Flame and Ashes

by Janet Mcnaughton

  Our new neighbours are very kind. They keep dropping in with small gifts of household goods for us, some quite old and used, but all given with good heart.

  I must go for Mama is calling. She is very downcast by our situation here, I’m afraid, so I am trying to be extra good and helpful.

  Friday, July 15th, South Side Warehouse

  One week ago today, Alfie got stuck in the dumb waiter, and it seemed like the worst thing that ever happened. Now, every time I think things can get no worse, we slip even deeper into the abyss of despair. But I should tell the story in the proper order.

  By the time Mr. Morrissey arrived, I was back in my everyday dress with a good fish supper inside me, feeling much refreshed. He’d brought his cart again, with all the things rescued from the store as the fire closed in when Miss Rosy was so brave. Our cabman helped Mr. Sampson lift the china barrel, then Papa made another little speech to thank the Sampsons for taking us in, and shook Mr. Sampson’s hand. Papa and Mama squeezed together with Mr. Morrissey on the driver’s seat, while Nettie, Sarah, Alfie, Ruby and I settled into the cart. We said our goodbyes as if we were setting out on a long journey, and Mrs. Sampson tried to look regretful at our going.

  As we drove toward the harbour along Freshwater Road, Mr. Morrissey was once again silent and out of sorts. This time Mama noticed, and she asked if he were quite well (which is a polite way of saying “are you ailing?”). He replied that he was feeling out of sorts because, “It’s a sad thing to discover your neighbours are nothing more than common thieves.”

  When Mama protested that he must be wrong, Mr. Morrissey launched into a rant about “all the sleeveens in Quidi Vidi Village with fine Persian rugs on their floors, and chicken coops stuffed to the gills with fine china and silver.” He concluded with, “And just try telling those fellas they are in the wrong!”

  We were so shocked, the horse clopped along in silence for a good few minutes. Finally Mama told him, if people around him had failed to live up to his standards of honesty, it only served to show what a gentleman he is. To call someone a gentleman is the very highest honour Mama can bestow, and, although he said nothing, I think Mr. Morrissey knew as much.

  To save our cab man further embarrassment, Mama changed the subject, asking Papa where we would fetch our water from, and I listened closely as Papa began to talk about our new neighbours. He told us there was a cooperage across the street, run by a man named Mr. Critch, and that the Critches have offered us use of the well in their garden.

  “Oh me nerves,” Nettie said when she heard this, “back to hauling water. I knew them pipes was too good to be true.” Then she looked at Ruby. “Put some muscle on you, hauling those pails will.”

  Papa laughed and said that wouldn’t be necessary, because he could haul the water himself, or Mr. Matthew Bright would. This surprised everyone. Papa even managed to surprise himself.

  “I can’t believe I forgot to tell you!” he said. “Matthew’s boarding house is gone, of course. He spent one night in the old drill shed, and it wasn’t to his liking. I have no need of him at present, but there’s plenty of work for tinsmiths.” Papa explained that many stoves survived the fire, but the stovepipes did not. Mr. Matt has hired on with a tinsmith in the west end, making and fitting stovepipes. When he learned that Papa was living in the stone warehouse, Mr. Matt asked if we would give him a corner for his bed, and Papa was happy to. “In return,” Papa continued, “he will share whatever he earns. These are strange times and he is paid in kind as often as cash. I’ve hardly seen him since he arrived. He’s up at first light and not back until dark. It’s easy to forget he’s there.”

  The idea of having Mr. Matt so close was cheering, but as Papa spoke we reached the top of the hill and I gasped before I could stop myself. Below us spread the charred remains of our beloved city. The walls of our Cathedral still stood, and the Methodist church before it, both now burnt-out shells. Around them, chimneys rose like a forest of blasted trees. We saw all this through a haze of smoke. The day was hot, but I suddenly felt hotter still and very thirsty.

  Alfie asked Papa where all the smoke was coming from. The fire had been out for almost three days. Papa explained that coal is still burning in basements. Even when that burns out, the coal depots may burn for weeks. Papa said no one knows how to put those fires out but at least there’s nothing left around them to catch fire.

