Voyageurs

by Margaret Elphinstone

  When they turned to me at last, Martin greeted me with formal courtesy, while the tears still ran freely down his cheeks. I thought for a moment something terrible had happened, for I couldn't follow their rapid French. I looked at Loic. But Loic was smiling broadly. ‘Pakané is at the village. Her mother is back for the summer already. Now I go! You come, Mark?’

  All of a sudden I was feart. If the two sisters had been at the house, that would have been one thing, for the Kerners’ cabin at least belonged to a world I recognised. I suppose by now I ought to have felt at home in an Indian village, but if I could have avoided going there now I would have done. Her mother . . . It had never occurred to me that Waase'aaban had a mother. I associated Waase'aaban with Loic and Martin and Pakané and Biinoojii, not with an unknown Ojibwa family. I thought of what I had done to Waase'aaban, not with the carnal pleasure that the memory had engendered all these months, but with a shock of guilt which, indeed, I should have felt long before. Her mother . . . I'd been taught what was right – I had no excuse at all – but I'd allowed myself to ignore it.

  ‘Come!’ said Loic, and began to run.

  I had no choice, having got so far. I panted after him – he was a good deal fleeter than I was, and he didn't wait. We pounded along the shore path, into the woods and through the pine trees. I tripped on a root and fell headlong. By the time I'd picked myself up Loic was out of sight. Anyway, I didn't want to burst in among them like a charging bull. I walked soberly , and got my breath back. A film of green lay over the ground. The willow buds were open, and under the trees there were clumps of tall white flowers, pale and clean-looking, like exotic daffodils.

  Before I reached the village I saw a little group of people on the path. I came closer. One of them was Pakané, her face full of joy, and her hand on Loic's shoulder. And there was Loic, holding a little boy up high, and laughing in his face.

  ‘See him!’ called Loic as I came up. ‘See my son! He is not Biinoojii any more. Now he is Martin. He is a proper boy! Here is the new Biinoojii! Here is our new little one!’

  I looked, and there behind Pakané was Waase'aaban, as dark and beautiful as I remembered her. She was smiling, and when Loic spoke she turned her back, so Loic and I could look at the baby she carried in its cradleboard.

  I saw a little puckered face, very new, and a fringe of black hair.

  In those few seconds I lived a lifetime – a lifetime of repentance, uncertainty and pride. I felt like a man falling down a deep dark well, his whole world wiped away in a single moment. And yet the future was in it too: a future of possession, of delight, of a millstone round my neck that would drown me in the uttermost parts of the sea. I knew in that moment that I would never go home again.

  Then I heard Loic's joyful exclamations, which hadn't ceased, only I'd not been listening. ‘See! The winter was not wasted! She has made me another son! Biinoojii! Martin and Biinoojii! Give him to me! Let me take him!’

  Waase'aaban wriggled out of the straps of the cradleboard as Loic grasped it. She turned round, watching Loic hold the small face very close to his own. He shifted the cradleboard into the crook of his arm, and drew Pakané towards him with his other hand. She was holding Martin on her hip. The little boy leaned forward and touched his brother's face.

  ’Doucement, doucement,‘ said Loic. ‘Don't pinch him. I think now we go home, eh?’

  He swung Pakané round, and thus entwined, they began to walk away.

  I looked at Waase'aaban. In that moment I knew not whether relief or disappointment were uppermost in my heart. Away from her, I'd sometimes panicked at the thought of this impossible entanglement. When I saw her, I knew all things were possible. She was not a Quaker maid, but there was no reason why she should not become one. If I could cross an ocean, why then, so could she. I could make her understand and accept the principles of my Society, and there need be no cause for disownment. I found it possible – which I hadn't done before – to think of her at Highside. Friends are already a peculiar people; never have we conformed to the shibboleths of an unjust world. We believe that there is that of God equally in every human soul. Why then should outward differences matter? In the eyes of a just and merciful God such things are nothing, and less than nothing. I held out my hands to her.

  A little quiver ran through her. She wasn't smiling now. She looked at me doubtfully, and half reached out towards me, then snatched her hand away.

  Oddly enough that settled all my doubts. I'd come here more than half fearing her advances. Now that she made none, I could think of nothing except how to coax her back.

