The Nine Lives of Charlotte Taylor Page 8

  “Thank you for your company,” are his final words.

  Charlotte undresses and lies on her bunk in the dark. It is measurably cooler now and she has recourse to the lighter blanket of pelts. The bear, she has decided, makes an admirable rug. Her sole concern as sleep claims her is that the commodore had made no mention of her inheritance, although she is certain he has not forgotten it.

  The lamp is long extinguished when Charlotte is jolted from her sleep with a menacing crack of thunder and the realization that she is suddenly very cold. She retrieves the hairy black bearskin from the floor to protect herself from the frigid air but the thunder—cracking like a gunshot now rather than rumbling like a cart of stones being unloaded—is announcing a storm that will likely mean she has to go below. She no sooner considers the option when Will comes to her quarters in great distress telling her to get below. “Take cover. It’s a nor’easter. Tie yerself down to the pole in the hold and stay there until I come to fetch ye.” What is this nor’easter, she wonders, but quickly grabs the bearskin and finds her way to the ladder. On the way she can see that the wind is lashing the deck and the sea is rising and falling like a mountainous landscape. It’s an awesome sight, unlike any storm she’d seen before. At this stage it seems to be even wilder than the one she survived in the mid-Atlantic.

  For three days the nor’easter blows. The men in the crew take turns staying below to dry out a little, eat and rest before returning to the upper deck. The rain pounds down on the ship, threatening to drown them where they hide. Charlotte wonders at times which direction they are taking. She fears the gale-force wind will blow them over into the pounding sea. When Will comes below, he tells her the wind is not the problem. It’s a rogue wave they’re frightened by. “It could swamp this schooner and we’d all be sent to the deep.” Charlotte begins to calculate the likelihood of a rogue wave and realizes that the longer they are stayed in this storm, the more likely it is that the one would find them. It’s a long way to come to drown before reaching the shore, she thinks.

  But there’s more to do than worry. She tries to keep the tea ready, to scrape mould from the last pieces of cheese so that she can put them with slabs of equally mouldy bread and have some sustenance ready for crew members when they come below. There is still a good supply of water and the food will last for many days yet, but the bread and cheese are all she can reach from the place she is tied to and she dares not release herself as the ship tosses violently in the brine. No one has slept during the days and nights of being dashed about in the storm. On the third day, Will takes a fall from the ladder and when he struggles to his feet his arm is dangling by his side, broken. There’s nothing to do but lay it—straight she hopes—onto a board and wrap it with ties of cloth she finds by the stores. Will manages to smile at her throughout her ministrations, even as sweat beads on his pale brow.

  They are, all of them, nearly exhausted when at last the rain begins to lesson and the wind dies down. “ ’Tis over,” Will tells her, “blown itself out.” It is safe to return to her quarters and she’s relieved to get out of the hold. Back on deck she finds the commodore looking little the worse for wear and asks him whether the storm has pushed them ahead or cost them time. He points his finger to the northwest and says, “In that distance we will soon see land. We’ve been alongside Nova Scotia throughout this storm. Miscou Island is ahead. We need to sail around the north coast of Miscou and then you’ll see a sight you won’t soon forget.”

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING, the dark green coast of northern Nova Scotia lies high on the horizon and she can make out the island they are approaching. The commodore invites her to join him for breakfast and speaks his mind immediately. “You are a curious woman. I have noted your interest in where this ship will sail and the history of the people in these parts. It sounds to me as though you may plan to stay in Nova Scotia once we land. Is that a possibility?” She has thought about this conversation a dozen times and is still uncertain about the position to take. Now almost five months’ pregnant, her secret is becoming harder to conceal.

  “I wish to stay on this side of the ocean,” she tells him.

  “There are no other European women at the post,” he replies.

  She says she already knows that—Will had told her. He states his case again.

  “It is most unusual for a woman to be alone.”

  Silence from Charlotte.

  “There are men to marry, men who can take care of you,” Walker proposes.

  She wonders if this is an oblique reference to the story he’d told her about the aged suitor and the young woman. Is her future in the New World predicated on marriage to the commodore?

