Shadowbrook (60 page)

A great peace came over Nicole. What was happening was not of the devil, but of God. You sent him here today,
mon Dieu,
to test me one last time. She lifted the document she had signed and displayed it to the church. “I Nicole Marie Francine Winifred Anne Crane,” she said and her voice did not tremble or falter, “in religion known as Soeur Marie Stephane, have made these vows of my own free will.” Nicole turned in all directions, showing the document to any who cared to see. Finally she turned back to the cloister and stepped inside.

Goodbye, my beloved Red Bear. Tonight when I take the discipline for the first time it will be for you.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1755
PORT MOUTON, L’ACADIE

MARNI WORE TWO
cloaks, her own and an old one that had belonged to her mother. The double layer of closely woven wool provided some protection against the sharp north wind coming in off the Atlantic. Despite that, she was both cold and hot at the same time. Her shoulders burned with the effort of swinging the
pioche
the whole day and the entire week before that. The rest of her was chilled to the marrow. One last section only, then it was done. She raised the heavy pickaxe over her head and brought it down. Again, and then again. Until she thought she would die if she had to do it one more time—and despite that struck twice more. The last short length of earthworks crumbled under her attack.
Finis.
She had salted the earth.

A century and a half earlier her seven-times-great grandfather had started the building of these dykes. Every member of the family since had nurtured and cherished and expanded them. The earthen ramparts that held back the sea were
les anges gardiens,
the things that made life in l’Acadie possible. Now, thanks to Marni, those built on this farm by the
habitants
Benoit no longer existed.

The tides on this coast were not so remarkably high as those of the great bay on the other side; nonetheless, with the dykes gone, the sea would sweep in at least four or five times a year, probably more. With nothing to hold it back the ocean would cover the fields her ancestors had tilled. In not too much time the earth would again be a salt marsh where crops would not grow.
Alors, vous avez votre forfaiture, Majesté.
She had given the English king that which he demanded. Her land. May it be as bitter to him as it had always been to her.

They said some of the men had been shot for breaking down the dykes before the redcoats came to march the
habitants
to the various disembarking places. In a few cases, after the wives tried to complete the task, they were shot as well. Never mind. It was unlikely the deed would be quickly discovered on a farm as remote as hers. Besides, what did she have to live for? And why would she anyway wish to remain in l’Acadie? Cormac had said he would return, but he had not. Six months since he’d left her, four months since Beauséjour had fallen. Corm would have heard the fate of l’Acadie. He would know about the edict of deportation. If he were coming, he’d have come long since.

Marni left the
pioche
where it was and headed back to the house.

She entered through the barn. Cold now because Mumu and Tutu could no longer warm the air with their breath. The cows were dead. She had shot them both herself, with the musket that had belonged to her father and to his father before him. The pig as well. She’d strangled each of the hens. The rooster had gotten away, but she doubted he’d live long. Not in the kind of place l’Acadie had become.

Dark was falling, rolling in over the horizon. Thick clouds had prevented any sunset this day, but now the night sky showed a red glow. There were many fires in the place of desolation that was l’Acadie. Some had been started by the redcoats as they hounded the
habitants
from place to place, forcing them out of hiding and herding them to where they were to wait for the boats. Other fires were set by the Acadians themselves.

There was an iron rake leaning against the wall of the barn. Marni picked it up and went inside. No need to remove either of her cloaks. She wouldn’t be here long. She took the rake in one hand, the fireplace poker in the other. When she’d stirred up the fire, she dropped the poker and raked the glowing embers out of the hearth and spread them across the wide wooden planks of the floor.

She worked her way to the door, then dropped the rake and claimed the large drawstring bag she’d packed earlier. It held those few possessions she was allowed to take with her, and her money. She had forty livres saved from the days in Québec. For safety’s sake it was not in the drawstring bag but in a pouch under her clothes and strapped around her waist.
Alors, c’est tout finis.

The last thing she did was to pick up the crock of lard left from the previous autumn, when she’d slaughtered the pig before this one. Corm had been with her then. He’d helped her make sausages and cure hams and salt pork, and render enough pure white fat for an entire year of cooking. She had cooked little since he left. Plenty of lard remained. Marni raised the crock over her head and flung it to the floor. It shattered and shards of crockery thickly coated in fat went everywhere. A few landed directly on a burning bit of wood and sizzled nicely. Others, she knew, would soon send rivulets of melted lard toward the embers. Marni waited until she saw a few tongues of flame, then picked up her bag and started for Halifax.

After about twenty minutes she stopped walking and looked back toward her
farm; there was a satisfactory red glow. The house, the bam, the dead animals—it would all burn. She’d heard that some women had actually murdered their own children rather than take them into the heretical English colonies to which they were being sent. Marni put her hand over her belly. Empty. She had prayed it would not be. After Corm left, she who did not believe had begged the Holy Virgin that she might be with child. That way, when he returned as he promised, there would be something to keep him besides love of her. But she was not with child. And Corm had not returned. So much for prayers.

