Tides of Honour (5 page)

He was a noble man, her Danny. Noble and proud and handsome, and such a hero. She knew it deep in her soul, though she knew none of it at all. They'd spoken of nothing of consequence, mostly. And yet her spirit sang with a new certainty. Her charcoal floated over the curve of one dark brow and her memory brought back its width and particular angle. Slightly different from the right side, she recalled, because of that little scar cutting through.

SEVEN

Letters arrived stained, creased, sometimes
in a bunch, sometimes straggling in after an excruciating lapse of weeks. But he wrote. She'd feared at first that he wouldn't, knowing his mind and body would be busy with far more important things than her. But he kept his word. The first letter arrived and she squealed like a child, running all the way home with it clutched in her fingers. As he'd said, his printed words were messy, sometimes short and distracted. She didn't care.

May 2, 1916

Dear Audrey,

I hardly know how to start this letter. I don't write much. I suppose I should tell you a bit about me. I live in Nova Scotia. I'm a fisherman, like my dad and his dad before. I'm saving up for my own boat, but it'll be a while before that happens. Fishing's pretty much all I know, other than hunting and logging, and I guess that's what I'll be going home to when this is all over. It's hard work, but what isn't? We usually get up at around four
in the morning, and sometimes it's so awful cold you wonder how you can even move your hands, but it's all worth it. My family and I live right on the sea, and when it gets stormy it's pretty much the most beautiful place in the world, to my way of thinking.

It was a bit strange, coming way out here and having everything be different, but I thought it would be the right thing to do. You know, fighting for the good guys and all that. I thought it'd be exciting too. Well, I was right about that part, but I could do without most of the excitement now, to be honest.

I just had my twenty-fifth birthday the other night. The fellas found a candle and stuck it in my supper. I have seven younger brothers and a dog named Cecil, but he's real old, so I don't know if he'll still be there when I get home. I hope so.

The boys here are pretty jealous, now that I've been telling them about you. They all wish they'd met a beautiful woman, but I told them that even if they did, she wouldn't be as beautiful as you.

Anyway, like I said, I'm not real good at letter writing, but if you write to me, maybe I can answer some of your questions. I apologize for the poor writing, but it's been raining, so my hands are cold and it's hard to hold the pen proper. My hands are always cold out here. I remember that yours were warm. Until I hear from you, I am

Yours affectionately,

Danny

His hands had been solid and warm too. She remembered that, how hers had felt immediately safe once they touched his. Now all she wanted was to keep him safe. And to feel that warmth again.

Spring moved into summer, and his letters became her reason for rising in the morning. Sometimes they didn't arrive for a couple of weeks, sometimes she came from town with a thin stack in her hand. She answered faithfully, sending out note after note, trading eggs for paper and stamps. She told Danny about her life before the farm, and when she couldn't hold it in any longer she gently complained about the awful things her grandmère said on a daily basis. Some days she sat outside, far from the house and barn, and just let the sweet summer days flow through her pencil.

Before Danny's letters came, no one had ever asked Audrey what
she
wanted. Danny did. So she asked herself the same question. It took a moment to get started, to think outside of what she knew, but then her eyes went to a soaring bird overhead and she couldn't stop. When the breeze lifted the hem of her skirt and kissed her knees, she closed her eyes and imagined he was there, holding her hand, listening, nodding encouragement, and she let the words come, found someone who cared about her dreams of seeing new things, meeting new people, saying she wanted to paint it all.

Through the summer weeks the health of Audrey's grandmère rapidly deteriorated. Not surprising. Audrey often wondered if self-imposed misery could kill a person in the end. She sometimes speculated on what her grandpère had been like earlier when he was younger, because her mother was nothing like this bitter old woman. Their daughter, Pascale, had laughed more, danced more, and when Audrey painted, her mother had celebrated every brush stroke. Here the paintings were hidden away in boxes for fear of their getting tossed into the fire for practicality. Audrey had learned that the hard way.

Pascale Poulin had been twenty years old when she'd run from her mother, escaping the life for which she'd never been born. She had always been a mystery to Céleste, who never understood her
daughter's need for a life far from the farm. The girl loved people, loved laughter, but trapped on this remote farm the best she could do was flirt with the neighbouring boys they hired to help at harvest time. But the harmless flirtation hadn't been enough for her, apparently, because one day after the fields had been put to rest for the winter, a couple of the young men had driven up in a wagon and said they were moving to England to open a store, and would she like to come? Pascale had raced inside to stuff her things in a bag, then she'd hopped onto the back, waving goodbye to her parents and grinning as the wagon bumped away down the old road.

“She never said nothing to me but goodbye,” Céleste repeated throughout Audrey's existence. “No word of thank you. That girl was a whore and a waste of time. A waste of my life.”

When she'd been ten and had first arrived at the farm, Audrey had felt sorry for the old woman. She couldn't imagine the pain of having a daughter run away like that, riding off with a group of men without so much as a thank you to her parents after all they'd done. On the other hand, she did think it rather harsh for her grandmère to call her own daughter a whore and say she'd wasted her life on her. Audrey's opinion soon changed. Within six months, she knew for certain that Pascale had done the only sane thing by running that day.

