Waiting for Time

by Bernice Morgan

  Everything was arranged with Captain Brennan, the Tern's master: “Told him I didn't know ya well—yer name was Mary somethin', ya'd just come from England and was lookin' for a summer's work on the Labrador. All he wanted ta know was could ya boil potatoes—glad enough to get a cook on short notice.” Tim looked proud as punch, all she had to do was smuggle the baby on board, he told her. Once out of the narrows there was nothing they could do about the child, she could make up a second name and she'd be safe from anyone looking for Mary Sprig.

  Mary studied Tim's face. “Some flick with his tongue,” she thought. Aloud she said, “Why? Is anyone still lookin' for me?”

  “Well not lookin' so much as keepin' an eye out—there was rumours goin' around last winter that Mary Sprig was a witch. People said she'd been seen peepin' into the windows of the Armstrongs' new house—'twas said she put a hex on Mrs. Armstrong.”

  “Too bad someone don't put a hex on her!”

  “'Tis said somebody did—anyway she's on the verge of dyin' and if they ever get ahold of ya it'd not go good, not with talk of your bein' a witch goin' around.” Tim sat back on his heels knowing by her face that he had won.

  “I'm not goin' to Labrador unless you gives me somethin' when I comes back—I wants something to get started back in England—what become of them candlesticks you took off the Armstrongs?”

  The candlesticks were long gone, traded to a cobbler in exchange for a good pair of boots, Tim told her. “I don't owe ya nothin', Mary Sprig—look how I sove ya the day Tessa died—I say 'tis you owes me.”

  They argued for an hour, Mary insisting she would not budge until he promised her something that would set her up as a respectable widow in some English town.

  “Awright! I'll find somethin' for ya—somethin' good, by the time you comes back,” he said at last.

  But even this would not satisfy her. Finally, afraid the boat would sail without her, he pulled out a small leather bag he kept on a cord around his neck and showed her the watch inside.

  He refused to let her hold it, but turned it over in his hand, showing her a circle of leaves with swords crossed over: “See there, that's what they calls a crest and them letters on each side is for old bugger Armstrong's name.

  “Tis all I kept from the stuff we took from their house. I couldn't part with this—leastways not in this town—people would ha knowed where it come from, see? Tell you what—I'll give this watch to ya next fall.”

  Mary made a grab but he was too fast for her. “No, ya don't! You'll get it when ya comes back, not before!”

  Knowing he had won, Tim's good humour returned, “I can see ya now, Blackie! A respectable widow, like Mrs. Brockwell I s'pose, in charge of the workhouse.”

  She gave him a long, hard look. “I got rid of the workhouse stink once, I'll not likely go back to it—but I'll be back here, so remember! Take good care of me watch or—” she searched for some threat to hang over him, “or I'll hex you just like I done Mrs. Armstrong.” For an instant, just before he tucked the watch away, Mary had the satisfaction of seeing a flicker of fear in Tim's eyes.

  Taking what comfort she could from the small ripple of power the threat had given her, she gathered her belongings together and followed Tim down to the Tern where he handed her over to the mate, dropped something into her pocket, turned and jumped down onto the wharf.

  “'Tis a wonderful bad feeling bein' set down among strangers—all alone—not a face ya know anywhere. Tha's what the frigger done to me. Put me aboard the Tern like I was a piece of lumber or a dog. He knowed how I hated the sea—always hated it. There's no reason to the sea, no gettin' around it, no place to hide on it.”

  Mary might have added but would not, even to Rachel, that she was afraid of the sea, that she put no faith in boats—rotting, poorly built hulks, most of them—or in the seamen who skidded across decks and crawled up ratlines—half-grown boys pretending to know what they were about.

  She had been very afraid that day Tim passed her over to the Tern's mate, a man named Sam Ryan. Following him across the deck and down a steep ladder to the galley, Mary held her chin high and bit her bottom lip to keep it from quivering.

  “We got no spare room aboard—fact is you'll have to dishup our meals topside—the men eats wherever they can. The regular cook sleeps with the rest of the hands, but,” the mate looked doubtfully around the space between the bins and barrels, a narrow path from the ladder to the iron brazier, “I expects you'll be able to bunk down here somehow.”

