by Paul Almond
A tug at his elbow turned him, and he saw an elderly priest, stooped, arms folded together in a white robe, a face lined and somewhat flaccid, jowls drooping, evidence of good food and too little exercise. But kindly grey eyes.
“You like this monument, my friend?” the old priest asked in a decided French accent.
Jim nodded. “My father fought under Lord Nelson in the British Navy.” He wondered how many other men here could say that.
“You know how we build dat here?” asked the priest. Without waiting for a reply, he went on, “I was just enter the order, me, after I become priest. I watch it build.”
Jim frowned. “Who did you say built it?”
“L’Ordre de St. Sulpice. She be first monument to Nelson in all British empire. We give money.” He laughed. “Oh yes oh yes oh yes, L’Ordre de St. Sulpice, we build in 1809. Me, I was twenty. I am nearly seventy. Yes, I am sure that surprise you.”
Not in the least, thought Jim: what about my father? But he smiled politely.
“What many men, she get my age?” The old priest went on. “Maybe some priests, yes, we have one, eighty-two. But too hard here for people, they die soon.”
True. But nonetheless astonishing: the French had been beaten by Nelson — why would a French order of priests want to erect a monument to the victor? Jim voiced his doubts.
“Ah, m’sieur, you see, we try make big arrangement to get some land. This statue make us show our loyalty, how much we love this country here. It is our nation now. So,” he spread his hands in an apologetic gesture, “we give monument. C’est comme ça!”
The first monument to Nelson in the empire. His father should know of this. Good reason, perhaps, to come visit his son after Jim had established himself with a wife and children and a proper house. Oh yes, that would be a subject of this next letter, no doubt. A monument to Nelson. Here in Montreal. How pleased his father would be!
Bidding the priest adieu, he continued his search, walking toward the Lachine canal where he had heard there were factories with good opportunities.
He walked along Notre Dame Street and passed again into Place D’Armes, where he saw three or four workers gossiping outside Dillon’s coffeehouse and hotel. He stopped to listen, and then got up his courage to ask, “Good day to you, sirs, are you... waiting for someone?”
“Inside there, Thomas Molson,” one of them said. “Saw him go in. Black overcoat, fine-looking old man for his age, sixty-two, I believe.”
Well, thought Jim, a famous figure indeed. Perhaps he’d also wait around for a few minutes. But he asked, “Been waiting long?”
“I seen him going in ten minutes ago, so me friend David here, we decided to wait a spell. You know, them Molsons run steamers in the summers from Quebec to Montreal, there’s talk of them opening a bank, lots of influence, so a job with them would be steady. We’re gonna ask him, when he comes out.”
Jim looked at him and frowned. Had he gone mad? The great man, with all his enterprises, would surely not be the person to accost here: it might just anger him. “Which is him in there?” Jim asked.
“Down at the back. Ye’ll just have to wait till he comes out.”
No time right now, Jim thought to himself, gotta make sure I get a good job to rise up in the world, so maybe one day, I’ll be sitting in there, talking with him over a pint. “Thanks anyway.” Off he went.
It was noon and he decided to find a brew and a snack. He wondered just how many lunches he could afford to buy with the few shillings his grandmother had given him; perhaps he should wait until he went back to the widow’s where he’d eat some dried fish. He turned and walked down Mountain, past Gallery Square, and found himself by the banks of the Lachine Canal, now frozen solid.
The great Redpath Sugar building, already half built, looked a good prospect, especially as his post office acquaintance worked there. Surely they’d need someone strong and healthy. The wandering wrecks he’d seen looking for work seemed all underfed, often with frail wives dragging snivelling children. How far would they get when asking for work?
At the Redpath Sugar Refinery, the answer was no again. He might as well learn, he thought: building establishments usually had their complements. And who might be hiring now, around Christmastime? Not a soul. Well, he owed it to himself to keep trying.
