The Sister's Tale

by Beth Powning

  She was made to sleep in the attic on a pallet whose buckwheat hulls, leaking from its seams, crunched and slithered, leaving little but cloth beneath her. The ceiling slanted close, stippled with nails whose points bristled with frost. On Christmas morning, she had peered out the attic window and seen smoke drifting from the chimney, separating into white strands, like angels on the point of dissolution. Downstairs, a fir tree stood in the parlour, hung with painted baubles, but she had been told to remain in the kitchen, helping the cook.

  One day she would tell the Overseer of the Poor. How she had thought she would have turkey and mince pie, as she always did on Ada and Henry’s farm. And instead, at the cook’s sharp call, had steeled herself to leave her warm cocoon and put on the clothes that hung motionless as frozen rabbits, and had gone down the back stairs to the kitchen on the day she was supposed to spend with children her own age.

  She yawned, closed her eyes. Today’s images pressed close: wax on wood, her rag, circling: custard, crinkled with nutmeg—you’re going to let it burn; icicles holding a rainbow shimmer, vinegar on windowpane; Josephine, hand on forehead, an urgency in her pen’s scratch. Maud and Lucy, home from school with frosted eyelashes.

  Thoughts tipped, slid, ran together, glossy and warm, sweet smelling.

  * * *

  —

  By bedtime, Josephine had not had time to peruse The Weekly Record, so she took it upstairs. Heat radiated from a stovepipe, which rose through the hall floor and separated into three pipes. She always warned her daughters about the hot metal. Careful. Hold your skirts tight.

  She twisted, unbuttoning the back of her dress; worked at the hooks of her coralline corset. Her skin relaxed, like a jelly tipped from a mould. She rubbed at the red creases in her flesh. This was the time when she would read the paper out loud to Simeon, feet in his lap as he eased her arches with his thumbs.

  In nightgown and wrapper, she sat in an armchair; paused for a moment before opening the newspaper’s virgin pages, smelling of ink. Mr. Dougan always spoke to her before shutting up the house. “Storm coming,” he’d said, tonight. “There’s a smell of the beautiful on the air.” When Simeon was on furlough, he spent his days at his father’s store, and in the evening she shared the day’s stories. Your cousin Carrie came. Mr. Dougan called snow “the beautiful” again. Flora served tea for the first time. She gazed at Simeon’s untouched pillowcase and felt herself changing. Her lips, held more tightly. A sadness within her as the stories she wished to tell him bloomed, faded, dissipated.

  She looked down at the news.

  IS SLAVERY ABOLISHED?

  By George Francis Train

  A veritable slave scene was enacted on Saturday last in the civilized village of Pleasant Valley by the annual sale of Paupers. Although no slave driver was present with his long whip to drive the poor creatures to the block, the sale recalled in all its degrading colours the scenes that were enacted in the long ago Slave sales in the Southern States…

  She felt her heart speed as she read, as if the article had been written specifically to her.

  …inhuman…just as unchristian as when the poor black man…nefarious business…degrading not only to the paupers themselves but to all those who take part herein…

  Excuse me, Carrie, she’d said. I would like you to meet Flora Salford.

  She felt her face grow hot. She dropped the paper and walked to the window. She closed her eyes, pressed her forehead against the cold glass, listening for the approaching storm.

  * * *

  —

  Ellen, in her bedroom, also read George Francis Train’s diatribe on the pauper auction, finger running beneath the words. It did not occur to her that Mrs. Galloway had done anything wrong by purchasing Flora and saving her from the men gathered to bid for her.

  Then she read the next installment of the axe murder trial.

  The first witness, Mr. John Tatum, is a bachelor. Elsa Cavanaugh has resided with him after her husband’s death for about four years. The witness slept on a bed in the kitchen and she slept in the bedroom. On the day of the murder, Mr. Tatum left the house at about seven o’clock. Elsa Cavanaugh was still in bed at the time he left although she was awake. He spoke to her and asked her to be certain to lock the door after he had left. She said yes. He took his dinner and went to his job, taking a new axe and leaving the old one leaning against the stove. He was chopping cordwood for Mr. Cardwell…

  She snipped the article from the newspaper with quilting scissors, thinking what she would say to Mr. Dougan.

