Galore - Michael Crummey [79]
—Same as she did with her four-legged chick, Obediah said.
The brothers shaking their heads, struck by the odd coincidence book-ending the woman’s life on the shore.
—What happened to Callum? Newman asked.
Azariah emptied the dregs of his tea into the fire and rinsed his cup with snow. —Callum never made it to Belle Isle.
—They left the vessel together, but Callum wasn’t with them when they reached the island.
—The weather was blowing and he must have fallen behind, lost sight of their tracks. Or just sat for a spell and never got up.
—He was an old man, is what he was, Obediah said. —That gimpy leg of his. Shouldn’t have been to the ice at all probably.
—Lizzie went a bit strange after that. She set Callum’s place at the table every meal until the day she died.
—And she doted on young Henley when he come along a few years later. She ruined the boy if you ask me. Still wiping his behind when he was near old enough to vote.
—Lizzie wouldn’t have let Bride Freke get near the man, I guarantee.
—Why, Newman said, what’s wrong with Bride?
—A hard case, she is, Doctor. Hardest kind. Her mother was a Tibbo from over in the Gut, a bushborn she was. Died giving birth to Bride.
—And her father, Jim Freke, he married one of Henry Jolliff’s girls then. Loretta.
—Loll never took to Bride, her being another woman’s youngster.
—And a bushborn, Azariah said. —Called the girl a Jackie-tar. Treated her like dirt, if you wants the bare facts of the matter. And Bride, she more or less got raised up by her mother’s people in the Gut.
Obediah: They caught Bride trying to sneak off with a bagful of their garden soil last spring, Henley and Mary Tryphena did, and they had a row you could hear halfway to Red Head Cove.
—She was stealing a bag of dirt?
—People holds a bit of soil very dear in these parts, Doctor. Years turning in capelin and seaweed to make earth enough to grow a few spuds. There’s been blood spilled over half an acre of garden.
—There was no real blood this time, mind. Just Henley holding on to Bride while Mary Tryphena wrestled the soil away and Bride screaming her fool head off.
—Hard to see how they went from a scrap like that to living in the same house with a child between them.
—Almost as odd a match as Mary Tryphena and Judah, those two.
Newman held a hand in the air. —Mary Tryphena is married to the albino?
—All the widow’s doing, that was, Azariah said.
—Devine’s Widow?
—The same.
—So, Newman said, trying to slow the conversation. —Mary Tryphena is who to the widow?
The Trims shifted on their haunches but there was no other sign of impatience. —Devine’s Widow, Obediah said, is mother to Callum Devine. Callum married King-me Sellers’ daughter, Lizzie. He paused to wait for a sign the doctor was following. —Callum and Lizzie had Mary Tryphena and Lazarus between them. And Mary Tryphena is married to Judah.
—And that was the widow’s doing?
—You been in Judah’s company, Doctor. No woman in her right mind would have him to wed of her own accord.
—They’ve never shared the same house, mind, let alone a bed. And you can’t blame Mary Tryphena for that.
—Still and all, Newman said. —There’s Patrick and Henley between them.
—Well, Obediah said, there’s Patrick between them at least.
—Now Brother, Azariah warned him.
The dogs were whining and restless in their traces, anxious to get moving, and the brothers began collecting their gear aboard the sled. They insisted the doctor ride the rest of the way and after a token argument he settled under a fur, watching the country pass. He fell into a light sleep and dreamed again of Bride, of her upturned face as he wrenched molars from the back of her mouth, the dark eyes wide and watching him steadily. Of kneeling between her legs to suture the