Michael Crummey

by Galore

  But Shambler’s margin of victory was steadily narrowing as Father Reddigan took steps to unite the Catholic vote. Reddigan was the first Newfoundland-born clergyman to serve on the shore, with little invested in the politics of the old countries. His nation, he said, was Newfoundland and all Newfoundlanders were his countrymen, his kin. It was an attitude that threatened to make a Liberal candidate irresistible. During the most recent election Shambler felt compelled to surround the polling station with a mob, instructing them not to let Catholics pass unless they swore to vote Conservative. The mob was armed with staves and seal gaffs and Catholics carried the same to defend their right to suffrage. The brawling began in the morning and carried on until the polls closed, with Shambler holding his seat by the skin of his teeth.

  Father Reddigan filed a suit with the returning officer demanding that the tainted results be voided, and a delegation from the Gut descended on the officer’s house to protest when the suit was dismissed. They cut the timbers and set hawsers to the eaves and pulled the building to the ground before they butchered his five head of cattle in their stalls. As they walked back to the Gut they threw the bread his wife had in rise into the ocean. Seven members of the mob were whipped at the public whipping post and marched in halters to the wreckage of the house where they received twenty lashes more. Reparations were paid. And the shore settled back into some semblance of calm. The genius of democracy at work, Shambler called it.

  But the coming election was ruining his appetite. Father Reddigan lobbied for and was granted a separate polling station in the Gut, making Shambler’s mob redundant. There were rumblings of dissatisfaction among the Methodist teetotalers. Matthew Strapp was expected to run for the Liberals, a planter educated by Jesuits in St. John’s, owner of three flakes and a stage, two gardens and eight head of cattle, twenty sheep and twelve pigs. A staunch anti-confederate, a moderate drinker, father to seven children, he had no enemies, no obvious weakness. Shambler, who’d always been able to make any brawl serve his interests, attacked the Catholic Church itself to hold his support among the Methodists. Anonymous broadsides appeared on the shore decrying the Papist influence on Newfoundland politics, calling the Roman Church a bulwark of superstition, depravity and corruption with no place in the Legislature of the country.

  His only other trump card was the considerable influence of the local merchant. Shambler had betrayed blind old Absalom Sellers on his deathbed to keep Levi from crossing to the Liberals. And he was tied to the man now, for better or worse. People often compared Levi to King-me Sellers, but the resemblance was superficial to Shambler’s eye. King-me would skin a louse to make a cent. He had no talent for or interest in human endeavor except where he could insinuate some consideration of money and profit. Levi’s motives were never quite as obvious. There was an Old Testament ruthlessness about him, Shambler thought, something inscrutably tribal at the root.

  Matthew Strapp announced his candidacy in early December and his barn was burned to the ground a week later. The animals were let loose before the fire was set and only the building was lost, but Strapp took the warning at face value and withdrew. No one with Strapp’s property and credentials was willing to risk standing in his place and by Christmas it was clear the Tory seat in the Legislature would go unopposed.

  The season was a week-long celebration at Shambler’s public house, the proprietor presiding till the wee hours with a lecherous generosity, with winks and nudges and knowing looks. Bands of drunken Tories wandered the streets and fell in with the mummers roving house to house. Levi Sellers was not a drinker or a social creature and he waited till Old Christmas Day to make his obligatory appearance, setting his public seal of approval to events as they’d unfolded. He took a seat in a corner, hugging a glass of brandy diluted with water while the room pitched and rolled around him. Shambler had just that fall imported a plate of Wellington teeth from England to replace his own, the set scavenged from corpses on some European battlefield or from the mouths of executed criminals. His cadaverous smile made Levi’s skin crawl and he refused to look Shambler in the face when the Honorable Member came to the table.

  —I half expected not to see you, Mr. Sellers.

  Levi raised his glass an inch. —I wouldn’t be so miserable.

  —Well if you’re in such a fine mood, Shambler said, I’ve been wanting to talk to you about Selina’s House.

