Changing Time: A Tale of 19th Century Progress

By Gale Forbes

In 1890, progress overruns Quinn’s remote fishing village on Passamaquoddy Bay. With the railroad and industrialization devastating his livelihood as a longline fisherman, Quinn struggles amidst changing times. After the tragic death of his father and a failed marriage, Quinn loses hope of having a family.

Seeking solace in a hotel lounge, Quinn notices a striking Passamaquoddy woman. When their eyes meet, she seems to recognize him before hurrying off. Desperate for income, Quinn starts smuggling exports to Eastport, Maine where he serendipitously encounters the woman from the hotel.

Kindred spirits, Quinn and Mika find themselves jobless and with no prospects. Just when their situation seems hopeless, an unexpected opportunity arises when Quinn’s mother develops a relationship with a retired gentleman of means. Deciding to leave their struggles behind, Quinn and Mika take a chance on a new life in the wilds of Florida. Upon arriving in Tampa, their timing coincides fortuitously with the grand opening of the opulent Tampa Bay Hotel. A bold proposal from entrepreneur Henry Plant soon has Quinn and Mika poised to embark on an adventure too good to pass up.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Jun 21, 2024
• ISBN: 9798889104544

Gale Forbes

The author is a graduate of the University of Michigan School of Architecture. For better than forty years, he designed buildings, compiled specifications, prepared expert opinion reports for circuit and Federal courts, and wrote short stories. The short fiction, according to Mr. Forbes, were to scratch a persistent itch. He and his wife live in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. This is his second novel.

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1.

St. Andrews, NB, June 1890

Consciousness intruded on his sweet bastion of dreamless sleep. Reluctantly, Quinn stirred and opened an eye, then rolled on his back, hands behind his head. What time was it? No sense getting up early; little sense in even getting out of bed anymore with the way things had been going. He considered the darkness, the vague outline of the crown molding, the spiral medallion on the ceiling.

Misfortune surrounded him: Father dying, wife deserting him, customers disappearing. And just the other night at the pub, he heard the smokehouse brothers were packing it in. It seemed everything came to St. Andrews on the bloody train now.

And Mom? What in the world was going on with—

Two sharp raps on the door interrupted his thought; a voice in the hall called, 3:30.

Grand, he yelled to the door knocker. Throwing back the covers, he padded to the window to assess the weather. A three-quarter moon glowed weakly through a veil of fog, misty halos crowned street lamps, the harbor calm under a hazy Pendlebury Light. The day portended easy fishing. He lit a lamp; time to get at it.

After fumbling for an undershirt and drawers in the chiffonier, he remembered he had spread into her space. Once Ina left, he had the dresser, chiffonier, and armoire all to himself. He grunted. That’s what she left him with: Empty drawers and two rooms at the Argyll Hotel he didn’t need or want. He sighed and went to the armoire for his trousers.

The mirror over the dresser reflected a man of average build and height but with a flat belly and strong shoulders from hauling the longline. He leaned in close and ran a hand through his beard. Ready for a trim? He plucked a gray hair. Things were bad enough with business going on the rocks, but then Ina running away made life even more difficult.

He didn’t fancy himself a loser, that he was somehow an impossible husband with irredeemable character flaws. He had to get over that woman; she was gone and warm weather was eminent—at least as warm as summer ever got in St. Andrews. He pulled a shirt from the dresser and with his toilet kit in hand, started down the hall for the men’s loo.

At a small table in a mostly empty dining room, Quinn sat by himself feeling glum that the New Brunswick Reporter hadn’t come yet. The room did nothing to help his funk: A sea of empty tables covered in white and set with crystal and china; windows draped with copious folds of thick tapestry; massive, white-painted beams and ceiling moldings above hovered between dark papered walls. A thick burgundy carpet hushed the room to oppressive silence.

Two men in navy uniforms were eating at a nearby table. Caps hanging on the chair between them suggested they were officers. Europeans, apparently, judging by the accents. No doubt they were from the ship moored at the deep dock. He stared at the pair, resentment rising. Yet it wasn’t their fault, that after almost eighty years, the Aine Cod Company was floundering. The damn politicians in Ottawa were at fault and their bloody railroad—they ruined St. Andrews.

