Last Summer in Louisbourg Page 2

  The Fortress of Louisbourg continues to train and employ workers in building skills once thought extinct, in craft industries, even in eighteenth-century tailoring and deportment. Soldiers and families in period dress renew the activities of Louisbourg’s people.”

  There was a different atmosphere on board the overnight train to the Maritimes, and Andrea saw no more of her former seat mate. Her ticket entitled her to a lower berth. A friendly porter explained how he would turn her seat into a bed while she was eating dinner. In the dining car another cordial man, who appeared to be in charge of things, ushered her to a table where three women were already seated.

  “Hello there,” one of them said, reaching for a dinner roll and a pat of butter. Andrea only nodded. She wasn’t interested in getting involved in another conversation with strangers. For quite a while she simply listened to them. They all knew one another, that was certain, and they were very chummy with two men sitting at the table across the aisle. All three women wore a lot of eye makeup and huge, dangling earrings.

  “They’re our brothers,” one of them remarked in an aside to Andrea as the conversation bounced back and forth between the two tables. “Bill and Gord.”

  “And we’re sisters,” added another one. So this was an entire family of brothers and sisters all going somewhere together. Andrea wondered where they were going, and finally got up her courage to ask.

  “Cornerbrook, Newfoundland,” they replied. “That’s where we belong, originally, but none of us lives there now. I live in Toronto. My sister here lives in Vancouver. This other one lives in Atlanta. Bill lives in Sudbury and Gord lives in Brantford.”

  “Is this a family reunion or something?”

  “No, dear, we’re going home to bury our father,” explained the lady from Atlanta solemnly.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” offered Andrea, feeling embarrassed.

  “Don’t you fret, girl,” said the Vancouver sister. “You couldn’t have known that. And where are you off to, all by yourself?”

  Andrea decided she could tell them where she was going. She also told them that she, too, came from Newfoundland, that her parents had brought her to Toronto as a small child but she had returned to visit Newfoundland several times.

  After that her companions treated her like one of their own, and the meal they had together became great fun. It wasn’t until the main course was being served that Andrea realized Gord was blind. His brother helped him out by reading the menu or placing his hand on his coffee cup or cutting his steak for him. Apart from that, Gord chatted and joked with his sisters and managed to eat his dinner without any problems.

  “And who is the young lady at the other table talking with my sisters?” Gord asked, picking up on the sound of Andrea’s voice.

  “My name is Andrea. Andrea Baxter,” she replied a little shyly, not knowing precisely how to handle this situation.

  “I hope you have a good journey, Andrea,” he said, looking in her direction but not seeing her. “And remember, us Newfs have to stick together!”

  When the meal ended, Andrea paid her bill and got up to return to her reserved seat. “Now, my dear, if you get lonesome, we’re going to have a little game of cards back there in the club car. You come and join us, why don’t you?” invited the sister who lived in Toronto.

  “Um…thanks a lot, but I really ought to go to bed. I have a lower berth,” Andrea explained, then wondered if she should have mentioned where she was going to sleep. Who were you supposed to trust? These people were so nice…but…

  “Well, girl, if you change your mind…”

  “Thank you.”

  Andrea returned to her place in car number 1603 to find the double seat had been transformed into a bed totally enclosed by heavy, dark green curtains. Inside, it was as private as a tree-house and as dark as a coalmine. Andrea located the switch and turned on the light. The porter had lowered the window blind, but, after putting on her pyjamas, she raised it, then switched out the light. For a long time she stared out the window as the darkening countryside sped by. Here and there she could see lights from lonely looking farmhouses. Every so often the train whizzed through a small Quebec village or town. At highway crossings she could hear the muffled ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding of the warning signal. How many times had she been in her mother’s car when they had stopped at a level crossing to wait for a train to pass by? It was fascinating to be inside the train at night, in one’s own private space, looking out at the world. Andrea wasn’t the least bit sleepy. She decided to unpack her stereo. What better place and time to listen to her new tapes?

