Being Mary Ro

by Ida Linehan Young

  The warmth of the teacup in her cold hands helped Mary relax. Mrs. Didham gave them two slices of bread each that she had browned on the front damper of the stove. Her hostess had questions that neither of the girls could answer, so she left them to enjoy their modest breakfast while she prepared the household for the day. Both girls ate in silence, each having different thoughts about what must be happening back home.

  “Meg, we have to go back,” Mary began. She suddenly felt anxious to offer assistance to the survivors.

  “I know! We can leave soon. Just give me a minute to savour my tea and get warm.”

  Again they sat in silence while Meg sipped her brew. Mary moved the chair to dry her socks by the fire. Mrs. Didham offered eggs, but both girls declined, though grateful for her kindness.

  After tea, they thanked the lady and set out to retrace their steps from Colinet to John’s Pond. This time the urgency was not as great, but they were both eager to get back just the same.

  Falling into an easy, fast-paced step with Mary in the front, they left Colinet. The sun was up and the path drier than when they had come through earlier. Meg began to chat, mostly small talk, and Mary became more engaged in the conversation. Meg had some substance beyond what she had thought, and she liked that.

  She liked her—an almost foreign emotion to Mary, which caught her by surprise. What was happening to her? Why was she alone? Why had she been unwilling to use her skills to help the sick?

  They crossed Rocky River under the efforts of Mr. Corrigan, who had been busy since they had sounded the alarm. He mentioned that twenty people and several horses had gone through behind the doctor to lend assistance. Smiling, he said it was all thanks to the two beautiful ladies he’d had the pleasure of escorting across the gorge first thing that morning.

  Mary and Meg thanked him and continued on toward home. They fell into a comfortable pace now that the path was brighter. Meg continued to chatter. Mary thought she might be a bit scared.

  “Meg, don’t worry. There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Mary said.

  “Mary, remember the tale of the little girl in Colinet who had been taken by the fairies? Maybe the fairies will come for us.”

  Mary laughed to herself. She had been alone in the woods many times and always felt safe. She had heard many stories of the fairies, but they didn’t frighten her.

  “There are no fairies. We only have to worry about people and moose.”

  “Moose?” Meg said, looking quickly from side to side.

  Mary laughed. “Don’t worry, Meg. There are no moose this close. I haven’t seen any fresh sign.”

  Meg tittered nervously.

  “That’s what we all admire about you, Mary—you’re your own woman. You’re confident and independent. Some of the girls wish they were more like you.”

  Mary knitted her eyebrows. “Really? Why?”

  “Because you’re able to look after yourself, you don’t need anyone else, and you can survive on your own.”

  “Really,” Mary said again. “And when do you girls be talking about me, now?”

  “Don’t be mad, Mary. We weren’t talking bad about you. We were talking good.”

  “That’s comforting, I suppose,” Mary said.

  Meg hung her head. They continued in silence for another mile or so before she tentatively spoke again.

  “Since your mom and dad died, we know it’s been hard on you, and we all wanted to help. But you refused. Some people think that you’re not right in the head with grief, but I think you’re just strong. I admire you, Mary Rourke.”

  Mary smiled at the girl. “That’s enough of that, Meg. I don’t mind my own company and have family to help me if I need them.”

  “That’s just it, Mary Ro. You don’t need them. That’s a good thing.”

  Mary paused a moment. “Meg, why do you avoid me in town?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.” Meg blushed and hung her head.

  “Yes you do. In the store last night you wouldn’t catch my eye.”

  Meg stopped. “I thought you were mad at me for what I said.”

  “What are you talking about, Meg? What did you say? I didn’t hear anything.”

  “You know, Mary.” Meg lowered her gaze once more. She spoke softly. “The day your dad died.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’ll have to tell me,” Mary said quickly. She hadn’t expected Meg to mention her father.