His father, Cillian, was twelve when Grampa Domhnaill brought the family over from Ireland. Quinn remembered the stories grampa told when they arrived. In the winter, men worked the forests cutting virgin timber and floating giant rafts of pine down the St. Croix River to Milltown. And when the seasons changed, the same men launched boats to fish cod and pollock and harvest crab and lobster. St. Andrews used to be a pleasant, self-sufficient enclave until the cursed Americans arrived.

The mayor called it progress. Certainly, the telephone in the Western Union office was a good idea, but other than that, the new market was twice the size of O’Neill’s General Store and carried imported fish eggs and calves’ liver. The Argyll and the new Algonquin Hotel served roast duck and lobster Newberg and capon and ox tongue. The shops and boutiques on Water Street featured fancy European fashions, Dutch bonbons and chocolate-dusted truffles. Everything was made possible by the blasted railroad.

Yet, the mayor gave not a mention to the businesses that the railroad ran out of town: His customers, Hart’s fish warehouse, the two fish brokers, the fishmonger, and now the smokehouse brothers. Was he next?

He turned from the two navy officers and opened a gravy-stained copy of yesterday’s Reporter. The paper was filled with the usual blather: The border controversy; rampant smuggling; American complaints about lost tariffs; talk of more government patrolling. He rolled his eyes. The border was only a concept; why were people so excited about an imaginary line?

Sure, bureaucratic types arrived every so often to enforce what they called the law. But they had no idea which island was which, and besides, no one gave a fig. He would have wagered a pint that there wasn’t a news hawk in either country who knew where New Brunswick was, let alone St. Andrews. A waiter set a plate of ham and eggs on the table and a lunch box alongside.

Pushing toast into his eggs, he chewed disinterestedly. Life was hollow, forlorn, like his rooms upstairs. Maybe he should move back home. Just Mom in the house now—other than that bloke from the hospital she’s caring for. Moving back home would be far more convenient than traipsing out to Joe’s Point Road to keep up with house chores.

Splitting wood and fixing leaks were the least of it. The house was a handful; Da said it came to St. Andrews on a barge just after the Revolutionary War. But if he did move back home, he’d have to put up with Mom’s pestering him about family. That’s what got him in trouble in the first place.

He needed to forget moving back home; the Argyll was affordable. Still, his rooms held nothing but bad memories. Time he changed his attitude, forgot Ina, and hustled up some new customers.

Out the front door and down the porch steps with his bowler pulled low, he went into the dank morning, hands stuffed in pockets, lunchbox wedged under his arm. The thermometer on the porch showed almost forty degrees, but his hands were already tingling. His fingers started going numb when he crewed for his father.

Pain and swelling got worse, so he went to the docs at Marine Hospital over on Parr Street. They said he had a syndrome—Raynaud’s or something like that. Cold made his hands ache so badly they became virtually unusable. Worse was the pain when his fingers warmed up and began throbbing.

He strode past dark gabled buildings bordering Water Street, storefronts precisely aligned as if for a military inspection. Here and there a curtain glowed in a second-floor window; gauzy halos veiled street lamps, and an odor of flotsam and manure hung in the mist. He stopped in the window glow from the Western Union office and checked his watch. Getting back to the Argyll and cleaned up then over to Mom’s for supper shouldn’t be a problem. Light air portended an easy day.

The immediate problem was what to do with the catch. All his customers in St. Andrews had gone bust or moved on, and the nearest fish broker was in St. John, some fifty miles up the Bay of Fundy. But he did have a lead on a broker in Eastport, Maine. The tip came through his crew, Hanri Moquet. His father, Jean, who owned the trading post, heard there was a fish broker on a trawler anchored off the Eastport customs dock. He should look for the Star of Boothbay.

Quinn cut across Water Street to Princess Royal and into the mist patch enveloping Jones’ Wharf; wet timbers muffled the sound of his boots. Empty sheds and blank widows lined the wharf like tombstones heralding a bygone time. Gone, along with the wharf’s owner, Abner Jones, were the long liners and crabbers, the lobstermen, the ice house, and even the fishmonger’s grungy oyster bar. Only the odor of an ancient sea remained.

At the dock ladder, with his arm resting on a piling, he admired the bedimmed lines of the Aine. A replica of a traditional Dutch sailing dogger, the fifty-three-footer had a graceful sheer, a generous foredeck, and a cozy wheelhouse aft the beam. The ship’s papers revealed the boat was sailed from Ulster to the New World by three families at the height of the Irish famine.

