Lily's Story (17 page)

“
There’s so many things I
wrote them all down for you and your Aunt. Here, take this along
with you.”

Lily took the note, turned and was almost
under the rose arbour when Mrs. Templeton said, a bit too quickly,
“Oh Lily, would you mind dear, checkin’ that note to see if I put
down eight bunches of carrots or not?”

Lily froze. She felt the confiding coziness
of the morning ebb away.

“
Just take a quick glance
at the list, love.” Mrs. Templeton seemed to squeeze the sentence
out.

Lily looked straight back at the anxious
stare. “I can’t,” she said tonelessly.

“
Well then, it’s high time
we did something about it!”

Lily desperately wanted to
be present when Aunt Bridie and Mrs. Templeton had their
tête à tête
over her
attending the common school in town. A letter in an envelope had
been delivered right to their door by a suborned errand-boy. Auntie
read it, her brow pincering, her lips half-saying the words. “Some
nerve!” was her only comment. But next morning she and Auntie
scoured the house and, to Lily’s amazement, a pewter tea-service
materialized from the steamer-trunk to be set upon a crocheted
tablecloth of ancient but unblemished vintage. Then she and Uncle
Chester – only one of them protesting – were banished to the
barn.

“
I’ll show you what I been
workin’ on, Lily love,” Uncle Chester said, running his hands
through his sandy mop as he always did when he was nervous or
excited. “It’s for you. I been thinkin’ about it all
winter.”

With a regretful glance backwards Lily
followed him into the barn. In the stall now converted into a
workshop, Uncle Chester showed her his “latest contraption”. It was
a wooden ‘flat’ for berries that would hold six quarts; it had a
screened top (“to keep off the flies”) with a handle on it for easy
carrying and a device that held the boxes in place and could be
unlocked by sliding a lever along a piece of doweling. “You can
swing it over your head like a skippin’ rope,” he beamed, “an’
nothin’ll come loose!”

Lily tried it out. The sliding lever
jammed.

“
Just needs a bit of
sandin’” he blushed. “You go for a walk if you like. I’ll just
whittle away here.”

“
I’ll check the water in
the coops,” Lily said. “That’ll be a big help,” she added, admiring
the bulky device. “It really will.” She could feel Uncle Chester’s
eyes upon her as she walked away from him. They were loving eyes,
she was certain.

Aunt Bridie was a good
reader. Uncle Chester said so many times. But there were no books
in sight. Lily did see her aunt reading, though, for each week she
picked up at the St. Clair Inn the weekly issued of
The Canadian Observer
and
brought it home. Auntie took special pains to read it on the
Sabbath. Uncle Chester would peek at it occasionally but would say
to Lily, “It’s full of radical ranting, girl, an’ bad politics
that’ll come to no good end.” He would then sigh with the feigned
resignation he used whenever Auntie’s behavior was beyond him.
“It’s beyond me why she takes in that stuff. ’Course, you gotta
remember where she come from.”

Lily couldn’t remember what she didn’t know.
Auntie would not talk, ever, about the old country. Uncle Chester
would, after a slug or two from his cache in Benjamin’s stall,
ramble of about the Ramsbottom tribe in Lancashire, his innumerable
interchangeable cousins whom he had never met, having been alas
born in the colonies the only child of a shipwright attached to the
military command during the Simcoe regime and who, along with his
wife, died inconveniently of cholera. The Ramsbottoms, however
legendary, were not blood.

“
Don’t ask,” Auntie would
say, seeing the tilt of Lily’s chin. “The Old Country’s old, it’s
only good for forgettin’.” Or, outdoors with a modest sweep of her
hand: “This is where it’s real. The Old Country was for livin’ in;
this one’s for thrivin’ in.” Then, in a rare mellow mood she might
peer up from her quilting and say, “Some day I’ll tell you all
about your folk. Especially your grandmother. You’ve got a right to
know.”

Once, startled by her own boldness, Lily
asked: “Who was my mother?”

Aunt Bridie answered – not without a touch
of sadness in her voice, “I don’t know, child.”

