by Kit Pearson
The window was open a crack. “I can’t stay long,” Lois was saying.
“Just a little while,” said Andrew. “I managed to get two bottles of beer.”
“Well … maybe half an hour,” said Lois.
This was just the opposite of the party, when Andrew had been the one to want Lois to go. Now his voice was tender and Norah shook with jealousy. Why am I listening? she asked herself. She was filled with the same kind of self-disgust she’d felt over the Ouija board. But she couldn’t seem to leave, and moved farther into the bushes by the window.
“It’s so maddening that we’re not going to the same university,” said Lois. “Will you come and visit me at Queen’s?”
Norah was glad to hear the hesitation in Andrew’s voice before he mumbled, “I’ll have to see.” At least he’d only told her his secret.
She tried to calm herself. After all, it was normal for Andrew to have girl friends until Norah was old enough to be one. She knew he’d had them before—Janet had told her. And Lois was acting so silly, laughing and teasing—surely he didn’t take her seriously.
Andrew and Lois began to dance to their own music, humming “You’ll Never Know.” That’s our song! Norah whispered between clenched teeth. She was relieved to hear them sit down again but now it was worse—the whimpers and endearments of kissing began.
Norah couldn’t stand this—she really had to leave. She began to unbend her cramped legs, but Lois’s next words made her freeze.
“I’m so lucky that you picked me,” she said, in her ironic voice. “Do you realize how many girls are in love with you? Alma Field is crazy about you. So is Ceci Johnson. And that funny little English girl—I saw the way she looked at you that day in town. At the party too—she was watching your every move, and glaring at me!”
“Oh, Norah,” laughed Andrew. “Yes, she does seem to have a crush on me. I try not to encourage it, but she shadows me like a hawk! She’s a good kid, though.”
Somehow Norah managed to make her legs move. Forcing her body to be silent, she crept out of the bushes and stumbled up the hill and down the steps to the boathouse, forgetting to use her flashlight. She kicked off her shoes and crawled under the covers without taking her clothes off. Then she crammed her blanket into her mouth so the huge sobs bursting out of her wouldn’t wake the others.
A kid. “Oh, Norah,” he had said in a dismissing tone. He had laughed at her. He had called her love a crush.
He didn’t love her. He never had.
A wave of pain crashed over her. “Ohhh,” she wailed, hardly caring now if the others woke up. But they slept on. Norah cried until her whole body ached. Then she lay rigid and stared at the wall, not thinking or feeling anything at all.
16
“I’ll Never Smile Again”
T he next day Andrew and Lois seemed to have become a couple. Andrew invited her for dinner and she came early to spend the afternoon swimming with the family.
“Such a pretty girl,” said Aunt Dorothy.
“Very polite, too,” added Aunt Bea.
“And she comes from a good family,” pronounced Aunt Florence. “I must write to Constance and tell her how much we like her.”
The aunts switched to the topic of possible husbands for Princess Elizabeth, as if she, too, were an acquaintance.
“So Lois gets the seal of approval,” whispered Flo, lying beside Norah on the dock. “They’ll have them married in no time! I don’t think it’s going to last long. She doesn’t take him seriously, but he can’t see that yet.”
Norah glanced at her, surprised to hear Flo sounding jealous too. Maybe it wouldn’t last. And maybe Lois wouldn’t like him any more when she heard that he wasn’t going to fight. But even if Andrew stopped seeing Lois, Norah could never forget what he thought of her. Andrew was as friendly as ever today but she could only hear “good kid” behind every word he said to her.
The trouble was … she still loved him. She watched him climb up the ladder, panting and dripping. He shook his wet hair at Lois and his musical laugh rang out when she shrieked.
I don’t want to love him, thought Norah. But she couldn’t help it. The rest of her life was ruined; she would always love him and he would never love her back. All day she kept having to escape from everyone to have a cry—she, who had always been proud of the fact that she never cried. She hid her face in her towel as tears threatened once more.
“I’ll never smile again,” crooned the phonograph they’d brought out onto the dock. Norah dived into the lake to cool her agony.
