The Bird Artist (12 page)
Authors: Howard Norman
I took out a jackknife and cut away the kelp, then hoisted Helen into the dory. I could cover her completely with my raincoat. I rowed home. The current ran across the bow, so it took a long time.
On the dock in the distance, Giles LaCotte, Romeo Gillette, and Oliver Parmelee were preparing to set out again. I shouted to them. They waved. I was too exhausted to do anything but row steadily. I knew that they could see I had something in the dory, a cargo. When I got near the dock, Romeo saw the shape and said, “Where was she?”
“South. At Caroline Cove.”
I tossed the rope and Oliver caught it. He pulled us in, then tied up. Lifting Helen, the men did their best to keep her inside the raincoat. They laid her gently on the dock.
“I'll go tell Sillet,” Romeo said.
“No. I brought in this news. I'll tell it to him.”
I walked directly up to Sillet's house, a two-room white house with a black roof located directly behind the church. He was in his yard, washing shirts with a scrub brush and washboard, leaning over a tub.
He saw me and said, “Mrs. Harbison's day off. I don't usually get this familiar with my shirts, other than wearing them. By the way, tell Margaret that under the circumstances last night, I forgive her her harsh words.”
“Forgiveness won't register with Margaret. Not from you. She just won't care.”
“So be it. What's on your mind?”
Looking down, he scrubbed a shirt.
“I've brought Helen Twombly back. She drowned.”
“Lord have mercy. Where is she now?”
“Laid out on the dock. There's people with her.”
“Terrible, terrible accident.”
“Accident” seemed the one perfectly wrong word.
I went home. The house was empty. I changed my sheets, heated water for a bath, and bathed a long time. I made coffee and sat in the living room, thinking about Helen.
In an hour or so Sillet came by to return my raincoat.
“Helen has no heirs or relatives whose address we know,” he said. “I'll manage things from here on out.”
I do not know all the reasons, but just then I had an unusually narrow tolerance for Sillet. “That's one of the things the village pays you for,” I said.
“That temperament comes from finding a person dashed on the rocks, poor boy.”
“Maybe so.”
The funeral was held on August 3, 1911, late in the morning. My mother came to our house and put on a black dress with a black shawl. The shawl was lacy and reminded me of one worn by a Spanish lady who, in a magazine, sat ringside at a bullfight.
“I understand that you found Helen,” she said. “An experience like that must have unraveled you.”
“It was unusual, I'll say that.” I had on my church suit and was polishing my shoes. “There's been a lot of those lately.”
“Someday you'll sort them all out.”
“I might not sit with you at the funeral.”
“I imagined not. But do please acknowledge my presence, Fabian. I don't much care about keeping up appearances. At this point that obviously would be folly. But do acknowledge me, please. Quite simply, it would show good upbringing. It would show politenessâat least thatâin the face of adversity.”
“I'll bring you a plate of food at the testimonial.”
“That would do nicely.”
My mother went on ahead. I waited for about ten minutes, then followed her to church. Though the temperature was fairly cool for summer, the sun was strong, the sky all but cloudless. When I got to the church at about eleven o'clock, the pews were almost all filled. I managed to get mourners
to slide down, allowing me an aisle seat in a middle pew. People stood inside along the walls as well, others leaned in through the windows or sat on the porch or stood outside near the open door. They all could hear Sillet.
to slide down, allowing me an aisle seat in a middle pew. People stood inside along the walls as well, others leaned in through the windows or sat on the porch or stood outside near the open door. They all could hear Sillet.
Helen's coffin, covered with flowers, had been placed across two sawhorses directly in front of the elevated pulpit. Francis Beckett, a top-notch net maker, was playing the organ. At the last moment, three horse-drawn wagons pulled up and about two dozen Moravians from Renews climbed down and stood together off to one side of the church. I do not know who reported Helen's death to them, but I was impressed that so many had come. The women held black umbrellas against the sun. Among the Moravian men was Jarvis Bellecamp. He had been Emile Twombly's friend and partner in a number of enterprises, including bee farming. He was in his eighties and was the only person I knew of whom Helen had visited on a regular basis. The Moravians' minister, Sander Muggah, had stayed in Renews.
