* * * * *
Maggie cranked the arm of the Victrola and dropped the needle to the phonograph disc to listen to music. She was swinging Melanie in a dance when through the window she noticed people gathering on the crest of Church Road. She hauled on her gaiters and coat and hurried down the road. When she saw people huddled over letters, their looks drawn, she started to run. She tripped over a trench made from the grid of buggy wheels and went headlong. “What a sight you is, then, full of mud!” a farmer called as he hurried by. He turned back and reached to pull her to her feet.
“What’s the news?” she asked.
The man’s answer—“The Southern Cross is lost”—twisted deep inside her like an auger. Her knees buckled and she fell in a heap feeling as if her bones had shattered and pierced through her skin.
“Come on, then, get up,” Minnie Marshall standing on her doorstep called. “You can be sorrowful but it’s not as if you and he’ve started a life together.”
Maggie looked up, her eyes wide in shock.
“You’re not in the family way, is yer, then, fallin’ like that?” the woman asked.
Maggie didn’t bother to answer. She strained to get to her feet, steadying herself on weak legs. She had been daydreaming about leaving her aunt’s place to be with Jamie. The truth cut her. It was never going to happen. She turned back and started to run as fast as she could toward William’s house, her breath coming in gasps. She had to see William. She came to an abrupt halt. Not tonight!
She hurried back to Liddie’s, passing her aunt in the hall and the children calling to her as she clung to the rail taking her upstairs. She rushed on, away from everyone, away to her bed. Shock settled in her like pooled blood as the black fog of night drifted around her. She lifted herself up on an elbow to look through the dark window. The moon had died and left the sky in black sackcloth.
Daylight came before she fell asleep.
Morning sounds of a family’s hushed movements surfaced. Maggie’s eyes opened, stared without comprehension of where she was and what day it was. Her aunt’s hand touched hers and she blinked. Yesterday’s news crashed against her, waves of it enveloping her, drowning her. A wrenching cry tore up through her throat. Jamie wasn’t coming home—he was gone.
“Not even his body,” she whispered, her voice choked in tears.
Liddie looked at her. “You poor girl. Don’t let yourself get down in your nerves. It’ll be hard to get back up. You need to think of what you have, not what you have lost. The parson once preached that we must’n think of half a glass of water as half empty, but half full.”
“My glass is full—full of emptiness,” she answered, her voice toneless.
The blazing sun burned its way across the water and spread light on the wall of Maggie’s room. The wind’s rush outside her window was cut into by the rapid chirping of birds fluttering about. Inside, the house was warm like a blanket, the air still, voices soft. Maggie’s body felt weighed down, too heavy to move.
Liddie came back up to her room just before noon. She coaxed her downstairs for a cup of tea and a warm biscuit. “In time,” she promised, “the tragedy will fade into a dream.”
Maggie pulled her sweater tight. “I don’t want Jamie to fade from me mind.”
Myra, Liddie’s widowed mother-in-law, had come from Canada to stay with the family. The old granny sat in her rocking chair, her eyes whitened from cataracts in a face wreathed in wrinkles. She cautioned Maggie in a quavering, thin voice. “There now, me child, we must never let ourselves be so overcome by sorrow that we slip under it and stay there. Everything in life is connected to loss. We lose the comfort of a place inside our mother’s bodies once we are born. We lose our place in childhood, grow up, marry, give birth, and in time lose our children as they make their own lives. We lose our health as we age. We are all on a journey and we must make the most of every moment as best we can, enjoying what we have while we have it.”
Maggie voice was leaden. “You can’t know what it’s like to grow up missin’ the love of a mother, though I hardly had her, and sufferin’ the loss of a father’s love though it was short-lived—and now Jamie. I was strong when I had the love of a man, when I knew I was in his thoughts. Now I’m alone.”
“Ah,” said the old lady, “we all suffer one thing or another at one time or another. God never leaves us alone.”
