The nights turned cold and her aunt offered her a heated rock wrapped in muslin. She placed it under her bedclothes at the foot of her bed. It lay there shaped like a giant beachy bird’s egg she and her friends had discovered when she lived in Foxtrap.
She’d go back home sometime. She would. Just like Bridget did.
6
William Maley had built his pine house on the level. Thirteen steps led to an upstairs. A second set of narrow steps led to two small rooms built in the peak of the roof. The house had a long porch and, off the kitchen, a sitting room. The porch walls were covered with sheeting paper. Three model boats leaned against squished wallpaper in the sitting room. Their wooden sails, painted white, were shaped as if stirred by a gentle wind. The house was bordered by wild roses, lilies, honeysuckle, crabapple trees, and berry bushes. William lived alone, a thirty-three-year-old bachelor, a farmer and fisherman of little sustenance that anyone could tell. He liked the warm, damp scent of his farmland and the cool and reviving breath of the lively sea.
Beside his house, in a weathered barn, he kept a grey horse to help with his farmland and, down by the stagehead, his small punt was collared with his father’s Irish killick. William never strayed far on the sea, only far enough to gather fish for winter. Just up from the beach in the triangular pond named Paddy’s Pond—after Patrick, William and Joe’s grandfather—William set cone-shaped eel baskets. When he caught a barrel of eels, some of them two feet long and big on the round, he would go wild with glee, anticipating the journey on his horse-drawn wagon to St. John’s to sell them to the upperdees who paid in cash. Sometimes he saved an eel for himself. He kept a frying pan on the stove with an inch of grease in it from rendered fatback, which he called ladder and skirt. Most times he cooked in the pan, ate out of it, and left it on the stove for another time.
There were times when William believed he would always be a bachelor. He had never seen a woman he wanted, though he lay in bed aching to be a part of some woman’s life and have children running in the lane. Time was long when a man had only himself. Lately, though, he’d been thinking about a woman he’d caught sight of in Long Pond. He’d gone there to help a man whose well went dry. William was a water diviner, a dowser, or a water witch—whatever anyone wanted to call him. He took no money. It was a gift he gave freely. The man needing help was the next-door neighbour of Mary Jane Kennedy, a widow with three children. William had caught Mary Jane watching him as he took a forked alder about three-quarters of an inch thick at the base and about a foot long. He held the prongs of the fork, palms facing up and the base pointed away from his body. Children followed him as he walked carefully, one foot in front of the other as he held the Y-shaped dowsing rod in his search for a spring of water. When he found it, a force pulled the stick down.
The neighbour was grateful to William for locating a place for him to dig a new well. With a nod to Mary Jane standing on her doorstep, he said to William, “Now there’s a fine form of a woman for you, a bachelor man.” To Mary Jane, he said, “Have this man and you’ll always have buckets of water.” Mary Jane had blushed and hurried inside.
After his visit, William asked Caroline, who had once lived in Long Pond, about the widow.
“The poor woman,” Caroline said with a sly look, “is left with three small children. She’d likely make for a good sister-in-law.”
Mary Jane woke morning after morning while it was still dark with one question: How can I raise three fatherless children alone? Edward John stirred beside her. He’d been sleeping in his mother’s bed since the drowning. If the child hadn’t been sleeping beside her she would have lit the lamp, let its light and warmth lift her spirit. Instead she turned to the warmth of her child’s soft body, drew it into her embrace, and fell asleep. The strident sounds of cock-a-doodle-doo awakened her to daylight and a renewed surge of uncertainty. She remembered her Grandfather Bussey’s words to her when she was a child as he sat on a log by his sawhorse. “It’s a long road, Mary Jane, a long road gettin’ from where you is to where I is. A lot of things can happen. A lot of things do happen. You probably don’t understand what I mean,” he said, cupping his large, veined hand over her small, soft one.
