by Beth Powning
“And so will I,” Maud added, under her breath.
“Enid was in the pageant,” Josephine said. She reached over and patted Enid’s hand. “Oh, I was so proud of you. Weren’t you proud of her, Flora?”
“She was…” Flora paused, pondering her sister. “I only wish our ma and papa could have seen her.”
Enid did not speak, but leaned forward, eager to see the expression on Ellen’s face.
George was silent for the rest of the meal. Josephine noted that he took a sober appraisal of every person at the table. His sisters—animated, informed. Ellen—entirely changed in appearance as she smiled at Enid, the lines in her cheeks folding upwards, softening her expression. The English sisters—at ease with the family, as Josephine had taught them to be. Herself—at peace.
Afterwards, when they did not go into the parlour, since the boarders were playing Parcheesi, he seemed at a loss, as if he could not retreat with them into the kitchen. As if there would be no room for him there.
* * *
—
Ellen said she did not feel capable of taking around the petition.
“What if they ask me questions, like? I’ll stay home with Enid.”
Enid spent Sunday afternoons in Ellen’s kitchen, earnestly filling out worksheets or doing sums or writing essays with the aid of a large dictionary, while Ellen’s arthritic fingers pushed and lifted, knitting mittens and tasselled caps. For barter, for sale.
Josephine, Flora and Maud spent these afternoons visiting women in the towns and villages around Pleasant Valley, explaining the petition, offering it for signing. Excitement mounted, exponentially. They could feel it in church parlours, where they met members of the YWCA, missionary societies and women’s auxiliaries; in temperance lodges, where they attended meetings of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union; in women’s homes, where they were guests of honour at literary societies, tea parties, or sewing circles. In the countryside, they spoke to determined women crowded into farmhouses.
Everywhere, women fanned out, covering the entire province—Carrie and her cohorts, from St. John; other suffragists, from Sackville, Moncton, Fredericton, Campbellton.
On a Sunday evening, coming home on the train, in the flush of an evening sunset, Flora sat on the edge of her seat feeling sharpened, as keen as the point of a pencil. She studied the names written in ink—Gladys Templeton, Beryl Fanjoy, Alice Streetham, Rose Campbell, Marcia Jones, Beatrice Davies, Florence Camps.
Her own name, at the top.
Flora Salford.
She wished that Maria Rye, or Matron, or the men who had bid for her at the pauper auction, or even Jasper Tuck might in some ghostly manner populate the other seats. Exiting the train, she would pause and stare into each of their faces. They would see within her own eyes all the other women who had signed the petition: an irrepressible multitude.
* * *
—
By April, Flora and Ellen had prepared everything needed to furnish the new rooms, and the rooms themselves were ready for occupancy. Josephine began to mention, quietly, and to the right people, that she was accepting two new boarders.
Flora acquired a Barred Rock rooster. He woke the entire household at the break of day and rode the hens with a mighty flapping of grey wings. She named him Prince Albert and waited eagerly for the first hen to claim ownership to her eggs. She took the cow to a neighbour’s bull, and watched the mating, and walked her home again. She planted a forty-foot row of peas when the snow still lay on the fields.
* * *
—
Lucy’s letter arrived on the day when all the women of the household, even Ellen, were in a frenzy of preparation. They made cold meals for the boarders and a picnic for themselves, packed satchels for the train ride to Fredericton. Tomorrow, the suffrage bill was to receive its second reading in the legislature and women from all over the province were going to witness the vote.
At supper, as they cut into Ellen’s rhubarb pie, Josephine read the letter out loud for the second time.
June 23, 1890
Dear Mother,
I can hardly hold my pen for excitement. I have been accepted into the Wellesley Female Seminary in Massachusetts! Cousin Carrie encouraged me to apply and begs you, as do I, to accept her offer to pay for my education. It may be that after all I might become one of the first women lawyers. I will finish out the summer here at the factory if I don’t get fired! I will begin at the seminary next September. Mother, I will change the laws. I will fight for the rights of women and children. And of course, by then, we will have the right to vote.
Josephine pressed the letter to her breast. Not for me, she thought. Change takes time. But for them.
Maud speared a piece of buttery crust with her fork. “The more I learn about how we are treated by men, it’s as if my heart is actually swollen with anger. It can’t be healthy. It’s like wearing a corset.” She forked the pie into her mouth, chewed, swallowed and turned to Ellen. “You and Enid haven’t been hearing it, but everywhere we’ve travelled this spring, everywhere, women are talking about the laws, and how they work in favour of men, and about how women make no laws. And then we all talk about how most women are more affected by the ills of society than are men. And so, of course, would be in a better position to make…better laws.” Maud threw her arms wide, narrowly missing Flora’s head. “But I am so excited for tomorrow! Mr. Turner has been talking all over the place, encouraging other men to his side. To our side. I can hardly believe it, but…no, I can, I can believe it. Who could have believed Lucy would go from working in a cotton factory to studying at a women’s seminary in Massachusetts? Oh, Mother. Let me see it again.”