  Then he says unequivocally, “Charlotte, I am convinced that a hasty return to England is in your best interest.”

  Before she can say another word, he dismisses her with a curt, “I have duties to attend to.”

  She is on her way back to her cabin when the coast comes into clear view. “Land, bloody land—thanks be to God,” Charlotte cries. Soon they steer around the high cliffs of Miscou still being swept by a stiff Atlantic wind and suddenly sail into the calm of the Baie de Chaleur. Charlotte catches her breath at the sight of a land that captures her soul. A beautiful wilderness lies before her. Forests of fir trees drop off into fields of glistening seagrass that wave over long, sandy beaches. The water around her is teeming with fish. Will is at her side and tells her the huge marine mammals with the horizontal flukes on their tails are called whales. They move like undersea mountains, riding up to the surface and slipping out of sight again. The smaller ones with tusks are walrus, he says. The cod are so plentiful, she thinks, she could scoop them from the water with her hands. She can hardly believe the long journey from England to the West Indies and now to this place called Nepisiguit is over. Standing in awe at the ship’s rail and remembering defiantly what has gone before, she vows, “I will make my own way.” As the incoming tide sweeps the vessel to Alston Point and the home of Commodore Walker, Charlotte is determined to tame this wild and enchanting land and make it her own.

  CHAPTER 3

  The Baie

  1775

  Wioche stands on the Second Rock, alone except for Atilq. He had come here at first light to watch the movement of men at the shore of the bay. It’s his habit. His father had taught him this among other things: you learn most about men when you watch them unseen, since every man does alone what he will not do if watched.

  Wioche pulls his wolfskin around his shoulders, the onshore wind being brisk this late August morning. He takes a piece of dried whale meat from his pouch and chews it slowly, looking at the empty horizon. He looks down at Atilq, who tilts his nose out across the bay to demonstrate that he would not be seen to beg. Wioche reaches again into his pouch and tosses a piece to Atilq.

  “Where is your ableegumoocj-k today?” he asks the dog, and Atilq raises his ears because he knows the word rabbit.

  The wind brings a sound from the direction of the English outpost—footsteps. He follows the sound with his eyes and sees a woman stepping through the brush from the commodore’s lodge toward the beach. There were no women among the English, but all the People knew the commodore’s ship had been in the bay since yesterday. Evidently, though an old man, he had brought a woman with him. Wioche watches from the Second Rock. The woman in the long dress stands half a head taller than the men he knows at the lodge and has hair the colour of raspberries. No one among the Salmon People stands taller than Wioche and no woman of any people. He squints his eyes against the rising sun, watching her stealthily find her way to the shore.

  THE SUN has already made its way fully over the horizon and is bathing the water as well as the sands with its rays. Morning gilds the sky. She takes a step forward and stops in her tracks. A giant bird with blue-and-grey feathers, a long angular neck and long, spindly legs is standing like a solitary custodian gazing out over the water. She stands as still as the winged creature, taking in the sight. The bird is grand but
vulnerable, so lonely in its repose. She feels the solitude—her own as well—and thinks, This isolation here—it will be my saving grace as well as my struggle. She knows the life beyond this compound must be different to the comparative luxury Walker enjoys. She knows, too, that her own future has been reduced to survival. But above all, Charlotte sees the opportunity here. The genteel covering that she has worn for twenty years has begun to peel away. The lessons of the West Indies ripped off the first layer, exposing her vulnerability. But the mantle of this general’s daughter was rent piece by piece as the reality of food, water, shelter, pirates, rebelling colonies, wild beasts and nature’s ferocity exposed the life of a settler in the New World. While she stands here in the dawning, she knows there is still a level of naïveté that could defeat her, but she also knows she has pioneer in her bones.

