by Paul Almond
What a joy the children had been. Mariah had even begun to stand up on shaky legs. Wobbling on two feet, she’d make a lunge for a chair, falling before she reached it. John, who was by now a handful, would come and tug at her ear. He seemed to delight in her screams, for then he would make a big fuss of kissing her to make it better. James scolded him furiously, but Catherine explained that this was normal behaviour for a two year old. She had been witness to her younger sister Eleanor’s babyhood, so knew more or less what to expect.
That morning, with plenty of snow in melting drifts around the barn, James had let Broad out. What fun to see the animal, by now a growing bull, kicking up his heels, frolicking like any youngster. Earlier, James had been worried that he might not last the winter, for he had gotten weaker, and eaten less. James had not really harvested enough fodder last autumn, so perhaps that was just as well. Now, with easy grazing, if it could be called that, on soggy leaves and a few green shoots, Broad soon revived. Three chickens and the rooster were also in bad shape, though they now seemed on the mend, pecking and scratching among the stumps.
James was hoping to hear from his mother about her early arrival, which would take some of the strain off Catherine. Back at the castle, he’d seen his mother work wonders with the young ones, whom she loved to care for when she had the chance. The sooner she got here, the better.
Soon, they’d be planting again. Catherine had been careful to cut the eyes out of all their cooking potatoes, and to save some dry corn for seed. Last autumn she had identified wild gooseberry bushes in the Hollow, as well as wild strawberries and raspberry canes around the cliffs. Highbush cranberries grew in profusion on the hill, and they intended to transplant some to begin their own garden nearer the house.
James was just standing up to survey the results of his digging when Catherine came out to announce noon dinner.
“Well done, James!”
He shook his head at the trench. “Who dreamed the spring run off would produce such a torrent of water?” Catherine ignored his remark. “And when are you planning our trip to New Carlisle?”
“Pretty soon, I guess. How do you think they’re going to react?”
“James, you’ve asked me that so many times, I for one will be glad when the trip is over.”
“You still haven’t said anything.”
“I haven’t said anything because, as you know so well, I am not one bit optimistic.”
So there it was. Neither of them was looking forward to going. But go they would, and soon.
***
The spring wind had an icy nip to it, although the sun was doing its best to warm the couple as their canoe sped through the grey, beating waves. In the stern James stroked rhythmically; in front, Catherine was resting between bouts of paddling. The two children, Mariah and John, were heavily bundled up between them in the centre. The rocking of the canoe had lulled Mariah into a doze, while John, having been severely warned, sat wellbehaved, playing with a carved wooden horse his father had made.
Overhead, the sun was smiling down through a blue heaven, circled on the horizon by the ever-present Gaspé landscape of clouds. To the east, faint high wisps of cirrus floated onward. And on the western horizon, large rolling bundles of thunderclouds advanced, about to vanquish the clear arc of blue and spread perhaps life-giving rain on the land and water.
The burgeoning waves made James turn his attention to getting safely through. “Catherine, if you’re up to it, you should have another go at paddling. It’s blowing up.”
Catherine took up the paddle and set to work. The seas had become choppy, and the canoe started to buck. A wave splashed over the gunnel and struck young John across the face. He turned to his daddy, and made a face as if to cry. His dignity had been hurt.
“It’s okay, Johnnie, it’s only water, it’ll dry. That’s the fun of canoeing — you get real water thrown at you! Like riding a horse. You’d like to ride a horse, wouldn’t you?” John nodded and went back to his toy.
With all his attention on canoeing and seamanship, James found the time passed quickly and before long, they headed in to the floating jetty at New Carlisle. Catherine leaned forward to fend them off as the canoe came alongside; James grasped one rope and held onto it. “You first, Catherine.” She clambered out and took the ropes, tying both to stanchions.
