The Death of My Country Read online

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  A wee lassie is a small girl. Aye means yes. His language is Gaelic, which he has spelled for me.

  Le 24 décembre 1759

  I do not believe in ghosts, yet last night I dreamed of Étienne and he seemed so alive. It was just a dream, of course, for he is gone. And besides, he was in my chamber, sitting on the edge of my bed, holding my hand. And me in a nightdress! Even Étienne with all his forward ways would never have done such a thing in life.

  “How are you?” I asked him, and he said that he did well, very well, that there was only one tiny thing keeping peace from enfolding him.

  “And what might that be?” I asked.

  “Knowing that you are not at peace, Geneviève. Let all of this go and look to tomorrow, not to yesterday. Not with bitterness. Will you promise me that, my dear friend?”

  “Yes,” I promised.

  “Good,” he answered. “Be happy, Geneviève.” Then he said so very gently, “And watch carefully for friendship, so that you do not miss it when it is offered. That would be a great shame.”

  I awoke then, the sides of my cheeks wet with tears. Not tears of sadness, but tears of relief, and so I arose from my bed to write this by moonlight. It was just a dream, but somehow I know that Étienne is at peace.

  We will attend midnight Mass in a few hours. I will pray for the souls of all who have died in this terrible siege. But most of all I will give thanks that we are alive.

  Le 25 décembre 1759

  Christmas. It passed quietly today — we exchanged no gifts, only good wishes — and it might have been cheerless but for one thing.

  After dinner, Wigwedi was amusing herself by dashing back and forth across the library. In came La Bave, drooling freely. Then Wigwedi leapt over a chamber pot, spilling the contents everywhere! Now there was more than drool on the floor but, mercifully, liquid only. Soiled linen was folded in a pile near the door. It would be washed tomorrow and so I picked up a sheet with which to mop the mess.

  The lieutenant spoke. “Let me do that, mademoiselle. It is my chamber pot, after all. Today of all days there should be no work at all for you on my account.”

  I stared openly at him and I saw his eyes begin to grow cold. No, I told myself. You promised, and you will not turn aside this gesture.

  “Is my penance over, then?” I asked him.

  He supposed it was, he answered, looking down at his stocking-covered stump, since Doctor Russell was permitting him to return to full duties in a few days. His next words moved me so. “Perhaps we two could begin again. I offer you my friendship, mademoiselle, if you will accept it.”

  I accepted, and offered my friendship as well if he wanted it. He did.

  Then for no reason at all, I asked him what he had said in his own language the night I told Chegual of the death of our friend Étienne.

  Cuimhnich air na daoine o’n d’thainig thuí, he told me. Knowing I could not understand, he wrote the words on a scrap of paper and gave it to me. Beneath them he had written their meaning in French. Remember the people from whom you came.

  I will never forget his next words. “We must not forget them. We must remember those who have gone on before us. We are proud of what we are, you and I, mademoiselle — Scot, Abenaki, French and Canadian. We have lost much, but it cannot touch what we are.”

  Thinking back, I believe I have been given a gift after all.

  Le 26 décembre 1759

  “Geneviève.”

  We are Andrew and Geneviève now.

  “Your rabbit is on my pillow,” he said to me this morning when I brought fresh linen into the library. He picked Wigwedi up and put her on the floor, something I know she dislikes. Then he settled himself into a chair so that he could write.

  Then he grumbled, “That animal is yet again on my pillow.”

  I reached for her, but it was too late. I assured him I would air his pillow and put a clean cover on it. I lifted my shoulders with a helpless sigh. “The rabbit is a vengeful creature, Andrew.”

  I thought that perhaps the yellow wetness would anger him. I doubt that rabbit urine is something to which he is much accustomed. He only laughed though, and said that he would have to work much harder at winning the affections of one so resistant. Later, when I told my brother what had happened, Chegual asked which of us Andrew had been speaking of, me or Wigwedi? Chegual is becoming as bold as Étienne used to be.

