The Island of Doves (18 page)

He looked at her in surprise. “How do you know about that?”

“The nun who helps Father Adler in Buffalo told me a little, only that one of them died and one of them disappeared. It’s so sad.”

“Our story has spread, I see.”

“Josette Savard,” Susannah said. “Is she one of them? I saw her stone outside, the one with the rabbit.”

Jean-Henri nodded. “
Petit lapin
—that’s what they called her. I was only seven years old when she died. Some of it I remember, because I was there. But some of it I only learned later on.”

Susannah realized that this was the closest thing to an invitation she might get. She felt she had to know. “I hope you won’t think me rude to ask, but what happened to them?”

Jean-Henri sighed, laced his fingers. “There was a man, Paul, who set his sights on my Tante Josette. She was only a young woman and didn’t know what some men were capable of. My mother knew, and so did my Tante Therese—their older sister. Mother went away for the winter, as she did each year after my father died. She always left me in Therese’s care while she was gone. That year, in addition to charging Therese with looking after me, she made her promise to keep Paul away from Josette. They warned her about him, but she didn’t listen.”

Susannah was beginning to understand. “And Paul killed Josette. So when he did, Therese ran away? Because she thought she was to blame?”

Jean-Henri nodded. “Yes, she did run. But she didn’t make it very far. Here’s what I remember: I was alone in the cabin, sitting on the floor stacking blocks. It was a gray day, and inside the cabin it was very dim. It was the day Josette died—I didn’t know that then, but I realized it later. Tante Therese came in, and I remember noticing how strange she seemed. She was moving slowly, her hands down at her sides. She sat in the chair beside the fire and stared at nothing. I went over to her and took her hands to try to get her attention, but she didn’t seem to see me.”

Jean-Henri cleared his throat, then rubbed his palms together. “Her hands,” he said, “were wet. After a minute she seemed to get her bearings. She looked at me and nodded, then took me by the hand and walked me to the neighbor’s cabin, and asked the woman to look after me. When I saw the neighbor’s expression change—her eyes went wide—I looked back at my tante. We were out in the daylight then and I could see that the front of her dress was soaked with blood. Her hands too. And the blood was on my hands from where I had touched her.”

“Because she had found Josette . . . afterward?”

“Yes.”

Susannah put her hand over her mouth. She thought again of the times Edward had threatened her. She could have met the same fate as Josette. Jean-Henri looked haunted by the memory alone, his face pale. “What a thing for a child to see. You must have been so afraid.”

“I was, but I didn’t understand any of it. I was mostly confused. The neighbor took my hand and pulled me close to her skirt. Therese turned and walked away, very slowly. I remember thinking how cold she must have been because she wasn’t wearing a cloak or boots, and there was still snow on the ground.”

“So she left the island that day?”

Jean-Henri shook his head. “She disappeared around the curve of the lane, walking away from the port to the back half of the island, where it was deserted. The neighbor woman ushered me inside, but when she had her back turned, I slipped back out and followed Therese, though I don’t think she ever saw me. But I saw.” He paused to clear his throat, to steady his voice. “I saw what she did. She walked down the beach and out into the lake. She just kept walking in that slow way until the water covered her up.”

“So she didn’t disappear,” Susannah whispered. “She died.”

He squinted again at the altar. “That’s what I saw.”

“And you had to tell your mother when she returned? She must have been heartbroken.”

“I’m certain she was, though she never let me see any sign of it. I don’t know how much of my story she believed. No one ever saw Therese again after that, so my mother must have decided eventually that I was telling the truth. But they also never found her body. And no one else saw what I saw, as far as I know. So some people were left wondering.”

Susannah shook her head. To think he had carried the weight of this story, all his life. At least one thing made her different from Josette—if Edward had done to her what Paul had done to Josette, there would not have been anyone there to see, to carry on her memory.

“We never spoke of it again, of course,” Jean-Henri said. “My mother took it the way she takes everything, absorbed it all inside of her and showed a stoic face to the world. It’s only in her private moments—her time alone at the sugar camp, I think—that she must let her sorrow show.”

