Élisabeth had been anxious to get to the chapel the moment they had signed the marriage contract—her marking anxon the parchment with two short, determined strokes, him writing his full name—Joseph Deschamps, known as Francoeur—but he had pushed back the wedding until he could finish the house. He told her she would not be pleased if he brought her to a home without shutters. The oiled paper he used for windowpanes would let the winter air in, chilling their bones and getting their married life off to a cold start. When the moment was finally upon her, she pushed away all thoughts of Rémy and Marcosi, the two creatures that tormented her, and walked down the aisle. Maman Poulin wept, Marthe pleaded with her not to leave it too long before she visited, and the other brides cheered as she left the chapel on her husband’s arm.
Now, trotting down to the river with her trunk balanced on his shoulders, she tried to steal a glance at her husband. The trousseau was large and blocked her view of his face.
“I thought the farm was to the east?” she asked. He shifted the trunk higher on his shoulders.
“It is. We are going down to the river to make the journey by canoe.”
“By canoe?”
“Why do you not walk on my other side so that I may see you?”
She hesitated, then dropped behind him to appear on his right. He was half a foot taller than she was, and with her white cloth cap pulled tightly around her face she had to turn her body fully to see his eyes. He gave her a smile.
“I am not such an ox that I can carry this trunk all the way to Côte Saint-François. We will travel in the dugout so that I am not spent by the time we arrive.”
“How far away is your farm?” she said after a moment.
“Ourfarm is a half hour downriver. Double that time on foot.” He paused for a moment, then continued. “Mother Bourgeoys told me you girls-for-marrying judge a man by his holdings, not his heart. Yet you have asked very little about our situation.”
Élisabeth stared at the river before them. She could not think of anything else to ask about her new home. The demon inside her was yowling like a barn cat birthing kittens. He made so much noise that Élisabeth was surprised her husband could not hear it.
“We do have a cow,” he continued when she did not speak. “In the winter when she gives no milk, I harness her to a sled to speed my travel, although she doesn’t like it.”
“Where do you travel to?”
“Here and there, up and down the côte. Until the snow comes the river path is only passable on foot. The road is too uneven and rocky for a cart to make the journey.”
They reached the village dock. The dugout canoe was already loaded with a sack of flour, a gallon of lamp oil, and a new sickle and flail for next year’s harvest, all purchased on credit with her dowry. There was only space left for her trunk and the two of them. Élisabeth blinked at all the wilted flowers tucked into the gunwales as Francoeur put her chest down.
“Next year I hope to purchase a bull, and one day before we are old, I hope we’ll own a horse and sleigh. I imagine our winters will then be full of visits not just with our neighbours, but old friends beyond our côte too.”
“About our neighbours,” she began, seeing her chance. “How long does it take to get from your house to Jeanne Roy’s?”
“The wind has whipped your cheeks red raw. Do you have something warm to put on?”
For a moment she could not fathom what he was talking about, she was so anxious to plot her path to Jeanne Roy’s home. Then she remembered herself and knelt to open her trunk. She took out a woollen cloak and draped it around her shoulders.
“Does it button up, so that your hands are free to paddle?”
“Paddle?”
He gestured to the loaded craft. “It will be faster if we paddle together.”
She buttoned her mantle at the neck, then stood blinking at the canoe. “It looks like a… pea pod. Is it safe?”
He laughed. “It’s safe. The dugout is not as fine as a birchbark canoe, but I cannot afford one of those. Still, it’s a good deal more useful than a pea pod.” He knelt down and handed her one of the paddles. “You hold it here, and here. It’s not difficult, you’ll see.”
He reached for her arm to help her step into the hull. She was startled by his touch, and the wooden craft lurched back and forth. He gripped the gunwales to steady it.
“I see the wedding fairies have been decorating.” He smiled at the yellow flowers strewn around the boat as he leapt in after her. He pushed off from the quay. “Like this,” he said, plunging the paddle into the river. She turned to look over her shoulder, then clenched her jaw as the canoe swayed with her movement. She gripped her paddle more tightly and dipped it into the water. “That’s it.”
It took several minutes for her to grow accustomed to paddling and shedid not speak while she put her mind to the task. She did not want to appear incapable. He would come to realize how useless she was soon enough.
Once she had made peace with paddling, she turned to look back at him and tried again. “How far is Jeanne Roy’s house from yours?”
“Mere minutes through the woods. You’ll have plenty of days in her company this winter, I am sure. Though I don’t doubt at first we will find the duchess more often at our hearth than her own.”
“Why is that?” She did not need to ask why Francoeur called Jeanne Roy a duchess. The witch had clearly arrived in the côte with the same haughty airs she had put on at the nun’s farmhouse and on theSaint-Jean-Baptiste.
