The Loss of the Marion

by Linda Abbott

  “I wanted an extra-special present for your birthday tomorrow.”

  Nellie blushed and reached for the doll. “I don’t need a present. Celebrating birthdays is for children.”

  “You take care of my daughter when I’m away fishing and this is a thank-you,” the captain said. “She’s very happy here.”

  “You pay me for that. Besides, Marie helps me and Bessie with chores around the house.”

  “I loves you and Bessie,” Marie said. “Oh,” she added, as if she’d forgotten a very important detail, “I likes Mr. Myles and the boys, too.”

  Nellie placed the porcelain doll on the shelf with the other dolls. She picked up the teapot with a cloth and poured the steaming liquid into two cups. The captain sipped his black, but Marie added Carnation milk to hers. Nellie went back to the stove. “You all ready for the fishing trip, Captain Ike?” she said.

  “Yes. We leave in two days’ time.”

  “Have all your supplies, then?”

  “Most of them.”

  “Making any stops along the way?”

  “St. Pierre.”

  Nellie wiped sweaty palms on her apron. “Why is that?”

  The captain turned to face her. “I always go to St. Pierre before I head to the Grand Banks,” he said.

  “But you have all your supplies.” Nellie’s heart galloped, but she forged ahead. “Trouble starts when the men drink in the Hôtel de France. My pa always said that booze and brawling goes hand in hand. And that French captain . . .”

  Ike sprang to his feet. “Time to go, Marie.”

  “Pa, I ain’t finished eating and I ain’t seen Bessie yet.”

  Nellie crossed the floor in two strides. “Marie, take your tea and toast to Bessie’s room,” she said in a calm voice. “It’s time she was up.”

  When Marie was out of sight, the captain continued. “Fishing is a man’s business. It’s nothing for a woman to bother her head about.”

  Nellie looked at him sideways. “Man’s business?”

  “Mrs. Myles, I’ve been going to St. Pierre since I became the skipper of the Marion. I don’t plan to change that.”

  Nellie cracked open more eggs. “Finish your breakfast, Captain. Harry will be down in a minute.”

  The captain remained standing. “I have a lot to do today, so I’ll need to drop Marie off early at the convent.”

  The frying pan sizzled. “School doesn’t start for another hour, Captain. She can go with Bessie and the boys, if you like.”

  “Good day, then,” he said as he tapped the rim of his hat. He closed the door behind him.

  “Talking to Clive Pope would get better results,” Nellie mumbled to herself. “He’s deafer than a tree stump.”

  Joe, her older boy, came into the kitchen, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. “Stupid girls,” he muttered. “All they do is giggle over stuff not worth thinking about.”

  Sam, a year younger, trailed behind his brother. “Bessie and Marie woke us up with their blabbering.”

  Nellie smiled at her sons. Both were blond and blue-eyed like Harry. Soon they’d be as tall and muscular as him. “Good,” she said. “Now you won’t be late for school. That’ll please Mother Patrick.”

  Joe groaned. “Do we have to go, Ma? Why cram our heads with book learning? Who cares about when Josh Cabot discovered Newfoundland?” He looked at his brother. “Right, Sam?”

  Sam shrugged. “I enjoys arithmetic.” He pronounced the word slowly, carefully. “Finds it some easy. Mother Patrick says I have potential. She said that means I’m smart and can do whatever I puts me mind to.”

  Nellie laid their breakfast on the table. The children each cut off a thick slice of bread, covered it with Good Luck margarine, and dug into their omelettes.

  “School finishes for me this year,” Joe said, his mouth packed with food. “I’ll be thirteen in three weeks. Then I’m off fishing with Pa. Can’t wait.”

  Nellie stood with her hands on her hips. “What is it you can’t wait for? Getting up before sunrise to bait the trawls over a mile and a half long, with more than eight hundred hooks? Or maybe hauling in the trawls with your bare hands when the floater kegs are full with codfish, then starting the whole thing over again? Or losing two fingers, like Earle Fiander? Or getting your leg tangled up and torn to shreds like poor Frank Fewer?”

  Joe stared wide-eyed at his mother.