Whatever road her grandfather had been on, she was on now: the road of hard knocks, its landslides capable of burying her and her children. Tidal waves of fear washed over her. Edward’s two brothers had moved to Long Pond not long after he did. They had helped him build his house and he had helped them build theirs. Now that their brother was gone, they hinted that Edward’s house belonged to them. They seemed unmindful of his children needing a home.
“There’s a lonely bachelor down in Foxtrap,” her sister said. “You’ve seen him goin’ along the road selling his vegetables, his old horse trottin’ along in no hurry, and him calling from his perch above the wagon, ‘Git ’e up!’ He’s clean over himself if not his place. His fingernails are pared, his face washed, and his good pants kept creased under his pillow in case of a funeral, the only time he thinks of the church. That’s the news from Caroline Maley.”
“I remember him,” she said, to her sister’s surprise. “He’s the dowser from Foxtrap.”
William Maley knocked on Mary Jane’s door one day. She opened it to see a short man with a jolly, ruddy face and a head of light hair fine and thin.
He told her, “I’m not rich in dollars, just a house with a barn, shed, and an outhouse, a stable and a few end shelters. I own a few acres in on Dun Hill’s road.” He passed her a sprig of boy’s love. He later told his brother Joe with a shrug, “What other kind of offering could I bring?”
She bent to the minty scent of the plant, murmuring that she needed time to think.
“I’ll be back in a few days to see if you’re willin’ to take me on,” he told her.
She nodded and closed the door. One day, after she had spent a few nights walking the floor in trepidation, she saw, in the distance, William coming along the road with his horse and wagon.
The bachelor had also spent a few nights wondering what he was letting himself in for. Finally, he hitched his wagon to his grey horse, cracked his reins, and was off down the road, the empty wagon swinging back and forth over potholes.
He slowed the horse as he got close. It plodded up the narrow lane and over its rise. To hide his nervousness William began singing under his breath,
“King William was King George’s son and all the royal races won
On his head he wore a star and in his mouth was a big cigar
Come choose to the east, come choose to the west
Come choose the one you love the best . . .”
He reined in his horse and unlatched the gate leading down the path to Mary Jane’s house.
“Down on the carpet you must kneel
While the grass grows round your feet
Salute your bride and kiss her sweet
Rise again upon your feet.”
He stopped suddenly as Mary Jane opened the door and looked out at him.
She knew what she would bring to her new home. Her father had imported and planted an apple tree in front of their house. The sweet, white apples had five points. She would bring a basket of last fall’s apples from the cellar, a sapling from the large tree, and a handkerchief holding seeds to be planted by William’s house.
She went back inside and came back out wearing a grey coat. She had pulled over it a long, coloured shawl—her wedding shawl. It came down past the tops of her boots. Her three children trailed her; her arms were so full she couldn’t hold their hands. She had left all of Edward’s belongings, taking only what belonged to her and the children: clothes, samplers, and bed linens she had sewn herself. “I’ve found a man who says he’ll let me share what’s his,” she had told Edward’s brothers. They had responded with a satisfied nod as they stood in the middle of the kitchen ready to take the house.
&n
bsp; William stowed the family’s belongings and settled the children in the wagon. Then he helped Mary Jane climb up to the seat beside him. They came to Church Road and the wagon snaked its way around the turn of the gravelled path beside the graveyard, its headstones leaning in whiskers of brown grass. They went on down a knob and William’s house came in sight. William stopped the horse and jumped down. He lifted the plank holding the gates and swung them wide. He led his horse close to the house and hitched it to a post. Then he opened the door to his small porch and Mary Jane followed him inside. The children hesitated and then chased their mother.
William’s look flickered over the children. He looked back at Mary Jane. “The children are yours and mine now,” he said with a smile. “I’ve taken you and gotten fully-made youngsters in the bargain.”
Mary Jane’s eyes were bright as she nodded.
