Trouble Cove

by Nancy Lindley-Gauthier

  “Barometer’s falling.” Daro stomped in from the yard. “Overcast. Flat calm sea. Something is brewing. I need to be off north. I think the weather coming in might be right for wrecking.”

  I didn’t glance up. “You aren’t going alone.”

  “This isn’t like a day sailing, miss.”

  “It’s Elizabeth, not ‘miss.’ I’ll go along or go alone if you don’t take me with you.”

  He shifted his feet. “I’m going fast and overland. You can’t help. It might be just some local fellow, desperate. A man I can reason with.”

  “No. It’s Avery. It must be. If it is him, he won’t be going alone, I can tell you.”

  Daro frowned. “Avery? The fellow due to inherit all this? I can’t see it.”

  “I can. I don’t know why it took me so long to realize. It’s likely all the Brookesons. Its Avery and his mother both. It would explain everything. I think they have run out of money, either had poor business ventures or have lost their investments overseas.”

  “They own this huge place,” he said, disbelieving.

  Beryl stood stock-still in the middle of the kitchen and gaped at me. She would carry this news up to Alma’s, wouldn’t she? I could not stop myself from blurting out my suspicions even so; heaven help me if I had guessed wrong.

  “Who knows if this place is paid for? And, it looks like any one of those passenger ships might well be carrying a fortune in artworks,” I argued.

  Daro did not look convinced. Beryl simply looked shocked.

  “In both of the last storms, Avery went off somewhere. He has a detailed map of the coast, listens to the wireless for news of incoming bad weather, and I think he’s been checking Madame Chatillon’s letters for the dates ships set sail from France. I suspect he’s the one who stole Mrs. Trumbull’s lamp mirror and oil. It all adds up. He’s planning wrecking. There is no other explanation.”

  Daro stared at me as if wondering if I had gone completely mad. It took him nearly a minute to admit, “A possibility.”

  “Probability,” I retorted. “Shall we try to gather some helpers?”

  “I sent a note to the coastal patrol chief at Ingonish about the false light.” The big man frowned. “I hope he will warn all vessels in the area.”

  “Why wouldn’t he send out word?”

  “Because it was only me telling him. Sounds a little far-fetched, doesn’t it? Purposefully causing shipwreck?” He eased toward the door. “George carried the message south to him, though.”

  “Do you think the wreck will be at McLellan’s harbor?”

  Daro raised his eyebrows. “Why would you think of McClellans?”

  “I think Avery practiced his fake ‘lighthouse’ idea on us, the day we took the Thistle up to the harbor.”

  “Practice.” A dark look crossed his features. “He might have killed us both. You think of that? Do you really think he’s that dangerous?”

  “I think he could be ruthless. He cares for no one but himself. Do you suppose he’ll try to lure a ship in below McClellan’s?”

  “No, no one would want to crash a big ship in there. There are too many folk about to see, either to catch him red-handed or to help rescue people. No, he needs seclusion and time to salvage all the goods. No, whoever it is, I see Trouble Cove as the most likely spot. There are other possible locations, but I can’t check them all.”

  “Can George take us north?”

  “The coastal road would take too long and, at this point, we might not get through. No. Pack me some bread and I’ll travel straight up and over the island.”

  Our Beryl might have been dumbstruck about our suspicions, but feeding folks she could handle. She heaved Cook’s enormous meat pie onto the counter. “How about this? None of the ladies will want beef pie, and none of the men are left here.”

  “None of the men are here? Mr. Osten? Mark, that is to say, Mr. DeLaMore?” I swept over to the counter.

  “They left straightaway after breakfast, yesterday. Mr. Osten had Old George start the Packard for him. It ain’t back.” She made a face. “I was watching for him, ’cause I was going to ask him for a ride.”

  “The professor?”

  “He’s upstairs, but he won’t care for this. I’ll make him a sandwich.” Beryl set to swaddling the pie in kitchen cloths.

  I shooed her aside. “I’ll see to it. You go along right now.”

  Daro put his hand on my shoulder. “You take Beryl and get to Alma’s. Both of you keep out of this place until I get back. Just in case.”

