The Beloved Land (36 page)

“Would you walk out to the point with me?”

Anne asked the question of Thomas. They had been to the point many times since their arrival in Georgetown, so the request was not an unusual one. But as Thomas looked at his wife’s face, he felt there was more to this little excursion than a mere walk. Anne seemed distracted. Deep in thought. He knew that the point was her thinking place. The spot she sought when she needed time to work through a dilemma or sort out an emotion. He nodded and reached for her light shawl, spreading it over her shoulders.

The day was a glorious one. Neither too warm, nor chilly. The wind blew just enough to stir the leaves of the trees. Nearby a bird sang to its mate high in the branches above. Thomas found it hard not to express his thoughts about the perfection of the morning, but he held his tongue. He would not speak until Anne was ready.

She settled herself on the familiar log, and her gaze swept out over the scene before them. He watched her slim shoulders rise and fall. Then she settled back, eyes upon a small fishing boat gently rocking on the waters beyond. A strange calm seemed to relax her face.

“I always used to come here,” she began without looking at him. He nodded.

“There was so much to think about. To try to sort out.”

He reached for her hand and held it, his thumb rubbing gently back and forth against the smoothness of the skin.

“Was I English? Was I French? Just who was I, anyway?”

Still he remained silent.

She turned to him then. “You know—I’ve never told anyone this—but there was a time in my early life when I childishly imagined that it might be discovered there had been a mistake. That I was not the child who they said I was. That the switch had been made back—or not at all—and that I was
really
the daughter of Andrew and Catherine. My parents. I wanted to be their daughter. I didn’t want parents I didn’t even know. I even felt …” She hesitated, then blurted out as though saying it would rid her mind of the pollution, the anger. “I even felt anger toward Louise for bearing me. A sickly French child. I wanted—I longed to be English like the parents I loved. All of my evil thoughts made me feel … spiteful, sinful. And guilty. I felt so guilty I feared God might strike me down.

“Then I turned absolutely opposite in my thinking. I wanted to be French. I was angry with my mother Catherine for what she had done. If I couldn’t be French and with my own family, then she should have let me die, not taken me away from my family to that English doctor. I longed to know my birth mother. My real mother. I ached to be a part of my French culture. My heritage. I couldn’t understand why God had let it happen. I felt angry with Him too. It frightened me at times … the intensity of my feelings … the swings back and forth from one side to the other. I could never sort out who I was. What I was. It took me many years of struggling until I was honestly able to accept what had happened to me. It was not the fault of my parents Louise and Henri, nor the fault of my parents Catherine and Andrew. Nor was it because God was trying to punish me. It was just a fact of life.”

Thomas held her hand and watched her face as she obviously struggled to find words for her emotions.

“Life can hand out some extremely painful things,” she finally said, looking out over the water below them. “Once I realized that, I knew I had to stop blaming all those involved and let God direct my life. ‘Submit,’ I kept telling myself. ‘Submit to God. One day He will make it plain. Make it right.’ And I was finally able to accept things as they were. To find an inner peace. But I still felt … unsettled … whenever the thoughts came. Like a little piece of me was missing.”

She turned to look at Thomas. He nodded silently, fearing that the struggle was still going on, wondering how he could help her.

But there was no anguish in Anne’s eyes. There was calm. The hand he was holding was not trembling but returning his warm grasp. She smiled, ever so slightly, and her voice held a triumphant note.

“And now this! I still can scarcely believe it. I am both. French and English. I am connected to both families. Imagine! Just imagine. I finally feel that I have found myself. God has settled the issue for me through this discovery of my parentage. Imagine it!”

Thomas could feel the tears hot behind his eyelids. Why was he weeping? Seldom did he respond with tears. This was a joyous occasion. An answer to many years of prayer on the part of his beloved wife. Perhaps there really was no other way to express his deep emotion than through tears.

He slipped his arm around her and drew her close. He felt Anne’s own tears as she pressed her cheek to his. His arm tightened and they sat in silence, drinking in the wonder and closeness of the moment together.

At length Anne drew back and settled against him. He had never seen her so at peace.

“You love it here, don’t you?” He wouldn’t have needed to make it a question. He knew the answer.

She sighed and looked out over the waters. “I think it is the most beautiful place in the world.”

“Yet it brought so much pain,” he reminded her.

