Mary had no doubt how it would be. Thomas had left without a by-your-leave and returned the same way. He would be welcomed back as The Skipper—the person Meg, Ben and Sarah have always turned to, the one with the final say about everything.
“I made up me mind then and there I wasn't goin' to just give in to him. It might do me no good, all the same I vowed that next morning I was goin' to face up to Thomas Hutchings, tell him I could be boss well as him, say he was no more than the rest of us now.”
For all this resolve Mary had been anxious as she walked towards the store at dawn the next day. Despite her defiance of Thomas she had always been nervous of the man, never easy in his presence. From the day she set foot on the Cape he had treated her like a half-witted, willful child. She tried to fight off her dejection, reminding herself that she had sometimes gotten the better of Thomas Hutchings. Hadn't she made him marry Fanny, made him give her his job when he left. But he had felt guilty then—this time she could think of nothing to bargain with.
As Mary pushed the door of the store open and stepped into its cool, dark silence she had still been searching her mind for something that might give her some leverage with Thomas. She would lose this, too, lose access to the store in the morning, lose that quiet time when she planned out her day, counted the barrels and enjoyed the clean wood smells.
Apart from a few red embers in the grate there was no sign of Thomas. Maybe he had not slept here after all.
Moving silently towards the bunk he had always used as a bed, Mary almost fell onto quilts piled on the floor. She bent forward, staring down at Thomas Hutchings and Lavinia Andrews asleep in each others' arms.
They slept as children might, deep, breathing quietly, their faces innocent. Mary studied them. They looked young, unfamiliar—like the sea creatures in Ned's old yarns, mermaids and gods who lived in caves beneath the ocean. She took several steps back, eased herself down onto the carpenter's bench and sat gazing at the lovers while the room slowly brightened. Ribbons of dust-filtered light picked up the pale blue shadow of lashes on the woman's cheek, the copper gleam of her seaweed hair, cast green reflections on the man's hand cupped under the naked breast, shone vivid as jewels on the scraps of coloured cloth, reds, greens and yellows glowing from the pieced quilt.
“Sittin' there I felt old—old as the hills, older than I feels now—hopeless and bone weary. I got up and left the store, quiet as I could,” Mary tells Rachel.
She had walked down the beach, climbed the bank and, skirting the houses, come to the narrow place called the Neck, all without really noticing where she was.
What did it matter if Thomas wanted to take charge of the store and records? What if he did again begin making decisions? She was tired of always pushing and pulling people, sick of the sharp edge of resentment in their voices when they said her name, “…that Mary Bundle,” like she was some strange kind of fish—different and unlikeable. In all the years she'd been married to Ned she'd never been accepted by the Andrews crowd, not once in all that time had she ever been called Mary Andrews.
“I'm tired,” she told herself, “worn out with keepin' on at them.”
It was a marvel to her the way most people lived—how they couldn't see beyond the job they were doing to the job that had to be done. Couldn't see that to grow more vegetables the marsh had to be ditched and drained, that years ahead of when you needed it, wood had to be cut, that larger vegetable cellars had to be dug and stoned in, the river had to be kept from silting up, weeds burnt, barns mucked out, hay made, that roofs, wharves and boats had to be worked on all the time. Oh, they saw the little bits of work all right, but never seemed to recognize that things had to be done in a certain order—a certain way if you were going to fit it all in.
Moving aimlessly through the wet morning grass Mary came to the new graves outside the roofless church and stepped inside. She walked around the rough-framed walls that had weathered to a silver grey. The church, she decided, was a good example of what happened when you didn't have a knack for getting things done. Meg wanted the church, so did Sarah, but they were too nice to make people keep at it, to drive people until no one had a civil word to say about you.
Bits of cut lumber were strewn all around. Inside the empty doorway a partly constructed roof truss lay half covered in dead grass. In one corner warped window frames were propped, in another an iron rod, probably the same one Peter had used to do away with the Indian, rested against some uprights. She recalled Meg's saying the rod should be built into the church, some notion about turning evil to good. It made no sense to Mary, how could you turn evil to good? That was something to be thankful for—at least she'd never cluttered her head with the old religious stuff Meg went on with!
