Wild Rose (40 page)

“Room for one more table in here,” Mrs. Emery announced. “Another four chairs if you move things around.”

“Come and see the bed – the other room,” Sophie thought
he had flushed slightly, although it was hard to tell in the poor light.

“Your house is very comfortable,” she told him primly, as if seeing it for the first time.

“For a bachelor shack,” he said, laughing easily, standing by the bedroom door to usher them in. She wondered at his ease: Was he used to such subterfuge? An ugly, tan-coloured curtain rather than a door separated the kitchen area from the back room and this he had pulled back and hung onto a long nail pounded into the wall at, what was for Sophie, shoulder height. This room was smaller by perhaps a third than the first room, the single bed to the left of the door neatly made, a handmade quilt stretched tightly over it, and another, smaller rag rug spread in front of it. The floorboards around the rugs were still damp from washing and gave off the musty, wet odour that Sophie was all too familiar with from the floor of her homestead cabin, and that, stupidly, gave her a pang of homesickness she overcame almost as quickly as it struck. The single window directly across from the open doorway was curtained with the same material as the one in the kitchen, pulled across it, making it hard to see the room’s detail. She wondered who had made the curtains for him, something she hadn’t thought of when she had been coming each day to care for him during his illness.

“Here,” he said. “I’ll take the boy from you so you can have a good look.” Surprisingly, Charles made no objection to being handed over to this stranger, immediately beginning to fiddle with the top button of Harry’s shirt. Sophie thought that maybe Charles was wondering if this man was his missing father, or if it was only that he had gotten used to strange men at the boarding house, who, except for Sam Wetherell who seemed not to like children any better than he liked women, made a fuss over him as a handsome little man.

To her right, by the doorway, over a washstand with blue granite basin and pitcher sitting on it, a mirror hung, set too high for either Mrs. Emery or Sophie, both small women, to see into. A large cupboard, newly-made and still unpainted, stood against the wall opposite the bed, and a single wooden chair sat between the bed and the one window, where it served as the nightstand. The chair where weeks ago she had set his glass of water and their eyes had met with so disconcerting an effect.

“It seems very nice, Mr. Adamson,” Sophie said, smiling at him and reaching to take Charles who had begun rubbing at his eyes with his fists and whimpered pitifully so that she had to laugh.

“He is missing his nap.”

“Give him to me,” Mrs. Emery said, “I’ll just set down here and rest while you talk.” She went into the front room and sat in the dubiously better of the two armchairs. Sophie handed Charles to her, and he settled himself into her lap, his head on her shoulder. Over the weeks of having him around Mrs. Emery – Charlotte – had overcome her faint distaste for the child, and now mothered him readily. It warmed Sophie’s heart to see them sit that way, or it would have, were she not so intent on the real purpose of her visit, and on disguising it.

Adamson had followed Sophie back into the main room. He brought forward the kettle that already steamed quietly at the back of the stove, reached for his teapot and put in a handful of loose leaves taken from a tin on the shelves. Sophie sat at the table.

“There’s enough room, “ Mrs. Emery repeated. She held Charles, jiggling him gently, hardly seeming to notice she was. Harry was pouring the hot water into the teapot, then setting three cups on their saucers on the table.

“Boy’s asleep,” Mrs. Emery remarked. The adults halted in their motions to look at the child, marvelling in silence at the way small children could sleep. Sophie rose quickly and lifted the boy from Charlotte’s arms and set him gently onto the couch in between the two armchairs. Mrs. Emery rose with her usual difficulty and sat down with them, remarking, “There’s an extra table in the upstairs hall, been in the way up there since I bought the place. I don’t mind lending it.”

“I don’t have many dishes,” Adamson said. “But use what I have.”

“I still have my porcelain,” Sophie said, tentatively.

“Tsk! You mustn’t use that, Mrs. Hippolyte,” Mrs. Emery declared, aghast. “It will only get broken, or the gold will wear off from so much use. Don’t even think of such a thing.” Sophie had one day unpacked a plate to show her friend, whose eyes had widened, her mouth making an O. They had gazed in silence at the plate until Sophie reverently re-packed it. They both had sighed, turning away, the better to erase the reminder of such dreams as they once had.

“Then I will sell it,” Sophie declared. Mrs. Emery set her teacup with a decisive click onto its saucer.

