by Paul Almond
I turned to go, but I realized that would be callous. “Now, Lorna dear, it’s time you got into bed and had a good sleep.”
She nodded. But I could see she had no idea what to do next.
I guided her head back onto the pillow. And then I lifted her long legs in their trousers onto the feather bed, covered them with the patchwork quilt and stood back.
Almost as soon as her head touched the pillow, it seemed that she had fallen asleep. She lay, her dark hair flowing over the pillow, the moonlight framing her superbly formed features, now relaxed completely.
I couldn’t move. I just stood looking down at her face and her dark hair awry but still glossy in soft waves. I realized that this was a very privileged view, that none but her future husband would ever see.
Then her eyes opened and they seemed to focus on me. “Kiss me good night, Mr. John,” she said in the voice of a little girl.
After what she had done to help me in the past, I could do nothing else. I knelt beside her bed and bent to kiss her on her cheek. But as I did, she turned her face up so that her lips met mine.
The touch of those lips, so unexpected, so astonishing, filled every ounce of my being with glorious elation. Never before had I been a party to such a simple but meaningful kiss. I raised my head, breathing heavily, and rose.
I heard her murmur, “Thank you, Johnny.”
I stood for a moment, drinking in this sight of her stretched out on her bed under the quilt, face relaxed and so well framed by those black locks. Then I turned, went out, and softly closed her door.
Chapter Eight
JANUARY 1897
The Sunday after Christmas, I got my first nasty shock.
Outside on our church stoop, I was greeting the parishioners before they went home, when out of the corner of my eye I saw the somewhat robust head of the Women’s Altar Guild hovering, her husband Archie waiting further down the snowy path. The last couple of parishioners went on their way, but she didn’t come up, so I turned and went in to hurry out of my vestments.
In sailed Bessie Yarn, closing the door behind her.
I smiled, but saw she had something on her mind. Her face was a mask, under which I detected a determination coupled with nervousness.
“Lovely turnout for New Year’s,” I said pleasantly, as a way of beginning the conversation.
“Oh yis yis yis. But a lot lovelier if a certain person didn’t take it as ’er right now to join us every Sunday. Don’t do our church justice.”
Whatever did she mean? I went over to hang up my surplice and take off my cassock. “A certain person?” I had no idea in the world what she was talking about.
She paused and stared. Then, as if she had taken a deep breath, she launched out, “Mr. John, I ’ave enough charity to know that at Christmas, we allow everyone to come and worship. But now it looks as if she’s coming back every Sunday – a person not fit to set foot on ’oly Ground.”
Lorna? Was she talking about her? I had no idea what she was getting at. I felt my jaw tighten as I repressed an urge to lash out. “Mrs. Yarn, are you suggesting that we close our church doors to anyone we happen to consider unworthy?”
“Oh no, Mr. John. But somewheres, a line ’as got to be drawn. That girl, the likes of ’er, dallying with all them sailors one after another, well, do we really want that kind of woman coming ’ere to contaminate our menfolk?”
Contaminate? “Of course, anyone with a contagious disease should be prevented from infecting the rest of our congregation. But, if I divine your reasoning, you’re not speaking about that.”
“I certainly am not. I’m speaking about ‘women of easy virtue.’ And you know very well who, bein’ the one what rescued ’er.”
Women of easy virtue — what a dreadful tag to assign to our lovely Lorna, who had now, for the second time, graced my service.
As I had walked down the aisle during the opening hymn, I had spotted Lorna — taller than the other women, modest, well dressed, even demure, and oh yes, pretty, I just could not believe anyone ever assigned this vision the label “woman of the streets.”
“Bessie,” I said sternly, “she was a cook on a schooner. Those tribulations she met there caused her a disturbance so severe that she lost her ability to speak — surely none of her own doing!”
“The menfolk ’ereabouts are all ’appy to mind their own business. It’s just when someone comes along looking like ’er, men’s ’eads turn. The same on that schooner, I can bet you. Don’t tell me she didn’t invite what she got!”