Seeing how “down” Lily was
after this disappointment, Uncle Chester – risking all – slipped
into his bedroom, opened the trunk with a squeal that arched
Auntie’s eyebrows, and returned with a large leather-bound book.
“I’ll just read her the story parts,” he said in Aunt Bridie’s
direction. “It’s her right, you know,” he added vehemently though
his voice didn’t quit quavering until Samson had pushed both
columns aside and brought the wicked temple down upon himself. The
next winter he grew bolder and brought forth a calf-covered novel
called
The Last of the
Mohicans
, from which he read aloud to Lily
all through that dark, cold season – his voice sonorous and
comforting and quickened by the images and passions released by the
words on the page. He insisted that Lily curl upon his lap on the
wing-backed chair he bought from Cameron’s with his “own money”.
“Waste and rubbish,” Auntie warned, and never once was she tempted
by its cushioned luxury. Last winter, though, when
The Deerslayer
made his
debut, Lily did not sit on Uncle’s knee. She perched on the ample
arm of the chair and watched his lips transform the letters. She
would say some of the words over to herself, and Uncle, delighted,
would repeat a sentence, point to a word and when she guessed
right, smile and pat her arm affectionately.

“
See, Bridie love, the
young lady can read. Smart as a whip, she is.”

Aunt Bridie, who appeared not to be
listening, snapped, “Don’t be turnin’ her head, you old fool. She
can’t read. Soon as I get some time, soon as everybody around here
pulls their weight, I’m gonna teach the child to read
properly.”

“
Don’t blame the girl,” he
said petulantly. “After all, she’s had no upbringin’ to speak
of.”

“
An’ never
will
with the likes of
you around her.” The reading was over for that evening.

When Lily came in, Mrs. Templeton was
adjusting her Sunday hat and looking quite pleased with herself.
“Thanks for the tea, Bridie. You really must let me return the
hospitality soon.”

In her working smock Lily felt smudged and
unworthy, but Mrs. Templeton kissed her warmly on the cheek, smiled
and turned towards Auntie.

Bridie, in her gray-and-blue gingham,
smoothed her skirt and said to Lily: “It’s all fixed. You’ll start
in at the Common School first thing next Monday.”

Lily turned her shining face to Mrs.
Templeton. “Don’t thank me, young lady. Thank your Aunt; she’s
givin’ up the best helper she’s got.”

Bridie wanted to be severe but couldn’t
manage it.

Auntie, of course, had argued for starting
in September when the new term began. After all, only one week
remained in the current school year. “This way,” Mrs. Templeton had
insisted, “she can try it out, introduce herself to Miss Pringle,
and get set up for the fall term.” What she really meant was that
it would be cruel to let a girl of Lily’s temperament wait in
anticipation over a whole summer.

“
Only if Chester’ll help
out with the weedin’,” Aunt Bridie had countered. Fortunately
Uncle’s trick back took a turn for the better, and dressed in a
brown-and-tan gingham especially cut down by Auntie and with a
lunch-pail in tow, Lily set off for Port Sarnia.

The Monday-morning sun had risen full of
hope, then retreated. An east wind brought dark clouds prophesying
thunder, and worse. The rain gusted and slashed sideways at Lily,
who was torn between sheltering in the bush by the road or being
late for school. Mrs. Templeton had made the arrangements. She was
expected. Using her thin broadcloth shawl as deftly as she could,
Lily manoeuvred her way through the squalls and mud into the open
streets of the town. She was soaked through to the skin. Even her
petticoat, improvised from a plain calico skirt, was sodden. Her
boots were wet and plastered with grime that splashed up to her
ankles and soiled the hem of her dress. Lily gritted her teeth and
wedged her right cheek into the rain.

When she got to the schoolhouse on George
Street, the rain had stopped; the sun was making a comeback. No
children skipped or cavorted in the grounds. Lily paused at the
door about to knock when a large boy with a pimple on his nose
opened it, and called back: “It’s the new girl, Miss Pringle! Looks
like she’s fallen in Durand’s Pond!”

A gale of laughter greeted Lily as she
entered the room, her shawl dripping. Standing at the front behind
a table, Miss Pringle – frightfully tall, angular, eyes overly
brilliant like a starved cat’s – slammed her fuller down. “Behave
yourselves, class,” she shouted an octave above normal. “Remember,
you’re young ladies and gentlemen.”

