The Meeting Place (17 page)

“I thank you for the invitation. No, thank you, Louise, I will take no stew. I supped with the Widow Lambre, whose son and granddaughter are up from Cobequid Town. A lovely child, lovely. And bright as the sun. Yes, thank you, a piece of that sweet-smelling cobbler will be perfect.”

Louise settled the bowl in front of the vicar, her eyes watching him eat and talk and laugh with the others, following the path of his spoon as it rose and fell. Marie observed them both, her own face gravely unreadable. Henri could only watch and wonder.

When the vicar had finished and pushed the bowl aside, Louise walked to the head of the table. “I have something to tell you.”

The earnestness of her expression stilled them all. Clearly she had been waiting for the vicar to arrive before speaking. Henri saw Jacques Belleveau look a question at his wife, and another at the vicar. Neither showed any more awareness of what was about to come than Henri had. Louise's father said, “Well, out with it, child.”

“There's something eating at your craw,” her mother quietly agreed. “We've seen that this night.”

“Yes. You're right.” Louise twisted her hands into a knot so tight the knuckles stood out white.

Jacques pushed out the chair next to his own. “Sit yourself down here and speak with us. You haven't been off your feet all night.”

She paused, then lowered herself to the chair and forced a long breath. “I have made a new woman friend.”

Henri fought down a sudden laugh. Not that Louise's words were humorous. But he could have made a joke, his way of dealing with almost any problem. Yet a single warning glance from Louise's mother halted the words before they were formed.

Louise gave no sign of having noticed the silent exchange. Her hands twisted harder together, and she said carefully, “She is English.”

The room's sudden silence seemed as loud as a thunder clap. Then chairs creaked about the table as people adjusted to the news and cast glances at their neighbors.

“We met last year,” Louise went on. “The day before our wedding. I had gone up to the high meadow to gather wild flowers. She … her name is Catherine. Catherine Harrow. She was married on the same day as Henri and I.” She turned to look at him, and he was the first to break eye contact. He stared at the table, his troubled thoughts swirling his emotions into turmoil.

Gradually the glances about the table centered upon two men, Louise's father and the vicar. It was their place to speak first. Jacques Belleveau cleared his throat and asked quietly, “You have seen her again?”

“Yes.” It was no longer enough to hold her hands together. Louise bunched up the apron, twisting and turning the starched material. “Yes. Last autumn and then again this spring. And summer.”

Henri had been around enough Belleveau clan meetings to recognize the calm face and tone as Jacques's chosen manner in dealing with all troubling issues. “So you have met her several times, then.”

“Yes. More … more than several. Many times.” Another breath. “Almost once a week in May and June.”

A sigh of surprise surfaced around the room, more telling than any words. Jacques shot a warning glance to the others, then turned back and held to the experienced calm of a clan elder. “And what do you talk about?”

“Everything.” A single tear squeezed from one eye. “Families and marriage and winter and crops. Everything. We trade recipes. We talk about our homes.” Louise's lips trembled along with her voice.

“Every week you meet with an English lady. And only now you decide it is time to speak with us, your family. Did you not think it should have been brought to us before now?”

“Of course I did.” Another tear escaped. Louise did not seem to even realize she was crying. “I was afraid. I was afraid you wouldn't understand, that you would tell me not to see her. That's what you're going to do, isn't it?”

“We're not saying anything just yet, child.” The responsibilities of father, of clan leader, were evident on his face as he said, “First I would like to know a little more about these discussions of yours.”

“We have talked about everything, just as I …” She took a shaky breath and cast a fearful glance at the vicar. “We have been reading the Bible together.”

“The Bible.” Gradually the vicar raised himself erect, his eyes showing surprise. “So that is why you asked to borrow one.”

“We started with Matthew. Now we are in Luke.” Another tear came, and this time she raised the edge of her apron and wiped her eye. “We pray together. For our future and for our families.”

The vicar glanced at Jacques, then said to Louise, “What do you find in the Gospels, child?”

“Love.” And for some reason this one word was enough to bring further trembling to her mouth. “She is like a sister to me. Please do not say I must stay away.”

Henri, heart pounding, saw Jacques Belleveau return the vicar's glance, give his head a tiny shake. The table was a frozen tableau of surprise and concern, the tension as strong a force as the meal's lingering aromas. Eyes on the vicar, Jacques asked his daughter, “Why did you decide to tell us now?”

“Because yesterday she told me who her husband is.” A tremor escaped from the stiffness with which she held herself. One which was echoed in her voice as she declared, “Catherine is married to Captain Andrew Harrow, the commandant of Fort Edward and the English forces of Cobequid Bay.”

A slight breeze traced its way across the water, rippling the surface of the next pond and making it difficult to inspect its depths. Sometimes a big eel would become trapped in a small bit of water, chasing after food with such avaricious fury that it disregarded the lowering tide. Other times a smaller breed would simply not notice the water's swift decline until it was too late. The mud flats were a black plain now, broader than the remaining waters of Cobequid Bay. The sun was high and glaring down, making the stench of drying mud and seaweed very strong. Henri did not mind. He had farmed this very same mud all his life, up above the first range of dikes. This was the richest farmland ever harvested—his father had said those words so often he could remember them still.

