by Bob Chaulk
“I don’t know, my dear; your father will do what’s best. He’s got to think of everybody’s safety. Why don’t you go over to the hospital and visit Gennie while Jackie is sleeping? I’ll send somebody as soon as there’s word.”
“You’re right, Mama. I need to get out and do something and Gennie always gives me a lift. Maybe I’ll drop in and see Olive, too.”
It’s a good thing I know the way, she thought as the hospital loomed out of the fog. I hope Daddy finds his way okay.
“Hello, Gennie, you’re looking really well,” she greeted her friend.
“Don’t be talkin’!” Gennie replied, looking up from her dinner tray. “I don’t know how anybody can look good with the grub they feed you in this place. But never mind that; come ’ere and give me a big squeeze.”
Emily gently hugged Gennie and patted her back.
“I hear your father and them found the stowaway,” said Gennie.
“News gets around.”
“Well, it’s a bit of hope, right? Everybody is thinking there might be more of them found. I’m sure you are.”
Emily nodded.
“You just missed Basil. He was by here a few minutes ago. He brought me in some books and said he would probably drop in again later this evening.”
“I’m glad to hear he’s spending more time with his flock and less time mooning about returning to England,” said Emily. “What books did he bring you?”
“Religious books mostly: a Bible and a book of sermons by a man named John Newton; oh, and a picture book about England.” She smiled knowingly.
“Very good,” said Emily. “I’m sure they’ll do you a lot of good. Maybe you’ll be able to quote me a few Bible verses the next time I’m in.”
“Maybe I will,” said Gennie. “I promised Basil I would learn a few he recommended.”
“As long as you don’t ‘get good’ and start thinking you’re better than the rest of us.”
Gennie laughed. “Father’s cousin, Jeremiah Day, down home: he got good. Went to the Army one Sunday night and got saved. But before the week was out he was on the beer and had to get saved all over again the next Sunday. This happened a few times and every time he got saved he would get full of the Spirit and dance around; one time he knocked down the stovepipe and filled the church full of smoke. After that the poor Salvation Army officer was scared to death every time he seen him comin’.”
Emily smiled thoughtfully. Lying in the hospital bed all day and facing an uncertain future was taking the hard edge off Gennie. Perhaps her stay in the hospital would cure her of more than tuberculosis. And it was Basil now; not “the minister” or plain “him.”
chapter forty-two
“The boats are back and they never found nobody,” said Agnes.
“That’s too bad, that is,” said Elfreda Tizzard, “but I’m not surprised, with all that fog out there. I suppose they’ll have to wait until it lifts before they try again?”
“They’re not goin’ out anymore,” said Agnes. “They’re give up.”
“What! Give up? Jim Osmond? Who told you that?”
“I heard it from Mr. Small. You know: Solomon Small. He just helped them stow away their gear.”
“Are you talkin’ about silly Sol Small? The one who castrates his cats with the pocketknife?”
“There’s only one Sol Small as I know for.”
“Sure he’s as crazy as a coot. I wouldn’t put much stock in anything he says, a man who castrates his cats.”
“He says it makes them grow bigger. It does something to them because he got at least a dozen over there and they’re wonderful hands at catching conners.”
“Get away wit’ ya. Cats can’t swim.”
“These can, girl! He says they take right to the water after he doctors them.”
“What do they catch conners for?”
“How else are they gonna stay alive? He never feeds them, sure.”
“I don’t believe a word of it, comin’ from silly Sol Small. He’s the oddest stick I ever heard tell of.”
“You can believe what you like, but I seen ’em catch conners with my own eyes, dartin’ around like seals right off the head of the wharf.”
“I don’t believe a word of it and I don’t believe Jim Osmond won’t be back out there, neither. If that maid of his—”
“Old maid, you mean.”
“If that maid of his wants it, he’ll be out there like a crow to a carcass. He can’t say no to her.”
