Erryn did not argue. He let Jack hire them a carriage and sank onto the seat like a rag. He tried to listen as Jack babbled on about the sad death of Major Harrington, and what a splendid funeral they gave him; about a certain Mrs. Gentry, who was in town to raise money for medical supplies, such a lovely creature, pity she was married. Most of all he talked about the Yankee spies in town. Every week there were more of them, he said; you could hardly sit down in a restaurant or talk on the street without some damned eavesdropper lurking nearby.
That’s what I used to worry about too: eavesdroppers. Now Jamie Orton says don’t send me to Sambro and I think my life is forfeit before he can even explain why.
He wondered if it would always be like this now, if every wrong word would freeze him in his tracks. If he would always be looking over his shoulder, till the end of the war, maybe till the end of his life. If he had lost a part of himself forever.
He knew it was not Zeb Taylor’s knife that lay at the heart of his loss, but Zeb Taylor’s words. My brother had you figured from the start. He had always liked Brad Taylor. They had shared meals, joshed each other, even spoken of the theatre, of a play Brad had seen in Kentucky and how awful it was. Yet through it all, Taylor had been watching him, doubting him, waiting for him to make the inevitable, fatal mistake … and the possibility of it had never crossed his mind.
You have faith in things, don’t you? Sylvie told him by the Irish Stone. I don’t mean religious things. I mean life things. You believe when you set out to go somewhere you’ll get there, and when you have something of your own you’ll be able to keep it …
Maybe not, anymore. Maybe never again.
CHAPTER 18
Muffinry
There is a great mass of cool judgment and plain sense on the side of freedom and humanity, but the ardent spirits and passions are on the side of oppression.
—John Quincy Adams
“WELL, IT’S going to be war now for sure.”
Sylvie, still on her knees by the drainage pipe, sat back on her haunches and stared at Harry Dobbs, who had just tramped down the stairs with the first fresh block of ice and was now shoving it into place with a huge grunt of satisfaction.
“What the devil are you talking about?” Aggie Breault demanded.
“I’m talking about the bloody Yankees, that’s what,” Dobbs said. “They didn’t catch the Chesapeake at sea like we figured. They went right into Sambro harbour. Do you believe it? Right into the harbour, and boarded the ship and took it over. And that ain’t the half of it. There was a schooner there from Halifax, and they boarded it too, at gunpoint, and they got a bunch of prisoners now, and they’re going to hang them as pirates—”
“And they come and told you all about it, I suppose,” Sylvie said scornfully.
“It’s all over town. Timmins just come with the ice, and he heard it from half a dozen people already. He says for sure it means a fight. And the Yankees bloody well know it. There’s two more of their ships come in this morning. We got five of the devils in the harbour now, and one of them’s a bloody frigate. Oh, it’s war all right.”
Sylvie threw her scrub rag back into the bucket and wrung her hands to warm them. She wondered how a man could pass on news like this and be stupid enough to sound pleased about it.
“It don’t have to mean war,” she said.
“Course it does. Sailing into one of our harbours like that and taking ships? Taking Englishmen prisoner? That’s an act of war. There’s no way we’re going to stand for it.”
“You don’t know the prisoners are Englishmen,” Aggie said. “You couldn’t possibly know.”
“They were all from here, what took the Chesapeake. Every one of ’em but the captain. That’s what Mr. Timmins says.”
Miss Susan’s voice came sharply down the stairwell. “Dobbs! What are you doing down there? I don’t want this ice melting in the hallway!”
“Yes, m’um. I’m coming.”
“Lord,” Aggie muttered when he had disappeared up the stairs, “that boy don’t have the sense God gave a flea.”
Sylvie got to her feet, emptied her bucket, and brushed loose hair from her face with her sleeve. “I wish I knew what be going on out there, I really do.”
“Well, we know one thing,” Aggie said. “We know those American ships poor Dobbsy is so worried about were trading salutes with the Citadel this morning. Odd how he didn’t hear it.”
“Maybe he thinks it don’t mean anything.”
