Taking the Reins

by Dayle Campbell Gaetz

  Emma always felt comfortable with Mrs. Douglas. Her employer was not like those other ladies who flitted about town in their foolish hoop skirts and thought they were better than anyone else, just because they were British and not from the working class. Those ladies in their fancy dresses turned up their noses when Emma walked by, and they didn’t much like Amelia Douglas either, even if she was the governor’s wife. They didn’t care how nice she was; they looked down on her because her mother was Cree and not from good British stock.

  There was a quiet sadness about Mrs. Douglas. Most people thought she felt out of place in a British society such as Victoria, but Emma wasn’t so sure. She thought her employer still missed all those babies of hers who died. Mrs. Douglas sometimes talked of them to Emma. Of thirteen babies, only six were still alive and the four older girls had married and left home. Mrs. Douglas loved being a mother and treated Emma almost as another daughter.

  “Ah, Emma, I’m glad you’ve made tea. Now if you slice some of that bread we made this morning, I’ll get cheese and cold chicken to eat with it.”

  A few minutes later, when they were seated at the kitchen table, Mrs. Douglas said, “You seem in a big hurry today, Emma. Did you make plans for your afternoon off?”

  Emma chewed on a mouthful of bread and cheese. She swallowed and took a great gulp of tea. “Nothing special,” she said.

  “Emma, a girl your age needs friends. Why not pay a visit to that girl you knew on the Tynemouth? Mary works for Mrs. Steeves now, which isn’t far to walk.”

  Well, she never would go near Mrs. Steeves’ house, and that’s for certain-sure. Last time she saw Mrs. Steeves, that woman called her a poor wretch from the brideship, Tynemouth, who was too much of a troublemaker to catch herself a husband. Then she had carried on insulting Mrs. Douglas until Emma couldn’t help but toss back a few words of her own.

  “Mary isn’t my friend.” Emma sipped her tea and avoided looking at Mrs. Douglas. “She’s only someone I knew aboard ship.”

  And Emma never did need a friend. Start caring about someone and they up and died on you like Elizabeth Buchanan. She shuddered, remembering how all the brideship girls had been locked in the hold of the Tynemouth when it stopped at the Falkland Islands. Emma had watched through the port hole as her only friend’s coffin, small and cheaply made, was carried to shore and disappeared from view.

  Mrs. Douglas gazed steadily at Emma for what seemed a very long time but didn’t ask any more questions. That was the best thing about Mrs. Douglas – she never pried. And if Tall Joe showed up later and Emma wasn’t here, she’d never tell Emma it was rude to run off like that.

  Even if it was.

  And if I run off, I might never know what surprise Tall Joe has for me.

  “Or could be I’ll just wait and see if Tall Joe shows up. He said he might come by at one. ‘Course, he might not. He might find something better to do.”

  “If he told you he would be here, then he will,” Mrs. Douglas said confidently. “You must not worry so much, Emma. Tall Joe is not going to run off and desert you just because you start to like him.”

  Emma shifted uneasily on her chair. She looked past Mrs. Douglas and out the little square of a back window. The sun was shining, but the temperature hung around freezing.

  They had not yet finished their meal when someone knocked on the front door.

  “That must be Mr. Bentley,” Mrs. Douglas said. “Ask him if he’d like to have a cup of tea with us.”

  “No, must be someone else.” Emma got up from the table. “It’s too soon for Tall Joe.”

  “He is wise to come early.” Mrs. Douglas, being a woman who never wasted words, said nothing more.

  She didn’t need to. Emma understood exactly what the older woman meant. Emma left the warm kitchen and walked down a drafty hall to the front door. She told herself that whoever stood on the other side of that door, would for certain-sure, not be Tall Joe. As for this surprise he went on about, she didn’t trust it. Not at all. Who had ever, in her whole entire life, surprised her with something good?