  “Did you hear what she said? None of the men left. All Avery’s cohorts have gone to assist him!” I suppose I sounded that determined. Beryl knew I wasn’t about to take no for an answer.

  She pulled her bulky-sleeved woolen coat from the closet and deliberately handed it to me. “This’ud be better for traveling than yours. Mittens in the pocket.”

  “Oh Beryl, how sweet.”

  Daro shook his head firmly. “No.”

  Calmly, as if I had done this dozens of times, I said, “Get the horse ready and I’ll finish packing the food.”

  ****

  I prepared in a matter of minutes and darted down the snowy avenue to meet Daro at the bridge. A light shower of snowflakes swirled around Oceanside, the meadow, and the low trees struggling against the wind.

  Ainslee-mare’s hooves clattered on the bridge.

  “Running off with some poorly thought-of local man.” Daro pulled up the horse right in the middle of the bridge and glared down at me. “Had you thought of what people will say?”

  “I’m going.” I started across the bridge. “Avery won’t be alone, he’ll have helpers. The men from the resort most likely. And maybe more too, had you thought of that? None of the fine fellows will be slogging into the sea to claim the cargo. Can you imagine any of them doing all that work? No, he’ll have some hired men to do all the salvage.”

  “We don’t really know it’s him.”

  “Whoever, then. You might still need help. Or someone to send for help.”

  He allowed the mare to take a few more steps in my wake. “This is nothing you can help with. Better you should get a message to have some men follow me. If you bring word up to McClellan’s, at least there’d be a hope that either you or George might convince a few to join me.”

  “Then there’s Genevieve. She’s gone with him, I bet.” I walked right along. “Can you deal with her?”

  Nothing but slow hoof beats answered my query about Gen.

  I didn’t glance back. I didn’t know which way to go once on the other side. I walked off the bridge feeling as if I were stepping off into nothingness. If he didn’t come along, I had no idea which direction to turn.

  The mare clopped off the bridge after me. Daro said, as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world, “It’s going to be a hard climb, right up and over all those hills.”

  “We managed together on the Thistle.” I didn’t know if I should stay on the path or aim dead ahead for that one pointy peak.

  “My way lies to north and west, in an ascent from the glen at the foot of the Sleeper’s Waterfall. It is the fastest way, but it will be cold and difficult.”

  “You’re sure this is where we should go?”

  “It’s the high point above the northernmost point of the island. If the man intent on shipwreck isn’t at Trouble Cove, from there, we might be able to spot where he is.”

  “Do you think Avery came this way? All this climbing?”

  “I’d guess he took the coast road with that big automobile and a lot of gear. Easier, but it’s the long way ’round. He had a long head start.”

  Avery had had a long head start, because Ariel’s threat had sent him away. I bet he had been planning to go the whole time.

  I took a step, as if I knew which way. “You’re sure of the way?”

  “I know the way to the waterfall.” He leaned down and offered me his hand. “Not arguing for hours might help us make better time.”


  I reached up and took his hand. We paused there a moment—truly, for less than the time for a breath. Yet, a shiver ran up my spine and he gazed down at me as if he too, felt it.

  My face felt warm suddenly and I had to look away. I fumbled at his foot, looking for a stirrup, but without any comment, he swung me easily up behind him. As I shifted for a comfortable spot on the blanket, I saw the mare had no saddle—just this one thick blanket over her back.

  “It will be hard to stay on,” I pointed out.

  “Hold on, Elizabeth.” He did not glance back at me, but repeated, “Elizabeth.”

  The mare stepped off into a lovely big trot and, like the best of her ilk, her comfortable, softly jouncing gait swept us forward at a great pace.

  Chapter Twelve

  The Journey

  The mare’s prancing raised my spirits. I had discovered riding, like sailing, back at Mrs. Pritchard’s school. Young ladies ‘in the old country,’ were well acquainted with racing and hunting. We were meant to develop some basic level of competence in such ‘upper crust’ activities.

  I’d loved riding, like sailing, far too well for my interest to be considered ladylike.