“Remember how Lucy wrote that she was growing so thin she was becoming weak?” Josephine said, handing Maud the letter. “I was about to tell Carrie to go and rescue her.”
“Well,” Maud sighed, satisfied. She handed the letter to Ellen. “She has. In a way. Rescued her.”
* * *
—
The number of women arriving at the legislature to witness the vote was so great that chairs were set onto the floor of the House of Assembly Room—behind the fixed seats and beneath the tall windows—and all the upper galleries were filled.
Josephine, the girls and Ellen sat in the topmost row of the side balcony; they leaned forward to watch the floor below.
“I just heard that the petition received over twelve thousand signatures from every corner of the province, from both women and men,” Maud said to Flora, as the din of arrivals continued.
Women flooded in, found their way to seats, compressing their skirts, murmuring apologies. Ellen pulled a fan from her bag, endeavoured to make a cooling breeze of the stultifying heat. The tall windows had been opened; over their heads, holes in the ceiling sucked the air, but Flora felt sweat rolling down her cheeks. The balcony at the far end of the enormous room looked so steep that it seemed as if the women were pasted there like wallpaper. On the floor, some men sat tidily and others sprawled at their appointed desks. The clerk spread papers on a marble table, set before the Speaker’s dais.
On the dais, the Speaker stood and the room quieted.
“O Lord, our heavenly father,” he said, “high and mighty, King of kings, Lord of lords, the only Ruler of princes, who dost from thy throne behold all the dwellers upon earth: Most heartily we beseech thee with thy favour to behold our most gracious Sovereign lady, Queen Victoria…”
Flora’s mind wandered as the business of government wended its confusing path: first, a message from the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, after which a group of men left the room, while those left behind spoke, stood, sat, strolled. The group returned. Men rose, then, seemingly at random, and asked leave of the Speaker to speak. Speeches ensued. Then counter-speeches. Flora could not see that any conclusions were reached or actual work accomplished. It seemed a delib
erate obfuscation or postponement of the bill which so many women had travelled to hear, and restlessness unsettled the chamber. Women removed their hats and ran fingers through sweaty hair. A parasol slid to the floor with a loud bang. The members of the legislature murmured to one another behind the backs of their hands. They cast slighting, amused eyes at the women.
Josephine crossed her arms.
“So rude,” she whispered to Flora. “Perhaps it is always like this but somehow I doubt it. I believe this was planned for our benefit.”
“…consolidate and amend the law…”
Flora had risen before dawn. She had milked the cow early, and set the milk to cool, and fed the chickens and brought in firewood. She yawned, her eyelids thickened.
“…upon accepting the office…”
“…dispatch of public business…rate of stumpage…non-navigable waters upon ungranted Crown land…suffrage bill which was referred to committee and will now resume consideration.”
Flora ran sticky palms down her skirt. Maud’s teeth closed on the back of a finger. Which man, Flora wondered? Which man would rise to speak for them?
Two members stood and reversed a previous decision they had made to oppose the bill, citing the extraordinary number of signatures to the petition.
Maud caught Flora’s hand and squeezed it. Excited whispering rose from the floor until the Speaker stood and called for order.
The member from Kent County rose. Flora was predisposed to think well of him, following, as he did, the men who had supported the bill. He stood with one hand slipped through the lapel of his jacket; a short beard jutted from his chin.
“I am disappointed in the speeches I have just heard from the Honourable Members from York and St. John. I wish to remind this house of inalienable facts which we would do well not to forget. Despite the presence of the fair sex in our chamber today, I will speak frankly and without mincing matters, with all due apologies. I make the following points. Number one. If a woman is given a vote, then, like a man, she is logically bound to perform certain duties: behind all legislation there is physical force, so she must be prepared to serve in the military—”
A stir of laughter, quickly suppressed.
“—and perform constable duty.”
More laughter.
“She must be prepared to perform road work, pay poll tax, serve on juries or to hold public office. If she is entitled to a full share in the making of laws, then she is liable to do her share in enforcing them.”
He stared out over the room. Men crossed their legs, glanced at papers, stifled yawns, raised eyebrows at one another. Flora felt a flush of hatred, and by the women’s silence, felt the brewing of rage.
“Number two. A woman and her husband are one, and therefore she is legally incorporated. His political voice is hers, and therefore there is no need for her to enter the hurly-burly of politics, for which her delicate constitution is ill able to withstand. Moreover, despite this petition, which I see has been padded by the votes of men, it is not clear to me that the majority of women desire or indeed are even interested in having the vote. I believe that even if they had the vote they would not exercise it.”
Shouts of protest from the women.
“And number three. What are the particulars, I would like to know, that these women are upset about? Can they enumerate them? Are they tyrannized by this despotic legislature ruled by men? Do we not exercise judicious reason? If they are suffering, we do not hear any complaints. To conclude, I believe that many of those sitting in this chamber…”
“Some of us are women.” A woman half rose from her balcony seat.