  As Mr. Morrissey guided his horses down Long’s Hill into the very heart of destruction, the suffocating smell of burnt wood and lime and coal smoke grew ever stronger. Alfie began to wheeze and Sarah found a clean hankie so he might cover his nose.

  Mama soon asked Mr. Morrissey if he could take us away from the dreadful smoke. Alfie was finding it hard to catch his breath. He apologized, explaining that the gentle slope of Long’s Hill was easier on the horses. As we turned onto Queen’s Road, my eyes were drawn, with a kind of horrid fascination, to the naked chimneys that were the only remains of the lovely Synod Hall where Sarah and I had gone to school. Thankfully, the cart now moved away from the blackened remnants of the fire and soon everyone found it easier to breathe.

  When we came to the Long Bridge, I kept my eyes to the right, on the peaceful triangle of water at the end of the harbour where everything is green and quiet and quite untouched by the fire, only reluctantly looking ahead to our new neighbourhood, the South Side. It hardly looks like the St. John’s I know, stretching along a narrow strip of land, wedged between the harbour and South Side hills, which loom toward the sky. If you didn’t look back, you could easily take it to be a bustling little outport with an astonishing amount of industry. Whitewashed warehouses and cooperages crowd the waterfront so thickly that the road behind them disappears. Where wharves and fish flakes cover the shoreline, we could see women and children gathering yaffles of split and salted cod to stow away from the evening damp.

  At the end of the Long Bridge, we faced St. Mary’s parish hall. It’s a sturdy, plain building and I suddenly wondered if I would go to school there in the fall. We turned onto the South Side Road, passing the fine old stone rectory and St. Mary’s church, our church now. On the right, climbing up the hills, there were a few rows of frame houses, some neatly kept, some not, and there were even some old stone houses. Fenced meadows that seemed to be mostly rock reached up the steep hill toward wild barrens.

  The smell of fish was overwhelming. On the harbour side, among the wharves and warehouses, I saw the oil pots where cod livers sat brewing into cod liver oil. Sarah, Alfie and I held our noises, but Ruby did not. Nettie said, “That’s an honest stink, that is. Our nation is built upon that smell, my duckies. Never forget that.”

  Papa asked Mr. Morrissey to halt the cart and pointed out the warehouse that is now our home, a solidly-made building of whitewashed stone. There are three storeys from ground to attic. The bottom floor is without windows. The second floor is lined with little windows and the attic sits under a peaked roof that sports a few dormers. Outside, it looked quite cheerful, but as we entered, I realized it was not a home. The ground level is a vast, dark, open space with a dirt floor, filled with empty wooden crates. “This is for storage,” Papa said. “It is not clean and there are mice. The wooden crates have proven useful though, as you’ll soon see.”

  I confess that the gloom frightened me and I went up the stairs as fast as I could. There are no risers, so you can see through as you go up, which made me a bit dizzy. The second floor is much brighter, with its many small windows on either side, and there’s a wooden floor, though it’s rough and bare. Papa told us we will make our shop there as he led us up another flight of stairs to our new home. The long attic walls slope at the pitch of the roof. The only light comes from windows on the straight walls at either end, and three dormer windows on either side set into the sloping walls a good distance apart. On the harbour side of the building, by the windows, Papa has made a living space for us. Mr. Matt lives at the other end behind a wall made from old crates. The space is mostly open,
but we have small dressing closets, also made of crates, so at least we have privacy to change.

  I am too tired and discouraged to continue my story, and the light fades quickly in this hovel, so I will put away my writing for today.

  Saturday, July 16th, South Side Warehouse

  I don’t think I fully understood how humble our circumstances had become until we arrived here. Our beds are straw pallets on boards laid across old crates. We have no blankets as yet, but the heat is stifling so we do not need them. When we arrived, Papa proudly showed us the chairs he and Mr. Sampson made by cutting down empty barrels they found in the warehouse. They are very rough indeed and we must watch for snags and slivers. We have only an old fish-splitting table where food can be prepared, and no table for eating. I am very lucky to have my little travel desk to write on.

