The Death of My Country Read online

  “I will need your assistance, Mademoiselle Aubuchon,” M. Laparre called to me over his shoulder.

  I knew what he wanted. I had done it before at Hôtel-Dieu. Any blood must be mopped as he cut so that he could see what he was doing. I shook my head to make it clear I would not touch the Scot. “I will have nothing to do with the animals who have killed someone I loved and who have destroyed our city.”

  I was not whispering. The area around us grew silent and the hands of every nun within hearing flew to their mouths.

  “Geneviève!” one of the sisters cried out. “What can you be thinking? This is not like you at all.” I did not move. I recall now that I was thinking of Étienne, and my brother’s terrible wound and the sight of my world in ruins.

  Then the wounded Scot spoke. In French! French so oddly accented it was barely understandable. “Mademoiselle need not trouble herself. I will cause her no more suffering than she has already endured.” And he turned his face away.

  For some reason I looked across the room. Mère Esther and Mme Claire were watching. I met their eyes and saw pity in them … and then I slowly realized that the pity was for me. I can still feel the shame that filled me at that moment. I turned and watched as they strapped the Scot to the bed. The officer gave him rum — a great deal of rum — from a flask. It would help deaden the pain. M. Laparre turned to another patient, for it would take a few minutes for the rum to begin to work on the Scot. Still I did not move.

  Someone called to me to do something or another. To be truthful, I do not recall what it was. “I cannot,” I answered. “I am needed here.” I took from my pocket the thick piece of leather I keep there. It was once smooth, but now it is pitted by tooth marks. I told the Scot to bite on it, that it would help.

  He turned his face to me, anger and pain making his features harsh. But he did as I bid him. He did not cry out once, not when M. Laparre cut into his flesh, not when the veins and arteries were cauterized, not when the bone saw severed his hand just above the wrist, not when the surgeon drew the flaps of skin over the stump. He worked as quickly as he could, and it took only a few minutes, but I knew well that it had seemed like an eternity for the Scot.

  M. Laparre asked me to finish, to sew the skin together with a needle already threaded. Even then the Scot did not make a sound. He simply lay there, his face and lips white. Afterward I removed the tourniquet slowly to make certain there was no bleeding. There was none, for my stitches were perfect. Then I dressed the stump. I took the leather from between the Scot’s teeth, turned my back on him and left the infirmary.

  Now I am not certain why I helped at all.

  Le 28 octobre 1759

  Tard ce soir

  Chegual was well enough for me to return with Mme Claire to the house this evening to bathe and change my filthy, blood-spattered clothing. I had decided to sleep here for the first time in many days. And dear little Wigwedi! Madeleine had been caring for her all this time. I picked up my rabbit and hugged her, ignoring the risk of her vengeance. La Bave! How she barked in her joy to see me.

  Mme Claire came to my room once I was clean and settled in my bed, Wigwedi at my side.

  “Ah, Geneviève,” she said. “You have grown up this summer, I fear. Quickly. Far too quickly.” Then she put her arms around me, saying she had hoped I could have been spared all this.

  I protested that my place was and is here.

  She took my hands in hers and told me that life is filled with terrible trials that wound us deeply. “I wish that you had not learned this lesson at so young an age,” she said, “but we are given no choice in such things.”

  I had no idea what to say.

  “Wounds leave scars, Geneviève. Sometimes those scars cannot be seen,” she went on. I think that what she said next moved me as no words ever have. “The very saddest, I think, is a scarred heart. One that can no longer feel.” Then she kissed my cheek and told me to get what rest I could.

  I do not think I will sleep tonight. I have made a difficult decision. It has eased my heart some, but not much. In the morning I will confess to Père Segard.

  I have much to confess.

  Le 29 octobre 1759

  Père Segard said nothing at first. He simply sat in the darkness of the confessional while I waited in misery for my penance. Then I heard a deep sigh come from beyond the confessional screen. His words are with me yet.

