France, 1674
As she entered the sparse grey room, Emilie loosened her hold on her red shawl, letting it drape over her shoulders—a thing of beauty instead of a barricade. She did not need to hide anything here.
“Emilie!” came a soft voice from the corner.
Emilie went to the low couch, tucked away from the window, and answered her friend’s smile even as a shiver shook her. “Esperance, mon amie.”
Esperance took Emilie’s hand, her weary eyes alight with something that dwelt above her suffering. “You’re cold, and I have nothing to help warm you.”
“You always warm me without trying,” Emilie laughed, pulling up a stool and tucking a wisp of blonde hair behind her ear. “One look at you is like sunlight from heaven. I don’t know how your parents so aptly named you.”
“They helped me live up to my name by leading me to hope in God. But how are you?” Esperance twisted one thin hand in her thinning brown hair, her eyebrows crinkling and her soft voice growing softer. “You’ve gained some battle scars since last time.”
Emilie sighed and subconsciously put a hand to the tender spot by her jaw. “There’s no battle about it, you know that. It’s master to useless slave, not soldier to soldier.”
“I think you’re wrong there. It’s mother to daughter—a relationship that should be a beautiful, blossoming thing—and every wound given to you, inward and outward, is an invitation to do war with the weapons of forgiveness and love.”
“I wish I could live here with you!” Emilie cried, the lump in her throat choking her words. “You’re the reason I’ve made it through this long without giving up. If I could come here and have a fresh start, and have parents and a sister who love me, even if money was tight …”
“Emilie,” Esperance interrupted gently, “You’re losing sight of several things.”
“Of course I am; I don’t see everything perfectly like you do.”
Esperance closed her eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
Emilie swallowed hard, sorrow and frustration and fear sinking through her. Why did she always end up hurting Esperance like this? But the darkness … the hopelessness … it surrounded her so deeply. “Forgive me, mon amie.”
“Already done.” Esperance pulled the covers higher as a draft of chilled air blew from the sagging window frame. “But please remember that you’ve made it through because of who our God is, not because of me. Perhaps He has used me—I certainly hope so—but it’s His strength that keeps us going.”
“I know. But without you and your unfailing hope …”
Esperance shook her head. “Sometimes it fails. We all battle for hope at different times and for different things. And on the days that I dwell on the possibility of never getting well again, you come—”
The door opened, and Emilie instinctively drew her shawl tight again, her right hand safely hidden. It was Monsieur Durand, Esperance’s father. His eyes, troubled, met Emilie’s.
“Your mother’s calling for you. I heard her as I went by.”
Something hard dropped into the pit of Emilie’s stomach, and Esperance laid a hand on her arm. Emilie gave a pained smile and stood. “I’ll come back another time, then.”
“Should I come?” Monsieur Durand asked as Emilie put her hand on the door.
“No. It’s better if you don’t.” She looked away from his kindly face and took a breath to hold down her emotions. Esperance had so, so much more than she did. “Au revoir.”
“Our door is unlocked for you,” he said.
“Emilie,” Esperance said, “Living without hope is like walking through snowdrifts and forgetting that spring is coming.”
Crossing the street, Emilie did not walk through snowdrifts, but through brown slush that soaked her thin boots. The afternoon lay cold and still, the stone houses hiding the sorrows and joys inside them.
Emilie entered her house and gently shut the door. She quivered inwardly at her mother’s voice in the next room, raised in anger.
God, help me bear whatever comes. My hope is in You … She took a breath. I think it is.
“Emilie!” Her mother came around the corner and faced her. Madame Arsenneau was called beautiful by those who saw her at social events—but they never saw her at home with her eyes narrowed in rage and her voice cutting wounds that never fully healed.
“Yes, Mama.”
“Where have you been?” She took a step closer.
Emilie braced herself. “I went across the street to see Esperance.”
“And here’s the baby in tears and the other children running wild, and I need the house cleaned because Father Laurent is coming this evening.” Madame Arsenneau’s mouth curled. “Hadn’t you better be concerned with us who are living, not those who are dying?”
