The Nine Lives of Charlotte Taylor

by Sally Armstrong

  With that he turns and walks away. Charlotte watches him go, stunned by the lie he told for her and not for a moment did she imagine that she would never see him again.

  Chief Julian stands silent and studies her closely.

  “I am the chief of the Salmon,” he says at last, “and I have heard all that has been said. Today I will go into the hills and hunt the deer as I did as a young man. Tomorrow I will return. While I am gone, Wioche, son of Amoq’t, will act for me as he has in the past.”

  With that the assembly rises and the People return to their tasks.

  JACK PRIMM SITS at the long table, his rum bottle his only companion. Bob Simpson looks in at the door.

  “Can I fetch you anything, sir.”

  “You cannot. Is she gone?”

  “We’re still looking for her, sir.”

  “Not the wretched woman! The Hanley! Is she gone?”

  “She was gone before dark, sir, when her boat brought letters for the commodore.”

  “I am damned then.”

  “Are we to resume the search in the morning, sir?”

  “What matters now?”

  “She may be in danger, sir, in them woods.”

  “Let her die there. Bring me for now MacCulloch and I shall tell him his punishment. There’s some satisfaction.”

  He fills his mug with rum again.

  “He don’t seem about, sir,”

  The HMS Hanley, bound for Bristol, catches a good evening breeze from the west and sweeps toward the wide Gulf of St. Lawrence.

  “We thought to carry a woman,” says Captain John Robbins.

  “Aye, sir, but sudden illness confines her now and she must wait a later ship. But this letter, sir, I am entrusted to carry to her dear father in Sussex, who is himself sickly. It may be their last communication, sir.”

  “Alas, a melancholy burden.”

  “It is, sir, but I am honoured to carry it.”

  “And who pays your fare?”

  “I shall pay my own fare, sir, if you will but employ me. I am an able seaman, sir, and can do the work of two men as is attested by these papers, sir.”

  “And your arm?”

  “It is almost healed, sir, and I shall soon not favour it.”

  “Your name?”

  “Will MacCulloch, sir, at your service.”

  “A Scot.”

  “Awhiles a Scot, sir, an’ whiles mony anither!”

  CHAPTER 4

  The Baie

  1775–76

  There is much to learn. There is no written language, only storytelling and drawings she is unfamiliar with. The legends of the Mi’kmaq are full of superstition and mythology, relying on the past to fathom the future. She’s enchanted with the analogies and the use of hieroglyphics.

  She had already discovered a veritable pharmacy in the woods with Marie but wonders how she’ll keep all the medicinal remedies straight. Eat this, don’t touch that. Boil one, scrape the other. How will she ever remember? And by now she knows about Gluskap, the legendary alter ego of everyone in the camp. The stories about the shenanigans of Gluskap are about monsters and wisdom, magic and moral laws.

  The people, including the few Acadian families that remain in the camp, eat communally around a great fire. Charlotte quickly learns that food is either roasted over the coals or poached by putting it in bowls of water heated with red-hot rocks. Sometimes steaming is the method of choice when, for example, lobster, cod or bass are put on top of the coals and water is sprinkled over them until they are cooked. Meat such as moose and deer are usually roasted but also poached in the deep bowls, the rocks being replaced when they cool, about every ten minutes with a new supply from the fire.

  The women cook with an assortment of ancient utensils carved from trees and bones and European iron pots and knives gained through trade—or theft, according to some of the gossip she’s heard. The children are much adored and do whatever they like, slipping from one woman’s lap to another with the ease of fish moving through water, playing about the fire and, depending on their age, helping themselves to food from the spits or swallowing portions that have already been chewed by their parents. The men sit separately.

  Charlotte stays with Marie, trying to mimic her behaviour, learn her methods. The chores are very much divided—the men hunt the animals, the women go into the bush to skin and butcher them for food, clothing, utensils and materials to patch the camp together. They only kill what they need; nothing is wasted, except perhaps the rum that the women tell Charlotte is arriving in an ever-increasing supply and is often blamed for everything from ill-will to a poor kill.

  Before the meal is begun, Marie makes it clear that Charlotte should watch carefully, that she must learn the ways of the camp. The chief approaches the fire and tosses a handful of herbs onto the coals. The aroma they create is sweet and savoury. Charlotte understands it’s sweetgrass from the bay and sage from the woods, together they apparently create the scent of the earth.

  Chief Julian looks her way and says, “We burn sage to take away evil and bad thinking and sweetgrass to invite the good.” He’s carrying a long feather that he waves in all directions so the smoke wafts onto the food and the people sitting in the circle.

  “It’s the feather of the eagle,” Marie whispers. “Our legend says it is the message of life and hope from the Great Spirit. When you hold it, everyone will respect you, no one will interrupt you.”

  Chief Julian begins to chant, to call out to the north wind, east wind, south and west wind. He prays to Mother Earth for the children, the eagle and the women and men. Charlotte feels the power of the ancient ritual and lets the smoke waft around her while realizing what a very long way she is from her own traditions.

