Thérèse Bonvouloir Bayol
Shadow
Women
A novel
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Shadow Women
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Thérèse Bonvouloir Bayol
Shadow
Women
A novel
Shadow Women is an historical novel. Though some
This factor allows the reader to create with the author
a whole family with the breath of longing and faith.
Destiny is like a wonderful wide
tapestry in which every thread is guided
by an unspeakably tender hand
placed behind another thread and
held and carried by a hundred others.
Rainier Maria Rilke
Acknowledgements
My cousin, Annette Desroches Oligny, had this book in mind for decades. Gallantly, she offered me the opportunity to write it, furnishing the data she had gathered so diligently. Thank you.
In the same vein, numerous members of the family helped with anecdotes, details of past incidents, dusty memories. My warm appreciation goes to Marielle Frégeau, Gilles Desroches, Jacquie Roche, Raymonde St-Germain, my brother Maurice Bonvouloir and many more. Thank you.
To the silence of the departed, I raise my beret to uncle Louis-Philippe Drogue who, during his later years, wrote a monthly article in La Clé, a newsletter at his retirement residence. Wished all his writings would have suited this book! Thank you. To Bill Benjamin, a fine friend and a skillful editor who gave me a needed push to complete my project. Thank you.
To my husband and companion, Franklin, a grinning appreciation for his help and support. Thank you.
This book is dedicated to the strong irrepressible women in my family. It is also a loving remembrance to all the forgotten women who carved a world through walls of snow and ice.
For every surge of the heart,
there is a pinch of ashes
Shang-Ying from Chinese Love Poem
A cemetery! When my associates ask me what exciting adventures I had during my vacation, I won’t hesitate to tell them about this one... Honestly, Lumina! What’s the name again?”
“We’re looking for Lajoie, Luke. It translates as The Joy. The headstone has to be right under our noses. Ouch!”
It was a sultry late summer afternoon. Fluffy cumulus tagged one another on the pale azure sky, careful to keep their distance from the sun. Lumina brushed away buzzing insects while slapping a mosquito on her left arm.
“We’d better find it quickly before the darn bugs eat us alive,” she grumbled conscious of the methodical cuffing Luke was dispensing on his arms and legs while peering at the writings on tombstones. Viens, Messier, Bonneau, she knew these families well, a lifetime ago. Meandering through the paths was like reading a book on genealogy. Lumina took a deep breath and, with the exhalation, rushed in a world of memories. They were linked and stored in the olfactory part of her brain, preserved in their integrity. There was a richness to that smell, a mixture of humus and ripe cereal which was associated with late summer. It translated as bales of pale gold wheat, their disheveled spikes waiting in ambush for bare feet, a bittersweet warning that the freedom of her long vacation was over. Corn was at its peak: looking across the road she saw standing fields with their glistening dark foliage and thought of the endless games of warring Indians played in their complicitous shelter. The smell of corn was sweet, sticky and exuberant; she felt it as a component of her make-up, perhaps it occupied entire lengths of her nervous system. How odd, she whispered, and felt reassured. From the village showing its backside to the cemetery came whiffs of wild and cultivated roses: every lawn and garden seemed to boast of its collection. Mixed with it was the assertive fragrance of carnations growing in reckless abandon at the foot of a huge black cross planted inside a tall gazebo, at the center of the cemetery. “Here are the Lajoie!” shouted Luke, whacking more free-loaders on his bare legs. “And it’s high time; the goddamn pests are celebrating an early Thanksgiving dinner with me as the main turkey. It’s positively ghoulish.”
“There are several families of the same name,” warned Lumina rushing to the spot. “They have been here since 1842 and their indivi-dual longevity varies, I must say. Yes! That’s the one! Here’s grandfather Ludger, grandmother Margaret, their first daughter, Marguerite-Marie, who died at seven, uncle Martin who reached fifty, uncle Louis-Philippe, whom you’ve met and who departed at the ripe old age of eighty-seven. Where is mother?” They guessed rather than discovered her name at the bottom right side of the monument. Frost, months of snow, mud, must have contributed to the partial erasure of many letters. Florentine Lajoie born 1903-died -1936. This was the entire testimonial offered to a brilliant woman, writer, teacher, wife, and mother of five of which there were two survivors. Lumina felt a surge of anger at herself, at her family, for allowing such injustice to persist. It defied decency somewhat and she was as guilty as the rest, for her own inertia. “Don’t put yourself down,” said Luke who had been watching the storm rising on her face. “What would you rather do? Get another tombstone? Have it delivered from San Francisco? Have her name engraved up front, where it could be seen? All of it is feasible but do you honestly believe that she cares?” She stared at him, surprised by the question.
“Look, I know my mother, her soul or whatever, is not down here waiting for visitors from California or elsewhere to while away a few moments with conversation, news from relatives, gossip from the village. It just seems to me that her memory deserves more recognition than a faded mention hidden by tall grasses. She has lived, intensely lived: her stage was this harsh corner of earth where swamps, heavy clay, mud ponds, endless months of snow and ice, tested the grit of every living thing. There was no mercy for the weakened, the distracted, the vulnerable.
“Let’s get back to the car and go take a look at the old church.”
Luke studied a lump rising on his arm. Quietly, he offered: “If an interested party were to come looking for his roots, he would have a hardtime tracking her down, would he not?”
CHAPTER ONE
Brigid Mc Lear
Brigid’s torso rose from the bed as if yanked by a wild horse. She was screaming: deafening sounds tore the air like echoes from hell. “Joseph! Joseph!” she wailed over and over. “Come back now. EEEHEEEH! I need you.” She knew it was hopeless to call him, to count on his help. At dawn, this morning, John Flynn had shouted at the door;
“Our father has collapsed while lifting a beam for Seamus’ big house. His family is due here tomorrow and it wouldn’t do to have them huddled outside; not with the wee-ones. Could you give a hand, man?”
