Far From Home (16 page)

Clarissa looked at the pink under-thread of his tongue as he pressed it up behind his front teeth. It looked so funny she had all she could do to keep her face from splitting and letting out a laugh. She glanced at Cora, who was obviously fighting the same impulse. Just then Cora's lips burst open and a low, quick laugh slipped out. The inspector walked to her desk. He hit the ink bottle which sat in a round slot at the corner of the desk. The ink flew into the air and splashed down on the wooden floor, spreading like a shadow. He grabbed Cora by her collar and said, “I have a mind to stand you by the hot stove.”

Clarissa was tempted to say, “She won't be able to say three then.” Instead, she watched Cora pull away from his strong, hairy hand, coughing so hard that the inspector moved away from her.

“That boy in the corner is a noetic child, despite his disregard for standard English,” the inspector said. The children all looked at him as if he had a foreign tongue in his mouth. He shouted, “Noetic means having intellect. It is not a difficult word and it is in the dictionary. If you learn words like it, people will think you are noetic – even if you are not.” One frosty eyebrow lifted as if it were the bristling tail of a husky dog.

After admonishing Miss Ellis to uphold the English language with vigour and discipline, the inspector turned to the pupils. “That will be all for this visit,” he said solemnly. He dipped his head in the direction of the school ma'am. Then he turned quickly and started to walk towards the door. The children stood up, all of them except Clarissa. She remained seated, thinking:
In future I shall stand only for a king – or a soldier
back from war
.

Rory, his hair sticking up from his head like a curly mop, turned from the corner with his eyelids inside out. Jakot pulled out his brown handkerchief and blew his nose, sounding like a foghorn. The inspector turned and looked at Jakot disapprovingly. “Be careful of where you make an emunctory.”

Jakot looked like he was straining to go to the toilet as he spat out the strange word the inspector had thrown at him. “E'monkey,” he said.

“Whisht!” Miss Ellis cautioned, putting a finger to the side of her mouth as if she didn't want the inspector's stay to be prolonged. The children stayed standing until the inspector had pulled on his coat and scarf and the door had closed behind him.

So that's what an inspector is
, Clarissa thought,
someone
whose stomach is so big it looks as if he swallowed a dictionary.
She hoped that circumstances would get in the way of him coming again.

19
THE GOVERNOR AND
HIS LADY

T
reffie's pale face bent in wonder over a primrose peeping out of the ground. The bracelet of buttons on her wrist clattered as she picked the pink flower and lifted it to her nose before pushing it into a buttonhole. Spying an airy dandelion, she ran to it and bent down to blow the globe of knitted stars apart. She watched as they danced upon the wind.

Clarissa watched Treffie from the orphanage steps, hoping she would get well once summer came. Then she turned her attention to Peter and Jakot, who were digging a hole to plant a maypole. They had carefully removed all the branches of a tree, except for the plume at the top. Hipper, a new orphan whose real name was Harold, and Owen were making an archway of branches and coloured bows above the orphanage gates. Cora and Imogene were waiting to decorate the maypole with ribbons and paper for good luck.

Everyone was excited about being part of the special occasion. Clarissa thought about Missus Frances's announcement at breakfast that Sir William Allardyce, Governor of Newfoundland, was arriving from St. John's tomorrow. There would be a reception for him at The Home. She hoped he wasn't as full of big words as the inspector.

The next morning, Clarissa was about to get dressed when a knock came on the door. Missus Frances hurried in, smiling. “You are to dress for Sir William Allardyce today, Clarissa.”

“Me?” Clarissa's mouth dropped open.

“Yes. You are going to meet Governor William Lamond Allardyce and Lady Elsie Elizabeth Allardyce, who are, even as we speak, tidying up at St. Anthony Inn after their voyage on
The Wisaria
. You can pass in any company, and so you are the child chosen to present a gift.”

Clarissa looked at her, hesitating.

“Come on, Child. Don't falter. The Governor is a man the same as other men when he's not in uniform and wearing badges.”

Clarissa was proud to be a Girl Guide in the Campfire Girl's Club, even if she couldn't do a lot of the things the other Guides did. Missus Frances helped her dress in her Girl Guide uniform: a long-sleeved navy dress with a red tie holding a gold maple leaf pin. She fastened Clarissa's belt with its shamrock buckle, and then laid a navy hat on her bouncy curls, slipping its leather strap under her chin.

