Читать книгу Lily Fairchild - Don Gutteridge - Страница 15

Lily was cleaning out the stalls of Benjamin and the Guernsey, as well as that of Gert, the little Jersey they’d acquired from Bill. Both cows had been bred to an itinerant bull who showed up at their gate one day with his master in tow, but it appeared as if only the Jersey was about to bear the fruits of that brief, awesome encounter. Lily poked at the mess in front of her. At least in January there was little smell, and the frozen manure and straw could be forked rather than shovelled. Bridie and Bill were in the woodlot, sawing the stiff pine logs into portable lengths and finding the packed snow and solid earth a convenient, almost hospitable, environment in which to labour. Chester, walking unaided now, would be keeping himself useful by replenishing the wood in both stove and fireplace.

As Lily heaved a forkful of manure onto the sled, she felt a twinge in her lower abdomen. She stood stock-still as the wavelets of pain worked themselves ashore, then leaned on her fork, catching her breath and waiting for worse. Something fibrous and alien cramped in her, seeking expulsion. I’m going to faint, she thought, but the sharp air in her lungs brought her upright again. Well, she thought, I’ll have to tell Aunt Bridie now. The question is no longer when, but how much?

Lily waited until Bill had tucked Chester into his robes and set off in the cutter with him for a leisurely ride through the oak ridge to Little Lake, where the town’s best mingled with the township hopefuls on the ice-pond.

Not having spent long enough in polite society to become practiced in its subtle arts, Lily could think of no indirect way to convey her news. “I got somethin’ I have to tell you,” she said when they had settled at opposite ends of a half-finished quilt.

“I figured so. You ain’t stopped fidgetin’ since this morning. A body’d think you’d contracted St. Vitus’ Dance or somethin’.”

“I’m pregnant,” Lily said. “Four months and three days.”

Whatever revelation Bridie had braced herself for, this was not it. “That’s not possible! What on earth do you know of such things?”

Then, following the succinct disclosure of certain irrefutable biological facts: “My lord, child! Do you know what you’ve done? Do you have any idea what this means for you?”

Lily said she assumed she was going to be a mother, in June.

Bridie sighed in exasperation, but quickly softened. “Are you feelin’ all right?”

“I’m fine.”

“Don’t you go shovellin’ manure now, you promise me?”

“I can’t work in the barn any more. I’m sorry.”

“I knew I never should’ve let you go with that woman. I told you the city ways’d destroy you, didn’t I? But I don’t blame you, child, I really don’t. I put the blame onto the shoulders of Alice Templeton, I do. And the man responsible, of course. Who wasthe scoundrel, then?”

As simply as she could, Lily suggested that no one had seduced or deceived her.

“You can’t tell me a girl of your age an’ your innocence wasn’t abused by some blackguard who likely lied to get his way. You forget, child, I lived in Toronto an’ London, I went out to service with no family to back me up. There’s nothin’ you can tell me about ‘gentlemen’ I don’t already know twice over. An’ I trusted that woman, calls herself a Christian to watch out for you, to protect you from this, this–.”

Lily refused to divulge the name of the father.

“Every girl who’s ever been in your position – an’ I saw plenty in Toronto – has said the same thing, at first,” Bridie said with surprising gentleness. “But there’s no other way out of the mess, lass. He’ll have to make amends. We’ve got the law, such as it is, on our side. You are still a minor after all. If you can stand him, then he must marry you. If not, then other arrangements can be made.”

“I won’t tell, ever,” Lily said. “No one’d believe me anyways.”

“Not the Mayor?” Bridie went white.

“Not anybody you know.

“He’s gone, Auntie,” Lily said firmly. Then: “I don’t want to see him again.”

Bridie knew better than to try to change her mind, but she had to at least prepare Lily for the consequences.

“Look me straight in the eye. You are an unmarried girl, and in another month your belly will swell up for all the world to see. An’ when it’s seen, the tongues of the town will start waggin’. They’ll say that your Uncle is the father or old Bill or worse, they’ll say you’ve been seen down by the railroad shacks just like Violet, hangin’ round them navvies an’ deservin’ everythin’ you get from your sinnin’.”

Lily had no reply.

“Now you know I don’t give a sweet fig for the opinion of such people, but will youever get used to them church ladies thinkin’ an’ callin’ your child a bastard an’ keepin’ it out of school an’ makin’ it an outcast. What I’m tellin’ you is as long as we stay right here on this plot of land, our lives are our own, but as soon as we step off, they belong to those people out there.”

For a moment Bridie looked weary, beyond recovery. “We are women, Lily, an’ poor; the world’s not ours to make.”

Lily didn’t argue the point, but waited a moment to let Bridie know she respected all that she’d said. Then, simply, “I want to have the baby here. At home.”

Bridie studied the girl’s face closely and recognized the innocent naivete and resolute strength that had coalesced early in her own life and led to rebellion, flight, and independence. She could do nothing less than support this young woman in her determination.

“We’llkeep the babe,” she said. “No one, not even Bill will know it’s yours. We’ll move you into the kitchen for the winter, make you some large housedresses, keep Chester in the dark as long as we can. An’ after it’s born, we’ll say the child belongs to my cousin, an’ I’ll…go off to London an’ pretend to come back with it an’–”

Auntie’s eyes glinted with intrigue.