“Yeah, but when the Dacotah didn’t salute yesterday, he thought it meant everything.”
“Do you suppose it happened like he said?” Sylvie asked then, very soft. “They went into Sambro harbour?”
For a time the only sound in the cellar was Harry Dobbs’s boots tramping back down the stairs, the thump of another block of ice on the fresh-scrubbed stone.
“I don’t know,” Aggie said at last. “But even if they did, those men are pirates. England wouldn’t start a war over a bunch of pirates, would she?”
No, Sylvie thought. Not over pirates. Not over a harbour violation either. Wars might be set off by trifles, but the trifles were never the real reason, they were only the excuse; that much she was sure of. But what the powerful people in both countries really wanted—now there was a whole other question. There were men here who hoped for war; probably there were Americans who did too. Every now and then a colonial paper would reprint some flaming editorial from New York or Chicago, howling insults against England and talking like all of North America was United States property by divine decree. And the nitwits here were just as bad, hating the States because they had overthrown the lords and put government in the reach of ordinary people, and that meant the end of human civilization.
How plentiful were such men in either country? She did not know. But she doubted they cared a fig about the Chesapeake, or Sambro harbour either. They cared only about themselves.
More news came to the Den as the day went on, and it soon became clear that Harry Dobbs, as usual, had only part of the story. Aggie Breault learned more from conversations overheard in the parlour and the family quarters, and passed it on to Sylvie in the hallway.
Yes, she said, the Yankee gunboat Dacotah had sailed into Sambro harbour, seizing both the Chesapeake and the coaling schooner that Al MacNab had sent with supplies and two local engineers.
“But the Rebels saw the ship coming,” she went on, “so of course they all bolted into the woods. It seems the only prisoners our boys got was a fellow they found sleeping on the schooner, and the two engineers, who never bothered to run.”
“Why not?”
“I guess they thought they were safe, being Canadians. And they hadn’t really done anything yet.”
Sylvie cocked an eyebrow at her.
“Well, legally they hadn’t,” Aggie said.
“So they’re all somewhere down by Sambro? The pirates?”
“All except Captain Braine. Apparently he ran out on his crew a couple of days before and nobody knows where he is.” She paused and added quietly, “I guess some folks here are hopping mad because we took your lads, and they’d maybe make trouble if they could. But Miss Susan says the men in charge intend to talk. On both sides. That’s what she’s heard, anyway.”
“Do you think it be true?”
They could hear their mistress’s steps approaching on the stairs.
“All we can do is hope,” Aggie said, and turned to go.
It was a good thirty-minute walk to Madame’s house on South Park Road, past St. Paul’s and the marble yard and the Catholic convent; past the corner at Spring Garden Road where, for no reason whatsoever, not even the smallest curve, Barrington started calling itself Pleasant Street; and finally westward, away from the wind. Her hands grew painfully cold, clutching the parcels Miss Susan had sent along with her, but otherwise it was lovely to be outside.
She found Madame sitting in her favourite chair by the fire, wrapped in a shawl to her knees. She had a touch of t
he grippe, but mostly she seemed depressed. She wanted Sylvie to read poetry for her—Gray’s “Elegy,” and Wordsworth, quiet, meditative things with a lot of sadness in them. Twice Sylvie saw her nodding in her chair, and after an hour or so she said it was enough.
“You read well, Sylvie. You are improving all the time. What would you like to take home with you?”
“Another of Lord Lytton’s, if I might, Madame.”
“Take Harold, then. It is his best.”
Sylvie crossed the room and plucked a beautifully bound volume off the bookshelf. She had read Lord Lytton’s Pelham, because it was about a young aristocrat; she thought she might learn something of their lives. But no matter how hard she tried, she could not picture Erryn Shaw in Henry Pelham’s world. Oh, in little things, perhaps: the fine clothing, the ways of speech, the careful attention to small courtesies. But otherwise, no. Despite its pleasures and comforts, Pelham’s world seemed shallow to her, even silly. She did not see how a man with spirit could ever be content there.
