Cold Pastoral (2 page)

the secret groves where the sun shone through in golden chinks, and ponds covered with heart shaped lily pads where she could make the fairies hop from pad to pad…and send them to sleep on the gleaming lilies.

The fairy-tale landscape of mary immaculate's imagination is reminiscent of the lake of shining waters that so delighted Anne Shirley, the imaginative heroine of
Anne of Green Gables
, who was rescued from an orphanage and flourished on Prince Edward Island.

The name Duley chose for her protagonist is highly symbolic, suggesting as it does the existence of an imaginative and innocent child born and reared in an outport focused on faith and subsistence and relatively protected from the cultural aftermath of the war. It is precisely the qualities of imagination and innocence that first disarm the grieving Fitz Henrys when Mary becomes the adopted daughter of the family.

Through much of the novel, Mary's outport upbringing and her new life in St. John's stand at odds, and she is divided between these two allegiances. But after she finishes her schooling, mary travels to London, and she is shocked by what she witnesses. An innocent who has lived a sheltered life, Mary interprets London's decadence and free-wheeling sex as a loss of beauty and faith, and she returns to Newfoundland a changed and more realistic young woman. Her newfound maturity involves a merger of the urban and the rural, a merger of Philip Fitz Henry's “directive thinking” and Josephine's strong, unbreakable faith. So in M ary's eventual coming of age, Duley suggests that to avoid the cultural decline at the empire's centre, Newfoundlanders should learn to amalgamate the values inherent in both the outport and the town. In some sense, Duley proposes that, like Mary, we can't know where we're going without knowing where we've been.

And this is why it's nice to have
Cold Pastoral
in print again after so many years. We can perhaps look back and find some sense of ourselves in Margaret Duley's message from the past.

“WHAT AILED THEE THEN TO BE BORN?”

T
he fisherfolk knew what they knew!

There was no gain saying that the Little People lived on their shore.

The sea was different from the land! There romance ended and realism began. Where cliffs dropped in sheer descent, challenge roared at their granite base. From the flat meadows above, an occasional sheep dropped to death, remaining impaled on jagged rocks until the sea sucked it strongly to itself. On still days venturesome children lay on their stomachs, staring down with ghoulish eyes. The green waves playing over the woolly heap held them with a strange attraction. They couldn't know it was there and not look! One memorable day a cow dropped over. It was heavy and gave the sea stronger work. Green and blue, grey-green with seaweed brown, colour changing, fading, leadening, it all washed over the red and white cow. Through the windswept days of a whole summer it supplied a fearful thrill. When the children went to peer at the cow the only little girl who played in the valley was Mary Immaculate. Deserting her, they left with shrill derision. Their scorn was for her squeamishness. She had never been known to seek the beach or slit open the belly of a cod. She liked to run through the woods or rest by the waterfall and watch the white clouds sailing by—things the other children never saw. Their choice was on the beach, in the fish-rooms, on the stage-heads, catching the cod tossed up from the boats.

Sometimes mary immaculate tried to show them other things: the blue shadows of the evening, the round orange of the sun, and once she took them in a body to see an autumn tree. Branches, from a silver trunk, retained a fall of gold leaves. Wispy and frail, like tissuepaper gold, they drooped over the children.

“Look,” said Mary Immaculate in a muted voice.

“Birch! Wood for the stove!” her brother Dalmatius shouted, running home for his axe and his saw. Chop, chop, while wedge-shaped bits dropped to the ground. The other children pranced, while Mary Immaculate put her fingers in her ears to stifle the sound of the fall. When the leaves were crushed on the ground the sawing began. Gold like the leaves the sawdust spilled out. “Mary Mother!” she whispered to the trunk of a spruce. “It had gold blood.”

The playing age of the children was brief. They were always useful on the beach, learning to row when oars were too large for their hands and legs dangled in the skiffs. Childish hands soon acquired the callus of the sea, and skin became sprayed from salt-water. Even with the indulgence accorded to Mary Immaculate, at the age of five she was handed a knife to slice the leaves from pink turnips. Accepting her chores like the other children, she chose those on the land. It was impossible to touch the slime of cod or press spawn from the belly of a caplin. The sea was something to watch, but its offal offended her. When the waves tossed wildly demented she climbed the cliffs to look out. Loving the sea in its calmness, she grew exhilarated when she saw it in its hate. She knew it was a threat to her food. It gave and took away.