  Until Papa is able to salvage the stove from the ruins of our house, we have no way to cook food, so our meals are cold. This is not the hardship it would be in winter, but many of the cold foods Nettie would like to prepare for us — potato salad, for example — require a stove. Yesterday a man came around selling milk and hard-boiled eggs, and that was a treat. Even bread is hard to find because so many bakeries burned and, of course, Nettie has no way to bake. A ham sandwich has become something of a rare delicacy. Wednesday night we dined on cheese and ham alone. Nettie cannot even boil water for tea because we dare not light an open fire on the patch of land beside the wharf. The hot, dry weather has not changed and everything is still dry as tinder.

  I am trying to be brave, but we are paupers. The first night we slept here, something woke me. When I listened, I could hear Mama crying in her bed, very quietly. Mama never cries. I am trying hard not to be downcast, but Alfie is still wheezing. Papa has asked Dr. Roberts to come and listen to his chest.

  Sunday, July 17th, South Side Warehouse

  Alfie is leaving! This is all Ruby’s fault. She is a hateful girl and I wish NEVER to see her again. Nettie says I am a cod of misery today, and that’s exactly how I feel. Everyone went off to Sunday service at St. Mary’s, leaving me here. This was the only punishment Mama could think of, as the fire took care of everything she might once have taken from me. Before they left, Mama sternly commanded me to write in my journal to help me regain my composure. How can I live without Alfie? Everything is terrible, everything is bad and wrong. I hate this journal. I will not write today.

  Later

  I feel a little better now. After I put my journal down, I made such a racket weeping, I drove Mr. Matt from his bed. He works so hard, he was too tired to get up for Sunday service.

  “Is someone after being murdered? Did thieves break in to take your mother’s silver?” he said when he found me. Even through my tears, I could see the dark smudges under his eyes, and I was ashamed to have disturbed his one day of rest. I sat up and straightened my pinafore and made an effort to calm myself, but I had cried so much, I began to hiccup.

  Mr. Matt brought me a cup of water and I told him the whole story. Alfie’s breathing troubles began when Mr. Morrissey drove us here, and they have only become worse since. There are still forest fires outside the city and a pall of smoke hangs over everything. The wind blows smoke from smouldering coal heaps right across the harbour, so we can’t open the windows, and this hot, close warehouse itself seems to hold the dust of centuries, in spite of Papa’s best efforts. Nettie says she’s afraid to give the place a good cleaning, because she’ll only raise more dust.

  Alfie’s wheezing fills our ears all night, and he can only sleep on one side. Yesterday Dr. Roberts came across to see him. After listening to Alfie’s lungs with his stethoscope, he looked very grave indeed. He took Mama and Papa aside and they spoke together for a long time.

  When he was gone, Mama called us together and told us Dr. Roberts says that Alfie cannot remain here.

  Sarah asked if the Sampsons might agree to take him back. It seemed a sensible solution, but Mama shook her head and said we need to remove him from the city altogether, somehow. She turned to Alfie. “You must be very brave, Alfred.”

  I wondered if I could go with Alfie, to keep him company. I’ve never been away from my family, but I knew I could be brave if Alfie needed me. That was when Ruby spoke. “I could take Master Alfie to Scilly Cove with me,” she said. “You don’t really have need of me now that —” She paused to find the right words and Nettie agreed, saying now that there’s no proper house to keep, we have no use for two servants.

  Ruby went on about how her mother would be happy to have her back with the garden on the go and how wonderful the air would be in Scilly Cove. She’d even worked out Alfie’s sleeping arrangement before she was finished.

  “The trains are still running,” Papa said. “It’s lucky the tracks lie beyond the destruction.” To my horror, I saw he was taking Ruby’s suggestion to heart.

  But Mama reminded him that the trains pass right through forest fires, and she told him a story we’d heard at Mrs. Sampson’s from a neighbour woman whose brother works as a brakeman. He was on the first train out after the fire, and they had to keep halting the train because of forest fires. It was supposed to reach Harbour Grace in the afternoon, and didn’t arrive until 1:30 the following morning, everyone covered in smoke and soot. “It might be even more dangerous for Alfie to travel by train,” she concluded.

