“She was, too—is still—and I'd have died content just knowin' everythin' was goin' to be all right for her,” Mary thinks as she sips her cold tea. 'Tela gone without a word 'tho I never did get all, nor half, the things I shoulda got outta life.” This last is a stern reminder to God that she is still able to bargain.
“Then that slack-arsed bugger had to come along and do what he done to her. Where was God's friggin' pocket then?” During the years Mary lived with Lavinia her language had improved, but after her friend's death she had quickly slipped back to her old ways and nowadays, as her daughter Tessa says, “Would make a holy show of us in front of our Saviour should he see fit to land on the Cape.”
Stephen Vincent, the young man Mary is thinking of with such bitterness, arrived on the Cape in June. Unannounced and unexpected he came, carrying two big suitcases, leather with shiny brass corners, one filled with books and the other with clothing the like of which no one along the shore had ever imagined, much less seen. The men and boys hated Stephen on sight, laughed themselves helpless the day he tried to scull a boat and fell in arse-over-kettle. Almost drowned. Mary wishes he had.
Girls and women loved him, doted on him, said he was the face and eyes of his grandfather. Rachel's mother Jessie, who was old enough to have better sense, let him sit at her kitchen table and recite poetry by the hour. “I do wonder you don't like him, Nan, sure he reminds me so much of Lavinia the way he says them poems!”
Mary had stared at Calvin's wife. Sometimes she wondered if Jessie was weak minded like poor Fanny—who was after all the woman's grandmother. Lavinia had once pointed out that since Calvin was Mary's grandson and Jessie her great-granddaughter the two were first cousins once removed—“That's no reason for her to be so stunned!” Mary protested and Lavinia had had to agree that it wasn't.
“Hid behind the door when they passed out good sense, you did my girl,” Mary told Jessie the day she suggested Stephen Vincent was like Lavinia. “How could nuisance-face be like Lavinia when his grandfather were Char Vincent what married someone in St. John's, then went off to convert savages in foreign parts? The young whelp got no connection with the Andrews.”
“Far as I'm concerned Stephen Vincent's a black stranger. S'posin' he is Charlie's grandson—and we only got his word for that, I don't take to him,” Mary said and would not be charmed.
She found it hard to put her finger on what it was she disliked so intensely about the blonde, graceful young man. For one thing he was a good ten years older than Rachel, who was barely fifteen and innocent as the driven snow. And there was something foreign about him, not just his unfamiliar way of talking, either, but his manner. He had a sharp, bright glitter that never went away like he knew he'd just have to put out his hand and whatever he wanted would fall right into it.
Perhaps, like Jessie said, she was just jealous. Certainly she hated to see Stephen Vincent and Rachel together—and they were always together. Sometimes when Mary was out tramping the hills, she would come upon them, sitting in some mossy spot, their heads close, talking quietly, or him with a book open reading to the girl. For all her good sense Rachel was foolish as a kitten that summer.
Then, quite abruptly, unexpectedly as he had arrived, Stephen left. Got himself up to Wesleyville on Eldon Gill's bulley and caught the coastal boat to St. John's.
From Rachel's silent despair it was clear the boy's leaving had surprised her as much as anyone, but, “Good riddance!” the old woman said, delighted to have Stephen Vincent out of Cape Random. Now things would get back to the way they should be.
And it seemed this might be so. As fall came on, the girl rejoined her great-grandmother, foraging in the woods and along the beach. But it was not the same, Rachel seemed smaller, shrunken, all her bright exuberance gone. It was pure torment for Mary to see the girl's pinched face, the way she hovered, hoping for word of him whenever a ship came in.
Still, Mary thought, it will pass—she's not the first whose heart's been broke—she's only a youngster and hearts mend faster than heads.
In early November she found out different. Wesley Lush, working his way down the coast by dog sled, arrived in Mary's kitchen with the last mail for the year. It was a terrible day, fog and freezing rain had coated everything with glitter. Yet Wes barely had his backside on a chair when Pash and Tessa, who must have seen him pass their house, came floundering up the lane.