Susannah shook her head. “And she wasn’t worried about a young boy seeing such a terrible thing? Her own son?”

“I think she thought it would make me strong, the way men must become strong,” he said bitterly.

“But you were so small then. Surely she must have shown you some tenderness, some warmth.”

“Tante Therese did that. She was there every morning when I woke, she sang to me, played games with me. She did the kinds of things a mother does.”

Susannah thought of her own mother’s soft, pink cheeks, her rosewater scent. Susannah had delighted in her, and she in Susannah.
Thick as thieves
, her father would tease them as they giggled together over a game or whispered over a book. Oh, how she missed her. “Why?” Susannah said almost to herself. “Why couldn’t Magdelaine do those things with you?”

“I think I reminded her too much of my father. I think I reminded her of how she lost him, of how she was alone. And she couldn’t bear to be reminded. And then she lost her sisters. Loss after loss. It’s why she’s worked so hard to get me to leave the island. She says she wants me to succeed, but I think she wants to protect her own heart.”

Susannah exhaled, marveling at Jean-Henri’s insight. “There is so much sorrow here.”

“But it’s old sorrow,” he said. “It’s hard to explain, but I’ve seen a change in my mother since you arrived. She wanted very much to help you, wants to keep you safe. It’s very important to her.”

Susannah thought again of the dove in the sitting room, rubbing up against the bars of its cage. She felt a swell of satisfaction knowing that her arrival had helped Magdelaine somehow, that it had perhaps eased that old suffering. She had promised the nun that she would try to be of use to Magdelaine, and she wanted more than ever to keep that promise now that she knew the details of what had happened so long ago. Though she felt sorry for the boy Jean-Henri had been—abandoned by a woman too hurt to love him—she found herself admiring Magdelaine all the more. How strong she was! No matter what troubles she encountered, she bent them to her will or shoved them away. For as long as she could remember, Susannah had felt herself merely caught in the eddies. She had no control over what happened to her. She wanted to learn to be stronger, like Magdelaine. To fight harder.

Still, there was a price to pay for that too. Why couldn’t Magdelaine fight her fights
and
love her son? Why did love have to be a weakness?

“I should think you would
want
to leave,” Susannah said, “the way she treats you.”

Jean-Henri shook his head. “This is my home, the only home I’ve ever known. And she is my mother, the only one I’ve had since my Tante Therese died. In her own way, she does care for me. I know she does. Perhaps you are important here, Susannah. Perhaps helping you will finally bring her some peace.”

•   •   •

B
ack in her room upstairs she slipped out of the damp dress and sat in front of the mirror in her cotton shift, one of three new ones Esmee had sewn for her. The one she had worn on the boat had been torn up for rags. She thought of the threads that still hung from it where she had sewn her mother’s necklace to the fabric, then wrenched it away with the hopes of buying her safety. That transaction had failed, but safety had come to Susannah in another way. That was the way of the world, surprising you. It was indifferent to your needs, but once in a while it dropped a morsel in your lap.

Susannah loosened her hair and brushed the damp sections into one sleek wave over her shoulder and thought about the peace that had eluded Magdelaine all these years. Jean-Henri was a loyal son, wanting to please his mother, willing to give up so much in order to do it, but Magdelaine couldn’t see it. And then there was the mystery of Therese—dead, but maybe not dead. As Susannah knew very well, sometimes women went into the water and came back out again. Sometimes a story that seemed to be over had not yet ended.

In the morning, the sun finally came out and warmed the garden. By evening, the buds on the apple trees had shed their brown sheaths and soaked the sunlight into their little clenched white fists. They seemed to hesitate, to need to wait for the promise of just a little more sun, and when it came the buds unleashed their frills, the fleshy pink blossoms like open mouths singing a hymn.

N
oelle had gone to visit family. That was all anyone would tell Magdelaine about the girl’s absence, and eventually she gave up trying to find out more. Even Magdelaine couldn’t win
every
fight. Noelle might return to the lessons, or she might not. There was no telling. That was the way of things.