  “The old axe,” she would point out, shrewd. “He said himself ’twas too soft and the edge turned over. He testified that he bought that new axe the very day before the murder. Now do you think…”

  They would discuss the details all week, until the next installation came in The Weekly Record.

  * * *

  —

  Shaking out a cloth on the side porch, Flora squinted in the morning sun, glittering in last night’s snow. She could see farm wagons on Creek Road—horses, with icy fetlocks, stepping high; farm couples and half-frozen children looking eagerly at the big houses, reminding her of herself when she lived on Henry and Ada’s farm and was familiar with manure, teats and the butter churn. Here, her maid’s uniform was made of finer linen and edged with more piping than what she had then worn to church.

  She went back inside and down the hall, where she opened the door of the broom closet.

  This brush is for cobwebs, Mary had taught her, that first week. Mind you don’t use it for anything else. And this is for the outside of windows. This here’s a coat broom. This one’s the whitewash brush. Her finger, moving, ticking each one like a checklist. Stove brush, shoe brush, common broom, dust brush.

  So much to learn. How to make peaks in egg whites for a dish called meringue. How to turn a mattress and put the marked part of the sheet at the top. How to polish silver. How to iron collars without leaving a scorch mark. How to brush a hat. How to walk. Don’t be a lummox. Step softly, like a cat. You come and you do your business and you go.

  “Flora?” Josephine called.

  Flora thought of this now, walking quietly by stilling herself from the inside. In the parlour, Josephine was sitting at her writing desk. She put down her pen when Flora entered. Sunlight hazed her loosely pinned bun, its wisps. She wore a scarf wrapped round her neck—blue cotton, with white dots. She smiled, although her eyes held worry.

  “Ellen has spoken to me about a little problem.”

  Flora looked at the carpet.

  “It’s nothing much, Flora. You have been learning very fast. I have nothing to complain about. It’s only the grate.”

  The grate. Flora frowned, looked up, surprised.

  “The kitchen grate,” Josephine explained. She capped the pen and leaned forward, tapping it against her mouth. “When you scrape it out, you leave ashes all over the floor. She has told you twice.”

  Ada’s country kitchen. The stove wood was kept in a box, pushed up against the wall. Ada did not mind a drift of ashes. It was the maplewood table she insisted upon being scrubbed to whiteness.

  “I forget,” Flora said. “I got so much to do in the mornings. I will remember.” She tightened her hands on the whisk broom behind her back. Her heart speeded, she bit her lips. “I’m sorry.”

  Josephine turned to her desk, pressed blotting paper against the letter she had been writing.

  “I always tell my girls,” she said. “Both my own daughters, I mean. And you, too, Flora. You and Mary and Margaret. I tell them that they…you…can always talk to me. If you have any questions. Something you don’t understand. Or…or problems of your own. I like to have a happy home. My husband and I. We like to have a happy home.”

  The clock on the mantelpiece ticked more slowly than Flora’s heart. She thought of the question. She had held it so c
arefully, like the egg basket when she walked across ice.

  Unasked, she could still hope. She had pondered this. If the answer was no, would she leave this house? Would she somehow find her way back to England?

  “I do have a question.”

  “Yes?”

  The oak-cased telephone rang and they both jumped, but it was three rings, not one.

  “I never asked,” Flora said. She tightened her hands on the whisk broom. “Whether I am to be paid.”

  Josephine smiled, this time without worry.

  “Of course you’ll be paid, Flora. I pay the others every two weeks. You’ll be paid along with everyone else.”

  Flora could not bring herself to say that she did not have a single penny saved. In Ada’s kitchen she’d been led to think she was a member of the family. You can go to school if your work’s done. Eating at the table with them. Hearing the rumble of Henry’s stomach, seeing Ada’s hand over her mouth to cover a belch. She got the same serving of food as Ada; slept in the same cold house; shared the same kerosene-lit parlour on winter’s evenings.

