Emily's Dream (2 page)

On Monday morning, Emily and Dick walked to school with their sisters, Alice and Lizzie.

Dick, who was named after their father Richard Carr, was twelve, three years younger than Emily. Alice and Lizzie were two and four years older. Lizzie was already finished school, but she often walked with the others, then continued on to visit missionary friends, or their older sister Tallie, who lived in town. Between Lizzie and Emily's two older sisters, Tallie and Dede, there was a big gap in their family where two brothers had died as infants.

Tallie had left home to marry a naval officer and had children of her own now. Dede, the eldest, was fifteen years older than Emily. She had not married but instead focused her life on taking care of her family and doing Christian work. Both Dede and Tallie were proud to tell people they had lived in England before their parents moved to the colony town of Victoria.

As Emily and her brother and sisters left their house behind and headed down Carr Street toward the school, Emily and Dick slowed to let Alice and Lizzie get ahead of them. Emily noticed that Dick seemed withdrawn and pale. Ever since he was a baby, he had often been sick and tended to tire easily. He was generally a quiet boy, but there was a hidden spark in him that Emily enjoyed fanning to life. He could use some brightening up now, she thought, looking at him sideways.

Impulsively, she jumped off the wooden sidewalk onto the road and sprang back again. She knew she was being silly, but sometimes silly was the best thing. She
bounced back and forth from sidewalk to road until Dick began to laugh, and she was out of breath.

“Emily!”

Up ahead, Lizzie and Alice had stopped and turned back. Lizzie scowled, her hands on her hips. Alice looked worried.

“Why can't you behave more like a lady–or at least act your age?” Lizzie said. “You are going to be dirty before you get to school.”

“You're going to fall and hurt yourself,” Alice warned.

“You are going to make us all late,” Lizzie added.

Emily rolled her eyes at Dick.

“Yes, yes,” she called to Lizzie and Alice. “We're coming, mother hens.”

“Come on,” she said to Dick, and she began to cluck and flap her elbows as she hurried forward. Dick hesitated for a moment, then he flapped after her, trying to keep his flaps a little more dignified.

Alice laughed as Emily and Dick caught up to her, but Lizzie turned her back on them and marched forward. Emily marched
like a soldier, swinging her arms and lifting her knees high. Dick grinned and swung his arms along with her.

“Oh don't, you two,” Alice whispered.

Lizzie's head snapped around, and Emily and Dick quickly slowed to a regular walk.

Emily glanced at Dick. His cheeks were pink again, and his eyes were twinkling. Emily felt better.

Once she was stuck in the school classroom, Emily's mood drooped. It was hard to pay attention to the dull lessons. Her eyes kept drifting to the windows. She could see trees outside and glimpse the road. A delivery boy rode by on a brown horse, balancing a basket on one hip. She watched him pass, envious. She would much rather be sitting on a horse than sitting at a desk. How wonderful it would be to throw her leg across a horse and shout “Giddyup!” as she often saw the butcher and the baker delivery boys do.

Emily remembered how she'd once dreamed of being a circus horse rider. She pictured herself in a fancy costume standing
on the back of a white horse, her arms raised, people cheering.

Bang
! The teacher's ruler slammed down on the desk top in front of Emily. Emily jumped.

“Miss Carr,” the teacher said with exaggerated politeness. “I do wish you would give me the courtesy of your attention.”

“Yes, sir,” Emily said, sitting up straight and meeting the teacher's eyes in what she hoped was a contrite and polite way. Inside, her heart was thumping from the scare. She wished she were a good student like Alice and Dick. They always got good marks and never got in trouble for daydreaming. She could hardly wait until art class at the end of the week. At least then she would have no trouble paying attention.

“Now, let us see whether you can do the following sum,” the teacher said as he walked back to the front of the class.

Emily sighed. She picked up a stick of chalk and prepared to copy numbers onto the slate board in front of her.

 3 
Art Class

After school on Friday, Emily walked on her own to the home of the art teacher, Miss Withrow.