  For a moment, I thought Alfie would stay, then Ruby spoke again. “There’s almost always a schooner or two from somewhere near to home in the harbour. I feels certain I’d be able to find us passage on a vessel. I got the cash to pay if need be.” She was bound and determined to get home. Papa told Ruby there was no need for her to use her money and, if her parents would agree to take Alfie, his room and board would be equal to her pay.

  At that point, Mr. Matt interrupted me to ask whether my parents would let Alfie go off to the house of strangers.

  I replied that they would. “Ruby’s parents are pillars of the church in Scilly Cove. She came to us with a letter from her clergyman. Mama and Papa feel certain their home is a good one.”

  As I explained to Mr. Matt, they are going to take Ruby around the harbour later today so she can find an outbound ship, and then send a telegram to her parents. As for Alfie, he is so delighted by the adventure, he has no thought for anything else, least of all what his absence will mean to me.

  By the time I finished my story, I was almost in tears again. Mr. Matt sat in one of Papa’s barrel chairs, looking solemn. “Well now, Miss Triff,” he said at last, “I always took you to be a plucky maid.”

  “I am full of pluck!” I replied. “I am as brave as a pirate queen! But not without Alfie. And Ruby is such a villain! It’s her ambition to get home at any cost.”

  “Ruby’d be not much older than yourself, is that right?”

  I sniffed. “She is a full year older, twelve.”

  He told me he was “a big lad of eighteen” when he left his family to come work in town, and thought he “would die of the homesickness” his first year, even though he went home for Christmas. Then he asked whether Ruby had been home since she came to town.

  I conceded that she had not.

  “Put yourself in her shoes for a moment,” Mr. Matt said. “She sees a chance to get her heart’s desire and do some good at the same time. Does that sound like a villain to you?”

  I knew what he wanted me to say, I knew what I should say, but I could not. “It does from where I stand,” I told him.

  He stood and gave me a pat on the head. “Then you must try to stand in a better light, my duckie.”

  When I saw that even a kind and fair man like Mr. Matt would not take my side, I knew my cause was lost. He went to draw a pail of water, and I took up my journal again to write all this down. Without Alfie, my heart will be well and truly broken. I will not cry, I will not argue. But when Alfie goes, I will take to my hard, comfortless bed and there I will remain.

  Wednesday, July 20th, South Side Warehouse

  Sweet rain
is dripping off the roof eaves, which sit just below our floor here in the attic, and pattering merrily against the windows, washing away the soot from the fire. We are pleased to find the roof is sound, with no leaks. With the help of his pocket knife, Papa forced a few of the windows open and, for the first time, cool, fresh air sweeps through the warehouse.

  When I think back over the past few days, I burn with shame. Mama and Papa took Ruby around the harbour on Sunday afternoon, but they couldn’t find a schooner headed for Trinity Bay South. Even so, this gave me no hope, I was that worried about losing Alfie.

  Mama had met Mrs. Critch at church, and we were all invited to Sunday supper at the Critch house. It was kind of them to put on an evening meal for us, as Sunday dinner is usually eaten at noon, and a grand meal it was, with salt beef and cabbage and pease pudding. The Critch dining room almost burst at the seams to accommodate us and was as hot as a furnace, but it was the first real meal we’d eaten since we left the Sampsons’. I couldn’t enjoy it though, for misery ruined my appetite. Alfie could talk of nothing but sailing to Scilly Cove, and I would talk of nothing at all. In the general hubbub, my silence went unremarked.

  On Monday, Papa put the word out among his men, and Mr. Stabb soon found a schooner, the Yarrow, out of Heart’s Content, that was just about to sail home. There were even a few men from Scilly Cove in the crew, so they were already planning to put in there along the way. They had come to town with a load of lumber for relief and would take no money for Ruby and Alfie’s passage, they were that eager to help victims of the fire. Everything was arranged so quickly, I had no time to make peace with it.