But now it was up to Audrey to care for the old woman as if she really did care, because no one else would, and Audrey couldn't imagine anyone existing entirely on their own. She guessed she did care a little. As the old woman's feeble limbs rose from her bed less and less often, Audrey supposed she would eventually miss her in some way, though she had trouble imagining that.

Audrey milked the goat, who had waited at the door, bleating for attention, then poured the milk into two metal cups. The
warm drink fortified her, gave her strength enough to go back inside, cradle the birdlike neck, and urge a few sips through her grandmère's grey lips. But it came back out in a weak explosion.
“Non
,
”
Céleste wheezed. “No more.”

“You must drink,” she tried.

“I will do as I please,” the old woman huffed in French. She narrowed her eyes in a benign attempt to appear dangerous. “Just like your mother.”

Audrey sighed, overwhelmingly tired of this argument. “All my mother ever wanted was to enjoy her life. She tired of your lessons and lectures. She wanted to dance.”

“And she died of that,” she snapped.

“At least she died happy. I know she was happy because I was with her. I want to be happy like her.”

“Then you are stupid, just like her.”

Tears surged into Audrey's eyes, but she blocked them. This wasn't the first time she'd heard that from her dear grandmère. “Drink,” she said again.

“Non
.
”

Audrey rose and stepped away from the bed, then pulled the brown wool blanket over the stubborn old thing. “Fine,” she said. “Good night.”

She wasn't ready to lie down in her own bed against the other wall. The thought of falling asleep beside her grandmère's gurgling, wheezing breaths made her slightly queasy. The night was muggy, made soggy by a light drizzle, so she decided she would sit in the woodshed where she'd sat with Danny that night. She would dream of him and let the weather cool the burn in her chest. As she stepped through the doorway, her grandmère spoke again.

“You are just like her. I have accomplished nothing. I die an empty old woman.”

Audrey blinked up at the grey sky, letting the mist soothe her hot cheeks. The only way she knew she was crying was because her tears were warm where the rain was cool. But she still didn't know
why
she was crying. An hour later she went back into the house and stopped short just inside the door, listening. The horrible, rasping breathing had stopped.

EIGHT

Audrey was twenty, the same
age as her mother had been when she'd run away to England to start her life over again. Audrey knew next to nothing about how to deal with the finality of her grandmère's long-awaited death, so—just as with her grandpère—the neighbours took care of it all. Céleste Poulin was buried in the churchyard a mile away from the farm, and Audrey was left alone. The air felt clearer now, cleaned of the poisons the old woman had spat at her for the past ten years. Audrey could do as she pleased, think as she pleased, and no one would accuse her of being the devil's spawn,
le frai du diable.
It was liberating.

It was also lonely. She was somewhat surprised to find that she was slightly afraid now that the black nights were devoid of Céleste's laboured breathing. After all, it wasn't as if the old woman could have protected them from any threat when she'd been around. Audrey supposed she'd really always been on her own, but the constant disapproval had provided something of a shield. That was gone now. The world was open to her. Where to begin?

The first thing she did was open all the boxes and free her artwork from its prison. Soon every spare place in the house was
taken up with her pictures. Then she tied on a thick, stained apron and brought out her paints and easel. She set them up wherever she damn well chose to set them up: in the house, in the barn, out of doors. She preferred the open air because the fumes gave her a headache, sometimes made her light-headed. If it rained, though, she stayed inside, painting images from memory or things she saw in the room. When the sun bloomed, she went outside. Now that she was on her own, she could choose to paint anything she wanted, but she often returned to the faces of the animals. Portraits of cats and kittens multiplied, popping up on the walls alongside a close-up of the horse's resigned expression and a particularly inspired tableau of the new baby goat frolicking in the yard out front. Trees, grass, rocks, stumps—everything was reborn on paper or silky smooth birch bark, lovingly coaxed from her brush.

She didn't want to waste fuel at night by lighting lamps or candles. That meant she couldn't paint, couldn't read—though that didn't really matter. She'd already read their meagre supply of books many times, and they were in French, anyway. She lay in the silence of her bed, envying the crickets, wishing she too had something to sing about.

There had to be more she could do.

In the morning she walked to town to check for mail. A letter from Danny had arrived, and she grinned while she opened the envelope.

June 30, 1916

My dearest Audrey,

I'm so sorry to hear about your grandmother's passing. I suppose people say it can be a blessing, but it's never a blessing for the
folks left behind. I wish I was there to comfort you. I hope you know that I'm thinking of you, like I do all the time.

Audrey, as tragic as it is, your loss gives me all the more reason to ask you something I've been thinking about for a while. Truth is I'm kind of afraid to ask. If I do, you might either be real angry at me being so forward, or you might love the idea. But the thing is, if I don't ask, I'll never forgive myself. Now seems like as good a time as any.

I don't want you to stay here. Especially not now that you're alone. I want you to come to Canada. I'm not sure if getting to know you through letters and all is the right way, but the thing is, I've fallen in love with you, Audrey. I want to marry you and have a family. I wish with all my heart that I could be on one knee in front of you, asking, but I can't. I promise to do it right when I see you again.

