Shadowbrook (89 page)

Wolfe had sustained two hits, one in the belly and one in the chest. He lay on the battlefield, his cape spread beneath him, covered in blood and breathing with difficulty. A soldier kneeling beside him could think of nothing to do except report the rout. “They run, General. My God, how they run!”

“Who is running? Not our—”

“It’s the French, sir. Everywhere. They’re all running away with our lads hot after them.”

“God be praised. I die in peace.”

Quent was made to wait in the garden while the surgery proceeded. He heard echoes of gunfire and the shouts of the crowds who stood on the ramparts watching the battle, but it was as if everything happened in a dream. Nicole was enduring the agony of the surgeon’s knife because she had taken a bullet meant for him. The sister in charge of the apothecary had brought wine, but nothing
else to dull the pain. “Our laudanum,
ma Mère,
it is gone. I have looked everywhere for more, but—”

“Do not disturb yourself,” the one they called Mère Marie Rose had said. “Soeur Stephane will offer her suffering to God.”

Heaven help him, he’d never understand the way they thought.

He looked up. The Poor Clare abbess was coming toward him. She had a black knitted shawl wrapped around her shoulders, but her feet were bare. He’d noticed when he saw Nicole struggling toward the kitchen with the water cans her feet were bare also. In Canada, at the onset of winter. Perhaps madness was a contagion.

“She lives, monsieur,” Marie Rose told him. “
Le bon Dieu
has seen fit to leave her with us for a time.”

“Can I see her?”

“Not yet. She is sleeping. Soeur Celeste will remain with her, and the nursing sisters of the hospital will care for her. We are doing everything that can be done, monsieur.” The abbess turned her head in the direction of the battlefield. “You may go back to your war.”

“I believe it is over, madame.” He’d heard no gunfire in some time. “So quickly,” Marie Rose whispered, then, looking at him: “I take it the French have lost?”

“I think so. There’s a crowd watching from the tops of the walls. I’ve heard no cheers in some time.”

She bit her lip. The gesture made her seem almost human. “I pray,” she said, “the river does not ran red with blood. I saw it that way, but perhaps I was mistaken.”

Quent stared at her. “You and Corm and old Thoyanoguin.”

“I am sorry, monsieur, I do not understand …”

“Neither do I.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out Père Antoine’s beads.

Marie Rose’s eyes opened wide in astonishment. “You are a Catholic, monsieur?”

“No. They belonged to the priest called Père Antoine. He asked me to give them to you.”

“Where is he? We have heard nothing for days and—”

“He’s dead.”

The abbess made the sign of the cross, but she did not seem surprised. Quent handed her the beads and she held them in one chapped and reddened hand. “We will pray for his soul. And yours, monsieur.”

They did not allow him to see her until Tuesday, three days after the surgeon had done his work. When at last he was shown into her room, Nicole was propped up on many pillows, deathly pale, her face etched with lines of pain, but she was smiling. “Dear Abbess tells me you saved my life, Monsieur Hale. I would have bled to death if you hadn’t been there.”

A young Poor Clare he hadn’t seen before was present, her head bent over some sewing. Probably didn’t understand a word of English. Damn, he didn’t care if she did. “That bullet was meant for me. As for saving your life, I didn’t do it so you could go back to calling me Monsieur Hale. I thought we’d put all that behind us long ago.” She blushed. It was wonderful to see the color in her cheeks.

“This is Soeur Angelique,” Nicole said, switching to French. “My sisters have taken turns staying with me night and day.”

“But I must leave you now.” Angelique looked doubtfully at the enormous man who seemed to occupy all the space in the tiny room. “Dear Abbess said I must come and tell her as soon as you were awake and Monsieur Hale had come. If you like, I can ask one of the Augustinian sisters to—”

“Everyone is much too busy to be worried about me, Angelique. Besides, there is nothing to fear from Monsieur Hale. We are old friends.”

Quent waited until the other woman had gone, then took a step closer to the bed. Nicole was wearing a gray robe and a black veil. “Do you wear these same clothes waking and sleeping?”

“They look the same, but we have different sets for night and day.”

Her right hand lay outside the coverlet. If he simply stretched out his fingers, he could touch it. “Nicole, I must tell you how I feel. I—”

“No, please. Do not say anything from your heart. Not now when I am so weak.” She felt the tears coming but she did not have the strength to brush them away. “Tell me what has happened. Angelique says there was a battle and we lost.”

“Yes. But—”

“What of monsieur Ie marquis de Montcalm?”

“He is dead. So’s Wolfe, the English general.”

“And Québec?”