Lizzie and Alice used to go to art lessons with her, but they did not have the interest in art that Emily did. They felt they had gone to lessons long enough.

“Once you have a husband and family to look after, you will have no time for art,” Alice often reminded Emily.

Alice had been happy to take on more household duties since the death of their parents. She was always bustling around the house cooking or cleaning. Lizzie, on the other hand, always had her nose inside a
Bible when she was not scowling over chores or helping with church meetings. She was already congratulating herself on the missionary work she planned to do. Dabbling in art was a childhood trifle she thought best left behind.

For Emily, art was something else altogether. It was a physical thing that gripped her and would not let go. She could not stop herself from drawing just as she could not stop herself from breathing. It was part of her.

At Miss Withrow's, the art students sat at a long table laid out with paper, pencils and sticks of charcoal. Miss Withrow stood in front of them dressed like a schoolteacher with a white apron over her plain dark blue dress. Her brown mousy hair was pulled back from her face and sat at the back of her head in a neat fashionable bun. She handed each student a photograph over which she'd carefully stitched tiny squares.

“I want you to measure out the same number of squares on your large paper,” she instructed the students. “You will then
copy what you see in each small square on to your own corresponding large square.”

Emily dove into the activity with enthusiasm, amazed as the small face in her photograph began to appear enlarged on her paper as she filled in the squares with detail. She glanced over at Sophie Pemberton, an older girl who sat across from her. Sophie leaned over her own paper, face intent. Like Emily, she too had a serious interest in art and a definite talent. Emily would have liked to talk with her about it, but Sophie seemed so much older and surer of herself. She was tall, slim and elegant, her glossy chestnut hair already pinned up into a mature style. Next to her, Emily felt clumsy and childish. Her own dark brown hair refused to stay tamed by its ribbon and hung in loose messy curls around her face.

Sophie noticed Emily looking at her and smiled. Emily smiled back, embarrassed but pleased. Although they hadn't said a word to each other, Emily felt a warm glow of satisfaction–as if, with the smile, she and Sophie had exchanged an understanding.

Emily returned to her drawing. Once again she was caught up in the thrill of the pencil moving on the paper, bringing an image to life under her hand.

After class Emily walked home along the wood planks at the side of the road. The center of the road was muddy and churned by horses' hooves. On the other side of the plank walkway ran a shallow ditch, and beyond that a tangle of wild roses grew, sweet with the scent of new leaves. The thought of spring's arrival made Emily's feet feel lighter as she skipped along the boardwalk. She paused on the James Bay Bridge to look down at the tide coming in over the mud below. No one was down at the water today except a few shore birds poking along the edge of the mud. When the tide was out, Indians from the Songhees Reserve often pulled their canoes up onto the mud flats. They dug for shellfish and searched for useable items in the heaps of garbage dumped down the hill by people in the city.

Dede did not approve of Emily lingering on the bridge or near the mud flats. Emily
wrinkled her nose the way Dede did whenever she crossed the bridge, mimicking Dede's manner of sniffing the air with distaste. The fresh briny scent of the incoming tide was beginning to cover the stink of garbage and drying seaweed. Unlike Dede, Emily found the smells intriguing. But remembering Dede made Emily start walking again, hurrying her pace. She'd get another scolding if she were late getting home.

 4 
Guests

Once she was inside the house, Emily sensed right away that something was different.

Warm air greeted her as she shut the front door behind her. Normally, the house was almost as chilly as outside, with a fire lit only in the small sitting room near the kitchen. Warmth in the front drawing room and dining room meant there were guests. Emily could hear voices she didn't recognize coming from behind the partially closed drawing-room door, but she couldn't see inside. A man's new black coat and bowler hat hung in the hallway next to a stylish royal blue woman's cape. These were not Dede's ordinary churchy visitors.

“Emily, is that you?” Dede's voice called from the drawing room. “Come in and say hello to our guests.”

Emily glanced down at the coat she still wore. It was tolerably clean. If she kept it on, Dede would not see the charcoal and ink that streaked her white pinafore. She took a breath and stepped into the drawing room, pushing the door open in front of her.