The Way Lies North

by Jean Rae Baxter

  Papa borrowed a spade and a Bible from Sergeant Major Clark. “I tried to get hold of a Prayer Book,” he told Charlotte, “but the Commander’s copy is the only one around and he won’t lend it to anyone. His aide says he needs it for marriage services. Burials we have to manage ourselves, as best we can.”

  Charlotte opened the Bible. “Everything we need is here. What do you want to read?”

  “There’s something in the Old Testament about a good wife: ‘Her price is far above rubies.’ That’s part of it.”

  “It’s in Proverbs. We had to memorize that passage in school, at least the girls did.” She flipped through the Bible. “Here it is: The heart of her husband trusteth in her, and he shall have no lack of gain. She doeth him good and not evil all the days of her life. She seeketh wool and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands.”

  “Every time Mr. Stuart read that in church, I thought of your mother.”

  Had Mama really been like that? Charlotte remembered Mama’s hands kneading bread dough, knitting mittens, braiding rugs, stitching quilts.

  Charlotte met Papa’s eyes. “Yes. She was that woman.” Louisa Vrooman came to help. She knelt beside Mama’s body to say a silent prayer, and then she hugged Papa and Charlotte. The tent felt warmer, just having her there. Louisa cut off a lock of Mama’s hair to be saved as a remembrance. As Charlotte held it between her fingers, it reminded her of rust — brittle, dry and dull. How could anything so lifeless help her to remember hair that had been the colour of flame?

  “We can dump the leaves from Martha’s mattress and use the sacking as a shroud,” Louisa said.

  “No,” said Papa. “Use her blanket.”

  “Henry,” Louisa spoke gently. “It’s a good blanket, and no use to Martha now.”

  “That doesn’t matter. My wife deserves a decent burial.”

  Louisa laid her hand on Papa’s arm. “If people see us carry her to the burying ground wrapped in that blanket, by tomorrow somebody will have dug her up to get it.”

  Papa turned pale. “The hemp sack, then. I would not have her grave disturbed.”

  Charlotte folded Mama’s blanket carefully. Louisa was right about people who looted graves. On cold winter nights a warm woollen blanket was worth its weight in gold. But that wasn’t the only reason to keep it. Mama would have wanted Papa and Charlotte to have it. She was never a woman to tolerate waste.

  Chapter seventeen

  Charlotte lifted the camp kettle from the cooking fire and carried it into the tent. Papa was sitting on his mattress, his face resting on his hands. He had been sitting there all day.

  “Time to eat,” she said as she set the kettle on the ground. When Papa looked up, she saw that his eyes were moist. Using the spoon that he had so carefully whittled from a piece of boxwood, she filled two bowls with boiled rice and passed one to him.

  “Eat it while it’s hot.”

  “Yes.” He ate one spoonful, and then another, without seeming to notice what he was doing.

  She watched his face as he ate. Only two weeks had passed since Mama’s death. It was too soon for the pain to have lessened. But still, Papa should be taking some comfort from her presence, from her love and care. Why could he not? Why must he be so alone in his grief? It feels as if we are no longer a family, she thought. And the thought made her heart as heavy as a stone. After the boys died, they had still been a family. But since Mama’s death, Charlotte and Papa lived in their separate worlds, each suspended in a void. It was true for her as well as for him, for she was living for the future, waiting to be with Nick. But Papa, quite the opposite, was living with his heart in the past. For both of them the present meant nothing. They were alive. Their hearts kept beating. They ate and slept. They went through the motions.

  After finishing her rice, Charlotte ventured outside to tend the fire, which had died down. She pushed the glowing logs into a heap so that there would be live embers to start the next day’s fire. We must always be ready for tomorrow, she thought. Snowflakes fell gently, landing with a soft hiss upon the now smoldering fire.

  As Charlotte entered the tent, Papa looked up. “I’m sorry that I’m not better company for you.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” she answered. “But we have to keep going, even if it sometimes feels as if we aren’t going anywhere.”

