The Nine Lives of Charlotte Taylor Page 14

  Adeste fideles, laeti triumphantes

  Venite, venite in Bethlehem

  Natum videte regem angelorum

  Venite, adoremus, venite, adoramus,

  Venite, adoramus, dominum!

  There in the wilderness, by the light of the fire and surrounded by the spirituality of two peoples she has come to know, Charlotte covers the final distance between England and the New World.

  THE DAY THE NEW YEAR begins dawns clear and crisp. With the trees bare, Charlotte can stand in the main clearing and make out the movement of the men at Walker’s post and ice fisherman in their shelters on the harbour. She knows that Francis Julian has invited the commodore to a feast that night.

  The cooking fires are already burning when she emerges from her hut that afternoon to prepare a bed of coals for the slow roasting of haunches of the fine moose Nab’tuq and his party had killed the day before. Marie and four companions had gone out to butcher it and carry it back. The fire rocks are heating in another pit and four iron kettles that will boil cod are secured in their places. Snow blankets the customary litter of the camp, but the women have cleared it from the meeting place and stamped flat what remained. They had covered the ground thickly with boughs, then covered the boughs with skins and blankets.

  Charlotte had been no more familiar with the methods and means of cooking in her own country than with those of the People. Food, she reminded herself, was a part of life that young women of good families associated only with their parents’ dining tables, not with the kitchen. But that very long year of 1775 had transformed her. Now she observes everything the women do, on occasion making notes in her diary while they chuckle at her kindly for having to write down what every woman knows.

  As the sun slips into the tracery of tree branches to the southwest, the People gather. As it sinks into the black profile of the horizon, a line of torches appear, announcing the arrival of George Walker and his party—six men in all. The people take their places in a wide circle, men and women separately. The forest is wrapped in darkness. The fires blaze up. Chief Julian approaches the central fire and throws in a handful of herbs. A sweet aroma fills the bright clearing. Now even the sky above darkens to indigo.

  The chief chants to the four winds and Mother Earth for the eagle and the People.

  Julian takes his place. This is a signal. At last long knives carve the steaming meat. The bannock emerges from the hot sand. A babble of laughter and talk erupts as all the People begin to eat at once.

  When the sky is black and the stars blaze coldly and the meat has been carried away and the fires are loaded with fresh wood, a lone drummer begins a careful double beat, like a human heart.

  Francis Julian stands. He speaks in the language of the People and then, in turn, in English.

  “George Walker has lived as our neighbour some seven years,” he says.

  Around the circle, a hundred eyes turn to the commodore.

  “He has proved a friend to many. His enterprise has been an advantage to all. He has come to me now to ask if we repay him by concealing our thoughts and our actions. This is too big a question for one man to answer. Tonight, I call on all the People. Speak your hearts. We have no debt to George Walker except the debt of friendship. Let us repay it now.”

  This is greeted by scattered murmurs of assent. Walker stands and looks around the circle.

  “The People and I are old allies and associates in trade.” He speaks in a slow and deliberate English, pausing between sentences as Julian translates for his people. “We wish to remain so. I look to Chief Francis Julian as a trusted friend. I am pleased to be asked to address you.

  “You may know me to have been this autumn in Quebec. There I met with representatives of His Majesty’s government. I have also been in communication with our officials in the port of Halifax.

  “The People are now well acquainted with events to the south. The American colonies are moved to agitate for independence from Mother England. A Virginia landowner named Washington is at the head of their army. This Washington is even now gathering that army against His Majesty’s forces.

  “These events might not have been my direct concern or the concern of the People. We are not able to fathom the rights and grievances of all the parties. We wish only to trade in peace. But you will know that the rebellious colonies have not been content to dispute with British forces on their own soil, but are determined to carry the matter north. In August a man named Smith entered the Saint John River in a sloop with a band of rebels and burnt Fort Frederick and the barracks there. He took four men prisoner and captured a brig of 120 tons. Montreal is fallen and a thousand colonial troops are camped outside the walls of Quebec. My own party was only by great indirection able to enter and leave that city.