Rebecca gave him a vexed look, her clenched hands at her side. Fannie held her rag doll to her chest, and Edward John a toy soldier, as they edged in to sit on the seat standing against the wall along the table. The seat William had made especially for them smelled of new wood. They sat quietly, their faces solemn. William looked at them, not knowing what to expect from a stranger and her children. “There’s some leftover porridge. I mostly make a batch for meself. That can last for a few days.”
Mary Jane smiled. Porridge for supper—breakfast food for a family, supper food for a bachelor. A generous pitcher of milk stood on the table, cruds of cream floating in it.
“Look at that,” said Joe looking through his window. “William went and got himself a little widda woman. She’s older than William and likely dry dough by now.”
Johnny, Joe and William’s brother, was sitting by the stove on a low stool. He lifted his head contemplatively as if to see with his mind. Johnny was delicate, his skin as white as a cup, his eyes sunny blue. He had been crippled and blind since he was thirteen. “Is she pretty or no?” he asked.
“She’ll do, from what I can see of her,” Joe said.
“Let’s get on over and stand for the weddin’,” Caroline said, rushing to tidy herself. “The minister will be on his way.”
Caroline and Joe stood as witnesses while the children watched. That night, after Mary Jane’s new in-laws and the minister left, the children were washed and tucked into bed. William went, too. He lay in crisp cotton sheets holding the scent of wildflowers as a sea breeze drifted through the window. Life was good. When Mary Jane finished her work she came to bed, and when William reached for her, life was even better.
Early the next morning, Mary Jane turned away from William and slid out of bed. The sky lay low and heavy over the sea, and then clouds tore abroad like pieces of tow and the sun burst out like a bright light. Wind bent trails of smoke from chimneys of houses down the road, scattering them in the air. Mary Jane looked out over the land, the rich soil holding the seeds of life, treasures for an autumn harvest. Robins and blue jays flitted through supple green leaves. Today she didn’t have to worry about how to feed her family. The world from this small place seemed perfect.
Mary Jane changed William’s house, if not his ways. She threw out his stained pillows filled with dried seaweed and sewed new ones made from blue-striped, white cotton and stuffed them with feathers. She stitched pillowcases and rubbed soap along the seams to keep bugs and dust out. She re-cased his mattress.
While William was outside chopping wood the aroma of cloves, brown sugar, and cinnamon filled the house and wafted out through an open window. Mary Jane had removed the core from some of the apples she had brought with her and stuffed them with raisins. As the pot of apples boiled on William’s small stove, their skins grew tender and split. Mary Jane lifted the ladle holding an apple and juice and filled a dish, topping the apple with cow’s cream.
William, coming into the house to Mary Jane and stewed apples, knew he was going to like being married.
The Saturday night following their mother’s marriage, the children had their baths in a long, wooden tub, its seams caulked the way William waterproofed a boat. They went to bed and settled in sleep.
William lay napping on the daybed while Mary Jane stripped and stepped into the tub, stretching the length. She let her body float and roll. Then she rubbed Castle Suds, a fine quality of hard soap, over her skin.
Before marrying Edward she had asked her mother, “What will I do when Edward reaches for me?”
“Squeeze your eyes tight,” she had replied, adding with a self-conscious laugh, “Just your eyes.”
The Bible said that Adam knew his wife. She hadn’t known Edward, had never seen him without his clothes. He had come to her furtively, gone haphazardly to take his pleasure. It was done always at night, always quiet, before and after the children came. Never once did he know that she felt her body rise in need. As he lay beside her, spent, she felt full and longing for release until her body subsided, its hunger pushed aside by sleep or a crying child. Her longings were kept at bay during the day by routine chores.
Now, after her bath, she heated water on the stove and filled the tub for William, lathering the water into bubbles. She laid out his fresh suit of underwear, woke him, and then shyly asked him to step into the tub. She washed his back, rubbed it, kissed him, and laughed at his embarrassment. She was done with holding back.