  One evening after the meal while everyone in the camp is still gathered in the circle, she asks the chief how it is that the Acadians came to live with the Mi’kmaq. Chief Julian rises—as though a ceremony is about to begin, she thinks—walks over to Marie’s husband, André, and hands him the eagle feather. It is the signal that André has been invited to tell the story.

  The night is cool; she wraps herself in a mooseskin hide offered by Wioche and moves closer to the fire as André begins. “Les Acadiens sont arrivés ici il y a cent quarante ans.” It is an extraordinary tale of small victories over the harsh climate, crushing defeats at the hands of the British, abandonment by their own government in France and ultimately betrayal and expulsion. It is also a story of resilience, and endurance, of abiding music and masterful storytelling. Charlotte has spent a lot of time with Marie and André by now. She’d met his parents when they visited from Caraquet and joined the extended family when they went berry picking or walked along the flats looking for clams. Her impression so far is that the Acadians are a people so comfortable in their own skin, one could be forgiven for thinking they had triumphed here on the north shore rather than being turned into fugitives.

  André continues. In 1755 when a war was stirring between Britain and France, the unimaginable happened. The Acadians, who had refused to take sides in the warring, committed a crime in the eyes of the victorious British and needed to be punished. Long suspected of being in collusion with the Indians, who were a thorn in the British side, the new masters decided to rid the land of the people whose roots were planted deeper than anyone else’s save the Indians in the soil of Nova Scotia. Families were shattered during the hurried expulsion, children being deported on one ship, parents on another, fathers were banished to one colony, mothers and children to another. The upheaval was catastrophic; many died en route. The Great Expulsion saw almost every one of them—more than eight thousand—banished, sent back to France, dispersed to other colonies as far away as South Carolina and Louisiana or pursued relentlessly until they died on the run of exposure, hunger or were slaughtered like hunted animals. Their land was confiscated, their footprints nearly wiped away.

  André’s family and a few others managed to stay by hiding in the Indian camps, ultimately raising the
ir families there and preserving what was left of l’Acadie. Although there were families who found their way home earlier, most did not return until now, when a modified government in Nova Scotia decided the Acadians were no longer a threat to British rule. It is twenty long years after the expulsion.

  There is a hush over the camp when André comes to the end of his story. More tea is served as the embers die and a flagon of rum is passed around while the Mi’kmaq, the Acadians and the Englishwoman among them watch the coals glow, each caught in their own considerations.

  LATER THAT NIGHT, Charlotte finds her diary and writes:

  They have been here for five or six generations and seem to be a breed apart, these men and women of L’Acadie. They can finish one another’s sentences when they tell their stories of wild beasts in the forests and the wonders of the deep. Their stature is not great, most are quite short. But they’re like people I’ve never known before. As rough as the brine, as harmonious as the tide and as crafty as the fox, they are shaped by this land they have adopted. They steer their boats by the stars and measure the season by the thickness of an animal’s fur. They have a quirky way of talking to one another—self-deprecating double entendres in a cadence as musical as the fiddles they play. They can trick the animals into their soup pots and trick themselves into believing their lives are blessed. As for their relationship with the Micmac, in many ways one has become the other—in language, in clothing, in the food they eat and the ways they live. The best of each being borrowed as one’s own.

  IT’S OCTOBER when Commodore Walker returns. Charlotte had thought there would be a warning, some time to prepare for the explanation he would demand. There wasn’t. She is working with the other women, drying fish to store for winter when suddenly he is standing before her.

  “May I ask what it is you think you are doing?” he demands.

  When she stands to respond, he is flabbergasted at her obviously pregnant shape. “You are with child,” he utters.

  “Too true,” she replies.

  It’s a crisp autumn afternoon; the leaves have turned to gold and scarlet, signalling the season had changed as well as Charlotte’s location during the commodore’s long absence.

  “I thought your return would be announced to me,” Charlotte says, unable to find a more polished way to speak to the man who had been her benefactor.

  “It was unexpected, by me as much as by yourself. I was very delayed in Quebec and endured a long and arduous return voyage.” Staring at her pregnant belly, he adds, “But I see that expectations of all sorts are matters of moment.”

  She cannot help lowering her eyes.

  For a moment he doesn’t seem to have any clear notion of what else to say. He clears his throat. “I do hope you are well.”

  “I appear to be in perfect health.”

  They stand awkwardly in the clearing, near the wigwam of Francis Julian, where the main fire blazes in the clearing. The chief himself and the two members of Walker’s staff idle at a discreet distance. Wioche has made himself scarce.

  “I cannot express the shock and—yes, displeasure—I experienced in hearing of your conduct at the time of the Hanley’s departure,” Walker says. “But now I see you, I … I cannot retain those feelings.”

  “I’m glad of that.”

  “You are wilful, Charlotte, but you are courageous. A man would be a great dolt not to acknowledge it. I should have respected your request to remain. I wanted only to discharge my duty as I saw it toward your father.”

  “I know that to be true. You’ve been like a father to me, kinder than my own.”

  “I … I have believed myself to be your friend.”

  “You are, George.”

  “I have spoken to Chief Julian, and we are both of the opinion that you would find accommodation at my house a welcome change. Charlotte, you are under no obligation to please me in any way on account of your father. And there won’t be another ship bound for England until the spring.”

