A Day of Signs and Wonders

by Kit Pearson

  She tried to take Emily’s hand, but Emily shook it off. Kitty’s kindness just made things worse.

  SIX

  Kitty still didn’t know what to think of Emily. She was so original, and her entertaining prattle was a welcome distraction. But her behaviour was like a much younger child’s and she was too nosy.

  Now Emily’s face was crimson and her eyes were brimming. I shouldn’t have asked about her mother, thought Kitty.

  She led Emily into the house and along the hall to her room. Emily just stood there and Kitty didn’t know how to comfort her. Then she picked up her porcelain pig.

  “My grandmother gave me this years ago,” she told Emily. “Isn’t he funny with his red mouth?”

  Emily took the pig, stroked it, and put it back on the shelf. She seemed calmer. Looking around the room, she spotted Esmeralda and lifted her before Kitty could protest. “What a big doll! And her chair fits her perfectly. But aren’t you too old to play with dolls?”

  Put her back! thought Kitty. “My uncle made the chair,” she said tightly. “And she’s not my doll. She belonged to someone else.”

  “Who?”

  Kitty couldn’t tell her. “The doll is called Esmeralda,” she finally said.

  “Last Christmas my aunt in San Francisco sent me a wax doll, but I left it in the sun and it melted.”

  “The poor thing!”

  “I didn’t care. Alice is the one for dolls. She still plays with them,” said Emily disdainfully. “Shall I show you what I do with mine?”

  Before Kitty could answer, Emily had flopped Esmeralda’s hair forward over her face. “See? She looks as if she’s turned her head all the way around!”

  “Don’t!” cried Kitty. She rushed over and straightened the doll’s hair, stroking it tenderly into place.

  “Sorry,” said Emily. “It didn’t hurt her, though.”

  It hurt me! thought Kitty. She clenched her hands to stop herself from biting her nails.

  Emily was gazing around the room. “What a lot of books you have!”

  Kitty tried to forget about the doll. Emily didn’t know how special Esmeralda was and she hadn’t meant any harm. “Papa had to get me a bigger bookcase this year,” she said.

  Emily crouched and snatched up Grimms’ Household Stories. Then she plopped down on Kitty’s bed. “Father doesn’t allow us to read fairy tales,” she said.

  “Why not? Papa lets me read whatever I want.”

  “Father wants us to only read stories that teach us to be good,” said Emily. “He thinks fairy tales are too fanciful, but that’s why I love them—they’re full of magic.”

  She leafed through the pages intently. “Here it is! I started this story at my old school and never got to finish it. It’s called ‘The Goose Girl,’ but she’s really a princess. She has a horse called Falada, who can talk!” Emily leaned against the headboard and started reading.

  Mama would be horrified that Emily was lying on the bed in the daytime. And her feet were sandy—what had she done with her boots and stockings? But she looked so contented that Kitty let her be.

  She sat in a chair and tried to read, as well, but her whirling thoughts filled her head. If only Emily would resume her chattering . . . but she was so absorbed in the book that she seemed to have forgotten all about Kitty.

  The maid appeared at the door. “Oh!” she said with surprise.

  Kitty smiled at her. “Good morning, Nischia.” She introduced Emily, who looked up and nodded then dived into the book again.

  “If you don’t mind, Miss Kathleen, I was hoping to clean your room,” said Nischia.

  Kitty tried to sound like Mama. “Surely that can wait,” she told her. “Can’t you find something else to do?”

  “I’ve done the other rooms already,” Nischia said.

  Her voice quavered and Kitty was ashamed. Nischia had only been with them for a month. She wasn’t much older than Kitty and her round, freckled face always looked frightened.

  “I’m sorry, Nischia. We’ll be out of here in five minutes.”

  The maid departed and Kitty glanced around. “I know—we can paint!” She gathered up her watercolour supplies.

  Emily ignored her and continued to read.

  “We have to let Nischia clean, Emily. You can read later.” She waited until the younger girl put down the book and followed her outside.