There were only a few practising Moravians in Witless Bay, and of course they had to travel down to Renews to worship. Catherine Jobb was one, as was Archibald Benoit, while both Catherine's husband, Thomas, and Archibald's wife, Florence, were Anglican and in fact made a practice of sitting next to each other in Sillet's church. With their religion having traveled down from Labrador, the Moravians were a mysterious lot to me. Through gossip and some mention in school, I had gathered a few facts about Moravians, whose church's real name was the Church of the
Unitas Fratrum, or Renewed Church of the Brethren. They were known as “God's singing people.” They had different services that consisted entirely of singing. For instance, in a Saturday-evening meeting, Sander Muggah would sit down and start the hymns himself, and there might be ten or fifteen hymns in all, and then people would go home. I had heard that most Moravian ministers were good singers. I had heard that Moravians used fiddles in church, accordions, and even brass bands, all of which struck me as lighthearted. But at Helen's funeral they were all dressed in dark suits and dresses. I noticed an accordion in one of their wagons, hanging from the seat, and thought that maybe someone had played it along the road to Witless Bay. The Moravian children kept to the wagons, well behaved, talking quietly amongst themselves.
Unitas Fratrum, or Renewed Church of the Brethren. They were known as “God's singing people.” They had different services that consisted entirely of singing. For instance, in a Saturday-evening meeting, Sander Muggah would sit down and start the hymns himself, and there might be ten or fifteen hymns in all, and then people would go home. I had heard that most Moravian ministers were good singers. I had heard that Moravians used fiddles in church, accordions, and even brass bands, all of which struck me as lighthearted. But at Helen's funeral they were all dressed in dark suits and dresses. I noticed an accordion in one of their wagons, hanging from the seat, and thought that maybe someone had played it along the road to Witless Bay. The Moravian children kept to the wagons, well behaved, talking quietly amongst themselves.
I sat next to Ruth Henley, the undertaker's wife. At one point she craned her neck to look down the center aisle and out the door. “I didn't know that Helen had befriended so many Moravians,” she said to Rebecca Newton in the pew behind us.
“Befriend one, befriend all,” Rebecca said. “I think that she respected their God's house more than ours.”
Because of the large crowd the temperature in church quickly rose past comfort, and it seemed that all at once hand-held fans bloomed all down the pews. Eight women in my pew alone were working fans near their faces: Ruth Henley, Mekeel Dollard, Chelsea Webb, Lisa Flood, Clarissa Lindon, Edna Forbisher, Mary Kieley, and Olive Perrault. Reverend Sillet himself went through three glasses of
water in less than half an hour. My attention flagged in the heat, but I recall that in his eulogy Sillet described Helen as a “dogged, otherwise-minded woman, contrary, opposed to the general sentiment of any given momentâand therefore a rarity, a source of deep yet unpredictable delight.”
water in less than half an hour. My attention flagged in the heat, but I recall that in his eulogy Sillet described Helen as a “dogged, otherwise-minded woman, contrary, opposed to the general sentiment of any given momentâand therefore a rarity, a source of deep yet unpredictable delight.”
I truly wanted to like what Sillet said, because I liked Helen so much. And I could see where he had attempted a loving remembrance through honesty. Deep in my heart, though, I felt he had fallen short, that he had patronized Helen in death, right there in her coffin, which was made by Giles LaCotte in his father's sawmill. As an unbridled rage toward Sillet rose in me, I was relieved when he finally moved on to the idea of prayer in general. I knew that his eulogy was nearly at an end.
“We talk of inexorable laws,” he said. He poured a glass of water from a pitcher and drank it all the way down without stopping. He wiped his brow with a handkerchief. “ ⦠but without any interference with the fixed order of nature, may not the spring be touched, away and above all general laws, in answer to prayer which brings the result that the believing heart craves for. The law of prayer is real and potent as any other. âAsk and ye shall receive,' and so long as tragedies exist in human life and tears fall on the faces of the dead; so long as want and woe and suffering mark the path of humanity, so long will prayer continue to ascend to the ear of the All-Merciful One.
“Amen,” he said.
“Amen.”
He paused, drew in a deep breath, then nodded to Mari-Lyma
Fsjikskedjal, who was sitting in the frontmost pew. She was a tall, beautiful Norwegian woman in her late thirties. She rose gracefullyâthe back of her dress was stained with sweatâset down her fan on the pew, and walked up the two stairs to the organ, which had a vase of flowers on top. She placed one hand on the organ, the other on her chest. Francis Beckett began to play and Mari-Lyma sang:
Fsjikskedjal, who was sitting in the frontmost pew. She was a tall, beautiful Norwegian woman in her late thirties. She rose gracefullyâthe back of her dress was stained with sweatâset down her fan on the pew, and walked up the two stairs to the organ, which had a vase of flowers on top. She placed one hand on the organ, the other on her chest. Francis Beckett began to play and Mari-Lyma sang:
Oft hath the sea conferred Thy power,
And given me back at Thy command;
It could not, Lord, my life devour,
Safe in the hollow of Thy hand.
And given me back at Thy command;
It could not, Lord, my life devour,
Safe in the hollow of Thy hand.
