“Maybe the weather!” Elizabeth said quickly.
Caleb’s wife kept Elizabeth busy. She was often sent around Bell Island selling chickweed and other vegetables to Jewish merchants and fishermen. In time she drove a horse and carriage carrying passengers and parcels to the ferry. She took pleasure in the sight of the horse’s brass-trimmed harness glistening in sunlight. She liked to listen to the tinkling bells around the horse’s neck. Clods of dirt flew into the air, leaving splatters on a little girl’s fancy dress on one trip and the mother reproached Elizabeth even though it wasn’t her fault. Elizabeth passed the child a Newfoundland penny and her eyes lit up.
She never whipped the horse. She touched it lightly and it pulled forward, its hoofs prancing. It knew its route to the boat: a heavy load going down the steep hill, a light load returning, if it was lucky. The uphill climb could tax a horse’s strength when the carriage was loaded. One day Elizabeth was taking passengers to the ferry going down the steep incline when the breeching around the horse let go. Elizabeth called, “Whoa!” with a downward snap of the reins. The horse whinnied and came to a halt, its ears twitching against a swarm of flies.
A passenger jumped down and caught the horse’s bridle. “It pays to be kind to animals,” the man said. “I see that you are. We don’t know what could have happened had the horse bolted and dragged the carriage. It may have overturned down this steep hill. You’re clear-headed for sure.” His eyes lingered on Elizabeth’s bright young face.
He was handsome, and a bachelor. Elizabeth knew that much. She wasn’t interested. A young Bell Island miner had caught her eye, though there was no chance of a relationship. Nathan Mills was friendly and charming. She noticed how his eyes lit up when another miner engaged him in conversation. She might as well melt into the ground.
One morning Elizabeth drove him to the wharf. He was on his way to Montreal to work on Grand Trunk Railing. They sat waiting for the boat to board passengers.
“You’ll find a woman to marry,” she told him.
“You won’t understand, not ever,” he said, getting up and dropping her hand. “I’m leaving for a place where I can live life anonymously. I’m attracted to me own kind.”
She’d never known of such a thing and she didn’t let his words sink in. She watched him go, lifting her hand to wave and call, “Just be yourself.” Then he was gone. She wondered what it would be like to go to Montreal. Nathan had told her that people there lived in buildings that housed apartments, rooms like boxes. Other people lived in single houses that stood in neat rows with smooth roads and green lawns. If she’d gone to Montreal she might have found a job in a store selling clothes that came from Europe. She might have found adventure.
Another miner soon had all of her attention. Jacob Kennedy was a young fisherman who had left Hibb’s Cove to mine ore. He had a tall and lean look, his flesh tight and smooth over his bones, not fallen, stretched, and wrinkled like her father’s skin. Maybe that was the way her mother had seen her father in his day. She watched Jacob hurry toward her and her heart quickened, a wave rippled through her body from her head to her toes.
The first time Jacob laid eyes on Elizabeth he had just come up from the Bell Island mine. He stared at her abundance of hair, like warm mahogany under firelight. Her laugh pealed out like the strike of a bell in fresh, crisp air. He stopped and took in her length. He smiled. “Usually when I come up out of the mine I get that first glimpse of daylight. The sky opens like a window to heaven. Today that window got a beautiful girl in it.”
And I thought Nathan was charming.
She crinkled her nose at the rusty scent of the young miner. “You smell like the earth,” she said, her voice girlish and playful.
He raised an eyebrow. Then he hurried across the path, stooped, and picked a wild rose from a bush. He crushed it in his hand and crossed the walkway. He placed the petals in Elizabeth’s hand. With a wry smile he lifted his hand with the scent of rose petals to her nose. “I suppose that smells better.”
Without waiting for her reply he added, “Sometimes a flower needs to be crushed before it can give off a sweet scent. I hope that never happens to you—to us.”
“Us?” She tried to hold in a laugh but it burst out. “Mind yourself.”
