Voyageurs

by Margaret Elphinstone

  The moon was waxing full, so after we'd crossed a bay – about a mile or so of open water – we went ashore so the voyageurs could eat and rest, and then pressed on into the night. I was reminded all the more of that first moonlit journey on this river. The water shone like glass, until it fell within the shade of the forest, where all was pitch-black and impenetrable. So the long miles passed, until at last we saw white water gleaming ahead of us, which was the rapids at the Sault. We crossed the river, and beached among half a dozen other canoes below the North West jetty. There we camped for the remainder of the night. In spite of the thoughts and memories that crowded in upon me, I slept sound.

  When we walked up to Charles Ermatinger's house next morning, the Sault appeared unchanged, except that there were more militia about the place, and that made me all the more aware of the changes in myself. I could not rest; the sands were running out fast, and I would feel easier now, I thought, when all was over. When I accompanied Alan to the Company offices, I saw a two-masted schooner on the river, its mainsail being slowly furled. While I was waiting for Alan I watched while the other sails were lowered, and the ship drifted neatly in alongside. I read the name on the bow: Nancy. Even as the men were tying the moorings, I was walking down to see if there was anyone I could speak to. But I'd barely set foot on the jetty when I heard a shout from the shore path. ‘Monsieur Greenhorn! By all that's wonderful, Mark Greenhorn!’

  I spun round. ‘Hugh! Hugh Chisholm!’

  We shook hands heartily. ‘ ‘Tis you indeed, Greenhow! I thought it was one of the old coureurs de bois come to haunt our Factory. But no, ‘tis a Quaker dressed in skins, which is even more remarkable. But you have a new broad-brim, I see! I thought the red cap suited you right well.’ All the while he was still staring at me in clear amazement and shaking my hand, pumping it up and down as if he were genuinely glad to lay eyes on me again.

  He told me his brigade of canoes had arrived in the Sault barely half an hour ago. The canal was busy today, for everyone was on the way to Fort William. They were waiting their turn to go up into Superior.

  ‘Is Marc with thee?’ I asked him. ‘And Jean-Pierre? And Jacques?’

  ‘Marc is here. Jacques went for a soldier a year ago. Jean-Pierre – I know not. Young Alban is with us. But what of you, Mark? You did search for your sister?’

  ‘Ay, and found her too.’ I grinned at his astonishment. ‘She's here at Charles Ermatinger's house. And Alan is here too – he's in the Company office right behind thee.’

  After that everything happened so fast I could barely take it in. Perhaps God in his mercy disposed it so, for a drawn-out parting would have served no good purpose. The canoes could not wait. The rendezvous at Fort William was more pressing than any private business. Alan and Hugh had it all fixed in minutes. Then Alan went quickly back to Ermatinger's house to say goodbye to Rachel. Hugh sent Alban with him to carry his things. I watched them go. When Alan was walking fast the limp was still evident. A year ago he would have run. I hoped with all my heart that I had set the leg right, and next year he would be as hale as ever.2 Hugh and I walked up the canal path, while I told him all that had happened. We found Hugh's brigade still waiting in the queue of canoes to go into Lake Superior through the lock. When Marc saw me he leapt ashore, and, schooled by Loic, I submitted to his enthusiastic greetings. ‘Mais regardez-vous, mon brave! Quel homme vous êtes devenu! Je suis fier de vous, mon voyageur!‘

  The three of us stood by the canal, talking fast, for there was little time to tell all the news we had, while the canoes floated offshore beside us. Hugh asked me, ‘And what will you do, Monsieur Greenhorn, now that your task is done? Will you take your sister back to Montreal?’

  ‘No. She'll wait for Alan to come back. Charlotte Ermatinger invited her to stay with them until that happens. There's nothing more for me to do. I can go home.’

  ‘So you'll go straight back to England?’

  ‘First I must see my friends in Yonge Street. Then I'll go back.’

  The last canoe of the previous brigade had left the lock. Marc ran back to his canoe. The water level in the lock fell slowly, came level, and the lower gate was raised. Hugh and I strolled over as the first of Hugh's brigade paddled into the narrow space. One by one we watched the loaded canoes go through. The gates were just opening for the last one when we heard quick irregular footsteps on the boarded towpath behind us.

  ‘Just in time,’ said Hugh cheerfully. ‘We'll let them go through and get aboard from the bank. All right, Alan?’