“Aye, John, but Brigid’s time is soon and I have to be at her side. She is not very strong since the voyage and we can’t take a chance. What do you say, wife? Could you spare me for a day or two?”
Anger tore at her with pain renewed. Whatever possessed her to lie? To become a martyr or to show prideful strength of character? She was being punished now and may the Lord forgive her sins. She had answered her husband:
“It won’t be for another week. And young Joseph here is such a capable boy. Aren’t you that, my lad?”
The boy, much too serious for his seven years mumbled darkly: “I’ll do my best, mum.”
Around noon, this same day, her pains began and increased steadily. Her panic grew with each attack and there was no mercy to be expected until the baby came. A gust of wind, howling in fury, shook the loosely hung front door. Straw pallets distributed on the earth-beaten floor were trading their blondness for layers of snow. The fire had died in the hearth and young Joseph had not been able to rekindle the flames. The temperature inside was only slightly warmer than outside.
Though it was only six p.m. their world was a maelstrom of white darkness thickened with all purgatory’s wandering souls ready to pounce on new ones to barter an early release for them. Brigid knew all about these shenanigans; she had learned the ways of mischievous folks way back in the old country. It was time to act.
She tried to cross herself; it took three attempts to complete a gesture that might appear reverent, even pious. She motioned her first-born to come closer. He was shaking violently both from the cold and from the sight of his mother. Eyes protruding from their orbits Brigid lunged toward him and missed as the worst pain so far ripped her backside. Combating the wind, she hollered:
“Salt! Salt! Get some salt from the box under the bench. Sprinkle the four corners,lad, the four corners of the house, remember? Need to protect EEEEHEEEH! Against the fairies, the dark ones who want to capture all newcomers. EEEEEHEEEEH! The front door has to be blocked tightly. Go, son!”
Young Joseph was trembling so hard, he could hardly hold on to the broken chips of rock salt he was to disperse throughout the place. Securing the door was another matter. Theirs was the typical immi-grant’s shack of the 1830s in Québec. Logs were sealed together with wooden pins; the cracks were sealed with mud, the doors swung on leather hinges. Making absolutely sure harmful characters did not intrude through spaces and cracks was a monumental task for the terrified child. His mother’s bloodcurdling screams did nothing to comfort him. “Da!” she sobbed piteously. Of all the absentees in her life, her father Liam took precedence. How she missed him!
She saw him before her, his mane of pale russet curls blown by a gale, its tangles invading pale blue eyes. He kept pushing his hair away but it was for naught. He had fashioned leather clips, elaborate devices to combat the intrusion; the tight curls defied his attempts at orderliness and the first thing one noticed when meeting Liam for the first time was a pelt of unruly hair. It was omnipresent.
Being one of the youngest, Brigid had had no problems appro-priating her daddy. She would slip on his lap when he rested and asked for a story.
“Tell me a story, a scary story!”
He was born story-teller. Once he had tossed down several swigs of poteen, color flowed to his freckled face and words glided on currents of images, bringing mythical beings so real she felt she knew them all. What a dear magician he was and how lucky for her that he had been in her life.
Her mother was in a different place altogether. Mary O’Neill had been considered a beauty in her youth but frustration and despair had ruined her good looks and her tolerance for dreamers. Her husband was one of those creatures, part fairy, and part wandering man who could not abide steady work. He was employed part-time at the stables of Lord Durham who was not renowned for his generosity. With five children to feed and clothe, in-laws to help out, Mary had to seek menial work from the gentry to provide the bare necessities. Her backbreaking toil left her sore and bitter.
Her least favorite child was Brigid. She was too close to Seamus and was even beginning to speak gibberish like he did. So at fifteen, when a serious suitor asked for her hand, Mary jumped at the opportunity and agreed to the union even before consulting Liam who would have ridiculed such propos: “Life, the real life, will be God’s way to bring our child back to earth. Joseph McNulty is a fine young man; he comes from a family of weavers, second son, and he has to find a clientele for his goods. He needs to establish hisself, to take a wife. That’s the way it has to be.” Mary’s voice was as sharp, as unyielding as their bread knife.
She had paid scant attention when Joseph announced that “as soon as possible he would take his wife and children to Canada where he hoped to raise his family away from the murderous English.”
Liam had blanched upon hearing Mary repeat this statement: that night he got pissy drunk and many more were to follow. “I will never see me daughter again. This can’t be! Never again!” No one contradicted him: He had the gift associated with story-telling. While watching the flames in the hearth, he would predict future events. So far he had been oddly accurate.
Joseph II was born a year later “already looking worldly and worried,” Liam pronounced. The pleasure of having a grandson was doused by the news of the family's departure. He and several friends went to the harbor and having spotted the ship which was due to take Brigid away, returned home in quite an agitated state. “Well, this pile of rotting wood they call a ship is no more than a wobbly crate. You’ll go no further than Cobh’s harbor before it falls apart and you become food for the fish. I don’t want my girl to set foot on it!”
He was not to be mollified and the entire family looked inqui-sitively at this new man who was standing his ground. Since he was a sensitive, Joseph compromised: he and his friends would go ahead and when he had secured work and shelter, he’d send the word to her with one of the returning ships. The deal was sealed when the two men spat on their hands and shook, invoking luck with a capital L.
It would be sixteen months before the word reached them. Joseph 1 had secured a grant of land from Sir John Johnson for fifteen shillings and three bushels of goods. Though not mentioned in the documents, Joseph was also the recipient of a mangled harpsichord as a reward for having saved one of Sir Johnson’s mares. Brigid and young Joseph were expected to be aboard the ship Alitia on its way back to Montréal. Their passages had already been purchased in steerage with a crowd of other immigrants fleeing death, starvation and dehuma-nization.
