Читать книгу Sophie's Rebellion - Beverley Boissery - Страница 12

To Sophie’s astonishment, Mary chose to go with them. Even though she and Eloise, Lady Theo’s maid, sat with their backs to the horses, Sophie noticed that her eyes got bigger and rounder the further they travelled northward. And she had a good idea that her own looked the same.

Sophie had no idea what she expected Lower Canada to be like. She’d been so preoccupied with getting away from Malloryville that she simply hadn’t thought much about Beauharnois. Or that it would be foreign. When she looked north from the Mount Donne lookout, she knew that at some point Vermont stopped and Lower Canada began, but there was no red line saying the United States here, Lower Canada there. Nor did it look like it would take a trip of six hours to go from Malloryville to Beauharnois, on the southern shore of the mighty St. Lawrence River.

As the coach jolted its interminable way north, everything seemed foreign, and Sophie hadn’t expected that. England, another foreign country, had simply seemed different. Everything there was bigger, of course. She had seen mansions in London that were double the size of anything in Boston, and the city had an enormous number of very poor people as well. And maybe, she decided, that summed up England. More of everything. More magnificence, more filth. A greater emphasis on manners, less concern for actual people.

Lower Canada, however, was simply foreign. Most of the people spoke a French that she didn’t begin to understand, a French that puzzled Lady Theo and Eloise at times. Even the houses were different from those in Vermont. Their roofs didn’t slope straight down as normal ones did. They had a kind of curl to their eaves, as though the builders tried to copy the branches of trees. The farmers’ fields were different as well. Instead of being square, they were long and very narrow. Sophie couldn’t imagine how any of the new harvesting machines she’d seen in England would ever work in Lower Canada. There wouldn’t be enough room for them to turn.

Mary almost hung out of the window to make sure she saw everything. “Oh, miss, oh milady,” she kept saying. “Everything’s so strange and exciting. Just look at that man over there.”

The man she pointed out was dressed in leggings, as almost every other man seemed to be, and had a colourful red sash tied around the middle of his coat. He wore a long cap on his head, which Lady Theo said was called a toque, and he smoked a clay pipe. When he saw them staring at him, he swept them a low bow. “Maybe he thinks we look as strange as he does,” Mary giggled.

“More likely he thinks we’re stupid for travelling on these atrocious roads,” Eloise muttered. “They call this a highway? Me, I think it’s nothing but ruts.”

“She’s right,” Sophie told Lady Theo, wincing as the coach hit yet another pothole. “I’m going to be black and blue all over, not just on my arms, by the time we arrive. That is, if we ever get anywhere.”

Eventually the novelty of the scenery faded. Everyone became bored. A sleeping Eloise began to snore. Sophie fidgeted until Lady Theo, in self-defence more than anything, began telling stories about various trips she’d taken. Each stop at an inn to change horses became a highlight, a chance to stretch their legs, but after a while even that palled.

“I had no idea the world was so big. Will we ever get there?” Mary grumbled.

“Imagine having to sail across the Atlantic in a sailing boat for days and days and never seeing land. This is a picnic compared to that.”

“Cheer up, both of you. We’re almost there. If you look out this side you can see the church spire and the manor house in the distance.”

Sophie immediately clambered over a box to peer out the window. “Where? I can’t see a manor house.”

“Over there. The house with the copper roof.”

“That’s a manor?” She stared at the building in amazement. While the two-storey house was on the shore of a large lake and close to a substantial wharf, it looked smaller than that owned by her father’s manager in Malloryville. Sophie, after being in England, expected something much grander. She turned to Lady Theo in dismay. “Where will we all fit?”

Lady Theo laughed. “It’s bigger than it looks. There are at least nine guest rooms, so you won’t have to sleep in the barn. Now, let Mary tidy you up. We’re almost there.”

While Mary brushed her hair and tied the ribbons on her hat, Sophie stared at the manor house. She didn’t know what dismayed her about it. Maybe it was just the foreignness of everything, but it didn’t seem a comforting place. And, as the coach came to a stop in front of the house, a cacophony of sound broke out.

“What on earth’s making that noise?” asked Lady Theo.

“That,” Sophie answered, pointing to a large turkey that came rushing at the coach in a way that reminded her somehow of Elias, honking its head off.

The horses stopped, then tried to bolt in a frenzied effort to get away from the incessant sound. The turkey, though, wasn’t interested in them. With unerring instinct he planted himself midway between the coach and the manor house’s front door. He made no protest when John opened the coach door, but as soon as Lady Theo attempted to step down, he set up a raucous gobbling.

She hesitated for a moment, then tried stepping down again. Immediately the turkey charged towards her, his long neck extended, his beak snapping open. “Good gracious,” she muttered, hastily climbing back into the coach. “What now?”

What now became a good question. The turkey was capricious. He allowed the grooms to walk around the coach without moving or making a sound. But as soon as one of the four women tried to descend, he charged.

“It’s insane,” Lady Theo declared after her ankle had barely escaped being pecked.

