by Kit Pearson
Norah gazed out at the lake and saw Janet returning in the Putt-Putt with Aunt Mary. “I know what you can investigate,” she said.
“What?”
“You can find out why Aunt Mary has gone into Port Schofield almost every day since we got here.”
“I heard Aunt Florence ask her that—she’s getting a dress made. There’s a lady there who sews.”
“That’s what she says, but I don’t think that’s all she does. On Friday I got there early to pick her up and I saw her coming from that big hotel across from the marina—running! Then she went over the bridge and came out from the direction of the dressmaker’s as if she’d been there all along. And yesterday I saw her coming out of the hotel when I drove the boat by it—she had her head down and didn’t see me.”
“Wow!” said Gavin. “I wonder what she was doing there? See you later, Norah!” Gavin sped off to tell his gang.
Norah went back to her scratching, glad she had given him something to do. She felt vaguely curious about Aunt Mary, but she was sure there was some boring explanation. Aunt Mary was too ordinary to be involved in a real mystery.
All of her senses were alert when she spotted Andrew come out of his cabin, walk to the lake and dive into the water, swimming vigorously to Little Island.
Norah wiped back her sticky hair and sighed. She felt dopey, as if she couldn’t wake up. A swim would refresh her; but she couldn’t go down while he was still there.
A few times since their sail Andrew had tried to talk to Norah. She mumbled her answers, too shy about her new feelings to have a conversation. He seemed to realize she didn’t want to talk, and, although he sometimes gave her a quizzical look, he left her alone. That was the way she wanted it; for the time being, anyhow.
BEFORE THE CHILDREN’S DINNER that evening Norah sat in the living room with her book. She was actually reading it; Andrew and Flo had left the island to go to a dance at Bala.
“And what are you doing in a corner all by yourself?” Uncle Barclay had come into the room without her noticing; he was pinning up little flags onto a huge world map he’d hung on the wall near the piano.
Norah shrugged. “Just reading.” She went over to examine his map. Most of the countries bristled with markers, according to some complicated scheme of Uncle Barclay’s that she didn’t understand.
“What’s that place?” she asked politely, pointing to a small green island that he was covering with flags.
“Sicily,” said Uncle Barclay with satisfaction. “We’re making great advances there—it’s very encouraging.”
“Do you think we’ll win the war?” Norah asked him, still staring at the flags dotted all over the map. She hadn’t realized how much of the world it now affected.
“Of course we’ll win! It’s looking better all the time—the Axis can’t hold out forever.”
Uncle Barclay knew more about the war than anyone else; perhaps he could help her make her daydreaming more accurate. “How long do you think it will be before Andrew is in it?” she asked carefully, thrilling as usual at pronouncing his name.
“Well, he just might get in at the end of it. Then again, he could miss it entirely. That’s what I don’t understand. If I was younger and could help fight that brute …” Uncle Barclay snorted, then looked at her kindly. “The only bad thing about the Allies winning is that then you and Gavin will have to go back to England. Flo and Janet will certainly miss you. So will we all,” he added gruffly. “But you’ll be glad to see your family. Aunt Florence told us how homesick you were at first—you must still miss them.”
Norah gave him a smile in exchange for his own awkward one. Uncle Barclay was much stiffer than clownish Uncle Reg, but he was nice in his own way. Guiltily she realized that, this week especially, her thoughts had never been farther from England. If someone told her she could go home tomorrow she wasn’t sure she’d want to—not if it meant leaving Andrew.
THAT NIGHT she couldn’t sleep. She crept past her inert roommates to go out and sit on the dock. The smaller launch was still gone; Andrew and Flo hadn’t come back yet.
Someone coughed and Norah jerked her head around. To her surprise she saw Aunt Mary standing on the far end of the dock, her cigarette a tiny glow in the darkness. She came over and sat beside Norah.
“What are you doing up?” she smiled. “Couldn’t you sleep either?”
Norah shook her head. For a few comfortable moments they gazed at the moon. One side of it was caved in, as if someone had taken a bite out of it. Strands of mist rose from the lake like steam. In the distance a dog barked, then was silent.