“Mum! Mum! I am ... cold, so c...old!” Young Joseph tried to climb the wooden platform which served as a bed to his mother. This was where she was trashing, wide-eyed and hoarse by now, shrieking through the agony of a difficult childbirth.
Though fragmented, Joseph’s memory brought back scenes of similar horrors aboard the ship where life had lost any semblance of humanity. Thanks to his early age, most of it, most of his wretched memories were shrouded so the full impact of life in steerage was dulled to a tolerable level. Brigid had been ill the moment her foot touched the wharf dragging young Joseph at her side. She was closely followed by her disconsolate father with reddened eyes and her brother, Tomas, who was in charge of Brigid’s bundles. All that was left clearly in the child’s memory was the crush of skirts and boots around him when most of the steerage passengers pushed and pulled to get a last look at Cobh, The Harbor of Tears. Very few of them would ever see Ireland or their families again.
Young Joseph by some good fortune never got the sea sickness that so afflicted his mother. Because he seemed impervious to that distress, because he was so attentive to his ailing mum, fellow passengers who could hardly manage to stay upright, found ways to assist the brave little boy.
They were at sea for six weeks. Due to lenient spring weather, end of April and May, the death toll was less than on many other similar voyages. About nineteen out of each hundred passengers descended the flanks of the ship to land in the indigo-blue depths of the Atlantic. A prayer, a quick farewell by an overburdened priest and it was the end for Fiona, Michael and Conor. Too aggrieved to keen in regular fashion, the survivors returned silently to the nightmare of their spaces in the bowels of Alitia where the stench of vomit, urine, feces and fear was omni-present. Their rough floor was ever slick with waste. Several cases of cholera had been detected, this discovery adding a panic among the sorely tested group below.
How often did young Joseph listen to his emaciated mother imploring her God to save her so she could raise this son and others who might be born in the wilderness of America? “She is like granddad,” thought the child, “she is staring in space and coming back with pictures. God help us!”
HEEEEEEEEHEEEEEEHHEEEEHEEEEEEE!
It was during their time in quarantine that they first heard about Indians. Dan O’Connell, a fellow passenger who had survived the voyage but had lost two of his youngest children was considered a shanachie whose talents were recognized. He had found a vein of material in his interpretation of Indian life even though he had never seen one.
Brigid and Joseph never failed to be horrified after hearing his comments, his depiction of creatures made at the devil’s requirements. A typical savage was over six feet tall, had magical symbols drawn in blood all over his naked body. He wore a belt from which hung his victim’s hair, scalps as they were. So many, in fact, that they created a rippling skirt when he strutted around his unfortunate preys. His tomahawk was kept moist from all the blood he shed. Woe to anyone who looked in his direction! There was no escaping his scrutiny.
To make matters worst, they were told that savages, whole villages of them, would feel the need for fresh victims and go on a rampage thus killing settlements of men, women and children. Very few newcomers were expected to survive. Dan added as he concluded his tale: “The savage has a horrific power. If you defend yourself bravely, show courage, he would want to add this quality to his own. He would reach out, pick our your heart from your like a fruit and devour it in front of your eyes. Just like that! “
MY GOD, HAVE PITY! HEEEEEEEHHEEEEHHHEEE! PLEASE, HEHEHEHE!
Young Joseph’s hair stood in spikes as he joined his mother’s screams. There was a scrambling by the door and, moments after, a grotesque creature filled out the space created by the opened door. Icicles hung at every angle of his covered face. Fur pelts heavy with snow gave it an animalistic character. Young Joseph whimpered and sank to the floor.
“Son! Son! Get up. Be a man now. We’ve got to start snow melting. I see we need a fire in the hearth; bring in some twigs and branches. I’m coming, Brigid! I’m coming!”
Chapter Two
Hermine Boucher
In 1828, Joseph McNulty I left Ireland with six countrymen, to sail to the New World and to explore its promises.
Starting in Montréal, they headed southeast to the forest at the base of Mount Johnson seeking suitable lots they could afford and, in Joseph’s case, enough land to cultivate flax and hemp for his weaving enterprise. When a site was secured, they built on it. Most of them had wives and families who were awaiting a signal to come and join the head of their family.
The men fell large trees; their trunks were hewn and a log cabin was erected. Theirs were primitive accommodations. The space dedica-ted as the kitchen had a beaten earth floor. There were, in all, three rooms called euphemistically bedrooms. Their walls and floor were rough planks. In each one, a large bed was constructed: the children slept in rows like bottles. The frame of the parents’ bed was higher from the floor than the others: under it were several boxes half-filled with straw. Toddlers and the baby of the year slept in them. With the heavy corner of the quilt, the wee ones slept peacefully, never far from their parents’ reach.
There were several additional box-style pieces of furniture which served as dressers, and a commode with a high back and curved arms. It was the only handsome creation and, most suspected, wasn’t the handiwork of Joseph whose sense of humor had left him around the time he acquired a seventh child.
To this log shelter, Bridget McClear, wife of Joseph McNulty I, brought herself and her contingent of youngsters. Joseph McNulty II was eight years old and the oldest of a tribe that soon reached the dozen figures. Between each birth, Bridgit carded and wove the material her husband sold to dressmakers and trading posts.
Even though they barely eked a living, it was reported that Joseph Sr. insisted that his brood be as well-educated as possible. They learned French, which was the language of the land, studied geography, mathematics and history. Since he was a musician, he taught them music, singing, and the love of words. This well-rounded education provided an escape from chronic hunger to several of his sons who, as soon as they could manage, crossed over to the States where they flourished.