The yacht had fallen on hard times under three previous owners and was up on chocks in a St. John boatyard when his father and Grampa Domhnaill came across it. The spar, rigging, sails, and aft-deck awning were gone, along with the forward berths. The forepeak had been converted to a cargo hold and a cylindrical winch drum had been ruthlessly cut into the mahogany rail on the starboard side.

Cillian fell in love with the boat despite the grayed and peeling bright work, a well-dinged hull, and a cabin and accommodations in utter disrepair. Nevertheless, Grampa Domhnaill delighted his son by purchasing the craft and thereby committed to a restoration project that his grandson had yet to finish.

In the wheelhouse, he dropped his lunch and bowler on the chart table opposite the helm then continued down the companionway to the salon. Lamps lit, he went back up to the helm and put kindling and paraffin in the boiler firebox. Water level in the boiler sight glass checked, he carefully ladled coal from the locker bin to the firebox, and gave the safety valve two quick raps, then rattled the gear levers.

Behind him, a thump on deck was followed moments later by the slurp-slurp of the bilge pump. Ahanu Wauneka had arrived, the pleasant young man Hanri recruited for crew after his father was killed. He pulled his slicker from the hanging locker and glanced at the galley stove—crusty. Only used for coffee, but it was caked with grit as if its last cleaning was in another age. He put on his bowler, and, with his lunch box in the galley locker, went to light the running lamps.

Hanri was yet to arrive, and if he didn’t show soon, they’d have to take the long way around Navy Island. The harbor, as well as the Navy Island Channel, virtually went dry at low tide. Hanri was usually as dependable as sunrise, but his propensity for arriving at the last minute always had him on edge. Squinting into the mist, he was rewarded by the sight of someone running down the wharf, and just before the figure leaped to the deck, he saw it was Hanri.

Hanri stashed his duffel in a cockpit locker and gave Ahanu’s shoulder a playful punch. "Ahanu, mon ami, you start on the hooks. I’ll get the dock lines." The fish hooks, barbed and ugly, were attached at the end of eight-foot long wire snoods and were set in hook racks to avoid tangling.

A screech from the boiler safety valve echoed from the wheelhouse. Sounds like we’re ready. Quinn went to the helm and after checking the steam gauge, gave the cabin port three sharp raps for Hanri to free the dock lines. Clunking the shift lever in gear, he opened the manifold and the Aine shuddered into the mist in a boil of foam and seadrift.

Chugga-thumping south through the Navy Island Channel, the neutered sloop headed south for the Deer Island Passage some seven miles distant. Once free of the current in the Lubac Narrows, he planned on setting the longline off Grand Manan Island. Steering with a knee and hands tucked under his armpits, he wondered, as he often did, where he’d be if his father were still alive.

The accident, less than a year ago, was still fresh in his mind. The decision to go out that day was not his call, yet it was a horrible misjudgment. Early November, the glass falling, his father, as everyone did, knew a blow was on the way. The morning though, was clear and calm, so Da decided to go; but just to be safe, fish the lee shore of Ministers Island.

When the sky darkened, his father called it quits. By the time it took to set up the winch and retrieve the longline, the wind was howling from the northeast. His father brought the Aine around into the wind and snubbed the helm.

Bucking and heaving through rollers added considerably to the load on the longline, and he and his father took turns on the winch. Da was at the rail gaffing cod when the winch brake failed; the longline whipped from the drum flailing snoods and hooks. A hook snagged Da by the leg and took him over the side quick as a wink. Quinn screamed Man Overboard! and grabbed the nearest float then threw it after his father.

He bolted for the helm yelling at Hanri not to lose sight of Da. Lunging into the wheelhouse as the boat crested off a roller, he spun the wheel hard-over. The Aine dived about; another roller pitched her over and she plummeted down the crest on her beam. He was thrown from the helm to the chart table; water cascaded down the companionway and into the salon. The Aine thrashed wildly, trying to stagger upright, the roar of green water deafening.

A third roller caught the boat broadside; pots and pans flew from the galley; seat cushions sailed across the salon. Hanri washed along the rail to the afterdeck, arms flailing for a handhold.

But the old yacht refused to turn turtle and struggled upright shedding water. Quinn pulled the helm amidships; the stern shot skyward, and the Aine surfed recklessly down the breaker, water boiling at the gunnels. Back and forth, back and forth, he and Hanri strained into blowing spume. Where was the float; where was anything?

