The Nine Lives of Charlotte Taylor Page 18

  He’s away piloting a ship up the river when her ear is tuned to the call of the whippoorwill—it’s unmistakable. She is overjoyed to see Wioche, rushes to where he stands among the trees and stops herself from reaching out with her arms. She is tongue-tied, but a thousand messages pass between them in silence. He speaks first. “Charlotte, Elizabeth—good on Milamichi?” Her reply is so convoluted with bits about her life these last few months on the river, the baby’s antics and her questions about the camp on the Baie, Marie, Walker’s troubles, he’s soon laughing with the pleasure of connecting again with the unpredictable Charlotte.

  “What brings you here?” she asks.

  “Chief Francis Julian is visiting the Mi’kmaq camp in Taboosimgeg,” he says.

  “Why would he travel there?”

  “Trouble is coming. You must be careful. Your friend Commodore Walker is not safe. Many more privateers sail on the Baie.”

  She tells him she knows and although wants to ask what part his people play in this trouble she asks instead about Marie. They walk toward the cabin while he tells her the news of the camp. He doesn’t stay long, explaining that he must join the chief at a grand council meeting that is bringing chiefs from all over the district together to talk about the warring colonies south of them. On his way out of the cabin, he smiles at the sleeping Elizabeth, notices the braid of sweetgrass hanging on the hearth and says softly, “Baie de Chaleur stays with you.” Then as though to put his own stamp on the land where she lives, he adds, “Here it is called Mtaoegenatgoigtog.” It means Black Brook—the word she thought appropriate when she first saw the ink-coloured brook that has become her water well, wash basin and fresh-water fishing hole. Without another word, he is gone, having promised to bring a new braid when the sweetgrass grows again in the spring.

  She’s unsettled as much by the brevity of the visit as the plain fact that John Blake would not have appreciated the Micmac man on his land. Feeling a pang of guilt, she decides to make a special dinner for her husband and throws herself into preparing pommes de terre rappée, a favourite repast of André’s Acadian family. She digs up a hill of potatoes grown from André’s seedlings and sets the pot to boil while she grates the earthy-smelling vegetables, mixes them with diced pork fat and rolls the mixture into balls that she drops into the boiling water. By the time he gets home, the hearth is as he likes it.

  His tales of piloting ships up and down the Miramichi become daily thrillers. The journey is invariably fraught with potential mishaps—the changing tide, the treacherous shoals and the possibility of attack. The Blake cabin is above the submerged sandbank that separates Miramichi Bay from the river, so Charlotte can only imagine the tricky manoeuvres her husband tells her about. But she’s always relieved when he returns and relishes the stories he brings that knit the strands of their pioneering life together.

  There’s something else she notices that plays like a subplot in his stories. He seems to know a lot about the patriots, even calling some of them by name. It makes her wonder from time to time if piloting ships is all he is doing out there on the water.

  The cabin is readied for winter with extra boughs, and Charlotte suggests they line the walls with animal skins. “This is not a Micmac camp,” he says with more judgment than she cares to hear. Then he adds insult to injury by declaring, “The sweet-grass won’t keep you warm either.” She ignores the comment and instead calculates the stores: potatoes and onions are buried in a deep pit at the back of the cabin. There are spices and tea, molasses and sugar and enough flour and oil, she thinks to see them through. He’s brought whale oil for the lamps and to use as butter as well. Blake reminds her that livestock cannot survive the winter on the river, they are usually slaughtered in the fall and unless she wants a goat living in the cabin, she better look to other sources of drink. There’s tea, rum, spruce beer that he makes himself in a still behind the cabin and the brook is a source of fresh water even if they have to cut through the ice to get to it.

  The brook is the first to lock up, then the river; it freezes solid within a week of being covered with a thin layer of ice. The siege that is winter is upon them.

  Save for the happy February day when the lusty cries of their first-born son—John Blake Jr.—fill the cabin, winter is long, harsh and punishing.

