Steamers were still depositing droves of emigrants every day, but Luke thought he could detect, just slightly, a lessening of the numbers aboard each boat.
Mrs. Thompson confirmed this as Luke helped her serve up the morning’s pottage. “Another three weeks and we should start to see the end of it,” she said. “Soon the autumn storms will make it too dangerous to risk an Atlantic crossing, and the captains have to time their voyages to arrive in Canada before the St. Lawrence ices over. Whoever is coming this year has left Ireland by now.”
“What will happen to the patients in the sheds?” Luke asked. “They’ll have to be moved somewhere inside before long.” Even the patients who had apparently recovered from typhus were weak and listless and would require a period of convalescence before they could be sent off on their own.
“I don’t know,” Mrs. Thompson said. “There’s some talk of trying to winterize the sheds. And then, of course, something will have to be done for the ones living outside. They can’t survive a winter in the open.”
It appeared that Kingston’s crisis would not end with the close of the shipping season. It was no wonder that tempers were becoming frayed in the town, Luke thought, as the disease spread and the need grew.
Luke knew that he had used his last sheet of paper to write to his father, so after his day’s work he walked down Store Street where he knew there was a stationer’s shop. He was challenged at the corner of Montreal Street by a man with a constable’s badge.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“I’m going about my business,” Luke replied. “What business is it of yours?”
“Beg your pardon, sir,” the man replied. “We’ve been told to keep the emigrants out of the city and down by the shore, so the fever doesn’t spread any more than it has already.”
Luke wanted to point out that it was far too late for this sort of precautionary measure and that the fever had already spread beyond anyone’s control, but he didn’t want to be questioned too closely. If this man knew that he cared for emigrants every day, would he, too, be denied entry to Kingston’s centre? He tipped his hat to the man and walked on.
He completed his task at the stationer’s, risking the wrath of the merchant by asking to borrow ink and a pen. After he completed the letter of application to the Canada Company on behalf of the four wan Irishmen, he walked back toward Hôtel Dieu. He would borrow a piece of sacking from the nuns and walk down the shore until he found a secluded spot for bathing.
He was challenged again by a constable as he walked west along Brock Street. He wondered how any of these temporary watch guards would be able to tell if someone was an emigrant, or was anyone who had an Irish accent being told to turn back and huddle by the shore? If so, Mayor Kirkpatrick himself might have a hard time entering his own city.
The virulent spread of the disease became all too manifest, however, when he entered the hospital. Sister Bourbonnière stood near the front door, steadying herself against the wall, her pale face covered in a sheen of sweat.
“You need to lie down,” Luke said.
She shook her head. “I ’ave too much work.”
“Is it the fever?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. There is no place to lie down even if I could do so. The beds are all in use.”
“But where have you been sleeping?”
“We sleep on the floor. In the passageway. But we are too much in the way during the day.” She straightened herself up, took a deep breath, and stumbled down the hall, determined to complete her day’s work.
He followed her to the tiny pharmacy closet. “If you won’t go and get some rest, is there anything else I can do to help you?” he asked.
She turned. “You are already a great ’elp, Luke. But yes, there is one more thing you can do. You can pray for me.”
And then, with a little surprised cry, she said, “Oh, I almost forgot.” She reached into the folds of her habit. “This came for you today.” She handed him a letter.
He recognized his father’s sloping copperplate handwriting. He hadn’t expected a reply so soon. He broke the seal and folded out the page, expecting to see words of reproach that he was not on his way to Montreal, or words of approbation that he was selflessly remaining in Kingston, he wasn’t sure which. The words he read were completely unexpected.
September 22
My dearest Luke,
Your mother has quite suddenly suffered another apoplexy and the doctor has told us that her fate is now in God’s hands.
I know that you were very worried about her prior to leaving Wellington this summer, but please rest assured that we had been warned to expect this, and that nothing could have been done to prevent it. I do know that seeing you again afforded her great delight and brought her an enormous amount of joy.
We can do little at this time but pray and wait, but if it is possible for you to come to Wellington, I believe that your presence would bring her much comfort, as it would me.
Please come.
Your loving father
He folded the paper again carefully, as if he knew that this missive was one that would be tucked away somewhere, saved for a future generation to find and weep over a little.
Luke was aware that Sister Bourbonnière was watching him with concern.
“I’m afraid I have to leave you,” he said.
“It was bad news then? I’m sorry, Luke.”
“It’s my mother. She’s …” He choked a little on the words. “She’s dying.”
The nun touched his arm. “You must go to her. And I will pray for her and for you, too.”
He stumbled down the hall toward the door, nearly colliding with Father Higgins. “Sorry,” he mumbled, “wasn’t watching.”
“Are you all right, Luke?”
“I … I’m fine,” he stuttered. “Excuse me.”
All he wanted was to be alone somewhere so he could re-read the letter and absorb its contents in private.
