Fog Magic (6 page)

Mrs. Morrill had taken it for granted that Greta was to stay for dinner in spite of the expected guests, and Retha had set an extra place next to her own. The Morrills' table looked as Greta had never seen it before. It was set with blue willow dishes that Grandfather Morrill had brought home from a voyage. There was a bouquet of swamp orchids and meadow-rue in an old ginger jar, and at each place a tiny dish of baked-apple —that most precious of all preserves—made vivid spots of gold up and down the table.

All through dinner, Greta found herself watching Mrs. Stanton. She had been beautiful once and would be again, she decided, if only she could look less troubled.

Mrs. Trask seemed glad to see Greta. She tilted up her chin and pushed a lock of hair behind her ear as she said brusquely, “So it's the fog-struck young one again! Well, I was right, wasn't I, when I said you and Retha would pull well together?” That was all, but there was kindness behind the harsh voice and Greta liked her.

When the dinner work was done, the girls slipped into the best room where the women sat waiting for Mrs. Morrill, and those who had helped her, to join them. Others had come since dinner and they settled themselves to polite conversation, but Mrs. Trask interrupted it.

“Ardis Stanton,” she said with a short laugh, “there's no sense in pretending we aren't wondering why you're here, and our curiosity is like to kill us. We all grew up together and we went to your wedding. But we've scarce seen you since Aubry Stanton took you to live down on the Island. And now you come back afoot to visit, with no luggage but a parcel. What's amiss, Ardis? We're your friends,” she ended more gently.

Mrs. Stanton sat very erect in her chair before she began to speak. “I've come upon evil days,” she said finally. “When Aubry was lost at sea, he left me well off. We owned near a third of the Island, and good land most of it was, too. And we owned it fair. It had come to him straight from his father and he'd had it from his father. The first Stantons had claimed it by right of settlement over sixty years ago.”

“And what's happened, Ardis? You've not had to sell, have you?” Mrs. Morrill asked.

“No,” said Mrs. Stanton and her face grew more bitter. “No, I've not had to sell. I was managing right well, though I'll admit it was hard going some of the time. Five children, and the youngest not born when his father was lost ...” She stopped as if she were reviewing the hard years over again. Mrs. Trask's impatient voice brought her back.

“Well, something worse than that has happened to you—I can tell,” she said. “You're not one to grieve overlong at hard work—unless you've changed since you left home.”

“Worse things have happened to me,” Mrs. Stanton said quietly. “A man has come—claiming every acre of our land. He says he has a grant to it from the Crown. I've been five years trying to get justice. I've written to every official here and abroad I can think of. I've used up every bit of gold I had saved. I've sent my jewelry to pay for an agent in London to get my rights. It's all gone and—and nothing happens. He threatens to turn us out. And I'm afraid he can do it,” she finished.

There were murmurs of sympathy from the women. Even Mrs. Trask was at a loss, but she recovered herself first. “And what do you aim to do
now?”
she questioned.

“I'm going to walk to Halifax to get justice,” said Mrs. Stanton.

“Walk?
To
Halifax?”
The women were incredulous.

“Why not?” asked Mrs. Stanton. “I've no money for coach fare even where there are coaches to ride in.”

“Ardis Stanton, that's false pride,” Mrs. Morrill began. “You know we'd like to—”

The expression on Mrs. Stanton's face stopped her. “I know you would,” she said. “And I'll take food and a night's lodging from my friends in gratitude. I'll take a lift on my way, if anyone's going. The neighbors have taken the children to care for while I'm gone, but that's something I can repay. Aside from that I'll take no help, neither for myself nor for my children. Maybe you can't understand until you've been through something like this yourselves. But a time comes when it seems that no help and no kindness will serve—there's something
gnawing
at you that only justice will satisfy.”

“But, Ardis, how do you aim to get justice? All alone, by yourself, in Halifax?”

“I aim to see the young Duke of Kent, myself. Maybe, since he came out to the province, things'll be different in Halifax.”

