The Sacred Shore Read Online Free PDF

The night has ears.”
    â€œThe English are the ones who banished us from Acadia!” Though she spoke more quietly, the words carried no less vehemence. “They drove us like cattle. For years we wandered!”
    â€œYes, and now we are here. Now we are home. We have found another Acadia. Now you are an adult. Now you must know.” Henri was repeating himself, but he continued to speak because he hoped his voice would carry the more important message of calm and strength and love. “Understand me, daughter. You were not given to us. You were placed in our care only for a few days. Your mother agreed to this exchange of babies because our own child was ill and close to death. Your mother’s closest friend was an Englishwoman named Catherine. She knew a French baby would not be given medical treatment. She did this out of Christian compassion. But while the Englishwoman was taking our baby to the doctor in Halifax, the British soldiers expelled us. We could not leave you behind. Nor did we have time to seek our own child. Your mother …”
    â€œMy mother,” Nicole repeated, caught by that single word. “Who is my mother?”
    Louise’s hand no longer had the strength to reach out. It dropped limply into her aproned lap. “That you should ask such a question, my child, breaks my heart in two.”
    Nicole started forward, and the movement brought her face into the moonlight, revealing features contorted by shock and anguish. Her own hand froze in midair; then she spun away from them and nearly tumbled down the steps in her haste.
    Louise softly cried the words, “Go after her, Henri.”
    For once his famous strength seemed unable to heed his call. “What shall I say to her?”
    â€œWhatever comes to your heart. But go.”
    Henri moved down the steps and along the garden path and out into the village lane. Ahead, his daughter’s silhouette staggered like one stricken by a disease. He continued to follow, but the closer he came, the slower he walked. He found himself unable to move up alongside her. This beloved daughter whose heart was twice broken in such a short span of time.
    Nicole broke the invisible barrier by asking, “Are there any other truths I don’t know?”
    â€œThe truth,” he said softly, weak with relief that she was still speaking to him. “The truth, my beloved Nicole, is that you are the reason we could bear the anguish of that terrible time. You gave us joy when we thought it was gone forever.”
    She glanced back at him, her face a silver wash of moonlight and tears and new sorrows. “But I was just a baby.”
    â€œYes. A baby who needed us. And we needed you. The truth, my blessed daughter, is that we do not believe baby Antoinette would have ever lived through the expulsion. We do not know if she even survived at all. The truth also is that it was this same Englishwoman who led your mother and me along the pathway to God.”
    A quiet voice hailed them from one of the porches. Henri did not respond, and the voice did not call again. It was the way of folks in the bayou, to offer invitations but not to insist. At one time or another, all had found a need to walk the darkness and struggle with the unseen.
    For a time their footsteps were the only sounds in the night. Henri continued when they had moved beyond earshot. “The woman Catherine and your mother used to meet in a meadow up above our village of Minas. Her husband was the officer in charge of the garrison at Fort Edward.”
    Nicole spun to face him. “An officer ? An English officer?”
    Gently Henri gripped his daughter’s arms and pulled her to him. “One of the finest men I have ever known, and I met him but once. We could not speak together, for he knew no French and I no English. But I knew him through his wife, through the love on her face and the concern they shared together when baby Antoinette became so ill. They