“Your baskets are beautiful,” Flora commented. “Did you make them all?”
“Yes,” the woman replied, vigorously nodding. “All mine.”
Flora knelt, with some difficulty, to handle a spruce-root basket with an intricate rim. It had leather straps so it could be worn on the back, and it was worked with a detailed design of some darker fibre. Holding the basket up to her face, Flora inhaled its odours of tree and dried bark and a dark winy smell.
“For berries,” the woman explained.
That explained the straps, the faint stains on the interior. The basket was beautifully made, the woven work tight and smooth. Flora knew she had to have it and reached into her reticule for her money. She had no idea what to offer but simply held coins in her hand and let the woman choose. What she took did not seem enough. The woman’s hands were gnarled and leathery and cold—when she reached into Flora’s palm to take the money, her fingers were icy. On impulse Flora removed her gloves and placed them in the woman’s hands, saying, “I’d like you to have something of mine too.” The woman smiled and took a small grass basket from her collection, imbricated with chevrons of a deep red reed. She tucked it into the larger berry basket, and the two women nodded at each other with satisfaction. The Indian woman then placed her hands on Flora’s stomach like a blessing, nodding and smiling with such approval that a warmth began to spread through Flora’s body.
Flora walked the main street of Lytton where four thin dogs watched her from the step of the gracious hotel. A hospital, a store, a new-looking Catholic church (St. Ann’s, was this a portent? wondered Flora), some tidy houses. There was a place she could stand and watch the two rivers converge, the clear Thompson meeting the murky Fraser—a man walking by with a small boy held firmly by the hand told her which river was which—and then the combined waters gathering force for their long run down to the sea. Flora had grown to love the Thompson River during her residence at Walhachin, its sinuous muscular rope winding down below the house, its scent in all weathers. There was a place where the children of the settlement bathed in summer; a breakwater of large boulders had been constructed to create a deep quiet pool. Flora bathed there too at dusk on summer evenings when the silver flies made a screen she would pass through before lowering her body into the flinty water. Once, she had seen a strange creature coming down from the rocky shore to the pool; when she’d watched it for a while, she decided it must be a toad. Though a toad did not entirely make sense for the desert landscape. Asking someone later had produced the information that it had probably been a spadefooted toad and that it was not uncommon to see them after sunset when they left their cool underground holes—they dug these themselves with their curiously shaped feet—to drink in the safety of the dark.
Flora leaned over the fence that ran a distance along the bench to see how long the Thompson kept its own riverness, a colour resembling old bottle glass, before being lost; its lighter water was visible for a time and then she could see only the dark rush of the Fraser River.
Back on the train, still with a group of seats to herself, Flora settled in for the run down to Yale. She reached for the basket she had placed on the empty seat beside her, examining its fine work, the imbrication like crewel embroidery, and then she took the small basket out of the larger one to look at it. She removed the lid and peered inside. To her surprise, there was a tiny pair of fur shoes within.
She held the little shoes in the palm of her left hand and brought them to her cheek. She wondered if the soft fur was rabbit. They smelled smoky, with a faint whiff of dried grass. There were ties of sinew to tighten or loosen the fit; attached to these were opaque beads that she realized were made of quills. She tucked the shoes back into their basket and wiped a tear from her eye. How odd, she thought, that the first thing she acquired for her child’s layette was a pair of shoes made from the body of a wild animal. And yet so soft, so warm to the touch. Grace would have worn shoes like this, she thought, and remembered again the weight of the child against her shoulder, the dampness of her feverish cheek.
Flora took out a bag of handwork she had prepared for the long train ride to Vancouver and then the steamship across to Victoria. She was still working on her dinner napkins. She had finished three of them; they were folded in the bottom of the cloth bag in which she also kept skeins of silk floss, a pair of golden scissors shaped like a crane whose long beak snipped the delicate remnants of floss, and a little wooden case for her needles. She stitched quietly while glancing up from time to time to watch the landscape pass, the flinty slopes above Lytton becoming more verdant as the train approached Alexandria and Yale, though it was December. She supposed these were evergreens she was seeing out the window. The lamps in the train flickered as they passed through the dark tunnels, and Flora finally put her handwork away, on impulse tucking her cloth bag into the berry basket.