“It’s so quiet up here this summer,” said Aunt Mary. “I guess some people have shut up their cottages until after the war. I have an idea.” Aunt Mary jumped up, sounding as young as Norah. “Let’s take the canoe to Little Island!”
“Now?” Norah could hardly believe what she was hearing. Timid Aunt Mary suggesting such an adventure?
“Why not? Go and get a sweater—it will be cool on the water.”
In a few minutes they were in the canoe. At first their dripping paddles made the only sound. Then, by an unspoken agreement, they both began Indian paddling, turning and sliding their blades so they didn’t break the surface; then there was no sound at all. In the darkness the shoreline seemed to slip by much faster than it did in daylight. Two summers ago, when she’d first learned how to paddle, Norah had spent hours in this canoe with Aunt Mary.
Little Island made a dark shadow in the water ahead of them. “Shall we get out?” Norah asked shyly. Her voice seemed to boom out in the quiet. Tonight Aunt Mary was a stranger; Norah couldn’t predict what she’d want to do next.
“Yes, land over there. I want to show you something.” They pulled the canoe up onto the same logs where Norah and Janet had sunbathed last week. Then they stole through the woods to the centre of the island, Aunt Mary’s flashlight beaming their way. Norah took her hand, feeling as if she were in a dream.
“Here we are!” The flashlight picked out a clump of six birches that formed a circle. Aunt Mary sat down in the middle and laughed softly. “Come in, Norah! I haven’t been here for years and years. This was my special place when I was young. Whenever Mother was upset with me, I would take refuge over here.”
“We used to pretend this was a teepee,” Norah told her, cross-legged beside her on the rocky ground. It didn’t feel quite right for one of the Elders to be in the circle now, even if she had come here as a girl. And it was odd to be sitting here in the middle of the night in her pyjamas. She waited; Aunt Mary seemed lit up with importance, as if she were going to tell Norah something.
“I had a difficult time as a girl, Norah,” she said slowly. “What with my brother’s death, then Father’s, and Mother being so … well, you know how she is. And then … I met someone I liked very much. So much that I wanted to marry him.”
Norah’s ears stretched. Hanny had once told her that Aunt Mary had a Secret Sorrow. Now she was finally going to hear about it!
“Why didn’t you?” she asked softly, trying not to stem the flow of confidence.
“For a number of reasons …” Aunt Mary’s voice grew tender. “His name was Thomas and he was a stockbroker in Toronto. I met him at a church meeting and he began coming over for Sunday dinners. I think Mother liked him; he was respectable enough, even for her. But then he found out he was going to be transferred to Regina.”
So Aunt Mary had once been in love too! “Did he ask you to marry him?”
“Yes, he did. It took me a week to decide. But finally, after talking it over with Mother, I said no. I just couldn’t leave her alone, you see—not after the losses she’d already had. I even asked Thomas if she could come with us, but he was very reluctant to have her. I don’t blame him, and Mother didn’t want to leave Toronto anyway.”
“But that’s terrible!” cried Norah. “You gave up the man you loved for Aunt Florence? How could you? She ruined your life!”
Aunt Mary patted No
rah’s hand. “It seemed the right thing to do at the time. And I haven’t suffered that much, you know. I did then, but I got over it and I think I have a very pleasant life—certainly more pleasant than most people in the world. Think of how much some of them must be suffering in the war this very moment, while we’re enjoying this beautiful place.”
Sometimes Aunt Mary was too good to be true. Norah crumpled a strip of birchbark and flung it across the clearing. “Think of you! Think of Thomas! It’s terrible that you gave him up!”
“Well, it was all a long time ago and it’s over now. And who knows? Maybe I wouldn’t have had such a happy life with Thomas. When you grow up you’ll find that you have to learn to live with your own decisions.” Her voice had a sad, dreamy quality to it, but then she looked up at Norah and laughed. “Well! I don’t know why I’m telling you about it. It’s just such a restless kind of night. For some reason it made me think of him and I couldn’t sleep.”
