drink a little coffee with us,” she said, leading me down the hall past the front room. Her stiff blue habit crackled.
I stopped to admire again the early Quebec furniture I’d noticed on my first visit.
“Beautiful, non? They belonged to our great-grandmother, Marie France Gagnon,” she said rolling her r’s in the French manner. “Papa brought them from the farm of our ancestors in the parish of Château-Richer.”
So Yves hadn’t bought this furniture. Then why had he given me the impression he had? Unless I’d misunderstood, and he’d only been referring to the modern entertainment centre.
“The parish records say the Gagnon family lived on this farm in 1690.”
“Wow, over three hundred years. And I thought a hundred years for my family to occupy Three Deer Point was a long time. By the way, where is Château-Richer?”
“Ah, the most beautiful place in the world.” Her inviting smile was so reminiscent of Yves’s, that I wondered if, like her twin brother, she wasn’t going to prove to be much nicer than the initial impression would suggest.
“Château-Richer was one of the first parishes of New France,” she continued. “It is on the north shore of the River Saint Laurent in the Côte-de-Beaupré MRC . This is east of la ville ancienne…pardon…the old city of Quebec. The Gagnon farm is found on one of the first roads of New France, the Avenue Royale. Sadly, no Gagnon live on this farm today.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“Me too. It was very special. Unfortunately, my papa must sell the farm when I am a child.”
“Was that when you moved here?” I asked in surprise. I’d had the impression Papa Gagnon had only occupied this particular farm for the past ten years. If they’d moved here when Soeur Yvonne was a young girl, that would make it twenty-five or thirty years ago.
“Non.” She placed her hand over the silver cross as if seeking solace. “We lived in Sainte-Famille, a small village on Île d’Orleans. My papa and Yvette come here later.”
I found it curious that Papa Gagnon would move to this western end of the province, where Québécois culture was only one of many, when his roots so directly tied him to the heartland of French Canada. I asked Soeur Yvonne why.
But as if she hadn’t heard, she resumed walking down the hall to the kitchen. I followed her through the door and into the sauna heat wafting from a large cast-iron woodstove. I immediately undid my jacket and removed my wool hat.
Yvette, bundled up in a white bathrobe, sat huddled in a wooden chair at one end of a long pine table that was more suited to the size of family Soeur Yvonne would have preferred than the Gagnons’ small one. Her broken arm was tucked within the folds of her bathrobe. She no longer wore the bandage around her head. In its stead was another bleak reminder of her accident, a large angry red scab.
“How are you doing?” I asked, removing my jacket and scarf. Still hot, I unbuttoned my sweater and took it off too.
“Much better, thank you,” she replied with her usual shyness. Her wispy auburn hair, tidied into two long braids, gave her the appearance of an obedient child.
I sat across the table from her on a wobbly arrow-back chair, well beyond range of the stove’s heat. I glanced around the expansive kitchen that consumed the entire rear of the small farmhouse. I might have been mistaken about the origins of the antique parlour furniture, but I had little doubt about the source of this kitchen. Yves’s modern taste and generosity were evident in the top-of-the-line refrigerator and smooth-top stove, both in gleaming stainless steel, and the sleek cherry wood cupboards with their granite countertop. But as much as I admired the kitchen, I felt that its crisp modern lines didn’t entirely fit with the Victorian feel of the house. On the other hand, the woodstove and the battered brass woodbox blended right in with the rural setting.
Bright morning sun poured through two large windows, making the room feel even hotter. Through one of the windows I was pleasantly surprised to see Yves’s black car parked across the yard, next to one of the outlying barns.
“Will Yves be joining us?” I asked hopefully.
I felt Yvette tense as she turned a startled glance to her older sister. Soeur Yvonne answered, “My brother is not at home.”
“But isn’t that his car?”
She glanced out the window, “Bien sûr, I forget. He leave his car here. Mais, today he go to Montreal with a business associate.”
“Oui, c’est vrai,” Yvette chimed in.
Soeur Yvonne walked over to the window. “The sun brings much heat, non?” She flicked closed the curtains of the first then the second window, but not before I noticed a man of Yves’s slim build entering the barn. He was wearing a camelhair coat similar to the one Yves had worn on his visit to my house.
Good. He hadn’t left yet. Perhaps he would drop in to say goodbye. But then again, maybe he wouldn’t. From the way Yvette had reacted to my question, the sisters might have told Yves not to join us.
“Please, a little coffee, Madame Harris?” Soeur Yvonne held up a large glass filter coffeepot, filled no doubt with the strong, rich coffee loved by most French-Canadians.
While I did like mine strong, usually this coffee was a little too harsh for my taste. “With milk, heated if possible.”
“Of course, café au lait.” She half-filled a small bowl with steaming milk, then added the almost black liquid. She passed it to me. After pouring the same for herself and Yvette, she placed a china plate filled with pets de soeurs on the table. I smiled as I reached for one of the deliciously sweet pastries. “Nuns’ farts” was the English translation for these small rings of baked dough drenched in cinnamon and brown sugar. Soeur Yvonne’s sombre comportment suggested she didn’t appreciate the humour in the name.
For the first time since entering the room, I focused my attention entirely on Yvette and was shocked. On Sunday when I’d visited her, she’d been bustling with energy and well on the road to health. Today, three days later, she appeared lifeless, withdrawn. Her face bore a sickly, grey pallor.
“Oh, dear, have you had a setback?” I asked. But her sister sitting beside her answered. “Thanks to the blessed Virgin, she goes better. Now you have not such pain, eh, ma petite?”
Yvette meekly nodded.
“Is your arm causing you pain, or is it one of your other injuries?” I persisted, wanting Yvette to speak for herself.
Once again Soeur Yvonne answered for her, “The pain is in here.” She pointed to her chest.
“Yes, I imagine broken ribs can be a painful injury and are probably slow to heal. I hope it doesn’t hurt you too much, Yvette?”
She mumbled that it didn’t, while her sister declared, “Each day she goes better, n’est-ce pas, ma petite?”
Soeur Yvonne patted her sister’s hand almost as a mother would a child. And given the probable fifteen-year age difference and her nurturing training as a nun, it was to be expected.
At that point, the small
