Shadowbrook Part 50

Vaudreuil was at the north end of the plains, well out of the field of battle, in a caleche, still not convinced he should commit to this battle the fifteen hundred men he commanded. He saw the English line take another step forward. The screams of the dead and dying were too loud for him to hear the command to fire a second volley, but obviously it had come. Once more the redcoats in the front dropped to one knee and discharged their muskets while those behind fired over their heads. Involuntary the old man clasped his hands over his ears. He could not help it. The roar was like a gigantic cannon from h.e.l.l. It was a madness, all of this. If the Canadians and the Indians had been allowed ... Alors! Some small comfort. Wolfe was down, his officers cl.u.s.tered around him and dragging him out of the line of fire.

Montcalm's right flank broke, the Canadians running to take cover in the woods where they knew they would at least live to fight on, while screaming their Scots war cries and swinging their claymores, the Highlanders took off after them. A group of Canadian militia made a stand in the military bakery that stood just outside the city's gates. Their bravery bought the fleeing French army enough time to reach the walls and take shelter in Quebec, though every one of the Canadians paid with his life. And finally, the end. Half an hour after monsieur le marquis had pointed his sword at the enemy, the gates of the fortress city were again closed and locked. What was left of the army meant to defend New France was behind the walls. Montcalm was with them, still on his horse, but he had taken a musket ball to the gut on the field, and during the retreat English grapeshot had ripped open one of his legs. Alors. I think my life leaves with all this blood, mon Dieu. I shall be sorry never to see Candiac again. Or to taste the sugared almonds of Montargis.

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 G.o.d, 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."

"G.o.d 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 Mere, it is gone. I have looked everywhere for more, but-"

"Do not disturb yourself," the one they called Mere Marie Rose had said. "Soeur Stephane will offer her suffering to G.o.d."

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 Pere Antoine's beads.

Marie Rose's eyes opened wide in astonishment. "You are a Catholic, monsieur?"

"No. They belonged to the priest called Pere 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. d.a.m.n, 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 s.p.a.ce 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 Quebec?"

"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 pet.i.te, 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 Mere, 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 Mere, do you tell me that I am rejected? By you and by G.o.d? 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 pet.i.te. 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 G.o.d'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 Mere."

"I know. And G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 Mere, 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 Quebec 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 ma.s.sacre at Fort William Henry-and they marched to the s.h.i.+ps 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 Cote 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 Anis.h.i.+nabeg 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."

The entire fleet had to leave before the river froze. Admiral Saunders was not averse to allowing some s.h.i.+ps to go immediately. The Three Sisters under James Cooke would be one of the first; she was to sail at the end of the month. It presented no difficulty to take Quentin Hale and the young woman for whom he'd requested pa.s.sage.

They came aboard at midday on the Monday the Three Sisters was to sail. The crew were occupied with preparations for getting under way. Quent carried Nicole in exactly the manner in which she'd been given into his arms by the nuns, shrouded head to toe in blankets, only her face showing. The s.h.i.+p's company paid them little attention and he did not himself get a proper look at her until they were in the small cabin to which she'd been a.s.signed.

"One of the laundresses who was with the troops will be traveling back with us. She'U look after you. And of course I'U never be far." She did not smile. She was in pain, he knew, and frequently feverish, but he'd give a lot to see her smile. "Listen," he added, "taking you to Shadowbrook to recover needn't have anything to do with you and me. What I'm saying ... If you no longer feel-"

She turned away from him. "Please, I want to rest now."

"Yes, of course. Only let me make you more comfortable." He moved aside the blankets that covered her head. "Your veil's gone." The words were startled out of him.

"Today is the Feast of St. Michel the Archangel. I was to have renewed my vows. I did not. Mere Marie Rose tells me I am no longer a nun, so I may no longer wear the veil."

Her black hair was raggedly cut and as short as a man's. It made her eyes appear to be enormous purple-black coals in her white face. "But you still feel like one, don't you?"

"I am not sure what I feel. Except very tired."

There was a single small porthole on the wall beside her narrow bunk. He glanced out and saw the coast of Quebec pa.s.sing out of sight. They were under way.

Book 5.

The Covenant 1759-1760.

Chapter Twenty-Eight.

SAt.u.r.dAY, OCTOBER 11, 1759..

NEW YORK CITY.

QUENT STOOD ON the deck of the Three Sisters as she approached Burnett's Key on a raw, damp day in early autumn. The news of Wolfe's great victory had arrived before them. New York's streets were hung with red and white bunting, and everywhere the king's standard snapped in the stiff breeze. Nicole saw none of it. She was confined to her cabin, burning with the fever that had attacked her two days out of Quebec.

Quent leapt ash.o.r.e before Cooke's s.h.i.+p had been made fast, and came back an hour later with his uncle Dr. Caleb Devrey. The brother of Bede and Lorene, he had diagnosed Ephraim's dropsy five years before. "Why wasn't the leg removed?" he demanded after he'd examined her. "Don't they know in Quebec that gunshot wounds poison the blood?"

"The surgeon wanted to do just that. She wouldn't have it."

Caleb Devrey was a tall scarecrow of a man dressed entirely in black He had removed his cloak while he attended to the patient, now he swung it back over his shoulders. "Then she has written her own death warrant. Will you bring her ash.o.r.e? I expect Bede will make a place for her if you wish. She'll be more comfortable until the end comes."

"No." Quent's hands were gripped into fists, and his rigid stance reflected his unwillingness to concede defeat. "I promised to take her to Shadowbrook."

In the afternoon he prowled the waterfront taprooms and alehouses and was eventually able to secure pa.s.sage on a schooner headed up the Hudson on the dawn tide. When he carried Nicole aboard the new vessel-shrouded in blankets, and twitching violently in his arms, murmuring incoherent bits of Latin prayers-the crew looked surly and displeased. Tars were notoriously superst.i.tious and s.h.i.+pboard deaths were always thought to be portents of doom.

Rain and cold followed them upriver, but also a favorable wind. They were in Albany in three days. Though at times Quent despaired, Nicole lived. One more change was required, to a small nondescript boat with a single gaff-rigged mast. It was owned by a tar named Henry Morris who knew him and Shadowbrook, and frequently made supply runs to the Patent's wharf. The boat had one tiny airless cabin belowdecks where a narrow bench spread with rough, none-too-clean blankets served as the only bed. Quent lay Nicole on it and sat on the floor beside her, leaning against the bulkhead, praying for death to hold off for another few hours.

He was alone with her now. The laundress who had come with them from Quebec had taken one look at Albany, still bursting with redcoats and provincial militia, and decided to remain. Quent watched over Nicole for the four hours of the journey, wiping her hot face with wet cloths and making sure her restless and tormented movements didn't hurl her out of the makes.h.i.+ft bed. Once, Morris poked his head through the hatch to see how his pa.s.sengers were faring and Quent took the opportunity to ask, "What news of my brother?"

"None I know of. John Hale's pretty much same as always, except more of it. Drinks at old man Groesbeck's when he's in the town. These days that's usually three weeks out o' any four."