A Walk Through a Window

by kc dyer

  Darby suddenly realized that if just a couple of things had been different, she might never have met her Gramps. If her mom and dad hadn’t dumped her in Charlottetown. If they’d changed their minds about the reno. If she’d spent the summer skateboarding in Toronto, like she’d planned.

  For a few more hours, at least, this was still her secret garden. Her grandfather had been born in this house. Her dad had stolen apples here.

  And Darby? She hopped up the stone windowsill.

  She’d had a few adventures of her own.

  This time Darby knew right away it was a boat—maybe the trip on the coffin ship had given her sea legs. When she got her bearings, Darby found herself in much nicer quarters than probably existed on the Elizabeth. It was a small room with space for only two low beds and a tiny writing desk with a stack of books on the floor beside it. At the bottom of each bed was a good-sized trunk. One of the beds looked recently slept in. The other was tidily made up.

  The door was closed tightly but not locked. Darby didn’t dare sit down on the beds in case one of the room’s occupants showed up and sat on her, so she used the pile of books by the desk as a little stool and sat down to wait.

  It wasn’t long before the door flung open. The room was so small that the door couldn’t swing freely; it hit one of the beds and bounced back.

  “Careful—careful with the door.” The person speaking backed into the room, carrying one end of something that looked pretty heavy.

  “A moment, please, Alasdair,” came the other voice. “I do not care to slip.”

  Alasdair grunted, and Darby could see he was carrying one end of a very large wooden crate. The thing was so big it was giving him trouble as he tried to steer it through the small doorway. “Just a little—further—to—the—right—” he said, and then the box was in and Gabe was there, too, beaming at Darby and closing the door behind him.

  “Nice room you have here,” he said.

  Alasdair raised an eyebrow. “Very funny, young Monroe. You know, when I agreed to supervise your passage to the colonies, it did not occur to me to enquire of your father whether you had the strength of character to properly make up your bed each day.”

  “Each day,” cried Gabriel, in mock surprise and with a wicked Scottish accent. “I had no idea your standards would be so stringent.” He plopped down on his unmade bed. “At least I earn my keep through brawn.”

  “Yes, I do thank you for your help with this behemoth,” Alasdair said. “I have no faith those laggards down in the holds will treat it with the care it requires, so I mean to bring it ashore myself when we disembark later today.”

  “Yourself?” It was Gabe’s turn to look sceptical. “It seems I may still be of use to you right to the end, then.”

  “Indeed,” said Alasdair. The lid of the chest at the bottom of his bed creaked as he lifted it. From inside he pulled out a small crowbar. “I’ll just have a quick peek to check that all is well,” he added.

  Gabe laughed. “I don’t believe you for a moment,” he said. “You know very well that nothing has shifted inside the crate. You just want to look at your prize again.”

  Alasdair managed to pry up one corner of the lid. He grinned at Gabe. “Perhaps. But would you care to take a glance?”

  Darby craned over to look, too. Inside the crate was a series of metal cylinders, each carefully numbered and nestled into thick rolls of paper cushioning.

  Gabe gazed at the contents of the crate. “You mean to tell me with all that weight, the press is not even assembled inside?”

  Alasdair picked up one of the cylinders and examined it critically. “We certainly could never lift it if it were,” he said. “When assembled, it will weigh many hundreds of pounds. But I was concerned that these cylinders were particularly fragile, so I assured myself of their care by wrapping them up individually for the journey.”

  He sat back down on the bed, the cylinder still in his hand.

  “These new presses have hundreds of moving parts,” he said. “I have been using a rotary press to print my newspaper in Inverness for several years, but this is a new design, envisioned by an American named Bullock.” He held up the cylinder. “When assembled, this small piece will help to automatically feed the paper through the rollers. No more hand feeding! It will mean a tremendous jump in productivity.”

  “I have heard of William Bullock,” said Gabe. “But I thought he invented farm tools.”

