The Sister's Tale Page 6

  His skin was as if pumiced; dark eyebrows accentuated a humorous expression. He wore a high, stiff collar and a pocket handkerchief with blood-red edging.

  “Did you ever hear him say he had written a will?”

  “I think so. But I can’t be sure. He was most business-like about his voyages. When he was home, he was so…Well, he was happy to be home with me and the children. He did not want to attend to business, just for awhile.”

  She paused.

  People passed the window, heading for the grand opening of the new tin store.

  “My maids told me that they opened every drawer, every box, they searched to the back of every cupboard. I sent Mr. Dougan to tap with his hammer for hollow places. We looked in the carriage shed. We found one loose floorboard. Nothing. I fear it slipped his mind, although I know what his intentions were.”

  “What do you mean, his intentions?”

  “That he intended to write a will. And I am certain that he intended for me to be comfortable should anything befall him.”

  Mr. Eveleigh pressed the side of his hand against his upper lip. He remained in thought, finger passing up and down over the corner of his mouth.

  “Mrs. Galloway. I’m afraid I must tell you the law, and it will not be happy news for you. I can give it to you straight away, in point-by-point fashion. Are you agreeable? Or would you rather I told your father? That would probably be best.”

  He smiled to himself, turning over papers on his desk.

  “Then he could guide you through the particulars. I always feel that Mrs. Eveleigh needs a soft chair and a cup of tea by her side when I present her with difficulties.”

  She thought of how men exchanged looks, in the presence of women, as if some things should not be inflicted upon them. Her father, leading her down the aisle, handing her to her husband. Giving her away. She felt space, now, making silence around her.

  Where is your husband?

  Single. Just one. Alone.

  “Tell me,” she said. She straightened her back and stared at the rosy-faced man with his manicured fingernails. At first, force of thought had carried her through one day and then another. Thought rode atop feeling and was still floating, fragile. Do what they tell you. Try not to cry. Do not eat in bed, get up, get dressed. So she did, trying to resume. She asked Ellen not to bring food to her bedroom. She made sure to let no tear fall unless she was alone. She began making a scrapbook with Lucy and Maud, gathering every single thing they could find about Simeon: a poem little Maudie had written for him when she was four years old; from his handkerchief drawer, an outsized acorn found on a walk with Lucy.

  “Tell me now,” she repeated, forcefully, and he looked at her, surprised.

  “Very well, Mrs. Galloway. I’m sorry to have to…”

  He located the papers; worked pince-nez onto his nose. “This is the Intestate Estates Act chapter. I will read: His real estate…” He broke off. “Meaning land and things fixed to land. Such as a house…shall be divided equally to and amongst his children. If there are no children, then to his next of kin.”

  He looked over his glasses. “A widow is not kin.”

  A widow is not kin.

  “Excuse me? I don’t…”

  “A widow is not kin,” he repeated, pausing between each word.

  Her hand flew to her breast. She pressed hard, fingers spread.

  “However, the Dower Act ensures that you have one-third life interest in the real property. It is a life interest, which means you own one-third of the real property as long as you live. In theory you could identify your third and rent it out, but it would be rather…awkward. You see, who would buy your house, for example, knowing that you still owned one-third? You could always sign away your dower rights, of course. For a price. Now, as for personal property. You knew, of course, when you married, that all personal property you brought to the marriage vested absolutely in your husband.”

  “Yes.”

  “So now we are discussing everything that you may feel you and your husband owned. After estate expenses, one-third of this goes to the widow and the residue in equal portions to his children…”

  He paused.

  “You do not own the house and property outright, in short. Nor are you the legal guardian of your minor children. Since they are the owners of the house and land, as well as of two-thirds of all personal property, this is what you must do: you must apply to the Supreme Court in Equity to be declared their legal guardian—”

  “I am not their legal guardian?”