She fell into a reverie, head back on the plush rise. So many matters to think about, to settle in her mind. What would she tell her parents? It was only a matter of time before they’d hear she had left Walhachin in disgrace. Someone at a hunt meet or the grouse season in Scotland or at a garden party in Pewsey might say something that would announce to all present that Flora Oakden had brought shame upon her family. To pre-empt this, however briefly, she had sent a telegram saying she was going to Victoria by train on a matter of business. But her parents knew Charles Paget, the Marquis of Anglesey, and surely their paths would cross now that he was back in Wales. They also had other connections with Walhachin. Only a matter of time.
Certain families had already returned to England at the outset of the war, thinking it best to wait things out with relations and the security of the King nearby. Those families did not really think Canada a civilized country, not quite, despite Miss Flowerdew’s pretty sitting room, the presence of the famous Paderewski piano in the community hall, the golf games and the polo matches on the Thompson bench. Walhachin might be a small pocket of decorum in a dusty landscape, but it was a landscape populated by Indians and farmers who did not know how to hold a teacup.
As Flora dozed, she felt again the warmth of the Indian woman’s hands on her abdomen, assurance that she carried a gift worth blessing. Warmth penetrated her body, despite the chilly draft whistling around the windows of the compartment. She woke, held still in the comfort of that touch, and she poured herself a mug of tea from her flask, tea prepared for her by Mary. It seemed so long ago now, so far away. Mary had said that the nuns might arrange a home for the child, once born, and that Flora could return to Walhachin again. This happened occasionally with Indian girls who had got themselves into trouble without marriage. It was especially possible if the father of the child was white. Sometimes a child might even be taken by the man’s extended family, particularly if it was a little boy. The girls would go back to their villages, emptied of disgrace. They might eventually marry. Or else they’d find work as cleaning women or hops pickers or processing fish in the canneries on the coast.
But one thing was becoming clear to Flora, as though sleeping in the moving train had allowed for a clarity she could not discover in her own bed under George’s roof: she decided she would try to find her own way in Victoria. The farther she travelled from Walhachin, the less she felt she should conceal her condition or feel shame for the child she carried in her body. She and Gus had loved each other, loved each other still (she believed this), though letters had ceased to come (there was surely a reason) and marriage had not actually been spoken of in the soft grass of the orchards, the fragrant boughs in the Back Valley cabin, the sanctuary of their box canyon with its ceiling of blue. The thought of staying in a convent no longer seemed like an ideal solution. And Gus’s parents had not replied to her letter. Perhaps she would make contact with both the nuns and the Alexanders; they might be able to help her find work of some sort. But she did not want to be hidden away like a shameful secret. Her baby, conceived in love under trees, in warm orchard grass, was something to welcome and cherish. As t
hough to confirm her new confidence, she felt a flutter of tiny feet against the walls of her womb. She tried to think of other women in her situation—she supposed fallen was the term—and could only bring to mind one serving girl at Watermeadows who had been seduced by a gardener who had then refused to marry her. Both had been dismissed by Flora’s father, the girl with a small cheque and the man with a good reference.
THIRTEEN
Late 1914
The new CPR terminal in Vancouver almost overwhelmed her with its hubbub. She must have looked lost because she was quickly taken in hand by a helpful man who determined she could board a steamer that very day to Victoria—“Very timely, miss. A three-hour journey is all it will be!”—and he arranged the transfer of her trunk and assorted bags. Flora could not afford a stateroom so she sat in a lounge on a rattan chair, drinking tea and watching small islands pass by the windows, some of them wreathed in mist. She discouraged conversation by keeping her eyes focused on the windows or her teacup. She didn’t want the necessity of explanation.
