Settlement. Ann Birch

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СКАЧАТЬ a book on Upper Canada. She wants to let Europeans know about the life of the country’s original inhabitants. Would you, your father, and your friend consider spending an hour with her now? She would offer some food, if I asked her, and we should still have plenty of time to see the Governor.”

      “Yes, Nehkik.”

      Sam got into his coat and the moccasins which Jacob had given him months ago. He and his friend put on their snowshoes and moved into the pine trees behind the house. As they went forward, their tracks disappeared in the swirling snow.

TEN

      Anna sat at the pine table in her bedchamber rereading the letter she had written to Ottilie von Goethe. Perhaps it was the type of letter that Mrs. Hawkins would label “Written by Lady Snob”, but Anna thought it was clever, exactly the sort of thing her friend would enjoy. After all, Ottilie, in her free-spirited way, was always on the search for a new man in her life.

       Dearest Ottilie:

       Are you growing weary of your lover, le beau Charles? Do you yearn for a new objet d’amour? Come here, my dear, and I will present you with an Indian chief.

       He will be tall and muscular, and you will grow accustomed to the stink of his sweat and the filth of his deerskin leggings. He will be a man of few words, and those he speaks, you will not understand. So you will not have to converse with him, nor will there be tiresome preliminaries to your love-making. He will simply throw you over his broad shoulders and carry you off to his wigwam deep in the pine forest. On a comfortable mat of boughs and branches, he will make you his very own... squaw.

       There will be household tasks you must learn, of course, but these will be easy. You must skin a bear or two to make a warm covering for the nuptial mat. You must snare a rabbit, skin and gut it, and boil it over your campfire into a tasty stew. He may need a gallon of cheap whiskey each day, but that you can bargain for from a greasy trader.

       When your handsome chief tires of you, or you of him, there will be no lingering heartache. He will strike off your head with his tomahawk. Or you may do likewise. White man’s courts will pay no heed. Indians have their own marital customs and their own solutions for dissension.

       When I contemplate my marriage to Mr. Jameson, I may envy you. We have our meals on a table, but I hear only the clink of the stopper on the wine decanter and the rustle of his newspaper. Sometimes I long for a bear to skin. Or a tomahawk to wield.

       I have asked the Superintendent of Indian Affairs—a rather good-looking white man—to bring some of his Chippewa charges to meet me. So far he has not complied, but if he does, I shall pick the perfect specimen for you. In the summer I travel into the Canadian wilderness, where I shall find out more, and pass on my wisdom to you.

       From your loving friend cum marriage broker,

       Anna

      She gave the letter to Hawkins to post. Somewhat to her surprise, she had discovered on one of her walks about town that there was a post office. She had heard so much from her European friends about the backwardness of Canada. This office was in fact an imposing three-storey red brick structure in the Georgian style. Hawkins told her that the postmaster had to pay for staff, fuel and candles from his own pocket, and she suspected that he rolled some of the letters he received into spills to light his hearth fires. Who could blame him? Few of the populace could afford to pay the postage on the letters addressed to them, and there were piles of unclaimed correspondence. She had seen how one old man abused the system. He claimed he could not read, had asked the postmaster to read the letter to him, then said, “Don’t know none of the folk mentioned. Won’t pay for nothing that’s not mine.”

      She sat down then to do the translations of the German essays she had brought with her. She had just finished the second essay and started on the third when Mrs. Hawkins interrupted.

      “Come quick, ma’am, there be people here to see you.”

      She thought immediately of another dreary encounter with Mrs. Powell and her daughter Eliza. She was in Toronto to promote Robert’s social reputation, true, and she should probably be pleasant to them, but enough was enough. “Can you invent a plausible excuse, Mrs. Hawkins? I have three hours of study before me as you can see.” She gestured at the books on the table.

      “But I think you be interested in these people, ma’am, if I may say so.”

      “Not Mrs. Powell then? Nor yet Mrs. Robinson or Mrs. Widmer?”

      Mrs. Hawkins laughed. “No indeed, ma’am. Mrs. Powell and them would have nought to do with these ones. Three of them, anyways. Three be savages and one be Mr. Jarvis, the Indian keeper.” Mrs. Hawkins’s cheeks were flushed with excitement. She flapped the skirt of her apron. “Oh, ma’am, to think of real savages in our new-papered drawing room. Do they sit upon chairs, ma’am?”

      “Let them decide. I shall be there directly. And please get a meal ready for them. Anything you can come up with in a hurry.”

      As soon as the door closed, Anna ran to her bureau, pulled open the top drawer, and found exactly what she was looking for, a bag of blue wampum. She hooked it onto the belt of her skirt.

      In the entrance to the drawing room, Mr. Jarvis stood, ready to make the introductions. The Indians were in file behind him.

      “May I present Chief Snake, ma’am?” he said, and gestured to a tall man in a red blanket coat and leggings. Fastened to the Indian’s grey braids was a long black plume which dangled behind one ear. The Chief bowed.

      “And Jacob Snake, his son.” This was a younger man in a tri-coloured blanket coat with a pretty beaded pouch that hung around his neck. His cheeks were daubed with black paint.

      “And Elijah White Deer.” Elijah smiled and pointed at the bag fastened to Anna’s belt. He said something in his native language.

      “The Chief and Elijah don’t speak English, and I, alas, speak no Chippewa. Jacob will translate,” Mr. Jarvis said.

      “Elijah pays you a compliment, ma’am. He says he likes the wampum bag which you wear on your belt.”

      “Please tell him, ‘thank you’. The wife of the New York Governor gave it to me while I was in New York City on my way here. And please say that I too am impressed by the strings of blue wampum on Chief Snake’s neck. And that in a minute or two, my housekeeper will serve breakfast.”

      All this was translated; everyone smiled and bowed. Anna noticed that Mr. Jarvis seemed especially pleased with her offer of breakfast. Then they moved into the drawing room where the Indians went directly to the fireplace. Elijah took the bellows and pumped up the fire to rich red flames. There the three men stood, backs to the burning logs, obviously enjoying the warmth.

      Anna exchanged a few inanities about the weather with Mr. Jarvis. The Indians made no attempt to talk, yet they seemed perfectly at ease.

      Mrs. СКАЧАТЬ