“The terms of surrender were signed this morning. Nicole, we must—”

Marie Rose came into the room. Soeur Celeste was with her. “I am glad to see you well enough to speak,
ma petite,
and I believe Monsieur Hale was about to say you must speak of the future. He is correct.” She went at once to the bedside and sketched the sign of the cross on Nicole’s forehead. “That you have survived so far is a miracle, my child, but if you are to live, we must send you away.”

“But
ma Mère,
I am a nun. I have taken vows. Where can I—”

“Your vows are due to be renewed in a matter of days. I shall not accept them.”
Soeur Stephane apart from them, by herself with flowers in her hair. She had thought
it meant the girl was to die. Perhaps it meant something eke. It was only necessary that she do what le bon Dieu willed. In that way it was she, Marie Rose, Abbess, who was the sacrifice of praise.

Nicole stared at the woman into whose keeping she had placed her immortal soul. “
Ma Mère,
do you tell me that I am rejected? By you and by God? Do I not, after all, have a vocation to be a Poor Clare?”

“I believe you had such a vocation, child. And that now it is over. Our Lord has himself told me this.”

“But why does He not tell me?”

The abbess smiled. “I think he does,
ma petite.
For the moment you are still my daughter, so you must tell me the truth. Are you happy to be with us?”

“Yes, of course—” She broke off, then tried again. “I have felt that I was doing God’s will.”

“And you shall be rewarded for that. But you have never been happy, child. The rest of us, we are joyful to be Poor Clares. There is no place we would rather be. But you …” The abbess glanced at the man she too now thought of as the Red Bear. He’d had the good sense to move a few steps away into the shadows and leave this business to her. “You, Soeur Marie Stephane who must now again be Mademoiselle Crane, you have always had a divided heart.”

Nicole could no longer hold back her tears. “I have tried to do what is right,
ma Mère.
”

“I know. And God knows. And now what is right is that you must leave. Monsieur Hale tells me he can bring you to safety, and that you will be well cared for in this place called Shadowbrook.”

“Sally Robin,” Quent said quickly, “you remember how skilled she is with cures.”

“I remember.” Dear God in heaven, did she not remember everything? Had she not remembered for every minute of every day of the past four years? Nicole did not permit herself to look at Quent, only at the abbess. “But if I stayed with you and my sisters,
ma Mère,
surely I would also be cared for.”

“If I kept you here I would be failing in my obligation, to you and to the other sisters. I do not know how much Monsieur Hale has told you, but the governor-general has left with the last of the troops. We are told he goes to the fort at Jacques Cartier to regroup. This morning Québec surrendered to the English. There are now thousands of redcoats within our walls and they prepare to spend the winter. We have little shelter and less food. Things will be very difficult here. If I can arrange that there is one less invalid to look after, it is my duty to do so.”

“How is she?” Corm was waiting for him outside the grounds of the hospital. “I heard Nicole was shot.”

“Yes.” Quent was too drained to explain how it had happened. “A surgeon took a musket ball from her leg. She’s alive, but the doctor is afraid the wound will turn poisonous and kill her. I’m to take her to Shadowbrook.”

“To Sally Robin,” Corm said. And when Quent nodded: “Does she want to go?”

“Frankly, I don’t know. She—” The sounds of a fife and drums interrupted his words. The last of the French forces were leaving the city. They had been granted the honors of war—the first time that courtesy had been extended since the massacre at Fort William Henry—and they marched to the ships waiting in the harbor to take them to France with their arms shouldered and their flags flying.

Quent and Corm watched without speaking until the last of the procession had disappeared down the Côte de la Montagne. “The militia aren’t with them,” Corm said.

“They took off for the garrison at Jacques Cartier before the terms of the capitulation were arranged.”

“And the redcoats just let them go.”

“Be reasonable, Corm. They had no way of knowing if the city would surrender of if they must mount a siege.”

“What about the women and children? Are they to remain?”

“I haven’t heard anything else.”

“Not me either. But they have to be sent away, as the women and children of Louisbourg were sent away. It can’t work any other way.”

“I know. Listen, I was thinking of talking to General Amherst, he’s up at Bright Fish Water. After I get Nicole to the Patent I can see him. He’s in command of the entire expedition, Corm, and he—”

“I heard the surrender terms promised the
habitants
they could keep their religion and retain their property.”

“I didn’t actually see them. Far as I know, you haven’t either.”

“Not with my own eyes. But everyone’s talking about it. And about how if they can just get through this winter, things won’t be so bad.”

“Corm, Listen—”

Corm shook his head. “I’ve been listening. And what I hear is that it’s not going to work. Not the way we were promised. The
Cmokmanuk
have lied to the Anishinabeg one more time.”

“I don’t know that and neither do you. I know how it looks right now, but remember Louisbourg. And Easton.” Corm looked anguished. Quent put a hand on his arm. “In London, when I spoke with Pitt … He understood, I know he did. It’s just the English nature to do things in a roundabout way.”