The Sacred Shore (4 page)

That night, as Henri lay beside his wife, he spoke to the dark. “Our Nicole is no longer a child.”

“In truth, perhaps she never was.” Louise's breath was soft against his cheek. “I was just thinking about the time after Jacques was born.”

Some memories were so heavily laden with emotion that they were rarely spoken, as though the story's power did not fit comfortably into words. It was all Henri could do to murmur, “I remember.”

The truth was, he would never forget. They had been expelled from Acadia, the province now called Nova Scotia, in 1755. Nicole had been a mere infant, a bundle of joy and hope in a time so bleak it scalded Henri even to remember it now, sheltered here within his own home on his own land in a region that had at last welcomed them with open arms.

After the expulsion and the voyage they had finally been deposited far down the eastern coast, at the port of Charleston. The few French colonists had helped as they could, but times had been hard, and the Acadians had survived by hiring themselves out as laborers when work could be found, scrounging harvested fields or forest floors and streams when it could not. Henri had fished and farmed, just as he had at home, only it was on someone else's land. His family had lived in a lean-to behind the owner's barn. They had lived thus for the two longest years of Henri's life.

Upon leaving the ship initially, most of the Acadians traveling with them had scattered. Henri knew now this had happened at almost every colony and outpost where the Acadians had been deposited. Some had begun endless treks across oceans and continents, searching for clan and families dispersed without record. They spent years and lifetimes chasing rumors and tales, staying in one place only long enough to gain the money to travel on. Others returned to France, only to find themselves unwelcome visitors in their own homeland. Those without families moved west and became trappers and scouts in the wild frontier lands. Others traveled to the Caribbean and South America.

Two years after their arrival, the band of Acadians who remained near Charleston had pooled what money they had and bought a small plot of land. Days they had worked for the people who housed and fed them; evenings they had worked for themselves. For four years they had struggled, earning a reputation as being silent God-fearing families who worked hard at anything they turned their hands to.

Two children had been born to Henri and Louise during that time, first Josef and then Jacques. Three weeks after Jacques was born, Louise had been stricken with fever. It was planting season, and evenings Henri returned home so exhausted he could scarcely walk, much less take care of a wife and three small children. Almost seven, little Nicole had taken over the duties of her mother. The neighbors had helped as much as they could, but planting stretched everyone to the limit and beyond. Henri had felt his soul blistered by the sight of his daughter tending two infants and a sick mother, remembering the hardship that had scarred his own early orphan years. Here he was, leader of a clan that had been scattered to the four winds, reduced to watching his daughter repeat a life he had struggled to put behind him forever.

For her seventh birthday, Nicole had asked for a bigger pot and a new broom. Hearing those words spoken by a small child had sent Henri staggering from the house. He had walked back to his field, and there over the tiny seedlings he had vowed to take his family to a better place. A place of hope and plenty. A place where they could find peace and grow and be welcome.

“I remember,” Henri repeated softly.

“Nicole was never really a child,” Louise repeated. “She was more my youngest friend.”

His eyes burned from the words and the love behind them. “You are a blessing to all the family, my dearest.”

Her voice carried the smile his eyes could not see. “What a strange thing to say when we are speaking of hard times and a child growing up.”

“She has grown into the beauty she is,” Henri replied, “only because of you.”

A week and more went by before Henri judged the time to be right. For Louise, she was content to leave the decision to her husband. Henri's habits were well-known, the caution he showed toward most decisions learned from a hard life and years of leadership. He waited and he watched as Nicole left behind the tears and learned to live with the hollow point of sorrow in her gaze and her days.

Twice Jean Dupree came by the house, ignoring Louise's command for him to stay away, drawn by the mournful love that shattered his own gaze as well. The first time Nicole walked with him a brief way, going through the village so she remained protected by company and watchful neighbors. The second time she refused to descend from the porch, saying only that there was nothing more to be said unless he accepted the need to make a change. Jean had shouted words the entire village had heard, then raised clouds of spring dust as he had stomped back to his boat. His tirade echoed long after his skiff had disappeared down the bayou. Louise had remained standing upon the balcony, bowed by the weight of soft tears.

Four nights later, the boys were asleep early, planning to be up and away with the dawn for crayfish. Louise and Henri sat on the broad front veranda, made large enough for the entire family to sleep out of doors in the heavy heat of July and August. Nicole came and joined them, moving silently to the chair by the railing, seating herself and rocking gently, saying nothing. This alone spoke volumes, for seldom was Nicole without a song or a smile or a tale from village life. Henri sat enclosed by the gathering dusk and the quiet, hearing the night birds and the cicadas herald another spring on the Louisiana delta.

Louise shifted in her chair, the quiet creaking a wordless agreement to Henri's own decision. So when he spoke, he knew it was for them both. “Nicole, there is something I need to tell you. Something that has been a secret for many years.”

Again there was the sign of a troubled heart, for secrets were one of his daughter's greatest joys. The only way to keep anything from Nicole, be it words or a gift, was for her not to know the first hint. Otherwise she would weasel and wile until she knew it all. Yet tonight she said nothing, and the moonlight shone upon a dark head that did not even turn to meet his words.

Henri asked, because he had to, “What are you thinking, daughter?”

“I was wondering,” she said, her voice a velvet whisper, “if God really exists at all.”

Louise caught her breath there beside him, but even before Henri could reach out a hand to keep her from protesting, his wife stilled herself and settled back into her chair. Henri waited through a pair of calming breaths before asking, “Why do you say that?”

“Because I've been praying so hard my heart feels twisted like a washrag. And I have had no answer, no peace, no calm. Nothing but silence. God can't exist and be quiet while I am feeling such pain, Papa. So I am beginning to think He does not exist at all.”