“You're looking tidy enough,” the mistress said, giving Clarissa the eye of approval as they hurried down the stairs and out the door. Clarissa stopped on the steps to smile up at Eddie Goodale, the Scout Master. He had often carried her around when she was small. He nodded encouragement as she made her way down the steps.

The orphanage children were used to seeing a scruffy, old, grey horse pulling a coal cart to the orphanage. They were not prepared for the big, black horse trotting through the gates. A crowd had gathered to watch this majestic animal pull a black carriage that had huge, spoked wheels. In the carriage sat Governor Allardyce and Lady Allardyce. Horse and carriage passed under the arch of branches and bows and a black-lettered WELCOME banner surrounded by flags. The driver occasionally halted the horse and carriage for people to snap the couple.

The orphanage children were ushered inside the orphanage to wait for their guests. Soon they were listening to Governor Allardyce as he stood on a locker and spoke about a paper mill opening up in Corner Brook, not far from the railway station. Clarissa felt a lonely stir. Her home was in Humbermouth, Corner Brook. There came a sudden surge of memory, bringing the clacking sound of a train going down a track. It was gone before she could hold it close.

Maybe
, she thought,
there will be a railway station in St.
Anthony someday, and a train track running down to Corner
Brook. Then my father can drive the train right up to the
orphanage, and take me home.
Dr. Grenfell would be happy not to have to take his dog team on the treacherous coastal journey of more than a hundred miles to Deer Lake Station so he could catch the train to Corner Brook. He often travelled to the United States by way of Corner Brook. The people there loved to hear about the poor white and dark natives of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Finally, at the prompting of Missus Frances, who was sitting behind her, Clarissa made her way to where Sir William Allardyce stood. He was dressed in a uniform trimmed with brass buttons and shining medals. Lady Allardyce stood there as sunny as a daffodil in the prettiest dress Clarissa had ever seen. She wore a wide-brimmed hat in the same shade of yellow. She smiled at Clarissa, who was trying to steady herself on her crutches so she could free her hand that held the gift the mistress had put into it. She bowed slightly, and passed the gift to Sir William Allardyce, wondering what was in it. It was likely a carving from the window display at the mission gift shop: a polar bear or a seal carved from a walrus tusk.

The next day Clarissa hopped along beside Miss Elizabeth as they went down the path to the wharf to wave goodbye to the Governor and Lady Allardyce.
If only my
mother could see me now!
she thought wistfully.

That night she went to bed, not caring about the whispers of the other girls or the sound of “Pet!”digging into her ear.

20
SUMMER

I
t was June, and days fell out of nights well before breakfast, opening to the brightness and the scent of new flowers and leaves. Friday came, and with it the promise of no school for two days. Clarissa lifted her face to a wind that breathed softly against her skin. She marvelled at the smooth, milky-brown roads over which her crutches moved, leaving tiny imprints in the clay. Cora had gone ahead and was taking turns skipping rope and counting rounds with Becky on a grassy nob beside the road. She threw the rope over her shoulder and came back to where Clarissa had stopped to look down in a pothole full of water. Cora leaned over the water, and Clarissa giggled at the sight of her friend's image floating on an upside-down sky.

Simon, a fisherman's son whose eyes always looked hungry, and Peter passed the two girls. The boys were arguing loudly. Nicholas, the merchant's son, caught up with them. He taunted Peter. “You haven't got a father. You're nothing but a ragamuffin Dr. Grenfell took into the orphanage.”

“Mind now, you don't know everything,” Peter answered, with a determined look in his green eyes. “I'm a good hand at adding and subtracting without rinding people. I'm looking to be an aeroplane flyer or a doctor.”

“A fish doctor is what you'll be – and Simon too,” Nicholas said with a sneer. Then he ran off down to the harbour wharf. Simon, indignant at being compared to a fish doctor: an orange beetle that clings to sick fish, yelled at Nicholas's back, “If me father never got his summer's haul, your father in his fancy hip-roofed house wouldn't give him a bag of flour for a nod towards next year, even though his fish helps keep your father in business.”

