Noble watches until the Douglas woman lets herself in her front door. Lights go on. Electric lights no less. Nothing but the best for Pete Douglas and his fancy Halifax wife. His mailorder bride, according to the village grapevine. Though Noble would have thought a mail-order bride would be more desperate. There’s another story there. He has to admit she surprised him today. Made of much stronger stuff than he’d given her credit for. To most people in the village Hetty Douglas had revealed herself for what she was at Christmas — a spoiled townie with no backbone. After the way Pete Douglas bundled her up in the postal wagon and told the driver to step on it, there were some who didn’t even believe she was a nurse and thought that was the last they’d seen of her. Not that they’d seen much of her before, the way she kept to herself. And if he was pressed Noble would have to admit there had been a trace of something less than honourable in his bringing Esmeralda to Hetty Douglas’s door. You found out the truth about people by putting them to the test. But if the village naysayers had seen her in action today, their doubts would be dispelled. She never even flinched. Just a matter-of-fact appraisal of the situation and she’d gotten straight down to business.
And what a messy business. At the sound of the saw rasping through the kid’s thigh bone, the smell like scorched fingernails, Noble thought he might pass out himself. He’s pretty sure he blanked out for a moment or two, eyes closed, swaying on his feet, though he couldn’t have fallen over for all the men packed into that claustrophobic space. Christ it had been hot down there. He should have left once he finished his own job on the schooner, but then Esmeralda had approached, asking for his help. Her unlikely dress aside, Noble has never seen a woman like her. A raw energy charges her movements, the way her hips sway and her shirt slides over her breasts. She’d turned her gaze on him and pulled her hair back from her face, revealing the smooth line of her neck. Noble could no more have refused her than he could have spit in his mother’s eye.
He backs down the Douglas driveway and heads into the village. He’s tired and could do with a nap. It’s been a long day, and he has to meet Butler down at the weir in a couple of hours. Wednesday’s full moon means it’ll be heaving with fish tonight.
Lillian.
Dammit. How could he have forgotten? Friday is her lending library night. He thumps the steering wheel. He could drive straight over there but his shirt is gamey, stiff with dried sweat. Home to wash up and change first.
Lillian opens the door and her pale, pretty face opens in a smile. The tightness in Noble unwinds in her presence. Tonight more than ever she is the salve to his abraded soul. He wants to take her in his arms and kiss her but has to content himself with an accidental brush against her fingers as she takes his hat and places it next to a lighter grey model already perched on the carved maple hat stand that graces her front entrance. While her back is turned he sniffs again at his hands, his sleeves, the front of his shirt. Despite a cat bath at the kitchen sink and a change of shirt, something of the afternoon still clings to him — the sweet smell of decay overlaid with a touch of ammonia.
Lillian’s house soothes Noble too, despite the man upstairs. In contrast to his mother’s almost Spartan decor — whitewashed walls, plain and well-scrubbed wooden table and chairs — Lillian’s house is all brocade and chintz and cushiony ornate rugs. Every sill and mantel, every occasional table is crowded with plants and porcelain figurines and framed family photographs, and in the warmer months a large cut glass vase crammed with flowers from her perennial garden graces the dining-room table. There are more pictures on the walls in Lillian’s entrance hall than there are in Sarah Matheson’s entire house. Dust traps, his mother would call all Lillian’s ornaments. But to Noble they summon life. Sometimes, when no one is looking, he runs his fingers across the flocked wallpaper, strokes the tassels on the silk shades of the reading lamps set up in her library.
Lillian’s library has outgrown her dining alcove, spread into the dining room itself and now commands nearly half the room. He follows her there. On six evenly spaced nine-foot-long shelves — shelves Noble cut, planed, stained, varnished, fitted and braced himself almost three years ago — Lillian keeps all her books and the books people have donated to her library over the years. Sitting in one corner on an overstuffed wingback chair, Stan Dean — the other hat on the stand — greets Noble with a distracted nod and returns to perusing the book propped opened in his hands. Agnes McVeigh turns from her spot before the bookshelves to acknowledge him, but the smile on her face appears rehearsed. Her expression pauses, as if she were mid-sentence and unsure whether to continue.
“Do you have a copy of Treasure Island?” Noble says loudly, nodding his greeting to Mrs. McVeigh and then edging towards the matching wing chair in the opposite corner.
Lillian follows and crouches by the lower shelf. “Did you finish Adam Bede?”
“Not yet.” Noble’s knees click as he crouches to join her. Lillian’s eyebrows rise a fraction. Thick and dark and perfectly arched, they anchor her pale grey eyes in the paleness of her face. He can smell the cloves on her breath. “I found it a bit dreary.” He isn’t the only one having trouble with the book. His mother dozed off both evenings he tried reading it aloud to her. “But it’s all about woodworking, Mumma,” he’d crooned at her slackened features. “I wonder what Pete Douglas would say if he could see you now?” Sarah had snorted, twitched and resumed her gentle snoring.
