by Linda Little
“You listen to me Laughlin Wainwright, Laughlin MacLaughlin, Laughlin Layabout, you harness those horses and get those crops off the field and prepare that land for spring. And when you smash your reaper from hitching it the wrong way to and driving it like a sulky, hie yourself over to the neighbours and prostrate yourself before the men, place yourself at their mercy. They are good and generous people and the men will help you for the sake of your poor dependants. They will help you out of pity for your youth and your ignorant incompetence, not because of your jovial company. From pity! Do you hear me? So hold your tongue for once and pay attention to what they tell you and perhaps there is an inkling of a chance that you will learn enough about farming to keep us from starving at least. God help us all.”
He shifted weight from one foot to the other, focused his nervous gaze on a mouse running along the wall. So obviously was he weighing his options I almost heard the click of the scale weights sliding between his ears. I rallied what strength I had in order to scrub the worst of my anger from my voice. “You are young to have the trappings of a man, I know. But what’s done is done. You’re not the first young fellow who’s had to learn a trade in a hurry. Start now and do your best. We’ll help you as much as we can.”
I stalked up the stairs to check the grind, leaving him there. The following morning he disappeared after breakfast and did not appear at the mill. When Charity wandered down at dinnertime she reported that he had gone to fetch a neighbour lad and together they had harnessed the horses to the reaper and driven them out to the field.
I did my best to forge a civil peace with my son-in-law. I could not bring myself to act the mother to Laughlin but I at least resolved to encourage and reward his progress and to make his failures as awkward as possible for him. I did my best to remember he was also a pawn in Ewan’s games with fate. Laughlin seemed to be able to manage the least possible amount of work. If I could manage a fair acknowledgement for what he had done rather than grumble over what he hadn’t, he might share his native gregariousness, which heartened Charity a little and brightened our home. There were evenings when work had not been too taxing and all had gone well, when the baby was sleeping and there had been a jam and custard pie for supper, when Laughlin would stretch his socked feet towards the fire, tilt back his head and croon out his ballads or take down the squeezebox that he had acquired on one of his adventures. On nights like this he could coax a spark into Charity’s dull eyes. Her smiles were tentative, but if we could make Laughlin’s life easy enough he rewarded her with moments of attention that I’m sure she took for love. For all the boy knew of love perhaps he took it for that too.
Before the snow flew that winter, Charity was with child again. So less than a year after baby Ewan was born, Charity gave birth to their second son, Samuel. Then twenty months later came Alexander, namesake to my own poor little boy who had lived and died a quarter of a century ago. Her occasional sparkle was doused. What energy she could muster was consumed by the drudgery of washing and scrubbing and feeding and changing. She could not be convinced to take an outing of any sort. She seldom left the house and never left the property.
EVEN AFTER YEARS IN THE TRADE, LAUGHLIN COULD NO MORE RUN a grist mill than he could fly between treetops. In the morning he tended to the horses then stretched himself out on the daybed and waited for his breakfast. As soon as I finished my morning chores I descended the hill to the mill, leaving the house and children in Charity’s wobbly care. Laughlin followed within minutes. He hailed his customers with hearty greetings, believing they saw a miller before them rather than a foolish man-boy. When I finished with an order Laughlin made a great show of hoisting the flour up from the meal floor through the trap door as though none of the farmers had ever witnessed the magic of a rope and a windlass before in their lives, as though none of this had existed before he arrived at MacLaughlin’s Mill. He loved it when the farmers brought wheat for the French buhrstone. Then he would tug the tin slip-sheet out of its crack at the base of the vat to check the grind. Although he could scarcely tell bran from bone meal, he leaned against the doorpost in the daylight pinching flour between his thumb and forefinger and letting it trickle onto the step, setting a little on his tongue and cocking his head slightly in deep consideration, as though the flour was whispering a message only he could hear. Then he would smile and nod and toss the slip-sheet aside onto the step or the ground where I would find it later, inevitably trod upon by some shod hoof or some hobnailed boot. I dared not even leave him to tend the oats in the kiln. He would toss three or four great junks of wood onto the fire then trot off to gossip while the entire batch blackened and burnt.
He hollered out to the farmers as they arrived, calling each by name as though all season he had been waiting especially for them. “Now, Henry Bailey,” he would say, “now, Willis Bigney, now, Alec Sutherland, what have we got here, what have you brought me? Let’s take a look at this, gentlemen.” The farmers had smirked at first but bit by bit they began to loosen. The grist-mill outing had always been a vaguely furtive affair while Ewan or I was in charge. The men gossiped and laughed and leaned on their wagons but always with the wariness of schoolboys conscious that the teacher lurked just behind the wall. Their wives insisted on our meal and flour. Had they not, the men would have driven farther down the brook to Thompson’s where the product was inferior (horse feed with twigs, in Ewan’s words) but the atmosphere was festive. I had no interest in maintaining Ewan’s standards of decorum in this new world; I only hoped to preserve the standards of grind on which our business depended. I hid in the bowels of the mill, kept myself out of sight as much as possible, kept my footsteps light and my eyes lowered. In my absence the farmers gradually followed the boy’s invitation to slacken the reins. There was song, a harmonica, a flask, and less and less attempt to hide it between swallows. It grew easier to forget there was a lady present at all. Soon the farmers had the best of both worlds: a carefree holiday away from the farm and the product their wives demanded.