“Mama!” Emilie cried. Then she recoiled as Madame Arsenneau struck her, jolting her neck.
“Don’t disrespect me. Now go keep the children quiet so Marie can work without being driven distracted. That’s all you’re good for, anyway.”
Her hand on her stinging cheek, Emilie stole into the nursery, where it seemed as if a carnival was taking place. She forced her thoughts beyond the ache lying deep inside her and went into the mayhem.
Michel, called ‘the baby’ but really four years old, sat crying on the floor, and she took his hand. Around the perimeter of the room ran two boys.
“Claude, Etienne, come sit with me a little while.”
“No fun,” Claude announced, tackling Etienne to the floor.
Emilie went to the low bench seat by the window, where Anne sat with a book propped on her lap and a half-stitched handkerchief in her hands. Under one of her feet lay Michel’s little iron horse.
Emilie sat down and pulled Michel onto her lap with her good arm. “Anne, why do you have Michel’s horse?”
Anne slowly pulled her needle through the fabric. “He was making a racket, so I took it away. And then I said that once he stopped crying he could have it back.”
“Give it here, please.”
“Oh, you spoil him,” Anne said with an aggravating authority that did not fit her twelve years. “That’s why Mama doesn’t like you to be with him so much—but I guess there’s nothing else you can do.”
Emilie bit her lip and hugged Michel’s wet face to her, wrapping him in her shawl. She did not spoil him; she loved him as fiercely as the rest of the family seemed to hate those around them. She loved them all, in a sense, loved them through the strength God had given her. But there was no friendship, no connection. Just wounds.
A cry from Etienne pulled Emilie’s gaze from Anne’s smug face. “Claude, please come here. I have something to tell you.”
Claude looked at her critically from his vantage point of Etienne’s back. “You want to tell me to be good.”
“Maybe another day. Right now I wanted to tell you a story.”
“It better be a good one,” Claude said as he relinquished his conquered foe and swaggered to the couch. Etienne followed, a pout on his lips, and climbed up beside Emilie.
“Once there was a king,” she began.
“There is a king,” Anne said. “King Louis the Fourteenth. And he has some strange ideas.”
“Don’t speak like that, Anne. It isn’t honouring.”
Anne shrugged. “It’s true. He’s having a bunch of girls rounded up and sent to New France to get married. I heard Mama talking about it. I’m glad I’m not old enough.”
“Let Emilie tell her story!” Claude cried, shoving Anne’s book off her lap.
In the pandemonium that followed, Emilie lost her story, her patience, and the little bit of warmth that Esperance’s words had given her.
She sent the boys into the back garden at last, rocked Michel to sleep, and then went to the nursery window to lean her hot forehead against the cool panes. Her left arm ached from holding Michel’s solid little body; her eyes ached with tears that she would not let loose.
Her gaze dropped to her right hand, and she winced at it. Curled, shrunken, and useless … it was as if she had no right hand.
She was a mistake.
Her father ignored her, her mother hated her, and her siblings followed their examples. She never made friends because she could not let them know who she really was. She loved the Durand family, but her time with them was never long enough.
Her stomach turned at her mother’s words, which had echoed in her head all afternoon.
“Hadn’t you better be concerned with us who are living, not those who are dying?”
Maybe she should give up Esperance—maybe if she poured herself entirely into her family they would love her, despite her being a crippled mistake.
Please, God, help me be more to my family. I try to be the daughter I should, but it hasn’t been enough.
“Emilie.”
Emilie jumped at Madame Arsenneau’s voice close behind her, and she turned around. She briefly glanced into her mother’s glittering eyes, but she could not keep her gaze there.
“You had better keep the children well-behaved tonight when Father Laurent is here. I’m going to Madame Dubois’s, and your father doesn’t want to be concerned with them. I can’t have them acting up in Laurent’s presence—and much more depends on it than you realise.” Her tone grew sharper. “Look at me, Emilie!”
