Shadow in Hawthorn Bay (17 page)

I
n the middle of the night Mary was wakened by a strange sound. She sat up, listening. From somewhere there came a deep, slow boom—boom—boom. She got out of bed, threw her plaid around her shoulders, went outside, and gasped from the cold.

The moon was full. The sky was clear. There was no wind. The ground was covered with a crackling silver-white frost. Each blade of grass, each stand of yarrow, tansy and milkweed, each twig and branch of every bush and every tree glistened in the bright, white light. The bay had frozen smooth and hard, as though a hand had pulled a sheet of glass over it.

There were no animal sounds, no bird sounds. Even the wolves in the forest had stopped howling. In all the world there was only that eerie boom—boom—boom and it came from somewhere deep in the bay. It
seemed that, in the silence that had come over the woods and the water, the earth’s heartbeat could at last be heard.

Mary felt she had surprised a moment in the earth’s turning that no person was meant to witness. Yet, at the same time, she felt herself to be such a part of the turning that she could feel no separation between herself, the earth, the sky, the water, and that booming heartbeat that gave life to them all. A tremor ran through her, she became aware of her separate self once more, and of the piercing cold. Shivering but full of joy, she stayed for another few minutes, dancing up and down to warm herself.

Back inside, she built up the fire and sat for a while, her body warmed, her spirit full of wonder. While she did not clearly form the thoughts in her head, she felt that the heartbeat of the fairy hill in her own Highland glen and the one deep in Hawthorn Bay were the same. “Surely nothing bad can happen to me now?” she whispered and went to bed smiling.

Henry woke her in the morning. “We got winter!” he crowed. “Get up! Get up! We got winter. Mary, wake up!” He pulled her nose.

Mary laughed out loud. She gave him a shove and got out of bed. “We did get winter.” She shivered as her feet touched the cold, rough boards. “I saw it come in the night, Henry. It came in a swift magic.” She gave him his jacket
and her wool stockings, stuffed her own bare feet into her shoes, wrapped herself in her plaid, and out they went to explore the winter.

The bay was silent in the bright sunlight but the sparrows and juncos were twittering in the shimmering bushes and among the branches of the willow and birch trees along the shore. Frost still covered everything and the cold had made the air so clear the houses and barns across the bay could be seen through the bare limbs of the hardwood trees as though they were only a few feet away. Henry ran to slide on the ice. Across the bay the Morrissay and Bother and Heaton children were shouting happily and doing the same. There would be no school this day. Mary stood on the big grey rock and looked down through the ice at the leaves and twigs caught there, and at her own reflection, as clear as though seen in a fine silver-backed mirror.

She saw, to her surprise, that she looked like the same girl who had once, many ages ago, looked at herself in the waters of Loch Ness—the same black hair and eyes, same pale complexion, same little nose and wide mouth—but this girl’s hair was in a braid hanging over one shoulder, the way the Canadian girls wore theirs, and somehow, though it had really only been six months, this girl looked older. The corner of her mouth twitched and she smiled. “I think,” she
murmured, “nothing bad can happen to me now.” She ran out onto the ice after Henry.

They chased and slid and laughed and suddenly there was Luke rounding the corner of the cabin with a bundle in his arms. With a whoop he dropped the bundle and raced down to the bay. Zeke Pritchett’s puppy came barking out onto the ice in front of Mary. Down they went together. Mary’s shawl got tangled around the dog until he became a writhing mass of wool and tail on the ice, yipping and howling through the thick cloth. Finally Mary managed to unroll the wriggling dog from his prison. He was so happy to see the world again that he jumped at her face, licked her nose, her eyes, her mouth, and knocked her flat on her back.

“Och,” Mary laughed self-consciously. She stood up, brushing herself off, and looked at Luke. He smiled happily at her.

“We have not had our breakfasts yet,” she said. “Henry will be getting cold. Come away in now, Henry.”

“One more slide,” pleaded Henry.

Half an hour later, over their bread and porridge and a bit of fish left from supper, Mary told Luke about the strange booming in the night.

