42
MRS. BIGGS MOTIONED SILENTLY for Clare to come into the drawing room with the claw foot table. She seemed distracted. She didn’t offer Clare tea this time.
“I was wondering how Jane is. She hasn’t been to class for a week …” Clare said.
“Jane is sleeping right now. She hasn’t been well these last few days. I’ll be sure to tell her you stopped by.”
“I hope she feels better soon,” Clare stood awkwardly, to go.
“She’s exhausted,” Mrs. Biggs said.
“Mother!” Jane called from upstairs. “Who’s there? Who are you talking to?”
Mrs. Biggs looked upstairs fretfully. “Can you wait here?” She climbed the stairs to Jane’s room.
Clare sat in the chair facing the grandfather clock. It had acquired a minute hand since she saw it last. She could hear voices upstairs. Mrs. Biggs’s soothing and Jane’s insistent. “I want to see her.” Jane didn’t sound exhausted at all.
Mrs. Biggs appeared at the top of the stairs and motioned to Clare to come up.
Jane was sitting in bed in her clothes, the covers pulled up to her waist. Her unbrushed hair had been pinned back. She twirled one strand absently. Mrs. Biggs pulled her hand away. “Here’s Clare.”
“It’s so good of you to come and see me. I’ve been so very busy. I really haven’t had any time to get to class. But I’ve been working here on my own. I have to finish before the baby is born.”
Clare sat on the chair beside Jane’s bed and took her hand. Blue veins threaded her narrow wrist.
“Finish …?” Clare’s eye swept Jane’s thin form under the blankets.
“All of them.” Jane gestured at a tabletop where papers lay in disarray. On the top was a drawing of the model Lillian, in her robe, nursing her baby, but Lillian’s head had been erased and Jane had drawn in her own portrait, as from a mirror, eyes looking directly at the viewer, not tenderly at the child.
Mrs. Biggs looked pained. “Jane, Clare has just come from Mary’s. The other girls are looking forward to you getting better and returning.”
“Well, I don’t know if I’ll have time once the baby comes. I will have to take care of her. But maybe I will come and model. Yes, I’ll bring her. And you can draw the two … of … us.” Jane’s eyes were drooping.
“Clare has to go now. Thank her for coming, dear.”
“Thank …” Jane’s eyes widened once, as with tremendous effort, then dropped shut.
Her mother picked up the familiar small brown glass vial from the bed table and put it in her apron pocket.
Mrs. Biggs walked Clare down the front path to the sidewalk.
“Thank you for letting me see her,” Clare said, gripping her folded coat over her arm. The afternoon had become warm. The fallen magnolia petals were curling, turning brown on the edges. She hesitated and turned to Mrs. Biggs. “Baby?”
“There is no baby. I can assure you,” Mrs. Biggs said. The fine lines around her eyes and mouth deepened. She waved her hand wearily. “One of Jane’s … ideas.” She looked at Clare with resignation. “She’ll be better with rest.”
43
CLARE SAW HIM LONG BEFORE he noticed her. She slowed to watch, thinking that she might see something important, something which would help her know how to feel. The last time she had seen him had been the day he was looking through binoculars below the citadel. And the time before — the plein air picnic at Lismer’s house.
They had sat side by side on the trolley back to town, the other students, sunburned, laces and buttons loosened, arms overflowing with sketchbooks and empty food baskets, noisily filling the seats around them. Clare had found herself observing the line of the long muscle of Fred’s thigh, beside hers. The light wool of his trousers pulled taut over his knee, which was suddenly shapely and intimate. She wanted to draw Fred’s knee. She would have liked to draw him naked. She looked away, out the window, worried her face might reveal her thoughts. He had walked her home. “I will see you in a few days,” he had said, reaching for her hand. He was going to Toronto to present his final designs for the stained glass.