  “We know now that native elements are lending aid to these rebels and that some braves of the Mi’kmaq and Abenaki have again taken up arms against British forces. I have received intelligence that confirms rumours that earlier reached Chief Julian’s ears: these same elements intend to attack private British holdings in Nova Scotia. My outpost must expect to be among those attacked.”

  For a moment it looks as though he intends to say more, but instead he suddenly sits down. Francis Julian takes his place.

  “In the days of war between the British and the French, the People fought on the side of their friends, the French. Many of our Nation travelled south to take that fight to the British in the American colonies. Now that war has past. The French king no longer rules these lands. The British live among us and it is the British we must count as friends. The People do not attack friends.

  “If any here tonight have knowledge to share, they may speak openly and with honour.”

  He sits down. The pipes are lit and passed. A hush falls over the circle, with only a few low voices, a few furtive glances.

  Wioche stands slowly. When he speaks, he uses the language of the People, but his tone is so edged it chills Charlotte. When he is finished, he does not resume his place.

  Francis Julian responds. “Wioche, son of Amoq’t, to whatever actions you have taken, do not add discourtesy to our guests. Commodore Walker speaks English, as you do. Address him that he may understand you.”

  For a long moment, Wioche looks first at Julian, then at Walker. Then he speaks.

  “No man of the People is surprised to learn that we must now make account to the only Englishmen in three days’ distance. This is their way.”

  He looks slowly around, and Charlotte feels his eyes briefly touch upon her.

  “You say, Francis Julian, that we fought the British in the colonies to the south, but there is more. We fought them wherever we could. They were our enemies. Now you say that war has passed and that we must be their friends. But the war between the French and the English is an ancient one and not yet ended. You would have our People rush from side to side according to the fortunes of those nations. Better we keep our own counsel.”

  He stops. After a time, Chief Julian answers.

  “Wioche, do you counsel that we should be enemies to none? If so, then we are of one mind.”

  Wioche stands some time without speaking, then says, “The People need make no account to old friends or old enemies. We have earned the respect of both.”

  “Wioche, son of Amoq’t, do you have knowledge of attacks on this or any other British settlement?”

  Wioche is silent.

  “Or are your proud words a cover for your knowledge?”

  Wioche regards the older man without expression.

  “Francis Julian, you are a good and honourable man. May your governing of the People be wise and your friendships reward you and not bring you bitterness and regret.”

  With these words, he turns from the fire and walks to his wigwam. Three other men follow him. The rest of the People look from Julian to Walker, their eyes wide.

  “Wars make many wounds,” Julian says. “Some unseen.”

  George Walker stands, his men follow suit. />
  “Chief Francis Julian,” he says. “We extend our thanks to you. Your feast was grand and your actions above reproach. I bid you good night.”

  He bows to the chief, nods to Charlotte and leaves. His men light their torches at the fire and walk into the forest behind him, following the path to the winter lodge. The sky is alight with stars and the sparks from the fire rush brightly upward as though to join them. The stars stand still, cold, and white, and the sparks die out among them.

  NO ONE SPEAKS of the scene at the feast, but in the following days there is no sign of Wioche. Then early one morning he turns up at Charlotte’s hut.

  “You’ll be safe in the care of the People,” he says.

  Charlotte laughs. “You sound as though you are saying goodbye.” She is curled up on her cot, shrouded in the bearskins.

  “I’ll return,” he says.

  “Then you are leaving.” She hears the alarm in her own voice. “Why go in such cold as this?”

  He steps forward, strokes the baby’s cheek once, twice, with a single finger. Charlotte looks up from Elizabeth.

  Wioche regards her. With an almost unnatural slowness, he extends his hand and with the same finger he had used to stroke Elizabeth, he touches Charlotte’s cheek.