She got up from her chair and felt her way along to where Maggie slouched. She took her hand and in a firm voice said, “In time you’ll think of yourself as someone you haven’t lost. The most important person in your life is you. You lived a long life before Jamie and you will live long after him. This is not the end of your story. Your life story is larger than this.”
“My story?” Her chin lifted and her eyes widened.
“Your life story didn’t begin with you. It reaches back to the beginning of time. All that makes you a person was carried in the bodies of your ancestors. You’re the witness to their existence.”
Liddie poured Maggie another cup of tea and gave her a keen look. “You’re not in trouble, are you?”
“I wish I was carryin’ a bit of Jamie,” she answered, her chin up, a fierce look in her eyes.
“You’d be a fallen woman,” Liddie said.
Maggie looked past Myra and Liddie, her voice distant. “I’d be fallen in love. Jamie had me heart. He deserved the chance to carry on our family tree. Our future is lost.”
“It is Jamie who is lost, not you and your future. There’s more fish—”
“In the sea,” Maggie snapped. She turned and ran upstairs going to her dresser. She pulled out a drawer and lifted the soft wool wedding dress, its bodice half-knitted. She slipped the needles out of the stitches and slowly unravelled the dress until there was only a pile of white yarn on the floor, her dress unravelled like her future as a bride, shapeless like her life had become.
She slipped to the floor, her body shuddering like water in a pond stirred by a cold wind.
William woke, realization like a hammer slamming against his head. He groaned as he sat up and eased his feet over the bed. He poured water from Mary Jane’s flowered jug into a wash pan and sluiced his face in it, ignoring the blueberry soap. Then he lit the fire. He poured porridge and a pinch of salt in boiling water as usual and stirred it with the wooden spoon Mary Jane had brought with her. His hand trembled as he lifted the first spoonful. He stopped, his gaze on Jamie’s painting of Titanic on the wall. He cringed remembering how that loss had swept over the place. Now sorrow had come closer, dug deeper, to last forever.
Caroline sent Lavinia over to see how William was faring. “I’m going to get married next year,” she had told him a few months before.
“And who might you be marryin’?” he had asked. “I know you’ve been in service down the shore.”
“Joshua Rideout,” she answered. “I can’t wait.”
“I suppose then there’ll be a batch of young ones comin’.”
She let out a giggle. “People make batches of bread, not batches of babies, though one here and there would be to my liking some day.”
When she said, “Well, I must be goin’,” he answered, “There’s scads of time.”
She gave him a bold look. “Yes, but I don’t have to spend it all here.”
William raised his hand. “So long, then. I’ll hear tell of you another day.”
“Don’t be a black stranger yourself,” she said. “Uncle Johnny likes to see you.”
Lavinia had always had the fresh, full look of an unblemished white apple in the Maley orchard. Now William noticed how drawn and thin she looked. He kept silent though he was thinking something he didn’t dare say. His son was gone and his brother’s daughter was going.
44
A jagged, heavy stone had slipped inside Maggie’s heart. She couldn’t breathe withou
t it hurting. She had looked forward to becoming part of the Maley family. Instead she was an outsider.
“Go back and see the old fellow some more,” Liddie urged. “He’ll want to see you.”
Maggie slogged down the road past the graveyard. When she turned up Church Road she let out a strangled breath. She tried to steady herself to go into the house where she knew William held the official letter informing him that the Southern Cross had been declared lost.
William sat with his elbows on the table, his fingers under the sides of his head as if to hold it up. He turned to acknowledge Maggie. Then he spoke as if he was dreaming. “The boats spent ten days looking for the Southern Cross. She was a fine steamer, not like the rotting ships that brought me forebears to this land. There was no way to know she’d be the biggest coffin of all.” He lifted his head, his face heavy and bloated in anguish. “I don’t believe there’ll be any sighting. Jamie’s gone and Mary Jane’s nephews and other far-off relatives lost.” He dropped his balding head into his cupped hands, his shoulders heaving from the deep sorrow surging through his body.