It wasn’t the case for Joseph II: being the oldest at twenty-two when his father died of malnutrition and fatigue, no doubt, he worked the fields and secured odd jobs to help his mother raise their family. For a decade, his life belonged to her and to his siblings. A sheen of quiet despair coupled with the rigid set of his features announced a fierce determination to do the right thing at any cost. At age thirty-two, finally relieved of his obligations, he married Hermine Boucher, a sixteen year old village belle, with whom he extended the McNulty clan in the same pattern his parents had: six boys and six girls. First came Joseph III who was followed shortly by Margaret.
She barely had time to learn how to walk, to try a few smiles in the direction of her stern papa before she was replaced with another infant. Then another. Being the oldest girl there was no time to protest; instead she was promoted to the position of maman’s right hand.” Margaret was a serious child, constantly observing her surroundings with clear brown eyes, knowing intuitively where to be when an object or a small body was close to peril. She was gifted with a large head, a short sturdy body, soft light brown hair, and a jutting chin which told of much inherited stubbornness. “We never know what Margaret is thinking,” bemoaned Hermine overwhelmed with her growing popula-tion. “All I can say is that she is the best help a mother could dream of having.” These compliments soothed the loneliness of a child who was deprived of her childhood. Then she was six years old and things were manageable at home so she was told to wash her face carefully, rinse her hands, and follow Joseph III. Her first weeks at school were a revelation. This was a country one room structure built by the settlers around 1840. It was frequented by Irish, Scots, English, and French children. Their ages varied from six to seventeen and there were as many levels as there was time in the day for a teacher to reach them. Fortunately, now, all the teaching was done in French as the different ethnic groups settled, intermarried, and became somewhat integrated in the roughly hewn social life of that section of Québec. Even before showing up at school, Margaret knew her alphabet, having picked it up from her older brother. She was a whiz with numbers; her slate was constantly in need of washing as she was soon solving various math problems from the chalkboard. They were intended for the older students but, silently, so as not to get unwanted attention she worked with the figures and was seldom wrong.
But the books! Often, on Friday afternoon, their teacher would reach to a shelf, pull out a large book and read a story to the students who had completed their assignments. “The Sleeping Beauty” was one of her favorite tales. Eyes closed, hands joined as if praying, Margaret would leave her splintery old chair, the ink stained primitive desk, the cattle smell of young farm workers, for an escape to a magic land. Her intensity caused her to shiver from time to time. After listening to the story for a second reading, she repeated entire passages word for word. For hours afterward she was wrapped in a glow that was tangible. In the second grade she read with students of the fifth. Her teacher, a formidable lady called Madame Nadeau, told her papa at the end of the school year: “Your daughter has received great gifts from God. I hope she will be able to develop them.”
“The Lord gives and the Lord takes,” answered her papa stiffly.” We are not the judges.” And he had taken Margaret’s hand turning briskly away from Madame.
The babies kept landing in their already crowded house. Margaret was nine and working more and more to lighten her mother’s workload. She helped to feed hungry youngsters, holding their cups of milk or bouillon so the precious liquid would not go astray in their bibs or wrinkled shirts. She knew how to change diapers expertly, how to wipe runny noses. She washed the soiled garments and hung them on the line on sunny days.
She clung to the star of her life, School! She hung on every word Madame Nadeau pronounced; the hardened teacher had developed a soft spot for the bright, overburdened child she often asked to help in teaching the newcomers their alphabet and their numbers. In return, Margaret would be given a cough drop, an angel cut out from an old religious paper, and her heart would overflow from happiness. Someday, she too would become a teacher.
One autumn afternoon glorious with crimson and gold trees, her papa had walked into the schoolroom. Ignoring the rising colors on his older son’s cheek, his eyes had scanned the room locating Margaret. He nodded to her and asked “if he could disturb Madame Nadeau for a moment?”
With thinly disguised apprehension her teacher had walked a few steps toward the cloakroom where she met Monsieur McNulty. They spoke in hushed tones; though straining, Margaret could not hear what was said but she watched as her teacher’s face reddened till it looked like a ripe McIntosh apple. Her papa‘s voice seemed more gentle then but the steady glare she knew so well bode no weakening. He disengaged and advanced toward a now trembling Margaret. “Put your belongings in your schoolbag, Meg. You won’t be needing them anymore. Your maman is having a hard time with her pregnancy; you need to take over caring for your brothers and sisters. This is God’s will; children must help their parents in time of need.” Her lips were twitching. Something bitter and acid was rising from her stomach to her throat; she knew she was going to be sick. With an imploring look, she searched her teacher’s eyes for support. With a jolt she found them riveted to her own. There was such strength, such steely resolve emanating from her whole person that Margaret felt the burning heave travel downward.
“Go now, Margaret, but don’t ever forget. You can learn and be schooled anytime in your life. If someone can do it, I trust it will be you.”
She had felt an invisible hand touch her brow; this was followed by a click, a trigger sound. “Someday, I will be a teacher.” With jutting chin and shaking hands she filled her patched cloth bag and followed her tall papa without once turning back. She didn’t see Madame Nadeau’s eyes brimming with tears which dropped as if under the weight of fallen snow.
Chapter Three
Margaret McNulty
The endless winter was fading with each new bloom of lilac. There was a bush behind the back kitchen window with branches so full they drooped awkwardly. A heavenly scent filled the room undeterred by the lace curtains billowing in the morning breeze.
Margaret planned to cut some blooms to distribute throughout the house but first she would finish drinking her tea. All was unusually quiet in a place normally filled with chaos, with the clamor of so many bodies. This peace was so foreign that she felt ill at ease, like a visitor in another land. Hoping to ground herself she looked at her familiar surroundings.
To the right of the front door, past the triple row of clothes’ pegs, was a pine hutch crafted by James and Phillip, her two brothers, who could do anything with wood. On the upper part of the hutch were carved wooden hooks, sixteen in all, with cups hanging at a set place. She sighed: only eight of them were still in use. Joseph III had gone to New England five years ago after an acrimonious argument with their father who had been consistently harsh with his namesake.
