The King's Daughter by Suzanne Martel Read Free Book Online Page B

two women, will leave tomorrow at dawn by canoe, and Mademoiselle du Voyer is granted permission to accompany them. In Ville-Marie, she will take up residence at the Bon-Secours School, where all arrangements have been made for her marriage to Monsieur de Rouville. He most definitely wishes to reach his lands before winter sets in. Wishing Mademoiselle du Voyer all possible happiness in her saintly destiny, I place her under the protection of Notre Dame du Bon-Secours.
    The usual greetings and the founder’s signature followed.
    Jeanne was shattered. Just then the door opened and Marie came in, eyes shining. To preserve the spell she was under, she went past her friend without a word. Wishing her good night with a little wave of her hand, she climbed the steep stairway that led to the attic where the girls slept. With a lover’s selfishness, she fell asleep to dream of her happiness, not realizing it had just collapsed.
    Jeanne went to the doorway and saw the motionless form of the Indian waiting by the steps. As before when she believed her friends were in danger, just as instinctively, just as rapidly, her resolution took shape. She turned to Widow Myrand who, candle in hand, was hoping that all her excited boarders would finally solve their problems and let her go to bed.
    â€œMadame Myrand, if you can help me pull my trunk over near the door, this Indian will help me take it out. And if you would leave me the candle and give me something to write with, you can go to bed and I won’t wake you when I leave at dawn.”
    â€œOh?” said the widow, not very interested. “So you’re Mademoiselle du Voyer?”
    â€œYes, I am,” said Jeanne calmly. “And my fiancé is waiting for me in Ville-Marie.”
    9
    ON THE BANKS
of the St. Lawrence, September, 1672
    Dear Marie,
    I’m writing flat on my stomach on the soaking wet ground. I’m using the notebook Sister Bourgeoys gave me on board ship for the first time to record my spiritual thoughts. I’m supposed to be dry under a canvas sheet that a Sulpician father and one of the voyageurs gallantly stretched from some poles and baptized a shelter. The rain drips from the leaves and everything I touch, eat or breathe is wet. The Indians have managed to light a fire that is smoking between two rocks, and their skin glistens with a red glow. They gave me some kind of food called pemmican that’s both greasy and hard. The women mentioned in Mademoiselle Bourgeoys’s letter are two Hurons as silent as their men.
    The Indians, the voyageurs and the two Sulpician fathers have been paddling for two days, bent under the rain, following the river bank. After Cap Rouge, not a single settlement, except for two isolated farms and the blackened ruins of a third.
    They call me Mademoiselle du Voyer and I answer as if it had always been my name. What will Monsieur Simon de Rouville say when he discovers the hoax? If ever you read these words, it will be because everything has worked out. You will find happiness with your Jean and Monsieur de Rouville will either have accepted or rejected me. I came here as a king’s daughter to marry a settler in New France, and in my heart, deep down in my heart, I knew my beautiful dreams of a proud military man, of a gallant lord or a rich farmer were just that—dreams.
    At least if your own dream becomes reality, then one of us will have succeeded. Here’s my lovely notebook all wet and limp, and the writing almost illegible. It doesn’t matter. I’m not writing to be read, but to feel less alone.
    At another campfire...
    The journey continues between two deserted shores. This river is so wide we often lose sight of the other side. Constantly I think of how disappointed Monsieur de Rouville will be when, instead of the pretty cousin he’s been waiting for, he sees an orphan with her hair pulled back in braids, a pale face and colourless eyes. Even as a governess, am I what he