But then, he had not been content, had he? I went my own way, and before anyone really noticed, even me, I’d turned myself into a considerable misfit.
She straightened the shelf a bit and turned back to Madame. It was still early, but already the parlour window was dark. Thick snowflakes swirled endlessly against it, catching the light from Madame’s seven lamps.
The old lady was fussing with her reticule. “Did Susan give you anything extra?” she asked. “For bringing the parcels?”
“No, Madame.”
“Here, then. Take this.” Her outstretched hand held a ten-cent coin. “Go on, take it, lass. You had a long way to walk in the cold. And watch yourself on the streets now. Even in a blizzard there are villains out, and few decent folk around to be watching them.”
“Thank you very much, Madame.”
Ten cents, what marvellous good luck! A week’s pay, after board and lodging, was all of thirty. She slipped the coin into the pocket of her thin coat and walked out into the wind. A carriage waited in the street, the driver huddled under a cape, the horses standing with their heads down. Snow clung to their harness and lay draped like a blanket across their backs.
Odd, she thought, and wondered whom they might be waiting for. Madame was not going out, as far as she knew, and the house across the street was dark. She slowed her pace as she approached, remembering Madame’s warning, and stopped altogether when the carriage door opened and a figure stepped out, draped in an immense hooded cloak.
It was almost dark. For a moment the figure was only a tall silhouette in the falling snow. It could have been anyone, yet her heart leapt with hope. Then he flung his hood back and bowed with a flair and grace she had only seen in one man, ever.
“Miss Bowen, it’s an utterly abominable day for a lady to be walking. May I offer you a ride in my carriage?”
Erryn!
She took two running steps toward him, then caught herself. Weeks had passed, after all; perhaps she was no more than an acquaintance to him now. And he was not, as Madame said, of her station.
“Mr. Shaw! Oh, it’s so good to see you! Are you all right?”
“A bit the worse for wear, my heart—but yes, I’m all right. And you?” He took her hands. Even in the poor light he seemed thinner and bonier than she remembered. “Miss Susan and Madame are treating you well?”
“Oh, yes.”
“I’ve thought of you every single day since I left the Saguenay. I feared it would take forever until I might see you again, and thank you properly for what you did. Be hanged, but that’s a mean wind. Let’s get inside.”
He helped her into the carriage and pulled the door shut with a satisfying whack.
“Winter,” he went on, “was invented by the devil. Thought he could bottle it up and pack it back to his own bailiwick, cool things off a bit. He was a dumb sod. He didn’t do himself one scrap of good, and he made all the rest of us miserable. What are you smiling at?”
“You.”
“Oh, dear, I’m babbling again, aren’t I? Here. I brought you a present.”
He picked up a wrapped parcel from the seat beside him and handed it across to her. A large parcel, in fine paper and ribbons, of the sort Miss Susan sometimes brought home. She took it wonderingly.
“Go ahead, open it.”
“Here?”
“Please.”
She would have preferred to open it in her room, slowly and with infinite care, savouring every moment. But she untied the ribbons and peeled back the paper, and caught her breath. Inside was a cloak, hooded like his own but designed for a lady, long enough to reach her ankles, and made of the most exquisite wool, soft and thick and impossibly rich. She could scarcely imagine what it must have cost.
“Oh, my heavens …” She stroked it ever so lightly, conscious as never before of how thin her little mantle was, how the wind sometimes cut through it like a knife. “It’s beautiful, Mr. Shaw, and awful kind of you. But it’s so … so grand, and you hardly know me … I mean, perhaps I shouldn’t …”
“Oh, but you should. If a man is delivered from death by his friend, what can he possibly do except bring her something grand? Otherwise it might seem he did not value her gift—and hers was more precious than any.” He smiled, but his gaze was intense and serious. “Take it, my heart, and wear it contented. You’ve earned it.”
For a moment she said nothing, overwhelmed by his generosity, and also by the enchanting thought that it might be more than generosity or even gratitude. She thanked him repeatedly and then, unable to resist, slipped out of her mantle and put the cloak on.