  “When the men brought out your dad that day, I was beside myself with worry for my own father. I thought it was him at first, and I started to cry,” Meg said. “Then I realized it wasn’t, and I said, ‘Thank God it’s Mary’s da and not mine,’ and I thought you heard me. I saw the curtain close, and I was sure you were mad with me. I am so sorry, Mary. I really didn’t mean it.” Meg suddenly threw her arms around Mary. “You have to know I didn’t mean it.”

  “Meg, I didn’t hear you. And besides, if I did, you’re right, I probably would have been mad right then. But not mad with you. Mad with the situation. I was in that house for more than a month with all those sick people, including Mom and Da,” Mary said. “I was frustrated with not being able to help them. Then Da died. Then Mom died. We were lucky that the doctor came in time to save your father, your uncle, and the others.”

  “Oh, Mary. I was always ashamed for my cruel words. I’m so sorry,” Meg said. “Mary, without you my da would have surely died. You kept them alive long enough for the doctor to get there.”

  “I couldn’t do enough,” Mary stated simply. She always carried that regret. Despite what her mother had taught her, she hadn’t done enough. Mary thought about what Meg said. “Why did you come with me this morning if you thought I was mad with you?”

  “Well, I knew it was hard for you to hear there was a boat coming with sick people. I couldn’t let you carry that alone on this trail. You’ve carried enough.” They walked in silence a quarter-mile, and then Meg changed the subject. “Were you ever in love, Mary?”

  Mary pondered the question, inclined to tell the girl to mind her own business or pretend she hadn’t heard her. She remembered the pain she felt when she had grabbed the wrong book the night before. But then she said, “Yes, when I was younger—about your age, I suppose.”

  “What was he like, Mary? What happened to you? What happened to him?”

  “He went to sea for a few years and decided he didn’t want me anymore. He came home with a bride-to-be and married her shortly after.”

  “Oh, Mary, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”

  “I didn’t have to tell you. His name was Peter Nolan,” she continued, although not entirely sure why. She hadn’t spoken Peter’s name aloud in years. “He was a fine figure of a lad when he left—barely eighteen. He said he wanted to make some money and make me proud. I was just past fifteen and thought it a romantic notion. He was handsome—tall and strong, with dark hair and dark eyes.”

  She continued to reminisce, smiling to herself and lost to where she was. “He gave me a band made of braided white line from Mrs. Ange’s store and told me if I would wait when he returned, he would have a golden ring. I promised I would.

  “He wrote me a letter most every month. Sometimes I would get a bunch, and sometimes they would be here regular, depending on the steamer or the route. But when he came back, he told me he was to be married to another within a week.” Mary stopped abruptly, brought back to the present when she heard Meg sniffing behind her.

  Looking back, she saw Meg was crying.

  “That’s so sad, Mary,” she said, choking back tears.

  “That made me stronger. I haven’t found another like him, and suspect I won’t either. I don’t need anyone, like you said.”

  “Mary, promise me you won’t give up. You might still fall in love.”

  Mary laughed and shook her head. “Don�
�t be foolish, Meg.”

  “Promise me, Mary,” Meg said, as she ran in front of Mary and blocked her path. They stared into each other’s eyes.

  “All right! All right, Meg, I promise. Now that’s enough talk for one day,” Mary said, stepping around the girl and wishing now she had said nothing, yet somehow glad for the talk.

  Trudging on toward town, they fell into a comfortable silence, broken sporadically with small talk or with Mary pointing out markers to Meg, as her father had done for her. Time passed quickly. They stopped for a drink at a little stream, momentarily resting before moving on. At last they could see the break in the woods and the outer reaches of John’s Pond.

  They got their second wind in the open meadows and almost ran the last half-mile along the path to the church. John’s Pond was crowded—the wharf was busy, the store was busy, the road was busy, and the church was busy. There were more people than either of them had ever seen before. Inside the church, they quickly found Mary’s brother Brian and his wife, Carla, who immediately came to speak to them.

  Richard spied Meg and rushed over, keeping his eyes focused on her. “Meg, you’re back? Hi, Mary Ro!” he said, almost as an afterthought.