He walked a good way down the canal, crossed a lock or two, and stopped on the way home at each establishment: Gould’s flour mill, and the bigger installation of Ogilvy’s, Ostell’s Sash and Door Works, a soap and candle-maker, a tinsmith, and other smaller places. Finally, late in the afternoon, admitting to being a bit depressed, he reached the Widow McMannus. So far, not a job in sight.
* * *
Jim had been finishing up the dried fish and boiled potatoes that the Widow McMannus had set before him when the door flung open revealing a lad, perhaps ten or twelve, small for his age surely, pale, drawn, shaken. Blood ran down one side of his head and onto his neck, staining his threadbare shirt. He let fall his light coat, hardly warm enough to protect him this cold night. Jim stood up in alarm.
Winnie crossed quickly to the lad. “Mikey, for the love o’ God, what happened?” She tried to grab the boy in her arms but he pushed her roughly away.
Mikey stood frozen, looking about with large blue eyes set wide in a cramped face. Winnie opened her arms again, and this time he went into them. She hugged him and walked him over to the washbasin, where she pulled off his tattered undershirt and dropped it in a wash basket. She examined him, wiping his head and neck with a rag. Still the boy did not speak. Jim sat down to finish his potatoes; he knew better than to interfere. But he wondered what had happened.
“There now, it’s not bad, it will heal. However did you do it?”
Mikey began shivering. She wrapped him in a blanket and then went to the only rocking chair in the sparse room, near the stove. She sat and gathered him into her arms.
Jim watched them. Lit by golden light from the lamp, she began to take on a new quality. Long, mousey brown hair formed a bun, but wisps and curls framed her drawn face with its large eyes like her son’s. Her prominent nose protruded above thin lips, none of which betokened beauty. Approaching the end of her twenties, and a hard twenties it must have been, she had a frail look and a slight though voluptuous frame, but this image of the caring mother began to work on Jim, making her appear a deal more attractive.
The boy began to cry, silently at first. She rocked him, but then the sobbing grew into an angry grief. “Hush now, Mikey, it will be all right, it will heal soon.”
“I don’t care about the hurt,” Mikey wailed in fury, “it’s me shilling! They stole it offa me. Me whole day’s work. Gone. I hate ’em, I hate ’em!”
“They stole your shilling?” Winnie closed her eyes and a flash of pain creased her worn features. “Now what’ll we do?” She clenched her teeth, then looked down at the form scrunched in her lap. “I didn’t mean that Mikey, don’t worry, I’ll get money, it won’t be a problem. Love, now never you mind.”
Jim lifted his head. “I got a shilling,” he said. “I’ll give it over.” Winnie looked at him in astonishment. Jim shrugged, “You can put it against my next rent.”
“You see, Mikey, there’s always a friend to help. The Good Lord himself provides. He has all these years, and he will again tomorrow.” She looked at Jim. “Thank you, sir.”
“My name is Jim. I’d be obliged if you’d call me that, ma’am, because now I’m here, I’d like to be treated as someone you might count on.”
Mikey had stopped his wailing, seemingly comforted, though Jim noticed his little hand still curled in an angry fist. “When I get bigger, I’ll bash their heads like they bashed mine.”
“Who did it?” Jim asked, surprised at his own vehemence.
“The bullies. They was waiting: three of them. I had no chance. They held me down. They beat me. They grabbed my shilling. They laughed at me.” With that, he started to whimper once again.
“Now Mikey
, it’s over and done with. Just forget it now. Why don’t I tell you a story, like I used to? About our heroes, in the days of old Ireland.”
“No! I want to hear about me da again.”
She glanced at Jim. “He always likes that story. He could never get enough of it,” she said, by way of excusing what was to follow.
“I’d like to hear too, ma’am.”
“I’m Winnie, you call me that, too.” She began to rock. “Your father, Mikey, was a brave man, one of the bravest ever to come out of Ireland.” She spoke almost by rote. “Before you was born, he had a job digging, working fifteen hours a day, six days a week, on that Lachine Canal, down Beauharnois way.”