As he feared, the search was fruitless. He should have known better; Da always said come about on a crest, never in a trough. If he had done what he’d been taught, they might have found him. His dream of moving somewhere warm ended that day.

He could still move; his mother had the house and the insurance money. But then she would be all alone in St. Andrews—except for that Elias guy. He was reason enough to stay put.

Quinn had envisioned himself moving somewhere warm; thought he’d wind up fishing for another skipper. He had plenty of experience; been on the Aine since he was ten. Educated too. In fact, he graduated from the first school in New Brunswick to teach manual training. But he was a fisherman like Domhnaills before him.

He knew about cod and pollock and handling a boat, and could navigate every twisted passage in the thickest soup by the sound of the surf and the taste of the fog. But his damn hands, they were worthless when it was cold, and St. Andrews was never warm.

He sighed and squinted between drips of water running down the port. There they were up forward, his crew, Hanri and Ahanu, two lumps in yellow slickers huddled atop the overturned dingy, listening for what might be out there. Thirty minutes to Deer Island; he settled back at the helm.

Depression weighed on him. Ina, the Argyll, and now business. He had to get out of the Argyll just for his own sanity. The lease was up when the hotel closed for the season in September, so he could go back home or move over to Kennedy’s Hotel. Kennedy’s was more his style, not so overbearing and pretentious with stuffy waiters and rich food. Yes, Kennedy’s was a possibility.

Taking rooms at the at the Argyll wasn’t smart thinking. Had he even been thinking, he never would have gotten married in the in the first place. But his father going so suddenly like that left both him and Mom adrift in a sea of uncertainty. Da’s death reignited her fear about him not having a woman; she feared old age absent the comfort of a daughter-in-law and grandchildren.

Along with nudging him to start a family, Mom devoted a bit of the insurance money to a regular hairdresser and joined a book club then started volunteering at Marine Hospital. The book club, he suspected, was to let the ladies know that she had an eligible bachelor at home. Her efforts, though, were of no avail.

Quinny, she nagged, you’ve gone out with every available girl in St. Andrews and you’re still single. I’ll be a hunchbacked old crone before I see grandchildren at this rate. But she did have a suggestion. Why don’t you do what Grady O’Neill from the general store did?

It was no secret that Grady brought his wife, Marie, over from the old country. Write your cousin in Galway and ask him if he knows of a healthy young woman for you. It’s time you started a family—neither one of us is getting any younger, you know.

He was aware of his age. The fact that he was the only one of his mates who didn’t have a family or a woman had been on his mind; then his father’s accident happened and for a while he was just…just…overwhelmed.

The prospect of an Irish bride stirred his curiosity. He did remember his cousin, Shane, from when his family visited some years ago. Shane had a way with women; always seemed to have some cute girl hanging on his arm. Those were great times and just writing a letter wasn’t any kind of commitment. So he did, and enclosed the photograph taken the previous year when he used to usher at church.

Shane wrote back that he knew of the perfect woman: Ina O’Connor. Ina was a respectable lass from a good family and had good teeth along with an adventuresome disposition. The picture enclosed with the letter was of a young woman with her hair pulled to a tight bun and wearing a high-neck lace collar. What appeared to be a small crucifix hung at her neck.

Her expression belied the cross, however. She gazed invitingly at the camera, one eyebrow slightly raised in suggestion. He was immediately intrigued.

After exchanging many letters with Ina followed by a lengthy negotiation via cable with the solicitor for her parents, he vowed to provide care, shelter and honor Ina O’Conner and returned a signed agreement along with a draft for travel expenses. Choosing quarters in the woman’s stateroom on the second deck was an attempt to show compassion as well as a generous nature. He had heard too many horror stories from people who came over on the tween deck.

He was painting his room in expectation of Ina’s arrival when his mother asked him to paint the spare room too. She had arranged to take in a gentleman from the hospital. An Elias Stoddard, an elderly bloke on her floor who was ready for discharge but not yet ambulatory. Being a widower with no place to go, his mother took it upon herself to care for Mr. Stoddard until he was back on his feet.

It’s a business venture, she said. Don’t be so amazed. The gentleman was looking for a place to stay, and I thought I’d make a few dollars for myself. She predicted her ward would be gone well before Ina arrived. He’ll just be here until he can get around without help.