“Will you be our stage manager, Norah?” Gavin asked her that night. He and the rest of the Fearless Four were putting on a play for the last evening. “We need someone to pull the curtain and things.”
“Sure,” shrugged Norah. She listened dully while Gavin told her the plot. “Creature is the star!” he grinned.
“I’ll help you make some costumes,” Norah told him. At least it would give her something to do.
Picking blueberries was another distraction. “With jam about to be rationed I want as many as you can find,” Hanny told the children the next morning. Aunt Anne, Aunt Dorothy and Aunt Mary joined Hanny for a jam-making marathon. For a couple of days the sweet heavy scent of cooked berries filled the cottage. Norah helped sterilize jars and melt paraffin. In Toronto she retreated to the kitchen with Hanny whenever Aunt Florence was too much to bear. Now she used this kitchen for a refuge from Andrew.
ON THE AFTERNOON they finished all the berries, Norah sat dully on the dock wondering what to do with herself. Wuthering Heights lay abandoned beside her; it was too painful to read a story about love.
The Putt-Putt appeared around the point; Andrew’s arm waved. Norah jumped up to escape him, but he was calling her name and she had to wait.
“Would you like to go out in the canoe?” he asked as soon as he landed. “There’s something I have to talk to you about.” Norah flushed—whenever she encountered him she felt ashamed.
“No thanks,” she said as coolly as she could manage. She ran up the steps before he could say more.
He tried again that evening, actually turning up at the boathouse when they were getting ready for bed. “Norah!” he called up.
She stuck her head out the window.
“Do you want to go for a walk?”
“No thanks,” said Norah. “I’m already in my pyjamas.” She withdrew her head quickly, but not before she had seen an apologetic look on Andrew’s face. Part of her wondered what he wanted, but she was no longer strong enough to be alone with him, not when she knew what he thought of her.
He probably wants to talk about how he’s going to tell the Elders, she decided. Well, he’ll just have to work it out by himself. She tried to be angry with him, but she was filled with a rush of yearning. She put out her head again and watched his back as he walked slowly up the steps to the cottage.
“Imagine Norah turning down a walk with Andrew,” taunted Clare.
Janet looked puzzled. “But Norah doesn’t like Andrew.”
“That’s right—I don’t,” said Norah stiffly.
“Then you’ve changed,” said Clare.
“Why did Andrew want to go for a walk with just you?” asked Flo.
Norah shrugged. “How should I know?” She hid under the covers from their curious faces. Why couldn’t they just leave her alone? For the first time all summer she looked forward to the privacy of her own room in Toronto.
The next morning Norah was relieved to hear that Andrew had gone to Huntsville for a few days. “Mr. Hancock took him to the train station in Brockhurst,” she heard Aunt Dorothy tell Flo. “He won’t be back until our last evening. He said he was going to visit some friends of his parents.”
NORAH SAT LISTLESSLY at the kitchen table while Aunt Bea and Aunt Mary discussed with Hanny the special menu for their last meal tomorrow.
“It would be lovely to have a roast,” said Aunt Bea. “How I miss the supply boats! They came twice a week right
to our dock, Norah. There were vegetables and flowers—even a butcher on board! I used to take Gerald down when he was a baby and weigh him on the scales. Now I suppose we’ll have to go all the way into Port Clarkson—the best butcher is there.”
“I’ll go,” said Aunt Mary. “If Norah will drive me. Will you?”
“All right,” shrugged Norah.
She had never driven the Putt-Putt so far and her gloom lifted a bit when Aunt Mary let her manoeuvre the launch through the lock at Port Clarkson all by herself. But she quickly got bored with shopping and followed Aunt Mary around the stores in a dull daze.
“Would you like a cool drink before we go back?” asked her guardian.
“I don’t care,” said Norah.
They sat in a dim restaurant, sipping iced tea. Aunt Mary’s kind face looked concerned. “You’ve been so pensive the last few days, Norah. Are you worried about going back to school?”
“No,” muttered Norah, keeping her eyes down so Aunt Mary wouldn’t notice her quick tears. If only she could unload her misery and be comforted! But she didn’t want anyone to know how foolish she had been. She looked up, blinking rapidly. “There is something, but I can’t tell you.”