  ‘Waase'aaban? Qu'est-ce que c'est?‘

  She shook her head, and looked so sorrowful she seemed like to cry, but no tears fell.

  ’Je t'en prie,‘ I said, and meant it.

  She came a little nearer. ’Ce n'est pas possible . . .’ She stopped, and looked down.

  I took her hands. ’Oui, c'est possible. Je t'aime, Waase'aaban. I told you I would come back, did I not?’

  I hadn't noticed anyone approach us, but suddenly I was seized by the shoulder and pulled roughly back. I swung round; it was no man who thus molested me, but a woman, no taller than Waase'aaban, though maybe twice as old. I didn't know what she was saying to me, but the meaning was plain enough, and loud enough, too, to bring Loic and Pakané hurrying back. Pakané instantly began to argue with the newcomer; I had no idea what was happening. I tugged Loic's sleeve. ‘What is it? What is she saying?’

  But everyone was speaking at once. The little boy began to wail. Pakané – I didn't know she had it in her – shouted above them all, ‘Anwaataan! Anwaataan!‘ Then she spoke quietly to the older woman: ’Eya, Ninga, Mii ya'aw Mark,’ followed by a spate of words I couldn't follow. Then she told me in French, with grave dignity, ‘This is my mother, Mark. Her name is Beedaubun. She is very angry with Martin and Loic, and with me also, because when my sister came to live with us we did not look after her properly. Waase'aaban was able to go abroad at night as she liked. My mother says if we lived in a proper house, and not the cabin of a white man, this could not have happened. It is a dangerous thing for a young girl to sleep away from her family. My mother says you have seduced Waase'aaban, and this was very wrong of you, to treat her daughter without respect, and bring shame upon our family because of what you did.’

  I looked at Beedaubun, and at Pakané and Loic, all regarding me seriously. Waase'aaban stood before her mother, with her eyes lowered and her fists clenched tightly against her chest. If it had been the whole of London Yearly Meeting of Friends surrounding me, I could not have felt more shamed. Beedaubun began to speak again, more gently this time. I read a sorrowful scorn in her face, which made me wish the ground beneath my feet might open and swallow me up. Naturally it did nothing of the kind. When Beedaubun finished speaking Waase'aaban broke into impassioned protest, but I cut across her and spoke to her mother in such words as I could find, both French and Ojibwa, whatever came to mind.

  ‘It was wrong,’ I said. ‘But not without respect. I have come back. I have come to marry Waase'aaban, if she is willing.’

  I caught the gist of the reply, and even as her mother spoke, Pakané gave me the same words in French. ‘To marry her! Oh, yes, we know about your kind of marriage. You will take her for a while, and when it suits you, you will leave her, with children perhaps, to fend for herself. When you have taken her away from her own people, and used her as you wish, then you will go away, and she will be left. That is your English kind of marriage, I think!’

  ‘No!’ Loic broke in for the first time. ‘Not Mark. Mark would not do that! You give him no chance. You don't know him! Why should he be a worse husband for Waase'aaban than I am for Pakané?’

  ‘Are you an Englishman, Loic?’

  ‘Of course I am not, but—’

  Pakané took a breath, and tried to catch up with the torrent of words. ‘My mother says to Loic, “No, you are not English! You are of our people, and you are Martin Kerners’ son also, who live
s always on Bois Blanc. Martin Kerners is a fool. He threw my daughter at the feet of this man, without respect for her virginity or regard for my shame. But at least Martin Kerners is a Frenchman, not like this man here, and that means he will stay among us and have some regard to his family.”’

  ‘My father is not a fool!’ Loic cut in. ‘He thought – we both thought – we were serving Waase'aaban well. Mark is a good man. He has money too. His father has his own farm, and—’

  ‘She says, “But no! And no, and no and no!” She says, “Tell me then, who is this Mark? Where does he come from? Will he live always on Bois Blanc, and look after Waase'aaban, and be a father to her children? No, I can tell you now – he will not! Even if he takes her to Mackinac, and marries her before the white man's priest, he will leave her when it suits him. And therefore I say he cannot have her, whether he says he marries her or no. She is not his!"’