Stepping onto Wharf Street with a boy trundling her baggage on a handcart behind her, Flora stopped to get her bearings. So this was Victoria! Named for the late Queen (Flora’s father’s brother had been decorated by that Queen for valour in the Boer War), its streets clean and quiet. She was directed to the Empress Hotel after a phone call ensured that a room was available; the boy pushed her baggage down the causeway and across to the hotel’s generous stairs. They were met by a hotel bellhop who transferred her trunk and valises to a trolley grandly bearing the hotel’s insignia. She pressed a few coins into the boy’s hand before he took his handcart back to await another traveller.
Her room was small but comfortable, with a view of the Inner Harbour and beyond. She stood in the window and looked out at the steamers, the bridge just visible. The legislative buildings were the most impressive part of the view, taking up one entire end of the harbour.
Flora spent an hour going over her finances a day later. With her small trust fund she could just about survive if she bought no new clothes and found somewhere to live where she could prepare her own meals. Her calculations led Flora to a discreet conversation with the woman who ran the hotel tea room. The woman poured Flora another cup of India tea from a Spode pot and they chatted for some time about England, discovering shared touchstones—china patterns (Flora’s cousin owned a set of the Spode), Salisbury Cathedral, and certain areas of wild grassy Dartmoor covered in spring with pheasant’s eye narcissi. She was directed to a house on Memorial Crescent where a widow fallen on difficult times took in lodgers. At Flora’s request, the hotel clerk called ahead to alert the widow to her arrival.
Flora found her way to Fairfield, then Memorial Crescent. The house, directly across from a cemetery gate, was lovely—a low pink-shingled building with trellises surrounding it and a big orange cat on the picket fence who greeted Flora with so much enthusiasm that she felt her eyes prickle with tears.
“My dear, I see Rufous has greeted you. I am Ann Ogilvie. Welcome to Hollyhock Cottage.”
It was a soft Scottish voice. Flora felt two hands clasp her own between them and saw two bright blue eyes smile into hers. Mrs. Ogilvie was a woman in her middle years, fair-haired and sturdy. She wore a high-necked blouse garnished with a large cameo at her throat, with a paisley shawl around her shoulders. She led Flora into a parlour where a warm fire burned in the grate and a low table was set with tea things. Rufous had followed them into the house and wrapped himself around Flora’s ankles, purring so loudly that both women laughed.
“A cat is never shy about its affections. And generally they are very good at assessing character as well . . .” She looked at Flora with a smile. “You must tell me where you’ve come from while I pour you a cup of tea. Two lumps?” She paused with the silver tongs until Flora nodded.
“I wonder if you know of Walhachin . . .” Flora began.
“I do indeed. The man who designed most of the houses, Bert Footner, was in the same regiment as my late husband. They were in South Africa together, though Phillip, my husband, was lost at Paardeberg and Bert went on to design bridges, I believe it was, in the Sudan after the war was finished. There is occasionally news of the other men and I’d heard about Bert’s new project. But what on earth led you to Walhachin? I am not wrong in placing you in the West Country?”
“What an ear you have for accents! Wiltshire, in fact. My family home is Winsley, near Bradford-on-Avon.” And Flora told her about her brother, their orchard, and then how almost all the young men had rushed to enlist as soon as war was declared. With eyes downcast, she told of her sweetheart, among the men gone with the 31st British Columbia Horse.
“Forgive me for saying this so soon, but you are expecting a child.”
Flora felt her face go warm. “Yes, I am. Sometime late this spring. Before I knew it to be the case, my sweetheart left with his regiment and we never married, although I fully expect us to when he returns.”
She paused. But had to say it. “I would understand if you did not want to have me live in your home.”