  The textile mill in Manchester surprised her by shutting down just when she needed money most; her mother surprised her by taking sick and dying; Mrs. Barnes surprised her by sending her off to this wild colony, and Elizabeth surprised her by dying before the ship got halfway here. Now Tall Joe had a surprise of his own. She tried to imagine what it could be and decided he must have enrolled her in school in spite of what he had said.

  Emma trembled a little as she pulled open the door. Like as not she’d see some messenger come to say Mr. Bentley could not make it today. Something came up. So terribly sorry, but maybe next week if nothing better happens along.

  But there he stood, his dark brown hair, the very same shade as her own, neatly combed and a big grin stuck in the middle of his full brown beard. Emma was a tall girl, but she had to put her head back to look up at his face in spite of his standing one whole step down from floor level.

  “You’re early!” she accused.

  “I didn’t want to miss you,” he said. “I was afraid you might forget and go off to do something else.”

  “Don’t think I didn’t consider it.”

  “Emma,” Mrs. Douglas came up behind her, “don’t leave poor Mr. Bentley standing on the porch and all the warm air whooshing out the door. Invite him in for tea.”

  “That is very kind of you, Mrs. Douglas,” he said, stepping inside. “But I mustn’t stay long, I’m taking Emma out to show her something and we’ll need plenty of time before dark.”

  Emma shut the door and followed them to the kitchen. Was the man daft? There was a good long time until dark, and Victoria wasn’t so big you couldn’t walk the length of it and back again in under an hour.

  5

  What’s this then?” Emma stopped at the sidewalk’s end, where a horse and cart stood waiting. She eyed the horse warily, careful to stand well back. Horses were not to be trusted.

  “Your carriage, Madam,” Tall Joe replied with a courteous bow and a mischievous wink.

  “An’ why should I need a carriage when I’ve got two good feet to take me where I want to go?”

  “Because, Emma, we have a distance to cover and I want to get there as fast as possible.”

  “An’ where can we go that the wheels won’t sink in mud to their axles, I’d like to know?”

  Tall Joe sighed and pressed his hand against his forehead. “Did no one ever say that you ask too many questions, my girl? If you must know, I am betting that with the clear skies and cold temperatures of the past few days, mud will no longer be a problem. If the ground isn’t frozen at least it won’t be filled with huge puddles.”

  Emma was about to tell him he was wrong when the horse, an ugly beast with a short black mane that stood up on end like a scrub brush, turned its head and studied her through two slits of evil brown eyes. Emma stopped breathing and glared into those eyes, determined not to show her fear.

  The horse stretched its neck toward her and curled its upper lip, baring a row of square, yellow teeth. Emma jumped back. Horses were nasty, stubborn, violent creatures. Everyone knew that. She once saw a street urchin run over by a horse and carriage in Manchester, and the driver never so much as slowed down to see if the child was alive or dead.

  And you never could tell when a horse would take it into its fool head to go galloping like a wild beast through the streets, tossing passengers out on the cobblestones and knocking street folk onto their backsides. And if that wasn’t enough, they were dirty, smelly beasts, dropping great stinking gobs of mess to wash into gutters with all the disgusting muck of the streets.

  “Look, Emma, he likes you,” Tall Joe said. “He’s looking for an apple.” He reached into the big pocket of his coat. “Here, give him this.”

  Emma watched the horse strain its neck toward
her. Its great flat teeth gnashed together as if the beast wanted to chomp down a finger or two. She took another step back, and her eyes shifted to the perfect, round apple that rested on the palm of Tall Joe’s outstretched hand.

  Emma’s mind whisked back to a busy street corner with her shivering in her thin shawl, her bare feet cold on the cobblestones. “Apple, Sir?” “Apple, Ma’am?” she asked. And all those rich folk looked the other way, scurrying past a thin, hungry girl trying to sell apples and earn enough money to keep her poor mother alive. No matter how hungry she got, Emma never once could afford the luxury of biting into an apple. Not until she arrived in Victoria two months ago.

  “What? An’ you’d waste good food on a beast like that?”

  Tall Joe studied her for a moment and then pulled out a small knife. He sliced the apple into pieces and began feeding them to the horse. “You see? He’s very gentle, Emma. There’s no need to be afraid of him.”