Her older brother was fiery, with a quick fist and quicker wit, a deadly combination for his opponents. He hated his family’s poverty, their constant hunger, the lengthy winters, the never ending drama of yearly births, illnesses, sobbing children. Since he couldn’t blame God for what he deemed hell on earth, he blamed his father. His mother who had not even been seventeen at his birth, he adored with despairing silence.
It was to her that he had sent a fancy card for the New Year. In it he announced that he was married and that he and his wife Kathleen were expecting their first child in mid-February.
He revealed that they lived in Boston, Massachusetts, but did not mention their address. Her mother had sobbed piteously, her elbows resting heavily on the kitchen table, her young face contorted with pain. Their first-born had ostracized them and she foresaw that it would last a lifetime. He would never come back to get infected with their abject living.
The second to leave had been Annie, her golden-haired sister, and the best substitute for a doll Margaret could have bargained for. She was a strikingly beautiful child who had developed into a strikingly beau-tiful young woman. It wasn’t a surprise to anyone when, at the age of seventeen, Daniel Murray, the only innkeeper in the region, had asked her to be his bride. Two years later, Daniel sold his hotel and they moved to Montreal. They visited briefly during the Christmas holidays never staying with the family but coming over at Christmas and the New Year. For a few privileged hours Margaret could indulge in spoiling and pampering her cherished Annie.
As soon as they became fifteen and sixteen, Tom and Louis hired themselves as helpers to a prosperous farmer of the area. They worked from dawn to way past dusk and were seen only on Sundays after attending mass at church. A year later James left with an American relative for Worcester, Massachusetts; soon afterward they learned that he had found work in a textile mill. The next one to go would be Phillip; as soon as the school was over, he would get on the train to visit James and perhaps find odd jobs suitable for a young lad of thirteen. As an older brother, James promised to watch over him and make sure he fulfilled his religious duties, making doubly sure he didn’t touch liquor. The only male child left at home was Charles who was six years old, the youngest of the brood, and such an engaging youngster it was hard to refuse him anything.
Margaret’s sisters had all appeared in the second tome of the family’s history. Rosalie, from early youth, was a magician with needle and thread. At age four, Sarah would cry to be lifted to the harpsichord bench so she could touch the keyboard. Their father was soon teaching her some short numbers which she learned immediately. In a while she was playing several pieces to everyone’s delight.
Margaret sighed from the depth of her reverie, her tea cooling and forgotten. Sarah! Still in her teens, she was playing the organ at church when Madame Bonneau was indisposed or away, visiting relatives. She and papa paired off frequently after their evening chores were done; they practiced their music from old sheets borrowed or given by older people who no longer could use them. In a short while whoever was in the house got involved and the modest parlor throbbed as the pulse of their activities.
For a while, papa was the only fiddler of their group. After saving their meager wages and contracting to make odd pieces of carpentry, Tom and Louis managed to acquire a sore looking fiddle which they brought back to some level of health. They took turns playing it; Margaret always thought that Louis was the more talented of the two, but Tom had a roving eye and the girls demurely flocked to him and to his easy approach. Later on, another instrument was secured, a terminal case, to be sure, that responded well to the boys’ ministra-tions. Now, both brothers could play to their hearts’ content.
Margaret closed her eyes to recapture the whole impact of a regular Sunday evening at their house in the summer during the early years.
It would begin around 7:00 pm. after supper and its modest fare. Thick slabs of homemade bread were used to soak in bowls of the rich milk, compliments of their cow Lisette. Added to the milk would be coarse maple sugar, saved for special occasions, with freshly picked wild fruits, depending on the time of the season: strawberries in mid-June, raspberries and blackberries in July, blueberries in August. And tea, of course! Tea poured from a huge black kettle, an infusion of leaves, always reused.
With the exceptions of papa and herself, everyone present at the table was an active comedian. Their mother usually set the tone for levity; she was a talented mime and after the babies had stopped their automatic yearly appearance, she was honing that ability. Once in a while, she cast a sideways glance at her husband to see if she had gone too far, if he still approved of her clowning. On those occasions, Margaret felt older than her parent, protective of the light-footed, fun-loving maman who so resembled a butterfly though she had survived twelve pregnancies and so many wretched winters.
“Why does papa appear so remote, so detached from us all? Doesn’t he see how maman looks at him in her unguarded moments? Even when he opens the dance with her, he keeps her away from him with the tips of his long, powerful hands. Why doesn’t he smile down at her upturned face? She would shine like a sunflower.”
Their father wasn’t a mean man; he was God-fearing, hard-working, and fair to his family and to his neighbors. Everyone respected him even the priest who came to their village four times a year to perform ecclesiastic duties. Only when he played his fiddle would his face soften from time to time. There were songs from the old country and Margaret wondered how he could be so moved by a culture he never knew, since he left it at such a young age.
His sharp, authoritative voice announced: “Sarah, ask your maman if you can be excused from your kitchen chores for this evening? Please, come to the parlor to help us tune our instruments. Boys, are you ready?” Chairs scraped the pine floor. Banter and laughter exited with the males which invariably included Charles riding high on one of his brothers’ shoulders. The female faction stayed behind darting here and there to put food away, to rinse bowls and cups skipping over the bodies of two cats and an old mongrel dog named Boniface. Soon everyone was crowded in the small parlor.
The long summer nights didn’t require that oil lamps be lighted until nine p.m., unless words had to be deciphered on a music sheet. By degrees the house began an explosion of sounds. How they sang! No matter their moods when the concert began, personal feelings were forgotten while they played, danced bone-breaking gigs, mimed sedate, upper level social dancing, harmonized and improvised on the old, well-known numbers.
As darkness tucked in the day, a silent procession of horse-drawn buggies and their passengers slowed down and stopped along the gravel road which detoured by the McNulty’s house.