  The melancholy voice of her favourite singer seemed to suit the black landscape. For a long time the train travelled through a forest with no lights to be seen anywhere. After a while they passed into another farming region. Then Andrea began to see large buildings—warehouses and factories—and dimly lit streets and alleys with wires overhead. All the signs were in French. The train slowed and at ten o’clock squealed to a full stop.

  Beyond the railway tracks Andrea noticed a body of shimmering water. There, on the other side of the wide St. Lawrence River, stood an illuminated Quebec City. Windows in the tall buildings glittered against a navy blue sky. She could see the turreted roof of the Chateau Frontenac dominating the skyline of the lower town. It looked like a huge fairy castle from one of her childhood story books.

  She yanked off her stereo earpiece as she suddenly realized where she was. “That’s it! That’s where the battle took place, up there above the old city! I can see the Plains of Abraham where Wolfe and Montcalm fought!”

  It was an incredible moment—but there was no one with whom to share it. She felt sad and alone. She wished her best friend, Suzy, was with her. Or even her teacher, Mrs. Greenberg. For a moment she considered getting dressed and walking back to the mysterious club car, wherever that was, and joining the chummy family from Cornerbrook. She envied them, travelling together and having fun, even if they were going to a funeral. The trouble was she didn’t want to play cards. She wasn’t very good at it. If she interrupted their game to tell them she had just seen the Plains of Abraham, where the famous battle was fought, what would they say? “So what?” Would they laugh at her? They might even call her a smart ass.

  Ten minutes later there was a hissing sound, followed by a cloud of steam rising outside the window of her lower berth. As the train dragged its great weight into motion Andrea caught the name on the station: LÉVIS. She pressed her nose against the window and watched the enchanted city across the river disappear from view. She put her stereo away, pulled the crisp, white sheet and the beige wool blanket around her shoulders, and snuggled down. She had stopped feeling lonely. The rhythmic beat of the train wheels on the tracks lulled her to sleep. Tomorrow morning she would wake up somewhere else.

  Chapter Three

  “You must be Andrea Baxter,” declared the smiling young woman who approached her at the Sydney bus station. “You look just the way I pictured you from your letter. Isn’t that amazing? I’m Jackie Cormier. Welcome to Cape Breton!”

  Andrea managed a weak smile, more of relief than joy. She was enormously grateful that someone was actually here to meet her, as had been promised. For the final hour of the long bus trip from Truro she had worried about what she would do if no one showed up. What if she found herself all alone in Sydney, Nova Scotia, late at night in a place she had never been before? She was feeling disoriented under the glaring lights amid a crowd of strangers. It had been a long journey, twenty-five hours on the train and another five on the bus.

  Jackie helped Andrea carry her luggage out to the parking lot, where she stowed it in the back seat of her bright blue Pontiac Firefly. Andrea gradually began to relax. From the outset Jackie seemed like the sort of person you could trust, a down-to-earth woman who wore a sporty red raincoat and tiny gold earrings in her pierced ears. She was slender, and was the same height as Andrea, five feet five. Her hair was a nondescript shade of brown and had been cut dramatically short, a style that suited her heart-shaped face and her mirthful blue eyes.

  Fine, silvery rain began to fall as Jackie drove out of the city towards Louisbourg, half an hour away. She was a cheerful, talkative person and during the journey Andrea learned that Jackie was a public relations officer at the fortress. She worked there all year round. Apparently there was a lot of work to do, even when the place was closed to the public for the winter.

  Jackie had always lived in the present-day town of Louisbourg, which was near the fortress. She was twenty-six years old and married to Steve, a helicopter pilot, who was away in Labrador all summer. She was the mother of a little boy named Kenzie, who had just turned five.

  By the time they pulled up outside the Northeast Bed and Breakfast in Louisbourg, Andrea felt a lot more at ease. Jackie was going to be her supervisor for the next two and a half months and, barring some unforeseen quirk in Jackie’s personality, she was sure they would get along.