  “I need to give birth here, George, where there are women around me.”

  “I understand that, but you have not come yet to term. I think you could return to your people safely for a week or two.”

  “My people?”

  “English people, I mean. We are at the winter lodge now. It’s less than a mile west of this camp. Come enjoy some of the comforts the old life offers.”

  FRANCIS JULIAN WATCHES the reunion with some relief. The harbouring of the Englishwoman is not without its complications, her growing friendship with the son of Amoq’t among them. Julian will do what he can to assure her permanent installation in Walker’s camp, but for the moment he offers his guests the opportunity to share his meal.

  When everyone is finished eating and the pipes are lit, Chief Julian’s granddaughter Miq whispers to Grik’las, her maternal grandfather. Julian nods toward the old man, and as his wife extinguishes two of the three lamps that hang in the wigwam, he leans toward Walker. “Grik’las will tell us the story of Gluskap and winter,” he says in English. “It is a story for Miq, our little one.”

  Grik’las, a remarkably weathered and toothless man, begins by meeting the eyes of every person in the room in turn. When he is satisfied that he has the attention he deserves, he launches into his narration in what sounds to English ears like a tuneless song.

  Julian waits for the old man to pause and then interprets for his guests.

  “Winter was a giant who lived in a large house in the north. Winter’s very breath withered the trees and they could make no leaves or fruit. He covered the corn, the rivers and the animals in frost. This brought famine and death to the People.” He looks down intently as he again listens to Grik’las. “Gluskap saw this was not good. He went to the house of Winter to ask him to stop. But when he entered the house, Winter breathed on him and froze him. Luckily, Tatler the loon was nearby. He flew into Winter’s house and wrapped his wings around Gluskap until he thawed.

  “‘You must go to Summer, the queen of the south,’ said Tatler, ‘and tell her of your plight.’

  “So Gluskap ran to the sea and sang for Spout, the whale, who came and carried Gluskap on his back. The clams peeped a warning along the way whenever Spout got too close to the shore, until finally, they reached a land covered in flowers. Gluskap jumped off Spout’s back and swam to the beach, where he saw a rainbow because there is always a rainbow in that land. He followed the rainbow and, at its end, in a house made of the vines of grapes and all the grasses of the world wound together, he met the queen called Summer.”

  The chief pauses in his translation to wait for the old man to catch his breath and carry on.

  “Now Summer fell in love with Gluskap,” Julian interprets, “and said she would follow him anywhere.

  “‘Come with me to the north,’ said Gluskap.

  “Spout carried them back to the north and they saw only ice and snow. When they reached the house of Winter, the giant was waiting. He blew on the couple and Gluskap felt his blood run cold. But Summer smiled and Gluskap felt warm again. Each time Winter blew, Summer smiled. Finally, Winter melted to the floor under the force of her smile. Summer now went with Gluskap across the north and awakened everything the giant had frozen. Buds burst open in the trees and grass and corn sprang to life and water ran in the rivers.

  “When they returned to the house of Winter, Queen Summer said to the giant, ‘You have been too greedy. Henceforth, you are banished from Gluskap’s country for six months of the year. You may return only if you agree that you will be less harsh.’

  “Winter rose from his floor, glad he was not completely melted.

  “‘And I will rule the land six months of every year,’ declared the queen.”

  Grik’las finishes speaking and looks around with an expression that conveys both his own satisfaction and a request for approval. Miq smiles up at him.

  “And so she has always returned,” Julian concludes.

  “Never precisely the same tale twice,” Walker says in a
muffled voice to Charlotte.

  CHARLOTTE ADDS two large sticks of wood to the roaring fire and dips a finger in the kettle. It is already hot. She lifts it from its hook and adds the steaming water to that which already half fills the great tub beside the fire. Here truly is a luxury almost equal to that of her father’s home. She crosses to the door and assures herself again that the latch is secure, then lifts her gown over her head and steps carefully into the tub. This is her second bath in a week.

  She sits down slowly, amazed by the round bulk of her abdomen, warmed and supported by the water. She allows her eyes to close and her thoughts to slow. In the distance, she can hear the crack of hammers as Walker’s shipbuilding enterprise proceeds apace, the business of making money neverending. The baby shifts, jabbing her in her groin; she is carrying low now. She shouldn’t remain much longer in this house of grunting, sweating men. She tries to think of Pad, whose soul and flesh she had once found so thrilling, but her thoughts would not remain with him, though she makes every effort to persuade them.

  She puts her hair up before she joins the commodore and his men for dinner, a rite that strikes her as odd now that she has passed so much time among the Mi’kmaq. To show off her long white throat was something her mother had always encouraged her to do, but in this place and climate it seems a foolish invitation to cold breezes or worse. She contemplates letting her hair down again, but then convention stays her hand. For these few days she would play the proper Englishwoman, and perhaps distract some of the men’s eyes from her condition.

  Unlike the summer quarters at Alston Point, the winter house has few windows, a larger hearth and almost nothing to adorn its dark wooden walls. After they had finished a haunch of venison, platters of cod and chunks of bannock, Walker offers a round of port.