  —You aren’t going to make me regret coming, Mr. Shambler.

  —Dr. Newman thinks it would make a fine hospital.

  —He does.

  —The clinic is too small by half for what the shore requires. And Selina’s House is going to rot boarded up so.

  —And how does the good doctor plan to buy Selina’s House?

  —Well now, Shambler said. —Can I get you another? he said and Levi shook his head. —We were thinking it would be a gesture of good will to the people on the shore, he said. —If it’s only going to rot there as it is.

  Levi stood from his chair and pulled on his overcoat. —I’ll give it due consideration, he said.

  Shambler insisted he have one more drink before leaving but Levi ignored him. He stood outside a moment to let his eyes adjust to the black, sorry to have come. The indigo glow of the snow under stars all there was to light his way home. He started around the ring of the harbor, the noise of Shambler’s muffled by the frost. He turned up Sellers’ Drung toward Selina’s House which had been sitting empty since his mother left for Boston. He stood below the building in the dark, thinking what a scabrous bastard Shambler was to suggest giving it up for nothing. As if it was something Levi owed. Any debt between them was settled the night Strapp’s barn burned to the ground. And he’d see Selina’s House fall in on itself before Bride Devine and her son of a bastard moved in there with Newman.

  He heard voices coming his way and carried on toward the lamps in the windows of his own house. He could make out a group approaching from the Gaze, mummers dressed in castoffs and rags, their faces hidden under veils.

  —Master Sellers sir, the man in the lead said, using that grating ingressive voice. He was wearing a brin sack dress and a crown of spruce boughs and carried a scepter improvised from a barrel stave.

  —Gentlemen, Levi said.

  —Have you any drink for a poor mummer, sir? the lead man asked with a hand on his arm. Levi shook free and carried on walking. There were three of them and the mummers crowded close at his back and to either side. —Perhaps a bit of salt pork, sir? the man in the brin dress asked. —A bit of flour? A bit of cocoa or tea?

  It was useless to run, he knew, so he turned to face them. The night so silent he could hear the mummers breathing raggedly under their masks.

  —I don’t believe Master Sellers heard you, a second mummer said. —Speak up for the good sir.

  —A bit of salt pork, Master? the brin dress repeated, stepping in close. The others had circled around to hem him where he stood.

  —I bid you a good night, gentlemen, Levi told them.

  —He’s ears do not work proper, the brin dress announced. —Perhaps you needs a operation, Master Sellers. Perhaps we’ll have to fix ’em up for you.

  The mummers were on him before he turned, his arms pinned to the ground while the brin dress drew a fish knife from his costume of rags. —Give ear, he said, to the words of my mouth.

  Levi screamed bloody murder before he blacked out, a foul whiff in his nostrils as he went under. Servants alerted by the racket brought him inside. Newman was sent for and he swabbed the wounds with alcohol, clearing away the blood. Flossie and Adelina hovered near with a lamp, their breath catching in their chests. The lobes and half the cartilage sliced off both ears. Adelina fainted dead away and had to be carried to her bed. Levi came to while Newman was suturing and he struggled to sit up, trying to fend off the doctor. Mummers, Levi shouted, he’d been set upon by a band of mummers. —Hold him still, Newman told the servants at his shoulders.

  Levi was up as soon as the bandaging was done, shou
ting orders. He took a pistol and four servants to Shambler’s public house where he swore in a dozen drunken constables. They collected torches and rope, and every drinker at Shambler’s followed them out the door, Levi leading the party over the Tolt Road. The stench that overwhelmed him still in his nostrils.

  It was the second time in her life Mary Tryphena woke from the dream of a mob descending the Tolt Road into the Gut. The distant light of torches just visible as she went across to Laz’s house to wake the men. She shouted at them to get up, the panic in her voice prodding them from their beds. She could hear Lazarus struggling with his wooden leg, fumbling with the straps, and she went into the room to help. —What is it, maid? he asked.

  —Someone’s coming for Jude.