During the winter there had been little opportunity to communicate with the family. In January a lone coureur de bois passed from Pabos on snowshoes and stayed for a couple of meals and a night’s rest. He had taken a letter with their news to the Garretts, not mentioning the new family member. Another time, a settler driving a sleigh over the ice had called in and dropped off the Garretts’ reply, accepting gratefully a noonday meal from Catherine. During the winter the bay froze a good way out, but horses were a rarity; most work on the Gaspé Coast was done by oxen.
James was hoping that the Garretts’ likely happiness at seeing them now might overwhelm any misgivings. And so now, full of anticipation mixed with real concern, they knocked at the door and swept in on a gust of icy spring wind.
“Well, well, the long-lost new parents! Come in, come in,” William Sr.’s booming voice proclaimed in his North Country accent. “We’ve waited all winter — by gu’m, who the devil is that?”
He looked at Catherine who was unwrapping John. She didn’t meet her father’s eye, she just set John down. Eleanor went straight to Mariah and hoisted her up. “Well, aren’t you a lovely little girl!” She turned to Catherine. “She looks so well, I just don’t —”
“— don’t know how we did it out there, you were going to say, Mother?”
“No no, hush child. Look William, our first grandchild.” She kissed Mariah and gave her a hug, before putting her down again.
William affected a smile, keeping an eye on the toddler, John. James occupied himself with taking off his coat.
Eleanor’s motherly instincts came to the fore. She lifted the two-year-old lad. “Well, look at you! You’re a fine young man! And who do you belong to?”
“He’s an orphan,” Catherine stammered. How else, thought James, could she deal with it?
“An orphan? What kind of an orphan did you find in the midst of all that waste land?”
“Well, not exactly an orphan,” Catherine ventured. James had remained silent. It was her family, and she’d best deal with them herself.
Eleanor handed John to him. “Whatever possessed you to take in an orphan, my child? Don’t you have enough trouble feeding three mouths?”
“Not really,” Catherine replied.
James pitched in. “We managed fairly well, all things considered. I won’t deny it’s been hard. But I shot a moose in January, we fished trout, and Catherine has been the most wonderful wife, putting up so many wild vegetables and —”
“Wonderful wife? I’d say! Catherine, are you daft?” William grunted. “What in hell d’ya think yer up to, adding another mouth to feed?” His black eyebrows furled down over his eyes and his mouth twisted into a grimace.
“James has been a wonderful father, too,” Catherine said. “We haven’t been even close to starvation. And it’s only our first winter. We’ll get better and better at it. We’re planting all sorts of seeds, and we’ve gotten a good bit of land cleared. You must come and see us.” She straightened. “So one small tummy did not overburden us. You’ll see, Johnnie is a real delight.” She swept over to pick up her stepson and gave him a big hug and kiss. “John, is it?” Eleanor said. “And so John, where do you come from? What indeed is your lineage?”
James and Catherine traded looks. “Why don’t we go into all that,” James said, “after Catherine and the children have eaten. It has been a long canoe trip, and a cold one.” Mrs. Garrett immediately dropped her confrontational attitude and bustled about, getting food ready. William shook his head and limped over to his favourite chair.
Young John sat staring in guarded astonishment at the strangers. He struggled to his little feet and clambered a
cross the floor to reach for his grandfather’s pipe on the windowsill. William Sr., without appearing too brusque, pushed him aside. “Eleanor, take the child, will you?”
“Come, Johnnie,” James picked up his son, “come see the fire. I’m adding wood. Would you like to add some?” John went to the woodpile and grappled with a log. He managed to stagger with it toward the fire, but tripped and fell, the wood striking him in the chin.
His face broke into a grimace, and James said, “Good boy, John!” He took up his son and, sitting on the bench, checked his chin. “Brave young soldier! You have a big war wound. Like your grandfather.”
William almost dropped his pipe, and Eleanor swung her head to look at the child.
The boy’s face was tilted up for James to wipe off the blood, and Eleanor stared hard. Catherine asked quickly, “Where are the boys?”