  Clearly relieved at the young woman's silence Sam Ryan smiled and tapped one of the bins, “Everything you needs is right to hand. Matt Escott takes care of ship's stores—he'll have keys to them bunkers. I'll send him down so you can get started on supper.” With that he muttered something about being ready to cast off and disappeared up the ladder.

  Mary was weak with relief, the man had hardly looked at her, had not even realized that the bundle around her shoulders held a baby. “Supposin' buddy never comes with them keys, I'm not stirrin' above deck 'til we're out to sea,” she decided as she unknotted the blanket, stowed Fanny and her few belongings in by the wall on top of the largest bin, and leaned back to size-up her surroundings.

  A dark hole, smelling of smoke and grease and overhung with that fetid mustiness Mary recognized as rats—but it was warm and dry and she had it to herself. She fingered the hard round orange Tim had dropped into her pocket and tried to cheer herself up. The orange smelled clean and spicy, if she held it to her nose she might not get seasick. “If only I can keep ahold of me guts,” she thought, “we might come through safe and sound.”

  But when she set eyes on Escott, Mary knew the Tern would not be a safe place.

  “What's this we got 'ere then? A little bit of fluff—somethin' special for the men this trip,” the seaman leaned back against the ladder holding out a key ring, swinging the keys back and forth, smiling, waiting for her to come within reach. One hand, with two fingers missing, hung by his side ready to grab.

  He was tall but scrawny, Mary wondered if she was able for him. Resting against the charcoal burner was a pair of iron tongs, a long-handled thing with two sharp edges. Without taking her eyes off Matt Escott, she bent and picked up the tongs—they would serve nicely if she could get in one good swing.

  “Gonna be like that, are ya?” the man's smile vanished and he lunged towards her, slamming the key chain down across her wrist. Pain shot up her arm and the tongs clattered to the floor.

  “Don't think I don't know who you are—saw Tim Toop sneakin' around, askin' if the Skipper'd take ya on. Screws for him I daresay—and helps hum roll sailors too, I don't doubt!” He grabbed a handful of Mary's hair wrenching her back against the wooden edge of the bunkers.

  He pawed at her and she fought back, silently kicking and scratching. He was strong, his knee was between her legs, his terrible breath in her face. He pulled at the neck of her dress, there was a ripping sound and small pearl-like buttons rattled across the floor. Mary clamped her teeth down on the man's bare arm.

  A boot kicked at the trap door, “You down there, Escott? The old man's lookin' for ya.”

  “I'm comin',” he shouted, gave a final jerk to her hair and whispered “Cunt!” spitting the word at her.

  Holding a hand against her mouth to keep back the sobs, Mary backed into a corner. She could feel the pain in her wrist and her scalp was bleeding where he'd pulled hair out. But suddenly she was more angry than afraid.

  “You god-damned fucker!” she hissed. “If ya so much as comes down here again I'll kill ya—by hook or by crook I'll kill ya!”

  Matt Escott picked the ring of keys up from the floor. “Don't think I'm scared of a little whore been with half the sailors in St. John's!”

  Mary thought he was about to hit her with the keys, but just then Sam Ryan swung down the ladder. “Pass over them keys and get up above, Escott—that lumber's not been checked or lashed down!” the mate watched as Mary took the keys and Matt Escott c
lambered up the ladder.

  “There's a good strong hook on that hatch if ya needs it,” the mate said mildly before explaining again how she was expected to carry the cooking pot topside.

  “Long as we gets fed regular we're not too particular—just bang on the side of the pot and all hands'll come runnin' with their plates. When it gets stormy you'd best dout the fire and we'll make do with hard tack and cold tea.”

  Mary listened quietly, searching the man's face, wondering how much he had heard.

  “Captain Brennan's a decent sort, let me or him know if you haves any trouble,” Sam Ryan told her before returning to the deck.

  As the hatch dropped, Mary's courage drained away and she slid down, crouching against the bins of potatoes. The baby was crying, had been crying for some time. Mary ignored the child. She sat dabbing at her bleeding scalp, sobbing, staring down at the six small holes in her dress, wondering how she would keep the buttonless thing together. “I'da done better at fightin' the bugger if I'd worn Tim's old breeches,” she bitterly regretted having let Tim get rid of her so easily.