Emilie looked, pulling her shawl tight to hide her shivering.
“We’ve been kind in giving you a home here despite your lack of usefulness, and you owe me at least an eye-to-eye conversation when I need one.”
They had kept her here simply because they could not get rid of her. Her older sisters had become maidservants for other families, and her younger siblings held endless promise, from the way Monsieur and Madame Arsenneau spoke to their friends.
“We’ve considered putting you in a convent,” Madame Arsenneau continued, playing with a large ring on one of her thin fingers.
Emilie lost her breath and her heartbeat for a moment. A convent? When she did not even believe in the Catholic Church as her parents did?
“I see that’s not to your taste. Well, your father already vetoed the idea, so don’t trouble your poor head about it. Just be sure to keep those siblings of yours quiet tonight.”
“Yes, Mama,” Emilie said faintly.
“And keep that shameful hand of yours hidden.” Madame Arsenneau turned and rustled out of the room, leaving a cold stillness in her wake.
Emilie gazed after her, though her glazed vision saw nothing. Oh, God, please …
“And how are you, daughter?” Father Laurent asked as he looked across the table at Emilie.
“I’m well, Father Laurent,” she answered. In reality, she was aching with frustration and desperation. Claude had just kicked Anne under the table, Etienne was seeing how much baguette he could fit in his mouth at once, and thirteen-year-old Pierre was eating in silent oblivion. She had to keep them as her mother wanted them, had to give her father a reason for a good report of her.
“You certainly have a way with children. You must be a great help to your family.”
Monsieur Arsenneau nodded approvingly as Father Laurent glanced at him. Emilie’s face burned at the sickening deceit—but maybe she was actually winning her father. Was it love that softened his dark eyes as he looked at her, and appreciation that caused the smile under his moustache?
She tucked her shawl more carefully around her right arm, and even smiled at Anne when their glances met. But why did Father Laurent converse with her almost as much as with her father? Her mother had said they would not send her to a convent …
Dinner ended at last, and relieved tiredness seeped through her. They had made it through without any mishaps. Father Laurent and Monsieur Arsenneau quit the table.
The moment they left the room, Anne glared at Claude. “You needn’t kick me so hard.”
“You shouldn’t make such critical faces at me,” Claude retorted.
“You should have been a little gentleman and helped Michel eat more cleanly.”
Claude laughed derisively. “Oh, he’s always messy. There’s no help for that.”
“Claude,” Emilie began, but Michel had been listening intently and his face now puckered with four-year-old rage. In true Michel fashion, he did not speak, but seized a half-full serving dish and flung it across the table. It collided with several others and tipped Monsieur Arsenneau’s unfinished cup of wine, leaving a trail of red on the table cover.
“Oh, Michel!” Emilie cried, starting to her feet.
“Too bad Father Laurent couldn’t see what you’re really like,” Anne mocked. “You have a way with children, don’t you?”
Emilie stared at her in silent, seething anguish. What did it matter what Father Laurent thought? Their father and mother concerned her—and they would both surely hear about this.
Emilie slipped out into the warm, rain-drenched night and ran across the street. The city smelled like spring, sweet and earthy, but instead of rejoicing in it, her heart throbbed with agony.
The single shaft of hope cutting through her darkness was the Durand’s unlocked door.
A week had passed since the priest’s visit, and the trouble the children had caused for Emilie had radiated into each succeeding day. Why did they hate her so? And her mother …
She went in and closed the door, a sob filling her throat. Monsieur Durand came around the corner.
“Oh, Emilie,” he said gently, his brow crowding in concern, and he reached toward her.
She flinched instinctively, then pulled together her crumbling thoughts and her red shawl. “Please, Monsieur Durand … please just let me stay here a little while. Just a few minutes …”
“Of course; you aren’t going back right now. Come sit down.”
She followed him into the candlelit room, trembling. She looked a mess, with her untidy hair and wet clothes and bruised face, and Monsieur Durand’s expression proved it. But there was nothing she could do.