Mikey snuggled in and his thumb went into his mouth. Lying in his mother’s arms, he let out a long sigh as if the anguish of the past would soon be forgotten. Jim could see that Winnie knew the pattern. She was definitely growing on him, the little lad in her arms, soon to be asleep behind a somewhat ragged curtain. So many travails both must have gone through.
“Well, Mikey, your father saved every cent, and I was working too. I served men after their work. Lord only knows how much beer they all drank! On the job too, I fear.” She glanced at Jim. “They was almost always drunk when they came into the bar. But that’s how I got to know the full story. Your father was too brave, he’d have never told.
“Well, the owners, they dropped the worker’s wage from three shillings to two a day. Of course everyone grumbled. Those big, rich buggers, how they got away with it — downright scandalous! But so it went, and like as not to drop even more again. Oh Mikey, your father got so angry. But the men was all afraid, the job meant so much to them, and too many others trying to take it for themselves. Mighty poor job at that. Picks and shovels in the heat of the summer, all day long, from first light to last light, I never knew how they stood it. A lot of them gave up, some even borne home by their friends, sick to the death, but the stronger ones went on.
“One day, your father went up and spoke up for all the men, no one else would. And he got the owners to promise. They said they would put the money back up to three shillings if the men kept working. So on they worked. And then, devils that they were, they kept no promises at all. So your father called another meetin’ and be the Lord Jesus, he took them awalkin’, all of them, off the job. No work without proper pay — if you could call three shillings a day proper.”
“So my father was the bravest of them all?”
“Your father was the bravest, yes Mikey, he led them all out. There must’ve been two hundred of them, and they marched into the city.”
“And that’s when my father showed his mettle?” Mikey repeated, seeming to know the story.
“He certainly did, he stood up to all them owners, demanding workers their rightful pay.” She paused, and Jim saw tears start into her eyes. She sighed.
“And then, Mama? Go on...” Mikey mumbled.
Winnie sighed. “And then... well, then the troops came, the Seventy-Fourth, and the Queen’s Light Dragoons. They opened fire. Eight killed, and fifty wounded, they say, but they was many more. And the first one to die was your da, the Irish hero, Thomas McMannus. He was the hero of that strike. They all knew. Thomas McMannus. Why they didn’t build a monument to him! Instead of to them buggers what built that canal.” She looked down at the huddled form. He was peaceful, almost asleep.
Jim wondered at the lad’s fortitude, and at the strength — and beauty, yes — of this little mother who cradled him. He’d heard nothing down on the Coast of such terrible goings on. But with no job nor prospects, the few precious shillings given by his grandmother soon finished, he had to find work, because now, he felt for the little lad, he felt for her, and with his desire growing — so grew his determination to stay and make a go of it all here in the big city.
Chapter Eight
“I’m sorry, James, nothing’ll get me to agree to no school.” Old George Robinson downed his piggin and wiped the last drops of beer from his bristly moustache and beard. “We already done a lot here in Shegouac. But there’s more to do. We got our farms to think of. Ploughing and harrowing, what school teaches that? Time in class? Better spent learning how to cure a sick pig, I’d say, or when to plant. Lots o’ time later for a school, but not right now.” He rose to his feet with an effort. “Well, I’d best be off. Thanks a pile, Mrs. Alford.”
Catherine smiled a reply, as James rose to see him out.
James could not believe it: all evening, he’d presented every notion he had prepared. Catherine had baked for two days for this supposedly impromptu meeting. But all he’d faced was stiff opposition.
Vid Smith, a tall, fine-looking sixty year old with a high forehead and chiselled features, swallowed his last morsel of scone and got up too. “I gotta say the same, James. I want no new expenses to be worrying about when I’ve got them twelve acres still to clear back behind. Look at Mrs. Alford here, she don’t know her readin’ and writin’, but have you ever seen a finer mess of cakes and cookies and pies? By the holy gee whizz, how did she do that if schooling is so important? Beg pardon, ma’am, but this was a terble fine feast you and young Hannah put on today. It’s too bad none of us agree with James, but maybe like Ol’ George here said, the time’s just not right.”
