Silent Time (16 page)

Prime Minister Monroe
,

It is with the very deepest concern for the financial affairs of the Colony that I feel bound as your finance minister to lay the facts and figures plainly before you. Currently, forty percent of annual revenue is being swallowed up in interest payments…

Still, as finance minister, he was forced to continue borrowing.

The debt had sprung from two sources: the war and the railway. Britain had so far refused his appeals to forgive or at least reschedule the enormous war debt, despite all the precious life-blood spilled; and as for the railway, well, he had to recognize his own culpability there. When he'd first entered politics, in the heady days under Morris, he'd borrowed heavily to finance the branch lines, which had seemed to him like a very good idea at the time. Now, as he laid off workers and lowered wages, closed branch lines and mothballed rolling stock all over the country, he was realizing it had not been such a wise investment after all. His infatuation with the railway had faded with the rise of the automobile. He knew now that a road system, like a life-giving network of veins and arteries coursing throughout the country, would have been money much better spent.

I am of the opinion that something of a very drastic nature must take place if we are to save the country from utter collapse. Ever since the 1919 election I have had no other thought but that final bankruptcy lies before us. The auditor general says the deficit will be from $850,000 to $900,000 on the 30th of June next, but I have no hesitation in saying it will be over one million dollars. This is to say nothing of the growing debt. Someday a reckoning must be made
.

He resolved then and there that he would not stand for re-election, that this would be his last term in government. It was time to let his sons take over the business. He would spend more time with Maddy, with his grandchildren, more time at the cabin near Placentia, more time fishing for sea trout on the Cape Shore. A man can't be over and done with at fifty. There were good times left and good things left to do.

He finished the letter and added a touch of humour to the closing:

I feel like delivering this letter to you today, but seeing how close it is to Christmas, I think it best to let the feast day pass before it comes into your hands.

He would send the letter by the post once the holiday had passed. He sealed an envelope, addressed it, licked and applied a stamp.

He noticed his glass had magically emptied and poured himself another drink.

As always, William Cantwell was at the family house in Placentia for the holidays. He got ready for bed after a hot bath and a couple of good pipes. He hauled on his one-piece woollen underwear and a pair of thick socks. It had taken him a while to get the vacant house warmed up and now a chill was sure to set in overnight as the fire downstairs slowly faded.

The house held its breath. It was so quiet it seemed his very thoughts might break the silence. He switched off the ceiling light and lit a small oil lamp on the night table by the bed. The room was small and cozy. It was the one he'd slept in growing up in this house. His two sisters had shared the larger room down the hall. He never slept there nor in his parents' room that was vacant since they'd died, only weeks apart, some ten years ago. His sisters, Marjorie and Alice, had been living in the United States for many years. They maintained an infrequent correspondence and he no longer felt they were a meaningful part of his life.

As he lay in bed with his head on the cool pillow, he watched the shadowy circle formed by the lamp's glass chimney pulsate on the ceiling. A hint of smoke and kerosene scented the air.

He'd had a good year. As minister, he'd encouraged mining exploration in the interior of the island and in Labrador. He'd prepared legislation to improve woodcutting practices, and instituted a season for partridge-berries with fines for anyone caught picking before or after. He planned to establish more seasonal and bag limits, particularly on small-game hunting. He knew they would be impossible to enforce in most areas of the country, but he had to make a start. He'd also contacted an American naturalist with the idea of preparing a definitive book on the birds of Newfoundland.

Then, his thoughts turned, with a satisfied smile, to the thing that, despite all appearances and certainly to no one's knowledge but his own, was the crowning achievement of his year.

Dulcie Merrigan was in school at last.

He reached into his travel bag and pulled out his volume of Keats.

Heard melodies are sweet; those unheard are sweeter/ Therefore ye soft pipes, play on!