“If there is anything I can do …”
Luke shook his head and brushed past the priest. He left the building and began walking away from the city. When he neared the brewery, he veered north in order to avoid the emigrant sheds. There was a path that seemed to continue west. If he kept to this route, he judged, he would eventually find himself at Portsmouth Village. But he had no wish to reach the settlement. He had no wish to talk to anyone. He turned south again, and soon reached the lake, where the land ended abruptly in a jagged limestone shelf.
He sat down on the edge and opened the sheet of paper, one small boyish part of him hoping that he had misinterpreted his father’s words; but there was no mistaking the message it held. His father must have written many of these letters in his time, Luke reflected. He put the shocking news right at the beginning, so that the recipient would not have to work to discover what information was so urgent. Then the assurance that nothing the reader could have done would have made the slightest difference. There was no guilt to be assigned, no recriminations to be made. Everything was God’s will, and God’s will would be done.
What was surprising, he found, was the tail end of the letter — Thaddeus’s admission of his own need for comfort and the brief, almost plaintive “please come.” This was the first time that Thaddeus had ever needed Luke, and not the other way around. Another indication of the passing banner of the generations? It made him feel sad and old and weighed down with the responsibilities that would soon, apparently, be his. He wanted to turn time on its head. He was the youngest, the baby. He had been saddled with fewer expectations than his older brothers and sisters. He wanted it to stay that way. He wanted always to be able to run home to his mother.
His chest felt tight and his breath choked in his throat. He was hot. He threw off his jacket, then the rest of his clothes. He climbed down to the edge of the lake and slid into the water. Although the evening air was cool and the breeze had a bite, the water still retained some of the warmth it had soaked up from the afternoon sun.
The silky water soothed him, and finally let him start to organize his chaotic thoughts. In spite of his father’s words, he regretted that he had not stayed in Wellington, that he hadn’t spent the last few weeks tending, not to fevered emigrants, but to his own mother. And in the same moment, he knew, as his father had assured him, how futile that would have been. There had been no way to predict Betsy’s last stroke, except to say that it was on its way. It could have happened anytime — before he’d arrived in Wellington, or three months from now when he might have been sitting in a classroom in Montreal, or even tomorrow, instead of yesterday. There would have been no point in merely sitting by her side, waiting for it to happen, and it would have done neither of them any good.
Besides, he had not been with her these five years past, had he? He had gone blithely off west with his brothers, in search of an adventure that had proved elusive. How hard it must have been for her when he left. She must have wondered if she would ever see him again. Yet again, what had been the alternative? Stay at home with her, working for poor wages at the livery stable, or at the blacksmith’s, or at some other menial job? Or follow his father into the unappealing professions of teaching or the ministry, merely so that he could be by her side? This was never the way of young men, to tie themselves to hearth and home. And she would not have wanted it for him.
He felt a sudden surge of pity for the emigrants who had washed up in Canada, shedding family members along the way. Their sense of loss was no less than his own, he realized. They had their faith, he supposed, to help them, and their rituals seemed to somehow ease their pain. Like his father, they could turn to a belief in a better place, an eternity after death where all suffering was abolished. Luke had no such belief to cling to.
He flipped over on his stomach and opened his eyes to stare at the rocky lake bottom beneath him. There were a few weeds growing here and there, but otherwise it was a sterile place.
He wished he could see something there, some sign that would lead him to the certainty of the ultimate reunion of loved ones. That was the core of his pain, he realized, for he couldn’t bring himself to believe that someday he would see his mother again. She would be gone, and he would be lonelier and more vulnerable without her.
His feet found bottom and he stood, maintaining his balance with a gentle sweep of his arms until the cold of the water began to creep into his joints. He waded toward shore, but suddenly, when the water level was only knee-deep, he doubled over and vomited. He made no attempt to move away from the mess, but merely stood and watched as the current gently pulled the sick out into the open lake. And then he began to cry, the tears rolling down his face in silent streams. He staggered to where he had left his clothes, but made no attempt to dress himself. He sank down beside them and let the tears spill to the rocks.
Immersed in his sorrow, he hadn’t heard anyone approach. Suddenly, someone sat down beside him, reached out black-clad arms and enfolded him in an embrace.
“It’s all right, boy, let it out.” It was Father Higgins, who must have followed him along the shore. “It’s all right, let it all out.”
Luke was unprepared for his reaction to this embrace and the intimate circumstances of the encounter. For a moment, he closed his eyes and let himself be seduced by the feeling of warmth and comfort and then, unexpectedly and shockingly, he felt a surge of emotion and a stirring of passion. He pulled away. Blushing and embarrassed, he rushed back into the water, and when it grew waist-deep he plunged headfirst into it, swimming furiously away from the shore.
“Luke! Come back,” he heard Higgins calling, but he had no intention of heeding. He flipped over onto his back, treading water as he watched the priest.
“Come back! What’s the matter?”
In answer, Luke flipped over onto his stomach again and dove for the bottom, holding himself under the water until his lungs were bursting. When he surfaced with a great gasping intake of air, he saw that the priest was gone.