  Sitting behind Daro on the broad-backed mare posed no challenge. I expected we’d speedily traverse the hills before us. Once we were beneath the trees, we were out of the wind. A polite dusting of snow managed to obscure landmarks and I had to trust Daro to know the way.

  I amused myself thinking of how we might look to a passersby. Daro looked the part of a medieval knight astride his charger. I played the part of a princess, with my long coat draping down over the horse’s hindquarters. We jogged forward through the crystalline forest, leaving clear hoof prints in the fresh snow.

  For a long space of time, I forgot the serious nature of our quest. I forgot I wasn’t wanted. We rode along in a dream world.

  On occasion, the mare turned here or there of her own accord and I suppose she somehow knew to avoid rough going or objects in her path. I never saw or heard Daro urge her, yet she kept going at a great, even eager pace.

  “I think Ainslee-mare wants to see the top of the hills as much as we do.”

  Daro waved easterly. “She’ll want to go until we meet the eastern trail. She’ll be passing the way to her own home and birth place, the herd there at Cotton’s Farm.”

  The trees grouped closer and closer as we traveled. I grew used to the steady thump and jounce and disregarded it, as one stops noticing the up-down of a boat of the sea.

  Until the jouncing itself stopped. Abruptly, Ainslee-mare planted her huge hooves. Daro clucked and the mare angled around to point her nose toward due east.

  “The way home.” Daro pulled her to face northward and she again angled around. We did a little circle dance, right there, without making any forward progress.

  “She knows where we are, at any rate. She wants to turn for Cotton’s.” Daro swung his leg up over her neck and dropped lightly to the ground. “Stay on. I’ll lead her for a bit. She’ll get over it, once we are away from this spot. We cannot blame her for wanting to go home!”

  He took a bearing from his compass and aimed us straight into the trees. I grappled for some sort of hold of the mare’s mane. The trees stood shoulder-to-shoulder and we seemed to curve every which way to fit between. I forbore to point out that this simply could not be a path. I began to doubt Daro’s course. How long had it been since he crossed the island?

  Flurries danced around us, though little snow penetrated through the layers of tree limbs to land on the ground. What little did accumulate muffled sound, so the great horse’s hooves were nearly silent. The trees, with snow-burdened limbs, doubled the dark shadow of the deep gray sky. Every once and again we’d push through branches so close snow showered down all over us.

  The air felt close, and the gray day somehow, increasingly ominous.

  “We’re in the foothills now. Been climbing most of this hour.” Daro trudged steadily. We didn’t move quite as fast as when the mare had been trotting along, but Daro kept up a good pace.

  “You must have played all through these hills as a child,” I said.

  “No. Not much.” Daro dug his compass out of his pocket again. “I thought I’d remember more landmarks. It all looks different with snow on the ground.”

  Hardly encouraging! I hoped we weren’t lost.

  He noticed my expression. “I’ve been to Sleeper’s Falls. I’m pretty sure I can get us right there. After that, I’m not as sure, but north and west will get us to the cove.”

  Snow dusted all the evergreen branches. Tiny tracks, here and there, suggested squirrels were plentiful. We might have been off on a bit of a lark, and afternoon’s ride to see the view.

  Except it wasn’t an afternoon, was it? Twilight was nearly upon us. We jolted along for ages, as the trail dwindled and trees blocked any view. I wondered if we would ever make our way to the northern coast.

  Ahead, a granite-topped hill, gray against the mostly-gray sky, emerged as we cleared the thickest of the pines.

  Daro paused. “It seems a world from fairytales, to me. Look at all that sky.”

  “It’s night and day to our little coast, isn’t it?” It suddenly seemed as if we had crossed into a different land. We had left behind all the charm, the pretty beaches and dunes as well as the civilized little lanes and well-kept gardens.

  The interior of Cape Breton Island filled one with something more like awe. We walked out on the vertebrae of these great hills and felt the bones of them shake every time distant waves crashed violently into them. I had no words to describe the spirit roaring up from these craggy stones. Trees, twisted from constant wind, struggled upward, sparse and patchy, wherever roots could find a bit of earth.