  She was grateful for the routine tasks that kept her busy. There was wood to gather, food to cook, the fire to tend. Like it or not, she was the one in charge.

  The next morning Charlotte went with Louisa to gather wood. Papa stayed behind in the tent, where Charlotte knew he would remain all day if she let him.

  “Why doesn’t he come with us?” Louisa asked.

  “He won’t. He won’t do anything.”

  “Don’t worry. Time heals all.”

  “I suppose so. But my father seems to get worse, not better. I talk to him, but it’s like having a conversation with a stump.”

  “He used to be the head of the household,” Louisa said. “What is he now?”

  A shell, Charlotte thought. Papa is like an empty shell.

  When Charlotte and Louisa returned, Charlotte found Papa slumped as usual upon his mattress. She crouched to warm her hands over the pail of ashes. It was cold as a stone.

  “Papa,” she said reproachfully. “There’s no heat in these ashes. How long have you been sitting in the cold?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t notice.”

  “It doesn’t take much effort to fill the pail with embers.”

  Papa raised his head. The moment she saw the misery in his eyes, she felt ashamed. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “And I shouldn’t have given you cause.” He paused. “Daughter, I’m not myself lately. I cannot forgive myself for causing your mother’s death.”

  “But you didn’t. Don’t blame yourself.”

  His hands lay weakly in his lap. “I knew that she had a delicate constitution, yet I forced her to leave the Mohawk Valley, walk a hundred miles through the bush, and then live in a tent.”

  “But it wasn’t only that. It was losing the boys. She no longer cared about living.”

  “True. She didn’t care.” He flexed his fingers. “My blabbering about cows and chickens went right over her head. And that’s what hurts the most. I loved my sons. But after they died, I still had you and your mother.” There was bitterness in his voice. “Why weren’t you and I enough for her?”

  “I don’t know. My brothers were so much like her. Maybe that made it harder.”

  “Everybody called them Martha’s boys.”

  “That was the red hair. But it went deeper than that.”

  “She didn’t care enough,” said Papa sadly. “She didn’t try.”

  Winter dragged on. From time to time, couriers arrived at the fort with news. Except for the doorstep war of neighbour against neighbour, there was now very little fighting in New York Province. According to the latest reports, a band of Virginians had captured the British fort of Vincennes, which Charlotte had never heard of, in far-off Indian territory. The English still maintained their hold on New York City, although Rebel forces occupied the Hudson Valley, where General Washington had made West Point his headquarters.

  With so much gloomy news about bloodshed and defeat, Charlotte was beginning to feel it would always be that way. But one day, as she entered the blockhouse to pick up rations, she saw a dozen people standing by the counter laughing. With them was a buckskin-clad stranger, a white man wearing the leather leggings that most couriers preferred for travelling through the bush. She could not remember ever before hearing a courier’s report that made people laugh. A victory at last? But the smiles looked more amused than triumphant.

  She pressed forward to the counter. “What’s happened?” she asked.

  Sergeant Major Clark, who was laughing like the others, forced his mouth into a straight line. “According to the latest report …”

  “Yes?”

&nb
sp; “Benedict Arnold has fallen in love.”

  “That’s right,” the courier explained. “Our spies report that General Arnold has fallen head-over-heels in love with a seventeen-year-old Tory girl named Margaret Shippen, the daughter of a Philadelphia judge. Arnold met her after George Washington made him Commander of Philadelphia as a reward for his loyalty. You can bet people are talking about it. Apparently he wants to marry her, but he’s having some trouble convincing her father.”

  “General Arnold is too old,” Charlotte said.

  “Thirty-eight,” the courier replied. “Old enough to know better. The girl’s a beauty, with expensive tastes. Everybody’s waiting to see what happens. Even the Continental Congress has taken note, and the congressmen aren’t too happy.”

  As he handed Charlotte her rations, Clark smiled wryly, “Love conquers all, as they say.”