  CHAPTER 7

  The Miramichi

  1777

  John Blake is away—again—sailing to the West Indies. And again Charlotte is left to bargain with the critters in the garden, the size of the woodpile and the threat of privateers, this time with two children at her side. It is a warm clear day when she spies a familiar dory crossing the river to her own small dock.

  “Pray!” she calls to the approaching boat, “How does William Wishart do?”

  He throws out the bow rope and she holds it as he climbs ashore. Together they pull the boat up.

  “Well enough, I suppose, Charlotte. I hope you are well, and the wee children.”

  “I am, William. But why do you answer me indirectly?”

  “Och, Charlotte, let’s not speak of me. Where’s the new bairn?”

  “Asleep in the house and let him remain so.”

  “Indeed. A sleeping baby—a blessing to all mankind.”

  “Indeed, indeed. Have you come to visit me?”

  “I have, Charlotte, and I’ve brought you a few things.”

  “What things?”

  “Aye. Many things.” He leans into the boat, where two bulky hempen sacks lie on the boards. “And I’ve brought you news,” he says.

  They sit in the kitchen, their voices softened on account of the baby.

  “I’m afraid for you, Charlotte.”

  “Are you so, faith?” She fans her cup with her hand and sips the tea cautiously. “What do you propose?”

  “There is worry of an attack. I think you ought to join the Murdochs. Just awhile. Until John returns.”

  “I see. And what do you propose I do with my own house, left open and unguarded? And my garden. What shall we eat, come winter?”

  “It would not be easy, I know. But I’ve brought you a large store of potatoes and what onions and cabbage I have and a bushel or two of good turnips. These, with what you have, will make a contribution for your keep. You may work with Janet Murdoch, who has barely a notion of how to begin the business of settling a homestead.”

  “William, if I were to follow this course, what would you and your brother eat? You cannot live by salmon alone.”

  “Aye. That’s so. I’ve come to tell you, Charlotte, that we are leaving. We’ll go to Halifax for now, where Alexander has friends.”

  Charlotte sits back in her chair.

  “It’s as bad, then, as I feared.”

  “New crops destroyed up and down the coast. Cattle stolen. And these losses are attended by events I will not describe. Men killed and women and children. Raids and burning these several weeks past even above us at the forks. There’s no one cares to defend us, it seems. Even if this were not so, we cannot get our fish out in a regular way. Now we’ll take what we can, while our hides are still on our backs and our scalps on our heads.”

  “I am sorry to hear all this.”

  “And I’m sorry to see it. Sorrier still that John is not here to protect you.”

  “He thought by this one adventure to give us what we need to prosper.”

  “Aye. Prosper indeed, when a man returns to find his wife and children all dead.”

  “Fie, William! You mustn’t speak so!”

  “I’m afraid for you, Charlotte.”

  WHEN WISHART HAD LOADED the handcart to the top with his previous year’s potatoes and turnips and a small sack of half-grown onions and cabbage, they pull it together from the boat to the house. Charlotte opens the sacks to the air. A pronounced smell of mould wafts out. She pulls out several specimens.

  “It appears a little life remains in most of them,” she observes. “I’ll make a soup tonight with pork and my new parsley. Will you stay to dinner
with us, William?”

  “No, Charlotte, there is something else to tell ye.”

  “Is it John?”

  “No, the captain is a man at home with hazards and I think ye should have nary a fear for his safety. The Hunter is in the bay.”

  “The Hunter?”

  “Captain Boyle come from Halifax with all arrangements for the registration of the lands.”

  “The governor now deigns to acknowledge us here?”

  “The governor? Were you not aware then that the rogue, Legge, is recalled to London?”

  “I was indeed. But our masters in London have sent us another better man, have they not?”

  “You run behind the times, Charlotte. There’s more news with every ship. Our masters in London have not sent us another and better man. This Legge remains governor. Though now residing in England.”

  Wishart sits on the blanket where Elizabeth plays and puffs his pipe into life.

  “So Legge governs us from England?”