  “I cannot imagine growing up here. This forest is wild.”

  “I grew up far off.” He must have realized how sad he sounded. “I didn’t have it bad, mind. I was proud to help the family. My younger brother got schooling and all. Would have been different if I hadn’t got work.”

  “Your younger brother, who’s gone off to war?”

  “Yes. He joined early. He wanted to do his part.”

  “You came back here, though.”

  He nodded slowly. “Seems like there might be a way for me to do my part, from here.”

  “And you take care of your mother.”

  “I thought I’d get a crew spot on a fishing boat, but captains hire local fellows. I do all right, though. Deliveries, loading and unloading, anything. I earn enough.”

  “It’s not been easy,” I said it thoughtlessly, thinking more of the boy he had been, sent off when he was so young he had little memory of his home.

  He turned those unfathomable dark eyes on me for a long moment. “Easy? The road before is not easy. Before you, I mean. Yet, you have set your feet upon this path.” Upon this path…his words sounded straight from a poem and suggested many meanings.

  I had chosen the path. Indeed, I had chosen my path.

  “It’s for good reason, this path we’re following,” I reminded him, finally.

  I thought perhaps he hadn’t heard, but no, after a pause, he began to recite small pieces of an old old poem. “The ship… In the gales of the equinox went ashore. Into the teeth of death she sped (May God forgive the hands that fed, The false lights over the rocky Head!) Down swooped the wreckers, like birds of prey…”

  A chill raced up my spine.

  “It’s a horror, what they are about,” he said.

  “What poem is that?”

  “Whittier’s The Palatine. It’s a long one. I don’t recall many verses. I can almost see it, though. A great ship grounded not far from the beach, and all these men, men like vultures, waiting to rob its cargo.”

  It took no effort of the imagination for me to picture those folks in the holds; children nestled below decks on a ship tricked into turning into the shallows. Rocks would shatter the vessel’s great timbers and freezing water would pour in. I suppressed a shudd
er.

  At length, we clambered off the crest of rock we’d so long followed and eased down into a narrow path through dense forest. “Inland?”

  “The coast is pretty rugged.” I couldn’t help but think our current path pretty rugged. The trees grew impossibly close. I clung to Ainslee’s mane with both hands.

  The trees sprouted anywhere, here and there, with barely space enough between them for the mare to squeak through. Daro turned this way and that through the maze of evergreens, ducking under or pushing aside branches and striding on.

  “This is not a path.” One branch caught poor Ainslee a swipe across the ears and the next swept me right off, over her backside and onto the ground.

  “Captain!”

  Daro grabbed my arms and hauled me to my feet before I could properly register I had hit the ground.

  “Stupid of me.”

  “My fault entirely,” I spluttered. “Might have ducked.” Fortunately the deeper snow here had softened my landing. I brushed off my backside. “I could barely hang on anyway. We should lead her.”

  “We’ll leave her. The trail beyond this is steep, and she barely fits between these tree trunks, now.”

  “Leave her!”

  “Yes. Don’t worry. She will trot straight back to Cotton’s.” Daro pointed the mare back downhill and removed her bridle.

  The mare, freed, hovered indecisively beside us. She expected to be tacked up again, ordered, directed; such was her life. She arched her neck and nibbled at my hand, waiting, asking for a treat.

  Daro waved and clucked at her. “Chick chick. Go on.”

  She stepped aside, took a few hesitant steps down the hill and paused, looking over her shoulder at us.

  “She’ll take herself along,” he said. As he rolled her blanket and added it to his pack, she took a few more steps away, then a few more. She dropped her head as if to find grazing, then suddenly broke into a shambling trot. In seconds, she disappeared through the trees and away.

  I could not help gazing after the big mare. “All those days she stood at the end of her paddock, staring north. She was wanting home, wasn’t she? Cottons’ farm and the other Clydesdales.”

  She’d worked for us all the summer, and in between, stood a vigil as loyal as a Mrs. Trumbull, or a Madame Chatillon. “Three grand old ladies, unable to escape their fate, but only to stand and wait.” I hardly knew I had spoken aloud.