“I can’t seem to catch the rhythm of the way they speak.” And so much of it is speech! A syntax and accent his tongue refused to bend around, a music his ears were deaf to. Boredom had set in while the story circled the room, refusing to settle. He couldn’t understand Lillian’s purpose in suggesting the book to him. Seeing her face fall, Noble blurts, “I much prefer Dickens.”
“Of course you do,” she says and places her hand on his. They are both taken by surprise at what she has done. Pulling her hand back immediately, Lillian stands and begins straightening the books on the shelves. Mrs. McVeigh clears her throat.
“I got the writing books.”
Lillian’s hands pause in their task. “You did?” A level of formality has entered her voice. “They arrived two days ago. There’s four books altogether.”
“Four.” She turns and looks down at him for a moment. If he could just kiss her sadness away. “And how are they?”
“I haven’t read much more than the introduction so far.” He stands and thrusts his hands in his pockets.
“Oh.”
“But I started writing already.” In his head. That was a start, wasn’t it? A small thump of shame at this white lie.
“You did?” Her eyes brighten and Noble has to stop himself from leaning over to kiss her nose. Her lips.
“I got this idea about the schooner that came in the other day.” And how about the story he witnessed there today?
“Hence the interest in Treasure Island.” Her eyes have drawn back to their pale depths again. Is she disappointed? She reaches to the bottom shelf and pulls the Robert Louis stevenson volume free. Hands it to him. “I think you’ll find the story more compelling than Adam Bede.”
“Thank you. I’ll bring the other back. Tonight if you like?” Agnes McVeigh edges closer and places a book between them.
“How is your husband keeping, my dear?” Her other hand clasps Lillian’s arm, claiming kinship. Women’s matters. Those who stood and waited. Mrs. McVeigh lost a son at Ypres.
“There isn’t much change, I’m afraid, Mrs. McVeigh.” Except in Lillian’s demeanour. Noble can sense their meeting has drawn to a close.
“I’ll take this book, then. Bring the other back some time later.” Mrs. McVeigh turns to look at him. “Next Friday perhaps.” Mrs. McVeigh’s lips pull back in a smile. Her eyes are closed.
“I can write your name in the lending book for you.” Lillian can’t look at him either.
“Good. Well, I’ll be moving along then.” Stan Dean throws him a sympathetic glance.
“I’ll see you to the door.” Lillian steps away from Mrs. McVeigh. Stan turns a page.
Noble stands at the door, hating propriety and hating the sick man upstairs who holds both their lives in limbo. He hopes Agnes McVeigh falls and breaks her mouth walking home in the twilight.
“If I finish the first scene over the weekend, would you read it for me? I could bring it over on, say, Monday?” Lillian’s eyes dart to the side. She nods quickly, begins closing the door. Noble turns to walk away and then, remembering Lillian is a Sunday School teacher, changes his mind.
“Yes, Noble?” She tilts her head to one side. Her voice is barely above a whisper.
He buries his hands in his pockets. “I was wondering . . .”
“Yes?”
“Um, how old do you think the Baker boy is?”
“Doctor Baker’s son?”
Noble swallows. “Yeah. I mean roughly.”
“He’s six.”
“Six”.
“Yes. He has his birthday in September. He’s the oldest in his class.”
“I see.”
Lillian holds his gaze, but she has long since learned to keep her own features blank. He looks away, unable to tell what she’s thinking, and his eyes brush down her dress. Tiny printed flowers. Not too modern, not too old-fashioned — a sensible dress. And then, taken aback by his own fickleness, by how his mind has made the leap, Noble finds himself wondering what Lillian would look like in a pair of closely tailored men’s pants.
“Come on in, the water’s lovely.” At least Butler is in a good mood. And it isn’t raining. “The evening is young, my friend.”
Maybe too good a mood. As Noble wades into the tide pool Butler breaks into song. “A pretty girl is like a melody . . .”
“You’ve met Esmeralda, then?” Noble is surprised by the stab of jealousy that accompanies this observation.
“A girl in pants . . .” Between snatches of song Butler chuckles to himself, scooping fish and tossing them into Bess’s cart. His full-throated tenor voice would be the envy of every church choir in the region — if any could persuade him to sing with them. Weir fishers don’t keep regular hours, he tells them, but, while he might be able to reach the descant notes to “The lord’s My Shepherd,” he would rather sing something bawdy and irreverent.
“So, been sniffing round the schooner playing Casanova, have you?”
“Left her arms not an hour since.”
“Did you happen to mention to her that you’re married?”
“What, and spoil my fun?”
“I spent the day with her, you know.” They were linked by blood. Blood and high-seas drama.
Butler bursts out laughing. “You did? Good for you, Nobbie boy. Hey, she’s a pearl, isn’t she? Pretty damn gorgeous, eh?”
“I think she’s very nice.”
“Nice! I hope not. That girl has got to be the choicest piece of prime to sail into this lonely boy’s life in a long while.”
“Lonely? You?” Butler is married. He has children he can tuck in bed each night. Read stories to. How can he possibly be lonely?