  Mary nodded, and Meg was going to dismiss him but thought better of it. Putting her hand to her forehead, she pretended to swoon and said, “It was tough going, but I had Mary.”

  Meg went off to find her parents, and Richard followed. Mary heard him apologize for being on the boat and not there to go in her place. Mary saw Meg become very animated as she walked away with Richard hanging on her every word.

  Mary smiled to herself, realizing she did indeed like that girl. Having neighbours, but not really having any friends to speak of since school, she opened herself to the possibility that she might have found a friend in Meg.

  Mary turned her attention to her brother and his wife and listened as they explained what had happened since morning. The information was as much hearsay as anything.

  Nobody had any idea if passengers had drowned, how many were burned or hurt, where everyone was, or even the number on the steamer. Boats had sailed to Admiral’s Beach carrying those who needed only food and shelter. Others from out the bay had chosen John’s Pond and North Harbour when Skipper Linehan informed them that the only doctor in the bay was in Colinet. The harbour was shallow in Colinet, suitable for only smaller skiffs, so the schooners with the injured came to ports closest to the doctor.

  Unbelievably, the SS Abyssinia had not sunk. If the passengers had not panicked, things might have turned out differently.

  Brian leaned closer to Mary. “Maybe you should come down with us for a few days until this settles. There are a lot of strangers in the harbour.”

  Mary motioned toward the floor. “Yes, Brian. And a lot of them are here. Now let’s see what I can do.”

  She went to the back of the room and lent a hand ripping bedsheets to make extra bandages. Mary couldn’t squelch her need to help the sick. She was drawn to the people on the floor and began by giving food and water to those needing nourishment.

  A woman about her age caught Mary’s eye. She seemed to be in great pain, although she had no outward signs of cuts or burns. She sat on the edge of the pew, and her face looked drawn.

  Mary circled around the patients to where she sat. She introduced herself and said she noticed the woman appeared to be in pain.

  “It’s nothing. I’m worried about my husband.” When she tried to point toward him on the floor, her body recoiled and the woman let out a muffled yelp.

  “Let me see your arm,” Mary said. The woman did as Mary requested. Mary felt along the arm to the shoulder. “Did you fall?”

  “Yes, my husband tried to pull me out of the way of the stampede of passengers trying to get to the lifeboats. We both fell, and I twisted my arm and he hit his head and was trampled.” Mary noticed the man on the floor, who had white cloths wrapped around his head.

  “Is that him?” Mary gestured toward the young man on the floor, and the woman nodded.

  “Let’s get you looked at. I think your arm is out of socket.”

  “No, I’ll be okay. There are worse off than me.”

  “You still need help. I’ll get Dr. Parker.” She quickly located the physician and told him about her suspicions. He made his way over to the woman and agreed with Mary’s assessment. They worked together to set the lady’s arm back in place. Mary fashioned a sling from strips torn off a bedsheet to keep the arm snugly wrapped.

  She was quickly and fully immersed in the medical tasks and couldn’t deny it. Driven on by the need to heal and the habits her mother had helped her form, she spent most of the day in the church working side by side with Dr. Parker. By evening, her back muscles were aching. She was so tired she could hardly move, yet she felt somehow fulfilled by her efforts.

  More women and men came from Colinet to help out in the church before Mary left to go home. Home—she couldn’t believe how long it had been since she saw the inside of the house. One of the younger boys told her he had collected the eggs, fed the hens, and brought the cow in from the meadow to milk. Although the cow was free to go in and out of the stable when it wanted, she had to be milked daily. Thankfully, the neighbours had seen to those chores. Tired and hungry, she turned the knob of the porch door just before dark.

  The kitchen was damp and cold. She knew it would be and recalled the empty woodbox and water pail that wouldn’t fill themselves. She wasn’t going to do that this night. In the semi-darkness, after eating a few forkfuls of cold stew from the pot, she went upstairs, stripped off her dress and stockings, and fell exhausted into the bed.