Ann Ogilvie looked at her appraisingly. “I will tell you frankly that it will not be easy for you in Victoria, but you will not find me to be a harsh judge in this. I lost my husband so soon into our marriage that we hadn’t yet had children and I am left with such sadness that nothing of him continues with me apart from memories. A child would have been a solace, though difficult to raise alone, on a limited income. As it is, I have memories and photographs, as though they could ever be enough . . .” She gestured at the photographs that covered the mantel, the small tables at either end of the large rose-coloured sofa. Flora leaned to look more closely at the ones on the mantel. A tall man in regimental uniform mounted on a fine dark horse. A garden with the same man seated on a wicker chair, holding a teacup, plate balanced on one knee. A wedding photograph, a younger Ann Ogilvie in a pretty dress and the tall man in formalwear, smiling for the camera as they paused on the steps of a church.
“Let me show you the room I have available.” Ann Ogilvie led the way down a hall hung with striped wallpaper to a room facing the back garden. It had a bay window with a seat made cozy by chintz pillows. A brass bed, a dressing table, a high oak chiffonier—seeing the Axminster carpet on the white-painted floorboards, Flora was reminded of her room at Watermeadows.
“This is lovely,” Flora murmured as she touched the quilt, Dresden plates pieced with flowered cottons. She looked out the window to see a wintry garden, trees bare of leaves but a few of them hung with suet bags. Chickadees darted among the branches. Turning to her hostess, she asked, “Are you certain you want me here, knowing now that I am going to have a child? And knowing nothing about me?” And she held her breath while she waited for the answer.
Ann Ogilvie’s response was to take Flora by her arm and gently lower her to the window seat against the pillows. “It will not be easy for you, my dear, but I’ve said I will not judge you. You need a friend, I think, and a home. Like Rufous, I am inclined to trust my first impressions. And to tell you the truth, I am a little tired of hearing all the glory talk of the war right now. The iode meetings to knit socks and to utter platitudes are sickening to me. I suspect there will be fewer invitations with you under my roof—I did tell you I was going to be honest!—and although I assure you this is not why I am offering you the room, I will be quite happy to absent myself from those meetings.”
Flora’s face registered surprise so Ann continued. “I know I tend to get a little shrill on the topic of war, the way men rush to them and those of us at home wave the flag and how a few years later, there is another war, the flags waving again, and far too many men slaughtered in the wake. I would rather knit small bonnets and blankets.”
“I think men see it as their obligation to serve their King,” Flora said uncertainly, a little shocked to hear someone speak so bitterly. After Gus’s declaration of duty, and the bunting all around the post office in Walhachin, and everywhere she’d
looked here too, Flora thought war was a given expectation for men in general and certainly Englishmen most of all. The men of Walhachin had hastened away as if their lives depended upon their prompt response, as if God himself were watching to see how quickly they rose to their responsibility to King and country.
“Ah, but will their King actually fight? I doubt that, my dear. Nor will the grandees who have decided this thing must happen. Generals tend to settle themselves in some safe, comfortable place and consult maps, never missing a meal. But I know my feelings are not the norm so I will bite my tongue, for now in any case, and tell you how much I hope you will take my back bedroom and live in my house!” She smiled an open, generous smile and led Flora back to the sitting room.
It seemed almost too perfect. But they quickly agreed on seventeen dollars a month for the room and for meals, which Flora understood she would help to prepare. Then the two women had more tea and made arrangements for Flora to come to join the household the next day.
“Will you tell me about those beautiful stones on your fireplace hearth?” Flora asked, looking at four large stones arranged on the slate, one of them like an orange crystal, with chunks of something else within it.
Ann smiled and bent to the hearth, taking up two in her hands. “This one is gypsum,” she said, holding out the orange crystal for Flora to examine. “Look at the fossils in it. See, a scallop shell and there, just at the edge, a complete ammonite.”
Flora held its weight in her hands, turning it over to see the fossils. She’d seen them in rock before but nothing like this rich orange, shot through with limestone. The ammonite looked like a small sleeping creature in the stone. It reminded Flora of amber beads her mother wore sometimes, several of them containing tiny insects.
Ann handed her another rock, this one polished and heavy. “If you look closely, you can see a segment of fish scales and a tiny bone. Just there.”
The Age of Water Lilies Page 10