As they paddled back, Norah seethed with the injustice of Aunt Mary’s decision. But she had to admit that Aunt Mary herself didn’t seem to be upset about it; in fact she was curiously happy and excited. They kissed good-night, grinning at the secret of their shared expedition.
I’ll never give up Andrew for anyone, Norah thought sleepily as she crawled back into her warm bed. She tried to stay awake long enough to hear him come in, but when she turned over again it was morning.
7
An Accident
T he whole family was assembled on the dock the next afternoon. Norah lay on her stomach, basking after her fifth swim. Lazily she watched Aunt Florence and Aunt Catherine taking what they called their “constitutional.”
Aunt Catherine was amazingly spry for someone in her eighties. Her wiry body moved through the water as easily as Norah herself, as she performed her usual ten strokes out and ten strokes in. Bosley accompanied her all the way.
Aunt Florence didn’t really swim. Her figure was encased in a ballooning flowered bathing suit she called her “swimming costume” and her head was wrapped in a kind of turban. She let herself awkwardly down the ladder, then heaved herself in, flopping about and spewing water like a whale. Then she emerged, as proud as if she had swum a marathon. All the children suppressed giggles behind their towels.
Denny jumped in again and again, buoyed up by his life-jacket. George was having a swimming lesson. Uncle Gerald stood at the edge of the dock and held him up by a rope tied around his middle. “Thatta boy! You’re doing fine!” he called. The little boy splashed and kicked valiantly. All the other cousins bobbed around him.
Aunt Mary sat in the shade under the roofed part of the dock, deep in a new book called The Robe. Uncle Reg sat in the sun, a knotted white handkerchief draped on top of his bald head. He squinted at his needlepoint. This summer he’d asked Aunt Florence to teach him. His sisters teased him but he retorted that he didn’t see why a man couldn’t be as good at needlepoint as a woman. Now he and Aunt Florence were having a competition to see who could finish a cushion cover first.
Aunt Bea and Aunt Dorothy came down from the changing room that was next to the Girls’ Dorm. They sat beside Norah, dangling their feet in the lake and fanning themselves. “I always hate the first plunge,” said Aunt Bea. “The only problem with this side of the island is that there’s no shore. When I was little I thought there was a sea monster down there!”
Uncle Reg chuckled. “That’s because once I dived underneath and grabbed your ankle—do you remember?”
“Of course I do!” bristled Aunt Bea. “It was very naughty and Father was right to punish you.”
Norah listened to the two of them bickering as if they were children again. It was so hard to believe that any of the Elders had been young.
While everyone was resting after lunch she had made a secret inspection of the cottage walls for pictures of Andrew. She recognized him in several family groups: a solemn page boy in a kilt at Uncle Gerald’s wedding; squeezed between Flo and Clare at a picnic. He didn’t look much different when he was Norah’s age, though his hair had been lighter and his face not as lean.
If he were her age she could be his friend as easily as she was friends with Bernard in the city. Then she wouldn’t catch her breath every time she looked at him. Friendship would be much more restful; but there was nothing she could do to stop her love. It ran her, as if she were a puppet dangling on its strings.
When she’d found all the pictures of Andrew, Norah turned to a photograph that had been pointed out to her again and again: the first generation of Elders as children, sitting on the steps of the newly built Gairloch. Three sisters and a brother, the girls in white dresses and black stockings. As usual she felt sorry for them, dressed so uncomfortably in the summer. Thirteen-year-old Aunt Florence looked as haughty and confident as she did now. She didn’t seem to have found it confusing to be a teen-ager. Beside her, in order of age, sat Christina, Bea (pouting) and little Reg, who was smiling mischievously.
On the wall beside Aunt Florence’s chair hung a picture of her son, Hugh, who had been killed in World War I. He was standing alone on the verandah, dressed in his uniform. His open, eager face laughed at the camera, as if he could never die.
Norah glanced at a few recent photographs that included her and Gavin. After they left Canada their likenesses would still be hanging here, as if they were really part of the family.
All of the Drummonds, dead and alive, stared at Norah, until she suddenly felt oppressed and fled out to the sunshine.