Madame Durand turned from Esperance’s couch and in an instant stood beside Emilie. “Emilie, poor child—”
Emilie’s outward calm fell apart, and she hid her hurting face on Madame Durand’s shoulder. “Why do they all hate me?” she sobbed. “I wish … I wasn’t … born a mistake.”
As Madame Durand held her and each breath wrenched its way out of her lungs, Emilie saw a dark tunnel of despair stretching in front of her—a lifelong journey punctuated with pain and bereft of love. No one wanted her now, and no one ever would. No man wanted a crippled wife—her parents had already tried arranging her marriage multiple times. No household wanted a crippled maidservant, as her older sisters constantly reminded her.
Numb with resignation, she conquered her tears and straightened, unable to meet Madame Durand’s eyes. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“You’ve nothing to be sorry about,” Madame Durand said softly.
Emilie looked toward the couch, and Esperance held out her arms, tears shimmering in her green eyes. Emilie went and sat next to her, comfort wrapping her at the touch of Esperance’s shoulder against her own.
“Please don’t give up hope, Emilie,” Esperance said as her parents drew close to the couch.
Emilie took a quavering breath. “I don’t think I’ve ever had any.”
Monsieur Durand crouched so he was level with them, his face grieved, yet strong. “God is God—let’s be still and remember it.” He bowed his head. “Merciful God, we know that you are not a God of confusion, but of peace. You hurt with us, and Your heart breaks over our breaking ones. But You have a purpose for us, and that’s where our hope lies—in You and Your plans. Amen.”
Blinking back tears, Emilie looked into his face again. God always seemed so close when she was with the Durands, so much closer than through her family’s rote prayers.
“Do you want to tell us what happened?” Monsieur Durand asked.
“I—I can’t.” Emilie shook her head. For a moment, she no longer saw those around her, but the events of the past week, blurring into each other in a stream of hurt. The insults, the mocking laughter, her father’s silent disdain, and her mother’s anger—shown in blows as well as cruel words.
With an effort, she tore herself from the past and realised she was staring at Madame Durand with a hand on her cheek, and Madame Durand was watching with tender pity.
“I wish I understood God’s plans,” Emilie said. “It’s so hard to trust that they’re good.”
Monsieur Durand nodded. “But trust doesn’t come when we understand. It’s a choice we make when we don’t understand—otherwise it isn’t trust. And when we trust in God, we can have full, expectant hope in Him.”
“God thinks thoughts of peace toward you, to give you a future and a hope,” Esperance added quietly, putting an arm around Emilie.
“But I have no future!” Emilie hugged her useless hand, hidden by the red shawl, to her chest, and her voice thickened with tears again. “My mother wanted to put me a convent, but my father said no, and no one wants me as a maidservant or a wife. That leaves nothing but staying with my family the rest of my life—and they certainly don’t want me.”
But as Emilie spoke, Esperance’s words lit a tiny flame inside her heart. God had thoughts of peace for her, peace that could dwell above the confusion of her life.
Monsieur Durand must have seen the light come into her eyes, for he smiled. “It’s easy to look for a future here, but Emilie, if you trust God with your life and heart, He has an eternal future waiting for you that surpasses any good things this life could hold. Take heart in that.”
“This life might seem like winter, but spring is coming,” Esperance said.
“Spring is here, I think,” Emilie said.
Half an hour later, she stood outside her house, trying to recall everything said. The Durands had been so good to her—how could she repay them? They had put a spark to her dead coals and given her reason to live again.
God, thank You for thinking thoughts of peace toward me. There’s so much I don’t understand—but You hold me and my future in Your hands.
Stars gleamed in the dark sky above her like a million little candles. She breathed in the moist air and let the spring fill her, then quietly went inside.
“Mama!” Anne called, running out of the nursery. “Mama, come quick!”
Emilie’s chest tightened as she stood by the window, holding a screaming Michel with her good arm. Claude sat white-faced and trembling in the corner with Etienne. Shards of the windowpane glittered on the floor.