  Who indeed?

  Le 27 décembre 1759

  Andrew is restless and eager to return to his duties. Exercise helps relieve restlessness, so we walked to the monastery hospital today. Mme Claire and I could be of assistance, and Andrew would visit some of his wounded comrades.

  How good it was to see Mère Esther and the other sisters. While Mme Claire worked alongside them, I was called to the bed of a wounded Scot. He had miraculously received a letter from his wife Louise, a woman who is French. Alas, he could speak French but not read it. Would I read it to him?

  Hoping it contained nothing of a personal nature, I did so. There was news of the farm and the pigs and their cow. Then I read aloud that Louise, enceinte when he left home, had given birth.

  “To what?” cried the man. His face had grown as pale as milk.

  “To a baby,” I answered.

  “What sort? I beg you tell me!” He grew paler than ever.

  I read the rest of the letter and found it. “To a little girl,” I told him.

  “Another?” he cried. “That makes thirteen! Thirteen daughters.”

  Men were laughing and calling out teasing remarks about dowries and endless weddings. Then Bonhomme Michel, who was carrying a stack of plates, observed, “Monsieur, tu es pâle comme un pet de loup!” Some men were now laughing so hard that they were weeping.

  “What does it mean?” Andrew asked me. “How could anyone be as pale as a wolf …” He cleared his throat, but could not bring himself to finish, which set the men to laughing harder than ever.

  “As pale as a wolf fart?” I said helpfully. I expained that un pet du loup is a white mushroom that grows here. A puffball. When you touch them they … Now I could not finish because I had begun to laugh.

  It felt so good.

  Tonight when I prayed I whispered to Étienne that he would have been proud of my boldness. Not even he could have done better.

  Le 28 décembre 1759

  Andrew has asked if he might cook for us. An officer cook? I must have looked surprised.

  “I am a Scot first, Geneviève,” he answered, “and all Scots can cook.”

  I was not banned from the kitchen, and so in an hour slipped in. A chicken was simmering in a pot and the smells of garlic and onions met my nose. There should be leeks and prunes instead, he said, pouring in a splash of wine as Cook watched. But there were none. Instead, Andrew would use potatoes.

  There were the potatoes on the table, looking like brown lumps of … well, like brown lumps. I peeled them the way he showed me, smiling as he teased me for my bravery.

  The chicken ragoût, something Andrew called cock-a-leekie, was delicious. So were the potatoes, I must admit. Even Cook said she had not tasted such fine food prepared by the hands of a man.

  Cook was spared the lobscouse and the pig’s face, as I recall.

  The household has changed so much.

  At one time I would not have been working in the kitchen with Andrew at my side. Mme Claire, Madeleine and Cook would not be seated at the kitchen table with my brother lounging in the doorway.

  Mère Esther says change can be good. I have come to think she is correct.

  Le 30 décembre 1759

  Andrew has told us that, in Scotland, something called Hogmanay will be celebrated tomorrow night to mark the last day of the old year. Children will go door to door asking for oaten cakes. I told him of our own custom of Guignolée.

  “Gui,” he said. “That is mistletoe.”

  There is no mistletoe here, thank goodness.

  Le 31 décembre 1759
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br />   Although no one could be out late because of the curfew, still, a good many people came to pay a visit and share a glass of cider. Many of them greeted us by singing “La Guignolée.”

  Bonjour, le maître et la maîtresse

  Et tous les gens de la maison

  Nous avons fait une promesse

  C’est de venir vous voir une fois l’an

  Une fois l’an ce n’est pas grand chose

  C’est pour les pauvres.

  Some soldiers from Andrew’s regiment also arrived. They had with them a curious object. It was a set of bagpipes, they said, a musical instrument of Scotland. When one of the men played it, I thought that I had never heard such a sound in all my life, so wild and stirring. And the dance — something Andrew called a highland fling — that the men performed was so spirited. Wigwedi, though, crouched in a corner of her cage, and La Bave ran to the kitchen and hid under the table. They have no appreciation for music, it appears.