Only Keats could speak so eloquently about Dulcie Merrigan's silent world. He finished “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” then read his favourite, “Ode to a Nightingale,” before laying that book aside to take out another, smaller volume containing the lyrical poems of William Blake. He propped himself up against the headboard to play a little game. It was a kind of experiment in divination in which he found Blake rarely disappointed.
He would close his eyes, empty his mind, then open the book and read the first lines his eyes fell upon. They often appeared strikingly prophetic:

Can I see another's woe / And not be in sorrow too? / Can I see another's grief / And not seek for kind relief?

He fancifully imagined this as an affirmation, even congratulations, from a poetic spiritual mentor. He'd thought of Blake the first time he saw Dulcie Merrigan. She'd seemed like some tiny androgynous creature from fairyland, with her short-cropped hair and rubber boots, the boyish confidence with which she'd wielded the fishing rod. If she'd suddenly taken flight, circled in the air and disappeared on the horizon like a dragonfly, he'd have hardly been surprised.

Did you ever see a fairy's funeral, madam
? Blake once asked an old dowager.

Never, sir!
came the indignant reply.

I have, but not before last night…a procession of creatures of the size and colour of grey and green grasshoppers, bearing a body laid out on a rose-leaf…

If William Blake could witness such things throughout his life, then why not William Cantwell, if only once?

He yawned. Sleep was coming on fast. He closed and opened the book one last time and read:

Bring me my bow of burning gold! / Bring me my arrows of desire! / Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold! / Bring me my chariot of fire!

His secret quest was, for the moment, complete. For the future, he would keep a wary eye on Arthur Duke, perhaps even use this vigilance as a pretext to continue his visits to Knock Harbour and Leona.

He leaned out of bed toward the lamp, placed his hand at the back and blew across the top of the glass chimney. The room tripped into darkness. A golden haze lingered before his eyes, like a foretaste of promised sunshine, and he fell into a deep contented sleep.

It was a wet December night in Knock Harbour, as well.

Dulcie was three months away from home.

Leona came into the kitchen from outside, poured cold water into a pan and washed dark soil from her hands. Knock Harbour's soil had been steeped for weeks now in the vagaries of snow and rain, of frost and thaw. She had found it easy enough to slip her small spade into the ground.

Tonight, she'd decided to let a little of her hard-held, well-kept secret slip into the world.

She went down the hall to the parlour and got the fountain pen, envelope and writing paper that she had recently bought at the Trading Company in Placentia. She sat to the little parlour table and wrote a short note. Then, she took two one-dollar bills from her dress pocket, one for Dulcie and one for the school, and folded them into the letter. She slipped it in the envelope, licked the flap and sealed it. She addressed it to the Halifax School for the Deaf, and took a single stamp out of her dress pocket. She looked at the small framed portrait of Edward VII on the postage stamp, then at the very same but larger portrait that had hung on the parlour wall for years in its elegant wooden frame. The monarch's lazy eyes seemed to follow Leona's every move whenever she was alone with it in the parlour. They seemed to do so now, as she placed the stamp on her tongue. It sat there like a dark communion wafer until the glue moistened, and she carefully removed and pressed it onto the envelope.

Dulcie was learning fast at school. She could spell her name with the fingers of one hand: D-U-L-C-I-E. She could speak it too and recognize it on the blackboard. She liked her name, even though she knew that she would never hear it spoken.

She had learned to form twenty-six
letters
with her hand, and she used these to make
words
. She'd learned to
print
words on paper and to
read
them, too.

She knew now that thoughts have several different ways of venturing into the world. They can fly, yes, but they can come to rest, too, in chalk on slate or ink on paper; they can be stored neatly in books for a very long time. But Dulcie's favourite way to send thoughts was to
sign
. She'd learned many, many signs by now, and her thoughts flew really fast when she was among her deaf friends.