I held my tongue, because my angry retort would have brought me much anguish. I took a breath, as we clergy had been taught to do. “Bessie,” I said gently, “she will come to my church whenever she wants and as long as I am in charge.”
I let her absorb that, and went on, “No one would ever believe a word of your accusations. That girl’s mind is as pure as the whitest snow.”
Bessie Yarn gave a snort.
I knew her to be a mainstay of our congregation. Not only did she run the Altar Guild with tireless efficiency, ironing my surplice, caring for the vestments, she also saw to it that the women of Mutton Bay kept our church spotless, well dusted, and always in order. She was, as a leader, someone to be reckoned with. So no angry defiance that I might throw in her face now would be at all constructive. I had somehow to win her over. But how?
“Dear Bessie, you yourself are quite above reproach. We all know you to be one of the pillars of this church, and indeed of this whole community. But without any shred of evidence to support your accusations —”
“No evidence? What about my husband? Every time she walks by, ’e stares at ’er like a lovesick puppy. He talked of nothing else when she first arrived, until I shut ’im up good and proper.”
Aha! Now I saw whence came her concerns. Believe me, I had no idea that Lorna had caused such a stir among the menfolk, or hopefully, to only one of them. In any case, here was a conundrum more difficult than any I had hitherto approached. In a matter so personal, how could I get Archie Yarn to see Lorna in her true light, rather than this idealizing, this stoking of her image in his mind? How could I get him to know her as I did, a lovely, though partially damaged, human being trying to heal herself, to make her way in the world, and at the same time be as helpful to others as she could. My own interest in her, unless I was deceiving myself, was nothing more than as a clergyman who had rescued her, and as a friend who would guide her. I said as much to Mrs. Yarn.
“You see, Bessie, if you saw her as I do, and indeed as I hope most other women will, once they get to know her, all will concede that she is absolutely no challenge whatsoever. She will be going back home to Nova Scotia in the summer,” I noticed she relaxed a little, “and she has no designs on anyone here. She, like a child rescued from drowning, is just trying to stay afloat — and even, I might add, hoping to make a few friends while she does it. You have my assurance on that.”
I was watching her as I talked, and I saw her features soften. Perhaps the clarity of my voice, combined with the fact that I was still her clergyman, had a calming effect. She knew me as a friend of Lorna, and so would know whereof I spoke.
“So you intend to allow that hussy to keep on as part of our congregation? Kneel at our church’s rail, and partake of the Lord’s Supper, along with the rest of us?”
That phrase somehow sounded as if she had used it before, hopefully only to her husband and not the Women’s Guild. But her voice had lost its earlier tension.
“The past is past, Bessie. As you know, our Lord said, I came not to call the righteous, but the sinners to repentance. If you are unable to accept my dictum, that she is absolutely innocent and by no means to blame for those tribulations on that schooner, then at least remember our Lord who hung on that cross in propitiation for all our sins. You must try to do likewise. Forgive her. Welcome her, as He would have done.”
“Well, one thing I just can’t understand,” Bessie Yarn said, after a significant pause while
she digested my remarks, “why did she take that job in the first place? There’s rumours about schooners.”
“You don’t mean that on every schooner, the cook is being violated?”
“No, of course not, Mr. John. Most crew men, as I said before, are honourable, and their captains honest.”
“So would you then agree that, in fact, she might have been thinking the same thing when she accepted the captain’s offer?”
I had her there. She dropped her eyes, paused, and then nodded.
By now I had put on my coat, and retrieved my hat and mitts.
“Well,” she declared, “I’ll think about what you said, Mr. John. Lot of it makes sense. If only my husband...”
“He will get over it, Bessie, don’t worry about that. If you are tender and loving, as I know you to be, how could he not? But if you continue to reprimand him and act suspicious, you will only drive him away. So your duty now is to your husband. You just make him feel loved and secure, as any good wife should.”
As the words came out of my mouth, I had no idea where they came from, but they did contain a certain amount of understanding of relationships — which I confess I myself did not have.