  4

  From his vantage point high in the meadow, the house looked abandoned. No one had entered or left all day. There was no smoke from the chimney. There was nothing to suggest anyone lived there, except for the young boy of seven or eight whom he spotted on the far side of the house. But then the boy had headed out the lane with a basket of eggs and a bucket of milk, endorsing his suspicion—nobody lived in the house.

  He was bleeding, dirty, cold, and weak and soon had to get a place to hide, or he would be discovered, and then who knew what would happen? If he could make it to the little outbuilding without being seen, he could get out of the heavy mist. After dark, if the house remained vacant, he would get inside.

  Half crawling, half pulling himself through the meadow along the fence, he looked for Pearce. Survivors were being unloaded from the ships, and he was sure that he had seen Pearce board one of the schooners destined for this port. He hoped he hadn’t been mistaken. It would be dangerous to let Pearce go now when he was so close to ending it. But if Pearce discovered him in this condition, he wouldn’t live to tell what he knew.

  With his pistol digging into his ribs, his breathing became laboured as he dragged himself along the fenceline. Now muddied and grass-stained, the deep cut on his arm would become infected if he didn’t see to it. Thinking on his injury, he knew he was very lucky it wasn’t his throat. He’d been weakened from the smoke in the ship’s hold and all the blood he was losing. The cut would fester on his arm. He needed shelter soon.

  Once he squeezed his six-foot-four-inch, 200-pound frame underneath the lowest rail on the fence where it seemed a path had been worn, he reached the safety of the building he assumed to be a shed. Reaching the wooden door with as much speed as he could muster, he turned the narrow slat used to keep the door closed and slipped inside. The door hung on rubber hinges and didn’t make a sound when he hauled it shut. He used the crack between the door and the frame to watch the lane leading toward the house. If he saw no sign of life before dark, he would try to get inside the house to clean and seal his wound. He figured he could lay up for a day before setting out to hunt for Pearce.

  He was fading fast and found no comfortable position in the tiny confines of the shed. Feeling relatively safe, he closed his eyes for a fe
w moments—not necessarily by choice. He waited for nightfall. He would surely hear somebody coming.

  Mary woke to the distant sounds of the community. The sun shining through the curtains told her that it must be mid-morning. She hadn’t slept like that in years. She scrambled out of bed, grabbed some fresh stockings and her old thick cotton dress—the last clean outfit in her wardrobe—and quickly dressed. The water in the basin in the washstand was two days old and had a slight skim of soap covering the top. Mary swirled her hands through the discoloured coating on the top of the water, remnants from yesterday’s soap, pushing it out to the sides of the pan before quickly splashing her face. She hadn’t brought up her new soap to do a decent job.

  Once downstairs, she sighed, realizing she didn’t have fresh water in the bucket—only enough wood to start the fire but not to keep it going—and the kettle was almost empty, not to mention the chores of the milk and the hens. All that, and she was out of clean clothes. She had been so careless and berated herself once again for the long walk in the woods that seemed to have started it all. She had to tend to things or she would find herself in trouble.

  By habit, she grabbed the large knife and made some shavings from the few remaining splits in the woodbox. She placed the shavings, set the match, and watched as flames slowly devoured the thin pieces before catching the wood. The stove began to smoke. Mary quickly grabbed the brick from the drafter in the chimney, and the smoke circled, drawing out through the funnels. What was wrong with her? She was normally more careful than this.

  Mary removed the last small junks of split wood from the bin and carefully laid them across each other on the flaming shavings in the firebox. Once the wood caught, she replaced the damper to let the stove heat up. She shook the black iron kettle. A little water remained, but Mary feared it could be rusty after a few days, so she drained it out by the front step. She fetched what little was left in the bucket, filling the kettle with about a quart, enough to cover the bottom and a little bit more. That should do until she went to the well. She took the milk pail and absently grabbed for a handful of hen feed, having no table scraps this morning. Once she attended to the animals and set the milk and eggs in the pantry, she quickly fetched an armful of wood before the fire went out.