With the surety of knowledge that the Little People followed them on the land the fisherfolk knew the sea had a voice, a tongue to lick at their boats, an arm to wrap round one of their own and drag him unblessed to his grave. In their effort to lessen the toll of drowning they followed their own traditions. Wives and mothers rested in the knowledge that two breadwinners would not go in one boat. Even with the faithful observance of this rule there were many widows. Some of them kept their blinds drawn for a year and mourned inside without light of day. The windows were as awe-inspiring to the children as the spilled sheep and cows. Death was often untimely, and the sea kept it. Sometimes it gave it back. Then it was gathered to the land and anointed with belated blessing. Death was always fearful— though holding a bit of a change in a wake, with the rare treat of an orange or an apple. They could mourn, pray and eat at the same time.

The land standing high above the sea was almost unbroken in its curve of granite cliff. One gap made a concession to the needs of man. In the centre of the cove the heads dipped and broke, forming a ravine that flowed back for half a mile. A beach was the one bit of utilitarian coast which everyone shared. Even that was cut by a river flowing from a waterfall at the head of the valley. Every grey stone bore the weight of some object. Fish-rooms, landing-stages, beached dories, anchors, tar-barrels, moorings and whitened fish-bones jostled one another in vast confusion.

The land conceded man a beach! The sea bore him out to his traps and his trawls and often tried to restrain him. The wind and the waves gave him the buffeting that was his heritage. When he was feeling too secure the sea rose and spat at the land. Boiling with rage it hurled itself at puny buildings, sucking their foundations, lifting them high and battering them back to floating timber. When the sea was appeased it lay down. Then the men left their houses to look. Almost without comment they trudged to the forests to cut again.

Scattered houses clung to the sides of the ravine. Painted and square like anyhow boxes they looked small for their burst of people. With many mouths to feed, food came from the fruit of the sea. A few hens pecked round every door and wandered unchecked as far as the cod-strewn beach. The flesh of dead fowl invariably retained a fishy flavour. Mary Immaculate's mother was optimistic about it on the rare occasions when a hen lost its head on the block. “Sure!” she would say happily. “We're getting two courses in one—a bit of fish and a bit of flesh.” Josephine Keilly knew what was what! She had been a cook in the city for three years before Benedict wooed her back to her Cove.

Cattle were scarce—far too scarce to lose over the heads. The people lived up to the old adage: “One more in the cradle means one less in the stable.” The cradle was never defrauded. A settlement of continual pregnancy, the women took up the cycle again, as soon as Nature could assert itself. Nobody rebelled. Not to conceive was the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah!

Josephine and Benedict had the smallest family in the Cove. Eleven, twelve, or a baker's dozen made the quiverful of most couples. They were blessed with a bare seven. It was all on account of Mary Immaculate; Mrs. Keilly getting a chill in the skiff! She had been brought to bed like a Christian for Dalmatius, Ignatius, Francis Xavier, Benedict the Second, Pius and Leopold. She often wished she had a family large enough to name after all the Popes in the Vatican. She was very devout. Her first-born, Dalmatius, had roared so much that she had called him her Papal Bull. Her husband said she had gone into blasphemy when she named her daughter Mary Immaculate; but she had been mumbling to the Blessed Virgin when the midwife asked her to name the child. From drawing its first breath in the east wind it had to be baptised at once. Even then she had liked the feel of Mary Immaculate on her tongue. The change of sex or some prognostication of the unusual had made her daughter too eager for appearance. She came most informally! If Josephine hadn't gone for a jaunt it wouldn't have happened; nor if Benedict had stuck to his fish-room. He was always running up from the beach for a drop of strong tea. The same leaves did for the day. Josephine merely added boiling water and a tannic brew ran into the cup. Benedict's face was like a bit of tanned hide, with two blue stones laid on it for eyes. One morning when Benedict ran up for his mug-up, Josephine saw a hole in the flour-barrel.

“Woman,” he said, “I'll borrow the skiff and go to the store.”

