He took a drink from the first press, wanting to share the moment with Brielle but contenting himself with the fact her time was far better spent uphill. His own prayer for Sylvie was fervent if silent. Will, too, looked preoccupied, his outward calm for the benefit of his young sons who needn’t worry about their beloved mother, Bleu guessed.
To be a father…
He couldn’t imagine it, hadn’t let himself imagine it before this. But having met Brielle his thoughts raced ahead to their wedding day. The birth of their firstborn. More children after that. Generation upon generation on this very ground. But before he told her his feelings, he needed to settle another matter first.
What if she was meant for more?
“Bleu.” Sabine’s voice returned him to the present.
He turned and schooled his reaction at the intrusion. His old friend didn’t deserve his disdain simply because she reminded him of a lost world—or that she wasn’t Brielle. He greeted her, well aware everything had been taken from her, too.
She reached for an apple yet to be mashed and bit into it, chewing and swallowing before she said, “Cidermaking turns my thoughts to winter and making the most of traveling before the snow sets in.”
He nodded, understanding that, too. Till now, his roaming life had hinged on the seasons. “Are you willing to take my offer of a trustworthy guide?”
“Tell me more about him.”
“John Riel is Métis—country-born with an English father.”
“Les métis anglais.”
“Quiet. Reliable. A master of the woods. Last I heard he’s wanting to return to Canada and Hudson’s Bay for trading but is near Staunton at present.”
“Not far, then.”
“I could send word. Arrange a meeting.”
Her smile held mischief. “Only if you’re sure you don’t want to return, too.”
“I want to return to the Acadie of old which is no more.” He put the matter to rest once and for all. “But I can certainly help you get there if you so choose.”
Standing at the foot of the bed mounded with pillows and fresh linens, Brielle watched as the settlement midwife bathed Sylvie’s face with a sponge. She was alarmingly flushed, her jaw set to keep from crying out as one hour turned into two.
Embarrassment burned through Brielle along with astonishment. That two people coming together could create a child… and thenthis. Dying she knew to be distressing. She had witnessed her parents succumb, the ordeal a scar on her tender conscience. Giving birth, this raw, brazen coming into the world, was just as harrowing, too.
She prayed as she tried to assist, ruing the hot August day. Sylvie’s hair hung in damp wisps about her pinked face, her shift clinging to her. Between pangs she smiled and even laughed atime or two but as the pain worsened, anticipation hung thick in the room, joy pushed to a shadowed corner.
Needing to fetch more water, Brielle went downstairs. The chicken she’d roasted waited on the kitchen’s spit, herbed vegetables in a pot alongside it, loaves of bread on the trestle table beside freshly churned, salted butter. Later, once the ordeal was done, a famished Sylvie would have a small feast.
Taking hold of a pail, Brielle went out the back door to the well. Lowering the rope, she tried to draw a deep breath as the hot, windless day pressed her on all sides, a fly bedeviling her. As she wound the full pail to the top a baby’s cry rent the air, a great, gasping howl that surely signaled health. Through the second floor’s open windows she heard the midwife’s voice before Sylvie’s—both of them jubilant. Relieved.
Brielle hastened back into the house, toting the pail carefully so not to spill a drop. At the bedchamber’s entrance she saw Sylvie cradling an infant that had miraculously quieted as if lulled by his mother’s loving voice. Not twins, after all. But all was well, she sensed, even before the midwife plunged the newborn into a near basin of water only to set the baby howling again.
Exhausted but elated, Sylvie lay back against the bank of pillows. “A robust boy, thank heavens.”
Will and the children soon came uphill to meet the new addition. Amid the fanfare and fuss, Sylvie said to Brielle, “Why don’t you go tell my brother our glad news and have some cider?”
Brielle fairly ran from Orchard Rest to the riverbank. She was thirsty, having forgotten to drink a drop during the delivery. Though all seemed well, a smidgen of concern remained. Would Sylvie recover? She’d looked terribly worn at the last…
A prayer on her lips, she took in the river, the cidermaking finished, a small cask remaining on the bank. A wagon hauled the rest toward the settlement’s cellars, most of the Acadians with it. A lone woman—Sabine—tarried, but to her relief, hurried after the cider wagon when she saw Brielle, leaving Bleu alone.
Unaware of her approach, he stood, back to her, looking across the water with its eternal rush. She wondered his private thoughts as the sun began its fiery descent toward the mountains.
“Joyeuxtidings,” she said a bit breathlessly as she came to stand beside him. “Your sister is well and you have another nephew.”
He smiled, his teeth a flash of white. “His name?”
She felt a trill of delight delivering the news. “Bleu Blackburn.”