In geography class she learned that she came from a place called Newfoundland; that Newfoundland is famous for cod and seals and that the big knot of houses and streets where she took the boat is the capital, St. John's. She learned that she attends the School for the Deaf in Halifax, the capital of Nova Scotia, and that Halifax has the most perfect harbour in the world. She also learned that Great Britain is known for wealth and power; that New York is the largest city in America; that Montreal is the largest city in Canada; that Italy is one of the most beautiful countries in the world; that Spain is famous for oranges and raisins.

Dulcie was taught to pray, too. She could say out loud, though never hear it …
Our Father who art in heaven
…
Hail Mary full of grace
…
Glory be to the Father and the Son
…

There was a tree in the Assembly Hall last week, a tree so tall and so beautiful, dressed in silver and gold with a frosted star placed so high upon it that it could touch the top of the biggest room in the world. This was to celebrate the thing called Christmas, which, as Dulcie now knew, was the birthday of the baby Jesus. Mrs. Batstone explained that Dulcie would live forever because of Jesus. Dulcie found this very interesting and said she wanted to tell Mother right away. Mrs. Batstone said that Mother already knew, but Dulcie was not so sure about that.

It was quiet at the school now since most of her friends had gone home. All gone home. She wanted to go home too for Christmas, but they said her home was too far away. Sometimes during the long empty days, she wandered by herself upstairs to the trunk room, sat beside her Dan-box and thought of Mother.

She missed home.

She decided that one day soon she would catch these thoughts of hers on paper and send them home to Mother.

On Saturday, March 19, 1927, William Cantwell was in his St. John's apartment sorting through the clothes he planned to wear that evening to a ball at Government House, when his morning paper dropped through the mail slot. He read the headline and stopped what he was doing to sit down. Sir Robert Bond was dead. The reclusive elder statesman had passed away, after a prolonged illness, at the Grange in Whitbourne; his private refuge from thirty years of public life was now to be his final resting place. Bond had insisted on a quiet funeral at the Grange and had even invited the local residents to participate in its preparation.

The newspaper announced a special train run to Whitbourne for members of the public who wanted to attend Bond's funeral, but, at four dollars a ticket, it turned out that only the relatively well-off could afford to do so. On Monday morning, two cars containing a mere fifty people, mostly dignitaries and politicians, left St. John's to make the historic journey.

William was among them. The train pulled into Whitbourne station at ten o'clock. He and the other passengers walked to the Grange and up a long avenue of spruce trees to the stately residence. A maid let them in and led them down a spacious hallway lined with caribou heads and intricate tapestries. In the drawing room at the far end, William could already see the tip of Sir Robert's nose protruding from an elegant black coffin.

When he got there William could see that Bond, in death as in life, cut a distinguished figure. He was dressed in the uniform of a Knight Commander of St. Michael and St. George, a bright red affair with golden braids. His aquiline nose surged dramatically out of his waxen face; a hint of fatigue, even exhaustion, lay frozen in his aspect. A wavelet of hair thoroughly whitened with age sat atop his head combed as fastidiously as ever.

After his private moment before the coffin, William sat on an Empire-style bench outside the drawing room. He saw the maid who admitted him sitting alone sobbing quietly to herself at the end of the long hall. A line of people waited to pass before the coffin. Dignitaries mingled with the ordinary folk of Whitbourne, who, despite their genuine desire to do him reverence, couldn't help but gawk at the splendour of the great man's home.

At that moment, Arthur Duke stepped out of the drawing room, spotted William and walked across the hallway to join him on the bench. He wore a black suit and was, as usual, impeccably groomed. William noticed that Duke's dark eyes sat rather too closely together beside his gun barrel of a nose. He looks down that nose at you, he thought, whether he means to or not.

Duke spoke quietly as he kept his eyes on the procession of mourners.

“Do you know what a dead country is, Mr. Cantwell?” he said.

“I'm not sure I know what you mean, Mr. Duke.”

He turned to face William. “Can't we get on a first name basis here? I'm not really such an ogre, am I?”

“I don't know, Mr. Duke. You may be. But you can call me William, if you wish.”