“I'll go with you, then. 'Tis a grand day, and I'll be off my legs.”

Benedict muttered a warning about the sharpness of the land against the sky, foretelling a squall—but the skiff was solid and true to the sea. A competent motor-boat, it belonged to six men.

The day was still as death, the sea tranquil as sleep. It stretched away in shining level.

“Sure, 'tis a grand rest,” sighed Josephine, as they left the stage-head and the spit of the engine settled to a steady phut phut. She had not been in the skiff for a long time, and its vibrations shivered her heavy body. Inert and comatose she sagged in the stern, watching the gulls wheeling overhead. Then she thought of the shop, and her mind fastened on a few remnants of material. Something told her her child would be a girl. Benedict saw no danger for his wife in the outing. The thought that she should stay at home would not cross his mind. Women worked up to the last moment of childbirth and rose again very quickly. Sunk in her unaccustomed rest he had to haul her out of the skiff when they reached the next settlement.

Inside the shop she shook off her heaviness. That one room could hold so much! Its whole ceiling was hidden with clusters of hanging kettles, enamel mugs, earthenware tea-pots, pipers, skillets, pots and pans. Josephine stared, wishing for money to buy herself a skillet; but ready cash was scarce, so she lowered her eyes to the remnants. Bolts of blue and pink flannelette were hidden by bits of motley material overflowing from another shelf. Benedict had retreated to pass the time of day with the shopkeeper and discuss the price of fish. They were surrounded with salt-encrusted barrels of pork, while athwart their lids lay harsh-looking hooks. The food side of the shop was piled with boxes and bottles holding every necessity of life. On a narrow counter stood a large cheese, gleaming golden through a veiling of cheese-cloth. The draping and the spotless white of the covering reminded her of the day of Corpus Christi. Thinking of herself veiled for first Communion a pain tore through her body. Startled, she leaned against the bolts of flannelette until it was over. Fingering the woolly fabric she wondered if her hope of a daughter would be realised. She wanted one to dress up in pink and blue. When she had waited long enough to verify her fears she called to her husband. “Ben, I'm going back to sit in the skiff. Don't be long, now.”

Had Benedict not been arranging for the transportation of the flour he would have known she was saving herself by the shortening of his name. Josephine always gave full value to every syllable. When she was back in the skiff the level of the sea had become ripples. As she waited the ripples grew to crests and the sea slapped against the sides of the boat. When Benedict appeared with the barrel the waves were white horses. When they were out to sea she told him. His blue eyes were fixed on the tumbling sea.

“Nonsense, woman! You can't go dropping your child in a skiff. Tell your beads. That'll stop you a bit.”

“Children choose their own time, Benedict Keilly,” she said tartly.

“You'll have to wait until we get home, then,” he answered inexorably.

Benedict was occupied with the skiff. She belonged to five others, and the sea was giving her a drubbing. He was a steady husband, but a skiff was harder come by than a woman. His wife was facing elemental pain in elemental surroundings and claimed his attention.

“Ben, I'm dying!”

“Stop it!” he roared. “You'll put a haunt on the skiff.”

“Skiff or no skiff, I'm dying.” There was an uncontrolled screech. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph, have mercy on me!”

Above the sound of the rising sea he shouted to her. “Pull yourself together, woman. You can't go dying with no Priest to bless you.”

At the end of a pain she gasped with spirit. “Don't fash yourself, Benedict Keilly. Those that pass in childbirth walk straight into Heaven.”

“You'll never have a better chance, then. The likes of this won't happen again.”

Josephine didn't die! Between wild agonies she lay under her husband's coat and a tarpaulin, beseeching the Saints in Heaven. With the sea and the wind in her ears she gave birth! As mysterious agencies were accepted in the Cove, legend grew that Mary Immaculate was delivered by the Blessed Mother herself. How she was born in the skiff became the premier tale of the village, taking precedence over those that had been held: the sailor who had seen the phantom ship; the story of Molly Conway; and the man who was murdered on the Ridge. It was told again and again, over black kitchen stoves holding a bombardment of spruce-logs. It held an honourable place in their lore until Mary Immaculate's twelfth year. What happened then became an unbelievable super-story, satisfying a lifetime of yearning for romance.