“Doing the chores,” William answered, temporarily diverted. “William and John went to the woods again this winter. Nice pile of lumber, they cut.” He turned. “Now James, you’ve not heard our trouble with Jacob Belair? Accused my son of calling him a bloody idiot! Which we all know that he is, o’course. But young Will yelled at him before church the other Sunday. In front of the lot of them. Now Jacob’s taken the lad to Court over it. That wife of his, I bet she put him up to it.” James shook his head at the sorry tale. “Well, I...” William coughed, “was going to ask you to testify on Will’s behalf. Character witness. Told Amasa, you know, the town clerk —”
“Amasa Beebe?”
“That’s right, asked him to put off the case till you got here. John Rafter says he’ll be glad to testify. Bloody shame, mind you.”
“But Will certainly learned his lesson,” Mrs. Garrett chimed in.
“Bloody well better learn somm’at. That lad’s got to keep a bridle on that mouth of his. Well, the wood he cut for hisself, he’ll have to give that to Belair to settle. Otherwise, it’s into prison, I suspect.”
“I’ll be glad to come, but I don’t see how I can help, sir.”
“Well, James,” William took the pipe out of his mouth, “just make sure you give all your particulars. Y’see, an officer from his Majesty’s Royal Navy, well now, among us Loyalists, that’s a reliable character witness if ever there was one, a man surely to God to be believed.”
James marvelled at how things change. Now a respected officer, and three short years before he’d been a common deserter.
“Just give them all that background, the Bellerophon and such like, try to throw in some battles. Bill Crawford’s a good sort, I warrant. Fine judge, he’s likely to do us a favour and schedule it before he goes off to Gaspé next weekend.”
“I’ll do anything I can, sir,” James said gamely. “We’ll stay as long as it takes to accomplish William’s acquittal.”
“Oh my dears,” Eleanor said, “you must stay, yes. I’ve got to get to know my granddaughter.”
“And John,” Catherine said firmly.
“Oh yes, of course, John. But Catherine dear, you’re not thinking of keeping it?”
“It, mother? It is called John. I’ll be obliged if you treat him as your very own grandchild.” Eleanor looked shocked.
James glanced at Catherine: her mettle was showing at last. Now, watch the fireworks! No one in the world could stand up to his wife when she got her mind set.
“My own grandchild?” Eleanor retorted sharply. “Whatever do you mean, Catherine?”
“Exactly what I said!” Catherine replied.
“Hold on, hold on, you’ll not speak to your mother like that in my house!” William struggled to his feet. “You stay out of this, William,” barked Eleanor. Catherine went on, “If my mother won’t be civil in this house to her own grandson, then we shall not stay in it one day longer!” James saw his wife rising fully into the fray at last. But oh dear, the sparks had started to fly.
“Catherine,” Eleanor said, “are you trying to tell us you intend to keep this orphan as if it were your own?”
Catherine rose. “Well, you might as well know all about it. But it must not go any further.” Her parents waited expectantly.
“That is James’s child, which he fathered with a Micmac woman.”
James did not want to look up.
Catherine’s parents froze as if struck by lightning. Catherine went on evenly, “I’ve promised him — on my life and that of Mariah — that I shall care for John as if he were my own!” Catherine’s eyes flashed as she scooped up John and tore upstairs. James saw she might give herself up to tears any second.
The reaction could not have been more explosive had she detonated a forty-eight pounder right there in the room. James went quickly to Mariah and picked her up. “Young man!” William shouted, “Is there any single grain of truth in what she said?”
“Every word, on my honour, sir.” As James stood, he felt himself relax. The secret was at last out, for better or for worse. “The sooner you both come to terms with this, the sooner you will get your daughter — and your granddaughter and your son-in-law, and your new grandson — back into the fold.”
Eleanor collapsed in tears on the window bench, and William roared, “A savage for a grandson? Never!”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
What was the wind doing? Not another storm? The two children were asleep and so was Catherine. James rolled out of bed, crept carefully to the dormer window installed the previous autumn, and looked out. Snow! Not in July! Not again!
