by Ami McKay
Father nodded. “This always was your spot, wasn’t it, Dorrie?”
“Yes.”
~ May 20, 1917
A letter came from Borden, thanking me for the sailor’s comforts I sent him late this past winter (wool socks, a knit cap and two pairs of mitts). He says they’ve seen no sign of the Fritzies, so he’s been keeping himself busy by mending sails, fishing, playing hearts and playing pranks on the rest of the members of the crew. He sounds the same as always.
Seems when he passed around an old family photo Mother had sent him, one of his mates, Hefty the cook, became “quite smitten” with me. Borden thinks I should write him, as Hefty’s younger brother was recently lost at Beaumont Hamel. I guess he hasn’t gotten the news of my engagement to Archer.
Miss Dora Rare
Scots Bay, Nova Scotia
May 22, 1917
Mr. Borden “Chips” Rare
Ship’s Carpenter
The Just Cause
Sydney, Cape Breton Island
Dear Borden (and Albert too),
Your letter was a welcome surprise. I know you are kept busy on board the ship, so I’m happy enough to read the letters and cards you send to Mother.
I’m afraid your cook will have to find another if he wants a steady girl. I will write him a note of condolence, but that will have to be all. I am engaged to marry Archer Bigelow. What do you think of that?
Most everyone is happy about the arrangement, except perhaps Grace Hutner, who long had her sights set on Archer (and his mother’s money). She’s decided that he wasn’t good enough for her anyway, since he agrees with me in thinking the war is unjust. Instead, she’s taken to chasing after our dear brother Charlie! He assures me that “Grace Hutner isn’t the kind of girl you take to church.” He volunteered to tell me exactly what he thinks she’s good for, but I refused to hear it. From the way she’s been grabbing at his arm and bringing butter tarts to the house, I can only imagine. Wait until she hears he has no intention of signing on. She’ll have to feather him as well. (Although I’m sure she’s thinking twice about that game, since there are so few boys left in the Bay.)
I know you have never liked Archer half as much as Hart, but please be happy for me. He’s been nothing but a gentleman and more than worth his weight in kindness and compliments. Despite his charm with the ladies, I feel he is devoted. I think we are a good match.
Your soon-to-be-wed sister,
Dora
18
“GET ME TWO long-handled spoons and grease ’em up good with tallow, Dora.” Miss B. was sitting on a chair by the bed, one hand slid up between Grace Hutner’s thighs. “What the devil you got stuck in there, anyways?”
Grace held her breath as Miss B. inserted the spoons and gently pried the object out of Grace’s body. “Look at that! Look who was grinnin’ back at me.” Miss B. held up a small, rounded piece of porcelain painted with pink flowers and the smiling image of a Chinese empress, one of the teacup covers from Mrs. Hutner’s prized Gilded Lotus set. “That must have been some tea party you went to, Gracie.”
Grace grabbed the teacup cover from Miss B. “I’ll take that. It belongs to my mother.”
Miss B. scolded her. “It sure don’t belong up in your little sweet spot. Don’t be puttin’ things up there that don’t belong, no matter how handsome he is.”
Grace sat on the edge of the bed and sighed. “Some men just won’t take no for an answer.” She smiled at me, fluttering her eyelashes. “And then there’s some you just don’t want to say no to, isn’t that right, Dora?”
I clenched my teeth. “It never hurts a man to wait.”
She laughed as she pulled up her stockings and fastened them to her garters. “Really? They always tell me different.”
Miss B. called out from the kitchen. “You gonna be a little sore for a couple of days, then you’re good as new.” I followed Miss B. and watched as she got into the cupboard and brought down a heavy jar filled with what looked like steeped brown roots. The label read: Beaver Brew.
“I’ll give you somethin’ that’ll keep you clean ’til your next moon time, so you don’t have to worry ’bout your little princess there. Just this once.”
I stood next to Miss B. and hissed at her. “What are you doing?”
She strained some of the mixture into a small jar. “I’m makin’ you a weddin’ present. Now leave it alone ’til she’s gone.”
Grace looked into the canning jar that Miss B. had handed to her. “What’s in it?”
“No concern of yours.”
“It smells awful.”
“Make sure you drink it all, now, or it don’t do no good.”