The matter-of-fact way she spoke rendered him unable to do more than reply, “He exists.”

“I know you believe. I know you find great solace in that. And I am happy for you. Really. But you asked what I was thinking and I told you.” She could have been discussing a new family arriving from downriver, her voice was that flat and calm. “God cannot exist and remain silent. Not when I need Him more than I have ever needed anything in my entire life.” A faint tremor entered her voice, quickly stifled. “Except the one thing I can't have.”

Louise started to move then, yet Henri's hand halted her before the chair creaked. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Sometimes God is quiet because He wants us to draw closer and listen harder.”

His daughter did not respond for a long time. When she did, it was to say, “What did you want to tell me, Papa?”

It was his turn to hesitate. Henri closed his eyes to the night and the two women he loved and prayed for wisdom, for direction, for the right words. For him too God remained silent, but here and now it seemed the silence held a rightness, a harmony. As though God felt no need to speak, since Henri was moving as he should. Henri opened his eyes. As if in confirmation, Nicole slowly turned about to face her parents.

So he took a great breath and said aloud, “Daughter, this is not easy to tell. Perhaps it should have been said long ago. I did not know then and still cannot say today whether my decision was wrong or right. But now … now you must prepare yourself for what I fear will be a great shock.”

Chapter 3

“I am
what
?”

“Shah, my love,” Louise chided, fingers to her lips. “Your brothers.”

Nicole lifted from the chair as though pulled by invisible strings. “But I don't … I can't be.” Her voice trembled through the darkness of the veranda. “I've always been …”

“You are ours—but you are also another's. Parents who loved you dearly. Who must have died a thousand deaths since we left Acadia.”

“I am
English
?”

“You are our child,” Henri responded. “You are our mourning dove. That is what you must remember.”

“But I
loathe
the English!”

Louise leaned forward, stretching out one hand toward her daughter. “Unless you wish for all to hear and know, my child, you must speak more softly. The night has ears.”

“The English are the ones who banished us from Acadia!” Though she spoke more quietly, the words carried no less vehemence. “They drove us like cattle. For
years
we wandered!”

“Yes, and now we are here. Now we are home. We have found another Acadia. Now you are an adult. Now you must know.” Henri was repeating himself, but he continued to speak because he hoped his voice would carry the more important message of calm and strength and love. “Understand me, daughter. You were not given to us. You were placed in our care only for a few days. Your mother agreed to this exchange of babies because our own child was ill and close to death. Your mother's closest friend was an Englishwoman named Catherine. She knew a French baby would not be given medical treatment. She did this out of Christian compassion. But while the Englishwoman was taking our baby to the doctor in Halifax, the British soldiers expelled us. We could not leave you behind. Nor did we have time to seek our own child. Your mother …”

“My mother,” Nicole repeated, caught by that single word. “Who
is
my mother?”

Louise's hand no longer had the strength to reach out. It dropped limply into her aproned lap. “That you should ask such a question, my child, breaks my heart in two.”

Nicole started forward, and the movement brought her face into the moonlight, revealing features contorted by shock and anguish. Her own hand froze in midair; then she spun away from them and nearly tumbled down the steps in her haste.

Louise softly cried the words, “Go after her, Henri.”

For once his famous strength seemed unable to heed his call. “What shall I say to her?”

“Whatever comes to your heart. But go.”

Henri moved down the steps and along the garden path and out into the village lane. Ahead, his daughter's silhouette staggered like one stricken by a disease. He continued to follow, but the closer he came, the slower he walked. He found himself unable to move up alongside her. This beloved daughter whose heart was twice broken in such a short span of time.

Nicole broke the invisible barrier by asking, “Are there any other truths I don't know?”

“The truth,” he said softly, weak with relief that she was still speaking to him. “The truth, my beloved Nicole, is that you are the reason we could bear the anguish of that terrible time. You gave us joy when we thought it was gone forever.”

She glanced back at him, her face a silver wash of moonlight and tears and new sorrows. “But I was just a baby.”

“Yes. A baby who needed us. And we needed you. The truth, my blessed daughter, is that we do not believe baby Antoinette would have ever lived through the expulsion. We do not know if she even survived at all. The truth also is that it was this same Englishwoman who led your mother and me along the pathway to God.”

A quiet voice hailed them from one of the porches. Henri did not respond, and the voice did not call again. It was the way of folks in the bayou, to offer invitations but not to insist. At one time or another, all had found a need to walk the darkness and struggle with the unseen.

For a time their footsteps were the only sounds in the night. Henri continued when they had moved beyond earshot. “The woman Catherine and your mother used to meet in a meadow up above our village of Minas. Her husband was the officer in charge of the garrison at Fort Edward.”

Nicole spun to face him. “An
officer
? An
English
officer?”

Gently Henri gripped his daughter's arms and pulled her to him. “One of the finest men I have ever known, and I met him but once. We could not speak together, for he knew no French and I no English. But I knew him through his wife, through the love on her face and the concern they shared together when baby Antoinette became so ill. They said …”

Nicole pulled from his grasp, and Henri fell in step beside her. The night seemed to press in from all sides, so full of memories and heartache that the air itself seemed too heavy to breathe. Henri worked his chest like bellows and found the strength to say, “They told us there was nothing they could do about the madness sweeping the English. Nothing except help to save this one French baby. It was their act of peace, their small voice crying against the wilderness of war.”

“Oh, Papa.” Her face was luminous in the moonlight.

“All you need to know about your English parents, Nicole, is that they are the finest people on God's earth.” The night seemed reflected in his daughter's eyes, like starlight upon the Vermilion waters. “Though we have had no word from them in eighteen years, still I count them among my closest friends.”