  Alasdair took the cylinder and carefully replaced it in its wrapping. “Yes, yes,” he said impatiently, as if the subject didn’t really interest him. “But it is his work with printing presses that will mean the biggest opportunity for me.” He sat back on the tiny part of his bed that was not covered in wooden crate. “This press will be self-adjusting, will print on both sides and fold the paper before cutting it. If my father’s research holds true, it will be the first of its kind in the Canadas.”

  “And what will that mean for you?” asked Gabe.

  “It means I will, in fact, be able to make a living here, I hope,” said Alasdair. “My father does not share my late mother’s low opinion of this small island, God rest her, and he has long established himself as a permanent resident. He has offered me part of the capital I require to take this step.”

  Gabe pointed to a small box nestled in the top of Alasdair’s trunk. “Does that contain more pieces of your precious press?”

  Alasdair picked up the small box and opened the lid. “ ’Tis nothing,” he said briefly. “Merely a small token for my father—and little more than a maudlin reminder of the country of my birth, in truth.” He tilted the box to show that it held a scoop of rich brown Scottish soil, mixed with a few rocks and pebbles. “He asked me to bring a piece of Scotland with me that he might plant it in the earth. Just more weight to carry, as far as I am concerned.”

  He closed the lid of the trunk and set the box carelessly on the top. “I do believe I shall have a quick look into the hold, just to ensure the rest of the press is in good shape after the voyage.”

  He glanced over at Gabe, lying with his hands behind his head in comfort. “I’ll expect to see that bed in proper shape, young man,” he said sternly. “I want to be able to give your family a good report when I put you into their hands this afternoon.”

  The door closed behind him and Darby jumped up. She wanted to hug Gabe, she was so happy to see him, but there wasn’t really room to get around the big crate, so she contented herself with grinning at him like an idiot.

  “Where have you been?” she asked.

  He hopped up and started making his bed. “I have been around,” he said. He punched a pillow into place and looked at Darby gravely. “I am sorry for the loss of your grandfather.”

  Darby nodded. Her heart seemed too full, suddenly, to even ask how Gabe knew what had happened. “I feel pretty grateful I had the chance to get to know him a little before he was gone.”

  Gabe opened the door and stepped out of the room, leaving it slightly ajar. His eyes twinkled a little over his shoulder. “Perhaps you will get to know a little more, even now. This journey will be brief, Darby. Let us take the opportunity to look about us a little. You must learn while you can.”

  It was a foggy day when Darby followed Gabe onto the narrow deck that circled the ship outside the staterooms. Outside of Alasdair’s room the sky was pearly grey, and it looked ready to rain. She leaned against the deck rail and watched as the ship glided slowly toward a small port town. Several wooden wharves poked out into the water. She could see that the harbour was well protected and there was a lot of action on the docks as preparations were made for the landing. The ship bumped gently against the quay, and bumped again, before ropes were thrown to tie it in place.

  “This vessel was built on the Island a few years ago,” said Alasdair, who came striding up a nearby staircase, taking the steps three at a time with his long legs. “One of the crewmen just told me that after they leave here, they will ship out for New Zealand.”


  “Now, that is a long journey,” said Gabe, looking at the activity on the docks. “I wonder if my family is here yet.”

  Alasdair looked out over the harbour. “Seems a civil enough place,” he muttered under his breath. He glanced at Gabe and then unfolded a letter from his pocket. “My father’s farm is north of Charlottetown, but according to his last letter, he will make the trip down to arrive late this evening. I believe we will stay here overnight before heading back to meet my brothers. He says your family will be waiting to meet you here, also.”

  Gabe nodded. “How has he taken the news of the loss of your mother?” he asked quietly.

  Alasdair sighed and stared off into the bustling town. “My father lost my mother the day they first laid eyes on this very harbour,” he said, and his voice held a deep note of pain. “I was very small and remember almost nothing at all about the crossing. In those days, my family had very little in the way of capital and it had taken nearly all they had to make the trip from Inverness. But my mother was shaken with horror at the sight of Prince Edward Island. I believe a few of the Mi’kmaq elders arrived to meet the ship and the sight of native people truly frightened her.”