  ‘Ay,’ said Alan shortly. I wondered how Rachel had taken this sudden departure. I didn't ask, but quietly followed the others past the lock. The canot du maître – it seemed so large to me now, after my long acquaintance with Loic's canoe – slid through the gate, and came in close to the bank, which shelved steeply enough for the three men to be able to step aboard. Alan's small chest was lifted over, and Alban stepped aboard after it. He held out a steadying hand to Hugh, who took his place in front of Marc. Hugh shifted his haversack over to make room for Alan beside him. Alan held out his hand to me. ‘An revoir, brother Mark. I have much to thank thee for.’

  I took his hand. ‘Fare thee well, Alan.’

  Suddenly he let go my hand and hugged me hard. ‘Sòraidh slàn leat, a bhràthair. Turas math dhut!‘

  This time I made no attempt to follow the canoes along the shore path. I stood still where they'd left me until they'd disappeared into the haze that hung over the lake. I thought I saw a flash of white, which might have been Hugh waving his handkerchief, but the lake was very misty, and I may have been mistaken.

  Before I went back to Rachel I finished my interrupted errand, and found the captain of the schooner. They were busy unloading the supplies and trade goods they'd brought in, and as soon as that was done they were leaving again for Penetanguishine. I was welcome to take passage with them – the ship was going back almost empty, the captain said – but I must be aboard before dawn, for the wind was favourable, and they intended to leave at first light.

  ‘So,’ said Rachel, when we stood on the jetty that evening, my knapsack and basket of provisions at my feet. ‘This is it. If I'd known when I woke this morning what one day would bring . . . It's a mercy I didn't, I suppose.’ Suddenly she took my hand, and held it between both of hers. ‘I wish Clemency were old enough to remember thee.’

  ‘Ay,’ I said. ‘I wish that too. Thee'll tell her about me, though.’

  ‘Ay,’ said Rachel.

  I wondered what she would tell the child, and what would lie hidden until all who'd been part of the tale were dead, and the truth was gone for ever. It was likely I'd never see the bairn again, nor Rachel either. The sands had almost run. There were things I had never said, the sort of things no man says for so long as there is always tomorrow. I tried, awkward as I was, to say them now. ‘I love thee, Rachel. Thy mother and father love thee. To us thee can never be disowned.’

  ‘Ay, Mark, thee's shown me that.’

  My sister was never one to hug and kiss. When we were children she dealt out a slap more easily than a caress, and, knowing I'd be chastised for hitting back, I mostly kept out of range. For the first and last time in our lives we fairly clung to one another. The moments passed, and vanished. When she let me go I shouldered my knapsack. She brushed her tears away, reached up, and briefly touched my cheek. By the time I'd reached the gangplank she'd left the jetty. The last I saw of her, she was striding away along the shore path, back to Ermatinger's house where her little girl lay sleeping. I waited, in case she looked back, but she never turned. I picked up my basket of food, walked up the gangplank, and stepped aboard.3

  1 Alan and Loic shared this strange kind of logic about money, which made no sense to me then. Now perhaps I understand it better. It has been my experience that men who give easily often live very well, though they may not grow richer than a life of simplicity requires. Certainly this turned out to be true of both Alan and Loic. Alan also gave me twelve guineas f
rom his pay, for I had no money left, and I still had to make my way home.

  2 I did get Alan to tell me eventually, when I pointed out I'd set the bone myself, and naturally had an interest in my handiwork. He said the bone was as strong as ever, but he was troubled with a limp until the surgeon in Montreal said this could be cured by making the sole of one boot quarter of an inch thicker than the other, and that, wrote Alan, had pretty much done the trick.

  3 I have never seen my niece or my sister since. At Fort William Alan was interviewed by the North West Company agents, and as a result he was re-employed, as a senior clerk, by the North West Company. They gave him Montreal leave that winter, so that his leg might heal. Alan arrived in Montreal with his wife and child in Ninth Month, about four weeks after I'd left the city. He never told me how he was employed in the last year of the war, but after the peace in ‘14 he was back in Montreal. He bought a house near Mount Royal – he sent me a neatly penned sketch of it – in which he installed his little family. The last letter I have from Rachel is dated Twelfth Month, 1814. I think she was happy when she wrote it. I have it in front of me now. She speaks lovingly of her little girl, and says, I think thee will be happy for me, Mark, when I tell thee that we are to be blessed with another little one in Seventh Month. Truly the Lord hath been good to us, after our long travail. I think it will be good for Clemency; the bairn is in a fair way to becoming spoilt, between the two of us, and will profit by the addition . . .