His shoulders slumped. The rift with Catherine’s parents had given them both heavy hearts, and the weather matched their mood. He crept across the freezing room and padded down the stairs. Shivering, he crossed to the open fire, fed some birchbark onto the embers, and blew on it. When it caught, he fed it twigs and added dry wood. Then he leaned back against the stone fireplace he had recently built. What was happening to their summer? The spring had begun badly with that unfortunate reception from the Garretts.
“It was, more or less, what I had expected,” Catherine had said on their return. “But James, they’ll come around sometime.”
“What about your brothers?”
“Young Joseph is swayed by John, who’s on our side. But Will is not an easy person, although he’s indebted to you for defending him in that lawsuit.”
“The lawsuit? It was a joke. The judge, Mr. Crawford, thought the whole thing a ridiculous waste of time. He ruled that five measures of board be given to Jacob, and it was over in a matter of minutes.”
“Will becomes more difficult the older he gets.”
James nodded. “I still think he may end up siding with your parents.”
Catherine paused, a hint of sadness in her eyes. “But for the moment, James, we have more than enough to do than waste our time worrying about my prejudiced parents.”
And so they had continued working all spring, full of optimism. The first warm day, they had planted seeds started inside the house in the southern windows.
The first disappointment had come in early June. All of May they had worked hard preparing more land for planting, having first shored up the house foundations against the usual spring flooding. And then, a freak snowfall had killed every shoot.
Nothing for it but plant again. He and Catherine put in the few seeds they had left: the rest of the seed potatoes, some corn, and leftover wheat. No harvest without planting, and no food for the winter without a harvest. At the end of June, thankfully the weather had turned a bit warmer: most of the shoots had taken and were beginning to thrive. And now this unaccountable July snowstorm.
No wonder Isaac Mann had gone off to New Carlisle last week; he had a good bit of land up near Restigouche anyway. Before leaving for good, Isaac had made a quick trip to New Carlisle for news. Not good. Snow had fallen across Lower Canada; Quebec City had been blanketed, and a schooner Captain told them all along the Coast had suffered even worse. James felt sure they’d lose the Smiths, too. Vid Smith had a fine farm up toward New Carlisle, and although David his son was doing we
ll down here and wanted to make a go of it, they might not last this out. That left Samuel Allen and his flock. He hoped they’d stay.
But then, what about him and Catherine? With the Garretts’ reaction to his half-Micmac son, returning would not be possible. Not that he wanted to.
To make matters worse, the anticipated letter from his mother had reached them. She planned on coming as invited. How would he feed her this next winter, as well as Catherine and the two children? Last summer when he had written her, he’d had no idea the weather would foreclose on all their dreams. Was he bringing her over here just to starve to death?
Don’t think about that, he sternly commanded. Focus on what must be done now. That’s always been your motto: deal with the present, and let the future fall where it may. But how to deal with a snowstorm in July?
***
Smash! Crash! Over and over again, James slammed the precious wooden bucket against the rocks. It flew into pieces. He grabbed up one of the staves and smashed it hard, beating and beating. Beside him, Broad turned his head, thrust his ears forward, stared with large brown eyes. James kept cursing and beating until he could beat no more. Then he turned and sat on a log, his head in his hands. He wished he were twelve years old again so that he could cry out loud. But tears would not come. The darned buckets had come loose so many times on the walk up the hill. He had tried various ways to fasten them to Broad’s back so that they would not spill. He’d thought he had finally beaten the problem. And for a week it had worked. But now, one had slipped and spilled all the brook water. He’d have to go back down. So many things. So much going wrong. More than a man could stand.
Look. There, beside the trail, the snow still lay where it had fallen two days ago, not even melting. And here it was August! Snow in June and July had been bad enough. But now, something was truly amiss — the year with no summer.
Young Broad stood obedient and silent, facing up the hill. Overwhelmed with hopelessness, James despaired of finding enough food for the little bull this winter. Never mind Broad, how would they survive themselves? Had he brought two children into the world only to suffer a lingering starvation?