“A girl dressed as a man too. That is some kind of tease. She’s the captain’s daughter, you know? And fiery. She’s got spirit enough for a whole fleet of schooners. I can feel her legs wrapped around me already. Have her eating out of my hand — and lap — in no time.”
“You’re dreaming.”
“And you’re jealous, my friend. All those lovely curves, they’re hiding an animal.” He bares his teeth and growls. “She’s a bit more exciting than your librarian, wouldn’t you say?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh yes you do. She’s stringing you along there, Nobbie boy.”
“Who is?”
“Don’t be coy. Lonely lil, who else?”
Noble sweeps the water with his dip net, careful not to aggravate his shoulder, which has been acting up.
“As long as her old man is still drawing breath with those messy lungs of his, you ain’t gonna get any.”
“Sometimes I think marriage has made you into one coarse bastard.”
“Careful. Wouldn’t want Eliza hearing you say things like that about her.”
“I’m not saying anything bad about Eliza. I leave that to you.”
Butler stops what he’s doing a moment and leans over the side of the cart towards Noble. “I find it’s always best you keep your nose out and your mouth shut concerning business you know nothing about.”
“I could say the same to you.”
“Different story, my friend. Entirely different story. When you’ve been conned into a shotgun wedding then you have room to talk.”
Butler’s admission taints the night air, thickening the rancour between the two men. They work in silence, Noble reliving the public moments of Butler’s marriage in his head.
They empty Bess’s cart into the first of two large crates on the back of Noble’s truck. As Noble jumps from the tailgate, he sees the bottle. If Butler had been trying to hide what he was up to, he certainly isn’t now, swinging the bottle to his lips and tipping back his head. Noble should have guessed. Since he arrived, his friend’s mood, like the sands in the Bay of Fundy, has been shifting and changing shape.
“You’re drunk.”
“Drunk? Never. I’m merely merry.”
Merry and angry and hostile and teasing and lascivious.
Butler slaps Noble across the shoulders and holds out the whiskey bottle. A peace offering. “For you, my friend, a swallow of Scotland’s finest.” In the moonlight Butler’s eyes glitter with menace. Noble licks his lips, which have dried and cracked since this afternoon, and takes the square-shaped bottle from his friend. He recognizes the label. Bushmills.
“This is Irish whiskey.”
“Irish. Scotch. It sure as hell beats Cyrus Warner’s moon-shine.”
Corn liquor. Butler got his big mitts on a bottle once but Noble couldn’t take the way it scorched his throat and the lining of his stomach. He wasn’t much of a Scotch drinker to begin with — though Warner’s hooch hardly qualified as such. He liked ale and not much else. Though he’d enjoyed champagne once. Lawson’s doing. They’d shared a bottle during his brother’s leave; it was shortly after Noble’s release from hospital and just before the build-up to Vimy. Lawson told him how what was left of his company had stumbled into a shelled-out village and taken cover in one of the few remaining buildings with a roof. And a wine cellar. Empty but for a dozen bottles of champagne buried under a pile of wood. Five men grateful to be alive and one blissful giddy drunk. Laughter. Bubbles up their noses. The sweet smell of hay in the stable, a welcoming bed. Soft and dry.
Noble raises the Bushmills to his mouth and takes a swallow. His eyes water, but the kick behind his rib cage is welcome, as is the slow, delicious feeling that he’s growing another layer of skin beneath his own. It’s been a rough day. And it’s been a long time. Because of Prohibition, any kind of legal alcohol has been near impossible to get hold of outside Halifax since the war, a fact that doesn’t sit well with a few he can think of, and no doubt a lot more besides, no matter how it might have looked three-and-a-half years ago to the vote-counters. He hadn’t voted himself. Not many had if you looked at the numbers. Mainly the women and those with enough money to lay in a five-year supply before the law changed. Bankers. Lawyers. Doctors.
The two men pass the bottle back and forth between them and wade into the pool again. Butler clicks his tongue and Bess follows with the cart. Noble scoops an army of herring. They thrash and buckle in the net, silver skins shimmering with moonlight. He could fish all night.
“Where d’you think?”
“You just go down there and buy it? A bucket of fish for a case of whiskey?” How many more villagers had likely done the same?
“That’s for me to know, Nobbie boy,” he says. “But I tell you what. For all your hard work this evening, what d’you say?” Like a magician he produces another full bottle from thin air — it must have been stashed somewhere at the front of Bess’s cart
The village’s new currency, Noble thinks as he takes the bottle. He wonders briefly what the penalty is for being caught with contraband. Wonders how many more bottles Butler has managed to procure.
“Plenty more where that came from,” Butler says, reading his mind. “Just take that home and you and lonely Lil have yourselves a real party.” He grins. “I, on the other hand, have plans for the lovely Esmeralda.”
“That so?”
“I’ve baited my hook. It’s just a matter of time before it’s set.” Butler pulls out the half-empty Bushmills again and licks his lips. “I wonder if she’s a nibbler or a swallower?”