable than the one she is being taken to. And he might not carry her to it in a ridiculous cart like a chicken. These thoughts are of little use, though, as no French woman has ever married a Savage.