As Mary stood looking at the grey enclosure these thoughts barely skimmed the surface of her mind. Underneath she was still thinking of Lavinia and Thomas, still seeing the sleeping couple, still feeling the wave of weariness, waste and dissatisfaction that pulled at her, threatening to drown everything she was sure of. Could this be what happened to people—what made them take up religion, or become weak and witless like poor Ida Norris?
During the next few days Mary remained disheartened. But she held her peace and watched the pattern of life close over, mesh together as it always did after some upheaval.
Frank Norris came home from the ice with news that there was a big revival going on in Shamblers Cove and that the preacher would be down on the Cape by May or June. Emma's and Peter's little boy Benny became part of Sarah's household, so petted by Sarah, Annie and Charlie, that he went around the place with a great smile of wonder on his face. The Vincents wanted to take Comfort, but Meg would not be parted from the baby. Already two babies, young Toma and Mary's daughter Tessa, spent most of their time in Meg's kitchen. But they were now getting big and both Meg and Pash welcomed the arrival of another infant.
Thomas Hutchings did not say what his plans were, but hove his boat over and began recaulking her as if he'd never been away. Mary marvelled at how quickly things returned to what they had been—like taking a bucket of water out of the sea, she {thought. Not one soul asked her advice or noticed the blackness that had dropped down on her.
On the fourth day after his arrival, Thomas let out word he had something to tell them. He asked that they all come up to the store after dinner.
“I don't know why I even went—I promised myself I wasn't going to say one word and I certainly had no interest in hearin' Thomas Hutchings reeve off his great plans for the place.”
Mary sat apart from the others, just as she used to do when she first came to the Cape, and occupied herself by counting everyone in the room, even the babies.
“Thirty-one people—only ten more than when I come all them years ago.” She remembered Thomas Hutchings saying she and Fanny made twenty-one—“Twenty-one people to feed!” was what he had said. Then, the very night she came, Young Joe had smuggled aboard the
Tern
and the next day Hazel Andrews died—that was how it had been over the years—one coining, another going.
Mary shook herself. If she kept on brooding she'd end up like those old woman who lived on the outskirts of places and got called witches. But how could she be old when she was the same age as Lavinia who sat across from her, looking like a young girl? Looking like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, Mary thought, marvelling as she often has at the deceitful daytime faces people wear.
Thomas was standing on a box at the front, explaining something, something he had found out on the boat coming down. Mary began to listen to what he was saying.
“…so Timothy Drew owns the Gosse premises now, lock, stock and barrel, in St. John's and here—and in a dozen other little places along the coast. He's a big man in St. John's, this Drew. We talked a good bit on the boat coming down and he told me he's been associated with the Gosse firm for years. As far as I understand, he has it settled that his premises here on the Cape will just be let go.”
“Let go?” the men looked at each other, no one understood.
“This new owner, Timothy Drew, he'll just not come here to pick up our fish, or to drop off supplies, nor pay anyone to keep things up here.”
Mary could tell from Thomas's tone that he was repeating something he'd said before.
Ben Andrews interrupted: “But Thomas, we been hearin' talk like that time-out-of-mind. Hands on Gosse vessels are forever goin' on about him—one year they tell us he'll be made Governor, the next that his biggest ship's been lost and he's goin' back to England!”
“Mose Skanes told us last fall Gosse'd be leavin' soon—said there's streets and streets filled with mansions in Devon. All built on cod we people catches, on the work of us 'long this coast,” Sarah Vincent said and people around her nodded.
“This new man, this Drew who's gone on up the coast, what's he like, then?”
Thomas considered, “Timothy Drew seemed fair enough—his wife was good to the children—helped me with the baby. Drew only planned to come in to the Cape on his way back—but his wife saw how seasick Benny was and she persuaded him to drop us off before sailing up the coast.” Thomas paused and studied his pipe, a gesture Mary knew meant he wanted time to think.