  “Or might it be cleaning and salting the fish before you go to bed,” she concluded.

  Sam looked at his brother. “You can get lost if there’s a storm or fog,” he said.

  Joe glared at him. “You knows schooners has a bell and foghorn to guide the men out in the dories,” he snapped.

  Nellie folded her arms across her chest. “That, my son, doesn’t guarantee you’ll make it back.”

  “I . . .”

  “Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Nellie said, giving Joe a soft slap on the back of the head. “Fishing isn’t all there is. You could be a doctor, or a merchant like the Burke brothers. School learning got them far. They own plenty of businesses around here and are mighty rich.”

  “Your ma’s right,” Harry said, joining his boys at the table for breakfast. “The Burke family and Mr. Young ship goods all over Newfoundland and to the rest of the world. They don’t have to suffer the hardships us fishermen face on the Banks.”

  Sam drained his tea. “The nuns say the same thing.”

  Nellie pursed her lips. “I like the Presentation Sisters. They know what they’re talking about.”

  Joe pulled a face. “Don’t care. I’m still going fishing.”

  “No more jacking about fishing,” Nellie said. “For today, my son, it’s school for you.”

  When Harry and Nellie were finally alone, Harry leaned back in his chair and stretched out his legs. “We’ll talk Joe ’round,” he assured her. “That was a nice birthday present Marie got ya. Real thoughtful.”

  “She most likely takes after her mother,” Nellie said, and began to clear the table. Harry helped her, as he did whenever he was at home. With the dishes dried, he went to the shed. Nellie swept the floor, made the beds, and baked a pan of bread. By the time she covered the dough to rise, it was mid-morning. She wrapped up the fruitcake she had baked two days ago for Mother Patrick, threw a shawl around her shoulders, and set off for the convent. The sun beamed down on her, yet the wind off the harbour chilled her to the bone. She pulled the shawl tighter around her shoulders and, taking a deep breath, climbed the steep slope leading to the convent. Nellie never failed to admire the exotic variety of trees that surrounded the building like a majestic lion’s mane.

  Mother Patrick waved from the doorway. The nun hailed from Ireland, and although old enough to be her mother, Nellie considered her a good friend and confidante. They spent many hours talking about everything from religion to cooking.

  “Now, what could you have wrapped up all nice and neat tucked under your arm like that?” the mother superior asked. The shape gave it away and she licked her lips at the thought it might be one of Nellie’s famous fruitcakes.

  Nellie handed over the package without a word.

  “Come inside,” the elderly nun said. “Visit for a spell.”

  Nellie followed her down a long corridor to a large room. Mother Patrick sat behind a narrow table loaded with school books on one side and a stack of scribblers on the other. Nellie sat in one of four chairs tucked under the table and looked at the pictures of various saints hung around the room. She’d been here many times and experienced a sense of peace from the serene faces staring down at her.

  Today she felt nothing.

  Mother Patrick peered over the top of the wire glasses perched on the tip of her nose. “You look as happy as a chicken about to have its head chopped off,” she said. “What
’s the matter?”

  Nellie cracked a smile which didn’t reach her eyes.

  Mother Patrick folded her age-spotted hands on the table in front of her. “You’ve spoken to Harry about your concerns?”

  Nellie flicked a strand of hair away from her face. “Yes. He agreed that this is going to be his last trip.”

  The nun’s eyebrows disappeared under her wimple, the white, starched material allowing only the eyes, cheeks, and chin to show. “Then why aren’t you rejoicing?”

  Nellie wrung her hands. “I know I’m being foolish as an odd sock.”

  “Holy Mary, Mother of God,” Mother Patrick gasped, as recognition dawned on her face. “You still have that unsettled feeling, don’t you? Does Harry know?”

  Nellie shook her head and related her conversations with both Harry and Ike Jones. “What can I do?” she sighed when she had finished. “Harry is signed up and can’t pull out now. We all know what Ike Jones is like.”

  Mother Patrick’s kind eyes shimmered. “Well, my child. Perhaps a little of the Irish good luck and plenty of prayer will work everything out.”