She whispered to Miss B. “It really works? I can’t get a bun in the oven?”
“Drink it down.”
Grace took a sip and nearly gagged it back up. Miss B. laughed at her. “It’s easier if you just take it in one go.”
She took the rest and left, grinning and smirking at me as she went out the door. “See you at church, ladies.”
I sat at the kitchen table with Miss B., hot, angry tears coming down my face. “How could you give her something like that? You know she’ll go after Archer.”
“No matter what I done, you know she gonna go after him and anybody else who’ll look at her twice.”
I stared at the floor. “Do you hate me that much for leaving you? Don’t you want me to be happy?”
She came up behind me and put her arms around me. “You’d be hurtin’ a lot more if Gracie went and got herself knocked up with your man’s child.”
Miss B.’s gotten slow, her back looking more hunched and broken every day. She complains in the morning, says she can’t taste her coffee, can’t smell it, can’t feel its bite. “Don’t know whys I bother drinkin’ it.”
She still says she won’t give up tending to the women of the Bay until she’s dead in the ground, but since Dr. Thomas’s lecture to the White Rose Temperance Society, the women in the Bay have all but given up on Miss B. Once in a while, they’ll ask her to mix up a remedy to ease their courses or come looking for a bottle of her cough syrup to soothe a child’s sore throat, but more often than not they avoid her, busying themselves with false chatter whenever she comes close.
The women from away are still faithful to her. Mabel Thorpe, Bertine Tupper and Sadie Loomer have been leaving baskets on the doorstep every other day, loaves of brown bread, pints of cream, applesauce, pickles. This morning I watched Sadie waddle down the road, her belly heavy with child, turning every so often to see if Miss B. had come out to collect her offerings. Miss B. left the jars lined up on the kitchen counter. “Some pretty, ain’t they? I’m almost afraid to eats ’em, ’fraid I’d be swallowin’ that poor little mama’s guilt into my gut.” She shook her head and clutched her rosary. “She’s some small, that Sadie. And her babies are some big. I pray to Mary and sweet baby Jesus that Mister Doctor know what he’s doin’.”
Not long after he addressed the ladies of the Bay, Dr. Thomas became a full member of the Sons of Temperance, lending his brotherhood and advice to the men of the order. Many men from the Bay attend (most in name only): Father, Uncle Irwin, Mr. Hutner, Laird Jessup. As Laird did with Ginny, Sadie’s husband, Wes, has made it clear that Sadie will be going down to the Canning Maternity Home to have her baby. It’s become a point of pride with these men, to be able to pay for the “proper” things in life. If you want the best saddle for your horse, you go to Pauley’s tack shop in Canning; if you want the best axe, it’d better be a Blenkhorn; and if you want your children born “right some strong,” then Dr. Thomas is your man.
More and more of Miss B.’s days are spent sleeping. When she’s not praying for Sadie, she’s praying for “Louis Faire to guide me to my home-goin’.” Sometimes she’ll wake in a fright, calling to me to help her “Bring the child out, Dorrie. Sing her down through her mama’s bones. Sing the moon down. Sing her on down.” She’s forever reminding me of things that need to be done, roots to b
e harvested before the new moon, which herbs bloom in June, July and August. She even insisted on teaching me to collect the first dew of May. “Livin’ here it might come as snow, frost or fog…you never know, but no matter how it comes, you gots to gather Mary’s Tears, puts ’em in a bottle and save ’em for blessing the sick.” Under her watchful eye, I stretched a large piece of sailcloth between four apple trees, tying the ends low to the trunks. She handed me a heavy, smooth stone. “Roll this in the centre there, so’s the dew can runs down the middle.” Then she took her wide wooden bread bowl and crept under the shallow canopy, leaving it just under where the rock was hanging so it could catch the dewdrops.
She fretted over me while I put in a garden at Spider Hill. Aside from peas, cabbage and other vegetables, there is now a start from every herb in Miss B.’s garden. Blue-eyed Mary, Lady’s keys, Our Lady’s bedstraw, Mary’s slippers, Mary’s gold, Mary’s nettle, Mary’s bouquet, Mary’s bed, Mary’s tears, Mary’s washing plant, Mary’s sword of sorrow, Sweet Mary, Jesus wort, Lady’s modesty. “And don’t you forget to collect the seeds before autumn. You’d think the fruit was the prize, or the leaves, or even the roots…but it’s the seeds that keeps the secrets. Like any other mother, the plant done spent all her life learnin’ the earth. It’s her seeds that does the rememberin’ for her. It’s all right there in the seed.”