It was Pash, blind as she was, who clutched at the ice-crusted fence, pushing and pulling fat, arthritic Tessa along. They made so much noise that the dogs Wes had barred up under the house rushed out and knocked Pash right off her feet.
“I mighta' knowed them two old fools'd be the first here,” Mary said and sent Rachel out to help the women up the steps.
“Don't s'pose Miss What's-her-face could pass out the mail, was Tessa Andrews not here to tell her how. Been twenty year now since Tessa taught school but she still wants to oversee all occasions—anyone'd think she was Meg's daughter instead of mine,” Mary was muttering to no one in particular as the two women came puffing and steaming into her kitchen.
“Stop jawin', mother,” Tessa said. She is the only person on the Cape who dares speak to Mary Bundle in such a tone. “I want to have me way with Wes before the place fills up,” Tessa winked at Rachel, eased herself down beside the mail carrier and proceeded to question him on church attendance, the results of the Labrador fishery, the progress of courtships, the weather and ice conditions, sickness, births and deaths in the communities he's passed through on his way to Cape Random.
Right behind Pash and Tessa, six youngsters slipped quietly into the kitchen, and behind them came Rose and Willie Andrews with their youngest grandchild Ki—a young nuisance. Tessa directed the boy to sit on the other side of the kitchen from the younger children who have jammed down together on the sofa like a line of big-eyed puffins. Next came Toma Hutchings and his wife Comfort, then Floss Gill and Dorcas Vincent, each with a small baby in their arms, behind them were Ned and Greta Way, Aunt Min and Skipper Lem Hounsell—all tramping water in over Mary's clean floor, smelling of frozen fog and wet wool, drinking her tea and eating her raisin buns, which Jessie passed around without so much as a by-your-leave.
They surround poor Wes, a painfully shy man, who had pushed his chair further and further back into the corner behind the stove, stared miserably at his hands and answered their urgent requests for information with monosyllabic grunts.
When Miss Mugford, the schoolteacher, arrived, Tessa told her not to wait for anyone else and the teacher began distribution of the mail. Parcels first, as was the custom, with good long pauses so that the contents of each package could be passed around, examined and commented on.
There had not been a lot of mail in Wes's bag. Mary sets herself to remember each item: the door hinges Calvin had ordered two years ago from Currain's in St. John's, Jessie's church paper, the box of oranges Toma and Comfort bring in every fall for the youngsters' Christmas, a sample copy of the new Methodist hymnal—addressed to the church but Tessa takes charge of it—and a calendar for Rose from The St. John's Fine Art Emporium. The calendar had a picture of what Tessa said was the Colonial Building, all draped out in flags with some stuck-up looking men lined up on the steps. Apart from that there was just the package of crochet thread for Triff Norris, a big roll of newspapers for David and Sophie Hutchings—and two letters, which Miss Mugford gave out last. One letter was for the teacher herself, the other for Rachel.
The girl snatched the envelope as if someone had given her the keys to heaven. Then she pulled on her jacket and disappeared out the door, although it was still sleeting and already getting duckish.
Nobody else made a move to leave. Women took out their knitting and Jessie put on another pot of tea. The newspapers, some of them four months old, were distributed among the men, who passed them from hand to hand, taking turns reading out bits they thought the women might find interesting.
The Boer War is still going on, they were told. The e
xport price of salt cod has dropped twenty percent in the last ten years, government is suggesting people get out of fishing and into farming. St. John's is being rebuilt again, bigger and better than before the latest fire, with boardwalks and electric street lights along Water Street.
At first the women and children listen attentively but the press of information became too great, too ominous. Rival conversations sprang up: Are “Boers” people or animals? What are boardwalks and how can you possibly have lights along a street? Incomprehensible, unanswerable questions—quickly dropped in favour of examination of a new knitting pattern or the bleeding gums of Floss's baby.
But when Captain Hounsell shook his paper, commanding them to hear what he called the latest bit of government skullduggery, they all became silent again. “‘It has been revealed that A. B. Morine, Minister of Finance, who is negotiating Newfoundland's contract with railway builder R. G. Reid, is also solicitor for the Reid company and was last year paid a $5000 retainer by Reid's firm.…’ Now what do you make of that?” The old man held the newspaper at arm's length as he read.