  He shook his head, no. “So that you can deal with their portion of the real property until they decide what is to be done with it. They cannot sell the house, in short, until they are all over twenty-one years of age, and they all agree to sell, and you agree to sign away your dower interest.”

  Josephine reflected that Mr. Eveleigh would go home to his house after his day’s work and remove the collar, which was surely uncomfortable. He would unbutton and remove the starched shirt. Perhaps he would shrug into a looser shirt and a smoking jacket. He would light a pipe and wonder what kind of trees to plant in his yard, elms or lindens.

  “Moreover, it will be incumbent upon you to keep very good accounts, as all portions of the estate belonging to the children must be used only for their benefit.”

  A young woman, passing the window. Looking not at them but her own reflection. A new bonnet trimmed with feathers and silk flowers.

  Watching the girl’s self-satisfaction, Josephine pressed at her cheekbones with her fingertips, forcing her eyes half-shut.

  A wife is not kin.

  A mother is not her children’s legal guardian.

  “Simeon would be horrified,” she said. Her voice broke. “He would be furious.”

  “Yes,” Mr. Eveleigh agreed. “The law can be cruel. It does not bend.”

  She stared through the dusty window. Spring sunshine, warm on those heading for Howe’s Tinware. Faces, smiling, anticipatory; people thinking of a new teapot or jelly cake pan. She sensed the change in her body—skin, bone and blood adjusting to the meaning of this news.

  “You can look again,” he suggested. She felt it as mockery—an insult to Simeon, and to the hard work of her maids.

  Not my house.

  Not my children.

  “Make me an appointment, then,” she said. Her words were not as commanding as they would have been several weeks ago, when she was still Simeon’s wife. She felt a shiver of uncertainty.

  His eyebrows raised. “With?”

  “The Supreme Court in Equity. I will be their legal guardian, at the very least.”

  “Very well,” he said, pulling papers towards him, reaching for his pen. “And we will see how much money you have when all is done. In the meantime, you may continue to draw on the funds as you have been. But I would advise beginning to…modify…”

  FIVE

  Mirror

  JOSEPHINE JOINED HER PARENTS for midday dinner and told them what Mr. Eveleigh had said.

  “Oh, Josephine,” her mother said. Emmeline had short eyebrows, like a terrier, and a patient, worried face. She glanced at her husband, who set knife and fork to pot roast, repressingly, not looking at Josephine. “I’m sorry. I am sorry. You are sorry, too, aren’t you, dear?”

  Josephine watched her father, Gordon, his fork scraping the plate as it pierced a cut of beef.

  “The law is the law,” he said.

  “It’s a terrible law!” Emmeline protested. “If women had the right to vote, there would never be a law saying that wives are not kin. That women do not have custody of their own children. That women are men’s property.”

  He paused, knife raised, shocked. He pointed the knife first at his wife and then at Josephine. “And you never will have the right to vote, my dears, because women are not capable of logical thinking. There’s
a very good reason for that legislation.”

  He sliced his meat, and chewed another mouthful. He sighed, patting his lips with his napkin.

  “Eat, Josephine,” Emmeline murmured.

  “We looked,” Josephine said to her father, leaning forward with her hands flat on the linen tablecloth. “We tore the house to pieces. It must have been thrown away by mistake.”

  Choleric in any event, spots of red bloomed on his cheeks. “Simeon should have taken more care with the disposition of his will. He should have informed you of its whereabouts. It should have been in a strong box.”

  “I—” She looked up at him. Formidable grey-streaked eyebrows bristled over blue eyes, whose expression softened. He was angry for her, frustrated by the law. She saw that he was torn between caring and propriety, and was forcibly reminded of the number of people in this town he employed.

  “I’m sorry, my dear.” He folded his napkin slowly and laid it beside his plate. He brushed the starched linen with his fingertips, not looking at her. “I am very sorry.”

  She picked up her fork, stared at her uneaten dinner. She felt their guarded sympathy as a renunciation of Simeon, the young man who had refused a job in the boot and shoe factory.