  “Why ye be to the beach at this early hour?” Will calls out. The bird she’s been watching lifts off the sand suddenly and soundlessly, its massive wingspan spreading to a width that astonishes her, its neck coiling as it takes flight. Charlotte watches the bird circle toward the sea and asks Will, “What is that magnificent creature?” He tells her it is a great blue heron. “There are many in these parts. They stand for eternity at the shore.” She wants to know when the tides change. “It was a low tide at about three o’clock this morning,” he explains. “Did ye not hearken the squawking of the birds?” So that was the sound that had wakened her in the night. “The gulls fight for clams on the flats of the low tide,” he says. She asks what the flats are. “That ye’ll see later,” Will promises. “But for now, ye must come to the house. The commodore asks for ye at the breakfast.”

  WIOCHE KNOWS the men will be coming to trade soon and lets his thoughts stray to the molasses the white men bring, the strange sweetness that rivals honey and syrup, the fierce mother of rum, the devil potion that possesses its drinkers. He whistles softly to Atilq and together they move off the rock to a canopy of young trees, a vantage point closer to where the trade will take place.

  IT’S MID-MORNING when Charlotte sees the Indians approaching. Eight maybe ten, walking down the long path that leads from the forest on the hillside to Alston Point. They are carrying something—furs perhaps, piled on a tarpaulin that’s slung over two poles. She’s anxious to be present when the commodore goes out to greet them, but a residual fear still lingers so she waits and spies on them from a distance. One speaks to the commodore in English. They want to trade the goods they carry for the molasses and rum he brought on the schooner. There’s a lot of talking, must be the way they make the trade, she thinks. At last, the exchange is made. She has lost her chance to speak to an Indian and sulks about it when the commodore returns to the house. He tells her that he has to go to the camp to meet with their leader, Chief Francis Julian, later in the afternoon and that she can go with him if she likes.

  He has no special instructions for her while they walk the short distance to the camp except to say the Indians are known as the People of the Salmon and are respected for their medicinal remedies. The camp is situated at the top of a hill that overlooks the harbour on one side and the bay on the other. Walker explains, “It’s a fine location for a camp, high enough to be dry but close enough to the water below to have easy access to the canoes and a fresh-water lagoon that empties into the harbour immediately below the camp.”

  Closer now, she can see that the camp is surrounded by trees—spruce, poplar and an abundance of birch. The black-water murky lagoon separating them from the hill they need to climb to the camp necessitates a tricky crossing over a collection of logs. Near the top of the hill she gets her first glimpse inside the camp and calculates a dozen tents in a clearing and one long, low log house set apart from the rest. There are a few cabins, shacks really, nearer the woods. An enormous fire pit in the middle of the camp is where all the action is—animal skins are fastened to frames by the fire—to dry, she supposes—women are cleaning fish and dogs are hungrily lapping up the refuse the women toss to the ground. All at once the visitors are noticed.

  People come from all directions—little ones, old men, young girls and their mothers and grandmothers and the yapping dogs gather by the fire looking toward them.

  Walker tells her the man coming toward them is Chief Francis Julian. The hearty greeting the two men exchange makes it obvious that they have known each other for some time. Charlotte is transfixed. The frightening tales she has heard of savages—scalping, raiding, stealing, pillaging—are suspended when Chief Julian tells her she is welcome at the camp.

  WIOCHE IS NOT AMONG the people who gather around the fire. He’s carefully concealed, watching the English commodore and this strange woman by his side. He rubs Atilq’s head to sooth his own anger when he hears the English words. He knows Chief Julian speaks the commodore’s language because it’s good for trade with the English, who rarely learned the language of any other. But it rankles—this deferring to the foreign men. As the chief’s appointed traveller, his job is not to trade the pelt of the beaver or the hide of a moose. He trades information for the chief from camp to camp in the Mi’kmaq region, information that increasingly concerns the white man standing in this camp. Wioche had long known the language of the French as the French had been the powerful strangers in the time of his father and his grandfather and his great-grandfather. The Salmon People spoke in their own language to the French, whose little brothers les Acadiens had lived in these woods and fished these waters so long. Wioche reluctantly learned to speak the English white man’s language as well.