  Andrea got out of the car and stretched, then looked around at the town of Louisbourg—as much of it as she could see under the street lights. There was a gift shop across the street, a gas station next to that, and a motel farther along. None of it looked the least bit interesting.

  “I live around the corner,” said Jackie. “See that white house up the hill there? That’s mine,” she pointed.

  “So where’s the fortress?” Andrea asked.

  “Over there, beyond the town, way across the harbour,” Jackie gestured. “I’m sure you must be dying to see it, and you will—tomorrow. Right now you need to get settled in your new home and meet your roommate.”

  Andrea followed Jackie in the front door of the
Northeast Bed and Breakfast. It was a tall, frame house, painted dark green with white trim. It was very quiet inside, as if everyone had gone to bed.

  “This is my Aunt Roberta’s home. She’ll be asleep by now. She only rents out the two rooms—yours and one other, so even at the height of the tourist season there won’t be too much of a line-up for the bathroom,” Jackie explained as they climbed the creaky stairs. At the end of a dark hallway was a partly open door and a lighted room beyond. Jackie tapped and they walked in.

  “Justine, here’s your roommate, Andrea Baxter. Andrea, this is Justine Marchand,” Jackie introduced them.

  Justine was tall, with shoulder-length dark hair and dark brown eyes. She was dressed in pyjamas with a pattern of zebras all over them.

  “Oh, I am so glad you got here. I’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting!” she exclaimed with as much enthusiasm as if she’d been waiting for the Queen.

  “Have you been here a long time?” asked Andrea, tossing her duffle bag on the floor.

  “Ever since Sunday. But now I won’t have to sleep in this room all by myself. You want to know something? I’ve never slept in a room alone before, never ever, until I came here.”

  Andrea hardly knew how to reply. She had always had a room to herself. “You must have a sister,” she said.

  “I’ve got two sisters. And a brother. Sylvie is my twin sister. Then there’s my little sister, Holly. She’s only ten. My brother, Marc, is seventeen. Sylvie and I’ve always, always shared a room and for a long time Holly was in with us too, but then my dad built an upstairs on our house and Marc moved his room up there and Holly moved into Marc’s room. We have bunks, Sylvie and I,” Justine rambled on, apparently in an enormous hurry to tell Andrea all the details of her life.

  “So, does your twin sister look just like you?”

  “No way. We’re not identical. We’re fraternal twins. Sylvie is, oh, she has reddish sort of hair, only hers is really long.”

  “I’m letting mine grow,” said Andrea, trying to get a word in.

  “And she has greenish-grey eyes. And she’s not as tall as I am. And she’s fat. At least, I tell her she’s fat. I bet she weighs eight or nine pounds more than I do,” continued Justine with a grin. “I’ll guarantee she doesn’t like it when you call her fat! She gets so mad. She throws pillows at me sometimes. Mom gets mad at both of us when the feathers fly around. What about you, Andrea? How many brothers and sisters have you got?”

  “None. I’m an only child,” Andrea admitted defensively. She often wished she did have a sister or a brother.

  “Oh,” was Justine’s only comment.

  “I am an only child too, Andrea. I know what it’s like,” said Jackie kindly.

  “I’ve got some cousins, in Newfoundland,” Andrea said, trying to make her family situation sound less bleak. “I go there to visit them. Quite often.”

  “I’ve got a lot of cousins too. Really a lot. They’re nearly all in Cape Breton, except for four who moved to Alberta.”

  “Now then,” Jackie interrupted firmly. “I’m sure you two have a lot to talk about, but it’s very late. There’s going to be plenty of time to get acquainted tomorrow. You’ll need your sleep. We get up early around here, don’t we, Justine?”

  “Tell me about it,” groaned Justine, climbing into her bed. There were twin beds and both had quilts. Justine had a green one with a design of interlocking circles. Andrea’s bed had a yellow one with a design of tulips and leaves.