The first of May arrived like a contented sigh. The flowers relaxed into color and the bees rose up from wherever it was they spent the cold months. Magdelaine was up early as usual, sitting at the writing desk in the sitting room to answer some correspondence. She wrote to a bookseller in Detroit to request a volume of English poetry that she wanted to read with her students. Then she wrote a long-overdue apology to Mr. Greive of Trois-Rivieres about Jean-Henri’s delay. She didn’t say when or whether he would arrive in Montreal—she didn’t want to damage her reputation with this man any further with a lie. She addressed the letters and set off down the lane to Morin’s store.

“Good morning, madame,” Morin said when he saw her coming. He wore his buckskin coat and stood behind the small counter under a canvas awning. It was still early in the season for vegetables, but he had a few bunches of winter greens tied with string, and onions and potatoes in a wide basket. A sack of manoomin sat open with a tin cup beside it.

Magdelaine smiled as she passed out of the bright morning light and into the shadow of the awning. “Good morning, Mr. Morin. What do you have in from the boats?”

The man drank coffee from a steaming cup and read a week-old Wisconsin newspaper. He used it to gesture to the shelves behind him. “New sewing needles, some new calicos. A few tools. And then the usual: coffee, chocolate.”

“I’ll take a tin of coffee, please.” She glanced at the new tools hanging on hooks along the wall. One was a small saw—not like the crude one Jean-Henri had given Susannah to use on the apple tree, but one that was finely made, with small teeth, for making precise cuts. Jean-Henri would appreciate the care someone had taken in making it. “And the saw,” she said, “as well as these letters.”

Morin nodded, took the letters, and wrapped up the saw. Magdelaine counted out coins but he waved them away. “You’re settled up and then some, from the syrup.”

She nodded and took the package.

“Oh, and I have a letter for you,” he said. “From Buffalo.”

Magdelaine felt the nape of her neck prickle.

“It came yesterday.” He handed it to her. “Enjoy the sun. Another month of this and I’ll finally thaw out,” he said.

“And a few months after that, freeze again,” she said with a smirk, and waved good-bye. Out in the lane she tucked the package under her arm and tore open the envelope. Inside was a sheet of stationery and a piece of newsprint, folded in half. She read the letter first.

My dear Madame Fonteneau,

It is with great happiness that I send this letter to thank you for your assistance in the matter of Miss Dove. I have enclosed a notice that seems to suggest we are successful.

I pray that fortune will soon bring me to your island. I am yours in gratitude,

Father Adler

Magdelaine unfolded the newsprint to find an obituary for a woman named Susannah Fraser, dated April 11. She felt an enormous wave of relief wash over her. Finally, she had done it. Father Adler was happy. Susannah was safe. She knew that the heavens didn’t keep score—at least not that way. Saving Susannah couldn’t bring Josette back. Still, she had prevented the loss of one more young woman. That had to count for something. Father Adler had signed the letter the way he always did, with that tepid hope that one day he might find himself on the island. She wondered if this time, though, the words would carry just a bit more weight. They had been corresponding for so long and now they had done this good thing together. Shouldn’t they meet and shake hands at last?

Magdelaine glanced out at the placid lake that reflected the sunlight like a mirror. It was so bright her eyes began to water and she shielded them with her hand. For nineteen years, Josette had been in the ground, she thought as she folded the letter and tucked it in her pocket. Would her little sister sleep more peacefully now? And what about Therese, wherever she was? Did Susannah’s saved life make any difference to her?

Magdelaine sighed. The obituary should be happy news, and it was, but beneath the relief was that same foundation of uncertainty. What had happened to Therese? Magdelaine closed her eyes and took a deep breath of the spring air, repeating the same answer she always did when the question reared up once again: She would never know. There would be no peace on the topic.

Back at the house she greeted Susannah in the sitting room, determined to put the past back in its grave, at least for today. Something good had happened, and she wanted to relish it. “I have some happy news for you,” she said.

Susannah closed her book and set it on the table. She wore her hair loose, and it hung nearly to her elbows. The color from the elderberry had faded some, but the bright tones of her natural red were still subdued.

