Voyageurs

by Margaret Elphinstone

  I was touched. ‘That was kind of thee, Judith.’

  While I ate the jam tarts that were put in front of me, I told her nearly all that had happened. Judith exclaimed, and wept a little more, and altogether behaved more harmoniously to me than she had done since I was out of short coats. I gave her time, and then, when still no one of the family had appeared, I asked her casually, ‘Is Clemency not here, then?’

  ‘Clemency? She went to pick raspberries – we're making preserves, Mark. In fact – ‘tis pity thee didn't know. Thee could have brought more jars from York with thee.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Mark, lad, I don't know. They have glass enough in York, I've no doubt. Now round here there ‘s not a glass jar to be got for love or money, not at this time of year, and everyone coming round here trying to borrow the jelly pan, which I bought myself in Philadelphia, for I noted the lack of it before.’

  ‘Aunt Judith, I meant, where is Clemency?’

  ‘Gone to pick raspberries, as I told thee.’

  ‘But where . . .’ I caught her eyes, and reddened. Aunt Judith is as shrewd as they make them, and this wasn't the first time in my life I'd been taken in by her. It dawned on me too, that this was her way of expressing her joy and thankfulness that Rachel was restored to the world.

  ‘The far side of the hayfield, as if thee was going to the Indians’ lodge. Just before thee gets to the forest.’

  I turned to go, but just as I reached the door she came over to me and gave my arm a little squeeze. ‘Thee truly has come back,’ she whispered, as if still trying to convince herself. ‘Oh, Mark, lad, thee truly has!’

  I crossed the shorn field slowly, for I had much to think on. I was already resolved, and yet uncertain. I knew the thoughts of my own heart, or thought I did, but no man can ever be sure of the thoughts of another. The hot sun beat upon my back. The smell of ripe hay still lingered, and I could still see the marks of the scythe in the new-cut grass. I reached the fence, and followed a well-beaten path towards the forest gate. A tangle of nettles and brambles half hid the rail fence. There were raspberry stems among the thickets, all picked bare. Someone had lifted down the gap rail. I came to the opening, and saw a young woman in a grey gown with a basket on her arm. She had her back to me. I came close enough to see the red curls escaping from under her cap. Then she heard me, and swung round.

  I'd forgotten the pockmarks. Since I saw her last I'd looked upon much beauty, and I'd forgotten how scarred she was. Tendrils of red hair had fallen across her forehead. She must have been so pretty once. Her body – the way she held herself – was young and full of grace, but not so graceful as one that I remembered.

  ‘Mark?’ It was a question, not an exclamation, as if she couldn't quite believe that it was I.

  ‘Judith told me I'd find thee here.’

  Perhaps in that first instant I'd given away more of my thoughts than I knew, because she hung back, as if she were afraid I had come so far only to hurt her.

  ‘Thee saw Judith? She sent thee? Did thee find out . . . Did thee find anything about Rachel?’

  ‘I found her,’ I told her. ‘She is back with her husband now. She has a little lass, about the age of thy nephew, John.’

  She gazed at me, and slowly I saw a great light dawn in her face. Her smile was as generous as I remembered it. ‘Oh, Mark! God has shown thee his mercy! I am so thankful for thee. How came it about?’

  I began to tell my story again as we walked slowly back across the hayfield with the basket of raspberries scarcely half-filled. It made me blithe to see Clemency so happy that her friend was safe and well. But before we came to the yard I stopped her going in.

  ‘There is one other thing I must tell thee.’

  ‘What?’ she said quickly. ‘Is it something bad?’

  ‘Bad? Why should it be bad?’ I took my courage in my hands. ‘Clemency, I want to marry thee. Here. Soon. Amongst our Friends in Yonge Street. I'd like to take thee back with me.’ She looked as if she didn't understand, so I stumbled on. ‘To England, I mean. To be my wife. I mean that my home will be thine, and everything I have I'll share with thee.’

  She gave a little half smile, as if that pleased her. Then – the ways of women are ever strange to me – she frowned, and was silent. ‘Why does thee want to marry me, Friend?’ she asked at last.