Again she nodded, and then she actually smiled, as if relieved, and held out her hand. I took hers in mine, and then I blessed her, and she went out into the morning sunshine. I remained behind on a nearby pew to do some thinking. How widespread was her sentiment? Had I scotched it properly? Or would it continue to haunt me? And Lorna? I decided I had to remain vigilant.
As for the next couple of weeks, they came and went, I don’t know where. I continued teaching five days, visiting the sick on Saturdays, preparing my sermon, holding services, and even one weekend made a foray back into the woods with Clayton Green, who had been teaching me how to handle the dog team and helping me to cut extra wood for Aunt Minnie. In the evenings, Lorna and I continued as before, discussing the Scriptures and exchanging a few gratifying words at breakfast. The altercation with Mrs. Yarn after church, and the events of the night of mummering, were not touched on, neither was my earlier breakdown after the seal hunt. But one morning she confessed that she was not looking forward to the time when I would have to leave. Once the waters had frozen thick enough to allow safe travelling with our dog team, I planned to make one trip East and one West, several hundred miles in all.
But here it was approaching the middle of January and I had to get ready. The last two days in Tabacher School were rather harried for I wanted to give them homework while I was away. It didn’t help matters that the one room was so cold the ink froze in the pens. We were running out of wood, because I’d been piling it into the stove to keep the place warm. Although the parents should have seen that we needed a good supply, they thought I’d be leaving and had let it dwindle.
During the month, I wondered about taking off alone with the dogs. The last few trips to the school I had been driving the dog team myself, with Clayton sitting behind and offering helpful tips. Then he told me he wanted to come along on the trip with me, because he was determined to continue his lessons. He dreamed of becoming a teacher himself. Quite a bright youth, taller than me, thin, with a shock of black hair and dark eyes, he had an oddly boney face for one so young. He excelled at arithmetic so I knew he would do well in the sciences, of which I had little knowledge. Proper English he found difficult to write but I thought that would come.
On the one hand I looked forward to the adventure, calling in on the parts of my parish which were sorely in need by now of a pastoral visit; but on the other hand, I was not sure how I’d handle the long stretches alone, not really knowing the ropes. So it was decided that on my first trip eastward, he would accompany me, and that put my mind at rest.
Fortunately, the team had taken other clergy on such trips and our lead dog, Tuck, was well acquainted with the route. She was the oldest dog on the team and certainly the canniest. A good team depends upon a good leader. Of course with Tuck leading, there was bound to be a dog called Nip, with Snap, Grey, Dim, Blue, and finally Rob, the heaviest and pluckiest, nearest the komatik. They were all harnessed by individual traces made of sealskin, forty-feet-long, to Tuck, the shortest of eight feet to Rob, so they could travel Indian file on wooded trails. All these strands were attached to a stout bridle of seal hide called the pittuk, which goes around the two forward struts, fastened to them with a knot that in an emergency can be quickly released. Our komatik was red ochre, fourteen-feet-long, low-lying, with open slats lashed (no nails) across two runners, and a box in the middle for supplies on which we sat. Usually these boxes were covered in sealskin, or caribou hide. The runners slid on whalebone and in cold weather we glazed them with ice.
A heavy snowstorm forestalled my departure but gave me the extra two days needed to prepare everything. Aunt Minnie supervised the provisioning, with Lorna helping. My wardens turned up with more good advice, bringing extra seal fat for the dogs. In addition, they told us we’d need a good half a sack of cornmeal, about fifty pounds, a couple of seal carcasses and a goodly supply, about a gallon, of cod oil to pour onto their food. For ourselves, we brought mainly salt cod and fat salt pork, with of course tea and molasses. Aunt Minnie also baked quantities of beans with pork, but hardtack and dried codfish were our main staples, with Aunt Minnie’s molasses-and-raisin bread for special treats.
I could see Lorna watching the preparations for my departure with some apprehension. “I don’t like to see you go off with that lad.” She was working on a rug hooked from burlap sacks that once held hardtack or potatoes. After cutting the sacks into strips, she’d put the strips into water with spruce or fir bark and other plants to add colour and then boil it all up along with “cateau” or resin till it got thicker, and the colour would set in the burlap.