Laughlin and I circled each other like a couple of cocks sizing up the competition. I could simply walk out of the mill and leave it to him. I could retire to my room, claim the parlour and set up a fine little apartment for myself. I could pass my days helping my daughter, attending to my grandchildren, raising the little boys I had never been able to have myself. I could tend to my garden in the summer and my knitting and sewing in the winter, stitch together little shirts and trousers, take the boys on strolls to the woods, read to them the fairy stories from Charity’s childhood books. This was always there between Laughlin and I and we would each dance up to the possibility, shove at it, jab at it like bare-knuckle pugilists and bounce back. Repeatedly we stood eye to eye on the meal floor or by the stones, this threat consuming the space all around us. He could banish me from his mill and do as he pleased without my meddling, my orders and criticism. I could turn and walk away. Neither of us, finally, could accept the consequences. Laughlin lived proud and easy on my labour and he knew it. He was not a stupid young man—not by a long chalk. And I could not leave Charity and the boys to suffer from his indolence and incompetence. And so we danced, each seeking the very limits to the tolerance of the other.
Time marched on. No matter the depth or breadth of our problems, no matter the wounds that lay open and the scars that glowed in the dark, the three little boys brought a sunshine that could not be dimmed. Little hands clapped and little feet padded. Bit by bit we forged a home, imperfect as it was. On heavy weather days or days when custom was thin, on lovely Sunday afternoons, at unexpected times on busy days, the boys brought moments of sudden merriment that left a hopeful confidence in their wake. Little Ewan, who could never manage his name and seemed as adverse to the moniker as I was, made Charity laugh by mangling Ewan to Yoo-hoo. He was so delighted by these new syllables that he sang them out all morning, sticking the nickname to himself for life. Samuel, trying to haul himself onto his pudgy little feet gripped the side of a pail full of cold well wa
ter, tipped it over on himself and yelped with such an innocent, startled look on his sweet face that a stone would have laughed. Baby Alec loved to place one thing inside another. As soon as he could crawl we began finding a missing spoon in the wood box, an odd sock in a teacup, a biscuit in the geranium pot. One morning Laughlin howled and pulled his dripping foot from the toe of his rubber boot where Alec had stowed a precious egg. For days we laughed whenever we thought about it and afterwards were diligent about inspecting our own boots before putting them on. There were times when I would lose myself in the glowing moments of this young family. The children built up love in us all. Laughlin and Charity moved through the disappointments of youth and met on the other side occasionally, tentatively, forging what they could from what they had.
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
THROUGHOUT MY THIRTY-ONE YEARS OF MARRIAGE I HAD CONducted my business affairs through Nettle and I continued to do so even after Ewan died. I had grown so accustomed to the bars of my cage that I no longer saw them—until Nettle’s death shook me free. Her body was found slumped over the hitching post in her dooryard like a final message to the farmers, carters and drivers who had made up her living. Rumours ripped up and down the road. Murder even, for heaven’s sake. Strangulation or poison. But she died from a body and soul worn through and worn out with work, age and loneliness. She died from the burden of other people’s secrets, of living a cautionary tale, of flouting the rules. A woman alone—how do you think she lives? I admit to relief. She took with her that fear that she could, impossibly, have known. That she held the power to tell.
I continued to produce oatmeal for Mr. Corrigan, as I did for many merchants in the northern half of the province, but after Nettle’s passing I shipped the barrels of oatmeal and flour from the train station in Scotch River. I was startled anew to find Scotch River so close, to find the foremost Scotch River merchant, Hector MacKinnon, so accommodating. Gradually I came to know the nature of the slight that had set Ewan so adamantly against the village all those years ago. I knew the story about Merton and how within a month of his naming Ewan as his heir, Merton had fallen, drunk, into the brook and drowned. I don’t know how widespread suspicion of Ewan had been. Hector MacKinnon’s father, then a newly established Scotch River merchant, had been unable to hold his tongue. Essentially he had called Ewan a murderer to his face. All of this seemed impossibly ancient to me, like tales of clan rivalries at the battle of Culloden. I set up an account for the mill at MacKinnon’s. Then I set up another for myself.
Unlike Ewan, Laughlin certainly held no prejudice against Scotch River. Laughlin might saddle his horse in the middle of the day, if there were no interesting customers at the mill, and light out for the village. He might return home with a silk tie or bauble-encrusted walking stick. Or, most ludicrously, a pair of spats! I am convinced that Hector MacKinnon bought stock especially for Laughlin—who else would squander hard-earned money on such ridiculous fripperies? More than once when Charity went to buy household necessities she found the account drained. I made it clear to Hector that my new account was to be kept separate from the mill’s. Any money Charity had a hand in earning we hid under my name, as well as occasional small bits of mill business that could be slipped by without entry into the books. A husband might have legal claim to his wife’s account but certainly not her mother’s. Laughlin kept a close eye on the mill accounts. In this area, like no other, he proved his intelligence and potential for diligence.