Now she lifted her head from her towel and watched Andrew and Uncle Gerald race to Little Island and back. When Andrew won, she lowered her face to hide her proud grin. He climbed out and stood over her, puffing and dripping. Norah stiffened and stared at his feet. His long toes were as elegant as his fingers. He dived back into the lake without speaking to her.
Norah flipped over and sighed. It wasn’t enough. She was no longer content with simply watching Andrew. Now she wished he would talk to her as easily as he had that day in the boat, but her shyness had made him stop paying attention to her. She had to do something to get that attention back.
“Watch me, Norah!” cried Janet. She was poised on the balcony of the boathouse. Then she cannon-balled into the lake; the aunts shrieked in mock alarm as they got splashed.
Norah ran up the stairs to the dorm and climbed out the window to the balcony. For a few seconds she balanced on the railing, curling her toes around it and trying to will Andrew to look at her. She called down to Janet. “Watch me! I’m going to dive!”
She had never dived before. It was safe enough—the water was so deep, there was no danger of hitting bottom. But the lake was an awfully long way below. When Andrew finally glanced up, Norah crouched and sprang.
The lake rushed up at her, then roared in her ears as she shot into its green depths. She struggled up through the watery silence, whooshed out the air from her aching lungs and struck out for the dock. She’d done it!
The family applauded. “Did you see my sister?” Gavin asked Ross.
“You’re so brave!” said Janet, helping her up the ladder. “I’ll never get up the nerve to dive.”
“Good for you, Norah,” smiled Andrew. “I was much older the first time I did that.” His praise rang in her ears for the rest of the day.
THEN NORAH had a much more daring idea than diving off the boathouse. The next morning, after rehearsing the whole scene several times in her head, she walked casually by Andrew’s cabin when she knew he was still there. Then she stumbled deliberately. “Ow!”
Andrew rushed out. “What’s the matter?”
“My ankle,” moaned Norah. “I think I twisted it or something. I was just on my way to visit Aunt Anne,” she added quickly, so he wouldn’t wonder what she’d been doing outside his cabin.
“Let me see.” Andrew took Norah’s ankle in his hand. He turned it gently in different directions. “Does this hurt?”
“A little—not too much.” Norah’s cheeks flam
ed. This presence was working too easily; there was something shameful about it.
“Can you stand?” Andrew helped her up and Norah was so overcome with the thrill of having his arms around her that she trembled convincingly.
“It’s—it’s all right now. I think I can walk on it.” She pretended to limp a few steps.
“Come in and rest it for a few minutes. If it doesn’t get any better I’ll go up and get Aunt Dorothy—she used to be a nurse, you know.”
Go in, to Andrew’s own place? Norah grimaced, not with pain but with excitement, as Andrew helped her through the door and onto a couch.
“Do you want some tea? I’ve been making my own breakfast in here. It’s more peaceful than having it with the Elders. All of them first thing in the morning are too much to take. And Hanny usually gives me leftovers, anyway.”
Andrew calling the grown-ups the Elders, as he had in the boat, made Norah feel slightly more at ease. She accepted his offer of tea gratefully; she hadn’t had any for ages. Even though children over twelve were allowed tea coupons, Aunt Florence insisted on keeping Norah’s for herself and Aunt Mary.
“Toast too?”
“No thanks—I’ve had breakfast.”
Andrew toasted bread for himself over the tiny wood stove. Norah looked around the cabin, trying to calm down and savour these precious moments alone with him. She’d been in this cabin a few times before, when various relatives had overflowed from the cottage out here. It was only one room containing two narrow couches, a table and chairs, and a shabby rug. Now a large glossy photograph of a handsome man was pinned to one wall.
“Who’s that?” Norah dared to ask.
“Laurence Olivier—my inspiration,” said Andrew. “Didn’t you ever see him in Wuthering Heights? I guess not, you would have been too young. He’s a brilliant actor.”
“I thought that was a book.”
“The movie was from the book.”
Norah resolved to borrow it from Aunt Catherine right away. “Do you think you’ll ever be an actor yourself?” she asked timidly. “Aunt Catherine told me she thinks you should be. She said you were a natural and she should know—she’s seen lots of plays.”