  When the lights were out and the girls were supposed to be asleep, Justine leaned over and whispered, “Andrea, are you awake?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know what we could do tomorrow?”

  “What?”

  “We can go down the road and get some pop and chips. I know a place. We can walk there. It only takes about five minutes. Wanna go?”

  “I guess so,” replied Andrea cautiously. “But I want to see the fortress tomorrow.”

  “Oh, did you never see it?”

  “How could I? I’ve never been here before.”

  “Well, I saw it plenty of times. Even before I came to work here.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “River Bourgeois.”

  Andrea had never heard of the place, but she didn’t want to sound stupid by asking too many questions. “I’m from Toronto—well, close to Toronto—and that’s a long way from here.”

  “Don’t worry. You’ll see the fortress all right. You’ll get sick of it before you know it. What I meant was we could go for some pop and stuff after we get off work, around five, okay?”

  “Sure. Sounds neat,” replied Andrea.

  “Okay. G’night,” said ]ustine.

  Andrea was exhausted, but she had trouble falling asleep right away. So much had happened in a short time. Here she was in a strange room in an unfamiliar town with this bubbly roommate who was apparently more interested in going somewhere for a snack than she was in the Fortress of Louisbourg. Andrea hoped they would get along, but at that moment she wasn’t exactly sure.

  Chapter Four

  Justine turned out to be one of those people who could bounce out of bed in the morning with the energy of a wind-up toy. Andrea wasn’t like that. She usually woke sluggishly, wishing she could sleep for another hour. Today she was glad her roommate was so alert. Andrea had a hundred questions. Where did they get their breakfast? How would they find their way to the fortress? She didn’t even know what time they were supposed to start work.

  They dressed, then Andrea followed Justine down the stairs to the dining room, where the ingredients for breakfast were spread out on a large table. There was no one else in the room. A few minutes later Roberta MacNeil cautiously opened the kitchen door and peered in. She had frizzy grey hair and wore a flowery apron around her ample waist.

  “Good morning,” said Andrea, her mouth full of toast.

  “So you’re the new girl, are you?”

  “Yes, I am,” Andrea answered, thinking that was a pretty dumb question. What would Mrs. MacNeil have done if she had replied that she’d been here for weeks?

  Mrs. MacNeil had nothing else to say. She returned to the kitchen, leaving the girls by themselves.

  “Never mind her,” whispered Justine. “She keeps to herself a lot.”

  Maybe just as well, thought Andrea.

  After breakfast they headed towards the fortress on foot. “You can’t possibly get lost in Louisbourg,” Justine reassured her. “There’s only the main street and then it becomes the highway and then it ends at the fortress.”

  “How far is it?” Andrea wanted to know. She couldn’t see any trace of the place. By then they had reached the edge of the town and there were no more houses or stores. The road ahead led through a forest of stunted spruce trees.

  “Couple of miles. Couple of kilometres maybe. I don’t know. I never have to walk the whole way. Somebody always picks me up,” Justine explained nonchalantly.

  Andrea shot a sideways glance at Justine. A pick-up? Her mother had always told her never to get into a car with strangers. Never, ever. Not that she needed her mother to remind her. There were enough scary stories in the news to warn her of the dire consequences.

  Less than a minute later a grey truck, driven by a middle-aged man, pulled up and stopped beside them. Justine greeted the man by name and climbed in, followed by a reluctant Andrea. After a few words with the driver about someone they both knew Justine, said, “Joe, this is Andrea who’s starting work today.”

  “Hello there,” Joe greeted her warmly. Andrea responded with an uncertain “Hi,” wondering who Joe was. Their journey didn’t last long. The road ended in a huge car park. There were only a few cars in it at this time of the morning. They got out and walked towards a modern building with huge glass doors and a sign that said VISITOR RECEPTION CENTRE.