The Sister's Tale, Beth Powning [important books to read TXT] 📗

mate is experienced but in poor health. The second mate is only nineteen, although willing and honest. I have not yet found a man as capable of navigation as I am myself.

It was the fault of his Aunt Azuba and Uncle Nathaniel in Whelan’s Cove, she thought. All his boyhood, picking apples in his uncle’s orchard or sitting on their veranda high over the Bay of Fundy, he’d imbibed seafaring tales: rounding the Horn; sighting a ship stranded on an iceberg; Antwerp’s museums; the volcanic islands off Java.

Sea captains’ wives are now a rare thing; they are perhaps even pitied. The sea will be my mistress, he’d said, when asking for her hand in marriage. I will not mind, she’d murmured. Mount Allison Wesleyan Academy schooled, modern and brazen, she’d been oddly thrilled by the idea of the sea as seductress. And although their parents did not approve, the wedding was sumptuous and Simeon had proved them wrong with his success.

She slipped the letter back in the envelope and held it to her cheek, watching the fire. The sea, as seductress, had become a thing she wished he would renounce.

He would miss another Christmas.

She rose, restless, went into the front hall and lifted a calling card from a silver dish. She studied its scrolled letters, thinking not of the visitor they represented but of the house rising up around her with its routines—polished salvers on the sideboard, the order sent to Mr. Cardwell’s butcher shop, mouse traps duly set—and of how she must contrive to cause no ripple, no storm, as if to do so would threaten Simeon’s voyage.

—

Josephine heard the harsh jangle of the new telephone. She went to the front hall; lifting the receiver, heard first the operator, then Mr. Fairweather’s voice.

“Despite the weather, the auction will go ahead tomorrow at noon. Stand in the front row where I can see you.”

She set the receiver in its cradle and stood with her head bowed. She would like to have taken this decision after talking it over with Simeon. He was a man with whom she could discuss things, unlike her father or brothers; or, even, her own mother who had not learned to think for herself, nor approved of Josephine’s doing so.

I am at sea.

She said this to him, last time he was home. Without you, I am at sea. They were in bed, after making love. He knew how to make her find her pleasure. She lay with her forehead on his shoulder, shy after such intimacy, murmuring into his salty skin. And? What does that mean? he said. You should know, she answered. No land beneath one’s feet. A wind coming from one way and then another, I suppose, and never sure how to set the sails.

And he pulled her to his chest and then rolled over on top of her, slowly letting his weight down until, shrieking, she begged for mercy. There, he said. I press you into the ground. No wind will blow you.

He made the most of his time at home, brightening the future with plans, acting on impulse. Why don’t we build a greenhouse? Or—Let’s take the children on the train to St. John. When the children were small, he prowled the house on all fours, roaring and snapping at them like a bear. When they were older, he brought them extravagant gifts from Hong Kong or Paris. He swept away her anxieties with his assurances of boundless good fortune. Master of weather, navigation and command, he exercised the same capabilities as husband, as father. The impulsive side of his nature—announcing, one morning, with great enthusiasm, that he and two friends were going to skate all the way to Fredericton on the St. John River, or, on a summer’s day, blithely setting forth into the wilderness with a botanist acquaintance on a quest for a purple fringed orchid—was like a reward, she felt, for his adherences to its opposite.

She walked down the hall, calling.

“Ellen?”

The kitchen was like the cook’s own home, with its yellow oilcloth floor, earthenware crocks and copper saucepans, scraps of Irish poetry tacked to the walls like a patina.

Ellen, Margaret, Mary and Mr. Dougan were breaking for tea. Ellen, brisk, stiff-jointed, wearing a cloth cap, poured custard sauce over warm apple cake.

“Will you join us for a piece of cake, then, Mrs. Galloway.” Her questions were statements, offhand, as if inured from caring, although Josephine knew how her invariable compliments on dessert or roast brought a glint of pleasure, quelled by tightened lips.

“Thank you, Ellen, but no, I am satiated. That was Mr. Fairweather on the telephone. We’re to have a new girl. I’ll be bringing her tomorrow. There’s been some mistake and she’s being sold at the pauper auction.”

“Is she from the old country?”

“English. Fifteen years old. Apparently she was sent over as a Home Child.”

Looks, exchanged. Pickpockets, guttersnipes.

Josephine’s heart quailed as she saw the response. They assumed, she saw, that the child would be sullen, bitter, ungrateful.

Her voice firmed.

“Margaret, could you make up a bed for her in the little room at the end of the hall? Make it nicely, with plenty of bedding. She was working at that farm where both husband and wife were killed on the Mine Hill.”

Ellen paused, the custard spoon briefly forgotten.

“Ah. I did read of it. Terrible thing.” Her tone yielded, allowed the possibility of pity. “Poor wee girl…”

—

In the clear morning light, Josephine stood in the hall waiting for Mr. Dougan to come with the horse and sleigh.

She held the newspaper in gloved hands and perused the front page. The words were somewhat obscured by her lace shawl but she did not wish to undo the bow she had tied beneath her chin.

AXE MURDER. The horrible deed of blood which was committed at Tyne Cove yesterday has caused much excitement. A woman, Mrs. Elsa Cavanaugh, was found murdered in the home of Mr. John Tatum, with indications of a violent struggle. Her wrists and hands show marks as