“It was not the land that betrayed us,” Anne said thoughtfully. “It was greed and lust for power … and fear. I think fear most of all. England and France had been at war for such a long time. I think they had forgotten how to live at peace. They raised their children to think of the other nation as the enemy. When the British came here, to a land settled by French, who outnumbered them by far, they sought to make British subjects of them. When that failed, they became fearful. Afraid that France would strike first and the Acadians would join them. They knew they could never win if it came to that. So they did what they thought they had to do. They drove them out. Like animals …”

Thomas waited a moment, then said, “Fear makes people do dreadful things—unreasonable things. It becomes a vicious frenzy of who will strike first to save themselves from the other. And neither side stops to reason that the other might not be considering striking at all. The enemy of our souls takes full advantage of mankind’s fears. It is one of his most powerful weapons of deceit and destruction. For fear invariably turns to hate. And the hidden message is, ‘Lash out. Destroy. Subdue.’ Hate is a dreadful thing. God help us to never let hatred become a cancer to our soul.”

Thomas paused again, then added with a smile, “My apologies for the lecture, my dear.”

They both laughed, then she said softly, “Every day I thank God that He did not allow me to be engulfed in bitterness and hatred. For giving me the grace—His grace—to forgive what was done to both of my families. Bitterness and hatred are too heavy a load for even the strongest to carry. No matter what the sin against us, we only compound the pain if we cannot forgive.”

She hesitated, her eyes returning to the vast land and seascape that stretched out for miles. A gull cried and was answered by another that confidently rode the gentle waves beneath the cliffside.

“It’s not the land,” she said again, snuggling in against him. “The land is beautiful. God created every part of this”—she waved a hand out over the scene before them—“and pronounced it good. It still is good. It still bears His mark. His touch. I can sense it whenever I watch the waves, or hear the call of the gulls, or feel the breeze touch my cheek. I can feel it whenever I am here. And I will take this feeling—this morning’s solace—with me wherever God leads me. And if He should ever decide to bring me back—us back—then I will accept this … this very spot, as a special gift from Him.”

Gordon stirred with the consciousness that the bed beside him was empty. Nicole should have been there getting much-needed rest after the emotional turmoil of the day. Was she ill? Had Andrew taken a bad turn in the night? Grandfather Price?

He pushed himself up on one elbow and let his eyes seek out the darkened room. She was there. At the open window, staring out into the emptiness of the night.

“Is something wrong?” he asked quietly. “Are you all right?”

She half turned to him. Even in the semidarkness he could sense it was neither pain nor anxiety that had taken her from bed.

“No, it’s fine,” she replied in a whispery voice. “In fact, I have never felt better. Never.”

He could see her outline more clearly now and saw that her hand moved to rest on the spot where her unborn baby lay. He pushed back the covers and left the bed to join her.

“It’s a beautiful night,” she whispered as he gathered her close. One arm lifted to encircle his neck. “I couldn’t sleep. I was too full of … of peace.” She laughed softly. In the light from the full moon that was bright enough to cast shadows in the garden, Gordon could see her wrinkle her nose playfully. “That sounds silly, doesn’t it? But it’s true. I am just so … so full of thankfulness and … and love and peace that I couldn’t sleep. I felt I needed to be up, enjoying God’s world. His blessings. Oh, Gordon …” Her arm tightened about his neck. “I have been so blessed. I am so blessed. Do you know, the thing that bothered me most when I discovered I was English instead of French was that I couldn’t really claim kinship to my mother Louise. And here we are—related. I can’t believe it. And our baby—he or she—can also claim that heritage. Oh, I know, not directly. He will not have French blood flowing through his little veins, but he will have French kinfolk. I can teach him French for a perfectly legitimate reason.”

She stopped for a moment and brushed back the curtain with her free hand. “But it’s more than that. In a way, I think of all of this as a promise. A blending of two cultures. Perhaps we can help to show the world that it does work. Show others that man
can
live with respect for those of another nation. That hate and war and pain do not need to be. Oh, I pray that for my son—our son. And I see him as a place to start. We can teach him that, Gordon. To love his neighbor, no matter who that neighbor might be. To seek for peace. And perhaps he can share it with others and it can just grow and grow until there is no longer hate and strife in our world. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”

“Wonderful indeed.” He brushed back her long hair and placed a kiss on her brow. “And you sound rather sure about a son,” he teased.

She smiled. “Or a daughter,” she said with a lift of her chin. “A promise,” Nicole said after a moment. “Love is a promise of all good things, and the circle of love just keeps growing larger if we allow it. But we—you and I and all of the others— we need to nurture it, like a garden, and tend it with care.”

“And keep out the weeds,” mused Gordon, taking up her analogy as he rubbed his chin against the softness of her hair.

“Keep out the weeds,” she echoed. “Weeds of bitterness and envy and hatred and greed.”

“And water it with prayer,” Gordon added.

“Yes, that is the secret we must never forget.”

They turned to the window together and looked out across the garden. A rabbit eased out of the shadows to nibble on a remaining turnip leaf. The breeze stirred the heads of the fall asters until they nodded to one another as though in silent conversation. In the serenity of the soft flush of moonlight, the world looked whole. At peace. And in spite of the unrest, the conflict of the world beyond, the future before them held nothing but promise.