  “I think you have been doing penance for many days, my child,” he said. “Bitterness and cruelty are not part of your nature. You have suffered and then sought to strike out the only way you could. That God’s goodness works within you, Geneviève, is proved by the fact that, in the end, you did not turn from an enemy when he was suffering. But still, it is my duty as your confessor to give you a penance, and so for your penance you will do good works.”

  He said the words of absolution and they gave me comfort just as they always do. Then he coughed. My penance? Only one good work would be necessary. “You will nurse the Scot until he is well. I will arrange with Mère Esther that you have few other duties. Go in peace, Geneviève.”

  Peace? I think I will never know peace again.

  Le 30 octobre 1759

  I returned to the infirmary today. I can recall thinking that my penance would be difficult, but in the end I was wrong.

  It was hideous.

  The Scot wanted to be in my presence no more than I wanted to be in his. He who stared so often, would not look at me now. He would only let me change his dressing when ordered to do so by his général. He would not eat unless ordered to. He simply lay there, his face turned to the wall.

  I finally lost all patience.

  “You like me no better than I like you, sauv — monsieur,” I said, “for we are enemies, but you are my penance.”

  He turned his angry eyes to me. “Your penance, mademoiselle?”

  Of course, he would know nothing of that, being ignorant of my faith. I told him I had confessed my sins as good Catholics do. Hating him and all his kind was one of them. “My penance for this sin is to nurse you until you are well. The sooner you are healed, the sooner you may be rid of me.”

  He gave me an odd look. “Very well, mademoiselle. Who am I to stand in the way of such a sacred thing. Do your best. Or your worst, if you must.”

  At the moment I thought little of what he said, but now I can see he was making light of me.

  Le 31 octobre 1759

  Today one of the other Scots came to me when I was with Chegual. He spoke at length in English and then watched my face.

  I asked my brother what the man wanted. I could barely understand his words.

  “Nothing,” Chegual answered. The man wishes to thank me — all the Scots wish to thank me — for my treatment of the one who lost his hand. “Une Main, I am calling him,” my brother told me, “although they say his real name is —”

  I held up my hand. I have no wish to know his name.

  Novembre 1759

  Le 1er novembre 1759

  Cook says that there is bad talk of Gouverneur Vaudreuil. Quelle surprise. With so many of the men gone, the women are reproaching him, since all the farm work must fall to them. Cook says that one very angry woman cried that he may be brought to as miserable and barbarous an exit as ever a European suffered under savages.

  Indeed.

  We went to Mass this morning since it was All Saints’ Day. I prayed that Étienne is at peace. There is no longer any hope of that for me.

  Le 2 novembre 1759

  The nuns are using their own linen for bandages. At Mme Claire’s direction, we have brought sheets and cloths and old clean chemises from the house. I am exhausted each night and go to sleep almost at once.

  Le 4 novembre 1759

  They are saying that Général Murray has divided Québec into counties. Does he think he is the king here? Le Roi Murray? It appears so. And he is taking wine from the king’s stores. He has passed out more than sixty hogsheads to his officers.

  Yet t
here was one thing today that amused me. Murray’s soldiers could not get up to the Haute-Ville because of the ice. An entire company of them slid down the hill.

  Le 6 novembre 1759

  The house that Général Montcalm had used as his headquarters is now being called Candiac after his birthplace. I try to find pity in my heart for him, he who lies buried so far from home.

  Le 8 novembre 1759

  Laws, laws, laws, British laws! Lights must be out by ten. If you are out walking at night you must have a lantern and you will be taken prisoner if you do not. Carriages may not stop near any gateway. People say that British justice is no harsher than French. To me it is like slavery.

  Le 10 novembre 1759

  Québec’s streets are now lit by lamps each night, lamps made by the British tinsmiths. At first I thought that with the snow falling it was somehow beautiful. Then I realized that the lamps only let us see the destruction that night hides.

  How I miss Étienne.