Wints and Olive had been waiting at the tickle bridge when the boats came in. Joining the group that materialized below the bridge, Wints said to Jim, “You fellas take it easy, now. You done enough work for today; go on home and get something to eat. We’ll clear up the gear and take care of the punts. You may as well go on home too, Olive. Mom told me that Emily is over to the hospital visiting Gennie.
I’ll go over and let her know.”
“You should go home with Mr. Osmond and give him a hand, Wints,” said Olive, “I’ll run over and tell Emily. That’s a long walk for you.”
When Olive arrived, she found Basil was also visiting with Gennie. He listened with more than a little interest as Olive relayed the news. Maintaining his most grave demeanour, he deemed it wise not to speak, daring only to snatch an occasional glance at Emily’s darkened face. The three left the hospital together, Olive with her arm around Emily, quietly consoling her, with Basil tagging along, three steps behind and not quite sure of what to say or do, his own emotions so muddled that he was at a loss for words.
The stiffening northeast wind blew in their faces, swirling the tattered wisps of fog around them like cotton candy. Basil had hoped he had seen the last of fog when he left England, but it seemed that everything he disliked most turned up somewhere in Twillingate.
When they walked into Emily’s house they found Jackie awake and obviously distressed, recounting to Emily’s father and Wints the events of the week. He had dreamed of arriving ashore and then leading a multitude of townsfolk in the heroic rescue of his friend. It had not occurred to him that twenty-four hours after leaving Henry he would be sitting comfortably in a warm room, well fed and rested, and Henry would still be out on the ice.
“Can’t we go back out, Daddy?” Emily pleaded. “Henry can’t help himself. We’re his only hope.”
“I’m sure I can find him, Mr. Osmond,” said Jackie. “I know where he is.”
“Emily, dear, your father is beat out from being on the water all day,” Ada said calmly. “They’ll be out there again by daylight, after this mauzy weather clears away.”
“But time is running out, Mama. We need to go back out for Henry now, before it’s too late.”
“Emily, I believe your mother is right,” Basil interjected. “You must respect your father’s heroic efforts today, but he shouldn’t face the ocean again without some rest. I recommend that everybody get a good night’s sleep and then consider the situation in the morning, calmly and clearly.”
“That’s all very well for you, Basil, sitting here in a comfortable kitchen, but put yourself in Henry’s place—out on the ice, cold, lonely, in pain. Where is your sense of charity?”
“Emily, my dear,” he replied in a soothing voice, “it is not a question of charity; if I could snap my fingers and have him delivered here to this room I would. But the facts do not support our best hopes. I suspect your friend is no longer suffering and you need not—”
“Basil, what are you saying?” she replied in a shocked whisper.
“Only that the time has come to face the truth,” he continued. “How can any man survive after what he has gone through?”
Jim opened his mouth to say something when Jackie’s cold voice cut through the rhetoric with the precision of a scalpel. “You cowardly bastard!” he said, locking his rigid gaze on Basil until the appalled minister was forced to look down. Ada’s cup struck the edge of the table on its way to the floor, sending tea and broken china everywhere. “You don’t know
Henry. He’s alive and I’m gonna get ’im.”
“So am I!” Emily announced. “You’ll come, won’t you, Wints?” casting him a look that said, “Because I jumped in and fished you out of the water and the time has come to pay me back.”
Wints could not mistake the look. She had not mentioned the swimming incident from that day to this, but he had never forgotten his own desperation and how heroic she had been. Emily was desperate now. Only one answer would do. “For sure!” he replied, as Ada threw him an incredulous stare that said, “You should know better!”
Her father tapped the barometer on the wall and declared, “If that’s the case, then we’ll need two punts again. The glass is risin’ which means it’ll cool off and the fog might soon clear up, and if we’re lucky there might be a decent moon and a few stars to see by. It’s worth a try. Who else can we get, Wints? Art and Harold were all in and they’re probably gone to bed by now. How about Ches Rideout and his boys?”
“I’ll dart over and talk to them while you figure out the navigation,” said Wints, twisting himself to get up from his chair.