When Maggie and Jamie took William’s boat and rowed across to visit Elizabeth, she told them about Jacob and then about Isaac, the handsome son of a Jewish jeweller and his wife. She often went to their home to sell chickweed and other vegetables. Isaac eyed Elizabeth as he rubbed a cloth over a gold ring or gave her a wink as he examined a diamond. He was trying to get between her and Jacob. “I’ll have my father’s business some day,” he told her.
Maggie smiled. “You can’t go wrong with marrying a Jew. Jews are related to none other than Jesus. They’re God’s chosen people. He’ll always take care of them.”
Jamie, listening to the conversation, asked, “What does that make us Gentiles? Dogs, eh!”
“Shush!” Elizabeth pinched his arm. “You can’t be sayin’ things.”
“God’s people, too,” Jacob said quietly.
Elizabeth looked toward Jacob and Thomas, another miner, coming over the hill.
Thomas grabbed hold of the conversation. “English people are the lost tribe of Israel. I’d be ashamed of me life to be Irish, like Jacob here.”
“There’s worse a person could be,” Jacob said.
“And what might that be?”
Jacob came close and looked into his face. “Someone who acts like a pig.”
Elizabeth pulled Jacob back, giving Thomas a defensive look. “Jacob got the best of everything. He’s of Irish and English stock and he got a Jewish name.”
“Sure, the name of a man who had a rock for a pillow,” Thomas answered. “There’s likely nothing else Jewish about him.” He sneered. “He’s not been cut down there, has he—like Isaac and the other Jews?”
Elizabeth drew back, colour suffusing her face. “How would I know? I’ve never seen the heels of his socks, let alone anything else.”
“You wanted Nathan, didn’t you?” Jacob said one day after they’d strolled together along the beach.
“His sense of adventure, not him,” she answered.
She forgot everything she liked about Nathan when Jacob lifted her chin and traced his finger over her face. He lowered his lips to hers.
Jacob might be the kind of man who would give more than he would take. She hoped she could give more than she would take.
Late September, Mary Jane lifted her head from a bruised apple tree she was trying to cure with a mixture of wet clay, fresh milk, and cow dung. She hadn’t known Elizabeth was coming home and would have never guessed her news.
She stood in front of her mother smiling. “I’m getting married. I’m marryin’ Jacob Kennedy, the fellar I brought home in June.”
A shadow crossed Mary Jane’s face. She sighed. “The house will be empty in no time. Sure, Jamie’s that knotted with Maggie from the Bight he spends his time goin’ and comin’. He’s bent on gettin’ his sealer’s ticket to make a quick bit of money to be married himself.”
Elizabeth patted her mother’s cheek. “Don’t worry yourself, Mamma. Sure, everyone does the same. You left your mother and went with a man. My half-sisters and half-brother left home.”
Mary Jane straightened her brin apron and stood up. “I know. Come on in for a cup of tea and a slice of blueberry cake.”
She remembered William’s first kiss, how he had pursed his lips in a quick buss, not soft and holding like Edward’s. “A man must be taught,” she said, “to be the man with whom a woman will find satisfaction.” She said this in a quiet, steady voice without turning her head to Elizabeth.
After they had eaten, Mary Jane filled a pan with water, stirring in soap. She rolled the cloth over a plate she was washing. She lifted
it to a place on the cupboard and washed a tumbler, letting her hand ease down over it and up and back down in a gentle motion around the base, saying, with a keen eye on Elizabeth, “A woman must find pleasure in helpin’ her man toward satisfaction while seekin’ her own pleasure and teachin’ him how to add to it. When a couple sits down to dinner, both of them leave the table satisfied. It should be the same when they comes together as man and wife. Don’t be ashamed of the gift God gives a woman as well as a man.”
Elizabeth stared at her mother. She didn’t answer but she tried to fasten her mother’s words to her mind for when she would need them. She felt their significance in how her marriage to Jacob would be in making two people in love feel loved over and over.
William scuffed across the floor breaking the moment. “Sure, I overheard what you said outdoors. You’ve gone and got yourself a man to keep. You don’t say.”
Elizabeth laughed. “I do, then. I had him home once when you were gone to St. John’s. He’s a miner, sure, workin’ on Bell Island. He’s from around the bay. Jacob Kennedy, it is.”