  ‘That's not true!’ cried Loic. I saw Waase'aaban's eyelids flicker. Had she not expected Loic to defend me either? ‘His word is sacred to him, as it is to us. In this he is not like white men. His people marry our way: they put no trust in oaths made before a priest. They do what we do: they take each other by the agreement of their families and with respect for one another. To break that bond would be as shameful to him as it would be to me, or to my father-in-law when he was alive. I have talked to Mark a great deal, about many things. I would not be shamed – in fact I would be glad – to call him brother. I swear to you this is the truth!’

  Beedaubun replied with blazing scorn, and Pakané translated rapidly, ‘My mother asks whether you will stay here with Waase'aaban always, and not leave her daughter when it suits you to go home?’

  ‘Tell her,’ I said, ‘That when I go home to England, Waase'aaban shall come with me. If I marry her, I will never leave her.’

  Loic interpreted this time, obviously saying a good deal more than I had said. I could see it was to no avail, even before he translated bluntly, ‘She says, if you take Waase'aaban to England, she will die.’

  ‘Die? Why should she die? I'll look after her!’

  Pakané took over: ‘She says, “Have you power over death, young man, to be able to say that?” She says, “If you take my daughter across the great ocean, out of the world where she belongs, she will die. Waase'aaban will stay among her own people, and if you will not stay too, then you must leave her now, forever.” She says, “Why must Waase'aaban be taken away from her people? Why not you? If you loved her beyond life, you would stay and live among her people. But you do not love her that much. No man loves that much, and if he did, he would be a fool, because to leave your own people and become what you are not – it cannot be done,” she says.’

  Loic said suddenly. ‘I don't know. None of us know. But Waase'aaban has not spoken. What does she say about it? Waase'aaban, do you wish to marry him?’

  Waase'aaban looked at her mother, and at me, and pressed her lips together. The answer, when it came, was so low I hardly heard it. ’Oui.‘

  ‘Then will you go to England with him? Will you go to his home?’

  I thought she looked at me beseechingly, but I knew not what to say. Then she whispered, ‘Forever?’

  I looked from her to Pakané, who said, ‘She means: never to come home any more?’

  They were all quite still, waiting for my reply. Waase'aaban's mother put her hands on her child's shoulders, not so much possessively, I thought, as offering comfort. I saw Waase'aaban's shoulders relax a little in acceptance. I looked at them, mother and daughter standing together, both looking at me with eyes full of anguish. Just for a moment I saw the striking likeness between them, which was more a trick of expression than a similarity of feature. I looked at Waase'aaban, and a flickering love was rekindled in my heart, as if our time together had been but yesterday. Then I thought about the vast distance back to Montreal, and the river journey to Quebec, and the endless weeks of the Atlantic crossing beyond that. I thought of my home at Mungrisdale, of my parents, of our Meeting at Mosedale, and what Waase'aaban would have to become, in order to belong among us. There was nothing I could say but the truth. ‘Ay,’ I said hoarsely. ‘It would be forever. Never to come home any more.’

  ‘She will die! If you do that to her, she will die!’

  ‘Waase'aaban?’ asked Pakané softly.

  Waase'aaban looked at me sadly, and I saw her answer in her eyes before she spoke. ‘Non.‘

  Then she pressed her hands against her eyes for a moment, before she fled from us all, running like a child, out of the circle of adults and away into the woods, where she quickly disappeared from sight.

  It was Beedaubun who broke the silence.

  ‘She says, “What have you done to my daughter, white man?"’

  I had naught to say. But I looked at Loic, and asked him in English. ‘What will happen to Waase'aaban now? I would not ruin her!’

  ‘Ruin?’ repeated Loic, as if that were somehow the wrong question. ‘How do you mean, “ruin"? She lives. She will live.’

  ‘But if I've shamed her, and her people know it?’

  They talked rapidly among themselves, then Loic said to me, ‘Who among us has never been shamed? Waase'aaban is young, and there is no child. It is her brother who would feel most shame, and he hasn't yet arrived in Bois Blanc. Any day now he will come. I think you must be gone by then, Mark. No one has told him that a white man has lain with his sister. Probably they will not; he's not a man to accept being shamed before his face. I don't think anyone will try. Otherwise it is not such a great matter. She will marry; she will have children, and all will be forgotten.’

  ‘Is thee telling me the truth? I have thy word? For it wouldn't be true among my people.’

  ‘It is true here.’