  “I have a sister.” She drew a breath that strained the buttons between her shoulder blades. “Her name is Enid. They told me she would be sent over to be with me. They told me I could save up my money and better myself. For when she came. I wouldn’t have left if I’d have known it wasn’t true.”

  She had been waking at night from a recurrent dream. The matron, looming with a giant blacksmith’s nipper—Have you no appreciation!—Enid’s fingers, clasping Flora’s arms. The nipper, snap snap. Screams.

  “I want to save my wages.”

  Josephine’s eyebrows shot upwards, her mouth fell open for a moment. She pushed back her chair. “You have a…Flora?”

  “And I want to find her. There was a lady came to the workhouse. She’s the one who told me about bettering myself. She’s the one who brought me over. I gave a paper to the Quigleys but I never seen it again. Think they must have lost it. So I can’t remember her name or where she is. I thought the Overseer would help me.”

  “You have a sister?” Maud had stayed home from school with a sore throat. She stood in the doorway holding a cup of tea, wearing housecoat and slippers. Her hair was pillow-flattened, her eyes earnest—shocked, she looked at Flora as if seeing her for the first time. “A lost sister? Where do you think she is?”

  Flora spoke to the carpet. “I don’t know. Think she’s still in England.”

  “They made you come away without her? How could they?” Maud said, stepping into the room. “Mother, isn’t it terrible?”

  Flora glanced up at Maud.

  Who am I? Who does she see?

  “I will ask Mr. Fairweather. The Overseer of the Poor,” Josephine said. Her words chased one another, a cascade of promise. Her eyes, as earnest as Maud’s. As shocked. Her hands, clasped tightly and pressed against her breast. “I will ask him to help us. We will try to find your sister, Flora.”

  * * *

  —

  “She was violated,” Ellen said, after the staff had finished their noon meal. She sipped her tea, pointed at the newspaper. “She was a woman of fifty years of age. In poor health. And she was violated. Can you imagine, now? Bruises on the insides of her legs. Teeth marks.”

  The Weekly Record was lying on the kitchen table. Its headline was larger than usual. Is Slavery Abolished?

  Flora picked it up. She read the article, running her finger under the words.

  “Can you read, then, Flora?”

  Flora stopped. She was silent for a moment, stung.

  “I can. Even though I’m only a pauper.”

  “Flora. You’re not a pauper.”

  They didn’t know, though, Flora thought. She set down the paper as if it were one of Josephine’s freshly ironed blouses. No tears, never tears, only hurt that occasionally shook her like a fever, so much of it that she realized how long she had been patient. Trusting. Waiting.

  They could scoff at her feelings and hand her a cup of tea and a bowl of raisin pudding. They could teach her to knit, tat, play cards. They could show her how to skate, holding the back of a chair. They had never stood before a crowd of men and known that those men had the power to buy her because of how her body might serve their lust.

  “You’ll be getting paid like any housemaid,” Ellen added. She was watching Flora closely, running a finger around the rim of her teacup. Margaret’s back was turned as she washed dishes in the sink. Mary, on her hands and knees, rummaged deep in a cupboard. “Mrs. Galloway told me she spoke to you about the ashes. I’m sorry, Flora, I did tell you twice. I lost me temper, I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “It’s all right. She was…”

  “She’s a fair person, she is. Like her husband. They’re good people. We’re lucky to be here.”

  Her gentled tone brought an unaccustomed prickle to the back of Flora’s nose, a rush of tears.

  No tears. Never tears.

  “I told her something,” she said.

  Mary sat back on her heels. Margaret turned from the sink. Water plinked into the dishpan.

  “I have a sister. I have a little sister. Three years younger than me. Her name is…her name is Enid. We was orphaned and put in the workhouse. So I guess we were paupers, in England, anyway. A lady told me if I came to Canada I could save my money and bring Enid over, and she made me feel like I had to do it if I loved my…if I…so I left her behind, I told her she would be coming over soon as could be. And not a word since. Years ago, it was. I asked Mrs.…I wanted to know if I would be paid, like.”