Neighbors and visitors alike were attracted to the spot as if it were a magnet, quietly absorbing music and gayety offered to them under a canopy of stars. The men smoked pipes while trading news of the harvest in progress, animal swapping, local politics, during lulls in the concert. They spoke softly as if they were in church. The women ran after children who were consumed with excitement from the music and the freedom afforded by the indulgent darkness. As the lamps began to wink from the windows, the concert-goers retrieved their conveyance and headed home feeling lighter and more hopeful.
From time to time, Joseph II would pull his watch from his pocket and after making certain it was ticking properly, he would announce: “Ten o’clock! Let’s all go back to the kitchen for a well-deserved cup of tea. A new week has begun; thanks be to God!”.
Margaret opened her eyes, shaking the memories of past Sundays. Her mind went back to her siblings and to a comparison which nagged at her.
Catherine, her fourth sister, sang like a lark with a voice that was fluty and silvery. She had a mane of red hair, freckles, and the temper of a freshly brewed hurricane. When anyone saw patches of a bright color, creeping on her cheeks, a signal like lightning vibrated through the house:”Keep away from Catherine!” She had memorable temper tantrums when every other resource being exhausted, their father would pick her up and deposit her in the basement, quickly closing the door after him. “When you have calmed down, Miss Catherine, knock at the door and you might possibly rejoin the human race.”
Though she was only nine, she frightened Margaret who was horrified with her displays of temper: she had tried escaping her fury too many times to ever relax in her presence. For some unexplainable reason, Catherine was their father’s favorite. It was as if his flawed child needed more of his devotion than the others. Margaret endured what she thought was a lack of insight on his part and prayed that Catherine’s talent became her salvation.
Julie was a gift to the rest of her siblings. Dark-haired with dove-gray eyes, an upturned nose, a pretty mouth full of thick white teeth, she laughed her way into everyone’s heart. Drawing was her passion. With an ordinary pencil, a whole unseen world materialized. Since pencils were not considered toys for children, Julie used sticks with burned ends, straws dipped in vegetal dye, any tool which could provide contrast for the characters she drew. As she grew older, she made whimsical designs to be embroidered on pillow cases, on the bodices of straw dolls clothing. She and Charles were their mother’s jewels. Being the last ones of the tribe, they hungered less, they were allowed their childhood and they took advantage of it with an elation that was irrepressible.
“What about me?” Margaret moaned out loud. “The Lord knows I am not jealous of any of my sisters, but each one seems to have received a special talent, a trademark for success. I have nothing unusual but my plainness, my lack of color.” She made a movement to get up, to walk to her parents’ room in order to consult the only mirror in the house, the one above the maple dresser where her mother kept the few frivolities she jealously guarded. “What’s the use? I know what I look like. At twenty-three I could pass for an old maid of thirty or more. I am short and stocky with thick ankles, heavy torso, and deep– set eyes that are trained only in caring for others. My hair! Let’s skip that subject! I know how to wash dirty clothes, dirty diapers, dirty dishes, and dirty faces. I can feed many mouths with practically nothing and, is it not wonderful?” A heavy wave of depression swept over her. She could not find barricades to block the invasion so she braced herself against the force of the oncoming tide. In the few seconds of respite before it hit, she prayed that it would not be too overwhelming.
It started at the pit of her stomach; something like heavy ink spilling and spreading inside her whole being. It blocked her sensorial world. Her core, the one who witnessed and shouted: “I am!” drowned in that flow and wouldn't be found until the crisis was over. She was surrounded by grayness, by blackness, she was… NOTHINGNESS. Oh Lord! Help! She remembered her worst attack and whimpered like an abandoned puppy.
It was February; she was thirteen and the McNulty household had fallen victim to severe colds and other illnesses associated with them. Her mother was pregnant, of course, and was confined to her bed as she had started to stain, though ‘she wasn’t due for two more months.’ The wind that had raged throughout the night had designed fortresses and ramparts around the house. Their front door was closed off from the outside as the snow reached the second story of the house.
It was seven-thirty a.m. when, between bouts of coughing, Margaret dragged herself to the kitchen hoping to reanimate the wood stove, boil some water for their tea and scrounge around for something to feed the younger children who were crying from hunger and pain.
The stench was tangible and carried from one room to another. Chamber pots were overflowing, there would be wet bed clothing, vomit in some cases, and nowhere to go to escape her own horror and the endless needs of others.
She looked at the windowpanes in the kitchen. They were thick with frosty designs. She laid a burning forehead on the icy surface; a burst of wind infiltrated between the ill– fitting window frames. She shuddered from head to toe and she knew her own storm was upon her. “I will dig a path through this outer shell beginning at the front door and keep on digging until my arms refuse to work anymore. Then I will find a sturdy tree and sit in a hole by its trunk. Soon the snow will fall; it will be gentle, so gentle that it will touch me to sleep and I will rest till spring.”
A racking cough behind her made her jump. Her papa in his long nightshirt, socks, woolen hat, was coaxing flames in the wood stove. His face was haggard; every feature carved deeply in its livid surface. In the midst of her misery. Margaret could not ignore his eyes. They were fierce in their intent. They reminded her of a bird of prey whose nest had been threatened. With a ravaged voice and his hypnotic stare, papa commanded:” Hold on, Meg! That too will pass. Remember Jeremiah 31:13? ‘I will comfort them and give them gladness for sorrow’.
You have a whole lot of gladness coming to you. Stand still, it’s on its way.” Margaret stood up looking around her as if coming back from a long trip. The lilacs were still there as a celebration to continuity. She walked to the sink and pumped a tumbler full of water. After taking a few sips she splashed her face and hands with the rest. Opening the front door, she studied the deserted gravel road, the fields of clover buzzing with insects attracted to their cloying smell, the bright yellow of blooming dandelions. She straightened her five foot two frame and declared out loud:”In September, I will go back to school and keep at it until I get my teaching diploma. There is nothing to stop me now!”