  He nods. “I should think it worth his life to appear again in Nova Scotia. And Whitehall has forced the resignation of Michael Francklin as lieutenant-governor. He was an honest Englishman and one who had nearly won the loyalty of the Indians. Now in his place they’ve put our lives under one Admiral Aruthnot, a proven blunderer advanced to commander of His Majesty’s Royal Navy on this continent. By God, a man might blush to think of these stumblings.

  “But for all this there’s news for us—or some of us. Captain Boyle has come with the authority of the governor’s minions in Halifax. Eight persons here on the banks are properly registered. You and John are included.”

  “I’m glad of it, then. For aught we knew, with their many high purposes, they might have forgotten us entirely.”

  “Alex and I are not among the chosen.”

  “How can that be, William? You have been settled and working your fishery these several years.”

  “Ay, but we didn’t stake an official claim to our lots and this is the consequence.”

  “Did you and your brother not apprehend that life here is all about these lots? Land and owning land is the constant subject.”

  “To be sure, to be sure. We thought our presence was enough for now, as perhaps it might have proved. No matter, we are off and finished with it for now.”

  “How will it be done then with this Captain Boyle?”

  “This river is so dangerous, Boyle must actively patrol the bay, as does Captain Harvey on the Viper. He’s sent a fellow named Plumnell in his stead. Some have met with him already, but you must meet him at the Murdoch place, since it is the nearest to the bay. That is my chief reason for coming to you now.”

  “You’re most kind, William. When will this Plumnell be there?”

  “Tonight. He seems anxious to rejoin the Hunter so he can scamper back to Halifax. There’s great anxiety everywhere. You can well imagine, no employee of the government chooses easily to risk his skin. We should depart forthwith.”

  “Let me gather what I’ll need for the children.”

  SHE HAS NO GREAT AFFECTION for the sea, but a boat on the river on a bright, late afternoon with a good breeze is a different thing altogether. She looks back with unalloyed pleasure at the house as it diminishes with distance, admires the broad swath of cleared land, the tidiness of the garden, the woodpile, the outbuilding, the seemly rise of wooded slope beyond. There is my world, she thinks. There is what I have made with my husband and there is where we shall build and grow.

  In midstream, they drift downriver until the Murdochs’ house comes into view. It is a grand if ramshackle affair—the brief shelter and place of work for a company of departed loggers—and it perches on a considerable lot of five hundred acres on the curve of land where the river debouches into Miramichi Bay across from Bartibog Island. John Murdoch himself—with his mild, thoughtful eyes, ruddy, red-veined cheeks, high brow and fair, thinning hair—was quickly recognized as a steady and upright individual. The jutting nose of land he occupies was soon called Murdoch’s Point in recognition of this—and of the size of his family.

  Past the house and around Murdoch’s Point is a Mi’kmaq summer encampment. When the Murdochs had first arrived, and before the recent commotions stirred by rebel privateers, Janet Murdoch had made it clear to any who would listen that there was much of value to be learned from the natives. This was hardly lost on Charlotte, but though she had longed to visit the camp, the strong opinions held by her husband, and the fact of her having no grown children at home, had kept her from doing so. Janet had gone herself with her daughter Mary and Mary’s husband, John Malcolm. They reported the natives cautious but friendly and that there was nothing to suggest they intended mischief, though they had complained of mistreatment by British soldiers and sailors. Yet as news of Indian attacks spread along the river, less heed is paid to Janet Murdoch’s soft regard for the Mi’kmaq, and Charlotte sees little wisdom in making her own opinion more widely known.

  John Murdoch had done much to improve the house, with bedrooms in the upper storey and glass windows in every wall. And in fairness to Janet Murdoch, Wishart’s reservations notwithstanding, she had played her part despite a most unpromising beginning. Her appearance upon their arrival the previous year had remained a source a covert mirth in the vicinity of Blake Brook: the polished riding boots, the quilted dress—admittedly a very good dress—with its embroidered apron of what may actually have been Spitalfield silk, topped, as it were, with a properly plumed bonnet. But poor, thin-lipped Janet Murdoch was not seen in those clothes again.