“I’ve got some old pots too,” she said. “I’d be glad to get them out of the way.” She pushed back her chair. “Now I have to get back.” She turned to look at Charles who hadn’t moved since Sophie had put him down. “Let the little one sleep. He’ll be awake soon enough and you can come back then.” Sophie had begun to rise, flustered, and Adamson said, his voice convincingly casual, “If you pick him up he’s just going to wake up. I don’t mind if you wait a bit. We’ll just leave the door open and maybe sit outside until he stirs.”

Mrs. Emery already had her hand on the doorknob. She opened it now, ostentatiously pulling it back and leaving it that way so that anyone passing by could easily see inside through the screen door. Sophie thought, she knows very well I could just pick up Charles and come with her, yet she is allowing me this. She couldn’t bring herself to look at Charlotte.

“You come along as soon as you can. There’s pudding to make.” She stepped outside, closing the screen door carefully, and disappeared from view.

Sophie and Adamson sat listening to her retreating footsteps, not looking at each other. Now the only sound was the far off cry of an exultant hawk, his scream a dying fall. There was not a breath of wind, but flies still buzzed against the screen, it not having been cold enough yet to kill all of them. Harry went to the door, opened it a couple of inches to peer down the boardwalk, then quickly stepped back, reaching for the main door and pulling it shut too.

He said, “The street’s deserted.” Sophie had gotten uncertainly to her feet. He was at her side in two strides.

“The other room,” he breathed, putting one heavy arm across her shoulders and turning her, pushing her gently before him into the back room, pausing only to pull the separating curtain off its nail. It dropped into place, swishing slightly. His mouth was on hers, already he was lifting her skirt, pushing her backward to the bed and falling onto it beside her. But he paused, sat up again, and when, puzzled, she raised her head, she saw that he was putting on a sheath. Then his mouth was on hers again, and she was lifting her hips to help him pull down her underwear. They clung to one another, scruples, niceties, even tenderness, all lost to their long-repressed desire.

It was over too quickly, Sophie didn’t want to let him go, clinging to him until the waves of pleasure passed, their mutual grip slowly lessening, and he lay beside her panting as she too gasped for breath, one of his large hands resting, fingers spread and hot, on her abdomen. After a moment, she put both her own hands on his, gently lifting it aside, then pulled herself to a sitting position, struggling to re-button her bodice, to find her discarded clothing, to pull her twisted skirt around into place. But he pulled her back again, kissing her face and neck and shoulders so that she felt her resistance melting, and she kissed him back with such hunger that, far back of the overwhelming desire, she was faintly afraid of what he had roused in her, that it would be possible to lose all control. Out of that, she foresaw only ruin. There was no sound from the other room, no sound at all from outside the cabin. It was so quiet as to be eerie, but rather than relaxing her, she grew anxious, and then more so. He was still kissing her, his hands holding her breasts, one pushing away cloth to slide down between her legs again, but now she pushed him away, whispering,
“Non, non,”
rolled from under him, managed to stand although shakily, then rushed to the washstand, and without thinking, using his towel to wipe between her legs, splashing water onto her face, scrubbing her hands, then sniffing at them. Tremors still ran through her body and she nearly gave up her efforts to tidy herself, but then, fear spurred her.

“It’s all right, here, it’s fine.” While she was cleaning herself, he had stepped out through the curtain, pushing it back, and hanging it on the nail again. “The boy hasn’t stirred. The road is just as empty as it was five minutes ago.” In her panic she hadn’t heard him get up or leave the room. She fitted pins into her hair with fingers gone clumsy, then followed him into the kitchen.

“Only five?” she said, able to laugh a little now that her apparel and hair had been returned to respectability. He said, “More like ten, or fifteen, I reckon, hmmm?” He was moving slowly now, his voice had taken on a velvet, as if their encounter had reminded him that he was a man first, something that in his long bachelorhood he had nearly forgotten.

“Is my hair in place?” He studied her, smiling.

“Nobody would ever know. You look pretty.” He was moving toward her again. She allowed him to kiss her, then stepped back.

“I have to hurry now, or Mrs. Emery will be suspicious.”

“The boy is still asleep,” he said, reaching for her again; she saw that he wanted to lead her back into his bedroom.