“Go on, wasn't for Reid none of us woulda gotten a cent last winter—wasn't it him paid ta have all that lumber cut and hauled?”
Some of the men agreed, “What difference how much big shots skim off so long as an honest man can get a day's work out of it?” Others insisted it was barbarous how the likes of Reid can make fortunes off Newfoundlanders. “What gives that bloody clique in St. John's the right to run the government, anyhow?” one of the younger men asked—Mary had been pleased to hear someone besides herself swearing.
“Sure, everyone knows they crowd loots banks, makes fortunes off government contracts and rakes in money on every bit of food, fish or gear comes into or leaves the country,” Captain Hounsell told them.
Having skippered schooners all over Newfoundland and even down to the West Indies, Lem Hounsell is listened to with respect but when he stopped speaking, a general argument, with much shouting and shaking of newspapers, had broken out.
One or two of the men, Toma Hutchings among them, thought it wrong to tar everyone with the same brush: “Take this man Bond for example—I allow he'll be the savin' of us!” Toma said.
Political talk never changes, Mary thought. She can remember Ned and Thomas and Alex Brennan sixty years before arguing about what could be done to save the country.
“Always in need of savin' and never saved, this place is. Waitin' for time, Ned used ta call it—'we'um just waitin' for time, maid. Just waitin' ‘til our ship comes in,’ he'd say. Well, I allow our ship got sunk off the Funks!” Mary had glared around the room, challenging any of them to argue with her.
When no one spoke she directed Tessa to read some advertisements out: “Least I can make some sense of 'em—know what people gets in wages and what they gotta pay out ta keep body and soul together.”
Willie Andrews, who cannot read much more than his own name, passed the newspaper he was holding to Tessa. The men leaned back good naturedly and lit their pipes. They will talk about what they've read later, in tilts or down in the twine loft when the women are not around. One of the babies toddled over to Toma who lifted the child onto his lap, rocking her and warming her feet with the bowl of his clay pipe.
“Wharf labourers needed, steady work, 8 cents an hour for ten hour days,” Tessa read out in her loud, school-teacher voice. “Sturdy single back chairs, hand-built by Ephraim Nichols, 55 cents each. Strong boy, willing to apprentice to St. John's printer, $6.00 per month, keep not included,” and so on through paper after paper until Mary could stand it no longer. She told her daughter to stop showing off and ordered her guests home to their suppers.
For herself, she had not been hungry that night. She tried to settle down, to wait quietly for Rachel, but ended up pacing the floor, assuring herself her great-granddaughter was safe, that she had simply gone home to read her letter and was probably asleep in her own bed. Eventually the girl did come, as she always had when she was in trouble. Blue with cold and shivering she dropped into a chair and began to weep.
“Foolish as a coo—dawdlin' about outdoors on a dirty night,” talking and scolding, Mary had combed ice out of the child's hair, wrapped a blanket around her, hauled off her boots and propped her freezing feet up on the fender of the stove. All the while Rachel sat like a rag doll, holding the crumpled letter in her hand, crying quietly. Much later, when her father came looking for her, she still had not said a word.
“Come on home now, maid, 'tis well past bedtime,” Calvin spoke gruffly, pretending not to notice his daughter's red eyes and dripping nose.
“She's bidin' the night. Her feet are full of pins and needles—she can't walk,” Mary gave her grandson a hard look, thinking for the thousandth time how much he got on her nerves. He looked so like her Ned with his round smiling face, his bush of flaming hair, that she wanted him to act like Ned. Of course he never did. Calvin took after his father Henry—no more spirit than a pan of dough.
That night Mary could have kicked him as he dithered by the door not knowing whether to go or stay: “Jessie says she wants the young one home—wants to know what's in the letter before she goes to bed.”
“Tis just too bad what Jessie wants!” Mary snapped. She had no time for Calvin or his wife—what could those two gormless dotes do for Rachel?
Mary had snatched the letter from Rachel's limp hands and lifted the stove lid as if to throw the paper into the flames. At the last second something in the girl's face made her change her mind and she pushed the letter deep into the pocket of her red dress.