“He’s only a year or two younger than you, dear Lorna.”
“He may be. I just worry about you, that’s all.” She dropped her eyes and went on with her “barking,” as they called the process. I confess I was too excited at the prospect of this, my first major winter trip, that I did not adequately respond to her discomfort. But then again, I was leaving this group of parishioners and had carefully arranged the church services with my wardens and lay reader as to which lessons they should read and how they ought to proceed. I hoped to be back in about three weeks.
The morning for my leaving, January 20th, dawned with the sky still overcast, but the last of the snowstorm drifting away. Clayton turned up bright and early and Lorna fed the both of us, a fine meal of porridge with dollops of molasses. We wouldn’t be getting porridge for a while, so I had a second helping.
I embraced Aunt Minnie, thanked her for everything, and asked her to keep a good eye on dear Lorna and look after her. Then I turned to Lorna, and she hugged me so hard I even felt her body shaking. She buried her head in my shoulder and whispered, “I don’t want you to go, Jack.”
This was the first time I’d heard my nickname mentioned. I had probably told her that my sisters and little Earle called me that.
As I held her tightly I said to her, “Now look, you take care of Aunt Minnie for me. And please, Lorna, take care of yourself.” And then, because I didn’t want to prolong the parting, I hurried outside where Clayton had the komatik ready with the dogs hitched. I wanted him to drive the first leg so that I could hang on and just enjoy this beginning of what I hoped would be an exciting three or four weeks. I thought little of the dangers sure to ensue.
Before going far, we headed out onto the frozen strait among the islands, far enough from shore to avoid drifts built up near any headlands. This route to St. Augustine ran on the landward side of a chain of islands, so the ice had frozen hard under the dusting of snow.
We kept scanning for signs of habitation. The “livyers,” as they called permanent residents, wintered in coves and at the mouths of rivers, to use the protection that occasional woods or rocky capes might provide and for easier access to interior forests for firewood, trapping, and hunting. The s
treams also provided feeds of trout.
Before leaving I had packed a few textbooks and found time to map out in my mind the topics that I would like to teach Clay. Later I determined I’d examine him to find out if he had indeed been absorbing my lessons. I was the most versed in biblical history and classics from my time at Bishop’s. But I felt I should focus rather on his English, some history of North America, and indeed, a little geography, for I found the inhabitants of the Canadian Labrador woefully short on knowledge of the rest of the world, such as Russia, the Far East, Australia, and even indeed, Africa, a continent I hoped one day to visit myself.
So as we sped along, I reviewed what I proposed to teach and he seemed eager to begin. We intended to spend every available hour on the komatik exchanging ideas, with me offering him what little knowledge I did have on subjects he would need to further his education.
Toward late afternoon, we saw three houses in a cove and headed in their direction. Tuck knew what she was doing and brought us to the one with smoke lifting from the chimney. We got off and stretched, and I went to knock on the door, though it wasn’t necessarily part of my own parish.
The lady of the house opened it and, after I introduced myself, welcomed me inside. Behind her I saw her three children and elderly parents, but there was definitely an air of anxiety. She told Clayton where to find the empty dog pen behind the house, and he went to feed the team and pen them up for the night.
It wasn’t long before the reason for their anxiety came out: a week ago the father had taken his komatik to go hunting. He must have been caught in the storm that delayed our departure. It had cleared by noon today, but still she’d seen no sign of her husband. When Clay came back in, I alerted him to the situation. The first thing we did was kneel and I led prayers for his safe return.
What a shame I thought, as we rose, that this first house might soon be the scene of another tragedy. Her father-in-law kept insisting on hobbling to the door and stepping outside into the frosty afternoon to scan for signs of his son. I tried to keep the situation hopeful, so when he came back to sit morosely by the stove, I told optimistic Bible stories to take their minds off the impending tragedy. The wife busied herself putting on supper, but I could almost hear the minutes ticking by.