  Then he turns and leaves. A cold wind blows in from the door as he pulls it shut behind him.

  IN THE FINAL DAYS of January, at the onset of the season called Abugunajit, the snow-blinder, Charlotte’s hands and feet become permanently cold, as though their top layer of skin has somehow separated itself from the rest of her. Deep cracks open in her fingers and sometimes bleed. Her face feels weather-beaten, though she has no mirror to see it by. The hems of her skirts often hang hard and frozen from beneath the robes of fur. But the baby thrives.

  Francis Julian visits her twice. She asks him about Wioche, but he makes no reply. She sees the chief often in solemn conversation outside his wigwam with other elders.

  On the day she believes to be February 20, when she had counted three more snowstorms like the great blizzard in December, she awakes in her cold hut and knows she cannot continue as she is. She goes that morning to Marie to ask if she can share a space in their wigwam. Marie lays a hand on Charlotte’s face.

  “Oo’se,” she says. Welcome.

  The men go daily to fish through the ice, but, as Marie had foretold, the fish were offended and had decided to punish the People. A day of chopping ice and sitting by the hole often produces only a few smelts. Antoine Denny kills a thin moose two miles to the north and half the camp goes out to butcher it while hungry wolves watch at a distance.

  On several occasions Charlotte indulges her urge to ask the women about Wioche and, when she sees them glance at one another, wishes she had not. But no one knew his whereabouts. She sometimes stands on the high knoll and looks down toward the outpost and imagines the men inside, smoking their pipes, drinking their port, eating their roasted venison. She even allows herself to imagine George Walker’s tall grey house in Edinburgh, the chandelier that might be suspended over a table of polished mahogany, the servants who might hover around it during dinner. Once, she thought of her old home in Sussex.

  The grass in the great meadow would be green in February and the first daffodils would soon appear.

  SOMETIME IN MARCH, Gluskap’s queen awakens in the south and remembers her promise. She is still in no hurry, but little snow falls and one day it even rains briefly. That same week, Wioche returns. She ducks out of the Landry wigwam to see him standing by his own place in conversation with the chief.

  That night the other women speak in whispers. He had been on the Milamichi, as they call the river to the south. No, on the Restigouche, they say. No, he had travelled to Gaspé. They say, thinks Charlotte, but they don’t know.

  The next morning, he approaches her at the big fire.

  “Are you well?” he asks.

  “Yes. And you?”

  “I am very well.” Perhaps for the first time since their afternoon in the sand shelter on the shore, she sees his broad smile.

  “Today they begin the syrup,” he says.

  “What is that?”

  “The syrup from the maples.”

  She makes a puzzled smile.

  “Hasn’t Marie told you?”

  “Of syrup?”

  “It was her surprise, perhaps. Come with me.”

  She is anxious that he should see her skill with the snow-shoes. She ties Elizabeth into her bunting and they set off.

  “I’m as quick as you!” she cries.

  “No!” he calls. “Much quicker!”

  They pass swiftly along trails already well worn through the remains of winter drifts. The trees, the ones whose leaves turned scarlet as though signalling their final splendour before dying in the fall, are now running with something called sap. The gnarled old trunks stand silently giving forth an opaque viscous offering to the survivors of winter. They find Marie and the others collecting the sticky drippings into a vessel and setting it over the coals of a fire. It steams and bubbles and after a long while turns into a pale amber liquid as thick as treacle. “Taste,” says Wioche, offering her a stick he has swirled through the syrup. She blows on it so she won’t burn her mouth and declares after the first taste, “It’s like candy.”

  The maple syrup is also sustenance for the overwintered camp. Every tree in the maple bush is fitted with a funnel and vessel to catch the dripping sap. They boil the bounty and pour it over everything, meat, bannock, dried mouldy berries and even plop it into their tea. The sugar brings energy, so does the change of season.