“It’s always like that when the freeze-up comes sudden. I don’t know why but it is.” Luke’s face echoed the wonder Mary had felt. “It ain’t easy, this here country, but it’s grand,” he
went on. “When Pa and Ma come here there wasn’t nothing but wilderness on the whole island, or anywhere else this side of Lake Ontario—or the other, I guess—just trees.” He grinned at Mary. “And beaver meadows like this one, or swamps that got burned out by lightning. Grandpa and Grandma Anderson and Grandpa and Grandma Grissom all made their places more’n thirty miles from here—down near South Bay. Nice farms they got started. Pa was the youngest boy and there wasn’t room for him, so after him and Ma got married and got the grants the government gives all them as was children of the Loyalists, they come along up here. Pa’s all but killing himself making that farm and Ma.…” He stopped. He stuck his thumbs into his suspenders. “Well, you know how it is with Ma. Nope, it ain’t easy country, that’s sure, but it’s beautiful the way winter comes all shining and spring comes a-rushing in, and summer in the woods is something grand. You might get to like it if you was to give it a try.”

Mary could imagine Luke in the summer woods, his russet hair, his tanned face, and his easy stride, as much a part of his surroundings as the squirrels or the deer.

“I might.”

“Henry,” said Luke, “Pa’s mending harness and cleaning the stalls this morning. I have a mind to go grouse hunting. D’you want to come?”

“Yep, I do.” Henry’s face lit up and he scrambled from his bench.

After they had gone Mary sat for a while, hearing the silence they had left behind. The day was still beautiful but suddenly it had lost its excitement.

The cold did not abate and winter came up the bay in gales and snow. Mary found that her old plaid was not much protection against the bitter cold of Upper Canada and that her feet were red and stiff. When Owena came next, Mary traded some of her rough weaving and a few oat bannocks for warm deerskin moccasins for Henry and herself. She knew the trade was probably unfair but her feet were cold and she was afraid Henry would get sick and she promised Owena she would make it right as soon as she could.

Owena walked around the snow-covered meadow examining the shoreline carefully. She stopped to peer into the ice by the big rock. She came back to where Mary stood just outside the door. “It sleeps like the bear,” she said, “that’s good.”

The neighbourhood, however, was wide awake. Snow covered the stony, rutted, rough roads, smoothing them so that sledges, cutters, and horse- or ox-drawn sleighs could move easily. Ice covered all the waterways so that feet and sleighs and even wagons could cross them,
although there were weak spots and drivers needed to be very careful. The settlers had learned from the Indians to make and use snowshoes for travelling readily over the snow.

Winter evenings were visiting times. Luke came frequently to Mary’s house, “to help Henry with his lessons,” he insisted, but one time when Mary asked him to read over what Henry was trying aloud, Luke confessed, flushing with embarrassment, “I can’t read. I was kind of hoping I could learn it alongside Henry.”

Mary was astonished. It was not in Upper Canada as it was in the Highlands, Luke told her—schools were not commonplace: Dan Pritchett was an exceptional man and the children in his neighbourhood were very lucky. She was not sure about having Luke for a pupil, though at the same time she was rather pleased that she knew something he wanted to learn. “You ain’t to thump me if I get it wrong,” Luke told her and his face was so solemn when he said it, Mary was sure he was serious. “I would need to ask you to get to your knees to manage it.” She saw the grin on his face, and made a face back at him. “I will teach you,” she said.

Many evenings Patty Openshaw came up the road with a pile of family mending to do by Mary’s fire, and once in a while Simeon came, interrupting the lessons with his loud, derisive laughter, demanding supper, demanding
attention. Then Patty would sit herself between Simeon and Luke and jolly them along until Simeon either left or settled down to listen to the story-telling or take part in the conversation. Mercifully he did not come often, finding such quiet company not much to his liking, and so the four of them—Patty, Mary, Luke and Henry—developed a warm, almost family-like kind of companionship.

Even those evenings when the little house held only Mary and Henry were pleasant. She would spin while he read close to the fire that warmed such a small radius of space, leaving the edges of the room almost as cold as outdoors. On snowy, windy nights, the snow blew in through the cracks, but the wind that whistled and sang and sometimes moaned did not call Mary away.

Christmas came. There were festive gatherings in all the households, culminating in a feast on Christmas Day at Sam and Julia Colliver’s. Early Christmas morning Mary took Henry to the Pritchetts’ where Dan was having prayers and a Bible reading. All the Hawthorn Bay families were there and Mary offered a private prayer of thanks for the kindness of neighbours. Afterwards she and Henry went early to the Collivers’ to help—although Henry’s help amounted to bringing in large piles of wood with Matthew for the fireplaces, then racing off outside to slide and run in the snow.