While we worked, at least a dozen men were circling the new cellar that Father and Uncle Irwin had dug at Spider Hill. Laird Jessup’s wagon was filled with stones he’d gathered during his spring plowing, and one by one the men carried them to the top of the hill. Even though the shipyard is busy with the men working hard to build the skeleton of their next schooner, they have been spending their evenings and Sundays gathered at the hill, while Father maps out the plans with his footsteps. The men stand together, nodding in agreement, clutching the bowls of their pipes or scratching and pulling at their beards.
Un coup de main, Miss B. calls it. “Men come together, first for one and then the other. This house is some special, bringin’ us together when the world has done split apart.”
She’s forgiven the Widow Bigelow and seems resigned, but not entirely happy about my upcoming marriage to Archer. She read my tea leaves for my eighteenth birthday, telling the future of my new home. “I sees all the things a house should hold…laughter, songs, but some tears too. And babies…lots and lots of babies to hold.” This made me happy. More than being in love, or being a wife, I have wanted to be a mother.
I promised her that I’d continue to assist her with her midwifing as long as in return she promises to live forever, so she can be there to catch all my babies, and their babies, and their babies after that. She pouted when I said it.
“Don’t you lie. I knows you’re givin’ up on me, just like everybody else.” I told her she was wrong, but she went on. “Now, now…I’ve almost given up on me too. Might as well…no sense hangin’ my dreams on these bones. Ain’t nothin’ gonna stop this old body from makin’ her way to the grave. Time has its way and that’s that.”
I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that Archer’s already insisting I stop midwifing once we’re married. “A husband needs the attentions of his wife. You can’t be distracting yourself with the work of spinsters and old grannies and expect me to be happy about it. Besides, Dr. Thomas is more than ready to take it over from Miss B., you said so yourself.” I didn’t say what I’d do one way or the other. I didn’t say anything at all.
~ July 1, 1917
This afternoon, Archer and I went out to Lady’s Cove for a picnic lunch. The tide was stretched out away from the shore, leaving the mud flats bare and shining in the sun. I walked barefoot, collecting mussels and a few clams, the warm, heavy sand giving way up to my ankles. Archer built a fire, his happy whistling echoing in and around the tide pools and cliffs.
After we ate, he pulled a locket from his shirt pocket (a beautiful gold thing engraved with a circle of lilies) and handed it to me. He said his mother wanted me to have it for our wedding day.
When I said I thought it was too generous a gesture, he stood and loosened his belt, his trousers dropping down past his knees. He grinned as he stared at me, touching and putting himself on display, asking me for a little thank you for the groom-to-be.
This way of my giving thanks started the night after Grace Hutner’s visit to Miss B.’s. I hadn’t expected to have him standing in front of me, half-dressed, before our wedding night, but it seemed the only way to keep my virtue (a welcome requirement for Archer’s inheritance) while keeping him away from Grace. I’ve been meeting him at the church or down in the shallow caves at Lady’s Cove as often as I can.
I’ve seen my brothers naked many times, running down to the brook with their parts dangling down, three sheets to the wind, innocent and laughing. But Archer never laughs, and what he’s got between his legs is far from innocent. Come on, Dorrie. Just get on your knees. It won’t take long, no one needs to know. Now open up that sweet mouth of yours and take me in. I wonder if this is the way love starts for most girls. Not out of devotion, but from the need to make a man happy. Sometimes it takes more than kisses to say thank you. Just think of it as my way of saying I trust you. That I want you more than anyone else. I’m at your mercy, my love.
He’s particular about the way it’s done. Always, always on your knees. Hair pulled back away from my face, his hands tugging at my braids, guiding me…slow at first, then faster, faster. Despite the way it makes my jaw ache, and the bitter, salty taste it leaves in my mouth, it does change him. There’s a gentleness he shows that isn’t there at any other time. Little girl, you’re my sweet little girl. He coaxes and groans as if he’s the one giving in. I just hope it’s enough.