“Ohhh …” She snuggled like a kitten in a muff and saw that he was pleased. “I feel like I’ve just grown fur.”
He smiled. “You look utterly dazzling, Sylvie Bowen. Will you join me for supper? I have a table reserved at Compain’s, and for once we can talk to our hearts’ content, and not be sent running by a church bell. Will you come?”
Sylvie was not vain, but she felt like the grandest lady in the world, walking into Compain’s famous eatery on the arm of Erryn Shaw, wrapped in her beautiful new cloak. Compain’s was the smallest of the city’s good hotels, but everyone said its restaurant was the best in all of Nova Scotia. It was still early, tea time really rather than supper, but because it was storming outside, all the chandeliers were lit, and everything shimmered in their brilliance.
Erryn ordered wine for them. Survival, he said, was a proper cause for celebration. But he had shadows under his eyes now, and a worn look about him—not haggard, precisely, but damaged and spent.
“Are you sure you’re all right, Erryn?” she asked softly. “You look awfully thin.”
“I was born thin.”
“Well then, thinner.”
He smiled, laid the menu down, and reached across the table to take her hands. “I’ll be fine, Sylvie. Really, I will—thanks to you.”
“I only did what anyone else would’ve done.”
“I’m not sure the Richelieu Steamship Company would agree. One of their chaps came to see me, you know, in the hospital. He said you were a most resourceful young woman. Said if you’d made even one mistake, like going to find an officer instead of running straight to the pilothouse yourself, I mightn’t have survived.
“I can scarcely tell you what it was like in the river, Sylvie. Those ages and ages, holding on to that broken piece of wood—I’m sure it measured out in minutes, but it felt like all eternity—watching the Saguenay sail on, so fast, so indifferent. Knowing no one could hear me shout. Knowing I could have made it, that he hadn’t killed me, that he was gone, but I was going to die just the same, because the benighted boat was leaving me behind …” He shook his head. “It was like screaming into an abyss, ‘Please! I’m here! I’m here! Please!’ And nothing answers. Nothing cares. I felt … oh, the absurdity of it all, the sheer absurdity … but more than that, Sylvie, I felt such despair … I don’t know what kept me fighting then, staying afloat. I was so cold, a
nd there seemed to be no point in it—”
“Maybe he did,” she said very softly.
He stared at her. “What?”
“Your great-uncle. Maybe he were there. In the river. In the little ship you sent him.”
He studied their linked hands for a very long time. “Do you think that’s possible?” he said finally.
“Do you?”
“No. Not for a second. Not in my wide-awake, rational mind, that is. The rest of me … the rest of me isn’t nearly so sure as to what’s possible and what isn’t. Not anymore. Whatever else, the old cove was a fighter. He never would’ve sunk till he was stone dead.” He lifted her hands to his lips and kissed them each in turn. “But it was you who got me fetched from the river. It was you who stayed with me all night. And for one poor, drowning scarecrow, that was miracle enough.”
Supper came a few moments later, a glorious supper, strips of beef in a wine sauce, roasted potatoes, carrots with a glaze that tasted of honey. Erryn had ordered chicken and offered her a slice in return for a strip of beef, an exchange that felt playful to her, and also strangely intimate.
For a time they said little, content to revel in their food. He seemed exceptionally hungry; she wondered if he had been getting enough to eat.
“Did they take good care of you?” she asked. “In the hospital?”
“Oh, quite,” he said. “But I turned up with a frightful grippe, from being chilled so badly, I suppose. And then pneumonia, and then a cough that simply wouldn’t stop. I wanted to leave anyway, but the nuns told me to get back into bed and be quiet. So I did.”
They ate every crumb, and drank every drop of wine. By then all the old enchantment was back. She found it difficult to do anything except look at him, difficult not to reach across the table and stroke his face. And yet something had changed. There was an easiness between them now—not trust, exactly; she would not go so far as to call it trust—but a kind of certainty nonetheless … or perhaps just a lessening of uncertainty.
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