A Map of Glass - Jane Urquhart [77]
Timber rafts were the most temporary of constructed worlds and seem to have been constantly engaged in the artificial evolutionary process that was thrust upon them. What once was part of a great forest became for the span of a few days the platform of a small village where people worked and ate and slept and overcame the sequence of difficulties that made up the course of the river, difficulties so dramatic that even Branwell felt compelled to comment in his journal that the sight of turbulent rapids frothing over the edges of the raft, not five feet from where he stood, “filled the spirit with awe.” Once the rafts successfully reached their destination, they were, of course, dismantled, their several parts dispatched to England, where eventually the wood that made up their construction might re-emerge in the shape of furniture in a multitude of Victorian parlours or, if the timbers were oak—and large and long enough—as masts on the decks of the pugnacious vessels of the Admiralty. One thing was certain, however, no raft ever made the return journey upriver, and Annabelle, knowing this, would have thought a raft to be the perfect vessel for the deliverance of her brother into the arms of the future she wanted for him.
Annabelle worked up the nerve to get herself on board a raft in mid-July and was, oddly enough, able to do so with her father’s permission. It wasn’t entirely out of the question for a sightseer or two to be taken on board, especially in the warmer months, as it was well known that this was by far the best way to experience the thrilling power of the rapids. Furthermore, because his mind was almost always fully occupied with business, any curiosity shown in some aspect of how it worked by one of his offspring—especially in the face of Branwell’s obvious disinterest—pleased Joseph Woodman even more than Annabelle had anticipated that it might. And she had anticipated that it might, had spent the previous evening, in fact, composing the following speech. “I just want to understand the business,” she had said to him, “how the rafts are taken down to Quebec. I just want to see what Branwell does when he is on the river.”
On this midsummer day, once the raft moved away from the booms that held it, she grabbed her brother by the arm and began to dance with him, awkwardly, it’s true, because of her lameness and because her brother was an unwilling partner. “I don’t understand what has got into you,” he might have said to her as he disentangled himself from her embrace. He would have been irritated too, because now the journey was going to be longer than the usual three or four days. The raft would have to haul up in odd places along the river where lodgings could be found with families known to their father, there being no question of Annabelle spending the night on board with the men. Branwell would likely also be invited inside for an evening meal out of politeness, and the thought of this may have put his teeth on edge for he was becoming more and more unsociable as his unhappiness deepened. His bemusement regarding his sister’s behaviour would be exaggerated by the fact that, although in the past she had been suspicious and evasive about Frenchmen, she had now apparently developed a certain camaraderie with them, and before the raft was five miles downriver, she was laughing and conversing with them, and showing them the watercolours she was making of the river and the trees. His own artistic endeavours at the time were confined to the penmanship he practised while keeping the log—great, flourishing capital letters, for example, at the beginning of each entry, and the odd mechanical drawing of an iceboat or a sloop.