  “I will pay for the rest of George’s education,” he said. He drank deeply from his water goblet. “I will offer him a position in the factory as soon as he has graduated.”

  No mention of the girls, Josephine thought. She felt both anger and the inability to express it. Embarrassment, shame. Her father had offered her a gift without asking her if she would accept it.

  Her mother murmured into the maid’s ear. A dog barked in the yard.

  * * *

  —

  On the day that Josephine met with her lawyer, the household was in a state of limbo. Normally, Mary told Flora, on such a warm day they would begin preparing for summer. Winter curtains would come down and be washed and folded and put away. Summer curtains would be hung. Carpets would be cleaned.

  “Every carpet. Usually we take them outside about now and whack the bejesus out of them.”

  She and Flora were sitting on the lower step of the attic stairs. They had put everything to rights, keeping an eye out the whole time for the missing will.

  “Do you ever think of going home to Ireland?” Flora said.

  Mary tugged at a string in her apron, broke it. She wrapped it around her little finger until the skin turned white. “No home for me back there. Don’t know what became of my father, and me mam’s dead. Brothers are…” A wounded expression, and Flora wished she had not asked.

  They did not hear the front door opening, only the slam of its shutting.

  A crash. Tinkle of glass. Sailor.

  The girls ran down the hall, down the stairs. The dog stood in the door to the hallway, barking.

  Josephine was walking in circles, grinding the shards of a small smashed mirror into powder. Her hat lay halfway into the parlour, on the Persian rug. Its feather still quivered.

  She looked at the girls: furious, blind. She turned to the large hall mirror and began to lift it. Mary ran forward. Josephine threw down her hands. She went into the parlour and stood staring down its length towards the sun-filled turret room.

  * * *

  —

  “They’re calling more witnesses,” Ellen said to Mr. Dougan. She was following the axe murder trial as if it were the one sure thing in her life. She was certain that the bachelor had done the deed. Single, sex-crazed. Why else would he have invited the victim to share his tiny house?

  Mary and Margaret, eating rice pudding, were subdued. Their mistress was in the process of “asking around”; she assured them she would keep them until such time as good employment could be found. Mr. Dougan sat in the kitchen more often, since Josephine gave him no instructions about the gardens, the paths, the shrubs. She did not order him to purchase pullets to replace the old hens. She hinted that the mare might have to be sold.

  He refused pudding, but accepted a third cup of tea.

  Ellen filled his cup and then sat in her rocking chair by the window. She resumed her perusal of The Weekly Record.

  “Mr. Tatum, the bachelor, says he ran to a neighbour. Now. This is what the neighbour has to say.”

  She adjusted her reading glasses.

  We went into the house—and got there about twenty minutes past six. It was dark and we lighted the lamp and looked at the body. We did not examine it. She was lying on her back. Her clothes were turned up leaving her person exposed. The cat was in the room and eating at her head. I saw quite a stream of blood flowing down near her left side…

  She skimmed ahead, reading silently.

  “Oh, Lord. Now here he talks about the murder weapon.”

  We took up the axe and examined it. The axe had been used. It had blood on it about one quarter way up the handle. There was quite a lot of blood on the axe itself. The blood was quite fresh. Cannot say if it was damp, but it was high-coloured and fresh…

  “Why would he have left the axe?” Mr. Dougan began, his voice comfortable with the beginnings of the evening’s speculation. What he would have done, he would begin; and Ellen, then, would tell how she would have committed such an atrocity. They both seemed intent on proving their cunning, their devious natures, their contempt for the clumsiness of the murderer.

  It was not real to them, Flora thought, only a story. It made her think of the time, crossing the Atlantic, when a storm had made the children cry out for parents who would never know of their terror. It made her wonder where Enid was, whether anyone was watching out for her safety, teaching her to avoid men, lock her door, walk with her face to the ground.