“Oh, Wints, I—” Emily blurted.
“No, I’m goin’. We’ll find him.”
“Gentlemen, I strongly urge you to reconsider. This is extremely risky,” Basil implored, but by now nobody was paying him any heed.
In the commotion he quietly put on his boots, grabbed his coat off the rack, and was almost out the door when Ada touched his shoulder, her face pale, her voice shaking. “Reverend Hudson, there was never such language ever spoke in this house before this night; I never heard the like of it before in all my days. ’Tis bad enough saying such words to an ordinary person, but to the minister! Bless my soul; my poor mother must be turning in her grave!”
“That’s quite all right, Ada,” Basil replied quietly. “It’s a time of very high emotion. I must go now.”
Ada implored, “Well, at least put your coat back on…oh, is that you Sade?”
“I was just comin’ over to see if there was any news.”
“My dear, you never heard such oaths to come out of a youngster as that young fella just spoke to the minister. You never heard the like!”
“Oh my, what did he say?”
“I won’t be repeatin’ it. Reverend Hudson is terrible upset and so he should be.”
“Well, you’re coming into my house right now and I’ll make you some tea, Reverend.”
“Really, Sadie, thank you but I—”
“I won’t take no for an answer. Come on, now…”
Taking him by the arm she firmly led him towards her back door. Basil, taken aback by such un-Sadie-like behaviour, followed meekly. She sat him down and put the tea on.
“Don’t be downcast, Reverend,” she said. “Everybody’s upset and worried and hoping for some good news, and there’s none, I suppose.”
“No, I suppose not,” said Basil.
“You been praying for poor Henry all day, have you? At home, all by yourself with nobody to take care of you, or up to the hospital visiting. It must be terrible lonely. You need to get yourself a wife. The way you devote yourself to the people around here, you’re just running yourself ragged, sure. The minister needs somebody to talk to, too, you know. You can’t just look out for other people and their problems,” she said as she fussed with the dishes. “Now you take that young Gennie. It’s nice of you to keep her company, she with no family here and all. She’s a bit sharp-tongued, I’ll admit, and she might not be what you’d call beautiful, but she’s not afraid of work and I think she would make a good wife. She loves youngsters.” Then she added in a lower voice, “It’s too bad she got TB, though.”
She glanced at Basil and down at the stove, as if realizing that she wasn’t making much of a case. “But there’s other, heartier young women on the go, and I’m sure any of them would make you a good wife. Come over here, now, and sit by the stove, where it’s warm. The tea will be boiling in a minute.”
Good Lord, he thought, do I appear so lonely that she feels the need to match me up with Gennie?
“How did Jim and them do?” she asked. “Nothing, I suppose?”
“No. They’re going out again.”
“Well, I guess they got to keep trying. Maybe things will look more hopeful tomorrow.”
“If you can believe it, they’re going back out tonight! I tried to talk them out of it but there’s no reasoning with them.”
“Who? Jim? Going back out tonight? Sure, he must be all in after such a long day. Who’s going with him?”
“Emily—”
“Emily!”
“And Wints.”
“Wints?” She gasped. “I don’t know how he’ll manage with his bad leg.”
“I notice he has a slight limp.”
“A stray bullet grazed his knee last spring at the ice, and it’s still not a hundred percent. He was never too fussy about sealing but that’s the end of it for him, now. Well, he knows what he’s doing, I suppose. But I don’t know about poor Emily. Sure, she don’t know what to be doin’ with herself, she’s in such a way over Henry. I suppose you can’t blame her for wanting to go out with them.”
Basil felt a twinge inside. “Do you think she’s putting herself in danger?”
“Well, for a young maid, she’s a good hand on the water; her father taught her good. But she’s not very big. You might have noticed.”
“What do you think are the chances for this young man’s survival?”
“If we all pray enough, I’m sure God will deliver him,” she replied dutifully.
“Do you believe in your heart that he’s alive?”
