Wild Rose (39 page)

“Mademoiselle,” he said. “Good morning,” gravely. Even though she replied politely, “Good morning, Monsieur,” he didn’t move on.

“Forgive me,” he said, looking down at his polished brown boots, then lifting his eyes back to hers. At last he said, swallowing, in a choked voice, “Is there no hope for me at all?” He had fixed his eyes on hers, and she was disconcerted to see the sadness in his eyes, she had never thought when she had rejected him so vehemently, that she might hurt him. She said, pressing her reticule nervously against her skirt, “I have told my brother so.” When he lowered his eyes again, she said, hastily, “I am sorry, Monsieur, I am sorry,” her words rushed.

“I craved to hear it from your own lips,” he told her. When she said nothing more, he took a step back from her. “I am sorry if I have upset you.”

“I am not upset,” she told him hotly, although she was upset, and clutched her reticule tightly with both hands.

“I…you know that my prospects are…good?” Now he was unable to meet her eyes, apparently embarrassed at having said this. She was seeing him up close in the bright morning light, she realized that he wasn’t a plain man, as she had thought, but that his mouth was full and beautifully shaped, his nose straight and just the right length, his eyes, a light blue, held a clarity she had not seen in Pierre’s, where there was only that occasional, sudden flash of light that she so loved. He moved one foot back and forth an inch or two, his boot scraping the dirt, not seeming to notice he was doing this.

“I hope…I pray that you will forgive me,” she said.

“If you should change your mind –” but she was already shaking her head, no. He sighed, looked off into the distance over her head, he was a foot taller than she. “I will have to find a bride soon,” he remarked. “Father says I must give them grandchildren. As does
maman
.” He smiled for an instant, gazing out over her head, then he lowered his eyes to hers, and repeated, gravely, softly, “If you should change your mind…”

“I will not,” she said quickly, stepping back from him.
“Pardon, Monsieur,”
and stepped around him, her skirt brushing his trousers, to rush on toward the store, having to stop herself from breaking into a run. And yet, it was as if the cloth of her skirt were her own flesh, her leg under it tingling as if, naked, it had touched his.

Chapter Twelve

Work

R
ising the next morning in darkness
she had forgotten, but as she stood before the mirror, memory came back –
today she might be with Harry again
– she had to grasp the washstand to steady herself. At the same instant she was touched by shame, wanted to turn back, to give him up, but just as quickly her need rose again. “We are both free,” she muttered aloud, staring at her reflection floating in the stained, silvered glass. All she could make out in the lamp light turned low so as not to wake Charles was a mass of dark hair falling over the white shoulders of her nightdress, and two black eyes burning back at her.
I am still young; I am young;
had she spoken aloud, it would have been a cry. But surely he wanted only – he would desert her too, he would tell everyone – he could destroy her.

She grasped her hair into a thick plait, twisted it on her hand, pushed it back into a
chignon
, slid in hair pins, then rapidly tucked in the loose strands around her cheeks and ears, not taking her eyes off the mirror. Seeing how pale she was and fearing a comment from Mrs. Emery whose astuteness couldn’t be discounted, she patted her cheeks to bring colour into her face.

Mrs. Emery was, unusually for her, already in the kitchen, the cook stove radiating heat and the kettle beginning to steam, when Sophie hurried in.

“You slept poorly?”

“Backache,” Mrs. Emery replied. “The heat from the stove feels good. Tea will feel even better.” Sophie was tying on her long apron, hurrying to check the pot of porridge, then gathering the cutlery for the table.

“When you have your tea why don’t you lie down a while longer? I will take care of breakfast,” Sophie suggested. Mrs. Emery murmured assent, peering glumly out the window into the darkness, surely able to see only the reflection of herself and the kitchen behind her.

After a moment, Sophie said, carefully not looking at her, reaching for the stack of plates, “I have something I wish to talk with you about.” Mrs. Emery said quickly, “You been thinking about my proposition?”

“Oh, yes,” Sophie said, “But this is something different.”