  Chapter 2

  Harry went to the church and paused to look at the cemetery that held generations of fishermen and their families. His gaze came to rest on his parents’ headstones, their deaths dated a year apart. The wind picked up and ruffled his hair, so he took his salt and pepper cap from underneath his arm and slapped it on his head. A hacking cough made him turn around.

  Sid Davies walked through the gate. He held a bunch of daisies. “Putting fresh ones on my little Rosie’s grave before I ships out tomorrow,” he said.

  Frank Fewer limped alongside him and exchanged a knowing look with Harry. “Thought I’d keep him company.”

  Rosie was Sid’s youngest child and had died of consumption a year earlier while he was on the Grand Banks.

  “See you at the schooner, then,” Harry replied. He left the cemetery and continued past the convent and down the hill to his brother’s place. The smell of freshly baked homemade bread made Harry’s stomach rumble. Mrs. Annie Cluett came out with a bucket, her dress sleeves rolled up past her elbows. Widowed at twenty with no children, she’d helped Uncle Joe look after Harry and his brother Tom when their father died. The bucket swayed with each step she took down the clay path. The frothy water sloshed back and forth.

  “Morning to ya, Harry,” Annie said. She squinted into the sun and shaded her eyes with a hand.

  “Morning, Annie.”

  “Lovely weather we’re having.”

  “Couldn’t ask for better. Is Tom around?”

  Annie tossed the dirty water into the grass along the side of the road. Some of the grey liquid sprayed back on her shoes. “He’s in the shed behind the flake.”

  Harry tapped a finger against his hat. “Thanks, Annie.”

  “Stop in for a mug-up before you leave,” she said, turning back to the house.

  The door to the shed was open. “How’s the baby?” Harry teased, holding back a grin. Tom, twenty-six, with red hair and a face smothered in freckles, looked sixteen. Tall and too lanky, according to Annie. She never stopped trying to fatten him up. He munched on one of the six tea buns she’d insisted he take to the shed.

  “Very funny.” Tom lifted down a bag of coarse salt from a shelf. “Something the matter?”

  Harry pulled off his hat. “Came by for a chat. That’s all.”

  Tom opened the bag of salt and scooped out a handful. A piece flicked up and hit the three-inch scar on his right jaw, a recent souvenir from the last time he had shipped out with Ike Jones. Tom rubbed a finger over the slightly swollen, reddened skin. “Still smarts awful bad,” he said. “Annie was mad enough to row to St. Pierre to have a word with the man who sliced me face open.”

  Harry chuckled despite himself. “How could I forget?” Annie weighed two hundred pounds, stood nearly six foot, and was a match for any man. She had proven it on more than one occasion. “That was some tongue banging she gave Mr. Young when he wouldn’t hire you at the fish factory. He thought you were too puny for the work.”

  Tom laughed. “Never saw a man change his mind so fast.”

  “Maybe you shoulda stayed put in the factory.”

  “Nah. Cooking is what I knows best and what I likes best.”

  “Nellie has a bad feeling about this trip,” Harry blurted out.

  The brightness faded from Tom’s eyes. “B’y,” he said, “wasn’t expecting to hear that.” Nellie’s bad feelings were well accepted as fact in St. Jacques.

  Harry sighed. “I promised her to stay on land after this trip.”

  Tom’s mouth opened wide with surprise. “You’re pulling my leg, b’y.”

  Harry shoved his hands deep into his pockets. “I hates to end up drowned young like Pa. You were a tyke crawling on the floor.”

  “That’s a fisherman’s life,” Tom said, stating a fact everyone understood and accepted.

  “I don’t want Nellie left to raise our youngsters on her own.”

  Tom nodded. “That’s the way of it.”

  “We were lucky Uncle Joe took us in.” Harry smiled at the memory of the bachelor, who was set in his ways but proved to be a great stand-in father.

  “Right,” Tom said. “A great old-timer. Told the best yarns I ever heard in me life.” The shed door swayed in the soft breeze as a quiet settled over the two men. Tom rubbed the fresh scar once more. “We needs to persuade the men to keep away from the Hôtel de France.”