Just as he was stroking my cheek, bringing my face close to him, and to the stale, musky smell of his body, Hart’s voice rang out from the edge of the cliffs above us. As Archer scrambled to pull his clothing back together, Hart made his way down to the cove. Archer’s face was red with anger.
“Save something for the wedding night Archie, or Mother’ll disown ya…”
I got to my feet and busied myself with throwing sand on the fire, not looking in Hart’s direction. I wish he hadn’t seen us like that. It’s not that I fear the fires of hell for what I’ve been doing, or even that Hart might judge me to be no different from Grace. It’s just that when I kneel in front of Archer, I feel as if God will be disappointed if I don’t let him have his way, that I should thank heaven he wants me at all. Having someone witness it makes it that much worse. My only comfort is in something Miss B. told me long ago: “It’s been proved over and over again, right as rain—The Lord made men so they just can’t help themselves.”
~ July 5, 1917
All the contents for the house arrived today. Five wagons were lined up in the road, and dozens of men were moving boxes and crates up the hill. The women were all there, the Widow Bigelow directing the men as to where to put the furniture, Aunt Fran gossiping to Mrs. Hutner. “My cousin, Clara, in Halifax, she bought the makings of an entire house right out of the Sears catalogue. The Aladdin Built in a Day House. The entire house came by train. An entire house, clapboards, shingles, doorknobs and all!”
Archer winked at me as he dragged the iron frame for our bed into the house. There’s no turning back now.
19
Rare–Bigelow Nuptials
Mr. and Mrs. Judah Rare of Scots Bay are pleased to announce the wedding of their daughter, Dora Marie, to Mr. Archer Bigelow. The Reverend Claude Pineo performed afternoon nuptials at the Scots Bay Union Church, Friday, July 11. The bride was attended by her cousin, Miss Precious Jeffers. The groom was attended by his brother, Mr. Hart Bigelow. Mrs. Francine Jeffers, aunt of the bride, offered her talents in song by singing a fine rendition of “Oh Promise Me.” The ladies of the White Rose Temperance Society, along with the Widow Simone Bigelow, mother of the groom, hosted an evening celebration at Lady’s Cove, with many residents from far and near in
attendance. The happy couple will make their residence at Spider Hill and will receive well-wishers at once.
The Canning Register,
July 25, 1917
EMBROIDERED SILK ILLUSION. Seed pearls and blown glass beads. Fine tatted lace made from Aunt Althea’s sleight of hand, turned into roses and forget-me-nots.
Three weeks before, the ladies of the church auxiliary had sung a song and said their pledge, and Aunt Pauline Rare had read the minutes from the last meeting. Then, to my surprise, she announced that the next order of business concerned “the wedding of Dora Rare to Archer Bigelow.” The women smiled and stared at me. Mother patted me on the knee and grinned.
For the next few hours they bickered and laughed, arguing over who makes the tastiest buttercream frosting and who has the finest voice to sing “I Love You Truly.” In the end it was decided that July 11 was the luckiest day for a wedding (as the men won’t set sail on a Friday). It would be a sunset service at the Union church, Reverend Pineo to officiate, and bonfires with baked lobster and mussels at Lady’s Cove to follow.
Aunt Fran asked, “And what will we do about the rum? You know the men insist on bringing it out for weddings and funerals…”
Mother nodded. “I say, none ’til sunset and done by dawn. And no man to touch a torch or a fire or we’ll lose at least one boat, barn or even a house.”
A round of “ayes” went through the room. Bertine Tupper added, “Each wife tends to her own, too. I’m not having anyone else’s husband lying in my garden when I wake up. Hardy makes a fine mess between the cabbage and peas all on his own.”
After the laughter fell away, Aunt Fran raised her voice again, this time sounding quite serious. “And what about a wedding gown?” She looked at my mother. “Charlotte, is she wearing yours?”
Mother sighed. “That’s a concern…” She busied her hands with darning a sock as she spoke. “When I married Judah, I never thought I’d have a daughter. You all know the saying, Rare men bring Rare sons. In hundreds of years of living in the Bay, it’s held true…until Dora.” She looked at me with sadness. “I used my dress to make christening gowns for your brothers. I’m so sorry, dear.”