William’s eyes widened. “I know of that crowd. His father was born not far from here. It’s a likely mix. You’re like your mother, marryin’ a Kennedy. Look at the luck she had with that, and the one you’re holdin’ to marry had his beginning on a cliff.”
Elizabeth pinched his cheek. “And survived. Jacob is a kind man.”
“The worst of it is that you’re marrying a miner,” her father continued. “I’ll be weary with worry. There’s always the chance of the earth founderin’. You never know when a miner is goin’ to come home from Bell Island with a part of him blown away—if he comes home. Men are rarin’ to be miners until they get the work and then they see how the earth could bury them under a rugged, ribbed roof, or machinery take a part of ’em.”
She patted his back. “There you is, Pappa, looking a dragon in the mouth before there’s even a dragon.”
When Maggie came to see Jamie one day, Elizabeth told her she was going to be living in Hibb’s Cove.
“Hibb’s Cove!” Maggie exclaimed. “You’ll be down over a few hills and around a few turns from Bareneed where I grew up. Sure, it was Jacob’s own father who brought me back home in his boat.”
Elizabeth smiled. “Edward John, me half-brother, went to Hibb’s Cove and brought back Flossie Porter, Jacob’s first cousin, and married her. He built her a house and, though the floor wasn’t covered, Eli Reid, the fiddle player, and the neighbours come to dance at the weddin’. Their feet beat the clay floor smooth. ‘Mats will do for now,’ Flossie said, ‘but when the fall comes I wants the feel of wood under me feet.’
“‘And you’ll have wooden floors,’ Edward John promised as he sat enjoying a bowl of her mussel chowder. He was as good as his word. Flossie got her wooden floors. She painted them red and laid white hooked mats over them.”
Elizabeth let out a contented sigh. “Jacob is a piece of good stock, too. I’ll be marrying a miner whose father’s a fisherman, somethin’ he’d be himself if there was a steady harvest.”
“Men finds a way to do what they wants,” Maggie said. Her look turned pensive as she thought of Jamie and his strong will to go sealing.
Elizabeth turned to the wedding gown she was sewing. She cut the petersham for the collar and fitted it in place.
Maggie beamed. “The dress’ll be a beautiful fit. You’ve got nothin’ for a waist.”
Mary Jane laughed. “The old grannies’ll be takin’ note. Whenever there’s a wedding there’s as many fingers waitin’ to count the months as there’s tongues flapping. But never mind.” She handed Elizabeth something old, the lace from her christening dress to sew on the bodice of her gown; something borrowed, Gran Martha’s handkerchief, one she had mended over and over; and something blue, a blue cord she bought from Simon Swartz, the peddler.
Elizabeth slipped the thick, silk cord through the high neck of her dress and tacked it. Then she stood up holding the gown against her. Sunshine, through the window, spun it into a golden sheen. She swirled it around in front of the mirror. Her eyes shone. “I’m gettin’ married.”
Elizabeth walked down the aisle of the Church of England on her father’s arm to be married to Jacob, amid whispers.
The children who had lived close to the beach were all grown up, far from the fun and mischief of their childhood. Some of them had come to the wedding to watch Elizabeth marry a stranger. “Not from around here,” Zachary whispered to Olivia. “She had to pick one from around the bay.”
“Anything for a change,” Olivia answered lightly.
Zachary’s look lingered on Olivia’s face. She was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. He couldn’t wait to marry her.
Olivia turned to Laura and remarked that Elizabeth couldn’t have caught a more handsome man than Jacob. “Sure, he’s so good-looking he’d take the sight out of your eye.”
“Handsome is as handsome does,” Laura answered.
Maggie turned to Jamie beside her, her own eyes dreamy. “They’ll do handsomely together. Nothing to it.”
Jacob’s head of thick, dark hair was smooth as a duck’s back above clear blue eyes. His face had a naturally sculptured altogether look, no part more pronounced than another.
Elizabeth’s dark hair rose above her small face in a bouffant cloud. Below it her blue eyes were bright and optimistic, her face open and expressive.