“Then tell me now,” Mrs. Emery said, her tone heavy. “I’ll just sit down here.” She pulled a chair from beside the work table and sat down with an audible thud. “Wouldn’t rest a minute worrying about it.” Sophie set the stack of plates onto the table.

“I want to – I wish to – start my own business.” Seeing dismay followed at once by a kind of calculating interest appear in Mrs. Emery’s face, she rushed on. “It isn’t that I don’t appreciate your offer to stay on here –” She hesitated. “But I need your help – I mean, your advice.” She stopped again, looking imploringly at Mrs. Emery. “I – Mr. Adamson –”

“I knew it,” Mrs. Emery said. “You are going off with him.”

“No! Why would you think such a thing?” She could feel her face heating.

“He’s a bachelor,” Mrs. Emery said, unperturbed. “You’re a pretty woman – a young one. They all want wives – they know they can’t hardly manage out there without one,” tossing her head to indicate the vast, empty prairie spread out around them. In her agitation, Sophie saw it suddenly as a gesture all the homesteaders made, that toss of the head toward the enemy, containing hate, as well as yearning. Mrs. Emery was scrutinizing Sophie’s face without sympathy.

“I am not free to be anyone’s wife; I cannot marry – we barely know each other –”

“Don’t mind me,” Mrs. Emery said. “It’s only that – people –,”
she sighed, “People are watching.”

What did that mean? Had someone seen them together the night they made love? But how could anyone have – it was pitch dark – or was it only that conversation on the street last evening? Mrs. Emery had probably already guessed the rest. And yet, she was not chastising Sophie, not trying to send her away, nor calling her an immoral woman. Sophie went on, struggling to sound calm.

“Mr. Adamson is going away for the winter months. He has offered me the use of his house and his furniture. My idea is this: I want to start a small café. A sort of resting place for ladies.” Mrs. Emery sat without speaking, looking up at Sophie’s face, her expression altering as she listened to one of disappointment, then to a kind of resignation that twisted Sophie’s heart. But she had to think of herself first, just as Mrs. Emery was surely doing when she had taken on Sophie and Charles, as much as it was because she wanted to help them in their need.

“Maybe I should’ve grabbed that Lily when I had the chance. But I didn’t like her looks – some of ’em, they get mistreated too much, they turn bad,” she said. “Then there’s no rescuing ‘em.”

“What do you mean?” Sophie asked, deflected from her aim.

“Didn’t you hear? That Lily’s gone over to Adelaide Smith’s house.” Sophie stared, speechless. “That’s right,” Mrs. Emery said, satisfaction mixed in with her indignation. “Mrs. Kaufmann told me. Had enough of being a servant, I reckon, and that Smith woman, she was just waiting to pounce. Mrs. Fancy Archibald is fit to be tied. Wants to see Adelaide thrown out of town.”

She had seen Adelaide Smith and Lily only a few days ago in the Kaufmann’s general store but intent on her own concerns, the fact of the two of them being together hadn’t quite registered. They were off to the far side, well into the shadows where the Kaufmann’s kept the dry goods. They had taken a bolt of fabric from the shelf and having unrolled enough of it to see the pattern, had carried it to the one window on that side of the store and were examining it there. They didn’t look up at the jangle of the bell announcing Sophie’s entrance. Sophie saw them from the corner of her eye and then didn’t look in that direction again. She had seen Mrs. Kaufmann glance over at them, occasionally, as if to decide whether the two women were ready to make a purchase or not. Or perhaps she was looking to see if they were stealing.

It occurred to Sophie that had she been the one examining the dry goods, Mrs. Kaufmann would have stayed by her side discussing this fabric and that, and pulling down bolt after bolt from the shelves for her to imagine how her new dress would look, how the fabric would hang, whether the colour of the flowers sprinkled across it would look well with the colour of her hair and eyes. I might be wrong, Sophie thought, but it seemed unkind to her that Mrs. Kaufmann would offer the women no help. Women? Lily was perhaps sixteen. Unwelcome, the thought that Marguerite wasn’t much older, came and went as quickly. Why could she not pity Marguerite? She remembered now that Mrs. Emery had said that what had happened to Lily was probably worse than beatings. Suddenly, she knew what that meant and a flush of revulsion, or perhaps it was something much deeper than that, passed over her, leaving her feeling shaky and uncertain.