Mrs. Colliver had been very angry about her smashed teapot. But when Mary explained about Henry’s accident she had said only, “Hmph,” and looked at Mary from under a frown. She had said no more and she had not dismissed Mary from her job. On Christmas morning she was organizing and ordering Mary, Patty, and her own children about with the skill and authority of a regimental sergeant-major. As they passed one another bearing platters, silverware, and dishes of condiments, Patty and Mary smiled happily at one another, rolling their eyes towards the ceiling as each new order was barked.

The party was wonderful. Bothers and Heatons and Morrissays came from the south shore of Hawthorn Bay; Openshaws, Pritchetts and Yardleys from the north shore; Whitcombs, Schneiders, and Andersons from Pigeon Creek Road; Mrs. Hazen and her daughters; Obadiah Clark, who lived alone; and Hennessys, Bartons, and Armstrongs from the village. There were others whose names Mary could not remember—children of all ages, mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and a few great-grandparents—and they all sat down to eat at the long trestle tables stretched from the back wall of the kitchen to the front wall of the front room, and angled out across the hall and into the front bedroom.

Julia was wearing her best plum-coloured silk gown, with a fine lawn kerchief at her neck and a pinafore to protect the gown. It had become a bit small over the years, and strained mightily at the seams. This only accentuated the amplitude of her figure, and with the addition of a large rose-satin bow on her head, its streamers floating down her back, she was like a goddess of plenty presiding over the celebration. Sam, as splendid in his worn rust-velvet waistcoat and bottle-green coat, was less imposing but every bit as hospitable.

The guests were dressed in a motley assortment of pre-1775 finery and homespun, valiantly embellished with a ribbon, a treasured lace fichu here, a sprig of evergreen or a nosegay of dried flowers there.

The house was decorated with garlands of cedar and pine, lighted by more than fifty candles, the tables covered with an assortment of linen cloths belonging to several families. There were wild turkeys and dooryard geese, roasted; there were boiled and roasted potatoes. There were pumpkins and squash, baked and glazed with maple sugar; there was fine white bread; and there were the fruit preserves which Patty and Mary had laboured over, baked into cakes, puddings, and pies; and with them whisky, cider, and a bit of carefully saved real tea and coffee to drink. Mary had never dreamed of such food.

“In this country,” she thought as she looked along the enormous table, “there is food in plenty for all, there is clean water to drink, and there is so much space no one need ever think of having to leave just to keep body and soul together.” The wish that her whole family could be seated at that table brought a lump to her throat. She swallowed it back and, resolutely, did not think about Duncan. She looked at Henry seated across from her beside his mother, making faces at Moses Openshaw and Matthew Colliver sitting at the foot of the table. She smiled. “It is no bad place,” she thought, and glanced involuntarily towards Luke sitting on the other side of his mother, talking to Zeke Colliver. Luke, no doubt feeling her eyes on him, turned his head and caught her glance. Despite herself, she was glad of the scarlet ribbon Mrs. Colliver had given her to tie around her black hair.

Afterwards there were games, riddles, stories, and songs. In his uneven tenor voice Luke led the singing of a round, Dan Pritchett sang “Barbara Allen” in his beautiful baritone voice, and Mary, loosed from her reticence by the friendliness of her neighbours and the excitement of the occasion, sang “The Rowan Tree” and “Lovely Molly”. Abe Morrissay’s father, Jim, picked out the melody on his fiddle. After that the tables were cleared and carried away
and everyone danced to Jim’s fiddling. Mary danced every dance and didn’t mind when the young men teased her about being small, because she was so nimble they had a hard time keeping up with her.

The party settled at last. Those bent on carousing the night away went off up the road to one house or another for their party. The children went to sleep—in nests in corners, or on the beds behind the kitchen, or upstairs. The women began to wash the dishes. The men sat over their whisky and their coffee. When they began to talk of spring planting and next year’s harvest, Mary, coming from the scullery with a handful of silverware, saw an image of the gardens blighted and black from frost. “There will be no summer next year,” she said.