“Oh, Lily, we’ll manage,” she said. “We always have.”

Two days later as Lily was preparing a mustard plaster for the cold Chester had caught while visiting the ice-pond, the patient whispered to her: “Love, if you have anythin’ you need to tell your Uncle, go right ahead. You can trust me. And if I need to, I can handle your Auntie.” The last remark was qualified somewhat by a spasm of coughing, but the import of his commentary was clear. That evening when Bridie shuffled in wearily from the woodlot, Chester was sworn to secrecy and taken into the conspiracy. He beamed for days.

The plot went well throughout the winter. The ruse of having Lily work exclusively indoors was quite plausible and Bill simply had no curiosity in the matter. Ever since Violet had been taken away, he had become even more taciturn and withdrawn, though his work for Bridie was accomplished with a conscientious concern. Occasionally he would consent to take Sunday dinner with them, but most of the time he ate on the job or took Bridie’s offerings back to his hermitage. Two or three times that winter they heard the discordant strains of the mouth-organ seeking some elusive harmonies, and would know that he had ‘fallen off the wagon’ again. Mostly though he slept off his excesses and popped up a day later at dawn ready for work as if nothing had happened.

An excuse was always found to explain her absence from errands into Port Sarnia and occasional travellers, brought to their door by a January squall or one of February’s ice-storms, only smiled their gratitude for the warmth of Lily’s hospitality.

In fact the only visitors to arrive with a predetermined purpose were three gentlemen who said they were from “the railway” and asked to see Bridie alone. Lily and Chester went for a slow walk through the arbours of snow, holding each other upright and sending their laughter skyward. When they got back, Bridie forced a smile to acknowledge their return, but Lily recognized the subtle signs that the news was grim.

“They wanted to buy us out,” she scoffed. “I told them where to go, and it ain’t cool there.”

By now, the woodlot was cleared on the north-east side right back to the Grand Trunk property. Only a windbreak of pines on the north-west side separated them from the village-to-be. Bridie could cut and saw and haul and also keep an appraiser’s eye on the phantom town-site wherein so many of her hopes now lay.

What surprised Lily about the baby taking shape in her body was how disconnected its existence seemed from the event that initiated it. Certainly the Prince’s pleasure in of that lusty and extraordinary encounter did not have thisend in view. Nor did Lily’s own surrender have any purpose but the immediacy of its joy and pain, the need to feel that she was the agent, not just a passive observer, of her own life. But the child inside her proclaimed its separate existence almost from the start, impudent and demanding.

Her abdomen, as Bridie predicted, swelled outward and inward as well, pressing against her back. Her belly felt like a rind or a casing that might harden and burst without warning in the night. The babe cared little that she could neither walk nor sit nor lie with ease. Moreover, when she wanted to sleep, it decided it wanted to swim. Huffing and panting at the end of a day’s work, she could feel it sucking on her flagging energies, pulling the best of her blood into its own. Yet she felt no resentment. I will bear you, she thought often, then I will name you, and love you. Forever.

By mid-April the snows had vanished. The crocuses and stove-pipes dotted the lawns and gardens of the town by the River and the Lake. The rains fell, gentle and inevitable. Surveyors arrived to lay out the streets and lots of yet another village destined to germinate and bloom within a single season. Bridie looked on this event and at the unswaddled belly of her niece, and permitted her heart to leap in expectation.

No one at the Great Western station that April evening took any particular notice of an impeccably attired gentleman, accompanied by his valet, as he disembarked from the first-class Toronto car and crossed to the livery at the east end of the building. Sarnia was an important town now: politicians and businessmen and pretenders of all sorts stepped off the 6:40 almost every day of the week. Such anonymity seemed to suit this visitor’s liking for the exchange which resulted in the rental of a democrat –sans local driver – was done with despatch and discretion. The valet took the reins while the Honourable Charles Gunther Murchison settled down into leather and velvet, and studiously ignored the regional scenery. They turned north-east up the Errol Road and drove into the dusk of early spring. It was almost dark when the driver, following some route previously committed to memory, veered into the lane of the Ramsbottom farm.

Having made introductions, Murchison dispatched his valet to the rig and turned to address Bridie, clearly the head of the household, directly. Chester perched on the edge of his chair, a spectator. Lily was in her bedroom, just waking from a restless doze.

“I have come on the most urgent of matters, Mrs. Ramsbottom, straight from the office of Governor Head himself. I apologize again for the suddenness of our appearance so late in the day, but when you hear what news I bring, you will understand our need for covert action. Several lives are at stake.”

Chester leaned forward; Bridie blinked but gave no ground. “Whose lives?” she asked evenly.

“Before I am permitted to offer detailed explanations, I must talk with your...niece.” He was like an eagle at home in this strange eyrie, his bronze pate feathered at the sides with silvery whiskers, his aquiline beak and assayer’s eyes piercing every shadow in the coal-oil gloom, his bearing regal as befitting a man who has twice been a cabinet minister, who stared down a dozen rebel guns in 1837 and prevailed.

