Lying Under the Apple Tree (56 page)

He is barely able to focus his intelligence, to show himself not quite defeated.

“Key,” he says. “Key?”

A
GNES, WATCHING
the dancing, catches sight of Andrew, red in the face and heavy on his feet, linked arm to arm with various jovial women. They are doing the “Strip the Willow” now. There is not one girl whose looks or dancing gives Agnes any worries. Andrew never gives her any worries anyway. She sees Mary tossed around, with even a flush of color in her cheeks—though she is too shy, and too short, to look anybody in the face. She sees the nearly toothless witch of a woman who birthed a child a week after her own, dancing with her hollow-cheeked man. No sore parts for her. She must have dropped the child as slick as if it was a rat, then given it over to one or the other of her weedy-looking daughters to mind.

She sees Mr. Suter, the surgeon, out of breath, pulling away from a woman who would grab him, ducking through the dance and coming to greet her.

She wishes he would not. Now he will see who her father-in-law is, he may have to listen to the old fool’s gabble. He will get a look at their drab, and now not even clean, country clothes. He will see her for what she is.

“So here you are,” he says. “Here you are with your treasure.”

That is not a word that Agnes has ever heard used to refer to a child. It seems as if he is talking to her in the way he might talk to a person of his own acquaintance, some sort of a lady, not as a doctor talks to a patient. Such behavior embarrasses her and she does not know how to answer.

“Your baby is well?” he says, taking a more down-to-earth tack. He is still catching his breath from the dancing, and his face, though not flushed, is covered with a fine sweat.

“Aye.”

“And you yourself? You have your strength again?”

She shrugs very slightly, so as not to shake the child off the nipple.

“You have a fine color, anyway, that is a good sign.”

She thinks that he sighs as he says this, and wonders if that may be because his own color, seen in the morning light, is sickly as whey.

He asks then if she will permit him to sit and talk to her for a few moments, and once more she is confused by his formality, but says he may do as he likes.

Her father-in-law gives the surgeon—and her as well—a despising glance, but Mr. Suter does not notice it, perhaps does not even understand that the old man, and the fair-haired boy who sits straight-backed and facing this old man, have anything to do with her.

“The dancing is very lively,” he says. “And you are not given a chance to decide who you would dance with. You get pulled about by all and sundry.” And then he asks, “What will you do in Canada West?”

It seems to her the silliest question. She shakes her head—what can she say? She will wash and sew and cook and almost certainly suckle more children. Where that will be does not much matter. It will be in a house, and not a fine one.

She knows now that this man likes her, and in what way. She remembers his fingers on her skin. What harm can happen, though, to a woman with a baby at her breast?

She feels stirred to show him a bit of friendliness.

“What will you do?” she says.

He smiles and says that he supposes he will go on doing what he has been trained to do, and that the people in America—so he has heard—are in need of doctors and surgeons just like other people in the world.

“But I do not intend to get walled up in some city. I’d like to get as far as the Mississippi River, at least. Everything beyond the Mississippi used to belong to France, you know, but now it belongs to America and it is wide open, anybody can go there, except that you may run into the Indians. I would not mind that either. Where there is fighting with the Indians, there’ll be all the more need for a surgeon.”

She does not know anything about this Mississippi River, but she knows that he does not look like a fighting man himself—he does not look as if he could stand up in a quarrel with the brawling lads of Hawick, let alone red Indians.

Two dancers swing so close to them as to put a wind into their faces. It is a young girl, a child really, whose skirts fly out—and who should she be dancing with but Agnes’s brother-in-law, Walter. Walter makes some sort of silly bow to Agnes and the surgeon and his father, and the girl pushes him and turns him around and he laughs at her. She is all dressed up like a young lady, with bows in her hair. Her face is lit with enjoyment, her cheeks are glowing like lanterns, and she treats Walter with great familiarity, as if she had got hold of a large toy.

“That lad is your friend?” says Mr. Suter.

“No. He is my husband’s brother.”

