The result was according to my wishes: for I was taken to an upper
room, which was used as an infirmary, and there permitted to remain.
There were a large number of women in the house; and a Mrs. M'Donald,
who has the management of it, had her daughters in the Ursuline Nunnery
at Quebec, and her son in the college. The nature of the establishment
I could not fully understand: but it seemed to me designed to become a
nunnery at some future time.
I felt pretty safe in the house; so long as I was certain of remaining
in the infirmary; for there was nobody there who had ever seen me
before. But I resolved to avoid, if possible, ever making my appearance
below, for I felt that I could not do it without hazard of discovery.
Among other appendages of a Convent which I observed in that place, was
a confessional within the building, and I soon learnt, to my dismay,
that Father Bonin, one of the murderers of Saint Francis, was in the
habit of constant attendance as priest and confessor. The recollections
which I often indulged in of scenes in the Hotel Dieu, gave me
uneasiness and distress: but not knowing where to go to seek greater
seclusion, I remained in the infirmary week after week, still affecting
illness in the best manner I could. At length I found that I was
suspected of playing off a deception with regard to the state of my
health; and at the close of a few weeks, I became satisfied that I
could not remain longer without making my appearance below stairs. I at
length complied with the wishes I heard expressed, that I would go into
the community-room, where those in health were accustomed to assemble
to work, and then some of the women began to talk of my going to
confession. I merely expressed unwillingness at first; but when they
pressed the point, and began to insist, my fear of detection overcame
every other feeling, and I plainly declared that I would not go. This
led to an altercation, when the mistress of the house pronounced me
incorrigible, and said she would not keep me for a hundred pounds a
year. She, in fact, became so weary of having me there, that she sent
to my mother to take me away.
My mother, in consequence, sent a cariole for me, and took me again
into her house; but I became so unhappy in a place where I was secluded
and destitute of all agreeable society, that I earnestly requested her
to allow me to leave Canada. I believe she felt ready to have me
removed to a distance, that she might not be in danger of having my
attempt at self-destruction, and my confinement in prison made public.
There was a fact which I had not disclosed, and of which all were
ignorant: viz., that which had so much influence in exciting me to
leave the Convent, and to reject every idea of returning to it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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