“No, Harry,” stepping away.”I don’t dare risk it,” although all she wanted was to throw herself again into his arms, to lie again with him in his stuffy little bedroom. “No husband would let his wife come into my tea room if he thought that I was an immoral woman.” He let his arms drop to his sides, wordlessly acknowledging this, and she felt such regret, even as she stiffened her resolve, telling him, “Nor would any woman come in. Except perhaps Madame Beausoleil – and Mrs. Emery.”

He said, “And Mrs. Smith,” wryly, and Sophie breathed in sharply. “No, no,” he said, seeing her dismay. “She wouldn’t ever come in.” He moved closer to her again, touching her face, her neck, her breasts, as if he hadn’t just acknowledged that they mustn’t. Once more she stepped back from him as he moved away from her, pushing at a soiled tea cup on the table as if he meant to knock it over. Seeing this, she felt a pang at his sadness or bitterness or whatever it was, and nearly succumbed again to his need, yearning to touch and soothe him, but forcing herself to turn away instead.

“I’ll be leaving in another week, I think.” His voice had returned to normal. “Let me know when you want to bring the table over, and the extra dishes. I’ll help you. And I’ll show you how to use the stove – you got to get the dampers just right. You can move in the minute I leave, if you want to.” As he spoke, she had gone to the couch where Charles lay motionless.

“I can’t abandon Mrs. Emery. I’ll have to help her at least part of the time until I begin to earn a little money here. Then I’ll move in.” She was gathering her sleeping son into her arms, and she turned with him toward Harry again, and said, her lips barely touching her child’s damp forehead, “Oh, Harry, how will we…?” She felt hot all over, and her breath was coming in short gasps, it was all she could do not to drop her child back on the sofa and run into Harry’s arms again: A chance at a new life, destroying her link to Pierre as viciously as he had destroyed his to her. This thinking alone halted her; it seemed to her ugly, unkind,
and anyway, surely, not true. Surely she was not so vile? She cared for Harry, she wanted to be close to him, she wanted…

“I’ll try to think of a way,” he said. “But if not, then next spring when I come back.” His words sobered her, the heat sweeping through her dwindling, dying. How had she thought this would end? Mentally, she drew back a little from him: Did he think she was to be his easy woman for as long as he might want her? Wasn’t this, after Campion’s offer, just what she had struggled so hard to avoid? Nausea rose, and she swallowed it down, trying not to let him see how he had upset her. Charles stirred; tightening her arms around him, as if to secure him as the barrier between herself and Harry and all he stood for, she walked quickly to the door.

“I will let you know when I need help to bring the table over,” she said, pushing open the screen with her shoulder and the arm that held Charles, turning only her head toward him. “Thank you again.” And then, embarrassed, added, “I mean, for the use of your house. I cannot ever thank you enough.” He laughed.

“You’ve already thanked me enough.” She stopped smiling. “I didn’t mean that. You know I didn’t.” She stepped out through the open door, letting it bang shut behind her, and marched around the corner and across the hoof-pitted street as
Charles lifted his heavy little head and gazed around wonderingly. Let him not think that I’ll be available to him whenever he wants me.
Let him not think that
, and she walked faster, her heels thudding onto the boardwalk, as if she were a much heavier
woman than her appearance suggested.

But in the days that followed she forgot her pique, wondered if perhaps being angry at him was easier than admitting that, in her need, she had given herself too easily. A mortal sin, and hers, not his. Without Confession, childhood teachings rearing up to overwhelm her, how could she go on? But to be married forever to a man who had deserted her and his child! It was too much to bear, and she thought of the murmurs she had heard around town about this woman and man who weren’t really married, though they lived together and claimed to be and even had children and God had not treated them any worse, as far as she could tell, than anyone else. Out here it seemed that people got along fairly well without churches and priests to rant, painting terrifying pictures of eternal hellfire, screaming of damnation. The memory of
Père Deschambeault
and his endless sermons, the pictures he repeated of flames burning forever struck her with the old childish terror. But didn’t the church also say that even small children were sinners, a teaching that she felt defied all reason, and for the first time she thought, but it doesn’t matter what the priest says: He is only a man after all. The perception made her snort out loud.
And so is the Pope
, in her anger, half-expecting to be struck down on the spot.