The ragtaggles and strays
among the motley group of ages and sexes were not taken in:
ladies-and-gentlemen-to-be went to the Grammar School on Christina
Street. When the hubbub had died of its own weight, Miss Pringle
said, “Please hang your
cloak
on the nail to your right, and take a seat. Class,
say hello to our new pupil, Miss Lily Ramsbottom.”

The surname had barely left Miss Pringle’s
lips when three or four unsynchronized snorts were emitted,
followed by several inferior female imitations. “That’s enough!”
screamed Miss Pringle. “We don’t make fun of people’s names,” she
informed the tiny and timid among her troop, “no matter how odd
they may be.”

Lily sat down at an empty spot on the bench
that held three other girls who might have been her age. Her
gingham, still sopping, clung to her and shivered. The dark-haired
girl next to her edged away.

“
Have you attended school
elsewhere?” Miss Pringle asked sweetly, not leaving her
post.

“
No, ma’am. This is my
first time.”

Miss Pringle paused, her gasp communicated
instantly to the class. Lily felt the humidity and reek of the
almost windowless room. She watched the teacher’s eyes, and tried
to breathe.

“
Then what on earth are you
doing sitting with the Fourth Book?” she snapped with more
satisfaction than the situation warranted. Her ruler pointed left
like a claw. “You’ll have to sit with the First Book, then, won’t
you?”

Lily saw the empty place at the end of the
back-left bench beside an oversize boy who swivelled and beamed at
her. Lily hesitated.

“
There’s a Reading Primer
waiting for you,” Miss Pringle said, indicating the gray-backed
tome on the desk, her voice honeyed again.

Lily went round the perimeter of the
spectators and eased into the appointed place. Her fingers touched
the worn cover, rubbed threadbare by a generation of Grammar School
children down the road. She looked up and waited.

“
My God!” screeched Miss
Pringle, hitting descant. The class reeled as one and swung to the
point of Miss Pringle’s glare. Lily flushed. She reached up and
tried to smooth her damp hair back. “Stop! Don’t do that!” wailed
Miss Pringle, and twenty-three necks craned, irreparably
scandalized. “You can’t sit there, just
sit
there…like that!” she spluttered,
unconsciously lifting her hands towards her own well-harnessed
bosom.

Beside her, not unkindly, the boy in Book
One whispered: “Your bubs are peekin’.”

“Well?” Aunt Bridie asked as she washed the
dirt off her hands under the new pump beside the sink.

“
I don’t wanna learn how to
read,” Lily said. “Ever.”

“
Don’t you fret about it,
child. Not much learnin’ goes on in them schools anyway.” She was
looking at Lily now. “Come September, we’ll teach you to read
proper.” Then as if that were not enough, she said, “We’re not
gonna spend all our life chewin’ dirt. Just remember
that.”

Uncle Chester, fresh from his stall, was all
for driving into town and taking his buggy-whip to Miss Pringle. Of
course Lily related few of the details, but when she went off to
the hen-house, she heard him holler, “I know all about that
hard-titted old bitch, I’ve a good mind to teach her a thing or two
she won’t soon forget!”

“
Eunice Pringle is not
old,” Aunt Bridie said calmly, and all the steam was gone from
Uncle’s whistle.

4

The summer of Lily’s fifteenth year was not,
as she feared, uneventful. Aunt Bridie seemed more obsessed than
ever with expanding production and business. Bachelor Bill, content
to let his wheat ripen unaided, was brought over to help with the
incredible weeding, picking and preparations for marketing. Auntie
herself “gave in” and opened a stall at the farmer’s market on
Saturday mornings during the growing season, giving over the
house-to-house sales to Lily, who now looked after the money-side
of the operation as well. Uncle’s back seemed baukier than usual,
but his new devices for storing and delivering the produce were,
even Bridie had to admit, “helpful for a change.” In mid-July she
astonished Uncle by announcing that she was going off for a few
days to cook for the road-clearance workers who had set up a tent
city near the Reserve. Rumours in the incorporated town suggested
that some of the clearing was in anticipation of the railway
coming, but no confirmation was available.