  Kitty looked for a spot to sit. She pulled a chair to the lawn overlooking the water and instructed Emily to bring another one.

  “Have you ever used watercolours?” she asked.

  Emily shook her head.

  “I’ll show you,” said Kitty eagerly. What a treat to have someone to teach again!

  She took out the paints and brushes and paper and arranged them carefully. How long it had been since she’d used them!

  Emily watched as hungrily as if Kitty were offering her another meal. Kitty pinned pieces of paper onto two boards and placed the tray of paints on a small table between the chairs. She went to the kitchen and came back with a large jar of water.

  “I took art lessons at school,” she told Emily. “Papa likes my paintings so much that he’s framed some of them.”

  She got out two pencils. “First we have to decide what to paint, and then we’ll draw it. You have to be careful to make your lines very light. Just the barest outline, because after you’re finished, you’ll erase them.” She squinted at the water. “I think our subject will be that tree, with the sea behind it.”

  But Emily had turned to the right. “I’d rather paint the boats and the wharf.”

  “Are you sure? Boats are hard to do.”

  “I’ll try anyway,” said Emily cheerfully.

  They picked up their pencils. When Kitty had finished sketching in the outline of the tree, she looked at Emily’s drawing.

  She drew in her breath with surprise. Each boat was lightly sketched in perfect dimensions. “That’s excellent!” she said. “You really know how to draw!”

  Emily was proud. “I draw all the time at home. I made myself an easel out of some cherry branches. I take art lessons, as well, but we haven’t used paints yet.”

  “Who is your teacher?’

  “Miss Emily Woods.”

  “She taught me, too! We own some of her paintings—she and her parents are family friends. I try to paint as carefully as she does, but watercolour is a challenge. Once you put down a colour, you can’t change it.” Kitty picked up her brush. “We begin with a wash.”

  Emily was indignant. “But I’m clean!”

  “Not that kind of wash,” laughed Kitty. “A wash is a big puddle of paint.” She mixed up cobalt blue with plenty of water. Then she tilted her board and started at the top, making broad, overlapping strokes of blue all the way down the paper.

  When she had finished, Kitty examined her work with satisfaction. Her teacher had always praised the smoothness of her washes. Why didn’t Emily say anything? Maybe she thought it was too difficult. “Do you want me to do your wash for you, since it’s your first time?” she asked.

  “No, thank you,” said Emily. “I’m not going to bother with a wash. I’m just going to start painting and see what happens.”

  “Oh, but—”

  Before Kitty could say more, Emily had dipped her brush in the water and then onto a cake of paint. Kitty watched in astonishment as Emily rapidly painted the boats, boathouse, wharf, water, and sky in bold strokes, her brush darting from colour to colour without being cleaned in between.

  “There!” Emily put down her brush and let out a deep breath, as if she had been holding it the whole time. The painting had only taken her about five minutes. “What do you think?” she asked Kitty.

  Kitty had no words. Everything about Emily’s painting was wrong! The colours were too bright, not at all resembling the scene. They melded and there were even drips. The careful drawing had become lost under the colourful shapes that escaped outside the lines. White patches remained on the page.

 
; “Do you like it?” asked Emily.

  Kitty tried to be polite. “It’s . . . interesting.”

  Emily looked disappointed. Then she gazed at her painting again and beamed. “I like watercolour! May I do another?”

  “I only brought out two pieces of paper,” said Kitty quickly. She could go into the house and get more. But why should she let Emily waste paper with her sloppy marks? And she had messed up the paints so much that you could hardly tell one colour from another. Kitty wet a rag and started to clean them.

  “You’ll learn more if you just watch,” she informed Emily. She felt the surface of her paper. “You have to make sure the wash is perfectly dry before you go on, but the sun has already dried it. Here’s what I do next.” Kitty mixed a greenish grey on her palette and painted in the outlines of the distant hills. “Now I have to let that layer dry,” she explained. “Then I’ll start the tree, and then that layer has to dry before I put on a darker green.”

  “But it will take so long!”