  ‘Because I love thee.’ That was true, as far as it went, and I had every faith that it would grow.

  She gave me a considering look. Never had a silence seemed so long. Then she said, ‘I too have somewhat to tell thee.’

  I felt a sudden chill, as if the sun had set before its time and left me in icy shadow. I was not the only man in Yonge Street . . . I might have guessed it. Never did she seem to me so desirable as now. I had to ask her, though. ‘Ay?’

  ‘Did Judith tell thee anything about what's happened here since thee's been gone? No? She didn't mention the Children of Peace?’

  ‘Who?’ I felt the sun rise again silently in my heart. ‘The Children of Peace? Who are they?’

  ‘I told thee in my letter how David Willson was no longer in unity with Friends in Yonge Street, didn't I?’

  ‘Ay, thee did.’

  ‘He had visions,’ said Clemency. I cared not a whit for David Willson's visions, but clearly Clemency did, so I gave the matter my serious attention. ‘I have to tell thee, Mark! It was like this: Peace may walk through the world, but we see her not. She is a woman robed in red – red for all the blood that is shed on earth, for all the killing of men by men, all who have died in war and bloody conflict since the world began. Peace walks among us, but wherever she goes men turn upon her and revile her and try to kill her. Whenever she bears a child, wild beasts devour it as soon as it is born. She can never be fruitful and multiply, for the hounds of war forever swallow up the fruits of peace. But in David Willson's vision she comes to earth again, and she carries two children in her arms, the Children of Peace, and through them peace may come to earth at last.’

  ‘Ay,’ I said. ‘Ay, well.’

  ‘Mark, thee must understand me! We're so close to each other here in Yonge Street, and so few! I knew not what to think. And now thee asks me to decide another thing! I used to trust myself, and now I cannot! Does thee – I mean thee, Mark – never think it possible that thee may be mistaken?’

  ‘Friend, I've made a mort of mistakes in my time. But this that I ask thee – no, I'm not mistaken about that.’

  ‘Thee doesn't believe in visions?’

  ‘I wouldn't say that,’ I said cautiously. ‘George Fox had visions enough. I've thought about such matters quite a lot since last I saw thee. If we were all Children of Peace it would be no bad thing. I'm not sure about David Willson, though, I must admit. I trust him not.’

  ‘ ‘Tis not just David Willson. ‘Tis the Doans, and . . . Even some of our elders, Mark – even Amos and Martha Armitage – oh, several very weighty Friends – have left Yonge Street and gone over to David Willson's Meeting for Worship – for so they call it. They call themselves the Children of Peace, and we are no longer in unity with any of them.’

  ‘I can see why thee's troubled.’

  ‘Friend, I was more than troubled!’ She was suddenly vehement. ‘I was tempted – oh, more tempted than thee can imagine. It wasn't just that I was lonely, and full of grief. It wasn't just that I thought to be alone for evermore. Not just my own hurt – all that I feel, all that's happened to me – it's only a part of something larger that happens to everybody. And every time we compromise, every time we let the world be as it will, and depart from the principles of our Society – even by the least little bit – then we bring more strife into the world, and more sorrow. Among the Children of Peace . . . at least perhaps they have a clear vision of a better world. At least things become simple – some sort of simplicity is possible.’

  ‘Simplicity is not the same as turning thy back on the world.’

  ‘I didn't say that!’

  ‘No, and thee hasn'
t joined the Children of Peace, has thee?’

  ‘No, but what I'm saying to thee, Mark, is that I've been sorely tempted. There's such strife and turmoil everywhere. Sometimes I think I might join them yet. Has thee never found thyself – even in thy heart – out of unity with Friends on any matter?’

  ‘Ay.’ The question struck home. My thoughts were in turmoil but I tried not to show it. ‘Ay, but the principles of our Society must be more reliable than the promptings of our hearts. Sometimes it may be hard to see that, but it must be so. Thee – I mean we – we make mistakes sometimes, and then we have to put them behind us, and let them be gone.’

  ‘If it were only that simple!’

  ‘Lass,’ I said. ‘There's naught so simple as what I'm asking thee.’