Catherine acknowledged his compliments with a graceful smile. “Thank you, Vid,” she said. “But just think, if you’d all agreed, you might have been treated to this every month!” As they chuckled, James nodded. “And,” she added, “wouldn’t it be lovely if your children could read the Bible on their own?”
Silence greeted that. “Well, Mr. Alford,” Sam Allen, the youngest of the three, though not by much, with black hair and heavy features, leaned back in his chair, “that sure gives us something more to think about!” He looked at the others. “Maybe at the very least, we can think over what James proposed.” He glanced at his host. “I know you and my poppa was the best of friends. He came here a year after you did — I was just a baby — and you helped him. So it hurts me to say no today. But you can count on me to do some thinking, and maybe even some talking, too.”
James and Catherine helped the three men into their coats. He had never dreamed of such a response — even marked the calendar as being a red letter day when the trustees launched the school. Heavens! Imagine them saying: what’s good enough for our fathers is good enough for our children. He knew they couldn’t read or write themselves, so perhaps he’d been overly optimistic. He’d always had a love of learning himself, ever since he’d started doing those chores for the children’s tutor while an under-footman at Raby Castle so that he could learn something himself. He had thought the desire for education was part of everyone’s nature.
James saw them out into the starry darkness with a light wind blowing and a crescent moon showing them the way home over the snow. He paused in the open doorway, then closed it, came back through the outer kitchen and stood, shaking his head.
Catherine and Hannah were putting away the remains of the food. James could see they were pleased at how much had been eaten: a fine evening all around. And he also was pleased he had provided beer, over Catherine’s objections. No one had gotten drunk, and the warm drink had helped them display their feelings openly. Much better that than hidden complaints voiced later.
His son-in-law Thomas Byers sat sipping the last of his tea and thinking. “But why did we ask Old George? And Vid? Why not the Nelsons? Sam is a great friend of yours.”
James walked heavily forward and sat beside him. “You know they’re Catholic. They have their own school.”
“None here in Shegouac. If you’re gonna build one, wouldn’t they go for it?”
“Not how the system works on the Coast, Thomas, you know that. Protestants and the Catholics, they have to go to different schools.”
Thomas shook his head, and rose. “Well,” he said, “looks like maybe we lost the battle.” He walked over to put on his heavy coat. “I’m sorry. But you know, I’ll try talking to Ol
d George’s son, James, I know he’ll be of mind to persuade his father. Specially with that there Bible idea. And Vid Smith’s son, young Henry, he’s got kids coming along, he might be in favour. We just have a lot o’ work to do.”
James nodded. But he was dejected and it showed. “Thank you, Tom, thanks a whole lot. I never expected all this, I dunno why. I guess the subject of a school never was thought of before. I mean, apart from church meetings, where nothing ever happens.” He turned his head. “Catherine, you just did wonders, you and Hannah, you were both the best.”
“I’m sorry, Poppa,” Hannah said, “but as I told you, for me it wasn’t that unexpected.”
So now, James had neither his school, nor his son. What remained?
* * *
James found it hard to sleep. His mind kept going over the meeting: had he really done all he could? If he’d handled it differently, would it have changed things? No, probably not. New ideas, he’d seen how they’d been received in the Navy, and also in the Old Country. The status quo always prevailed.
He turned on his side and tried willing himself to sleep. But what was going on? For what reason had he been put on this good earth? He had done most things properly in life, and lived according to certain principles. Never had he lied or cheated anyone, so far as he knew, always relying on the Lord to provide the best judgement in any situation. So why was he now, with no heir, destined to leave behind only a farm headed for ruin, and children who would remember him, of course, but what else? Shouldn’t that be enough? No, in his heart of hearts, he knew it was not. So how to make this failure — to provide his community with something lasting — tally with the image of a kind and responsive God?