The girl is laughing quite helplessly, as she and Walter—through her heedlessness—have almost knocked down another couple in the dance. She is not able to stand up for laughing, and Walter has to support her. Then it appears that she is not laughing but in a fit of coughing and every time the fit seems ready to stop she laughs and gets it started again. Walter is holding her against himself, half-carrying her to the rail.

“There is one lass that will never have a child to her breast,” says Mr. Suter, his eyes flitting to the sucking child before resting again on the girl. “I doubt if she will live long enough to see much of America. Does she not have anyone to look after her? She should not have been allowed to dance.”

He stands up so that he can keep the girl in view as Walter holds her by the rail.

“There, she has got stopped,” he says. “No hemorrhaging. At least not this time.”

Agnes does not pay attention to most people, but she can sense things about any man who is interested in her, and she can see now that he takes a satisfaction in the verdict he has passed on this young girl. And she understands that this must be because of some condition of his own—that he must be thinking that he is not so badly off, by comparison.

There is a cry at the rail, nothing to do with the girl and Walter. Another cry, and many people break off dancing, hurrying to look at the water. Mr. Suter rises and goes a few steps in that direction, following the crowd, then turns back.

“A whale,” he says. “They are saying there is a whale to be seen off the side.”

“You stay here,” cries Agnes in an angry voice, and he turns to her in surprise. But he sees that her words are meant for Young James, who is on his feet.

“This is your lad then?” says Mr. Suter as if he has made a remarkable discovery. “May I carry him over to have a look?”

A
ND THAT
is how Mary—happening to raise her face in the crush of passengers—beholds Young James, much amazed, being carried across the deck in the arms of a hurrying stranger, a pale and determined though slyly courteous-looking dark-haired man who is surely a foreigner. A child-stealer, or child-murderer, heading for the rail.

She gives so wild a shriek that anybody would think she was in the Devil’s clutches herself, and people make way for her as they would do for a mad dog.

“Stop thief, stop thief,” she is crying. “Take the boy from him. Catch him. James. James. Jump down!”

She flings herself forward and grabs the child’s ankles, yanking him so that he howls in fear and outrage. The man bearing him nearly topples over but doesn’t give him up. He holds on and pushes at Mary with his foot.

“Take her arms,” he shouts, to those around them. He is short of breath. “She is in a fit.”

Andrew has pushed his way in, among people who are still dancing and people who have stopped to watch the drama. He manages somehow to get hold of Mary and Young James and to make clear that the one is his son and the other his sister and that it is not a question of fits. Young James throws himself from his father to Mary and then begins kicking to be let down.

All is shortly explained with courtesies and apologies from Mr. Suter—through which Young James, quite recovered to himself, cries out over and over again that he must see the whale. He insists upon this just as if he knew perfectly well what a whale was.

Andrew tells him what will happen if he does not stop his racket.

“I had just stopped for a few minutes’ talk with your wife, to ask her if she was well,” the surgeon says. “I did not take time to bid her good-bye, so you must do it for me.”

T
HERE ARE
whales for Young James to see all day and for everybody to see who can be bothered. People grow tired of looking at them.

“Is there anybody but a fine type of rascal would sit down to talk with a woman that had her bosoms bared,” says Old James, addressing the sky.

Then he quotes from the Bible regarding whales.

“There go the ships and there is that leviathan whom thou hast made to play therein. That crooked serpent, the dragon that is in the sea.”

But he will not stir himself to go and have a look.

Mary remains unconvinced by the surgeon’s story. Of course he would have to say to Agnes that he was taking the child to look at the whale. But that does not make it the truth. Whenever the picture of that devilish man carrying Young James flashes through her mind, and she feels in her chest the power of her own cry, she is astonished and happy. It is still her own belief that she has saved him.

N
ETTIE’S FATHER’S
name is Mr. Carbert. Sometimes he sits and listens to Nettie read or talks to Walter. The day after all the celebration and the dancing, when many people are in a bad humor from exhaustion and some from drinking whiskey, and hardly anybody looks at the shore, he seeks Walter out to talk to him.

“Nettie is so taken with you,” he says, “that she has got the idea that you must come along with us to Montreal.”

He gives an apologetic laugh, and Walter laughs too.