  ‘I don't think so,’ said Clemency, but at least I'd made her smile, though I couldn't think why.

  She hadn't given me her answer, but for the time being I forbore to press her. When we went in we found everyone at home, and a good smell of stew from the pot simmering over the fire. There was much rejoicing that night over our lost sheep that was found. There was sadness too, because Rachel could never come back to us, but great joy and thanksgiving that she lived, and was safe and well, though she could never again be in unity with Friends.

  The next day was First Day, and we went to Meeting. I found it much depleted. I was told that above thirty members had departed from the Meetings round about and joined the Children of Peace at Gwilimbury. It seemed to me that the Meeting at Yonge Street was much beleaguered, by strife within and war without, and I feared for it. They had the stalwart presence of my aunt Judith, to be sure, and they gave me a good welcome. I had no great desire to help them in their affliction, I must admit. I wanted nothing more than to go home, but I still had not got what I came for, and so I bided my time for seven days. I was kept busy helping with the hay harvest. It was the custom in Yonge Street for everyone to turn out to help their neighbours, reaping at each farm by turn. So it was that I met everyone I'd known before, and was taken back into their midst as if I'd never been away.

  There were certain things I had to watch in myself. I had unwittingly departed from our manner of plain speech – indeed I have not quite regained it to this day. I had talked over-much to those who were not in unity with us, and who had a very different manner of expressing themselves. I had also read too much of a secular nature, and now that habit was formed it was never to be undone, though naturally I didn't mention this to the Friends at Yonge Street. A literary habit was better understood by Friends in my own country, for here we're used to poets and such-like, even in our own dales. I'd grown used to my deerskin tunic, and when the Friends kindly supplied me with a new plain coat, I put my wilderness accoutrements aside with a suppressed pang of regret. I kept quiet also about some of the items in my knapsack, particularly the string of bears’ claws, and my quill-embroidered moccasins.1 I was not afraid to bring out my hunting knife, though, because Thomas wanted to know all about the bear, and how we had survived by hunting through the winter far beyond the frontier in the Michigan Territory. He admired my sundial compass too. I never mentioned to him that I'd learned to smoke tobacco, but while I was at Yonge Street I began to feel the want of it as never before, so much so that one afternoon I walked away into the forest, and took the path to Mesquacosy's wigwam.

  But of course it was still high summer, so the winter camp was deserted. I looked at the bare frame of the wigwam, and the empty hearth, and to my surprise I came close to shedding tears. It came home to me there, I think, that what was past would never come again.

  On the eighth day I went back to the stubble field with a rake after supper, for I could not rest, and occupied myself in a desultory way gleaning some of the leftover stalks. The treetops to the west of me were tipped with gold, but down in the field creeping shadows crossed the shaven grass, softly sprinkling it with dew. I could smell the cool of the evening in the air. I ached for my own home, and for something more tangible as well. I wished I had some tobacco, even though the mosquitoes weren't troubling me tonight. I reached the end of a long row, and looked up, leaning on my rake.

  Clemency was sitting on the rail fence watching me, her feet up on the rail like a boy, and her chin in her hands. The unshorn grass beneath the fence was thick with buttercups and vetch. Clemency's cap was awry, as usual, and a lock of thick red hair curled over her shoulder.

  ‘Thy cap's crooked.’

  ‘Ay,’ she sighed. ‘It always is.’ She put her hands up to straighten it.

  I dropped the rake, walked over to her, and took the cap off her head entirely. It was as I thought: a cloud of wild hair flew up all around her head. She gaped at me, and through the scars I saw her blush. ‘What is thee doing, Mark?’

  ‘What is thee doing, watching me like that and saying naught? How long has thee been there?’

  ‘Give me back my cap!’

  ‘Thee came to find me?’

  ‘Give me back my cap!’

  ‘No.’ I pulled her down off the fence and held her arms above her elbows. ‘Will thee marry me?’

  She looked me in the eyes, and I could see her own were troubled. ‘I love thee,’ she said simply. ‘But thee . . . I don't know. I never thought to see thee more.’