And now here he was. It was Thursday and he was in front of city hall, below the tower where the clock was still frozen at 9:04, from the morning of the explosion. There was talk of never fixing it. Fred was writing. No. He was drawing, his sketchbook open in his lap. Every so often he would look up and back down to the harbour. When he saw her approaching, he took a breath, closed his sketchbook, stood, and walked towards her. The light behind him made it difficult for her to see the expression on his face. She, on the other hand, felt exposed in the late afternoon light, as if her heart was showing.
“I thought you were still in Toronto!” she said.
“The meeting was shorter than I expected.” He pushed his sketchbook into his satchel. “I was drawing,” he said.
“You have become a diligent student of plein air?” she teased to ease the tightness in her throat. “Can I see it?”
“I am badly in need of practice. And instruction.” He did up the straps of his satchel. “When you agree to help me with my technique, I will let you see them.”
They walked for a few moments in silence, neither sure how to pick up from where they left off that day on the river.
“Clare,” Fred said. “I know — you lost your fiancé only recently.”
She didn’t answer. Mackerel clouds schooled in the pale blue sky.
“I know what it is like to lose someone. For a long time I was not ready to start again with someone else. When I met you …”
She put her hand on his arm. “Wait. There’s something I need to tell you.” She told him about Mrs. Biggs’s offer.
His looked down and kicked gently at a dandelion growing along the roadside, scattering its seeds, which went sailing off on the breeze. “That is a very good opportunity for you.”
“It’s what I want to do. More than anything.” She looked away, down to the pier, where two new supply ships were loading. “I thought I was crazy at first,” she said, “after the explosion.”
“Why?” Fred asked.
“I saw things. I still do sometimes.”
“Things?”
“People, sometimes the ones I saw on the streets in the explosion, or while I waited in the hospital corridor all night. Sometimes trains or tiny armies of children run through my bedroom. That night at the art school, the entire Irish Fusiliers pipe band appeared,” she laughed. “I was equally terrified that everyone would see that they had marched right out of my mind, and that they would create mayhem in Mr. Lismer’s class.”
“The only mayhem you caused was by passing out in the middle of the hall.” Fred smiled, then searched her face. “What do the doctors say?”
“They call it Charles Bonnet syndrome. It’s as if the eyes were two people in a conversation. One walked out and the mind, bored, started making up the conversation. It’s best if I keep my mind busy.” She stopped walking and faced him. “Art school helped me. Kept me out of Mount Hope, I suspect.” She laughed again. Fred didn’t.
“And, until you go?” Fred looked up. His eyes were serious, the crow’s feet invisible.
“Until then I will be here,” Clare said.
“That’s something,” he said. He stepped closer and placed his hand lightly on her cheek.
CELIA WAS COMING UP THE walk when they got back to Rose’s. “Fred,” she said, flushing happily, “what are you doing here? I thought you weren’t coming until tomorrow.”
“I got home early. I just ran into Clare.”
Celia stooped to pull some music from her bag. “Look what I have for us to work on,” she said, leaning close to him, ignoring Clare.
CLARE SAT ON THE top porch step, leaning back against the railing. The honeysuckle had opened and its perfume rose in the evening air. A Bach fugue drifted from the drawing room. Fred was having trouble keeping up, leaving the fugue strangely syncopated. In truth his abilities were no match for Celia’s but Clare k
new now that it wasn’t the playing that kept Fred coming.
The finch in the chestnut tree finished its last song of the day and the piano fell silent. The front door opened and a wash of yellow light fell across the porch and Clare.
“Oh, Clare, you startled me.” Celia sounded annoyed. “I was just seeing Fred off.”
“I’ll sit here a few minutes with you, if that’s fine,” Fred said to Clare.
“I’ll join you then,” Celia said irritably. She sat on a bench and motioned for Fred to sit next to her as if it was the piano bench, but he lowered his long frame onto the porch stair, opposite Clare.
“How did you like our fugue this evening?” Celia said.
“Very nice,” Clare said. “Mr. Devon would be proud. You’re improving!”
“If only I was,” Fred said.
“Nonsense,” said Celia. “You are better each week.”
Fred smiled slightly at Clare. “I’m afraid I have the same bad habits I had as a boy.”