  February was bitterly cold, but the days were lengthening. Having no calendar, Charlotte used ration days to mark off the passage of time. The visit to the blockhouse for rations was the highlight of each week, not because there was any excitement in watching Sergeant Major Clark measure out the Hoopers’ supply of flour, rice and pork but because there was always the possibility of a letter from Nick.

  At last one reached her. One snowy day, when Charlotte pushed open the blockhouse door, the Sergeant Major greeted her with a brighter than usual smile. Reaching under the counter, he brought up a folded paper closed with a red wax seal.

  “Miss Charlotte, I have a letter for you. A courier brought it yesterday.”

  “Thank you.” Taking it eagerly from him, she saw the address written in Nick’s familiar, scratchy hand: “Miss Charlotte Hooper, In care of Fort Haldimand, Carleton Island.”

  She snapped the seal between her fingers and began to read as she carried the letter across the room to a bench by the wall.

  February 16, 1779

  My dear Charlotte,

  As I write, I am sitting at a farmer’s table, warming myself by his kitchen fire. The good wife has fed me roast pork and apple pie. So you see that a courier’s life is not all hardship.

  There is little I can tell you save that I am well. The last six weeks were a trial, for my travels were on foot through rugged country. Friendly people, like my host, have used me well. But spies abound, making me ever careful what I say and write.

  My host will give this letter to a friend who travels soon to Montreal. He will leave it at Sir John Johnson’s house, and from there I trust it will travel safely to your hands.

  A thousand kisses from your own,

  Nick

  A warm fire in a farmer’s kitchen. Roast pork and apple pie. Yes, the life of a courier provided some compensation for the danger and hardship. It was worth travelling six weeks through rugged country to get a meal like that. Where was he, though? Definitely not in the Mohawk Valley, where there was also plenty of danger but precious little roast pork and apple pie for folks on the Loyalist side.

  The letter’s closing line promised her a thousand kisses. How long did she have to wait for them? She read the letter again. Not one word to say when Nick would be back.

  Sergeant Major Clark had her rations ready on the counter. “Is it good news?” he asked. “From the way your face is glowing, I think it must be.”

  “As good as I could hope for.”

  “It’s time you got something to smile about.” He hesitated. “Your mother’s death — that was a dreadful loss.”

  Charlotte squeezed her eyes shut. Whenever anyone mentioned Mama, she had to fight down tears. “We miss her terribly.”

  “It’s a hard life in the Upper Country for anyone who lacks a strong constitution.”

  “She never was strong.” Charlotte paused, and when she spoke again, changed the subject. “How is Fidelia?”

  “Doing well.” Clark was all smiles. “Two more months.”

  His happiness restored Charlotte’s good spirits. She picked up the rations. No rice. No dried peas. Supplies must be getting low. But she had a letter, so life was good.

  When she left the blockhouse, the red uniforms of the garrison drilling in the parade square were the only brightness to be seen. Such a small garrison — only one hundred men since the regiment had gone. Loyalist fugitives outnumbered them five-to-one. Grey-looking people. Ragged, thin refugees drifting about with nothing to do. Most were women and children, since every man between the ages of thirteen and fifty-nine had been recruited into the Royal Greens and was now fighting in distant fields.

  On her way back with the rations, she overheard children quarrelling inside the tents. Women shouted at them to stop their noise. I’d hate to be stuck in a tent with my husband away and three or four children to look after, she thought. But Louisa Vrooman managed to survive, so Charlotte supposed she could too.

  Two months passed. In April, Fidelia Clark gave birth to a son, the first white child born in the Upper Country, and from that day the Sergeant Major was a man transformed. His happiness was contagious; it infected everyone with whom he came in contact. To Charlotte, the sun was brighter, the wind gentler, the air warmer. Every day, she looked for Nick’s return.

  May arrived. On a warm evening, Charlotte was cooking bannock on sticks over the fire — tender bannock made with lard from the latest batch of maggoty pork. She had just taken a bannock roll from the fire, when she raised her head to see a tall man with a bushy beard the colour of straw striding toward her between the rows of tents. On his back was his rucksack, and under one arm he carried a canvas-covered bundle tied with cord. Could that be Nick? A look of surprise must have crossed her face, because the man laughed.