  She stayed on the floor until creaking sounds shivered through the planks and she knew they were moving. Then she wiped her face in the hem of the dress, picked the baby up and began to nurse. It seemed to Mary that days and days had passed since she walked down the street from Fan and Lol's place. She felt very tired. Lulled by the sucking of the baby and the gentle rocking of the ship she dozed and dreamt.

  In her dream she and Tessa and were sitting in a wooden cart that rumbled along between mustard coloured fields. They were laughing and all around them pearl buttons fell from the sky, each button was a small, perfect moon. Tiny, glittering moons filled the wagon, touched the girls' arms and faces, caught in their hair—then the wagon lurched and Mary was awake.

  Forcing herself to ignore the deep, steady roll of the ship she stood up and made Fanny a kind of nest on one of the bins. The child whimpered for a few minutes and then fell asleep.

  It took some time to coax a fire out of the charcoal that filled the ugly squatting brazier. When it was finally burning she unlocked the bins, found potatoes and salt fish, and started supper.

  As the Tern made its way north Mary went quietly about her business trying her best to be invisible. She often caught the Escott man's malevolent glare when she ventured above deck to get water or serve up meals, but he didn't come near her. Except for the mate, who checked the galley every day or so, the seamen hardly noticed her. Captain Brennan tried just once to engage her in conversation but appeared unconcerned when Mary shook her head in answer to most of his questions.

  “What they don't know can't hurt us!” she told Fanny, and pretended not to notice when the hands started calling her Mary Bundle.

  The sea stayed calm but Mary seldom went above deck. Nor did she go ashore in any of the outports where they dropped supplies. Out of the way places, all of them, with nothing but a wharf and a few houses set right down by the sea. She wondered what made people live so cut off from the world—depending on the sea to bring them everything. Mary promised herself that when she got back to St. John's, not Tim Toop, nor no one else, was ever again going to pawn her off to some out of the way hole.

  She was less afraid of the Escott man when she discovered the hatch could be hooked from below, but she hated being barred in. She worried about the charcoal fire, imagining the galley in flames, herself and the baby trapped and screaming, pounding on the hatch. Although it meant getting up even earlier she began putting the fire out at night. After that she slept soundly, bedded down beside Fanny in the walkway between bins of salt fish, potatoes and hard tack.

  In the middle of their sixth night out she was jarred awake by a loud rattling not two feet from her head. A sudden storm was pitching the Tern about, shaking the round-bottomed brazier inside its circle of bricks. Mary reached out in the blackness to make sure she'd replaced the iron cover over the charcoal. Satisfied that at least they would not burn to death, she lay down again—and there she stayed, holding the crying baby, rolling from side to side, listening to pots bang off one another, to the crash and scrape of cargo, to the shouts of men racing about overhead, but not really able to hear the sea. She was glad for that. She vomited into the bucket but did not stand up all night—not even when a large rat ran across her legs. Once someone pounded on the hatch. She did not answer—no matter if they were sinking—anything would be better than this.

  Eventually the gale must have blown itself out, she fell asleep and was awakened by banging overhead. “For Lord's sake—are yuh dead or alive down there?”

  Feeling stiff and sick, she got slowly to her feet, climbed part way up the ladder and undid the hatch.

  “Jesus, Mary and Joseph I thought ya'd suffocated!” Captain Brennan's cheerful face beamed down at her as she stood, still dizzy, clinging to the sides of the ladder. “We're safe and sound on Cape Random—yuh can come on up now, Mary Bundle.”

  Fresh, cool air swept down into the hold. Suddenly, above everything, Mary longed to set foot on land. “The baby's sick,” she said, “I got to have her seen to—any women in this place?”

  “I heartell Josh Vincent's crowd are after movin' down from Pond Island—Sarah Vincent's a good woman, she'll help ya. Go ashore if ya got a mind to. But be quick—all hands is in need of a bite to eat and I wants to be outta here by nightfall.”

  Down on the wharf someone was singing: “I saw three ships come sailing in, come sailing in, come sailing in.…” The singer, a man, repeated the refrain over and over.

