“Lord, how you fret.” Sister Gagnon frowned and put her hands on her hips. “If you are concerned about where you will be married, I can tell you all weddings will take place in the chapel of the Hôtel Dieu. We do on occasion attend Mass there as well. We are building a church dedicated to Our Lady; the chapel will have to do until that day. Ah, here are the three-year men with your trunks.”
Before Élisabeth could enquire when they would visit the chapel, two farmhands in square-toed boots stomped into the dormitory carrying the first of the chests. Françoise and Thérèse elbowed each other from beneath their blankets, goggling at the sight of the men. Élisabeth clasped her hands together.Squeeze, glide to prayer position and past, squeeze again. She needed to get to the hospital chapel as quickly as she could. It was her only hope.
“Thank you for bringing me my trunk. It contains everything I own in this world.” Thérèse’s coy tone caused one of the indentured servants to stop and flash her a smile.
“That’s enough of that,” Sister Gagnon said, stepping in between them. “He’s got two years left on his contract. He’s no freer to marry you than the pope.”
The workman’s grin faded. “And I’m counting the months ’til I can go home,” he said, his feet heavier on the stairs as he descended. Françoise smirked at Thérèse, but she seemed to have already forgotten the engagé as she turned to open her trunk.
“I saved this one for my wedding day,” she said, pulling out a coarse linen chemise. “Isn’t it fine?”
“It seems an ordinary enough shirt for an ordinary girl,” Françoise sniped back.
The three-year men soon returned with another of the trunks. Soon all the brides were poring over their few belongings: the headdresses, handkerchiefs, and shoe ribbons they had packed away so many weeks ago. They paid little heed to Sister Gagnon’s talk of work in the kitchen and garden. While the other girls mooned over their trunks, Élisabeth left hers untouched.
“Sister Gagnon,” she said, rising to her feet. “May we go to the hospital chapel today? I should like to thank the Blessed Virgin for our deliverance. If we do not offer our prayers immediately, we risk the saints’ wrath.”
“Calm yourself, child. The saints will not forsake you for praying in a corner of this house rather than in Ville-Marie.”
The nun turned to direct the farmhands where to put the next delivery of trunks. Élisabeth followed her.
“Would the missionaries in Ville-Marie not be heartened by our example, though, of coming to hear Mass the very day after our arrival? Would we not inspire the villagers with our devotion and piety?”
“Please, Sister Gagnon,” Lou chimed in, tripping across the room to plead with the nun. “Élisabeth is right. We must go to the chapel to show everyone how pious we are! Would the bachelors of Ville-Marie not like to see our… piety?” Lou wiggled her bottom as the other girls laughed. There was no stopping the brides’ pleas now. They crowded around the nun, begging to be allowed to visit the village. Sister Gagnon resisted, pushing past them towards the far corner of the room.
“Where isyourtrunk?”
Élisabeth saw that one mattress in the dormitory was pulled away from all the others. Beside it stood the velvet witch, looking out the window, wearing the thin ratine nightdress she had been given the night before. When she realized the nun was speaking to her, she turned around.
“Are you quite certain that all of the chests have been delivered?” the witchasked. She had the same haughty manner as when she spoke to Élisabeth on the beach.You’re a peasant. You’ve probably seen very little in your life.Élisabeth scowled at her, though the witch paid her no mind.
“Yes. All but yours, it seems,” the nun said.
“I can’t imagine what has happened to it.”
The nun sighed. “What is your name? I will send a message back with the carter to check the ship’s hold again.”
The witch paused and looked down her long nose at the nun. “I am Jeanne. Jeanne Roy. Perhaps you could lend me something until my travelling clothes have been laundered?”
Sister Gagnon frowned. “None of my sisters have clothing that will fit one so… slender as you.” She looked up to see Élisabeth staring at them. “You. You’re thin. Do you have spare skirts for Jeanne Roy?”
Élisabeth froze. She did not want to give this so-called Jeanne Roy—the letter thief, the witch with the velvet dress, the sea serpent—anyof her possessions. She did not want to be near the dangerous creature.
“I want to go to Ville-Marie,” she said meekly.
The nun looked surprised. “Are you trying to barter with me?”
“N-no, Sister,” Élisabeth stammered, though from the rush of whispers behind her she knew that’s precisely what the other brides thought. “It’s only that I want to thank the Blessed Virgin for our survival and not anger the saints. It’s been a very long, very frightening journey, and at least a half dozen of us did not survive, and I am desperate—quite desperate—to go to church and take communion. I must tell the Holy Virgin how grateful I am. I do not feel I can eat, or sleep, or rest until I have done so.”
Sister Gagnon frowned, then finally the muscle in her jaw relaxed and she cupped Élisabeth under the chin.
“You are a pious girl. Get me a skirt for this one, and if everyone has completed their chores by midday, we can go to the chapel this afternoon.”
The brides erupted into applause. Élisabeth heaved a sigh of relief, thenremembered what it had cost her. She would have to give the witch a gift. If she did not agree, the trip to the chapel would surely be withdrawn. She glanced at Jeanne Roy, who had turned back to the window, her arms folded across her chest. It would be dangerous to give a witch an item of her clothing, but more so to defy her.
She swallowed and knelt by her trunk. She opened the lid and saw that her linens bore the mark of having been wet and then dried again. A yellow stain crept across two chemises and one of her petticoats. Half of her clothing was ruined.
She reached for the pine-stained petticoat then pulled back. Would it anger Jeanne Roy if the clothes she was offered weren’t the very best? The other petticoat was her favourite, one she had spent long evenings stitching by the fire when her brothers and Papa were all still alive, before she left to work in the Delaunay household and everything had changed. She could not bear to part with it. She stared at the linens and felt the turmoil stirring in her belly. She also could not risk vexing the velvet witch. She reached for her best petticoat and her only other skirt. Then she rummaged and found her holy water vessel tucked down the side of the trunk. She clutched the talisman in her hand for protection.