“But you can come here any time and practise on my piano,” Celia said.
“Thank you, that is kind of you,” Fred said, “but I meant that I am still as lazy as I was as a boy and as unlikely to practise.”
“You’re busy,” Clare said, “with work and studies. And the commission for Toronto city hall. Did they like the design?”
“They have given me another to work on, in the judicial chambers! I am to submit it in a month.”
“Wonderful,” Clare cried. “What design will you use?”
“I have an idea I’m working on. I’ll show it to you when it’s done.”
Fred picked a honeysuckle flower and twirled it in his fingers. “When I was a child we would suck the nectar from honeysuckle flowers.” He pulled off one of the tiny trumpet florets and sucked on the base. “Ah, not like the wild ones.” He tossed the flower into the grass.
“I think for next week we should try one of the Bach dances. There’s a gigue I used to play …” Celia interrupted gaily.
Fred shrugged helplessly. “Why not?”
“What was it like?” Clare said.
“City hall?” Fred said.
“The place where you grew up.”
Fred smiled. “Nestled in the mountains, in the middle of the Thuringian forest, what they call the green heart of Germany. I spent my days roaming the woods beyond the town.”
“And the town?” Clare said.
Fred stretched out his long legs on the stairs. “My town? It was there because of the glassworks. We made fine glassware but also Christmas decorations, toys, glass dolls’ eyes. Once it made all the marbles in the world. Most people born in my village stayed there all their lives.”
“You didn’t.”
“No, my father was different. He was more adventurous than most other people in the village. He thought there would be more opportunities for us here, that Canada was a more generous and open place than Germany, a place where anything could happen.”
“Like learning how to paddle a canoe?” Clare said, smiling.
Celia stood abruptly, bumping the bench. “You will come next week?” she said.
“Yes, of course,” Fred said, but he didn’t take his eyes off Clare.
THAT NIGHT Clare dreamed she and Fred were in a canoe on the Sackville River. A great black glistening log rolled and surged behind them. Fred lunged to fend it off and the canoe began to tip, water pouring over the gunwales. Clare woke to the sound of rain rushing in the downspouts outside her window. She lay in the dark thinking about what Geraldine had overheard Jack Bell say about Fred. The little clock on her dresser chimed softly. 4:00 a.m. The time of night her visions appeared. She strained to see in the dark, even though she knew that they came from within. There was nothing in the room. Only her fears, lining up to have their say before the reason of morning returned. What was Fred doing today? Why was he drawing the warships in the harbour?
44
FRED PUMPED THE BELLOWS under the table and the blue flame burned hotter. He could sense the glass ready to become the object. His love for the woman flowed to meet it. He could feel, as his father would have said, he had grown worthy to the task.
HE THOUGHT ABOUT the linen blouse she had worn the day at the river. Open at the throat, and the sight of the pale skin of her neck, the soft dip between her breasts, had made his palms ache.
When the glass eye was cool, he wrapped it in a soft cloth, tied with a piece of narrow red ribbon. He would know the perfect moment. Maybe he would take her to the tea room.
HE FOUND HER coming out of Arthur Lismer’s studio. She flushed.
“Congratulations again, Clare. I look forward to seeing your work next term,” Lismer was saying. Then he turned back to his painting.
“You remember last night I talked to the board? They have decided to give me a scholarship. It will keep me going until I go to Paris,” Clare said, gathering his hands in hers.
“Congratulations!” Fred said, wanting to pull her to him, swing her in his arms. “You put them under your spell.”
“My spell?” Clare said.
“They wanted to save you,” Fred laughed.
“That’s your job!” she smiled. “I simply told them that art school had given me new purpose and hope for my future.”
She leaned in and whispered, “Then Mr. Lismer gave them a speech on the redemptive power of art. The board was unanimous, Mr. Upham, the chair, the society ladies …” She drew her hands from his. “Now I must go to see how Jane is. And I need to tell her mother that I’ll be able to complete the training I need to go to Paris.” Clare turned serious. “I went to visit her the other day and she seemed very ill. Her mother is giving her laudanum.” Clare looked away. “The bottle was half-empty. I wonder if Mrs. Biggs knows what it can do to a person.”