“I think it believes it’s guarding the house,” Sophie said. “Maybe one of the dogs brought it up when it was a chicken, or whatever you call baby turkeys.”

“Me, I think it’s the devil,” Eloise said, crossing herself. “I will not leave here until it goes.”

“Let’s try another door,” Lady Theo said. “Maybe we can confuse it.”

She nodded to the coachman, but as soon as the horses moved, the turkey charged. Once again, the wild-eyed horses frantically tried to bolt and only the combined weight of John and the coachman pulling on the reins stopped them. After another failed attempt, John, the only person the turkey seemed to regard as remotely benign, walked back to the coach door. “Sorry, my lady, it looks like a stalemate.”

“Maybe this will help,” the coachman called out as he cracked his whip in the turkey’s direction. But the bird sidestepped it easily and gobbled in disdain. John tried to hide a grin, Sophie laughed, and Lady Theo muttered in frustration.

With Eloise crossing herself at regular intervals and lifting her voice and eyes to the heavens, Mary took off her coat, excused herself as she pushed past Lady Theo, and opened the coach door. “You stupid French bird,” she began, as she climbed down the stairs. “If I was in Vermont, you’d be in a stew pot by now.”

The turkey, which had began charging towards her, stopped in his tracks, a picture of suspended animation. To Sophie and Lady Theo’s amusement, he actually seemed to be thinking about what Mary had said. While she continued to scold him, Lady Theo and Sophie managed to get themselves from the coach to the porch of the manor house. As Mary brought coats and other items from the coach, the turkey meekly followed her, his head bobbing in time with every step and his gobble sounding suspiciously like a dove’s coo.

Mrs. Ellice, full of apologies, watched her turkey docilely follow Mary. “I do not believe my eyes,” she began. “The stories I could tell you about that bird.”

“I think I’d believe anything after that experience, Jane,” Lady Theo laughed as she greeted her friend and introduced Sophie. Mrs. Ellice was all graciousness, welcoming Sophie to Lower Canada and complimenting her on her pretty red dress.

“Come and warm yourselves,” she went on, leading the way to the drawing room. “I’ve ordered hot chocolate to take the chill of the journey away.”

“It wasn’t the journey that made us cold. It was sitting in the coach and wondering if that blasted bird of yours would ever let us into the house,” Lady Theo commented as she warmed her hands.

When a sudden barrage of gobbling sounded from the yard made it seem that the turkey was disputing this, Sophie looked out the window and began laughing again. “Lady Theo, you’ve got to look. Mary must be inside the house or something because the turkey’s got poor Eloise trapped. It looks like she’s on her knees praying and the thing’s just dancing around her, pretending to peck her but not really coming close. I think it’s all bark, no bite.”

“You’re mistaken, Sophie. It certainly has bite and a powerful one at that,” Mrs. Ellice answered dryly. “It kept Lord Durham, the Governor himself, in his coach for more than an hour this past August. It got itself under the coach and wouldn’t let anyone or anything near it. If the coach moved, it merely waddled along. We tried everything. Brooms, waving coats, yelling, even swearing, you name it. Nothing worked. We thought he’d be stuck in his coach forever.”

“Then how did he get out?” Sophie asked.

“Oh, it got thirsty, and just as Edward was about to shoot it, it simply walked off to the horse trough.”

“Why don’t you shoot it?”

Mrs. Ellice looked a little shame-faced. “Because it’s the best entertainment this place has. Life would be deadly dull here without that bird livening things up. I love my husband, Theo, love him dearly, but even he has to admit that the B in Beauharnois stands for boring.”

Lady Theo began urging Sophie out the door towards her bedroom to freshen up. “And to think, child,” she said dryly. “We travelled these fifty miles, were jolted about like sacks of flour for the last six hours, just to be bored in Beauharnois.”

Instead of moving, Sophie stared at a sketchbook lying open on a table. “This is wonderful,” she said eventually. “Look, Lady Theo, it’s the terrible turkey himself. Did you paint this, Mrs. Ellice? May I see more?”

“You’re more than welcome to inspect my dabblings, Sophie.”

“I wish my watercolours turned out like this,” she said, thumbing her way through the book’s vivid images of Mrs. Ellice’s journey across the Atlantic to Beauharnois.

“It’s years and years of practice,” Mrs. Ellice replied.

“It’s more than that, Jane. I’ve had years and years of practice and I still can’t draw a straight line. It’s talent,” Mr. Ellice said proudly, walking into the room and putting an arm around his wife’s shoulders. “Good afternoon, ladies.”

“Afternoon, sir.” After dropping a quick curtsey, Sophie turned back to the book. “These are so wonderful. Mine will be never be anywhere near as good as them, no matter how hard I try.” Then she brightened and looked at Lady Theo hopefully. “Maybe you can make Papa understand that he’s only throwing money down the drain by making me take lessons.”

Lady Theo laughed. “In your dreams, Sophie. In your dreams.”