  Gabe raised his eyebrows. “They should have been more frightened of us,” he said. “The new settlers changed the lives of the native peoples around here forever.”

  “Killed many of them, too,” Alasdair added. “The diseases settlers have brought to the area have devastated many of the native populations. I have covered this extensively in my newspaper, and hope to do more of that when I get established here. And this also played a large part in the worries of my mother.”

  Gabe leaned on the rail. “Your mother was afraid this place was a haven for disease?”

  “Well, we travelled on a decent ship, of course,” Alasdair said. “But it was a scant year after the typhus epidemic had spread through the colonies, and initially upon our arrival she refused to see the quarantine doctor.” He sighed. “I do not know what happened after that. I remember only that she set her lips in a tight line, sat herself down on her trunk and refused to move. And when the ship had its return sailing, my mother sailed with it, along with my youngest brother and sister. And myself, of course.”

  Below, Darby could see where the ship’s crew was working with the men on the dock, struggling to place an enormous gangplank.

  “What made you decide to come back to Charlottetown?” asked Gabe.

  Alasdair shrugged. “All my family is here now,” he said. “My sister and brother came across years ago, but I had a thriving newspaper business in Inverness and mother to care for, of course.” He laughed bitterly. “I was engaged to be married, but the young woman saw fit to turn her attentions elsewhere and so, when my mother died …”

  “You decided to come.”

  Alasdair nodded, his attention on the unloading going on down below. “Hey!” he cried suddenly. “Avast! Ahoy!” He turned to Gabe. “Blast, I think they have just dropped one of the press boxes. Can you accompany me, lad?”

  Gabe shot a grin at Darby and hurried off after Alasdair as he flew down the stairwell.

  She leaned against the ship’s railing and watched as things unfolded below. Some of the passengers had begun to disembark from another gangway, and Darby could see a meandering line heading toward a building with a sign marked Immigration.

  The greyness above started to break a little, and a ray of sun shone through the cracks in the clouds. Tiny sparkles danced on the waves that lapped up against the heavy lumber of the docks below. She wondered about Alasdair’s mother, so fearful of this new land. The shoreline of Charlottetown looked markedly different from her own experience, with many more trees and fewer buildings. Twenty-five years before this time, it must have looked more worrisome still, with vast areas of uncleared forest.

  But was it worth the loss of a marriage and the breakup of a family?

  Darby felt a knot tighten in her stomach. Would her own family break up the same way? She had heard nothing of this from her parents, of course, but maybe they had just been shielding her from the worst over the summer.

  Her attention was drawn to Alasdair and Gabe as they appeared on the dock below, but the stevedores clearly weren’t happy having two uppity passengers do their jobs for them. Finally, they seemed content to settle on waving Gabe’s efforts away entirely and allowing Alasdair to walk alongside as his precious boxes were loaded onto the Charlottetown quay.

  The sun was well and truly out now and steam began to rise from the wet surfaces around the dockyard. A number of wagons and buggies were pulled up along the street, with people hurrying to meet their arriving relatives. Darby wondered idly why the window had brought her here—to this place and this time. Was it to see Charlottetown as others saw it, near its beginnings?

  She looked down again to see Gabe waving. Darby waved back and nodded when he gestured for her to join him.

  A family, well laden with possessions from their stateroom, were slowly making their way down the stairs. The mother had her hands full, literally, trying to keep track of a small boy and carry a number of items. She walked beside what must be her teenaged son and daughter, also heavily loaded with bags and boxes. Darby slipped in behind, and followed them down.

  The little boy, no more than four or five, was filled with excited questions. “Will there be Red Indians, Mama? Or Chinamen? Andrew told me the colonies are full of strange people from everywhere under the sun.”

  His mother shifted her load and squeezed his hand. “Andrew should not be telling his young brother tall tales to frighten him,” she said severely, clearly talking to the older boy who was almost invisible under an enormous pile of boxes.