  “Yes, it will. It’s often several hours before I’ve finished a painting. If you don’t let the layers dry, the colours get muddy. But see how the sky colour shines through the hill colour? It’s because watercolour paints are transparent.”

  Emily examined her own painting. “I don’t think my colours are muddy.”

  “No, they aren’t,” admitted Kitty. “But that’s just luck. If you’re serious about watercolour, you’ll have to learn to do it the proper way.”

  “Maybe I will and maybe I won’t!” Emily jumped up and twirled on the lawn. Then she ran down to the water and waded again.

  When she returned, she said she was going to visit the chickens. Soon Kitty called her back to watch her do the next step, but Emily was too far away to hear; or perhaps she was pretending she couldn’t hear.

  How irritating she was! Kitty gave up trying to teach her. It was so soothing simply to paint, to plan each step and then dip the brush into a lovely mixture of colours and stroke it on the smooth page. How could she have neglected this pastime for so long?

  In between waiting for her layers to dry, Kitty deadheaded all the roses in the heart-shaped bed. Perhaps Mama would be so pleased she would forget her vexation.

  “Missy, come!” called Chin from the house.

  The butcher’s boy had arrived. Kitty looked for the money Mama had left in her bedroom. When she reached the gate, Emily, her feet still bare, was stroking the delivery horse and asking the boy its name.

  Kitty gave the boy the money and carefully counted the change before she thanked him. Chin had already carried the meat into the kitchen.

  “What a grand job he has!” said Emily, swinging on the gate and watching the boy as he trotted away. “Imagine being able to spend all day outside on a horse!” She turned to Kitty. “Have you finished your painting yet?”

  Kitty shook her head. “I told you—it takes a long time.”

  “May I go into your room and read?”

  “I suppose so.”

  When her painting was finished, Kitty stretched her arms up to the sky. How fast the time had gone! If she painted the scene again, it would be entirely different. The smooth blue sky was now broken up by stringy white clouds, as if someone had scribbled on its surface. The sun was directly overhead and the shadows were close around the trees, like pulled-in skirts.

  Kitty took off her hat and fanned her perspiring face. She went to look for Emily in her bedroom, but she wasn’t there. She found her on a chair on the veranda, the book of Grimms’ tales on her lap and a dreamy expression on her face.

  “I read the whole book,” she told Kitty. “What amazing stories!”

  Kitty invited her to come and see her painting. Emily examined it for a long time. “It’s pretty,” she said finally, “and the tree looks real.”

  “Thank you,” said Kitty. “I like to paint exactly what I see.”

  But Emily wasn’t listening. She had picked up her own painting and was gazing at it with wonder.

  Kitty liked her own much better. It was pretty . . . pretty and careful, like all her work. Its order and delicate colours were extremely pleasing, unlike the wild daubs Emily had created.

  “Can’t you stop now?” said Emily. “When are we going to have lunch?”

  SEVEN

  Emily helped carry their watercolour things into the house. “I’ll go and see if lunch is ready,” Kitty told her. “If you want the privy, it’s behind the stable.”

  After Emily came back, she went into Kitty’s bedroom and propped her painting on the doll’s feet. Then she gloated over it once again.

  She could tell that Kitty didn’t like it. But I do, she thought. I can paint, I can paint! Father would be so proud when he saw it. A few years ago Emily had picked up a charred stick from the hearth and drawn a picture of Carlow on a piece of brown paper. Father hadn’t said anything, but soon after that he had told Emily she was to have art lessons.

  Esmeralda’s blue glass eyes glared at Emily as if to say, “Take your painting off my feet!” Emily moved it to the mantel. Kitty was lucky to have a fireplace in her bedroom. A fire must be so cozy on winter nights. At home Alice always protested when Emily tried to cuddle up beside her to keep warm.

  Kitty’s room was so comfortable, and so pleasantly cluttered compared with her and Alice’s bare one. Emily scanned the bookshelf again. If only she could stay here for a week and read every one of these books.

