Bride of New France (33 page)

Inside their cabin, Mathurin has constructed a rudimentary table, two logs with a plank overtop. They sit at it, Laure on her chest and Mathurin on a stump he has turned into a chair, eating a fish the men caught from the river. The summer insects haven’t yet emerged, but the worst of the cold is long behind them. Laure is at least comfortable if not happy in Mathurin’s hut. He works, still mostly chopping at trees, fishing and hunting with the men throughout the day, while Laure and the other women weed the garden, prepare meals, and mend clothing. For the time being there is no talk of life beyond the settlement.

“You know that
la Course
’s wife is pregnant again. Their fourth,” Mathurin says. They have resumed sleeping together in the
lit-cabane
.

Laure does not respond. When women of the settlement do speak to her, it is always about their children or about being pregnant. They tell her what signs to look for, missed monthly bleeding, sickness to the stomach, swollen breasts. Laure feels none of these things, but doesn’t dare tell the other women that she is relieved.

“The King will give three hundred livres to each family that has ten children,” Mathurin says.

“Legitimate children,” she mumbles, thinking still of the winter he spent away. She would probably be pregnant by now if he hadn’t gone off with the Algonquins seeking money in furs.

“You’re only eighteen. Ten children should be easy enough to produce.”

Mathurin is always thinking of the future, in decades, whereas Laure cannot foresee the next week with him. She also cannot imagine being pregnant even once, let alone falling into
the rhythm of having a new baby every two years the way the colony’s women generally do.

When they finish eating, Mathurin nods his head toward the
lit-cabane
. Laure gets up and carries the dishes outside to clean them in the bucket of river water by the door. She takes her time to dry them and place them back on the shelf. When she has finished with the dishes, she makes her way over to the bed and crawls in beside Mathurin. He grabs right away for the bottom of her dress to lift it over her hips. Weeks ago Mathurin had noticed the cut on her chest. He had recoiled at the sight of it. Laure had told him that she inflicted the wound on herself, a form of bloodletting she had learned in the hospital. It was meant to give her strength to get through the winter. She told him she did it when she felt most weak. Mathurin had believed her.

Laure is tired of his advances, of his attempts to make her pregnant. “If you really want that money from the King,” she says to him, “you should gather up all the Savage children you have running wild through the forest and send them straight to Paris. Maybe he’ll give you more than three hundred livres.”

Mathurin sucks in his breath. After a moment, he strokes her hair, laughing a little. They have been married for almost eight months and still there is no sign of a baby.

Laure says, “Unless you are also incapable of getting those Savage women pregnant.”

Mathurin pulls his hand away from her. “With all the trouble you give me, I should have married an
Algonquienne
, brought her into the settlement. She would have been given a hundred and fifty livres to marry me and we’d already have two babies by now.”

Laure snorts at this. “You know as well as I do how the
Governor gives out money. Lots of promises, then the amount gets reduced by half, and when it comes time to pay, suddenly there are no circulating coins. Your
sauvagesse
would have received the same pig and chickens that I got for marrying you.”

“Do you know what I’ve been hearing all through the Ville-Marie settlements?” Mathurin’s eyes have turned mean, his face shiny. “That the women from the General Hospital are diseased. That’s why they can’t have children.”

The next morning Mathurin is packing his things when Laure wakes up. He is dressed again like a Savage, with a knife at his waist and a gun strapped over his shoulder.

“Where are you going?” she asks, her memories of the winter flooding back in a moment of panic.

“To collect more furs before the August trade fair at Ville-Marie.”

He is probably going to a woman who will have him, will flatter him and need him. Laure is better off without Mathurin and is glad to see him go. She has survived the winter. Surely the spring and summer, now that she can visit her neighbours and walk through the settlement, will be easier to endure alone. But before Mathurin leaves this time, she asks him to teach her how to use the gun.

    Part Four    

Les filles envoyées l’an passé sont mariées, et presque touttes ou sont grosses ou ont eu des enfants, marque de la fécondité de ce pays
.

[The girls sent last year are married and almost all of them either are pregnant or have had children, a sign of the fruitfulness of this country.]

—JEAN TALON, INTENDANT OF CANADA,

TO JEAN-BAPTISTE COLBERT,

MINISTER TO THE KING OF FRANCE, 1670

    19    

T
he shore of the river at Ville-Marie is lined with Savage canoes. Animal pelts are piled high on the fur-trading barges. A few uniformed French officers patrol the scene on the horses recently arrived in the colony. The smoke rising from the fires lit by the various Savage groups is so thick that it makes Laure cough. A few French women have come to the fair, mostly the wives of settlers. Some are selling goods at wooden booths along the river’s edge; others are back in the settlement serving beer and brandy at the taverns.

The finest pelts of the fair have been brought in by Savages from the far north. Laure has heard about the soft fur of mink and ermine, the latter destined only for the King. The Savages are outfitted in elaborate regalia and have carried their canoes to the shore. Laure can hear numerous languages being spoken. Many of these groups Laure has never seen, including an old man with long hair as white as the strange pelts he carries slung across his arms. There are also in the crowd those born from the unions of French men with Savage women. These young men wear the attire—the bright weaves, long hair, painted faces—of the Savages but have lighter skin and eyes and even beards.
The Savage women Laure sees walk hunched over, carrying the weight of their half-grown children on their backs.

Laure is not worried that she will run into Mathurin. He is probably lying in a stupor in one of the many tents raised around the site, drinking and eating his fill and enjoying himself with the women. For trading, Laure has carried with her some tin cups, trousers made of flax that she has sewn, as well as some buttons. She also has a small pouch of Venetian glass beads that she took from Mathurin’s stock. He told her that the Savages use these to make belts that they call wampum, a sort of prayer and recording method of theirs. The Savages will trade their best furs for these cheap Italian beads. Laure doesn’t really expect to do any trading at the fair. It isn’t why she has come, after all, but she plans to tell anyone who recognizes her that she is there to help Mathurin to earn a little more money. They will think her a generous and loyal wife for risking so much danger to be here.

It was easy enough for Laure to persuade the Tardifs of Pointe-aux-Trembles to let her travel with them to Ville-Marie for the fair. Even Madame Tardif had to admit that Mathurin should not have left Laure for the summer as well as the winter. She had disapproved of the small number of furs Mathurin had returned with in the spring compared with the rich supply her own husband had brought back.

The girl sitting in front of Deskaheh at one of the Algonquin trading tents looks very young, maybe fifteen, although Laure cannot easily determine the age of the Savage girls. By the time they are twenty, they look like old women. It’s because their
men make them work so hard is what Mathurin says. This girl with Deskaheh still has the soft, chubby cheeks of a child and impressive long, dark hair. They are seated together, their knees touching. But what astonishes Laure the most is the girl’s belly. It is perfectly round, as if the moon has been taken from the sky and placed beneath the dress she is wearing.

French men prefer the Savage girls over their own women. These girls give their bodies freely and expect nothing in return. The Savage girls call out to the men like sirens from their forest homes. At least that is what Mathurin seems to think. Laure hates all of these women. Their seductive presence makes her life in Canada even more difficult. Although Deskaheh has his back to Laure, she knows for certain it is him. She recognizes his height, his shoulders, and the way his hair falls down his back. But she doesn’t want to admit that it’s him. He is sitting too close to the Savage girl, their hands almost touching, and there is something protective and gentle about the curve of his back. Laure knows for certain that the girl’s baby belongs to him. She has come upon them like a starved and scrawny intruder, a beast that deserves to be shot. The girl’s smile fades when she notices Laure staring at them. She reaches across her abdomen as if to protect herself.