That night she kept him wanting more.
“I didn’t know women were like this,” William said, facing her in the warm light of the kerosene lamp on their nightstand.
She smiled at his words.
“Rest comes easy when there’s a rack of woman to cuddle into,” William murmured as he pulled Mary Jane against his lean belly. They drifted into sleep.
William sat at the small wooden table looking pleased, as if he was ready to break out in a song or let some mischief off his tongue. The kettle was sighing on the stove and Mary Jane was lifting bowls of porridge from the iron pot, heat flushing her face, her cheeks like ripening apples. She brought the bowls of steaming porridge to the table, topped by stewed apples left over from supper the night before. Rebecca looked up at her mother and across at the strange man. She took a spoonful of brown sugar and dropped it into her bowl, then a dab of butter. It melted, spreading across the porridge like lava. Sugar glistened in a pool of milk rimming the bowl. Rebecca was going to have as much food as she wanted now that her mother was no longer a widow. Her mother didn’t even look to caution her. The other children rushed to do the same. Their new stepfather could feed them. Until now he’d had only his own mouth to fill.
“Now,” said William. The children stared at him, Edward John’s spoon in midair.
“I’ll let you in on an auld Irish Grace.” He pointed to himself. “Grace be here, and Grace be there.” He pointed to the children. His hand swung to circle the table. “And Grace be everywhere.” He lifted his empty spoon and said rapidly, “Now let’s all take up our forks and eat as fast as we are able.”
“Spoons,” said Edward John, “not forks.”
“I sit corrected,” he said, stirring globs of brown sugar through his porridge. “I can see we have spoons. Forks are nowhere in sight.”
Mary Jane shook her head, a hint of a smile reaching her wide blue eyes. At that moment she was glad she had married William. Humour was a good way to start a day. It freed the spirit from care, if only for a time.
“I’m a queer stick to have as your father,” William said. “But we’ll find enough food from the ground and the sea to keep your bellies from growling at me.”
Mary Jane hadn’t meant to let out a sigh. The lump of fear that had been lodged inside her since Edward’s death came loose and let go. The children saw her reach her small, reddened hand to cover William’s heavy one. They too felt the tight feeling, held inside them since their father’s death, let go. Rebecca wanted to get up from her chair and hug him, but she couldn’t get past the
truth. He wasn’t her father. William was her stepfather. She’d heard bad things about stepfathers. If he wanted to be a real father, he’d have to get his own children.
When Fannie wouldn’t eat onions he tapped her on the nose, squinting in her face. “If you wants to grow hairs on your chin you have to eat onions.”
She giggled. “I’m a girl. I only want to grow hair on my head.”
He squinched his eyes and leaned toward her. “A girl, so you is.”
Mary Jane gave William a quick glance. She had made a good choice. Whenever William paid attention to the children her heart warmed and opened toward him more kindly than ever. The way to a woman’s heart is through her children. A woman can love a man who is kind to her children.
Sometimes, if the children were restless and cross, William, not used to their noise filling his once quiet place, glared at them and muttered, “You’ll all be put in the orphanage asylum.”
They huddled together as he swung the door back and went out, hurrying to get away to his own space in the shed.
Mary Jane smiled, knowing his bark was worse than his bite.
The next spring she pressed the plain faces of marigolds, the expressive faces of pansies, and the sweet petals of roses between two boards to leave for a few months. They would dry as light as butterfly wings for a collage to be displayed on the wall. She took a small blue vase she had brought with her and filled it with a posy of everlasting flowers for William’s shabby table.
When William and Mary Jane’s first child was on the way, Mary Jane opened her handkerchief holding the seeds she’d brought with her and planted them in the garden beside the house and alongside her apple sapling and William’s crabapple trees. She smiled. Who would think that brown seeds pushed into the dark earth would rise into a green tree that would sprout white apples, its sweet flesh as white as a full moon?
Ghost of the Southern Cross Page 4