“He'll be here tomorrow or next day. Any of you can try to reason with him—I tried—told him this was the place he got his best quality fish from, and a lot of it, too. I have to say I don't think Timothy Drew is one to change his mind. It's only business with him and he's worked out that he'll make more money if he keeps stores only in the bigger places like Pond Island.”
“That'll ruin this place altogether—it's hard enough now without havin' to go up to Pond Island for things like salt and rope,” Meg said.
“That's not the worst, what about our fish? We'd have to cart all our fish up by water, not knowin' when they'd be picked up! We might even have to pay someone to keep 'em in storage until a vessel come,” Mary was surprised to hear such sense from Meg's Willie.
They talked for more than an hour, around and around, but in the end were no wiser. When he saw they had talked themselves out, Thomas jumped down from the box: “We'll make do somehow, like we always have,” he said and they nodded, tired of the subject and glad to leave it.
“Now,” Thomas said, “we'll make what plans we can. Worse comes to worst we can find some way to get our fish to a bigger place. Let's work out who will be in which boats this summer just the same as if we'd never heard Timothy Drew's name.” He took out his tally book and they crowded around like they always had.
That was the way of it—they weren't even going to fight this man Drew! Mary had seen it again and again, the stubbornness, the determination to ignore certain doom—as if by bearing everything, by never hitting back, they proved something. Oh, they would work like dogs and some would pray, everyone would worry and some might curse quietly to wives or husbands—but in the long run nothing would be done. They would just endure—like Sarah said, “What can't be cured must be endured.”
Watching them, Mary sank even further into gloom. “Much good your lists'll do, Thomas Hutchings—if we can't get fish picked up we're all goin' to have to leave—that's the long and short of it!”
She wondered bitterly how many times one person could be turfed out to start over again. “No safe place no matter how hard you works,” she thought, remembering her mother and Master Potts. “Them's got money owns everything—everything in the earth, everything in the sea—and the likes of us owns nothing.”
No one except Ned had ever seen Mary Bundle shed a tear—and they weren't going to now. She bit her lip and listened to her son-in-law Dolph saying, without even a glance in her direction, that he was going to take Ned's boat out and that Henry would be his shareman. Names were called out, Willie Andrews would fish out of Frank's boat, Brose Gill had his own two sons and Annie, who had always gone shares with Joe, said she would take Mary's middle son Alfred, Thomas said he'd take young George who was only twelve, but as good in a boat as any man.
“Char's so good at numbers—I expects he'd best be left with Ben workin' on the barrels,” Lavinia, who must have realized that no one had called out Charlie Vincent's name, said.
Thomas gave her a quick smile before turning to Ben: “I saw the staves and rings—what arrangement do you have about the barrels?”
Several people began to answer but Ben finally managed to explain how everyone had helped with barrel making and how all shared in the better price they got for fish and berries packed in their own barrels.
It was just like always, them facing Thomas and him hunkered down on his haunches, talking, nodding, puffing at his pipe, marking down numbers in his little book. Mary noticed that every so often, as if by accident, his eyes met Lavinia's and they grinned, foolish as children. Sometimes Thomas rocked back on his heels—Mary had never seen him look so boyish. A person would hardly credit this was the grey man who had stood on the wharf three days before—she wondered everyone in the room hadn't noticed the change.
“I know something about barrel making,” he said, “my father was a cooper.” It was the first thing about his past Thomas had ever offered and they all recognized it as a sign that he would be staying. Immediately there was a relaxing of tension in the room. Things could not be all that bad if Thomas Hutchings was going to stay on the Cape.
Mary could almost hear the words they were thinking. She got up and walked through the door. As she left she heard Thomas ask, “Have you tried firing the barrels?”
Bristling with rage, Mary stalked down to the wharf. She pulled off her old sealskin boots and dangled her bare feet out over the water. “Friggers! Not one of 'em give me a bit of credit for all I done—nor said a thing about the barrels bein' my idea. No one asked me a question—not even Dolph, when he and Henry was talkin' about Ned's boat—my boat! And me sittin' right there like I didn't have a tongue in me face. I'd ha' just as well been out on the Funks for all they considers me, now that man's back—acts like he was God going to save 'em all—they'll soon know the difference!”