  Le 11 novembre 1759

  Just when I am certain I am beginning to come to terms with how our lives have changed, I am filled with confusion.

  This morning, before Sunday Mass began, Mme Claire and I sat in prayer. Other people were there of course and the sisters were on the other side of the grille waiting in privacy.

  Then I saw him.

  It was the Scot, Une Main, entering the chapel. He had a black arm band upon the sleeve of his coat. Why was he here? Would he laugh and mock our faith? Then he took a rosary from his pocket, blessed himself and began to tell his beads. I could not concentrate on the Mass, I could not pray, I could not even think clearly.

  Later I spoke to Père Segard. There are Catholics among the Scots, he told me. Général Murray desires that they should not practise their faith openly — why does this not surprise me? — but they are not forbidden to attend Mass and receive the sacraments.

  The black arm band? Général Murray has asked that all his officers wear it as a sign of their mourning for Général Wolfe.

  We are a city of mourners.

  Le 13 novembre 1759

  Wintry weather today.

  Le 15 novembre 1759

  Warmly dressed in heavy clothing and my wool cape, I walked to the site of the Abenaki encampment this afternoon in the company of Bonhomme Michel. Since I am known to work at the monastery hospital, the soldiers did not trouble us, although they closely question anyone coming into or leaving the town.

  It was such a lonely place. The remains of a few lean-tos, dead cooking fires, the sound of the wind rattling the bare branches of the trees. Then I saw something half buried in the snow, beside a trampled basket. It was a doll, a poor thing made of corn husks and wearing brown woollen cloth.

  I picked it up and brushed the snow from it. What girl had loved this doll, held it to her closely, whispered to it in the night? Did she cry sometimes at its loss? Was the girl even alive still?

  I might have taken the doll with me. Instead I set it back down and piled snow over it, ignoring Bonhomme Michel’s odd look. It seemed better that the doll stay here and, in time, return to the earth instead of being carried back to Québec.

  Perhaps the girl’s mother, if she lives, will make her another doll after next year’s harvest.

  Le 17 novembre 1759

  A man from our town, one none of us knew, was hanged by the British today for encouraging their soldiers to desert.

  Le 19 novembre 1759

  I told Chegual about the doll today as I changed his dressing. He was silent for a moment and then he said that I had done the right thing. But after a longer moment he asked me if it was only a doll that I had buried in the snow.

  He did not need to say more. I know that I cannot bury the past. Any of it.

  Le 21 novembre 1759

  Two women were whipped through the streets today for selling rum to the soldiers. Unthinkable.

  Le 22 novembre 1759

  Any wealthy families who can still afford to do so are leaving for France. The hangings, the beatings, the laws — they are too much.

  Le 23 novembre 1759

  Frost and snow today. Endless rumours that the French army will march against the town in an attempt to take it back. How I weary of such talk.

  Le 25 novembre 1759

  The ship Racehorse has blown up. Those who survived were brought here with dreadful burns. And Général Murray? It seems what angered him the most was the loss of the ship’s carpenters.

  Le 26 novembre 1759

  I will never become accustomed to the sound and sight of the British army here. March! March! March! They should march back to England. Chegual laughed when I told him that. I do all I can to cheer my dear brother.

  How he mourns Étienne. He says nothing, but his grief is there in his eyes. Can he see mine as well?

  Le 28 novembre 1759

  I wear two of everything to stay warm. There is a shortage of wood, even though the soldiers are cutting it on Île d’Orleans. They cannot bring it across because of the ice floes in the river and so wood from ruined houses and fences is being used as fuel.

  The capitaine of the Racehorse has died of his wounds.

  Décembre 1759

  Le 1er décembre 1759

  Mère Esther says that the soldiers are entirely unprepared for the winter. She is correct, since many suffer from frostbite in this bitter cold. They must go nearly 2 lieues to St. Foy to cut wood, eight men pulling a sleigh through the deep snow. How unfortunate for them.