  The Murdochs had not been long on the banks when stories of their origins caught up with them. Janet, the daughter of a good family in Banffshire, had eloped with her father’s coachman, a bit of gossip that secretly thrilled Charlotte. They had first kept a store on St. John Island, but John Murdoch wanted land—the preserve of privilege in the Old World and the birthright of the poor in the New World. The Murdochs brought nine children—three sons and six daughters—to the settlement, and Janet did indeed lift a hoe to feed them.

  ALBERT PLUMNELL has made himself comfortable at the Murdochs’ expense, an arrangement in which John Murdoch apparently sees some advantage. Plumnell is a rotund, bespectacled man who might have been groomed for his role as official errand runner and clearly relishes the dispensing of fates. Eight families are recipients of official allocations, with each to receive a half-mile of river frontage, the depths to vary according to the allocation.

  “Ah,” says Plumnell when Charlotte enters with the baby John asleep in her arms and Wishart behind her, carrying Elizabeth. “This then is the renowned Mrs. Blake.”

  Not one to dodge a challenge, she replies curtly, “I hope my renown is of the proper sort.”

  Greetings are exchanged between neighbours and the necessary introductions completed. The whole Murdoch family is present except for the eldest child, Mary, who had recently married John Malcolm and they had built their own small cabin farther along the bank and at a distance from the water. In their place are two dewy youths just come up from New Hampshire to work for them, James Doone and Douglas Rose.

  Plumnell makes much of opening ledgers and shuffling documents, then adjusts his spectacles.

  “As I have informed the others, Mrs. Blake, I act here for Captain Boyle and on behalf of His Majesty’s government at Halifax. I have John Blake, who is your husband, registered as the first settler on the Miramichi. Mr. Alexander Henderson, whom I understand I am to expect presently, is the second.” He shuffles some more, looks up. “Captain Blake is absent, I gather.”

  “He’s in the West Indies,” Charlotte says.

  “Is he? I had thought otherwise, madam. Well, you shall convey all to him, I’m sure. Three hundred acres are registered to Captain John Blake and to yourself, madam, as his wife. You are listed here as the third settler on the banks.”

  “I was so.”

  “In my opinion, madam, the Miramichi River is unsuitable to be inhabited by women.” />
  “Is that what you think, sir? Whom shall it be inhabited by?”

  “By men equipped for its dangers. Women should find their place only when these wildernesses are tamed. I have told these others so.”

  “Have you consulted with the men in this matter, sir?”

  Plumnell looks at her sharply over his spectacles.

  “Madam?”

  “Are other men in agreement with you, that they should be without the company of women so as to comply with your theories?”

  “I do not understand you, madam.”

  “Here, Charlotte.” John Murdoch intervenes. “See the maps Mr. Plumnell has brought.”

  “Hush!” Janet Murdoch says suddenly, a plate of boiled eggs and green onions still in her hands “There’s someone at the landing.”

  “Is there?” William Wishart laughs, though thinly. “How can you tell? ’Tis getting dark, Janet.”

  John Murdoch laughs too.

  “Oh, she’s a hare, she is, our Janet. She can hear the birds break wind in the trees, can you not, my dear?”

  But Janet remains where she had first stopped. “They’re coming up,” she says.

  The men push their chairs back from the table. John Murdoch crosses to the hearth and takes his musket in his hand.

  “I’m quite certain ’tis none but Alex Henderson,” Wishart says, but he looks keenly from face to face.

  Murdoch opens the door. They all see the lantern approaching from the river.

  “Halloo!” Murdoch calls.

  “Halloo!” a voice responds.

  “Ha!” cries Wishart. “ ’Tis the bold gentleman himself ! Throw wide the door and hide the rum!”

  “He’s running,” says Janet Murdoch.

  They gather at the door as he bursts into their midst.

  “Shut the door, by God!” he pants. “Let no light from the window to the river!”