Magdelaine handed her the obituary. “You are dead.”

Susannah held her gaze a moment before she looked down at the clipping. Magdelaine saw her hand tremble a bit as she held it, but Susannah clenched her fingers to steady it. Her eyes moved as she read the text. “This may be the strangest moment of my life,” she said, “reading my own obituary. I am dead.”

“You are dead,” Magdelaine nodded. “And yet . . .”

“And yet, here I am.” Susannah nearly whispered it. She glanced back at the clipping. “They held a service for me. I had not thought to imagine
that
.”

“You see what it means, don’t you?” Magdelaine said. “He is not looking for you. You really are safe now.”

Susannah nodded, and her weak grin broke open into a real smile, maybe the first one Magdelaine had ever seen on her face. Her youth showed in the smile; sorrow and worry had made her seem far older than she was.

“Now that we know this, I think you should feel free to expand your range a bit, explore the island, if you wish.”

“I like the sound of that,” Susannah said. “There are only so many times I can make the circuit from my room to the kitchen to the garden and back again.”

“Why don’t we take a walk to celebrate, and I’ll show you around?”

Susannah coiled her hair in a loose twist and covered it with the fraying black bonnet. They set out back down the lane toward Market Street, and Magdelaine tried to see the island through Susannah’s eyes. They passed three small clapboard houses, each separated by a swath of shrubbery and vines and a few small trees budding with leaves. To the left, the beach stretched in a crescent dotted with Indian lodges and canoes. As they neared the main street, the gravel lane grew more crowded with horse-drawn wagons. Spring and summer brought many newcomers to the island. Some wore native clothes, some French. Even a few women moved in the crowd, their wide skirts absurd alongside the men’s more practical attire.

They passed the new church, as Magdelaine thought of it, the one the Presbyterians had built when they set up their mission school on the island just a few years back. As she tried to think of something friendly to say about the reverend, she noticed Susannah’s somewhat mournful gaze at the building.

Magdelaine suddenly realized her oversight. “I never thought to ask,” she now said, “whether you would like to attend Sunday meeting. You must be missing it. We can arrange for it now.”

“Oh, that’s not it,” Susannah said. “I suppose I was just admiring the building. My husband was the one who insisted on attending each week back in . . . well, before. Though I believe it was mainly to court clients and conduct business. I hope you won’t take offense if I say that religious feeling has always eluded me.”

Magdelaine was quiet for a moment. She had felt that same absence ebb and flow over the years. “I understand the feeling. When so much of life is a struggle, it’s hard to imagine that anyone is looking down.”

Susannah nodded. “Have you talked much with Reverend Howe?”

“No. Jean-Henri has helped with some repairs on the building, but the reverend will have nothing to do with me. He has been here a few years now but never reciprocated the welcome we tried to extend when he first arrived. I believe he is afraid our Catholicism is contagious—like a typhoid. He is very severe. The girls tell me that he treats his students poorly, is determined to convert them at any price, whether they understand what any of it means or not.”

Susannah raised her eyebrows. “He has hired a new teacher, a man from Boston.”

“Really? How do you know that?”

“I had a brief conversation with him on the boat to Detroit. And once he came to the house, looking for Jean-Henri.”

Magdelaine gave her a wide-eyed look. “And you spoke to him?” She reminded herself that Susannah’s husband had printed that obituary. As far as he was concerned, his wife was dead. He wasn’t looking for her.

“Don’t worry. I didn’t reveal anything of myself. He was the one who hired Jean-Henri.”

“So he deigned to consort with us?”

Susannah smiled. “Perhaps he is more liberal than his employer.”

As they neared the crowded lane, Magdelaine sensed Susannah hesitate. Fear was not an easy habit to break. Perhaps she would need a little more time to get used to the idea that she was safe.