“I won’t pry then,” said Aunt Mary. “I hope it’s not too serious.” She sighed. “Perhaps going back to the city will be a good change for all of us. This summer has been so … intense, somehow. We need to get back to our regular routines. You’ll be glad to see Paige and Bernard again, I imagine.”
Norah nodded, puzzled by her words. Surely Aunt Mary wasn’t going back to her regular routine—wouldn’t she announce tomorrow that she would marry Tom?
Aunt Mary pulled out her handkerchief and blew her nose. It was already raw and her eyes were bloodshot. “What a nuisance this hayfever is,” she sniffed. “Did you know that people used to come to Muskoka to avoid it? But now I’m sure there’s as much ragweed here as there is in the city.”
Then the colour slowly rose in Aunt Mary’s face. She gave a small cough and looked down. Norah turned around to see who had startled her.
A man had entered the restaurant and was staring at their table, looking as bewildered as Aunt Mary. Then he came over and said softly, “Good-morning, Mary.”
“Good-morning, Tom.” Norah almost dropped her glass. “This is Norah Stoakes, who’s living with us,” continued Aunt Mary. “Norah, I’d like you to meet Mr. Montgomery, an old friend of mine.”
“How do you do, Mr. Montgomery,” said Norah automatically. She gawked at the man as he stood there.
Tom looked even older up close than he had at a distance. His face was seamed with wrinkles and his sparse hair lay in thin white strands across his high forehead. He seemed as shy as Aunt Mary and pushed up his glasses nervously. “Um, shopping, were you?” he asked finally.
“Yes—we’re having a big dinner tomorrow and I needed to pick up a roast.”
“I borrowed one of the hotel boats to do some shopping myself. May I give you a lift anywhere?”
“No, thank you. We have our own boat. Come along, Norah, we’d better start back before the meat turns.” Aunt Mary gathered up parcels and stood up.
“Goodbye then, Tom,” she said, holding out her hand.
“Goodbye, Mary,” he said gruffly. “Perhaps I’ll see you again next summer.” He held onto her hand a second, then Aunt Mary turned abruptly and walked out.
Norah hurried after her. What was that all about? Was the whole thing off? Aunt Mary sat in the boat facing backwards, so Norah couldn’t see her face. But when they reached their own lake she tapped Norah’s shoulder. “I don’t want to go back to the island just yet. Could you stop in that cove?”
Norah turned the launch into a tiny cove and cut the engine. “Shall I tie it up?” she asked.
“Yes, but we don’t need to get out. I just have to collect myself for a few minutes.” Then calm, placid Aunt Mary burst into tears.
“Aunt Mary! What’s wrong?!” Norah quickly tethered the Putt-Putt to an overhanging branch and sat beside her guardian, patting her shoulder awkwardly.
It only lasted a minute or two. Aunt Mary dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief, blew her nose again, then turned to Norah with a weak smile.
“What a foolish woman I am, Norah! What must you think of me, carrying on like this? I hope I didn’t scare you. Perhaps I should explain. You see, I have been … keeping company with Mr. Montgomery all month. I’ve known him for years—he grew up in Toronto—but he was living in the west.”
Norah shifted impatiently. Aunt Mary seemed to have forgotten she’d already told her about Tom.
“Then I ran into him at the end of last summer—he’d been spending August at Eden House Resort. We wrote to each other all winter. He sent his letters care of one of my friends—it was the only way I could hide them from Mother. All those times I said I was getting my dress fitted I was also visiting Tom! It was so underhanded and deceitful. I half-expected Mother to catch on, but she didn’t. I just couldn’t let her know—not until I was absolutely certain of the relationship.”
She looked so guilty that Norah cried, “Of course you couldn’t!”
Aunt Mary’s cheeks grew pink again. “We had such pleasant visits. He really is a remarkably decent man. And then … he asked me to marry him!”
“Oh, Aunt Mary!” Norah wriggled so much that the boat swayed. “That’s wonderful! When did he ask you?”