  What more could I have said to them? I watched them talking among themselves, and then the whole family set off along the path to the Kerners’ cabin. I would not go with them, but called to Loic, who came back to me, carrying his son Martin.

  ‘I will go,’ I said. ‘Can I take the canoe?’

  He didn't try to persuade me against it, but merely said, ‘My father's small canoe would be better. You'll find it on the beach, by the path. The paddle is underneath.’ He gripped my arm. ‘I'm sorry it happened like this, Mark.’

  ‘Ay,’ I said. ‘I'm sorry too. Will thee say my adieux to thy family, Loic? I will see thee, will I not?’

  ’Oui. I shall come to Mackinac.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘For Alan must give me my wages, I think. I will see you then, Mark.’

  I found the canoe, but I didn't launch it immediately. Instead I sat alone a little further along the shore. In the place where Waase'aaban and I had spent those two nights there was now a carpet of little purple irises, each flower made as delicately as if it were the only one in the world. I picked one, and sat pulling it apart, while I gazed across to where the turtle's back of Mackinac lay humped across the horizon. I don't know how long I sat there before she came. I half hoped she would; I had no reason to suppose she might, or else I must in decency have gone away at once.

  ‘Mark?’ Although I was not entirely surprised, I jumped, for I'd never heard her approach.

  ‘Ay.’

  She came and sat down about six feet from me. She'd been crying, I could tell. ‘You are truly going back to England?’

  ‘Ay.’

  ’Adieu, Marc!‘ She stood up.

  I reached out my hand. ‘No, wait!’

  ‘For what?’

  I lowered my hand. ‘For nothing, I suppose.’ She stood poised, about to leave me.

  ‘Waase'aaban!’

  ’Oui?‘

  I was on my feet then, and had her in my arms. She was slighter than I remembered, her body taut with tension. I know not what I said to her – or I choose not to remember – but she gave way, and heard me. I did her no hurt at all, but it was an hour or more before we parted, and that for the last time. I let her know I loved her, for that was the truth, and that I had never meant to hurt
her, for that was true too, so far as it went. At last she said she must go. I watched her slip away among the willow shrubs, and then I saw her no more.1

  From the moment that I climbed out of Martin's canoe at Mackinac and carried it ashore, I felt I'd come back too soon. It was like being woken up from the middle of a dream, when thee knows that the end of the dream is the vital part, even as it vaporises into the mists of unconsciousness. Dusk was already falling. I heaved the canoe on to my shoulders, and carried it on the yoke all the way to McGulpin's house, where I laid it near the door. I was lifting my hand to the latch when I heard Alan hirpling up the street behind me.

  ‘Mark! Mark! Have you heard the news?’ He grabbed me by the shoulder and shook me. ‘The Michigan Territory is ours! Ours since last year! What do you think of that?’

  It was weeks since I'd given a thought to Alan's orders from General Brock, or to the letter I'd carried from William McGillivray. Over the winter I'd come to certain conclusions of my own, which made Alan's mission seem to me largely irrelevant. ‘How can that be?’ I said aloud. ‘We never saw any white men in Michigan at all. I don't see how either nation can lay claim to it.’

  ‘There was a battle at the Raisin River. We took the Yankees by surprise, thanks to our Ottawa allies. So you see, I didn't fail completely; some of those allies must have been our recruits.’ He peered into my face in the growing dusk. ‘Say something, Mark! What are you thinking?’

  ’Thy recruits,’ I corrected him. ‘If Michigan is in British hands, it seems thee achieved thy ends. Did many men die in this battle?’

  Alan didn't meet my eyes. ‘Don't be naïve, brother Mark. Men do die in battle.’ He hesitated. ‘And in this case, it seems our allies killed some of the wounded too, which is their custom, as you know. But there was never an omelette made without breaking eggs. You spent the last four months in Upper Canada after all, brother Mark, though you knew it not. You shouldn't repine.’ He was delving in his haversack. ‘And here's something else. A letter for you, brother.’

  I took the letter, which was sealed with a wafer. I could just read the direction in the half dark. It was written in a firm flowing hand and the sender's address was written over the seal: C. Armitage, Yonge Street, by York, Upper Canada. I hesitated to rip the seal. Alan was still talking. I caught the one word.