Another woman called out. “Enumerate? Let’s start with not having the—”
He raised his voice. “…have forgotten that it is the very noble qualities that women bring to the home sphere which make her not designed for the political sphere. The woman’s role is to be wife and mother, that is the divine will! Society shall rise or fall upon that exquisite skill that she brings to the raising of children and the nurturing of her husband. I conclude with a quote from Alfred, Lord Tennyson: Man with the head and woman with the heart…all else confusion. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.”
Uproar.
Women stood from their seats, waving pamphlets, shouting, hurling abuse at the Honourable Member from Kent County.
The Speaker stood and waited for complete silence.
“The debate now being ended,” he said. “We will put the bill to a vote. All in favour, please say yea.”
A chorus of yeas.
“All opposed, nay.”
The bill was defeated.
Flora was swept down the spiral staircase by a tide of grim-faced, silent women. At the bottom, they stepped into a crush of people in the vestibule. The Honourable Member from Kent appeared in a doorway.
“Coward!”
“What’s that?” He flushed, sought the speaker.
The woman who had spoken strode forward, drew back her arm, and slapped his face. Another woman shouted “Ignorant coward!” She, too, slapped him. Other women shoved forward, shouting, punching. He crouched, holding his head. Members of the assembly rushed to surround him. They hurried him down the hallway towards the safety of the Legislative Library, a scuttling phalanx, while even though the front doors had been open to the air, women continued to mill in the vestibule, chanting—“Full suffrage for women! Full suffrage for women!”—hoarse from heat, fury and profound disappointment.
* * *
—
The station platform was crowded. Dresses, parasols, hats. Sweep of silk. Restless, rustling.
Lucy and Carrie stood with a group of St. John women, speaking in low voices. They summoned energy, Flora observed. Their eyes were dark with anger and determination. They were laying plans.
The train hissed and squealed to a stop. Josephine and Maud climbed up the steps and entered the carriage. Ellen, who seldom left the house, gripped both Flora’s and Enid’s hands before taking a breath and setting a foot onto the metal step.
No one spoke as the train left the station and gathered speed, a regular jolting that smoothed into a sleep-inducing sway as they passed eastward along the river.
Flora pressed her face to the window.
The first time she had taken a train in Canada, she had been coming from the Protestant Orphanage in St. John. Late spring, and the fruit trees had been veiled by pink blossoms, the fields lush with grass, unbruised by hooves or weather. The houses seemed whiter in memory, even though it was the same time of year. The barns, too, had seemed freshly painted, and the sky a darker blue. She’d watched a woman wearing an apron scatter corn to her chickens while tea towels tossed on a clothesline; and Flora had thought that she would step onto the Pleasant Valley train platform and be greeted by a kindly family.
She had travelled with hope. She had lived with hope, even when she guessed Ada had not mailed her letters, even when she’d mounted the steps of the train platform to be sold at auction. She had held Enid in her heart.
Hope, she thought, watching cows on a raft being poled out to the interval islands, was perhaps what allowed buds to burst from twigs, or brought grass from the soil, or gave chicks the energy to break their shells.
She reflected that she had only lost hope once, after Enid had vanished and Ellen had remembered the brass duck. But it had returned.
Enid slumped, rested her head on Flora’s shoulder.
The vote failed, Flora thought. Her heart lifted.
But we didn’t.
She drifted off to sleep, thinking of the boarding house, and of her cow, and of Enid’s schoolwork, and of the next petition she would champion, making up its words to the rhythm of the clattering wheels.
Election Act…amended…have the right…
AFTERWORD
Some True Things, Notes and Historical Reference Material
NOTES:
I have used the spelling St. John for the city now known as Saint John, New Brunswick. The former is how the name was usually spelled during the time period of the novel.
Mount Allison University has had many different names between 1843 and the present, related to a male academy, female academy, commercial college and the university. I’ve endeavoured to use names appropriate to the years mentioned.
The regatta held in the novel is based on an account of the Jubilee Regatta held on June 20, 1887, in Saint John, in celebration of the Jubilee of her Majesty, Queen Victoria. I do not name it as such in the novel, however, since the events of the novel and the actual event do not coincide.
Some readers may be aware of a terrible murder that occurred at the time of this novel in the vicinity of Saint John, and for which a man was hanged. Mr. Tuck’s story bears some resemblance, but is not intended to depict the true and tragic events. The articles read by Ellen in The Sister’s Tale are adapted from the real accounts of this murder, known as the Little River Tragedy, as reported in The Daily Telegraph, Saint John, New Brunswick, 1878.
The town of Pleasant Valley is loosely based on the town of Sussex, New Brunswick, just as Whelan’s Cove is based on present-day St. Martins. Tyne Cove and Black Creek are entirely fictional. All the characters of The Sister’s Tale, except for George Francis Train and a handful of well-known political and historical figures, are products of my imagination.
The philanthropist Maria Rye (1829–1903) is real, although the part she plays in this novel is invented, including her letter to Mr. Fairweather.
George Francis Train (1829–1904) was a highly eccentric Bostonian who did, in fact, stun the town of Sussex in 1887, when he secured a position at the local paper. After denouncing the pauper auction, he was dismissed and sent packing. Every detail about him, as mentioned by narrator or characters, is true. Including the purple gloves.