  She still wasn’t sure what to think about Kitty herself, however. She switched so quickly from being kind to bossy to secretive to sad. But she seemed to like Emily, and Emily was enjoying this unusual day. It was a novelty to be free from bossy adults. And it was such a welcome break from the Cranes.

  But then she remembered again: Mother was ill. She had often been ill before, but in the week before Emily and Alice were sent away, the adults spoke in worried, whispery voices and Dr. Helmcken visited several times a day. Mother’s room was dark and either Dede or Tallie was always there beside her. Emily wasn’t allowed to see her except for kissing her goodbye. All day and night Mother’s laboured breathing seemed to fill the house.

  Would Emily ever see Mother’s small, sweet face again? Don’t think about that!

  Kitty returned. “Lunch isn’t quite ready yet. Shall I show you the rest of my paintings?”

  The drawing room was much fancier than Emily’s, crowded with china and small tables. Many pictures dotted its green walls.

  “That one’s mine,” pointed out Kitty. “And that and that . . .” The pictures were of flowers and outdoor scenes and the house. Emily murmured words of praise. She envied Kitty’s skill at controlling the watery paint, but she found the paintings bland.

  “Which are my teacher’s?” she asked.

  Kitty showed her several studies of wildflowers. “See how precise she is? That’s what you’ll learn from her, to stay within the lines.”

  Emily pretended not to hear. Instead an amazing thought came to her: What if one day people hung her pictures! They would be the brightest objects in the room.

  “Lunch, missies,” called Song.

  As they walked to the dining room, Emily flinched at a deer head on the wall. At least there was only one here; the Cranes’ hall was crowded with the corpses of deer and owls and bears.

  “Papa shot that,” said Kitty proudly.

  “My father would never shoot a living creature,” Emily told her.

  “Not even birds?”

  “No! Father loves birds as much as I do. He’s taught me all their names.”

  “But don’t you kill and eat your chickens and ducks?”

  Emily flushed. “Of course . . . but that’s different.” She hadn’t yet sorted out this contradiction.

  The large dining room was much more comfortable than the drawing room. There was an area to relax in, with soft leather chairs, a piano, and a game of dominoes waiting on a small table. Bright pots of flowers blazed under the window. Song had set the table with two places
on top of a starched white tablecloth. There were so many pieces of cutlery that Emily was nervous about which one to use.

  “I’ve never eaten in here alone before,” said Kitty. She tugged the bell pull before they sat down. “We can act like grown-up ladies.”

  Emily frowned; that sounded like something Alice would say. Her sister often pretended she was going on calls and having tea.

  Song came through the baize door with many dishes on a tray. He left them to help themselves. Don’t be greedy! commanded Dede’s voice in Emily’s head. She resolved not to take too much.

  But the food was so delicious that she couldn’t help it. There was a platter of cold mutton and cold chicken. There were plates of bread and pickles and lettuce and cheese, and a dish of thick, spicy sauce that Kitty called chutney. There was stewed rhubarb and more of that delicious cream. For a long time all Emily could do was stuff food into herself as quickly as she could, washing it down with refreshing gulps of lemonade. Finally she was satisfied.

  Kitty was nibbling on a piece of bread and cheese. “You really were hungry!” she said.

  Emily decided not to be insulted. She smiled back. “I’m always hungry. My sisters tease me about it, but I can’t help it.”

  “My parents would praise your good appetite,” said Kitty. She frowned. “They’re always trying to get me to eat more, but I eat enough. I once knew someone who hardly ate at all . . .” That haunted look appeared in her eyes again.

  “Who?” demanded Emily.

  “Oh, it doesn’t matter . . .”

  How maddening she was! Emily decided to change the subject. “When’s your birthday? Mine is December 13.”

  “Mine is in December, as well, on the very last day. I was born in 1867, so I’m the same age as Canada,” said Kitty proudly.

  “I hate having a December birthday,” said Emily. “Everyone is so busy with Christmas that they almost forget about it. And it’s so cold that I can’t have a picnic. I wish my birthday were in the summer, on a beautiful warm day. Like today!”