  An image flashed through my mind, faster than the twinkling of an eye, of the shore at Bois Blanc. This was no different, only it couldn't be done that way, not this time. With Clemency it must be after the manner of Friends. ‘I love thee,’ I said. ‘I told thee that. I'd like to sail from Quebec before the winter comes. My parents are waiting for me, and I want to be home. They'll welcome thee, I know, as if thee were their own daughter. So I need to know from thee now, is it yea or nay?’

  ‘Yea,’ she said, and so the matter was settled between us, for all time.

  The whole of Yonge Street Meeting came to bear witness to our marriage, and in their ministry they spoke of the unity that would ever be between themselves and us as Friends, for all that the great ocean would soon divide us, never to meet in this world more.2

  1 These claws now hang from the mirror over the washstand in our bedroom, which I use each day to shave by. The moccasins were the warmest house-slippers I ever had. My wife patched them for me many times, until at last they fell apart. I sent a bale of furs, including the bearskin, by North West Company canoe to Montreal, where I found it waiting for me at William Mackenzie's house, as directed. The furs are pretty well-worn now, but the hearthrug in here I will not change. Alan and Caleb wouldn't wish me to: they have lain on it as babies, played rough games with it as lads, and read their way through my library while stretched out on it, and neither they nor I would have anything in this room changed one whit.

  2 While Judith remained at Yonge Street we got news of the Meeting there at least once a year. She also informed us of the subsequent history of the Children of Peace. In ‘25 they began to build their great Temple at Gwilimbury, which was decorated with banners representing the visions of David Willson, and within which edifice, Judith said, they had music and chantings, all far removed from the principles of the Religious Society from which they sprang. Since Judith left Yonge Street seven years ago, and went to live with Friends in Philadelphia, we seldom hear from Yonge Street Meeting. Thomas is a poor correspondent, and on the rare occasions he does write to his sister he has little to tell us, other than the state of the weather and the harvest. It would be kinder to Clemency if he were to say more about his growing family, and the Friends in Meeting, but a man is as he is, and I'm sure if we were ever to see Thomas again, it would be as if we had but parted yesterday.

  EDITOR'S AFTERWORD

  I TURNED THE LAST PAGE. IN FRONT OF ME THERE was nothing but a blank sheet. It had a few brown spots at the edges. I couldn't – wouldn't – believe it. I turned over every page until I reached the end of the foolscap notebook. Eleven pages. Every single one was completely, maddeningly blank. Mark had cheated me at the last. There had still been the dece
ptive thickness of pages under my hand as I turned the last sheet. How could he leave me like that, without one word of warning or farewell to the reader who'd followed him every step of the way? He didn't even tell me how he and Clemency got home. Right up to the foot of his very last page his script was as close-written as ever, with no indication that he had plenty of room to spare for all he wished to say.

  I've done all I could to find out more. I don't know if the rest of Mark's life was uneventful. I can only say that, so far as either archives or local tales can tell us, it was unrecorded. There is nothing left of him but the grudging record of birth, marriage and death. (I'd known Mark's death date for weeks: he attained his threescore and ten, and a few more years besides. Clemency outlived him by two years.) Being a Quaker, not even his tombstone is marked. Presumably he was buried in the graveyard at Mosedale, which is just across the road from the Meeting House. In life he must always have been taciturn in public. I came upon his private history as an eavesdropper, like a thief in the night, and only within its stolen pages can I hear his voice. I find myself thinking about all the other stories that have vanished into the silence, all the voices that will never be heard any more.

  As I sit at my desk I can hear a hammering from the loft, where the builders are at work (they didn't come at all yesterday, or the day before) on my new study. In a few weeks I'll have moved the computer and all these papers into my new workspace. Right now I have a temporary desk at the sitting-room window. I look out towards the head of Derwentwater, and between the showers I can see Grasmoor washed in mist, like a pale ghost. I climbed to the summit of Grasmoor last week. I've been up Blencathra too: you can go straight out of our back gate on to its eastern slopes. I'll miss this view when I move upstairs. This is where Mark sat. Here. He actually sat here, in what seemed to him to be the present, as this seems to me to be now.