How could the boys have been so careless?
Madame Arsenneau swept into the doorway, her hair half done and her eyes snapping. Anne chattered on behind her.
“Emilie wasn’t watching them for a moment, and when they were sword-fighting one of them hit the window—”
“Emilie!” Madame Arsenneau said, “Quiet him!”
Emilie talked quietly in Michel’s ear, but his frustration at being kept from play would not be silenced, and he struggled to get out of her grasp. Her arm aching and her insides churning with dread, she carefully picked her way around the glass and went to her mother.
“Take them all outside and keep them calm,” Madame Arsenneau ordered, striking Emilie’s head.
Emilie staggered, her ear smarting, and then silently led the boys into the back garden. Michel kept hitting her, saying, “You’re bad! You’re so bad!” and when she let him go, he ran to the far side of the fenced yard.
She looked down at Claude and Etienne, who stood next to her. “Go ahead and play,” she said quietly, “Just play something mild.”
The boys looked at each other, and then Etienne cried, “Let’s play merchants! Come, Michel!” and they ran off.
The day was chilly despite the sunshine, and Emilie shivered as she took a seat on the big rock close to the house. The garden lay cold, dark, and empty from the winter.
She furrowed her brow as she watched the boys drive their imaginary horse carts. What was it Esperance had said?
“Life might seem like winter, but spring is coming.”
Today had certainly been a wintry day in life’s course, and the hope that had sprung up that night at the Durands’ seemed to have frozen again.
Did Esperance feel that life was always winter, with her illness chaining her to her couch and the doctors proclaiming no chance of recovery? How thin she had felt when she put her arm around Emilie …
“I’m supposed to tell you that Mama’s going out.”
Anne’s superior voice made Emilie jump, and she looked up. “All right.”
Anne tucked her hair behind her ear with a slow half-smile. “You’re supposed to keep the boys out of mischief, as usual. She wanted me to remind you—I don’t think she wanted to see you again so soon.”
Emilie took a slow breath, but said nothing. God, You think thoughts of peace toward me.
“She also said it’s about time she found someone else to take care of the children, so she’s glad she found a place for you. Oh, I didn’t have to tell you all that, I just thought you’d want to know.” Anne nodded toward the commotion at the end of the garden. “You’d better check what they’re up to before they break something.”
As Anne went back inside, Emilie watched the boys at their play, but nothing was amiss. Nothing except the gaping wound in her heart, into which her family poured salt every day.
And her mother had found a place for her. What kind of place? Had her father allowed the convent after all? She longed to leave the chaos of this household, but what if the alternative was worse?
Was it really spring blooming in her life at last?
She closed her eyes. God, You don’t only think thoughts of peace toward me, but You have a future planned. Help me to trust You with what I don’t know or understand.
She opened her eyes, and they fell on a tiny plant springing up out of the wet earth, two little leaves unfurled to the sun.
The salty wind tugged at the red shawl, and Emilie pulled it snug around herself as she stood at the ship’s rail. She had missed the sickness so many of the other girls had battled throughout the voyage, but queasiness twisted in her stomach now.
New France lay green and gold beyond the waves, dressed in spring to welcome her—but her future was still uncertain.
Her mother had placed her in the King’s program to bring women to the French settlements in Canada, and Father Laurent had vouched for her as a girl of good conduct and aptness for wifehood and motherhood. The government had paid her passage, her dowry, and fitted her with a trousseau.
What would life be like here, and with whom would she spend it?
Gabrielle came up beside her, her dark hair dancing in the breeze. “We’re almost there.”
“I think I’d rather wait a little longer.” Emilie brushed the blonde wisps from her eyes. There was so much to remember from France, so much still to realise and ponder. A dull ache, tempered by sweet gratitude, came to her chest. It would have been harder to leave if Esperance had not left before her.
Esperance had died at the blossoming of springtime—but her namesake had not.
God, You’ve given me a hope and a future—and I’m trusting You with it.