  Judah’s face appeared at the door and Lazarus shouted at him to leave. —I’ll be right behind you, he said, go on now.

  By the time they’d gotten the leg attached the torches were moving in the yard outside. Mary Tryphena said, I’ll go talk to them. She stepped into the red light, not able to pick out a single face among the crowd. —What is it you wants? she shouted. A figure detached itself from the mob of shadows and approached her, Levi’s oddly accessorized head coming clear in the dim, white muffs at his ears. —You got no business here, Levi Sellers.

  Levi waved a handful of men forward and they forced past her. Lazarus was dragged out in his shirtsleeves, his hands tied behind his back. Patrick came running from his house across the garden with Amos and Eli behind him. Levi turned to the constables. —Arrest them all, he said and he held Mary Tryphena as the Devines were wrestled to the ground and bound. —Where’s the white bastard? Levi said. —The foul one, where is he?

  —You’ve done enough to this family, Levi Sellers.

  Levi put a hand behind one of the elaborate bandages taped to the side of his head. —Pardon me, Mrs. Devine, he said, I’m having a little trouble with my hearing.

  The houses on the property were turned out and the neighboring houses and the rooms on the waterfront, but there was no sign of the Great White. The Devine men were marched out of the Gut with halters around their necks, young Eli at the front of the column. Druce and Martha stood weeping in the yard with Mary Tryphena, watching the torchlight ascend the road and disappear over the Tolt. The night was windless and cold, the first glim of morning in the sky, and Mary Tryphena took them into the house where she lit a fire and set it roaring against the chill.

  Before the day was fully gone to light Druce took Martha upstairs to bed and Mary Tryphena slipped outside, standing in the cold to listen awhile, testing the quiet. She made her way along the path to the outhouse and called to Jude from the door. His arms coming up through the hole like the pale shoots of some exotic winter plant.

  She was surprised to think Father Phelan and his stories would sit so close to the surface of her mind and Judah’s, these years later. Back in the house she knelt on the bare floor to pray for all her dead and gone, for Father Phelan and for Callum and Lizzie and for Devine’s Widow, for Absalom and for Henley wasting in his shroud of salt in the French Cemetery. Druce came back down to the kitchen and she paused at the door, surprised to see Mary Tryphena on her knees, the woman crossing herself before getting up. Druce was embarrassed to have disturbed her and uncertain what to make of the Catholic gesture. —You were praying for the men, Mrs. Devine?

  Mary Tryphena shook her head. —Prayers are no use to the living, she said.

  For three days constables searched the Gut for Judah. Levi posted a reward of fifty dollars for information leading to his apprehension, though no one came forward. Eli Devine was only nine years old and Barnaby Shambler convinced Levi to release him, but the other Devines were held in the abandoned fishing room in use as a prison. Opinion on the shore was divided as to whether the attack was meant as payback for the burning of Strapp’s barn during the campaign or retaliation for Levi’s ruthlessness as proprietor of Sellers & Co. There was no shortage of people with a grudge against him, some of whom had threatened flesh or property, but no one else was questioned.

  Newman visited Levi to change his dressings and he conducted a casual interrogation while examining the sutures. —They were disguised as mummers, is that right?

  —Rags and bags and women’s clothes, the works of them.

  —They had their veils on, did they?

  —Of course they had their veils on.

  Newman straightened from his work. Levi’s enormous nose was precipitous, his head unnaturally square. The loss of the ears wasn’t going to do the man’s appearance any favors. —How did you identify them, Mr. Sellers?

  —The smell, he said.

  —The smell?

  —There’s only one person on the shore with that stink on him, Doctor.

  —You mean Judah?

  —Of course I mean Judah.

  —Hold still, the doctor said, and he worked in silence for a time. Newman had long ago figured out that Absalom Sellers was Henley Devine’s father. He didn’t understand Levi’s particular hatred for Judah, the innocent cuckold in the affair. He seemed to despise the man for mirroring his own humiliation to the world so passively. —I don’t mean to play counsel for the defense, Mr. Sellers, but what is your justification for holding the men you have in custody?