He poled down to where the next pond was forming, ignoring the flapping drumbeat caused by the tails of the five eels he had already caught. Three eels was a solid catch by anyone's standards, but Henri enjoyed his reputation as the best eeler in the village. All five were of a size, as the local women said, meaning they were the length of his arm. Yet he would still look, still hunt, still work at pushing aside all the worries that kept him from feeling the first hint of hunger, though it was now well past noon and he could almost taste the cheese and fruit Louise had packed for his lunch.
Louise
. What was he to do about this quandary? And to make things far worse, Jacques Belleveau's decision that night had astonished everyone in the room. Everyone, that is, except the vicar.

Louise's father had remained thoughtfully silent for a long time after his daughter had finished speaking. Finally he had risen to his feet and said simply, “Louise is now the wife of Henri Robichaud, first and foremost. I feel it is right to make no decision until I have heard from him. Vicar?”

“I agree,” the pastor had said, rising to his feet with alacrity. “And it is time I make my way homeward.”

“Time for all of us.” Jacques hurried his wife and sons toward the door, waving them forward with uncommon dispatch. “Henri, you will come and see me on the morrow, yes? Good. Until then, I bid you both a good night.”

The house had emptied before Henri could come up with words to protest. He did not like decisions. Especially ones where his own heart seemed set against the wishes of his beloved wife.

But he could not help it, not even here and now as he poled down the black murky shoreline, not even when the waterfowl and the wind and the sun were all there in summer finery. He was very confused. He disliked this intensely, especially now that the vicar's earlier conversation with him seemed to overlay this issue. He thought back to the winter day when Jean Ricard had suggested that he was to be the next clan elder. Why not Eli or Philippe? He did not want the honor, no, nor the responsibility. Give it to them.

The wind caught the surface of the pond into which he peered, and suddenly he was staring at a totally different image. One which came not from the water but from his memory. It was of the warm evenings when Louise had taken to bringing the Bible outside, the one she had been given by the vicar. She would read as he sat beside her and worked at one chore or another, retying his nets or carving a bit of wood, small and slow motions to keep his hands busy at the end of a tiring day. And from time to time she would read a passage aloud, words that had so moved her he could hear the music of her heart. More often than not he ignored the words, registering more the sound of her voice than what she was saying. Her speaking was enough to draw a new peace from his own soul. One he had never known before, except perhaps in the few moments of Sunday worship when he found himself able to set all distractions aside.

Henri stopped his poling and straightened to wipe his brow. There was his answer, there in the sunlight splashing upon the dark sparkling mirrors of a thousand tiny pools. He would not do as he was inclined, as his mind said was the logical conclusion. He would not ask Louise to stop her friendship with this woman. No. Instead, he would make it a clan decision.

There was to be the summer gathering in a week's time, the same kind of gathering where last spring he had announced their engagement. Let Louise invite this Englishwoman. Let this Catherine show herself. If she accepted, then all would have a chance to decide for themselves. If she did not, then perhaps the decision would be taken for them. After all, what English soldier—a commandant no less— would permit his wife to attend a French village fête?

Relief flooded his entire being. Here was a way of restoring peace within his house, a way of offering his wife the confidence he felt, and not reacting from fear over this strange contact. Yet even more strong than the relief was the sense that here and now, surrounded by the heat and the smell of the rich black mud, he felt a peace slipping into his soul. It was the same feeling he had known while sitting of an evening beside his wife. It was a mystery, this feeling, one which left him sensing that he had done something good. Something beyond himself and his own comfortable habits.

His attention was caught by a rolling motion in the pond just up ahead. His breath was trapped in a throat suddenly tight and dry.

With stealthy motions he poled over, careful not to make more of a stir upon the water than necessary. This was a large pond, and it was connected on the far side to yet another. If it was an eel, and it sensed his coming, it could quickly move out beyond the reach of his spear.

The water's surface rolled again, and he felt a shiver of anticipation race up his spine. The boat was moving steadily now, the motion enough to carry him forward on its own. Quietly, silently, he set down his pole and reached for the spear, his heart racing. The thickness and the strength and the weight had been made not for the type of eel he had caught before, nor for the normal day's catch, but rather for just such a moment as this.

The water rolled a third time, almost within reach, almost there. He raised the spear as high as he could, stretching himself fully, arching his back, readying himself for the plunge. He felt as though all his life as a fisherman had prepared him for this single instant. His father's quiet counsel was all there, powering him now as he stabbed a two-fisted surging plunge into the black waters.

The waters erupted.

The eel writhed up and out of the water with such vicious fury it almost toppled him over. It was longer than Henri was tall, longer than the boat itself. The muscular body, black and strong, was almost as thick as his thigh. The tail wrapped itself up and around the spear, reaching back until it could strike at Henri's arm, raising great red welts to his elbow. The mouth was open and snapping, the teeth long as his fingers and needle sharp. Henri rammed the spear down upon the boat's flooring and held the eel in place with both hands. He ignored the eel's writhing attack, the slaps upon his arms and shoulders and face. Slowly, slowly the eel's strength ebbed away. Finally Henri felt safe to ease his weight from the shaft and take the first true breath since plunging the spear into the depths.

It was a prize, the largest eel he had ever caught. The largest he had ever
seen
. Almost as if in recognition of his feat, the tide began to flow back into the bay.

Henri dropped to his knees, his strength so drained from the battle he could scarcely pick up his pole. With small tentative pushes, he guided the boat back inland, following the water's gradual rise. He wanted to shout, to laugh, to call to the people of Cobequid Bay. He was coming home with an eel so large it would make a feast for the entire village.