Chapter Four
It took Margaret five years to earn her teaching certificate. Even now she grimaced at the memory of the ordeal she had endured in order to reach her goal.
She had not been alone in her determination to overcome all obstacles; from the moment she announced her resolution to return to school, her father became a powerful ally. He never wavered in his support; she felt propelled by a fierceness that matched her own.
At first, she attended the village school where teaching was done at three levels: first, the younger ones occupied half of the lower floor. Middle-aged students shared the remaining space. Roughly built stairs led to the top floor which served as living quarters for the teaching staff. A smaller room in the back accommodated students of upper grades which meant the older ones. Gifted students were the core of the Model School, including eighth, ninth grades of which there were few.
During the warm weather she rode her father’s old nag, Nellie, and it took her forever to cover the five miles to and from school... “That ole girl has a mind of her own,” apologized Joseph when his daughter complained about Nellie’s misbehavior.
Mid-October, Margaret began asking rides from her brothers who had been returning home, one after another, with the exception of Joseph III who had vanished permanently. With the money earned and saved during their exile, they were scouting for shops to open. One was already selling shoes, another one planned to follow the path of their grandfather and become a mercery, selling cloth of all kinds but speciali-zing in linens.
It was from the boys who had stayed home to work on farms, that she got most help. Or rather, her father did. Every late afternoon on school days, he made the rounds to secure a ride for Margaret on the following day. When all resources failed, he would get up at dawn to harness a horse to their buggy and to make sure Margaret would make the eight-thirty bell which announced the beginning of classes. Once the winter started, there was no way Margaret could continue her daily migration. She managed to stay at the village with an elderly relative, cousin Pauline, who provided shelter, and some food in return for housekeeping help. It was said that cousin Pauline never had such a shining house.
After three years, the teachers at school had nothing more to share with their quick-learning student. It was arranged for Margaret to enroll in St-Jean’s Convent, an institution founded by the Ladies of the Congregation of Notre-Dame in 1847 and run by this Order ever since. They taught primary and secondary levels of education to young ladies of good families. Since she had no money, she worked for her keep and for her lessons. Instead of leaving for summer vacation at the end of June, she stayed behind in July to clean empty classrooms, to scrub and polish floors, to wash windows.
She continued studying alone in a corner of a room, seemingly impervious to the remarks of younger, richer girls, when school resumed in September. Some mocked her pauper’s clothes, her shabby uniform, her age, her lack of attractiveness, and her definite foreign imprint. Her dual role as student-servant triggered less than sensitive attitudes from the student body and, once in a while, from a nun who was having a bad day and, finally, someone to blame it on.
There were instances when Margaret would run to the chapel, seeking an obscure place to cry and pray, to give in to pangs of doubt on the merits of her quest. She was less wounded by these daily slashes than she was with homesickness. The city of St-Jean was only eighteen miles from her home but it could have been a hundred as far as her family was concerned. Papa was aging rapidly; his iron will kept him going on days when his body rebelled against movement but it prohibited distant journeys. The prospect of a trip to see Meg would be temporarily postponed, he would announce, certain that tomorrow, next week, a burst of energy would lead him there. Hermine did not travel without him. Never. Her brothers were involved with securing their futures; her sisters were either married, or with the exception of young Julie, were being seriously courted. Margaret felt abandoned in a hostile vacuum. She missed them with a raw, unbridled ache. They were part siblings, part children to her; for all these years, they had been so close! Her parents, she loved with a respectful devotion: her brothers and sisters, with a branding passion. They knew each other’s weaknesses and strong points, for many years they had been each other’s worlds. Because of their proximity, in order to survive its tyranny, they had extended their individual spheres and made room for a bond unknown to others. She missed their distinct zaniness, their strength and their laughter. On the fifth year after formulating her decision to become a teacher, at the age of twenty-eight, Margaret received a large vellum envelope through the mail. It was the end of July and Monsieur Robinson, the postman, had delivered it himself into the hands of Mademoiselle McNulty. This was highly unusual. Mail came on the train which stopped at the Ninth Concession train station, late Saturday afternoon. It was delivered after Mass, on Sunday morning but the postman had made an exception in this case.
He had first tied his horse by the garden gate; there was a field of clover and the happy creature was soon munching away, forgetting the arthritic wagon he soon would be pulling along gravel roads on a hot, humid afternoon. Monsieur Robinson wanted to witness an event, any event which would relieve the monotony of daily living and provide some tidbit for gossiping. Had Mademoiselle been successful or had she flunked? Would she dissolve into tears or for once break out of her severe demeanor and dance an abbreviated jig?
Similar thoughts without the imagery of the jig were running through Margaret’s mind. She believed she had answered satisfactorily the endless series of oral and written questions throughout the last weeks of examinations. Since she had not been a regular student and had completed the required curriculum ahead of the others, she had not been invited to graduate with the upper class in June of 1895. No doubt it was meant to salvage her pride as an extra fee was required from the graduating elite, a fee she could ill afford. She had returned home empty-handed and had waited every day for the confirmation of good news.
Her hand shook as she inserted the blade of the butcher knife in the upper part of the envelope. Her mother stood by her, her right hand automatically clutching her chest, breath shallow, her eyes as huge as sunflowers.
Very pale now, Margaret pulled the square, stiff paper, and read to herself once then out loud to her audience.
“Margaret Mary McNulty graduated with great distinction on this 26th of June 1895. She is the recipient of a valid teaching diploma for elementary school education in this Province.
P.S. You can get your official document at the Convent School office where it is safely kept for your convenience. Congratulations.”
A bubble of silence had floated in the room. It was pricked by Hermine’s squeal of joy. “You did it! Margaret, you made it!”