  It was late in 1815 when Alan's letter came. The baby was a difficult cross-birth. My sister Rachel was in labour two days. The bairn died with her, unborn. Alan went back to le pays d'en haut the following year. My niece Clemency grew up in her father's house in Montreal, cared for by her nurse and governess. Alan had her educated at a Convent, which I could not like, but the nuns taught her to write a dutiful letter: that at least I can vouch for. In the folds of Rachel's last letter I found just now an embossed invitation card, which arrived at Highside early in 1833: Alan Mackenzie requests the pleasure of your company at the marriage of his daughter Clemency . . . When it came, I wrote back and told him plainly that even if the letter had arrived in time, I could not have met such a request, the distance being too great, and it being contrary to the Principles of our Society to attend a marriage made before a priest. I wrote to my niece and told her we would, as always, hold her in the Light, and that her husband Georges Camelon would henceforward share her place in our prayers and hearts. I expressed as well as I could the affection I bore to her for her mother's sake. She wrote back very prettily; I have since heard from her twice more; there are two children now, or is it three?

  As for my brother Alan, he became an agent of the North West Company when the war was over, and after ‘15 he over-wintered in le pays d'en haut for several years. When the North West merged with Hudson's Bay in ‘21 he was more often in Montreal, but he'd still be away in the wild country for months at a time. I know he made money. What his domestic arrangements were – or are – I have never asked, and he has never told me. He is a faithful correspondent. We were born in the same year, so I can very well imagine what it is like for him to grow old. I can't imagine that either of us will ever cross the ocean that lies between us, and as for that other crossing we must make, I believe with all my heart in the mercy of the God who created us, but whether we rise again at the last so as to know one another again, that I do not know, nor do I find it my heart to believe it, however much I may wish it might be so.

  CHAPTER 27

  I'D LEFT YONGE STREET FIFTEEN MONTHS AGO JUST as the snow was melting. I returned in the drowsy heat of a summer evening, while the shadows lengthened across the dusty track before me. It was a long day's walk south from Penetanguishine. The swell of the lake was still with me, so all the time the forest seemed to be gently rocking. Occasionally I drank from a shrunken creek, but otherwise I never stopped walking, while the day-long heat waxed and waned, and the sun glared relentlessly on the white road ahead of me. My mind was still full of images of chasing clouds and open water, and a myriad islands that grew wilder and rockier as we'd sailed into Georgian Bay, reminding me more and more of my own hill country far away. When I got to Yonge Street I was not prepared for the little farms with their neat fences. The settled land seemed so small and tame. I'd meant to think things over while I was on the road, so I'd be ready, but the present had turned too quickly into the past. When I stood in the stern of the Nancy, watching the Sault disappear from my sight, although the ship was quickly caught by the current and borne away, and myself with it, my sad heart refused to follow, and it hadn't caught up yet. So I was arriving unprepared, and I felt a little pang of fear because of that. Presently I met a man walking along the road towards me. He wore a broad-brimmed hat and a plain grey coat of old-fashioned cut. I had not worn such a coat myself for over a year.

  ‘Good evening, friend,’ he said, as he passed me.

  ‘Good evening,’ I replied, but I didn't call him Friend, for I didn't wish him to know me, though I vaguely recalled his face from Meeting.

  I felt his eyes on my back as I walked away, but I didn't look round.

  I saw Amos Armitage's place by the roadside and turned right along the farm track before I reached it. The potholes were baked hard and full of little stones. I walked slowly, feeling parched and sticky. My boots were coated in white dust. I felt a strange fluttering under my ribs. When I reached the door of Thomas's house it was open, and – I looked twice – a little child was sitting on the clean step, clutching the remains of a jam tart. Its face and its short frock were liberally spread with jam. Its fat cheeks bulged. Tendrils of red hair had escaped from under its starched cap.

  ‘Good evening, Friend,’ I said gently. The baby stopped chewing and stared at me with round blue eyes as I reached over its head to knock at the door.

  My throat was so dry that my voice came out as a feeble sort of croak. But someone heard, for a voice cried, ‘Come in, Friend! Who is there?’

