“I will not tell you. Once I have found her, I will be leaving. In a gilded coach with eight matched black horses.”
Donatienne’s milky white face and chocolate-colored brows, lashes, and hair gave her an animated appearance. She appeared somewhat shocked at first, then puzzled, finally sympathetic, for all her emotions rushed to her face so that it told an entire story without a word. “I see. Little Marie. Poor one. You will come to understand. And you will weep. That is accepted. For we are all castaway here, and all love each other. If you feel sad, I will be your sister.”
“I told you I will leave here in a coach and go home. Besides, I have a sister.”
“You do not want me to be your sister?” Her eyes filled with tears.
I had not meant to hurt her. This girl was trying to be kind, but I had known so little of that recently that I felt puzzled at her and myself. What was it about saying I had a mother and a home and that I wished to return to them that made me seem some type of fool? “I have a brother and a sister and a mother. I need only send a letter and my mother will come for me right away. She may drive the coach herself if she chooses. You knew that not, did you? That women may drive?”
Donatienne brushed her tears away with both hands. “It will not make you feel better to pretend that,” she said, “as I once did. It keeps your heart full of sadness.”
I stilled my face as my mind worked on this. If she would not believe me I would keep my secrets to myself. Now that we were in a village, I would find a way to write a letter to Ma. I searched every corner of my mind seeking something to say to this girl. I said, “Then I will try not to, if you will not cry. There, now. Please let us talk of something else.”
Donatienne smiled, her white face blotched with red flushes. “If you grow out of your clothes, you may have mine.”
“I will not be here long enough to need them. But, thank you. Thank you.”
“Say merci.”
“Merci. I have another question. Are there any bears about?”
“Non. I have never seen a bear. Have you?”
“Oh, I am acquainted with bears.” My lip trembled.
Every morning Donatienne and I followed a line of girls to the chapel. They said prayers I did not understand. They sang songs I did not know. They spoke in a mash of consonants and vowels that in my ears had not as much meaning to them as had the words of the Indians in the woods. “Owasso, owasso,” I chanted as I walked. After chapel, they served breakfast and there were two hours of education, during which Donatienne went over and over words and pronunciations, holding up one thing after another, pointing and gesturing. She was quite pleasant a person, and after such as I had been used to at the Hasken household, I fell quite into her routine and instructions. In the first weeks there, I was to do little but learn French and clear tables, unless now and then they had me bring in herbs from the garden.
I was glad to be in a house without goats, bats, or Haskens, and with a bed of my own that was off the floor. I was also glad to have so much less work to do, glad to have school even though it was in French, glad to bathe and wash my clothes, glad the only night pot I had to empty was my own. I was glad to know Donatienne, too.
They allowed me to patch my gown and petticoat. I did not want to lose my casket again, and so I laid lumps of tow around it, sewing over it until it looked as if the pocket were yet another patch on the old and outgrown garment. Donatienne showed me she also wore a quilted heavy petticoat similar to mine. I stared long at hers, not in great wonder over it but in thinking about Ma. What had she known? What land had she come from? I knew the name of it but not the place of it, not the being there. Scotland must have been cold, like Montréal, I decided.
I asked Donatienne for paper to write upon, but we were allowed only to scratch chalk onto slates. I could not send a letter on a slate. I looked for paper everywhere. Distracted one day by our lessons, perhaps because I tried to ask in French, Donatienne admitted to me the only place where she knew of paper was the rectory where the monks kept our records. I vowed I would find a way to get into that building.