She stopped. “I must say, I don’t know, Reverend. I hope so.”
Basil looked into her concerned, motherly eyes. She was a kindly soul who venerated him and loved to address him as Reverend, as though every time she did so, a little trickle of grace dripped down like oil anointing her from on high. It was obvious to him that she wanted nothing but good things for him. Perhaps he could talk to her.
“Sadie, may I tell you something?”
“Of course, Reverend,” she replied, looking expectantly into his eyes.
“Sadie, the fact is that I have feelings for Emily, too.”
“I’m sure you do.” She smiled her approval. “She must be a wonderful help at the church, taking care of the Sunday school and playing the organ so beautifully. Her grandmother taught her when she was little. Ada don’t have the music in her like Emily do.”
He hesitated. He wanted desperately to unburden his heart to somebody supportive. “What I mean is that my feelings are beyond just what I would feel for a helper and…”
Sadie nodded slowly, her expression changing.
“And frankly, I, I have some conflict over the current turn of events.”
She changed her position on the chair. “You do? What kind of conflict?”
“With my feelings for Emily, I’m unsure how I would like things to turn out. Do you understand what I mean?”
She glanced down and started to fidget with the hem of her apron.
“Perhaps I’m not explaining myself very well. You see, I, well, that is—”
“Reverend, it almost sounds like you’re saying you don’t want them to find Henry,” she said quietly, “but I know that can’t be what you mean.”
He looked at the floor and rubbed his forehead with the palm of his hand. What’s the point? he thought. How can this woman ever understand my anguish over Emily, that she’s driving me to think such awful thoughts? Looking back up into her sad eyes, he replied, “Of course not, Sadie, really. I just want everything to turn out well for Emily.”
A look of relief crossed Sadie’s face like a lamp entering a room and she snatched the opportunity to end this disturbing exchange. “I know you want the best for everybody, Reverend,” she replied, as she rewarded him with a huge slice of cake. And, patting his hand gently, she continued, “You really should find a wife. Maybe Gennie will get better. I think
what she needs is a good dose of Owbridge’s Lung Tonic. That’s what they used to take for TB in my day—because the TB is in your lungs, you see. My grandmother swore by it…took it right up to the day she died.”
chapter forty-three
When Wints poked his head inside the Rideout kitchen, his simple, “We need a hand with the searchin’. Can you fellas come out tonight?” was met with an equally concise, “Okay, we’ll pack a lunch and be down in a couple o’ minutes.”
In less than an hour they were pushing the two punts through the tickle to the open water and were underway. Wearing long johns, a worsted sweater and a long oilskin coat with a sou’wester on her head, Emily looked like she was heading for the Grand Banks. With her skinny-woppers gripping the ice as she pushed the punt, she was already contributing to the effort; the boat carried only crew.
Jim placed the compass box firmly on the thwart and removed the wooden cover. “Okay, let’s get ourselves squared away, here. About four points to starboard, Wints.” Wints swung the boat with the sculling oar. “Good. Ches,” he yelled to the other boat, “all you fellas gotta do is stay off our starboard beam and just keep us in sight. Okay, Wints, let’s get goin’.”
The wind strengthened from the northeast and the temperature continued to fall, refreezing everything that the warm day had thawed. Emily had to hold herself to keep from sliding off the icy seat. Since their departure, Jackie had been standing and looking back at the land, facing Wints, who stood like a boatman of Venice working the long sculling oar at the stern. He had to keep looking around Jackie to see where he was going.
“If there’s one person who can find Henry,” said Wints, “we got that one aboard. Jim Osmond can smell his way around Notre Dame Bay with his eyes closed. He’s—”
“We’re goin’ the wrong way!” Jackie cut him off.
“What?” Wints exclaimed. “How can we be goin’ the wrong way when there’s only one way to go? Out!”
“I memorized the shape of the hills from what Henry told me. We need to be farther that way before we head out,” he said, pointing with his left hand to the north.