  “Well, it is true, Mama,” the older boy looked back at them over his shoulder. “Papa has said as much in his letters, and I have learned more at school. We may have come from Scotland, but others have emigrated from France and China and even England.”

  Darby had to stifle a laugh at this one, wondering if the English were as exotic to the little boy as the other peoples he would meet in his new country.

  The girl walking beside Andrew sniffed. “You mustn’t call them the colonies anymore, Simon,” she said to her little brother. “The colonies all joined together and became the Dominion of Canada several years ago.”

  “You don’t know everything, Lizzie,” said Andrew, obviously trying to redeem himself in his mother’s eyes. “Prince Edward Island didn’t agree to join the confederation until last year. And since British Columbia joined in 1871, there is talk of the Northwest Territories being split up into provinces and taking part as well.”

  They stepped onto the gangplank and a crew member rushed forward to help with their bags. Simon’s mother scooped him up in her arms. “Well, whoever lives here and wherever they came from, your papa says it is the land of the future. And now it will be our home.”

  “Take a deep breath, Simon,” said his brother. “This is what your new home smells like.”

  “I smell green apples,” said Lizzie. “Does anyone else smell apples?”

  Darby hurriedly stepped back a little and tucked her hair behind her ears.

  “Look!” shouted Andrew. “There’s Papa!”

  The children ran toward a smiling man who stood in the doorway of the immigration shed and Darby took her too-recently shampooed self over to where Gabe was standing.

  “Do I smell of apples to you?” she hissed at him.

  He shrugged. “All I can smell is the docks—and perhaps cinnamon,” he said, as a man bearing a large spice-laden crate trundled by.

  “They shipped cinnamon from Scotland?” Darby asked, staring after the man with the crate.

  “Perhaps not from Scotland, but through Scottish ports,” Gabe said. “The ports were the gateways to the world.”

  A voice called “Fergus!” and Gabe’s head snapped to look.

  “Fergus?” Darby muttered. “I thought you were called Monroe.”

  “Ach, I have many names
,” he said with a smile. He lifted a hand to wave at Alasdair, now standing with an elderly gentleman.

  It was Gramps.

  Darby felt her legs go weak.

  Alasdair waved Gabe over. “Father, may I present my young travelling companion, Fergus Monroe. Fergus, my father, Allan Urquhart.”

  Gabe-known-as-Fergus caught Darby’s eye as he shook Alasdair’s father’s hand. He actually winked at her. All she could do was gape in shock.

  “Fergus.” Urquhart gravely bowed.

  Darby knew it wasn’t Gramps as soon as she heard the highland burr, softened but not lost after nearly twenty years away from Scotland. But the resemblance was unbelievable—a face for the ages. Allan Urquhart, her grandfather’s great-grandfather. And the answer to her question. This was why she found herself in Charlottetown in 1875. No crisis to witness, no horror to remember. Just the last piece of her own family puzzle, snapped into place.

  Alasdair slipped something into Gabe’s hand and slapped him on the back.

  Gabe bowed slightly to Allan Urquhart and then stepped off to one side as father and son began the slow process of getting to know each other again.

  Darby slid back into the shadow of the building so that Gabe would be able to speak with her unobserved.

  “I must go,” he said quietly, turning his back to the flurry of activity on the dock.

  “I know,” she said. “Alasdair said he would take you to your family.”

  Gabe pointed to a tiny stone building at the end of one of the wharves. “Your route home is through that doorway,” he said.

  Darby clutched at his arm as he turned to go. “Gabe—you know I am leaving in a couple of days.”

  “I knew it would be very soon,” he said, and his smile left him for a moment. “I am terribly sorry about your grandfather,” he added softly. “I hope these small journeys helped you find something of what you seek.”

  Darby didn’t know what to say.

  “But wait,” he said, and his face lit up again. “I nearly forgot.”

  He reached in his pocket. “For your collection,” he said. “From Alasdair. His father was thrilled to see the highland soil, but said he had ploughed enough rocks to last a lifetime.”