Many of the
habitants
were said to be hiding in the woods, vowing never to leave their homeland. She couldn’t wait to go. There was nothing here for her now. She had given her heart and her body to two men. Both had promised to love and cherish her, and both had proven to be liars. Jean was dead and Cormac was chasing a dream. So be it. She would reach Halifax by morning. She had seen two large ships sail by her farm the day before. That’s what had made her choose this day to leave. Tomorrow, she hoped, she would be done with l’Acadie and promises.

The autumn cold bit his bones and the wind tasted of ashes. Corm stood where Marni’s cows had been sheltered and looked across the charred stumps of wood that had once been the wall between the barn and the house. He was surrounded by a burnt shell. Only the stone fireplace remained intact. He could remember every one of the many times she had given herself to him in front of that fire.

He shouted, “Marni!” into the silence. An owl flew above his head, screeching its disapproval of the disturbance.

Damn bird had a point. It was dangerous to make so much noise. L’Acadie was crawling with redcoats. Corm had no difficulty avoiding them if he was simply concerned with getting from here to there, but now that he was convinced Marni wasn’t at her farm, he’d have to go among them to find her, into the villages and towns where the
habitants
were being marshaled for deportation. Quent had said a mass exile wasn’t easy to accomplish. Turned out it was bloody easy, as long as you were willing to do whatever was necessary.

It would have been hard for Corm to imagine that British soldiers would treat civilians like this, but he’d seen the desolation with his own eyes as he crossed the land between the Chignecto Isthmus and the Benoit farm. What houses still stood had been ransacked, in some cases destroyed. Burnt out like Mami’s place, or simply left open and empty, exposed to the elements. The barns were another matter. The redcoats had waited to carry out their orders until much of the wheat crop of the summer had been brought in and stored, then they put the barns under guard and marched the people they’d turned into slave laborers off to await banishment.

Corm turned and headed north across the familiar fields, his way lit by bright moonlight. After a time he realized something didn’t look right. At first he wasn’t sure what, then he knew. The dykes were gone. The precise, rounded, earthen fences no longer stood guard between the fields and the sea. He cut to his right to look more closely; the dykes had been beaten flat, spread over the ground. The wooden parts of the structure were splintered.

A pickaxe lay a few strides away; it had to have been Marni who left it there. The last thing the English would want would be to destroy these farms. He knew them too well, knew how important land was to them, to all
Cmokmanuk.
Their intention would be to invite English settlers into l’Acadie. Land that would support crops, nothing would be more important than that.
Ayi!
If Quent’s plan were going to work it would have to be put into effect soon. Otherwise it would be too late.

What was it she’d said to him the day he left?
I hate this place. It is my prison. I do not care if the dykes break apart and this farm is washed out to sea.

He could feel the ghosts of all the Benoit clan looking down and cursing this betrayal. Maybe she felt them too. Maybe that’s what had held Marni here on the land so long. “Marni!” he shouted again, even as he turned and walked backward, keeping his eyes on the charred remains of the house where they had been together and for a time no one else had mattered. “Marni!”

Not caring about the danger, Corm screamed her name until he was hoarse. Nothing and no one answered. Then, when he could no longer see even the jagged, burnt outlines of the pitched roof and low-slung barn, he turned again. Now looking forward, not back, he broke into a trot.

The village wasn’t much, half a dozen houses, a small trading post and general store, and the church, the hamlet’s main reason for existing. The sign read L’EGLISE DU STE. GABRIELLE; it had been nailed to the wall of the church, but someone had torn it down and left it lying in the grass. Corm walked past it and mounted the few steps to the door. It was not locked and he went inside.

The sanctuary was empty. Nothing had been touched. The pews, the stained glass windows doubtless imported from France, the altar built against the back wall, everything was as it had always been. But there were no altar linens, the sanctuary lamp had been extinguished, and the doors to the tabernacle were open, exposing to the empty interior. Corm had hoped that this was one of the marshaling places. He’d expected to find huddled crowds of
habitants
here, and to search for Marni among them. Instead there was nothing.

“Bon nuit, Monsieur Shea.”

He turned at the sound of his name.
“C’est vous!”

“
Bien sûr. Je suis le curé.
Who else should it be?”

“I don’t know, I thought …” The moonlight filtering through the stained glass windows provided enough illumination so he could see the Jesuit. Faucon was unshaven and his soutane was filthy, stained with dirt and mud. He was standing at the rear of the church clutching something. Corm couldn’t make out what it was. “I expected to find many of your flock here. I thought perhaps Mademoiselle Benoit—”

“You know she does not come to church.”

“Yes, but I presumed the
habitants
were being brought here.”

“No,” Faucon shook his head. “Not here. Everyone from this part of l’Acadie is being taken to the Halifax Citadel.”

“And you? Where are you going?”

“I am told that I am free to return to Québec, and that there is never to be a Mass said here again. If that is so, I may as well do as they say.”

“But I would think … Your parishioners, they must need you. Now more than ever.”

Philippe shook his head. “No one needs me, Monsieur Shea. I told you, I am not permitted to say Mass or administer the sacraments. And priests are not allowed to accompany their parishioners into exile. Besides, I am not even Acadian. So I am of no use. Except, perhaps …” He stepped to a bench and put down the thing he carried—a deerskin envelope, Corm realized now that he’d gotten a better look—and opened it. “I have made a record, monsieur. To show them in Québec.”