  “Nellie will appreciate that.”

  “I have something to tell ya . . .” Tom said, “. . . between us.” He laid down the half-eaten tea bun. “This is my last trip, too.”

  “That’s a right shock,” Harry said.

  “You knows how Dr. Fitzgerald and his missus brags about my cooking all over the peninsula? The last time I took Annie to St. John’s for some shopping, he suggested I look for a job as a cook. He gave me a real good reference, seeing as he’s acquainted with lots of people there.” Tom smiled. “I found me a job as a cook in a fancy hotel. Maybe someday I’ll open my own eating place.”

  Harry shook Tom’s hand. “Good on ya.”

  “Annie says she’ll miss me but is right pleased I’ll be off the ocean. As soon as I gets back, I’m packing my trunk for St. John’s.”

  Nellie hurried home from the convent to fix dinner and wasn’t surprised to find that Harry was out. She made a conscious effort to close her mind to negative thoughts as she donned an apron, lit the stove, cut a loaf of bread, and set the table. She popped open a new jar of homemade raspberry jam, which would be emptied before dinner finished. A fresh boiler of chicken soup simmered on the stove next to the pot of tea. At the sound of the children’s voices, she ladled bubbling soup into four bowls.

  Joe charged through the door ahead of the others and ran to the table. “What a boring day,” he said, stuffing a piece of bread into his mouth. “Sister Thérèse made us repeat the same French words over and over and over. She said we had to get the accent right.”

  Marie, who came to Nellie’s for dinner on school days, sat across from Joe. “Pa buys me a bag of Bull’s Eyes every time I gets a good mark on a French test,” she said.

  “That’s dumb,” Joe said. “What’s so darn special about French?”

  Marie showed no sign the comment had upset her. “Pa’s happy whenever I does good in any subject. But he gets some silly about my French.”

  “I likes writing stories,” Bessie said. “Mother Patrick told the class I got heaps of imagination.”

  Joe turned up his nose. “She wants us to learn ‘proper’ grammar,” he said, quoting the nun’s Irish accent to perfection. He poked Marie in the side. “Then we’ll talk uppity like your pa.” She made a face at him.

  Sam smothered a slic
e of bread with jam. “I’m gonna be an accountant.”

  Joe slurped his soup. “You’re gonna be a fisherman like me and Pa.”

  Nellie stirred the boiler. “Stop yakking and eat your food,” she said, and glanced out the window. Harry stood on the wharf, staring out over the water. Fog swirled around him. She pushed the curtain aside to get a better view and shouted, “What are you doing down there when dinner’s on the table?”

  “Ma, is the tea steeped?”

  Nellie dragged her eyes from the wharf back to Sam. “Help yourself,” Nellie said, and turned back to the window. Harry was gone. The fog was gone. She darted her eyes in every direction. “Where’d he go?”

  “Who you talking to?” Bessie said.

  “Your pa was on the wharf a second ago, and . . .” Nellie’s voice trailed off as the door opened and Harry stepped in, holding a dozen raisin tea buns.

  “These are from Annie,” he said, placing them on the table. “Right out of the oven.”

  “Harry, were you just down by the wharf?” Nellie said quietly.

  “No, love.” He took off his light jacket and hung it on a hook by the door. “It’s sweltering out. I’ll eat later. There’s a bit of work needs finishing in the shed.”

  Nellie’s legs felt a little weak and she leaned against the stove.

  “Ma,” said Sam. “You all right?”

  Nellie brushed away imaginary crumbs from the front of her apron. “Never been better in all my life.”

  Joe soaked up the last bit of soup with buttered bread. Nellie refilled his bowl. “Gee, Ma, you’re awful white.”

  “It’s true,” Bessie said. “You looks like you had the Old Hag.”

  Nellie waved the comment away. “Finish dinner and get off to school.” She sighed with relief when the door closed behind the youngsters.

  Harry came in as she was clearing away the dishes. “I had some interesting chat with Tom,” he said.

  Nellie laid two bowls of soup on the table. “You sure you weren’t down by the wharf a little while ago?” she asked again.