  She was standing at the kitchen table in an apron that was too big for her, rolling out dough. With the heat of the cooking fire the room was like a furnace. I stared at her, unable to believe my eyes. Her mouth fell open when she saw me; she was as amazed as I was, but after the first second she recognised me. Whatever I had expected, it was not this. ‘Aunt Judith!’

  ‘Mark!’ She dropped her rolling pin, and the next thing I knew her floury arms were round my neck, and she was hugging me. ‘Mark! Our little Mark!’

  ‘Not so much of the little, Friend.’ I extricated myself as politely as I could – my aunt had never embraced me before – and looked into her face. ‘Judith, how came thee here?’

  ‘Mark, lad, I could ask thee the same.’ She wiped away two tears with the corner of her apron, and left a streak of flour across her cheek. ‘I feared thee was dead!’ With a touch of her old manner she added, ‘Could thee not have written, Mark?’

  ‘I did write. Did Clemency not say?’ I added, although truly there was no need to justify myself. ‘I couldn't write to thee. Thee left no address.’

  ‘Ay,’ said Judith. ‘Clemency had a letter. But that was dated Seventh Month last year! Where has thee been, Mark? Thee never found her, then?’

  ‘Ay. I found her.’

  ‘Then where is she?’ she flashed, as if I'd carelessly left Rachel in the yard. Some things never change.

  ‘I'll tell thee,’ I said. ‘All is well. But I've walked a long way, and I'm hungry. I'll tell thee all. But where is CI . . . Thomas? And Sarah?’

  ‘Thee found her!’ She was only just beginning to take it in. ‘Oh, Mark, lad! Does thee mean it? Thee doesn't just hope to spare me?’

  ‘Judith,’ I said sternly. ‘Would thee doubt my word?’

  ‘No, no!’ she cried.’ ‘Tis just that . . . I never thought . . . Thee found her!’ Her face grew sharp in sudden fear. ‘Dead, Mark? Is she dead?’

  ‘No. Alive and very well.’

  ‘Ah!’ Judith made a sound that might ha
ve been a sob. ’She was dead and is alive again, she was lost and is found.‘

  ‘Ay,’ I said.

  I saw her face begin to work, and then all of a sudden she cast herself upon my chest and hugged me as she had never done before. ‘Oh, Mark, lad! Oh, Mark!’ I tried to think of her as my mother's little sister – as indeed she was – and not as my formidable aunt Judith, and I did my best to soothe her, as it might have been my own mother. Presently I got her to sit down and be a little more rational.

  ‘Oh, Mark, lad, may the Lord be thanked. For God is indeed merciful to us! Thanks be to God . . .’ We were silent together for a little space, and then Judith said. ‘For his mercy is on them that fear him, Throughout all generations . . . Thanks be to God! Now, Mark, tell me . . .’

  There was a wail from the doorstep.

  ‘Johnnie! Here I am, sweetheart.’ Judith hurried away. She came back with the sticky infant on her hip, and began rubbing its face with a piece of flannel. I winced in sympathy; I could remember having the same thing done to me, possibly by the same efficient hand.

  ‘This is Thomas's baby?’

  ‘Of course. This is John Armitage. Is he not a fine lad?’ John was jerking his head to and fro, trying to avoid the wet cloth. ‘That's my good lad!’ cooed Judith, and set him on his legs. He clung to her skirts, and watched me. I met his gaze. I had forgotten until this moment that when I was a little lad Judith had not irritated me in the least. I'd forgotten that when she baked she used to make us pastry people and our own special jam tarts out of the bits of dough left over. I found myself smiling at her. ‘Truly, Judith, all is well. Rachel is safe. I'll tell thee the whole story. But I never thought to find thee here. Clemency said thee was going home.’

  ‘Ah, Mark, I thought to go! But when it came to crossing that ocean again – and this without my companion. I thought of that terrible sea, and the truth is, Mark, lad – cowardly though it be – for would I not have been in the hand of the Lord as well as if it were on dry land? – I could not face it. And when I laid this before the Lord, he put it into my mind, as plainly as thee spoke to me just now, that this particular cup was not mine to drink. For there is work for me here. Also, Mark, I could not leave, knowing that thee, and Rachel, had vanished into the pathless wilderness, and I the only kin thee had in this land to pray for thee and watch for thee. Sometimes I could not keep faith in my heart – I thought we would hear no more of either of ye ever again – but I knew what I must do. I have not so much life left that I should grudge spending the rest of it in waiting.’