  MARIE STANDS by the fire with Josef, who is three, and Marc, who is four, and watches the English arriving in the camp. Chief Julian comes forward to give greetings. He knew well enough how to be a friend to strangers and draw advantage from them. The old commodore was no exception, though he is less a stranger than most English.

  Marie does not wish to offend the woman who appears to belong to the commodore, and she is careful not to allow her inspection to become a stare. But it was impossible not to marvel at so strange a shape. The woman is an odd creature. How had she grown so tall? And though the skins of the English were often pale—paler even than that of her Acadian husband, André—they were never in Marie’s experience as pale as this, and the hair colour was—it was unnatural.

  Yet for all that, the woman behaves just as women among the People were expected to behave. In the presence of Chief Julian, she speaks not a word, though her voice had echoed up the gully as she’d approached. Now the commodore and the chief walk aside to speak alone, and the red-haired woman stands among a crowd of strangers. Marie stoops to stoke the fire for tea and drops her berries and leaves in the kettle propped on stones in its midst. She probes the sand with a stick to check if her bannock is ready.

  A bois brule—married to a white man—she prides herself on baking better bannock than her sisters. Not that les Acadiens had eaten the bannock, of course. The Scots—a kind of English—had passed that good food to the People many years before. Indeed, her own grandmother had baked bannock. But it was a white man’s food nonetheless, and André Landry was a white man and that made her bannock better. She straightens up to call at Josef, who was about to plunge himself straight into the fire.

  “Get back!” she says. “Or you will burn up like the devil!”

  She speaks in Mi’kmaq. The children understand French well, but it had come to her with difficulty and more so because André spoke the language of the People. Since they had hid les Acadiens from the British soldiers for twenty years, many of the People who did not speak French before now spoke it well. This was the wisdom of Chief Julian, who had seen that the French would return some day in numbers. Already there were signs that this was so. There were no English here in the land of the People, only some Scots and French from across the water and a few of the old Acadiens returned. And the commodore, of course, and his men. But they were not ordinary English.

  The red-haired woman waits awkwardly and Marie glances at her belly. Wa
s this the way with such long English women, that their bellies stood out a little beneath their dresses? Or could she be with child, the commodore’s child perhaps? Who would know about this? Marie wondered.

  “Here,” she says to the woman, her voice low, as it always was when she spoke French. “Here is food.” She begins to poke at the ashes with a burnt stick.

  The English woman draws close. “Do you speak French?” she asks in that language but also softly.

  “A little, from my husband,” says Marie. “And you? Do you speak French too?”

  “Yes, a little.”

  “Josef!” she calls. “Come back or I will tie you!”

  “Are these your children?” the red-haired woman asks.

  “Yes. And my husband is un Acadien.”

  “How beautiful they are! You married a man who was not one of your own.”

  Marie smiles shyly. “I married the man I loved.”

  “Yes,” says the white woman. “Yes.”

  Marie uses two sticks to pluck the bannock from the coals and shakes the sand from the flattened bread. She gives a piece to each of her children, and a piece to the woman.

  They chew a minute in silence while Marie wrestles with the propriety of her thoughts.

  “May I touch your hair?” she finally whispers.

  “Of course.”

  “It’s real?” asks Marie.

  “Yes, of course it is.” She leans forward to let Marie touch her hair and asks, “What’s your name?”

  “Marie Landry. What is yours?”

  “Charlotte,” she answers, her eyes as blue as the sky. “Charlotte Taylor.”

  FRANCIS JULIAN is in his fifty-third year and his hair is long, almost to his waist, and the black is shot through with grey. His skin is the colour of buckwheat honey, but this is a matter of no note, since this was the colour of the skin of all the Salmon People. His nose is high and arched, and his dark eyes are veiled by their upper lids. This, too, is unexceptional. In summer, he wears a wolfskin draped over his otherwise bare shoulders and his trousers are baggy and woollen, courtesy of the white traders his people had come to know. His moccasins are made of deerskin, soft and carefully beaded. These, too, are as they should be. Francis Julian is in every way unexceptional except in respect to his mind, which is uncommonly clear.