“But – Lily is a free person. Surely she can go wherever she wants?” Mrs. Emery shrugged, then muttered, as if to herself, “No woman’s a free person, the way I see it. Leastways, not a poor one, not one who is pretty much still a baby.” Their eyes met, one seated, the other standing; simultaneously, both looked away, Sophie still puzzled, not understanding why she felt as ashamed as if she had been the one abused by a father. She felt ill, would have pulled out a chair and sat down too, but Mrs. Emery, not looking at her, said in a dull voice, “What do you need me for?”

Sophie succeeded in making her voice sound normal, toward the end, even brisk. “To come with me today to see his house. You are experienced in cooking for people. Come and see it and tell me if you think this idea could work. And what I would need, what problems I might run into.” She lowered her gaze, “It wouldn’t be proper for me to be in his house without another woman present. You know that,” pleading now, even as she pushed aside the deepest reason for wanting Mrs. Emery to be with her. No, she insisted to herself. She needed her support; she was afraid to take this leap without at least talking it over with her.

“I’ll come with you,” Mrs. Emery said, spreading out her hands as if to show she had nothing to hide, and also, nothing to offer. “Don’t know about your idea, though. And where does that leave me?”

“You can still sell your house. Or find another woman in the situation I was in when you took me in with such kindness. I will never stop being grateful to you for that. You saved me, Charlotte.”

“Can’t blame you for wanting to better yourself, I guess. And if you don’t want this, here –” she gazed around her kitchen, “I’ll just have to muddle along for a while more.” She sighed, and as was her habit, gazed at the floor or the wall as she spoke, not at Sophie. “I think I knew from the start you wouldn’t stay long. I always figured, if you got enough gumption –” She broke off. “Did he tell you when to come?”

Before she could answer, she heard Charles coming down the stairs, calling for her. She said over her shoulder as she hurried from the room, “He said he would be there all day today and we should drop in whenever it suited us.”

Mrs. Emery said. “About two?” Sophie called back her agreement, lifting a protesting Charles who promptly pushed against her shoulder with both strong little hands and arms, wiggling in an effort to get back down again. The bigger he got, the stronger he became and the more unwilling to accept her constraints. How did women manage with five or seven or more of these little ones around? She knew the answer. Slapping, sometimes much worse, and just as bad, in Sophie’s opinion, the big ones, the girls in particular, were the real mothers to the smaller ones. If Pierre should ever return and they had more children, there would not be more than she could manage. If Pierre ever returned. Hah!

~

Harry Adamson was a tall man
, and to more comfortably accommodate his long arms and legs he had built his house slightly larger than most two-roomed bachelor shacks. A worn rag rug covered most of the floor in the main room that would be her dining room, extending under the rough wooden table with its four chairs with their pressed back designs, none of the designs matching any of the others, and all pulled close to the cook stove to keep the seated person warm in bad weather, or else to save him having to get up to reach the coffee pot or frying pan. A large kerosene lamp hung from a hook in the ceiling above. A tall cupboard, roughly made, stood against the same wall as the stove, its shelves containing a few cups and plates. On the opposite wall from the cupboard and stove, Harry had attached a long shelf on which a few books sat beside a stack of official-looking papers and a small sheaf of opened letters still in their torn envelopes. On either side of the shelf sat a threadbare armchair, and in the centre, under the shelf, and between the two chairs, was a backless, iron-framed couch, a second bed, covered with a neatly smoothed Hudson Bay blanket with its multi-coloured stripes. The one window, to the left of the outside door, faced east, which meant the morning light would keep the kitchen bright. The stove had been polished, the nickel trim shone and, judging by its lack of smudges, Harry had used stove black recently on the iron. The effect was surprisingly homey, she thought, and was already mentally trying to rearrange the furniture this way or that to make it work better for her purposes.

“Thanks very much for letting us come to see your house,” she said, looking at his shoulder rather than his face.