“I’ll go with you if you like. Mary told me that Jane’s mother wanted to meet the man who saved her daughter,” Fred said with a dramatic air.
CLARE AND FRED WAITED a long time after knocking on the Biggs’ door. Just as they were turning to leave it creaked open. Mrs. Biggs peered out from the dim hallway.
“I was … wondering how Jane was doing,” Clare said.
Mrs. Biggs looked at Fred uneasily.
“This is Fred Baker, Mrs. Biggs, the man who pulled Jane out of the river,” Clare said.
“Oh, thank you so very much.” Mrs. Biggs took Fred’s hand in her own small frail one. She motioned for them to come in, but she sank down in the captain’s chair in the hallway.
“What is it?” Clare bent near her.
“She’s not here.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.” Mrs. Biggs pushed back fine wisps of pale hair and looked down at her hands. “She left this morning when I was taking in the washing. She’d seemed better the last couple of days, quieter, less intense. In fact she’d hardly spoken. I should have known she was planning something.”
“Planning …?”
“I’m afraid she’s gone to town.” Mrs. Biggs looked back and forth from Fred to Clare. “She has friends there.”
“What kind of friends?”
“Sometimes she used to go there.” She looked at Clare’s puzzled face wearily. “For opium. It was the only thing that helped her sleep. Afterwards, she would be calmer. I don’t understand.” The tips of the fingers of her clasped hands turned white. “I have the laudanum from the doctor.”
THE SHOP WAS EMPTY. The barber, his back to them, bent over the sink, running a narrow blade under hot water. He watched them in the mirror for a few seconds before wiping his hands on a white towel and turning.
“Jane’s mother told us you may know where she is,” Clare said.
The man shrugged his shoulders. “She’s crazy, she could be anywhere!”
“Mrs. Biggs seems to think you’ve given her advice on where to find opium.” Fred stepped forward.
A red rash crept up from the barber’s white collar.
“We could ask the polic
e,” Fred said.
“That’s not what she was looking for,” the man said. “She wanted — help — help with — a woman thing.”
Clare blanched. She looked urgently to Fred.
THE AIR ON SOUTH STREET was heavy with cooking fat. Clare was almost running now, sweat soaking the underarms of her dress. Fred held her elbow tightly until at last they came to the house. A small white Victorian house, neatly trimmed in two shades of blue.
“Go around to the back,” the barber had said reluctantly.
The back outside wall was unpainted. A wooden staircase zigzagged up to the second floor. Faded calico curtains were drawn over the window near the landing. Fred knocked on the door, insistently.
Clare put her hand on his arm. “Wait.”
A sob on the other side of the door.
“Jane,” Clare called. “It’s Clare. Let me in. Please.”
Fred turned the doorknob and shook it hard, rattling the door. He braced himself with one foot against the wall and pulled hard. The knob came off in his hand as the door gave way.
The kitchen was empty. The floors were grimy but the counters bare and wiped clean, except for the slender piece of metal, which had left a red stain.
Jane was lying on the table on her back, her legs pressed tightly together. She looked up at Clare. “I couldn’t keep her. I wanted to. But I couldn’t keep her.”
“Oh Jane, who did this to you?” Clare said.
“It was our baby,” Jane cried, reaching for Fred.
“Fred?” Clare said, whipping around.
Fred looked at Clare desperately, shaking his head.
“YOU WAIT HERE with her,” Fred said. “I’ll find a car.”
Clare took Jane’s hand. It was chilly.
“Thank you for coming for me,” Jane said. A red stain was growing on her dress. They waited in silence.
Fred carried Jane down the stairs and placed her on the back seat of the hired car. He and Clare got in on either side of her. She slumped against Fred and closed her eyes, keeping tight hold of Clare’s hand all the way to the hospital.
Dazzle Patterns Page 25