  It was raining and the lily of the valley was in bloom. The cloying sweetness came in on the moist air. Maud appeared hesitantly in the doorway and asked if she might have a slice of bread and butter. She had not been hungry at suppertime.

  “I’m sorry, Ellen,” she mumbled, glancing at Flora. Maud and Flora were the same age. “It was a lovely meal.”

  Maud was fascinated with Flora but did not dare initiate conversation, nor ask questions, only listened, watched, was quick to respond if Flora spoke first. Where Lucy was built like Josephine, tall and slender, Maud was stocky, with reddish-brown hair and pale skin. She had been her father’s pet, Flora guessed, since her eyes filled with tears at the slightest reference to him.

  Ellen buttered slices of oatmeal bread and arranged them on a plate.

  “Here you are, Miss Maud, come back if you want more.”

  After Maud left, Flora sat with ankles crossed and hands folded in her lap.

  “What is it, Flora?”

  I must have sighed.

  “I was only thinking about my sister. Wondering if she is in Canada.”

  Enid, Flora wanted to offer, to dispel the unspoken, the word like a bud; but she remained silent, seeing how Ellen shook folds from the paper, how Margaret rose to find her work basket. Distractions, to cover Flora’s pain.

  She pulled a shawl around her shoulders.

  Picturing.

  After Ma died, she and Enid were like rabbits or foxes. Crouched, scurrying, crawling. Fingers scrabbling through dirt, separating baby potatoes from rootlets. Washing in icy river water. Kneeling beneath placid cows and milking into a cup. At night, they crept into the shuttered cottage, where Ma’s dress still hung on a hook, Papa’s straw hat on a nail.

  A man came on the morning after the first frost. He held a felt hat over his nose and then fanned the air with it.

  They stared dumbly as he told them to get whatever they wanted, for they would never come back here again—You are going to the workhouse; and she’d said—Ma told us never to go there; and he said—Did she, now, Missy, she’d be happy to see you there now.

  Three years later, Matron came to the workhouse schoolroom and led
Flora downstairs to a room where a lady waited. The lady was tall, with a long, thin nose and goose-glossy black eyes. Gold dress with lace at the neck; black gloves with lace at the wrist. Hair, a massed coil held by netting, pierced with tortoiseshell pins. Flora noticed the woman’s false patience—how her finger tapped as fast as Flora’s heart. She knew, too, that she was being tested, for the woman asked questions to which she already knew the answers. What did she do? (Felting, ma’am.) Did she have siblings? Were her parents alive?

  Do you wish to better yourself? Do you wish to help your sister?

  Like a hawk, circling the stubbled fields.

  The day the green box arrived at the workhouse. Sent by the lady, filled with clothing for the trip. Flora took out a pair of mittens and slipped them on Enid’s hands. Brown wool, they flopped at the tips and Enid covered her face with mittened hands. Her arms, shadowed with grime.

  No, Flora. She began to cry. Don’t go.

  Later. In the yard. Enid, a thin little girl, knelt on the packed earth and played with the petals of blossoms that drifted down from an apple tree on the other side of the wall. She nested them, like piles of saucers.

  And the day that Flora left.

  Flora flung her arms around Enid, the little body more familiar than her own—silky hair, warm curve of neck.

  Don’t go, Flora, oh, don’t go.

  Matron’s helpers pried up their fingers, one by one.

  Flora stood abruptly, flinging away the memories, like the shawl, which slithered to the floor. She bent and picked it up, hung it on the back of the chair. Mr. Dougan, too, stood and set his cup and saucer on the counter. Mary was scraping her pudding bowl with a spoon. Flora lifted it away.

  “Wait,” Mary cried. “I didn’t get—”

  “You did,” Flora said. “I hardly need to wash it.”

  * * *

  —

  George came home for a short visit.

  On the first morning of his return, he appeared at the breakfast table wearing a freshly washed shirt, with starched collar, and his best jacket.