“Then she must think that Montreal is in Canada West,” says Walter.

“No, no. I am not making a joke. I looked out for you to talk to you on purpose when she was not with us. You are a fine companion for her and it makes her happy to be with you. And I can see you are an intelligent lad and a prudent one and one who would do well in my business.”

“I am with my father and my brother,” says Walter, so startled that his voice has a youthful yelp in it. “We are going to get land.”

“Well then. You are not the only son your father has. There may not be enough good land for all of you. And you may not always want to be a farmer.”

Walter says to himself, that is true.

“My daughter now, how old do you think she is?”

Walter cannot think. He shakes his head.

“She is fourteen, nearly fifteen,” Nettie’s father says. “You would not think so, would you? But it does not matter, that is not what I am talking about. Not about you and Nettie, anything in years to come. You understand that? There is no question of years to come. But I would like for you to come with us and let her be the child that she is and make her happy now with your company. Then I would naturally want to repay you, and there would also be work for you and if all went well you could count on advancement.”

Both of them at this point notice that Nettie is coming towards them. She sticks out her tongue at Walter, so quickly that her father apparently does not notice.

“No more now. Think about it and pick your time to tell me,” says her father. “But sooner rather than later would be best.”

We were becalmed the 21st and 22nd but we had rather more wind the 23rd but in the afternoon were all alarmed by a squall of wind accompanied by thunder and lightening which was very terrible and we had one of our mainsails that had just been mended torn to rags again with the wind. The squall lasted about 8 or 10 minutes and the 24th we had a fair wind which set us a good way up the River, where it became more strait so that we saw land on both sides of the River. But we becalmed again till the 31st when we had a breeze only two hours …

Walter has not taken long to make up his mind. He knows enough to thank Mr. Carbert, but says that he has not thought of working in a city, or any indoor job. He means to work with his family until they are set up with some sort of house and land to farm and then when they do not need his help so much he thinks of being a trader to the Indians, a sort of explorer. Or a miner for gold.

“As you will,” says Mr. Carbert. They walk several steps together, side by side. “I must say I had thought you were rather more serious than that. Fortunately I said nothing to Nettie.”

But Nettie has not been fooled as to the subject of their talks together. She pesters her father until he has to let her know how things have gone and then she seeks out Walter.

“I will not talk to you anymore from now on,” she says, in a more grown-up voice than he has ever heard from her. “It is not because I am angry but just because if I go on talking to you I will have to think all the time about how soon I’ll be saying good-bye to you. But if I stop now I will have already said good-bye so it will all be over sooner.”

She spends the time that is left walking sedately with her father in her finest clothes.

Walter feels sorry to see her—in these lady’s cloaks and bonnets she seems lost, she looks more of a child than ever, and her show of haughtiness is touching—but there is so much for him to pay attention to that he seldom thinks of her when she is out of sight.

Years will pass before she will reappear in his mind. But when she does, he will find that she is a source of happiness, available to him till the day he dies. Sometimes he will even entertain himself with thoughts of what might have happened, had he taken up the offer. Most secretly, he will imagine a radiant recovery, Nettie’s acquiring a tall and maidenly body, their life together. Such foolish thoughts as a man may have in secret.

Several boats from the land came alongside of us with fish, rum, live sheep, tobacco, etc. which they sold very high to the passengers. The 1st of August we had a slight breeze and on the morning of the 2nd we passed by the Isle of Orleans and about six in the morning we were in sight of Quebec in as good health I think as when we left Scotland. We are to sail for Montreal tomorrow in a steamboat …

My brother Walter in the former part of this letter has written a large journal which I intend to sum up in a small ledger. We have had a very prosperous voyage being wonderfully preserved in health. Out of three hundred passengers only 3 died, two of which being unhealthy when they left their native land and the other a child born in the ship. Our family has been as healthy on board as in their ordinary state in Scotland. We can say nothing yet about the state of the country. There is a great number of people landing here but wages is good. I can neither advise nor discourage people from coming. The land is very extensive and very thin-peopled. I think we have seen as much land as might serve all the people in Britain uncultivated and covered with wood. We will write you again as soon as settled.