The girls turned away from the boys and looked towards the harbour and the sea, now patterned like a mackerel's skin. Along the beach, small fishing boats that had lain bottoms up on the launch all winter, were being scraped and painted. Killicks were being made ready to anchor the boats in the harbour. Smoke no longer rose from funnels in store lofts, where the fishermen had spent cold months mending nets. Now the men were barking their nets in big-bellied pots. Other people were painting sheds and houses with tar and ochre. The strong, rich smell of oakum filled the air.

The girls passed a ramshackle house. In the back of it, a red rooster strutted around the inside of a small pen. Butterflies floated among white daisies growing by a grey shed that leaned beside a weather-blackened stage. The stage's legs had skewed under the weight of many summers. Now the high tide slapped and sucked its legs. Barked rope hung coiled against the stage's strouters. An idle fisherman, with a poor-looking face, sat on the stage, his hands slack upon his knees, as he watched green and black shades move through water caught in the play of wind and sunlight.

“Uncle Abe's down with a TB spine. That's why he's dozin' on the wind while his boat's peeling on the beach,” Cora said under her breath. “Sure, he should have minded the ways of Uncle Jerry.” She looked towards a little man sitting on the stoop of the shed.

Clarissa screwed up her face. She knew that on spring mornings when Uncle Jerry was leaving home to go to his stage, he always grabbed a wooden ladle and went down to the harbour wharf where scummy blubber barrels stood filled with rendered cod liver. He'd dip up a ladleful of the golden liquid, drink it and smack his lips. If he forgot the ladle, he'd stoop to the barrel and slurp a mouthful of cod liver oil. He believed that the smooth oil slipping down his throat would smother any consumption bug that might have gotten inside him.

Cora nodded at Uncle Jerry and remarked, “Sure, 'tis a miracle his white whiskers stay white. But his joints are greased and he's likely got enough energy to jump over the moon on a night when 'tis low.”

Across the water, against the hills of St. Anthony, an open door shadowed a fisherman working in an ochre-painted shed. A newly painted boat slapped crimped waters beside a rickety stagehead. Clarissa looked across to Fishing Point, where whales were breaching the waves, then flipping the water with their giant tails and blowing it into the air. Harbour porpoises were chasing a school of herring into the harbour.

The girls came through the orphanage gates, and when they got to the steps, Clarissa pulled her cloth bookbag off her shoulder and laid it on the steps. She sat down beside it for a spell, and looked towards the fence where pink and purple rockets nodded in the breeze. The whole place was being decorated for the prettiest season of all.

Saturday came, and with it stars of sunlight twinkling on the harbour waters. Windows were raised in homes all around the place. The orphanage windows were lifted high, its curtains flapping in warm winds. Birch brooms stirred up dust in every nook and cranny of the orphanage; mattresses were turned and re-cased and pillows beaten out, letting a scattered feather fly.

From around the harbour, women in brin aprons were gathering on the beach to scrub their mats with lye soap in the salty water. Later, they would hurry home with barrows full of clean mats and hang them to dry on wattle fences. The women knew that warm winds sweeping over the land might be chased away at any moment by galing winds with a nasty bite. Sometimes the women had to run and shut their windows, and keep them closed for days.

Although the orphanage grounds were belted by black wrought-iron gates, the fence was open to the mission wharf and beach. Now the children were racing each other down to the wharf. Many of them leaned on the wharf rails, and watched the
Strathcona
sail in with barrels of food in her hold, including whale meat, sealed with reindeer moss, for the huskies. The schooner's deck often held coal for the orphanage furnace, and skinned logs for the construction of houses and fishing rooms. The orphan boys longed to sail out to sea on Dr. Grenfell's thousand pounds of iron: his steel-ribbed steamship.

Clarissa and Cora made their way to the beach to the shouts of boys who had started jigging sculpins from the wharf. When they caught one, they would run after the girls, to touch them with the cold, clammy fish. Imogene squealed and Clarissa smiled, hoping the boys had put a live one down her neck. Peter was coming towards her with his hooked line twined around one hand. When he got close, he opened his other hand and looked at Clarissa. “Here,” he said slyly.