  “I’m not afraid of anything,” Emma informed him, but quietly, so as not to attract attention from the animal.

  “Glad to hear it.” Tall Joe put the knife away. “Now, we’d better be going. Let me help you up.”

  Emma eyed the narrow seat looming above her. She felt herself tumbling from it. She would hit the hard earth with a great thud, land on her weak, twisted leg, and lie there helpless to get up.

  Tall Joe saw the look on her face. “Have you never ridden on a cart before, Emma?”

  “‘Course I have.” But she couldn’t imagine how she was expected to climb to that narrow seat and, once there, keep herself from falling off.

  “All right then, simply put your foot right here and up you go.”

  Emma allowed him to take her arm and help her, but only because she had no idea how she was expected to do such a thing and did not fancy looking like a fool. While Tall Joe supported her right elbow, Emma stepped up with her left leg, pulled with her left arm, and somehow managed to land in the seat without tripping over her long skirt. Tall Joe climbed beside her. He picked up the reins and flicked them lightly over the horse’s back. “Giddyup, Jack!”

  “Jack? You call the horse Jack?”

  “Why not? Jack is a perfectly good name.”

  “For a man, maybe. Not for a horse.”

  The horse began to walk and the cart rattled forward on the uneven dirt road. The seat bounced and swayed to one side. “Oh!” Emma cried and clutched the edge of it. Something must be wrong. And the cart must be broken. It couldn’t be meant to joggle a person about like a ship in a storm-tossed sea.

  “I’m glad this isn’t new to you,” Tall Joe commented.

  “Yes,” she breathed. She looked down at her fingers, curled around the wooden seat until every knuckle showed as white as her opal ring. Her teeth were clenched so tight she felt a muscle twitch in her jaw and knew Tall Joe could see it.

  “Some people are nervous on their first ride,” he added.

  “I expect they are.”

  The narrow wheels creaked onto James Bay Bridge and the cart swayed side to side. Emma gawked over the railing, down at dark, smelly mud left behind by the tide. She knew what would happen if this fool of a horse took it into its head to bolt. The cart would tip for certain-sure. It would hit the railing and out she would fly, flapping her arms and legs like a great, fat bird. She would land with a splat in that thick, slimy mud below.

  Emma sat rigid with fear. She held her breath and clutched the seat while Jack plodded along until at last the wheels of the cart rolled off the bridge. The cart continued down a busy Victoria street, past brick buildings with tall, narrow archways above their windows and doors. Groups of men stood about on wooden sidewalks discussing worldly affairs, as men do.

  Emma would bite her tongue clean off before saying so, but Tall Joe was right; the streets were not nearly so muddy as they had been last week, when the rains seemed never to stop. The cart passed through town and crossed over the bridge to Esquimalt Road. Emma began to feel more confident. She was getting used to the cart’s sway and was not so afraid of tumbling off at any moment.

  By now she had a different problem. The ground was hard and rocky. The cart wheels bounced over it and jolted Emma up and down until her backside ached. And it didn’t help her sore hip either. Wouldn’t she just love to get down and walk a ways, stretch her legs and warm up at the same time? She was that cold, sitting here like a great lump with nothing to do but watch the trees pass by.

  The cart bounced down a slope to a low-lying area where the ground was wet and mucky. “The mud’s bad here,” she said.

  Tall Joe didn’t answer.

  “It gets worse close to Esquimalt Harbour,” she reminded him.

  Still he didn’t answer. He flicked the reins as the cart wheels sank deeper into the mud.

  “Seems I could get down and walk faster’n this,” she told him. “An’ the poor horse strainin’ to drag us along.”

  “Emma...” Whatever Tall Joe was about to say was interrupted when the cart settled quietly into a large mud puddle and came to a stop.

  “Well then, here’s your chance,” he said.

  She eyed him warily.

  “So? Don’t you want to get down and walk?”

  A sea of brown water surrounded the cart. Little waves rippled across its surface after being disturbed by the wheels.