“My niece isn’t well,” Bridie said. “She’s not available to you, sir, nor to the governor.”

Murchison took no offense. “I’m afraid she must be. The orders I am under, you see, come from Her Majesty.”

Uncle Chester fell part-way off his chair and barely recovered in time to abort the crick in his back. Lily opened her eyes.

“The Queen?”

“Yes. Directly from the palace, through His Excellency in Quebec. I have been asked to seek out and speak with your niece on a matter of the utmost delicacy and urgency.”

A glimmer of insight reached Bridie’s eyes, then faded in disbelief.

“With all respect, sir, my niece is ill and can’t be disturbed. If you tell me what you need, of me or her, I’ll talk to her in the morning. Surely even our Queen would understand the need not to upset a sick child.”

Lily raised her head, the better to catch Murchison’s words. “I appreciate your desire to protect your niece, Mrs. Ramsbottom, and I know His Excellency and Her Majesty would applaud your loyalty and solicitude. But it is imperative that I at least seeyour niece. If she is ill, I can return to speak with her tomorrow.”

“It’s all right, Auntie,” Lily said stepping slowly into the room’s light.

Twenty minutes later, Aunt Bridie was sitting in the straightback chair by the stove. Her face was ashen.

“You see,” Murchison was explaining in lower but no-less-formal tones, “I had no idea whether the girl had informed you of the possible paternity of the child. Indeed, we did not know for sure that the girl was ‘enceinte’, though one of our sources, a young man disguised as a lost traveller and sitting now in my carriage, reported the possibility to us two months ago. All this was carried out, you understand, at the request of Her Majesty after a belated confession on the part of His Highness. Then, of course, we had to use the utmost discretion possible to ascertain the moral character of the girl. It proved, as I’m sure you know, ma’am, to be unimpeachably stainless.” He was speaking directly to the stunned Bridie, averting his eagle gaze from the Lily’s heavy-laden figure seated to his right.

“It is the Prince’s babe,” Lily said again.

Murchison shifted tone and stance, as if he were a lawyer changing from defense to prosecution. “Now that these most difficult and delicate matters are clear, I have the awful duty to inform you of the decisions taken, as I have said, at the highest levels of state. I have been commanded to explain to you that these decisions have been reached after full consideration of the best and just interests of all parties concerned. The Prince, you will be pleased to know, is contrite and eager to make amends for his youthful indiscretion.” He looked about for some confirmation, but only Chester was nodding, unconsciously.

“Now that we know the baby will have royal blood in its veins, we are under the strictest obligation, as citizens and subjects of the Empire, to treat that fact with the awe and respect it deserves. Her Majesty expressly wishes the child to be born in circumstances most conducive to its general health, including the utmost care of the mother during the crucial days of her lying-in. The best doctors and midwives are to be consulted; a hospital or surgery must be close at hand in case of emergencies.”

“We got no hospital here,” Bridie said.

“Precisely. You take my very point,” the solicitor said, wheeling to face the invisible jury. “We have come to take Lily to a place where all of these conditions obtain, where both her well-being and that of the child will be assured. Moreover, we are not insensible of the social difficulties associated with a child born out of wedlock; the Prince himself was particularly concerned about this point. Hence, the immediate and secret removal of the girl to a house we have arranged in London will be of benefit to all concerned.”

“And after the babe is born?” Bridie said coldly into the ensuing silence.

“Mother and child can be returned here, of course. Not right away naturally. Perhaps a husband can be found for her, or a reasonable story concocted to account for the exceptional circumstances. Whatever arrangements are decided post partum,” he said relishing the Latin, “Her Majesty has commanded Her viceroy here in the dominion to disburse appropriate funds for the maintenance of the child till it comes of age. Furthermore –”

“We don’t want any of your money,” Bridie cut him off.

“Now, sweetie –”Chester said, but was silenced by a stare.

“Would you kindly get the girl’s things together as soon as possible? There’s a train leaving here in an hour; we’ve arranged a special car to be attached.”

Aunt Bridie stood up. “The girl, as you call her, only goes if she wants to. Please tell Her Majesty that we are quite capable of taking care of our own, royal blood or not. An’ we don’t take charity.”

“May I see Lily alone, then?”

Lily nodded to her Aunt.

“If you must.”

The privy-councillor and ex-Grenadier was disconcerted by the way the girl gazed directly at him while he lectured her, with just the slightest hint of disapproval. Moreover, the thumping of the baby on the drum of her abdomen was disturbingly audible.

“We understand your reluctance to leave home, but we ask that you reflect on all the advantages that will accrue to a positive decision to go to London. The lady who has agreed to care for you is a woman of the highest quality and discretion. We also recognize that you are part of a working family and that your loss over the next three months or so will impose serious hardships on your Aunt and Uncle. Thus, though your Aunt sees it as charity, His Excellency will, with or without her consent, deposit a hundred dollars in her account at the Bank of Upper Canada for each month you are away, for as long as it takes to resolve matters in a satisfactory manner.”

When Aunt Bridie and Uncle Chester were waved back in, they found Lily standing by the stove, her eyes brimming with tears.