Greta had been listening so intently to the conversation that she spoke without thinking. “It was the Duke of Kent who married the Princess Marina, wasn't it? I've seen their pictures!”

The ladies turned startled eyes on her. Then a polite little titter swept over the room. Mrs. Trask recovered first.

“I'm afraid, my dear,” she said, “I'm afraid, from what we hear, that the Duke of Kent is hardly a
marrying
man.” Another laugh followed which Greta didn't understand. She was glad when they forgot her again and the conversation continued.

“You'll have a difficult time getting to see the Duke, Ardis, unless you have powerful friends in Halifax,” someone remarked.

“I dare say I will,” Mrs. Stanton agreed. “But I have a plan in mind. I can only try and pray the Lord it works.”

Old Mrs. Morehouse spoke for the first time. She had been sitting by the window in the little straight-backed Loyalist rocker that had come from Massachusetts. In the gray light that filtered in through the fog, her beautiful face glowed like a moonstone. “What are you carrying in your package, Ardis?” she asked gently.

“My wedding dress and my great-grandmother's earrings,” Mrs. Stanton replied. “They're all I have left.”

“You were a beautiful bride, Ardis Stanton,” Mrs. Morehouse told her. “I can't remember a lovelier one. I think you'll succeed, my dear,” she added after a pause, “because you deserve to. We'll all pray for your success.”

Mrs. Trask spoke up sharply to hide the fact that even she was sniffing into her handkerchief.

“I'm driving up the valley myself tomorrow, Ardis,” she said. “I'll take you a piece on your way and no trouble at all.”

The room seemed to be growing lighter and Greta went to the window to look out. The wind must have shifted because the late afternoon sunshine was glowing through the fog.

“I must go,” she whispered to Retha. Mrs. Morrill nodded to her across the room and she seemed relieved that Greta had noticed the weather.

All the next morning Greta watched the old Post Road. An ox team lumbered down, hauling a load of stone from the high pasture. But no surrey came down drawn by two smart horses. She told herself that she hadn't really expected to see one.

W
HEN school opened in September, Greta had less and less time to think of Blue Cove. But it was never quite out of her mind. Most of us live in two worlds—our real world and the one we build or spin for ourselves out of the books we read, the heroes we admire, the things we hope to do. Greta's other world was Blue Cove. She played no part in it except as a visitor. Its life went on without her. Still, each time a fog closed in and she stepped into it, out of sight of her everyday life, she felt as drawn to the secret village over the mountain as if the turn of the tide down in Petit Passage had caught her up with its smooth power.

Sometimes on her visits she would do nothing but sit in Mrs. Morrill's kitchen and watch her weave, content just to be there and hold Princess. Mrs. Morrill had begun work on one of the first woven carpets in the province. It was to cover her entire parlor floor. The hooked mats would do well enough for the kitchen and the bedrooms, she said. Greta wished that they used more hooked mats at home instead of exchanging them always for the congoleum squares and strips that were so easy to keep clean. Hooked mats suited the house better, she thought. They gave Mrs. Morrill's cheerful kitchen a richness her own home lacked. But then there were many things about the Blue Cove houses that interested Greta, though outwardly the houses were just the same. But Blue Cove menfolk all went to sea at some time or other in their lives. Their vessels plied back and forth to the West Indies at least, and if they didn't go to the Far East themselves, they often bespoke vessels that did. There were many chances to bring back curios and china, and the silks that made their womenfolk rustle “like a three-master coming up into the wind.” Greta laughed each time she thought of Early Frosst's description. All these things that they had brought back still graced their houses; married sons and daughters and grandchildren had not yet coaxed them from their elders and carried them away to their own distant homes.

On one such quiet afternoon, Mrs. Morrill was telling the girls about the time the whole village had nearly been wiped out at once. They had gone across the bay on Captain Landers's vessel to a cherry festival. The vessel had turned over in a sudden squall. But they had clung to it until help came and not a soul aboard was lost, except one small dog asleep in the cabin. Mrs. Morrill was interrupted by the sound of voices coming up from the shore.