  Andrew said that it was as enjoyable as Hogmanay.

  1760

  Janvier 1760

  le 1er janvier 1760

  Tard ce soir

  How to begin?

  This first day of the new year was aigre-doux, a mixture of bitter and sweet, for in spite of my best intentions, my thoughts returned often to what has been lost. All the talk this morning after Mass dealt with war, with how the British will attack Montréal, with how the French army will try to retake Québec. I wanted to put my hands over my ears and run screaming through the streets, for I have no more wish at all to talk or even think of war.

  Back at the house, Cook’s and Madeleine’s good food was tasteless in my mouth, Wigwedi’s playfulness — she persists in standing on La Bave — and the way La Bave ignores her, held little amusement. The lively conversation of Chegual and Andrew, Lieutenant Stewart’s flirting remarks directed to and returned by Mme Claire. Somehow it all did not really touch me.

  Then there was a knock on our door. It was M. Leblanc with a crowd of our neighbours. He asked permission to enter the garden behind the house so that they might view the miracle.

  “What miracle?” Mme Claire asked him.

  “Your hawthorn, madame. They say that in spite of this bitter cold, it is putting forth leaves.”

  It was. Tiny green leaves had sprouted from the branches. People were whispering that it was a sign that Québec would shake off her oppressors, that she was not conquered after all.

  For me it signified something else.

  Jigenaz and L’Aubépine? Étienne’s Abenaki and French names? They both mean hawthorn. There was a time when I once believed in miracles, and a time this summer when I lost all faith in them. Possibly it is only an accident of nature, for the tree is in a sheltered, sunny spot after all, but perhaps it is finally time to begin believing in miracles once more.

  Mère Esther has said that sometimes the most difficult promises to keep are the ones we make to ourselves. They are hard won battles indeed. Well, I vow I will not look back. The war in Canada is not over yet and no one knows what will happen, but I, Miguen, Geneviève Aubuchon, have fought my last battle with the past today.

  Epilogue

  It would be a lie to say that Geneviève was able to maintain her peace of mind without a struggle, but she was a resilient and determined girl. Her deepening friendship with Andrew, and the love of Chegual and Mme Claire and the rest of the household, were a blessing. Work also helped through the rest of that long and bitter winter. When Andrew returned to his duties, she once again began to volunteer at the school, something that gave her great pleasure. She was also a frequent visitor to the Ursuline hospital, where she cared for anyone who needed her help, regardless of his nationality.

  Montréal fell to the British in September of 1760 and Fort Détroit surrendered the next year. When news reached Québec that the Treaty of Paris had been signed on February 10, 1763, making Canada a British possession, the news saddened Geneviève, but it did not crush her spirit.

  Andrew’s regiment was disbanded that year. Jonathan Alexander Stewart and Mme Claire Pastorel were married, which was no surprise to Geneviève, since the gentleman had been courting Mme Claire with great determination. He was only one of many Scots who remained in Québec.

  Unlike Andrew Doig.

  When word reached him of his grandfather’s death, Andrew sailed for France on September 1, 1763. But not before he had asked Chegual for Geneviève’s hand in marriage. Chegual, being a wise young man, agreed. It would mean that Geneviève would have to wait for Andrew for several years until his business in Paris was complete. Geneviève, always very good at keeping promises to those she loved, did just that. Her letters followed him across the Atlantic; his came from Paris and were a great comfort to her during his absence.

  Mme Claire, Cook and Madeleine planned a splendid wedding for Geneviève and Andrew during the months before his return. Three days after his ship arrived at Québec on June 7, 1765, he and Geneviève were married in the Ursuline chapel. Mère Esther, who had been elected Mother Superior of the Ursulines some years before, was overjoyed for her former pupil. Although soused pig’s face and lobscouse were absent from the wedding feast menu, there were potatoes. And spotted dog.