“I thought men didn’t cry,” Maggie said, her own eyes wet and bright. Then waves of grief rushed against her and her fingers pressed against her mouth to hold in her anguished cries.
William didn’t answer and she set the kettle to boil, her tears splashing on the black spout. Boiling her tears for tea is what she’d be doing if she wasn’t careful. She turned and flopped down in Mary Jane’s rocking chair and stared at Jamie’s painting of Titanic.
William followed her look. “He got her likeness,” he murmured. “She looks real enough to board.”
“Why did Jamie paint Titanic?” Maggie asked.
William drew in a deep breath and let it out before answering. “Jamie got caught up in all the talk about her: her magnificent beginning and her tragic ending. The young lad’s fingers always itched to paint, and paint he did as you can see, makin’ some job of the ship.”
He nodded toward a wooden box on the table. “Jamie made you a wedding box. Go ahead,” he said, looking away.
She reached to take it, her hands trembling. A cross was carved on the outside of the cover. The words my love for you has no question mark, and no period, just an exclamation! were carved on the inside. She lifted a gold wedding band and held it on the palm of her hand thinking, A wedding ring I’ll never wear. On the inside bottom of the box Jamie had carved a tree with maggie and james on the first branch.
“His mother’s wedding band,” William said. “I remember the day I put it on Mary Jane’s finger.” He struggled to his feet grabbing Maggie’s shoulder as if she were his anchor. He mumbled, “It’s a blessin’ Mary Jane’s passed on. She’d be some way knowin’ Jamie’s gone and she not able to lay him out and give him to the ground.”
Maggie pulled away. What does he think he’s doin’ lettin’ the weight of his grief fall on me, and me with me own?
She set William’s tea and a slice of bread and jam in place and left him there alone.
She came back to her aunt’s house, the wooden box held against her breast. She sat on her bed still holding it. How could she have been sitting down eating, maybe laughing, and not feel the jolt of the ship, hear Jamie’s gasp for breath as his lungs filled with water? Shouldn’t she have felt something as he drifted to the bottom of the ocean? Surely he reached out to her, put his mind on her as he faced his end.
Evening shades slipped over the land. Night fell, its darkness soaking through her. She lit a kerosene lamp. Its flame like a tongue reached up to lick the darkness. She felt alone inside this pool of light—the whole world outside.
Saturday morning Liddie called up the stairs, “Haul yourself out of bed. There’s children to be tended to and readied for tomorrow’s Sunday prayers.”
The sun sent a gentle light into the room and she opened her eyes to a world too bright against her sorrow. She held a small pillow, hairloom pillow embroidered on it, to her heart. Mary Jane had given it to her saying, “It’s a pillow made of Jamie’s hair from when he had his first haircut and every haircut thereafter. He had such a head of golden curls.” She had looked toward William, her expression mischievous. “Now you know where William’s hair went.”
She watched the clouded sun with its partial aura of rainbow, its arc broken like Jamie’s promise to come back. Bay waters laughed and winked under sunshine. How could the day be so cheerful and life go on as if nothing had happened?
She dragged herself downstairs pretending she could go on even though she wasn’t sure it was possible. She, like a ship sailing on sunny seas, had been hit by a prowling iceberg breaking her, sending her to the bottom of a deep ocean. She didn’t know how to haul herself back up.
One night she woke rearing up with a terrible cry. Liddie hurried up the stairs to settle her back on her pillow. She lay there, her eyes wide open, afraid to sleep and fall into the same distress.
Liddie rushed downstairs and back up, urging her, “Drink this tonic. It’ll help you get past your troublesome sleep. Life don’t give you a choice. You have to keep goin’ day by day until your mind gets further and further from your grief.”
Some nights Maggie dreamed about Jamie. His arms reached for her and she caught the scent of his skin, felt the touch of his lips, the surge of life through his body. She woke with a start, the room cold and empty, her voice begging, “Be with me, Jamie, and I’ll stay asleep forever.”
