“There is no shame,” Hamilton said softly, “in proving the innocence of your countrymen. However much you might have believed it would turn out otherwise.”
Buchan stood and walked across to the fireplace. He lifted the snifter to his mouth and emptied it.
“Forgive me for so bold a question,” Hamilton said, “but is everything all right between you and Mrs. Buchan?”
He made a motion with the hand holding the glass.
“She seems delighted to have you back before the onset of winter.”
“She isn’t well, Governor. Has not been, as you know, for a number of years. And I’ll likely be gone again within a fortnight.” He paused. “I once promised her, as all husbands do, no doubt, that nothing would ever come between us. I have not always been as faithful to that promise as I might wish.”
“The life of a navy man, Captain Buchan. Unlike a governor, you cannot carry her to your every port of call.”
Buchan turned towards him. “May I have another glass of brandy?”
Hamilton motioned towards the decanter. “By all means.” When Buchan returned with a full glass he said, “Now what of our charge? This Indian woman?”
“Mary.”
“Quite, Mary, yes. You will be in charge of the expedition to take her up the River Exploits?”
Buchan nodded. “I’m not at all convinced it is something she wants, but I can think of no better course of action. I’ll have to return before the freeze-up, as early as mid-October depending on the weather. The Peytons have offered what assistance they can afford in terms of mounting the expedition and acting as guides and whatnot.”
“Good of them, I suppose, given the nature of recent interactions.”
Buchan nodded carefully. He stared into his brandy. “I tried to ascertain from Mary the state of the tribe at this time, an estimate of numbers, the general level of health among her people, locations of their camps, that sort of thing. The little she had to say was not encouraging. Only a fool would wager on there being a hundred left alive.”
“A hundred? In total?”
“I would guess that to be ridiculously optimistic.”
“Dear me,” Hamilton whispered.
The two men sat in silence a moment, listening to the steady tick of water dripping into the half-filled containers above them.
“I suppose it would now be safe,” Hamilton said, “to send a letter of appointment with you for young Mister Peyton to take up the duties of Justice of the Peace.”
Buchan got up from his seat and walked across to the decanter of brandy.
“I don’t remember you having such a fondness for drink, David.”
There was a barely discernible note of reproach in Hamilton’s voice that Buchan would have ignored if he’d registered it. “In my time on the northeast shore,” he said, “I seem to have acquired a taste for it.”
The HMS Grasshopper arrived back in Ship Cove on October 18 and Buchan immediately set about preparing the vessel for wintering over in the Bay of Exploits. The sails were dried and taken in and then folded and stored below. Chains fastened the ship securely to the shore. Marines were sent into the woods to cut trees for lumber and for fuel.
News of his arrival meandered among the residents of the islands and bays, although he made no effort to visit anyone outside Ship Cove. The few people who travelled in to call on him found a man less gregarious and energetic than they remembered him being only weeks previously, though he was as professional and courteous as ever. He attended his duties and supervised those of others with a meticulous and curiously distant attention to detail. He spent each evening alone in his cabin without company. In mid-November he sent Corporal Rowsell to the Peytons’ winter home to request they send Mary down to the Grasshopper in preparation for the trek inland to the lake.
After the exertions of travelling along the coast in the last weeks of August, Mary had enjoyed a brief period of relatively good health on Burnt Island. But by the time the move had been made to the winter house her illness worsened to the point that she spent most of each day in her bed and could not make her way to the outdoor privy or even use her chamber pot without assistance. Cassie fed her weak broths and tea and sat at her bedside when her work allowed it, as she’d sat for months beside her dying mother, a book open in her lap.
When the order from Buchan arrived, Cassie argued with Corporal Rowsell and with John Senior about the wisdom or necessity of moving the sick woman to Ship Cove while she was in such a condition. “She’ll not be making a trip up any river,” she said.