The first day of July dawned with a sky etched by just a few clouds, enough to lend depth to endless shades of blue. The fields, growing tall and fragrant, lay below forested green mountains standing like protective sentinels beneath the sun’s glow. The distant waters of Cobequid Bay sparkled like a mirror. By midday the entire village of Minas had turned out for the wedding of Louise Belleveau to Henri Robichaud. It was a tale made for generations of winter fires, a story to warm the hearts of young girls as they dreamed of their own days to come in the sun of romance and love. How a girl lovely enough to capture the heart of any French nobleman had instead given her heart to one of their own.
When his peers were still delighting in childhood games, Henri Robichaud had been forced to mature beyond his years. His father had gone first, dead of a fever that one summer had swept away almost a third of the village. His mother had followed only two days later, so soon that their burials had taken place the same afternoon. Poor Henri, only twelve years old, faced further trauma on top of tragedy as his family’s crops threatened to rot in the fields.
Louise drew her thoughts back to the present with a little shake of her head and allowed her mother to straighten her dress and retie the wedding bonnet with its long satin bow—the only satin to be found in the entire village. Her embroidered dress was cut in time-honored style, falling loose and long so she had to grasp it in one hand as she carefully stepped down the stairs. The stairs to her home, the only home she had known. Louise felt a gentle constricting of her heart as she moved down one step, then the next, knowing that she was walking into her future. One which beckoned to the longing in her heart, yet included many unknowns.
As she pushed through the front door of the Belleveau cottage, she saw villagers she had known all her life smiling and murmuring a welcome. Beyond this crowd was yet another throng, one larger still and made up of neighbors from surrounding villages and hamlets. A mist veiled her eyes, making their faces indistinct. Her vision was dimmed by all the bittersweet emotions swirling through her heart and mind.
Louise had known since her eleventh year that she was going to marry Henri Robichaud. And there he was now—she could just make him out as the crowd parted before him, making a path up to where he stood in his new dark coat and white shirt. She felt more than saw his beloved smile, the one which had never diminished, never faded, even during those first years of struggling mostly on his own.
As Louise continued walking toward the familiar form, she thought she saw villagers point at Henri and murmur traces of the famous story. How Henri Robichaud had slaved through that first summer alone. Almost every family in Minas had lost someone to the fever. Louise could still remember the sadness in her own home over the tiny basket by the fire, the one which had remained as forlorn and empty as her parents’ gaze. And because the sadness was so total, and most were hard pressed to manage their own harvests, few had the strength or the time to offer more than a word of sympathy about young Henri Robichaud’s plight.
But Henri had not asked for help. Not even when the first chill winds of September arrived, and his family’s fields remained only half cleared. Those who were aware of it had admired the young boy for trying so hard, but they also assumed he would be forced to leave the house and fields and go to live with relatives or to work for another farmer.
It had been Louise who had passed by the Robichaud farm that fateful day and found Henri collapsed in the field. She had run home for her father as fast as her eleven-year-old legs could carry her. Together they had gone back, only to see that the young boy had struggled to his feet and returned to his harvesting. Now, as Louise walked on through the happy throng, she remembered that time as clearly as if it had happened only yesterday. Her father had plucked the hoe from Henri’s hands, then stared down at a handle sticky with blood. Her father had turned over the boy’s palms to see the flesh scraped and torn. The boy had tried to pull away, but he had scarcely enough strength left to stand. Henri had stared at the bewildered older man and said simply, “This is Robichaud land.” And then he had fainted a second time.
By the same fever which had robbed Henri of his parents, Jacques Belleveau had been made clan elder. One of his first edicts was to ask for help to save the Robichaud farm and bring in the harvest. The vicar, newly arrived to take the place of the previous pastor, who had not survived the epidemic, had silently joined in alongside Jacques and Louise, clumsy in his efforts but strong in his silent urgings to give aid and comfort to the young lad.
Somehow the community’s sharing of this particular hardship had helped to lift the pall of sadness and loss which had settled upon the village. The winter had come and gone, and with spring there was a readiness to face the future once again. That next season of planting and harvesting had found many willing hands to help Henri with his work. And over the years to come, Henri Robichaud had repaid the village a hundred times over. Strong and cheerful, he had grown up ever ready to lend a hand to whoever needed help, free with his gifts of game and fish and fruit and strength. All the village counted him a friend.
Louise’s pounding heart returned her attention to the present. The vicar waited just beyond Henri, Bible in hand. His broad-brimmed hat and his best black cassock were in direct contrast to the warm, approving smile. From those hard beginnings Pastor Jean Ricard had grown to be a welcome part of the village, a true man of God with a heart for Acadia.
To the one side of the vicar, the girls holding the traditional marriage pole waited in giggling anticipation. The flowers Louise had gathered from the highland meadow formed a colorful crown at the top of the pole. Long ribbons shivered in the fresh breeze to be gathered after the wedding ceremony in the lilting maidens’ dance.
Henri’s eyes met hers in a silent message for her alone, and he stepped up beside her. The vicar turned and led the assembly up the hill to the white chapel. The Minas church, in a field of bluebells and buttercups, was the village’s oldest building, dating back to the earliest days of their settlement. A low stone wall rose behind the church, marking the boundaries of the village cemetery. Some of the headstones were so old that time and winter winds had erased the names of those who rested there. Louise took in a deep breath of the summer air, and thought there could be no finer wish on this most wonderful day than to live her life among family and friends, to be the wife of Henri Robichaud and raise their children, then die and be buried here in the heart of Acadia.
As Louise trod the familiar path to the chapel entrance, she caught sight of a group of men standing by the cemetery walls, staring northward, up beyond the Minas River to where smoke rose from the English settlement. She felt a flash of irritation. How could they think of disturbing this perfect day with talk of worry and troubles?
Henri must have felt her stiffen at his side, for he moved forward until his face filled her frame of vision. His dark eyes sparkled with joy. Louise looked deep, and she found there a promise that filled her being with answering joy. She was to be married to Henri, the only man she had ever cared for. She would be Louise Robichaud. She turned her attention back to the chapel and its simple lime-washed walls. Here is safety … here is homewas in the smile she gave to her beloved.