  Andrew had inherited his grandfather’s estate and was now a wealthy man. He used some of his inheritance to build a large stone house in the Basse-Ville on the site of the ruins of Genevieve’s girlhood home, property Mme Claire had given to her foster daughter as part of Geneviève’s dowry. Andrew purchased land up the street and had a second building constructed where he established a publishing business, Doig & Stewart, in partnership with Jonathan. Andrew’s work, Un journal historique des campagnes en Amérique du Nord, pendant les années 1758 et 1759, was the first book they printed. The second book published was an account of Culloden.

  Chegual, who never married, remained close to Geneviève and her family. Restless and often unsettled, he found that working as a voyageur for a local merchant suited him best. When at Québec, he and Andrew now and again went out to hunt together, both enjoying the wilderness that lay beyond the town. But Chegual did not once return to the site of the ruined St. Francis mission.

  Wigwedi and La Bave lived contented, pampered lives. La Bave never again pulled a cart for anyone else but Geneviève and her family. Wigwedi always had the run of Geneviève’s household and remained a vengeful though patient creature to the end of her days.

  Geneviève’s and Andrew’s first child, a boy they named Étienne, was born in 1767. Within nine years there were five sons. Each of the additional four, David, Guillaume, Seamus and John, were given the middle name of Étienne.

  The year 1776 was a difficult one for the family. Late in 1775 Québec again fell under siege; this time it was the forces of the American Revolutionary Army who sought to take the town from the British. Like the other male citizens of Québec, Andrew and Jonathan defended their home all that winter alongside the British soldiers garrisoned there.

  The hawthorn tree behind Mme Claire’s house died in 1785, the winter that Geneviève gave birth to their sixth child. The baby was a sweet girl whom they named Jeanette, after Andrew’s mother. Chegual made a cradle of hawthorn wood for his niece and it was he who gave the baby her Abenaki name Mategwas, which means rabbit.

  Genevieve’s life had its trials. One by one, after long and happy lives, Cook, Mme Claire, Mère Esther and Jonathan all passed away. It was her unfailing love for Andrew and his for her, as well as a certain promise she had made, that kept her from despairing at these losses.

  In 1807 Andrew left the family business in the hands of his eldest son. Against all advice — they were elderly, after all — he and Geneviève set sail on a journey that spring. Letters arrived at Doig & Stewart during the next year. Dated April 2, 1808, this was the last.

  Dear ones,

  So very cold and snowy today, far damper than any Québec winter we have ever experienced. Papa and I have streaming colds that are really little more
than annoyances. We are both an amusing sight with our red noses. They keep us indoors. The cold and snow, not the noses.

  We are looking forward to boarding our ship in several weeks and returning home. It has been a great joy for Papa to return to visit Scotland. There have been moments quite aigre-doux, as you can imagine. A last-minute decision to visit the graves of his mother and father today was such a one. Pray for our safe journey.

  All my love,

  Maman

  It was followed three months later by this letter.

  My dear relations,

  It saddens me greatly to inform you of the deaths of your parents, who were both taken by pneumonia on April 14 of this year of Our Lord. Knowing their time had come, they requested that I make arrangements that they be buried here on the hillside. They were certain you would be able to accept this. Take comfort in the fact that they did not suffer, and in fact, passed on within hours of each other.

  They were remarkable people whose entire lives were a great adventure. Their stories of the siege of Québec, of the bravery of the Scots, the Canadians, the Abenaki and even the British and Americans, left me speechless. To have made their acquaintance was my great privilege and honour.

  Shortly before she peacefully left this life, your mother asked me to pass on a message. She was quite insistent that I use her exact words, and so I have set them here.

  Cuimhnich air na daoine o’n d’thainig thuí.

  She said that you would understand.

  Your obedient servant,

  Willie Doig,

  Culloden, Scotland

  They understood. The family arranged to have two bronze plaques cast; on them are their parents’ names and Geneviève’s message. One of the plaques was set into a simple stone that marks Geneviève’s and Andrew’s resting place on the hill overlooking Culloden.