45
Wind screeched against Jacob’s house as if it was trying to carry it off as a Pick Eyes fisherman lifted the latch on the porch door and made to go in. He hesitated, then stood with his back to door and looked out to sea. He turned slowly to face Elizabeth as she opened the door. She smiled. “It’s Len Bishop from across the cove, is it?”
“Indeed, and you’re Elizabeth come from over on the shore to marry Jacob.” He scuffed his toes against the landing and mumbled, “A good many black sheep will be losin’ their wool this year.” He tightened his hands on the bib of a cap he held in front of him, trying to steady them.
Elizabeth felt her heart quiver like a little bird in strong winds. She asked, “Why this year more than any other year?”
He shifted his look to the ocean, choosing his words carefully. “Women all over will be knittin’ black stockings and shawls for the year ahead.”
Elizabeth backed away, her hand to her breast. Dried mint hanging in the porch scraped against Len’s face as he went past her and into the kitchen, where Jacob stood putting a shovel of coal into the stove.
“The Southern Cross is lost,” Len blurted. “There’s sealers gone from everywhere. St. John’s, Foxtrap, Kelligrews, Long Pond, Brigus, Spaniard’s Bay, Harbour Grace. . . .” As if too overcome to finish he dropped to the settle. “Joshua Taylor’s punt just left the stagehead. He came from Cupids to tell us there’s black flags hangin’ and window shades down in ever so many houses. Every family in the place’ll be keepin’ their window shades down until after a memorial service.”
Len’s words pierced Elizabeth’s heart like a needle of heavy black thread drawn through it and knotted. Her mouth and tongue felt stiff. Then her tongue came loose as if freed from the spell of the Old Haig. Her brother’s name came out in a lament: “Jaamiee.”
Jacob reached and caught her as she was falling. He held her trembling body against his, murmuring, “Liz, I’m sorry.”
“Hard it is,” Len added, “the sorrow deep when there’s no bodies to bury.”
Elizabeth caught sight of the century-old headstones outside the window. Not even to have that for Jamie!
Her voice was muffled against Jacob’s chest. “My father needs me—Maggie, too! My my, what must she be feeling! I have to go, Jake.”
“Not yet,” Jacob answered.
She felt him tremble as if he was reluctant to risk taking her in boat after such a
calamity.
She pulled away. “I could go by train. Me father’s got no one.”
Jacob promised, “He was alone before he had a family. We’ll ask him to come to the cove and stay with us.”
Elizabeth’s hand moved down her belly to answer a quickening inside her. If you’re a boy I’ll name you Jamie Maley. I will, she vowed, a brother for Elsie.
Elizabeth changed Elsie and settled her in the cradle. Then she went through the hall, her eyes clouded and burning with grief. She slid her hand along the window leaf and felt a draft of cold air as she looked out over the bay, light playing on it bringing varied shadows. Those waters reached toward an ocean in which Jamie had disappeared. There was nothing more alive than the sea, nothing more deadly.
By nightfall she felt as if her mind was on for carrying her away like a wave never to bring her back. Jacob came up behind her. She turned and smiled wistfully. “Maggie and Jamie got on well.” She swallowed hard. “She and I are bonded in our loss. She lost a coosie and I lost a brother. She won’t have the chance to become a mother of Jamie’s children and I’ll miss my chance to be an aunt to them.”
In bed Jacob reached his strong arms around her and pulled her body snug in the crook of his. She fell asleep to nightmares that Jamie had washed up in the cove, a piece of wreckage stuck in his throat. She thrashed in her sleep, awaking intermittently.
“There’s always hope when there’s no evidence,” Jacob said softly, “but if worse should come I’ll be your husband and your brother. I promise. You got me for always.”
He snuggled against her back, her arms together and her legs curled up to her stomach as if she had folded herself around her lonely heart.
Ghost of the Southern Cross Page 21