  Chegual’s leg is healing well. At least there is that blessing.

  Le 2 décembre 1759

  To relieve the pressure that rests on the shoulders of the sisters, men who do not need constant nursing have been billeted. This will now happen with our household! They have invaded our country. They have taken our town, and now they will occupy our home. I am resigned to nursing them — him — but how can we let a stranger into our home?

  Père Segard. If he was not a priest and my confessor, I would — but I had best put that idea out of my head before I find myself with a penance worse than the one with which I am tortured.

  Naturally, he heard that more officers are to be billeted, and naturally he is making sure that it is convenient for me to continue with my penance. He spoke with Mère Esther, giving her no details, since it was a matter of a private confession. Mère Esther spoke to Mme Claire and then to Général Murray, who made the necessary arrangements.

  Une Main will be billeted in our home, and only he, since he is an officer and such privacy is due his rank.

  What of our privacy?

  Le 3 décembre 1759

  Mère Esther took me into the chapel. I thought that she might scold or perhaps ask questions, since she and everyone else surely are curious as to why Père Segard made such a request. I should have known she would not.

  He is an officer with the 78th Regiment of Foot commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Simon Fraser, she said, passing on what it appears Général Murray told her. His name is Lieutenant Andrew Guillaume Gordon Doig. When my eyes grew wide at the French name Guillaume, she only shrugged. “It is a mystery,” she said, “but perhaps in time it shall be solved.”

  Not by me.

  Le 4 décembre 1759

  The one good thing that has come of this wretched billeting is that Mme Claire has insisted that Chegual come back to the house immediately. I helped him myself, letting him lean his weight upon me as he limped down the street, a crutch under his arm.

  I told him that I would have joyfully carried him on my back, just as he used to carry me when I was small. He laughed aloud at that.

  It is the first time he has laughed like that since — no. I will write of happier things from now on.

  Le 6 décembre 1759

  It has been necessary to do some shifting about. Mme Claire will, of course, remain in her chamber. Lieutenant Doig, for all his rank, has refused to take my room, which is the next best. How gallant of him. It means I must run up and down the stairs if he
requires nursing, but I said nothing. He is still my penance, after all. He also refused to take the room off the kitchen that Madeleine and Cook share. More gallantry.

  That left only the drawing room and the library or maybe the roof, where with luck he would roll off, but it seemed that the library is to the lieutenant’s liking, and so his cot and belongings were taken there by soldiers. Chegual will sleep in the kitchen with La Bave, but he will be warm and dry and safe.

  I do not mind running up and down the stairs for his sake.

  Chegual still has a great deal of pain. He says little, but it shows. Lieutenant Doig’s pain is of a different sort. He says he still feels his hand, which disturbs him. I will brew up a strong batch of willow-bark tea for Chegual. And I suppose for the lieutenant.

  Doig. What sort of a name is that?

  Le 7 décembre 1759

  There was a knock on the front door this afternoon. Madeleine was helping Cook with the pastry for tourtières and so I answered it. There stood a tall man, a Scot by his uniform, who inquired in French if this was the residence of Lieutenant Andrew Doig.

  Non. It was not, Mme Claire answered coolly. She was standing in the hall behind me, a book in her hands. She informed the man that this was her residence and that of her household. “However,” she added, “Lieutenant Doig is a guest here.”

  The officer bowed and begged her pardon for the unfortunate misunderstanding. Might he speak with Lieutenant Doig?

  I led him to the library. There was a great deal of pummelling of backs and loud greetings in that language with which the Scots somehow manage to communicate. I closed the door and left them to it.

  Later, there was a knock on the frame of the drawing-room door. It was Lieutenant Doig and his companion. He introduced us to the man.

  “Madame Pastorel and Mademoiselle Aubuchon, may I present Lieutenant Jonathan Alexander Stewart, also of my regiment. He is my cousin.” This man was billeted in the Intendant’s Palace, we learned, with many other Scots.