  “I'm stayin',” Mary said, “I'll not put another night over me head in this old hulk.”

  “Don't talk foolish! The Tern's as sound a craft as you'll ever sail in!”

  “I tell ya I'll not spend the summer on no ship! I'm goin' to bide here for a spell—go back to St. John's first chance I gets.”

  “You signed on for the season, Mary Bundle—anyways, what can a young maid like yerself do on the Cape? That was a hard blow last night but you'll be alright now ya got used to it.” The Captain dismissed her fears with a shrug, “Sure ya got your sea legs now, Mary Bundle!” he grinned each time he said her name.

  “Now, bring that pot and a bag of vegetables ashore, we'll have a meal on dry land and you'll feel better. Mind now—Caleb Gosse don't take kindly to havin' hands jump ship on him!” he went off, shouting orders at two seamen who were putting out the gangplank.

  “How stunned was I at all—thinkin' I'd bide aboard a fishin' boat for the full season. That's what the sea does, makes ya forget how bad it is the minute you're off it! I didn't put much store in what Captain Brennan said—since I can't read or write I knowed that about me signing on was wrong. If I was signed on 'twas Tim Toop done it and 'twould be him, not me, old man Gosse'd be after.”

  “'I'll do what I likes and the devil take the hindmost,’ said I to meself.”

  “And that's how I come to the Cape. I was seventeen—if I'da known I was never again to set foot out of this place I allow I would ha' gone back and faced up to the sea, bad as it is.”

  nine

  Rachel was disappointed. She wanted to keep on writing out her Nan's story. She had been enjoying it, it kept her mind off the strange movements inside her belly, off her fear of childbirth, distracted her from thinking about the mixture of sorrow, pity and curiosity she saw in people's eyes.

  But, “I'll have to think on it,” Mary said. “Regards things happened here on the Cape, I expects Vinnie put all that down. Tomorrow we can start readin' what Vinnie wrote—and them pages Thomas Hutchings put in. No sense markin' down the same words over again.”

  So, the next morning Rachel settled the old woman comfortably in her rocking chair and began to read: “In the beginning we all lived on Monk Street in Weymouth and we was all happy…”

  She read for hours. Sometimes Mary seemed to be sleeping but whenever Rachel paused she would give a start and without opening her eyes direct her great-granddaughter to go on. The day
was well along when Rachel came to the part of Lavinia's journal recording Mary's arrival on Cape Random: “Mary Bundle come ashore today, she's the nearest thing to a savage any Christian soul is likely to see,” the girl read.

  Mary sat bolt upright, made an unpleasant sound and jabbed at the book, “Show me!” she said, “Show me where that's writ to!”

  Rachel pointed out the words.

  “I can hardly credit Vinnie markin' such a thing down!”

  The old woman stared into the fire, brooding on the treachery of her friend. The sharp, bony face peering out from the folds of blanket seemed hardly human, more like the face of a large bird guarding some mountain cave.

  “I s'pose Lavinia Andrews never give no thought to what she looked like that day—nor any of them Andrews and Vincents. Just standin' there, twenty or so people lined up along the wharf, like an army of scarecrows they were—with a red haired imp of a man singin' some foolish song and dancin' in and out among 'em. Never in me born days did I see a more poor lookin' crew—skivver legged and pasty faced with eyes sunk into their heads. Apart from the dancin' man, not one of 'em was makin' a sound.”

  It was not just the appearance of the Cape Random people that made Mary uneasy. Their manner, the scrutiny of the children, the quiet appraisal, gave her the shivers. “I couldn't make out what kind of crowd I'd fallen in with, couldn't make head nor tail of 'em. Not Thomas Hutchings, though—I seen right off what he were!”

  Thomas was the boss and in Mary's experience such people were to be watched and feared. Josh and Sarah Vincent referred to Thomas as “The Skipper,” and the children, who called every other man Uncle, always addressed Thomas as Mr. Hutchings.

  “Had it good, Thomas Hutchings did—the rest always took his word for everything—even when he were wrong. Went around with his nose up in the air like he owned the Cape—like a king. So there they were on the wharf, a rag-tag crowd of scarecrows and a devil, and, of course their jeezely king—all statin' at me.”