“At Anne’s sister’s wedding. I knew he’d be there and we managed to slip away during the reception.”
“When are you going to tell Aunt Florence?”
Aunt Mary smiled sadly. “I won’t have to, Norah, because I said no.”
“You said no! But you love him!”
“Probably I do love him. I must say, I came close to saying yes, but I thought about it very carefully. It’s too late for me to get married. I’m happy the way I am. I like my life in Toronto, with my church and my Red Cross work. I have so many friends there. I don’t think I could adjust to living somewhere else. And I’d miss you and Gavin dreadfully! I know you won’t be with us forever, but I couldn’t be the one to leave first.”
“But why can’t Tom—Mr. Montgomery, I mean—live with us in Toronto?”
“He could never do that, Norah. He doesn’t want to change his life, either. He has relatives in the west—he belongs there now. And there’s Mother, of course. I couldn’t ask anyone to put up with her and she’ll need me more and more as she gets older.”
“But that’s just like before! You didn’t get married last time because of Aunt Florence! You can’t let her ruin your life again!”
“Perhaps, the first time, it was because of Mother,” said Aunt Mary. “Not now. If I really wanted to marry him, I wouldn’t let her stand in my way. No … even though she’s obviously a factor in my decision, this time it’s because of me. I’ve become used to my own company and my own ways. I don’t think I’m prepared to change them, not even for someone I respect as much as I do Tom.”
“But …” Norah’s ready tears overflowed. “But you love him! And he must love you, if he asked you to marry him. He’s your true love, just like all the songs. You have to be loyal to him!”
“Why, Norah! It’s not like you to cry! Here, have what’s left of my hankie. I shouldn’t have told you all this—you’re only thirteen, after all. Love seems different when you’re young.” She smiled. “Despite all those romantic songs, I don’t believe that everyone has just one true love—why, look at me!”
“What do you mean?” gulped Norah. “You’ve only loved Tom! All those years!”
“All those years …” Aunt Mary looked puzzled, then she laughed. “Poor Norah, no wonder you’re confused! That was a different Tom, that first man I told you about. That’s Thomas Young. Now that would be loyalty, if I still loved him. I don’t even know where he lives now.”
“A different Tom?” repeated Norah weakly.
“Yes, it is rather a strange coincidence, isn’t it? But
after all, it’s a common name.”
“You mean, now you love someone else?”
“Yes, I do. You can love several different people in your life, you know. You will, I’m sure, until you find the right one.”
“Never!” cried Norah. “I’ll never love anyone but—” She clapped her hand over her mouth and her fingers became slippery with tears.
Aunt Mary picked up the sodden handkerchief and very gently wiped Norah’s face. “So that’s it,” she said softly. “Who is it—Andrew?”
“Yes,” whispered Norah. “He doesn’t love me, though—he never did!”
Aunt Mary pulled her over for a hug. “Oh, Norah, you’re so young—very young! This is just the beginning! I’m not going to say you only have a crush. I remember feeling the same way about one of my teachers—love is just as real at any age. But I promise you, you will get over it—and love someone else in time, someone who will love you back. Andrew is very fond of you, I’m sure, but he’s so much older, you can’t expect him to be interested in you. But wait and see—you’re so full of spirit, so pretty. Lots of people are going to love you!”
“But I’m ugly!” burst out Norah. “My nose is too big!
“It’s not big at all. Everyone thinks she’s ugly at thirteen. I did—and when I look at snaps of myself then, I think I looked fine. Besides, it’s what inside that makes people attractive.”
Now she sounded too much like the Sunday School teacher she was. But her kind words warmed Norah. She remembered that pretty, confident girl in the mirror and hope flickered inside her.
“The meat!” said Aunt Mary. “We must be getting back.”
“You won’t tell anyone about Andrew, will you?” said Norah before she started the engine.
“Of course not! And I know you won’t say anything about Tom. They’ll both be our own special secrets.”
As they drove back to Gairloch, Norah kept her eyes on the waves ahead, pondering the disappointing end of Aunt Mary’s romance. She supposed Aunt Mary was doing what she wanted, though.