  “Didn’t you recognize me?”

  “Of course I did,” she said uncertainly. “But you look … well, so different.”

  He set his bundle on the ground, slipped the rucksack from his shoulders, and wrapped his arms around her. His beard felt warm and scratchy, like fleece, against her cheeks. The sensation when he kissed her was delightful. She nuzzled his beard, exploring its texture with her lips.

  “What do you think of it?”

  “Kiss me again. I’m still making up my mind.”

  But she would have to wait, for at that moment Papa came out of the tent.

  “Is that Nick?” he asked.

  “Whom else would I be kissing?” Charlotte answered.

  As Papa and Nick shook hands, Papa studied the beard. “You fair-haired lads always look as if you never needed to shave. I didn’t expect you to grow a beard that thick. It makes you look older.”

  “That’s the idea,” said Charlotte. “When I’ve dyed it, he’ll look like a regular backwoodsman.”

  “Do you want to see your disguise?” said Nick. He picked up the canvas-covered bundle.

  “Later. Put it in the tent. We’ll eat first, while the bannock’s warm.”

  Nick lifted the tent flap and stepped inside. A moment later, he emerged. When Charlotte saw the look of puzzlement on his face, she felt herself shrink back. Nick did not — could not — know about Mama.

  “Where—–?” Nick began. He had seen that something was wrong. There should have been three mattresses.

  “Mama died in December.”

  Nick looked embarrassed, apologetic, as if not knowing had been his fault. Charlotte felt a hard lump in her throat. The plain fact of Mama’s absence hit like a blow. Tears rose to her eyes.

  Papa cleared his throat loudly and for a moment did not speak.

  “I’m so sorry,” Nick said.

  They talked little while they ate. After supper, as it grew dark, Charlotte noticed Papa glancing around as if he were looking for someone beyond the circle of firelight.

  “Martha is with the boys,” he said suddenly. “That’s where she wanted to be.” He raised his head and gazed far off, as if he saw something not visible to anyone else.

  Charlotte moved closer to Nick. His fingers closed upon hers, and he squeezed her hand. Papa broke the silence. Clearing his throat, he t
urned to Nick. His expression told Charlotte that he had just returned from a journey of his own.

  “Well, where have you been since we last saw you?” Papa asked.

  “A good few places. After I left here last summer, I travelled through the Ohio Valley to meet with Butler’s Rangers, then east over the Catskills to New York.”

  “It must be bad there,” said Papa.

  “It’s terrible. Thirty thousand soldiers. Ten thousand refugees. The Rebels burned down most of the city before they surrendered it in ‘76, but Loyalists still keep coming from all over the Thirteen Colonies. I saw two families sharing one room. People tear the paneling from walls to burn in their fireplaces. Scarcely a tree stands in The Bowery. The streets aren’t safe. There are cutpurses everywhere.”

  “I’ve heard a rumour that France will send a fleet to take New York,” Papa said.

  “That could happen. There’s a report that Lafayette has returned to France to persuade the French government to do exactly that.”

  “Who’s Lafayette?” Charlotte asked. “On Carleton Island, we don’t get all the latest news.”

  “He’s a French marquis,” Nick said, “and the new hero of the Revolution. Twenty-two years old. He became a captain in the French cavalry at the age of sixteen. Fabulously rich. Two years ago he furnished a ship at his own expense and set sail for America to help the Rebels. George Washington has made him a major general and added him to his staff.”

  Papa shook his head. “If France sends ships and troops, the Rebels will win this war.”

  In the morning Nick showed Charlotte the contents of the bundle: a grey hemp shirt, a red neckerchief, black breeches, two pairs of men’s stockings, boots, a broad-brimmed hat, a belt, and a knife in a leather sheath. She picked up each item and examined it. Nick had chosen well. Only the breeches and stockings troubled her — would she really have to wear those?

  “Try the clothes on,” said Nick. “Let’s see what you’ll look like.”