During the ceremony the minister said, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother . . . forsaking all others. . . .”
In her mind Elizabeth interjected, I’m the one leaving, forsaking family and friends.
After the wedding, William looked at Elizabeth. “Jacob’s just like a frame, not an ounce of fat. You’ll need to get the cookin’ pot on boil. You’re no more than a rasher of wind yourself.” Then he muttered, “I don’t want you to leave this place.”
She answered lightly, “Pappa, a bird’s got to leave the nest to fly.”
“You’re not a bird. You’re me little maid.”
She touched him lightly on his sleeve. “A woman. That’s what I is.”
After the dinner and dance, Elizabeth hurried upstairs and laid aside her wedding gown. She changed into a sensible warm dress, buttoned her gloves, and laced her boots. Then she donned her red merino coat and its matching hat and prepared to go with Jacob to meet his parents. She turned to look across the waters to Bell Island, a place where she’d had her day’s work and her night’s freedom. She felt a twinge of uncertainty. Until now she had owned herself. From now on she’d be giving herself to a husband and, later, if God willed it, she’d have children. She’d have no time for herself.
You’ll have love, the wind whispered against her window.
Love. She smiled. It is everything. She touched a wooden ring alongside her gold wedding band. Jacob had given it to her, promising to be as strong as a tree in wind, as sheltering as a house in a storm, and as adventurous as a boat on the sea.
Jamie grinned as he hugged his sister goodbye. “I’ll have the loft—two rooms—all to meself.”
“Until Maggie takes you over,” she teased.
Maggie smiled at Jamie and hugged Elizabeth. “I’m looking forward to it.”
Mary Jane could hardly bring her voice to the surface to say goodbye as William outfitted the horse and sleigh and made ready to take the couple to the train station in Manuels. She bent toward her daughter and whispered, “A wonderful thing it is to belong to another person’s love, to live in it and create children out of it. But be careful not to fall in the family way too soon. Give yourselves a chance to know each other and, if you can’t bide the place and Jacob is not who you thinks he is, come on home to your own bed.”
Elizabeth’s eyebrows furrowed. “Now, Mamma, don’t be talking that way.” Her lips brushed her mother’s cheek.
Then she climbed up to the seat of the sleigh.
Jacob hugged Mary Jane, shook William’s hand, and then hurried up beside Elizabeth. He lifted his hat to Jamie and Maggie.
“It’s snowing in fits,” William said, “but the train can cut through anything.” He lifted Elizabeth’s hope chest, packed with her personal belongings, and stowed it.
William drew back quickly as the cacophony of gunshots resounded through the frosty air. The acrid smell of smoke and gunpowder spread. A pause and more shots reverberated through the night.
Mary Jane grabbed William’s arm, exclaiming, “Using good powder to startle people. The fools!”
Elizabeth settled back against the seat and smiled at Jacob. Sometimes she had eyed him from her boarding house coming along the road to see her. She had pushed up a window and called to him. She got his answering wave. Her body had stirred and quickened, her flesh rippling with desire. The first time it had happened she knew why a man and a woman would want to belong to each other.
At the train station William lifted his hand to wave goodbye. It dropped to his side like a weight. The family home he’d built had lost a side. It had been taken by a good-looking young miner. A dark cloud descended and a chill spread through his bones as the train pulled out of the station. Who will I lose next?
As the train hurled itself along the tracks going around mountains and down valleys, Elizabeth thought of her mother’s promise to give her—come spring—a sapling from her apple tree and a root of boy’s love to be set in the soil of her new gardens. She visualized the boy’s love growing, wind stirring its scent while she sat outside her home with Jacob. She thought of her parents’ marriage as one of the finest kind, a kind to be emulated by her and Jacob, their children caught up in their humour. When she was six and had swallowed an apple seed she had lifted an anxious face to her father and asked, “Will it grow a tree in my belly?”
Her father had given her a serious look. “That depends.”
“On what!”
“On how much earth you ate with it. It needs soil to grow.”
Ghost of the Southern Cross Page 8