“Let’s go this way instead,” Magdelaine said, gesturing to an empty path that led to the fort. They climbed the steep hill, the sun at their backs. Magdelaine felt perspiration dampen her upper lip and she panted some with the exertion. She noticed that Susannah did too, but neither of them seemed to want to stop. Cedar trees grew out to the edge of the bluffs, some even jutting sideways out of the limestone façade. In the open spaces, wildflowers covered the ground. Susannah stooped to collect a specimen of each one.

“Spring beauty,” she called a star-shaped white blossom. The trout lily was yellow with a little white beard beneath the blossom. “Those are the anthers,” she explained to Magdelaine. “They distribute the pollen.”

They walked to the edge of the bluff. There, Magdelaine showed her one of the island’s most prized features, a limestone arch about a hundred and fifty feet above the beach. When they looked down at the lake through it, the blue expanse and the line of the horizon filled the entire arch. It was as holy a place as any church, Magdelaine thought.

On the way back home they cut through the meadow behind Ste. Anne’s and crossed the churchyard. Just as they were about to pass by Josette’s stone, Susannah slowed her pace. She let her fingers run over the carved stone ears on Josette’s rabbit, the curve of its back. Magdelaine felt a twinge of uneasiness. She never allowed herself to visit her little sister’s grave—she always forced herself to walk by it without a glance.

“Come on,” she said. “There is much to do at home.”

“Magdelaine,” Susannah ventured in a small voice. “Why is it that Josette has a stone, but not Therese?”

“Didn’t I tell you”—she snapped, then inhaled through her nose, softened her tone—“that I don’t like to talk about the past?” She wasn’t ashamed, exactly, of their sorrows, though maybe she was a bit ashamed to have to admit that she had been absent when Josette needed her most. It had taken weeks for word to reach her, and the journey home would have been arduous enough on its own, without the agony of the terrible news. Magdelaine felt the old regrets surge: If only she had returned to the island sooner, things might have been so different.

“Therese has no stone,” Magdelaine said finally, “because there was no body to bury.”

“But she
did
die that day?” Susannah asked.

“Why do you want to know?” Magdelaine asked.

“I suppose I am just trying to understand what you have been through.”

Magdelaine hesitated. Jean-Henri had seen Therese go under the waves. There was every reason to believe it was true. And yet how could she explain to Susannah that all these years, part of her still doubted, still hoped that somehow Therese was alive?

Magdelaine had never told anyone that she had gone on that fruitless search to Quebec City, and she wasn’t going to tell Susannah now. Hope was nothing but a thing that plagued her, and she prayed that it would leave, once and for all. Magdelaine knew all too well that wanting an impossible thing didn’t make it so. She answered what had to be true, despite her hopes. “Yes,” she said. “Therese died that day.”

Susannah nodded. “And—forgive me—even if you couldn’t have a headstone, you didn’t want something in her honor? A statue? Something?”

Magdelaine pressed her lips together. “If you’re wondering whether I blamed Therese for what happened to Josette, the answer is yes. I did. For a long time. But I don’t blame her anymore. It wasn’t her fault—whatever happened. She couldn’t have stopped that man.” She looked at Susannah. “Knowing you, knowing about other women like you, has certainly taught me that.”

“I suppose I was wondering,” Susannah said, “whether you blamed
Josette
. Because you had warned her about him and she went against your wishes, and then she wasn’t strong enough to get away, the way you would have if you had been in her shoes. She wasn’t smart enough to see what was coming.”

Magdelaine touched Susannah’s elbow. “Is that how you feel? That you should have been able to stop your husband?”

“I didn’t fight back. I gave up hope. If it wasn’t for your help, I would still be there, still be accepting that as my lot in life. I’m not strong the way you are.”

Magdelaine shook her head. Susannah had it all wrong. She had mistaken a failing in Magdelaine—hard-heartedness—for something good, something noble like strength, courage. Susannah seemed to her far more courageous than she had ever been. “You’re here, aren’t you?” Magdelaine said to her. “You
did
escape him. You’re stronger than you think you are. Real strength isn’t in the fight. It’s in the enduring, the going on even when it seems like all hope is lost.”

Susannah shrugged, then nodded at Josette’s grave. “You have endured plenty yourself,” she said.