  “Well, an’ is this your surprise then?” she asked. “Wadin’ in a great mucky lake and ruinin’ my boots?”

  Tall Joe stared at her. His eyes narrowed, his mouth twitched. Emma waited for him to say something cross, tell her to climb down and walk home if that was the way she felt. So she was shocked when he threw back his head and laughed. “Yes,” he said, “and how do you like it for a surprise?”

  “Not so much, Tall Joe.” The man must be daft, laughing when nothing was funny.

  They both climbed out to lighten the load. Tall Joe guided the horse’s head, and they were soon out of the puddle and moving again.

  The second time they had to climb down, Emma looked sadly at her wet, muddy boots and the soggy, brown hem of her mud-spattered skirt. She stood aside and watched Tall Joe strain to help Jack pull out the wagon, sunk almost to its axles in soft mud.

  “Seems like it would be faster to walk than dig ourselves out every two minutes,” Emma observed.

  Tall Joe didn’t reply.

  By the time they arrived at Craigflower, both were cold, wet, and muddy. They were also tired and not in the best of moods. Emma wondered why Tall Joe brought her here. She looked up at the big, square building with its two rows of windows. Could be it was a school. She turned to confront Tall Joe.

  “It was worth all the trouble to get here,” he said, climbing down from the seat. “As you will soon see.”

  He helped her down, tied Jack’s reins to a hitching post, then guided Emma toward a wide, fenced-in field. Several horses grazed on a grassy slope beneath two wide-spreading Garry oaks.

  “Do you see that beautiful bay mare with a long black mane and tail?” Tall Joe asked.

  Emma nodded, even though she wasn’t sure which one he meant. What did she know one horse from the other or care either?

  A wide smile spread over Tall Joe’s face. “She’s yours!”

  Emma frowned. “’Course she’s not mine! Don’t you think I would know it? An’ why should I want a horse anyhow, great noisy, filthy beasts that they are? If ever I did own a horse I’d...” The look on Tall Joe’s face made Emma cut the rest of her sentence off.

  I’d sell it and keep the money. That’s what she wanted to say, but Tall Joe looked so hurt Emma couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. “Oh,” she said with a quick intake of breath, “that’s not your surprise?”

  He nodded. “I thought you would like her, Emma. Most youngsters would love to have a horse of their own.” />
  Emma didn’t remind him she was most definitely not a youngster and would thank him not to call her one. She only shook her head and stared at the horses, wondering whatever possessed him to buy one for her.

  She soon found out.

  “You will need a good, strong horse when we travel up to the interior next spring. The trail is long and rugged, and we will be carrying all of our possessions. Between now and then, you and the horse will have time to get to know one another.”

  A horse. It never once occurred to Emma she might need a horse.

  “And you’ll want a horse to get around once we’re living up there. We will likely be several miles from the nearest town.”

  Well, and if the need to ride a horse wasn’t reason enough to change her mind about going, Emma didn’t know what was. But she couldn’t tell him now that she might not go. He looked too disappointed already.

  She watched a hired hand set off toward the horses, carrying a circle of stout rope. He selected one of them, a shiny dark brown horse with a thick black mane and tail and long slender legs. He looped the rope over the horse’s neck and patted it on the shoulder. The horse followed him. It looked almost like dancing, the way it lifted each hoof so high off the ground as it pranced toward the fence.

  “This is her, then,” the hired hand said. “Ain’t she a beauty? An’ she’s fast too. She’s the very same horse the mayor rode to win that race at Beacon Hill.”

  “I remember.” Emma had watched the race with Edward, and the two of them had marveled that the poor horse could hold so much weight and still run so fast. “This horse must be very strong.”

  The man laughed. “She is that, but Mayor Harris sold her in spite of it. He says she’s too good an animal to wear out with overburdening.”

  “He’s right about that. The poor horse looked like a small pony under the weight of Tom Harris! I’d wager our mayor must weigh a good three hundred pounds.” Tall Joe pulled another apple from his pocket and offered it to Emma.