Elias Stoddard arrived at the end of the week. Quinn rented a wagon from Mallory’s and moved his things over from the Algonquin. The man did not travel light; getting his trunk up the stairs was struggle enough, plus he had two leather suitcases and a canvas backpack.

His mother put Mr. Stoddard in the room next to his, and outfitted it with a bed, a pair of white-covered end tables and a small dresser. His trunk and bags were stacked neatly behind a rattan screen.

Elias, as Mr. Stoddard insisted on being called, was an affable chap. He was a small man with an outsized personality and two cracked ribs and a badly bruised hip. He was an avid listener, and demonstrated a surprising knowledge of fish and fishing.

The telegram announcing Ina’s arrival came just before St. Valentine’s Day, the same day Elias progressed to crutches. The immigration station on Hospital Island had declared Ina healthy and free of typhoid and cleared to enter Canada. His mother had made arrangements with Father O’Malley at St. Andrews Catholic for Ina to stay in the rectory until the wedding. And to further circumvent any illusion of impropriety, she went with her son to pick Ina up at the ferry landing.

Ina came down the launch gangway not at all hesitant or wary. She stopped at the bottom of the gangway, eyes darting over a boisterous crowd. He waved an arm. Ina. Ina, over here! Hair showing from her bonnet was auburn; she appeared older than in the photograph.

His mother spread her arms in welcome; Ina hesitated and offered a wan smile. She quickly brushed cheeks with Mom then turned wordlessly to him. She did have ardent lips and provocative face. She slowly surveyed him from boots to bowler.

You have blue eyes, she said. She nodded and stuck out her hand as if closing a business arrangement. Her photograph was definitely taken some years ago.

In the rectory, Ina conceded the two weeks on Hospital Island were far worse than the eleven-day crossing. She was grateful for the second class passage and said she would have died in the tween deck. At least, she suffered seasickness in a modicum of privacy.

But the island. It was horrible beyond belief. So many people with typhoid, the sick lying in wooded sheds waiting to die, stacks of coffins being moved to massive holes. When she said how happy she was to be in Canada, tears came to her eyes; Father O’Malley gave her a hug.

Afternoons were spent in the rectory listening to Father lecture on the sacred act of matrimony. He was a copious man with a flowing black cassock that amplified his considerable girth. Pince-nez glasses added to an air of deep piety; a shining bald pate rose through a halo of thin white hair.

Intimacy, Father counseled, exuding a profound understanding of Catholic dogma while carefully avoiding any knowledge of the physical act, was solely to beget children in the name of God. The Lord is honored by adherence to the Commandments and tithing to the church.

Ina was smart and quick, although her understanding of Catholicism was even less than his. She was more at ease with Father than he, and her laughing at his priestly humor was genuinely heartfelt. Her bosom was a distraction though; he could not help sneaking an admiring glance when she wasn’t looking.

The few minutes Father permitted them to be by themselves, he learned that Ina was one of seven children. The black sheep of the family, she proudly deemed herself. Shane she knew through the Galway Amateur Players. Your cousin is quite a rogue. A knowing grin showed. Players was fun, and the people were wonderful—especially Shane. But she wasn’t one to live at home, and Galway was so puritanical. Besides, there was no money in acting so I waitressed at a nearby pub.

What moved you to leave Galway? How old was she? Best not ask; wouldn’t make any difference anyway. But she was a good looking woman besides having a great deal of confidence. Certainly, it wasn’t my photograph.

Well. A coquettish sly smile, not unlike the photograph, appeared on her face. Your cousin said you were a responsible and pleasant man and a lot of fun to be with. Her voice dropped to a whisper. But really though, I was ready to leave. The Irish treat women like chattel. I was in a theater group, did a bit of acting and dancing, and my family and church and neighbors thought I was a scarlet woman.

She tossed her head as if it was Ireland’s loss. So, I thought, why not take a chance. If things don’t work out, at least I’m not in Galway. Your photograph didn’t hurt though.

I’m back, Father O’Malley boomed. So nice to see you two getting to know each other.

After the wedding, his mother hosted a small reception at the house. But much to her dismay and the veiled amusement of her ward, Mr. Stoddard, his mates, the smokehouse brothers, Cian and Kern McCarthy, Grady O’Neill from the general store, Hanri and Ahanu,