With his sons Laughlin was unpredictable. If a fine mood were on him, he might break into a jig or a hornpipe, showing the boys the steps and praising their progress. He would sing long ballads, inviting them to fill in lines for him. He might bring a handful of peppermints home from Scotch River and delight the boys with games of “which hand” or he might present them with some simple illusion. “I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve,” he might say and wink. Then apparently cut a piece of twine in half and magically restore it to its original length, or pick a certain playing card out of a pack or make a penny disappear. The boys would cheer and plead to know his secrets but he knew better than to break the allure of mystery.
But if he had suffered a setback of any sort during the day, or if he had overheard a snide comment on his abilities as a miller or farmer, or if his mood was off for any reason, he would turn on the boys as easy prey. I witnessed him offering Samuel a toffee candy, then from the little outstretched hand made the candy disappear. An instant later it re-appeared between Laughlin’s grinning teeth. “Poppa, it was mine!” the boy cried, but Laughlin laughed a short, sharp bark and walked away leaving the child in tears.
One day when a farmer allowed Laughlin to grind the fodder for his stock but held back his flour for me to grind, Laughlin pouted the rest of the day and that evening he kicked at Alec’s half-filled water bucket and goaded the boy. “Did it take you all that time just to bring in that much water? When do you start hauling water for the baths? Wednesday?” Alec, already sensitive about his slight stature, blushed in embarrassment. I beckoned the lad, leaned over to him and kissed his little cheek. I told him he was a wonderfully strong water boy and getting stronger every day and that he should never mind his father. The two of us locked eyes over the boy’s head. Laughlin bent his features into a saucy sneer and deliberately tipped over his newly filled mug, spilling tea across the table and onto the floor. Then he stood up and walked out, stepping carefully into the puddle and leaving wet boot prints in his wake.
One evening when I had Yoo-hoo washing up the supper dishes, Laughlin, restless and bored, snuck up on the boy and draped a dishtowel over his head like a wig. “How’s the little scullery maid getting along with her scrubbing?” Yoo-hoo was not easily cowed. He was bold in the way an oldest brother ought to be, I suppose: brave at the best of times, brazen at worst. Yoo-hoo snatched the towel away. “At least I do work! Not like you. You’re not even a proper miller—everybody knows!” Instantly furious, Laughlin grabbed the boy and dragged him off to the shed to take the horse reins to him. While it tortured me to hear the boy cry out, I did not interfere. I simply allowed Laughlin the rope he needed to hang himself.
Charity fared much the same as the boys. For years she struggled through a dullness brought on by childbirth. Just as she began to break through the dim miasma brought on by one baby, she produced another. But as little Alec grew and left diapers behind, as no new baby arrived to take his place, as the older two set off to school, little by little Charity began to lift her head and sniff the air. I caught snippets of the girl who had disappeared under the weight of early womanhood. She could latch onto Laughlin’s merry moods and pull herself up. She could forgive him. This, more than anything, set me smouldering. When she built up a bit of energy he wanted it spent on his behalf. She often did chores that ought to have been his, implied to me that he had done them when he had not. He remained happy to let me earn the money he spent so carelessly.
But what right did I have to criticize after all my own errors, my own stupid acquiescence? Getting by, getting along, keeping the peace, swallowing hope, lopping off desire and need and tossing them in the firebox, replacing them with musty straw. What right did I have to stand between my daughter and what happiness she could wrest from her husband? If Laughlin set his desires above everyone else’s did this make him worse than most? That he found himself able to play the puppeteer to a family of marionettes, did this make him more of a devil than most of the men in the district? Yet I loved more than anything to grab those strings and twist them in knots. Only I could deal with him, eye to eye, as an equal.
“We’ll sell up and go to the city,” he said to Charity one evening when he had come back from Scotch River in a high mood, the smell of beer hovering around him like a cloud of mosquitos. “I could make some real money there. Not like in this backwater. A man can really stretch out in the city.”
The only thing Laughlin ever stretched out on was the daybed. Before he could draw Charity into his pipe dreams
and ridiculous fantasies that pasted over the inevitability of his drinking away and wasting the entire worth of the mill and the farm, I spoke up. “I have legal right to this house. Who buys a mill without a house? Especially in this day and age of Western wheat and steam power? You’d get nothing for it.”
He fixed me with a glare which I returned undiminished.
“Oh, Mother,” Charity said. “You and your precious mill!”
Now, Granddaughter. Rachel. Your time has finally arrived. Your patience will be rewarded. Your mother conceived you, her last child and only daughter. Born with relative ease, greeted by smiles. I sat with your mother and held you to my face, your delicate breath on my cheek. You were my little Daisy, my Charity again, fresh and new, unmarked by treacherous twists and turns. I felt my own mother and my grandmother with me and your mother and you. We were all one—old and young, girl and mother and grandmother, weeping with grief and joy, weeping with hope.