  WIOCHE CUTS WOOD and stacks it by her house. He repairs the roof again and stops the places at the base of the walls where meltwater would enter as the season progressed. But at night, as she lies in her bearskins, the snores of the Landrys around her, she hears angry voices from across the camp and knows Wioche’s is among them.

  On a soft evening in early April, with the sky still bright in the west, he speaks to her.

  “I have fixed your house and cut your wood and a fire is set in your hearth. You can come home now.”

  As they cross the ground together, they pass old Militaw, who smiles to see them.

  THEY EAT A LITTLE while the baby sleeps in the furs on the cot.

  “I must leave here again, Charlotte.”

  “When?”

  “In the morning.”

  “How long will you be gone?”

  “I do not know.”

  Without another word, he leaves her.

  THERE’S AN AIR of anticipation for the coming spring during the last cold days and freezing nights of winter. One day in April, the river ice that has been creaking and groaning as it grinds and bucks in the rising and falling temperatures begins to buckle, the broken pieces colliding in sucking and cracking explosions. Now loosened from the binding shores, the chunks move, slowly at first and then suddenly in a roaring whoosh, they are flushed out of the rivers to the bay.

  The blessed season of rebirth begins. The land is bursting with buds; the sea brings an easy harvest. Birds are laying their eggs. Lobsters trapped on the flats are scooped up during the low tide. And the rivers are once again byways for travellers. The commodore and his men move from their winter lodge back to Alston Point in a convoy of dories, canoes and a new sailing ship they had constructed through the winter.

  It’s early in June when Commodore Walker invites Charlotte to dinner to meet his shipping colleague, a man who has come by canoe from the Miramichi.

  She fusses as best as she can with her frock and her hair and wraps Elizabeth into her bunting bag for the walk to the lodge at Alston Point. Clad in a blanket shawl and knee-high mooseskin boots, she sets out on the familiar path with some apprehension.

  She’s still dusting the dirt from her boots when Walker strolls out to greet her. As she turns her head to bid him good afternoon, she realizes his guest is beside him. Before she can collect her thoughts, the commodore says, “I wish to introduc
e you to a trusted colleague and a most eminent gentleman, Captain John Blake, one of the finest masters in His Majesty’s merchant marine and a veteran of life in this New World.” Turning to the handsome-looking man beside him, he continues, “May I introduce Miss Charlotte Taylor, a charming woman, recently from England and her wee bairn, Elizabeth Willisams.”

  Blake steps forward. He is a tall man with a strong nose and chin. His expression is determined, his bearing erect. “Madam,” he says, “your fame has gone before you.” She extends her free hand and he bows to kiss it.

  CHAPTER 5

  The Nepisiguit

  1776

  Charlotte’s head is spinning from the bewildering speed of events when she stands at the fire in the centre of the camp and asks Chief Julian for the eagle feather.

  She’d seen John Blake often, sailing the newly built ship around the bay to test its seaworthiness and at dinner with Walker and his men at Alston Point. Last night he’d suggested they walk together on the beach after supper. It was a mild night, the moon was nearly full and the water’s edge shimmered beneath it. Her feet sank into the wet sand while they walked in silence, Elizabeth asleep in the bunting bag on her back.

  Blake spoke first. His voice held something that made her turn her head to him.

  “I must go to the river inside the week,” he said.

  “Oh yes? To your home on the Miramichi?”

  “You may, if you choose, come with me as my wife.”

  He had not looked at her as he said this, staring instead at the incoming tide. The bluntness of the proposal left her speechless. They walked on.

  “You will not then?” Blake finally asked.

  “I am most deeply affected, sir, that you should make such a proposal. I confess I am not prepared for it.”

  “It is unfortunately the case, Miss Taylor, that here in this new land we have seldom the luxury of long meditation. I have heard you speak to George Walker of settling here and heard you inquire about land. In truth, Charlotte, a woman alone cannot survive here long without a man. This is to simply state the truth. Nor will your faith in these Indians reward you at length.”