Monsieur Robinson beamed as if he were the parent of the graduate. He patted her on the shoulder and danced round and round her, kicking his heels as his tempo increased.
Catherine who had just bounced from the garden, lifted her arms in an arch and circled Margaret’s waist. She was a head taller than her older sister; she bent down to kiss her cheek over and over.
“May I see the announcement, Meg? “ Papa asked in a thin voice.
He fumbled in his overall pockets for a pair of horn-rimmed glasses and, without getting up, extended a firm hand to receive the communication. He read it once, word after word as if memorizing them. This done, he began the same process once more. Though everyone was now staring at him, he appeared alone, riveted by an inner ritual which encompassed a world of denial and rare success. When he lifted his eyes, they sought only his daughter. In her father’s gaze Margaret saw an ineffable well of blueness, a pride so great it rose as a jagged rock higher than any mountain she had read about. Then the flame was lowered and Papa asked in his every day voice: “Surely, this deserves a hot cup of tea. Join us, Monsieur Robinson?” In August a teaching position became available. This time, luck was on her side, and the vacancy was at a school close to their house. This meant a ten minutes brisk walk with dangling bags filled with old textbooks to assist her in preparing lessons for the next day. She walked the walk before signing a contract with the local school board. Her salary was to be one hundred dollars per year. Out of that amount she was required to furnish the wood used to heat the school house whenever it was needed. Other duties required she set the wood inside and took care of its combustion.
By the end of September, Papa had organized her brothers, their friends, male cousins, and the woodshed which also housed the sanitary facilities, was filled to capacity with sweetly scented apple and oak firewood. Meg would not be freezing as long as Papa could oversee the supplies.
She smiled with an affection that caused her to inhale deeply. How many times during the past three years had she looked up from her desk to see through the window the well-known, slightly stooped figure, walking carefully with his cane in the direction of the school? He would invariably be carrying something for her or for her surroundings. He, who hardly ever did repairs in their own home, now fixed window panes, warped door frames, and smoky stove pipes. Students of all sizes came to recognize the old man tapping his way around their desks and casting a chilly eye on some of the taller students. That look was enough to curb a cheeky retort; his half-raised cane drew pictures of frightening aggression by the irate visitor. Their teacher’s father might be getting on in years but he was mighty limber with his walking stick and he had a frightful reputation, carefully embellished by parents and former stu-dents. Margaret had encountered no serious disciplinary problem during her three years of teaching and she credited her father with some help in that domain. After his visits, Margaret often found on her desk a maple sugar treat in the crude shape of a leaf, a lopsided beaver, a flower, all wrapped in a bit of material she recognized as remnants from the last quilt her mother and the neighbors had been working on. In his own ways, her father was showing his respect for her perseverance and her intelligence. She recognized the tribute and cherished its bearer.
Chapter Five
February 21, 1898
It snowed throughout the night; huge quiet flakes as large as torn lacy handkerchiefs which settled carefully on the ground obliterating all angles.
Margaret had watched their descent through a corner of the dormer window in the attic room she shared tonight with Rosalie. She cast a longing look at the gray moiré silk dress worn presently by the wooden dummy their brother James had created while he was still living with the family.
Rosalie was the gifted couturier in their midst. “She has fairy fingers,” their mother would marvel, unfolding a new garment and admiring its hand-stitched artistry. Though she lived in Farnham with her husband and two children, she had insisted in making her older sister’s wedding dress, stitch by stitch, pleat by pleat. The finished product was a tribute to elegance and savoir-faire.
Margaret couldn’t sleep; not even the rounded nest on her side of the feather mattress could tempt her. Her younger sister slept soundly, peacefully, her face turned to the side of the wall she was nearest, a tuft of her abundant chestnut hair decorating her pillowcase. Wrapped in a scratchy woolen blanket, her feet shod in heavy socks, Margaret watched without seeing. “Tomorrow, at ten a.m. I will be walking in the main aisle of Ste. Brigide’s Church on the arm of papa. Ludger will be waiting for me at the altar, waiting for me to become his wife. His wife! Sweet Jesus, make everything happen as it should. I am so happy and so scared!” She hugged herself tightly, tears of excitement, anxiety and hope, coursing down her cheeks. “How stupid” she chided herself,” my eyes will be red and swollen tomorrow morning. Margaret shook herself resolutely and fumbled for her rosary beads at the bottom of one of the pockets of her flannel nightgown. She once more stared through the window at the soothing whiteness spread over the entire landscape. “It will be beautiful tomorrow if the wind forgets to blow. It will be enchanting...how can I be so happy and so afraid at the same time?” She forgot about praying as she thought of her soon-to-be husband, Ludger. “Tomorrow night, I will be wearing my blue nightgown with the yoke embroidery and the paler blue satin ribbons at the neckline and at the wrists. Will he think me an attractive bed-mate?” In the solitude of her darkened room, she blushed. Surely, such frivolous thoughts were sinful; they should be chased immediately. As in defiance her prospective husband appeared before her and she could only say: “I so hope you like me, just the way I am.” How his eyes could shine! That had been the first signal of danger for her, this easiness she had experienced in following their glow as she would have a battalion of fireflies. It was a cool but sunny day in April. With some members of her family, she had gone to a mapling party at her uncle William McNulty’s sugar house on the southern slopes of Mt. St. Gregoire. It was a Saturday afternoon affair and, by three, sustained by a steady supply of tit-blanc, _ white Lightning _ some guests were seriously itching for recreational activities. The McNulty’s were musicians and singers; it was known that if you put two of them together, it was only a matter of minutes for a performance to begin. Many years ago, they had used music as a palliative to hunger. They were so often hungry! Now it had become a way to communicate with one another. Margaret’s father, Joseph II, was a renowned fiddler. Since he and his wife, Hermine, had parented twelve children, six boys and six girls, they never lacked recruits for impromptu celebrations.