Mari-Lyma had a soprano voice and was in perfect pitch despite the heat and the sadness. The highest notes lifted her chin slightly. When she finished the third and final verse, she closed her eyes, opened them, and returned to her seat. She picked up her fan.
In the silence immediately following Mari-Lyma's hymn, the vaguely discernible sound of gramophone music drifted into the church. No matter how loud the gramophone's volume, no matter how windless a day, music could not have carried in from as far as the lighthouse. Botho August must have brought the gramophone to the high meadow behind the church, cranked it up, and played his dirges. His and my mother's dirges.
In a short while the murmur of conversation started up, and I heard two entirely different sentiments.
“If Botho August hadn't been dallying all night with Alaric Vas, we might've had the lighthouse's help and found Helen in time,” Abner Pittman, a man I had always liked and had worked with, said in a loud whisper. He sat in the pew in front of me and now, for the first time, suddenly seemed aware of my presence. “I'm sorry, Fabian,” he said. “I should've kept what everybody's thinking to myself.”
The second comment came from Elias Cutter, two pews back and to my left. He had leaned forward and said to Romeo Gillette, “Well, Reverend Sillet didn't slide backwards in my esteem for that eulogy.”
“Neither backwards nor forwards in mine,” Romeo said. Then both men stood up, and along with everyone else filed out of church and walked to the field behind the general store for a testimonial and lunch.
Mrs. Berenice Elgin and her husband, Davey, had set out tables, and Bridget and Lemuel Spivey supervised the placement of food and drink. “The Moravians will eat, all right,” Davey said within my earshot, “but they'll prefer to sit at one table together.” The Moravians' table was at the north end of the group of tables.
Then it began. At any point in the afternoon, I would say that almost every man, woman, and child in Witless Bay was in attendance, if only to pay brief respects, have a plate of food, and then go home. Platters of lobster, codfish stew, trout, potatoes, parsnips, and fruitcakes were on a separate table and people helped themselves. I carried a plate of food to my mother, who sat at the table farthest from the Moravians. I saw Margaret leave the church, but did not
see her sitting down or milling about afterwards. I figured she had simply decided to go home, or off to drink by herself, perhaps to sit on Helen's cold-storage shack. We had agreed to meet at Spivey's that evening. Reverend Sillet more or less blended in, and Romeo took up the role of a kind of master of ceremonies.
see her sitting down or milling about afterwards. I figured she had simply decided to go home, or off to drink by herself, perhaps to sit on Helen's cold-storage shack. We had agreed to meet at Spivey's that evening. Reverend Sillet more or less blended in, and Romeo took up the role of a kind of master of ceremonies.
He was dressed in a formal black suit and neatly pressed white shirt, and wore a black beret, the only beret in Witless Bay. There were too many children shouting, crying, running about, too many separate conversations rising and falling, too much over-all commotion for Romeo to command everyone's attention. Yet he managed quite well with the three or four tables nearest to him. I sat four chairs away. He tapped a glass and shouted, “This testimonial for Helen Twombly has commenced!” Things did generally quiet down then, a few screaming children were carried off, and Romeo tapped the glass again. “Anyone care to begin? A prayer might be in order.”
Adele Harrison, a woman near Helen's age, stood up across the table, assisted by her niece, Rhea, who remained standing as long as her great-aunt did. Rhea held Adele's elbow with one hand and put her other arm around Adele's waist. I recall looking at Adele's plate. She had taken the smallest helpings of food I had ever seen an adult take, a few bites of meat and peas. For her advanced age, she had a remarkably strong voice and did not take a prayerful tone. “In 1905,” she said, “on the Feast of St. John the Baptist Day, which people up in St. John's celebrate in a colorful way ⦠I was visiting my grandchildren there. I'd decided
to take a walk by myself down to the harbor. It was a very cold day. And that's when I saw with my own eyes an iceberg in the shape of the Virgin Mary. Well, why in hell was it so bitterly cold so nobody else was there to witness this? I don't know. I didn't even risk trying to convince my thick-headed daughter of what I'd seen. When I got back home to Witless Bay, I asked myself, Who'd believe me, let alone grasp the meaning? ⦠Helen Twombly. And to this very moment, Helen Twombly was the only one shared my secret.”
to take a walk by myself down to the harbor. It was a very cold day. And that's when I saw with my own eyes an iceberg in the shape of the Virgin Mary. Well, why in hell was it so bitterly cold so nobody else was there to witness this? I don't know. I didn't even risk trying to convince my thick-headed daughter of what I'd seen. When I got back home to Witless Bay, I asked myself, Who'd believe me, let alone grasp the meaning? ⦠Helen Twombly. And to this very moment, Helen Twombly was the only one shared my secret.”
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