“Now, go home and tell your wife she don't get everything she wants—'twill be a good lesson for her!” Mary said.
Mystified, as he often was by his grandmother, Calvin shook his head and left without a word. When he was gone, Mary studied the girl for a long minute. Then she went to the pantry, ladled milk into a saucepan and set it on the stove. She pinched bits of bread into a small bowl, crumbled a spoonful of brown sugar over the bread and poured the hot milk on top. This mixture, which the children called mush, was considered a treat and reserved for serious illnesses.
A feeling of inescapable doom and terrible sadness had overtaken Mary. It goes on and on, she thought, the only way not to be tormented like this is not to care about one living thing.
“What's all this falderal then?” she asked when the girl had eaten the bread and milk. Mary tried to sound sure and unafraid, the way she used to when Rachel was a child and rushed in with cut knees or hurt feelings.
“Oh Nan, I wrote him. I wrote to Stephen right after he left—I didn't say much—only asked him to write me…” her voice dribbled out.
“So then—wrote back, did he?”
“I don't know if he even got the letter I sent. That letter, the one come today,” Rachel gestured towards Mary's pocket, “Twarn't from him, Nan—'twas from his mother. He's—he's—Nan, Stephen's dead!”
This was not what Mary had expected. As she waited for Rachel's weeping to end she pulled the letter from her pocket, laid it on her lap and smoothed it out. She looked at the pale grey paper bordered in black, squinting at the thread-like marks some stranger had made to tell her great-granddaughter that Charlie Vincent's grandson was dead.
“'Tis strange beyond belief, the way things comes 'round,” Mary thought as she passed the letter to the girl, “I'm sorry, maid, I wrinkled it all up on ya.”
“You want to hear it, Nan? She calls me ‘Stephen's little friend.’” Rachel began to read, slowly, sounding out the long words the way she had been taught.
I write to acknowledge your charming note and to convey the melancholy intelligence that our beloved son Stephen passed away three weeks after returning home. He had, as you know, been ill for some time, yet we had hoped that a summer by the sea would restore his health. Alas, it was not to be. During the days before his death, Stephen spoke with great affection of his relatives on Cape Random and of his charming little friend Rachel. His poor wife, Mel
issa, who has only just recovered from the birth of their son, is disconsolate and can undertake no correspondence. On her behalf, as well as for myself and my husband, I express our deep appreciation of your kindness to dear Stephen.
Yours sincerely,
Mrs. Paul Vincent,
1026 Riverside Drive, Boston.
“His wife Melissa—and a son! He never said one word about them Nan, not a word! He said: ‘I'll be back for you Rachel, I'll be back next summer.’ Oh Nan, he were so different, so alive—he'd been so many places and when he talked about them 'twas like I been there too.” The girl gulped and closed her eyes but did not start to cry again.
“What was his grandfather like, Nan?” she asked after a few minutes.
Mary tries to conjure up a picture of Stephen's grandfather: “He was skinny like all the Vincent men, but he thickened out later, got stocky, more like Sarah. Smart as a tack, accordin' to Lavinia. He was still young when he went off to some kind of school for ministers. 'Twas Meg and Ben Andrews paid money so's Charlie Vincent could go—I knows that for a fact. Saved for years and years they did—set on makin' a preacher outta their Willie. Then Willie went and married Rose Norris who was a real flibberty-gibbet in them days. Meg was that miffed she just guv all that money to Charlie Vincent—so's he could be a preacher instead of Willie. And when he got his education, sure didn't Charlie go off to foreign parts ta be a missionary and was never heard tell of again?” Mary shook her head, unreconciled after all these years to such waste.
“Stephen is—was—smart too, different from the boys around here—you knows what I means, Nan.…” For the first time that night Rachel looked up, meeting her great-grandmother's eyes. “Oh Nan, I'da done anything for him—anything.” Her voice dropped to a whisper, “Nan—I got his baby—what am I goin' to do, Nan?”
“I knowed it!” Mary thought and snapped, “I tell you what you're goin' to do, we're goin' to be rid of it—and before this night is out, too!”
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