“Run out, girls,” she said, “and see what's happened. It sounds as if every man and child in town was coming up the road.”

They met the crowd where the street turned off from the Post Road. It was true—every man and child ashore was coming up the road. In their midst walked Father Amiraux from the French shore and with him a sailor. The sailor satisfied all Greta's ideas of a pirate, even to the gold hoops that dangled from under the scarf knotted around his head.

“Have they captured him or something?” Greta asked excitedly. Retha laughed at her.

“Of course not,” she said. “He's probably just a sailor who speaks some other foreign language and they are bringing him to see Anthony. It often happens.”

“But you've never told me about Anthony,” Greta reminded her. “Did you ask your mother if you might? And why do they bring strange sailors to see him?”

“Mother said it was all right to tell you,” Retha said. “I just forgot. It's not a secret, really. But when you came that first day—I didn't know you well enough, I guess. Let's go and tell Mother now that Father Amiraux is here with another sailor.”

Mrs. Morrill already knew, and was standing in her doorway. The crowd had surged past the Morrills' to the house where Anthony lived. Father Amiraux and the sailor had gone inside and the men lounged against the fence or sauntered up and down. Women had come out in all the doorways to wait. They talked back and forth but their voices were hushed and there was something solemn about the group waiting in the gray fog.

“I declare,” said Mrs. Morrill, “it's like waiting for a death or a new baby. Come inside, girls. We can see from the side window when they come out.”

“Greta doesn't know about Anthony,” Retha told her mother. “You tell her. You know the story better than I do.”

Mrs. Morrill picked up some knitting, but it lay idly in her lap as she talked. “Anthony must be over sixtyfive now,” she began, “and he's lived here for over forty years—yes, nearer forty-five, I dare say. I was just a creeper when they found him so I only know the story as I've heard it told.

“Old Cap'n Cheney had left some gear on the shore one night and he went down early the next morning to look for it. About daybreak it was. Just around the point he saw a vessel putting out to sea. She'd just put about, and she looked to him like a man o' war—at least that's what he used to say later. Anyhow she was strange enough in these waters to astonish him. But he was more astonished when he heard a moan down by some rocks. He scrambled down to the beach in a hurry and found—Anthony. They say his clothes were elegant and fine and his shirt had ruffles on it. Beside him lay a canteen and some ship's biscuits. He was young, and handsome too, they say, but
his legs had been cut off just above the knees!
The stumps were about healed, but you could tell he'd not been born that way.

“Well, the old Cap'n called for help and they carried him up and put him to bed. He opened his eyes once or twice and made a sound. Some claimed it sounded like he was trying to say 'Anthony' so that's what they called him. He never spoke again,” Mrs. Morrill ended, “and that's really all we know about him.”

“All?” said Greta. “But, Mrs. Morrill, why didn't he speak again? And what had
happened
to him. The story can't end like that.”

“Maybe a story can't, child,” Mrs. Morrill told her. “But
life
can and often does. Oh, we've made all sorts of
guesses
about him. We used to think it was just that he spoke a strange language and couldn't understand ours. And whenever a strange ship put in anywhere along this shore, they'd bring an officer or a sailor up to speak to him. I guess they've tried every lingo under the sun on him, but it's no use. Only Father Amiraux still has hope. Some think that whoever cut off his legs cut the vocal cords in his throat, too, so he never
could
speak—and maybe tell something they didn't want known. But I can't believe that myself. It seems as if he could
write
—if he wanted to, but he never
has.
Still he could have learned to speak our language by this time if he had the power of speech,” she added. “It's a puzzle whichever way you look at it.”

“But his legs, Mrs. Morrill! You think they were
cut
off?
On purpose?”

“We don't know that for certain, either, Greta. Some thought they'd been bit off by a shark in tropic seas somewhere. Or maybe there'd been an accident on shipboard. But the doctors who have looked at them all say it was a surgeon's work, and a skillful surgeon, at that.”