  Margaret put both hands over her mouth.

  “Did she get brought over too?” Mary asked.

  Flora shrugged.

  “Sent, more like,” Ellen muttered. “The likes of that lady wouldn’t of held you by the hand, would she now.”

  One tear slid down Flora’s cheek as her secret was told, and taken from her, like handing over a baby, watching as it was cradled, passed from person to person, revered.

  * * *

  —

  George Francis Train’s vitriolic comments dominated The Record for the next three weeks.

  She’s a pauper. There’s a bid! That face he turns to us is stamped as only Satan stamps the faces of men. If he were dumb, and we heard not his rude and filthy jesting, the sensuality of his heart would be revealed in his face. But he is the lowest bidder and the woman pauper is handed over…

  The diatribes found their way into the international papers. For the first time, the rector of Josephine and Harland’s church preached a sermon attacking the pauper auction and advocating the building of an almshouse. The St. John paper printed its own headline: Terrible Dominion Slavery. George Train reprinted articles from England and the United States expressing shock and outrage, and condemning the country that could allow such outrage to human dignity. Letters to the editor reflected the town’s seething divisions: fury at Train—A shame that the fair name of one the most beautiful spots in Canada…—or appreciation—May heaven send us more such cranks…

  Josephine, learning that Flora was fully literate, knowing that she was reading the paper, sent Margaret to ask Flora into the parlour. She sat at her desk, exasperatedly jiggling the handle of a jammed drawer. She explained to Flora that both she and her friend Mr. Fairweather were joining the voices calling for an almshouse.

  “He would rather not be the Overseer of the Poor. It is an appointed position. He and I and my husband went to school together.”

  Flora stood stiffly, stroking the turkey feathers of her duster. She wondered if Mary, Margaret, Ellen or Mr. Dougan were ever invited into the parlour to talk to their mistress about anything other than the day’s orders.

  “He and I do not believe in the pauper auction, you see.”

  Flora didn’t know what to say, or what was being
asked of her. She wondered if Mrs. Galloway wished her new servant were in an almshouse.

  “I am very happy to have you here, Flora. I want you to know that I am very sorry about the way I had to…acquire you. I know you are not a pauper, not really.”

  Josephine leaned forward on her chair, almost, it seemed, asking forgiveness. Flora did not know how to respond, how to feel.

  In her bedroom, she looked into a mirror on her dresser. She could not remember what she had looked like as a child. There were no mirrors in the workhouse. She and Enid saw only vague reflections in the long windows, before the lights were extinguished. She did not understand why men looked at her and then looked again as if they did not believe what they had seen. She did not care about beauty nor know if it was what she possessed.

  * * *

  —

  Josephine answered the phone. She heard the operator’s baby making happy sounds.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Galloway. How’s Maud?”

  “Good morning, Mrs. Martin. She’s fine, back in school.”

  Carrie’s voice came on the line.

  “Good morning, Josephine. I’m not coming today. Did you hear? The show has been cancelled. The pauper’s owner will not let Mr. Train exhibit him. Moreover, Mr. Spooner has let him go.”

  “Let who go?”

  “Mr. Train. He’s to pack his bags and leave town. My mother phoned to tell me the news. She heard it from her brother.”

  Josephine pictured George Francis Train holding a leather suitcase in one purple-gloved hand. He would not mind, she thought. He would return to the greater world and continue ferreting out injustice. She would follow his career in the newspaper. She felt an emptiness within herself, however, as if his energy had ignited a spark that would die, unused. She had planned to invite him to dinner. She wanted to ask him about his wife and his children and why he had written that his favourite thing was to sit on park benches feeding squirrels and listening to the sagacity of children. She had planned to tell him that she, herself, had once felt the urge to help those in need. How, as a schoolgirl, she had been known as a person with the ability to protect, heal, tame, love. How she had not known in what capacity she might use this skill, and, in any case, realized that there was probably none for a woman outside of mothering, and yet because of her desire could understand his own fierce outrage. She had thought that he would press his lips to her hand, and that she would feel the brush of his pomaded moustache.