Please make me the happiest man in the world, Audrey. Come to Canada and be my wife. I remain

Yours most affectionately,

Danny

I've fallen in love with you.

How was it possible for simple words scrawled in a messy hand, written on stained and crumpled paper, to make her feel as if she'd left her body? As if she'd sprouted wings and flitted over the old farmhouse, where she could flip and fly wherever she wanted? He loved her. He
loved
her. He wanted to marry her, have a family. Could it be? Could love happen like this? Through a shockingly short courtship and a box full of scribbled letters?

Of course it could. She'd known it in the first moment she'd caught his eye. She'd seen something in that face, in the set of his
shoulders, heard something in the awkward first words between them. And she'd known she would only ever love him.

She was staring so hard at the paper, rereading his words, that she tripped on a stick lying on the road, but she righted herself and didn't look back.

Come to Canada.

That was a whole other idea, one that she'd never really considered before. That would mean learning a whole new way of life, being around people with different accents, different opinions, different . . . everything. It wasn't that she was afraid, really. She'd never been a timid girl. But this was a big step.

She would think more on that aspect later. For now she wanted to bask in the glory of the idea of the thing. He loved her. She would see him soon, and she would wear her prettiest gown, and they would make beautiful children, and live happily ever after on the quiet shores of Nova Scotia. They would grow old together.

She knew nothing about the sea. So much to learn!

Would it be such a strain for her to go to Canada? Would it really be that difficult? She'd moved from the wild, unpredictable life her mother had led her through in England, then landed with a crash in this godforsaken farm in the nowhere middle of France. She'd survived that.

The physical voyage itself would be a challenge. Audrey's whole life had been spent either on this flat piece of farmland or wandering Sussex, and she barely remembered the wagon ride in between. She'd seen the sea while crossing the Channel, but the idea of going all the way to Canada was impossible to envision. She'd have to go on a great ship, obviously, then sleep among strangers aboard something that rocked and swayed with the tide.

Kind of a metaphor for her own life, she mused, since she'd
never had any choice but to rock and sway, move with the tide. Any anchor she might have had was thrown by someone else, not her. Did she dare draw it up and start fresh? Was she brave enough to steer toward that distant place on the horizon?

Canada. It almost seemed like an imaginary world, it was so far away. In truth, she knew nothing about it other than what Danny had written in his brief letters. She supposed it couldn't be all that different from here, since he fished and hunted and did what most men here did as well. What might there be for her in Canada? On one hand, she almost didn't care. It couldn't be worse than it was here on the farm, all alone and desperate for human contact. She would have to go somewhere. But Canada? Did she need to make such an extreme departure? What did she know of Canada? What did she know of Danny, really?

When the soldiers had stopped there for the night, Danny had shown her his little pin, the maple leaf. The road where she walked was shadowed by vivid green, evidence of that same tree. Uneven grey bark bumped under her fingers, drawing paths, colliding, running away. Like long grey rivers without a care in the world, flowing upstream until they burst into pointed sprays of colour, celebrating the sky. Now the silver maples were green, but when October came, the world would mellow with them, head inside to warm by the fire when the leaves rustled their vivid yellow leaves.

She imagined maple trees must be at least as glorious in Canada as they were here, since the army had pinned them so proudly to their soldiers' chests. It was encouraging to think that if she did go to Canada, she might one day walk alongside these magnificent trees again, might paint them again. As much as she craved a new life, a tiny voice inside begged for some kind of landmark.

Danny had mentioned bagpipes too, which made her smile.
Noisy, brash things which she imagined might just be the perfect accompaniment to gunfire and bombs.

It had been months since they'd heard anything from Laurent, and that note had been brief. What if he came back when all this was over and found the place abandoned? What then? Did she even have the right to do this? He was older than she, and it got her wondering. Even though he'd barely lived there, was this more his place than hers?

War changed things, she reminded herself. What was right before might not be right anymore, and if she was making a mistake, she would probably have to answer for it another time. Laurent was gone. Something deep inside told her he'd never come back. And that reminder was only a quick, brief twist on her heart, since she'd resolved herself to that probability on the day he'd set his shoulders and strode from the farm, looking so strong and brave.

All around her, people were loading up wagons and abandoning their land, unable to work it now that the war had taken over. No one was left to work the farms since the young men were all in trenches, and their remaining families were starving. Winter would come sooner than anyone was ready, and it would be a long, terrible winter, she knew.

One of the goats spotted her as she approached the barn. He ambled over, complaining about the lateness of breakfast or something. Audrey had too many eggs now for one person, and too much milk. She should sell the animals. And if she sold the animals, what was holding her at the farm?

“What do you think, little one?” she asked, scratching the knobbly black head. “Should I go to Canada?”

The world was changing. It was time for Audrey to change as well.

She had very little to pack. A few dresses, her art supplies, all Danny's letters, and enough food to last for a few days. Just until
she got to the city. She also had the little tin box her grandmère had thought secret, filled with a healthy amount of money. Not a fortune, she knew, but something to get her started at least. She wouldn't be homeless.

The first thing she had to do was write a reply to Danny, the man she wanted to marry more than anything else on earth.