  —You have just made a very close inspection of the justification, Doctor.

  —But your evidence, such as it is, applies only to a man not yet apprehended.

  —Birds of a feather, Levi said.

  —None of this could possibly hold up before a judge.

  —You forget, Doctor, that I am the judge.

  Newman reported the gist of the conversation to Bride and she walked the Tolt Road after supper to speak with Mary Tryphena. Patrick’s crowd had moved over from the house at the edge of the Little Garden to stay with her and they were all at the table, Druce, and Martha who was helping Eli with his letters, the boy copying Bible verses she’d written out on a scrap of paper.

  —Dr. Newman thinks Levi’s got no case, Bride said.

  —Levi will see them hanged, every one, Mary Tryphena told her.

  —Hush now, Druce said, nodding toward the youngsters.

  Bride said, Levi couldn’t sit as accuser and judge, is what the doctor says.

  Mary Tryphena waved off the technicality. —Then he’ll have one of his merchant friends from St. John’s sit the case. The result will be the same, mark my words.

  There was an acrid undertone to the air at Mary Tryphena’s that suggested Judah was listening in from the pantry or the upstairs hall. Bride said, Does Jude know what’s happening at all?

  Mary Tryphena glanced toward the stairs. —How would you tell?

  He came down to them then, as if the mention of his name was a signal. Mary Tryphena said, I told you to stay in out of it, Jude.

  Bride nodded up at him. —Hello Judah, she said. His strangeness was so familiar to her as a child that it barely registered, the smell of the man and his chalky skin, his fish eyes, his mute good nature that made him seem harmlessly retarded. But there was a strangely purposeful look about his face now, fear and resolve and an incongruous peacefulness. He stepped to the table to look down on the work the children were doing, moving the slate and shifting the lamp close. He turned Martha’s slip of verses facedown and reached for the pen, dipping it into the inkpot. He glanced at the women sitting across the table and began writing.

  Mary Tryphena stared at Judah as he worked. —Have Patrick been teaching this one his letters?

  —He never mentioned any such thing, Druce said.

  Judah blotted the ink with sand, shaking the excess onto the floor before extending the page toward the women. The letters were so ornate it took Bride a moment to recognize the verse. —Let the enemy persecute my soul, and take it; yea, let him tread down my life upon the earth, and lay mine honor in the dust.

  —Gentle Redeemer God, Mary Tryphena said.

  —It’s from Psalms, Martha said.

  —We k
now where it’s from, maid.

  Druce said, Where ever did he learn his letters, I wonder.

  Mary Tryphena was staring at her husband who had retreated from the table to the center of the room. —He’ve always known his letters, she said. —Haven’t you, Jude?

  But he refused to look at her.

  —There’s more, Bride said. —They that trust in their wealth, and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches, none of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him.

  Mary Tryphena was still watching Judah. —Are you sure this is what you wants, Jude?

  He glanced at her and nodded.

  She said, Do you think the doctor would bring a message to Levi for us, Bride?

  —I’m sure he would.

  —He’s to tell Levi that Jude will give himself up if Levi lets the others go. Is that right? Mary Tryphena asked him. —Is that what you wants?

  Bride looked down at the paper, reading over the verses a second and then a third time. —That’s a lot to say from what he got wrote here, Mrs. Devine, she said. —Are you certain?

  Judah was already out the door when she looked up and Mary Tryphena reached to take the paper she held, her hand shaking. —You see the message gets passed on, she told Bride and she left them all at the table then, walking up the stairs without another word.

  Mary Tryphena went to her bed where she lay awake the full of the night, the Bible verses in her hands. That delicately belled cursive, those spiraling letters tilted at an acute angle. She thought of Judah following her to Jabez Trim’s when she was a girl, standing by the door while she refused the hand of the one she thought had written the letter. She couldn’t have imagined a second suitor on the margins of her life. It seemed a ridiculous joke, a mute competing with a helpless stutterer for her affections.