Galore - Michael Crummey [18]
Jabez Trim, she decided, was her only hope. Through November and December as the temperature dropped and people’s lives contracted to the circle of their tiny properties, to their hovels, to the three square feet closest to the fire, Mary Tryphena tried to think how she might steal a few moments alone in his company. By the third week of Advent she’d all but given up on talking to him before spring and the thought of the wait made her surly and impatient. —If we don’t get that girl out of the house, Devine’s Widow said, I’m going to poison her.
Lizzie was boiling Christmas puddings in a pot over the fire, dark molasses with dried currants and cherries. —Leave the child be, she said.
—I’ll take her with me when I bring the cakes over the Tolt, Callum offered.
Mrs. Gallery had no work of her own and she survived on offerings made to the church by the faithful, an account at Sellers’ store for the woman divided equally among the debts of Catholics on the shore. And it was the custom at Christmas to offer some small token to Jabez and Father Phelan for the services provided through the year. The Christmas puddings were an extravagance, a sign of how well the fishing had gone that year.
—We’ll walk out tomorrow, Callum said to Mary Tryphena. —It’ll do wonders for us both.
But her father was taken with a flu overnight, the fever so high he lay under a blanket next the fire calling out to his dead father, and Lizzie said the puddings would have to wait. Mary Tryphena wouldn’t hear of it, knowing no better opportunity would come to her, and Lizzie insisted she ask Judah along, not wanting the girl out by herself with the weather so changeable. She’d take the dog, Mary Tryphena said, sure it could guide her back if a snow squall came on.
—Leave her go, Devine’s Widow said finally. —I’m sick of listening to the two of you.
Mary Tryphena’s feet were wrapped in cloth inside her shoes and she went out into the day wearing an old blanket as a shawl against the cold, strapping on her father’s snow rackets at the door.
Judah heard the voices and peeked out at Mary Tryphena as she walked the path toward him. He was still living in the shed and had taken to sleeping with the dog under the covers against the freezing temperatures. The dog was Judah’s only real companion, a black and white mongrel with a barrel chest and the stunted legs of a beagle. Judah stepped into the open air when Mary Tryphena called the dog and he stood watching as they set out, the animal bounding ahead to break trail through the waist-high snow before turning to run to Jude. It was in a state of agitation, whining and barking as it ran longer and longer relays between the two until Judah disappeared into the shed and the dog sat outside, pawing at the door. Mary Tryphena called uselessly awhile and then turned toward the steep slope of the Tolt Road. There’d been a heavy fall of snow days before and so little traffic between the two communities that it promised to be a slog. The dog nudged past her minutes later and she looked back to see Judah coming along in his rags, a coat rigged out of a bit of rotten sail, his boots two squares of brin tied around his ankles with twine. Her heart fell but she couldn’t think how to send him away without losing the dog.
It was two hours of hard travel to make what was normally a half-hour trip over the Tolt and down to Mrs. Gallery’s tilt, tucked back in a spindly droke of woods above the harbor and away from the other houses around the bay. The trees were the only ones within a mile of the water that hadn’t been cut for firewood or walls or stagehouse posts or oars. Their sparse sickliness saved them from the axe and the surrounding trees made the